This story previously appeared on Trains.com.
BNSF Railway owes Washington state’s Swinomish Indian Tribal Community $394.5 million for violating an agreement governing railroad operation across tribal land, a federal judge has ruled.
Judge Robert Lasnik of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington reached that figure after a four-day bench trial, The Seattle Times reports. He had previously ruled the railroad had violated a 1991 agreement by sending crude-oil trains across a less-than-1-mile segment of the Swinomish Reservation between September 2012 and May 2021. Lasnik ruled last year that the railroad had “willingly, consciously, and knowingly” violated the agreement that allowed only one train of no more than 25 cars per train in each direction each day.
The railroad and Swinomish agreed that more than 266,000 cars had violated that agreement and generated about $900 million in revenue but disagreed about the penalty that should result. Lasnik’s ruling details the profits per car, deducts the amount that could have been earned through legal movements, and determined the railroad had made about $362.2 million in profits, plus $32.2 million in post-tax profits such as investment income, as a result of the trespassing.
Swinomish Chairman Steve Edwards said in a statement reported by the Times, “When there are these kinds of profits to be gained, the only way to deter future wrongdoing is to do exactly what the court did today — make the trespasser give up the money it gained by trespassing.” Edwards said he expects BNSF to appeal the decision but that “we look forward to defending Judge Lasnik’s decision to defend our homeland.”
In response to a FreightWaves query, BNSF said it had no comment. The company’s headquarters is in Fort Worth, Texas.
Richard M
This is a royal slap in the face for those who live in Washington State. That oil goes to our refineries to produce the fuel the state uses, including the reservation that is getting it. This utter hatred for fossil fuels is getting out of hand, and the less than a mile’s worth of tracks would not endanger anything on that reservation it is all about fake climate change that is nothing more than political control. The real word is greed by the Indians. Their cars use gasoline, and their boats use diesel. They do not pay federal fuel tax and have a 25/75 agreement with the state of Washington on state fuel tax. The tribe only pays 25% and is not hampered by the governor’s 25% carbon tax. If the rail line went miles on the reservation, I would say the agreement was fair. My reservation in Montana has miles of track, and there is no limit to the number of oil cars used daily. One has to wonder what the railroad is paying the tribe for the right to cross that one mile. The trucklady is wrong in her assessment because if she were really trucking the same thing could be assessed to fuel trucks or trucks in general crossing reservation land. we all run on a profit base and if you are not making a profit you are going backwards
Trucklady
Love to see it. The Chairman is exactly right – if the Judge hadn’t made it unprofitable for BNSF, they would have just kept doing it. Like so many of these big corporations do – as long as it’s profitable they don’t care what the rules are.