NGFA敦促STB改善规则纠正轨道载体费用

The National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) on Nov. 6 submitted a detailed22-page statement向联邦表面运输委员会（STB）敦促其对10月7日提议的政策声明进行重大更改，该声明旨在鼓励I级铁路运营商修改其兴就兴就的兴趣和辅助惯例和费用，以使其商业上公平，以及如果是造成此类费用的延迟的原因，则相互互惠。

While commending the agency for developing the draft policy statement and conducting an exhaustive May 22-23 public hearing that demonstrated rail carriers’ egregious demurrage and accessorial practices, the NGFA said its “strong preference” was that the STB utilize its statutory authority and precedent to determine proactively that specific railroad practices are unlawful and direct that they amend their tariffs accordingly. The NGFA’s preferred approach would allow rail customers to submit “show-cause” filings or petitions to the STB calling on the agency to declare that a given carrier had not complied and order that the railroad take corrective action. NGFA said “this would be a much more accessible, cost-effective and timely approach than the STB issuing general policy guidelines” to be fleshed out only through formal complaint proceedings.

声明说：“ NGFA对（STB）的提议感到失望，该提议不制定明亮的规则，以管理铁路运营商的遣散性和附属关税的商业公平性，商业可实现性和互惠性。”“正如已经充分证明的那样，I级铁路几乎没有兴趣或动机来修改其遣散性和访问政策，以符合该机构开发的最佳原则和指导……[T]这里非常非常适合……。little prospect that the current situation will improve in any demonstrable way unless significant improvements are made to the (STB’s) proposed approach.”

If the STB retains its current proposed approach of issuing policy guidelines, the NGFA urged that it make the following specific improvements:

• 提出规则或以其他方式采用简化和缩写的程序时间表，以解决托运人和接收者提出的兴趣和接入投诉，以便在不超过45天内做出决定，并有一个单独的15天时间表，以确定涉及不正确的开票和争议的争议- 解决方案关税条款，条件和实践。
• 建立一个咨询委员会，以向STB提供有关实施该机构有关遣散和接入实践的一般原则的意见。这样的咨询委员会将有助于继续监视铁路对其兴就兴就的申请和访问规则，实践和指控的更改，以保证对STB的一般原则进行修改或更新。

NGFA还建议STB对其拟议的政策指南进行重大改进，以解决农业设施在商业上不公平，相互或无法实现的铁路实践。这些改进是在这里概述。

NGFA的声明得到了其他四个国家农业组织的支持：农业零售商协会，国家油料处理器协会，北美米勒斯协会和宠物食品研究所。