December 15, 2021

Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah, continues to be a leader in fighting for quality professionals to lead federal regulatory agencies. This includes the under-the-radar U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which maintains oversight of the nation’s freight railroads — like Union Pacific in Utah.

Beehive State voters should take notice because railroads and other transportation modes are key to economic prosperity. This has become especially evident amid America’s supply chain crunch, a dynamic that recently caused cargo companies to make Utah’s inland port a “relief valve” for crowded California seaports. The primary mode of transport to get those goods East? Rail.

This is why we need smart federal policies that do not saddle railroads with unneeded market interventions their competitors, namely trucks, don’t face. Such intrusions include widespread rate regulation, like in electric markets, or even efforts being considered today in Washington that would empower bureaucrats to route trains in ways that benefit preferred lobbying interests.

The threat to re-regulate railroads stems from a recent head-scratching executive order. “This for us in the Biden administration is a core element of our view of what economic policy in post-pandemic America needs to be,” President Biden’s top economic advisor said this month, believing firmly government knows better than business.

Read full article here.