Sen. Joe Manchin says he will support proposed bipartisan rail safety legislation
Source: CBS News
Washington — Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, said Sunday that he supports bipartisan rail safety legislation introduced in the wake of the toxic train disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, that led to serious health and environmental concerns for the community's residents. "I'm going to be supporting that," Manchin said in an interview with "Face the Nation." "We need to do it."
The measure, called the Railway Safety Act, was unveiled last week by a bipartisan group of six senators — including the two from Ohio — and aims to implement reforms to prevent future derailments. The plan requires rail carriers to give advance notice to state emergency response officials about what they're transporting, increases rail car inspections to ensure those carrying hazardous materials are inspected at regular intervals and requires crews of at least two people for every train.
It also bolsters the monitoring of wheel bearings, which the National Transportation Safety Board found overheated in the Feb. 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, imposes new safety requirements and procedures for trains carrying hazardous materials like vinyl chloride, which was in five of the tank cars that derailed, and heightens fines for rail carriers for wrongdoing.
President Joe Biden has endorsed the bill and called on Congress to swiftly advance the rail safety measures. "This bill will make important progress – and we need to do even more, like require state of the art braking systems, provide more funding for federal safety inspections, invest in worker safety, fortify state emergency management and response, and hold companies like Norfolk Southern accountable not just for the immediate damage, but also the long-term health and economic damage to communities like East Palestine," Mr. Biden said in a statement.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-manchin-supports-proposed-bipartisan-rail-safety-legislation-east-palestine-derailment/
= new reply since forum marked as read
By Betsy Klein and Manu Raju, CNN
Updated 9:11 PM EST, Wed March 1, 2023
(snip)
The Railway Safety Act of 2023 will be introduced by Republican Sens. J.D. Vance of Ohio, Marco Rubio of Florida and Josh Hawley of Missouri, and Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Bob Casey and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
(snip)
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/politics/congress-response-railway-safety-norfolk-southern/index.html
The GOP sponsors are a loon, a grifter, and an insurrectionist.
Good to see that Casey, Fetterman, and of course Sherrod Brown were the (D) sponsors.
Not a doubt in my mind.
But I love Sherrod & Fetterman. Is he out of the hospital yet? Haven't heard.
Thx for sharing. Strange bedfellows, indeed. 
and why he even cares when he was trying to overthrow the government and then ran away when it was actually happening. 
And Fetterman is still in treatment and working from there (I expect that will also allow time to adjust the meds correctly and monitor the tweaks, which is definitely needed).
Link to tweet
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Mar 1, 2023
@SenFettermanPA
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Sen. Fetterman joined with @SenBobCasey, @SenSherrodBrown, and @SenVancePress to sponsor critical legislation to strengthen rail safety & prevent future disasters like the one in East Palestine from happening again.
wfmj.com
Ohio, Pennsylvania Senators introduce new bipartisan railroad safety legislation
Senators including Ohio's J.D. Vance and Sherrod Brown and Pennsylvania's Bob Casey and John Fetterman have introduced the Railway Safety Act of 2023.
Senator John Fetterman
@SenFettermanPA
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We have to hold rail companies accountable for wrongdoing. And this legislation would do just that.
It improves current rail safety regulations & adds new ones, while making sure companies accountable for disasters support communities impacted by them.
4:04 PM · Mar 1, 2023
If I told you what I think should be the consequences for everyone involved in such horrific safety rules, I'd be forever banned from our community.
There has to be a grift angle, or qpukes would never cosponsor.
That much, I'm sure of.
Maybe someone convinced him cosponsoring would help him get reelected or something? But yhat's not how qpukes operate...
I'll cogitate on it... 
but I did a quick search and both are on the Senate Committee for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (and none of those railroads are "small businesses" ).
Maybe they're looking to extort $$$ from robber barrons to vote it down at the last minute? 
But even if all (D)s (& (I)s, which include Sanders, King, Sinema) vote for cloture, they will still need 6 more (R)s to go along just to move it to debate.
Then the House would need to even consider it (and even though they have their own version, they are run by a certain guy who we know is named "McCarthy" ) -
The clown show...evil clown show.
Truly weirdos.
Ty for sharing!
and we are all sending him those "get well soon" thoughts!!! 
He seems like such a great guy. Refreshing!
and it was a given that Sherrod would push for it.
But the odd ones are Hawley and Rubio.
2024 is next year!
(but then when I was looking stuff up, I kept seeing "2020" popping up for him as if that would mean 2026, but nope, not related - it was referencing his high-profile insurrectionist activities)
Sherrod Brown has a PDF of it here - https://www.brown.senate.gov/download/railway-safety-act-of-2023-text
The House has a similar bill (PDF) also introduced - https://deluzio.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/deluzio.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/derail-act_deluzio-txt.pdf
But whether the House bill sees the light of day itself when you have the loons in charge of the House, is another issue, so it's not just a "Senate" (Manchin/Sinema) problem nowadays...
