Rails to Congress: Step Back on Antitrust

Please step away from the antitrust bill, the Association of American Railroads is urging Congress, as the nation’s top freight rail lobbying group calls for a national rail policy review rather than see a series of new laws dismantle the current regulatory system.

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Competition is considering its version of a Railroad Antitrust Enforcement Act, which would strip railroads of an immunity under which most rail economic issues from mergers or acquisitions to rate and service disputes with customers now are determined by the Surface Transportation Board.

While an appeals court can review challenges to STB decisions, critics say the agency too often favors railroads over customers or communities and that the court rarely overturns STB rulings.

"Congress should take a step back and consider the harmful impacts this measure would have on not only railroads, but also our customers and American consumers," said AAR President and CEO Edward Hamberger.

The proposed law must go through a subcommittee vote and then be passed by the full committee before it reaches the House floor. Hamberger warned that if the House bill becomes law, it “could drag us back to pre-deregulation days of weak investment and withering rail networks."

Over in the Senate, the Judiciary Committee in March approved a rail antitrust bill sponsored by Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., and Kohl told Journal of Commerce he plans to bring it to a Senate floor vote soon after the Memorial Day recess.

Meanwhile, the commerce and transportation committees in the Senate and House are working with shippers, rail unions and the railroads to develop a rail competition bill that would also redirect the STB and perhaps expand its staffing and oversight.

In a May 19 hearing by the House competition panel, Union Pacific Railroad’s general counsel, J. Michael Hemmer, said “the railroad industry urges this subcommittee not to act in isolation, but to work with colleagues in other committees of jurisdiction to craft a coherent, national rail policy that integrates regulation with antitrust jurisprudence.”

Shippers, though, urged the panel to press ahead with its bill as part of a series of steps to change rail regulation.