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Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, this morning, I sent a letter to the National Transportation Safety Board Chair, Jennifer Homendy, urging her to expand NTSB's investigation of Norfolk Southern into a comprehensive review of all seven class I freight railroad companies' safety practices.

Though the NTSB is currently investigating the toxic derailment in East Palestine and Norfolk Southern's questionable safety culture, I want to make something very clear: Norfolk Southern isn't the only rail company that has spent years lobbying to loosen regulations, neglect safety upgrades, and lay off workers.

Norfolk Southern is just one example of a dangerous, industry-wide trend within the rail industry that puts profits over people's safety.

In the last 5 years alone, there have been over 26,500 accidents and incidents in the rail industry, but instead of prioritizing safety, the industry cut over 30,000 employees from the workforce--roughly 20 percent.

We need the NTSB to expand its investigation because the current data can only tell part of the story. The data tells us how many accidents have occurred, but we want to know if they occurred in populated areas and how many gallons of oil were spilled or which toxic chemicals were released.

We also need to know which of these accidents occurred because the tracks were severely degraded or poorly designed.

We also want to know which negligent company policies contributed to the 2,700 deaths in recent years and if any of those could have been prevented.

These are just some of the questions that my letter asks--ones that can only be answered by a complete, comprehensive, and rigorous investigation of the rail freight industry.

I hope NTSB expands its investigation to include the safety practices and culture of all class I freight railroads. It is a necessary step to assure Americans that freight rail safety will improve.

In the meantime, I again commend my colleagues Senators Brown and Vance of Ohio and Fetterman and Casey of Pennsylvania for introducing bipartisan legislation to improve rail safety and provide a check on the railroad industry. I will continue working with them to move it forward. H.R. 1

Mr. President, now, on the House Republicans' H.R. 1, today, House Republicans are rolling out a partisan, dead-on-arrival, and unserious proposal for addressing America's energy needs that they have laughingly labeled H.R. 1. It is a nonstarter in the Senate.

Republicans' so-called energy proposal is as bad and as partisan as it gets. H.R. 1 will lock America into the most expensive and volatile dirty sources of energy and will set America back a decade or more in our transition toward clean, affordable energy.

Even a brief glance at the House GOP proposal is enough to show it is not a serious package. The package is a wish list for Big Oil, gutting important environmental safeguards on fossil fuel projects, while doing none of the important permitting reforms that would help bring transmission and clean energy projects online faster.

Considering America's serious energy challenges--and not to mention the disruptions caused by the war in Ukraine--it is bewildering to see House Republicans waste time on a Big Oil wish list, instead of taking our energy needs seriously, and ignoring clean energy as they do.

Thankfully, many Democrats and Republicans understand that the only way we will pass a genuine energy package this Congress is through bipartisan cooperation. I am glad that there are good-faith talks underway right now between both parties in both Houses to figure out what sort of permitting deal is possible.

I strongly support these efforts because Americans should not have to go broke just to meet their daily energy needs. We should work on a comprehensive, bipartisan permitting package that can secure enough votes to pass the Congress and reach the President's desk.

Any serious permitting package must also focus on the needs of the future. As America transitions to clean energy, we need to take steps in Congress to ease that transition and ensure clean energy is reliable, accessible, and, most importantly, affordable. That includes efforts to expedite the onshoring and construction of industries critical to our economic and national security, like work we did in CHIPS and Science. Permitting reform is an essential step toward laying the foundation for a clean energy future, and Republicans must work with Democrats on a package that meets this challenge, if we are going to get anything done.

What House Republicans have come up with, in the meantime, is something that falls pathetically short.

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