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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Buttigieg: Rail Accidents Have Increased over Past Year Despite Us Doing All We Can Because Congress Hasn't Acted
2024-02-18
Following President Biden’s six minute visit to East Palestine, one year after their devastating train derailment. Video at the link.
[Breitbart] On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated that the Department of Transportation has “taken so many steps on rail safety policy” since the East Palestine derailment and is “doing everything we can with the authorities that we already have,” but accidents have gone up despite this because Congress needs to act.

Buttigieg said, “For our department, the process mainly has to do with making sure things like this can’t happen again, which is why we’ve taken so many steps on rail safety policy and are pressing Congress to do more with the power that it has.”

Co-host Geoff Bennett then asked, “Well, despite intense scrutiny from regulatory agencies since that derailment, rail accidents have actually increased over the last year. Why? What accounts for that?”

Buttigieg responded, “Well, I think this demonstrates why we need that Bipartisan Railway Safety Act in Congress. Don’t get me wrong, we’re doing everything we can with the authorities that we already have, focused inspections, a new rule that we recently finalized requiring emergency escape breathing apparatus to protect crewmembers on trains carrying those kind of hazardous materials, audits, and safety advisories, other measures. But the simple reality is, we need a stronger hand. And Congress could and should give that to us with the Bipartisan Railway Safety Act.”

He continued, “I’ll give you just a couple of examples: One thing that that legislation would do is it would lift the statutory cap that prevents my department from fining a railroad anything more than low six figures, even for an egregious violation that leads to a fatality, which is obviously not enough to get multibillion-dollar corporations to change their behavior. It would also accelerate the adoption of safer equipment and standards that, on our own, it would either take too long or we simply lack the authority to do. Now, there was a lot of noise about this a year ago, but now, one year later, I think because of intense lobbying against this by the railroad industry, it has been very difficult to get many members of Congress on the record on whether they’re for or against this Railway Safety Act, even though it had both Republican and Democratic co-sponsors at the time.”
Related:
Pete Buttigieg: 2024-01-15 FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with ‘severe intellectual' and ‘psychiatric' disabilities
Pete Buttigieg: 2023-12-26 Buttigieg: Americans Won't Be Driving ‘Old' Gas-Powered Cars in 2050
Pete Buttigieg: 2023-11-20 Ted Cruz Asks Government Watchdog to Investigate DEI Hiring's Role in FAA ‘Near-Misses'
Posted by:Skidmark

#7  I have no interest in what that unqualified fag has to say.
Posted by: Crusader   2024-02-18 19:40  

#6  That Buttgig decided to talk Cleveland Steamers on PBS is a tell.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2024-02-18 17:52  

#5  My understanding is a bearing caught fire leading to a derailment. They are able to positively determine this was the result of willful lack of failure to do maintenance to save money? Considering what it cost the railroad that would be short-sighted stupidity, certainly not "greed."
Posted by: M. Murcek   2024-02-18 14:46  

#4  "Positive Train Control" (radio linkage) was mandated by Congress shortly after a texting California engineer ran a red signal and crashed his commuter train into a Union Pacific freight in 2008.

So that $5B unfunded mandate didn't do the trick, Pete? How did that affect the prices of railroad-hauled goods?

2008 Chatsworth Collision
Posted by: Bobby   2024-02-18 14:42  

#3  Just what the situation needs - more laws and regulations!
Posted by: Raj   2024-02-18 10:28  

#2  "Look what you made me do..."
Posted by: M. Murcek   2024-02-18 10:03  

#1  Buttigieg is emblematic of the Biden Regime’s penchant for ruining something and then demanding that Congress approve his boondoggle to repair what was never broken before.
Posted by: Super Hose   2024-02-18 09:33  

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