EPISODE · May 19, 2026 · 4 MIN
$240B Transportation Bill, BNSF-UP Rate War Explodes, & Cargo Fraud Schemes Surge | The Morning Minute
from FreightWaves NOW · host FreightWaves
In this episode, we kick things off in Washington, where the U.S. House of Representatives has just unveiled the BUILD America 250 Act, a sprawling federal surface transportation reauthorization package. This massive legislation allocates $240 billion in authorized and direct funding for trucking, rail, aviation, and ports, including a historic $102 billion investment in passenger and freight rail—the largest federal rail commitment since Amtrak's creation—along with $110 billion for roads and bridges, $17 billion for port upgrades, and $25 billion for airport modernization. Debate on the bill begins Thursday, just months before the current authorization expires in September. Shifting gears to the rails, we examine a brutal rate war erupting between two Class I giants as they battle for freight customers in front of federal regulators. Union Pacific has filed a 129-page complaint with the Surface Transportation Board alleging that BNSF Railway hiked reciprocal switching charges by as much as 472 percent at locations where UP recently won or grew business from BNSF customers. UP claims BNSF canceled longstanding unit grain train switching rates and forced customers to pay nearly triple the cost under merchandise train rates, while BNSF has rejected entire unit train shipments this month, allegedly to make UP service noncompetitive and drive shippers back to BNSF. Finally, we unpack the evolving threat landscape in supply chain security as traditional cargo theft tactics give way to far more sophisticated criminal operations. While overall theft incidents declined to 574 in the first quarter of 2026, deceptive pickup fraud schemes using fake identities and forged credentials jumped 31 percent year over year, with nearly half of those fraud incidents occurring in California. Electronics remained the most frequently targeted cargo at 17 percent of all incidents, while auto and parts thefts surged 142 percent from Q4 2025, prompting warnings from security experts that organized criminal networks are heavily investing in fraud infrastructure that traditional security measures like padlocks simply cannot stop. Follow the FreightWaves NOW Podcast Other FreightWaves Shows Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What this episode covers
In this episode, we kick things off in Washington, where the U.S. House of Representatives has just unveiled the BUILD America 250 Act, a sprawling federal surface transportation reauthorization package. This massive legislation allocates $240 billion in authorized and direct funding for trucking, rail, aviation, and ports, including a historic $102 billion investment in passenger and freight rail—the largest federal rail commitment since Amtrak's creation—along with $110 billion for roads and bridges, $17 billion for port upgrades, and $25 billion for airport modernization. Debate on the bill begins Thursday, just months before the current authorization expires in September. Shifting gears to the rails, we examine a brutal rate war erupting between two Class I giants as they battle for freight customers in front of federal regulators. Union Pacific has filed a 129-page complaint with the Surface Transportation Board alleging that BNSF Railway hiked reciprocal switching charges by as much as 472 percent at locations where UP recently won or grew business from BNSF customers. UP claims BNSF canceled longstanding unit grain train switching rates and forced customers to pay nearly triple the cost under merchandise train rates, while BNSF has rejected entire unit train shipments this month, allegedly to make UP service noncompetitive and drive shippers back to BNSF. Finally, we unpack the evolving threat landscape in supply chain security as traditional cargo theft tactics give way to far more sophisticated criminal operations. While overall theft incidents declined to 574 in the first quarter of 2026, deceptive pickup fraud schemes using fake identities and forged credentials jumped 31 percent year over year, with nearly half of those fraud incidents occurring in California. Electronics remained the most frequently targeted cargo at 17 percent of all incidents, while auto and parts thefts surged 142 percent from Q4 2025, prompting warnings from security experts that organized criminal networks are heavily investing in fraud infrastructure that traditional security measures like padlocks simply cannot stop. Follow the FreightWaves NOW Podcast Other FreightWaves Shows Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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$240B Transportation Bill, BNSF-UP Rate War Explodes, & Cargo Fraud Schemes Surge | The Morning Minute
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