It is hump day, which means it’s the best day of the week—the release of the weekly American Association of Railroads (AAR) tonnage index! In this packed episode, we dive deep into the legal and insurance crises gripping the freight industry, analyze how extreme heatwaves are altering refrigerated shipping, track global energy volatility, and break down the massive intermodal surge redefining logistics. Featured Guests: Ted Bassett – Head of the Personal Injury Law Firm Group at Merrick Niles Openheimer – Chief Revenue Officer at CoverWell Matt Munster – Chief Economist at Breakthrough Bill Stevens – Editor and Writer at Trains Magazine / Trains Pro ⁠Follow the FreightWaves Today Podcast⁠ ⁠Other FreightWaves Shows⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

FreightWaves Today | July 1

FreightCasts

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** FreightCasts

## Transcript

Welcome to FreightWaves. Today it is hump day. It's also the best day of the week, which is the weekly American Association Railroad's weekly tonnage index. We're going to get to that later in the show, so stay tuned. We're going to find out how the industrial economy is performing.

Our guest today, we have a lot of things to talk about. We're going to dive deep into the insurance conversation and the liability conversation, something that's getting a lot of news, a lot of attention since Montgomery, but it's also these nuclear lawsuits that keep piling up.

We're going to dive into that today. We've got folks from the insurance industry, we've got folks from the legal practice. They're going to tell us all about how to interpret these various events that keep piling up. It feels like so much is happening, Malcolm. So much is coming to a head right now as we are in the thick of it of Super Bowl week and trucking. And yeah, it's a lot. We've got a lot to get to.

In the United States, this is a heat advisory. We'll talk about the impact of that on freight. Refrigerated is absolutely hot. Oh, I like the fun that you just made. See? I got the notes. You're on it. You're on it. I got it. I got it. I bring it every day here at Freightways today. But what's interesting about that is that now, because it's so hot, 114 degrees, which I'll talk about on my sonar update. Of course. 114 degree heat advisory inside of sonar.

And one of the things that happens is that there are certain commodities, things like chemicals even, wine, that they will not normally haul in temperature-controlled refrigerated. Like you think about like chocolate and ice cream. Those things are obvious. Dairy. But there is a time when it gets so hot, particularly over a holiday weekend, that you've got to use a temperature-controlled trailer. We're going to talk about what the impact of that is because this is absolutely a very hot weekend. And it's a weekend that a lot of beverages move. You've got water. I moved to a lot of water. I moved to a lot of beer.

I moved a lot of soda. That's all happening this week. Let's get to the headlines, and then we're going to get right into all of the action that's happening this week in Freight. We kick things off in Washington, where a major Supreme Court ruling is dramatically reshaping presidential control over independent regulatory agencies.

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday issued a 6-3 decision in Trump v. Slaughter, ruling that President Trump can remove members of the Federal Trade Commission without having to show cause, such as poor performance or misconduct. The ruling overturns a 1935 precedent and is likely to decide the fate of Robert E. Primus, the longtime Democratic member of the Surface Transportation Board, whom Trump fired last August, without citing any specific reason.

The decision directly affects the STB, which regulates the nation's freight railroads, appr...

FreightWaves Today | July 1

Transcript

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FreightWaves Today | July 1

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.