The Environmental Protection Agency’s internal watchdog said it will begin auditing the agency’s response to the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
The probe follows multiple complaints to the EPA’s Office of Inspector General hotline and an Aug. 28 letter in which Vice President J.D. Vance and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin requested an investigation.
In February 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed in the eastern Ohio city, leading to a toxic chemical spill that made its way into the Ohio River.
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The two Trump administration officials called for “an objective examination of the decision-making process, coordination, scientific and technical assessments, and compliance with applicable laws, regulations, policies, and emergency-response protocols.”
They cited documents disclosed in August showing that internal models predicted thousands of casualties from an unnecessary procedure.
More than 900 pages of Defense Department records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit whistleblower-advocacy group, detailed contradictory information given to the public.
The National Transportation Safety Board determined in 2024 that a high-risk, last-resort procedure called a vent and burn — used to empty a pressurized tank car, truck or storage vessel containing flammable gas — was ultimately unnecessary.
Norfolk Southern rejected three other removal methods and began planning for a vent and burn shortly after the derailment in a decision based on incomplete and misleading information provided to incident commanders, NTSB investigators found.
In the August release, documents containing the pollution simulation projected that roughly 18,000 residents could suffer “at least severe injury” due to chemical exposure. More than 1,900 could have been exposed to hazard levels that “could possibly result in death.”
Federal officials had withheld the internal models from the public that projected thousands could face severe injury.
The EPA said the models were designated as “controlled unclassified information.”
Its watchdog said it will determine whether the EPA had sufficient data to support the agency’s public communications on ambient and indoor air quality and the associated health risks.
“This objective addresses specific hotline allegations pertaining to the EPA’s actions before and after the controlled burn and could inform additional work,” the Tuesday notice reads.
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