A growing number of industries have come out against the Railway Safety Act, according to a report published by the American Tort Reform Association (ATR), signaling broadening resistance to the bill that emerged in Congress after the February 2023 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine, Ohio.

The legislation, introduced in the Senate as the Railway Safety Act of 2023, targets the operation of high-hazard flammable trains and trains carrying hazardous materials. Its core provisions would tighten requirements for defect detectors, expand the use of wayside monitoring technology, mandate minimum crew sizes, accelerate the phase-in of newer tank car designs, and increase penalties for safety violations. For railroads, each of those requirements carries direct capital and operating cost implications; for shippers, the tank car and routing provisions touch fleets that move crude oil, ethanol, chlorine and other hazardous commodities across the North American network.

ATR, an organization that campaigns against what it describes as abusive litigation and is funded in part by business and industry groups, reports that opposition to the bill now extends across multiple sectors. The report does not frame the opposition as a rejection of safety goals. Instead, the industries cited object to specific mechanisms in the bill — in particular provisions they argue would expand liability exposure and impose mandates whose costs fall on supply chain participants beyond the Class I railroads the legislation most directly regulates.

The politics matter for railroaders because the bill has stalled. It passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee in May 2023 with bipartisan support but has not reached a floor vote, and industry opposition is one of the forces cited in the debate over its prospects. Supporters, including unions and East Palestine-area officials, argue the measures respond directly to the failure modes identified in the National Transportation Safety Board's investigation of the East Palestine derailment. Opponents counter that the regulatory architecture already in place — including the Federal Railroad Administration's oversight and the railroads' own safety programs — addresses those findings without the statute's added mandates.

At stake are concrete operating changes. A two-person crew requirement, as called up in the bill, would constrain the crewing models that Class I railroads have pursued under precision scheduled railroading. Stricter defect detector spacing and performance rules would add wayside infrastructure across tens of thousands of route-miles. Tank car retrofit timelines would force shippers and leasing companies to accelerate fleet renewal capital. Each provision shifts cost somewhere in the chain — to carriers, to lessors, or to chemical and energy shippers — and the coalition AR describes reflects exactly that spread of financial exposure.

The Association of American Railroads, the industry's Washington lobby, has said railroads have already taken voluntary steps in the East Palestine aftermath, including joining the FRA's Confidential Close Call Reporting System and adding detectors on key routes. Regulators have moved in parallel: the FRA has advanced its own rulemakings on crew size and inspection practices, and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has tightened handling rules for hazardous shipments. Opponents of the act argue this administrative record reduces the need for statutory mandates.

For the freight sector, the practical question is whether the bill advances in the current Congress or whether its provisions migrate into individual agency rulemakings. ATR's report suggests the opposition coalition has grown since the bill's introduction, which lowers the probability of floor action in the near term. Any future movement would most likely come attached to a must-pass vehicle, with the tank car and crew-size provisions — the items with the clearest cost consequences for shippers and carriers — remaining the points of contention.