Heather Cox Richardson’s post includes a story that has been under-reported about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that released massive toxic fumes. The Trump administration repealed an Obama regulation that imposed braking rules on trains carrying toxic materials. The trail industry lobbied to kill the regulation.
She writes:
President Joe Biden hit the road today to continue the push to highlight the successes of his administration’s investment in the economy. In Lanham, Maryland, at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 26, he celebrated the economic plan that “grows the economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not the top down.”
He praised union labor and said that the nation’s investment in green energy would mean “good-paying jobs for electricians, plumbers, pipefitters, laborers, carpenters, cement masons, ironworkers, and so much more. And these good jobs you can raise a family on.” “It’s a stark contrast to our Republican friends, who are doubling down on the same failed politics of the past. Top-down, trickle-down economics is not much trickle down…to most kitchen tables in America,” he said.
He reiterated that he would lay out his budget on March 9 and that he expected the Republicans to lay out theirs, so people can compare the two. Biden maintains that his policy of investing in infrastructure and putting money in the hands of ordinary Americans will nurture the economy and reduce the deficit as growth brings in more tax dollars. Meanwhile, he said, the Republican tax cut of 2017 has already added $2 trillion to the federal deficit.
Good economic news is putting wind under Biden’s wings. The economy continues to perform better than expected in 2023. Retail buying increased 3% in January, and the job market remains strong. The administration today highlighted another series of large private sector investments in American manufacturing: Boeing announced that Air India has contracted to buy more than 200 aircraft; Ford announced it will build a $3.5 billion factory in Marshall, Michigan, to make advanced batteries for electric vehicles; and Texas Instruments announced it will build an $11 billion semiconductor plant in Lehi, Utah.
Biden emphasized that these investments would provide “good-paying jobs that [Americans] can raise a family on, the revitalization of entire communities that have often been left behind, and America leading the world again in the industries that drive the future.”
Biden accused the Republicans of proposing measures that would raise the deficit, which is already rising again. The Congressional Budget Office today projected a much higher deficit for 2023 than it did in May 2022 because of new laws, mandatory spending for Social Security and Medicare, and higher interest rates in place to combat inflation. The CBO notes that “spending substantially exceeds revenues in our projections even though pandemic-related spending lessens. In addition, rising interest rates drive up the cost of borrowing. The resulting deficits steadily increase the government’s debt. Over the long term, our projections suggest that changes in fiscal policy must be made to address the rising costs of interest and mitigate other adverse consequences of high and rising debt.”
This is precisely what Republicans have been complaining about with regard to the Democrats’ recent laws to rebuild infrastructure and invest in the economy, while ignoring that their own tax cuts have also added mightily to the deficit. Republicans want to address the rising deficit with spending cuts; Biden, with taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations.
Biden appears to be trying to turn the nation to a modern version of the era before Reagan, when the government provided a basic social safety net, protected civil rights, promoted infrastructure, and regulated business. Since the 1980s, the Republicans have advocated deregulation with the argument that government interference in the way a company does business interrupts the market economy.
But the derailment of fifty Norfolk Southern train cars, eleven of which carried hazardous chemicals, near East Palestine, Ohio, near the northeastern border of the state on February 3 has powerfully illustrated the downsides of deregulation. The accident released highly toxic chemicals into the air, water, and ground, causing a massive fire and forcing about 5,000 nearby residents in Ohio and Pennsylvania to evacuate. On February 6, when it appeared some of the rail cars would explode, officials allowed the company to release and burn the toxic vinyl chloride stored in it. The controlled burn sent highly toxic phosgene, used as a weapon in World War I, into the air.
Republican Ohio governor Mike DeWine has refused federal assistance from President Biden, who, he said, called to offer “anything you need.” DeWine said he had not called back to take him up on the offer. “We will not hesitate to do that if we’re seeing a problem or anything, but I’m not seeing it,” he said.
Just over the border, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said that Norfolk Southern had botched its response to the accident. “Norfolk Southern has repeatedly assured us of the safety of their rail cars—in fact, leading Norfolk Southern personnel described them to me as ‘the Cadillac of rail cars’—yet despite these assertions, these were the same cars that Norfolk Southern personnel rushed to vent and burn without gathering input from state and local leaders. Norfolk Southern’s well known opposition to modern regulations [requires] further scrutiny and investigation to limit the devastating effects of future accidents on people’s lives, property, businesses, and the environment.”
