The Lead with Jake Tapper: Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH) Is Interviewed About Derailment In East Palestine

Interview

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Well, I haven't gotten to that meeting yet, Jake.

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That meeting starts at 07:00 here, Eastern time. I'm on my way there now, but I was there on site on Monday.

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Well, sure. I mean, there's a lot to be concerned about. I, you know, I was there at the site where the incident occurred. I was with the mayor, the fire chief, the county commissioners, the EPA representatives from Norfolk Southern.

And so, the mayor gave me the tour. I was there where the accident actually happened. I can tell you that I did not have any sense of itching eyes or burning skin or coughing or any of that.

The mayor told me that they are very comfortable with the testing that is going. And it's going to continue by the way, that, you know, their city water or their village water system, they really routinely test that all the time anyway. And so, they are going to continue to test that as they usually do, but they're finding no contaminants in the water.

In the well water situation, those residents can get their wells tested. And they've got to request that and the EPA will test those. And I understand that a lot of those tests have been done and they're not finding contamination there either.

But look, we can't dismiss or just offhandedly forget about the concerns that the residents there have, we got to continue this testing. That's the value of doing it.

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Absolutely. And I want to -- I've already got my team looking at this. The Governor and I had a discussion about this yesterday. I need to -- I don't sit on the TNI Committee, so I'm not intimately familiar with it myself, but I will be when this is all over. I want to know what is the criteria that requires that a train be labeled as carrying hazardous material. Is it one out of 100 cars? Is it 20 out of 50? We know that 20 of the cars that derailed in East Palestine had chemicals on them. That sounds like a high percentage to me, that's almost half of the 50 that derailed. So, I want to look into that and see if that's an issue.

And how do they notify the states? And how then does the states notify the local communities? And what are the responsibilities and the requirements of everybody along the way once they are notified to make sure that everything is set up, that they're taking -- you know, keeping a close watch on that train?

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Yes, sorry about that. Yes.

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Well, I -- you know, right now my focus is on the residents of East Palestine and making sure that they have what they need, that their concerns are being addressed, that they get the answers that they need. I am confident that the National Transportation Safety Board, they are looking at that. Their report is supposed to be out in about two weeks. I am going to be looking closely at what their findings are.

If there's something that we need to fix legislatively, Jake, you can better believe in a rural area like this that has a lot of rail traffic coming through my little communities all across eastern Ohio, you can better believe I'll be taking action to fix anything that's broken.

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Thank you, Jake.

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