Sponsors (3)
The bill makes rail and hazardous-material transport significantly safer and strengthens local emergency response through new standards, detection requirements, crew rules, and targeted funding, but it does so by imposing substantial compliance costs, fees, operational limits, and increased enforcement and administrative burdens on carriers, shippers, states, and some businesses.
Residents in communities along rail lines (rural and urban) will face a substantially lower risk of hazardous-material incidents because of mandated speed limits, tank-car standards, routing restrictions, enhanced defect detection, and strengthened operational rules.
Local emergency responders (fire/EMS), Tribal and State planners will get better funding, equipment (PPE), overtime support, training flexibility, and access to a rapid $10M emergency assistance program—improving on-scene safety and response capacity after hazardous-material incidents.
Rail safety oversight and infrastructure will improve through required defect-detector plans, audits, performance standards, FRA grants, and R&D funding, supporting wider installation of detection and communications technologies that reduce derailments and mechanical failures.
Class I railroads, shippers, and carriers will face substantial compliance and operating costs (installation and maintenance of detectors and electronic systems, hiring/retaining two-person crews), which could raise freight rates and be passed to consumers.
Speed restrictions, routing/operational changes, and other operational limits could slow freight deliveries and raise costs for shippers and consumers.
The tank-car phase-out deadline and related retrofit/replacement requirements may strain manufacturing/retrofit capacity and impose heavy replacement costs on carriers and shippers, disrupting supply chains.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Mandates two-person crews for most Class I freight trains, creates "high-hazard train" rules, raises safety penalties, creates a hazardous-materials registration fee, and updates emergency response grants.
Introduced February 24, 2026 by Troy E. Nehls · Last progress February 24, 2026
Requires Class I freight trains to operate with a two-person crew (certified conductor and certified locomotive engineer) with limited exceptions, establishes new detailed definitions and numeric thresholds for what counts as a “high-hazard train,” and directs the Secretary of Transportation to issue safety regulations for trains carrying hazardous materials. Raises and restructures civil penalties for railroad-safety violations (including per-day penalties and higher caps for serious harm), creates an annual hazardous-materials registration fee with two tiers for small and non-small businesses, and updates hazardous-materials emergency response grant and PPE rules.