I hope you'll take some time this Labor Day weekend to listen to my conversation with former Congressman Peter DeFazio, aka Tiger of the House (an honorific and comparison with the great Oregon Senator Wayne Morse, the Tiger of the Senate).
Serving as chair of the powerful House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for the last four of his 36 years in Congress (and as a member for all 36), he has a priceless and practically peerless perspective on why it is so important for government to be a counterforce to the insatiable appetite of Wall Street.
Mr. DeFazio's career spanned a period when, to his dismay, the checks on big banks, controls on corporate trade, and limits on election spending all went off the rails. He saw firsthand the rise of "Precision Scheduled Railroading" and how it left service, communities, and public interests behind, as Wall Street targeted railroads as an extractable resource, not unlike the forests and communities he also fought to protect.
In 2022, alongside the late Representative Donald Payne J.R., who tragically passed away last year, DeFazio introduced H.R. 8649, the Freight Rail Shipping Fair Market Act. Solutionary Rail was honored to have provided a Rep. Payne a briefing ahead of his taking over the Railroads Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee in 2021. Much of that was strongly reflected in the H.R. 8649. In our interview, DeFazio reveals how the lobbying power of the Class I railroads, and their ability to retaliate against their customers for trying to get better service, ultimately killed the bill.
A progressive who represented a largely rural and politically diverse district, Peter DeFazio sought to create common cause with common sense solutions, always putting communities, the environment, and long term resilience ahead of special interests.
We could learn a lot from him, and this interview is an opportunity to do so. I especially hope the rail shippers out there tune into this one. In the fights ahead, we need shippers to stand for a rail system that works for big and small shippers, urban and rural trackside communities, workers, and passengers alike. We'll be stronger if we fight shoulder to shoulder with no one left behind.
Listen and enjoy!
Reconnect America is hosted by Bill Moyer, co-author of the book Solutionary Rail: A People-powered Campaign to Electrify America’s Railroads and Open Corridors to a Clean Energy Future. Check out the essays and supplemental posts that complement this podcast HERE.
Learn more, get involved and pitch in to support the work of Solutionary Rail at SolutionaryRail.org. Keep the podcast ads-free and without paywalls by making a tax-deductible donation HERE.
