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i • TRS TRUCKING SXAMPLfi: MARRfiT SETS COMPBTITIVfi RATBS All those who have been working to right the balance between captive shippers end monopoly railroads the past few years have long been aware of two things about railroad spokesmen: 1. Their refusal to answer directly why they, alone among major industries in the United States, should continue to have special privileges and exemptions long after the railroads have been relieved of most regulatory restraints where there is competition. 2. Their tactic of dragging red herrings across the trail. A most recent example of this was the Association of American Railroad's response to introduction of the Clayton Act Amendments of 1987 by Senator Dennis DeConcini, Senator Alan K. Simpson, Representative Mike Synar, Representative Dan Glickman, Representative Hank Brown and 20 other House members. Failure of 5.443 and H.R.941 to include the motor carrier (or trucking) industry in the bill's antitrust changes led Tom Tidd, vice president, law, for the AAR to say that the bill: ". discriminates against railroads even though trucks are regulated by the ICC, you can't enjoin them but you can go after us ." The AAR knows very well that it is virtually impossible for truckers to create or maintain a monopoly. There are Interstate Highways and good publicly built and maintained highways below the Interstate standards that are open to any motor carrier. Right of Bntry is no longer a problem, even though there is still some regulation of trucking and the industry is divided over how far deregulation should go. It is railroad monopoly pricing that is hurting captive shippers, not trucks. The lead editorial in The Journal of Commerce for February 19, 1987 (attached) makes it completely clear that there is no need for including trucking in an examination of railroads' misuse of their monopoly powers to overcharge captive shippers. I commend a reading of this editorial to you as an aid in demolishing railroad arguments against the Clayton Act Amendments of 1987, H.R.941 and 5.443. Weeks before the 1987 bills were introduced, research was done on whether the proviso in Section 16 of the Clayton Act had ever been used in a lawsuit involving trucking. Both the Library of Congress Legislative Reference Service and a law firm specializing in transportation antitrust matters, Grove, Jaskiewicz, Gilliam and Cobert, confirmed that the proviso has been applied only in cases involving railroads. Motor carrier regulation has been in effect more than 50 years, end no use has been found by truckers or their customers for this act. As far as trucking is concerned in 1987, it is a non-issue.