Industry News

Key Senator Sees Rail Talks on Track

April 3, 2009 | 10:35 a.m. CDT

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va, said discussions among congressional staff, rail customers and railroads to craft new competition rules for that industry "are moving along nicely," reports The Journal of Commerce.

Rockefeller chairs the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee that has jurisdiction over the Surface Transportation Board (STB) that regulates rail economic issues. Shippers have long tried to get Congress to rewrite rules directing the STB's oversight, which they criticize as either lax toward railroad activity or favoring carriers over their customers. Until recently the railroads fought efforts to toughen STB rules or strengthen that agency.

Rockefeller, however, said "everybody's at the table" in the discussions, and he was expecting his staff to soon report on how soon those talks may develop a bill. He said he was uncertain when that may happen, and said there was no specific deadline for it. The measure is expected to reauthorize the STB for the first time since it was created in 1995, but give the agency new directions and perhaps more staff.

Some Washington sources indicate railroads want those talks to also tie in a separate bill they are resisting, to strip railroads of a limited antitrust immunity. Currently, that sends any merger reviews and many shipper disputes just to the STB rather than making carriers like other industries subject to antitrust authorities at the Department of Justice.

Rockefeller said "all those things are floating over the table," in the discussions involving his staff and industry participants.