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

How To Guarantee More Disastrous Train Wrecks

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.

Cable Downplays Trump's Rail Deregulation In Coverage Of Ohio Visit

Cable Downplays Trump's Rail Deregulation In Coverage Of Ohio Visit

Coverage of former President Donald Trump’s visit to East Palestine by the major cable news networks – CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC – largely failed to contextualize the stunt with key details including Trump’s role in weakening safety regulations of the rail industry and his notoriously poor leadership in handling disasters that happened during his term.

  • Major TV news networks on cable (CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC) aired over an hour of coverage across 33 segments on Trump’s visit to East Palestine.
  • Only 10 segments, the vast majority appearing on MSNBC, included discussion of Trump’s role in weakening regulations that govern the transport of hazardous materials by rail.
  • Only one program alluded to Trump’s response to federal disasters during his term.

Most Coverage Of Trump's East Palestine Visit Omitted Rail Deregulation

On February 22, Trump visited the small Ohio town, where three weeks ago a train operated by Norfolk Southern containing hazardous material derailed, creating a toxic fire and prompting a state of emergency declaration and the evacuation of the surrounding community.The incident came after a decade-long campaign by the rail industry to weaken federal regulations governing the transportation of toxic and dangerous materials. Under the Trump administration, several regulations were weakened at the behest of the rail industry. According to The Guardian:

This salient and glaring information made its way into only 10 of the 33 cable segments that aired — on February 22 through 23 — on Trump’s visit to the disaster site. MSNBC mentioned Trump’s role in weakening rail safeguards in 7 of its 12 segments. Fox News mentioned it in 2 of its 16 segments — though one of the mentions was intended to push back on links between Trump and deregulation — and CNN mentioned it 1 time across its 5 segments.

He [Trump] withdrew an Obama-era plan to require faster brakes on trains carrying highly flammable materials, shelved a rule that demanded at least two crew members on freight trains and dropped a ban on transporting liquified natural gas by rail, despite fears this could cause explosions.

MSNBC provided the vast majority of mentions, and of the seven mentions, three appeared on The ReidOut. During her monologue on the February 23 edition of The ReidOut, host Joy Reid noted:

"It was Donald Trump and his administration who gave the rail industry and Norfolk Southern exactly what they wanted, fewer and looser rules around rail safety. Trump conveniently forgot to tell his most loyal supporters how Norfolk Southern lobbied heavily for laxer safety rules and how receptive the regulators in the Trump administration were to their arguments on rolling back the rules. There's also the litany of Obama-era regulations to advance safety that Trump's administration rescinded and that the Biden administration has or is trying to reinstate."

Cable Ignores Trump’s Questionable Responses To Federal Disasters

Trump’s visit was seemingly meant to position him as a leader in a time of crisis as he competes for his party’s 2024 presidential nomination, giving him a chance to criticize the current administration's response to the disaster.

The stunt, which included handing out “Trump Water,” buying McDonalds burgers for first responders and handing out MAGA hats to them, and suggesting that FEMA started to act only after the Biden administration learned of his visit, could have been an opportunity for cable outlets to revisit how Trump responded to high-profile disasters during his own term.

For example, in the wake of one of the most destructive hurricanes to hit Puerto Rico and the deadliest natural disaster on U.S. territory in 100 years, Trump held up nearly $20 billion in disaster relief. An image of the president throwing paper towels to survivors of Hurricane Maria weeks after the storm was widely criticized and viewed as emblematic of the Trump administration response to the catastrophe that left over 3,000 dead.

Trump also initially rejected aid to California to help the state recover from a historic year of wildfires in 2020 after criticizing the state’s wildfire management and telling officials to rake the forest, and he bizarrely used a Sharpie to alter a map of Hurricane Dorian’s path to support a false claim he made that the storm would hit Alabama.

Only one program, the February 23 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, alluded to Trump’s failed response to Hurricane Maria in discussing his visit to East Palestine. After host Joe Scarborough called out Trump for failing to visit the site of train disasters during his presidency, co-host Mika Brzezinski quipped, “He did go throw paper towels at people at one point.”

