EAST PALESTINE, Ohio — During what was his ninth stop in East Palestine since last year’s Norfolk Southern train derailment on Monday, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said he is not giving up on the Railway Safety Act, which still awaits a vote by the Senate.

Brown, D-Ohio, took aim at the railroad lobby for slowing the bill.

“Railroad safety has stalled because railroad lobbyists are really good. We are trying to get on the Senate floor,” Brown said. “We hope to do that in the next month or two. I know I’ve said that before when I’ve been here, but I am not giving up. We passed a pension bill to make pensions whole for 100,000 Ohioians and union workers and it took six years. It’s not going to take that long with this time, but I am not giving up.”

The Railway Safety Act was introduced by Brown and Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, on March 1, 2023. The bill, among other things, would mandate hotbox detectors every 10 miles as well as mandating advance notice to local officials of trains carrying hazardous cargo through towns along the rail line as well as a minimum two-person crew on every train.

Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw has said he supports some but not all changes proposed by the pending legislation. He has been an outspoken critic of the two-person crew requirement, citing no link between safety and crew size and pointing out that the train that derailed in East Palestine had three crew members onboard.

“The railroads have fought it. The railroads actually are insisting on having one engineer on these trains. This train was 150 cars, the one in Springfield, Ohio, was 200. There have been derailments one after another in this state and this country overall,” Brown said. “Ohio has the third most miles of tracks than any other state in the country — Texas, Illinois and Ohio. I want to make sure these trains are safer. These derailments shouldn’t happen with the frequency they do.”

In the unfortunate event a train does derail, Brown said first responders shouldn’t have to scramble to determine the train’s consist — a detailed list of cargo being hauled. Such crucial information struggled to make its way into the correct hands in the minutes and even hours following the East Palestine derailment. It was 10 p.m. — an hour after the derailment — before East Palestine Fire Chief Keith Drabick received a copy of the train’s consist and 10:23 p.m. before it reached East Liverpool Fire Department HAZMAT Chief Bill Jones’ hands. The East Palestine Police Department was given the consist at 1:30 a.m.

“Communities ought to know when a train is going through what’s on that train if there are hazardous materials,” Brown said. “If there’s a derailment, the first thing they have to know is what’s on those trains and that’s pretty complicated and shouldn’t be. It should be simple.”

Sixty votes are needed to advance The Railroad Safety Act to the House. Both Brown and Vance are confident they have those votes.

In other legislation meant to benefit East Palestine in the wake of the rail disaster, Brown called for passage of the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024, which would make any derailment assistance received by residents from Norfolk Southern tax exempt. If the bill is passed, tax changes that would be applied retroactively to the beginning of 2023. In January, the bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a vote of 357-70, and the legislation is now awaiting consideration in the Senate.

Brown negotiated the deal with Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo.

“I want to make sure East Palestine residents aren’t paying taxes on these essentially reimbursements. Norfolk Southern gave people, almost everybody here, a thousand dollars, sort of an ‘inconvenience check’ which is a weird name,” Brown said. “And people are being taxed for those reimbursements. It’s nobody’s fault. The IRS is following the law, but we’ve got to fix that law.”

Brown also said he intends to make sure Norfolk Southern continues to pay for remediation, environmental testing and long-term health monitoring. Last week, a federal judge threw out the railroad’s claim that other parties such as OxyVinyls, the company transporting the 1.1 million pounds of vinyl chloride that was controversially vented and burned in the days following the derailment, should help foot the bill for cleanup costs, which have topped $1.1 billion dollars.

“I want Norfolk Southern to continue to do what they have to, including reimbursing health departments and EPA because this was caused by them,” Brown said. “The Ohio taxpayers, Columbiana County taxpayers and East Palestine taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for this cleanup, this testing and this monitoring. We want to make sure that water, that the city water, village water, is tested regularly and the wells outside the city limits have that testing done regularly by either the health department or the EPA and that needs to be reimbursed by Norfolk Southern, or if people want to contract privately for testing, that should be paid by Norfolk Southern.”