From the summary:
The panel dismissed a petition for review filed by two unions; granted petitions filed by California, Washington, and Nevada; vacated the Federal Railroad Administration (“FRA”)’s Order, 84 Fed. Reg. 24,735, purporting to adopt a nationwide maximum one-person crew rule and to preempt any state laws concerning that subject matter; and remanded to the FRA.
TRANS DIV OF INTL ASSC-SMART V. FRA
The more I read this, the wackier it gets.
The Obama administration's FRA issues a NPRM to mandate 2-man crews (with explicit waiver necessary for single-man operation). The Trump administration's FRA morphs this into a mandatory 1-man crew which then supposedly will have the same effect as the 1970 'safety'-laws changes did for 'full crew laws' in disallowing state requirements for 2 or more man crews. Without the required new NPRM for the completely changed premise... or philosophy.
Meanwhile the AAR gets into the picture trying to prove what is essentially a negative: that it can't be established that 1-man crews are any less safe than 2-man crews, and that the big high-profile cases in the Obama NPRM (Lac Megantic and Casselton) would not have been mitigated had 2-man crews been used.
Nowhere in the order do I see any discussion of whether PTC makes single-man crew safe or effective. The states apparently don't think it matters with respect to fatigue. Even we in this group know when there would be "issues".
Fun to watch Christen take the path of judicial economy here. Far more fun seeing what Buttegieg and Batory do with the 'remand' -- look for the rule from the original NPRM to appear ASAP, as that already has the required notice, comments, etc. completed...
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