Obama administration in 2014 proposed improving safety regulations for trains carrying petroleum and other hazardous materials. However, after industry pressure, the final measure ended up narrowly focused on the transport of crude oil and exempting trains carrying many other combustible materials, including the chemical involved in this weekend’s disaster.
Then came 2017: After rail industry donors delivered more than $6 million to GOP campaigns, the Trump administration — backed by rail lobbyists and Senate Republicans — rescinded part of that rule aimed at making better braking systems widespread on the nation’s rails.
Specifically, regulators killed provisions requiring rail cars carrying hazardous flammable materials to be equipped with electronic braking systems to stop trains more quickly than conventional air brakes. Norfolk Southern had previously touted the new technology — known as Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) brakes — for its “potential to reduce train stopping distances by as much as 60 percent over conventional air brake systems.”
But the company’s lobby group nonetheless pressed for the rule’s repeal, telling regulators that it would “impose tremendous costs without providing offsetting safety benefits.”
That argument won out with Trump officials — and the Biden administration has not moved to reinstate the brake rule or expand the kinds of trains subjected to tougher safety regulations.
“Would ECP brakes have reduced the severity of this accident? Yes,” Steven Ditmeyer, a former senior official at the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), told The Lever. “The railroads will test new features. But once they are told they have to do it… they don’t want to spend the money.”
Norfolk Southern did not answer questions about its efforts to weaken safety mandates. The company also did not answer questions about what kind of braking system was operating on the train that derailed in Ohio. The company referred The Lever to the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency that is investigating the accident and that had originally called for more expansive rules governing the transport of hazardous materials. A spokesperson for the agency confirmed to The Lever that the derailed train was not equipped with ECP brakes.
A spokesperson for one advocacy group pressing for tougher safety regulations said the Ohio disaster is the latest consequence of the rail industry’s cost-cutting, profit-at-all cost business model.
“Prior to the stock buyback era, railroads agreed that ECP brakes were a good thing,” said Ron Kaminkow, a longtime railroad worker and organizer with Railroad Workers United. “The railroads hadn’t yet come to the realization that they could do whatever they wanted. ECP brakes were on the drawing board, then off.”
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