Eno Transportation Weekly

Many companies have built their production around the flow of reliable rail service. They have made significant investments into building rail sidings, rail specific infrastructure, such as loading and unloading docks and specific railcar equipment. They simply cannot “flip a switch” and go from shipping rail to shipping via truck.

November 9, 2017 – The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently examined how DOT made funding decisions for its FASTLANE grant program and created recommendations for the current Administration’s execution of future INFRA grants.

Washington would be wise to commit itself to embracing a regulatory approach to railroads that fosters innovations that can enhance safety and improve performance.

October 12, 2017 – On October 4, the House Transportation & Infrastructure (T&I) Committee convened a subcommittee hearing on infrastructure needs from the perspective of rail stakeholders. Rep.

October 13, 2017 – A new study produced by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine called for more frequent and comprehensive inspections of railroad routes that carry petroleum products, among many other recommendations.

August 9, 2017 – The U.S. Department of Transportation on August 2 notified Congress that Secretary Chao has selected ten projects to receive a total of $79 million grants in the first tranche of fiscal year grants for surface transportation projects under the “Nationally Significant Freight and Highway Projects” program established by the FAST Act of 2015 and codified under 23 U.S.C.

July 28, 2017 – The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on July 26 held a hearing on multiple pending nominations, including Ronald Batory to head the Federal Railroad Administration and Mark Buzby to head the Maritime Administration.

June 1, 2017 – The U.S. Department of Transportation announced on May 31 that it has awarded $197 million in federal grants to 17 transportation departments and authorities.

February 24, 2017 – On February 15, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee held a hearing entitled Moving America: Stakeholder Perspectives on our Multimodal Transportation System.

Federal regulators traditionally have skewed towards prescriptive policies, instead of clearly defining the problem and the desired result. Within the context of bipartisan regulatory reform, the freight rail industry believes policymakers should embrace non-prescriptive regulatory tools, like performance-based regulations, where appropriate.

January 5, 2017 – A new study commissioned by the Treasury Department identifies 40 transportation and water “megaprojects” costing a total of $334 billion that, the study estimates, could bring as much as $1.3 trillion in national economic benefits.

The health of our nation’s economy is tied to the efficient flow of goods through its freight transportation system. Without a well-designed and maintained freight transportation system, the United States’ economy will become sluggish and unable to compete.

The “railroad renaissance” is not a fiction, it’s a reality. But some of the railroads’ success is due to arcane government rules that are tilted against shippers. Agency regulators designed those rules decades ago when the railroads were still struggling financially. Now it’s time to recalibrate and rebalance those rules in light of Congress’ original intent to balance deregulation against the need to promote rail competition via competitive switching.

September 14, 2016 – How far does the Obama Administration want to try to go in giving out discretionary grant funding from the FAST Act and other programs for fiscal year 2017?

As Congress returns to work after August recess, it faces a Surface Transportation Board that is proposing to reverse years of economic success while putting a core industry at great risk.

Should an industry advisory committee, or USDOT itself, have the final say on railroad tank car safety rules?

August 17, 2016 – The entire federal Surface Transportation Board traveled to Sioux Falls, South Dakota last week to testify before a Senate field hearing.

Not strictly on Capitol Hill, but… Thursday, August 11 – Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation – full committee field hearing to discuss the impact of the Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act of 2015 on the freight rail industry (witness list here – it is one panel of South Dakota shippers and then a second panel […]

The Surface Transportation Board is proposing new regulations to adopt reciprocal switching rules which would allow “captive shippers” – those who are dependent on a single Class I railroad to ship their goods – to access competing railroads.

July 6, 2016 – The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee announced today that the U.S. Department of Transportation has made its selections for the first annual round of “FASTLANE” grants provided under section 1105 of the FAST Act. The Department has selected 18 projects totaling $759.2 million dollars.