>Dems backed it because they didn’t want the optics from a rail strike paralyzing shipping, and the GOP backed it because they’re the GOP and do anything for their pocketbooks.
Yet, most of the nays came from the GOP and in the house most GOP voted against the bill?
The bill that did pass with bipartisan support was a compromise due to this bill failing. It is extremely disingenuous to suggest that the democrats, who voted overwhelmingly for a bill that satisfied more rail worker demands, hold most of the fault for the strike break.
The GOP correctly realized that by voting against rail workers, they could force democrats to also vote against rail workers in order to avoid a general rail strike which would be disastrous to the economy and laid at the feed of the Biden administration. This is the realpolitik world we live in, and peoples health will suffer due to it.
Oh and democrats do share some of the blame, just not the majority. Joe Manchin did vote against the bill supporting rail workers.
Can a smart person explain what that bill means? The summary[0] reads like the government just saying "you'll take the existing terms and like it" (I didn't know that the government could do this). Is that the same thing as making it "illegal to strike" as the linked comment suggests?
> The summary[0] reads like the government just saying "you'll take the existing terms and like it".
That's it.
> I didn't know that the government could do this.
It's explained in the "whereas" clauses. The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interatate commerce, which is pretty much all they need.
> Is that the same thing as making it "illegal to strike" as the linked comment suggests?
Yes. The unions are being forced to accept the deal. The union now can now be held liable if they try to organize a strike. Unofficial strikes (wildcat strikes) are illegal in the US.
The GOP will generally just vote against anything urgent that the Dems put forward. They don't _really_ want to let the Dems fix anything, they'd prefer to be able to beat up on Biden (in this case) for longer.
There's no downside for them for this behavior. The Dems already hate them, and if anything their base will reward them for it.
Saw this interesting Twitter thread with some data yesterday. In fact it doesn't seem derailments are unusually high compared with history. It seems they may even be decreasing.
The complaints about precision scheduled railroading are valid though. Every foamer has been talking about it. And again as your link shows this derailment (like many) had absolutely nothing to do with the overturning of the breaking rule that has frustratingly grabbed everyone's attention. (I guess everyone loves a simplistic explanation that blames government officials even if it's wrong.)
If it’s true that rail companies are running fewer, but longer, trains then wouldn’t absolute derailments decrease even if per ride derailments have increased?
And longer trains derailing means that the impact will be more spectacular, which would explain why we are seeing more news coverage of these fewer absolute derailments.
Maybe not? If what we care about isn't derailed trains but the actually derailed cars, like say lost packets on a network. Here's a graph of total derailed cars. He has a lot of graphs I haven't reviewed all of them. But might be some other interesting ones in there.
Unlike a lost network packet a single derailed car can slow down the whole train and any trains behind it on either side. By using longer trains they are putting more eggs in one basket.
On top of that longer periods of stress on a particular part of rail due to the longer trains is probably uncovering new failures in problem spots especially if heating is involved in the problem. Longer train = more time for a piece of rail to heat up.
I think the metric of concern would be total consecutive time the rail is loaded or something like that.
Since the U.S. isn’t gonna nationalize it’s rail system any time soon, or at the very least needs to separate track ownership from the rail companies.
All the rail companies should be required to spin off their track ownership into new and separate companies, which can now sell access to those and other possible rail providers.
It’s necessary to get some competition in the space.
In line with that comment, there was a more recent disaster in Lac-Megantic in 2013. Inquiry brought to light that there were more tracks and operators than those we are used to see in Canada (CN, CP and VIA). It also revealed various cost cutting means that led up to this event (skeleton crew, long hours, lack of safety measures.
"Most of these leaked out of the cars without vapourizing and ended up in the Ohio river causing some damage to wildlife."
SOME? I have seen lot of pictures that show a complete anhilation of the local fish population and contamination of the water supplies (strange deposits when boiled).
"Some" is a pretty broad term. It can't really be a cover up if the claim is that vauge. Like "some" can mean anything from nothing at all to total dead zone.
