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Commentary: CIB should fund communities, not a dirty energy railroad

Related Topics: Funding, Community, County, Energy, Utah

Once again, the pro-industry men’s club known as the Seven County Infrastructure Coalition (SCIC) is planning to use millions of public dollars to bankroll private energy interests.

Last time, the SCIC wanted $53 million for an export terminal in California to move Utah coal. Now it wants — and has been conditionally granted — $27.9 million for a railroad to move Uinta Basin crude to out-of-state refineries. Yet again, the SCIC is siphoning this massive sum out of the accounts of the Permanent Community Impact Fund Board, or CIB — a public institution whose mandate is to help Utah communities alleviate the impacts of resource extraction, not to finance more extraction and create even more impacts.