WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator JD Vance (R-OH) delivered opening remarks during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation regarding the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
“You cannot, on the one hand, beg the government to bail you out of a labor dispute three months ago and then say that it’s big government to have proper safety standards in the way that you conduct your railroads,” said Senator Vance. “It’s a ridiculous argument. It doesn’t pass the smell test. And the fact that [the railroad industry] advanced that argument in their op-eds and their paid-for activism is insulting to the people of East Palestine, and it’s insulting to the intelligence of the members of this committee.
“Let me offer a specific pushback to a criticism. One of the things that I’ve heard in response to our legislation is that it actually has nothing to do with what happened in East Palestine. Well, that is an interesting observation, and it’s something that I’d love them to go to East Palestine and say themselves. Say it to the firefighters who went into a chemical fire without proper hazmat protection because they didn’t know what was on the train. This legislation fixes that problem as it should.”
Watch Senator Vance’s full testimony here:
Full Transcript:
I want to thank all of our guests here, both during this panel and the next panel. But I particularly want to thank Ms. Allison for being here. I read your testimony this morning, and I won’t reveal what’s in it because I don’t want to give anything away. But let me just say that I’m sorry this happened, and as the father of three kids under the age of six, I was particularly affected by some of the ways this has affected your children.
And the only thing I’d ask you, Ms. Allison, because you’ve already done so much with your activism, and I appreciate that, is that you always treat our office as an open door. If there’s more that we could be doing, I would like to be doing it. I am a new Senator, you don’t always see everything that’s happening, and the thing that I’d ask is if you think we could be doing more, just come and tell us, because we’ll try to do that. So I look forward to your testimony.
But let me just address a couple of issues related to the Railway Safety Act. I have heard a couple of general complaints and a couple of specific complaints about the legislation from industry groups, from alleged conservative activists. And I would like to address them in broad strokes here and then address one specific consideration, and then finally suggest a way we might be able to deal with this bill and this legislation in the future.
So the most outrageous and the most ridiculous thing that I’ve heard from industry groups and other activists in response to this bill is that it’s somehow a kind of Bolshevism to require the railways to engage in proper safety standards, that this bill is a big government solution to the railway safety problem. It is funny that that complaint comes from a group that came before this body three months ago begging for a bailout from their labor dispute.
And while I’m on that topic, by the way, thank you, Ranking Member Cruz, for your leadership on that issue in particular. But you cannot, on the one hand, beg the government to bail you out of a labor dispute three months ago and then say that it’s big government to have proper safety standards in the way that you conduct your railroads.
It’s a ridiculous argument. It doesn’t pass the smell test. And the fact that they advanced that argument in their op-eds and their paid-for activism is insulting to the people of East Palestine, and it’s insulting to the intelligence of the members of this committee. Let me offer a specific pushback to a criticism. One of the things that I’ve heard in response to our legislation is that it actually has nothing to do with what happened in East Palestine.
Well, that is an interesting observation, and it’s something that I’d love them to go to East Palestine and say themselves. Say it to the firefighters who went into a chemical fire without proper hazmat protection because they didn’t know what was on the train. This legislation fixes that problem as it should. But you cannot say that this has nothing to do with East Palestine when the very people on the ground are begging for some of these changes and the firefighters, not just in East Palestine, but all across the state of Ohio and all across the country, are saying that they need this stuff.
Now, I’ve heard from people that the railroads are adopting certain voluntary standards. You heard some of that in Senator Brown’s testimony. They allegedly have an app that notifies the firefighters and the first responders what’s on the trains. Well, if the app was good enough, then why did it fail in East Palestine if the app provided proper notification? Then why did firefighters in my state seven weeks ago go fight a chemical fire without knowing what was on it?
It’s a ridiculous argument. Now I want to look towards the future here, and I want to offer a suggestion to the rail industry and to anybody else who wants to engage on this legislation. I had a good meeting with Alan Shaw yesterday, and I’m looking forward to Mr. Shaw’s testimony. I would love to see a commitment from Mr. Shaw to defend and to support certain components of this bill.
I think it would be good. I think it’d be good for the people of East Palestine. And I frankly think it would be good for Norfolk Southern as well. But one of the things that we talked about is the hot box detectors and whether we need them every ten miles or every fifteen miles or every seven and a half miles, and whether they should be enhanced by additional technology.
That’s the type of conversation I am willing to have. And I don’t want to speak for Senator Brown, but I guess that he’d probably be willing to have it, too. Let’s have that conversation about what the proper pacing is for the hot box detectors. Let’s have the conversation about how we can advance this stuff with better technology. I am open to that, but to the rail industry: don’t lie about my bill.
Don’t slander the staff who drafted it. If you would like to have a good faith conversation about rail safety, let’s do exactly that. But we’re gonna learn a lot during this committee and in the weeks to come. If the rail industry would like to do that, I hope they will, because I’m certainly ready to join that conversation. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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