'Very Disturbing': Troy Nehls Grills Buttigieg On 'Vent And Burn' At East Palestine Derailment

3 months ago

During a House Transportation Committee hearing last week, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX) spoke about the East Palestine derailment.

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00:00The gentleman yields.

00:07Mr. Nels is recognized for five minutes.

00:09Thank you Madam Chairwoman.

00:10Good to see you Mr. Secretary.

00:14Sixteen months since East Palestine, obviously the NTSP report came out the other day.

00:19I've been placing close attention to it as I chair the Rails Subcommittee here.

00:24And I believe that she produced a very detailed report.

00:29And some of her findings, quite honestly, are very disturbing.

00:33One of the areas is that post-derailment actions.

00:36And when the American people saw this big blue, this cloud above their city, the decision

00:42to vent and burn and that procedure, according to the report, it appeared that Norfolk Southern

00:50made that decision.

00:52Obviously they were able to, I don't want to say convince or get the incident commander

00:59to agree with that.

01:01The report appears that the NTSP said that Norfolk Southern compromised the integrity

01:11of that decision to vent and burn the tank cars by not communicating expertise and dissenting

01:16opinions.

01:18The justification, according to the report, is polymerization, which is that chemical

01:24reaction that could cause the explosion.

01:26So the point is that they said we have to do the vent and burn because we feel this

01:30thing could blow up.

01:33What are your thoughts on that?

01:34How would incident commanders allow them to do that when we had dissenting opinions?

01:43One of the most troubling things in that report, I agree, was the finding that the

01:48polymerization that was feared by those who thought that by undertaking that vent and

01:54burn action they were preventing an explosion might not have actually occurred, meaning

01:58that the vent and burn did not have to happen.

02:01So certainly while that will go to different parts of the decision chain than those that

02:07our department is directly involved with, we want to closely follow how NTSB's recommendations

02:13are taken on board, both in terms of how they apply to a railroad and how they apply to

02:17anybody in that incident command.

02:19I can understand it was in a rural area, first responders, many of them volunteers driving

02:24to incidents in their pickup truck with bunker gear in the back.

02:27Maybe I don't want to say the skill set wasn't there, but they just didn't.

02:30If a derailment like that would have happened in the city of Houston or Boston or someplace,

02:34I don't think you would have burned it.

02:35You would have had a massive showing of logistical support with hazmat teams, this and that.

02:41In your testimony, I'm concerned about the Railroad Crossing Elimination Program.

02:45We know we have about 700 plus deaths a year as it relates to rail, and your testimony

02:52says it's improving or eliminating 400 rail crossings.

02:55In IJA it's 500 million.

02:57My friend, I don't think that's enough.

03:00We need to do more.

03:01If that is a safety issue, we need to do more.

03:05What do you think we should do with that program?

03:07If you'd like to propose growing that program, we'd love to work with you on it.

03:11We've had our chance to go out to some of the first projects, get funding there.

03:13We announced it in North Dakota.

03:15The enthusiasm in communities is extraordinary, and I think it's so far been very well received.

03:20How about the Ask Rail?

03:21What do you think about the Ask Rail?

03:22The report says they didn't know what was in the cars.

03:27The first responders didn't know the chemicals.

03:29They didn't know the consist in the cars, but the actual consist was up in the locomotive,

03:35but they didn't get it for a couple of hours.

03:37So here these first responders are out there trying to figure out what the hell's in these

03:39cars and they didn't have it.

03:41Now the Ask Rail I think is a good thing.

03:43I think all class ones use it, but we have to do something to make sure that we have

03:47the connectivity with cell service in these rural areas because the Ask Rail app will

03:52be combat ineffective if we don't have it.

03:55One of the colleagues mentioned about the close call reporting system.

03:58I support it.

03:59I think it's a good idea.

04:00How do you think that quickly, how do you think that will improve safety in our rail

04:04industry?

04:05We think it creates one more opportunity to flag safety issues.

04:09We're glad to have a handful of participants, but we really believe it ought to be everybody.

04:13I agree.

04:14Whether that's done by some kind of requirement through Congress or whether we all just continue

04:18pushing the class ones, I really hope we can get them.

04:21Automatic track inspection.

04:22Obviously a lot of technology out there.

04:24I don't think a lot of people know about it.

04:26How can we, this is the tough stuff.

04:27How do we get labor and the railroads together on the same page as it relates to these technologies?

04:34ATI is a great thing.

04:35I mean, it can do a lot.

04:36I think a lot of the best technologies in the history of our economy have a track record

04:41of creating and expanding jobs, even if they change some of the aspects of what those jobs

04:47are like.

04:48But our posture is that any, and to be clear, we support and sometimes even ourselves use

04:53ATI.

04:54We just haven't seen the data that allows us to be confident that you can remove the

04:58human factor.

04:59Sure.

05:00One quick thing.

05:01You support two-man crew?

05:02We do.

05:03Okay.

05:04Last one.

05:05The tank cars, the DOT 111s, the 105s, 117s, I don't know if everybody understands that,

05:09but we want to phase those out, right, the 111s by 2029.

05:13I think we can do it quicker.

05:14I think we can do it quicker.

05:16I would like to move that up and I'll do everything I can to do that.

05:20That is great news and one of the provisions we're most excited about in the pending bipartisan

05:24legislation.

05:25All right.

05:26Thank you.

05:27The gentleman yields.

05:29Ms. Sykes is recognized for five minutes.

05:32Thank you.

'Very Disturbing': Troy Nehls Grills Buttigieg On 'Vent And Burn' At East Palestine Derailment

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