Fort Sumter was a for the guarded Charleston Harbor in Charleston, South Carolina.

South Caroline seceded from the Union.  Being a Federal fort in a Confederate state, the Confederate army besieged the fort on April 12, 1861 captured it in a day.  They Confederacy held the fort until the end of the Civil War.

The siege of Fort Sumter is considered to be the first combat of the Civil War.

On to Washington State.

Washington state in legal battle with 6 states after it refuses to build coal export terminal

A lawsuit has pitted six landlocked states against Washington State over a simple question: Who owns the federal ports?

Washington State is denying the states the permits required to build a large coal export terminal along the Columbia River. The states have sued and Washington filed a motion for dismissal.

“We’re talking about the Constitution and the rule of law,” said Montana Attorney General Tim Fox, “One state can’t discriminate against another state’s commodities in this way.”

Montana and Wyoming are leading plaintiffs and two of the largest coal-producing states in the country. The Powder River Basin contains 2.5 billion tons of recoverable coal and currently supplies 40 percent of the coal used in the United States. But as many states wean themselves off of electricity from burning coal, coal companies are looking to boost exports, primarily to Asia. But they have a major problem: there are no ports along the West Coast currently set up to load coal onto ships.

To this end, a private company Lighthouse has been working with BNSF and he US Army Corps of Engineers to build the Millennium Bulk Terminal in Longview, Washington.

This is a Federally approved project.  According to Federal law, railway work is governed by Federal law under the interstate commerce clause.  All Federal permits have been approved.

Now the State of Washington is used state environmental regulations to shut down the MBT project.   Simply the Washington state goverment hates coal and and is trying to “usurp Federal authority” and kill the project.

Washington state hasn’t officially seceded from the Union but in doing this, they have said they want to put the opinions of the state government over the policies of the Federal goverment and at the detriment of neighboring states.

I-90 passes through South Dakota, I-94 passes through North Dakota, I-80 passes through Wyoming, and they all pass through Idaho and Montana before turning into I-90 and I-84 in Washington.

How do you think Washington state would react if the State police of ND, SD, MT, ID, and WY all stopped semi trailers heading across the border to seize any goods that originated in Washington state or were headed to Washington state.

It would be a clear violation of Federal law.

So what does Washington state think it can embargo the export of Great Plains state coal?

Because it is resisting the Trump policy on coal.

This is the TDS lawfare version of the siege of Fort Sumter.

The Trump administration needs to crush this hard and fast before other coastal Blue states get the idea that they can capture Federal ports and embargo goods to and from Red states.

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By J. Kb

One thought on “Washington State’s Fort Sumter”
  1. I’m always puzzled when cases like this are brought in district courts, given that the Constitution clearly states they should be brought directly to the Supreme Court.
    As for confiscating goods at the state line, I remember CA doing that in the 1970s — stopping and inspecting cars looking for fruit and confiscating whatever they found. I don’t know if they still do so. It seems unconstitutional but of course that won’t stop them.

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