Reported by Ellie Borst and Mike Lee for E&E News.
The Trump administration is still on board with legislation on rail safety, Vice President JD Vance said on the two-year anniversary of the fiery train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
Vance, who co-sponsored the bipartisan “Railway Safety Act” as a Republican senator
representing Ohio, said during a press conference in the town Monday that passing the
previously stalled bill “is a very viable and a very reasonable goal.” Railroad unions and some congressional Democrats said the industry had effectively killed the legislation last year.
Vance, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and other U.S. lawmakers met with residents and community leaders to survey the cleanup progress, which they criticized as too slow under the Biden administration.
On Feb. 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern train derailed in the small town on the border of Ohio and Pennsylvania, spilling tons of dangerous chemicals into the environment. Three days later, officials involved in the response conducted a “controlled burn” of five cars carrying the cancer-causing chemical vinyl chloride, sending a plume of dark gray smoke
into the air.
Despite local, state and federal officials repeatedly confirming that air, soil and water
quality tests reflected chemical concentrations below levels of concern, residents and first
responders continued to report unusual health effects long after the initial derailment.
Major railroads continue to lobby against the rail safety bill. And, most of the six Class I railroads haven’t followed through on their promise last year to join a voluntary closecall reporting system, similar to one used in the airline industry, according to letters signed by 11 unions that represent most of the industry’s workforce.
“Anniversaries are reminders about both the progress as well as the lack of progress that are made in these important areas,” Greg Regan, president of the Transportation Trades
Department at the AFL-CIO, said on the call. “This is an opportunity to remind people what the stakes are, that there is a lot of work left to be done.”
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