Biden Admin Blames Trump For Ohio Train Derailment. Even The NTSB Chair Calls That ‘Misinformation.’ | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Ben Zeisloft.

    Senior officials in the Biden administration have tried to pin the blame for the train derailment and subsequent chemical fallout in East Palestine, Ohio, on deregulation efforts from former President Donald Trump, but the head of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has called those efforts "misinformation."

    Local and state authorities previously evacuated all residents within one mile of the February 3 derailment and started a controlled burn of industrial chemicals on the vehicle to decrease the risk of an explosion, which could have sent shrapnel throughout the small town. Vinyl chloride, a known human carcinogen used to manufacture PVC, was emitted from five train cars in the form of massive plumes of black smoke visible throughout eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

    Deputy White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement provided to The Hill that the disaster was caused by Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration. He claimed that they "owe East Palestine an apology for selling them out to rail industry lobbyists" and contended that Republican members of Congress "laid the groundwork for the Trump administration to tear up requirements for more effective train brakes."

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the Ohio community impacted by the train derailment one day after the former commander-in-chief, likewise said the Biden administration has been "constrained" on rail safety as a result of a "braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015."

    Both officials appear to have been referencing a rule that would have required some trains to upgrade their braking systems to electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, also known as ECP brakes. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, who leads the independent federal agency charged with investigating the train disaster, exhorted all who claim that the braking rule would have prevented the derailment to "stop spreading misinformation."

    Homendy said on social media that the rule only would have applied to "high hazard flammable trains," while the vehicle which derailed in East Palestine was classified as a "mixed freight train" with too few hazardous cars to meet the threshold for the regulation. She added that the train would not have had ECP brakes "even if the rule had gone into effect."

    Members of the Biden administration themselves have likewise hesitated to implement braking rules. Federal officials said the new standards would produce costs that significantly outweigh any accrued benefits, according to a report from The Washington Post.

    Even beyond the issue of establishing new braking system requirements, the number of train derailments has remained relatively unchanged from approximately 1,300 annual incidents over the past decade and even declined to 1,100 annual incidents in 2020 and 2021, two and three years after the braking regulations were nixed, according to data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

    Democratic officials shift culpability over the train derailment to Republicans as criticism mounts against the Biden administration for a perceived lack of attention to the crisis. Buttigieg did not publicly acknowledge the incident until February 13, more than one week after the derailment occurred, and visited the site on February 23. President Joe Biden himself has not yet visited East Palestine but took a clandestine trip to Ukraine on Monday to express solidarity with the nation's war effort against Russia.

poll#173

In the face of a known scandal finally being revealed by the corrupt Legacy Media regarding Joe Biden, his Mishandling of Classified Documents and his long history of Influence Peddling to our Foreign Adversaries for Personal and Familial Profit: What do you believe the outcome will be in America's Leftist practice of a Two Tiered Justice System?

  Nothing will happen since the Democratic Socialist Left is corrupt to the core, and their non patriot ambitions are only the control of power.

  Justice WILL be served, but NOT without a tremendous fight by those willing to save the Republic.

  Why can't everyone else understand that the Left is special because we care so much for our own, especially the well being of the president and his family, especially Hunter.

  What difference does it make; I am a product of a failed public education system.

469 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?

poll#176

Considering the renewed and unequalled dishonesty in elected politicians, at all levels of governing, and their associative nefarious bureaucrats doing their corrupt bidding: What is your opinion of YOUR government, and what do you intend to do about it?

  Today's overall government is just fine, and I will continue to vote for politicians that make promises to suit my individual needs.

  Today's overall government is poor, but I will continue to endeavor to learn what is true from the the most honest of media, and pick those representatives that best represent what is good and decent.

  I spend quite a bit of time on Eastern NC NOW; so ... I am having a far easier time separating the proverbial "wheat from the chaff" in finding honorable citizens to support.

151 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?