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U.S. DOT creates Freight Policy Council
I wonder if this is the governments way of taking over private railroads? Sounds like it to me and just another regulatory department to find means of controlling freight. I hope I am wrong.
This administration and Congress continue to try to control what they do not understand. Leave rail transportation alone.
This shouldn’t have been done. Anything the government gets their fingers into they ruin. The railroads have just begin to make money and improve their infrastructure since a lot of their rate regulation were lifted. Jay Rockefeller wanted return to rate regulation by the government and I think that this is the beginning of it.
This shouldn’t have been done. Anything the government gets their fingers into they ruin. The railroads have just begin to make money and improve their infrastructure since a lot of their rate regulation were lifted. Jay Rockefeller wanted return to rate regulation by the government and I think that this is the beginning of it.
Another ill conceived plan by the Obamunists to meddle with the railroads because they are profitable and know what they are doing. This is just another way of the camel getting his nose inside the tent …so that eventually wel will have the mess that the ICC created and almost killed the railroads. Why can’t the fiendish socialists keep their hands off the railroads?
Yes, just what this country needs. Another regulatory body inserting itself where it isn’t needed.
Reading comprehension appears to be a problem with the conservatives who have left comments on this article. There is nothing to suggest that the Freight Policy Council has anything to do with re-regulation or “government take-over” of the railroad industry. According to the article, FPC is a round-table style group of government and private interests formed to co-ordinate plans for future freight transportation infrastructure and services. This is a welcome change from the haphazard transportation policies of the past that focused on each mode of transport individually. The Obama administration needs to be praised for moving everybody in one coordinated direction.
I’m reminded of a certain former government’s “Five Year Plans.”
The Federal Government recognizes the growth of intermodal and Shortlines across the country moving freight off highways which states cannot afford to maintain.
There has to be some plan layed out for states that do put money into their railroads rather than roads and how it will tie into a system in the national movement of goods.
Is this more of Obama’s big government plan to tell the Class 1’s how to do their job? That’s all they need. Now if some money was included…
Government needs to keep its hands off. It can (and will) only make things worse, as it always does. (But the bureaucrats can never resist any opportunity for more control, even though they have no idea what they are doing!)
John, I think you’re right!
Railroads that don’t keep their loads on the track instead of the highway are asking for regulation. Taxpayers should not be subsidizing highway loads, that’s what Short Lines are for.
If Railroads don’t like regulation, it will be a catalyst for them to to interchange with Short Lines on their own.