Manchin Introduces Bill to Promote Railroad Infrastructure
Today, Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) introduced the Track, Railroad, and Infrastructure Network (TRAIN) Act, which would reform the environmental permitting process for rail projects in order to facilitate a more efficient way to approve rail infrastructure. The bipartisan legislation would promote additional investment in rail systems without compromising environmental quality.
“Our nation’s railroads move 29 million carloads every year and take millions of trucks off the road, but critical investments are needed to remove bottlenecks and improve the efficiency of the system,” Senator Manchin said. “Unfortunately, these important projects languish on the vine year after year due to a relentlessly bureaucratic federal permitting process. In 2012, we streamlined this process for federal highway and road projects to get them off the drawing board, and, just last year, we did the same thing for major projects along our nation’s waterways. It’s time that we extend these commonsense reforms to our nation’s railroads to ensure that we can efficiently move goods throughout the nation and keep our economy moving.”
“Freight rail traffic is growing, which means we need more infrastructure to move goods and services and ensure the rail remains a major component in our economic future,” said Senator Blunt. “This bipartisan bill will help ensure that burdensome federal regulations do not hamper investment and innovation in our nation’s freight and passenger rail industry.”
U.S. Senator John Thune (SD), Chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, is an original co-sponsor. He is looking forward to bringing this bill before the Commerce Committee for consideration.
Background:
In 2012, Congress identified duplicative and burdensome permitting requirements for other modes of transportation, and responded by enacting permitting reform legislation as a part of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act. The TRAIN Act would expand these reforms to railroad infrastructure.
The rail industry has encountered significant challenges in the federal environmental permitting process that have resulted in burdensome administrative delays unrelated to environmental concerns. The unnecessary delays result in cost increases that reduce the amount of capital railroads have available to invest in projects.
To read the bill, please click here.
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