Still no plans for Biden to visit East Palestine

The White House on Monday said there are still no plans for President Joe Biden to visit East Palestine, Ohio – even though he promised he would visit the site of the train derailment.

‘I don’t have anything to share on a planned visit by the president,’ press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked about it at her press briefing.

Biden said last week he would visit the area, which suffered from a toxic chemical spill after the railway accident and is facing a long cleanup, at ‘some point.’

‘I have spoken with every official in Ohio, Democrat and Republican, on a continuing basis,’ Biden told reporters after meeting with Senate Democrats, asked whether he would visit. ‘We will be out there at some point.’

But no trip has been announced. 

Biden’s administration, particularly Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, was heavily criticized for a slow response to the accident. 

It has been 31 days since 5,000 people were forcded to evacuate and tens of thousands of animals died after a Norfolk Southern train derailed and spilled hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, soil and water around the small Ohio community.

In the weeks since, authorities have undertaken a massive clean up operation.

More than 700 tons of contaminated soil and nearly two million gallons of liquid have been collected from the derailment site, Ohio officials said, with much more left to clean up under the order of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, needled Biden to visit East Palestine. 

‘He should come, there’s no doubt about it,’ DeWine said in an interview with Fox News. ‘The president needs to come. The people want to see the president. He should be there.’ 

The cleanup continues in East Palestine, Ohio, after a train derailment spilled hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, soil and water

‘I don’t have anything to share on a planned visit by the president,’ press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked about it at her press briefing

Buttigieg has become the scapegoat for the administration and has gone on the defensive about the response of his agency.

He visited East Palestine on February 23 – 20 days after the accident.

Former President Donald Trump had visited one day earlier, where he accused the Biden administration of ‘indifference and betrayal’ to the community. 

Buttigieg admitted to CNN on Monday he should have visited sooner. But he claimed that his conservative critics were feigning outrage for the 4,700-person town where median household income is $46,000. 

He called Trump’s visit ‘somewhat maddening – to see someone who did a lot try to gut not just rail safety regulations, but the EPA, which is the number one thing standing between that community and a total loss of accountability for Norfolk Southern and then show up giving out bottled water and campaign swag?’ 

The Feb. 3 derailment sent dozens of cars – including some carrying a total of 1.6 million pounds of hazardous chemicals – off the tracks in the town on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. 

Five tank cars held close to 900,000 pounds of vinyl chloride, a carcinogenic industrial chemical that has been linked to liver damage in cases of high levels of exposure.

The derailment caused a fire that lasted for days. Firefighters used more than a million gallons of water to fight the flames, which also contributed to the soil contamination.

A giant plume of smoke from the aftermath of the incident could be seen from miles away

The chemicals on the board the train were vinyl chloride, butyl acrylate, benzene residue, glycol monobutyl ether, ethylhexyl acrylate and isobutylene

Last week, Biden ordered officials to go door-to-door in East Palestine asking residents to fill out surveys amid fears of an emerging public health crisis. 

The EPA gave the all clear for residents to return their homes and independent testing backed those findings. 

But residents expressed their frustrations at state and federal officials and a Norfolk Southern representative at a townhall meeting last week.

Homeowners have been complaining of many medical problems, including eye and skin irritation, nausea and headaches. 

The decision to do a controlled burn to help the cleanup led to fears among residents that they were exposed to high levels of vinyl chloride, a colorless gas that burns easily and is associated with an increased risk of several cancers including brain, liver and lung cancers.