Vice President JD Vance vowed Monday that the Trump administration will “finish the cleanup” of East Palestine, Ohio, during a visit to mark the 2-year anniversary of a toxic train derailment.
“We are in it for the long haul in East Palestine,” Vance, a former US senator from Ohio, said in remarks from the town’s fire station.
The vice president noted that President Trump wanted him to visit East Palestine and deliver the message that the community “will not be forgotten” and “will not be left behind.”
“What does that mean? Well, one thing it means is that, of course, the environmental cleanup has to get done,” Vance declared, calling it a “tragedy and a shame” that the cleanup wasn’t completed during the Biden administration.
The vice president also signaled that the Trump administration is committed to ensuring East Palestine’s long term economic development.
“We know that a lot of local businesses and a lot of local people lost a lot when that train disaster happened,” Vance said.
On Feb. 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train with several cars carrying hazardous materials derailed while passing through the 4,700-person town about an hour west of Pittsburgh, spilling its cargo into the soil.
The disaster was made worse three days later, when officials ordered a controlled burn of five tank cars filled with toxic vinyl chloride out of unfounded fears that the tanks would explode.
The burn resulted in a dark cloud forming over the town and sparked fear from residents about the long-term health effects of the disaster.
The National Transportation Safety Board later determined that the burn operation was unnecessary because the tank cars were already starting to cool off and wouldn’t have exploded.
More than 177,000 tons of soil and over 67 million gallons of wastewater have been hauled away from East Palestine as part of an ongoing cleanup that has cost Norfolk Southern more than $1 billion.
Vance’s visit coincided with a new lawsuit filed against Norfolk Southern alleging that seven wrongful deaths resulted from the train wreck.
The complaint also alleges the railroad company and its contractors botched the cleanup and that the Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed to adequately warn East Palestine residents about health risks.
Last September, Norfolk Southern agreed to pay out $600 million to everyone who lived within 20 miles of the derailment as part of a class-action settlement.
The company has also agreed to a $22 million settlement for East Palestine that will pay for upgrades to the town’s water treatment plant and to replace police and fire equipment.
Trump, 78, visited East Palestine in 2023 – less than three weeks after the derailment – and delivered water to residents and ordered McDonald’s for first responders.
Former President Joe Biden didn’t visit the town until more than a year after the initial toxic spill.
Vance, 40, acknowledged during his visit that it will take time to fix “the two years of economic pain that have been caused by this train disaster.”
“But you do now have a government that cares about you, that’s going to work on these problems, and it isn’t going to snap its fingers and fix everything, because that’s not how any of this works, but it’s going to fight every single day to make sure you get the infrastructure, the redevelopment aid, and certainly the health and environmental aid that you need to get back on your feet,” he said.
“We’re going to do better by East Palestine than we have over the last couple of years,” Vance vowed. “That’s certainly my commitment to this community.”
