FILE - In this photo taken with a drone, portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed the previous night in East Palestine, Ohio, remain on fire at mid-day, Feb. 4, 2023. Norfolk Southern says the owner of the rail car that caused the fiery Ohio derailment in February failed to properly maintain it in the years before the crash, and the railroad wants to make sure that company and the owners of the other cars involved pay their fair share of the costs. The railroad filed a complaint Friday, June 30, against all the car owners and shippers responsible for the hazardous chemicals that spilled in the derailment. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
The new rule was part of a $13.5 billion state transportation budget that Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed in March. It mandated a two-person crew for freight trains and required that the wayside detectors used to help spot problems be installed in shorter intervals of 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24 kilometers) apart, with oversight from the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio, among other provisions.
The railroad industry said one-person crews “have been used safely for decades,” as well as that Ohio lacks the authority to impose a two-person minimum. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court on June 29, a day before the rule was set to take effect, the Association of American Railroads argued that federal law broadly gives federal agencies exclusive jurisdiction to regulate rail transportation.
“The Crew Size Law is expressly preempted” by federal law, the industry told the court.
Its legal challenge comes as busy freight states — affected by costly and often dangerous derailments and frustrated by federal inaction — increasingly have moved to pass safety improvements of their own, despite the likelihood of industry resistance.
The Feb. 3 derailment along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border of a train carrying toxic chemicals prompted Ohio's new legislation. The lasting impacts of the wreck continue to affect life, work and health in the region months after it took place.
Foremost among events surrounding the crash was the decision by officials and investigators to release toxic vinyl chloride from five tank cars. In order to avoid an explosion, the substance was burned, sending a towering plume of black smoke over the town and prompting the evacuation of about half of its 5,000 residents.
An independent watchdog within the IRS reports that while taxpayer services have vastly improved, the agency is still too slow to resolve identity theft cases. And National Taxpayer Advocate Erin Collins says those delays are “unconscionable.” Erin M. Collins said in the report released Wednesday that overall the 2024 filing season went smoothly, though IRS delays in resolving identity theft victim assistance cases are worsening. It took nearly 19 months to resolve self-reported identity theft cases as of January, and Wednesday's report states that now it takes 22 months to resolve these cases.
Amazon.com Inc. surpassed $2 trillion in market value for the first time in afternoon trading on Wednesday. The push higher for Amazon’s stock market valuation comes a little more than a week after Nvidia hit $3 trillion and briefly became the most valuable company on Wall Street. Nvidia’s chips are used to power many AI application and its valuation has soared as a result. Amazon has also been making big investments in AI as global interest has grown in the technology. Most of the company’s focus has been on business-focused products.
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