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Tag: derailment

  • DOJ sues Norfolk Southern over East Palestine derailment

    DOJ sues Norfolk Southern over East Palestine derailment

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    The DOJ is seeking injunctive relief, cost recovery and civil penalties to “ensure it pays the full cost of the environmental cleanup,” according to the lawsuit.

    “As a result of this incident, hazardous materials vented into the air and spilled onto the ground. These substances contaminated local waterways and flowed miles downstream,” the prosecutors wrote in the suit.

    The derailment, involving a freight train traveling near a small town along the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, sent 38 cars off the track, spilling hazardous chemicals. Some of the tank cars had been compromised and required a controlled release of toxic vinyl chloride, which was burned off and forced the town’s evacuation.

    Federal officials have insisted that the area and its water are safe now, but residents continue to complain of foul smells and worry about long-term health concerns, as well as depressed home values.

    Earlier this month, Alan Shaw, the railroad’s CEO, appeared before Congress to apologize for the derailment and promise accountability, telling lawmakers that “we won’t be finished until we make it right.”

    The company has come under intense scrutiny from the industry and lawmakers, who have pressed for more stringent safety precautions as they suspect an overheating wheel caused the derailment. Norfolk Southern has since announced a handful of new safety measures, as has the industry as a whole.

    Lawmakers from both parties, including a heavy contingent from Ohio and Pennsylvania, are pressing forward with legislation intended to shore up rail safety, but so far have yet to gain broad traction.

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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Partisan split on rail safety shows at first hearing on Ohio derailment

    Partisan split on rail safety shows at first hearing on Ohio derailment

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    Republicans, meanwhile, decried what they suggested was a lack of transparent communication from the EPA, which has met skepticism for its assurances that the community’s air and water are safe.

    “A month after the accident, it’s clear to me that EPA’s risk communication strategy fell short,” said top committee Republican Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). “The initial delays in messaging and response has meant that the residents still do not trust these results enough to feel safe.”

    Republicans highlighted that first responders arriving on the scene didn’t immediately know what chemicals they were dealing with. In addition, residents still don’t believe EPA assurances that the air and water are safe because it still doesn’t smell right, Capito said. And, Republicans suggested that the EPA hasn’t provided direct answers on where the soil removed from the site is being shipped.

    Capito grilled Debra Shore, EPA’s regional administrator, about how it is handling waste removal at the accident site, echoing complaints from Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance that large amounts of contaminated soil remain. When the soil is disturbed, “it brings the odor and then here comes a lack of trust right back down onto the community,” Capito said.

    Shore reported that tests of the contaminated soil revealed only low levels of dioxins, which will allow the waste to be transported to facilities qualified for disposal as soon as Thursday.

    Democrats also sought to pin down Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw about whether his company will support a bipartisan rail bill that Vance is offering with senators including Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown
    and Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey.

    “It’s bipartisan — that never happens around here on the big bills,” said Casey. “It’d be a good start by Norfolk Southern to tell us today — in addition to what they’re going to do for the people of Ohio and Pennsylvania — tell us today that they support the bill. That would help, if a major rail company said: ‘We support these reforms, and we’ll help you pass this bill.’”

    Shaw did not directly answer the question. But later in the hearing, Shaw praised provisions included in the bill that intend to tighten tank car standards and increase training for first responders. He also mentioned his desire to improve the devices on tracks that detect overheating wheels, which investigators are eyeing as a factor in the derailment.

    Other Democrats, including Brown and Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, criticized Norfolk Southern for what they characterized as focusing more on profits than rail and chemical safety.

    “Norfolk Southern chose to invest much of its massive profits in making its executives and shareholders wealthy at the expense of Ohio communities along its rail tracks,” Brown said. He noted that in the last decade, Norfolk Southern eliminated 38 percent of its workforce.

    Sanders tried to get Shaw to commit to providing paid sick leave for its workers — one of the changes the Biden administration is seeking. Shaw demurred.

    At various points senators also sought to pin Shaw down on specific actions the railroad would take to make residents whole, including compensating people for long term medical costs and economic damages. Shaw responded to that and other attempts to pin him down on specifics with: “We’re committed to doing what’s right for the folks in East Palestine.”

