One of modern politicians’ worst habits is “doing something” following a natural or man-made disaster like a hurricane, mass shooting, or financial crisis. The “something” is usually an expansion of government power. Rarely, if ever, do legislators ask whether existing regulations may have helped cause the problem—or whether the government’s solution creates new problems or fails to prevent future ones. Even rarer is for politicians to concede that there was nothing the government or private sector could have done to prevent the crisis du jour. In such cases, spending more money and imposing more regulations on private institutions would simply be a waste of time and money.
An example of a disaster that politicians could not resist “solving” is the 2023 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio. The derailed train was carrying at least five different toxic chemicals. The chemicals caused East Palestine residents to experience rashes, dizziness, nausea, headaches, and coughs. Norfolk Southern paid $600 million in a settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by East Palestine residents. The company paid over a million dollars for environmental remediation and monitoring in 2023 and 2024, as well as $1,166,000 for legal fees and assistance to the community. Norfolk Southern ended up paying a total of over $2.2 billion—of which insurance only paid $751 million, leaving the railroad to pay $1.4 billion.
Norfolk Southern was held liable for the chemical derailment even though the company had implemented safety precautions that exceeded those mandated by the government. It is not surprising that Norfolk Southern’s safety standards exceeded the government’s standards. As was the case with the East Palestine derailment—railroads are responsible for accidents involving their trains. Insurance companies also have an incentive to make sure their policy holders are taking all reasonable precautions to avoid accidents.
In contrast, government regulators do not have the same incentives as private businesses. Regulators are rarely held accountable for failures that occur on their watch. In fact, federal agencies often receive greater money and power after they fail to prevent something from going wrong. Imposing new federal safety regulations on railroads is not only unnecessary—it could create new problems.
New regulations will inevitably raise the costs of doing business. These costs will be passed onto those businesses who use railroads to ship their products. Trains are a cheaper way to transport goods than trucking; it costs $0.30 cents to move a ton of goods one mile by train, while it costs $0.50 to move the same ton of goods one mile by truck. One reason for this cost difference is that a train only uses one gallon of diesel to transport a ton of goods 500 miles, while trucks are less fuel efficient. Rail travel is also safer than other ways of shipping goods, partially because over the last 40 years, railroads have spent approximately $800 billion maintaining bridges, tunnels, tracks, and other parts of their infrastructure.
In contrast, federal transportation programs are notorious for failing to devote sufficient resources to maintenance. This is because politicians get good press from announcing they have secured funding for a new infrastructure project in their state or district, but are not similarly celebrated for securing funding for repairs—unless those repairs are inspired by a high-profile tragedy.
A thriving rail industry also makes the nation’s highways safer by reducing the number of trucks on the road. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, in 2020, trains crashed less than 0.1% as often as trucks.
Even though legislation was not needed to improve rail safety, a group of legislators along with several politicians introduced the Railroad Safety Act. This legislation (which was reintroduced in this Congress) imposes new safety regulations on trains and increases fines for violating the regulations.
Three years after the East Palestine derailment, the Railroad Safety Act could become law. According to Punchbowl news, the Trump Administration not only supports the bill, but is encouraging the House and Senate transportation committees to include it in any transportation legislation they send to the floor this year. This is disappointing but not surprising since the bill’s original sponsor was then-Ohio Senator and now Vice President JD Vance.
The Railroad Safety Act is also supported by the transportation unions—which means it offers a rare opportunity for the President to have a bipartisan victory. Hopefully, principled free-market conservatives in the House and Senate will block this well-intentioned but harmful bill that would make railroads more expensive and our roads less safe.
