Norton Calls for Transportation Committee to Hold Hearing on Rail Safety After Latest Amtrak Accident
WASHINGTON, D.C. – (RealEstateRama) — Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), a senior member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, called on the committee to hold a hearing on rail safety in light of recent accidents, including today’s fatal accident involving an Amtrak train colliding with a garbage truck in southern Virginia, as well as the derailment of an Amtrak train outside of Seattle, which killed five people. Amtrak is headquartered in the District of Columbia. Norton was one of the “Big Four” transportation leaders who wrote the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, the five-year 2015 surface transportation reauthorization bill, which included rail funding for the first time.
“My condolences and heart go out to the families of the garbage truck driver who lost his life and his colleague who was seriously injured in today’s horrific accident, as well as to my own Republican colleagues, two of whom were injured. As we await details from the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) investigation, our committee needs to hold a hearing on rail safety nationwide. The public needs information and assurances on the safety of rail travel before the lengthy NTSB investigation on today’s accident, along with other ongoing NTSB investigations, such as last year’s Amtrak fatal derailment outside of Seattle, concludes. We provided Amtrak with significant funding in the FAST Act, which makes oversight mandatory. We need to know whether more is needed to address rail safety now.”
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