EchoBlog

WASHINGTON (TND) — Just over a year ago, as residents of the village of East Palestine, Ohio, were ending their days, a massive explosion rocked the area and smoke and flame began to belch into the sky from the nearby train tracks.

51 cars of a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed on Feb. 3, 2023. While normally a site of disaster all on its own, roughly 20% of the derailed cars were carrying hazardous materials than then either spilled out into the surrounding terrain or were vaporized as fires broke out across the crash site. Within hours, the town had declared an emergency and officials from multiple local governments as well as Ohio and Pennsylvania state and federal leaders began to respond.

The incident brought immediate national attention to a myriad of issues surrounding railway safety, including the shipping of such hazardous materials -- an estimated 100,000 gallons of which spilled out of the crashed cars -- train maintenance, communication with communities on such rail lines and more. A series of Norfolk Southern derailments, as well as other derailments involving freight trains carrying hazardous materials, coupled with the discovery of questionable accountability practices coincided with comprehensive action from Congress.

One month after the catastrophe, Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, along with Sens. JD Vance, R-Ohio, Bob Casey, D-Pa., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., introduced the Railway Safety Act, a bipartisan piece of legislation that aimed at ensuring that the kind of accident that happened in East Palestine would not repeat. Provisions in the bill include:

• New safety guidelines for all trains carrying high-hazard, flammable materials (noting some such trains were not covered by the current regulations)
• The creation of emergency response plans for trains carrying hazardous materials to be shared with local and state emergency response agencies
• The mandatory installation and maintenance of defect detectors and regular defection examinations on freight journeys (the derailment was ultimately caused by a wheel bearing in overheat failure)
• Requiring railroad operators to staff trains with minimum two-person crews and pay for enhanced training for first responders on their routes
• Funding research into more advanced tank railcars and defect detectors

While the bill picked up more sponsors from both parties, with noted conservatives like Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. as part of the initial group and liberals like Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., joining, and passed through the Senate Commerce Committee in May, it has been since stalled from reaching the Senate floor. At time of writing, the bill's status on the official Congressional website showed -- at time of writing -- showed that it was stuck in the limbo of the Senate legislative calendar.

"This is a good, important, bipartisan bill," Fetterman said in a statement released Saturday.

While the Biden administration has used money, around $1.4 billion, from the bipartisan infrastructure law to spur railway infrastructure and safety improvements in 35 states, and banned the transportation of fossil fuels by train, Washington is looking to Congress and the Railway Safety Act for definitive action on the issue.

“It makes no sense that we could be a year out and have Congress still sitting on its hands,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told a Cleveland news station Friday. “We're urging Congress to not allow America to get to the one-year mark since the Norfolk Southern derailment and still be waiting on this bi-partisan Railway Safety Act.”

He had previously expressed similar sentiments to WKRC during an interview in January.

"There's so much that we have done even in the one year since the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine. We held Norfolk Southern accountable for cleanup and to enhance railroad safety and enhance hazardous material safety in this country,” Buttigieg told the Cincinnati station. "But, there needs to be more. We need Congress to pass that bipartisan Railway Safety Act. It's sitting there, waiting its turn here in Washington. Let's not let it get to the one-year mark and still not have any action on Capitol Hill."

Buttigieg also noted in his comments to WKRC that the industry is pushing back against measures in the bill, like the minimum crew requirement, due to attempts to continue cutting operating costs.

Reporting by The Washington Post corroborates the Transportation Secretary's claims. An article published Saturday notes that while Norfolk Southern and other major rail operators have appeared in public to throw their support behind the reforms in the legislation, privately they have spent a combined $17 million on lobbying and more on donations to members of Congress that oversee transportation like Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Rep. Troy E. Nehls, R-Texas, who heads the rail-focused subcommittee.

“For 150 years, the rail industry has been one of the most powerful industries in the country,” Sen. Brown told the Post. “They have spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying. It’s what they do. They’re very good at it. We forgot how powerful they were.”

Pres. Joe Biden is expected to visit East Palestine sometime this month to mark the anniversary of the derailment crisis.

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