Biden-Buttigieg put the brakes on 'bomb trains'

President Joe Biden, known as "Amtrak Joe" for his train trips to Washington, D.C., from Delaware as a senator, could reverse the Team Trump approval of "bomb trains" carrying carrying liquefied natural gas.

The Trump rule financially benefits an energy company tied to a hedge fund that loaned millions to the Trump Organization and the Kushner Companies. New York prosecutors are examining those financial ties to Trump.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said during his confirmation hearing that he planned to take a "hard look" at the rule.

Liquefied natural gas is even more volatile than Bakken crude oil carried on trains like the one that derailed and caught fire on July 6, 2013, in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killing 47 people. Most of the victims had to be identified with DNA samples and dental records. The bodies of five of the people were never recovered.

In April 2019, Trump called for federal rules to be rewritten so trains could carry liquefied natural gas. Drue Pearce, the political appointee who was the deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, helped shepherd the regulation through the agency.

The Biden administration asked a federal judge in February to put lawsuits challenging the rule on hold to give Biden regulators time to review Trump's rules that affect climate disruption. Biden issued an executive order the day after he was sworn in to review rules that may worsen greenhouse gas emissions.

Earthjustice, one of the environmental organizations involved in the lawsuits, said the rule could bring LNG railroad cars through virtually all major U.S. cities and that a disaster could destroy an entire city.

Vapor clouds from liquified natural gas that ignite can burn as hot as 2,426 degrees. Liquefied natural gas is odorless because ethyl mercaptan, the foul-smelling compound added to natural gas for residential use freezes above the boiling point for liquefied natural gas.

On Oct. 20, 1944, liquefied natural gas leaked from a storage tank at East Ohio Gas Co. in Cleveland and got into the sewer lines, causing explosions over a square mile. The explosions and fires spread through 20 blocks, killing 130 people and destroying 79 homes and two factories in a neighborhood of Slovenian immigrants.

The Trump regulation financially benefits New Fortress Energy, a publicly traded company founded by billionaire Wes Edens. Fortress Investment Group, a New York City hedge fund co-founded by Edens, was part of a deal to loan the Trump organization $130 million to help build the Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago in 2005.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. has subpoenaed documents from Fortress about the deal.

Trump couldn't pay the loan which ultimately grew to about $150 million, according to documents filed in the New York Supreme Court by New York Attorney General Letitia James. She is investigating possible fraud by the Trump Organization.

James said that Fortress forgave more than $100 million of the loan, money that may have been taxable.

Fortress also loaned $57 million in October 2017 to a Jersey City, N.J., real estate project owned by Kushner Companies. Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, transferred his stake in the project to a family trust.

SoftBank Group, a Japanese firm, bought Fortress Investment Group in 2017.