Workers cleaning up the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, are getting sick, leaders of the nation’s largest rail unions said Wednesday — as they pressed the Biden administration for more safety measures.
The presidents of a dozen unions met with administration officials to state their case and express concern — as a new independent study found that the chemicals spilled in East Palestine during the Feb. 3 derailment could pose long-term health risks.
“My hope is the stakeholders in this industry can work towards the same goals related to safety when transporting hazardous materials by rail,” Mike Baldwin, president of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, said of the meeting with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Federal Railroad Administration head Amit Bose, CNBC said in a report.
“Today’s meeting is an opportunity for labor to share what our members are seeing and dealing with day to day,” Baldwin said. “The railroaders’ labor represents … the employees who make it safe and they must have the tools to do so.”
The heads of a dozen US railroad unions said Wednesday that workers are getting sick at the site of the toxic Ohio train derailment.AP
The meeting comes after labor leaders claimed that workers at the site of the Norfolk Southern derailment have fallen ill with “migraines and nausea.”
“I have received reports that [Norfolk Southern] neither offered nor provided these workers with appropriate personal protective equipment, such as respirators that are designed to permit safely working around vinyl chloride, eye protection and protective clothing such as chemical retrain suits,” the American Rail System Federation wrote in a letter to Buttigieg obtained by CNBC.
“This lack of concern for the workers’ safety and well-being is, again, a basic tenet of NS’s cost-cutting business model,” the letter said.
Portions of the derailed train were still burning on Feb. 4, the day after the calamity.APThe Feb. 3 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, has sicked workers and local residents and animals.AP
The unions also wrote letters to East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, according to the outlet.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, seen in East Palestine on Feb. 23, has received backlash and calls to resign over his response to the toxic derailment.Bloomberg via Getty Images
A Norfolk Southern spokesperson told the news outlet that the company “coordinated our response with hazardous material professionals who were on site continuously to ensure the work area was safe to enter and the required PPE was utilized.”
Earlier on Wednesday a group of bipartisan senators on Capitol Hill introduced The Railroad Safety Act of 2023, which proposes safety measures meant to prevent future environmental disasters like the Ohio derailment.
It’s unclear what impact the union meeting with national transportation officials will have.
Sen. Chuck Grassley interrogated Attorney General Merrick Garland over the Hunter Biden investigation Wednesday, revealing for the first time that “over a dozen sources” had tipped off the FBI and Justice Department to potential criminal activity by the first son.
“Recent lawfully protected whistleblower disclosures to my office indicate that the Justice Department and FBI had — at one time — over a dozen sources that provided potentially criminal information relating to Hunter Biden.” Grassley (R-Iowa), 89, told Garland during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. “The alleged volume and similarity of information would demand that the Justice Department investigate the truth and accuracy of the information.”
“Accordingly, what steps has the Justice Department taken to determine the truth and accuracy of the information provided?” Grassley asked. “Congress and the American people have a right to know.”
Garland, 70, deflected, saying he had promised during his confirmation hearings not to interfere in the probe headed by Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, and “I have carried through on my pledge.”
Grassley later cast doubt on Garland’s claims that the probe by Weiss — one of the few still-serving US attorneys appointed by President Donald Trump — was truly independent.
“Has the Delaware US attorney sought permission of another US Attorney’s Office, such as in the District of Columbia or California, to bring charges?” the senator asked. “If so, was it denied?”
“I don’t know the answer to that,” Garland said before insisting that Weiss has been told that “he is not to be denied anything that he needs, and if that were to happen, it should ascend through the department’s ranks, and I have not heard anything from that office to suggest that they are not able to do everything that the US attorney wants to do.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley grilled AG Merrick Garland over the Hunter Biden probe, saying, “Congress and the American people have a right to know.”Sen. Chuck Grassley/YouTube
“Well, let me give you my view,” Grassley said. “If Weiss, the US attorney there in Delaware, must seek permission from a [President] Biden-appointed US attorney to bring charges, then the Hunter Biden criminal investigation isn’t insulated from political interference, as you publicly proclaimed.”
