Team Biden rejects GOP line, goes on the offensive on rail safety

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg did something a little out of the ordinary this week when he picked a partisan fight. Under fire from congressional Republicans — at least one of whom raised the specter of impeaching the cabinet secretary — in the wake of a disastrous train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Buttigieg pushed back against the GOP offensive in a rather pointed way.

“We heard from [Florida Sen. Marco Rubio] last week, who had some pretty strong words about this incident,” Buttigieg told reporters, before pointing to an October 2021 letter. “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.”

A Politico report noted soon after that the line was “a rare knives-out departure from Buttigieg’s usually collegial, Eagle Scout demeanor.”

It was also emblematic of a larger point: Republicans have spent the last few weeks trying to exploit a train derailment for political gain, acting as if this is a winning issue for the party. The Biden administration is now reminding its critics of an inconvenient detail: The GOP has this backwards. USA Today reported:

There’s certainly room for a conversation about the speed and scope of the official response to the East Palestine disaster, and whether state officials sought federal assistance expeditiously.

But for Republicans to take the offensive on the broader issue is, to put it mildly, strange.

As we’ve discussed, Donald Trump’s record on rail safety and hazardous chemicals is awfully tough to defend. As Politico reported this week, the Republican and his team “withdrew an Obama-era proposal to require faster brakes on trains carrying highly flammable materials, ended regular rail safety audits of railroads, and mothballed a pending rule requiring freight trains to have at least two crew members. He also placed a veteran of the chemical industry in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical safety office, where she made industry-friendly changes to how the agency studied health risks.”

The Trump administration also tried to slash the EPA’s budget for investigating and prosecuting environmental crimes.

But this isn’t just about the former president. The Biden White House sent reporters a related written statement yesterday, accusing congressional Republicans of “selling out communities like East Palestine to the rail lobby.” The statement referenced several data points:

• “Congressional Republicans laid the ground work for the Trump Administration to undo the Obama-Biden requirement for faster breaks on trains carrying dangerous materials.
• “And in 2021 over 20 Republican Senators, including Senators Thune, Blackburn, Cornyn, Cruz, Graham, and Rubio, wrote a formal letter to the Federal Railroad Administration calling for waivers to limit human inspections of track safety. Not coincidentally, this was a priority of the rail lobby at the time.
• “Also last year, the Republican Study Committee, which includes the majority of House Republicans, proposed drastic cuts to the federal government’s ability to address chemical spills, including all-out elimination of the Surface Water Protection Program.
• “In 2020, congressional Republicans and the Trump Administration blocked legislation that would have protected drinking water against the kind of chemicals that have spilled in East Palestine.”

These White House allegations have not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News.

Nevertheless, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates concluded that GOP detractors have some explaining to do. “Congressional Republicans and former Trump Administration officials owe East Palestine an apology for selling them out to rail industry lobbyists when they dismantled Obama-Biden rail safety protections as well as EPA powers to rapidly contain spills,” Bates concluded.

It’s as if Team Biden realized this week that it’s ridiculous to be on the receiving end of criticisms from Republicans whose record on rail safety appears indefensible.

Complicating matters, the administration’s GOP critics don’t appear to be offering much in the way of constructive steps forward. Clearly, Republicans are targeting Buttigieg and Biden with harsh rhetoric, but those looking for any kind of substantive proposals from GOP lawmakers — the ones burdened by records they’re not eager to talk about — will be looking for quite a while.

It’s almost as if Republicans are welcoming the chance to complain and take cheap shots at political opponents, but they remain members of a post-policy party.