Railway Man:
Bucyrus:
Well in my opinion, the bill is being officially represented to be something quite different than what it really is, and a lot of people agree with me. We may be right or wrong, but if we are right, the experts who are hired by railroads to explain the bill may be giving them the wrong information.
Could be, though to me it seems fairly straightforward.
There's risk in everything railways do. The "we" who are supposed to have these and similar answers for railway senior management try to mitigate our risk (because we really don't want to be fired) by spending a lot of time in D.C. talking to members of Congress, senior legislative staff, and senior administration officials, to seek clarification about the proposed rules, schedules, and effects. I'm reasonably confident that railways aren't assessing it wrong.
RWM
I'm curious how you can even assess the impact of a bill that is more than 1000 pages long and wasn't available in its final form at the time the House voted on it.
It's understandable that politically, a railroad can't come out and say "We think this bill will be an anchor on the economy and detrimental to our business."
Railway Man, have you read the whole bill, and briefed anyone on the likely effects on the economics of rail transport? I'm not trying to be argumentative, just curious. I haven't read it-just a few selected portions. I expect it is hugely complex and will have effects that are very hard to predict now, along with the fact that there are a lot of unknowns in the world that will change outcomes as well.
I still see the greatest impact on railroads as how the overall economy will be affected.