Three years after Norfolk Southern train disaster, finish job on rail safety
On the evening of the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, in 2023, I stood in my kitchen refreshing my phone, trying to understand whether the air outside my home was safe for my children to breathe. I wasn’t thinking about policy. I was thinking about whether to pack a bag.
That moment, repeated across our community, is what rail safety policy is really about. Families, not regulators, are on the front lines when the system fails.
In the immediate aftermath, Congress introduced the Railway Safety Act of 2023, a bipartisan proposal to modernize defect detection, improve hazardous materials transparency, strengthen inspections and hold rail carriers accountable.
It passed a vote in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Then stalled. For three years, the legislation sat while communities like mine continued to monitor our health, test our water, and wonder whether Washington would follow through.
Recently, something changed.
Bill would finally approve rail safety reforms
On May 21, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted to include Railway Safety Act language in the BUILD America 250 Act, a $580 billion surface transportation reauthorization bill. Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, offered the amendment. It passed 54-11. For the first time since the East Palestine derailment, comprehensive rail safety reform has cleared a major legislative hurdle.
This moment did not happen in a vacuum. National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy sent a formal letter to the committee in advance of the markup, invoking East Palestine by name and urging a comprehensive approach to rail safety in the legislation. She cited three years of open safety recommendations still waiting on action from federal regulators and the rail industry. President Donald Trump posted support for the legislation. Bipartisan cosponsors held the line. The railroad lobby fought hard against it. The committee voted yes anyway.
The gaps exposed in 2023 were not theoretical. Weak early detection, inconsistent hazardous materials classification, and limited consequences for safety violations left communities like mine vulnerable. The derailment revealed that federal rail policy had not kept pace with the complexity and volume of modern freight operations. The NTSB has investigated more than 50 rail accidents since East Palestine. Seventeen people have been killed. The derailment rate per million train miles has not improved.
Rail safety is public health. Hazardous releases don’t stop at the tracks.
Residents face ongoing exposure concerns, mental health strain, disrupted access to care and years of environmental monitoring. Yet federal systems rarely connect transportation oversight with long-term health surveillance. Stronger safety standards reduce risk at the front end, but Congress must also ensure coordinated health monitoring, transparent data, and sustained federal support when incidents occur. Protecting people before, during, and long after a disaster is a dual responsibility.
Washington must not forget the harmed citizens
Economic strength and public safety are not competing priorities. A rail system that communities don’t trust undermines the very stability it depends on. Families in East Palestine, and across the country, are asking for reasonable protections: modern safety technology, timely communication when hazardous materials move through our towns, stronger inspection protocols, and meaningful accountability when preventable failures occur.
The committee vote is a milestone. It is not the finish line.
The BUILD America 250 Act must now pass the full House and clear the Senate. The railroad lobby will not stop pushing back. The window for action is real but not permanent. Senate leadership must move this legislation promptly through whatever process brings it to the floor and to the President’s desk. Every week of delay is a week the system operates without the protections this bill would require.
Since 2023, residents like me have lived with ongoing health monitoring, environmental testing, economic rebuilding, and long-term uncertainty. These realities should not fade from Washington’s memory just because a committee vote generated a news cycle. Policy delay has human consequences.
Because somewhere tonight, in a town most Americans have never heard of, a train will pass within yards of someone’s backyard. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted to protect that family this week. Now the full Congress needs to finish the job.
Misti Allison is an East Palestine, Ohio, resident and is a public health leader who works at the intersection of community and environmental health, rail safety, and disaster response.
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