Vance criticizes White House in EP visit
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EAST PALESTINE -- Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) made a brief stop in East Palestine on the eve of the one-year anniversary of last year's Norfolk Southern train derailment on Friday, using his time in the village to call on a long term health monitoring in the wake of the rail disaster, talk about the stalled railway safety legislation and criticize Joe Biden for what Vance considers an inadequate 12-month long derailment response from the White House.
"I think what would be meaningful is not for Joe Biden to come and do a press conference but to direct the government to do the things that are necessary for the people of East Palestine," Vance said.
Vance took aim at the White House for failing to order the National Institute of Health to conduct baseline testing for residents who live in the communities impacted by the derailment and chemical release of vinyl chloride and other noxious chemicals and failing to sign a Presidential Disaster Declaration in the wake of the derailment.
"If you talk to people, including the people who want to move on from this disaster, these people are still worried about chemical contamination. They want to know with confidence that 10 years down the road, something happens to their kids God forbid or themselves they can trace it to this accident or not," Vance said. "The only way to do that is to do the health baseline screening that we have talked about and we have tried to pressure the Biden Administration to do something. They have been completely unmoved on it."
Vance said only the federal government can fund the study needed.
"We talked to a number of epidemiologists and people who are trained in this stuff, and the fundamental question that we and so many residents had went unanswered. No one can answer with confidence what chronic exposure at low levels looks like over a decade-long period," Vance said. "What we did is put together a study to answer that question. We think it will cost $15 million dollars but the National Institute of Health has to be directed by the Biden administration to put their resources into that study. My office can't fund it. The state government can't fund it, the federal government can fund it easily and could do so tomorrow."
When addressing Biden's apparent reluctance to sign the disaster declaration request, Vance said that much like the president's impending visit to the village, it is too little, too late.
"I think it's shameful that he hasn't signed it. The minute Mike DeWine, the governor of the state, asked for it, the president should have responded," Vance said. "When you talk to community leaders now and they say a disaster declaration is not necessary. It would have been much, much more helpful when the governor initially made the request. It's way too little way too late like so much the Biden administration has done."
The request has been sitting on the White House desk for six months now -- coincidentally that's the same amount of time it took DeWine to submit it. DeWine finally made that request on Aug 3, the sixth-month anniversary of the disaster following public pressure from some residents to do so. Others believe such a declaration is not necessary. Village leaders have not officially supported or opposed a declaration.
Vance acknowledged such division in the community.
"When I am here, I always face two basic categories of views on how to move on from this disaster. One group is saying 'look we got to rebuild our community, we got to focus on bringing economic development in, we got to focus on getting people the support they need to help them rebuild,'" he said. "And then you got another group of people who are still very focused on what happened."
Though the two sides are focused on seemingly different things, addressing one issue would take care of the other.
"I don't think either one is right or either one is wrong. They are both right in my view. It is perfectly justifiable to worry about the train crash that happened a few hundred feet from your house and also perfectly reasonable to say this is great to work and live in and we have to rebuild and bring economic development," Vance added. "Both things could be true and in some ways they work together. I understand there is some division in the community. I think the best way to give people confidence to rebuild, start a business, start a family in East Palestine is to finish the clean-up and do the long term health screening to answer those all important questions. If you do that you will help a lot with the rebranding effort."
Vance also said 'two things can be true at once' when discussing the community's concerns versus the EPA's stance that the soil, air and water are safe.
"The EPA says the contamination is not at a level that causes them concern. That can be true and yet there's still some contamination at some level and we don't know what chronic exposure to that contamination will look like. That's why we need to establish the baseline and better understand what chronic exposure to some of these chemicals look like," he said. "The EPA can be right, and I hope they are right,that is, if you are exposed to these chemicals at this level it's not going to cause immediate health concerns. That can be separate from the actual concerns of most residents. They are not asking 'what if I am exposed to this for three weeks at this level'. They are asking what if I am exposed for 15 years at this level'. That's why we need to do federal studies that are paid for by the federal government where we can answer those specific questions."
Aside from a health study by the NIH, Vance said passage of the Railway Safety Act - which was introduced by Vance and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in March - is also vital in the wake of the derailment. That bill still awaits a vote. Sixty are needed to advance it to the House. Vance is confident he has those votes. What he needs is Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to bring it to the floor.
"This is where (Schumer) should face some criticism. Anything takes a long time in the Senate, there are various procedural mechanisms you have to jump through. What we need are two-days of floor time," he said. "I have days in the United States Senate where I have sat in my office all day, taking meetings, taking phone calls and we don't cast a single vote. The idea that the majority leader cannot give us two days when we don't even vote some days, is absurd and he has to yet bring this thing up to a vote. We are getting to the point where we can't have any more excuses.
"We have the votes on it, but we need the majority leader to bring it up to the vote, get this thing over the hump in the senate and get passed by the House and signed by the President."