    Sen. Bernie Sanders answered: “What’s right is to cover their health care needs. Will you do that?”

    Shaw only replied that “everything is on the table.”

    “All of us are committed to doing what’s right,” Sanders shot back. “But the devil is in the details.”

    Opening the hearing, Shaw apologized for the derailment and pledged “to improve safety immediately.”

    “I want to begin today by expressing how deeply sorry I am for the impact this has had on the residents of East Palestine and the surrounding communities,” Shaw said. “I am determined to make this right.”

    He said that while federal investigators have preliminarily found that the three-person crew behind the controls “was operating the train below the speed limit and in an approved manner,” it is still “clear the safety mechanisms in place were not enough.”

    Norfolk Southern has announced safety changes in the wake of the accident that are tailored to addressing the likely cause — an overheating wheel on a car carrying plastic pellets, which then caught fire. The railroad industry as a whole has also made new safety promises, though they are also tailored to the specific likely cause of the accident.

    Still, Shaw acknowledged that those voluntary initiatives “are just the start.”

    “The events of the last month are not who we are as a company,” Shaw said, referring not just to the East Palestine derailment but at least two other incidents since then, including one this week that resulted in the death of a conductor.

    Alex Guillén contributed to this report.

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    #Partisan #split #rail #safety #shows #hearing #Ohio #derailment
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Norfolk Southern to clash with Congress on toxic derailment

    Norfolk Southern to clash with Congress on toxic derailment

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    The plan gives Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw something to present to senators when he appears before the Senate EPW Committee Thursday — but it’s not likely to satisfy Democrats on the panel.

    Most of the six-point plan to be announced Monday involves improving the equipment Norfolk Southern uses along tracks to help sense when a train’s wheels are overheating, including boosting the number of detectors and reviewing how far apart they’re spaced. The railroad also says it wants to seek industry consensus on standards for this equipment, which now are determined by individual companies. And it says it wants to accelerate research on a new automated inspection technology.

    In a statement accompanying the plan, Shaw said the preliminary findings of the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent agency probing the disaster, made it clear that “a comprehensive industry effort” was needed to improve safety and that Norfolk Southern is “not waiting to take action.”

    But that list of actions falls far short of the changes the Biden administration is seeking — such as upgrading to a faster braking system, providing more notification to communities about hazardous materials traveling through their areas and paying workers sick leave.

    The Department of Transportation has said it also doesn’t just want railroads to upgrade their automated track inspection equipment. It also wants them to stop seeking to cut back on human inspections.

    The Biden administration has asked Congress to make a series of additional changes as well, including increasing the current $225,000 cap on fines for safety violations.

    Raising the cap is one of the provisions included in a bill introduced last week by a bipartisan group of senators, including the delegations from Ohio and Pennsylvania where the impacts of the derailment were felt. That bill would also subject more trains that carry hazardous materials to safety regulations designed to protect communities, and would require at least two crew members on board each train — changes the railroads have fought hard to prevent.

    The bill also would mandate that railroads have detectors for overheating wheels every 10 miles of track — not every 15, as included in Norfolk Southern’s action plan.

    Norfolk Southern hasn’t specifically discussed the bill or DOT’s requests beyond saying that the “rail industry needs to learn as much as we can from East Palestine,” as the company said in a statement to POLITICO.

    “Norfolk Southern has committed to working with industry to develop practices and technologies that could help prevent an incident like this in the future,” the statement read. “This incident requires a broad industry response, and we will also work with the owners of the rail cars on the integrity and safety of the equipment we use.”

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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Sherrod Brown ‘not entirely satisfied’ with Norfolk Southern response after latest derailment

    Sherrod Brown ‘not entirely satisfied’ with Norfolk Southern response after latest derailment

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    Brown said he had spoken with state and local officials, including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who were all “pretty satisfied” with Norfolk Southern’s response to the Saturday crash. But Brown still wants more information about the latest crash, as well as the fiery derailment last month that caused residents of East Palestine to have to evacuate. Residents of that community have continued to express fears about threats to their health.

    “People are still concerned. My couple trips in the last two weeks I’ve made to East Palestine, and the railroad’s still not answering all the questions,” Brown said Sunday.

