FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 15, 2023 

CONTACT: Ashley Woolheater, woolheater@openmarketsinstitute.org

WASHINGTON - Open Markets Institute Policy Director Phillip Longman released the following statement on today’s decision by the Surface Transportation Board to approve the merger of Canadian Pacific and Kansas City Southern railroads:

“The STB’s approval of this merger underscores the need to reimpose price regulation and meaningful common carriage requirements on railroads as America did until 1980. Deregulation can only work where there is still competition. By bringing further concentration to an already highly monopolized industry, the STB makes a mockery of the idea that market forces alone can constrain the predatory behavior of the hedge funds that now control America’s vital rail infrastructure.”

Longman has studied and written extensively about present-day railroad monopolies, including in a piece in the Washington Monthly entitled “Amtrak Joe vs. the Modern Robber Barons.” During the 2022 rail workers strike he released a detailed statement for Open Markets on how to bring fair competition, greater safety, and a more even playing field for workers to the rail industry. 

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The Open Markets Institute is a team of journalists, researchers, lawyers, economists, and advocates working together to expose and reverse the stranglehold that corporate monopolies have on our country.  Learn more at www.openmarketsinstitute.org.