The Surface Transportation Board (STB) was created with the ICC Termination Act of 1995 as a successor agency to the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was created in 1887.
Established on January 1, 1996, the STB assumed some of the Interstate Commerce Commission’s regulatory functions when it was abolished. Other ICC regulatory functions were eliminated or assigned to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration or Bureau of Transportation Statistics within DOT.
The agency has jurisdiction over railroad rate, practice, service issues and rail restructuring transactions, including mergers, line sales, line construction, and line abandonments. The STB also has jurisdiction over certain passenger rail matters, the intercity bus industry, non-energy pipelines, household goods carriers’ tariffs, and rate regulation of non-contiguous domestic water transportation (marine freight shipping involving the mainland United States, Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories and possessions).
The STB was administratively aligned with the U.S. Department of Transportation from 1996 until December 2015. The STB Reauthorization Act of 2015 designated the STB as a wholly independent federal agency on December 18, 2015.
The STB has five board members, one of which serves as the chairman. The STB staff is divided into six offices and an Equal Employment Opportunity office.
This article incorporates public domain information from STB.gov.
