WASHINGTON – Railroads would get five more years to install crash-avoidance technology – a project estimated to cost about $12 billion – under a proposal by the House transportation committee.

The deadline would move to Dec. 31, 2020, from Dec. 31, 2015, according to a draft copy of legislation to provide long-term funding for highway and transit programs obtained by Bloomberg News. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was scheduled to release the draft last week.

A 2008 law enacted after a California train collision killed 25 people requires railroads to install technology to stop or slow trains to prevent crashes on lines used to transport passengers or toxic chemicals by the end of 2015. Some railroads say that the necessary technology won’t be available in time.

“The idea that you could do this on a more rational, planned basis” is a win for railroads, said Tony Hatch, an independent transportation analyst based in New York. “You’re still going to spend the same, maybe even more, amounts of money, but you’ll be able to do it over a longer period of time.”

The Federal Railroad Administration estimated in 2010 it would cost railroads $13.2 billion over 20 years to install and maintain the systems.

When the agency last year proposed changes to the rule that would exempt as much as 14,000 miles of track, it said railroads would save as much as $1 billion over the course of 20 years.

The Association of American Railroads, the Washington trade group that represents the industry, has said the rule’s costs outweigh its benefits and that railroads might not be able to develop and test the technology in time to meet the deadline.