Norfolk Southern CEO won’t support railway safety bill

WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — The CEO of Norfolk Southern apologized for a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, at a Senate hearing on Thursday; however, he stopped short of endorsing a new bipartisan bill aimed at making the rail industry safer.

Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw apologized to East Palestine residents for the train derailment that resulted in dispensing hazardous chemicals into the air and disrupting their lives as they knew them.

“I am deeply sorry for the impact this derailment has had on the people of East Palestine and surrounding communities, and I am determined to make it right. We will clean the site safely, thoroughly, and with urgency,” Shaw said at Thursday’s hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

However, the biggest takeaway from his testimony was that he would not commit to supporting a bipartisan bill written by both senators from Ohio that would put in place a whole list of regulations aimed at preventing more train derailments.

Both Republican and Democratic senators had been pushing Shaw to make that commitment.

Shaw did agree with some of the regulations within the bill, saying he could get behind and support “the legislative intent to make rail safer.” He said Norfolk Southern could support improving railcar standards, more funding for first responders and newer track detector technology to spot problems with coming trains.

Norfolk Southern has announced several voluntary safety upgrades. Federal regulators, though, have said the company must do more to improve safety.

Shaw said the railroad will “do the right thing” with a $21 million commitment to help the Ohio-Pennsylvania border communities recover.

But senators want to push beyond that. Their proposed bill, the Railway Safety Act of 2023, calls for more rules and regulations on trains carrying hazardous materials, requires a minimum of two-person crews, increases fines for wrongdoing and requires more time for car inspections. At the moment, the mandatory time allowed for each car inspection is just one minute.

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), one of the bill’s authors, made the plea to his own party to support it.

“Now we’re faced with a choice with this legislation and how we respond to this crisis,” Vance said. “Do we do the bidding of a massive industry that is in bed with big government? Or do we do the bidding of the people who elected us to the Senate and Congress in the first place?”

Vance told NewsNation after his testimony that he fears the real threat to passing the bill is how much money the rail industry spends and lobbies.

“We’re trying to get to the bottom of this. It was preventable, it’s a tragedy. The community is rightfully up in arms. We want to make sure that there’s full accountability, that the right safety standards are put in place,” Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said. “We know the rail industry has a great deal of political influence, as all stakeholders have. We understand that, but we have to represent the people of this country.”

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is launching another investigation into the Norfolk Southern company after recent train derailments across the country have raised questions about the company’s safety regulations. The NTSB currently has six ongoing investigations into company derailment incidents, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said.

Homendy said there is always room to address rail safety, and that Shaw has personally committed to her to provide anything that investigators need.