Embattled Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Tuesday he will travel to Ohio “when the time is right” to review the devastating effects of this month’s toxic train derailment — but a Post analysis of his schedule and public events indicates he’s had ample time to visit already.
Buttigieg has not set foot in the town of East Palestine, near the Pennsylvania-Ohio border, since a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals derailed on Feb. 3.
The most recent event listed on Buttigieg’s public schedule of events and engagements, posted weekly on the Department of Transportation website, was an “internal staff briefing” the day after the accident.
But on Feb. 9 — six days after the disaster — Buttigieg traveled to Lake Charles, La., and Port Arthur, Texas, to tout federal spending on a new bridge and the conversion of an abandoned railyard, respectively, as part of President Biden’s $1.5 billion bipartisan infrastructure law.
Buttigieg’s first major public address since the derailment, a Feb. 13 speech at the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference in Washington, included cringeworthy jokes about the Chinese spy balloon shot down earlier this month — but no mention of the accident.
The following day, Buttigieg tweeted a suggestion that a braking rule for trains withdrawn by the Trump White House in 2018 was to blame for the Ohio derailment.
“We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe,” he posted.
Buttigieg was also scheduled to visit Atlanta and Commerce, Ga., on Feb. 15 to promote federal infrastructure spending but the trip was reportedly canceled due to unspecified “unforeseen circumstances” — which did not include a detour to the Buckeye State.
The transportation secretary also appeared to downplay the derailment in an interview with Yahoo Finance last week, saying: “While this horrible situation has gotten a particularly high amount of attention, there are roughly 1,000 cases a year of a train derailing.”
The secretary’s lack of activity has caused outrage in Washington, with Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) saying Sunday that he’s “been a no-show in Ohio and so the American people are right to be upset about this.”
“They demand answers. They demand a presence by this administration to know that they’re going to take care of these issues,” Schmitt said during an appearance on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) even demanded last week that President Biden fire Buttigieg over his handling of the derailment.
Buttigieg tried to sound more responsive on Tuesday, telling ABC’s “Good Morning America” that “I am planning to go and our folks were on the ground from the first hours.
“I do want to stress that the NTSB needs to be able to do its work independently,” Buttigieg added, referring to the National Transportation Safety Board.
However, the 41-year-old did not give a specific date for when he would travel to East Palestine, other than saying he would do so “when the time is right.”
Buttigieg also touted his experience dealing with other disasters from his time as the mayor of South Bend, Ind., and found that there are “two kinds of people who show up.”
“People who were there because they have a specific job to do and are there to get something done. And people were there to look good and have their picture taken,” he said, an apparent reference to former President Donald Trump’s planned visit to the area Wednesday.
“When I go, it will be about action on real safety, like the actions that we are calling on Congress to help us with, that we’re calling on industry to take and that we are undertaking ourselves as a department to help make sure that these kinds of things don’t happen in the future.”
In a separate interview Tuesday with Nexstar Media Group, Buttigieg insisted that the DOT has “been on the ground literally from day one to make sure that we’re doing our part to support.
“I do think that it’s important to speak out about that,” he added, “and I could have spoken out sooner and I’m making sure that we are focused on the actions that are gonna make a difference.”
The East Palestine derailment caused thousands of evacuations from the small town and contaminated the surrounding air and the water.
The DOT’s press office didn’t immediately respond to a request for an explanation of the lack of information on Buttigieg’s engagements, nor did it immediately answer a query about why Buttigieg had yet to travel to Ohio.
Additional reporting by Emily Crane and Bruce Golding