Ian Jefferies is president and CEO of the Association of American Railroads, which recently put out the report “Freight Rail & Climate Change.” He spoke to the Washington Examiner on March 9 about the report, train derailments, and what the rail industry hopes to see in a new transportation bill.
[This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.]
Washington Examiner: You’ve worked at several various federal government jobs, including a stint at the Department of Transportation. Is that where you got interested in rail?
Ian Jefferies: I think every kid is interested in rail at some point. It’s kind of Americana. I had rail workers in my family. I started digging into infrastructure over at DOT and then really in-depth on the Senate Commerce Committee.
Washington Examiner: What steps does a railroad company go through after a derailment to clean up and get things moving again and try to prevent repeat derailments?
Jefferies: We [have] a three-legged stool prevention-mitigation response. 1. Prevention is all the inspections. It’s maintenance. It’s the upkeep of the infrastructure to keep it at the highest level we can. 2. A strong safety culture. 3. And then mitigation is when an incident occurs.
We have an app that we’ve developed called “Ask Rail” that is available to first responders that allows them, as they approach a scene, to enter the car number of any car on a train. It will give you the contents of every car, if there’s hazmat, how to respond to that type of hazmat, and who to contact at the railroad. Also, we train about 2,500 first responders a year.
Washington Examiner: Derailments are significantly down, is that right?
Jefferies: Absolutely. I think we’re about 40% less than we were 10-15 years ago. We’re not where we want to because we want to be at zero. New types of technologies [are] coming on board. For example, one of our railroads has an autonomous track inspection tool, looking at the inside of the track as the train is going down the track. It’s just nonstop inspection and geo-flagging where there might be an issue and people coming out there afterwards. That’s in contrast with the historical way of doing inspections, which is literally folks walking the line, looking for potential flaws in the rail. Technological evolution like that is really helping drive down that number even more.
Washington Examiner: AAR’s recent “Freight Railroads & Climate Change” report says, “The Association of American Railroads and the rail industry recognize that climate is changing.” Is this recognition a new position of your organization?
Jefferies: I wouldn’t say it’s a new position. This is the first time the industry has taken a public position on the climate change issue in Washington. We really think rail is a key part of the solution when it comes to reducing emissions in the transportation sector.
Washington Examiner: A separate one-pager advocates “restoring the Highway Trust Fund to a user pays system with a short-term fuel tax increase in the longer term, vehicle miles traveled fee.” The federal excise gas tax is currently at 18.4 cents per gallon of gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel. What should it be raised to for regular and for diesel?
Jefferies: Research has shown that truck underpayment is something like 27 cents a gallon. We think any step in the right direction is helpful. The trust funds received $140 billion in general fund transfers over the past 10 years. That’s just a massive general fund subsidy to the infrastructure our competitors work on, operate on. And so, just starting to rightsize that back to a level of user actually covering the costs and recognizing that the combustion engine is not always primarily going to be the way that automobiles and trucks are powered.
Really, if you want to do the most equitable thing, it’s a vehicle miles traveled paradigm that accounts for the weight of the vehicle as well. That pulls everybody who’s using the highway into helping cover the costs.
Washington Examiner: Would a diesel hike have the effect of shifting a lot of cargo from hauling to freight. If so, how would that benefit the environment?
Jefferies: Right now, freight rail covers almost 100% of its cost of infrastructure. Our trucking friends are operating over a heavily subsidized infrastructure, so that’s a competitive imbalance. Covering full cost of freight would really just bring that balance into play.
Several of the largest trucking companies and the American Trucking Associations have come out in support of increasing the gas tax. I certainly give them credit there because they recognize that more needs to be invested into the highway system because they need a high-functioning form of infrastructure to operate on.
We absolutely think that the underpayment occurring right now diverts freight away from rail onto the highways. Just leveling the competitive playing field allows each side to really buck it out based on a fair set of principles. The result you’re going to get is fewer trucks on the highway, less congestion, less time spent sitting in traffic, less wear and tear on the infrastructure. Rail is inherently more fuel efficient, less emissions-intensive than operating over the highway.
Washington Examiner: Is that because of less friction?
Jefferies: Steel-on-steel is the most efficient way. Once you’re rolling, you’re using a lot less fuel to push and pull the locomotive, and you’re carrying so much more. One locomotive intermodal train can carry a couple hundred trucks’ worth of material. You’re just putting those containers on the rail versus on the back of individual semis.
Washington Examiner: How does American freight rail measure up against freight rail in the rest of the world?
Jefferies: We’re the best in the world, hands down. We have the best, the highest quality of infrastructure. We move the most freight.
Washington Examiner: The Staggers Act, which allowed for partial rail privatization, was passed in 1980. Did President Biden vote for that?
Jefferies: Man, you got me on that one. I’m going to have to look that up. [An AAR follow-up note said, “The bill was passed by [unanimous consent].”]
Washington Examiner: What does DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s experience with rail issues entail?
Jefferies: He’s certainly spoken on the value of rail, and we’ve had the opportunity to sit down with him in an introductory fashion, and I think we have a lot of similar shared goals. President Biden’s made it clear he’s a big rail fan, front and center. He’s an Amtrak fan, but he’s also said very supportive things of freight rail in general. So, Secretary Buttigieg is going to operate in that same vein, I believe.
When we look at the kind of the macrolevel goals of the administration, whether it’s infrastructure investment, environmental performance, good-paying jobs, safe transportation, rail’s right there at the front and center of all those priorities.
Washington Examiner: AAR opposed the House’s green infrastructure plan but was more bullish on candidate Biden’s infrastructure proposals. Are you optimistic that we’ll get a transportation bill the AAR can support?
Jefferies: Our key message is, “Let’s focus on funding and keep divisive policy measures out of the bill.” Most folks from both sides of the aisle can get behind smart infrastructure investment, whether it’s transportation infrastructure or broader infrastructure. Where things start to break down is these policy fights and different operating restrictions for different modes that really make people retreat to their corners, pick winners and losers, and that’s where the process breaks down. If we can focus on funding, then I think we can get to a good spot.
