Electric Co-op Today

As federal regulators weigh their policies toward the nation’s freight rail network, concerned shippers are giving them more to think about.

Co-ops have asked regulators for specific changes to help captive shippers. (Photo By: Index Stock Imagery)

On the heels of a Surface Transportation Board hearing on the state of rail competition, a group of 40 shippers has filed comments, asking the agency to take immediate steps to improve access to competitive rail service.

That group includes Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corp., which also filed separate comments with the STB, suggesting ways that the agency can ensure freight railroads simultaneously provide reliable service and reasonable rates.

“While the STB’s recent decision to lower filing rates for shippers was a step forward, freight rail reforms cannot stop there. In order to help create jobs and increase exports, the STB must protect the rights of shippers by increasing access to rail competition and improving the rate regulatory process,” said NRECA CEO Glenn English, chairman of Consumers United for Rail Equity, a coalition of shippers.

The shippers’ filings represented a supplement to the June 22-23 STB hearing, during which the three-member agency agreed to take additional input through July 25. The STB has not set any timetable for final action.

The shippers group, which includes NRECA, AECC, CURE and nearly a dozen other G&Ts, statewides and co-op organizations, said the STB should push for more competition at interchange switching points and in terminal areas.

It also could help captive shippers by changing the way it measures the dominance a railroad has in a given market, and removing a cap on damages that can be sought in a board rate challenge process.

Little Rock-based AECC also said the board should require railroads to provide rate quotes for service to points that shippers might consider for future infrastructure construction and additions.

Railroads generally don’t provide quotes to those “non-physical points,” AECC said. That means shippers lack the information they need to decide whether build-outs, which they say could spur additional competition, are worth the cost.

“The board can and should view any refusal of a carrier to quote rates to non-physical points as being strongly indicative of a diminished level of intramodal competition,” AECC said.

Tags: Captive Shipper, Railroad Reform, Surface Transportation Board