Great Lakes Wire

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Gary Peters (MI) helped advance bipartisan legislation to improve railroad safety in response to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio earlier this year that led to the release of hazardous materials into surrounding communities. Peters voted to advance the Railway Safety Act of 2023, which now goes to the full Senate after passing the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. The legislation includes a provision led by Peters that seeks to help address the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) challenges related to recruiting and retaining qualified safety inspectors. The provision would require the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Inspector General to perform a workforce management review to audit FRA compliance inspection capacity and improve recruitment and retention of qualified safety inspectors. The amendment also helps ensure qualified safety inspector pay isn’t inappropriately capped by requiring the Office of Personnel Management to review and revise the 40-year-old personnel standards for rail safety inspectors.

“After the toxic East Palestine derailment and several recent railroad derailments in Michigan that could have been catastrophic, it’s clear we need to improve rail safety,” said Senator Peters, Chair of the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, Maritime, Freight, and Ports. “This bipartisan bill would help address issues exposed by these derailments and would take meaningful steps to protect workers and first responders, goods shipped by freight rail, the environment, and local communities.” 

The Railway Safety Act of 2023 would take key steps to improve railway safety and the transportation of hazardous materials, including: 

• Mandating the use of defect detection technology;
• Expanding the types of hazardous materials that require increased safety measures to include those similar to the kind that impacted East Palestine;
• Requiring railroads to notify states when trains carrying hazardous materials are transported through their communities;
• Mandating railroads have their own chemical response teams to respond to hazardous derailments;
• Prohibiting time limits on train inspections and requiring that trained mechanics conduct inspections;
• Requiring all railcars to have a thorough inspection at least every five years;
• Increasing penalties for violations of rail safety laws;
• Requiring all Class I trains to be operated by at least two crewmembers;
• Allowing local first responders to be reimbursed after hazardous rail incidents; and
• Expanding funding for training and hazmat protective equipment for local fire departments.

Introduction of the Railway Safety Act of 2023 was led by Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH), J.D. Vance (D-OH), Bob Casey (D-PA), John Fetterman (D-PA), Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).

In March, during a Commerce Committee hearing Peters pressed Norfolk Southern’s CEO Alan Shaw about safety inspection standards.

The Subcommittee on Surface Transportation, Maritime, Freights, and Ports has oversight of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), the Office of the Secretary of Transportation, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Amtrak, the Transportation Security Administration (Rail & Pipeline Security), the Surface Transportation Board, and the National Transportation Safety Board (Surface Safety Programs).

Original source can be found here