Congress is preparing a new surface transportation reauthorization bill, and familiar railway safety proposals are set to return. It’s the next chapter in a yearslong debate dominated by reaction (to a dramatic, news-making accident) rather than diagnosis (of what might actually minimize future accidents). It says a lot about how Washington regulates.
New research shows why the best path for public safety is also the best path for the economy.
After the tragic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, three years ago this month, lawmakers rushed to propose sweeping mandates under the banner of the Railway Safety Act. Their intent was understandable. The facts were less convincing, and provisions stalled in the last Congress. These may now be revived and folded into a larger, “must-pass” legislative package.
The important question is not whether rail safety matters (it matters from a moral, governing, and profit standpoint to everyone involved). It’s whether the resuscitated ideas will improve safety or anything else. So far, the evidence points to “no.”
The 2023 version of the Railway Safety Act relied heavily on fixed staffing rules, rigid inspection standards, and technology restrictions. Some of this sounds reasonable, but there’s a common thread: pre-emptive, prescriptive restrictions rather than performance-based outcomes. The focus is on input, not safety results.
Critics across the ideological spectrum warned that the bill confused visibility with effectiveness. Even supporters struggled to explain how provisions would do more than signal concern.
Experts know that over the past decade, railway safety has been shaped far more by private investment, technology, and data-driven operations than by check-the-box mandates. Automation, advanced inspection systems, and fuel-efficiency improvements increasingly play a central role.
Recent reporting suggests some tension on automated inspection technology within the Trump administration, driven less by concerns about the tech than by political pressure from organized labor groups wary of automation. Safety policy shaped by accommodation rather than evidence rarely delivers durable results. But if the administration’s position reflects a genuine economic concern, a forthcoming study from the Hoover Institution highlights why railway innovation must continue.
The study examines transportation costs not as an industry issue, but as a constraint on the economy. The central finding is stark: Long-run growth depends on sustained reductions in per-unit transportation costs. In other words, if the costs of moving goods from place to place stop falling — because of policy, regulation, or forced technological stagnation — productivity declines and the economy suffers in ways we all feel.
Rail plays an outsize role in this framework. Compared to other freight methods, it’s uniquely positioned to deliver national-scale cost reductions through tech-driven automation efficiency. But that depends on whether pending regulation allows proven technologies to deploy.
A second, forthcoming paper shows how regulatory accumulation affects rail performance in practice. The results are sobering. A modest increase in regulatory burden comes with higher shipping costs and a sharp decline in rail freight movement within a year. Those losses compound over time as productivity growth slows.
The lost freight does not simply shift to trucks, ships, or planes. Higher rail costs reduce the total movement of goods, raising costs for agriculture, manufacturing, energy, and exports. In effect, regulatory friction destroys commerce rather than reallocating it.
This does not mean rail should be lightly regulated. But layering more prescriptive mandates onto an already complex regulatory structure has economy-wide implications. Indeed, railroads already face a much more complex regulatory environment than other surface transportation modes.
TRUMP AND MOORE PLAY BLAME GAME OVER MASSIVE POTOMAC WASTE SPILL
Symbolism is politically satisfying. Evidence-driven policy is harder. The coming surface transportation bills are meant to strengthen infrastructure, improve mobility, and support economic growth. Using them to resurrect policies that failed scrutiny on their own safety merits risks undermining critical, broader goals as well.
In rail safety, as elsewhere, the only approach that works is to focus on real results rather than on simply showing that you are doing something.
Patrick A. McLaughlin is a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a visiting research fellow at the Pacific Legal Foundation.
