Fact check: Did Trump rail rule repeal affect Ohio train derailment?

After a train derailment caused a toxic chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio, forcing residents to evacuate and raising concerns about environmental impacts, many social media users are criticizing government regulations around rail transport.

Multiple posts on Facebook and Twitter claimed former President Barack Obama set tougher regulations for trains carrying hazardous materials that former President Donald Trump later repealed.

"Obama imposed stricter rules on trains carrying toxins. Trump killed them," claimed a Feb. 15 Facebook post from Occupy Democrats, a liberal advocacy group. The post includes an image from the aftermath of the train derailment in Ohio.

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

An Occupy Democrats spokesperson told PolitiFact this post was referring to changes to a rule about braking systems for high-hazard flammable unit trains.

PolitiFact looked into this rule change and found the claim to be largely accurate.

In 2015, during the Obama administration, a new safety rule was adopted requiring electronically controlled pneumatic brakes to be installed on all high-hazard flammable unit trains by 2023, allowing them to brake faster. Trump rescinded that requirement three years later.

The rise and fall of an Obama-era train safety rule

In 2014, following several high-profile train derailments, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration (which both operate under the Department of Transportation) proposed rules to bolster safety standards for trains carrying hazardous materials.

A year later, these two agencies finalized the rule for trains carrying high-hazard, flammable materials. New trains were required to have the electronic brakes and older trains were required to be retrofitted with them by 2023.

A high-hazard flammable unit train was defined as a train going faster than 30 miles per hour with at least 70 loaded tank cars containing certain highly flammable liquids, such as crude oil and ethanol.

Electronically controlled pneumatic brakes work on all train cars simultaneously. This allows the train to brake faster than when equipped with conventional air brakes, which are applied sequentially along the length of the train.

After this rule was enacted, lobbyists for railway and oil companies pushed to repeal it, questioning the effectiveness of electronic brakes and arguing that the cost of installing them was too high.

Then in 2018, under the Trump administration, the Department of Transportation repealed the rule based on government reports that determined equipping high-hazard cargo trains with electronic brakes was not economically justified.

The Associated Press reported that these government reports omitted up to $117 million in estimated future damages from train derailments that could be avoided by using electronic brakes.

However, even if this safety rule had still been in effect, it would not have applied to the Norfolk Southern train that derailed in East Palestine, because it was not categorized as a high-hazard cargo train.

Although the Norfolk Southern train contained hazardous materials, including vinyl chloride, it did not meet the Department of Transportation’s narrow definition of a high-hazard flammable unit train in that it didn’t have at least 70 cars containing flammable materials, such as crude oil or ethanol. The chemicals it was carrying fall into a different classification not included in this definition.

The National Transportation Safety Board told PolitiFact that the Norfolk Southern train was categorized as a "general merchandise" train and it used "pneumatic brakes," or conventional air brakes.

PolitiFact ruling

Occupy Democrats claimed in a Facebook post, "Obama imposed stricter rules on trains carrying toxins. Trump killed them."

The Obama administration enacted a rule in 2015 requiring high-hazard flammable unit trains to be outfitted with electronically controlled pneumatic brakes by 2023.

In 2018, the Trump administration repealed this rule, citing government reports that found the cost of requiring these kinds of brakes was not economically justified.

The Facebook post includes an image of the aftermath of the train derailment in Ohio. However, this rule, if it had remained in effect, would not have applied to that Norfolk Southern train as it was not categorized as "high-hazard."

We rate this claim Mostly True.