Federal Railroad Safety Accountability and Improvement Act

A bill to authorize appropriations for activities under the Federal railroad safety laws for fiscal years 2008 through 2011, and for other purposes.

3/19/2007--Introduced.
Federal Railroad Safety Accountability and Improvement Act - Authorizes appropriations for FY2008-FY2011 for the railroad safety program, including a safety risk reduction program to be implemented as part of such program. Eliminates the authority of the Secretary of Transportation (or state Secretary) to prescribe investigative and surveillance activities to enforce rail safety regulations and orders.
Prohibits public disclosure of railroad safety risk reduction program records.
Requires railroad carriers and states to report to the Secretary, and update periodically, unreported highway-rail (including non-vehicular pathway-rail) grade crossings and public highway-rail (including non-vehicular public pathway) grade crossings within the United States.
Urges the development of new technology to prevent loss of life and injuries at highway-rail grade crossings.
Sets forth requirements:
(1) prohibiting the judicial review of railroad safety regulations or orders on the ground that they impact security;
(2) authorizing the Secretary to waive compliance of such regulations and orders if there is an emergency event, it is in the public interest, and consistent with railroad safety;
(3) authorizing the Secretary to monitor railroad radio communications to prevent rail accidents, or as part of an accident investigation;
(4) authorizing the Secretary to prohibit individuals who have violated hazardous material transportation safety laws from performing safety-sensitive functions in the railroad industry until specified conditions are met;
(5) repealing and reserving codified federal hours of service laws, requiring the conversion of such laws to regulations, and authorizing the Secretary to amend such regulations to prevent and mitigate fatigue in individuals performing safety-critical train related duties;
(6) establishing maximum number of hours a train employee may be on duty; and
(7) authorizing the Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration and designated employees access to criminal history records of railroad employees.


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Sponsor

• Sen. Frank Lautenberg [D, NJ]
• and 1 Co-Sponsors
  • Sen. Gordon Smith [R, OR]
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Committees

• Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation

Amendments

This bill has no amendments.

Amendments to S.918

Number	Status	Purpose

Bill Status

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Introduced		Voted on by Senate		Voted on by House		Considered By President		Bill Becomes Law
March 19, 2007

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All Bill Actions

• Mar 19, 2007: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
• Introduced on Mar 19, 2007.

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Related Bills:

• H.R.1516

Related Issue Areas:

• Transportation
• Administrative procedure
• Authorization
• Budgets
• 43 more
• Civil liberties
• Collective bargaining
• Criminal justice
• Criminal justice information
• Department of Transportation
• Discovery (Law)
• Electronic surveillance
• Employee selection
• Environmental protection
• Evidence (Law)
• Executive departments
• Federal aid to transportation
• Federal preemption
• Freedom of information
• Government information
• Government paperwork
• Government publicity
• Governmental investigations
• Hazardous substances
• Hours of labor
• Identification of criminals
• Intelligence activities
• Judicial review
• Labor
• Law
• Maintenance and repair
• Medical care
• Medicine
• Occupational health and safety
• Public meetings
• Radio
• Railroad accidents
• Railroad employees
• Railroad equipment
• Railroad safety
• Right-of-way
• State and local government
• State laws
• Technological innovations
• Technology
• Telecommunication
• Traffic accidents and safety
• Transportation of hazardous substances

Data from the Congressional Research Service

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Blog Coverage

September 06, 2008 Y! Alert: Yahoo! Answers: Search for

Open Question: What do you think about S.918? E-85 Fuel Utilization and Infrastructure Development Incentives Act of 2005? Open Question: help me here please folks? Open Question: MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro? ...

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September 05, 2008 Discussion - What do you think about S.918? E-85 Fuel Utilization ...

This is often cited among Obama's slim list of accomplishments ... http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D? ... Title: A bill to provide for Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV) refueling capability at new and existing refueling station ...

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August 17, 2008 “You know, I majored in international relations.”

4/5/05; S. 918, Introduced 4/27/05; S. 969, Introduced 4/28/05;S. 1180, Introduced 6/7/05; S. 1194, Introduced 6/8/05; S. 1426, Introduced 7/19/05; S. 1630, Introduced 9/7/05; S. 1638, Introduced 9/8/05; S. 1685, Introduced 9/12/05; S. ...

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