U.S. Sens. Charles E. Schumer, D-NY, and Richard Blumenthal, D-CT, announced Thursday the upcoming omnibus appropriations bill filed Jan. 15 includes $185 million, money enough for the Federal Railroad Administration to hire an additional 45 Â railroad inspectors and the full amount requested by the Obama administration for fiscal year 2014.
Last month, in the wake of the Spuyten Duyvil Metro-North derailment, the senators said the agency, the nation”™s chief rail-safety overseer, is underfunded and unable to fully evaluate existing and future rail-safety programs across the nation’s freight and passenger railroads.
The agency lacks the resources to inspect 99 percent of the nation”™s rails and to sufficiently prepare for the oversight of new safety measures,according to a Schumer-Blumenthal joint statement. Schumer and Blumenthal said they have secured funding for the additional 45 inspectors, who will be hired over the course of the months ahead.
With the resources, the agency will inspect more track and begin sending safety “strike teams” to railroads around the nation to conduct additional safety audits.
Schumer and Blumenthal requested Congress meet the Obama Administration’s full 2014 request of $185 million for safety and operations, an increase of $15 million over this year’s sequestered budget.
The statement noted that FRA does not seek to inspect 100 percent of the nation”™s rails each year; the task is shared by states and the railroads themselves. But the additional funding will allow them to dramatically increase safety checks.
“These funds are a solid step toward fixing persistent, prevalent rail safety flaws,” Blumenthal said. “More inspectors on the ground will enable detection of track defects and other deficiencies to deter and prevent future tragedies like Spuyten Duyvil and Bridgeport costing lives and dollars. Additional safety steps are urgently necessary but this money combined with FRA”™s camera rule commitment marks real progress.”
In a Congressional briefing last month with the New York and Connecticut federal delegations, the FRA revealed it is “woefully underfunded and unable to fully fulfill its oversight role.”
The FRA staff includes 400 federal safety inspectors who operate out of eight regional offices. The agency conducts its oversight and inspections in conjunction with railroads themselves, who are also expected to be undertaking ongoing safety precautions and carrying out safety inspections.
