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(The Guardian) Congress demands answers on Ohio toxic train deraillment
East Palestine, Ohio, became America’s latest political battleground earlier this month when a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in the small community, sparking fears of life-changing pollution for its nearly 4,800 residents. Congress is now poised to get involved, with lawmakers of both parties pledging to hold hearings into the incident. For Democrats in the Senate, the focus looks to be on whether government deregulation and corporate malfeasance contributed to the accident. House Republicans, meanwhile, may see it as another opportunity to turn the public against the Biden administration.
Expect Trump and Biden to loom large over train derailment investigations
The derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals that may have done long-lasting, potentially life-changing damage to a small Ohio community is certainly the type of calamity Congress is equipped to look into.
And on the surface, the hearings announced by a House and a Senate committee thus far seem intent on doing just that.
“Thousands of trains carrying hazardous materials, like the one that derailed in Ohio, travel through communities throughout the nation each day. Every railroad must reexamine its hazardous materials safety practices to better protect its employees, the environment, and American families and reaffirm safety as a top priority,” Maria Cantwell, the Democratic chair of the Senate commerce committee, wrote in a letter sent to the heads of America’s top freight rail companies.
Republican House commerce committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Bill Johnson, who leads the environment, manufacturing and critical materials subcommittee and also represents the district encompassing East Palestine, addressed their letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Michael Regan.
They asked for “information to our Committee regarding the EPA’s overall response, the controlled burn of some of the rail cars, and its testing plan to ensure people are kept safe.”
Both sound like serious efforts to get to the bottom of the derailment, and they may well be. But they’re also opportunities for each party to make the case that the other is responsible for laying the groundwork for the disaster. For Republicans, they’ll argue the buck stops with Joe Biden and the leaders he’s chosen for the EPA and transportation department. For Democrats, don’t be surprised if they bring up Donald Trump, arguing his deregulation policies were friendly to the rail industry at the expense of the communities around their tracks.
East Palestine, Ohio, became America’s latest political battleground earlier this month when a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in the small community, sparking fears of life-changing pollution for its nearly 4,800 residents. Congress is now poised to get involved, with lawmakers of both parties pledging to hold hearings into the incident. For Democrats in the Senate, the focus looks to be on whether government deregulation and corporate malfeasance contributed to the accident. House Republicans, meanwhile, may see it as another opportunity to turn the public against the Biden administration.
Expect Trump and Biden to loom large over train derailment investigations
The derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals that may have done long-lasting, potentially life-changing damage to a small Ohio community is certainly the type of calamity Congress is equipped to look into.
And on the surface, the hearings announced by a House and a Senate committee thus far seem intent on doing just that.
“Thousands of trains carrying hazardous materials, like the one that derailed in Ohio, travel through communities throughout the nation each day. Every railroad must reexamine its hazardous materials safety practices to better protect its employees, the environment, and American families and reaffirm safety as a top priority,” Maria Cantwell, the Democratic chair of the Senate commerce committee, wrote in a letter sent to the heads of America’s top freight rail companies.
Republican House commerce committee chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Bill Johnson, who leads the environment, manufacturing and critical materials subcommittee and also represents the district encompassing East Palestine, addressed their letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Michael Regan.
They asked for “information to our Committee regarding the EPA’s overall response, the controlled burn of some of the rail cars, and its testing plan to ensure people are kept safe.”
Both sound like serious efforts to get to the bottom of the derailment, and they may well be. But they’re also opportunities for each party to make the case that the other is responsible for laying the groundwork for the disaster. For Republicans, they’ll argue the buck stops with Joe Biden and the leaders he’s chosen for the EPA and transportation department. For Democrats, don’t be surprised if they bring up Donald Trump, arguing his deregulation policies were friendly to the rail industry at the expense of the communities around their tracks.
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