WATCHING WASHINGTON, RAILWAY AGE DECEMBER 2025 ISSUE: Union Pacific (UP) CEO Jim Vena’s September pilgrimage to the Oval Office—where Republican POTUS 47 picked his corporate pocket for a cash contribution toward a $300 million White House ballroom—has unjustly sullied the reputations of Surface Transportation Board (STB) Republican members rather than assure regulatory approval of a UP-Norfolk Southern (NS) merger. The STB, with a Republican majority, has sole statutory authority to approve the transaction.
Although the President said the proposed merger “sounds good to me,” and notwithstanding his being transactional—every interaction in expectation of a trade—the STB is independent of the Executive Branch.
Beyond Vena denying a quid pro quo, those alleging his “gift” assures a “fix” are ignoring contrarian evidence. Today’s Republican Party embraces a populist ideology opposing concentrations of corporate power. Consider that a UP-NS merger will create the only U.S. Atlantic-Pacific railroad, with an enterprise value of $250 billion, dwarfing rival CSX’s $83 billion value and some 50% greater than that of BNSF (estimated, as BNSF is not publicly traded).
This isn’t to say the merger won’t or shouldn’t be approved. It is to say that even infamous mobster and outcomes-fixer Otto “Abbadabba” Berman, were he alive, couldn’t manipulate STB decision-making.
The artificial intelligence supported record reinforcing this merger decision will be the most data-driven in the agency’s history. Collaboration is under way with the Department of Transportation’s John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, Mass. Its data analysts, economists, mapping experts, mathematicians and statisticians will work with STB quantitative and legal experts to evaluate, with particularity, every submission of applicants and opponents. STB members will be deciding this merger in the brightest of sunlight.
Studied will be years of traffic flows, interchange commitments, impacts on joint facilities, track capacity, opportunities for (and effectiveness of) competitive access, and measurements of shippers’ transportation alternatives. An ill-defined common carrier obligation may gain amplification.
“Board members well know that this record will be reviewed by the courts, regardless of the outcome,” said retired STB Chairperson Martin J. Oberman in November in defense of non-partisan STB staff and the decisional independence of his former and still serving Republican colleagues—Chairperson Patrick J. Fuchs and Michelle A. Schultz—whom he recalls always parked their political leanings elsewhere.
Conspiratorial claims simply fail validation given shifting Republican orthodoxy.
In an Oct. 30 speech to the Charlie Kirk-founded Turning Point USA, Vice President J.D. Vance said, “I really worry about concentration in the corporate sector. I worry about big corporate monopolies. I worry that when you have only one or two companies dominating an entire sector, it’s bad for liberty and it’s bad for prosperity.”
In an April 28 speech at the University of Notre Dame Law School, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Gail Slater spoke against “the tyranny of monopoly,” recalling the consolidated market power of 19th century railroad and grain-elevator operators that “deprived farmers of fair, competitive returns for their crops.” Significantly, the 1995 ICC Termination Act instructed STB to give “substantial weight” to competition-related recommendations of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.
Additionally, numerous conservative Republican senators with close ties to POTUS 47—lawmakers who vote on STB budget requests—urged in an Oct. 30 letter to the STB “a rigorous and comprehensive evaluation not just for its potential short-term efficiencies, but for its ability to demonstrate clear and tangible long-term improvements in competition.”
Then there are the Aug. 19 CNBC remarks of POTUS 47’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who observed “partnerships” might also deliver seamless transcontinental rail service, adding, “That’s not our issue. I’ll leave that to the regulators.”
Vena says he is “99.999% sure” the STB will approve the merger. He’d best be wagering on the strength of a yet-to-be-filed formal merger application—not the bombast of a widely considered narcissist POTUS whose attention span is shorter than the length of stub track.
Railway Age Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner was assistant vice president, policy, at the Association of American Railroads and a White House appointed chief of staff to Republican STB member Gus Owen, who voted in favor of the 1997 UP-SP merger. He is author of “Railroads & Economic Regulation,” available from Simmons-Boardman Books, 800-228-9670.
