When the House of Representatives and the president scuttled the so-called “railroad to nowhere” earlier this year, it was seen as a blow to Mississippi Republican Sens. Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, both of whom championed the measure.
But it turns out that Lott’s son, lobbyist Chet Lott, might also have come out on the wrong end of the deal, as he was working for a firm that could have benefited from the legislation.
The now-infamous pork project would have spent $700 million to move a private CSX freight rail line in Mississippi a few miles inland to make room for a relocated Interstate 90 and a beach and gaming district along the Gulf coast. Trouble was, CSX and its insurers had just spent $300 million to rebuild the track in its current location after it was hit by Hurricane Katrina. According to reports, the project would have entailed paying off CSX for the land on which the tracks sit, destroying those tracks and expanding the capacity of other tracks in the area.
In late winter — about the same time that Lott began pushing for the appropriation — his son Chet registered as a lobbyist for the R.J. Corman Railroad Group, which calls itself “one of the major builders of new and rehabilitated rail in the United States.” In fact, it was Corman that did the repair work on CSX’s existing tracks earlier this year.
The younger Lott, who consults for the Livingston Group in Washington, also owns the Lott & Hopkins lobby shop in Lexington, Ky., only a short drive from Corman’s headquarters in Nicholasville, Ky. He filed his lobbying disclosure form for Corman on Jan. 25.
Chet Lott told Yeas & Nays via e-mail on Thursday, “I have had no involvement what so ever with the railroad relocation project. R.J. Corman is a Kentucky-based company.”
That’s true, but Corman’s own Web site states that it has “operations in Kentucky and more than a dozen other states.”
Sen. Lott’s spokeswoman, Susan Irby, said Thursday that her boss had authorized the relocation of the track “years before” the hurricane. This time around, he was simply trying to appropriate the funds for the project.
As far as Corman’s potential involvement, she said, “My understanding is this would not have been a project for them, so this was not an issue.”
But a representative for Corman’s construction division told us Thursday that had the appropriation gone through, “I’m sure that CSX probably would have wanted us to place a bid on that, yes. We work for CSX and many times they do ask us to do work like that.”
In addition, Ron Utt, a scholar with the Heritage Foundation who has followed the railroad controversy, noted that Corman has many ex-CSX officials on its board. Thus, when it came time to bid for the project, Corman certainly could have expected “preferential treatment” by CSX.
A spokesperson for CSX did not respond to a request for comment.
