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House Republicans hold a press conference in advance of tonightÕs State of the Union, on March 01 in Washington, DC.

Jabin Botsford

Nearly one year after a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, releasing toxic chemicals into the air and soil, the rail operator’s top executive returned to the scene of the accident — and reiterated his promise of change.

“I want a response from Norfolk Southern that we can look back five years from now, 10 years from now, [and] we can be proud,” Alan Shaw, the company’s chief executive, said <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB4UsdHVKzY" target=_blank>in an interview with local reporters</a> in January.

In the nation’s capital, however, Norfolk Southern often has sounded a more defiant note: It has joined some of the nation’s leading freight railroads in a bid to weaken newly proposed safety legislation, threatening to leave millions of Americans nationwide at risk of deadly derailments and dangerous chemical spills.

The target of the lobbying is a bipartisan proposal from Ohio’s two senators: Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and J.D. Vance, a Republican. Unveiled last spring as a direct response to the accident in East Palestine, the Railway Safety Act aims to toughen rail inspections, improve derailment-detection technology and ensure greater safeguards for hazardous materials.

Publicly, Norfolk Southern and its peers have pledged to work with lawmakers on the bill. But the companies have still labored to severely weaken or eliminate some of its core provisions, according to 15 lawmakers, congressional aides, union officials and others, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

“They will often say the right things, but then through their actions, and especially through their lobbying, move in a different direction,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a recent interview.

Over the past year, the nation’s five largest rail operators together spent roughly $17 million to lobby lawmakers, while donating generously to key members of Congress who oversee transportation issues, according to federal records. Some of the chief beneficiaries of industry cash were Republicans, who initially attacked the Biden administration over its handling of the East Palestine derailment before opposing or slowing down safety legislation.

Gene J. Puskar

In doing so, rail industry lobbyists also fought the Biden administration on even the most basic upgrades, from efforts to ensure that engineers have special breathing equipment onboard to new rules that would require miles-long trains to be staffed with more than one person. The staunch opposition has bogged down some federal action while leaving Congress unable to hold a single vote on rail safety legislation in the House or Senate.

“For 150 years, the rail industry has been one of the most powerful industries in the country,” Brown said. “They have spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying. It’s what they do. They’re very good at it. We forgot how powerful they were.”

Shaw, the chief executive of Norfolk Southern, declined to be interviewed. The company said it has already altered some of its practices since the accident, including by improving crash detection, training first responders and supplying them with more information about a freight train’s contents. On Monday, it became the first major freight railroad to participate in a new system that allows employees to report safety issues confidentially to the U.S. government. Other companies have failed to follow suit, even after pledging to participate last year.

“Our industry can make rail even safer, but it will take railroads, car owners and manufacturers, and our customers,” Shaw said in a statement. “From day one, I’ve shared these views directly with our elected leaders. I see a real opportunity for us to advance policies that will prevent accidents and improve collaboration with first responders.”

‘We’ve literally given them a road map’

For Washington, the inability to address rail safety exemplifies the persistent gridlock on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers struggle mightily to fulfill the most basic functions of government, even in the face of crisis. Once, a major chemical spill — and the risk of huge losses of life or property — would have motivated Congress to act with haste. Now, legislators can’t even debate the most pressing issues, stymied often by partisan warfare and corporate influence.

The political dysfunction has offered no comfort to the roughly 4,700 residents of East Palestine, a town near the Pennsylvania border crisscrossed by freight lines. On Feb. 3, 2023, some of the wheels on a Norfolk Southern freight train totaling about 150 cars caught fire and skipped off the tracks, spilling the train’s contents, <a href="https://www.epa.gov/east-palestine-oh-train-derailment/background" target=_blank>including vinyl chloride</a>, which can cause cancer. As residents and businesses evacuated, government officials scrambled to figure out the extent and risks of the contamination, leading to a controversial decision to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/02/06/ohio-train-derailment-evacuation-explosion/" target=_blank>burn off chemicals</a>.

One year later, “roughly 90 to 95 percent of it is cleaned up,” said Trent Conaway, the mayor of East Palestine, though there remain “hot spots” and officials continue to test the soil. State leaders have helped compensate affected families and businesses — and Norfolk Southern provided limited temporary housing — though Conaway says the total economic losses to the town would “definitely be in the millions.”

The derailment sparked federal investigations, including a review by the National Transportation Safety Board. Its chair, Jennifer Homendy, said in an interview last month that she anticipates releasing a final review of the accident — along with recommendations for changes — in May or June. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/candidates/joe-biden-2024/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">President Biden</a>, for his part, announced Wednesday that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/01/31/biden-visit-east-palestine-ohio/" target=_blank>he plans to visit</a> East Palestine in the coming weeks.

