Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) said on Wednesday that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Michael Regan should be willing to drink tap water in East Palestine, Ohio, if the EPA deems the village’s water safe for residents’ consumption.
Vance made his remarks while visiting East Palestine following a nearby train derailment that released toxic chemicals last week:
“Senator, would you like the EPA administrator to drink the tap water?” a reporter asked Vance during a press conference in East Palestine.
Vance replied, “It reminds me of that scene in Erin Brockovich, where she puts the water in front of them and says, ‘If you think it’s clean, we brought this water from the community that was affected.'”
He added, “I think that if the EPA administrator wants to stand here and tell people that the tap water is safe, by all means, they should be willing to drink it.”
Vance said Norfolk Southern, the corporation owning and operating the railway, must be held accountable and liable for its failures leading to the derailment and its consequences.
The senator from Ohio speculated that Norfolk Southern had prioritized repair of its damaged railway over cleaning up chemicals released by the derailment:
What I’ve heard from multiple people is that the accident happened, and by Tuesday, there were replacement rails. So this is the day after the controlled burn; I believe the controlled burn was on Monday. So on Tuesday, there were replacement rails allowing trains to run through that area.
You cannot dig out and clean up an area if it’s covered by railroad tracks and there are trains going over it.
The fact that they replaced the rails, I think, suggests they’re much more focused on reopening the railway than in the cleaning of this community. That’s a big, big problem. It’s something we’re going to take to Norfolk Southern, frankly, as soon as we leave this meeting.
During his presser, Vance said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had not yet provided clear guidelines on “acceptable levels” of contaminants released by the train derailment and subsequent “controlled release.”
“I’m very frustrated with the CDC,” Vance stated. “We’ve been going back and forth with them for a couple of days, asking them what are the acceptable levels of contamination here before this becomes endangering to human health. We have not yet gotten a good answer, and it’s something we’re going to keep hammering on.”
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.