February 16, 2023

The Trump administration appears to be directly responsible for the the East Palestine derailment because of their reckless rollback in 2018 of requirements for electronically controlled pneumatic brakes transporting hazardous materials.

In December of 2017, the Trump administration rolled back an Obama-era regulation requiring new brake systems on oil trains.

CNN's Bill Weir explained in detail how the Trump administration upended Obama era rules that tried to get much better braking system for trains carrying hazardous materials.

For years now, since the early 2000s, there have been electronically controlled pneumatic brakes. When Norfolk Southern first tried these because they brake every car all at once, they raved about it. They actually appealed to the transportation officials, saying you shouldn't have to inspect trains with ECP brakes. They are so effective.

But then when President Obama tried to make them mandatory after a bunch of derailments in 2014 – said let's just put them on the cars that have explosive carcinogens, for example – the industry, the railroads, the chemical companies, the lobbies fought it hard. They gutted it.

The final version was that longer high-hazard flammable trains would need brakes by 2023, ironically.

But in 2018, the Trump administration, Elaine Chao was the transportation secretary, rolled it back entirely.

Trump and his administration bragged that they were doing away with regulations to help the free markets, which led to them overturning more than 100 environmental rules.

It's Republican corruption, and Trump's obsession with undoing everything Obama did, causing untold suffering in Ohio this month.

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