Please provide said photos, and while you're at it, proof that these photos are indeed recent and taken in the watershed affected by the incident.
I hear this over and over and over, but I've never seen actual evidence that these pictures are authentic AND reflect the widespread condition of the area.
I honestly haven’t seen much detailed information in the major news outlets other than there was a train derailed, a burn, some fish died, some people were evacuated, everything okay and safe now, “by the way we shot down some UFOs”, “do aliens exist?”
It’s possible I’m missing something but for whatever reason I don’t feel like it’s getting the coverage it really deserves which, by itself, raises questions.
It’s the only thing I’ve heard about. I think there’s some rat fuckery going on, I agree. I’m not so sure it’s a cover up orchestrated or enabled by the government as much as other actors using the opportunity to stoke distrust in the government.
After the last two years, you don't need anything to help distrust the government. This administration has been a total disaster in all key policy areas.
From energy to transportation to foreign policy. A total mess for seemingly no reason.
Why don’t you go out to the site yourself? The burden of proof is on you. Nobody should go out of their way to try and convince some rando on the internet.
I'm not making claims about the environmental impact of this disaster. Typically the person making the claims provides evidence backing up their claims.
> Neither was it equipped with electronically controlled pneumatic brakes, a safety measure that the railway industry lobbied against vigorously when Congress proposed a law to have them installed on trains because of the costs involved.
Safety has a cost. Lack of safety has a cost. The former the cost is financial. The latter it's lives, peace of mind, health, etc.
One is replaceable. One is not. Sadly Congress protected the replaceable one.
I am not convinced electronically controlled pneumatic brakes would have made a big difference here[1] during an emergency stop. Some difference, sure. But keep in mind that 50 cars out of 141(IIRC) derailed. This is not a defense of any specific policy. I just think people are treating the EPC brakes as if they would have completely prevented the accident.
ECP brakes are generally per train and freight car or car block. Any single car or block installed with them likely wouldn't haven't made a difference, but more probably, in an environment with lax adherence to (or even avoidance of) safety technology guidelines, there is no guarantee that an ECP braking system would have been operably configured and maintained.
In the condition this train was at, whether they were equipped or not is irrelevant, because they'd more than likely just have been expensive decorations.
Even assuming they performed optimally, the reduction in stopping distance would not have been anywhere near 100%. It depends on train length, weight, and speed, and some other train car standards but a mean estimate would be a 13 to 39% reduction in the stopping distance. How many less cars does this translate to as far as a derailment? This study [1] suggest 20% less. Contrast that with an official saying that ECP brakes would have "avoided that monster pile up"[2]. If 50 cars derailed then maybe we could see ten fewer cars derailing in a similar accident. Is that worth it? I don't know. But I don't believe it would have completely prevented it.
The real problem with this math is that the cost of the braking system would be borne by the company, but the costs of the derailment are borne by the public. So even if the derailment cost >>> the brake system cost, it's an easy decision for the industry to make. That whole privatized profits / socialized losses issue that keeps showing up.
Insurance companies doing this to help people manage risk and are often attempting to help people in moments of grief and tragedy, and those people opted into the contract.
Train companies doing this to unsuspecting towns are stochastic monsters killing people because the victims are a financial externality and therefore cheaper dead than alive. They knew that a disaster could happen but chose good balance sheets over externalized risk.
Boiling this down to pure economics is monstrous; Flip this around. What if I get to decide if you live or die based on my spreadsheets?
Clearly the dollar value of thing isn't the only thing that matters. We should make these as safe as we can afford to, to the point that mass death or even mass destruction doesn't happen while billionaires are made from it. We can't afford infinite safety but while we can afford more safety we should. It is even correct from a macroeconomic standpoint, people who don't die or suffer from disasters go on to be more productive in the economy than dead people.
See any major class action lawsuit, the true cost of these disasters is never paid. The company will restructure, file for bankruptcy, any pay out pennies to the victims.
