newsworthy
Oberstar calls for ocean, rail reform
The chairman of the House Transportation and
Infrastructure Committee has called for sweeping regulatory reform of the nation’s ocean shipping industry and
vowed to continue his fight to push railroad reform legislation through Congress.
Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.) said he will seek to end
immunity that steamship lines currently have from
antitrust laws to set prices and participate in vessel-sharing
arrangements. Oberstar also said he would crack down on
carrier surcharges, saying surcharges are “not always a
reflection” of carriers’ costs. He said Congress needs to take
a hard look at the authority carriers have to impose the surcharges, how much advance notice they give shippers, and
the justification for the surcharges.
Oberstar also called on the Federal Maritime
Commission to establish a “customer advocate” department
that would develop guidelines for resolving shipper-carrier
disputes by arbitration rather than going through the
courts or through the legislative process.
Taking aim at the railroads, Oberstar said the industry
has gone from dozens of large, so-called Class I, carriers
when Congress passed the Staggers Rail Act in 1980 to
deregulate the industry, to four large U.S. rails today. Those
four, he said, control over 90 percent of the nation’s rail
traffic. “There is less competition and more complaints”
about rail rates and service from shippers, Oberstar said.
Oberstar said he will work to develop a companion bill in
the House to the legislation (S. 2889) that was passed in
mid-December by the Senate Commerce Committee. The
bill, sponsored by Committee Chairman Sen. Jay Rockefeller
( D-W.Va.), provides protections to “captive shippers” who
cannot use any other transport mode; improves shippers’
access to other carriers’ trackage and terminals; and expands
the membership of the Surface Transportation Board, the
federal agency that rules on rail mergers, from three to five.
It is considered the most comprehensive piece of rail reform
legislation since the Staggers Act. Shippers have lauded the
bill, while the railroads, worried about a move toward re-
regulation, have urged what they call a more balanced
approach to address shipper concerns.
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