Shapiro was likely referring to the fact that in 2017, after donors from the railroad industry poured more than $6 million into Republican political campaigns, the Trump administration got rid of a rule imposed by the Obama administration that required better braking systems on rail cars that carried hazardous flammable materials.
According to David Sirota, Julia Rock, Rebecca Burns, and Matthew Cunningham-Cook, writing in the investigative journal The Lever, Norfolk Southern supported the repeal, telling regulators new electronically controlled pneumatic brakes on high-hazard flammable trains (HHFT) would “impose tremendous costs without providing offsetting safety benefits.” Railroads also lobbied to limit the definition of HFFT to cover primarily trains that carry oil, not industrial chemicals. The train that derailed in Ohio was not classified as an HHFT.
Nonetheless, Ohio’s new far-right Republican senator J. D. Vance went on the Fox News Channel show of personality Tucker Carlson to blame the Biden administration for the accident. He said there was no excuse for failing infrastructure after the passage last year of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, and said that the administration is too focused on “environmental racism and other ridiculous things.” We are, he said, “ruled by unserious people.”
He also issued a statement saying that “my office will continue to work with FEMA” over the issue, although FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has not been mobilized because Ohio governor DeWine has not requested a federal disaster declaration.
—
Notes:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/15/politics/biden-maryland-economy-speech/index.html
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58940
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/02/04/east-palestine-ohio-train-derailment/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/15/ohio-train-derailment-toxic-chemicals/
https://www.levernews.com/rail-companies-blocked-safety-rules-before-ohio-derailment/
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-blame-ohio-train-derailment-1781163
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/11/ohio-train-derailment-wake-up-call
https://www.axios.com/2023/02/15/cbo-deficit-debt-ceiling-2023
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Lever also reports this very important analysis: https://www.levernews.com/buttigieg-pretends-hes-powerless-to-reduce-derailment-risks/
That analysis should have already been done by now. What it’s only been two years that the Biden administration has had the time. PB bought like the rest of them, I suppose.
The Lever has been critical of Buttigieg whom they believe is out of his depth, and maybe it’s true. He does not have direct knowledge or experience in transportation. He’s a smooth talker, but he is another neoliberal. They tend to try to protect corporations.
Buttigieg served as intelligence officer in US Naval Reserve. He has magna cum laude degree from Harvard, where he was named to Phi Beta Kappa, & was a Rhodes scholar. Maybe he’s not “out of his depth.”
I agree, booklady. As one who was skeptical and thought he was just a mayor of a small town, Buttigieg does nothing but impress with articulate honesty. He is certainly not a smooth talker by any means. He seems to me to be thoughtful, sincerely concerned about solving problems, and authentic about the fundamental issues of concern to average people. So far I have observed a substantive person who actually tries to solve problems, fundamental and of their times. He’s earned my confidence.
Reblogged this on dean ramser.
A friend and I do a LatAmLit zoom class weekly with a prof/ friend in Buenos Aires. He asked us Tues about this accident, and we were both foggy on it– under-reported is right! I did find comprehensive follow-ups in yesterday’s [2/15] NYT& WaPo. But until the 14th/ 15th, there were few articles other than the initial reports Feb 4th-6th.
Meanwhile our Argentinian friend said it has been getting wide coverage in LatAm press; one headline even likened it to Chernobyl…
The easy political move for Biden to make, would have been to immediately grandstand before there was an investigation and point out that regulation removed by Trump could have prevented the accident . Of course East Palestine Ohio is smack dab in the middle of coal country and that would go down as fake news. The same type of fake news that they have voted against in the region for 50 years. Calling environmentalists who ranted against the toxic effects from burning and mining coal Tree Huggers and Socialists. That worked out real well for Tony Boyle and the UMW. Barely a union mine to be found in the region after the Union sided with mine operators and embraced Mountain top removal. While the water is toxic in Coal Country. And I am sure the citizens of East Palestine had the same concerns for leaks from the Keystone Pipeline. The cancelling of which still an albatross around Biden’s neck on the Right. As Union Construction Workers do photo ops with the newly elected Republican Congressman who as Wisconsin Senate Leader a year before rammed through Right to Work.
