WASHINGTON, D. C. - A committee-altered version of a rail safety bill that Ohio U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown and JD Vance introduced after a February train derailment in East Palestine Ohio is likely to get a vote on the Senate floor next week, Brown predicted Wednesday.
Brown said the Railway Safety Act of 2023′s original language was changed by bipartisan agreement last month when it was approved by the Senate Commerce Committee. Changes in the bill included postponing the date when old tank rail cars that ship hazardous materials would have to be upgraded with newer, safer rail cars.
The initial draft of the legislation called for upgrading the rail cars in 2025. The bill’s new deadline would be Dec. 31, 2027.
The Cleveland Democrat said corporate lobbyists wanted to move the deadline to 2029, as is called for under current law, but legislators finalizing the bill reached what Brown calls “a reasonable compromise” on the new 2027 date. He likened it to those reached with the auto industry on issues such as fuel economy standards, where Congress seeks faster improvements than the industry says is possible, and eventually an agreement is reached that results in cleaner cars and better mileage.
“This bill isn’t exactly how I’d write it, but it’s pretty damn good,” Brown told reporters. “Senator Vance and I have worked very closely on it. I think it’s in good shape.”
The draft of the bill approved by the Senate Commerce Committee would also require a Government Accountability Office study of the nation’s capacity to manufacture tank cars that meet the enhanced safety standards. It authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to amend the phase-out date to no later than December 31, 2028 if that study determines the earlier date to phase out the old tank cars can’t be met due to insufficient manufacturing capacity or would otherwise negatively impact interstate commerce.
Tank car manufacturers told Congress members they wouldn’t be able to meet the earlier deadline because their orders for the next two years are already finalized, according to Brown’s office. Congress members from both political parties agreed it wouldn’t be feasible for manufacturers to meet the 2025 deadline the bill originally sought, so they moved it.
Whenever bills are introduced, industry representatives provide feedback that legislators sift through to determine what’s useful and what’s nonsense. In this case, lawmakers were shown data that convinced them the 2025 tank car requirement would be impossible to meet with present manufacturing capacity, according to Vance’s office. Anyone who ships things by tank car told them they were replacing the tank cars as quickly as they could and would be unable to procure enough of the new tank cars to meet shipping capacity by a 2025 deadline.
“This commonsense amendment to the Railway Safety Act was broadly supported by Republicans and Democrats alike,” said Will Martin, a spokesman for the Cincinnati Republican. “Senator Vance was glad to work with his colleagues to achieve a product that will dramatically improve the safety of our railroads without creating timelines that are impossible for the industry to meet.”
The RAIL Act that a bipartisan group of U.S. House of Representatives members from Ohio introduced in March to address rail safety calls for a May 1, 2028, deadline to replace the tank cars – several months later than the amended Senate bill, but a year sooner than the May 1, 2029, tank car replacement deadline set by a 2015 rail safety bill called the FAST Act.
Benjamin Keeler, a spokesman for Marietta Republican U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, said that date was picked because the United States “lacks the domestic capacity to make all those rail cars anytime before that.”
He said Johnson’s bill is similar to the Senate bill in most respects, with the primary differences being the tank car replacement date and the Senate bill’s requirement that all trains be staffed with a crew of at least two people. He observed that the train that crashed in East Palestine had more than one crew member, and it didn’t stop the accident.
The House of Representatives is likely to act on Johnson’s bill after the Senate passes its version of the legislation. Representatives of each legislative body would meet to hammer out a compromise version that both could approve. If the House and Senate both approve the compromise, it would become law after it’s signed by President Joe Biden.
Brown described the railroad industry as among the nation’s most powerful interest groups, along with Wall Street and the oil industry, and said they’d like to kill the bill. He said rail car manufacturers “recognize we’re going to pass something and they want to work this through.” He said they’ve been “more agreeable on the bill” than the railroads.
“I think the agreement of 2027, again, is very good when we’re going up against historically one of the two or three most powerful interest groups in America.” said Brown. “We’ve had success taking the railroad lobby on when they have been untouchable, and have had their way with Congress and the regulators for far too many years. Nobody thought we could get this far.”
The Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine spilled toxic chemicals such as vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, ethylhexyl acrylate, and ethylene glycol monobutyl ether. Federal and state officials, fearing the vinyl chloride tanks would explode, set them afire, creating a massive plume of thick black smoke. Other chemicals seeped into local streams, killing fish and traveling down into the Ohio River.
Brown says railroad lines run though “damn near every town in Ohio,” and as he visits the state, he hears many complaints from residents about crumbling rail bridges the railroads don’t seem to care about, or derailments where the railroads delayed cleaning up.
“People know this issue around Ohio and that’s why I’m optimistic,” said Brown.