(NewsNation) — The Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security is criticizing the federal response under the Biden administration to the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, calling it “gross mismanagement.”
“Emails of FEMA ignoring a potential cancer cluster breakout in East Palestine, Ohio, under the Biden administration is yet another outrageous example of the gross mismanagement and poor treatment of Americans under the prior administration,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to NewsNation.
FEMA, White House accused of cover-up, ignoring residents
In September 2023, officials burned five tankers containing 115,000 gallons of toxic vinyl chloride. Residents quickly reported serious health issues and pleaded for help.
Seven months after the toxic vinyl chloride spill, then-President Biden issued an executive order, sending FEMA executive Jim McPherson to East Palestine to assess the community’s unmet needs.
But new documents from FEMA obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show extensive coordination between FEMA, the White House, the National Security Council, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice, voicing serious concerns about health, toxins and the unmet needs of East Palestine following the train derailment.
But publicly, their message was that there was nothing to those concerns.
“It showed that FEMA knew health care was the No. 1 issue,” said Lesley Pace, senior environmental officer at the Government Accountability Project.
Pacey is an investigator with the Government Accountability Project who sued to get these documents when FEMA refused to turn them over.
“It was only discussed internally, and it actually was discussed all the way up to the White House. There’s White House officials and National Security Council officials discussing the dangers of the cancer cluster potential and the health issues, and discussing whether or not to release the unmet needs report to the public and to the media,” Pacey said.