President Obamas budget proposes to have the Federal Railroad Administration start charging for some of its safety inspection services, to bring in $50 million in fee income during the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, the Journal of Commerce reports.
The railroad safety user fee is intended, the budget said, to help offset the costs associated with railroad safety inspectors and their activities.
Obama also tucked in a request to spend $4.5 million for the FRA to hire 31 full-time equivalent new rail inspection and grant program workers.
A government spokesperson said the idea of a safety user fee has been around for some time, and was previously authorized but never put into the budget proposal. The FRA would have to develop a plan on how much to charge for what services, and introduce it through a formal rule-making process.
Up to now, the FRA has not charged user fees for its services. It does assess civil penalties for railroad infractions of agency rules, but those are paid directly into the federal treasury while the safety user charges would be a new fee income for the FRA.
The proposal comes as the president is injecting billions of dollars of new federal spending into the rail network to spur development of inter-city passenger rail service.
Much of that money, both from an $8 billion stimulus program and an ongoing $1 billion continued yearly allocation, will go into existing freight railroad lanes to either add new passenger train service or improve average speeds where that service already operates.
(This item appeared Feb. 3, 2010, in the Journal of Commerce.)
This some very resourceful squeezing of funds. During my time I noticed the BNSF made a lot of attempts to please the FRA. One thing for sure is that the FRA will visit just about every place on the system at least twice a year (usually during MIR). The "Boss of bosses", the FRA in town means do everything by the book. Most of the big 6 railroads can afford "extra expenses" to the FRA fund without a ripple. Obama is creative.
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Color me skeptical. If the FRA starts charging, will the program become like vehicle inspections? Ya know, like Pennsylvania where ya gotta go in periodically and get inspected, and an inspection sticker is placed in the windshield until next time. Then any other time, as long as the sticker is good, they won't stop and inspect the vehicle.
