This loss of competition could result in higher prices for consumers and small businesses, and could possibly lead to pressures to increase economic regulation of the railroad industry, after some 16 years of highly beneficial deregulation.
Competition is also essential to keep the costs of transportation down when goods are being shipped.
It could have adverse effects on a number of industries that are critical to our national and regional economies. These include agriculture and the chemical, plastics, coal and electric power industries. First, the STB should order the sale, to an independent railroad, of several key lines in and around the state of Texas. These include lines carrying 90 percent of the nation's chemicals and plastics from Houston east to New Orleans and north to Memphis, Tenn., for distribution to the major consumer products manufacturers in the North and Northeast. These lines will be critical to serving the nation's growing trade with Mexico.