A stamp the rail regulator has used since 2011 was never in its rulebook, and the rule that finally puts it there also lets one kind of motion be approved before the objection window closes

The Surface Transportation Board decides some things with a stamp.

It has done that since 2011, and until Monday the practice appeared nowhere in its regulations. A final rule filed for public inspection that morning puts it there, at a new 49 CFR 1011.8, and widens it while it is at it.

What the stamp is

The stamp goes on the pleading itself rather than on a decision written about the pleading. It carries the agency seal, the decided date, the service date, the decision identification number, the title and signature of whoever issued it, the word approved, and a space for a notation.

The Board started using it after a policy statement in Docket EP 709 served on November 14, 2011, for uncontested routine matters where nothing needed explaining. Unopposed requests for more time are the common case. So are protective orders.

The new section, and the exception in it

Under 1011.8(a) the stamp is available to the Chief Counsel and to the Chief of Passenger Rail and Investigations, for uncontested requests inside authority already delegated to them, and only where the request either says it is unopposed by all parties or has gone unopposed to the close of the reply period.

Paragraph (b) is the part worth reading twice. A motion for protective order filed under 49 CFR 1104.14 may be approved before the reply period expires.

The Board explains that in a footnote. Those motions are nearly always unopposed, and they are usually filed at the same time as the substantive filing that contains the confidential material, which means both carry the same 20 day clock. Waiting out the clock on the protective order would therefore keep every other party away from the confidential material until after their own replies were due. The footnote ends by encouraging anyone who wants to reply to such a motion to do it quickly.

For the proposition that the wait was never required in the first place, the rule cites a D.C. Circuit decision of April 3, 2026, Riffin v. STB, which it reads as holding that the Board's regulations created no obligation to wait 20 days before ruling on a motion that appeared uncontested.

Who else picked up authority

The Chief Counsel gains explicit authority to resolve discovery disputes, to take late-filed procedural motions, to revise deadlines set by the entire Board, and to set reply deadlines other than the 20 day default. Two genuinely new powers sit alongside those: approving and where necessary conditioning certain transactions involving motor carriers of passengers, and waiving advance notice in certain exempt acquisition and operation proceedings.

The Chief of Passenger Rail and Investigations gains authority over evidence and routine procedure in proceedings under 49 U.S.C. 24308. Appeals from anything decided under delegated authority still go to the Board.

No comment period

None of it went out for comment. The Board relies on the Administrative Procedure Act exemption for rules of agency organisation, procedure and practice, and separately on good cause, on the ground that the changes go to who inside the agency issues a decision and how an approval is expressed rather than to anyone's rights. Because notice and comment did not apply, the Regulatory Flexibility Act did not either, and the Board determined the action is not a rule under the Congressional Review Act.

It was decided on August 13 by Board Members Fuchs, Hedlund, Kloster and Schultz. It takes effect on September 17.