Senate Transportation Committee Zeroes In On Wheat Shipment Issues

The U.S. Senate Transportation Committee held a hearing in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday about fixing what farmers describe as a lack of rail service in the middle of a record wheat harvest.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota said there are piles of wheat from last year’s harvest heaped outside of full grain elevators, still waiting to be transported to market. She’s afraid they’ll be talking about the same problem a year from now: “Only we’ll have three years of crop that will either be on the ground or in bins in my state, with producers struggling to try to figure out how they’re going to get the money to put in next year’s crop,” she said. “This isn’t make-believe. This is real.”

Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said railroads need to step up with their wheat cargo shipments.

“I want to hear something more than the fact they will say they are investing a record amount into infrastructure,” said Rockefeller. “Don’t get me wrong — that’s incredibly important for our nation’s long-term economic prosperity, but we need all hands on deck to address this problem now.”

Association of Railroads President and CEO Ed Hamberger told the committee they’ve hired 4,800 more rail workers this year, and last month moved more cargo since 2007.

“This industry recognizes that our customers are not getting the service to which they have become accustomed and to which they need to serve their customers,” said Hamberger. “It is a responsibility that we undertake to restore that service.”

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, who is also on the committee, said that he doesn’t approve of more government regulation, but that Wisconsin utilities aren’t getting enough coal to make electricity and that farmers need to transport crops.

“Those problems are real,” said Johnson. “That’s why we’ve been in contact with the railroads directly. And trust me, they do realize that if they are unable to fulfill that demand, there may be a desire for the type of government action that they would prefer not seeing.”

Rockefeller is sponsoring a bill to give the federal government more authority to investigate and arbitrate between railroads and shippers.