As Donald Trump travels to East Palestine, Ohio tomorrow, his trip serves as a reminder that Trump and his administration made gutting transportation and environmental safety regulations a key priority of their MAGA agenda. 

Trump and his administration rolled back back transportation safety and environmental rules, including toxic chemical regulations:

Associated Press: “Trump has made reducing regulations a priority, seeing many rules as an unnecessary burden on industry. Last month he tweeted that his administration ‘has terminated more UNNECESSARY Regulations, in just 12 months, than any other Administration has terminated during their full term in office…’‘The good news is,’ he wrote, ‘THERE IS MUCH MORE TO COME!’”

Yahoo: “Fast forward to 2014, when the Obama administration unveiled new safety rules that, among other things, required ECP brakes on trains hauling a certain amount of crude oil and other so-called “high-hazard flammable” materials. The Association of American Railroads, an industry lobbying group of which Norfolk Southern is a member, fiercely opposed the regulations… At the urging of AAR and other rail interests, the industry-friendly Trump administration repealed the Obama-era ECP brake rule in 2018.”

New York Times: “Over four years, the Trump administration dismantled major climate policies and rolled back many more rules governing clean air, water, wildlife and toxic chemicals. In all, a New York Times analysis, based on research from Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School and other sources, counts nearly 100 environmental rules officially reversed, revoked or otherwise rolled back under Mr. Trump. More than a dozen other potential rollbacks remained in progress by the end but were not finalized by the end of the administration’s term.”

Trump’s budget proposals slashed funding for investigating accidents, enforcing environmental rules, and prosecuting environmental crimes:

E&E News: “The administration has proposed eliminating the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, an independent agency that investigates accidents at refineries, chemical plants, and oil and gas production sites, saying its work duplicates other agencies. The safety board, though, has bipartisan support in Congress and has survived previous attempts to abolish it.”

Bloomberg: “The [Trump] administration’s fiscal year 2020 budget proposal would cut a fifth of the funding for the Environmental Protection Agency’s forensics efforts, which support its civil and criminal enforcement investigations.”

Almost every year he was in office, Trump called for major cuts to the Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency’s budgets:

Politico: “The administration is also seeking… a 13 percent cut to the Department of Transportation. The EPA’s budget would see a nearly 27 percent chop.”

Slate: “In Trump’s budget, which was also released today, the discretionary budget for the DOT falls by $3.7 billion; the EPA’s is cut by $2.8 billion.

Washington Post: “The $16.2 billion budget for discretionary transportation spending represents a nearly 13 percent reduction in transportation spending over fiscal 2017.”