By ANN HINCH
Assistant Editor DALLAS, Texas — Farming relies heavily on transportation in the modern world. Representatives of three transport organizations were at the Commodity Classic in late February to give farmers an overview of what they do and stir interest in their particular modes of movement.
Railroads have been in the news frequently of late, between the concern of major shippers regarding their common-carrier obligation for certain toxic chemicals, and antitrust legislation at the federal level (see related article this week, by Tim Alexander).
Jennifer Owen of Consumers United for Rail Equity (CURE) said it represents freight rail customers of all stripes, particularly “captive customers” who are forced to rely on only one railroad because of location or legal exemptions that allow one rail line to exclude competition.
“Railroads have been both essential to economic development and one of its biggest problems,” she said.
Another big issue for CURE members is the federal Surface Transportation Board (STB), which CURE contends “is failing in its mission to ensure competition and protect rail customers from railroad monopoly power.” Owen said as recently as the 1970s, the railroads were under significant regulatory oversight, but the 1980 Staggers Rail Act weakened that.
In addition, she said filing a rate complaint with the STB is expensive, often taking years and millions of dollars to prosecute – to CURE’s knowledge, the last major agricultural rate case filed with the STB was in 1982.
CURE calls the STB “broken” and ineffective.
“To be clear, no one in the shipper industry is anti-rail,” Owen said. “But we have to have rates that reflect competitive access, or at least rates at a reasonable level.”
Owen said CURE shippers will be in Washington, D.C., for Rail Customer Day on March 25.
To learn more about CURE or this event, call 202-298-1959 or go online to www.railcure.org
Trucking The Agricultural and Food Transporters Conference (AFTC) was founded in 1995 to represent motor carriers and allied members of the American Trucking Assoc., specifically on issues affecting commodity and food transportation.
Items concerning the AFTC include protection of the agricultural exemption to hours-of-service regulations governing truck drivers (Congressional rules dictating the maximum hours for work and the minimum for rest between driving).
Russell Laird, AFTC executive director, explained these rules have helped cut down on highway wrecks involving semis and other big trucks.
The ag exemption is for those drivers hauling food and related supplies (such as fertilizer) within a certain radius of the farm or point of distribution – the idea being that during peak planting and harvest season, supplies or deliveries need to move immediately and may require drivers to go beyond legal hours of work.
Without the exemption, Laird said farmers and other customers would have to hire additional drivers.
Other issues concerning the AFTC relate to ensuring food security and safety, from outside threats such as terrorism to more old-fashioned problems like disease or contamination.
Road conditions and weight limit for trucks are hot issues, since larger loads equal fewer trips, but also put extra stress on a chassis and roadway.
Laird said the cap for a five-axle hauling combo is 80,000 pounds. There is a proposal to increase this to 97,000 pounds for trucks with a sixth drop-axle – meaning, an axle at the back of the vehicle that would ride up off the highway unless the load exceeded the 80,000-pound limit, in which case the tires would “drop” to support the extra weight.
“There’s a way to haul more produce, but there’s cost to get there to do that,” he admitted – not just special equipment, but perhaps a higher Heavy Vehicle Use Tax.
Laird said 85 percent of the United States’ ag transport moves over highways and despite the push in rail and waterways industries to get more shippers to use trains and barges, trucks will always be necessary. “You’ve probably never seen a train parked behind the grocery store to deliver the goods you’ll need that day,” he pointed out.
For additional information, visit www.truckline.com/Federation/Conferences/AFTC and www.trucksbringit.com online or call 703-838-7964.
Waterways Paul Rohde, vice president of the Midwest Area for the Waterways Council, Inc. (WCI), described it as the national public policy organization to advocate for modern, well-maintained U.S. waterways.
He said it is made up of 350 member organizations and works with lawmakers to inform and lobby for legislation favorable to waterways industries.
The WCI keeps track of 240 locks along 12,000 miles of waterways. Part of its education at the grassroots level is to offer barge and boat river tours to show legislators and community leaders how river transport operates; Rohde said so far, it has floated 290,000 visitors on such tours.
Perhaps the biggest issue concerning the WCI’s members is the collective state of disrepair of the nation’s locks and dams. Rohde said many are quite old and overdue for scheduled maintenance. The number of emergency repairs, he said, are increasing “at a staggering rate” each year.
Further, he said the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation’s inland waterways infrastructure a collective grade of D-minus on its 2009 report card.
Annually, 624 million tons of goods are moved on U.S. waterways, including heavy concentrations of coal, petroleum and ag products. Rohde said one dry goods tow load (15 barges grouped) equals 16 railcars or 70 semi trucks, and one liquid cargo tow load equals 46 railcars or 144 trucks. He stressed this is done with fewer injuries and disruptions of “daily life” than truck or rail shipping.
Rohde quoted a lawmaker he heard recently lamenting the nation’s lack thus far of a strategy or vision for the future of national transportation systems. He said river-adjacent states are ready to leverage their influence as much as possible with the new Congress and administration in Washington, D.C., and that legislators need to address America’s infrastructure problems.
“Congress is really going to have to push that,” he observed.
For more information on this topic, visit www.waterwayscouncil.org |