Norfolk southern gave the town $25k to the town, however the true cost of one resident getting cancer is potentially millions of dollars. The true cost of a single evacuation is probably in the millions also. Nobody will ever pay for this.
I think it's understood that sometimes we need to reflect the value of a human life in monetary terms, but to act as if human lives provide no value beyond actuarial valuations is pretty horrific
The subtitle raises a great question "Why was such a large amount of this chemical being transported by rail in the first place?" which the article wholly fails to address, for some reason. (It addresses the industrial applications of the chemical, but doesn't ever dive into the "being transported by rail" part.)
Not exactly "safe". The precursors are ethylene and chlorine. Chlorine everyone knows about - it's quite a bit more of a problem when it spills than vinyl chloride.
Ethylene is a "colorless and combustible gas used to fumigate some agricultural products, sterilize medical equipment and in the production of other industrial chemicals. The gas is a carcinogen that has been linked to breast, lymphoid, leukemia and other types of cancers."
Ethylene is transported as a cryogenic liquid, which means when it leaks it immediately boils to gas form. Once released it takes 2 to 4 days to break down in the atmosphere. Chlorine takes years.
The precursors are more accurately acetylene and hydrogen chloride. But acetylene can be stored and transported as the solid calcium acetylide (aka calcium carbide), which releases acetylene by reaction with water. So this is potentially easier than you made it sound.
I’m not a chemistry expert; Do the precursors’ properties necessarily matter here?
Like Table salt for example: sodium chloride. Sodium spontaneously ignites in AIR and is explosive in water. Chlorine is highly toxic and poisonous. But you bond the two chemically and you get a stable, safe, delicious flavor enhancer.
Edit: Perhaps I misunderstood your comment. Are you saying that transporting the raw chemicals required to make it on site wouldn’t be any safer to transport?
from energy from "sunlight" is reactive and will reverse the reaction and get back to Cl2 or
maybe
2H2O + 2Cl --> 2HCl + O2
hydrochloric acid, also very reactive.
It's still Chlorine, reactive and dangerous, destructive and has not broken down.
Yes, the Chlorine may react.
Again, once again, over again, yet again, one more time, the Chlorine will NOT
===>>>"break down"<<<===
Simple. High school science simple.
This whole exchange seems to have nothing, nichts, nil, nada to do with Chlorine or chemistry but just, for whatever reason, arguing just to be arguing.
I'm not interested in the arguing, and I have no more to say about the chemistry.
> It does though?, PVC is manufactured using this chemical and rail is an efficient means of transporting it,
I agree that it addresses the utility of PVC. I wrote: "It addresses the industrial applications of the chemical." But the article never makes the claim that rail is an efficient means of transporting it. It also never answers why the chemical cannot be made on-site.
it's one of the best means to transport lots of something, and many industrial chemical groups have buildings that have railroad tie-ins that facilitate direct unloading from the car.
So how do you get the precursors to the plant? You're either transporting chlorine, or you're manufacturing it in huge quantities locally, which has plenty of it's own headaches.
Either trucks or trains, and trains are more cost effective.
I read elsewhere (perhaps NYT or WSJ, but i can't find it from days ago) that rail is most safe, statistically.
If so, it remotivates an analogue of TCP's MTU: if the size of shipments were small, but the number of shipments high, would a single "packet loss"/derailment be less catastrophic?
The conventional alternative are pipelines, but for small loads such as vinyl chloride they would likely be problematic even ignoring the likelihood of eventual leaks.
A better alternative is to keep using trains, but have sufficient protection built in to survive a derailment and fires.
All but one vinyl chloride tank did survive the derailment intact! Vinyl chloride is a gas at standard temperature and pressure, and so AFAICT it's transported in insulated tanks, staying cool enough throughout its journey to be at a manageable pressure (<~200psi). The adjacent fire meant the clock was ticking on how long before it would rise in pressure and be vented through the tanks' relief valves. It was then a deliberate decision to preemptively vent the tanks and burn the contents. A lot of hubbub is being made about the chemical, but in the gamut of chemistry it's really not that bad of a chemical nor are its combustion products, at least as far what has been demonstrated.