    Last week, Brown sponsored bipartisan legislation with newly elected Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) to tighten safety requirements on trains and increase fines on railroad companies. Brown said the chances that legislation will pass the Senate “are good,” but he’s unsure how the House will vote.

    “I make no predictions in the House,” Brown said, adding later: “But you’d think a disaster that happened in East Palestine would have gotten their attention.”

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    #Sherrod #Brown #satisfied #Norfolk #Southern #response #latest #derailment
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • 2010 Jnaneswari Express derailment: Calcutta HC grants bail to 11 accused Maoists

    2010 Jnaneswari Express derailment: Calcutta HC grants bail to 11 accused Maoists

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    Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court, on Tuesday granted bail to 11 Maoists accused in the 2010 Jnaneswari Express accident, in which as many as 148 persons were killed and 180 were injured.

    The 11 accused were granted bail after spending almost over a decade since their arrests while the investigation of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the matter is yet to be concluded.

    A division bench of Justice Debangshu Basak and Justice Md. Shabbar Rashidi, while granting the bail of the 11 accused Maoists, questioned whether the investigation agency is not aware of the fundamental rights of the accused.

    According to the bench, it is a matter of shame the legal formalities and even the process of integrating the witnesses is yet to be completed even after 13 years since the incident took place.

    “Do not forget that even the accused persons have fundamental rights. They cannot be locked behind the bars for years without trial. All of them have spent over 10 years behind the bars with the trial process being yet to be completed,” Justice Basak observed.

    The 11 accused who were granted bail on Tuesday were Khagen Mahato, Bholanath Mahato, Jaladhar Mahato, Ram Mudi, Manik Mahato, Amiyo Mahato, Jaideb Mahato, Mohonto Mahato, Lakksmikanto Roy, Sunil Mahato, and Manoj Mahato.

    The Jnaneswari Express derailed in 2010 near Jhargram in West Midnapore district of West Bengal, following which 148 persons were killed and 180 were injured.

    Investigation revealed that the train got derailed because some miscreants removed the fishplates. The incident took place when the Maoists were continuously observing strike in the area. The CBI had taken over the investigation in the matter.

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    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • Oversight Republicans are launching an investigation into the Department of Transportation’s handling of a toxic train derailment in Ohio. 

    Oversight Republicans are launching an investigation into the Department of Transportation’s handling of a toxic train derailment in Ohio. 

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    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has come under criticism for his response.

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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Buttigieg, standing near Ohio derailment site, says he could have spoken ‘sooner’

    Buttigieg, standing near Ohio derailment site, says he could have spoken ‘sooner’

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    Buttigieg has faced a barrage of criticism, mostly from conservatives, for what they perceive as a slow response to the derailment, which resulted in toxic chemicals being released into the air and ground. Several Republicans say Buttigieg should have traveled to the crash site sooner, and some have even called for him to be fired or resign.

    Former President Donald Trump joined in the barrage on Tuesday, calling out Buttigieg, President Joe Biden and the EPA after touring the site of the crash, a visit intended to jump-start his slow-moving 2024 presidential campaign.

    “Buttigieg should’ve been here already,” Trump told reporters as he handed out MAGA hats after speaking alongside Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio). Trump also said Biden should “get over here.”

    On Thursday, after meeting with the mayor, community members, DOT officials and first responders, including the fire chief in this deep-red village nestled in Columbiana County, Buttigieg indirectly addressed those comments in a wide-ranging 30-minute press conference. “And to any national political figure who has decided to get involved in the plight of East Palestine … I have a simple message, which is, I need your help,” Buttigieg said. “Because if you’re serious about this, there is more that we could do to prevent more communities from going through this.”

    Asked by POLITICO whether his perceived political ambitions had shaped reaction to his handling of the derailment, Buttigieg said, “I’m here for the work and not for the politics.”

    But politics have been driving the narrative for over a week, with no signs of stopping. On Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, the top Republican on the Senate committee in charge of rail safety, said Buttigieg is “desperate to salvage his credibility” and used a preliminary factual report issued earlier that morning by federal investigators to suggest that his policy solutions are “shallow” and designed to heap blame on Trump.

