Capito points fingers at EPA and Norfolk Southern

WASHINGTON D.C. — U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito had plenty of criticism to offer to those tied to the derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio during the first Capitol Hill hearing on the disaster.

Capito is ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The committee heard from representatives of the U.S. EPA as well as the Norfolk Southern C-E-O Alan Shaw.

Capito said the EPA’s initial communications with a frightened public was a failure and only got worse.

“I want to convey to all of you the public deserved a better level of transparency and much, much sooner. A month after the accident, it’s clear to me the EPA’s risk-communication strategy fell short,” she said in her opening statement.

Capito said the slow trickle of any concrete and definitive information only added fuel the fires of misinformation from other far less reliable sources.

“In the absence of adequate transparency to the public, it opens up a gap for social media, armchair citizen scientists, and political pundits on both sides to fuel false narratives that have further undermined the public confidence in the response to the derailment. With each passing week, the confusion seemed to grow,” she said.

Capito said EPA was so slow at getting out information, local residents were having to rely on the Ohio Department of Environmental Protection and even ORSANCO to get regular updates on the situation, much of it with data provided by the EPA which was never properly disseminated by the agency itself. Instead, Capito said the EPA addressed fear and mistrust by pointing people to an EPA website filled with fact sheets and press releases. The personal communication to reassure a worried public was miserable and the optics were even worse.

“Why did it take weeks for the EPA Administrator to drink the water he repeatedly told residents was safe?  Why did it take a month to establish a response center and go door-to-door to address each family’s concern?” said Capito.

However, as much criticism as the Senator had for the EPA’s communications failure, she reserved the highest level of blame on Norfolk Southern and the company’s CEO Alan Shaw.

“Your company will pay for the harm it has caused and is paying. It will pay for the initial cleanup and will likely pay again when the lawsuits for the myriad of harms caused come in, though how much will be a matter for the courts. Culpability and the liability that will results are clearly defined in the statutes,” she said.

Shaw told the committee his company is spending Millions in East Palestine.

“I want to begin today by expressing how deeply sorry I am for the impact this derailment has had on the residents of East Palestine, and the surrounding communities,” Shaw testified. “Norfolk Southern will clean the sites safely, thoroughly, and with urgency. You have my personal commitment. I am determined to make this right..”