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As a train derailment and fire forced evacuations in Minnesota on Thursday, a trio of Democratic U.S. senators introduced another piece of legislation inspired by the ongoing public health and environmental disaster in and around East Palestine, Ohio.
The Railway Accountability Act—led by Sens. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Bob Casey (D-Pa.), and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio)—would build on the bipartisan Railway Safety Act introduced at the beginning of March by Brown and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) after a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials including vinyl chloride derailed in the small Ohio community on February 3.
While welcoming "greater federal oversight and a crackdown on railroads that seem all too willing to trade safety for higher profits," Eddie Hall, national president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), also warned just after the earlier bill was unveiled that "you can run a freight train through the loopholes."
The new bill is backed by unions including the Transport Workers of America (TWU), the National Conference of Firemen & Oilers (NCFO), and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers-Mechanical Division (SMART-MD).
"Communities like Darlington Township and East Palestine are too often forgotten and overlooked by leaders in Washington and executives at big companies like Norfolk Southern who only care about making their millions."
"It is an honor and a privilege to introduce my first piece of legislation, the Railway Accountability Act, following the derailment affecting East Palestine, Ohio, and Darlington Township, Pennsylvania," Fetterman said in a statement. "This bill will implement commonsense safety reforms, hold the big railway companies accountable, protect the workers who make these trains run, and help prevent future catastrophes that endanger communities near railway infrastructure."
Fetterman, who is expected to return to the Senate in mid-April after checking himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last month to be treated for clinical depression, asserted that "working Pennsylvanians have more than enough to think about already—they should never have been put in this horrible situation."
"Communities like Darlington Township and East Palestine are too often forgotten and overlooked by leaders in Washington and executives at big companies like Norfolk Southern who only care about making their millions," he added. "That's why I'm proud to be working with my colleagues to stand up for these communities and make clear that we're doing everything we can to prevent a disaster like this from happening again."
As Fetterman's office summarized, the Railway Accountability Act would:
- Direct the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to examine the causes of and potential mitigation strategies for wheel-related derailments and mechanical defects, and publish potential regulations that would improve avoidance of these defects;
- Ensure that employees can safely inspect trains by prohibiting trains from being moved during brake inspections;
- Require that the mechanic that actually inspects a locomotive or rail car attests to its safety;
- Direct the FRA to review regulations relating to the operation of trains in switchyards, and direct railroads to update their plans submitted under the FRA's existing Risk Reduction Program (RRP) to incorporate considerations regarding switchyard practices;
- Require the FRA to make Class 1 railroad safety waivers public in one online location;
- Require railroads to ensure that communication checks between the front and end of a train do not fail, and that emergency brake signals reach the end of a train;
- Ensure Class 1 railroad participation in the confidential Close Call Reporting System by requiring all railroads that have paid the maximum civil penalty for a safety violation to join; and
- Ensure that railroads provide warning equipment (such as white disks, red flags, or whistles) to railroad watchmen and lookouts.
A preliminary report released in late February by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) suggests an overheated wheel bearing may have caused the disastrous derailment in Ohio. The initial findings added fuel to demands that federal lawmakers enact new rules for the rail industry.
"Rail lobbyists have fought for years to protect their profits at the expense of communities like East Palestine," Brown noted Thursday.
Casey stressed that "along with the Railway Safety Act, this bill will make freight rail safer and protect communities from preventable tragedies."
In addition to pushing those two bills, Brown, Casey, and Fetterman have responded to the East Palestine disaster by introducing the Assistance for Local Heroes During Train Crises Act and—along with other colleagues—writing to Norfolk Southern president and CEO Alan Shaw, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, and U.S. Environmental Protection Administrator Michael Regan with various concerns and demands.
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GOP's latest 'weaponization' hearing compared to a 'Monty Python skit' in brutal report
March 30, 2023
House Republicans' hearings on the purported "weaponization" of the federal government against conservatives have gotten off to a rocky start, with even some Fox News personalities complaining that they've so far failed to dig up anything significant.
The hearings continue to misfire on Thursday, and USA Today reporter Bart Jansen likened them to a "Monty Python sketch" in his latest dispatch from the Capitol.
At issue was the fact that two witnesses called by House Republicans made incendiary claims about the federal government "censoring" them under President Joe Biden's direction, but then left the hearing before they could be asked any questions by Democratic members of the committee.
Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) called out Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for not allowing anyone to question the witnesses he brought before the committee.
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"They have scurried away with your complicity,” he scolded Jordan. “That’s pretty disgraceful.”
A defensive Jordan replied that the two witnesses didn't "scurry" despite the fact that they had left before any of their claims could be scrutinized.
One witness who didn't "scurry," noted Jansen, was Stanford constitutional scholar Matthew Seligman, who emphasized to the committee that private companies such as Twitter and Facebook are not obligated to let everyone use them and that their decision to remove certain content did not amount to government-sponsored censorship.
"Once again it bears repeating: the First Amendment applies to governmental restrictions of speech, not private conduct," he said.
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Two US Army helicopters crashed during a nighttime training mission in Kentucky, killing all nine soldiers on board, a general said Thursday.
The helicopters -- variants of the Black Hawk designed for medical evacuation -- were taking part in a routine training mission the night before when the crash occurred, Brigadier General John Lubas told a news conference.
It "resulted in the death of all nine service members aboard the aircraft," all of them members of the 101st Airborne Division, which is based at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, he said.
Five soldiers were on one helicopter and four on another, Lubas said, noting that the military is still working to notify all the families of those killed.
The helicopters -- which were flying in formation with the pilots using night vision goggles -- were able to land in an open field across from a residential area, avoiding deaths or injuries on the ground, he said.
With an investigative team heading to Fort Campbell from the base where US Army Aviation is headquartered in Alabama, it was still unknown whether the two helicopters collided.
"We have a safety team coming... from Fort Rucker, Alabama who specialize in aircraft safety and specifically these investigations," Lubas said.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear mourned the lost soldiers and praised those who responded to the crash.
"We are blessed to live in the freest country in the history of planet Earth. But we must remember that that freedom relies on those who are willing to serve, some of which pay the ultimate price," the governor told the news conference.
'Just disappeared'
"We're going to do what we always do. We're going to wrap our arms around these families. We're going to be there with them, not just for the days but the weeks and the months and the years to come," Beshear said.
MSNBC quoted a local resident who witnessed the crash.
"Two helicopters just disappeared out of the sky. There was a large flash," Nick Tomaszewski said, adding that another helicopter circled the area for about 30 minutes before ambulances arrived.
There have been multiple crashes of US military aircraft in recent years, including another involving a Black Hawk that killed two Tennessee National Guardsmen during a training flight Alabama in February.
Four US Marines were killed during NATO exercises in Norway last year when their V-22B Osprey aircraft went down, possibly after hitting a mountain, investigators said.
And two US Navy pilots were rescued after their T-45C Goshawk jet crashed during a training exercise in a residential neighborhood near Fort Worth, Texas in 2021. The pilots ejected before the plane went down.
The 101st Airborne Division is the US Army's only air assault division. Nicknamed the "Screaming Eagles," it was activated in August 1942 and gained renown during World War II in the D-Day landings and the Battle of the Bulge.
More recently the division has seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
© Agence France-Presse
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