Several Problems With the Politics of the Ohio Train Derailment

As outrage, coverage and inquiry into the causes and circumstances around the East Palestine, Ohio toxic train derailment continue to fester, the narrative ignores several key issues.

Publisher’s Riff

The train derailment that’s rocked the world has made the once unknown place of East Palestine, OH - with it’s oxymoronic name - the center of the current political universe. An enormous amount of hazardous material has spilled and we may never really know the full extent of how destructive a toxic footprint it left. An estimated 40,000 animals, that we know of, have been killed by it. While EPA Administrator and Biden cabinet member Michael Regan insists the water is safe to drink, outraged residents got to share their own stories on CNN. Trump, of course, made a visit in a move designed to embarrass President Biden. Transportation Secretary Buttigieg is still on the defensive. And, on schedule, House Republicans are gearing up for a Committee hearing on the incident.

Several quick thoughts …

• Black residents recently struck by epic environmental disasters in places such as Flint, MI or Jackson, MS or “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana never got or, perhaps, will ever get a full-blown public CNN panel that humanizes them. The hypocrisy in the outrage is infuriating. The only victims humanized or remembered during environmental catastrophes are the White ones - when Black, Indigenous and Brown populations in the U.S. are those most likely or most disproportionately harmed by toxic and climate crisis-instigated disasters. As the New York Times finally reported in 2020: “African Americans are 75 percent more likely than other Americans to live in so-called fence-line communities, defined as areas situated near facilities that produce hazardous waste.” We never really hear about those incidents on blast the same way we hear afflicted White residents as soon as the incident strikes. Ezekiel Walker in the Black Wall Street Times opines about that here. Yet, these types of disasters and poisoning are a frequent occurrence upon BIPOC populations, they’re just never headlined as much until activists press for coverage. We’re not minimizing the impact of a hazardous waste emergency, but we should call out the clear bias and favoritism displayed by media.

• Hence, White fragility and perceived helplessness during an environmental crisis is what triggered the new political narrative here. We’re now supposed to collectively care about pollution disasters - but, only when it hits them.

• Republicans and conservative media, of course, never care about environmental catastrophes … until it’s a political opportunity to 1) embarrass current President Biden, 2) smear a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate and 3) rile up their base in a part of the Midwest that’s consistently voting for the same Republicans who regularly lambast, ridicule and work tirelessly against environmentalists and any advocacy rightfully imposing new regulations on various industries. Suddenly, they care about the environment.

• We’ll also need greater public understanding of how much sectors of the economy, such as the railroad industry, exercise influence over Congress and other elected officials. Rail industry associations spent about $15 million on lobbying alone in the 2022 election cycle and Republican members of Congress have consistently been the winners of rail company contributions, with Republicans the leading recipients …

• This level of rail industry influence, mixed with primarily Republican neglect of industrial safety and environmental stewardship, is what led to the current crisis. Reportedly, these trains should have had Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) brakes, but they didn’t. President Obama has pushed and passed a bill mandating ECP brakes on trains carrying hazardous chemicals and, naturally, Trump eliminated that rule in 2017. Looking to save money, rail corporations then implemented a load-and-rush technique called Precision Scheduled Railroading which could have also caused this.

• There’s more however. As the Washington Post just reported, the benefit from the ECP brakes would have been minimal. There are other factors to consider, as well, including what Politifact reports …

However, even if this safety rule had still been in effect, it would not have applied to the Norfolk Southern train that derailed in East Palestine, because it was not categorized as a high-hazard cargo train.

Although the Norfolk Southern train contained hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, it did not meet the Department of Transportation’s narrow definition of a high-hazard flammable unit train in that it didn’t have at least 70 cars containing flammable materials, such as crude oil or ethanol. The chemicals it was carrying fall into a different classification not included in this definition.

The National Transportation Safety Board told PolitiFact that the Norfolk Southern train was categorized as a "general merchandise" train and it used "pneumatic brakes," or conventional air brakes.

• Suddenly, we care about train derailments. Yet, there are more than 1,700 train derailments per year, on average, with somewhere between the range of 10-20 that involve hazardous material. There are an average of several deaths per year from that. We never hear about those. We’re, of course, hearing about this one since a presidential election cycle is coming up next year, and the one of the U.S. Senators who represents Ohio, Sherrod Brown (D-OH), is up for re-election in 2024. Republicans view Ohio as an opportunity to retake the Senate and the White House next year.

• Republicans do view this as a political opportunity to embarrass Democrats on an environmental issue - something they care absolutely nothing about on any level. As the Prospect’s Ryan Cooper notes: “The party of deregulation and pollution is blaming Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg for the East Palestine derailment.” Democrats really need to up their counter-messaging game and remind voters, vigorously, who’s really who in this.