Well remember how Biden sold out the Railway Workers when he avoided a Economic National Disaster from a strike and a resultant backlash that would have crushed Unions .
https://www.axios.com/2023/02/09/white-house-biden-administration-railroad-companies-paid-sick-leave
CSX just signed an agreement with 3 Unions for 4 sick days and 3 Personal Days.
“High-level officials — including National Economic Council director Brian Deese, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — have all had calls with executives from CSX, Union Pacific, BNSF, and Norfolk Southern recently, pressing them on the issue” ..
I wonder how those negotiations would have gone had Biden been attacking the Rail Operators over regulations . There will be plenty of time for rolling back the Republican deregulation after the NTSB and EPA issue reports.
Tell me when everything stops being Trump’s fault. Biden has been in office for over two years now. What has he done to reverse any of Trump’s evil? A big reason for the strike that Biden quashed was over safety, including the breaking system. Yet, rather than listen to the workers who just might know what they’re talking about, Biden sided with railroad owners and now this is the result. If you’re going to say that Trump is evil for repealing the braking rules (and he is, but we already knew that), then Biden is just as evil for not doing anything about it.
And don’t tell me Biden couldn’t do anything because Republicans, blah, blah, blah. If Democrats can’t do anything when they hold the presidency and both houses, what the hell is the use of voting for them?
dienne77
Now if your point is to eliminate the filibuster then you are right. We need more Progressive Democrats to do that, probably about 8. Which would still leave 41 to 50 Republicans opposed to anything that was in the interest of the American people .
As for Biden he could not even make a vaccine mandate stand in the courts as over 1 million Americans died from Covid.
So I am sure court challenges would be no problem.
Of course you’re no help . Either you are profoundly ignorant or extremely disingenuous.
I get it. Democrats are pure and benevolent
but helpless. Republicans are all powerfull and evil.
dienne77
If you had the slightest clue about the issues in the Railroad negotiations you would first be clueless. No Union leader in his right mind would pull the membership out on a strike with the razor thin margins that rejected the settlement nor would the other 10 Unions who accepted the settlement be too thrilled supporting a strike rejected by a slither of the 3 Unions who rejected an excellent contract offer. With a 24% increase.
The the real issue was not even sick days but staffing cuts. But no Union was calling for staffing levels to be restored . Nor for train lengths to be shortened. Because those staffing cuts came with a lot of overtime for the remaining workers and they bitched about it all the way to the bank . Sick days was a way to placate both segments of the workforce . Those who loved the overtime and those who wanted some flexible days off. But no one was asking to restore staffing levels except for the dissident faction whose demands were not put on the table . The leadership of all 13 unions were very happy the Democrats pushed the settlement through . Because come January they were getting a worse deal. A full out strike was not even called for by the dissident faction. Who preferred to follow the tactics of the AFA at Alaska Airlines. Look up” Chaos”. That tactic had to be used early in the process not at the end when it was a Political football.
Now while you were whining CSX and 3 Unions signed agreements for sick days with the Biden Administration putting heavy pressure on the Rail Roads as negotiations on Sick Days continue at the others.
As for Republicans when your goal is to shrink Government to the size of a Pin Head, you do not have to get much done except Tax Cuts and Court Appointments.
In this case Congress passed a law requiring cost benefit analysis for new regulation.. . Trump used a flawed analysis to repeal the Electronic Brake requirement. Good luck reversing it without a major disaster .
Two years, Joel! He had two years to snap his fingers and wiggle his nose to solve all the problems in the world, the solutions to which are so obvious if you’ve already decided what they are, evidence. experience, and reality be damned. And you go on about “slightest clue”! If only you had one! (Sarcasm alert for those who don’t get it. Joel is rarely far from the mark.)
Thanks, as always, Greg, for your inciteful (not sic), fact-filled contribution.
Anyway, so I have to conced to y’all. I can’t win here. Isn’t it great to have all the propaganda on your side and all other sources are automatically “right wing” or “Russian” propaganda? Must be nice to live in an unfalsifiable world?
Tell me, do you guys always believe everything the MSM tell you? If so, you’re fools, given the long history of MSM lies from Vietnam to Iran-Contra to WMD in Iraq. But if you’re willing to admit that maybe the MSM aren’t always 100% reliable, how do you know when they’re lying and when they’re telling the truth if you’re not willing to even look at other sources? Enquiring minds want to know.
