Buttigieg on why rail safety measures have stalled one year after East Palestine disaster

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• Geoff Bennett:

  And I want to start with one of the questions we heard most often from folks in East Palestine, and that's why it took President Biden more than a year to visit.

• Pete Buttigieg:

  Well, the president went at the invitation of the mayor, and I think it's especially important right now, one year on, to demonstrate that the commitment of this administration to the people of East Palestine didn't end when the political and media firestorm left that town a few weeks after the derailment.

  It continues, and we will be with the people of East Palestine for as long as it takes. There are different sides to the response. The EPA has been leading the process of holding Norfolk Southern accountable for the cleanup. FEMA has been involved.

  For our department, the process mainly has to do with making sure things like this can't happen again, which is why we have taken so many steps on rail safety policy and are pressing Congress to do more with the power that it has.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, despite intense scrutiny from regulatory agencies since that derailment, rail accidents have actually increased over the last year. Why? What accounts for that?

• Pete Buttigieg:

  Well, I think this demonstrates why we need that Bipartisan Railway Safety Act in Congress.

  Don't get me wrong. We're doing everything we can with the authorities that we already have, focused inspections, a new rule that we recently finalized requiring emergency escape breathing apparatus to protect crew members on trains carrying this kind of hazardous materials, audits, and safety advisories, other measures.

  But the simple reality is, we need a stronger hand. And Congress could and should give that to us with the Bipartisan Railway Safety Act. I will give you just a couple examples. One thing that that legislation would do is, it would lift the statutory cap that prevents my department from fining a railroad anything more than low six figures, even for an egregious violation that leads to a fatality, which is obviously not enough to get multibillion-dollar corporations to change their behavior.

  It would also accelerate the adoption of safer equipment and standards that on our own it would either take too long or we simply lack the authority to do.

  Now, there was a lot of noise about this a year ago, but now, one year later, I think, because of intense lobbying against this by the railroad industry, it has been very difficult to get many members of Congress on the record on whether they're for or against this Railway Safety Act, even though it had both Republican and Democratic co-sponsors at the time.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, I spoke with the CEO of Norfolk Southern on this program about this Bipartisan Rail Safety Act. And he said that he supports what he calls data-driven safety standards, like more heat sensors on railways, for instance, but he doesn't support this proposed mandate to have at least two crew members on trains.

  The industry wants to have, in most cases, one engineer on trains that could be miles' long. The train that derailed in East Palestine was almost two miles' long. He says he sees no link between crew size and railway safety. What's your response to that?

• Pete Buttigieg:

  I just think common sense tells you that, when you have got a train, especially a train that's two miles' long or longer, you want to have more than one human being on board that train.

  By the way, we're continuing to work with our authorities as a department to advance a rule that was frozen during the Trump administration to try to make that possible with our regulatory authority. But Congress could make it happen much more quickly, and it's another one of the provisions in that Railway Safety Act.

  And, by the way, we're talking about — we're not talking about an industry that is hurting for the ability to afford to put human beings on the job. They have cut thousands and thousands and thousands of railway workers out of the work force and are an incredibly profitable, some would say ridiculously profitable, industry today.

  The idea that they want to go even further and have these trains going through American communities with just one person board, again, I think it just flies in the face of common sense.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, as you mentioned, the industry has lobbied against this bipartisan safety bill. And, for the most part, they're largely self-regulated and self-policed.

  What more can you do in terms of accountability to hold these rail — to hold the rail industry accountable? Or are your hands tied without action from Congress?

• Pete Buttigieg:

  Our hand is very much limited without action from Congress.

  Again, I want to emphasize we're using all of the tools at our disposal, like advancing that rule on a two-person crew, regardless of what Congress does. But there are other steps where Congress actually stepped in over the years and reduced our department's ability to press things like the adoption of safer tank cars that would be less likely to rupture in a crash.

  They actually stepped in to delay processes that would allow our department to do more around braking and how that works. And, again, I think it's clear why. The railroad industry is famously one of the most powerful in this country. It's wielded power in this country for — famously since the 19th century.

  But there were a lot of people who stood up in the wake of what happened in East Palestine a year ago and said, we have got to do better as a country. We won't let this happen again. My question is, where are they now?

• Geoff Bennett:

  That is Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

  Thanks, as always, for your time. We appreciate it.

• Pete Buttigieg:

  Thank you. Good to be with you.