Transportation Secretary Offers Legislation to Improve Rail Safety
This article is from OH&S Online and can be found in full at http://ohsonline.com/articles/2009/12/13/lahood-proposes-legislation-to-improve-rail-transit-safety-oversight.aspx
LaHood Proposes Legislation to Improve Rail Transit Safety Oversight
Dec 13, 2009
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Dec. 8 called on Congress to pass the Obama administration’s Public Transportation Safety Program Act of 2009, a new transit safety bill to ensure a high and standard level of safety across all rail transit systems. The measure would effectively eliminate the statutory prohibition against imposing such broad safety standards that has been in place since 1965.
LaHood made his remarks in testimony before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in Washington, D.C…. The proposed legislation would do three things:
• First, the bill would authorize LaHood to establish and enforce minimum federal safety standards for rail transit systems–effectively breaking through the 1965 prohibition. The bill would also provide LaHood the option to establish a safety program for public transportation bus systems. LaHood also announced the formation of a Transit Rail Advisory Committee on Safety (TRACS) that will help guide the department’s rail transit safety regulations.
• Second, the bill would authorize LaHood to allow states to receive federal transit assistance to staff and train state oversight personnel to enforce new federal regulations. State programs would have to be well-staffed and adequately empowered by state governments to fully enforce federal regulations in order to be eligible for federal funds.
• Third, the bill would require the state agencies conducting oversight to be fully financially independent from the transit systems they oversee. The Federal Transit Administration would enforce all federal regulations where states choose not to participate in the program or where the state program is found to lack the necessary enforcement tools.
….For a text of the bill, go to http://testimony.ost.dot.gov/final/default.htm.