Congressman: Biden admin lied about East Palestine

An Ohio congressman said the administration of former President Joe Biden lied about and covered up the dangers stemming from a February 2023 Norfolk Southern train derailment and subsequent chemical burn in East Palestine.

Now, U.S. Rep. Michael Rulli, R-Salem, wants a probe into the administration’s “mishandling of the East Palestine train derailment and toxic chemical burn,” according to a newspaper report. The call follows the release of emails that a whistleblower group, the Government Accountability Project, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request and released last month.

 “We were lied to, plain and simple,” Rulli said in a news release quoted by The Vindicator in Youngstown. “I warned residents not to drink the water. I begged for caution. And I was mocked, dismissed and ridiculed. I said then, and I say now, it will take years of testing to know the full extent of the contamination. And now we know the truth was deliberately buried. That’s not a mistake. That’s a coverup.”

In his release, Rulli said the emails “confirm that the Biden White House, FEMA, EPA and National Security Council knew about the risk of cancer clusters following the 2023 derailment but chose to keep that information from the public,” The Vindicator reported.

“These documents confirm what East Palestine residents have feared: government officials knew about the serious health risks posed by the derailment and controlled burn but deliberately kept this information from the community,” Lesley Pacey, senior environmental officer at the Government Accountability Project, said in a release. “It’s unconscionable that while federal officials were internally acknowledging the ‘really toxic plume’ created by the burn and discussing future cancer clusters, they were simultaneously avoiding direct communication with affected residents.”

Following the derailment, Dr. Robert Kroutil, a former EPA contractor who worked with the agency’s Airborne Spectral Photometric Environmental Collection Technology, or ASPECT, program, made a whistleblower complaint. According to the EPA, “ASPECT is EPA’s only airborne real-time chemical and radiological detection, infrared and photographic imagery platform.”

He claimed the agency “failed to use this unique, indispensable technology to make informed, responsible decisions for [the] protection of public health and safety after the accident,” according to an affidavit.

On July 17, 2024, the federal Environmental Protection Agency opened an investigation into ASPECT flights over East Palestine. This week, the agency’s Office of Inspector General released a report on its inquiry into the ASPECT missions, policies, and procedures.

It found that the on-site coordinators may not have been aware of the technology’s capabilities and recommended that they receive training on it. The report found that the procedures are “largely unknown to all stakeholders,” the group said.

“While the EPA OIG report vindicates Dr. Kroutil by confirming systemic procedural deficiencies and knowledge gaps that supported his broader concerns about ASPECT program management, the investigation’s scope was too narrow, failing to address the most serious allegations about data collection practices, sensor shutdowns, and potential report manipulation,” Pacey, said in a separate release. “Dr. Kroutil’s courage in coming forward has already led to meaningful policy improvements, but a more comprehensive investigation into the substantive allegations about data collection and analysis would better serve the public interest and ensure accountability for this critical environmental disaster response.”

However, Kroutil disagreed “with the assessment in the report that EPA followed established deployment protocols.”

“The report noted that EPA officials believe that the on-ground monitoring equipment provided superior detection capabilities, which is incorrect,” Kroutil said in a release. “This demonstrates EPA’s complete lack of understanding of the ASPECT technology and how it works to protect chemically impacted sites.”