The bipartisan Railway Safety Act of 2026 passed in the House Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee today on Capitol Hill. The Railway Safety Act was added to the Committee’s Surface Transportation Reauthorization legislation via a bipartisan amendment from Representatives Troy Nehls (R-TX), Chris DeLuzio (D-PA), Rob Bresnahan (R-PA), Dina Titus (D-NV), Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) and Emilia Sykes (D-OH).
After receiving public support from President Trump this week, and with ongoing leadership from Vice President Vance — one of the bill’s original authors while a Senator from Ohio in 2023 — the amendment was passed by the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee by a vote of 55-11, and is included in the full bill that is expected to be passed by the Committee later this evening.
“Passage of the Railway Safety Act amendment in the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee today represents three years of hard work by BLET and the Teamsters Rail Conference and is a big step in the right direction,” said Mark Wallace, President of the BLET and the Teamsters Rail Conference. “Thank you to the bipartisan sponsors of the Railway Safety Act amendment: Representatives Nehls, DeLuzio, Bresnahan, Titus, Van Drew, and Sykes for pushing this important legislation. And thank you to President Trump and Vice President Vance for their continued leadership on rail safety.”
The legislation is vital to ensuring that devastating train derailments like the one in East Palestine don’t happen again and includes key BLET and Teamsters Rail Conference priorities like a two-person crew requirement, ensuring that high hazard trains carrying hazardous materials have the proper safety protocols in place, regulating wayside detectors to ensure they work properly, and ensuring that locomotive and rail car inspections are done thoroughly without time pressure to rush the inspections.
The Railway Safety Act languished in Congress for three years before President Wallace met with Vice President Vance in August 2025 to talk about reigniting the effort to get the Vice President’s legislation passed that he introduced when he was a Senator. President Wallace and First Vice President Gary Best then took up the mantle and met with legislators earlier this year. The Senate reintroduced the Railway Safety Act in February, and the House of Representatives quickly followed suit. Wallace and Best thanked Senators Jon Husted (R-OH) and Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) for taking the lead on the bill in the Senate, and Representatives Chris Deluzio (D-PA), Nick LaLota (R-NY), Michael Rulli (R-OH), and John Garamendi (D-CA) for introducing a companion bill in the House. Wallace and Best also thanked Representative Dina Titus for her unwavering leadership on rail safety as Ranking Member of the House Transportation Railroad Subcommittee, including on two-person crew over the years.
President Wallace concluded: “Much work still needs to be done and our efforts will not cease until we get the best possible bill across the finish line. Passage of the Railway Safety Act represents the kind of commonsense action from Congress that railroad workers and the residents of East Palestine deserve.”