The Ohio derailment is spurring Congress to actually do something about train safety

A group of senators have quickly come together with a bill that could change the way the rail industry operates.

By Nicole Narea@nicolenarea 

VOX

Mar 2, 2023

An EPA worker looks for signs of fish and agitates the water in a creek to check for chemicals settled at the bottom, following the train derailment on February 20, 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio.

Nicole Narea covers state politics and policy for Vox, focusing on personalities, conversations, and political battles happening in state capitals and why they matter to the entire country. She first joined Vox in 2019, and her work has also appeared in Politico, Washington Monthly, and the New Republic.

In the wake of the train derailment and toxic spill in East Palestine, Ohio, last month, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill to provide more oversight over railroad carriers and improve industry safety regulations with the aim of preventing future accidents.

On February 3, a freight train carrying five tank cars of the toxic chemical vinyl chloride derailed and ignited, prompting first responders to order an evacuation of the surrounding area. A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board found that a wheel bearing severely overheated immediately before the accident, and while the train braked after detectors picked up the hotter than normal temperatures, it did so too late and through no apparent fault of the workers onboard.

It’s hard to know yet where exactly it went wrong in the chain of command, from the private rail companies that preside over their own maintenance and inspections to the policymakers who regulate them. But whoever is to blame, residents of East Palestine and surrounding communities in Pennsylvania where the toxic fumes have now spread are still complaining of ailments ranging from rashes to bronchitis and have been instructed to monitor their health long-term.

Though both parties have been pointing fingers at each other over the accident, the bill is a compromise among Republican Sens. J.D. Vance (Ohio), Marco Rubio (Florida), and Josh Hawley (Missouri), and Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown (Ohio), and Bob Casey and John Fetterman (both of Pennsylvania). The bill has earned praise from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, but it’s not clear whether it will get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate or pass the GOP-controlled House.

In a video posted to Twitter, Sen. Brown blamed railroad executives including those at Norfolk Southern, the operator of the train that derailed in East Palestine, for failing to appropriately invest in train safety and for laying off workers while spending billions on stock buybacks.

“We know that means more train derailments, less safe trains. It means that in too many cases, hazardous materials end up in the water or in the air the way they have in East Palestine. This bill will begin to fix this and especially hold Norfolk Southern accountable,” he said.

What’s in the bill — and what’s not

The bill, known as the Railway Safety Act of 2023, adopts many of the reforms that the Biden administration has called for. It would require rail carriers to notify emergency authorities when transporting hazardous materials; develop a plan in the event that gas such as vinyl chloride is discharged; and mitigate blocked railroad crossings due to train delays.

It would introduce regulations requiring “well-trained, two person crews aboard every train” and around train length and weight, route selection, speed restrictions, track standards, maintenance, issue detection and more. In the East Palestine accident, detectors didn’t trip until moments before the derailment. Rail companies that fail to comply would face higher maximum fines under the bill.

The bill also boosts funding for HAZMAT training, for research and development into tank car safety features, and for the Federal Railroad Administration generally.

It’s hard to say whether those measures would have stopped the East Palestine accident from happening. But they might have allowed workers to catch malfunctions early, and keep them from happening in the first place with preventive maintenance on the train and track.

While the bill makes strides in improving safety regulations, it doesn’t include everything on Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s wishlist. For one, he has asked rail carriers to “join a close call reporting system that protects whistleblowers who spot issues that could lead to accidents,” in which only one freight rail company currently participates voluntarily. (Rail carriers have previously cited concerns about confidentiality of the data and their own internal safety reporting systems as reasons for not participating.)

The bill also doesn’t include any protections for railroad workers, who threatened to go on strike in December amid complaints of grueling conditions with little work-life balance. They have reported being on call 24/7 every day of the year, unable to call in sick or even go to the doctor. That month, President Joe Biden reluctantly signed legislation to avert a strike, which forced unions to accept a contract that did not include paid sick days — a major sticking point in the negotiations. Offering the 15 paid sick days demanded by unions would have forced carriers, including Norfolk Southern, to hire more workers, cutting into their profits. But Rubio and Vance have questioned whether spreading these workers too thin may have contributed to the safety failures that led to the East Palestine accident.

Who is to blame for the East Palestine accident?

Both Republicans and Democrats are blaming each other for the policy gaps that allowed the East Palestine accident to occur.

Though Buttigieg has faced attacks from the right amid pandemic supply chain disruptions and a federal aviation safety system failure in January, the criticism has reached a whole new level since the East Palestine accident. Even while co-sponsoring bipartisan reforms, Vance has criticized Buttigieg for failing to appear at the scene of the accident for 20 days. House Republicans have even introduced a resolution calling on Buttigieg to resign.

