Glenn English today called on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to reform the Surface Transportation Board to ensure that freight rail consumers have access to a reasonable and fair process for challenging shipping rates.

While English cited a recent Government Accountability Office study concluding that the STB’s rate relief processes "are largely inaccessible and rarely used," Basin Electric’s Ron Harper provided a detailed and compelling case in point backing up that conclusion.

Harper described for the committee the cooperative’s futile effort to challenge rates imposed by BNSF Railway Company (BNSF) – the only shipper serving Basin Electric’s Laramie River Station Plant – "that approached or exceeded BNSF’s service costs by 500 percent."

We played by all of the rules. We submitted volumes of evidence supported by dozens of expert witnesses -- the most comprehensive rate case ever presented to the STB. We responded promptly and completely to the STB’s every request and filed multiple rounds of supplemental information. We had a strong case and met all of the evidentiary requirements for establishing the unreasonableness of the involved rates.

In the end, it appears we were victims of "bait and switch" tactics by the STB. After mountains of evidence were filed, and the evidentiary record closed, the STB implemented new rules it claimed would improve the rate review process. They promised it would not prejudice our case. They were wrong. In its final decision, the STB admitted the new rule changes were prejudicial to us and may have destroyed any prospects for us to obtain rate relief.

The clear message from the STB to customers through our decision is quite simple: we are here to protect the economic interests of the railroads no matter the costs to the public.

In calling for passage of the "Railroad Competition and Service Improvement Act of 2007," H.R. 2125, which would reform the STB, English pointed out that the bill would simply "improve the process for determining if a railroad rate to a rail customer without access to competition is reasonable."