I'm not throwing that out there as a justification for deliberately releasing industrial quantities of chemicals into the environment (including residential areas), but rather examining the decision process. An alternative approach would have been bringing in mobile chillers and replacement tank cars to cool and recover the vinyl chloride. But of course that would have cost more than simply discarding the product. Everyone is talking about railroad safety, and that needs addressing for sure. But the situation with the vinyl chloride specifically was a direct result of a deliberate decision, and not accidental. If we want this decision process to be different in the future, then we need to focus on that.
The article touches on that, but I haven't seen any mention of testing revealing a large number of dioxins. That's why I hedged with "as far as what has been demonstrated".
I can totally see the scenario where the people signing off on the burn look at the ideal combustion products (only CO2, H2O, and a little HCl), while a much more imperfect burn creates a bunch of other crap, that becomes significant due to the quantities involved.
FWIW do you know which dioxins are possible? The only specifics I've seen seemed to be people fearmongering about things like 2,3,7,8-TCDD, which seemed implausible to form from vinyl chloride, at least as far as my rudimentary knowledge of ochem would suggest.
From a brief look at Pubmed it looks like the top articles investigating dioxin formation look at total dioxins formed, not the specific molecules. This one states that PCDFs form in greater amounts than PCDDs: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17432330/
That's a great article for its breaking out the various chemicals and focusing on each one. In line with what I've been thinking, it's talking about dioxins as a result of burning PVC (which was in some bulk hopper cars, according to a manifest I saw), which was burning as a result of the derailment (as contrasted with the liquid vinyl chloride, for which the burning was seemingly a deliberate economic decision).
I agree that there should be more testing, and the fact that testing for expected combustion products wasn't start immediately to inform decisions about evacuation is criminal.
I think there are ways to use a single pipeline for multiple kinds of loads (in serial), but yeah a bunch of new pipelines would be needed to get the loads to a bunch of new places.
Rail freight is almost always more cheap, efficient, and safe compared to trucking the same cargo. You also benefit from economies of scale, as adding extra rail cars doesn’t take as much manpower as sending out another truck.
Why do you believe that the regulations for the onsite manufacturing of chlorine or ethylene are going to be any better?
The issue is that the companies have been playing fast and loose with safety. If you don't choose to reverse that, it doesn't matter whether you transport the chemical or manufacture it on site.
More like billionaires will short that stock and get bigger yachts, while huge swaths of this country see job loss with no replacement or much of a social safety net.
I assumed that’s why they burned the gas off. It produces hydrochloride acid, while initially very dangerous, it will eventually be diluted into the environment. The effects of which you can see on the melting paint on nearby cars. I thought this stuff was transported in two walled containers. Apparently not.
The two possibilities seem to be either 1. that they warned (among other things) about crumbling infrastructure, and that crumbling infrastructure then crumbled, or 2. they did a terrorism. I've been hearing about the US's crumbling infrastructure for decades, so 1 sure seems a lot more likely.
Punishing the company into bankruptcy is one thing, but the company is made up of individuals who will go work at other companies and likely escape lawsuits since they were operating within the umbrella of their job. So ultimately the shareholders who weren’t involved in the catastrophe will be punished and not the people that ultimately caused the issue.
No argument from me that the shareholders should take a major financial loss (they should demand better safety controls), but to prevent this from happening again (which I think is the key goal, rather than plain old retribution), I am arguing that there should be strict liability for the individuals as well - throw them in jail, bankrupt them, etc, so that a message is sent that employees of all companies owe, at a minimum, a duty of care to protect the safety of the general public. Essentially take away the employees’ ability to say “I was just following orders to try to maximize shareholder value”. Give the employees, in response, some protection from being fired for upholding this new obligation.
This is the only approach that will work. Punish all those involved with stiff criminal charges and punishments that include jail time and loss of all personal assets. Avoidable incidents like these would become a thing of the past.
