Ranking Members Larsen, Wilson Statements from Hearing on Reducing Rail Pollution
Washington, D.C. — The following are opening remarks, as prepared for delivery, from Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Rick Larsen (D-WA) and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials Frederica Wilson (D-FL), during today’s hearing, titled, “An Examination of the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) In Use Locomotive Regulation.”
Video of Larsen’s and Wilson’s opening statements can be found here and here.
More information on the hearing can be found here.
Ranking Member Larsen:
Thank you, Chairman Nehls and Ranking Member Wilson, for holding this hearing on railroad locomotive emissions.
I also want to commend you, Chairman Nehls, on setting a date for a rail safety hearing.
Now that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released its report after the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine, Congress has to act on NTSB’s recommendations to enhance rail safety.
Today’s hearing addresses how Congress can continue to support freight movement, grow our economy and reduce emissions from the transportation network.
In Washington state, freight is key to long-term economic growth.
Nearly one in two jobs statewide is freight dependent, with almost 40 percent of the state’s wages generated by freight-dependent industries.
According to WSDOT, Washington state’s multimodal freight system handles almost 600 million tons of cargo each year, which is valued at $677 billion.
In 2022, 15 percent of freight tonnage was moved by rail in my state, including through rail yards in Everett and Bellingham in my district.
While transportation, including freight rail, keeps the economy and supply chains moving, the sector continues to be the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
Transportation emissions are trending in the wrong direction. For example, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from transportation increased 1.6 percent from 2022 to 2023.
According to the Washington State Department of Ecology, diesel exhaust is one of the most harmful air pollutants.
Diesel exhaust puts healthy people, including more than four million people who live and work near diesel emission sources in my state, at risk for respiratory diseases and complicates health conditions for people with asthma, heart and lung disease.
Some of this was running through my mind on Saturday when a diesel locomotive was parked just below my place in Everett, WA and spit out diesel emissions for seven straight hours.
Thankfully, Washington state is a leader on reducing emissions in transportation.
In 2020, Washington enacted its Motor Vehicle Emission Standards law, which is helping to increase the number of zero-emission vehicles on state roads.
Washington’s ferry system—the largest ferry system in the country, yet also the largest source of transportation emissions statewide—is transitioning to a cleaner and greener passenger ferry fleet.
Washington’s “Maritime Blue” initiative invests in a thriving, world-class and sustainable maritime industry for the next 30 years and beyond.
For example, my state’s work on maritime batteries resulted in a brand new Corvus Energy facility at the Port of Bellingham, which opened last year.
Corvus’s expansion in Northwest Washington illustrates the growing regional and global demand for hybrid-power and zero-emission energy solutions to transportation needs.
Washington state expects to meet its emissions goals for 2030, but more must be done to reach our 2040 and 2050 goals for a cleaner and greener future.
Congress and the Administration want to be partners in this.
Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), communities in my district and in districts across the country are investing in a cleaner and greener future.
Last month, USDOT awarded the Port of Bellingham a nearly $18 million RAISE grant to modernize a shipping terminal site, returning the site to a fully functioning multimodal terminal with more efficient loading and unloading of railcars on the terminal—an investment that will reduce emissions while keeping supply chains and the maritime economy moving in Northwest Washington and on the West Coast.
Congress also invested more than $5 billion in Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grants in the BIL.
These grants can be used to purchase updated rail locomotives, and shortline railroads can directly apply for grants rather than going through a public agency or entity.
The BIL also specifically allows recipients to use CRISI grants to rehabilitate, remanufacture, procure or overhaul locomotives, “provided that such activities result in a significant reduction in emissions.”
The Federal Railroad Administration is currently reviewing applications for $2.4 billion in CRISI funds—an investment that can fund quite a few new locomotives in communities across the country.
I look forward to hearing from today’s witnesses about how they are working to build a cleaner and greener freight rail network.
Ranking Member Wilson:
Thank you, Chairman Nehls, and thank you to our witnesses today.
Railroad tracks in this country have too often existed as a symbol of division, inequity and a legacy of racial oppression. In the aftermath of slavery and as a result of redlining, Black communities and other underserved minorities formed settlements near rail lines. Even though these areas were polluted with hazardous locomotive emissions—which we now know are associated with diseases and premature death—they settled there because they had nowhere else to go.
That is why when I still hear my constituents respond to the questions: where do you live, where do you work and where do you go to school with “across the tracks,” it serves, not just as an answer, but a statement of the persisting injustice and disproportionate burdens placed on so many communities of color.
CARB is working to limit harmful emissions from locomotives, including by requiring cleaner engines after 2030 and reducing the time locomotives spend idling. CARB estimates that these efforts would save $32 billion in health costs and prevent over 3,200 premature deaths in California.
This regulation seeks to steer the railroad industry towards doing its part to prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis. Every year, extreme weather events strike with increasing frequency and severity as sea levels continue to rise. For the residents in my district living in Miami and southeast Florida, these threats are not just concerning; they are existential. Seas are projected to rise in Miami-Dade County by over a foot within the next 30 years, dramatically increasing flood risk further inland and threatening the homes and livelihoods of frontline communities.
Just last week, we had our first Category 5 hurricane in the Caribbean—the earliest ever in hurricane season. It is now more important than ever that we protect California’s right to implement nation-leading regulations.
The industry’s response to this regulation should not be to sue CARB. We have had national Tier 4 locomotive standards in place since 2015, which the industry seems to have avoided implementing for over 90% of its locomotives. The technology exists—what’s missing is the investment, will, and commitment to ending the legacy of railyard communities suffocating under the deadly effects of air pollution. It is only this commitment that may begin to strip the phrase “across the tracks” of its sordid history.
In today’s hearing, I look forward to learning what the railroad industry is doing to improve our air quality and the health of communities living near rail yards, and not more reasons why making progress is too hard. I yield back my time.
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