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In the wake of a disastrous train derailment in Ohio, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has announced a series of steps, including a new round of track inspections on routes used by trains carrying hazardous materials. A Washington Post report added that the Cabinet secretary is also calling on the rail industry to take some immediate steps of its own.
But there’s also a political debate underway — one House Republican has suggested possible impeachment proceedings against the transportation secretary — and as HuffPost reported, Buttigieg appears eager to engage on this dimension of the larger conversation.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg slammed the railroad industry for opposing safety reforms and shot back at his GOP critics during a conference call with reporters on Monday night to roll out a blitz of new railroad safety proposals.
Among the most notable of Buttigieg’s Republican critics is Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who wrote to President Joe Biden last week, urging him to seek the transportation secretary’s resignation.
This did not go unnoticed by the Cabinet secretary. From the HuffPost report:
“We heard from Sen. Rubio last week, who had some pretty strong words about this incident,” Buttigieg said, before pointing to an October 2021 letter from GOP senators Rubio signed onto. “I can’t help but notice the last time this agency heard from him on rail regulation was his signature being on a letter that was pretty obviously drafted by industry, calling on us to weaken our practices around track inspection.”
The problem is not limited to Rubio, of course. Donald Trump has also scheduled an appearance in East Palestine, where he’s unlikely to focus too much attention on his own record related to rail safety.
The fact remains, however, that the former president should probably face some questions he’d struggle to answer. A Washington Post report noted over the weekend that during the Republican’s White House tenure, his administration preferred “relatively lax federal oversight” of the railroad industry, and the industry “found that regulators in the Trump administration were receptive to their arguments of rolling back rules.”
In the Obama era, officials advanced new rules on crew sizes and electronic braking technology on trains carrying large volumes of hazardous flammable liquids. Both measures, the Post’s article added, “ultimately were scrapped in the Trump era.”
The political context is by no means mysterious. The Department of Transportation has a high-profile secretary, who has already run one presidential campaign, and who’s likely to seek higher office at some point in the future. Assorted partisans are eager to take him down a notch, tying him to incidents without any real regard for whether their criticisms make sense.
But when it comes to exploiting a derailment disaster for political gain, partisans who live in glass train stations shouldn’t throw stones.