(NAFB.com) – Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin called on the Surface Transportation Board to review existing exemptions for certain commodities like paper, forest products, manufactured goods, and food products. She wants the Board to take action to ensure companies that ship these goods can address harmful service and pricing issues. These outdated exemptions prohibit rail shippers from seeking recourse at the STB. Revoking the exemptions would also provide greater access to a newly finalized rule that will begin to address unreliable rail service and the high costs of rail shipping for businesses by increasing competition in the freight rail industry. Baldwin asked the Board to revisit their decades-old exemptions on the critical commodities that were put in place before the rail industry consolidated, reducing competition, raising costs, and hurting businesses in rural America. “For too long, businesses and growers had to rely on fewer and fewer rail carriers,” she says.