Tragedy deserves attention. It often demands action. But action for its own sake is a poor foundation for policy.
In the aftermath of a high-profile incident, public pressure rises quickly, lawmakers feel compelled to respond, and proposals that were already on the shelf are suddenly sold as urgent solutions. That is a familiar policymaking pattern in emotionally charged moments, perhaps most notably in the gun debate. But bad patterns should be broken, not repeated.
The desire to act can outpace the facts of a specific event, leading to inefficient, if not outright counterproductive, policies. Legislating in the shadow of tragedy may be emotionally satisfying, but it is not the same thing as legislating wisely.
That dynamic is now shaping the national conversation about freight rail since the derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. When a freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed there in February 2023, the country watched enormous plumes of black smoke rise over the town. The images were jarring. The health risks were real. It was exactly the kind of incident that is both tragic and preventable. And it quickly became the kind of incident around which long-debated policies could be reframed as urgent responses. Following East Palestine, the Railway Safety Act emerged as the leading test case – carrying proposals on crew size, train length, and regulatory waivers that had been debated long before the derailment itself.
Each of these has been billed as a common-sense response to a major derailment. But common sense is not the same thing as sound policy. It may feel intuitive that longer trains are less safe, or that smaller crews increase risk. It may seem obvious that regulatory flexibility reduces oversight. Yet those assumptions often ignore both the data and the incentives that shape railroad operations. They also ignore the details of what happened on the ground in February 2023.
Freight rail companies operate in one of the most technologically advanced transportation networks in the world. Positive train control systems, automated track inspection, wayside detectors, distributed fiber optic sensing, and an expanding ecosystem of monitoring technologies continuously track the health of equipment and infrastructure. Safety failures are extraordinarily costly for railroads – financially, operationally, and reputationally – which gives them strong incentives to avoid them.
In freight rail, safety and efficiency are not opposing goals. They reinforce one another. That is why policymakers should resist confusing the appearance of action with meaningful reform. Legislation labeled “safety” does not automatically improve safety. What matters are the actual provisions – and whether they address the causes of real incidents.
Some in Congress and a divided administration now see the 2026 Surface Transportation Reauthorization and related packages as an opportunity to revive provisions from the Railway Safety Act. But lawmakers should treat that as a reason for caution, not haste. Before codifying long-debated proposals, Congress should ask whether they address the causes of actual rail incidents or merely capitalize on the politics of a recent one.
That is the central problem here. The issue is not whether policymakers should respond to rail accidents. It is whether they are responding to the facts of a particular incident or simply advancing policies that were already waiting for a vehicle. Some advocates may assert that even if a proposal would not have prevented East Palestine specifically, it might prevent other accidents in the future.
That claim should be tested against the data.
And freight rail has extensive data. Critics point to 1,000 derailments each year as evidence that the system is unsafe. But that statistic lacks important context. The number represents a decades-long low, and many of those derailments occur at low speeds in railyards. They are not catastrophic events.
When policymakers look beyond anecdotes and examine operational data, the broader trend is clear: technology and innovation have steadily improved rail safety. That does not mean policymakers should do nothing. But the right response is not to impose prescriptive rules that dictate how railroads must operate. The better approach is to focus on outcomes – encouraging innovation, expanding the deployment of safety technologies, and preserving regulatory flexibility so companies can adopt new solutions quickly.
Many of the regulations now being proposed would do the opposite. They would lock specific operational practices into federal law, even though those practices would not have prevented the East Palestine derailment – or others. That is the danger of legislating in the shadow of tragedy: urgency can substitute for causal fit, and symbolism can substitute for sound policy.
East Palestine should be a lesson in disciplined policymaking, but the lesson extends well beyond rail. When lawmakers confront any vivid public crisis, they should begin with the same questions – what happened, what would have prevented it, and what reforms are actually supported by the evidence.
Written by Benjamin Dierker, Executive Director
The Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii) is an independent, national research and educational organization. An innovative think tank, Aii explores the intersection of economics, law, and public policy in the areas of climate, damage prevention, energy, infrastructure, innovation, technology, and transportation.