AUSTIN, Texas (TND) — Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg got blasted by critics after he spoke at a major conference in Austin, Texas, about diversifying America's infrastructure workforce, but ignored a major crisis in Ohio where a train derailment released tons of toxic chemicals into the atmosphere.

At the National Association of Counties Conference held Monday, and attended by several White House officials, Buttigieg spoke about "building a workforce that reflects the community." He claimed construction sites in urban communities were not employing local minorities but rather outsourcing "the good paying jobs" to people who are white.

We have heard way too many stories from generations past of infrastructure where you got a neighborhood -- often a neighborhood of color -- that finally sees the project come to them, but everyone in the hard hats on that project, doing the good paying jobs, don't look like they came from anywhere near the neighborhood," Buttigieg said. "You can build community wealth that will help close wealth gaps in this country if we can tear down those barriers."

But during his talk Monday, Buttigieg failed to mention the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment that released huge clouds of highly hazardous and flammable vinyl chloride into the air.

Just Pete doing the old number 1 out of the Biden crisis playbook- ignore major crisis, divert with woke gibberish," tweeted former Washington state congressional candidate Joe Kent. When the topic of racist highways or white construction crews comes up, Secretary Pete Buttigieg is an open book. But, when an ecological disaster takes place in Ohio he is MIA," tweeted David Giglio, another former congressional candidate from California, who now hosts a weekly podcast. "Are there any members of Joe Biden's cabinet who are serious about doing their jobs?"

Monday evening, following the criticism against Buttigieg being blasted across Twitter, the transportation secretary finally spoke to the toxic crisis. He said on Twitter he continues to be "concerned" about the East Palestine train derailment and the effects it was having on locals in the area.

USDOT has been supporting the investigation led by The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Our Federal Rail Administration and Pipelines and Hazardous Materials teams were onsite within hours of the initial incident and continue to be actively engaged," Buttigieg followed up in a separate tweet. "In the meantime, our Federal partners at EPA are onsite and monitoring indoor and outdoor air quality to test for VOCs and other chemicals of concern."

Conservative political commentator Tomi Lahren chimed in Tuesday morning blasting Buttigieg for what she deemed was a poor response to the transportation crisis.

We get a tweet from our Transportation Secretary," Lahren lamented during an interview on Fox & Friends First. "We talk about this administration all the time and not studying for the test but I would say it's much worse than that, they're refusing to even take the test. When Pete talks about things like racial disparity, and diversity and racism over and over again I don't believe it's because he's truly concerned about those things, I think it's because he doesn't want to do his actual job. When you talk about feelings and emotions, and when you raise that continually, you don't actually have to solve any problems -- you just convince everybody that their an oppressor or they're a victim."

ncG1vNJzZmihlJa1sLrEsKpnm5%2BifK%2Bx1qxmp5mknryvedaoqaWcX5fCtcDIoKCen12ouaK5zJ6bZp6fp3qqs82oqaKml2LBs63Ip2SdnaKWtq25xKerZqyYlsFuv8%2Berp6cXam8r7%2BMnKOorZSoerW716KaZpuYmrqqr8ClqmaolamybrvHoqZmnZGowW68wKWcrKyZo7I%3D