 LEGISLATIVE BULLETIN – February 8, 2005 Please contact North Dakota House Transportation
Committee members regarding the fuel surcharges bill. Railroad fuel surcharges are assessed as a percentage of the rate. Because North Dakota rates are high our surcharges are high, higher than nearly anyone else, and unjustified. HB 1370 seeks to make railroads assess these fuel surcharges on a mileage basis instead of on the rate. This makes common sense, the farther you haul the greater the dollar amount of surcharge. Railroads like it the other way because it pads their pockets. And, they say, it is easier to figure. As if they don’t know the mileage between origin and destination. Please contact members of the House Transportation Committee. The message is simple – Vote for HB 1370. Giving a brief rationale is always good. Committee members and their emails are as follows:
Robin Weisz, Chmn., Hurdsfield
rweisz@state.nd.us
We’re not suggesting you blanket
email all of these. Please
contact those you know or who live in your area of the state. Here
is an example given in Grain Dealers testimony at the hearing:
The
110-car shuttle train rate on wheat from Berthold, ND to Pacific
Northwest ports like Seattle and Portland is $4,174 per car for 1,300
miles ($3.21per car-mile) ($1.13 per bushel).
The 110-car shuttle rate on soybeans from Clarkfield, MN to the
PNW, same weight for 1,750 miles is $3,300 per car, $1.89 per
car-mile. The cars and
locomotives are interchangeable, moving over much of the same track to
the same place. The 9% fuel
surcharge assessed in December and January on that wheat train is $41,322. On the identical weight train of soybeans pulled 1750 miles
from the Minnesota origin the fuel surcharge is $32,670.
A third more distance, but a fourth less surcharge. The
$32,670 fuel surcharge paid on the MN soybean train for 1750 miles is
$18.67 per mile. Berthold ships wheat 1300 miles to the same
place. 1300 X $18.67 = $24,271. But Berthold's surcharge has been
$41,322, an excess of $17,051. It's 70% over the per-mile fuel
surcharge BNSF accepts on the MN soybean train. Maybe that soybean
train is paying too much too.
It gets even more odd. The
soybean rate from Berthold to the PNW is $3,400 per car vs. that wheat
rate of $4,174. The fuel
surcharge on wheat is the $41,322 cited above.
On an identical weight train from the same origin to the same
destination the fuel surcharge on the soybeans is $33,660.
Does wheat pull harder than soybeans? BNSF said at the hearing that it doesn’t make any money on its fuel surcharges. You might get a different impression from its 4th quarter results available at this site: http://www.bnsf.com/investors/html/q4_04_financial_pres.html Freight revenues were up 19% in the fourth quarter, including units (volume) 11%, price 5% and fuel surcharge 5%. At
the hearing the railroads said the ND legislature can't do anything
about this, that it is pre-empted by federal law, jurisdiction of the
Surface Transportation Board, and even the U.S. Constitution. Wow! Grain
Dealers Association testimony challenged the legislature to pass the
bill, and then "if a railroad wants to ignore a law in a state that
contributes so handsomely to its bottom line, that’s THEIR public
policy and public relations problem." You can leave messages for legislators by calling 1-888-635-3447 (1-888ndlegis) or 701-328-3373. The fax number is 701-328-1997. The email addresses are with the names above. In other legislative news, the Association's bill on FELA passed the Senate 47-0 yesterday. The state bonding fund bill which NDGDA opposed was defeated by the exact opposite vote: 0-47. HB 1518, wheat checkoff bill, was heard last Friday. Farmers Union wants rate to drop back down to a penny when trade case debt paid.
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