Before federal officials could complete their probes, however, the images of fiery rail cars in Ohio prompted the Biden administration to ramp up its work on safety, while Congress pursued new legislation. Last March, Brown and Vance <a href="https://www.brown.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/brown-vance-introduce-bipartisan-legislation-prevent-future-train-derailment-disasters#:~:text=WASHINGTON%2C%20D.C.%20%E2%80%93%20Today%2C%20U.S.,like%20the%20derailment%20that%20devastated" target=_blank>settled on the Railway Safety Act</a>, which Vance portrayed at the time as a “real opportunity to ensure that what happened in East Palestine will never happen again.” (His office declined to comment for this article.)

The proposal coupled new track and crew requirements with heightened powers for federal regulators to investigate and penalize any abuses. At the moment, the U.S. government can only fine rail operators <a href="https://railroads.dot.gov/elibrary/civil-penalties-schedules-guidelines-2023" target=_blank>up to about $225,000</a> for some spill-related accidents, even those that result in death.

Shaw <a href="https://norfolksouthern.mediaroom.com/2023-05-10-Norfolk-Southern-statement-on-U-S-Senate-rail-safety-legislation" target=_blank>called the proposal</a> the “first step toward the ultimate goal of enacting bipartisan legislation,” adding that Norfolk Southern would be “continuing our engagement” with Congress. But his pledge<b> </b>foreshadowed a wide-ranging industry lobbying campaign to neuter the bill and some of its toughest provisions.

Norfolk Southern soon banded together with its counterparts, including BNSF Railway, CSX and Union Pacific, to challenge core provisions of the measure that aimed to remedy the safety lapses in East Palestine. One proposal required rail operators to place more sensors on tracks — with shorter gaps between them — to better monitor the temperature of wheels to detect derailment risk. Currently, <a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47435" target=_blank>no federal law governs </a>the use of these sensors or where they should be placed, even though rail safety experts broadly see the technology as critical to spotting potential fires.

In private meetings, lobbyists for the Association for American Railroads, a Washington-based lobbying group, griped about the government trying to set these rules, according to four congressional aides. The organization, which represents Norfolk Southern and the rest of the industry, told Brown’s staff in April that freight railroads could determine on their own if their existing systems to detect wheel temperature and other defects were operating sufficiently.

As the Senate took its first steps to consider the bill, the association <a href="https://www.aar.org/news/aar-statement-on-senate-commerce-rail-safety-act-vote/" target=_blank>ramped up its opposition</a>, faulting Congress in May for trying to “micromanage detector networks.” The group’s president, Ian Jefferies, later <a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/PW/PW14/20230511/115825/HHRG-118-PW14-Wstate-JefferiesI-20230511.pdf" target=_blank>told lawmakers at a hearing</a> about the crash that they should be “wary of proposals motivated by politics.”

Instead, the rail association pitched Congress on a plan for rail operators to continue regulating themselves. In an interview, Jefferies pointed to industry efforts to install more track sensors since the East Palestine derailment.

Rebecca Kiger

“The sole reason there’s a nationwide network of wayside detection devices, a variety of types … is because railroads see a need. That was not because Congress, or because the federal government, the Department of Transportation, mandated that,” Jefferies added.

But the commitments offered no comfort to rail workers, safety experts and some lawmakers, many of whom saw the East Palestine derailment as a clear signal that the industry had failed to govern itself. Before the Ohio accident, the NTSB had already issued about 190 rail-related safety recommendations that remain open or resolved in unsatisfactory ways, according to the agency.

“We’ve literally given them a road map for how to improve safety, and they haven’t done so,” said Homendy, the NTSB chair.

Nationally, there were more than 289 derailments and other accidents on main freight lines from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30, according to a Washington Post review of the most recently available federal transportation data. The tally marked an uptick from the previous year, though Jefferies maintained that rail is the “safest way to move cargo over land, and that’s especially true” for hazardous materials.

A failed wheel bearing on a CSX freight train caused a <a href="https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-us/media/press-releases/csx-responds-to-livingston-kentucky-derailment/" target=_blank>chemical fire near Livingston, Ky</a>., for example, forcing some to evacuate their homes on Thanksgiving. Two BNSF trains derailed on the same day in March — <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/bnsf-train-derailment-spills-diesel-fuel-tribal-land-washington-rcna75387" target=_blank>one in Arizona</a>, another in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/17/1164144347/trains-derail-in-arizona-and-washington-with-oil-spilled-on-puget-sound-tribal-l" target=_blank>Washington state</a> — with the latter spilling 3,000 gallons of diesel fuel onto tribal lands.

Kendall Kirkham Sloan, a spokeswoman for BNSF, pointed to company-supplied data indicating it had the “lowest injury frequency rate” in 2023. In a statement, she said the freight railroad would “continue to share our concerns about policy provisions that are not tailored to address specifically identified safety concerns.”

The assurances failed to satisfy lawmakers in Congress.

“I do not trust these railroads to regulate themselves,” said Rep. Chris Deluzio (D), whose Pennsylvania district borders East Palestine. “I’m not interested in seeing them pay lip service to safety.” 

In Darlington, Pa., which Deluzio represents, the contamination from the East Palestine derailment last February forced some residents and businesses to evacuate. In March, he introduced his own version of the Railway Safety Act in the House — prompting a visit two months later from Norfolk Southern’s top executive.

Shaw laid out his objections to critical portions of the bill, according to Deluzio, who added the rail industry has pushed back against a proposal to institute new inspection and safety requirements for the sort of hazardous materials that spilled in East Palestine. Recalling the conversation last month, Deluzio said he made “crystal clear they should not only be opposing my bill and others, but they should be supporting it.”

“I don’t think they tried to lobby me too hard,” the congressman added. “I suspect they’re talking to folks who are a little friendlier.”

‘Burdensome regulations and all this other stuff’

To recruit allies, the rail industry long has relied on its political checkbook: The largest companies and their lobbying groups have spent a combined roughly $327 million in lobbying since 2010, according to a Post analysis of federal spending records.

This election cycle, the industry and its workers have also contributed more than $4.3 million to federal candidates and party committees, donor records show. Much of the money has gone to Republicans, especially those who oversee federal transportation policy.

Two of the biggest beneficiaries in the 2024 contests have been Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), the leader of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Rep. Troy E. Nehls (R-Tex.), who oversees its rail-focused subcommittee. In this cycle, Graves has received $26,000 from BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and their top trade association, while Nehls has received about $19,000. The companies donated through their political action committees to the two lawmakers as well as their leadership PACs, which enable members of Congress to write checks to their peers.

In the weeks after the East Palestine derailment, Graves, Nehls and other Republicans hammered the Biden administration. That March, they <a href="https://transportation.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2023-02-27_-_letter_to_epa_re_oversight_of_ns_train_derailment.pdf" target=_blank>wrote federal regulators</a> to raise “significant concerns” and to question “whether appropriate actions have been taken by the federal agencies to protect the community and the environment.”

Since then, though, the two lawmakers have refused to hold legislative hearings on the bipartisan rail safety bill, preventing it from coming to the House floor for a vote. Nehls at one point even <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/28/republicans-congress-rail-ohio-east-palsetine-00084878" target=_blank>told Politico</a> that Congress should not impose “more burdensome regulations and all this other stuff.”

Justin Harclerode, a spokesman for Graves, said the chairman “believes that the safety experts at the NTSB should be allowed to finish their investigation and report their findings to Congress before it takes up any legislation, including bills based on assumptions or factors that had absolutely nothing to do with the East Palestine accident.”

Emily Matthews, a spokeswoman for Nehls, said the GOP lawmaker would “not let emotion or media dictate the policy,” adding in a statement: “Freight rail is both the safest and most effective mode of surface transportation.”

Other recipients of the rail industry’s campaign donations have explicitly tried to water down the legislation in ways that major freight operators support. The dynamic seemed especially evident in May, when the bill came before the transportation-focused Senate Commerce Committee for early consideration. While it cleared the panel, a key first step to reach the Senate floor, it did so over the objections of nearly every Republican — including Sen. John Thune (S.D.), who described it as a “stalking horse for onerous regulatory mandates and union giveaways.”

The second-most-powerful GOP lawmaker in the chamber, Thune formerly served as <a href="https://lda.senate.gov/filings/public/filing/ce0a5d9d-bf88-49e4-b32a-0743d2b80c7c/print/" target=_blank>a registered lobbyist</a> for railroads. He has received more than $67,000 from the industry and its top executives this election cycle, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets, a money-in-politics watchdog. The senator has previously intervened on the industry’s behalf, even working to weaken regulations on brakes and other safety rules. The Intercept, a left-leaning publication, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/02/21/east-palestine-rail-safety-congress/" target=_blank>first reported on his past efforts</a>.

Thune’s office did not respond to requests for comment. The Senate still has not scheduled a vote on the bill, even though Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) maintained in a statement that rail safety “is a priority to get done.”

The industry’s efforts to engage Republicans stretch back decades, evident in work by leading rail operators to enlist a network of conservative advocacy groups to advance their views. Companies including Norfolk Southern and CSX, along with the Association of American Railroads (AAR), <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/06/20/anatomy-of-a-washington-dinner-who-funds-the-competitive-enterprise-institute/" target=_blank>have previously donated</a> to organizations that are influential among GOP lawmakers — including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which has forcefully opposed the Railway Safety Act.

In a <a href="https://cei.org/coalition_letters/cei-leads-coalition-letter-on-railroad-safety-act/" target=_blank>July letter</a>, the CEI and other conservative groups attacked the bill for requiring increased train inspections and derailment protections, warning that the legislation would “unduly empower unelected bureaucrats” — meaning federal safety regulators. “This is why it garnered the support of just two Republicans on the Committee,” wrote the groups, including Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks.

The CEI declined to comment on its donors. Travis Burk, a spokesman for the group, said it opposes the Railway Safety Act because it would “fail to improve rail safety and impose pointless restrictions.”

With Congress unable to act, the Biden administration has ramped up its own regulatory efforts to improve rail safety.

Since the derailment, the Transportation Department has completed about 7,500 inspections of track, signal and train control infrastructure, with a focus on trains carrying hazardous materials. In September, the Biden administration <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://railroads.dot.gov/elibrary/fy-2022-consolidated-rail-infrastructure-and-safety-improvement-program-selections-project__;!!M9LbjjnYNg9jBDflsQ!DClb6fUTIoUMPkxgr443MjvCQAJPdyMgJbxGBlYLzDRkfHRZCWDvXH4gZVmcMIOLpeWcdmnF096BBo6NzX9MV_cn_g$" target=_blank>awarded about $1.4 billion</a> in rail safety and infrastructure grants, and last month, it finalized new rules requiring trains carrying dangerous chemicals to have <a href="https://railroads.dot.gov/about-fra/communications/newsroom/press-releases/federal-railroad-administration-issues-final-0" target=_blank>emergency breathing equipment</a> onboard.

Even that small change sparked intense pushback. In July, the AAR, the industry’s leading lobbying organization, criticized the Biden administration for the “exorbitant proposed cost impacts” on freight railroads that might have to provide special breathing tools. Even though Congress had tasked the government with issuing those rules, the freight railroads still argued the government did not have the authority to act.

“I am not satisfied with where things are,” Buttigieg said of the industry’s progress one year after the East Palestine derailment.

The Biden administration has also tried to require railroads to employ two engineers on every train. For years, rail operators have whittled down their crews to cut costs, prompting the Transportation Department to try to craft new staffing rules starting in 2022.

Michael Swensen

While unions cheered the proposal, the rail industry mounted more than a year of vigorous opposition, arguing in legal filings that such a requirement would prove too expensive. At a <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document/FRA-2021-0032-13184" target=_blank>federal hearing in December 2022</a>, Michael Rush, the AAR’s senior vice president for safety and operations, told federal regulators that there is “no evidence that two-person crews are safer than one-person crews.”

“There’s actual ample data on the safety of operating a train with one person in the locomotive cab,” he said.

The argument stood in stark contrast to the widespread outcry among rail industry workers at Norfolk Southern, CSX, BNSF and Union Pacific, thousands of whom have written the Biden administration to express their alarm and lobby for new legislation.

“There are a lot of trains around the country carrying hazardous materials,” said Greg Regan, the president of the Transportation Trades Department with the AFL-CIO, which represents 37 transportation-related unions. “Our members have not seen any meaningful changes from the railroads.”

The fierce resistance prompted Congress to try to require at least two crew members on freight trains as part of the Railway Safety Act. The bill’s sponsors incorporated the provision partly out of a concern that any action by the Biden administration could be subject to a lawsuit or repeal.

Shaw, the leader of Norfolk Southern, told Congress that a two-person requirement wasn’t necessary, since the train in East Palestine carried three people, one of whom was in training. In a tense exchange at a Senate hearing last March, he repeatedly refused to endorse the idea, at one point saying he was “not aware of any data that links crew size with safety.”

“I get sick of industry executives talking about supporting the principles of regulation while they lobby against common-sense regulations like this one,” replied Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) at the time.

Other freight rail executives similarly descended on Washington to press the issue. Joseph Hinrichs, the chief executive of CSX, specifically visited last spring to communicate his opposition to Brown — only to be rebuked by the bill’s chief sponsor.

“I said to Mr. Henrichs, ‘Did you fly up from Jacksonville?’ He said yes,” Brown later recalled. “I said, ‘Did you stop by the cockpit? Were there one or two pilots?’ He laughed.”

“I don’t know any normal human being who thinks there shouldn’t be more than one person on these trains,” Brown said.

Sheriee Bowman, a spokeswoman for CSX, said in a statement that Hinrichs also “asked the senator how many people are required to be in the cabs of trucks that operate on congested highways and on public roads that statistically have far more accidents than trains.” She said there is “no data that equates crew size to safer trains,” even as she stressed that CSX “is not pursuing one-person crews.”

“CSX isn’t shying away from the discussions and believes that enhancing rail safety is in everyone’s best interest,” Bowman said.

American University, BA in Journalism

Tony Romm is the economic policy and accountability reporter at The Washington Post. 


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