1996, DM&E hauled nearly 500,000 carloads of freight, which includes 700 million bushels of grain. DM&E celebrated the anniversary with picnics and employee appreciation events and excursions in Waseca, Minnesota, and Pierre, South Dakota. Kevin V. Schieffer, whom former United States President George H. W. Bush had appointed as US Attorney for South Dakota in 1991, became president of DM&E on November 7, 1996. Schieffer was no newcomer to the railroad; he first became involved with DM&E in 1983 when he worked to prevent the abandonment of the former CNW lines that eventually formed the first sections of DM&E's mainline. Maintaining the status quo on DM&E was not the fate that he had in mind for the railroad as he took the reins. 1997–2006: plans for expansion into the Powder River Basin Expansion plans In 1997, DM&E announced plans to expand into the Powder River Basin (PRB) in Wyoming and provide unit coal train service from that area. The railroad filed an application for the expansion to the Surface Transportation Board (STB) on February 20, 1998. Burlington Northern Railroad built into this area in 1979, and the Chicago and North Western Railway (CNW) also sought to access the PRB coalfields, a project accomplished by CNW's successor Union Pacific Railroad. DM&E would become the third railroad to tap into the coal deposits in the region. DM&E's expansion would require the construction of of new track, upgrading of existing track (including all of the railroad's mainline track in Minnesota), new mainline connections at Owatonna, and Mankato, Minnesota, and three new rail yards. The plan would be the largest new railroad construction in the United States since the completion of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (Milwaukee Road)'s Pacific extension to Seattle, Washington, in 1909. Initial approval The STB approved the application on December 10 of that year pending completion of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which was released by the STB on September 27, 2000. An analysis of the plan by Minnesota's Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad Working Group in 2001 showed support among customers and freight shippers, but DM&E's expansion plan led to complaints among residents in communities along the railroad's right-of-way. While some communities welcomed the railroad's expansion plan as an opportunity for increased business within their own cities, other residents and businesses felt that roads in the area were not built with enough overpasses and underpasses to