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  • Indian River County Appeal

  • This is a forum for all operations, both current and planned, of Brightline, formerly All Aboard Florida and Virgin Trains USA:
    Websites: Current Brightline
    Virgin USA
    Virgin UK
This is a forum for all operations, both current and planned, of Brightline, formerly All Aboard Florida and Virgin Trains USA:
Websites: Current Brightline
Virgin USA
Virgin UK

Moderator: CRail

 #1543503  by Jeff Smith
 
They won't frakken go away: https://www.bondbuyer.com/news/florida- ... ins-ruling

I know that this was discussed ad nauseum in the original topic, but I figured we could start a separate topic.
Indian River County, Florida, has filed a 186-page petition for a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court ruling against the county's lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of Transportation and Virgin Trains USA.
...
"The brief laid out how the courts improperly deferred to the Department of Transportation’s informal views without finding the statute ambiguous or applying the traditional statutory interpretive tools used by the courts," he said.

Private citizens raised $200,000 to pay for the county's costs of filing the petition. That led the Indian River County Commission on Feb. 18 to reverse a previous decision against pursuing a high court review of the December 2019 ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

In that ruling, a three-judge panel for the appellate court found that USDOT "permissibly and reasonably determined" that the Virgin Trains/Brightline project qualified for tax-exempt private activity bond financing. The court also concluded that the project's environmental studies and permits complied with the National Environmental Policy Act.
...
 #1543644  by Jadebenn
 
Well the good news is that they don't have a chance in hell. The odds that SCOTUS would weigh in on such a case are minimal. There's no fundamental Constitutional question being presented here, just a bog-standard legal dispute.

The bad news is that this group continues to light the county's money on fire for no gain. I very much doubt their legal team told them this was a good idea either. In fact, if I remember correctly, didn't they actually urge them to take the settlement Brightline/VTUSA offered?
 #1543873  by BandA
 
Can't get through 168 pages... but it seems like section 23 is made to give tax-exempt bonds to highways? And this has been extended by USDOT rules (but not law) to freight railroads and now passenger railroads? And those Grapefruit Eaters are arguing that this is improper?