Unless Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg were supposed to be recalibrating the hot bearing detectors on Norfolk Southern’s trains, it’s hard to blame them for the disaster in East Palestine, Ohio. The derailment, close to the Pennsylvania border, spilled more than 100,000 gallons of highly flammable vinyl chloride.
And Donald Trump, who showed up in East Palestine on Wednesday ever eager to exploit an incident for his own purposes, also wasn’t to blame for having lifted some rail regulations when he was in the White House, as the Biden administration suggests. The Obama rule mandating advanced brakes and speed restrictions for trains with large volumes of flammable liquids would have made no difference.
Accidents do happen.
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