I don't know what's hard to understand about the Secretary of Transportation being unable to reinstate Congressional legislation, but here we are.
The article itself says as much, and while the DoT ultimately does have the power to compel the operators to use the given braking systems that were in prior legislation, it's not without its own red tape in ordering a new CBA (taking... how long?) then imposing rules based on that. Couldashouldawoulda hindsight, sure, he should have. But nothing he's saying is untrue, and the people lambasting Buttigeg, aside this one source, are the very people responsible for the repealed legislation in the first place.
Look, if we choose to not call out the Democrats for their regular failures (let alone the big failures like this) because the Republicans are disingenuously using the left's position against them, we would never be able to call the Democrats out for anything. I don't think they're impervious to criticism even if it makes them look bad. They did bad, they should look bad.
Republicans will be taught to believe the Democrats are all communists no matter what they do or don't do in office, so just do the right thing for once.
As for Pete. Pete can make something happen. To say he can't is just embarrassing to him. This is literally the one moment every decade where the Secretary of Transportation has to justify having their job and so far he's saying he's going to do nothing.
If he can't make anything happen at a time like this, where tens of thousands of people are going to get kidney and lung cancer, then, well, he's not exactly the person who should be running this thing. He's had two years to start another cost-benefit analysis. He's either captured or he's fucking negligent or he just doesn't give a shit about the danger of rail collisions, despite how ancient our technology currently is. I think it's a little of all three.
Trump used that law to kill the braking rule, but the cost-benefit analysis his administration used to do so was subsequently discredited.
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The spokesperson said proposing a new rule would require performing a new cost-benefit analysis, though they acknowledged that the department has the ability to prepare that analysis.
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Risch added that nothing prevents Buttigieg from using his existing rulemaking authority to expand the definition of a “high-hazard flammable train” to cover trains like the one in Ohio.
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u/RojoSanIchiban Feb 16 '23
I don't know what's hard to understand about the Secretary of Transportation being unable to reinstate Congressional legislation, but here we are.
The article itself says as much, and while the DoT ultimately does have the power to compel the operators to use the given braking systems that were in prior legislation, it's not without its own red tape in ordering a new CBA (taking... how long?) then imposing rules based on that. Couldashouldawoulda hindsight, sure, he should have. But nothing he's saying is untrue, and the people lambasting Buttigeg, aside this one source, are the very people responsible for the repealed legislation in the first place.