Review – S 1044 Introduced – Railway Accountability Act

Last month, Sen Fetterman (D,PA) introduced S 1044, the Railway Accountability Act. The bill would address seven different rail safety issues. No spending is authorized by the legislation. The seven covered safety issues are:

• Broken rim derailments,

• Train consist,

• Brake inspections,

• Safety waivers,

• Proper functioning of emergency break symbols,

• Confidential close call reporting system,

• Required warning equipment and lookouts.

Moving Forward

Fetterman is not a member (nor are his two cosponsors) of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee to which this bill was assigned for consideration. This means that there is probably not enough influence to see this bill considered in Committee. While this is probably the least burdensome bill introduce after the East Palestine derailment, there are still provisions to which the railroads would probably object. This means that there would be some level of opposition to the bill were it to be considered in Committee. I suspect the bill would receive some level of bipartisan support, maybe even enough to pass in Committee, but probably not enough to allow for sixty votes on a cloture motion.

 

For more details about the provisions of the bill, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/s-1044-introduced - subscription required.

Bills Introduced – 3-29-23

Yesterday, with both the House and Senate in session, there were 612 bills introduced. That is not a typo or misprint, 612 bills were introduced, 521 [HR 1844 thru HR 2364] of those bills were introduced by Rep Biggs (R,AZ) and five of his fellow Republican bomb-throwers. It looks like they are targeting every major spending category, if that is the case, more bills are coming as a lot of agencies have not yet been mentioned. DHS, DOE and DOD have not yet been targeted, but I do not think that they will be exempted from this attack.

 It will be a while before we see the text of these bills, but I suspect that they are another attempt to gum up the works of the House. It is certainly going to be a problem for the Government Printing Office and the Clerk of the House. I currently only plan on ‘following’ one of these bills, HR 1844, just to see what is going on, but I will mention any future additions to the list.

Of the remaining 91 bills introduced yesterday, there are two that will see additional coverage in this blog:

S 1044 A bill to improve rail safety practices and for other purposes. Fetterman, John [Sen.-D-PA]

S 1050 A bill to secure the bulk-power system in the United States. Scott, Rick [Sen.-R-FL]