SPECIAL HEARINGS ON LESSENING OIL DEPENDENCE THROUGH GREATER COAL USE BEFORE THE PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON COAL SUPPLEMENTAL STATEMENT OF HARRY B. BARTLEY This information contained in this statement is supplied in response to inquiries by members of the Commission on the occasion of my oral testimony on May 30, 1979. Those inquiries focused on two areas: (a) the level of freight rates on coal unit train movements which are comparable to the Celanese movement between Hayden, Colorado and Kings Mill, Texas; and (b) the Celanese position with respect to the proposed rail deregulation legislation. COMPARABLE COAL RATES In the capital incentive rate case involving the frieght rate to our plant in Pampa, Texas, which I refer to in my earlier testimony, Celanese identified in its evidence before the Interstate Commerce Commission the following freight rates, then in effect, for comparable coal unit train service: The freight rate proposed by the railroads and approved by the I.C.C. for application to our traffic, $10.56 per ton, equates to 14.9 mills per ton mile. This Commission can thus appreciate the wide difference between the freight rate imposed upon Celanese and the rates for comparable services enjoyed by many other coal shippers. The fact that this type of wide disparity in rates is permitted to exist by the I.C.C. highlights the uncertainty which a company faces when it attempts to determine what type of rate it might expect to pay for coal transportation should it commit to a coal conversion project. I think the I.C.C.'s decisions in the San Antonio case and a very recent decision involving a movement for Southwestern Electric Power Company further illustrate this problem. In both of those cases, the I.C.C. struck down coal unit train rates advanced by the railroads and ruled that the maximum reasonable rate would be approximately ten mills per ton mile! How the I.C.C. can reach the result it did in the San Antonio and Southwestern Electric cases and yet permit the railroads to charge such a high rate upon the Celanese traffic, defies our 76 |