    The pressure has tested the normally mild-mannered former Indiana mayor, who got into a Twitter spat with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio Tuesday after the Republican called for him to resign or be fired. Buttigieg took more veiled shots on Thursday, saying “anyone in Congress who cares about these issues, they are welcome to come to the table and work with us to get things done. So anybody who is interested in that, I’m going to hold them to that.”

    When asked Thursday by reporters whether he planned to resign, Buttigieg replied: “I’m not here for politics, I’m here to make sure the community can get what they need.”

    The trip coincided with the release of the a preliminary report from National Transportation Safety Board, an independent agency, which found that the crew of the 150-car Norfolk Southern train received an alert about an axle overheating, and attempted to slow the train down before it derailed. The NTSB’s investigation will likely take 12 to 18 months before it determines what caused the derailment.

    Despite the criticism, the White House has defended its response and the job Buttigieg has done, noting that officials from the EPA and the NTSB were on the ground within hours of the derailment. On Tuesday, EPA Administrator Michael Regan ordered Norfolk Southern to pay for the cleanup from the crash.

    “The Norfolk Southern train derailment has upended the lives of East Palestine families, and EPA’s order will ensure the company is held accountable for jeopardizing the health and safety of this community,” Regan said in a statement Tuesday. “Let me be clear: Norfolk Southern will pay for cleaning up the mess they created and for the trauma they’ve inflicted on this community.”

    On Thursday, Buttigieg promised the federal government would make sure that happened.

    “We’re gonna be here, day in, day out, year in, year out, making our railroads safer and making sure Norfolk Southern meets its responsibilities. That is a promise, and one I take very, very seriously,” Buttigieg said.

    In the meantime, politicians — and the country — should be “wrapping their arms around the people of East Palestine,” Buttigieg said, “not as a political football, not as an ideological flashpoint, not as a ‘gotcha moment,’ but as thousands of human beings whose lives got upended … through no fault of their own.”



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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Train derailment puts a harsh spotlight on Buttigieg

    Train derailment puts a harsh spotlight on Buttigieg

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    “Pete Buttigieg has taken a lot of bullets for the president on this,” one senior Democrat said Wednesday, insisting on anonymity to talk about a crisis that the person was not authorized to discuss.

    Still, Buttigieg acknowledged in a CBS News interview Tuesday that he “could have spoken sooner about how strongly I felt about this incident, and that’s a lesson learned for me.”

    For Buttigieg, a former Indiana mayor and one of the Biden administration’s most avid political communicators, what began as a rail and ecological calamity has mushroomed in just 20 days into his most serious test yet as leader of the sprawling Department of Transportation.

    Three people in Buttigieg’s orbit admit to being exasperated by the furor, saying nobody asked him about the derailment in any of the 23 media interviews he conducted during the first 10 days after the accident. Then critics lambasted him for not speaking sooner.

    Since then, conservative media outlets have used images of the Feb. 3 wreck — including the flames, plumes of black smoke and piles of dead fish — to lambaste his oversight of rail safety. They’ve also criticized his failure to visit the crash site, a chorus of “Where’s Pete?” that didn’t let up even after he announced he would be visiting East Palestine on Thursday.

    The “effort by Fox News and Republicans” to use the pain of the East Palestine community “as a political weapon is both enraging and demeaning,” the senior Democrat said.

    Buttigieg first tweeted about the disaster on Feb. 13, when he said he continued to be “concerned about the impacts” to those living in the area. He pledged to use all “relevant authorities to ensure accountability and continue to support safety.”

    The White House said Wednesday night that it’s standing behind Buttigieg, rejecting calls from some GOP lawmakers for him to resign or be fired. It also echoed Buttigieg’s criticisms of past Republican actions that rolled back Obama administration rail safety regulations.

    “These are bad faith attacks from Republicans who have been in lockstep with the rail lobby to unravel safety protections,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said.

    The Ohio derailment comes after a series of other transportation-related snarls that have happened on Buttigieg’s watch, including a threatened nationwide rail strike, airline scheduling meltdowns and a Federal Aviation Administration computer failure that grounded flights nationwide. These have brought him unsparing criticism from GOP lawmakers and conservative media outlets, which have portrayed him as overwhelmed by or detached from the job — and mocked his interest in issues such as racial justice and climate change.

