Vice President JD Vance and Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin are calling for an independent investigation into the Biden administration’s response to the Norfolk Southern train derailment that released hazardous materials in East Palestine, Ohio, in 2023.
In a letter to the EPA’s Office of Inspector General, Vance and Zeldin say ongoing concerns about federal decisions that may have affected human health warrant review.
Documents released this week by a government watchdog group show federal officials had concerns about the number of deaths that could result from burning some of the hazardous chemicals inside the train. The documents also included an unpublished analysis of contamination concerns from one month after the derailment, which showed hazardous contaminants lingering in East Palestine.
After train rail cars carrying hazardous chemicals crashed in February 2023, worries about a massive explosion led Norfolk Southern to propose draining the chemical vinyl chloride out of five of those cars and setting it on fire. Nearby residents were evacuated before the plan went into effect.
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The newly released documents show early EPA modeling projected that more than 1,900 people could die and thousands could get sick from the burning of that chemical. Later modeling reduced those numbers to 29 potential deaths and 163 injuries.
The National Transportation Safety Board later found that Norfolk Southern misrepresented the risk of the train cars exploding, and that the decision to vent and burn the chemicals was unnecessary.
East Palestine residents have remained concerned about their health since the disaster.
“The people of East Palestine deserve certainty about their health and the safety of their community. They did not get it from the Biden EPA,” Zeldin said in a statement. “The Trump EPA is committed to correcting the mistakes of the past administration. We have done everything in our power since day one to protect human health and the environment in East Palestine, and that work will continue, guided by our commitment to gold-standard science.”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration opened an investigation into a subcontractor responsible for sampling groundwater at the train derailment site after it failed to meet data quality standards.
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