(Washington) President Joe Biden has ordered United States federal agencies to go door-to-door in East Palestine, Ohio, to meet with families affected by the derailment of a freight train carrying toxic materials which turned into a heated political controversy.
Under Mr. Biden’s order, teams from various US public agencies, such as those for disease control and prevention and the environment, will visit homes in the municipality to ask how residents are doing, see what they’re up to. need and put them in touch with the appropriate resources.
These teams are modeled after similar teams after hurricanes and other natural disasters.
The US president did not specify the number of homes to be checked, but asked employees to visit as many as possible by Monday. The US leader said that at this time he has no plans to travel there personally.
His order came as Republicans in the House of Representatives opened an investigation into the Feb. 3 derailment.
Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has become the latest lawmaker to engage in what has become a political proxy war as each party clashes following the derailment and rejection of chemicals that led to the evacuation of the small Ohio community.
“Despite the responsibility of the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) to provide safe and reliable transportation in the United States, you have ignored the disaster for more than a week,” accused the Republican from Kentucky in a letter to the Secretary of State. Transportation, Pete Buttigieg.
“The American people deserve answers as to the cause of the derailment. The DOT must provide an explanation for its leadership’s apathy in the face of this emergency. »
A preliminary report released by the US National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday said the Norfolk Southern freight train crew did not receive many warnings before dozens of carriages ran off the tracks . Furthermore, there is no indication that the crew members did anything wrong.
Republicans cast the incident as a moral failing by the Biden administration, while Democrats point to rollbacks made by former President Donald Trump during his tenure that weakened rail and environmental regulations.
Oversight committee letter requests documents and communications regarding when DOT leaders learned of the derailment and whether they received any advice on the public response, as well as recent changes to maintenance and procedures agency trains.
A day earlier, Mr Buttigieg made his first visit to the crash site.
Norfolk Southern said the National Transportation Safety Board report showed the train’s heat detectors were working as intended and the crew were operating “within company rules”.
Nonetheless, the company said it “should learn as much as possible from this event” and “develop practices and invest in technology that could help prevent an incident like this in the future.”
Among the freight cars that derailed on the outskirts of East Palestine, near the Pennsylvania state line, were 11 cars carrying hazardous materials. Residents were evacuated as fears grew over a potential explosion.
Officials seeking to avoid an uncontrolled explosion released and burned toxic vinyl chloride from five train cars, sending flames and black smoke into the sky. In doing so, people wondered about the possible effects on their health, even though authorities said they were doing their best to protect people.
“This incident is an environmental and public health emergency that now threatens Americans out of state,” Comer and nearly two dozen Republicans said in their letter to Buttigieg.