Readers Write (Nov. 23): Rail safety, health insurance, workplace rules, U student government, e-mail and accountability

This paper's editorial page continues to dismiss the significant efforts the railroad industry is undertaking to reduce risk when moving hazardous materials, which it has no ability to refuse under federal common carrier obligations ("Keep pressing on rail safety after accidents," editorial, Nov. 15).

I spent my 38-year career directing BNSF Railway's environmental and hazardous materials programs. I read with dismay the calls by the Star Tribune Editorial Board and some elected officials for the misguided solution of taxing railroads for overpasses and underpasses. They claim it will make shipping crude oil safer. It won't. Collisions between trains and motor vehicles at crossings cause trains to derail only 1 percent of the time. The current funding formula for government and railroads for these improvements is well-established and fair.

Safety measures for shipping crude oil by rail include using safer tank cars, reducing speeds, maintaining track and equipment, and using improved inspection technologies to identify defects. Strategic research by industry, government and universities helps us improve transportation safety. I saw firsthand how proactive actions reduce the likelihood of a derailment. It is good business to reduce the threat of releases.

Railroads are achieving the best safety records in U.S. history. Taxing them more won't make shipping crude oil safer.

Is anyone else confused about the most recent UnitedHealth Group announcement besides me ("Insurer sours on exchange markets," Nov. 20)? I am a retired RN who worked for many years in public and community health venues. UnitedHealth says it may have to pull out of the MNsure exchange because people who had paid for policies this past year were using the policies too much. This is a major corporation with great minds that have access to lots of data. If those great minds couldn't mine that data to determine that people who had not been able to afford insurance in the past would use insurance once they had it, someone at UnitedHealth could have called any RN working in community health centers or public health and have been assured of it.

We know where some of the money goes that people pay in premiums to UnitedHealth — large corporate buildings, high administrative salaries, etc. But when people use their policies in greater amounts than predicted, the company threatens to pull out of the exchange? How about paying some of those corporate execs less, using some of the vacant real estate in the area instead of building new buildings, paying shareholders a little less, and actually delivering on health care to those who need it most?

The insightful examination of Seattle's new mandatory sick leave law for most workers in that city ("Seattle putting mandatory sick time to a healthy test," Nov. 15) correctly notes the "fierce resistance" that a similar proposal has met in Minneapolis, bolstered by threats from the business community that its enactment "could force them to relocate."

But statewide legislation may merely transfer the predicament to that level, with companies playing one state off against another in advocating against sick-leave laws with the threat of relocating elsewhere or restricting growth in-state. That leads to the inevitable realization that the most effective way to protect employee rights is for federal legislation. This could establish a minimum national standard while preserving state autonomy by allowing state and localities to require more extensive sick leave rights.

The recent rejection by the student government at the University of Minnesota of a resolution to pause for a moment of recognition each year in memory of the victims from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks is symptomatic of the pervasive political correctness plague that is infecting college and university campuses throughout America today ("U students vote down 9/11 event," Nov. 18). The "Gopher student government" is aptly named for its members burying their heads in holes and missing entirely the lessons learned from history (especially our short American history).

Parents and grandparents, please intervene and guide to fill the void (from the absence of American history curriculum taught in our schools and universities today). Please provide the instructions, perspectives, insights and wisdom necessary so our youths graduate as proud, informed Americans. Understanding and remembering the lessons learned from history helps us recognize the dangers from present threats. Ignoring those lessons or deciding upon a PC version of expression allows the evil in this world to grow unabated while our precious freedoms, often taken for granted, rapidly erode.

I encourage the University of Minnesota students, their parents, their grandparents and all taxpayers to speak up and not let political coercion (the real meaning of PC) prevent the student government from doing the right thing — keeping the memory of 9/11 and the victims killed by these terror attacks alive in our memories forever. Please approve the resolution (without interpretation) at the next Minnesota Student Association Forum. Please learn and never forget what really happened on 9/11 and pay very close attention to worldwide current events as evidence of history's repeating itself unfolds.

Thank you for the Nov. 15 "Full Disclosure" article on e-mail in St. Paul government (St. Paul's great e-mail purge"). Dropping the retention policy from three years to six months isn't about technology. Anyone familiar with free e-mail should see that retaining it costs little. Shredding a paper trail so diligently is a management decision, one that brings to mind certain movie scenes.

St. Paul should switch it back to three years, restore what was deleted, deliver any discovery that a pending lawsuit may have called for, and look closely at whoever decided to cut that retention so short and why.