Bipartisan support from two parties who are usually in the hands of Big [name the industry] doesn't negate it in the slightest. Sure one is more outwardly against any regulation that can negatively affect the ultra rich.
One difference is that when things start breaking, Democrats are willing to reconsider de/regulation, while GOP blames the government (even if there had not been inspections for years) and doubles down.
Some Dems voted to repeal Glass-Steagall, but more voted to keep it. The GOP votes was far more lopsided in favor of repeal.
It seems reasonably likely they would have also been cut if Clinton had been president, due to the review requirement that was built into the regulations themselves.
The 2015 law that required ECP brakes also required before they went into effect the government ask the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to review the safety assumptions that the regulations had been based on and report whether or not those assumptions were correct, and revise or rescind the regulations accordingly.
NAS completed that report in early 2017 and it said that it was unable to conclude that ECP brakes were safer. There simply had not been enough actual tests to generate the data needed to reach a conclusion.
Given that NAS report it is hard to see how any administration could have justified not rescinding the regulation.
Unlikely they would have been cut under Clinton. And I don't think the required review you are talking about is concerned with safety. It's money. The review that is required is actually a financial review that decides if the cost of the safety regs in question exceed the cost of potential accidents. This analysis had already been done. However, the Trump admin had the calculation done again, I would assume after putting their own people in place and they found that the regulation was too costly. Big errors were made in their calculation but they claimed that even after fixing the errors, it was too costly. So they rolled back the regs.
That being said, the regs in question only applied to certain hazard levels and the train that crashed did not meet that level because it didn't have enough cars with hazardous materials.
I'm talking about the report that was required under Section 7311(b) of the FAST Act, Public Law 114-94 [1]:
(b) Emergency Braking Application Testing.--
(1) In general.--The Secretary shall enter into an agreement
with the National Academy of Sciences to--
(A) complete testing of ECP brake systems during
emergency braking application, including more than 1
scenario involving the uncoupling of a train with 70 or
more DOT-117 specification or DOT-117R specification
tank cars; and
(B) transmit, not later than 18 months after the
date of enactment of this Act, to the Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of
Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science,
and Transportation of the Senate a report on the results
of the testing.
and the review required under 7311(c):
(c) Evidence-Based Approach.--
(1) Analysis.--The Secretary shall--
(A) not later than 90 days after the report date,
fully incorporate the results of the evaluation under
subsection (a) and the testing under subsection (b) and
update the regulatory impact analysis of the final rule
described in subsection (b)(2)(A) of the costs,
benefits, and effects of the applicable ECP brake system
requirements;
(B) as soon as practicable after completion of the
updated analysis under subparagraph (A), solicit public
comment in the Federal Register on the analysis for a
period of not more than 30 days; and
(C) not later than 60 days after the end of the
public comment period under subparagraph (B), post the
final updated regulatory impact analysis on the
Department of Transportation's Internet Web site.
(2) Determination.--Not later than 2 years after the date of
enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall--
(A) determine, based on whether the final regulatory
impact analysis described in paragraph (1)(C)
demonstrates that the benefits, including safety
benefits, of the applicable ECP brake system
requirements exceed the costs of such requirements,
whether the applicable ECP brake system requirements are
justified;
(B) if the applicable ECP brake system requirements
are justified, publish in the Federal Register the
determination and reasons for such determination; and
(C) if the Secretary does not publish the
determination under subparagraph (B), repeal the
applicable ECP brake system requirements.
This isn't a good thread to discuss train brake regulations since it is about bank regulations. That said, I don't believe train brakes would have had much effect on a ~50 car derailment. This is based on NTSB estimates[1].
Obama originally proposed rules for widening the definition of hazardous trains and requiring upgraded brakes. This version didn't get enacted. It was weakened after a lot of lobbying eg trains carrying oil and gas were no longer "hazardous".
Trump did remove this rule in 2018.
But we're in 2023 now when Biden was sworn in over 2 years ago. Did Biden or Buttigieg re-institute these rules? No.
This problem is beyond politics. Both parties serve corporate interests. Republicans just go a little further on the deregulation train (pun intended). Look at Biden and Congress united behind hobbling the rail workers strike. Those rail workers were wanting to strike in part due to safety issues.
Buttigieg is a McKinsey alum. He's part of the system that creates this problem. Don't think this is just a few bad apples. It isn't. It's a systemic problem.
Biden could reinstate them by EO, just like how Trump cut them. He hasn't though. There is a bipartisan consensus that the safety of the rail system is less important than rail company profits.
" There is a bipartisan consensus that the safety of the rail system is less important than rail company profits."
Any of us can buy railroad stocks and become - in your mind - wealthy. Perhaps the more important value being protected was, if the railroads stop working, many of us stop eating. Same reason we subsidized food production, fuel, etc. Our societies have grown too much to be able to go back to life without them, without huge numbers of deaths as we adjust.
> Biden could reinstate them by EO, just like how Trump cut them. He hasn't though.
He probably just hadn't noticed. It couldn't be that he allowed to rules changes to continue because some money flows towards him, his friends, or his party and his party's friends depended on maintaining those changes. Biden put a famously competent and experienced person in charge of Transportation and he didn't notice the change, so how could you expect Biden to?
The secretary of transportation is far too high up the chain to know about the minutia of train brake regulations. There is a whole federal agency that deals with train regulations which is one of the 10 agencies that report to the sec of transportation.
Its understood that those regulations wouldn’t have saved the train in Palestine. That’s one problem with the discourse on the left. I don’t favor regulation for the sake of regulation - nor cutting it for its own sake. There obviously needs to be a rational best-effort cost-benefit analysis. Not cheap politics.
> There obviously needs to be a rational best-effort cost-benefit analysis.
You don't seriously think there haven't been many? The problem is that train companies, governments, and people who care about the environment classify and price costs and benefits differently, and government was paid to adopt train company calculus.
It's not that nobody ever thought of figuring out the costs or the benefits of this major, well-known proposed change.
You really think people are that stupid? Biden and the Democrats had their chance either way. They chose to crush the unions, so the burden of proof is on them. However, since this is politics, nobody is going to listen because it's too damn late.
Was there actual evidence that Trump's changes had any affect on the derailments? From what I heard they had no effect. And last I checked , Biden has been president for 2 years. If they were vitally important, wouldn't the transportation dept worked to add them back?
Political parties aren't people so assigning feelings to them is of questionable value, but no more so than calling someone insane for doing so.
The underlying fact is that the Republican and Democratic Party are both constituted to represent their donors and that certain parties (rich individuals being the largest such party) enjoy the benefit of giving bi-partisan patronage.
It probably is an exaggeration, and assigning emotion is futile and counterproductive; however, I think it's far less contentious to note that, however they might actually personally feel, both parties regularly vote for laws and actions that harm the vast majority of people i.e. the non-rich.
Claiming otherwise is being blindfolded. When I look at American politics, I can't see any justification other than the desire to help 1% and the apathy towards people who live paycheck-to-paycheck (or worse). We saw it in 70s, 2008, COVID, Student Loan Forgiveness cancellation, increasing rent/housing costs, and now seeing it, and will always see it. "Hate" is a strong word of course but the spirit is absolutely true.
