President Joe Biden on Thursday indicated he would travel to the site of a train derailment in Ohio that resulted in the release of thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals.
Asked on Capitol Hill whether he would visit the area of East Palestine after the Feb. 3 crash, Biden said: “I will be out there at some point.”
Neither the president nor the White House press secretary on Thursday indicated when the president could visit.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg visited last week, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan has made multiple trips to the area, as residents continue to express concerns about potential health impacts of the toxic chemicals.
Biden emphasized he’d been kept up to date on the federal response in East Palestine in the meantime.
“I have spoken with every official in Ohio, Democrat and Republican, on a continuous basis,” he said. “We will be implementing an awful lot through the legislation here, and I will be out there at some point.”
Ohio’s bipartisan pair of senators – Republican JD Vance and Democrat Sherrod Brown – this week introduced legislation to tighten regulations on rail operators carrying toxic material. It would, in part, require railroads to create disaster response plans and tell emergency response commissions what hazardous materials are going through their states.
“Through this legislation, Congress has a real opportunity to ensure that what happened in East Palestine will never happen again,” Vance said in a statement. “We owe every American the peace of mind that their community is protected from a catastrophe of this kind.”
Biden welcomed the bipartisan effort with a new statement Thursday, calling the proposals "commonsense rail safety measures" to "hold companies accountable to prevent terrible tragedies like the Norfolk Southern derailment in East Palestine and to make those communities whole."
The EPA this week also set up an office in town where people can sign up for air monitoring and cleanup at their homes and businesses, plus ask officials questions.
Federal staff from the EPA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention went door to door this weekend to reach more than 500 homes in the area and individually check on residents.
The EPA has ordered Norfolk Southern to cover the costs of cleaning up from the derailment that toppled 38 rail cars. Concerns over a potential explosion led state and local officials to approve releasing and burning toxic vinyl chloride from five tanker cars.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.