Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg blames former President Trump for the catastrophic derailment of a train in Ohio that was carrying toxic chemicals.
Buttigieg claimed his agency has taken several steps to improve rail safety through “historic investments.” But according to Buttigieg, because of Trump-era actions that repealed the security rule, Biden’s agency is free from trouble:
“In the wake of the East Palestine derailment and its impact on hundreds of residents, we are seeing strong newfound or renewed (and welcome) interest in our work on rail safety, so I wanted to share more about what we have achieved and what we are doing in this field,” Buttigieg wrote on Twitter. “We are limited by law in some areas of rail regulation (e.g., the braking rule rolled back by the Trump administration in 2018 due to a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we exercise the powers we have to keep people safe… and of course I always ready to work with Congress to continue (or in some cases restore) our ability to address rail safety issues.”
In 2018, the Department of Transportation (DOT) withdrew a policy introduced three years earlier that required trains carrying certain hazardous chemicals to apply electronically controlled air brakes (ECP), saying the technology’s benefits were unclear.
Buttigieg has been repeatedly criticized for not taking his job seriously enough and ignoring warning signs that have led to disastrous outcomes, such as the holiday travel debacle that left thousands stranded in airports last year.
He repeatedly placed blame on others or was conveniently absent when chaos occurred in his agency.
Several Republicans called for him to step down, as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) pointed to “dysfunction at the Department of Transportation.”