I'm in favor of a corporate death penalty. In cases where a company is found guilty of gross negligence leading to terrible disasters and loss of life, give a jury the option to give the death penalty. All equity holders AND debt holders are washed out and the assets are sold off to pay victims and severance pay for low level employees.
For the USA, an easy mechanism for a corporate death penalty (for large enough corporations) without running afoul of takings clause would be to bar the corporation from engaging in interstate commerce, and to bar the equity holders from selling to themselves or relatives.
If you're talking about judicial action, the Takings Clause isn't a problem. If you're talking about Congressional action, your proposed alternative runs into the prohibition on Bills of Attainder.
In my view, the L&E approach of punitive damages calculated to be greater than the profit incentive of the negligent/reckless behavior is the best approach. Additionally, to the extent that an executive's actions were clearly not in the long-term interest of the corporation, they should be made personally liable.
To avoid the bill of attainder issue the companies wouldn't be individually named. All corporations that fit the bill would be subject to the bill. And since Congress is forbidden from passing ex post facto laws, such a law would obviously not be a bill of attainder, as it could not guess who would be subject to it.
IANAL. I believe that there are limits to the penalties a judicial action can impose. A corporate death penalty presumably wouldn't survive appeals without an underlying law. I guess the 8th amendment might still be a barrier to my alternative.
> In my view, the L&E approach of punitive damages calculated to be greater than the profit incentive of the negligent/reckless behavior is the best approach.
I agree. But I also want a corporate death penalty beyond this.
It would be better to do this the way the FDIC treats failed banks: sell off obligations of the company, including buildings, equipment, and employees, to competitors. For a straightforward business such as a train logistics company with direct competitors who do effectively the same business, this seems relatively simple.
Only if they quit. Otherwise they'd be transferred to the new company or one of the anti-monopoly spin-offs along with their part of the business, just like bank branches and headquarters are today.
Under such a system I wonder if people who quit from unsafe jobs more often because the companies would be perceived as less stable.
Even if a purely free market solution doesn't work the employees could be lumped in with victims as the assets are liquidated. Bankruptcy courts handle more complex but similar situations already.
Norfolk Southern has a 54 billion dollar market cap. Punitive damages are often capped as a percentage of actual damages, and proving enough actual damages for the total damages to materially harm Norfolk Southern is a big reach.
Because they don't price actual damage accordingly. How much would you price you getting cancer at? For me I would price that at a few billion easily, because I value my life quite high. I'm sure bill gates would put the price of him getting cancer in the billions too. There's of course no telling which child you are harming in the ohio river valley might be the next bill gates, so you might as well price them all at that valuation. That would put the costs of remediation well beyond what northfolk southern's market cap is, and would justify either closure or if its truly essential, having those assets and infrastructure being taken over by the public, much like how any other debt collection agency would take your assets if you lack liquidity.
It's becoming more clear that in the US health and safety are taking a back seat to corporate profits. It's shameful to read safety equipment that could have prevented this derailment was lobbied against by the railway industry.
I read a quote that electronically controlled brakes could have prevented this, but haven’t heard a good explanation of why (based on the initial NTSB reporting that the cause was a failed wheel bearing) - I looked up the ex-government person who the quote was attributed to and they now seem to work in private industry selling electronic control systems for trains. Not to definitively say the safety equipment mentioned that was lobbied against would not have prevented this disaster, but do you know more about it?
So the traditional brakes use a stream of air to actuate the brakes down the line, the 'signal' in these brakes travels at roughly 1,000ft/second. The train in Ohio was 151 cars long and over 9,000 feet long, so from the moment the conductor tries to emergency brake, it would take over 9 seconds for the cars at the tail of the train to even begin braking vs. electronically controlled ones which brake instantaneously.
The ECP wikipedia gets into a lot of the details, but by evenly braking instead of the first cars braking and getting "pushed" by the back ones, you limit the risk of derailment by some amount.
