Legislation designed to increase the number of railroad, pipeline, and hazardous materials investigators working under the auspices of the National Transportation Safety Board has been introduced in Congress.
Wisconsin Congressman Derrick Van Orden introduced the measure as an amendment to the ongoing Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act, which has already won the approval of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Van Orden’s legislation would provide around $3 million for each of the fiscal years running between 2024 and 2028 to pay for the new investigators. Those investigators, said Van Orden in a statement from his office, “will help officials get to the bottom of derailments faster and make our communities safer.”
The Rail Inspector Safety Act comes as Congress is reviewing the larger Railway Safety Act of 2023. That legislation has passed the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and would outlaw one-person train crews, limit the size of hazardous material shipments, and expand grants for firefighters to purchase hazardous materials gear.
That legislation, sponsored by Ohio Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown, came in response to the derailment in February of a 50-car train in East Palestine, Ohio. Several of those cars were transporting around 500,000 pounds of the chemical vinyl chloride.
The Railway Safe Act legislation is currently under review in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Earlier this week, the leaders of the National Association of Counties, the National League of Cities, and the National Governors Association sent a letter to the Senate leadership, urging passage of the legislation.
The letter noted that “due to the increasing length of trains and, therefore, the consolidation of hazardous materials on more of these trains, each of the more than 1,164 derailments is a threat to the economic competitiveness of our cities and states.”
By Garry Boulard
