EAST PALESTINE — The two-year anniversary of the train derailment came and went on Monday. In less than a month, two years will also have passed since the first piece of legislation to enhance rail safety in the wake of the disaster was introduced.

So far, none of the 13 bills drafted specifically to protect the people who lived through the derailment or written to prevent a similar disaster — most notably the Railway Safety Act of 2023 — has made it to a congressional floor for a vote.

Still, U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Pennsylvania, refuses to throw in the towel. The congressman, who represents derailment-impacted Beaver County, continues the fight, marking the somber anniversary with the reintroduction of the DERAIL Act on Monday.

“Communities like ours that are crisscrossed by railroad tracks have no new assurance that our freight rail system is safer today than when the Norfolk Southern train full of chemicals derailed and burst into flame two years ago,” Deluzio said. “For too long, railroads have prioritized profit ahead of public safety and their workers. The DERAIL Act that I’m re-introducing with Rep. (Ro) Khanna today is an important step to finally strengthen our rail regulations and improve rail safety in Western Pennsylvania, East Palestine and across the country.”

The DERAIL Act — an acronym for Decreasing Emergency Railroad Accident Instances Locally — broadens the definition by which trains are classified as a high-hazard flammable train (HHFT).

According to Deluzio’s office, the bill will ensure that trains carrying hazardous materials are properly classified and rail carriers take proper safety precautions — such as slower speeds, newer rail cars, better braking equipment and required reporting — when carrying these materials across the country. The bill also improves information sharing by requiring rail carriers to report to the National Response Center, state officials and local officials within 24 hours after a train carrying toxic chemicals derails.

Eleven of the 38 cars that derailed in East Palestine were hauling hazardous chemicals — including five with vinyl chloride and two with benzene residue — yet the train was not classified HHFT. Under the current classification, a HHFT must carry hazardous materials in at least 20 consecutive cars or 35 cars total. The DERAIL Act lowers that threshold to one railcar and adds Class 2 flammable gasses (like vinyl chloride) to the definition. It also gives the Secretary of Transportation authority to add other materials to the definition “as necessary for safety.”

Rail union leaders, who gathered for a virtual media briefing Monday to call for safety reforms across the freight rail industry, support the DERAIL Act, including SMART TD — the transportation division of the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers.

“Railroad workers put their lives on the line every day, and this bill is a critical step toward enhancing their safety and peace of mind. The 2023 Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine was a stark reminder of the dangers rail workers and surrounding communities face, highlighting the urgent need for stricter regulations on hazardous materials transportation,” said Jared Cassity, Deputy National Safety and Legislative Director of SMART-TD. “While rail remains the safest mode for transporting these goods, the East Palestine incident shows that we must close safety gaps to prevent future tragedies. This legislation will help protect both our members and the communities we serve, and we thank Congressman Deluzio for his leadership in making this a priority.”

In the weeks following the derailment, it seemed strengthening rail safety was a shared priority among most federal lawmakers. Former U.S. senators from Ohio Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and Republican J.D. Vance, along with Pennsylvania lawmakers Bob Casey and John Fetterman, both Democrats, introduced the Rail Safety Act of 2023 on March 1, less than a month after the derailment.

More than 700 days later, that bipartisan legislation — which would have mandated two-man crews, advanced warning on the transport of hazardous materials, railroad-owned HazMat spill response teams to support local firefighters and reduced distance between hotbox detectors — has stalled, running out of steam by the end of 2023.

Brown, Casey and Vance no longer sit in the U.S. Senate. Vance is now vice president under Donald Trump, while Brown and Casey lost their reelection bids. Former U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, who initially introduced the DERAIL Act in March of 2023 — is also gone, having resigned to become president of Youngstown State University.

Fetterman, who also introduced the Railway Accountability Act in March 2023 to hold railroads accountable for the safety and well-being of workers and passengers, and the Assistance for Local Heroes During Train Crises Act to support first responders on the front lines of hazardous train derailments, said he plans to reintroduce the stagnant Rail Safety Act.

The inability for “common-sense” rail safety legislation to move out of Congress has been heavily criticized by residents in East Palestine and surrounding areas who feel nothing has changed other than their sense of normalcy. Most recently, East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway called lawmakers out for it. Despite the support of President Trump, only seven Republicans publicly supported the legislation, leaving the bill two votes shy of overcoming a filibuster.

“I don’t think it’s a Norfolk Southern issue; I think it’s a class one railroad issue. I don’t know why it’s being held up,” Conaway said during a village press conference on Friday. “We need to pass it, so no other little village goes through what we went through over the past two years.”

According to Brown, the issue does indeed lie with the railroads, including Norfolk Southern.

In his parting words to the (Lisbon) Morning Journal on the eve of his Washington departure, the former senator took the railroad lobbyists to task.

“This is why people hate Washington,” he said. “We had bipartisan legislation that would have ensured that what happened in East Palestine would never happen again — to any community. I’m angry for the people of East Palestine that it didn’t get done. I’m angry that the rail lobby – which has controlled this town for more than a century — still has too much influence over my colleagues.”

The Railway Safety Act would have addressed key recommendations — none of which the federal government has yet acted on — made by the National Transportation and Safety Board at the conclusion of its investigation.

Last week, during a press conference regarding the fatal mid-air collision of a passenger plane and a military helicopter, NTSB member Todd Inman expressed frustration that NTSB recommendations — like the more than 30 made after the derailment — often go unratified by agencies with the authority to make mandates.

“We go to East Palestine, a community that gets devastated, still nothing has happened,” Inman said. “We have several recommendations open for aviation. You want to do something about it, adopt a recommendation from the NTSB.”