“Secretary Buttigieg has seemed more interested in pursuing press coverage for woke initiatives and climate nonsense than in attending to the basic elements of his day job,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor.

For his part, Buttigieg has contended that the Trump administration bears responsibility for rolling back regulations that required regular safety audits and fast-braking trains to carry flammable materials.

“I heard [former President Donald Trump] say he had nothing to do with it, even though it was in his administration. So, if he had nothing to do with it and they did it in his administration against his will, maybe he can come out and say that he supports us moving in a different direction,” Buttigieg said while visiting East Palestine.

As my colleague Ben Jacobs writes, Trump’s decision to visit East Palestine last month shows that Republicans have seized on the accident not just as a vehicle to attack the Biden administration, but also as an “opportunity for the GOP’s populist wing to further break from party orthodoxy and target corporate America.”

The White House has also criticized Republicans for pressuring the Federal Railroad Administration to rely more heavily on automated track inspection over manual inspections and for proposing to slash funding for chemical spill cleanup.

In light of the vitriol surrounding the accident, it’s a wonder that the bipartisan group could reach any kind of agreement on reforms. But it seems to have been spearheaded by an unlikely partnership between the two Ohio senators: Brown, a progressive, and Vance, a pro-Trump freshman.

“[Vance has] been nothing but cooperative on this,” Brown told Politico.

EPA orders Norfolk Southern to test for dioxins in Ohio train derailment

Shawna Chen,

 02/03/2023

Axios 

Work crews and contractors remove and dispose of wreckage from the site of the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio on Feb. 20. Photo: Matthew Hatcher/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday ordered freight train operator Norfolk Southern to test for toxic pollutants that could have been released as a result of the company's decision to burn vinyl chloride from cargo on its derailed train in East Palestine, Ohio.

Why it matters: Norfolk Southern had at the time said that burning the cargo was necessary to prevent the threat of explosions from the hazardous materials in the train, but has since faced heightened scrutiny over the move and its possible impacts on the surrounding community and environment.

• The EPA said that monitoring for indicator chemicals at the site suggests the probability of dioxin contamination is "low," but made the decision to mandate testing out of an "abundance of caution.”

Details: The EPA's order — made almost a month after the train derailed — mandates testing for dioxins, which the agency considers "persistent organic pollutants" because they take a long time to break down once released into the environment.

• Dioxins are highly toxic and cancerous. They can damage the immune system and interfere with hormones, developmental processes and reproductive health.
• Dioxins typically form during the burning of fuel and waste and can remain in soil for decades, contaminating plants and crops used in the food chain.
• The possible accumulation of dioxins in East Palestine due to the train derailment could as a result pose long-term risks, a concern community members have raised.
• Worth noting: The order comes ahead of a meeting in East Palestine on Thursday night, where Norfolk Southern representatives are expected to be grilled by community members and local officials.

• The company backed out of a similar town hall last month, citing unspecified concerns for their employees' safety.

The big picture: The EPA has mandated that Norfolk Southern clean up the contamination from the site of the derailment.

Rail union says workers experiencing migraines and nausea at East Palestine train derailment site

A rail union leader is revealing new safety concerns at the East Palestine train derailment site after some workers fell ill during the cleanup process.

By: Scripps News Cleveland
Mar 02, 2023

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — A rail union leader revealed new safety concerns at the East Palestine train derailment site after some workers fell ill during the cleanup process.

The union is demanding action and immediate answers regarding the derailment and safety protocols in place.

Jonathan Long, the general chairman of the American Rail System Federation, sent a letter to Gov. Mike DeWine pleading with him to do something before an even bigger tragedy occurs.

The letter states that Norfolk Southern instructed 40 of its maintenance employees to come to the site and begin cleaning up the wreckage. It also says that employees continue to experience migraines and nausea after being willingly exposed to the chemicals at the direction of Norfolk Southern. Long also wrote in his letter that workers cleaning up in East Palestine were not provided with the appropriate personal protective equipment such as respirators, eye protection or protective clothing.

Norfolk Southern has disputed the claims about the lack of PPE provided.

In a statement, the company said they were on-scene immediately after the derailment and coordinated their response with hazardous materials professionals who were on site continuously to ensure the work area was safe to enter and that the required PPE was utilized, in addition to air monitoring that was established within an hour.

Congress is expected to hear testimony from the CEO of Norfolk Southern Railroad next week over the derailment and the company's involvement in recovery efforts.

