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Three Trains Derail Just Days After Buffett's BNSF Beats Back Railroad Regulations
Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,
There's this...
Last week, under pressure from companies including Buffett’s BNSF Railway Co, which has spent more money lobbying Congress this year than any other railroad, U.S. legislators passed, and President Obama signed, a law that delays the so-called positive train control mandate for at least three years, with the possibility of an additional two-year delay.
That means railroad operators can put off having to buy and install equipment that safety advocates say would have prevented accidents that have claimed more than 245 lives and caused over 4,200 injuries since the National Transportation Safety Board began calling for the technology in 1969.
– From the Reuters article: Buffett’s BNSF Helped Lead Fight to Delay Train Safety Technology
And then there's this...
A freight train derailed near Alma in western Wisconsin, spilling thousands of gallons of ethanol. BNSF Railway said crews continued Sunday to transfer ethanol from the derailed cars and get the cars back on the tracks.
The BNSF train derailed at 8:45 a.m. Saturday about two miles north of Alma, a town along the Mississippi River. Some of the 25 derailed cars were empty auto racks and tanker cars.
BNSF said railroad crews stopped the leaks from five tanker cars and placed containment booms along the shoreline. One tanker released an estimated 18,000 gallons of ethanol, and the other four released an estimated 5 to 500 gallons each.
– From ABC News: 2nd Train Derails in Wisconsin in 2 Days, Spills Crude Oil
Last week, a friend of mine sent me an Reuter’s article titled: Buffett’s BNSF Helped Lead Fight to Delay Train Safety Technology. It immediately caught my attention, because I am of the unconventional belief that Warren Buffett’s entire public persona of a gentle, kind and caring grandfatherly-type investing guru is a complete and total act.
Granted, I think Warren Buffett is a brilliant man, I just don’t think he’s a good guy. In fact, when you look in particular at his behavior through the banker bailout period, it becomes clear that the man is only concerned about his own bottom line, and merely feigns a bleeding heart for the long-term welfare of the nation.
All you have to do is see how the man morphed into a Obamanomics cheerleader in exchange for following a bailout of his financial investments, and continues to support economic policies that have done little other than transform this nation into a total Banana Republic oligarchy in less than a decade.
But I digress. Let’s get into the heart of this post by showing how his railroad company, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, successfully lobbied to delay certain regulations.
From Reuters:
When an Amtrak passenger train derailed in Philadelphia in May, killing eight people and injuring scores more, the railroad industry’s campaign to delay a Dec. 31 deadline to install technology to prevent such disasters appeared to be finished.
Not, as it turned out, if billionaire investor Warren Buffett and Sen. John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, had anything to do with it. Thune chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the rail industry.
Last week, under pressure from companies including Buffett’s BNSF Railway Co, which has spent more money lobbying Congress this year than any other railroad, U.S. legislators passed, and President Obama signed, a law that delays the so-called positive train control mandate for at least three years, with the possibility of an additional two-year delay.
That means railroad operators can put off having to buy and install equipment that safety advocates say would have prevented accidents that have claimed more than 245 lives and caused over 4,200 injuries since the National Transportation Safety Board began calling for the technology in 1969.
Railroad advocates presented a blunt argument: Unless the mandate to install positive train control technology was delayed, the railroads would attempt to cripple the economy. Railroads that missed the deadline to install systems that automatically slow or stop a train under dangerous circumstances claimed that they would face heightened liabilities by operating outside of federal law, and that therefore they would decline to carry passengers, including commuters. They wouldn’t deliver commodities that are classified as hazardous, but are also vital to the economy – including chemicals like chlorine and ammonia needed to run city water treatment plants, refine oil and keep farms and factories running.
BNSF, at $3.9 million, was the biggest spender among individual rail operators as railroads and allies including unions and regional transit authorities spent almost $25 million lobbying Congress on PTC and other issues, according to Senate documents.
And now, for the first and likely last time I will ever agree with Senator Dianne Feinstein…
“It is entirely inappropriate that the railroad industry would make hostages of America’s passenger rail services and chemical shippers in order to secure their favored legislative outcome,” Feinstein said in a statement for the Congressional Record. “It is offensive that only when a railroad could face full liability for an accident that they find operation without PTC to be unacceptably dangerous.”
