Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, February 15, 2023

You would think that a major train derailment in which toxic chemicals were released into the air would grab the immediate attention of an environmentally-focused Democrat administration with a progressive and gay transportation secretary and an aggressive Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

But in 2023, political divisions seem to outweigh the safety of residents and damage to the environment especially in mostly-white East Palestine, Ohio, where President Trump got 70 percent of the vote.

When a 150-car train derailed in East Palestine on Feb. 3, it spewed poisonous chemicals onto the ground. The EPA has yet to respond to urgent requests by townspeople about the state of their water supply after pledging to provide that information.

But the Ohio state EPA has found evidence of butyl acrylate in the Ohio River as well as in the creeks and streams that feed it. The Ohio River supplies drinking water to about a tenth of the entire U.S. population. And then officials decided to set fire to the spilled chemicals resulting in a giant toxic cloud that is having a disturbing impact on people and animals in the area.

As Fox News host Tucker Carlson pointed out on Feb. 14, this incident, unlike climate change, “is an actual environmental disaster, a disaster that’s hurting actual people.”

He went on to describe the response by Team Biden’s Transportation secretary:

Pete Buttigieg announced something called Transit Equity Day. That’s yet another day that we celebrate race-based federal funding, that, despite the trail train derailment, does not apply to East Palestine because the people who live there are the wrong color. So instead, Buttigieg’s DOT announced an $80 million project to improve the roads in Philadelphia and $24 million for the roads in Detroit, both of which vote Democrat. And then Mayor Pete talked about perhaps the most pressing problem in this country, which is that we have too many White construction workers. Mayor Pete said not a single word about East Palestine, Ohio.

Who is responsible for the train derailment and the federal government response? “We’re only going to note that Mayor Pete, who’s in charge of finding out why it happened, doesn’t seem interested at all. And like everybody else in New York, Washington and L.A., he’s just kind of pretending it didn’t happen,” Carlson said.

Following is Carlson’s opening monologue on Feb. 14:

Action . . . . Intelligence . . . . Publish

  Ohio is not on Mayor Pete’s or the EPA radar screen, Ohio train derailment, Trump country: East Palestine, WorldTribune.com