Washington-The Surface Transportation Board announced on Aug. 3 that it is seeking public comment on several measures the agency has proposed to regulate how railroads compute and collect fuel surcharges. The proposals stem from the STB’s May 11, 2006, public hearing concerning the manner in which fuel surcharges are calculated, during which the STB heard extensive testimony from the rail industry, the public, and railroad customers regarding those practices. Specifically, the STB is proposing:
- That a railroad wishing to assess a fuel surcharge would need to develop a computation more closely linked to its increased fuel costs attributable to that movement;
- Railroads would be prohibited from “double dipping” by charging for the same fuel-cost increases for the same shipment, both through a fuel surcharge and through application of a rate escalator based on an index, such as the STB’s Railroad Cost Adjustment Factor (RCAF), without first subtracting any fuel-cost component from that index;
- Railroads would be required to use a single, uniform index – the Energy Information Administration “U.S. No. 2 Diesel Retail Sales by All Sellers (Cents per Gallon)” – for measuring fuel-cost increases; and
- Each Class I railroad would submit a monthly report to the agency showing the railroad’s actual total fuel costs, total fuel consumption, and total fuel surcharge revenues, as well as how much of its total fuel surcharge revenues were shared with its shoreline connections.
Comments are due on Sept. 25, 2006. The Agricultural Retailers Association said it plans to provide comments to the STB after reviewing the proposal, and encouraged its members to send their comments to Jim Thrift, ARA’s vice president of regulatory policy and corporate relations, at jthrift@aradc.org.