Railway Safety Act: Inconsistent with Trump Deregulation Agenda
The Trump administration has given the U.S. economy a powerful boost through an ambitious and disciplined deregulatory agenda. According to a December report from the Office of Management and Budget, federal agencies in Fiscal Year 2025 issued 646 deregulatory actions and only five regulatory actions — a remarkable 129‑to‑1 ratio. OMB estimates these reforms will generate nearly $212 billion in annual net cost savings. And that’s just one fiscal year. Additionally, the administration’s repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 Endangerment Finding may be the single largest deregulatory action in American history, lifting an estimated $1.3 trillion in regulatory burdens from the economy. [RELATED: EPA Retires Its Crystal Ball, Lets America Exhale (Carbon Included)]
This work matters. Not every regulation is harmful, but far too many impose heavy costs on families and businesses without delivering meaningful improvements in safety, environmental protection, or financial stability. The cumulative weight of federal regulation — now estimated at more than $2 trillion, or over 6 percent of U.S. GDP — is a drag on growth, competitiveness, and innovation.
What’s harder to measure, but even more damaging, is the economic activity that never occurs because regulation chokes off innovation before it starts.
What’s harder to measure, but even more damaging, is the economic activity that never occurs because regulation chokes off innovation before it starts. Compliance costs show up on balance sheets; lost breakthroughs do not. Yet the unseen toll of foregone innovation may dwarf the costs we can quantify.
That is why it is so disappointing that the administration supports the Railway Safety Act. Introduced in 2023 after the East Palestine derailment, the bill was originally co‑sponsored by then‑Senator JD Vance, who has since reiterated his support as Vice President. The intention is understandable — no one wants to see another derailment — but the legislation embodies the very regulatory excess the administration has worked so hard to eliminate.
The most effective regulations set performance‑based standards and allow businesses to determine the best way to meet them. This approach recognizes that no two companies operate under identical conditions. They differ in geography, workforce, technology, and operational complexity. Prescriptive, one‑size‑fits‑all mandates ignore these realities and often fail to improve safety. (RELATED: Railroads Must Keep Pace With the Economy)
Unfortunately, the Railway Safety Act is built on prescriptive mandates. One example is the bill’s requirement for uniform spacing of wayside detectors — trackside sensors that monitor equipment in real time. Railroads themselves developed and deployed these systems voluntarily, tailoring placement to terrain, traffic density, and operational needs. Their efforts have worked. A 2022 Federal Railroad Administration report found that wayside detection systems were associated with fewer derailments and that railroads had improved operational safety through proactive monitoring.
Given this success, Congress should be encouraging continued innovation — not freezing today’s technology in place. Mandating fixed spacing assumes technology will never improve. In reality, it risks slowing the adoption of next‑generation systems that could make rail transport even safer.
The bill’s most misguided provision is its requirement that all trains operate with two‑person crews. Research has shown no safety benefit from mandating crew size, and the FRA has repeatedly acknowledged the lack of evidence. Crew size is best determined through collective bargaining, where railroads and unions can tailor staffing to specific operations.
The push for a federal mandate comes largely from unions seeking to preserve positions regardless of technological change. This is not new. Railroad unions have a long history of using state and Federal regulations to maintain crew positions long after jobs have become obsolete. For decades, unions fought to retain “firemen” — whose job was to shovel coal — even after diesel locomotives eliminated the need. Such mandates may protect certain jobs in the short term, but they ultimately make the industry less competitive and divert resources away from genuine safety improvements.
The Railway Safety Act is well-intentioned, but it is a step backward. It imposes costly mandates without improving safety, stifles innovation, and contradicts the administration’s own deregulatory achievements. The Trump administration has made the U.S. economy more dynamic and competitive by cutting unnecessary regulations. It should not undermine that progress by supporting legislation that revives the very regulatory excess it has worked to dismantle.
Congress should insist on modern, performance‑based safety standards — or set the Railway Safety Act aside entirely.
READ MORE from David M. Ozgo:
Railroads Must Keep Pace With the Economy
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David M. Ozgo is Executive Director of the Center for Transportation Advancement. He can be reached at ozgodavid@gmail.com