Managing Breaking News

The issue.

PROMOTING RAIL SAFETY

In 2014, crude-by-rail shipments spiked more than 4,000 percent, with “unit trains” carrying 50 to 120 tank cars of crude oil and ethanol from North Dakota’s Bakken range. Though rail transport is proven to be extremely safe–with 99.997 percent of all loads arriving at their destination without incident–the RSI-CTC, and other industry leaders, took action to mitigate and curb accidents and derailments most of all.

The rail industry voluntarily invested $7 billion to upgrade tank cars, then proposed a new federal standard for tank cars to require them to be even more resistant to puncture, damage, and fire. Xenophon helped promote the proposed standards through media, social media and other channels to ensure the recommendations to the US Department of Transportation were not only included in a new regulation, but would be accepted and passed by Congress in the FAST Act of 2015.