'Torches and pitchforks': Critics slam Trump’s environmental 'failures' following East Palestine visit

24 February 2023

When former President Donald Trump visited East Palestine, Ohio on Wednesday, February 22, he was quick to blame the Biden Administration — including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — for the environmental crisis plaguing that area. East Palestine residents have been complaining of headaches, nausea, skin rashes and other symptoms after the early February derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials.

Trump played the culture war card, claiming that Democrats and the Biden Administration are neglecting East Palestine residents because they are white, Republican, conservative and working class. And he insisted that the crisis would not have occurred on his watch.

The former president, wearing a red MAGA hat, told reporters, "We're like a Third World nation, and this is an example of it."

But Trump's critics have not been shy about fact-checking him and pointing out that he rolled back Barack Obama-era railway and safety regulations during his four years in the White House.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, on February 22, tweeted, "For the four years of the Trump presidency, there was a 'How Can We Serve You' sign on the door for corporations. Oil, railroads, banks…whatever these guys wanted, they got. That order came from the top. Help the big guys."

Progressive Democratic Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner called Trump out on Twitter, arguing that he "should be apologizing to that community for his administration rolling back rail regulations." Turner was critical of Obama and President Joe Biden as well in her February 22 tweets, saying that Democratic administrations have also been inadequate from an environmental/safety regulations standpoint.

"The Ohio GOP is to blame as well," Turner wrote. "Failure at every level of government and multiple administrations led to this."

The New Republic's Prem Thakker, in an article published on February 22, noted, "With his party buttressed by millions of dollars in donations and lobbying from companies like Norfolk Southern, Trump overturned an Obama-era rule that required more adequate braking systems for trains carrying highly flammable and hazardous materials — instead of the Civil War-era brakes trains use now. He pulled a stalled Obama-era proposal that would have directed companies to have at least two-man crews on trains and banned states from instating such a requirement themselves."

Thakker added, "He also halted an auditing program of railroads that has since been revitalized by the Biden Administration. Much of these regulatory slashes were made at the behest of special interests like the Association of American Railroads, which represents massive corporations like Norfolk Southern and heavily lobbied for the deregulatory cornucopia that Trump provided."

Liberal Philadelphia Inquirer opinion columnist Will Bunch slammed Trump in a column published on Sunday, February 19 — three days before Trump’s East Palestine visit.

Bunch commented, "If residents of East Palestine — a modern news desert of downsized or disappeared news sources, which allows misinformation to fester — truly knew the reality, a delegation of townsfolk would likely greet Trump with Tiki torches and pitchforks bought from the Fuller's hardware store…. Trump had been in office for less than a year when he moved to kill the 2015 rule change initiated by the Obama Administration that would have required freight trains to upgrade the current braking technology that was developed in the 19th Century for state-of-the-art electronic systems. In killing the rule, Trump bought the argument from lobbyists for Norfolk Southern and the rail industry that the upgrade would have cost them $3 billion — six times what the Obama Administration found it would cost."

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