Regulatory race to the bottom

[Grumble]

I think there is discussion elsewhere about the train crash in Ohio which has blighted a large area and led to the spill and subsequent burning of tankers full of vinyl chloride.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... SApp_Other

There is a long and awful history of train crashes in the USA, and every attempt to improve things seems to get rolled back because of “costs”. Two examples here, both from Trump but I expect this history goes back a lot further

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-envir ... fety-rule/

Congress, in the bipartisan Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act of 2016, told the PHMSA to conduct a new cost-benefit analysis of the brake provision. If the costs outweighed the benefits, the PHMSA was required to repeal it.

https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-ki ... xplosions/

The Trump administration said Thursday it was withdrawing a proposal for freight trains to have at least two crew members, nullifying a safety measure drafted under President Barack Obama in response to explosions of crude oil trains in the United States and Canada.

[TopBadger]

Costs seems to be an excuse to mask that the US broadly doesn't value the environment and human life as much as it claims to.

[dyqik]

You have to also couple that to the fact that at the end of last year, Congress, with White House support, forced rail companies and unions into a pay deal that does not provide sick time for railway workers (including train drivers - "engineers"), and a system where a train driver using unpaid sick time is liable to be fired (officially or just not scheduled).

[bjn]

Apparently the company that ran the crashed trains recently had a $10Bn stock buy back after posting $13Bn profits.

[headshot]

Apparently the company that ran the crashed trains recently had a $10Bn stock buy back after posting $13Bn profits.

And they offered the local townsfolk $5 each in a compensation package.

[WFJ]

Another point for the list of reasons why it makes no sense to consider the US part of the developed world rather than a developing country with extreme concentrations of wealth in some places.