    Fox News’ prime-time coverage of the derailment on Tuesday included a Photoshopped image portraying him as a suit-wearing bicyclist grinning in front of the wreckage. Former President Donald Trump weighed in during a visit to East Palestine on Wednesday, telling reporters, “Buttigieg should’ve been here already.”

    That criticism could just as easily be aimed at other Biden appointees, the senior Democrat who discussed the attacks on Buttigieg said. Those could even include Environmental Protection Agency chief Michael Regan, who first visited the disaster site last week — the first trip there by any of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet-level leaders.

    Regan, whose agency is overseeing the cleanup of toxic chemicals in East Palestine, returned to the village Tuesday. There, he sipped tap water with Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and Rep. Bill Johnson to reassure residents that it’s safe to drink. On Wednesday night, he appeared during a CNN town hall about the disaster.

    Employees of both DOT and EPA were at the scene within hours after the derailment, as were crash investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board. The heads of DOT’s Federal Railroad Administration and the department’s hazardous materials agency visited East Palestine on Wednesday, though their trip was upstaged by Trump’s appearance.

    Still, “there’s a plume, and there’s a chemical spill. If anyone should have been there right away, it’s Regan,” the senior Democrat said. “But he’s not a political target. And so what’s happened here is they’ve picked a political target. And they’ve just beaten that drum as often as they can, despite facts.”

    Bates, the White House spokesperson, also called it misguided for Republicans to expect Buttigieg to personally rush to the site of a train wreck.

    “It’s like them pretending they think the State Department takes point on rescuing people in the water during hurricanes instead of the Coast Guard,” Bates said. “Case in point, under the last administration EPA was also in the lead on similar derailments.”

    Buttigieg’s critics include Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has accused him of being “m.i.a. on the derailment” and urged Biden to fire him last week.

    “For two years, Secretary Buttigieg downplayed and ignored crisis after crisis, while prioritizing topics of little relevance to our nation’s transportation system,” Rubio wrote.

    During his visit to East Palestine on Thursday, Buttigieg plans to meet with community members, NTSB officials and DOT employees.

    “During the initial response phase, I’ve followed the norm of staying out of the way of the independent NTSB,” he tweeted Wednesday. “Now that we’re into the policy phase, I’ll be visiting.”

    The department separately announced a series of policy actions the department planned to take in response to the disaster as well as calls for railroads and Congress to make their own changes. “[W]e hope this sudden bipartisan support for rail safety will result in meaningful changes in Congress,” DOT said in a statement.

    Buttigieg also sent a scathing letter to the CEO of Norfolk Southern, the railroad involved in the disaster, for what he called the “vigorous resistance by your industry to increased safety measures.”

    Buttigieg’s supporters have accused Republicans of showing only newfound interest in rail safety, noting that Trump’s administration had shelved an Obama-era rule that would have required faster brakes on trains carrying highly flammable materials. (The rule would not have applied to the train that derailed in Ohio, NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy wrote on Twitter last week.) Trump’s DOT also ended regular rail safety audits of railroads and killed a pending rule requiring freight trains to have at least two crew members.

    More than 1,000 train derailments happen in the U.S. during a given year, and Transportation secretaries don’t normally go to the scene. Rail safety veteran Bob Lauby said that in his 23 years at the NTSB and the Federal Railroad Administration, he remembers just one time when a secretary visited the site — and it was 30 years ago, when the deadliest incident in Amtrak’s history killed 47 people near Mobile, Ala.

    But the East Palestine disaster has generated a much fiercer, longer-lasting backlash than usual.

    A senior DOT official said department leaders were satisfied during the days after the derailment that the situation was in good hands, with a dozen staff members assisting the NTSB investigation, as well as officials from EPA and other government agencies.

    Buttigieg was prepared to speak about the incident if asked, according to the DOT official — but for 10 days, no interviewer asked him.

