WASHINGTON — Federal regulators have set a procedural schedule for handling Navajo Transitional Energy Co.’s common carrier complaint against BNSF Railway.
The Surface Transportation Board last month issued a preliminary injunction that ordered BNSF to handle a minimum of 4.2 million tons of coal from NTEC’s Spring Creek mine in Montana to export at the Westshore terminal in British Columbia, and an additional million tons once additional crews and train sets are available.
The board’s preliminary injunction, decided in a 3-2 vote, said that NTEC was likely to prevail on the merits of the case. The board’s order effectively requires BNSF to handle 23 trains per month of coal beginning immediately, and an additional six trains per month as train sets and crews become available.
In a decision this week, the STB said discovery in the case will end on Aug. 14. NTEC’s opening comments are due by Sept. 22, with BNSF’s reply due by Nov. 2 and NTEC’s rebuttal deadline set at Nov. 30.
NTEC’s original complaint was filed with the STB in April, alleging that BNSF failed to provide adequate service from Spring Creek to Westshore. NTEC filed a breach of contract lawsuit against BNSF in federal court in October 2022 related to the railroad’s service.
The coal company’s complaint with the STB asks the board to determine that BNSF has failed to provide adequate service, to define the scope of BNSF’s common carrier obligation, the restoration of adequate service, and unspecified monetary damages.
NTEC backed out of contract negotiations with BNSF last year. The Navajo-owned mining company now ships via BNSF’s common carrier pricing authority.
BNSF had urged regulators to reject NTEC’s request for an emergency service order, arguing that its desire to take advantage of the hot export coal market does not constitute an emergency. BNSF also said it’s still experiencing capacity constraints in the Pacific Northwest, and that ordering BNSF to increase service to Spring Creek mine would require the railroad to reduce service to other Powder River Basin customers.
But the STB said the record showed that BNSF could comply with the order while still providing service to other Powder River Basin coal producers.
The common carrier obligation requires railroads to provide service upon reasonable request.
Not long ago the railroads would be jumping all over this kind of revenue and go as far as have a car builder build enough cars for the cycles. Today however they’re hellbent on telling every potential customer as well as their current ones to shove it…..I see it all the time working on the rails….. it defies all logic to piss away any revenue source yet they do it day in and day out as if on purpose. By last estimates coal line traffic was down somewhere in the 48 percentile yet they tell a big contract to eat it……..still they crow about all the stranded investment money they’ll never get back in the powder river basin because the decline in coal and yet they do something like this……… One can only wonder if they really are trying to kill the railroads off by a thousand pin pricks…every day I go to work and wonder where the railroad I hired out went and watch one failure after another take place right in front of our eyes. It really is disturbing to watch……….
I can understand “not enough crews” but, I can not understand BNSF saying they can not get the cars. Aren’t there coal hoppers stored all over the country? Surely the car owners are tired of paying for storage of them.
Seems like Stupid thinking on BNSF’s side. Not clear why they do not want to handle the business.