In The News

While Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw repeatedly apologized during a Senate committee hearing for the East Palestine rail disaster and vowed that his company would continue to help the community, a number of members were frustrated with his responses.At the conclusion of Thursday’s three-hour U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works hearing on the East Palestine derailment, chairman Tom Carper, a Delaware Democrat, said to Shaw: “I’m not a big fan of yes-no answers. That’s not... Read More

Norfolk Southern’s communication lapses left first responders scrambling after a train operated by the company derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, raising the possibility of a major explosion, some lawmakers and witnesses told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday, The Washington Post’s Justine McDaniel, Ian Duncan, Amy B Wang and Scott Dance report. Senators on the panel grilled Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw and Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator Debra... Read More

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - West Virginia International Yeager Airport (CRW) has received a grant to purchase new safety equipment.The $964,648 grant comes from the Federal Aviation Administration.The grant will be used to purchase a snow broom to keep the airport serviceable during snow periods, a power sweeper to remove debris from the runway surface, and friction measuring equipment to maintain runway safety.A release from the airport says that this equipment will ensure safe airport... Read More

U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) on Wednesday introduced a bipartisan, bicameral bill that would provide Medicare coverage of prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs) under current law.“Prescription digital therapeutics are an excellent example of how innovative technology can address some of the health challenges providers and patients continue to face,” Sen. Capito said. “I’m proud to join my colleagues and reintroduce this important legislation.”The Access to Prescription Digital... Read More

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Senators got their first chance to ask questions of Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw on Thursday following the train derailment in East Palestine last month.The response to the derailment saw a multi-state response that included first responders from West Virginia and members of the state's National Guard assist in the days following the controlled release and burn of chemicals.U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito serves as ranking member on the Environment and Public Works... Read More

Norfolk Southern’s communication lapses left first responders scrambling after a train operated by the company derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, raising the possibility of a major explosion, some lawmakers and witnesses told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday, The Washington Post’s Justine McDaniel, Ian Duncan, Amy B Wang and Scott Dance report. Senators on the panel grilled Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw and Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator Debra... Read More

On the same day Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw assured a U.S. Senate panel the company will clean up the mess from its train derailment in Ohio last month, a trade group issued a national advisory about potentially loose wheels on rail cars, and another Norfolk Southern train derailed in Alabama.  Shaw testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works over one month after a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials went off the tracks in East Palestine. An... Read More

WASHINGTON (WV News) — North Central West Virginia is getting $2.054 million to help construct a new, 52,600-square-foot terminal building, U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito announced Thursday.Manchin and Capito also announced funding for Charleston’s West Virginia International Yeager Airport. Manchin also announced funding for the Jackson County Airport.The $964,648 in funding for Yeager will be used to purchase critical equipment, including a snow broom to keep the airport... Read More

Law360 (March 9, 2023, 5:32 PM EST) -- A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has reintroduced a bill requiring the Federal Communications Commission to report to Congress on how supply chain disruptions are affecting broadband infrastructure projects. Bill sponsor Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., said The Network Equipment Transparency Act, or NET Act, is intended to ensure the projects funded by 2021's massive infrastructure spending package have an efficient rollout, according to a Tuesday press... Read More

President Joe Biden has unveiled his budget proposal for the upcoming year, and it's no surprise Republicans are mad about it.Among Biden's priorities: Reinstating monthly checks to parents, 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, universal preschool, and increased taxes on the wealthy and investors to help pay for all of it.It's not a shocker, then, that the proposed budget did not sit well with anti-tax, anti-spending Republicans.Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, for example, was... Read More

House Republicans passed a measure Thursday to cancel a key Biden administration rule that defines what water bodies are subject to federal regulation under the Clean Water Act.The resolution of disapproval would nullify the Biden administration's definition of "waters of the United States," which was finalized at the end of December. Republicans have argued the Biden rule is too onerous and exposes landowners, farmers, and builders to litigation for routine activities on their properties, such... Read More

WASHINGTON (WV News) — Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., led a congressional hearing Thursday on the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.The hearing featured remarks from Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw, who said he was “deeply sorry” for the impact the incident has had on East Palestine and surrounding communities.In her opening statement, Capito said, “Before Congress considers any changes to existing laws, we must better understand what has gone wrong with this response... Read More

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... Read More

GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said Thursday in a high-profile Senate hearing on the Ohio train derailment that the Environmental Protection Agency "failed" in its communications with the public in the aftermath. "Personally, I think the EPA failed on the risk communication," she said in the opening of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing. "We are going to ask why did it take the EPA administrator three weeks before he actually drank the water. He was telling everybody that... Read More

Norfolk Southern Railway President Alan Shaw when testifying to a Senate panel on Thursday refused to commit to backing bipartisan legislation by Ohio’s two senators that would impose new regulations on the rail industry, including new procedures for carrying hazardous materials.The bill by Sens. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, and J.D. Vance, a Republican, was in response to the horrific train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, that spilled toxic chemicals into the town and left residents scared... Read More

Senators grew visibly frustrated during a tense congressional hearing on the Feb. 3 train derailment that spilled hazardous chemicals in an Ohio town as the CEO of Norfolk Southern, the company that operated the train, met their push for concrete policy commitments with noncommittal answers.“I just really thought, when you said ‘turn over a new leaf,’ you meant you were saying you were going to now support safety regulations,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) told Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw. “I’m... Read More

The head of Norfolk Southern Corp. pledged at a Senate hearing Thursday to fully restore environmental and economic conditions in the Ohio community where one of the company’s trains derailed last month, triggering a fire and public health concerns.“I am determined to make this right,” Alan Shaw, the rail company’s president and CEO, told the Environment and Public Works Committee during the first congressional hearing on the incident. “Norfolk Southern will clean the site safely, thoroughly and... Read More

At Thursday's Senate hearing on the toxic train disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, Sen. Shelley Capito pointed to various instances of communication gaps that led to lack of trust between Norfolk Southern, government and the public."When I asked the question, where is this [hazardous] material going? Both Ms. Shore [of the EPA] and Mr. Shaw [Norfolk Southern CEO] said, it's going somewhere but we don't know where. What does that do to trust? I mean, I don't know. Are the trucks moving or not?... Read More

Norfolk Southern’s communication failures left emergency responders scrambling to prepare for a massive plume of toxic chemicals after a train operated by the company derailed and threatened to cause an explosion in East Palestine, Ohio, some witnesses and lawmakers told Congress on Thursday.Pressed by senators at a three-hour hearing on the Feb. 3 derailment, Norfolk Southern CEO Alan H. Shaw apologized for the disaster but stopped short of guaranteeing certain specific cleanup and safety... Read More

"I am deeply sorry for the impact this derailment has had on the people of East Palestine and surrounding communities, and I am determined to make it right," Shaw will say before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, according to a copy of his prepared remarks released beforehand. "We will clean the site safely, thoroughly, and with urgency. We are making progress every day. Working now under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recent Unilateral Administrative Order,... Read More