Norfolk Southern president and CEO Alan Shaw will deliver testimony Thursday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Below is his testimony as provided to the committee. Shaw said, "Chairman Carper, Ranking Member Capito, and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear today to discuss the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. My name is Alan Shaw, and I have been the President and CEO of Norfolk Southern since May 2022. I look forward today to sharing our progress cleaning the derailment site, assisting families whose lives were disrupted, investing in the community, and making Norfolk Southern and the railroad industry safer. I am deeply sorry for the impact this derailment has had on the people of East Palestine and surrounding communities, and I am determined to make it right. We will clean the site safely, thoroughly, and with urgency. We are making progress every day. Working now under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s recent Unilateral Administrative Order, we have submitted a long-term removal plan that will guide our comprehensive testing program for the community’s water, air, and soil. That testing is guided by science, and we will continue to share the results transparently. The Ohio and U.S. Environmental Protection Agencies, as well as other local agencies, are continually monitoring the air and water quality in East Palestine and report that both the air and water are safe. Financial assistance cannot change what happened, but it is an important part of doing the right thing. To date, we have committed to reimbursements and investments of more than $20 million in total, including by helping more than 4,200 families through our Family Assistance Center located in East Palestine. Supporting first responders has been a particular area of focus, and our contributions include more than $3 million to assist the East Palestine Fire Department. I would like to express again my profound admiration for the first responders from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia who responded to the derailment. I want to be clear: this financial assistance is just a down payment. I’ve met with community leaders, business owners, school officials, clergy, and others to begin to identify ways we can invest in the future prosperity of East Palestine and support the long-term needs of its people. We will continue to invest in East Palestine for as long as it takes to help the community recover and thrive. We are also committed to learning from this accident and working with public officials and the industry to make railroads even safer. In the meantime, we have already launched a series of immediate steps to enhance safety, based on the facts in the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report. We look forward to cooperating with the NTSB as it continues its investigation into the root cause of the accident as well as its wider investigation… To date, monitoring of East Palestine’s public drinking water and private water wells by multiple state and local authorities and Norfolk Southern shows that the water is safe to drink and there are no harmful levels of substances related to the derailment. Beginning immediately after the derailment and now at the direction of the U.S. EPA, we have implemented a comprehensive testing program to monitor the quality of the community’s air. The U.S. EPA has monitored air near schools and residential areas, in several government buildings, upwind of the derailment site, and downwind of the derailment area. Norfolk Southern’s outdoor air monitoring program has collected millions of data points from around the derailment site and throughout the community. The results of these tests continue to demonstrate that the air is safe to breathe. In addition, in consultation with the U.S. EPA, we have been performing indoor air quality screening for residents. To date, nearly 600 homes have been screened; none of the results indicate a health risk from incident-related substances. We continue to listen to the experts and cooperate with state, federal, and local government agencies. We are committed to this monitoring for as long as necessary. We have also created a website, NSMakingItRight.com, to provide the latest information to residents of East Palestine and the surrounding communities… We have committed another $7.5 million in financial assistance to reimburse Pennsylvania emergency responders and health and environmental agencies for costs related to the derailment. And I personally have committed almost $450,000 to fund scholarships for seniors at East Palestine High School… Finally, Chairman Carper, Senator Capito and members of the Committee, I want to state again how deeply sorry we are for the impact of this derailment on East Palestine, surrounding communities and all of the people who have been affected. We are making progress in the recovery and know our work is not yet done. On behalf of the more than 19,700 hard-working employees of Norfolk Southern, I pledge that we won’t be finished until we make it right. Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today, and I look forward to your questions."
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