Review - HR 1633 Introduced – RAIL Act

Last month, Rep Johnson (R,OH) introduced HR 1633, the Reducing Accidents in Locomotives (RAIL) Act. Another in a series of legislative attempts to address the railroad hazardous material safety concerns that arose after the East Palestine derailment. Addresses a number of different issues and includes additional funding authorization for first responder hazmat training.

The bill addresses the following topics.

• Regulatory response,

• Rail car inspections,

• Defect detectors,

• Increasing civil penalties,

• Safer tank cars, and

• First responder hazmat training

Moving Forward

Johnson is not a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration, but one of his ten cosponsors {Rep Sykes (D,OH)} is a member of the Committee. This means that there may be sufficient influence to see the bill considered in Committee. This bill appears to have been crafted to avoid some of the Republican opposition to rail safety measures and that is reflected in the number of Republicans who have signed on to the bill sponsored by a Republican. I still think that the additional $1 million dollar hazmat registration fee being proposed for Class 1 Railroads will bring significant Republican opposition, but the other compromises may be enough to see this move forward in Committee with some level of bipartisan support (and bipartisan opposition), but I do not think that the support will be wide enough to allow the bill to be considered under the suspension of rules process.

 

For more details about the provisions of this bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/hr-1633-introduced - subscription required.