Following the Norfolk Southern freight train crash that imperiled Ohio residents, the Railway Safety Act of 2023 will create new requirements for all trains carrying hazardous materials. Ohio senators ready rail safety bill after fiery train crash:
The Senate bill aims to address several key regulatory questions that have arisen from the disaster, including why the state of Ohio was not made aware the hazardous load was coming through and why the“Through this legislation, Congress has a real opportunity to ensure that what happened in East Palestine will never happen again," Vance said in a statement. "We owe every American the peace of mind that their community is protected from a catastrophe of this kind.
Railroad worker unions argue that operational changes and widespread job cuts across the industry in the past six years have made railroads riskier. They say employees are spread thin after nearly one-third of all rail jobs were eliminated and train crews, in particular, deal with fatigue because they are on call 24/7.
“Rail 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 commonsense bipartisan safety measures will finally hold big railroad companies accountable, make our railroads and the towns along them safer, and prevent future tragedies, so no community has to suffer like East Palestine again.
Brown, Vance and the bill's other early co-sponsors — who include Democrats Robert Casey Jr. and John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, and Republicans Marco Rubio, of Florida, and Josh Hawley, of Missouri — also would increase the maximum fine that the U.S. Department of Transportation can impose for safety violations. It would raise it from $225,000 to up to 1% of a railroad’s annual operating income, which could run into the tens of millions of dollars.
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