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Election-year politics combined with a tight legislative schedule are complicating the effort to pass rail safety legislation stemming from last year’s East Palestine, Ohio, derailment, as the bill’s main GOP supporter, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, joins Donald Trump on the campaign trail.

The bill, introduced by Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown with Vance as co-sponsor, has been stuck in the Senate for the past year, despite attempts by Vance to lure GOP votes with assurances that it isn’t “big government.”  

Since the Norfolk Southern train derailment in February 2023 that spilled hazardous materials in surrounding air, soil and water, the community became a prime opportunity for the freshman senator to flex his populist Republicanism by calling out powerful railroads in the name of small-town working-class folk — a voter demographic Trump has eagerly courted.

“What Vance essentially did was put the public safety and workers ahead of business, which is sort of a unique stance from a Republican,” said Mark Wallace, first vice president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, in an interview. “I was surprised to see him on it initially, but he has worked with Senator Brown’s office, with the unions — he’s worked with everybody that has an interest in trying to get this legislation moved forward.”

House versions of the bill are also at an impasse. Many House GOP members feared the measures were a knee-jerk reaction to an incident that warranted a complete National Transportation Safety Board investigation before action.

Advocates for a legislative update to rail safety were hopeful when Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Railroads Subcommittee, introduced his own version with Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., in July that rail unions touted as stronger than the Senate version. 

Nehls on Tuesday hosted the transportation committee’s first rail safety hearing on East Palestine since the derailment, which focused on the NTSB final report released earlier this month.

“[Nehls’ bill] is a bright light where things felt like they were growing dim,” said Jared Cassity, alternate national legislative director at SMART Transportation Division, a union. “It didn’t look like the House was poised to move … if you looked at the Chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Sam Graves, he had indicated that he had no interest in it.”

The Vance effect

But Vance’s new position as Trump’s running mate puts Democrats between a rock and a hard place, Cassity said. Although the party supports the legislation, passing it before the end of the year gives the Vance — and now the Trump campaign — a win.

On the other hand, Brown, the sponsor of the bill, is facing a tough Senate reelection campaign in Ohio against Trump-aligned challenger Bernie Moreno. The rail safety bill making it to President Joe Biden’s desk before the election would be a huge boost for Brown in his home state.

“I wouldn’t want to be Chuck Schumer right now,” Cassity said of the Senate majority leader from New York. “We are certainly about to see a lot of politics in a bill that’s not political.”

Others tracking the bill said it’s not likely that the Senate will take it up, since there’s only a handful of weeks left and Vance hasn’t secured enough GOP votes to advance it. It’s also not clear if Graves, R-Mo., is supportive of Nehls’ bill, and the committee is running out of time to consider it.

But the bill may still be a priority for Vance, especially as he tries to shore up working-class support at the polls for Trump.

“We’re done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to Wall Street. We’ll commit to the working man,” Vance said at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last week. “We’re done importing foreign labor, we’re going to fight for American citizens and their good jobs and their good wages.”

East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway also spoke at the convention, touting Trump’s visit to the town after the derailment and criticizing the Biden administration’s response.

“I guess we weren’t their type of folks,” he said. “No Hollywood elites or Wall Street billionaires live in East Palestine. Just hard-working Americans.”

Wallace said that Vance’s ability to pass the bill in the next few months amounts to a test to see if he has the negotiating chops to be the next vice president.

“The expectation for Senator Vance now is, given his elevated stature within the party, is to see if he has the ability to move bipartisan legislation,” Wallace said. “And I think they’re probably eager to show that there’s times they’re willing to work with the other side.”

Cassity said he’s hopeful the rail safety bill will move forward. Both sides are still working to achieve the same goal, he said, and the pressure could push the bill over the finish line.

“It doesn’t feel like any one side is truly interested in protecting [workers] and their rights and their livelihoods and their well-being,” Cassity said. “We need to see the action. And we’ve not seen a lot of action when it comes to rail safety, unfortunately, and so our members are looking for that.”

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