Committees in the house and senate are both expected to hold hearings on the derailment.

This article was written by Scripps News Cleveland.

East Palestine's record of devastating derailments

• Tyler Buchanan, author of Axios Columbus 
Mar 1, 2023 - 

From the March 2, 1970, edition of the Salem News, via Newspapers.com

Long before the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern derailment exposed East Palestine to hazardous chemicals, residents suffered from a series of devastating rail car derailments that destroyed businesses, ruined local infrastructure and often left the city stuck paying for the damage.

Why it matters: Earlier generations urged stricter railroad oversight to prevent a major disaster like the one with which their community now reckons.

• Their pleas, which went largely ignored at the time, are followed a half-century later by nearly identical calls for better safety regulations.

What they're saying: No single regulation enacted back then could have prevented the 2023 crash with 100% certainty, says Anne Junod, a senior research associate at the Urban Institute who studied train derailments as a Ph.D. student at Ohio State University.

• But the longstanding inaction helps showcase railroads' record of valuing profit over proactive safety measures, she tells Axios — a cost-benefit analysis that continues putting rural communities like East Palestine in harm's way.
• "There's a constellation of problems that have deep historical roots."

By the numbers: An Axios review of hundreds of old newspaper clippings across the state and into Pennsylvania identified at least nine freight derailments in East Palestine between 1946 and 1976.

• Three occurred in a span of just two weeks in 1961, the final of these causing extensive damage to a nearby pottery factory.
• Several derailments were caused by poor track condition, which railroads are responsible for maintaining.

The intrigue: All nine happened on the same line now owned by Norfolk Southern.

Flashback: A 1970 derailment sent a Penn Central Railroad train careening into an East Palestine bridge. A married couple driving atop the bridge narrowly escaped harm.

• Penn Central initially agreed to finance a new bridge, but declared bankruptcy soon after and never paid.
• The bridge sat unfixed for years, making it difficult for emergency crews to reach certain parts of town when rail crossings were frequently blocked.
• The city and county wound up footing the bill for a replacement.

The most catastrophic crash to date happened in March 1973, when a late-night Penn Central emergency stop caused its back cars to collide with those in front, "kinking" the track.

• Crew members rushed to get the train going again and left town 40 minutes later, apparently not noticing damage to the rail line.
• Shortly thereafter, an Amtrak passenger train derailed at that spot and crashed into a nearby fabricating plant.
• A Penn Central employee on board was killed and 19 others were injured, including two small children.

The site of the deadly 1973 train derailment in East Palestine. Several cars crashed into the Adamson factory, causing major damages that went uncovered by the company's insurance plan. Photo: Google Maps

By that point, city officials had had enough and pleaded with then-Gov. John Gilligan for help.

• Widespread anger was directed toward the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio's "rather casual response to complaints lodged against the railroad by the municipality," one newspaper reported.
• "We need the railroad, but we also need the lives of the people in the community," nearby Leetonia Mayor Albert Wardingley said.

Context: Penn Central was a literal and figurative "wreck" at that point, H. Roger Grant, a prominent railroad historian at Clemson University, tells Axios.

• The company was hurt by deteriorating rail infrastructure, poor corporate leadership and increased competition from trucking and air freight.
• Over time, the federal government shouldered a greater responsibility overseeing the industry, eventually consolidating Penn Central and other struggling companies into a public railroad known as ConRail in 1976.

ConRail promised Ohioans a "better way to run a railroad" — with modernized equipment, safer rail lines and fewer damage claims.

• Meeting with representatives from seven area communities, ConRail pledged to repair and regularly inspect the tracks, plus enforce reasonable train speed limits.
• Local officials reportedly left the meeting pleased and ConRail began maintenance on the line.

A ConRail newspaper advertisement and a news clipping published one month apart in the Zanesville Times Recorder's April 6, 1976, edition and Salem News' May 14, 1976, edition, via Newspapers.com

Just four weeks later, Mary Mansell was baking pies in a local restaurant when she heard the familiar sound of a train barreling through downtown.

• A derailed boxcar carrying lumber then crashed into an Amoco gas station and sent debris flying through her kitchen window.

William Kissinger's station had been damaged repeatedly by earlier train incidents. Now it was ruined.

• When a newspaper reporter asked if he planned to rebuild it, Kissinger said he wasn't sure.

The bottom line: The troubled line through East Palestine was eventually acquired by Norfolk Southern in 1998.

• Twenty-five years later, an NS train carrying hazardous chemicals came through town on a Friday night.
• Then, once again, calamity.