In the wake of the disastrous train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and the burning of the toxic chemicals within the cars, the nation's poor rail regulations and our 1,500 train derailments a year have been brought into sharp focus.
Unsurprisingly, we have Donald Trump to thank for some of that. Rail company Norfolk Southern and its greedy peers spent millions of dollars lobbying the Trump administration to roll back rules requiring trains with hazardous flammable materials to be fitted with Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) brakes, which can reduce train stopping distances by as much as 60%.
Tell the Biden admin to pass new train safety rules to make sure this never happens again!
Of course, thanks to the company's lobbying efforts, the train that derailed in Ohio wasn't even classified as a high-hazard flammable train, so they wouldn't have had to have the ECP brakes in the first place!
Norfolk Southern has spent the past ten years cutting jobs and spending its wild profits — $12.6 billion last year — on stock buybacks while neglecting their trains and putting the public in danger. It's time for the Biden administration to bring back the red tape and make sure a disaster like this never happens again.
Tell the Biden admin to restore the train safety rules Trump killed!
