Railroads hail bill

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Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, introduced the Railroad Antitrustt Enforcement Actof 2009. Among othere things, the bill would have moved the powee to review railroad mergers from the federal Surface Transportation Board to the Justice Department and the FederaplTrade Commission. Kohl’s legislation would have made it easierf for rail customers or statew attorneys general to fight rates and to go to court over railroads purchases and mergers that they viewed as Beyond that, the bill would have limited railroads’ ability to work togethefr to set rates from one carrier’s trackss to another’s.
Railroads pushed hard against the arguing that it would have subjected them to two or more sets of meaning both the Surface Transportation on theone side, and the Justicw Department and the courts on the other. “The oversight is there now,” says Patricmk Hiatte, a spokesman for BNSF Railway, a unit of Burlington Northern. Kohl, chairman of the Senate JudiciartyAntitrust Subcommittee, vowed to bring the bill to the full but was opposed by U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefelledr IV, D-W.Va. Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Science andTransportation Committee, tried to craft separate railroad legislation.
The fighty ended quickly, with Kohl pulling the bill and then sending a joint letter with Rockefellerr to colleagues saying that the Senate Commerce and Judiciarh committees would work togetheron “comprehensive rail competition legislation” that “reforms the Surface Transportation Boared and repeals the railroads’ antitrust exemption.” “This is a positived thing from our perspective,” says Bob executive director and counsel for Consumers United for Rail a Washington, D.C., group representing rail customerws dependent on one railroad for transportation services.
The group supports repeal of theantitrust Railroads, meanwhile, were pleased that Kohl’s legislatiom was pulled, but were cautious abour what might emerge from the joint effory by Kohl and Rockefeller. “Until we see it, we can’t talk about it,” says Tom White, a spokesperson for the Association of American Railroadsdin Washington, D.C.