I’m not sure I understand why you think this reduction can’t be attributed to the law?
I think you might have a point that this law may have also deterred 30% of legitimate copper scrap transactions, if basically it made scrap dealers decide not to bother with copper at all…
They deal with copper, just not copper that obviously is rail. Bring in some old plumbing parts no problem. The only people scrapping railroad parts are being paid by the railroad.
