The Railroad Revitalization & Regulatory Reform Act of 1976 & the Staggers Rail Act of 1980 gave freight RR increased freedom to price their services according to market conditions. This report discusses how rates & service quality for freight rail transportation have changed since 1990 & actions being taken by the Surface Transportation Board (STB) & others to address service quality issues. It provides info. on (1) the environment within which RR rates have been set since 1990, (2) how RR rates have changed since 1990, (3) how RR service quality has changed since 1990, & (4) actions taken by the STB to address RR service problems.

For the past several decades, a climate of deregulation has encompassed industries ranging from public utilities to mass transportation. Harry Martin Trebing has been at the forefront of this debate as one of the foremost specialists in the world in the field of public utility regulation. Warren J. Samuels and Edythe S. Miller have collected a series of articles that assess Harry Trebing's theories on public utility regulation while examining his towering contribution to the field.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent agency that works for Congress. The GAO watches over Congress, and investigates how the federal government spends taxpayers dollars. The Comptroller General of the United States is the leader of the GAO, and is appointed to a 15-year term by the U.S. President. The GAO wants to support Congress, while at the same time doing right by the citizens of the United States. They audit, investigate, perform analyses, issue legal decisions and report anything that the government is doing. This is one of their reports.