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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Judge: Takes as Long as Needed for Mega-loads Hearing

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Monday, April 25, 2011   

BOISE, Idaho - A plan to drive more than 200 oil company mega-loads to Canada through north-central Idaho along U.S. Highway 12 is being examined from all perspectives at a hearing this week in Boise. The presiding judge, Duff McKee, wants all parties involved to take as much time as needed. Economists, business owners, Idaho State Police officers, Idaho Transportation Department staff and oil company managers are signed up to testify.

Borg Hendrickson is on the list, too. A spokesperson for Rural People of Highway 12, she was also a plaintiff in the first round of protests, against ConocoPhillips shipments, earlier this year. This time, she says, there is a lot more evidence to consider.

"For one thing, we have reports from citizen monitors - we've had three or four dozen of them out there at various times - and we have video."

Hendrickson says recent experience with a "test mega-load" along the route will also be shared - a load that is still stalled because of weather and traffic issues.

The hearing takes place against a backdrop of construction already under way to make room for the loads. Power lines are being moved and trees cut down or trimmed.

Hendrickson says local residents are stunned, because the route is a federally-designated Wild and Scenic River corridor, and landowners have to follow a special process to make such changes.

"It is utterly distressing to easement holders here that Big Oil is able to just come in and order the cutting of all these trees."

The Imperial/Exxon loads are bound for a tar sands oil project in Alberta, Canada, one that the oil companies say will benefit the United States.

The hearing starts daily at 9 a.m., beginning today, in the main auditorium at Idaho Department of Transportation headquarters, 331 W. State St., Boise.


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