Surface Transportation Board
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The Surface Transportation Board (STB) was created by the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act of 1995 at the same time the Interstate Commerce Commission was abolished. The STB was created to replace the ICC, which had been charged with playing to the interests of the trucking industry and being generally useless due to deregulation.
The STB is an economic regulatory agency that Congress created to resolve railroad rate and service disputes and reviewing proposed railroad mergers. The STB is decisionally independent, although it is administratively affiliated with the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The STB serves as both an adjudicatory and a regulatory body. The agency has jurisdiction over:
- Railroad rate and service issues
- Rail restructuring transactions (mergers, line sales, new line construction, and old line abandonments)
- Certain trucking company, moving van, and non-contiguous ocean shipping company rate matters
- Certain intercity passenger bus company structure, financial, and operational matters
- Rates and services of certain pipelines not regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
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[edit] Offices
[edit] Office of Compliance and Enforcement
The Office of Compliance and Enforcement (OCE) is responsible to oversee all aspects of carrier operations subject to the jurisdiction of the STB, and to ensure that those operations are consistent with each carrier's statutory and regulatory responsibilities. OCE also interfaces with the public in a wide range of consumer assistance areas including its management of the STB's Rail Consumer Assistance Program which assists the public with rail-related issues nationwide; assistance with certain household goods issues related to overcharges; and through its responsibilities for receiving and maintaining filed tariffs. This office also collects and makes available tariffs from non-contiguous domestic water carriers.
[edit] Office of Congressional and Public Services
The Office of Congressional and Public Services (OCPS) is the STB's outreach arm. It works with Members of Congress, the public, and the media to answer questions and provide information about the STB's procedures and actions and about transportation regulation more generally. The office's task is to help the public participate in cases and matters before the Surface Transportation Board, to disseminate information about the agency and its work, and to provide explanations of the law and the agency's decisions to the public.[1]
OCPS handles questions about the Surface Transportation Board's official decisions, pending cases, and the laws that it implements. OCPS's records section provides certified copies of documents, and its library maintains an extensive collection of railroad regulatory publications and information concerning the history of rail regulation. OCPS also provides information about how cases are processed, and the current status of cases pending before the agency.
[edit] Office of Economics, Environmental Analysis and Administration
The Office of Economics, Environmental Analysis and Administration houses several functions. In addition to handling administrative matters, such as personnel and budget, this Office also houses two sections: (1) the Section of Environmental Analysis, which is responsible for undertaking environmental reviews of proposed STB actions in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act and other environmental laws and making environmental recommendations to the STB, and (2) the Section of Economics, which analyzes rate cases, conducts economic and financial analyses of the railroad industry, and audits Class I railroads.
[edit] Office of Proceedings
The Office of Proceedings (OP) is the office with primary responsibility for developing the public record in formal cases (or proceedings) filed with the STB, making recommendations regarding the resolution of issues presented in those cases, and preparing the decisions issued by the Board.
OP is a legal office, consisting almost entirely of attorneys and paralegal specialists, responsible for the majority of the cases at the STB. The office applies the Interstate Commerce Act, as amended by the ICC Termination Act of 1995, as well as the Board's rules found at Title 49, parts 1000 to 1332 of the Code of Federal Regulations ([1]). In carrying out its responsibilities, OP obtains and applies any necessary input from economic, financial, operational, environmental, and other legal staff experts throughout the agency.
OP includes a clearance unit responsible for tabulating votes on STB cases and recording the official outcome of those votes, and a recordations unit that enters data about a filing's primary and secondary documents into the STB Recordations database, which is accessible to the public on the STB web site.
[edit] Office of General Counsel
The Office of the General Counsel (OGC) responds to questions on a variety of legal issues. However, its primary mission is two-fold: to defend the STB's decisions in court and to assess the defensibility of agency decisions that might be challenged in court. Unlike most Federal agencies, the STB has independent litigating authority (49 U.S.C. 703d). Under the Hobbs Act (28 U.S.C. 2323), when an STB order or decision is challenged in the U.S. Court of Appeals, both the STB (represented by the agency's own attorneys) and the United States (represented by U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys) must be named as "respondents" (defendants), and both have authority to appear in court in such cases. STB and DOJ attorneys, in most cases, jointly defend the agency's decisions, with the STB's attorneys preparing written briefs (in consultation with DOJ attorneys) and presenting oral arguments on behalf of the Federal Government.
In performing defensibility assessments, OGC attorneys meet with other STB staff to discuss cases before draft decisions are prepared. Defensibility assessments are key to issuing sound decisions that are less likely to be challenged and, if challenged, are more likely to be upheld.
[edit] References
- ^ United States Surface Transportation Board, About STB > Office: OCPS.
