‘Planning To Go’: Pete Buttigieg Won’t Say When He Plans To Visit Ohio Town 17 Days After Toxic Derailment
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Tuesday he plans to visit East Palestine, Ohio, where a train derailment disaster occurred early this month, without specifying when he would do so.
Buttigieg told George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America that he is “planning to go” to the town, saying “our folks were on the ground” early on after the incident. The Feb. 3 derailment of the Norfolk Southern freight train carrying chemicals caused a huge fire and led to an evacuation order for 2,000 residents, according to WKBN, and Stephanopoulos had pointed out that shouts of “Where’s Pete Buttigieg?” marked a town hall meeting last week.
“I do want to stress that the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) needs to be able to do its work independently,” Buttigieg said. “When I go, it will be about action on rail safety, like the actions that we are calling on Congress to help us with, that we are calling on industry to take and that we are undertaking ourselves as a department to help make sure that these kinds of things don’t happen in the future.”
Buttigieg sent Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw a letter Sunday saying he would urge Congress to “raise the cap on fines against railroads for violating safety regulations.”
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan visited East Palestine Thursday, and former President Donald Trump has revealed plans to visit Wednesday.
The Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
This may end up being one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S history. Why aren’t there hundreds and hundreds of Federal workers in hazmat suits getting rid of the contaminated soil and water and doing continuous testing for weeks? What’s the 60 Billion dollars for “Environmental Justice” in Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” for?? Buttigieg’s Dept. of Transportation has a budget of 203 BILLION dollars and 58,600 employees. The EPA has a budget of 68 Billion dollars and 4,000 employees, but Brandon says sorry the government won’t help.
They aren’t there because they don’t care. This is a poor white town in rural Ohio and, oh yeah, they were all Trump voters. If this had happened in a small black town in rural Mississippi then it would be on the news 24/7, the racist train Company would be bankrupted after they were forced to pay all the residents millions in compensation and damages and they would all be given new homes in a safe location.
Buttigieg hasn’t even been there to look at his wrecked trains because he is too busy talking about “racist roads” and too many “white workers in construction hats”. It’s abhorrent and disgusting that this administration cares more about illegals, criminals, and Ukrainians than it cares about its own tax paying citizens.