These four Republican senators raked in $500,000 from big rail corporations — now they're against regulations

The New Republic on Tuesday called out Republican senators they say are pretending to care about the environment and workers exposed to the chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio.

Rail corporations spent millions lobbying elected officials not to support stronger transportation safety regulations, financial reports revealed. But they also gave at least $472,000 since 2016 to Republican Senators Marco Rubio (FL), Ted Cruz (TX), Josh Hawley (MO) and Ron Johnson (WI).

"The rail companies have contributed to other Republicans of course, and to Democrats as well," said the report. Meanwhile, Hawley, Rubio, Cruz and Johnson have gone above and beyond talking about their concern in Ohio.

Since the derailment, Rubio has spent a lot of time attacking Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and calling for his resignation. Rubio scored $54,500 in cash from the biggest rail corporations, including Norfolk Southern, the company that owns the trail disaster in Ohio. Rubio also got $107,000 for his political action committee.

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Cruz has celebrated deregulation, particularly when it comes to transportation. Less than 24 hours later, Cruz called on policymakers to “address the derailment’s root causes rather than simply advance narrow political interests.”

He's taken $32,500 from the big rail companies and nearly $100k for his PAC.

In 2021, "he co-sponsored legislation narrowing the amount of time agencies have to complete environmental reviews of proposed federal action, and assigning penalties to agencies that don’t comply with those timelines," the Republic noted. "Cruz also pushed a bill in the same Congress, alongside Senators John Kennedy and Kevin Cramer, to prohibit the Department of Transportation from issuing any regulation to limit the transportation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by rail."

Hawley, on the other hand, suddenly decided he cared about the people of Ohio and their exposure to chemicals and demanded that the EPA and Transportation Secretary Buttigieg act. His PAC got $3,000 from Norfolk Southern and $10,000 from BNSF prior to the 2020 election. He also got a personal donation from a Norfolk board member in 2018.

"As Missouri Attorney General, Hawley was among the Republican officials who helped weaken Obama-era water protections," the New Republic reported.

Johnson has ranted about the trail derailment in fundraising emails since it happened, but it's all an effort to pay off his campaign debt. Johnson got $53,500 from the top four big rail companies and $114,00 for his PAC. He co-sponsored a bill to delay the implementation of a monitoring system that all trains would be required aiming to prevent collisions and derailment.

Gov. Mike DeWine (R-OH) has refused to ask the federal government for help or to declare a statewide emergency, which cripples the response abilities of the federal government. He's taken $29,000 from Norfolk Southern since 2018.

Read the full report here.