April 6, 2022
A little-known federal agency is hatching big plans that could impact millions of consumers across the country, and not in a good way.
The U.S Surface Transportation Board recently finished a two-day hearing on rail regulations. Content to hold the meeting remotely instead of in their Washington headquarters, the agency’s Democratic majority signaled a clear desire to carry out the recommendation of the Biden administration and force railroads to carry their competitors’ traffic at a rate set by the government instead of the private market.
The push to re-regulate the nation’s railroads comes directly from multinational chemical companies that want to pay less to transport their products. And it comes at the expense of consumers. The public record shows many others object and will suffer too – including parcel delivery companies and their e-commerce customers, organized labor unions, local governments that maintain the highways and even passenger train companies like Amtrak. Nearly 40 organizations who favor fairness and the free market wrote in opposition last month too.
Because there is virtually no part of the economy the transportation sector, including rail, does not ultimately touch, the increased costs would inevitably be passed on to consumers. Americans all lose as Dow Chemical earns more.
At issue is a regulation that would force private rail operators to open their tracks and facilities to their competitors. Proponents at the hearing argued this was no big deal and is simple to facilitate within the broader supply chain, disregarding the views of the companies that actually run the U.S. rail system. By their affirmative comments, the government regulators seemed to do so, too.
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