By U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)
February 23, 2023
\In any functional society, the wreck of a massive, 150-car train and the emergence of a black cloud that threatens thousands of U.S. citizens would prompt an immediate, comprehensive response from government officials and the rail firms responsible….
But there is more at play with the train wreck than incompetent bureaucrats. What is happening in East Palestine points beyond the Transportation Department to a deeper, broader problem in our nation—the effects of a decadeslong obsession with economic efficiency.
For years, major corporations have ditched corporate patriotism for the theory of shareholder primacy and the corresponding pursuit of short-term profits…. In the rail industry, [that] caused the spread of precision-scheduled railroading, or PSR, by which firms lower operating costs by relying on the smallest number of employees for the longest trains possible.…
America began waking up to this problem late last year. I warned then that the system was dangerously flawed, and now we’re seeing the consequences of those flaws in awful reality….
We cannot allow ourselves to become a country that values sales and deliveries more than the lives of our citizens and the health of our communities. If we do, more disasters are sure to follow.
