***To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***
With the investigation into the cause of the deadly Amtrak train derailment in Tacoma, Washington still underway, on Tuesday CBS Evening News placed the blame on the Trump administration claiming they were the ones putting off the implementation of the proper safety regulations. Their accusations came amid reports that both the train and the track were equipped with the required positive train control system (PTC), but they weren’t activated.
After beginning his report was a demonstration of how PTC worked, Transportation Correspondent Kris Van Cleave recalled “this deadly 2008 accident in California prompted Congress to mandate PTC by the end of 2015. But that year, just months after the Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia, Congress voted to delay the deadline until 2018.”
“People have died as a result of that extension,” exclaimed former National Transportation Safety Board Chair Mark Rosenker to Van Cleave. That was then followed up with Van Cleave lamenting how “this year the Trump administration has five times delayed a requirement for passenger railroads to develop a system-wide safety plan, and it has abandoned rules for stricter sleep apnea testing despite a series of deadly crashes and against NTSB recommendations.”
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