[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 153 (Wednesday, November 3, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2252]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      INTRODUCTION OF H.R. 3163, THE SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD 
                      REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 1999

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. BUD SHUSTER

                            of pennsylvania

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 3, 1999

  Mr. SHUSTER. Mr. Speaker, today, along with my colleagues Ranking 
Member Jim Oberstar, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Ground 
Transportation, Mr. Tom Petri, and Ranking Member Mr. Nick Rahall, I am 
introducing, by request, the Administration's proposed legislation to 
reauthorize the Surface Transportation Board.
  I evaluate the Administration's proposed changes to the law governing 
the Surface Transportation Board against the background of extensive 
hearings on these issues conducted by my Committee last year--over 1000 
pages of testimony in 4 days of hearings.
  The two clearest realities to emerge from those hearings were (1) the 
rail industry's resurgence and traffic growth since deregulation has 
made capacity constraints on their infrastructure a major problem for 
the first time in 3 decades; (2) to fund these huge infrastructure 
needs, the railroads must spend billions of dollars raised in private 
capital markets, but they are not attracting even the average earnings-
multiples of industry at large on Wall Street.
  A number of interests, some merely shortsighted and others 
opportunistic, have tried to use the reauthorization of the STB as a 
means to force down rail rates by legislative fiat. This effort occurs 
despite repeated authoritative findings by the General Accounting 
Office that rail rates have declined sharply, even in constant dollars, 
in recent years.
  I am very disappointed that the Administration seems to have joined 
this effort. Instead of promoting the capital flow that will benefit 
both railroads and shippers through improved infrastructure, the 
Administration has sent to the Congress a bill that includes major 
portions of the ``re-regulation'' agenda.
  By forcing mandatory access by one railroad over another's tracks in 
several types of situations, the bill would endanger the vital capital 
flow upon which the future prosperity of railroads, shippers, and rail 
labor depends.
  Much of the effort that went into the ICC Termination Act four years 
ago was focused on streamlining federal regulation of railroads. Yet 
the proposed legislation would take a major step backward; it proposes 
to balkanize the authority to approve or disapprove rail mergers among 
multiple federal agencies. Even worse, the Administration's proposal 
sows the seeds of many debilitating disputes under state and local law, 
even for mergers that have received full federal approval.
  Although the bill pays lip service to ``small'' shippers, it could 
literally destroy a major segment of American small business--the 
short-line railroads that serve so many smaller cities and towns. That 
is because the Administration wants to fund the entire $17 million STB 
budget out of the so-called ``user fees.'' The STB already defrays $1.6 
million of its costs through filing fees, and we have received numerous 
complaints about those charges from shippers. Now the Administration 
would impose more than 10 times that burden on ``users.'' We don't know 
who the users are, since the bill doesn't even attempt to identify 
them.
  We had some experience with such fees imposed on our small railroads 
several year ago by the Federal Railroad Administration. Our Committee 
found that these small companies--the ones that literally are the only 
way to keep rail service in small communities--were paying up to 17 
percent of net income in so-called ``user fees''--on top of their state 
and federal taxes. That's why we ended those FRA fees, and I see no 
reason to impose a similar burden on struggling small businesses 
through STB fees, as the Administration now proposes.
  While I cannot endorse much of what the Administration has proposed 
in its STB bill, I remain hopeful that a compromise can be reached on 
the contentious issues that have prevented an STB reauthorization bill 
from being enacted.

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