Lobbying undercuts deadline for train safety

Until a train barreled off the tracks at 9:26 p.m. on May 12, it had been business as usual on Capitol Hill. Among the bills quietly making their way toward a final vote was one that would postpone by several years a multibillion-dollar safety-enhancement deadline facing the railroad industry.

A victory for the railroads, which maintain one of the most powerful lobbying efforts in Washington, seemed all but certain and likely to be little noticed.

But at that moment, an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia, killing eight passengers and injuring 200 more.

Everyone - including the railroad and federal investigators - agreed that the catastrophe could have been prevented by a single innovation called Positive Train Control (PTC). It's an automatic braking system that federal regulators call "the single-most important rail safety development in more than a century."

Now, after a period of reflection and several inquiries, Congress once more is on the brink of postponing the deadline for use of PTC. The proposed delay - until at least 2018 - comes in a new regulatory era for the railroads.

What has taken place since May provides insight into the influence that effective lobbyists wield in Washington and how ready access to members of Congress has helped one industry fend off a costly safety mandate.

Seven years ago, Congress ordered railroads to have PTC installed by the end of 2015. It was an uncomfortable deadline for the industry, one they argued should be postponed. PTC technology was too complex, they said, and the $14.7 billion cost to equip freight and commuter lines was prohibitive. Federal economists put the cost-benefit ratio at 20 to 1.

With their lobbyists in overdrive in 2008, the railroads might have persuaded Congress to delay the mandate. But in the middle of that debate, a head-on train collision in California killed 25 people and injured 102 others. The National Transportation Safety Board said PTC could have prevented the accident, and that moved lawmakers to settle on the Dec. 31, 2015, deadline.

The NTSB says it has investigated 145 rail accidents since 1969 that PTC could have prevented, with a death toll of 288 and 6,574 people injured.

In the years since Congress moved to finalize the deadline in 2008, the railroad industry has spent $316 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, to maintain one of the most savvy lobbying teams in Washington. It also contributed more than $24 million during the same time period to the reelection efforts of members of Congress, targeting in particular the chairmen and members of key committees that govern its business.

In 2011, the chairman of the House subcommittee on railroads spoke out, denouncing the PTC mandate as "an example of regulatory overreach." He said PTC would have "a very, very small cost-benefit ratio."

Since then, that chairman, Rep. Bill Shuster (R., Pa.), has risen to lead the full House Transportation Committee. Last month, he introduced a bipartisan bill to extend the PTC deadline to at least 2018, and beyond if the "railroads demonstrate they are facing continued difficulties."

Since taking office in 2001, Shuster has received campaign contributions of $446,079 from the railroad industry, according to the CRP, with $141,484 of it coming in the 2013-2014 election cycle.

Money flows readily to the chairs of powerful panels, but other members of the House Transportation Committee also have benefited from railroad contributions. In the 2013-2014 election cycle, committee members received more than $1.25 million in direct contributions to their campaigns.

The Senate also has benefited from the railroad industry's largesse, according to the CRP, with 77 senators receiving nearly $1.5 million in campaign contributions in 2013-2014.

Bob Gildersleeve Sr., whose son Bob, a Maryland father of two, was killed in the May crash, said rail companies seem to be evading the mandate with an attitude of: "What are you going to do about it?"

"Is a deadline a deadline?" Gildersleeve asked. "We're talking about fixing things that will eventually save lives, and you guys haven't done it. Why?"