On December 17, UE participated in two events in our nation’s capital that highlighted the urgent need for federal action on rail pollution. UE General President Carl Rosen delivered the keynote address at the White House’s Sustainable Freight workshop. Rosen spoke to the need for industry to step up and do more to clean up over-polluted rail yards and create good, union jobs in green locomotive manufacturing.
UE General President Carl Rosen (center) with leaders of the Moving Forward Network.
“We have the resources to do this and we cannot wait,” Rosen said. “Industry needs to cooperate with workers and communities on this — if not, the deepening crisis will result in it being taken out of industry’s hands altogether, because the alternative is an unlivable world.”
Isella Ramirez, Executive Director of the Moving Forward Network, also spoke at the event and called upon the EPA to approve California’s outstanding waiver requests. This includes California’s In-Use Locomotive regulation.
Meanwhile, at the Capitol, retired Political Action Director Chris Townsend represented UE at a press conference introducing the All Aboard Act. The bill is sponsored by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Representative Chris DeLuzio (D-PA). The All Aboard Act would appropriate $200 billion over five years to build high-speed rail, expand existing passenger rail service, and electrify railyards and corridors. The bill includes critical labor protections for rail workers.
Senator Ed Markey (left) with retired UE Political Action Director Chris Townsend. Markey’s father was a UE leader in the 1940s.
“We need ambitious programs like this to not just take on the issue [of rail pollution], but for the employers who need to be coaxed along on this to get to where we need to go as a country,” Townsend said.
