(PatriotWise.com) — Since the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio early last month, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has come under heavy fire for his various missteps in responding to the accident.
After weeks of evasion, the embattled Buttigieg finally traveled to East Palestine last Thursday, just one day after Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump visited.
On Tuesday, the New York Post reported that in the month of February, Buttigieg did nineteen “post-wreck” interviews in which he failed to mention the derailment at all.
During an interview on the Fox News Sunday show “Unfiltered” with Dan Bongino, Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert blasted Buttigieg over his failures, suggesting that he should watch “Thomas the Tank Engine” to learn how infrastructure works.
Boebert also mocked Buttigieg for turning up in East Palestine dressed like a construction worker after he previously complained about how few minorities work in construction.
Buttigieg has continued to blame the East Palestine derailment on the Trump administration’s 2018 decision to lift a rule requiring electronically-controlled pneumatic brakes (ECP brakes) on trains that include 20 cars carrying toxic materials.
Last week during an interview on CNN’s “The Lead,” National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy reiterated that the ECP brake rule lifted by the Trump administration would not have prevented the Norfolk Southern derailment.
Homendy said even with the rule, the train would have derailed and the five tank cars carrying vinyl chloride still would have been “vented and burned.” She said at best, the brakes would have reduced the damage from the derailment by keeping a couple of the cars on the tracks.
When asked by Jake Tapper if the rule could be expanded to cover any train carrying toxic materials regardless of the number of cars, Homendy said doing so would certainly “improve safety,” but added that ECP brakes still “would not have prevented” the Norfolk Southern train from derailing.
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