The House Transportation Committee held its hearing on rail regulatory issues earlier this month.
This was the first hearing the Committee has held on these issues for at least five years, and the panel included acting Chairwoman of the Surface Transportation Board Deb Miller, American Chemistry Council President Cal Dooley, American Association of Railroads President Ed Hamberger, Short Line Association President Linda Darr, and a Georgetown University Professor John Mayo who recently published an article on railroad revenue adequacy that was financed by the Association of American Railroads.
The purpose of the House hearing was to review the economic regulatory landscape for the freight rail industry. Predictably, there was a lot of discussion of the freight rail renaissance, and the capital investments needed to maintain and grow the rail network. Both Deb Miller and Cal Dooley effectively highlighted many of the issues that this coalition supports—related to the lack of efficiency and effectiveness at the STB, and the actions underway at the agency. There was also conversation about the unreasonable cost and burden associated with the current system, and the chilling effect that puts on rail shippers to utilize the process. Ms. Miller spoke at length about the efforts underway at the STB to implement reforms, and Mr. Dooley highlighted that even in an industry where companies can sometimes afford to dispute a rate, few do because of numerous institutional and structural barriers. For smaller rail shippers, the existing process is effectively useless.
The proposed bi-partisan Senate bill introduced by John Thune (R-SD) supports reasonable, non-prescriptive reforms to the STB to improve their processes as well as policies to promote competition that are consistent with the principals in the Staggers Act. Everyone at the hearing went on record at least “not opposing” the Senate STB bill S. 808. This is a significant step towards getting the House to adopt the Senate bill in a conference. Chairman Thune also held a confirmation hearing earlier this month where he strongly recommended reappointing Dan Elliott to another term as chairman of the STB.