The Morning Joe segment also discussed key details aired the night before on Fox News’ Special Report with Bret Baier. In response to the ongoing drumbeat, led by Fox News and repeated by Trump, of chastising Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for not visiting the site of the disaster, anchor Bret Baier quoted from a Politico article to note that “it is exceedingly rare for a transportation secretary to visit the site of a train derailment, especially one that resulted in no fatalities.’”

Baier further noted: “There were train derailments in the Trump administration that actually had fatalities that didn’t have a visit by Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. But this seems to have some momentum about the administration and its reaction to this derailment in particular.”

The network’s chief political analyst Brit Hume seemingly agreed with this assessment, noting that such visits are “political gestures” and commenting: “I don't think the administration's policy and actions toward East Palestine would be any different if more officials had gone there.”

This rare fact check in Fox News’ divisive coverage of the disaster aside, Trump’s visit was a theatrical stunt that should have been presented within the context of his past actions — if covered at all. But at the end of the day, the question of who is on the ground is less pressing than what is being done to aid the victims, clean up the environment, and prevent future so-called accidents by polluting industries.

Methodology

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC for any of the terms “Ohio,” “train,” “East Palestine,” or “Norfolk Southern” within close proximity of either of the terms “Trump” or “president” from February 22, 2023, when Trump visited the East Palestine derailment, through February 23, 2023.

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when Trump’s visit to East Palestine was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the visit. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the visit with one another.

We did not count passing mentions, which we defined as instances when a speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned the train derailment without another speaker engaging with the comment, or teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about the train derailment scheduled to air later in the broadcast.

We then reviewed all segments for whether they included context on Trump’s role in weakening regulations governing the transport of hazardous materials by rail and mentioned Trump’s response to federal disasters during his term.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

When A Republican Governor Suddenly And Desperately Needs Federal Aid

When A Republican Governor Suddenly And Desperately Needs Federal Aid

On his very first day in Congress -- long before he began to preen as a potential presidential candidate – Ron DeSantis proved that he was unfit to hold the highest office in the land. The date was January 4, 2013, and he cast his maiden vote on the House floor against $9.7 billion in federal flood insurance aid for victims of Hurricane Sandy, which had devastated New York and New Jersey.

Now, nearly a decade later, that vote strikes a stunning chord of hypocrisy and cruelty, when he is pleading for far larger sums from Washington to rebuild the communities destroyed by Hurricane Ian in his home state. With his characteristic arrogance, DeSantis abruptly dismisses any questions about his self-interested reversal as “politics” and “pettiness.”

Back when he voted “no” on Sandy aid to the northern states, DeSantis pretended to be a fiscal conservative. He claimed to sympathize with the victims of that storm but wasn’t inclined to send them any help beyond the usual Republican thoughts and prayers. According to him, increasing the flood insurance program’s debt at that time “with no plan to offset the spending with cuts elsewhere is not fiscally responsible.”

That finger-wagging and penny-pinching is entirely absent from the letter DeSantis sent a few days ago to President Joe Biden. Instead, he urged the administration to provide “100 percent reimbursement” for the hurricane damage suffered in southwest Florida. Nowhere did his letter suggest – and in none of his media appearances has the governor ever said – that the White House should first identify “budget offsets.” (In fact, DeSantis had earlier abandoned all that sanctimonious noisemaking when he voted in October 2017 for a $36.5 billion relief bill after a trio of catastrophic storms struck Florida. That bill contained no offsets either. The following year, DeSantis ran for governor.)

Republican demands for fiscal probity, as a rule, apply only to blue states, which actually pay for the disaster aid that is shared all over the country and flows uninterrupted to red states that send far less to the Treasury than they receive. But Biden, a decent man who believes with his whole heart in patriotic goodwill, would never mention how DeSantis tried to deprive their fellow Americans of the assistance they so desperately needed. Nor would he ever ask why DeSantis has done nothing as governor to increase the rate of flood insurance among Florida’s coastal homeowners, while he has so much free time to spend to persecute gays and immigrants, censor opponents, and concoct fairy tales about American history.

