Federal user fees for carriers of certain hazardous materials (hazmat) will stay where they are for the registration year 2001-2002, which begins July 1, 2001. The U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA), which had proposed last December a proceeding to temporarily lower the fees, says registration fees will remain at $300 for small businesses and $2,000 for all other businesses.

The Bush administration's budget for RSPA , which has jurisdiction over hazmat transportation, increases RSPA 's allocation from $36 million to $42 million. A footnote in the budget table says the increase includes $12 million in users' fees. A House appropriations committee source says that DOT has a surplus from fees collected from carriers in the Hazardous Materials Registration Program. In addition, the source says the fee revenue was specifically designated for RSPA 's Emergency Preparedness Grants to states to train local hazmat incident responders and improve response plans and therefore should not be used for other RSPA programs.

RSPA says it is delaying any final action on reducing fees until Congress passes DOT's fiscal 2002 budget (for the year beginning October 1).

The Surface Transportation Board (STB) has issued a decision addressing federal pre-emption over local regulation in a case involving a proposed rail-truck transfer facility for distributing automobiles to New England. The facility is to be located in Ayer, Mass.

The town had been battling the facility-siting proposal from the Boston and Maine, Springfield Terminal Railway and Guilford Transportation Industries. The Board's decision, if adopted by the court, could reinforce transportation companies' ongoing campaigns to prevent local regulators from blocking the siting of new terminals.

The New England facility case was referred to the Board by the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, where the companies petitioned to overturn regulations that Ayer imposed on the planned facility. The town claims the proposed facility poses a threat to local drinking water and represents a "noisome trade" that can be prohibited under its laws.

Congress in various statutes, including the Staggers Act, has provided that federal rather than state or local laws apply to railroad construction and other activities, says STB chair Linda Morgan.

In its decision, the Board disagreed with the town's argument that federal Safe Water Drinking and Clean Water Drinking Acts give Ayer authority to regulate the new facility. The Board concluded that Ayer is using those federal statutes "as a pretext to do what Congress expressly precluded: interfere with interstate commerce by imposing a local permitting or environmental process as a prerequisite to the railroad's ability to conduct its operations."