A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to improve the efficiency of rail operations at the state ports by repealing the statutes establishing the north carolina ports railway commission and transferring its assets and liabilities to the state ports authority.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  Part 11 of Article 10 of Chapter 143B of the General Statutes, G.S. 143B‑469 through G.S. 143B‑469.3, is repealed.
SECTION 2.  G.S. 120‑123(25) is repealed.
SECTION 3.  G.S. 143B‑454(a)(4) reads as rewritten:
"(4)	Be authorized and empowered to acquire, construct, maintain, equip and operate any wharves, docks, piers, quays, elevators, compresses, refrigeration storage plants, warehouses and other structures, and any and all facilities needful for the convenient use of the same in the aid of commerce, including the dredging of approaches thereto, and the construction of beltline roads and highways and bridges and causeways thereon, and other bridges and causeways necessary or useful in connection therewith, and shipyards, shipping facilities, and transportation facilities incident thereto and useful or convenient for the use thereof, and to acquire, construct, and maintain, but not operate, such rail facilities as may be necessary or useful in connection with the operation of the State Ports, provided that nothing in this subdivision shall be construed as requiring or allowing the North Carolina State Ports Authority to become a carrier by rail subject to the federal laws regulating those carriers;"
SECTION 4.  Within 30 days of the date this act becomes law, the North Carolina Ports Railway Commission shall provide the North Carolina State Ports Authority with a complete list of its assets and liabilities. All of the assets, real and personal, tangible and intangible, and all of the liabilities, including contractual obligations, of the North Carolina Ports Railway Commission are hereby transferred to the North Carolina State Ports Authority. If and to the extent that such transfers require the execution of any documents or instruments of transfer by the North Carolina Ports Railway Commission, those documents may be executed by the current officers and members of the Commission and shall be executed within 60 days of the date of ratification of this act.
SECTION 5. As part of a plan to reorganize and consolidate rail operations at the State Ports, the North Carolina State Ports Authority may sell or transfer the Beaufort and Morehead Railway, Inc., or any part thereof or interest therein, to a terminal switching or short line railroad company, or to the North Carolina Railroad Company, on such terms and conditions as the parties may agree to.
SECTION 6.  Section 1 of this act becomes effective 60 days after this act becomes law. The remainder of this act is effective when it becomes law.