Union Pacific Wins Test of Board’s Carrier Rate-Setting Rule

The Eighth Circuit struck down a federal transportation board’s regulatory process for determining rates between rail carriers and shippers.

Union Pacific Railroad Co. and the Association of American Railroads showed that the US Surface Transportation Board’s final rule establishing a procedure for challenging the reasonableness of rail carrier rates in “smaller cases” is unlawful, said Chief Judge Lavenski R. Smith of the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said Tuesday.

Smith cited the US Supreme Court’s June decision in Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, which overturned the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine of deferring to administrative agencies’ interpretations of ...