President Bush to sign rail safety bill
In the wake of the fatal Metrolink crash on Sept. 12, President Bush will sign into law a bill that requires that passenger trains and some freight trains be equipped with positive train control devices by 2015.
"Given the improvements to rail safety, the president is going to sign the bill," White House spokesman Scott Stanzel told me a few minutes ago.
The bill covers rail safety and won approval from the House and Senate in the last two weeks. The bill also imposes limits on the number of hours that freight train crews can work each month.
The rail safety bill is part of a legislative package that also contains more than $12 billion in funding for Amtrak. The White House had in June threatened to veto an earlier version of the Amtrak funding bill, saying it needed substantial oversight measures added.
Stanzel said that the White House believes that the Amtrak part of the package is better but still isn't what the administration wanted. Nonetheless, the rail safety provisions were deemed more important. Stanzel did not provide a date for when the bill will be signed.
Both the House and Senate had passed the legislative package with veto-proof majorities.
photo: Susan Walsh / Associated Press
