WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will nominate Patrick J. Fuchs to serve another term on the Surface Transportation Board, the White House announced this week.
Fuchs joined the board in January 2019. Previously, he was a staff member for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, where he worked on legislation including 2016’s first reauthorization of the STB since its creation in 1996, and a number of aspects of 2015’s FAST (Fixing Amercia’s Surface Transportation) Act. He also a policy analyst and Presidential Managament Fellow at the Office of Management and Budget, where he managed railroad and maritime regulatory reviews. He also served at the U.S. State Department, where he was honored for his economic analysis. His current term expired on Jan. 17, but he continues to serve under the board’s statutory holdover provision.
A Wisconsin native, Fuchs earned a B.A. with distinction in economics and political science and an MPA from the University of Wisconsin.
Still to be addressed is the vacancy created by the forthcoming departure of STB Chairman Martin J. Oberman, who announced in November that he would not seek reappoint, but would stay on under the holdover provision, saying, “I still have much work to do any many initiatives to complete” [see “STB chairman Oberman will not seek reappointment …,” Trains News Wire, Nov. 16, 2023]. Oberman’s term expired Dec. 31.
