Rerouting of Toxic Rail Cargo

If enacted this bill will eliminate an unnecessary vulnerability for high threat cities where millions of residents are at risk. Re-routing is an essential first step, the next step must be legislation requiring chemical plants to convert to safer chemicals so that toxic cargo will not be shipped anywhere.

H.R. 1401 would also limit the storage of ultra-hazardous chemicals and other toxic-by-inhalation (TIH) gases in large urban areas. This cargo represents only 0.3 percent of all freight rail carloads according to the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

The transportation sector is one of the most vulnerable domestic sectors to terrorist attacks. Nine months before the March 11, 2004 attacks on Madrid passenger trains in Spain, an FBI specialist in weapons of mass destruction warned, “You’ve heard about sarin and other chemical weapons in the news. But it’s far easier to attack a rail car full of toxic industrial chemicals than it is to compromise the security of a military base and obtain these materials.”  In the last six months, there have been at least five successful terrorists attacks in Iraq using chlorine gas that have killed dozens of people.

The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory estimates that more than 100,000 people could be killed or injured within the first 30 minutes of a terrorist attack on one rail car of hazardous chemicals passing through a major city such as Washington, D.C., warning that “lethally exposed people can die at the rate of 100 per second.”

H.R. 1401 would authorize the Departments of Homeland Security and Transportation to re-route dangerous cargo around large cities. However, it would NOT apply to shipments originating or destined to areas that make or use these chemicals. The bill also does NOT shift dangerous cargoes to trucks.

Questions & answers on the rerouting language in the House Rail
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