In response to growing pressure from members of his own party, following
a spate of train derailment, Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg,
has been pretending as if he has really no power to regulate the rail industry and
prevent some of the terrible derailment that have occurred recently,
including the one in East Palestine, Ohio, which ,of course,
led to toxic chemicals being released into the environment.
There we're seeing endless photos, videos,
all sorts of imagery of dead fish, people living in the area with rashes.
Well, is that the truth?
Is it true that the Head of the Transportation Department doesn't have
the ability to unilaterally regulate the rail industry?
Let's give you the details.
In a Twitter thread posted more than a week after Norfolk Southern's fiery
train derailment in east Palestine, Ohio, Buttigieg indicated that he
cannot reinstate an Obama-enacted, Trump-repealed law requiring some
trains carrying hazardous materials to replace their Civil War-era braking
systems with new Electronically Controlled Pneumatic brake technology.
Now, this is something that David Sirota,
who founded the lever came on the show to talk to us about in great detail,
make sure you check out that interview just to get filled in on that context.
Now, here is the Tweet in question.
This is what Pete Buttigieg had Tweeted.
We're constrained by laws on some areas of rail regulation,
like the breaking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in
2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015, but
we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe.
But before you jump in Cenk, real important.
Pete Buttigieg was actually debunked by the Twitter
account belonging to the Transportation Department.
This is flat-out false.
And this is a response to David Sirota's Tweet about it.
There are constraints but as the Department of Transportation has made
clear, we will look to the NTSB investigation to take action necessary
to ensure accountability and improved safety.
We've got a lot more of that from where it came from, but before we get to it, Cenk,
go ahead.
>> Okay. So, first of all,
his own department debunking him was awesome.
Now, I'm sure that if you ask them, they would say no, no,
we're debunking David Sirota.
There's a lot we can do.
Well, then why did the Transportation Secretary say there was nothing you
could do?
Sirota didn't make him Tweet that, and
Sirota didn't make him do all these things.
By the way, this is why David Sirota drives the rest of the reporters
in Washington crazy, and the Democratic politicians crazy.
I mean, just flat-out busted.
Rest of the reporters, up and at him, up and at him.
There's a lot of things that Buttigieg can do.
And the reason I jumped in is because this is the number one
talking point of all Democrats on everything.
>> Yes. >> There was nothing we could do,
there was nothing we could do.
And then his own department goes, there's a lot we could do, sorry.
>> 100%. Now,
remember Buttigieg referenced some 2015 law.
What was he talking about?
So, apparently, he was referencing a law passed by Congress in 2015, at the urging,
by the way, of the railroad industry, railroad industry does their lobbying,
they buy off the politicians and the politicians, of course,
pass legislation that tends to be friendly of the industry.
But it required the executive branch to conduct
cost-benefit analysis of the break rule before enacting it.
Okay?
But here's the thing, Trump used that law to kill the breaking rule,
but the cost-benefit analysis his administration used to do so
was subsequently discredited.
It was discredited.
So, the Transportation Department under Pete Buttigieg could just do
the cost-benefit analysis immediately.
I mean, that's the first thing I would do, right?
If I had that kind of power, and I would immediately implement
the new braking system regulation to ensure that,
should something go awry, the trains can break much faster.
It would mitigate so many disastrous situations.
Right? But of course the rail industry doesn't
want to have to pay the extra cost
associated with implementing those newer breaks.
>> Yeah.
So look, if you're gonna be really generous to Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden,
the corporate Democrat wing of the party, you would say, well,
it's not a conscious decision.
He's not saying, hey, I want to protect the railroad companies from getting
regulated, and so that they could have more accidents.
Right?
Well, okay, then it's instinctual, right?
He's been in office for over two years now.
He never thought, hey, and by the way, as Ana I think gonna show you,
a lot of groups asked him, states asked him, please regulate on this.
And his instinct was, no, maybe I'll get to it in the second term at the end or
something, but I'm not going to regulate the trains at all, pretty much at all.
By the way, the giant plane delays etc, what did he choose?
His instinct is always to choose supporting corporations and not regulating
them, and not enforcing safety standards and other things to protect consumers.
>> That's exactly right.
Now, asked about the breaking rule, spokesperson said that it
would be difficult to reinstate the rule in its previous configuration,
given previous legal challenges.
The spokesperson said, proposing a new rule would require performing
a new cost-benefit analysis, which you guys should do, though they
acknowledged that the department has the ability to prepare the analysis.
So why don't they do it?
>> Yeah, look,
if it was you guys that were the head of the transportation about anybody, right?
And, what would be your first instinct?
Trump deregulated all of these different industries.
No matter which department you're in ,actually, the first thing I would ask is,
what did he deregulate in our industry?
Our job is to regulate them, so I need to know so we can keep people safe,
cuz he took a lot of risk to help his corporate buddies, right?
