“Ethical markets supports this initiative to help fully electrify US rail services and re-dedicate them to their public interest mandate.
Hazel Henderson, Editor “
Letter by 35 organizations and 100 activists, community leaders and issue experts supports federal rail regulator’s bold statements
Unconventional alliance of environmental, labor, and social justice organizations lauds STB Chairman Martin Oberman’s critique of major rail companies’ freight performance gap and business model that may represent violations of common carrier obligations.
Washington, DC – Solutionary Rail (“SR”), a project that advocates for electrification and the expanded use of US railroads and rail corridors for greater public benefit, delivered a letter to the Surface Transportation Board Chairman Martin Oberman and other policy makers around the US Capitol on Friday. The letter thanks Chairman Oberman for standing up to the large Class 1 railroads and raising important questions about the adequacy of their stewardship for this critical national infrastructure.
[A PDF copy of the letter is available HERE]
In a recent speech Oberman criticized the seven major Class 1 railroad corporations for spending only minimally on capital projects, for regular upkeep of the rail infrastructure ($138 billion) but not substantial expansions or improvements to the system. Instead, payouts for stock buybacks and shareholder dividends were far larger, at $191 billion. Oberman asked his audience, “Where would rail customers, rail workers and the public be if a meaningful portion of that $191 billion have been re-invested in expanding service and making service more predictable and reliable?” 1
SR considers Oberman’s bold public stance a historic opportunity to pivot the US approach to rail infrastructure away from extractive profiteering and toward investing in broad public benefits. The sign on letter was created to demonstrate to Oberman, his regulatory colleagues, and policy makers receiving copies that this approach could generate support that transcends typical issue silos, false dichotomies about jobs or the environment and dangerous rural-urban partisan divides. The 35 national and regional organizations that endorsed the letter and the more than 100 individual leaders who signed on represent a diversity of policy advocates, political approaches and geographic representation that is rarely seen.
Signers onto the letter include labor, environmental, climate, and community based environmental justice organizations, from Railroad Workers United, Warehouse Workers for Justice, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) to Sierra Club and EarthJustice, to Harambee House/Citizens for Climate Justice, Indian Land Tenure Foundation, the Rural Coalition, Honor the Earth, People’s Collective for Environmental Justice from California’s Inland Empire, among many others. Add rail specialists, progressive policy, public health, anti-monopoly and renewable energy organizations and more than 100 leaders spanning all the above including world renowned climate activist Bill McKibben and the letter becomes a testimony to how railroads literally and figuratively connect us all.
“We are proud to bring together this unconventional alliance representing a spectrum of geographic, policy and political perspectives,” said Solutionary Rail campaign director Bill Moyer, the co-author of the 2016 book of the same name. “It is essential that rail regulators and policymakers hear from all those impacted by our rail system – not just shippers.”