Trump nominates two for Surface Transportation Board

[mahatmakanejeeves]

March 02, 2018 Class I, Freight, News, Regulatory

Trump nominates two for STB

Written by Frank N. Wilner, Contributing Editor

A Senate committee staffer and a lawyer for a commuter rail agency have been nominated to fill vacant seats at the Surface Transportation Board. Current Acting Chairman Ann Begeman is expected to be named permanent chairman. ... Patrick J. Fuchs, a senior staff member of the Senate Commerce Committee, reporting to Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.), and Michelle A. Schultz, associate general counsel for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), are President Trump’s nominees for the two vacant Republican STB seats. ... The STB has exclusive jurisdiction over railroad common carrier unreasonable rate and service disputes and railroad mergers. .... The STB has no statutory quorum requirement, and has functioned with a single member. Currently, there are two members – Republican Acting Chairman Ann Begeman and Democrat Deb Miller. .... The open Democratic seat, which expires Dec. 31, 2018, was voluntarily vacated in 2017 by former Chairman Dan Elliott, who resigned to enter private law practice.
....

Since joining the Senate Commerce Committee staff in January 2015, Fuchs has participated in the drafting and passage of five bills directly affecting freight and passenger railroads, including the 2015 Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act, intended to improve the Board’s dispute resolution processes. .... Previously, Fuchs was a policy analyst with the White House Office of Management and Budget, a State Department Presidential Management Fellow serving in The Hague, Netherlands, and a research assistant at the National Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research and Education. ... From the University of Wisconsin, Fuchs earned a double-major undergraduate degree in economics and political science, and a master’s degree in public policy analysis and management, with an emphasis on transportation policy, economics and statistics. He participated in an international academic program with the University of Singapore, focusing on international policy and economics.
....

Schultz has been SEPTA’s deputy general counsel since January 2014, focusing primarily on procurement, major capital projects and commuter-rail regulation. She joined SEPTA in 2006 as manager, and later director, of legislative affairs. ... Earlier in her career, Schultz was an associate with the Philadelphia-based law firm of White and Williams, dealing with bankruptcy and commercial litigation, and a law clerk with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. ... Schultz earned an undergraduate degree in English from Penn State, a master’s degree in government administration from the University of Pennsylvania, and a law degree from Widener University. Her husband, James. D. Schultz, served as associate White House counsel to President Trump from Jan. 23, 2017, to November, when he returned to private law practice.
....

The STB has been ducking decision-making on high-profile cases since Elliott’s departure in 2016, with Acting Chairman Begeman choosing to hold in abeyance decision-making on those cases pending the arrival of additional board members. The STB chairman controls the docket.

[elleng]

1. For information, the STB stepped into the roles off the FIRST regulatory agency,

the Interstate Commerce Commission. The STB was established in 1996 to assume some of the regulatory functions that had been administered by the Interstate Commerce Commission.

The first agency was the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), established by Congress in 1887 to regulate the railroads (and, later, motor carriers, inland waterways, and oil companies).

[duforsure]

2. And his removal from office.