The director of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has dubbed the Biden administration’s explanation that deregulation efforts by former President Donald Trump were to blame for the railway crash and chemical explosion in East Palestine, Ohio, “misinformation.”
Before the controlled burn of industrial chemicals was begun on the car on February 3 to reduce the potential of an explosion that might have thrown shrapnel across the small town, local and state officials evacuated all inhabitants within one mile of the derailment. Massive plumes of black smoke, containing vinyl chloride, a human carcinogen used in the production of PVC, emanated from five railway carriages and could be seen from afar throughout eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.
In a statement to The Hill, Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates blamed GOP lawmakers and the Trump administration for the catastrophe. Claiming that Republicans in Congress “laid the framework for the Trump administration to rip away rules for more effective train brakes,” he said, “they owe East Palestine an apology for selling them out to rail industry lobbyists.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the affected Ohio community a day after the former president, also said the Biden administration has been “constrained” on rail safety due to a “braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015.”
The rule that both of these officials appear to have been referring to would have mandated that some trains install new electronic control pneumatic brakes (ECP brakes). National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy urged those who say the braking regulation would have averted the crash to “stop disseminating disinformation.”
On social media, Homendy explained that the restriction would only apply to “high hazard flammable trains,” and that the train that derailed in East Palestine was a “mixed freight train” with insufficient numbers of hazardous carriages to trigger the prohibition. She also said that “even if the rule had gone into force,” the train still wouldn’t have had ECP brakes.
Similarly, members of the Biden administration have been hesitant to impose new stopping regulations. In an interview with The Washington Post, federal officials expressed concern that the implementation of the new requirements would incur expenses that would far outweigh any advantages.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports that train derailments will drop to 1,100 per year in 2020 and 2021, two and three years after the braking regulations are repealed, suggesting that the number of derailments is unrelated to the difficulty of establishing new braking system requirements.
As criticism of the Biden administration grows for its apparent lack of response to the issue, Democratic leaders are shifting blame for the train catastrophe onto the Republicans. More than a week after the disaster happened, on February 13, Buttigieg finally made a public statement about it. He visited the scene on February 23. President Joe Biden, who has yet to visit East Palestine, traveled there in secret on Monday to show support for Ukraine’s military effort against Russia.