(The following article by Ed Anderson was posted on the Times Picayune website on June 3.)
BATON ROUGE, La. — A bill to give the state Public Service Commission the authority to hire six employees to inspect railroad tracks and facilities in the state was shelved Thursday by a Senate committee that promised to study rail safety before the next regular session in March.
Prodded by Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Noble Ellington, D-Winnsboro, the panel voted 6-1 to convert Senate Bill 285 by Sen. Joel Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, into a yearlong study.
The only vote to keep the bill alive came from Sen. Jody Amedee, D-Gonzales.
Ellington said because there was no consensus in the committee and because the railroad industry opposes the measure, he wanted to see “a real study” done on the issue of rail safety, involving industry officials, safety experts and lawmakers.
As first written, Chaisson’s bill would have authorized the Public Service Commission, which regulates trucking companies and utilities, to hire six rail inspectors, paying them by assessing the railroads a fee. But committee members removed the fee provision, saying a bill that authorizes a fee cannot originate in the Senate.
The bill was amended to let the Public Service Commission use its own funds to hire the inspectors and join 30 other states in enforcing the federal rail inspection program. Chaisson said there are only two federal rail inspectors now based in the state.
The bill had the backing of Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell of Bossier City, a longtime senator who battled the railroads to force them to cut grass and maintain tracks within 300 feet of a crossing.
Carmack Blackmon, a lobbyist for the Louisiana Railroad Association, told the panel that the industry opposes the bill largely because of Campbell. “Commissioner Campbell has it in his mind we are going to be on the agenda (of the PSC meetings) every week,” Blackmon said. “He wants to put the railroads in front of him every time there is a little violation.”
Jack Kyle, vice president of governmental affairs with Union Pacific Railroad, said the industry would not oppose the bill if the inspectors were under the jurisdiction of the state transportation department because it deals with other rail crossing and safety issues.
“The problem we have with this bill is the person pushing this bill,” Kyle said of Campbell. “We are talking about somebody who really doesn’t like the industry having control over the industry. . . . There will be politicizing of rail safety and that’s what we object to.”
Campbell said the railroads “don’t want to go before the PSC because some things might be exposed and their record isn’t good.”