‘Constrained by Law’: Buttigieg Tries to Blame Trump for the Ohio Train Derailment
It sounds like Buttigieg is making excuses which are the only things politicians excel at.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been in his post since 2021. That’s two years.
Buttigieg is under some heat after a train derailed in East Palestine, OH, containing at least four dangerous chemicals. He didn’t even mention the accident until ten days after it happened.
What does Buttigieg do? Blame Trump because of a law his administration withdrew after a law passed by Congress in 2015.
We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe. https://t.co/xRyyYpGOwd
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) February 14, 2023
So…it sounds like the Trump administration didn’t have a choice because of Congress?
But why didn’t Buttigieg do anything about it when he became secretary? Then again, since he became secretary, I doubt Buttigieg hasn’t looked at his job description. Like everyone else in this administration, it’s all about bashing whites and complaining about racist bridges.
Better yet, how about we privatize all of these? The government never does anything well.
That law did not forbid ECP brakes. It mandated a cost-benefit analysis. The Trump administration’s analysis was faulty, but you could do an appropriate analysis and show that the benefit is worth the cost – and then require the electronic brakes.https://t.co/12aQM6vbb8
— Cathy Cowan Becker (@ccbecker271) February 14, 2023
You could just as easily revive and strengthen the law. Instead, you are going in the opposite direction. Your hands are not as tied as you say they are. pic.twitter.com/txoprzew7i
— Jess (@RiverSong000) February 15, 2023
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Comments
Did Trump also burn the wreckage?
Not going to fault DeWine consulting with his own EPA and the train company coming to the conclusion that it would be less hazardous to control burn the chemical then allow the entire tank to explode. It was not a good choice of options. As for the brakes, how would brakes help a broken axle and besides, the crew did find out about it when the train passed a device installed on the tracks notifying them. They just couldn’t get the train stopped in time.
The decision to do so may have been the least bad option. My question is where was the transparency? Did they fully inform everyone in advance of the possible outcomes and all potential risks? Did they give an adequate evacuation order? Was every home tested for all possible contaminates arising from the burn? Ground water? Private wells? Municipal water?
Were adequate supplies of bottled water positioned to meet the potential need? Were non reactive cleaning materials assembled and supplied? Were safe handling instructions re particulate matter given? PPE provided?
That’s on Gov DeWine and the Feds. He can come out say none of that was/is necessary. He needs to provide evidence for that decision based upon release of test data for all potential hazards which has not been done, or that’s my understanding. Instead he is telling folks to drink bottled water. Either this is 100% safe without any localized spots with higher concentrations that are harmful or there isn’t. It’s his job to answer the question. Maybe or probably or unlikely is not acceptable. A definitive answer to these among other questions is required.
It was also a train consisting of 150 cars, 4 or 5 of which were carrying hazardous materials! That is an insane and unheard of amount of cars, particularly with hazardous cargo.
…meant to write 50 cars, not 150.
it was actually Swallwell — a little mishap with a cigar and a bean burrito.
When a disaster hits, always blame President Trump
What a dick Pete is, an incompetent dick
What you get when you poke yourself with a pin would be more alliterative.
An ouch?
WOKE!
He REALLY is a little worm.
He is Gay! Stop the hate, bigot. Did I mention he is Gay and Married? He is the first Gay Transportation Secretary. As a Gay Man he is Gay. He, Biden and the MSM won’t stop telling us how Gay he is.
Incompetents, perverts, and traitors. Illegal elections have consequences.
Not to mention deviates and dingbats.
Not to mention a spineless bunch of prog Republicans in the Senate.
So much could be said here. Trump is the whipping boy for many.
As for Buttigieg, he’s the prime example that education alone does not make one intelligent or provide common sense. He’s a Mensa fraud with a tin ear!
No one said it better than JD Vance: “We are ruled by unserious people who are worried about fake problems.”
He is “credentialed”.
I don’t think it was the type of Secretary job he had in mind. He has been overheard saying, according to anonymous sources, “… this dictates good.” He also confused shorthand with short arm. He also thought the steno pool has a diving board, so he’s not even qualified to be an office assistant – just an official ass.
No. A Steno pool is a puddle created when cans of a special cooking fuel is spilled.
Not Steno. Sterno. Canned Heat.
If someone is packing heat it means they are carrying a gun. If they carry their gun in a can instead of a holster, they are packing canned heat.
On the raod again?
Kamala Harris, Pete Butthead and Joe Biden walk into a bar….. (you fill in the punchline)
Our country is a joke. A very bad joke aka Obama’s third term.
This particular accident didn’t have to do with brakes, it had to do with an axle getting hot much faster than makes sense. Say if the second previous track detector failed to detect it when it ought to have done so.
