By Frank N. Wilner, Capitol Hill Contributing Editor, Railway Age Magazine; January 17, 2019
Watching Washington, January 2019: Prominently on Harry Truman’s Oval Office desk was a sign, “The buck stops here.” Newly confirmed members of the Surface Transportation Board (STB) may wish to reflect on that acknowledgment of accountability as they wade through a troubling backlog of unfinished rulemakings—some disregarded for years.
Whatever the reason for such fecklessness—perhaps timidity in dealing with contentious policy issues, or preferring vacant seats first be filled—justice is delayed and denied for captive shippers lacking effective alternatives to rail, and for whom residual regulatory protection was retained by Congress following partial economic deregulation in 1980.