It took former President Joe Biden over a year to make his way to East Palestine, Ohio, following the disastrous train derailment there in February 2023. And unless I’m missing it, former Vice President Kamala Harris never did make it to the small town just west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.
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But to mark the two-year anniversary of the disaster, on Monday, Vice President JD Vance visited the community, along with recently confirmed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Senators Bernie Moreno (R) and Jon Husted (R).
While there, Vance delivered remarks to those gathered, promising that East Palestine will not be forgotten.
.@VP visits East Palestine, Ohio on the second anniversary of the train derailment: “President Trump wanted to deliver a message that this community will not be forgotten, will not be left behind, and we’re in it for the long haul… The environmental cleanup has to get done.” pic.twitter.com/fViO1W5g23
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) February 3, 2025
“The president loves this community — of course, he visited himself, personally — and President Trump just wanted to deliver a message that this community will not be forgotten, will not be left behind, and we are in it for the long haul in East Palestine.
“What does that mean? Well, one thing it means is that, of course, the environmental cleanup has to get done —it’s a tragedy and a shame that it wasn’t done during the last administration, but I guarantee we’re going to finish the cleanup during this administration under the great leadership of Lee Zeldin, our new EPA administrator, who stands behind me.
“And I also think that part of that means the long-term economic development of this community. We know that a lot of local businesses and a lot of local people lost a lot when that train disaster happened a couple of years ago. We are committed not just to finishing the environmental side of the cleanup but hopefully seeing East Palestine build back better and stronger and more prosperous than it was before this disaster happened in the first place.”
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For some reason, the Vance version of “build back better” seems a touch more promising than the Biden version. One hopes that the people of East Palestine are soon able to attest to that. They’ve waited long enough.
