President Joe Biden told the press Friday that he has no plans to visit East Palestine, Ohio following the Feb. 3 train derailment that forced members of the community to leave their homes and continues to pose environmental threats to the general vicinity.
In response to a reporter asking Biden on the White House lawn if the Commander-in-Chief will visit East Palestine three weeks after the locomotive derailment and subsequent release of toxic chemicals, the President said “At this moment [I’m] not,” NBC News reported.
Q: “Are you planning on traveling to East Palestine?”
BIDEN: “At this moment not. I was, I did a whole video, I mean, uh, you know, the uh, what the Hell? On Zoom. All I can hear every time I think of Zoom is that song of my generation, ‘Who’s Zoomin’ Who?’” pic.twitter.com/tFo4zHhEkk
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) February 24, 2023
Biden assured reporters that he is addressing the situation remotely.
“The answer is that I had a long meeting with my team and what they’re doing. You know, we were there within two hours that the train went down, two hours,” Biden told the press. The President added that his cabinet was “keeping very close tabs” in regards to the aftermath of the destruction.
These comments come after former President Donald Trump, a 2024 Republican presidential front-runner,traveled to the region and donated shipments of bottled water and cleaning supplies as part of the Wednesday campaign stop, according to WKBN. Trump railed against the response (or lack thereof) by the current Democratic administration.
While a handful of Ohio politicians insisted that the tap water in East Palestine is safe to consume in a flurry of social media photo ops, residents remain leery, viewing the water as tainted, VICE reported.
The drinking fountain here at East Palestine High School literally has a LOCK on the nozzle that says “DANGER: DO NOT OPERATE”
BUT THE DRINKING WATER IS 100% SAFE, RIGHT? pic.twitter.com/tXOEwev79g
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) February 25, 2023
Biden’s Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was on the ground Thursday and “vowed that his department will work with the administration and Congress to prevent future disasters similar to the Feb. 3 train derailment,” NBC noted. (RELATED: Buttigieg Visits Site Of Train Derailment, Three Weeks After Toxic Crash)
The GOP-majority House Oversight Committee began a probe into the Secretary’s response; including Chairman James Comer of Kentucky alongside other Republican members “[requesting] documents related to maintenance and procedures, including for trains carrying hazardous materials,” according to NBC. (RELATED: Buttigieg’s Office Refuses To Say Why He Took Photo Of DCNF’s Jennie Taer, Demands Reporter Turn Off Camera)
Buttigieg and the White House alike have attributed the toxic train derailment to rail deregulation that happened under the previous administration.
Buttigieg on MSNBC on irony of Trump going to East Palestine: “You water down regulations, you weaken the power of the administration to deal with freight railroad companies, & then you show up wanting to be a great friend of the people who have been impacted by a rail disaster.” pic.twitter.com/vh0s3ylnVe
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 24, 2023
Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) have also taken aim at the Biden administration response effort, accusing federal officials of not doing enough to remedy the railway catastrophe, NBC continued.
Sen. Manchin attacked Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan for declaring at the scene of the incident Feb. 16 that the administration “would work to hold Norfolk Southern responsible for the derailment.” (Norfolk Southern is the transportation company at the center of the derailment debacle.) (RELATED: Train Company Hit With Class Action Lawsuit After Toxic Derailment In Ohio)
On the same day, the Senator from West Virginia released a statement saying it was “unacceptable that it took nearly two weeks for a senior Administration official to show up,” the outlet noted.
According to a Thursday report by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, nearly 40,000 minnows, and 5,000 additional larger species such as “small fish, crayfish, amphibians, and macroinvertebrates” perished in a 5-mile-radius of the derailment site .
BREAKING – DEADLY LIES: Independent researchers at Texas A&M University have just contradicted federal government regulators, saying that toxic air pollutants in East Palestine, Ohio, could pose long-term risks.
The Washington Post writes, “Three weeks after the toxic train… https://t.co/3UtsfHEiIO pic.twitter.com/PLOhfY1ko2
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) February 24, 2023
Texas A&M researchers claim that the influx of toxic chemical outpours derived from the Ohio freight train fallout are linked to both “eye and lung irritation” in addition to dangerous chemicals “that are known or suspected to cause cancer,” The Washington Post reported. One of the researchers, Weihsueh Chiu, told the Post that short-term exposure poses little risk, but rather “It would take months, if not years, of exposure to the pollutants for serious health effects.”
In contrast, Keeve Nachman, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the Post, “We don’t know enough about how those levels will change over time in order to rule out any concerns about long-term exposures or risks…”