When Donald Trump was president, he repealed a regulation requiring new brakes for certain trains hauling highly hazardous freight. He's now planning to visit the Ohio town reeling from a train derailment, putting his regulatory rollback in the spotlight.
Trump is expected to meet on Wednesday with officials and residents affected by the Feb. 3 accident, which spewed hazardous chemicals into the air and ground of the community of about 4,700 people near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, forcing an evacuation as authorities intentionally vented and burned tank cars to prevent an explosion.
But the visit to the former battleground state that Trump easily won twice is also casting light on one of the former president’s regulatory rollbacks: The repeal of new braking requirements for certain trains hauling highly hazardous freight put in place by the Obama administration.
The braking requirement, put in place in 2015 as part of a suite of new safety rules following a number of fiery high-profile crude oil train derailments, required railroads to install more responsive electronic braking systems on trains carrying hazardous materials. The requirement would have replaced what the head of the Federal Railroad Administration at the time compared to a “Civil War-era braking system” that uses air pressure instead.
“Rather than support these efforts to improve rail safety, Norfolk Southern and other rail companies spent millions of dollars in the courts and lobbying members of Congress to oppose common-sense safety regulations, stopping some entirely and reducing the scope of others,” Buttigieg wrote in a letter to Norfolk Southern Sunday.
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