By Julie Sneider, Senior Editor
In an unusual-for-these-times bipartisan action, lawmakers who serve on the U.S. House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials this week called for new government regulations on railroads in the aftermath of the Feb. 3, 2023, derailment of a Norfolk Southern Railway train in East Palestine, Ohio.
Led by Chairman Troy Nehls (R-Texas), the subcommittee held a hearing to discuss federal regulations many committee members believe are necessary to improve railroad safety. Now that the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Railroad Administration have filed their final reports detailing their investigations into the cause of, and actions following, the fiery derailment, Nehls and fellow subcommittee member Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) introduced their proposed Railroad Safety Enhancement Act (H.R. 8996).
At the July 23 hearing, Nehls said the bill builds on bipartisan Railway Safety Act legislation that U.S. senators marked up and passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee. That bill was introduced in 2023 by U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and J.D. Vance (R-Ohio).
Subcommittee Chair Troy Nehls (R-Texas) called the hearing to discuss freight-rail safety in the aftermath of the February 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, as well as the proposed Railroad Safety Enhancement Act (H.R. 8996), which he and U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) recently introduced. transportation.house.gov/subcommitteesThe hearing revived the rail safety conversation in Congress, after stalling due in part to push back from the rail industry. Additionally, Republican leaders on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee announced months ago they wanted to wait for the final NTSB report before taking up rail safety reform legislation.
In his opening statement, Nehls said the bill would:
• require all Class Is to enroll in the FRA’s Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3RS) for two years;
• require state departments of transportation to notify first responders of the existence of the AskRail app, which provides real-time train consist data to first responders. Nehls said that East Palestine first responders had issues accessing the AskRail app due to lack of connectivity, so the legislation would call for an AskRail connectivity pilot program to fill gaps in service for the app along the national freight network;
• authorize an additional $1 billion for the federal Railroad Crossing Elimination Grant Program;
• authorize the $100 million to annually for the FRA to set up a grant program to fund the installation of onboard freight rail-car telematics systems and gateway devices for new and existing rail cars carrying hazardous materials;
• would adjust the phaseout date of DOT-111 tank cars that the industry indicated it could meet.
Speaking directly to his Republican colleagues on the subcommittee, Nehls noted that the Senate bill is supported by former President Donald Trump and Vance, who is Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential campaign. Nehls noted that he and Moulton added four provisions to the House bill: the C3RS; the AskRail app; telematics for the tank-car fleet; and more funding for the grade-crossing elimination program.
Nehls also said he invited Class I CEOs to attend the hearing because he thought it would be a good opportunity for them to discuss “the positive policies their companies have undertaken” to improve safety. (None attended).
“Some of these railroads have good stories to tell, and I have personally visited several of them,” Nehls said, adding that he visited CN’s Homewood, Illinois, operation and thought it was “top-tier.”
“The types of technologies they are deploying are state of the art and will save lives, and I commend them for their efforts,” Nehls said. “But we can do more.”
Perspectives from NTSB, FRA
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy and FRA Administrator Amit Bose were among the witnesses asked to testify. In her prepared remarks, Homendy testified that her agency has over 215 open rail safety recommendations issued to the U.S. Department of Transportation, FRA and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, as well as 116 recommendations to the FRA that are considered closed but deemed “unacceptable” action by the FRA. In addition, NS has 17 open recommendations and three recommendations that are classified as “closed – unacceptable” action. Finally, eight recommendations are currently open to all Class Is, she said.
“The collisions and derailments we see in our investigations are tragic because they are preventable, and we believe the safety issues we identify in these investigations should be acted on swiftly,” said Homendy.
She also reviewed the East Palestine incident, the board’s investigation, findings and, finally, recommendations to government regulators, NS, Class Is, the Association of American Railroads, local emergency management, firefighting-related associations, chemical organizations, and the state of Ohio. NS has endorsed all the board’s safety recommendations, she said.
In his testimony, FRA Administrator Amit Bose also discussed his agency’s investigation into the derailment in East Palestine, noting that it – like the NTSB – concluded that a roller bearing overheated and failed, causing the derailment. FRA also determined that NS’ procedures and inadequate staffing for communicating information from the hot bearing detectors to the train crew may have contributed to the accident; and, in consultation with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, concluded that the use of a general-purpose DOT-111 specification tank car to transport butyl acrylate contributed to the accident’s severity.
“Railroads are already doing pretty well, but we want them to do better.” – U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) moulton.house.govBose also described what U.S. Department of Transportation and FRA officials have been doing since the derailment to increase freight-rail safety and have urged Congress to pass rail-safety legislation.
For example, FRA has issued final rules requiring emergency escape breathing apparatuses for train crews of hazmat trains and established a rule calling for at least two-crew members on trains.
Additionally, the FRA has conducted 7,500 inspections along high-hazard flammable train routes; begun collecting train-length data from Class Is; and issued billions in federal grants to help fund projects that will improve railroad safety.
Bose said it was encouraging to see bipartisan agreement on advancing freight-rail safety legislation.
“Because the truth is that the Class I freight railroads’ safety performance has stagnated over the last decade – and by some measures – deteriorated,” said Bose. “Despite assertions to the contrary, derailment rates for our nation’s largest rail companies have not significantly improved. In fact, in the case of yard derailments, data show that the rate in 2023 was 51% higher compared to 10 years ago.”
Deterioration in derailment rates hasn’t been uniform, with recent data showing that one Class I logged a 34% decrease in its derailment rate in 2023. But the overall rate of accidents not at grade crossings has been rising slowly over the decade, peaking in 2022, he said.
Although few derailments rise to the level of severity and impact as the East Palestine case, derailments that occur in rail yards should not be taken lightly, Bose said. Last year, three Class I employees on duty were killed in rail-yard accidents, while a separate incident resulted in an explosion at a rail yard that forced residents to evacuate their homes. And earlier this month, a conductor died in a rail-yard accident, he said.
“FRA believes this is neither acceptable nor inevitable,” said Bose, who urged the lawmakers to “act quickly on common-sense rail safety” legislation.
Other witnesses testifying at the hearing were Tristan Brown, deputy administrator of PHMSA; Jeff Sloan, senior director for regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Chemistry Council; David Arouca, national legislative director at the Transportation Communications Union; and Gregory Hynes, national legislative director at the Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation (SMART-TD).
Moulton: Hazmat by rail is safer than truck
Meanwhile, Moulton said the intent of H.R. 8996 is not to wreck the railroads but improve their safety and competitiveness so that they can take more freight off highways. In 2023, there were 22,543 hazardous materials incidents on the nation’s highways, compared with 297 hazmat rail incidents, he said.
“If that’s not compelling, I'm not sure what is,” stated Moulton. “Having said that, we want to see 297 go to zero.”
He also noted that that between 2012 and 2023, zero railway deaths involving hazardous materials occurred in the United States. But during that same period, 82 hazmat-related fatalities occurred on U.S. highways.
“Railroads are already doing pretty well, but we want them to do better,” said Moulton. “And ultimately, we share the goal of shifting more traffic from unsafe highways to safe railroads. That’s the large part of the goal of this bill.”
