D.C. Council continues effort to ban railed hazmat through Capitol

D.C. Council continues effort to ban railed hazmat through Capitol    Members of the District of Columbia’s governing body have renewed their effort to ban the rail transport of hazardous materials through the U.S. Capitol.
   The Washington Post reported Monday that D.C. Council members are resurrecting a plan to ban chlorine and other hazardous materials from trains that transit through the city. An effort by the council to institute the ban failed last year.
   The council’s renewed interest in the plan follows last week’s deadly crash of a Norfolk Southern train in South Carolina. A chlorine gas cloud from damaged rail cars killed nine people and injured more than 100 others in the town.
   “If D.C. officials succeed in banning hazardous materials carried by rail, it would be first for a U.S. city, and the drive is being watched carefully by the shipping industry and environmental activists,” the Post reported.
   CSX, the railroad with tracks through D.C., reportedly stopped transporting chlorine and most other hazardous chemicals through the city after the March 11 terrorist attack against a passenger train in Madrid.