East Palestine crash prompted rail safety bill. Why it stalled.
When the news broke last February that a train carrying 100,000 gallons of hazardous chemicals had derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, sending black plumes into the sky for days, lawmakers on Capitol Hill sprang into action. Less than one month later, Ohio Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown introduced the Railway Safety Act in the Senate.
The bill, which was co-sponsored by Ohio Republican J.D. Vance, as well as two other Democrats and two other Republicans, would “finally hold big railroad companies accountable” said Senator Brown. Among other things, it proposed more detectors to signal when a train’s wheel bearings were overheating, more thorough inspections, and measures to help officials on the ground respond to a derailment more effectively.
“Congress has a real opportunity to ensure that what happened in East Palestine will never happen again,” said Senator Vance, who grew up in a hardscrabble Appalachian community – an experience he chronicled in his bestselling book, “Hillbilly Elegy.”
Newspaper editorial boards called the bill “” and “.” “It is a welcome development to The Washington Post.
