Congress must not derail the freight rail lifeline for America’s farmers

At archetypal glance, a railroad CEO and an cultivation manufacture person mightiness look similar an improbable pairing. When you recognize however intimately America’s workplace system and freight obstruction beryllium connected each other, the concern makes consciousness – arsenic bash our shared concerns astir proposals successful Congress that could harm both.

Every year, railroads haul hundreds of millions of tons of grain, feed, fertilizer, biofuels, ethanol, and different commodities crossed this country. From a maize workplace successful Iowa to a atom elevator successful the Pacific Northwest, from a feedlot successful Kansas to an export terminal connected the Gulf Coast, freight obstruction is the connective insubstantial of the American cultivation proviso chain. There is nary realistic substitute for the volume, the distance, the safety, oregon the cost-efficiency that obstruction provides.

That's wherefore Congress should beryllium cautious not to enforce caller mandates connected freight obstruction that would rise costs, trim capacity, and yet instrumentality American consumers with the measure – astatine a clip erstwhile they tin slightest spend it.

FARM FRESH FOOD INITIATIVE FOR AMERICANS' TABLES MEANS A ‘RENAISSANCE OF AGRICULTURE’

Farm state is hurting. Net workplace income has declined sharply successful caller years. Input costs stay elevated. Export markets look caller uncertainty. In this environment, proscription costs aren't an abstraction – they're the quality betwixt a profitable harvest twelvemonth and a losing one. Every dollar added to the outgo of moving atom oregon fertilizer comes straight retired of a farmer's bottommost line. And marque nary mistake, those costs trickle down to consumers astatine the store.

A CSX Transportation freight bid stops adjacent the Brookland-Catholic University Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority metro halt successful Washington, D.C., connected April 2, 2026. (Al Drago/Getty Images)

Some provisions nether information successful Congress would enforce sweeping operational mandates connected freight obstruction without credible grounds they would amended information outcomes. We're talking astir bid magnitude limits that would constrain web ratio and throughput and expanded manual inspection requirements that could dilatory the adoption of the precocious automated detection exertion that makes obstruction safer. These aren't targeted, evidence-based information measures. They are one-size-fits-all national mandates dressed up successful information language.

To beryllium clear, obstruction information matters enormously and farmers and ranchers demand harmless operations. Railroads person invested billions of dollars successful technology, infrastructure, and grooming implicit the past 2 decades, and it shows. New data from the Federal Railroad Administration showed freight obstruction information improved crossed astir each large class successful 2025, marking a record-breaking twelvemonth for the industry.  That advancement didn't hap due to the fact that of sweeping national mandates. It happened due to the fact that of sustained backstage investment, data-driven practices, and a relentless absorption connected operational excellence. Congress should physique connected that model, not undermine it.

A idiosyncratic watches arsenic a freight bid moves done a crossing Tuesday, June 28, 2022, a mile westbound of the crossing adjacent Mendon, Mo., wherever an Amtrak bid derailed aft striking a dump motortruck Monday. Several radical were killed, including the operator of the truck, and others were injured successful the wreck.  ((AP Photo/Charlie Riedel))

We wholeheartedly enactment targeted information measures, including the continued enlargement of assorted detection technologies, strengthening way attraction programs, improving backing for archetypal responder training, and ensuring communities person the resources they request to respond to hazardous materials incidents. These are common-sense investments with demonstrated information benefits. And, due to the fact that nary 1 has a stronger inducement for information than railroads and their customers, galore of these activities are already advancing absent immoderate perverse dictates driven by peculiar interests.

What we cannot enactment are provisions that constrain the operational flexibility and capableness of a freight web that American farmers beryllium connected each time – peculiarly erstwhile those provisions deficiency a coagulated grounds basal connecting them to amended information outcomes.

The irony is that successful trying to marque obstruction safer, work could suffer: much congested, much expensive, and little reliable. And erstwhile obstruction gets worse, farmers and ranchers feel it archetypal and hardest.

A Canadian National Railway Co. locomotive leads a Norfolk Southern Corp. ember bid done a chopped successful Superior, West Virginia, U.S., connected Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg)

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Congress has an accidental here, peculiarly arsenic it weighs a five-year aboveground proscription measure that comes owed successful September. Done right, obstruction information authorities tin fortify a web that is captious to agrarian America, to cultivation competitiveness, and to our nation's quality to provender the world. Done wrong, it adds different costly load to a workplace system already nether tremendous stress.

America's farmers are counting connected Congress to get this right.

Ian Jefferies is President and CEO of the Association of American Railroads.