Press Releases
Ranking Member Crawford Statement from Hearing on Freight Rail SafetyOpening remarks, as prepared, of Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee Ranking Member Rick Crawford (R-AR) from today’s hearing entitled, “Examining Freight Rail Safety”: Thank you, Chair Payne, for holding this hearing, and thank you to our witnesses for participating. This hearing continues this Subcommittee’s focus on important aspects of railroad industry safety. Today we are specifically focusing on safety issues in the freight railroad industry. America’s freight railroads rank as one of the safest means of transporting goods in the world. According to the Association of American Railroads, train accidents were down 33 percent between 2000 and 2020, and accidents involving hazardous materials were down 60 percent. These gains in safety build towards the ultimate target of zero accidents. Monitoring and protecting our 140,000-mile freight rail network is no easy job. Improving highway-rail grade crossing protections, reducing human error, and supporting innovative new drone and automated safety technologies can all contribute towards reaching the zero-accident goal. Specifically, we must continue to encourage the development of automated track inspection safety technology, which has been shown to decrease accidents, identify new safety issues, and free up safety inspectors to focus on other important duties. I recently sent a letter to the Federal Railroad Administration raising concerns about its denials of waivers to continue testing Automated Track Inspection technology. I ask for unanimous consent to enter this letter into the record. [link to letter] Finally, there are multiple federal grant programs that can help communities and railroads upgrade and improve their tracks, highway-rail grade crossings, and general network infrastructure in ways that can have dramatic impacts on safety. We must ensure that this grant funding is open and accessible to all qualified applicants in need, and that the money is distributed in a fair and transparent manner, including to both rural and urban areas. I commend the Chair for holding this hearing today and look forward to hearing from our witnesses. Click here for more information, including video and witness testimony. |