The Washington state House of Representatives has passed a bill giving the state\u2019s Utilities and Transportation Commission expanded powers over rail operations in the state. HB 1418 (full text, available here) includes \u201coversight of new and materially changed railroad operations and infrastructure ..,\u201d oversight of safety practices, and the ability to investigate and enforce state safety regulations \u201cto the fullest extent allowed under federal law.\u201d The bill passed the House by a 91-7 vote and now goes to the state Senate. \u201cFrom the Amtrak derailment near DuPont in 2017 that took three lives and injured dozens more to the oil-train derailment near Custer in December and too many other derailments across our state, it\u2019s clear that we need stronger rail safety,\u201d the bill\u2019s sponsor, Rep. Mari Leavitt (D-University Place) said in a press release. \u201cThis bill will help keep our railways safe and prevent future tragedies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Washington state House of Representatives has passed a bill giving the state\u2019s Utilities and Transportation Commission expanded powers over rail operations in the state. HB 1418 (full text, available here) includes \u201coversight of new and materially changed railroad operations and infrastructure ..,\u201d oversight of safety practices, and the ability to investigate and enforce state … READ MORE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marileavitt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marileavitt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marileavitt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marileavitt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marileavitt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marileavitt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marileavitt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marileavitt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marileavitt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}