Buttigieg scolds railroads for not doing more to improve safety since Ohio derailment
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has reiterated his concerns about railroad safety and scolded the industry for not doing more to improve since last year's fiery Ohio derailment
OMAHA, Neb. — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has reiterated his concerns about railroad safety and scolded the industry for not doing more to improve since last year's fiery Ohio derailment.
In a new letter to the freight railroads' main trade group, Buttigieg acknowledged that railroads say they are committed to safety. He also gave them credit for agreeing to provide paid sick time to nearly 90% of their workers over the past year, and for investing in an extensive network of detectors and other technology to help prevent derailments.
But he said too often regulators encounter resistance when trying to get the industry to do more to improve safety. And he said the Federal Railroad Administration's statistics don't show safety improving significantly over the past decade.
“I want to enlist you in the project of rejecting, not defending, today’s status quo with its stagnant or worsening accident rates. The rate should be going down — and fast,” Buttigieg wrote in the letter to the Association of American Railroads that was made public late Monday. He urged the trade group to join with Congress and regulators to improve safety — not lobby against the reforms that were proposed after the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment in February 2023.
The latest statistics do show the total number of all accidents and the number of derailments declining in the U.S. at the major freight railroads over the past decade, but the amount of rail traffic is also down significantly over that time. When the distance freight travels is factored in, the
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