CEI Leads Coalition opposing the Railway Safety Act
The Honorable Shelley Moore Capito Chairman
Environment and Public Works Committee
U.S. Senate
The Honorable Ted Cruz Chairman
Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
U.S. Senate
The Honorable Tim Scott Chairman
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee
U.S. Senate
The Honorable Sheldon Whitehouse Ranking Member
Environment and Public Works Committee
U.S. Senate
The Honorable Maria Cantwell Ranking Member
Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee
U.S. Senate
The Honorable Elizabeth Warren Ranking Member
Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee
U.S. Senate
Dear Chairmen Capito, Cruz, Scott and Ranking Members Whitehouse, Cantwell, and Warren:
We write to express our concerns over the current administration’s proposal to include the Railway Safety Act of 2025 (H.R. 928) as part of the surface transportation reauthorization. The act would establish that no freight train may be operated without a two-person crew consisting of a conductor and an engineer. The act is unnecessary and will instead serve as a drag on the railway industry’s efforts to modernize its operations, something that needs to be encouraged given the demonstrated vulnerability of our nation’s supply chain.
We live in a time when automated taxi services are being introduced in major cities and warfare by aerial drones is now commonplace on battlefields. There is no reason why the rail industry should not be at the cutting edge of transportation automation. After all, freight trains run on dedicated tracks rather than utilizing public roads, airways or waterways and do not carry passengers. They have an inherent safety edge over other forms of transportation.
The administration nevertheless argues that the Railway Safety Act is necessary to prevent any future incidents like the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. But a minimum crew size requirement would confer no additional safety advantage given the current level of technology.
A two-person crew minimum would certainly not have prevented the East Palestine crash. We know this because at the time of the incident, the train had a three-person crew: an engineer, a conductor, and a trainee. The crash was primarily a mechanical failure. The National Transportation Safety Board’s June 25, 2024 report on the incident did not cite crew size as a factor and did not recommend minimum crew sizes to prevent future such incidents.
Nor was that the first time the issue of train crew size and its relation to safety was examined. The Department of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration examined the question in 2016 and again in 2019. No correlation was found. “FRA cannot provide reliable or conclusive statistical data to suggest whether one-person crew operations are generally safer or less safe than multiple-person crew operations,” the agency’s 2016 report found. The FRA’s 2019 investigation echoed that result.
The impulse to establish a minimum just for the sake of being extra cautious should be resisted too. A crew size mandate would ripple throughout the economy. Shipping is an input cost to just about every household good. Increasing those costs will increase household costs at a time when everyone is worried about persistent inflation and squeezed pocketbooks. We saw in the supply chain shock of 2021 how fragile the interstate commerce system can be and how urgently it needs modernization. Congress should be lifting the barriers to that, not layering additional unnecessary requirements on top of them.
Beyond imposing unnecessary costs, the RSA would lock today’s technology into tomorrow’s law. The FRA has already addressed train crew size through rulemaking, which at least allows future administrations to revisit the issue as technology and operational practices evolve.
By codifying a two-person crew mandate in statute, Congress would make it far more difficult to adapt to future innovations that could maintain or improve safety while increasing efficiency.
The bill likewise mandates the deployment of wayside bearing detectors, which prescribes a specific technological approach as opposed to encouraging better safety outcomes. Congress should avoid freezing current practices into statute and instead preserve the flexibility needed to adopt emerging technologies that can further improve both safety and productivity.
For these reasons, we urge you to reject inclusion of the Railway Safety Act in the surface transportation reauthorization. It would not make railways any safer but would serve as a drag on efforts to modernize our nation’s supply chain.
Iain Murray
Vice President for Strategy and Senior Fellow
Competitive Enterprise Institute
John Shelton
Vice President of Policy
Advancing American Freedom
Phil Kerpen
President
American Commitment
Kristen Walker
Senior Policy Analyst and Manager for Energy and Transportation
American Consumer Institute
Nick Loris
President
C3 Solutions Action
Jackson Reese
President
California Policy Center
Garrett Ballengee
President & CEO
Cardinal Institute for West Virginia Policy
Ryan Ellis
President
Center For a Free Economy
Timothy Lee
Senior Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs
Center for Individual Freedom
David M. Ozgo
Executive Director
Center for Transportation Advancement
John Hinderaker
President
Center of the American Experiment
Matthew Kandrach
President
Consumer Action for a Strong Economy
Yaël Ossowski
Deputy Director
Consumer Choice Center
Michael Munger
Pfizer / Pratt University Distinguished Professor
Duke University
Craig Richardson
President
Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal)
Akash Chougule
President
Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity
Cameron Sholty
Executive Director
Heartland Impact
Andrew Langer
President
Institute For Liberty
Tom Giovanetti
President
Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI)
Ian Adams
Executive Director
International Center for Law & Economics
Ike Brannon*
Senior Fellow
Jack Kemp Foundation
Charles Sauer
President
Market Institute
Roslyn Layton, PhD*
Senior Fellow
National Security Institute George Mason University
Thomas Aiello
Vice President of Federal Affairs
National Taxpayers Union
Daniel J. Erspamer
Chief Executive Officer
Pelican Institute for Public Policy
Paul J. Gessing
President
Rio Grande Foundation
Russ Brown
CEO
RWP Labor
Karen Kerrigan
President & CEO
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
Gregory A. Schroeder
Executive Vice President
Southwest Public Policy Institute
Ralph Benko
Cofounder and Chairman
The Capitalist League
James Taylor
President
The Heartland Institute
Ross Marchand
Executive Director
Taxpayers Protection Alliance
* Affiliation listed for identification purposes only.