Instead, Biden assured the Florida governor – the same strutting bully who just a few days ago threatened to ship Venezuelan asylum seekers to the president’s Delaware residence – that the United States stands ready to fulfill the meaning of its name. DeSantis, for his part, spent weeks on his political stunt of transporting a few dozen migrants to Martha’s Vineyard—valuable time he wasted on demagoguery at Florida taxpayer expense instead of devoting himself to preparing for the emergency of the hurricane.

As governor, DeSantis is brimming with sound bites and devoid of solutions. But then we’ve seen the same depressing performance on many occasions from his fellow Republicans.

Sen. Ted Cruz, the junior Republican from Texas so widely disliked on both sides of the aisle, notoriously lied about the 2017 disaster relief bill, which he falsely depicted as “pork.” Last year, Sen. Rand Paul, the junior Republican from Kentucky, pulled the same stunt when he demanded tornado relief after years of voting down aid to other states.

Biden and the Democrats have consistently supported aid to blue and red state alike wherever needed—and now to Florida in the wake of Hurricane Ian. On September 30, only 10 Republicans in the House voted for the budget bill that contained disaster relief. In the Senate, 11 Republicans voted against it. And what did Ron DeSantis say about his fellow Republicans who were simply imitating how he behaved in voting against aid for Hurricane Sandy? He is silent in the face of his party’s indifference to his state’s plight. He’s far too ambitious to comment. He has to rely on the good faith of President Biden and Congressional Democrats. Will DeSantis soon return to airlifting migrants to those places that have provided the money to save his state?

It’s deeply irritating when “conservatives” manufactures excuses to oppose assistance to states other than their own -- and it’s tempting to tell them to bugger off when they beg for it, as DeSantis is doing now. That’s when we have to remember that the only thing worse than listening to them is becoming like them.

Trump Country Begging For Clean Water

Trump Country Begging For Clean Water

Reprinted with permission from DC Report

A rural water district in a northern Nebraska county that voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election had to resort to setting up a gofundme account when a flood wiped out running water to half of the county for six months.

Rancher Rex Black, the president of the Boyd County Rural Water District, hopes the Federal Emergency Management Agency eventually reimburses the district 75 percent for the $1.7 million to $1.8 million cost to run a new water pipe under the Niobrara River and other expenses. The district got a no-interest loan from the state’s revolving loan fund, and Black’s wife and daughter set up a gofundme account which helped raise more than $300,000 toward the cost of repairs.

“They told me it will be four to five years out,” said Black, who voted for Trump. “I sure hope it comes through because it will be hard on our little water district if it doesn’t.”

A FEMA spokesman said the agency is compiling information about the project.

Residents of Spencer, Lynch, Anoka, and about 450 farms and ranches in Boyd County relied on bottled water to drink after a dam on the Niobrara River failed last March, washing away the district’s water main. Much of the county went without running water they could drink until September.

Trump’s FEMA would rather spend our nation’s taxpayer dollars on forcing would-be immigrants to stay in Mexico instead of paying for disaster relief after Nebraska flooding or helping Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria.

The Department of Homeland Security, now run by Kevin McAleenan, the acting secretary, told Congress that FEMA transferred $155 million from FEMA’s disaster relief fund to ICE to pay for temporary courts for asylum seekers along the border. The money will help ICE detain almost 50,000 immigrant children and adults at a time.

DHS told Congress it was transferring the money instead of asking Congress for permission because, under McAleenan, the department believes it has the authority to move the money after Congress didn’t fund more ICE detention beds in June. McAleenan replaced Kirstjen Nielsen, who resigned in April.

Our nation’s drinking water system needs an estimated $473 billion over the next two decades to improve pipelines and how the water is treated and stored. Most of the investment has been by cities, counties and states.

“We are in a national crisis,” said water consultant Robert Bowcock.

Last May, Trump walked out of an Oval Office meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer where they were supposed to talk about a proposed $2 trillion plan for water projects, repairing roads and bridges, and other infrastructure improvements.

Boyd County has fewer than 2,000 residents. The county is older and poorer than the national average with a per capita income of about $26,000 a year. Trump carried the county with more than 85 percent of the vote.

In March, the 92-year-old Spencer Dam failed during the bomb cyclone that inundated much of the Midwest. The water district provided water for showering, washing and toilets from three refurbished irrigation wells and distributed free bottles of drinking water.