Commentary: Frequent train derailments unmask U.S. systematic governance failure

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- The United States' multiple train derailments in recent weeks have not only fueled misgivings and concerns over its railroad safety but also unmasked the country's systematic governance failure, portending more such tragedies in the future.

On Feb. 3, a train carrying vinyl chloride went off track and exploded near the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, prompting a mass evacuation and later a "controlled release" and burning of hazardous materials that discharged toxic and potentially deadly fumes into the air.

Such railway accidents are a commonplace across the United States in recent years, during which the freight railroad industry has cut the nation's rail workforce to the bone as it puts record profits over safety.

While the cause of the accident has yet to be determined, industrial insiders pointed out that the diaster could be partly attributed to the federal government's 2017 rollback of the regulations that would require electronically controlled pneumatic (ECP) brakes for "high-hazard flammable" trains.

The ECP brakes would have reduced the severity of the East Palestine train accident, according to former Federal Railroad Administration official Steven Ditmeyer. However, the U.S. railway industry appeared to be more concerned about additional costs than transportation safety and successfully lobbied against the brakes requirement.

Corporate greed, which has been growing almost unchecked in the United States, impels industries, businesses, and executives to put profit first, often at the cost of ordinary people's interests and well-being.

"This is the same old story," Sherrod Brown, the Senator from Ohio, said on Sunday of the East Palestine disaster. "These things are happening because the railroads are simply not investing the way they should in car safety and the rail lines themselves."

Ron Kaminkow, an organizer for the non-profit labor group Railroad Workers United, pointed out that the Ohio train derailment is the latest consequence of the rail industry's cost-cutting, profit-at-all-cost business model.

The East Palestine wreck "is the tip of the iceberg and a red flag," Kaminkow was quoted by The Guardian as saying. "If something is not done, then it's going to get worse, and the next derailment could be cataclysmic."

After the disaster occurred, U.S. politicians have wasted no time blaming each other, a scenario that resembles what follows other emergencies in the United States -- such as mass shootings and public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic -- instead of pooling their efforts to address the urgent need.

In this case, Republicans, fixed on checking U.S. President Joe Biden after taking control of the House of Representatives, have issued sharp criticism of his administration, alleging that the federal response has been delayed and lackluster.

While Biden's transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, has stressed that it was the previous administration that had loosened train safety rules in a bid to divert political and public scrutiny but has created even more backlash.

As the partisan blaming game goes on, anxious locals in East Palestine, some of whom reported incidents like burning eyes, labored breathing, ill pets, or dead fish in waterways, continue to demand answers as questions swirl around how toxic chemicals were handled and whether it's safe for them to resume lives in their home village.

"Why are people getting sick if there's nothing in the air or the water?" a woman asked at a town hall in East Palestine last week. "This could've happened to thousands of communities just like ours," a second resident said. "We're just trying to figure it out. We just want answers."

"The facts leading up to the derailment and the subsequent fire show the responsibility isn't so easily divided between red and blue," wrote Marisa Kabas, an MSNBC columnist.

"It's becoming clear this disaster was a result of, yes, politics but also a total and complete capitalistic systemic failure," Kabas said, warning that "partisan mudslinging isn't going to shield people from future medical and economic devastation."

As train derailments are piling up across the country, it's time for the U.S. authorities and politicians to heed people's safety concerns and reflect on their slack supervision as well as the flaws of America's profit-above-all system before similar tragedies spell more disasters for Americans.