- Yesterday, 21 Republican members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. The letter complained that the federal government had not responded effectively to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio and demanded Buttigieg provide “[a]ll documents and communications regarding NTSB’s progress on the cause of the derailment.”
- The NTSB is an independent agency. Congress deliberately set it apart from the Department of Transportation to guarantee unbiased investigations.
- The NTSB responded immediately. Nine NTSB investigators and four engineers in labs have been involved in the accident review. They have reviewed footage of the derailment, interviewed train staff, and examined the train event recorder.
- The EPA is the federal agency in charge of responding to the release of hazardous substances and leading cleanup efforts. Its personnel were at the site by 2:00 on Saturday morning, about five hours after the derailment.
- The Department of Transportation has two agencies that are appropriate to deploy for this kind of an accident. The Federal Railroad Administration enforces safety regulations for railways, and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration enforces safety regulations for hazardous materials.
- The letter is not about the derailment itself. It is about the careful way generations of Americans have tried to create a government that could support progress while also guaranteeing oversight, and it is about the lawmakers who wrote the letter to Secretary Buttigieg.
- Either 21 Republican lawmakers charged with oversight of our government don’t know how the government works and didn’t care to find out, or they are deliberately misleading their loyalists. Buttiegieg responded: “I am alarmed to learn that the Chair of the House Oversight Committee thinks that the NTSB is part of our Department. NTSB is independent (and with good reason). Still, of course, we will fully review this and respond appropriately.”
Published February 26, 2023
Visit Letters from an American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post February 25, 2023
