Ohio Senators propose Railroad Safety Act

The Railway Safety Act of 2023, co-sponsored by US sentries Sherrod Brown and JD Vance, a Democrat and Republican respectively, and four other parties from both parties, responds to the fiery derailment of a Norfolk-Southern freight train in East Palestine Northeast Ohio near the Pennsylvania border on February 3, when 38 cars derailed and burned several hazardous materials.

Although no one was injured or killed, the accident and its aftermath endangered the entire village and surrounding neighborhoods in both states. It resulted in the evacuation of about half of the town’s roughly 5,000 residents, continued emergency relief from multiple governments, and ongoing concerns among villagers about long-term health effects.

Federal Railroad Administration Administrator Amit Bose said Wednesday that his agency will focus the inspections it is conducting on routes that carry more hazardous chemicals routinely transported by railroads, beginning in eastern Palestine. Federal inspectors checked about 180,000 miles of track nationwide last year using a combination of automated inspection vehicles and human inspections. That number is expected to increase with this program this year.

“I fully acknowledge that this derailment continues to turn daily life upside down. The needs of East Palestine and the railroad safety of all communities are my top priority,” Bose said. “The U.S. Department of Transportation will continue to use our tools to hold Norfolk Southern accountable for the derailment and to improve the safety of freight rails across the country.”

The Senate bill aims to answer several key regulatory questions that have arisen from the disaster, including why the state of Ohio was not made aware that the dangerous cargo was getting through and why the crew were not notified sooner of an impending one experienced equipment malfunction. The proposals reflect much of what Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg called for last week.

“Through this legislation, Congress has a real chance to ensure that what happened in East Palestine will never happen again,” Vance said in a statement. “We owe it to every American to know that their community is safe from such a catastrophe.”

Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw said Wednesday that he plans to testify at a US Senate hearing about the derailment next Thursday, and the railroad has been in talks with other lawmakers. Shaw refused to testify before a Pennsylvania Senate committee and is now being summoned to appear next week.

The law requires railroads to prepare emergency plans and provide information about trains carrying hazardous materials to the emergency commissions of each state through which a train passes.

This provision could mean significant changes. Hazmat shipments account for 7% to 8% of the approximately 30 million shipments that railroads deliver in the United States each year. But almost any train — barring a grain or coal train carrying a single commodity — can carry a wagon or two of hazardous materials, since railroads often mix all types of shipments together on one train.

The Association of American Railroads trade group says that 99.9% of dangerous goods shipments reach their destination safely, and railroads are widely recognized as the safest option for moving hazardous chemicals overland. Nevertheless, the accident in East Palestine showed how devastating even a single derailment involving hazardous materials can be.

Railway workers’ unions argue that operational changes and widespread job cuts across the industry over the past six years have made railways more risky. They say staff are few and far between after almost a third of all rail jobs have been eliminated, and conductors in particular are struggling with fatigue from being on call 24 hours a day.

The bill would require train attendants to continue to have two people. The provision is not specifically a response to East Palestine – where the train had three crew members – but to an industry push towards one-person crews. The federal railway administration is already considering a regulation that in most cases prescribes a two-person crew.

Brown said it shouldn’t take a massive rail disaster for elected officials to work across party lines for their communities.

“Railway lobbyists have fought for years to protect their profits at the expense of communities like East Palestine and Steubenville and Sandusky,” he said in a statement. “These sensible, bipartisan safety measures will finally hold major railroad companies to account, make our railroads and the cities along them safer, and prevent future tragedies, so that no community will suffer like East Palestine again.”

Under the plan, regulators would need to set limits on train size and weight as railroads increasingly haul long trains that stretch more than 2 miles (about 3 kilometers). Railroads these days move fewer and longer trains, so they don’t need as many crews, mechanics, and locomotives.

Unions argue that longer trains are more prone to problems, including breaking up mid-journey, and these monster trains can also clog up rail lines because they may stretch further than current sidings to veer off the main tracks.

Brown, Vance and the bill’s other early co-sponsors — including Pennsylvania Democrats Robert Casey Jr. and John Fetterman, and Florida Republicans Marco Rubio and Missouri Josh Hawley — would also increase the maximum penalty the U.S. Department of Transportation can impose safety violations . It would increase it from $225,000 to as much as 1% of a railroad’s annual operating income, which could amount to tens of millions of dollars.

The National Transportation Safety Board noted that the crew involved in the East Palestine accident were alerted by a device designed to detect overheated bearings, but not early enough to prevent the crash. Federal rail regulators on Tuesday urged rail operators to review their practices for operating and maintaining such detectors, but the Senate proposal would establish rules for their use.

The bill would establish statewide requirements for installation, maintenance and placement of the devices – designed to automatically detect wheel bearings and other mechanical problems – and require them to scan trains carrying hazardous materials every 10 miles (16 kilometers). The last two detectors the East Palestine train passed were 19 miles apart. There are currently no federal requirements for trackside detectors, although the sensors are widely used in the rail freight industry. Currently, railroads must decide where to place these detectors and what temperatures to trigger action if an overheated bearing is detected.

The bill would also require regulators to set stricter inspection requirements. The unions say that car inspectors used to have about two minutes to inspect each car, but now they only have about 30 to 45 seconds to inspect each car. And signalmen maintaining signals and warnings at level crossings have to cover larger areas, making it harder to keep up with preventative maintenance.

Democratic US Reps Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania and Ro Khanna of California introduced a separate railroad safety bill Tuesday in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in response to the East Palestine derailment. Their goal is to ensure that trains carrying dangerous goods are properly classified and required to take the appropriate safety precautions.

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Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.

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