The counterfactual of "what would have happened" with them is hard to answer with any certainty, but much less kinetic energy in the system and more even braking could have only helped.
By definition the EPA, FDA, etc give corporations protections from events, not the other way around.
For instance, even if a company is provably causing me harm, say through a drug injury, I can’t sue the company for false advertising — FDA approved.
How about the EPA? Same deal, I can’t sue a company for causing me injuries due to carbon dioxide, so long as they follow EPA regulations. Historically, before all these agencies you could sue for any injury that caused harm (ie the law).
The FDA fines and sues companies not following the rules. They set a floor for behavior and mitigate frivolous lawsuits. This help companies and society, this is better for both. This isn't a pie we are dividing, this is complex system we are building together.
The current system isn't perfect but things are clearly better with than without. Businesses know what they can and can't be sued for and overall less bad shit happens to the populace. It isn't like I have the ability to sue people dumping CO2 into the air. Because lawsuits need more than someone polluting, they need someone to break a rule or cause direct harm and for the victim to know who to sue and have money to do it with
We could theoretically make these systems better by making the rules better and sometimes we even do.
Where humans and heavy machinery interact, there have always been financial incentives to capital to look the other way over safety concerns. There's some really great footage from GM plants in the 30's from a film they made "Master Hands"[0] that shows workers handling red-hot cranks with hand tools in massive forges and other working conditions that would get them immediately shut down by OSHA today. Those regulations came out of the labor movements of the New Deal and the war/post-war.
I think the most damning thing is that cases of black lung are actually on the rise in Appalachia in the 21st century because companies have managed to slacken worker protections for coal miners.
Tangentially, from what I hear, proffesional blacksmiths prefer to work without gloves, accepting the risk of burns compared to the better grip it gives them.
Where it becomes an issue, is indeed when you are not your own master, and the risk and profit being borne by different people cause warped incentives...
Sadly, the author of this article doesn't provide any proof of his statements regarding chemicals "draining into the Ohio river"... he just seems to accept the statements made in other news sources without question.
Various conspiracy minded and politically motivated groups continue to push the Ohio derailment as some sort of environmental apocalypse in social media and elsewhere online when the evidence seems to indicate the spill was successfully contained.
The EPA reported the runoff into local creeks and damage to aquatic wildlife.. and further testing found at minimum ethyl hexyl acrylate in a creek that directly drains into the Ohio River.. not sure how much more "proof" you'd need for that..
> Responding crews discovered contaminated runoff on two surface water streams: Sulphur Run and Leslie Run. Under Ohio EPA oversight, Norfolk Southern emergency response contractors installed booms and underflow dams to restrict the flow of contaminated water as well as contain and collect floating product.
> U.S. EPA took water samples at the streams and has sent them to a laboratory for analysis. Emergency response staff noticed impacted aquatic life and notified the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Department of Interior. Ohio DNR is on site and is assessing the situation and the impacts to aquatic life. Downstream water utilities were also notified.
> Water quality sampling taken Feb. 10 shows very low levels of two contaminants, butyl acrylate and ethyl hexyl acrylate, in Leslie Run which dissipates quickly, and no detects of butyl acrylate in North Fork Little Beaver Creek or Little Beaver Creek. There was a much lower level of ethyl hexyl acrylate found in North Fork Little Beaver Creek. Little Beaver Creek did not have any ethyl hexyl acrylate. No vinyl chloride has been detected in any of these waterways. Sulfur Run flows into Leslie Run, which flows into North Fork Little Beaver Creek, which flows into Little Beaver Creek, which discharges into the Ohio River.
I don't even disagree that this is being slightly overblown if you look solely at the nature of the leaked chemicals -- but a bit of artistic license in service of fewer derailments and chemical leaks seems fair enough.
The ends of safer rail infrastructure don't justify the means of some people occasionally exaggerating the degree of pollution that found the waterways vs the amount that was just dumped into the soil or burned? We'll have to agree to disagree.
It explains why there are so many derailments these days.