    Then on Feb. 13, “we started to see a large uptick in mentions on the secretary’s social media accounts, particularly on Twitter,” said a spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe behind-the-scenes events. “That afternoon we began to see stories on television and get inquiries about the DOT and secretary’s role in this derailment.”

    It has kept going since then.

    On Tuesday, a Daily Caller reporter approached Buttigieg while he was out walking with his husband, Chasten, and asked him about the derailment. Buttigieg referred her “to about a dozen interviews I’ve given today” and suggested she contact his press office. The exchange generated even more headlines in conservative media.

    A host of factors could explain why the Ohio wreck has stayed in the headlines long past the point when national media have lost interest in similar disasters, including those with equally striking footage of smoke and flames and equally valid fears of contamination.

    For one thing, the derailment comes months after last year’s threatened rail strike, which put freight rail on the front pages given a work stoppage’s potential to kneecap the U.S. economy. An incident Feb. 8 in which police arrested a reporter covering a DeWine news conference in East Palestine also stoked more headlines about the derailment’s aftermath — despite conspiracy theories on social media accusing news organizations of covering up the disaster.

    Beyond that, “anytime air and water are involved, communities feel extremely anxious and vulnerable, for good reason,” said former FRA Administrator Sarah Feinberg, who dealt with several high-profile derailments during the Obama era.

    Relatedly, she said, “we are in an era of severe corporate and government distrust.” So when Norfolk Southern or EPA tell communities the air and water are safe, people don’t believe them.

    That skepticism hasn’t kept Regan, the EPA chief, from getting the warm welcome from Republicans that has eluded Buttigieg. Those include DeWine and others who have met Regan during his two trips to East Palestine.

    “Thank you, administrator, for this partnership,” DeWine told Regan at a news conference Tuesday.

    Alex Guillén contributed to this report.



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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Trump’s visit to Ohio derailment gives Biden’s team some breathing room

    Trump’s visit to Ohio derailment gives Biden’s team some breathing room

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    Other Trump critics were more blunt in dismissing the motives behind his visit.

    “It’s clear that it’s a political stunt,” said former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a Republican and former member of Congress who led DOT during President Barack Obama’s first term. “If he wants to visit, he’s a citizen. But clearly his regulations and the elimination of them, and no emphasis on safety, is going to be pointed out.”

    Buttigieg took his own veiled shot at Trump — though not by name — when answering a POLITICO reporter’s question about the tension between Trump’s rail safety record and his criticisms of the Biden administration.

    “There is a chance for everybody who has a public voice on this issue to demonstrate whether they are interested in helping the people of East Palestine or using the people of East Palestine,” Buttigieg said. “A lot of the folks who seem to find political opportunity there are among those who have sided with the rail industry again and again and again as they have fought safety regulations on railroads and [hazardous materials] tooth and nail.”

    Buttigieg said he was trying to be careful not to violate the Hatch Act, which restricts federal employees’ political speech, by speaking about a presidential candidate from his position as Cabinet secretary.

    Ahead of Wednesday’s appearance, the Democratic National Committee sent reporters a list of Trump’s deregulation efforts, with the subject line: “REMINDER: Trump Slashed Transportation Safety and Environmental Rules, Funding.”

    A spokesperson for Trump defended his record and said that he was not to blame for the tragedy in East Palestine.

    Trump, who launched his latest presidential bid in November, said on his social media network Truth Social that he was venturing to Ohio to visit “great people who need help, NOW!”

    On Wednesday Trump appeared in East Palestine, bringing with him Trump-branded water and cleaning supplies. Speaking in front of an East Palestine Fire Department truck, Trump took shots at the Biden administration’s response, including the EPA, Buttigieg and even Biden himself.

    While handing out red MAGA hats, Trump told reporters, “Buttigieg should’ve been here already.” He also had a message for Biden: “Get over here.”

    Buttigieg plans to travel to East Palestine Thursday, after taking intense heat from Republicans for not going sooner. The Biden administration has said that high-ranking officials, aside from EPA chief Michael Regan, did not visit East Palestine in the derailment’s immediate aftermath to comply with the evacuation order in place and to avoid impeding investigation and emergency response efforts.

