To quote Mayor Pete Buttigieg: “We’re obligated by law on some aspects of train management.”
The Trump administration has been blamed by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for the derailment of a train in Ohio that was carrying toxic chemicals. This rule had been rescinded.
On Tuesday night, Buttigieg claimed that the Trump administration had cut funding for rail safety despite his agency’s “record spending.” Due to insufficient evidence of their benefits, the DOT revoked a 2015 regulation that mandated the use of electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes on trains carrying certain hazardous items.
Buttigieg said in a tweet that the East Palestine incident had generated “lots of fresh or renewed (and welcome) interest in our work on railway safety” among the thousands of people who had been impacted by the tragedy.
Elaine Chao, the transportation secretary of the United States, has remarked, “We are using the authority we do have to keep people safe, but we are bound by law on some aspects of rail regulation” (such as the brake rule dropped by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a bill approved by Congress in 2015). And I’m ready to work with lawmakers to improve (or resurrect) our capacity to address rail safety issues.
Vinyl chloride is a poisonous colorless gas that was on board a Norfolk Southern Railroad train that derailed on February 3 in Columbiana County, Ohio. Not far away lies the border between the states of Ohio and Pennsylvania.
After the derailment, it seems that Norfolk Southern released poisonous fumes into the air by venting the gas from the derailed trains. Even though residents were asked to evacuate, some are mulling a return on February 9.
The EPA, Norfolk Southern, and the state of Ohio have all conducted air quality tests and determined that it is safe for human habitation. Experts in the region and residents there agree that it’s not safe to return there right now.
Fox News quoted local hazardous materials specialist Sil Caggiano on Tuesday, “the railway corporation is answerable for this and for these citizens who went back to their residences.” The homes should have been inspected thoroughly. Before their return, the house should have been neat. Since it was considered these people didn’t belong in regular society, they were kept apart from the start.
It “looks like a nuclear winter,” he declared. It’s been described as if a chemical bomb had been detonated above the city.
Buttigieg, meanwhile, is portrayed as a bystander to the tragedy because of his tardy response. It took him 10 days to address the issue, at which point he promised to “use all required powers to secure responsibility and continue to promote safety.”
The passage of the bill was fought over for a long time in Congress. Buttigieg has pointed the finger at a regulatory shift taken by the Trump administration in reaction to Obama’s December 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act.
The GPO claims that the new law necessitates a new RIA on the ECP braking rule conducted by the DOT, but this time with a different process that accounts for independent research and testing. Based on a cost-benefit analysis, the DOT determined in 2018 that mandatory installation of ECP brakes would be detrimental to society.
A Department of Transportation spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that the Federal Railroad Administration and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will use all relevant authorities to ensure accountability and improve safety once the National Transportation Safety Board finishes investigating the cause of the derailment.
After Republicans in the House and Senate ordered a cost-benefit study in 2015, allowing the Trump administration to repeal the regulation in 2017, a statement cautioned that returning the regulation to its prior form would be difficult due to litigation threats and animosity in Congress.
As soon as the rule was published in 2015, it was challenged in five different Federal Circuits, and Congress quickly moved to vitiate the regulation, making it harder under the Administrative Procedure Act to review the basis for advancing a rule. While waiting for the results of the investigation into the accident, the FRA and PHMSA will determine what may be done to prevent a repetition of the tragedy.