CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON RAIL SAFETY “LONG OVERDUE”

Washington, D.C. – On Tuesday, leaders of the Federal Railroad Administration, National Transportation Safety Board, and Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will testify before the House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials at a hearing on rail safety. 

It will focus on the aftermath of the Feb. 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, which prompted a federal investigation and led the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee to pass sweeping rail safety reform in May 2023. A similar bipartisan bill was introduced in the House last week.

Jackson Shedelbower, executive director of the Center for Transportation Policy, issued the following statement ahead of the hearing:

“The congressional hearing investigating rail safety in America is long overdue. The current Department of Transportation is falling down on the job as train derailments like we saw in Ohio regularly pop up in the news. According to the federal government, there were on average three train derailments daily last year. The Department of Transportation needs to be held accountable for this poor track record.”