Bipartisan, Cantwell-backed rail safety bill informed by Spokane officials advances to Senate floor

May 10—WASHINGTON — The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on Wednesday voted to advance a bipartisan rail safety bill that was informed by officials in Spokane and prompted by the February derailment that left a plume of toxic chemicals over East Palestine, Ohio.

The legislation passed 16-11 and was sponsored by Ohio's senators, Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican J.D. Vance, and the Democratic senators who represent neighboring Pennsylvania, Bob Casey and John Fetterman. Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Washington Democrat who chairs the panel, also has thrown her support behind the bill, which would require tougher safety regulations for freight trains that carry hazardous materials.

"No community should have to go through the trauma, evacuation and environmental damage that East Palestine had to go through," Cantwell said. "In my home state, our communities are all too familiar with this issue."

The Railway Safety Act would mandate railroads to notify state emergency response officials in advance when trains are carrying hazardous materials though a state. It also would require more thorough safety inspections and the installation of more devices that can detect problems such as the wheel bearing failure that caused the East Palestine derailment, according to a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board.

"We cannot undo the psychological, economic and physical toll of the derailment in East Palestine," Vance said. "But I guarantee you — whether it's tomorrow, or next week, or next year — there will be another East Palestine in this country if we do not pass the Railway Safety Act."

Six GOP senators have backed the bill so far, but the committee's top Republican, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, opposed it, a sign of the trouble it could have getting the 60 votes needed to overcome a Senate filibuster or the majority needed to pass the GOP-controlled House. Cruz argued that the legislation would increase costs for the rail industry and drive more freight to the trucking industry, which sees far more accidents involving hazardous materials, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

"I earnestly hoped that we would reach a bipartisan consensus and I applaud the substantial work by Sen. Cantwell, Sen. Vance and their staff that's gone into this bill," Cruz said. "They are to be commended for their efforts and their passion, but unfortunately at this stage I cannot support the result."

On Tuesday, Cruz announced that Norfolk Southern had agreed to create a fund that would compensate East Palestine residents for the lost property value due to the disaster if they choose to sell their homes. But the bill's proponents argue Congress needs to respond to prevent future disasters, not just react to a single high-profile derailment.

In remarks that exposed the divide within the Republican Party, Vance said opponents misrepresented the bill and he called for his fellow Republicans to support it. He said the bill's sponsors already made "a number of concessions to the rail industry," and pointed out that former President Donald Trump, who visited East Palestine after the disaster, had endorsed the legislation two days earlier.

Vance noted that several industry groups — including the American Chemistry Council, which represents the plastics industry — had backed the bill after he and Cantwell introduced amendments on Monday in response to their concerns.

"They would not be supporting it if they thought it would make it impossible to transport their products by rail," he said. "Yes, it may make rail transportation a little bit more expensive, but it's going to make rail transportation a little bit more expensive in the service of safety, because — let's be honest — we have allowed the rail industry to socialize the risks of their business while privatizing the rewards."

Anne Junod, a researcher at the nonpartisan D.C.-based think tank the Urban Institute, said the bill advanced by the Senate committee on Wednesday isn't perfect. She would like to see a mandate for railroads to carry more insurance coverage and a "rural guarantee" that sets aside funding for the small towns where most rail accidents occur. But Junod said passing the bill would be a big step forward.

"This has been a long time coming and I'm happy to see it get the bipartisan support that is really needed," she said. "East Palestine was the most recent in a long line of catastrophic derailments that thankfully got the attention it deserved, but there's plenty of others that haven't."

Despite improvements in recent years, there were still 355 rail accidents that released hazardous materials in 2022, according to Department of Transportation data. On March 16, a BNSF freight train derailed on the Swinomish Reservation in Skagit County, spilling about 3,100 gallons of diesel near Padilla Bay, most of which seeped into the groundwater.

In 2016, a Union Pacific train carrying crude oil from North Dakota passed through Spokane before it derailed along the Columbia River in Mosier, Oregon, and caught fire. After that disaster, Junod interviewed residents, emergency managers and first responders in Spokane — which she called a "bottleneck" for fossil fuel shipments — and other towns along the route.

"Every community that's on a rail line is vulnerable," said Junod, who is based in Seattle. "Spokane is really kind of ground zero for a lot of the important advocacy that we've seen around this issue from local communities."

After the East Palestine disaster, Junod said, she met with Vance and Brown, and encouraged them to include provisions in their bill based on recommendations she heard from officials in Spokane. Those included a requirement that local authorities be notified in advance when trains will be carrying hazardous materials through their communities.

"From my work in Spokane, I was able to convey that to J.D. Vance and Sherrod Brown," she said. "I'm thrilled to see that, just because I care so much about Spokane and this issue, but also because they listened to the experts I was able to speak to in Spokane."

During the committee meeting, Vance called that advance-notice provision the most important part of the bill. He noted that the firefighters in East Palestine — nearly all of them volunteers — responded to the derailment without knowing that the train was carrying dangerous chemicals, including some that are highly explosive and have been linked to cancer.

Before voting to send the bill to the Senate floor for a final vote, the committee voted down several amendments from Republicans. After the meeting, Cantwell told reporters she wasn't sure when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., would bring the bill up for a vote, but she added, "We're going to keep evangelizing the aspects of this and asking people to get involved in helping us get it through, because that's what we need now."

"There will be another East Palestine in this country if we do not pass the Railway Safety Act." Senator J.D. Vance, R-Ohio

Orion Donovan-Smith's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is funded in part by Report for America and by members of the Spokane community. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper's managing editor.