Apparently, Buttigieg didn't ask that at all of any part
of the transportation industry, which is at a bare minimum, deep incompetence.
>> Another, just, point I wanna bring up that really reveals the incompetence of
Pete Buttigieg and how he was not qualified for the position that he was
tapped for and is now serving in, he's doing a little bit of damage control.
So he goes on Yahoo News,
and he's asked about the disaster in East Palestine, Ohio.
And his response is that the Ohio train disaster was one of
thousands of cases a year, or one of 1000 cases a year.
>> How does that make it better?
You're the head of the Transportation Department,
you see that there are 1000 train derailments, it's a big problem, know.
And you have the power to do something about it, but he's decided not to.
How long has the Biden administration been in power?
>> Well, over two years now.
>> Wow.
Seems like there was quite a bit of time for him to take some action.
>> So, as the levers reported over and over again, different groups and
different industries have asked the Biden administration, please,
we're drawing your attention to this.
So, for example in this case, the breaks.
Some of the brakes are from technology from the civil war.
But we have new brakes, they work much better.
They'll save a lot of, first of all, money,
let alone lives from these giant train derailments.
And, by the way, they don't save the train companies' money.
The railroads think installing them cost too much,
they'd just rather pay the whatever it costs them for the accidents, right?
But it costs East Palestine, Ohio,
it costs all the different towns that they have accidents tremendous amount of money.
But because we have no one protecting us in our government, it's not like
Buttigieg and Biden are gonna make them pay the cost to the local communities.
No way, in fact, the next story in the show is how Biden's team is joining
the railroad companies in trying to screw over their customers, and their employees.
>> A few things I also want to mention when it comes to the toxic
chemicals, right?
Because what made the derailment in Ohio so
disastrous were the toxic chemicals that the train was carrying, and
how that was all released into the environment with the controlled burn.
Now, as the lever reports,
more can also be done in regard to trains carrying hazardous or toxic materials.
Let's go to graphic six here,
nothing prevents Buttigieg from using his existing rulemaking authority to expand
the definition of a high hazard flammable train to cover train like the one in Ohio.
Under the existing limited definition, the Ohio train, which was carrying five
tanker cars of vinyl chloride, a class 2 flammable gas and known carcinogen,
was exempted from the classification's more stringent safety regulations.
>> So, what would I do?
So, would I just go, okay, I already know what the highly dangerous chemicals are,
here I'm regulating them.
No, I would ask the specialist and I would ask the experts.
And they would say, this one, is not that bad.
You don't have to take extra precautions, the cost is not worth it.
These, on the other hand, are highly flammable.
By the way, as we saw in Ohio, they're highly flammable.
Right?
Then I would say, okay then, he has full power, immediately.
That's it.
We're doing safety precautions, especially because they're jamming tons of cars
onto these trains, making the trains much larger, much more dangerous.
And they have less staff.
You know how many staff were on this train?
Two and a trainee.
For 150 cars, which is extraordinary, right?
>> And the rail lobby is lobbying hard to minimize that from two people,
to one person.
>> Okay, so that's when the government's supposed to protect its citizens.
You're not supposed to serve the corporations, corporations have a lot,
have plenty of firepower to serve themselves.
So why does Buttigieg do it?
If you're new to American politics, you might not know this, or
if you're a Washington reporter.
Okay.
So number one, if you're in the in charge of the transportation industry as
a regulator, when you go to run for president,
which Buttigieg definitely will do at some point, if it's not 24 it's certainly 28,
who is he going to go to for fundraising?
The industry he was regulating.
And he's gonna cash tons and tons of campaign contributions.
If you don't understand that, you just don't understand politics.
Please move on with your life and do something useful in this world.
And he's correctly deduced that serving corporations rather than voters,
is how you get ahead in DC.
That's why he has nonstop positive coverage.
I mean, right now, look at this.
This is a case study in American media.
So, mainstream media assiduously avoiding Buttigieg, giving him any blame.
We don't know who is in charge of The Department of Transportation.
Golly Gee, could they regulate?
We never know.
Buttigieg must be protected at all cost, good corporate robot that he is.
Right-wing media is like, it's because he hates white people.
Okay, it's like a flare they set off to distract you.
The only people covering inaccurate least progressive media saying ,yes,
he's a Democrat, but of course he's supposed to regulate.
So we have safety precautions, so people don't get hurt in places like Ohio.
>> Yeah. Listen, corporate Democrat,
corporate Republican, tomato,tomato,
when it comes to policies that impact your day on a regular basis.
Okay?
When it comes to industry, when it comes to regulating corporations,
corporate Democrats, corporate Republicans, potato, potato.
I'm serious, and I think that you see that here.
And that's the difference between what you see in Left wing media versus
Right wing media.
No, you need to be fair and honest, Okay?
Don't be a tool for either party, be honest with your audience about what's
really going on and the type of corporate takeover that has occurred
with Congress and with the executive branch in this particular case.