Press Releases

You may also visit the BLE-T National Division Webpage for more news.

• September 6, 2006 - Final Rule regarding horn sounding at grade crossings.
• July 25, 2006 - BLET Urges Congress to Eliminate Limbo Time Abuses
• July 19, 2006 - Senate Appropriations Committee votes to boost spending budget for AMTRAK
• July 26, 2005 -  U.S. court rules Union Pacific Railroad must cover contraception for women.
• June 16, 2005 -  The National Carriers Conference Committee calls for mediation.
• June 15, 2005 - The U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee bill could kill some Amtrak routes.
• June 3, 2005 -  FRA releases Foster-Miller research reports on Remote Control Accident Analysis & Remote Control Operators Focus Group.
• May 27, 2005 - UTU seeks winner take all vote on UP
• May 27, 2005 - BLE response to UTU vote on UP
• April 25, 2005 - Texas State Legislative Board Sponsors Lobby Day in Austin. Click to view pictures.
• May 19, 2004 - Two BNSF trains collide killing one and injuring at least 4. Click here for more.
• March 19, 2004 - An article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram quotes UP spokesman John Bromley admitting the fact that remote control locomotives have a higher total accident rate than conventional operations. To read the full article, click here.
• February 2004 - State Laws in Texas take precedence over HIPPA - Feb. 14, 2004, 10:54PM
  DALLAS -- Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled Friday that the state's public information law takes precedence over a far-reaching federal medical privacy law, a legal opinion he called the strongest in the nation. His decision means Texas media outlets and individuals will have access to public information that some hospitals and authorities have declined to release under the Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA.  "In Texas, government records are presumed open unless a specific exception applies. HIPAA is not an exception to the rule of openness in the state of Texas," Abbott told the board of directors of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas at The Associated Press' Dallas bureau. HIPAA, a sweeping overhaul of the federal health care privacy laws that took effect in April, has frustrated journalists and others who have found most basic information hard to come by. "What this means is, governmental bodies who've been using HIPAA as a shield just lost that protection," Abbott said.  Abbott said Texas authorities worked closely on the language of the ruling with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which created the privacy regulations under the law. Still, he said, he wouldn't be surprised if the ruling was challenged in court. HIPAA itself says medical information is open if required under another law, and the Texas Public Information Act is that law, Abbott said. Joel White, a Houston attorney and president of the FOI board, said the decision will clear up a lot of confusion. He said interpretations of HIPAA have ranged from football coaches who believed they couldn't disclose player injuries to churches wondering why hospitals won't provide information about church members. "HIPAA has been an enormous problem," White said, noting that he believes it would withstand legal challenges. Some police investigators around the country have been stymied by hospitals under HIPAA. And some officers have stopped providing information to media on accident victims under the law. "That's done away with, I hope," said Katherine "Missy" Minter Cary, head of the Texas agency's open records division.
• November 2003 - Texas - The state's budget cuts have already pushed 49,000 kids out of the Children's Health Insurance Program, according to the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities, and will eventually cut the number of insured kids by one third, to 347,000 from 512,986. That outfit cites numbers generated by the state's health and Human Services Commission to get its estimate, and says HHSC's numbers anticipate a 32 percent reduction in the number of kids in the program.
• November 2003 - Texas - Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, updating a report started by her predecessor, says the state's border counties continue to lag behind the rest of the state in areas like income, children in poverty, high school graduation rates, unemployment, diabetes, and a number of other measures. The 14 counties that actually border Mexico have about 10 percent of the state's population (it doubles if you include all 43 counties south of I-10 and west of I-37. People in that larger area, compared to the rest of the state, are younger, less likely to divorce, less likely to have college educations, less likely to have high school diplomas, make about $10,000 less per year, get raises less often, and have lower death rates from AIDS/HIV. The whole chart is on the Internet at www.window.state.tx.us.
• September 2003 - After months of Republican denials that Tom DeLay was calling the shots, Delay personally mediated as the conference committee drew the map to his liking. At one point, Perry and Dewhurst were each out of town while DeLay oversaw the final talks. "This was exactly what the Texas AFL-CIO feared would happen from the start," said Emmett Sheppard, Texas AFL-CIO President. "We always believed the conference committee would draw a map from scratch and save the heavy artillery for that moment."
• August 2003 -- Press Release 1  President Hahs Responds to UTU Statements
• August 2003 -- Press Release 2  Update on Air Conditioned Locomotives
• July 2003       -- Governor Rick Perry appointed Brother Ronald Gene Congleton of Teamster Local 745 to be employee representative on the Texas Workforce Commission. Congleton, who is from Rockwall, replaces Terry O'Mahoney, who retired at the end of August. Congleton retired in 2002 as president of the Teamsters Local after more than 30 years as a labor representative. He was chair of the Southern Grievance Committee of that union.
• July 2003       -- Press Release 3  Texas AFL-CIO Passes Resolution on Remote Control Locomotives

"If a state legislature can be free to pick and choose to get rid of members of Congress that it doesn't want, you have violated the fundamental principal of the Constitution, which is that people choose the officials, not the other way around." Former U.S. House Speaker Jim Wright on redrawing congressional maps when it's not required.

New Rules and Regulations

 Locomotive Cab Sanitation Standards, 49 CFR Part 229 - This new rule became effective on June 3, 2002.