Freedom Line Blog

America as we know it was built largely upon and because of our rail industry, and today it remains a pillar of our economy.

Unfortunately, a destructive proposal before Congress misleadingly named the “Railway Safety Act” (RSA), part of broader surface transportation reauthorization, threatens great harm to our railroads.

Simply put, the bill has nothing to do with improving safety, but has a lot to do with advancing the political agenda of Big Labor.  At a moment when inflation burdens American families and fragile supply chains remain vulnerable to disruption, the last thing our economy or rail sector need is another costly federal mandate imposed upon one of the nation’s most important transportation sectors.

As an initial matter, as noted by The Wall Street Journal, the bill’s “safety” rationalization doesn’t withstand even passing scrutiny.  Over the past two decades alone, rail accident rates have plummeted by 40%, derailments have declined 46% and worker casualty rates have fallen 54%.

That improvement occurred because the private industry invests billions of private dollars every year into infrastructure upgrades, track maintenance, employee training, advanced braking systems, inspection technologies and countless other safety improvements.  Those investments have been facilitated by our existing regulatory framework, which has historically allowed leeway for innovation and operational flexibility, which in turn has allowed those investments to produced a rail network that continues to improve in both safety and efficiency.

The RSA and its proposed bureaucratic mandates, however, would undermine those investments and efforts.

For instance, the RSA would impose sweeping new federal micromanagement of crew sizes, inspections, equipment standards and operational procedures.  Those mandates would in turn saddle rail carriers with enormous compliance costs that ultimately do not disappear into thin air.  Rather, those costs inevitably mean higher prices for consumers, manufacturers, farmers, domestic energy producers and other businesses and industries that depend upon freight rail to move goods affordably across the country.

The bill’s provision requiring that freight trains operate with at least two crew members is among its most pernicious.

In addition to the rail industry’s rapidly improving safety record as noted above, absolutely no evidence suggests that a crew size mandate would do anything other than serve Big Labor’s wish list.

As a leading illustration, the infamous East Palestine, Ohio derailment of February 2023, which proponents of the RSA often cite, actually occurred with a three-person crew.

Additionally, federal reviews conducted in 2016 and 2019, along with the Federal Railroad Administration’s own more recent rulemaking process, found no causal relationship between mandatory crew size and accident reduction.  Yet the RSA would impose a one-size-fits-all staffing mandate anyway, effectively doubling labor costs for numerous freight operations without any demonstrated safety benefit.

That’s not sound public policy.  It’s government-imposed inefficiency.

Worse still, such mandates threaten to freeze innovation precisely when the transportation sector should be embracing it.  Advances in automation, monitoring systems and operational technology continue to improve safety and productivity across industries.  Freight rail should not be locked into outdated federally mandated staffing formulas designed less around safety than around protecting entrenched special interests from technological change.

Indeed, the RSA constitutes an end-around designed to accomplish through federal law what collective bargaining negotiations could not guarantee on their own: a permanently protected employment structure insulated from modernization and competitive pressures.

That approach carries consequences extending far beyond the rail industry itself.

Specifically, freight rail serves as a backbone of interstate commerce and supports millions of American jobs, so policies that reduce operational flexibility, discourage efficiency and increase costs inevitably weaken future investment in infrastructure modernization and network expansion.  Over time, that means slower freight movement, reduced competitiveness and diminished economic growth.

Heavy-handed federal mandates also tend to overlook the practical realities of a geographically vast and operationally diverse rail network.  Conditions vary dramatically across routes, regions and cargo types.  Existing law allows rail operators the flexibility to deploy resources where they make the greatest safety impact, rather than diverting time and money toward regulatory box-checking exercises crafted in Washington.

Congress should pursue transportation policy grounded in evidence, economic reality and genuine safety outcomes — not political theater designed to reward Big Labor.

Accordingly, at a time when Americans already face elevated prices across nearly every sector of the economy, lawmakers should avoid policies that make matters worse, and soundly reject the RSA.

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, which deregulated American freight rail and saved it from looming oblivion.

At the time of passage, the U.S. economy muddled along amid ongoing malaise, and our rail industry teetered due to decades of overly bureaucratic sclerosis.  Many other domestic U.S. industries had disappeared, and our railroads faced the same fate.  But by passing the Staggers Rail Act, Congress restored a deregulatory approach that in the 1980s allowed other U.S. industries to thrive.  No longer would government determine what services railroads could offer, their rates or their routes, instead restoring greater authority to the railroads themselves based upon cost-efficiency.

Today, U.S. rail flourishes even amid the coronavirus pandemic, accounting for 42% of total U.S. freight, while the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) anticipates another 30% growth in rail volume over the next two decades.  In terms of cost-efficiency, today’s railroads transport nearly twice the freight for the same price of 40 years ago when the Staggers Act passed.  Rail now transports fully one-third of all U.S. exports, its accident rate has fallen 10% in the past ten years alone and it moves one ton of goods over 470 miles on a single gallon of fuel – far surpassing the fuel efficiency of ground trucks.  Rail also supports approximately 1.5 million jobs, industry employees earn 60% more than average U.S. workers and railroads have poured over $700 billion into domestic infrastructure improvements since 1980.

And importantly, in contrast to industries like trucking, shipping or airline freight, rail travels almost entirely upon infrastructure that it built and maintains with its own dollars.   Rail also hasn’t needed federal bailouts, as opposed to other industries.

Americans should all recognize rail’s success story, and thank the Staggers Rail Act and the deregulation that it restored for that success.  Happy 40th!

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, railroads have maintained supply chains while not requiring bailouts despite widespread uncertainty threatening other industries.  That directly reflects the railroad industry’s longstanding position of strength, due largely to deregulation via the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, which we cannot allow to be reversed:

Deregulated Rail Sector Surges