A bipartisan House committee has added language to the fiscal 2027 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bill that calls for a thorough review of the proposed Union Pacific-Southern Pacific merger.
The inclusion of this language by the House Appropriations Committee comes in markup on June 2, and it sends a clear signal from members of Congress that the deal must be subject to rigorous scrutiny.
The Stop the Rail Merger Coalition, which represents the interests of shippers, railroads, labor unions, consumers, and public policy groups, applauds continued Congressional oversight of this proposed merger.
This is because the U.S. economy cannot afford a costly deal that drives up prices for rail shippers and consumers, weakens the workforce, and destabilizes the nation's supply chain.
The bill reemphasizes the Surface Transportation Board's responsibility to conduct a comprehensive review of the proposed transaction to ensure it delivers substantial public benefits, enhanced competition for rail shippers, and protections for the U.S. economy and consumers.
The committee also backed the STB's revised 2001 merger rules, which require applicants to not only preserve rail-to-rail competition but offer enhanced competitive options for railroad shippers.
There are few concerns of a rubber stamping of the $72 billion deal by the STB, which analysts say will restructure the U.S. rail network.
The panel collected 120 million separate pieces of data, including six years of traffic tapes, before the merger filing was even made, and brought on data scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to help crunch the numbers.
This level of scrutiny is necessary to ensure that the deal does not harm the U.S. economy or consumers.
Strong regulatory oversight is crucial in preventing anti-competitive harms and protecting the U.S. economy.
