Opinion ID: 2679706
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: simplified procedures

Text: Because SAC tests are complicated and costly, Congress directed the Board to “establish a simplified and expedited method for determining the reasonableness of challenged rail rates in those cases in which a full stand-alone cost presentation is too costly, given the value of the case.” 49 U.S.C. § 10701(d)(3). Over the years, the Board discharged this duty by developing a two-tiered system. For cases worth less than $5 million—the Board’s estimate for presenting a SAC case—the Board created a procedure it called the Simplified-SAC test. 2007 Simplified Standards, at 13–16, 30–31. Unlike Full-SAC, Simplified-SAC does not require the complainant to create a stand-alone railroad and does not 5 concern itself with uncovering inefficiencies in defendants’ railroads. See CSX Transp., 568 F.3d at 245. Instead, it focuses solely on whether the defendant railroad is abusing its monopoly power. Id. Simplified-SAC is limited to the predominant route of the issue traffic, it assumes that all infrastructure along the route is needed to serve the traffic, and it includes all traffic that traversed the route in the prior twelve-month period. 2007 Simplified Standards at 15–16. Simplified-SAC also uses the Board’s Uniform Rail Costing System to estimate total operating and equipment expenses. Id. at 16. Finally, under Simplified-SAC—as originally formulated—the Board used its prior Full-SAC cases to simplify the calculation of Road Property Investment costs— unlike in Full-SAC which includes a complete analysis of these costs. Id. at 15. For cases worth less than $1 million—the Board’s cost estimate for Simplified-SAC cases—the Board created the “Three Benchmark” approach. This method is simpler still; it assesses rates by comparing “the challenged rate to three benchmark figures, each expressed as a relationship between revenues and variable costs, i.e., those costs that increase as traffic over the railroad increases . . . .” See CSX Transp., 568 F.3d at 240 (internal quotations and citations omitted).