Disasters
Rick Scott

Sen. Rick Scott

As their state prepared for Hurricane Idalia this week, Florida Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott called for immediate disaster relief and an $11.5 billion increase in funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Both have previously voted against FEMA funding after emergencies in other states.

At the request of Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Rubio, and Scott, President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for the state on August 28. “Florida has my full support as they prepare for Idalia and its aftermath,” the president tweeted.

But with FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund about to run out of funding, Biden asked Congress on August 10 to approve $12 billion in additional disaster relief, $3.9 billion to address immigration, and $24 billion to support Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion.

Scott and Rubio opposed the idea of considering the requests together and demanded the FEMA aid funds be passed separately.

Scott said in a press release on Monday:

Unfortunately, while I’ve spent the months leading up to this storm fighting to make sure the federal government shows up, President Biden and politicians in Washington have been playing games with FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund and insisting that this critical domestic aid be tied to foreign aid for Ukraine. We’ve had enough with Washington playing politics and demand that Congress does what’s right for American families, starting with ensuring our federal government has all the resources it needs to show up after disasters, now and in the future.

Scott’s call for billions in new spending comes just months after he proposed massive across-the-board government spending cuts. “It’s simple: If we went back to 2019 spending levels, we’d have a balanced budget,” he tweeted on June 5. “Instead, @JoeBiden and Democrats insist on spending more and more money every year.”

Less than a year ago, Scott asked his colleagues to approve a special disaster relief package after Hurricane Ian caused significant damage to Florida and other southeastern states. USA Today noted in October 2022 that Scott had been one of just 25 senators who had voted just days before against a continuing resolution to avert a federal government shutdown and to provide $18.8 billion to keep FEMA running. Rubio also voted no.

“This CR failed to fund the federal government until the new Congress begins in 2023, and that is why I could not support it,” Scott explained at the time, noting that he had unsuccessfully sought a stand-alone vote on the FEMA money only.

In January 2013, Rubio voted against a $50.5 billion disaster relief package in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which did an estimated $80 billion worth of damage to New York and other mid-Atlantic states.

Rubio called for a much smaller package, misleadingly claiming, “In sum, the current spending bill goes far beyond emergency relief and all efforts to strip the bill of unrelated pork are being blocked.”

DeSantis, then a U.S. representative, also voted against the 2013 Sandy relief package. “I sympathize with the victims of Hurricane Sandy and believe that those who purchased flood insurance should have their claims paid,” he said after the vote. “At the same time, allowing the program to increase its debt by another $9.7 billion with no plan to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere is not fiscally responsible.”

According to The Hill, New Jersey Republican Rep. Frank LoBiondo scolded opponents of Sandy funding during the floor debate, warning:

Florida, good luck with no more hurricanes. California, congratulations, did you get rid of the Andreas Fault? The Mississippi’s in a drought. Do you think you’re not going to have a flood again? Who are you going to come to when you have these things? We need this, we need it now. Do the right thing, as we have always done for you.

Experts agree that climate change is causing flooding from storms like Idalia to be more severe and damaging. Scott, Rubio, and DeSantis all have long records of opposing efforts to address global warming.

Reprinted with permission from American Independent.

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Corporate Executives And Crooked Politicians Show How To Guarantee A Train Wreck

Stuff happens, right?

I mean, who could've thought that in these modern times of digital monitoring of everything, something as massive as a freight train could become a toxic fireball rolling undetected and unslowed into an Ohio town? But a Norfolk Southern train did just that, derailing in East Palestine and contaminating the air, water, land and families with tons of cancer-causing chemicals. "Gosh," exclaimed Norfolk Southern's CEO; "Gosh," exclaimed the Ohio governor; "Gosh," exclaimed the U.S. transportation chief; gosh exclaimed the GOP chair of the rail transportation committee — this is a terrible, unexpected accident and we're all appalled by it!

Only... all of these officials knew full well that this disaster would happen (though they didn't know exactly where). Indeed, far from unexpected, there are more than 1,000 preventable train derailments in the U.S. every year (Norfolk Southern had another only days after the one in Ohio). And these things don't just happen — they are caused by the profiteering greed of the monopolistic industry's top executives and rich investors.

While Norfolk's boardroom elites have been pocketing record profits in recent years, they've used armies of lobbyists and multimillion-dollar political donations to kill safety protections that would prevent such a disastrous record. To cut costs and jack up profits, railroad bosses have rigged the rules to run trains that are absurdly long, go too fast, carry ever-heavier loads of undisclosed toxics in weak tanker cars, have no fire detectors, use outmoded braking systems — and have as few as one crew member on board. One!

Norfolk's derailed train was made to derail. It pulled 149 cars, stretching nearly two miles down the track, and it was unequipped to detect fires and other problems. This disaster was not an "accident" — it (and those that will come next) was mandated by the corporate and government officials now professing outrage.

Tracking Norfolk Southern's Derailment

"The Wreck of the Old 97" is a classic bluegrass song recounting a spectacular train crash in 1903, caused by the company's demand that the engineer speed down a dangerous track to deliver cargo on time.

One hundred twenty years later we have the "Wreck of the Norfolk Southern" — a devastating crash caused by the corporate demand that it be allowed to run an ill-equipped, understaffed, largely unregulated, 1.7-mile train carrying flammable, cancer-causing toxics through communities, putting profit over people and public safety.

This rolling bomb of a train was hardly unique, for the handful of multibillion-dollar railroad giants that control the industry also control lawmakers and regulators who're supposed to protect the public from public-be-damned profiteers. A measure of their arrogance came just two years ago, when an Ohio legislative committee dared to consider a modest proposal for just a bit more rail safety. Norfolk Southern executives squawked like Chicken Little, asserting a plutocratic doctrine of corporate supremacy on such decisions. They even imperiously proclaimed that state lawmakers have no right to interfere in safety matters.

Ohio's Chamber of Commerce dutifully echoed Norfolk's concern for profit over people, testifying that "Ohio's business climate would be negatively impacted" by the bill. Never mind that Ohio's public safety climate can literally be "negatively impacted" by train wrecks! Plunging deeper down the autocratic rabbit hole, the Chamber insisted that corporate control over workers is sacrosanct. It postulated that a crew-safety provision in the Ohio bill is illegal because it "would interfere with the employment relationship between employers and their employees." Yes, that's a corporate claim that executives have an inalienable right to endanger workers.

Sure enough, bowing to the corporate powers, Ohio lawmakers rejected the 2021 safety bill. And that, boys and girls, is why train catastrophes keep happening.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.