U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance has advocated for rail safety reforms since the 2023 derailment and chemical fire in East Palestine, Ohio.
BLET National President Mark Wallace in a letter-to-the-editor challenged a hit piece published as a guest editorial in The Washington Post. The commentary written by an executive at the advocacy group Advancing American Freedom attacks Vice President J.D. Vance for supporting rail workers and advocating for safety reforms being considered by Congress. This and other dark money groups that rely on contributions from the railroad companies and other corporate sponsors have been regularly targeting Vance, BLET, BMWED, the Teamsters and other advocates of rail safety. Below is President Wallace’s letter-to-the-editor:
In his March 16 op-ed, “A devastating train tragedy is clouding J.D. Vance’s judgment,” John Shelton, vice president at Advancing American Freedom, demonstrates that he knows something about the freedom of companies to place 80 million Americans who live near a Class I railroad in jeopardy, but nothing about rail safety. He’s clearly out of line attacking Vice President Vance, who has done his homework and been a leader in advancing rail safety in his time as a Senator and now as part of the Trump Administration.
Shelton provides lots of statistics to show “great railroads that helped unite a continent” have made advancements over the years — but conveniently leaves out an important and unacceptably large number: the rail industry’s average of roughly 1,000 derailments a year. It’s true we have fewer accidents than we had in the 1980s. But we have much longer and arguably more dangerous trains today. Some are now three miles in length. Just this week, 48 cars left the tracks in California, and in Texas 28 tank cars derailed and leaked ethanol into the community of Richmond.
If the derailment and fire that devastated the small community of East Palestine, Ohio, had happened two hours earlier or two hours later, we would have been talking about a major disaster in Cleveland or Pittsburgh.
Shelton lauds technology and argues that hotbox detectors didn’t contribute to the East Palestine disaster. This is contrary to what the NTSB found. Hotbox detectors and other tools are great when they work, but they’re often broken, not monitored, or turned off.
He questions the benefit of having two-person crews on trains. It’s little surprise that he didn’t mention the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in Quebec, where 47 people were killed and a town was destroyed by fire when a train was not tied down properly and got away from its sole operator.
Vice President Vance knows what railroads left to their own devices are capable of. That’s why he wants Congress to pass the Railway Safety Act of 2026. We don’t need to give big railroads the freedom to do whatever they please. We urgently need to advance common-sense reforms for the safety of both railroaders and the communities our railroads serve.
Photo by Rebecca Droke via Getty Images