President Joe Biden said he has no plans right now to visit the site of a disastrous train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that left residents worried about contaminated air and water.
(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden said he has no plans right now to visit the site of a disastrous train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that left residents worried about contaminated air and water.
Biden, speaking to reporters Friday at the White House before traveling to his home in Wilmington, Delaware, defended the administration’s response to the wreck, saying federal officials were on the ground to assist just hours afterward.
“I’m keeping very close tabs on it. We’re doing all we can,” he said. “The idea that we’re not engaged is just simply not there.”
Biden added that there was not, initially, a request for him to visit East Palestine before he traveled to Ukraine and Poland for the one-year mark of Russia’s invasion.
The Feb. 3 derailment of a Norfolk Southern Corp. train carrying toxic chemicals has become a political challenge for Biden, as Republicans and some Democrats have said his administration was too slow to respond.
Former President Donald Trump, who could face Biden in a potential rematch in 2024, visited East Palestine on Wednesday and drove home the message that the current administration has shown “indifference and betrayal” to the community.
The crisis has touched on the nation’s deep political and class divisions. East Palestine is a small, mostly White working-class town in the eastern part of a state that twice voted for Trump.
Biden’s team has said Trump and his Republican allies were the ones who actually left East Palestine vulnerable to disaster by rolling back rail-safety measures and downsizing the Environmental Protection Agency.
The president earlier Friday received a briefing on the federal response from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.
Buttigieg, who has come under fire from Republicans, promised the administration would “never forget the people of East Palestine” during a Thursday visit to the derailment site to meet with workers and local officials.
Administration officials have said they are committed to providing assistance as long as it takes, and the EPA ordered Norfolk Southern to pay clean-up costs.
(Adds information about Biden’s briefing in ninth paragraph)
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