Lobbying by shippers and other interests, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, drove total spending to almost $113 million over the course of the year. Records show that lobby spending jumped from about $18.5 million in the first quarter to $70 million in the third quarter as the push intensified.
But after May’s Amtrak disaster, “when they announced that this could have been prevented if they’d had positive train control, there was a real spotlight on why we weren’t there and what we could do to get there faster,” Thune told Reuters in an interview.
That left it to four members of Congress – all of them big beneficiaries of rail industry campaign contributions – to work out a deal that could win bipartisan support in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. They then pushed to attach it to a must-pass short-term extension to the Highway Trust Fund.
The measure passed both chambers on simple voice votes that meant individual lawmakers didn’t have their positions recorded. Supporters said that showed near universal support for the measure.
While I do not have the expertise to say whether or not the train derailments over the weekend had anything to do with the PTC issue, I do know two things. First, Warren Buffett’s BNSF was the biggest spender in getting these regulations delayed, and second, one of the trains that derailed over the weekend was a BNSF train.
We learn from ABC News:
A Canadian Pacific Railway train derailed Sunday, spilling less than 1,000 gallons of crude oil and prompting evacuations in Wisconsin, the second day in a row a freight train derailed in the state.
Thirteen cars of an eastbound CP train went off the tracks around 2 p.m. in Watertown, in the southeastern part of the state, the railroad said. One tank car was punctured and leaked oil.
The incident came a day after a freight train derailed near Alma in western Wisconsin, spilling thousands of gallons of ethanol. BNSF Railway said crews continued Sunday to transfer ethanol from the derailed cars and get the cars back on the tracks.
The BNSF train derailed at 8:45 a.m. Saturday about two miles north of Alma, a town along the Mississippi River. Some of the 25 derailed cars were empty auto racks and tanker cars.
BNSF said railroad crews stopped the leaks from five tanker cars and placed containment booms along the shoreline. One tanker released an estimated 18,000 gallons of ethanol, and the other four released an estimated 5 to 500 gallons each.
- *BNSF REPORTS FREIGHT TRAIN DERAILMENT IN DANVILLE, IOWA
So 3 trains in 3 days just a week after Buffett successfully lobbies for the delay of safety fixes for his railcars...
* * *
For more on the real Warren Buffett, see:
No Capital Controls for Oligarchs – Warren Buffett Buys Greek Island
Warren Buffett the Slumlord – Predatory Loans, Kickbacks and Preying on the Poor at Clayton Homes
More Hypocrisy from Warren Buffett as He Structures Deal to Avoid $400 Million in Taxes
Crony Capitalist “Uncle” Warren Buffett Drives Company Profits Using Derivatives
»
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Bluffin' Buffet is definitely using the correct finger on that puppet
What's the scam? How does Buffet make more money having trains crash than having them run properly?
He doesn't, PTC isn't much of a bang for the buck.
Bet this is nothing more than insurance fraud on the federal level.
We need to bring back being boiled in oil as a solution for certain problems.
They didn't bother to contain the flow of liquid from broken bottles during prohibition, why bother now?
There is a distinct possibility that the fed mandated stuff is about as practical as a seat belt on a horse...
Some dirty oil "manmade global warming" oligarchs are more equal than others.
he probably has cds's or high insurance poicies against them. This way he can bankrupt an insurance company(then subsequently buy it up for pennies after screwing shareholders over) and at the same time collect more then what the train in worth.
winning
Thanks. I tought insurance scam, but was stumped by the thought who in their right mind would offer train insurance to Buffet?
One of buffet's taxpayer backed insurance co.s silly.
If nothing else, the criminals who control Congress are good at sanctioning murder. Notice the dichotomy between the Obama administration actions on Volkswagen cars with defective emission controls and the deaths that are the result of Buffet's BNSF blocking train safety technology for years. The best Congress money can buy. As for Obama, I wouldn't be surprised if he and his fellow Muslim Brennan hold weekly conferences with ISIS leader al-Baghdadi.
Outlaw road graders. They get in the way of bidnessss.
"I am of the unconventional belief that Warren Buffett’s entire public persona of a gentle, kind and caring grandfatherly-type investing guru is a complete and total act."
