Union Pacific donates to White House ballroom

Railroad pushing for massive merger

Union Pacific Railroad is the lone Nebraska-based company publicly known to have donated to the new White House ballroom championed by President Donald Trump. It’s also a Nebraska- based company that will soon need a federal regulator to approve a massive merger that, if green-lit, would give the company control of more than 40% of rail freight traffic in the United States.

Trump recently fired the most anti-merger board member of that federal regulator, the Surface Transportation Board, as he tries to exert unprecedented influence over ostensibly independent federal agencies.