Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) are wondering aloud what it would take for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to be fired following a train derailment in Ohio.
Republicans have been hitting the Biden administration for its handling of the East Palestine, Ohio, train wreck that has dumped large amounts of toxic chemicals into the environment. Buttigieg acknowledged the disaster for the first time this week after it occurred on Feb. 3.
FOR PETE’S SAKE: BUTTIGIEG HAS GONE MISSING AGAIN
“He hasn’t even gone to the site, my understanding — and he hasn’t been there. I think he didn’t say anything about it for almost nine days after it started. I don’t know what that guy needs to do to be fired,” Rubio told the Washington Examiner on Thursday.
Sens. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) separately visited the site Thursday. In a press conference, Vance called on Buttigieg to stop blaming the Trump administration for changes to the rules governing railroad safety. Back at the Capitol, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said the pileup of problems with railroads, trucking, and flights hasn’t been properly addressed.
“Look, I don’t think he’s out there derailing trains. But at the same time, he seems utterly absent when disasters occur on his watch,” Cruz told the Washington Examiner. “In two years, there has been mess after mess after mess in the transportation world under Secretary Buttigieg’s leadership. At some point, you have to ask, ‘What does this guy have to do to get fired?'”
He continued: “We went from the supply chain crisis to being on the verge of an historic railroad strike to the FAA grounding commercial aviation for the first time since Sept. 11 due to a screw-up at the FAA to multiple near misses with commercial airlines to multiple train derailments. All of these are big deals — and as far as I can tell, the secretary is nowhere to be found.”
Buttigieg made his first statement on Monday in which he said he was monitoring the situation, especially as it would affect “families in the ten days since their lives were upended through no fault of their own.” He added that his department is supporting the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation.
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Rubio and Vance sent a letter to Buttigieg on Wednesday, demanding answers about the accident. They requested information about his department’s “oversight of the United States’ freight train system and, more generally, how it balances building a safe, resilient rail industry across our country in relation to building a hyper-efficient one with minimal direct human input.”
Multiple problems in the transportation sector have taken place under the Biden administration, including Southwest Airlines’s Christmas flight fiasco, the Federal Aviation Administration grounding all flights due to a lapse in its communications system last month, and a barely averted rail strike last fall, in addition to continued problems with global supply chains that began during the pandemic.
David Sivak contributed to this report.