You mean he didn't become one of the richest people in the world by buying and hold KO and drinking coca cola and bananna splits all day?
Get the fuck out.
And he had nothing to do with cornering the US Treasury market at Salomon Brothers and ensuring no one got in trouble by making a phone call to the FED and Treasury right? Never happened. He just plays ukulele and sells Sees Candy.
Probably had more to do with his connections to the tribe.
http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1997/10/27/...
Yeah Good Ol' Uncle Warren isn't some Dairy Queen regular buy and hold like Grandpa Jethro kinda guy. He's ruthless like Rockefeller with the best PR mankind has ever seen.
Grandpa Buffet has engaged in everything from government corruption, to insider trading, to bribery, to front running, to everything. He's just in the ivory tower and untouchable. He is the Wizard of Oz.
Still my hero next to Rockefeller.
Just another front. Like Rockefeller.
Google: Rockefeller giving dimes.
Rockefeller was the shit. Buffet is the shit.
Buffet succeeded where Rockefeller failed.....Public relations.
A dime bought a lot of influence back then (translation: sad public relations cynically fed back to their narcissistic masters) but that was before the Internet.
Now. Not so much
I'm just hoping that karma or some sort of payback in the afterlife is real, but i doubt it.
Why all this hating on Buffett?? I'd bet there are a handful of people that have eaten more babies than him!
lol. There has to be a reason that so many of these evil fucks live forever...
It's the law of numbers and democrats.
If only there were some other safer, more economical and more environmentally friendly means of transporting highly toxic and dangerous liquid chemicals - I don't know, perhaps some sort of fixed tube. Just brainstorming here - then we could avoid all these rail accidents and spills that are completely preventable.
Rail is the absolute best and prudent way to ship the stuff we need, secondary to water, over long distances, if you plan it out. Including coal.
sarc: But if you are super smart, we can create a statist nuclear power monopoly and carbon taxes via puppet politicians. /sarc
Warren Buffet: "Make sure any business you create can be run by and idiot, because someday it will be"
Yes. That's why the water into our houses comes via rail. And sewage out goes by rail, too. No low cost, highly efficient tubes or anything.
Hey, can you cite the volumetric spill rate of modern pipelines, versus 60 year old technology, and how that compares favorably with tankers and rail?
Was semi-Sarc. Apologies. But if we plan for it, we can use rail to transport nuclear waste to yucca mountain. Harry Reid can try to make me pay taxes.
Montreal is looking at loading their sewage onto tanker ships now.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-sewage-dump-tanker-ships...
I bet Obama's decision to finally turn down Trans Canada Pipelines proposal to run a pipeline from the Canadian oil sands through to the US gulf coast because "it is not in the best interests of the USA" has a bit to do with the fact that BNSF is one of the rail co's that transport huge volumes of this oil by rail tankers. Can't have gramps cash cow stop producing milk.
Plus the old rotted yukelee playing asshole is from Nebraska and more than likely controls most of the state politics! Just before the oil price cratered BNSF put in an order for 35,000 new rail oil tankers!
It was the train division of our CIA backed Allies, El 'Choo Choo' Quada.
A book will be written a few years from now, telling us how it went down.
Has that old wrinkled rotting cadaver not croaked yet?
Got to love sensationalizing reporters. They say "1000 gallons" spilled, becasue it sounds scarier than saying, 20 barrels of ethanol spilled.
Or conveniently excluding the extra 10% in transportation costs that EVERYONE has to pay to that old evil bastard!
why don't I ever see him or his ilk around my neighborhood--- I would love to catch that guy down by the 7eleven some night. Oh well, dream on ---
can't say i blame him. a pipeline would be cutting into his profits twenty years from now when he is a hundred thirty two years old. if one wants to know why the usa is going down the shitter one look at his ilk and you have your answer.
What the hell, this "liberty advocate" is advocating federal regulations be enforced rather than not, perhaps even expanded by that line of reasoning?
These "safety regulations" should indeed be scrapped, along with all other regulations and additional legal obstacles to the entry of competing railroads. Only competition can regulate.
