§ 1000.10 - Availability of statements of policy, interpretations, and other matters not required to be published in the Federal Register.

(a) The Surface Transportation Board, in performing its duties under the Interstate Commerce Act, frequently formulates and adopts statements of general policy, or interpretations of general applicability, and other matters not required to be published in the Federal Register in rendering decisions in proceedings involving the operating rights, financial structures, or rates and practices of brokers, electric railways, express companies, freight forwarders, motor carriers, pipelines, private car companies, rail carriers, and water carriers. Because such statements of policy and interpretations of general applicability are scattered throughout more than 320,000 pages in over 400 volumes of Board reports and because such policies and interpretations must be revised or repealed from time to time as required by changing technology and economic conditions, it is not feasible, and is wholly impractical, to state them separately and publish them in the Federal Register. Further, to be fully understood, such statements of general policy or interpretations of general applicability must be read in context in the Board's reports where they are explained, revised, or repealed in relation to the factual situations to which they are applicable. Notice is hereby given that those portions of the printed reports of decisions of the Surface Transportation Board which contain statements of general policy or interpretations of general applicability are digested, arranged topically, and indexed both in the multivolume set “Interstate Commerce Acts Annotated” (supplemented monthly by the “Advance Bulletin of Interstate Commerce Acts Annotated”) and in the index-digests in the backs of bound volumes of Surface Transportation Board reports. The multivolume set, “Interstate Commerce Acts Annotated” and the three series of Surface Transportation Board reports (i.e., I.C.C., M.C.C. and Val. Rep.) are published and sold by the Government Printing Office, and are sent free to Depository Libraries (44 U.S.C. 82), which include all State libraries, two libraries in each congressional district, the libraries of land grant colleges, and other libraries. Copies are also available for public examination in the Surface Transportation Board Library in Washington, DC. The indexes in these publications are maintained in compliance with the provision in 5 United States Code 552(a)(2). The “Advance Bulletin of Interstate Commerce Acts Annotated” and recent reports, which have not yet been included in published indexes, are available upon request from the Office of the Secretary, Surface Transportation Board.

(b) Because of the large volume of reports, it is the policy of the Board to print for publication in bound volumes only reports of those cases decided by the entire Board or by a division thereof and more significant reports of employee boards. With few exceptions, reports and orders of employee boards are duplicated (“no print reports and orders”) and distributed to the parties and made available to the press. From time to time “no print reports and orders” are cited as precedents in other cases. Therefore, notice is hereby given that duplicated “no print reports and orders”, are indexed by docket number and title, and filed by subject matter and are available for public inspection in the Section of Reference Services of the Board in Washington, DC. These indexes and files are maintained in compliance with the provision in 5 United States Code 552(a)(2). Persons outside Washington, DC, can obtain information about, or copies of, such duplicated reports by writing to the Secretary of the Board.