The train crash in East Palestine, Ohio, the most recent of numerous high-profile infrastructure disasters during Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s two-year term, prompted criticism from Republican legislators for his reaction.
On February 3, a derailment occurred, starting a fire that would not be put out for several days. Officials opted to burn five rail cars of vinyl chloride, a toxin that may poison water sources, to reduce the possibility of an explosion, and the resulting enormous plumes of black smoke drifted over eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.
Buttigieg spoke on Monday at the National Association of Counties Conference on issues including racial justice in the building industry. Buttigieg quickly came under fire from some Republican politicians who believed he had done nothing to resolve the problem.
“Today, Pete Buttigieg made his public debut. Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO) lamented on Twitter that nobody had anything to say about the train derailment in Ohio. Instead, he complained about how white the construction business was. A miracle is required for this country to operate at all under this administration.
Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and Lance Gooden (R-TX) both said that the official should be questioned by Congress and that Buttigieg “hasn’t said a thing” about the ecological calamity nine days after the accident. Besides vinyl chloride, other toxic industrial chemicals like ethylene glycol mono butyl ether, and ethylhexyl acrylate were spilled at the site, and Norfolk Southern, the company responsible for the derailment, provided the EPA with a list of the cars affected by the incident and the substances they were carrying.
The recent train crash in East Palestine, Ohio is a tragedy, said Republican Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona. Under Mayor Pete’s administration, the city’s transportation system has once again fallen short. I need to know, “Where is he?”
Former critics of Buttigieg have claimed that the Biden administration chose to employ him not because of his knowledge of infrastructure policy but because of his gay orientation. Even as the supply chain problem crippled the American economy, the official took months of paid leave to care for his newly adopted twins with his husband. When publicly supporting programs that aim to address climate change on a national scale, he has also been criticized for using taxpayer-funded private aircraft at least 18 times since taking office and taking a holiday in Portugal while a statewide rail strike loomed earlier this year.
Less than a month before the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide due to a system outage, many Democratic officials criticized Buttigieg for his alleged failure to prevent widespread delays and cancellations at Southwest Airlines, which hampered holiday travel for thousands of passengers. Most recently, Buttigieg was criticized for the Biden administration’s treatment of a Chinese surveillance balloon that was permitted to fly over the whole United States, passing close to missile silos and other strategic installations.
The Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force, established by the White House two years ago, had no direction, according to public data obtained by the Functional Government Institute last month. The group pointed out that Buttigieg’s calendars don’t indicate any meetings for the program during his two-month parental leave.