As if we needed further proof. A post about a train accident in Ohio in 2023 is inextricably caused by/lined to: Vietnam, Iran-Contra, and the Iraq War of more than 20 years ago.
This was written more than a decade ago by two of the most astute and respected Congressional scholars in the country:
“We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party…The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition…When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.”
It’s only gotten worse — MUCH worse — since Trump.
To deny this is to deny reality.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-just-say-it-the-republicans-are-the-problem/2012/04/27/gIQAxCVUlT_story.html
Lol, to deny the responsibility of the party that’s held power for more than two years but which only managed during that whol time to quash a railroad strike addressing the problem is to deny reality.
The buck stops, where, exactly?
dienne77,
The railroad strike didn’t address the problem, and I don’t understand why Diane Ravitch allows you to post blatant lies here. As Joel has pointed out many times,the striking workers did not strike for shorter trains or better breaks on the trains. That was all thanks to those who empowered Trump. Now you are looking for a scapegoat to blame for a situation where you got what you wanted. Look in the mirror.
You had the 4 years you demanded where Democrats and progressives were disempowered, and you got the Supreme Court and right wing federal judiciary you wanted when you told us repeatedly that preventing a Democrat from being president was the way to a progressive future.
Blame us for the fact that things are only MILDLY better as long as you blame yourself for why things got so bad to begin with.
You can’t say anything bad about the Republicans, ever. You couldn’t even criticize Republicans on Social Security. You had to try to blame Biden for it instead.
^^^better BRAKES on trains…
Here’s what I know based on more than twenty five years of professional experience: regardless of what any authorities (and it would be the same if they were republican or Democratic) say about safety and immediate and short term health effects. There will be increased cases of catastrophic cancers, respiratory and neurological diseases, some in the near future, most in decades to come. Some children exposed today will develop deadly and chronic conditions in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, when it will be too distant to make a connection. I also know that Black males will have two-to-four times the risk of developing these diseases as compared to Caucasians. For Black females, it will “only” be two-to-three times. I know that if there are any persons with Asian genetics, their risk of liver cancer in the long term has increased significantly.
Here’s what I also know. The first act of the Idiot’s administration was to remove regulations about the storage of toxic coal waste. As it has been dumped in rivers, it has unleashed a time bomb of generational disease and disability among the most supportive people of those who drive the polices that will kill many of their children in decades to come. Not to mention the suffering and medical bills that come with it.
This is a time bomb of unknown proportions and toxic longevity.
To add, those who live east of the disaster, roughly from Buffalo to Pittsburgh to northern West Virginia will bear the brunt of the long term effects. I live upwind about 60 miles away and will likely be OK. Western NY, PA, and WV will have decades to worry about the aftermath, long after the rest of us forget all about it.
Hope they don’t ask Christie Twitman, EPA Administrator who thought World Trade Center area after 9/11 didn’t pose health hazards, to evaluate risks from Ohio train derailment.
GregB
While all may be true to some degree, I suspect that in the case of the burn off it depends on how far the wind carried the particles from the burn off. As well as how much has leached into the water supply and in what quantities. I don’t have the Scientific Background to assess this.
Where as your second point on coal pollution mirrors the point I made about the disaster of Mountain Top and Strip Mining. But here is where I agree with FOX News and the Right Wing Echo sphere . “Ask me if I care ” about voters who had absolutely no concern about Coal Pollution. Who cheered (privately with their votes ) for Protestors against the XL pipe line being beaten arrested and sprayed with water in freezing weather. Who ranted against Biden killing the sludge line carrying the dirtiest oil on the Planet.
“TC Energy announced its Keystone pipeline leaked into Mill Creek in Washington County, Kan. Nearly 600,000 gallons of oil spilled into the waterway as well as the land surrounding it.”
Perhaps Buttigieg and Biden do care . I don’t . Apparently the residents concern is only triggered when they can smell the danger in their own home. On the other hand if the spread of particles is significant we do have a disaster.
“Apparently the residents concern is only triggered when they can smell the danger in their own home.”
Ain’t it the truth. I made a similar point in the About section here about Mayfield, Kentucky and how, after their disaster, they imposed James Comer on us. East Palestine is deep in the heart of Idiot’s most solid base.
It is the same all over again and again…profits always before people.
I think you mean power always before people. And there are less of the latter. They somehow keep falling out of high-rise windows! Hopefully they won’t hit more when they reach the ground.