Bills Introduced – 09-10-14

Twenty-nine bills were introduced yesterday, but only one that will be of specific interest to readers of this blog:

S 2784 Latest Title: A bill to direct the Secretary of Transportation to carry out activities to improve rail safety, and for other purposes. Sponsor: Sen Blumenthal, Richard (D,CT)

Billed as a comprehensive railroad safety bill this bill would be considered political grandstanding this late in the session if it were not for the fact that Blumenthal is the Chair of the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

The bill is supposed to address (among a host of other rail safety issues) positive train control (PTC) system implementation and highly hazardous flammable trains.

There is a distinct possibility that this bill will be covered in next week’s markup hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. If it doesn’t make it to that hearing this bill it will almost certainly not make it to the floor of the Senate this session. Even if it does get cleared by that Committee it won’t make it to the floor before the election.