Follows Senator Markey’s Senate subcommittee hearing on green trains

Locomotive Emissions Letter Text (PDF) | Labor Letter Text (PDF)

Washington (April 9, 2024) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Safety, and Representatives Summer Lee (PA-12) and Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04) today led a letter with 35colleagues to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan urging the EPA to modernize its national air pollution standards for locomotives in order to protect the health of rail workers and fenceline communities and to close existing loopholes that rail carriers exploit to keep outdated, dirty trains on the tracks. The EPA’s current locomotive emissions standards have not been updated since 2008, and as of 2016, nearly 50 percent of existing locomotives emissions were uncontrolled, with no standards for any pollutants. Forty members total also wrote to Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the EPA to ask the agencies to prioritize existing unionized labor in grants and other programs related to the green trains transition.

In their letter to the EPA, the members wrote, “In short, old, dirty locomotives continue to run through communities, jeopardizing public health, as rail executives continue to avoid the adoption of best available control technologies measures, at the expense of the air, the environment, and workers. We therefore urge the EPA to adopt strong locomotive regulations that protect workers and communities from health harms of diesel exhaust and outdated emissions-reduction technology.”

The letter to DOT is signed by Senators Markey, Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), and Representatives Lee, García, Nanette Barragán (CA-44), Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), Cori Bush (MO-01), André Carson (IN-07), Greg Casar (TX-35), Emanuel Cleaver (MO-05), Danny Davis (IL-7), Christopher Deluzio (PA-17), Debbie Dingell (MI-06), Dwight Evans (PA-03), Robert García (CA-42), Daniel Goldman (NY-10), Raúl Grijalva (AZ-07), Glenn Ivey (MD-04), Jonathan Jackson (IL-01), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (CA-37), Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), Ro Khanna (CA-17), Raja Krishnamoorthi (IL-08), Barbara Lee (CA-12), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Katie Porter (CA-47), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Delia Ramirez (IL-03), Janice Schakowsky (IL-09), Melanie Stansbury (NM-01), Haley Stevens (MI-11), Mark Takano (CA-39), Shri Thanedar (MI-13), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12).  

Supporters include International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers (IBB), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), National Conference of Firemen & Oilers, SEIU (NCFO), International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers-Mechanical Division (SMART-MD), United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), BMWED/Teamster Rail Conference, Moving Forward Network, Harambee House / Citizens for Environmental Justice, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Respiratory Health Association, Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision (SDEV), Earthjustice, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Warehouse Workers for Justice, Natural Resources Defense Council, Kimberly McCoy/Central California Asthma Collaborative, CleanAirNow Vecinos KC, West Long Beach Association, Peoples Collective for Environmental Justice, Solutionary Rail, Clean Water Action, Tallahassee Food Network, Green New Deal Network, and ReThink Energy Florida.

In July 2023, Senator Markey chaired the Environment and Public Works subcommittee hearing titled “Cleaner Trains: Opportunities for Reducing Emissions from America’s Rail Network,” where senators heard from experts on current federal locomotive multipollutant emissions standards and how updating these standards will create American union jobs, improve public health, and protect the environment. Last year, Senator Markey and Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Representatives Yvette Clarke (NY-09) and Doris Matsui (CA-07) led nearly a hundred of their colleagues in a letter urging the EPA to finalize the strongest feasible multi-pollutant vehicle emission standards for light- and medium-duty vehicles before the end of this year. In March 2024, the four lawmakers led dozens of their colleagues in a separate letter to the EPA to update its emission standards for both cars and trucks, which rely on diesel engines, by the end of the year. Senator Markey and Representatives Lisa Blunt Rochester (DE) and Baragan (CA-44) led more than eighty of their colleaguesin a letter urging the EPA to strengthen the proposed air quality standards to reduce fine particulate matter pollution to protect communities from the known health harms from this criteria air pollutant.

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