In June 1903 the CSX Corporation offered to buy Texas Gas Resources. Texas Gas was the parent company of American Commercial Barge Line (ACBL), the nation's largest barge line. If the merger proceeds to fruition, CSX will control two major railroads, Chessie and Seaboard; a major barge line; and a trucking company. Because this multimodal ownership includes both barge and rail, the acquisition raised legal questions concerning the Panama Canal Act specifically and competition generally.

Merger policy, as part of broad economic policy, should aim to maximize society's net economic surplus. In short, that means producing at lowest cost the goods and services a society demands. Actions that contribute to achieving that goal are worthwhile; those that do not are not. Competition is frequently used as an index of whether net economic surplus is increasing or decreasing. The reason competition is an index is that under per feet competition, firms are forced to produce at lowest cost and also to price their goods at that cost. It can be argued that (a) if mergers do not harm competition or if they improve it, they should not be discouraged or (bl if mergers harm competition they must at least produce efficiency gains that lower costs enough to offset the harm done to competition. If both are true (ie, no harm plus efficiency gains) then there will be compelling motives (from a sound public policy viewpoint) to approve a merger.