WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg traveled to East Palestine, Ohio, on Thursday to view the site of the recent train derailment that led to a spill of toxic chemicals into the community.
Buttigieg is meeting with community members, receiving an update from the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation on the disaster and hearing from Transportation Department investigators who were on the ground in the hours after the Feb. 3 derailment, the department said in a statement ahead of his trip.
The administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration, Amit Bose, and the deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Tristan Brown, are joining Buttigieg during the visit, the department said.
The trip coincides with the NTSB’s release of a preliminary report Thursday about its investigation into the derailment, which involved the rail company Norfolk Southern.
Buttigieg laid out a set of actions Tuesday that he said the administration, the rail industry and Congress could take immediately to boost rail safety across the country, the department said, which includes allowing the Department of Transportation “to give out much stiffer penalties for rail safety regulations violations and reversing a delay to the rail industry’s deadline to use more robust rail cars carrying hazardous materials.”
The secretary has also directed staff at the Federal Railroad Administration “to speed up work on its final rule requiring at least two crew members on trains, a requirement long resisted by the rail industry and some Members of Congress,” according to the department.
Republicans have called on Buttigieg to resign after the train derailment, claiming he has been slow to react to the disaster. Buttigieg, however, tweeted last week that his department’s ability to regulate the rail system is “constrained by law” because of a braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration.
“Happy to discuss timing of our Ohio visit — but starting to think some in Washington want that to be the main focus so that there aren’t too many questions about rail safety regulation, who is for and who is against. We will hold the line on railroad safety and accountability,” Buttigieg tweeted Wednesday night.
In a statement on Wednesday, a Transportation Department spokesperson said the timing of Buttigieg’s visit coincided with the EPA’s “moving out of the emergency response phase and transitioning to the long-term remediation phase.”
The White House sought to place blame for the spill on Republicans and former President Donald Trump, who visited East Palestine on Wednesday.
“Congressional Republicans and former Trump Administration officials owe East Palestine an apology for selling them out to rail industry lobbyists when they dismantled Obama-Biden rail safety protections as well as EPA powers to rapidly contain spills,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
