Chair of NTSB Appears to Throw Shade on DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Says Trump Era Brake Decision Not to Blame for East Palestine Toxic Train Wreck

After receiving criticism for over a week after the toxic train wreck in East Palestine, Ohio, Secretary of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg took to Twitter on Tuesday to condescend to his critics and cast blame on the Trump administration. Buttigieg blamed the Trump administration’s withdrawal of a proposed train brake rule as being behind the train wreck.

Two days later the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, Jennifer Homendy, appeared to throw shade on her boss at the Department of Transportation, stating the brake rule withdrawn by the Trump administration that Buttigieg had singled out actually had nothing to do with the train wreck. Without naming Buttigieg, she called that claim “misinformation.”

Buttigieg tweeted a multi-part thread on February 14 that said, in part:

“In the wake of the East Palestine derailment and its impact on hundreds of residents, we’re seeing lots of newfound or renewed (and welcome) interest in our work on rail safety, so I wanted to share more about what we’ve been doing in this area:…We are making historic investments on rail safety through funding in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, work that accelerates this year and continue in the years to come.”

After several tweets bragging on Biden administration actions, Buttigieg got to his point: It’s Trump’s fault. Buttigieg linked to a December 2017 think tank paper on the withdrawal of proposed braking regulations titled, “DOT Withdraws ECP Brake Rule.”

“We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe.”