NIT LEAGUE BACKS CN-BNSF ON MERGER MORATORIUM ISSUE

NIT LEAGUE BACKS CN-BNSF ON MERGER MORATORIUM ISSUE    Canadian National Railway and Burlington Northern Santa Fe have won over the nation’s largest shippers’ group in their move to win a legal stay of a 15-month moratorium on rail mergers imposed by the Surface Transportation Board.
   The National Industrial Transportation League urged the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. to grant a recent petition by CN and BNSF for a stay on the moratorium.
   However, Ed Rastatter, NIT League’s director of policy, said that the group’s backing of overturning the moratorium does not necessarily mean it supports the proposed CN-BNSF merger.
      “We may support it (the merger) or we may oppose it,” Rastatter said. But the NIT League disagrees with the STB on halting the merger case while it    works to come up with new regulations covering rail mergers. “We think they (CN and BNSF) deserve their day in court.”