It was not immediately clear if the scenario Grassley referenced was merely hypothetical. Neither a spokesman for the Iowa Republican nor the Delaware US Attorney’s Office responded to requests for clarification.
At one point in the hearing, Garland conceded that it “would be a national security problem” for a US leader’s relative to be paid by a foreign government to influence policy without mentioning any names.
“If it’s an agent of a foreign government asking someone and paying someone to do things to support that foreign government in secret, yes, I definitely think that would be a national security problem,” the AG said.
AG Merrick Garland promised during his confirmation hearings not to interfere in the Hunter Biden probe headed Delaware US Attorney David Weiss.Ron Sachs/CNP/SplashNews.com
Hunter Biden, 53, is under federal investigation for possible tax fraud, illegal foreign lobbying, money laundering and lying about his drug use on a gun-purchase form. Investigators reportedly believe they have enough evidence to charge him with tax crimes and lying on the gun form.
Hunter and his uncle, first brother James Biden, have a history of seeking business in countries where Joe Biden holds sway over US policy, such as China, Russia, Mexico and Ukraine, creating conflicts of interest and corruption concerns.
In China especially, the Biden family reaped a financial windfall from state-owned firms and Republicans say the president is too soft on Beijing because of those links.
Business records suggest Hunter Biden still owns a 10% stake in BHR Partners, which says it manages $2.1 billion in assets, despite his father’s insistence there would be no family-business-related conflicts of interest during his presidency. Hunter co-founded the firm in 2013 within weeks of joining then-Vice President Biden aboard Air Force Two on an official trip to Beijing, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Hunter introduced his dad to BHR CEO Jonathan Li and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children.
BHR has “unique mixed ownership,” the company says, and “combines the resources and platforms of China’s largest financial institutions (including Bank of China, China Development Bank Capital, Harvest Fund, Postal Savings Bank of China, China Life and the National Council of Social Security Fund) and the networks and know-how of our U.S.-based investment fund and advisory firm shareholders.”
In 2016, BHR Partners facilitated a deal in which a Chinese firm bought a Congolese cobalt mine from US and Canadian companies.
The transaction gained broad attention in 2021 when it was spotlighted by the New York Times. Cobalt is an important material for making electric vehicle batteries.
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Hunter Biden is under a long-standing investigation by federal authorities in connection with his overseas business interests.
Hunter Biden copped to the laptop being his.
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Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark said in late 2021 that the BHR stake had been divested, but neither he nor the White House has provided further information on the supposed transaction.
Joe Biden also allegedly was involved in Hunter and James Biden’s venture with CEFC China Energy, a firm reputed to be a cog in Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign.
A May 13, 2017 email recovered from Hunter Biden’s laptop said the “big guy” would get 10% of that deal, with that share “held by H.”
Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski says he discussed the deal with Joe Biden and both Bobulinski and another former Hunter Biden partner, James Gilliar, identified Joe Biden as the “big guy.”
Hunter and Jim Biden earned $4.8 million from CEFC China Energy in 2017 and 2018, according to the Washington Post’s later review of Hunter Biden laptop documents. An October 2017 email identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas.
Grassley first referenced allegations from “highly credible whistleblowers” in July 2022, accusing Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray of burying “verified and verifiable” dirt on President Biden’s son — and adding investigators had falsely chosen to dismiss the claims as “disinformation.”
If the allegations were proven, Grassley said at the time, it would show that the federal law enforcement agencies were “institutionally corrupted to their very core.”
“You have an obligation to the country to take these allegations seriously, immediately investigate and take steps to institute fixes to these and other matters before you,” he told Wray and Garland in the letter.
The Iowa senator also told the agency heads that the “volume and consistency” of the whistleblowers’ information corroborated that the FBI obtained “derogatory information” about the first son’s “criminal financial and related activity” in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election.
But the agency closed the investigation the month before voting day, according to the whistleblowers, and the assistant special agent in charge of the probe had “attempted to improperly mark the matter in FBI systems so that it could not be opened in the future,” Grassley wrote.
At the same time, the senator said, former intelligence officials sought to “smear” those who called for investigations into Hunter Biden’s business dealings as being driven by “foreign disinformation.”
