The Washington Post, not known as an ally to former President Donald Trump, oddly found itself coming to the 45th president's aid on Monday with a fact check of sorts on wild claims flying about that the Trump administration is to blame for the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
As it turns out, according to the fact checker at The Washington Post Glenn Kessler, "Trump’s rollback of regulations can’t be blamed for Ohio train wreck."
While Kessler peppered what are apparently required criticisms of Trump in his WaPo analysis of the last administration's regulatory policies, the facts are the facts and they fall clearly on Trump's side.
Kessler explained that his team "decided to examine every possible regulatory change made under Trump that could be related to the accident and assess whether it could have made an impact," leading WaPo to conclude that "none of the regulatory changes made during the Trump administration at this point can be cited as contributing to the accident."
It's unclear whether Kessler's use of "at this point" is just an escape hatch to blunt accusations he's doing PR for the Trump administration and the president's 2024 campaign or leaving room for others to continue repeating claims that Trump is to blame for the derailment. But Kessler's analysis doesn't leave much, if any, room to argue that Trump's regulatory regime played a role in the derailment.
Some of the blame levied at Trump has cited his administration's 2017 decision to repeal an Obama-era requirement for ECP (electronically controlled pneumatic) brakes on trains deemed "high hazard" for their payloads. Noting that President Biden "has not acted to reinstate the rule," Kessler pointed to the NTSB Chair's tweet debunking the claim that Trump's repeal of the rule contributed to the East Palestine derailment:
This means even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn't have had ECP brakes.
— Jennifer Homendy (@JenniferHomendy) February 17, 2023
Another brake policy change by the Trump administration was its 2020 issuance of "a rule that extended how much time a freight rail train could be parked with its air brake system depressurized before requiring a new brake inspection." But Kessler noted that there's "no determination yet that the braking system played a role in the accident."
Then there was Trump's 2019 decision to withdrew an Obama-era proposal for a "rule to require two-person crews on all trains." As Kessler reminded, the Norfolk Southern train in East Palestine "had two crew members and a trainee on board," if anything reinforcing the Trump administration's position that "no direct conclusions could be drawn about train crew staffing’s safety impact."
Kessler also addressed claims that the Trump administration's revision of "minimum safety requirements for railroad track" that made for quicker inspections meant more dangerous rail transportation. But, as Kessler noted, "NTSB inspected the tracks, and the preliminary report makes no mention of any problem."
But what of the Trump administration's decision not to renew the Obama administration's obscure Crude Oil Route Track Examination program? Again, Kessler found that this regulatory decision played no role in the derailment. In fact, as Kessler noted, an audit of Norfolk Southern was conducted in 2022, before the accident, after the Biden administration "launched a different audit program" after taking office.
Lastly, Kessler evaluated the Trump administration's decision to adopt what he calls "weaker standards for regulating emissions of ethylene oxide, a hazardous air pollutant that could pose a risk of lymphoid and breast cancer." But those standards, as Kessler explained, "concerned emissions by chemical plants, not the synthetic chemical released in the accident."
When even The Washington Post can't find a way to blame Trump for something, that's pretty much curtains for attempts by Democrats and mainstream media talking heads to make accusations stick. Trump's regulatory policy didn't turn America into a place where trains routinely jump the track and poison the water and air in American communities. The truth is there's still a lot to be investigated and reported by the NTSB in East Palestine, and people would be wise to wait until there's an official conclusion and some concrete facts rather than jumping to convenient political scapegoatism.