Surface Transportation Board Sets Schedule in First "Small," Non-Coal Rail-Rate Case

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>From the Surface Transportation Board, Washington, D.C.
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Surface Transportation Board Chairman Roger Nober today announced that the
Board issued a decision setting the procedural schedule and announcing the
Board's intentions for handling the first case filed under the Board's Rate
Guidelines--Non-Coal Proceedings, 1 STB 1004 (1996).

Chairman Nober said:

"Since I became Chairman, I have made reforming our small rate case
guidelines one of my top priorities, and over the past two years the agency
has done substantial work on the small rate case process.  Recently, a
shipper filed a small rate case, the first ever under the Board's small
rate case guidelines.  This case will give the Board the opportunity to
implement that work in this case rather than in a rulemaking, which will
save the parties and the agency months of administrative process.

"We have set an aggressive schedule for this first small rate case and
notified the parties about the way we expect to handle the case.  Given our
experiences in large rate cases, we think these simplifications are
absolutely necessary for the agency to meet our stakeholders' and
Congress's desire for a simplified and expedited method for determining
whether a rail rate is reasonable.  While I do not know how this case will
turn out, I do know that our agency will give this matter full and fair
consideration."

The Board's decision in the first case filed under Rate
Guidelines--Non-Coal Proceedings, 1 STB 1004 (1996), is entitled BP Amoco
Chemical Company v. Norfolk Southern Railway Company, STB Docket No. 42093,
and is available for viewing and downloading via the agency's Web site at
http://www.stb.dot.gov.  A printed copy of the decision also is available
for a fee by contacting ASAP Document Solutions, 9332 Annapolis Rd., Suite
103, Lanham, MD 20706, telephone (202) 306-4004, or via asapdc@xxxxxxxxxxxx
 A fact sheet is attached.

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ATTACHMENT
______________
Fact Sheet

BP Amoco Chemical Company v. Norfolk Southern Railway Company,
STB Docket No. 42093

This first case, BP Amoco Chemical Company v. Norfolk Southern Railway
Company, STB Docket No. 42093, involves a challenge to the reasonableness
of a rate charged by the Norfolk Southern Railway Company for the
transportation of paraxylene from Decatur, Alabama, to Kingsport,
Tennessee.

In its decision today in STB Docket No. 42093, the Board:

-->Ordered 30 days of mediation between the parties and, at the parties'
request, delayed the start of the procedural schedule for 30 days;

-->Adopted a procedural schedule to resolve the case 200 days after the
schedule becomes effective;

-->Adopted process tools, such as mandatory disclosures by the parties of
certain information and litigant-STB staff conferences, to expedite the
proceeding;

-->Announced its intent to use the standard, readily available, computer
program to calculate variable costs and not to permit any adjustments to
the program's results;

-->Announced its intent to simplify the calculation of the average markup a
railroad would need if it were to replace all of its assets as those assets
wear out; and

-->Announced its intent to use a final-offer process for selecting a
traffic group that is more comparable to the traffic at issue in the case.

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