Arguing one particular tradeoff of transportation cost versus transportation safety is universally superior to all others for all people is accepting the premise such matters can be centrally determined. This is no free market stance.
"lol. There has to be a reason that so many of these evil fucks live forever..."
Nephilim.
OT: Latest news from the Massive Train Wreck Dept.
More ISIS becomes WasWas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIXNxwNrssk
"Railroad advocates presented a blunt argument: Unless the mandate to install positive train control technology was delayed, the railroads would attempt to cripple the economy. Railroads that missed the deadline to install systems that automatically slow or stop a train under dangerous circumstances claimed that they would face heightened liabilities by operating outside of federal law, and that therefore they would decline to carry passengers, including commuters. They wouldn’t deliver commodities that are classified as hazardous, but are also vital to the economy – including chemicals like chlorine and ammonia needed to run city water treatment plants, refine oil and keep farms and factories running."
I wonder if Buffet would have done all this shit and have his bottom line turn red. He's a bull shitter and Congress should have called his bluff.
Evil is as Evil does.
It's Global Warming. It's causing the rails to expand and make trains go boom. Minorities, Gays and Non-Flatulent Unicorns are the most adversely affected.
I've been skimming off the railroad,
All the live long day.
I've been skimming off the railroad,
all the profits come my way!
Can't you hear the brokers calling,
Buy up some more shares in the morn',
Can't you see more crashes coming?
We'll all be held to scorn.
Lobbying with billions will get you *results*.
Just ask Corzine, Christie, and Madoff.
$43.30 serves as an important level to create a new bullish momentum. The RSI and other indicators are all lining up nicely for when the support at $43.30 holds.
http://tripstrading.com/2015/11/09/oil-daily-43-30-level-as-trigger/
PTC wouldn't have made one iota of difference in this recent incident. The railways should be investing in technology to make them state-of-the-art. Its unfortunate that Congress had to pass laws to 'make' them. However, Congress has also passed many laws over the years damaging the business of railways, such as heavily subsidizing other forms of transportation that compete with railways. Thus depriving them of the long-term profitability that is necessary for significant investment.
Most corrupt administration in the history of this country .
And thats sayin' something!
Looks like Buffet replaced all positions with idiots.
Okay, so it might cost Buffett a few dollars to upgrade the safety system, but I don't see that being such a problem that he would lobby to stop the installations. What's the problem? I mean, the amount money he spent to grease the palms necessary to stop the law from passing was probably what he'd have to spend to upgrade.
Who cares about a spilled load of corn likker, except the town drunk? The stuff is water soluble, and readily evaporates into the air. It's also good mixed with cola.
While it is fun to pile on Buffett, part of the reason this law was postponed was it would force passenger and commuter trains to suspend service. This prevented tens of thousands of commuters from losing their mode of transportaton.
So Americans prefer rail haulage of crude to pipelines, eh?
No! They weren't asked! Only certain 'special' people get to control signiifcant matters such as those and u ain't one of them! So git back to work and focus on global warming!
Look, I have no love for Buffett and his rent-seeking ass kissing. BNSF also seems to have a safety problem that other big roads do not, and it's probably related to things like track maintenance, tank car "sloshing" and crew experience, none of which would be affected by Positive Train Control.
However, Buffett didn't beat back anything. Positive Train Control was delayed because it doesn't exist. A bunch of theories about how great it would be if every train in the country could be controlled so there would never, ever be a collision. Billions have been spent on making this idea an untested reality that relies on complicated code and satellite GPS positionining. We have no idea if it will be vulnwerable to hackers or foreign powers.
Worse, all the spending might be better spent if it were used for existing, proven technologies. Last May's Amtrak Train 188 wreck culd have been prevented if ATS (Automated Train Stop) was deployed in both directions, and it's been a proven technology since the 1930's.
Does Buffet ever go outside long enogh for a 2-4000 yard shot? I bet he's that paranoid to be in the air for 10 seconds.
I think Buffett is a douche, but there is no evidence that the derailments would have been prevented by "positive train controll" equipment. Most likely derailment was due to roadbed/rail failure due to poor maintenance as the result of cost cutting.
Don't let that "grandpa" shuck and jive fool you. Buffett makes his money killing and screwing over the American Middle Class.