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EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

epa.gov

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Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#51

Post by jimkleiber »

jmclnx wrote: post #5

Glad to see this, and if Norfolk Southern goes bankrupt, all assets go to the cleanup and high level execs are changed or are forced to pay the difference. Also, with this being in Ohio, I hope people in Ohio realize how valuable the EPA is and stop voting for people who want to cut every Gov Program except for Defense.

I wonder if expanding our definition of defense would help...EPA defends the air and water and other public sources from things that will harm the environment and us. Literally has "protection" in the name. Maybe we think it's only protecting the "environment" and that we are separate from the environment.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#52

Post by ROTMetro »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #45
jmclnx wrote: post #5

Glad to see this, and if Norfolk Southern goes bankrupt, all assets go to the cleanup and high level execs are changed or are forced to pay the difference. Also, with this being in Ohio, I hope people in Ohio realize how valuable the EPA is and stop voting for people who want to cut every Gov Program except for Defense.

Fines need to start being paid in company stock, its the only thing companies are beholden to. Everything else is just a price to wreck havoc. The more the company purposefully puts people in danger, the more nationally owned they are. Especially when it comes to infrastructure like this. "Sorry, you've been nationalized due to your continued efforts in proving you cannot be trusted". Fines large enough to matter wou…

This is a great idea. And I like the idea of fines being X% shares outstanding, not X dollars as that proportionally penalizes shareholders for not being good corporate owners. It's a win in so many ways.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#53

Post by piva00 »

it_citizen wrote: post #16
jmclnx wrote: post #5

Glad to see this, and if Norfolk Southern goes bankrupt, all assets go to the cleanup and high level execs are changed or are forced to pay the difference. Also, with this being in Ohio, I hope people in Ohio realize how valuable the EPA is and stop voting for people who want to cut every Gov Program except for Defense.

Unfortunately they rarely cut programs immediately. It would be too easy to see the consequences. Instead: 1) freeze or reduce the budget 2) put incompetent people in charge with crazy mission statements 3) wait a bit for the program to fail and skilled employees to leave 4) point at how inefficient and useless the government program is 5) replace it by private sector and contractors It is a classic move and not just…

A classic example of this strategy being used in the past 10-20 years outside of the US is the UK's NHS.

It's been slowly crippled, putting more and more pressure in the system, and eventually the solution to be proposed when the system finally collapses through malicious maladministration will be to privatise it.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#54

Post by jefftk »

MSFT_Edging wrote: post #45
jmclnx wrote: post #5

Glad to see this, and if Norfolk Southern goes bankrupt, all assets go to the cleanup and high level execs are changed or are forced to pay the difference. Also, with this being in Ohio, I hope people in Ohio realize how valuable the EPA is and stop voting for people who want to cut every Gov Program except for Defense.

Fines need to start being paid in company stock, its the only thing companies are beholden to. Everything else is just a price to wreck havoc. The more the company purposefully puts people in danger, the more nationally owned they are. Especially when it comes to infrastructure like this. "Sorry, you've been nationalized due to your continued efforts in proving you cannot be trusted". Fines large enough to matter wou…

This doesn't really make sense. If the company owes more in fines than it's worth, existing shareholders get nothing and the company belongs to its creditors. If it owes large amounts to the government, those claims convert into ownership too.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#55

Post by MSFT_Edging »

riffic wrote: post #50
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fines need to start being paid in company stock, its the only thing companies are beholden to. Everything else is just a price to wreck havoc. The more the company purposefully puts people in danger, the more nationally owned they are. Especially when it comes to infrastructure like this. "Sorry, you've been nationalized due to your continued efforts in proving you cannot be trusted". Fines large enough to matter wou…

the federal government can step in and nationalize the railroad at any point as it has done in the past (woodrow wilson era iirc)

Oh I'm aware, this is more a general idea for "too big to fail" companies in general. Our infrastructure is rotten and often privatized. No one has the funds and ability to hold companies like this accountable except for the federal government.

Look at Steven Donzinger. He reported on toxic spills by Chevron in Nicaragua that poisoned indigenous water supplies. Chevron hired a private prosecutor and found a judge in their favor to force him into house arrest(for over a year) for not supplying a document.

Large corporations have the cards stacked in their favor.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#56

Post by gretch »

jimkleiber wrote: post #51
jmclnx wrote: post #5

Glad to see this, and if Norfolk Southern goes bankrupt, all assets go to the cleanup and high level execs are changed or are forced to pay the difference. Also, with this being in Ohio, I hope people in Ohio realize how valuable the EPA is and stop voting for people who want to cut every Gov Program except for Defense.

I wonder if expanding our definition of defense would help...EPA defends the air and water and other public sources from things that will harm the environment and us. Literally has "protection" in the name. Maybe we think it's only protecting the "environment" and that we are separate from the environment.

I think the left usually has very weak messaging (as opposed to the right which has strong messaging but is sometimes just blatantly false).

Maybe you could call voters to action by saying we need to “protect our -lands-“ (stronger ring than air or water) or even better, “protect our -people- from having to live in a toxic environment”.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#57

Post by rootusrootus »

pookha wrote: post #27

Apparently there are something like 1K derailments a year in the US? Had no idea...Seems pretty high. https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2023/02/17/tra...

How does this compare to Europe, or the rest of the world? I can spot numbers like 'every other day' in Europe, but getting comparables is proving difficult. Given the different nature of the tracks, usage, and geography, it may be difficult to draw a meaningful comparison anyway.

I do see that the rates are broadly similar between Canada and the US, which is not a surprise but does suggest a correlation.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#58

Post by xadhominemx »

thatguy0900 wrote: post #40
xadhominemx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about Ethylhexyl acrylate? Not very toxic outside of high dose acute exposures.

Surely you would volunteer to drink low doses in all your drinking water for the rest of your life then?

If I drank private well water in east Palestine I would make sure that contamination was closely monitored and drink bottled water for a while. Drinking water from the tap? Yes I would do that.

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#59

Post by barbazoo »

thepasswordis wrote: post #17

I'd like to see the head of the EPA, the transportation secretary, the executive team at NS, and anybody in the Biden administration who was involved in blocking the rail workers from striking move into East Palestine and live there, with their children. Don't want to do that because it isn't safe? Then buy these people all new homes. We can start the bidding at $1M per household. I cannot overstate the fury that I f…

> It is further demoralizing to watch our President on a tour of Ukraine, giving away tens of billions of dollars to fight a proxy war

Because this made it sound like on this trip he gave them "tens of billions of dollars", that's not correct.

> In his remarks alongside Zelensky, Biden said the United States would provide another half-billion dollars of assistance to Ukraine, including additional ammunition for the artillery systems the United States previously provided.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/20/president-bi...

Re: EPA orders Norfolk Southern to conduct all cleanup actions related to derailment

#60

Post by MSFT_Edging »

jefftk wrote: post #54
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fines need to start being paid in company stock, its the only thing companies are beholden to. Everything else is just a price to wreck havoc. The more the company purposefully puts people in danger, the more nationally owned they are. Especially when it comes to infrastructure like this. "Sorry, you've been nationalized due to your continued efforts in proving you cannot be trusted". Fines large enough to matter wou…

This doesn't really make sense. If the company owes more in fines than it's worth, existing shareholders get nothing and the company belongs to its creditors. If it owes large amounts to the government, those claims convert into ownership too.

Rather than converting the liquid operating budget into paid fines, it converts the shares retained by the company.

A company this big doesn't need to sell shares to get operating capital. This should apply to any company that does stock buybacks to inflate stock price, rather than reinvesting into their company, employees, etc.

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