ASLRRA PERSPECTIVE, RAILWAY AGE FEBRUARY 2025 ISSUE: A favorite phrase we use in Washington, D.C., is “cautiously optimistic.” Roughly translated, it means “I don’t really know how this is going to turn out, but I’m hoping for the best.” For many interested observers, there has been increasing angst over the years regarding the ability of Congress and the Administration to get anything done for the best. Yet beneath the roar of the political sound bites and the contentious relationship between the political parties, I am cautiously optimistic that the policy issues most important to the short line railroad industry will be heard and acted upon. My optimism is based on several factors.
First, three of the Administration’s first transportation appointments are solid individuals with considerable knowledge about railroads and proven experience in problem solving:
• Incoming Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is a former five-term Member of Congress who has a working knowledge of the legislative process and the experience necessary to work with all stakeholders to get things done. His nomination was approved by the Senate by a vote of 77 to 22. This, and his earlier Senate Commerce Committee 28-0 approval, is a good sign that transportation policy will remain, as it should, a bipartisan proposition.
• Patrick Fuchs, a current Member of the Surface Transportation Board (STB), has been designated by the President as the new STB Chair. The short line industry has had the good fortune to work with Fuchs throughout his career from the Office of Management and Budget to the Senate Commerce Committee to the STB. He is a thoughtful, practical, consensus-building leader who has a deep understanding of the issues confronting our industry.
ASLRRA is particularly excited about the nomination of David Fink to lead the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). Fink will bring a fulsome understanding of the entirety of the unique, interconnected U.S. freight rail network. As the CEO of short line railroad Pan Am Railways prior to its sale to CSX, Fink was an active and respected participant in our Association. Under his leadership, Pan Am was an industry award-winning ASLRRA member company. He has extensive experience interacting with all relevant stakeholders in the rail industry. We know him as a high energy, solution-minded strategist, and following his confirmation, look forward to working with him on smart regulations that advance the safety of rail in the U.S. and on expediting the FRA’s critical infrastructure investment programs, particularly CRISI (Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements).
On Jan. 23, I had the opportunity to be one of four rail industry representatives testifying before the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials as it kicked off hearings on the Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill. This legislation authorizes most of the rail industry’s most important federal programs, including the CRISI grant program and the Section 130 Grade Crossing Program, and is legislation where truck size and weights law would be maintained or changed, and the Highway Trust Fund mechanism is adjusted.
With jurisdiction over the FRA, the T&I Committee also has an important oversight role in the agency’s rulemaking and funding decisions and processes. I devoted a good portion of my testimony to the CRISI grant program, stressing the role these grants play in helping to fund the most expensive but most needed short line infrastructure projects; the need to reduce the long delay between grant award and funding obligation; the importance of pre-award authority allowing short lines the “at-risk” ability to begin the work immediately; and the importance of advanced appropriations, which brings the certainty that small businesses need to embark on the complicated and expensive CRISI application process.
I reminded the Representatives that short lines have become one of the major classes of grant awardees, with some 240 short line CRISI grants awarded totaling more than $2.7 billion in the history of the program. In the most recent round of CRISI awards, short lines garnered 81 of the 122 projects awarded totaling $1.29 billion, or about half of the $2.48 billion in total awarded funds.
I also underscored that short lines provide a remarkable “bang for the government buck” as these transformational projects come to fruition with relatively modest government funding, driving growth for local and regional economies and the interconnected freight rail network, and creating jobs in small town and rural America.
The hearing was very encouraging. It was well attended. The Members came prepared to ask meaningful questions. There was little partisan sniping, and there were numerous references to the need for bipartisanship on transportation issues. Almost every Member asked me follow-up questions on CRISI.
Granted, the House Railroad Subcommittee is our easiest hill to climb. Its Members are among the most knowledgeable about the business of railroading and have considerable experience in dealing with government policies that directly affect our business.
But it is also an important hill. The Subcommittee will draft the first iteration of the rail portion of the next Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill, and if the tenor of this first hearing is any indication, they will approach that task in a serious and bipartisan way. Reauthorizing Surface Transportation will be a long, hard slog, and politics will make it harder than it should be. But experience tells me that fighting to preserve what’s best in the first draft is much easier than trying to insert new language in the final draft, so I remain cautiously optimistic.
