(The following appeared on The Journal of Commerce website on March 4, 2011.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 14-1 to approve the Railroad Antitrust Enforcement Act, the latest effort by Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., to strip rail firms of a limited exemption they now have from regular antitrust oversight.
Kohl said getting the bill enacted into law would “ensure that railroads play by the same rules as all other businesses in our economy and give those injured by anti-competitive conduct strong remedies under anti-trust law.” He said rail freight rates for vital commodities have spiked in recent years and “rail shippers are forced to pass these price increases into the price of their products.”
His office listed as an example a 93 percent rate hike by the Dairyland Power utility in La Crosse, Wis., for coal shipments to produce electricity.
Currently, supervision of railroad-shipper economic disputes by the Surface Transportation Board puts many types of challenges outside the normal range of antitrust law, and Rockefeller’s bill would have redirected STB policies to be more shipper-friendly. His committee passed a rail reform bill in December 2009 but without removing the antitrust exemption.
The full story appears at www.joc.com.