Review - S 4045 Reported in Senate – E Palestine Health Study

Last month, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee ordered S 4045, the East Palestine Health Impact Monitoring Act of 2024, reported favorably without a report. The Committee met on May 23^rd, 2024 and adopted substitute language for the bill. The reported version of the bill is a significant rewrite of the legislation, changing study responsibility requirements, timelines, and funding. The bill is now cleared for potential action by the full Senate.

Moving Forward

This bill is now cleared for potential action by the full Senate. Normally, I would say that this bill is not politically important enough to take up the time of the Senate, but I suspect that this bill could be considered as a stand in for taking action on hazmat rail shipments issues that were highlighted by the E. Palestine train derailment. Railroad are fighting those rail safety bills hard but would have little objection to this bill. Still, I would expect that the leadership would try to pass this by unanimous consent.

 

For more details about the changes made in the reported version of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-4045-reported-in-senate - subscription required.