Buttigieg said the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the derailment and that the Federal Railroad Administration is also analyzing whether safety violations occurred and will hold Norfolk Southern accountable if violations did occur.
The Environmental Protection Agency has said the company must document the release of hazardous contaminants and outline cleanup actions.that Norfolk Southern and other rail companies “spent millions of dollars in the courts and lobbying members of Congress to oppose common-sense safety regulations, stopping some entirely and reducing the scope of others.
The transportation secretary said the results of the investigation are not yet know, but “we do know that these steps that Norfolk Southern and its peers lobbied against were intended to improve rail safety and to help keep Americans safe.”