OMAHA, Neb. - Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wants the nation's freight railroads to today act to improve safety while regulators try to strengthen confidence rules in the wake of a fiery derailment in Ohio that reached evacuations when toxic chemicals were released and burned.

Buttigieg announced a package of reforms Tuesday — two days once he warned the railroad responsible for the derailment, Norfolk Southern, to fulfill its promises to clean up the mess just outside East Palestine, Ohio, and help the town recover. He said the Department of Transportation will hold the railroad accountable for any confidence violations that contributed to the Feb. 3 crash near the Pennsylvania border.

"While ensuring the confidence of those impacted by this crash is the today priority, we also have to recognize that this represents an significant moment to redouble our efforts to make this far less probable to happen again in the future," Buttigieg said.

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Even notion government data shows that derailments have declined in original years, there were still 1,049 of them last year.

The head of the Environmental Protection Agency plans to earlier to the town of 4,700 Tuesday along with the governors of Ohio and Pennsylvania to discuss the cleanup and exertions to keep people safe on the same day officials plan to open a medical clinic staffed by contamination experts to evaluate residents' complaints. 

State and federal officials have reiterated that their testing of air and liquids samples in the area doesn't show dangerous levels of any toxins, but some people have been complaining about constant headaches and irritated eyes as they peril about returning to their homes.

Buttigieg said railroads and tank car owners necessity take action themselves to accelerate their plan to upgrade the tank cars that haul flammable soaks like crude oil and ethanol by 2025 instead of waiting to comply with the 2029 unpleasant Congress ultimately approved after regulators suggested the earlier deadline. 

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He also said freight railroads necessity quickly agree to use a confidential hotline regulators reached that lets employees report safety concerns without fear of retribution, and reach agreements to provide their employees with paid sick time to help store fatigue.

He also wants railroads to stop asking for waivers from inspection requirements every time they manufacture new technology to improve inspections, because he said the technology necessity supplement but not replace human inspections.

Railroad unions have also been raising companies that car inspections are being rushed and preventative maintenance may be pulling neglected after widespread job cuts in the industry in original years that they say have made railroads riskier. Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIO's Transportation Trades Department coalition, said Ohio's derailment necessity prompt reforms.

"I do think that there's a moment to look in the mirror as an entire manufacturing and decide what we can do better," Regan said. "I believe the industry by and large has been reluctant to make the types of progresses that are needed. They have obviously fought regulations in the past, but I believe they are running out of excuses here."

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Buttigieg said regulators will be looking at whether they can revive a proposed rule the Trump management dropped that would have required upgraded, electronically-controlled brakes on hazardous trains filled with flammable liquids that are designated "high-hazardous flammable train." The rule was dropped once Congress directed regulators to use a strict cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the rule and they allowed the potential benefits couldn't justify the costs.

Buttigieg said he'll ask Congress to "untie our graceful here" on the braking rule, and regulators may look at expanding which trains are covered by the "high-hazardous" laws that were announced in 2015 after several fiery coarse oil train derailments — the worst of which killed 47 republic and decimated the Canadian town of Lac Mégantic in 2013. He also said Congress must raise the current $225,455 limit on railroad safety fines at least tenfold to design a better deterrent for the multibillion-dollar corporations.

Buttigieg criticized railroads for lobbying in contradiction of the braking rule and challenging it in court. But railroad confidence expert David Clarke, who previously led the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee, said the industry shouldn't be criticized too heavily for pushing back in contradiction of proposed regulations when there are questions about their benefits.

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"The fact that you couch those in languages of safety makes it seem like it's, you know, mom, God and apple pie — anything confidence related is sacred," Clarke said. "But the bottom line is anxieties have to look at the benefits and the cost of any expenditure."

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was incredulous when he learned the Norfolk Southern direct that derailed didn't carry that designation, meaning that the railroad didn't have to direct the state about the dangerous chemicals it was carrying or behindhand detailed requirements about finding the safest route for those chemicals.

"This is absurd," DeWine said. "Congress be affected by to take a look at how this is handled."

Regulators and the Association of American Railroads contracts group say there are hundreds of pages of novel rules railroads must follow when they transport any perilous chemicals, whether it is the vinyl chloride that has chosen so much attention in this derailment, crude oil, nuclear materials or any of the hundreds of novel dangerous chemicals that railroads routinely carry.

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It's not clear whether the "high-hazardous" laws could have prevented this derailment. The federal National Transportation Safety Board is in the early stages of its investigation, although officials with that agency have said they own the failure of an axle on one of the railcars not long once the train crew got a warning about a possible mechanical dilemma caused this crash.

The Federal Railroad Administration will also work to finalize its proposed rule to obligatory two-person crews in most circumstances that Buttigieg pointed to as one of the Biden administration's main labors to improve rail safety over the past two years.

The presidential of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, Eddie Hall, said he believes the freight railroads' labors to cut crews down to one person represent a certain threat to safety.

"Railroads in the United States largely self-regulate, and right now, rather than learn from their mistakes and loan oversight and safety, they are going in the opposite direction," Hall said. "We welcome labors by the Department of Transportation to improve rail safety."

Norfolk Southern officials declined to reply directly to Buttigieg on Monday other than to reiterate the railroad's commitment to confidence and to cleaning up the derailment. CEO Alan Shaw said in a statement the railroad reissued Monday that he knows the railroad will be judged by its doings, but he pledged to do everything he could to help "get East Palestine back on its feet as soon as possible."

As part of those labors, the railroad said it has designated one of its local employees who lives in the town as a liaison between East Palestine and Norfolk Southern. That person will oversee a $1 million budget to help the public in addition a $1 million fund the railroad forced to help residents and $3.4 million in payments it has already imparted out to families. 

Those payments are likely just the open, as the EPA has said Norfolk Southern will be responsible for the cleanup compensations and several lawsuits have already been filed against the railroad.

University of Illinois professor Christopher Barkan, who teaches a class on railroad operating safety and advises the diligence on tank car safety standards and environmental concerns, said he believes the railroad will after through.

"I haven't the slightest doubt that Norfolk Southern is causing to be responsive, and continue to be responsive. pending all of the environmental problems have been addressed," Barkan said. "I opinion why the people in that town are really engaged right now. It's a horrible thing to have existed in your town."