PROCEEDINGS: CONFERENCE ON INTERCITY BUS TRANSPORTATION. REMARKS OF MIMI CUTLER

The focus of today's meeting on reforming economic regulation is not unique to the bus industry. In the past three years, the growing recognition of the failures of federal entry and price regulation have led to legislation reducing federal control of airlines, railroads, and trucks. While the extent of reform enacted for each differs, it rests on a single factual premise that restrictive federal motor carrier regulation, a product of the depression, can no longer serve the needs of the public. Today, 45 years after the original enactment of motor carrier legislation, our national problems are double-digit inflation and the fuel crisis. The facts of the 1980's are that the rate bureaus and entry restrictions result in higher prices and poorer service, and the public can't afford either one. In recognition of these facts, Congress has already limited rate bureau activities and substantially opened entry in rail, motor carrier, and airline industries. The logic, indeed the necessity, of these forms extends with equal weight to the intercity bus industry. (Author)