The chief problem with freight brakes is that they’re set so that the wheels won’t lock up on an empty freight car, which means they’re really weak on that car when it’s loaded. Electronic braking proposals don’t fix that.
That and the decision to ‘control burn’ a dozen cars of chemicals in place. That one is going to require a whole lot more explanation. Who gave order? Advised by whom? Based upon what information? Little things like that.
Then the aftermath of farce, ‘all is well, remain calm, but drink bottled water’. Meanwhile there are scores of dead animals, lots of dead fish and a layer of particulate matter composed of what exactly coats the town. But the EPA says everything is fine as the railway execs courageously avoid a town assembly.
From what I’ve read so far, the experts(?) on site feared that the contents were likely to torch themselves spontaneously all by themselves, AND likely explode when that happened. They convinced themselves they had a choice between a fire, and a fire with an explosion. Was there a third choice where nothing burned? Ah, that’s the question.
That’s consistent with the line being put out. It may even be true. The problem is the lack of transparency by those who have a vested interest in signing off on this. I still don’t believe the ‘authorities’ understand how much public distrust exists nor what that implies for ‘crisis’ communication. Trust us we’re the govt and/or corporate America and have the public well being at heart ….does not cut it.
Every time these jabronies refuse to be transparent they allow the information void to be filled with speculation. Sadly this speculation is being proven largely correct in retrospect. Each episode reinforces the distrust. Modern economies and societies can only operate in a high trust framework. The self-serving acts of these jabronies undermines that and eventually they have only themselves to blame for the end consequences they have nurtured; a return to segmented, low trust, tribalism far closer to Hobbs.
Not just consistent with “the line”. It’s part of the hazardous materials information about vinyl chloride. The safest way to get rid of it is to burn it off. (Yes, that’s frightening – other methods are worse?)
But burning vinyl chloride is the literal definition of phosgene gas???
Pete and his partner should go to East Palestine with their kids, spend a couple of weeks there, taking lots of long walks in the fresh air and give the kids at least two long baths daily (videotaped, of course) to reassure the residents that the air and water is safe.
How will Air disasters spin this once the pending air disasters happen?
Counterclockwise.
Hey Pete — every pol has a predecessor. It’s your job to do your job despite that, because there’s nothing else you can do about it. How much effort did you put into getting that law changed? Because you failed at it. I suspect you never tried.
This guy is a poser on the level of Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom: a mile wide and an inch deep.
And I think you’re giving him way too much credit.
(Though, he and Kamala do have similar talents.)
Well look at the bright side, pothole Pete is showing us why he is completely unqualified to be POTUS.
How many times can a democrat use the first envelope?
They keep it in the friggin’ freezer. It’s the eternal dish of leftovers.
The real howler here is anybody in the Biden Administration complaining that there’s anything they’ll let any law prevent them from doing.
The Biden administration is full of un-American, America-hating, dishonest, corrupt, chiseling, ignorant, nefarious, clueless, and small dopey people; Pete Buttigieg and Kamala Harris are just plain stupid. Between everything from the departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security (borders) to war in Ukraine, balloons, and gas stoves we’ll be lucky to survive it. If we don’t fix elections real damn soon it may be a close thing.
You know, Mayor Pete, you could also look into the regulation that lets a train with LOTS of hazmat on it go cruising through the countryside without it being labeled a hazmat train, and the train owners/operators not being required to have a manifest listing every damn thing on the train so you can handle accidents swiftly and reliably.
It’s not just the brakes that were a problem in this incident.
Around here, such spurious lies are cited as “baggage” by our resident neocons.
So the Trump administration in 2018 complied with a law passed in 2015, when Trump wasn’t president. Darn that dastardly Trump, complying with the law.
That kind of whining is disqualifying. Dealing with that kind of stuff *is* the job.
Even if this whining is just SOP — learned it from President Really Good Talker, who was all the time going on about the situation he inherited preventing him from doing the things he’d promised. Pesky constitution. Pesky finances. Pesky laws in place. Pesky people who disagree with him. Pesky folks not so into getting skinned to his clients;’ sake.
Life is harsh outside rooms full of people there to make you look good.
Mayor Pete is following The Lightbringer’s whining symbolism program, which The Screaming D’s recognized. Sadly for him, that’s a single-use hack.
For both guys, if they didn’t know the cards in play, they’re idiots, and if they did, they’re cons. Either way, the gig is here, now, in world, as it is.
That particular whining is disqualifying. If that’s all you got, what good are you?
Not to mention them pesky laws of economics, thermodynamics, and biochemistry… the ones that (unlike congressional laws) enforce themselves no matter how hard you flout them.