    Trump also called on Norfolk Southern to “fulfill its responsibilities and obligations” to the village. The EPA formally put the rail company on the hook Tuesday for covering all costs of the clean up, which the railroad had already pledged to do.

    “If our ‘leaders’ are too afraid to actually lead real leaders will step up and fill the void,” his son Donald Trump Jr. wrote on Twitter last week.

    Among other criticisms, lawmakers of both parties have questioned DOT’s oversight of the railroad industry’s labor and safety practices in light of the fiery Ohio crash, which unleashed plumes of toxic smoke and left lingering worries about air and water contamination. They have also faulted the Biden administration for not sending any senior leaders to the derailment site until EPA Administrator Michael Regan traveled there last week.

    Buttigieg has not yet gone there but said he plans to, and the heads of DOT’s Federal Railroad Administration and its hazardous materials agency are expected to be in East Palestine on Wednesday. Biden administration officials have said that top leaders held off from visiting the site to comply with evacuation orders and to avoid creating a distraction. Still, lower-level investigators and employees from agencies such as the FRA and EPA swarmed to East Palestine within hours after the 150-car Norfolk Southern train went off the track with a cargo that included flammable chemicals such as vinyl chloride.

    Because the disaster was a chemical spill, White House officials said, Regan was the lead agency official tasked with responding. Regan’s agency has faced skepticism from residents about its assurances that East Palestine’s air is safe to breathe, despite a lingering odor that has left residents in the village complaining about rashes and headaches.

    Buttigieg told reporters Monday that he plans to go to the site “when the time is right.”

    “I am very interested in getting to know the residents of East Palestine and hearing from them about how they’ve been impacted and communicating with them about the steps that we were taking,” he said.

    Even some less partisan observers have questioned why the Biden administration didn’t send a high-profile official sooner to show its support for people in East Palestine.

    “There’s a tremendous value when a catastrophe occurs of a high-ranking official taking charge,” William Reilly, who led EPA during the George H.W. Bush administration, told POLITICO’s E&E News for a story Tuesday. He said the purpose of those visits can include “communicating to the locally impacted people and to the country. The communication part is enormously important. And that did not happen here.”

    Local and state political leaders said they welcome high-level attention — to a point. They include East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway, a registered Republican who on Monday had called President Joe Biden’s decision to visit Ukraine before coming to his Ohio village “the biggest slap in the face.”

    At a news conference Tuesday, Conaway said Trump is welcome to visit but that he does not want the village to become “political pawns.”

    “We don’t want to be a soundbite or a news bite,” Conaway said. “We just want to go back to living our lives the way they were.”

    A spokesperson for Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, Daniel Tierney, declined to comment when asked whether Trump is welcome in East Palestine.

    One senior administration official, granted anonymity to speak freely because he was not authorized to talk to the media, said Biden’s appointees are “supporting people in East Palestine” while Trump and other Republicans “see the people there as political props.”

    “Trump’s visit validates that this is all about politics for him and Republicans who have been quick to criticize and bizarrely blame Secretary Pete yet are the same people who have done Norfolk Southern’s bidding on rolling back major safety requirements,” said the official. “Trump more than anyone.”

    Watering down rail regs

    As president, Trump made rescinding regulations a major priority for his agencies, even signing an order requiring them to revoke two rules for every one they enact. At the same time, he said he wanted to “ensure that America has among the very cleanest air and cleanest water on the planet.”

    His administration’s most high-profile action on rail safety was its withdrawal of a 2015 rule mandating more advanced brakes on some trains carrying especially hazardous materials.

    That withdrawal, however, stemmed from intervention by Congress, which required regulators to put the rule through a more stringent cost-benefit analysis after the Obama administration had issued the regulation. The rule ultimately failed that analysis.

    Even if that rule had taken effect, it would not have applied to the train that derailed in East Palestine, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board — the lead agency investigating the crash — wrote on Twitter last week. Still, environmental groups pressed Buttigieg last week to restore the Obama-era brake rule, writing that “[i]t should not take a tragedy like the recent hazardous train derailment in Ohio … to turn attention to this issue again.”

    Trump’s DOT also took several rulemaking actions sought by railroad companies that could weaken safety, including its withdrawal of a rule requiring that a crew of at least two people be present on freight trains. The Obama administration had proposed that rule in response to a fiery oil-train derailment that killed 47 people in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, in 2013.

