Ohio governor calls for Congress to act on movement of hazardous materials by rail
By | February 15, 2023DeWine says notification of states should be required
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has called for congressional action requiring railroads to provide notification when they are transporting hazardous materials through states in the wake of the Feb. 3 derailment and fire of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that in a Tuesday press conference, DeWine said he was told by the state’s Public Utilities Commission that the train was not properly classified, so the railroad was not required to provide any notification of the materials involved.
“Frankly, if this was true, and I’m told it’s true, this is absurd,” DeWine said. “… Congress needs to take a look at how these things are handled. We should know when we have trains carrying hazardous material that are going through the state of Ohio.”
DeWine also said he has talked to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw “numerous times” since the derailment.
“I discussed with him many of the concerns we’re hearing from residents of East Palestine,” DeWine said, according to WTOV-TV. “I asked him if he would personally guarantee, personally guarantee that the railroad would stay there until absolutely everything was cleaned up. He gave me his word and commitment that the railroad would to that. They would not leave until that was done.”
If not, DeWine said, “We’ve got an attorney general that will file a lawsuit. They’re responsible for this. They did it. The impact on this community is huge — not just physical problem that might be caused, but the inconvenience, the terror.”
In other developments:
— A USA Today report links lobbying by Norfolk Southern and the rest of the railroad industry to efforts to block regulations governing the movement of hazardous materials. It cites a 2015 Federal Railroad Administration rule that would have required the use of electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, among other measures. That rule was repealed in 2017 [see “DOT formally rescinds ECP braking …,” Trains News Wire, Dec. 5, 2017]
A former FRA official told USA Today that ECP brakes would have prevented a derailment as large as the one in East Palestine; a spokeswoman for the Association of American Railroads told the newspaper in a statement that ECP brakes had a “significant” failure rate in tests and repair times that made them impractical.
— Presidential Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a Tuesday briefing that the Biden administration has been “in close touch with local officials to ensure that they have what they need” to deal with the aftermath of the derailment, and that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “will continue to support Ohio EPA surface and groundwater sampling efforts to ensure drinking water is indeed safe.” DeWine, during his press conference, said he had been in touch with President Joe Biden, who had offered whatever federal help the state needed.
Jean-Pierre declined comment on the request by the Transportation Trades Department of the AFL-CIO that the Federal Railroad Administration require railroads to participate in the confidential close call reporting system [see “Union group calls for FRA to require Class I participation …,” News Wire, Feb. 10, 2023], saying she “would need to talk to the policy team” to not get ahead of ongoing discussions. In the wake of the East Palestine accident, TTD President Greg Regan wrote FRA Administrator Amit Bose, saying freight rail operations require greater federal oversight.
Jean-Pierre did not respond to a question regarding electronically controlled brakes.
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