Friday, August 27, 2010

Conoco (NYSE:COP) Appealing Highway 12 Ruling in Utah

The odd decision of an Idaho judge to not allow Conoco (NYSE:COP) to move several large loads along Highway 12 from Lewiston to Montana, has led to the company appealing the ruling to the Idaho Supreme Court.

2nd District Judge John Bradbury rescinded the permits to move the four loads, leaving the oil giant in a difficult circumstance.

Conoco is challenging the decision by the judge that the Idaho Transportation Department "acted in an an arbitrary and capricious manner in its application of state regulations."

This judge also said the Department needed a “reasonable determination of necessity” before of approving of large loads.

If these large loads didn't fit that criteria, then what would?

The permits which were rescinded were for traveling at night and required the trucks to pull over every 15 minutes to allow traffic to pass. When you consider how little traffic that would be, it seems even odder that this judge made this decision. Sounds activist to me.

Allegedly the moving of the loads could possibly delay access to hospitals in case of emergencies, and the traffic interruptions violated the rules of the state.

Both of these possibilities at night are rare, and largely immaterial, and were obviously made by people who simply don't want the loads to be carried on the roads for any reason.

Conoco said in its notice of appeal, that those suing over the shipments have no standing, as “their alleged injuries are speculative, hypothetical, abstract, and are not causally related to the four shipments that are at issue.”

This was probably a salvo against other companies like Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), which wants to move about 200 other large loads around the same route.

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