    The Trump administration argued that “a train crew staffing rule would unnecessarily impede the future of rail innovation and automation.”

    Railroad companies say no factual justification exists for mandating crews of more than one person. Such a requirement, they argue, would make U.S. railroads less competitive and could even undermine climate efforts if it makes shippers turn to trucking, which emits more pollution than trains do.

    The Norfolk Southern train that derailed in Ohio had three crew members aboard. After the derailment, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) asked in a letter to Buttigieg whether that was too few people to control such a long train.

    The Trump administration also dropped a ban on shipping liquefied natural gas by rail tank car, saying the expansion of U.S. natural gas production necessitated the rollback. The ban had been a response to concerns about possible explosions.

    In addition, Trump’s Federal Railroad Administration stopped conducting regular rail safety audits of railroads — which the Biden administration later reinstituted — and allowed railroads to replace some human safety inspections with automation.

    Under Trump, “railroads could apply for relief from federal regulations, and FRA would grant them,” said Gregory Hynes, the national legislative director of the country’s largest rail union, SMART Transportation Division.

    “It’s really shocking what they’ve been able to get away with,” he said.

    On chemicals, a rollback of ‘almost everything’

    Advocates of tougher regulations on toxic chemicals expressed just as much frustration.

    Under Trump, “there was a rollback of, you know, almost everything,” said Sonya Lunder, the Sierra Club’s senior toxics adviser.

    Trump’s EPA repealed regulations intended to prevent chemical accidents at industrial facilities and rolled back requirements for companies to regularly assess whether safer technologies or practices have become available. It also withdrew requirements that companies have third-party audits to determine the root causes of accidents.

    The Biden administration last year proposed reinstating all those requirements.

    Public health advocates also criticized the Trump administration’s implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act, a longstanding law that Congress gave a bipartisan overhaul in 2016.

    Advocates say the law was designed to require EPA to look at the overall health dangers of chemicals, but the Trump administration took steps to look at risks in only a piecemeal fashion. For instance, it declined to factor in chemicals Americans breathe from the air or drink in their water, limiting analyses to only direct exposure from products or uses. The Biden administration has reversed that policy and reconsidered some chemicals’ risks, with potential restrictions or bans on the way.

    A federal court in 2019 faulted the Trump-era EPA for avoiding studying certain health risks of some chemicals like asbestos.

    Trump’s political appointees also overruled career scientists on a health assessment for a type of PFAS, or so-called “forever chemicals,” that contaminates almost a million Americans’ drinking water and tried to bury internal reports that warned of unsafe chemicals in the air and water.

    In addition, Trump proposed shuttering the Chemical Safety Board, a tiny agency that investigates accidents at industrial facilities but has no regulatory or enforcement power.

    These rollbacks were carried out by several political appointees with industry ties. Those included Nancy Beck, a former expert for the trade group American Chemistry Council, who became the top political appointee in EPA’s chemical office and limited the agency’s study of hazardous chemicals. Trump later tried to appoint Beck to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, but her nomination stalled in the Senate.

    Kayla Guo contributed to this report.



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  • Toxic train derailment due to greed and weakened rules, Sherrod Brown says

    Toxic train derailment due to greed and weakened rules, Sherrod Brown says

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    A 150-car Norfolk Southern train derailed Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio, spilling vinyl chloride and other hazardous chemicals, some of which have leaked into the water, soil and air in the area. | Michael Swensen/Getty Images

    Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, in discussing this month’s toxic train derailment in his state, said Sunday that Congress needs to stand firm when corporate lobbyists use their influence to weaken safety rules and regulations.

    “Congress has got to do its job better,” the Ohio Democrat said on CNN’s “State of the Union” while also urging President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to “re-strengthen” pertinent regulations that have been weakened in recent years.

    “Every time there’s a new administration,” Brown explained, “particularly a more conservative one that’s more pro-corporate, they put all these regulations on the table about safety, about worker safety, community safety, the environment, consumer protections, and, at the behest of lobbyists, far too often, they weaken those laws.”

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    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )