Steve Bannon may have moved out of the West Wing, but he left his goal of “deconstructing the regulatory state” behind. And we all may pay the price.
As I wrote a couple of weeks, we just passed the 5-year anniversary of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster that incinerated 47 persons when an un-manned runaway “bomb-train” derailed in the middle of the small Quebec town.
You’d think five years would be plenty of time to learn and digest the lessons of this disaster, and convert those lessons into regulatory protections in the United States.
But think again. These are Trump times, and the oil companies and the rail companies are in charge, and they don’t want government interfering in their bottom line, no matter what the human consequences.
The Century Foundation just published an article on the disaster and the lessons not learned. You can read it here: Five Years after Lac-Mégantic, U.S. Freight Rail Going Backward on Safety
Lac-Mégantic rail disaster. VERY good article. Just a couple of comments. The fire department and the general public should be alerted on how to react if a light oil fire occurs. I feel many fire departments are not. Applying water that will spread the fire or jumping into a nearby lake may not be the best approach when the oil is lighter than water.
This is a comment, combined with a question. In a recent article I had read that the harmonic movement of the oil in the rail car maybe a contributing factor in some of the derailments. Are the rail cars equipped with baffles that would reduce the internal movement of the oil?