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Back when Norfolk Southern was making promises in an effort to halt passage of the Railway Safety Act, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, avoided getting involved with the process. Now, he says, it is clear he made the right call.
"In the run up to the markup of the Railway Safety Act, Norfolk Southern and its backers in Congress announced that they had reached an agreement to establish a fund making East Palestine residents whole for the diminution of their property value," Vance said. "This announcement was a transparent attempt to distract from the fact that they were opposed to railroad safety reform to prevent another East Palestine disaster. I did not join this effort because I did not trust the railroad to make good on its word."
Now, more than seven months since the disaster, Vance says his office has found "reliable information has been difficult to impossible for homeowners to secure.
"My office has been inundated with complaints from residents that Norfolk Southern has failed to answer their very reasonable questions and that their property value has fallen significantly since the railroad set off a chemical bomb in the heart of their town," he said.
Vance says he and other Ohio officials continue to pressure the company, though his expectations that they will deliver on their promises "are low."
Surely Norfolk Southern will have its own take on whether it has failed to fulfill its promises to East Palestine residents. But the reality is enough of those residents have voiced their concerns to Vance that at the very least Norfolk Southern's property value reimbursement program isn't doing what was expected.
As so often happens to communities in this part of the country, East Palestine residents heard the promise … and are still waiting.