Six months after the Ohio train derailment, Congress is deadlocked on new safety rules

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/03/ohio-train-derailment-congress-safety-rules

Congress responded to the fiery train derailment in eastern Ohio earlier this year with bipartisan alarm, holding a flurry of hearings about the potential for railroad crashes to trigger even larger disasters. Both parties agreed that a legislative response was needed.

Yet six months after life was upended in East Palestine, little has changed.While Joe Biden and Donald Trump have praised a railroad safety bill from the Ohio senators Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and JD Vance, a Republican, the Senate proposal has also encountered resistance. Top GOP leaders in Congress have been hesitant to support it, and the bill has faced some opposition from the railroad industry, which holds significant sway in Washington.

As a result, it remains an open question whether the derailment that shattered life in East Palestine will become a catalyst for action. And for Republicans, the fight poses a larger test of political identity, caught between their traditional support for industry and their desire to champion voters in rural America.“These rail lines pass frequently through Republican areas, small towns with a lot of Republican voters,” Vance told the Associated Press. “How can we look them in the eye and say, we’re doing a good job by you? If we choose the railroads over their own interests, we can’t.”

In East Palestine, a village of approximately 5,000 people near the Pennsylvania state line, the railroad has reopened both its tracks in the area but the cleanup continues. Norfolk Southern estimates that its response to the derailment will cost at least $803m to remove all the hazardous chemicals, help the community and deal with lawsuits and penalties related to the derailment.
But residents still worry about the long-term health effects. Many are looking to Congress to act, hoping it will prevent another community from enduring the trauma, fear and upheaval they have endured.

Jami Wallace, who has lived in East Palestine for 46 years along with her extended family, has helped lead a community group called the Unity Council to represent residents’ concerns and push for government action.

“If our legislators don’t take East Palestine as an example of some of the reforms that need to be in the regulations that need to be put on, you know, the railroad industry, then they’re fools,” Wallace said. “Again, we don’t want to suffer for nothing.”

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