Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg shared tweets that, by his department’s assessment, were misinterpreted and led to some confusion about the cause of the Feb. 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
Buttigieg addressed the train derailment in a lengthy Twitter thread on Feb. 14. In the thread, Buttigieg said his department has made “historic investments on rail safety” but went on to say that the department has been restrained from implementing some safety regulations, such as implementing requirements for trains to use electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes.
“We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe,” Buttigieg posted, with a link to a Trump-era decision to withdraw a 2015 regulation requiring the use of electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes for trains.
The Trump-era Department of Transportation (DOT) had withdrawn the regulation on the grounds that the efficacy of ECP brakes is inconclusive and cost-benefit analyses for the devices are negative.
A Spike in Interest
Buttigieg’s tweet referencing the Trump-era decision to withdraw an ECP brake regulation has been retweeted over 1,100 times since he posted it. Some Twitter users went on to directly cite Buttigieg’s tweet as they spread claims that the train derailment was the result of the repealed ECP brake policy. After Buttigieg’s tweet, prominent Twitter accounts garnered thousands of likes and retweets as they cast blame for the derailment on the Trump administration.
Google search trends for ECP brakes have spiked in the days following the train derailment. Searches for the term saw a particularly pronounced rise in the hours and days after Buttigieg’s tweet.
Derailed Train Wouldn’t Have Had ECP Brakes
Two days after Buttigieg’s tweet about ECP brake regulations, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) Chair Jennifer Homendy wrote on Twitter “a plea to those spreading misinformation.” Homendy, who like Buttigieg was appointed to her position by President Joe Biden, went on to post that past ECP brake regulations would not have prevented the East Palestine train derailment because those rules never applied to the specific train involved in the recent Ohio derailment incident.
“Some are saying the ECP (electronically controlled pneumatic) brake rule, if implemented, would’ve prevented this derailment,” Homeny said in a series of tweets. “FALSE – here’s why. . .”
Homendy went on to say that the ECP brake rules would have only ever applied to designated “high-hazard flammable trains” (HHFT), Homendy said the train that derailed in East Palestine was not classified as an HHFT, but rather as a mixed-freight train.
Trains have to include at least 20 loaded flammable liquid tank cars to be considered HHFTs. Homendy said the derailed train in East Palestine had only three flammable liquid tank cars.
“This means even if the rule had gone into effect, this train wouldn’t have had ECP brakes,” Homendy explained.
“I urge you: let the NTSB lead the #safety analysis. Anything else is harmful—and adding pain to a community that’s been through enough,” Homendy said in another tweet.
DOT Says Tweet Was Misinterpreted
A spokesperson for the Department of Transportation told NTD that Buttigieg’s tweet about the ECP brake “has been misinterpreted.”
“In fact, he was clarifying other questions people had about that particular rule,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Unlike Homendy’s tweet thread, Buttigieg’s original series of tweets did not say individuals were spreading misinformation about ECP brakes. At no point in his thread did Buttigieg say people were wrong to associate the withdrawn ECP brake policy with the East Palestine train derailment.
Despite the department’s claims that Buttigieg wanted to clear up a confusion about safety regulations, he has yet to issue any of his own follow-up tweets or official statements disavowing any alleged causal link between Trump-era decision-making and the train derailment.