wiley nickel. watch the members of the 118th congress at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, or online at c-span.org. >> the name of america which belongs to you in your national capacity -- four score and seven years ago. >> ask not what your country can do for you, -- >> throughout american history, presidents have delivered pivotal speeches, from inaugurations, challenges, and strategies, wars, and farewell. watch our 10 part series, speeches that defined the presidency, on american history tv. hear from abraham lincoln, john f. kennedy, ronald reagan, george w. bush, and barack obama. this week features speeches from two presidents, harry truman's 1949 inaugural address, and do

dwight d. eisenhower with his 1957 speech, and his 1961 farewell speech. >> the huge industrial and military machine of defense with peaceful methods. it may prosper together. >> watch our 10 part series, speeches that defined the presidency, saturdays at 9:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span2. >> up next, our guest is a toxicologist. is a toxicologist, a founding member of the chemical safety board, and is here with us to talk about the effects of the train wreck and chemical spill, and concerns about exposure, and what the government should be doing about it. welcome to washington journal. guest: thanks so much. happy to be here. host: i read somewhere that 20 of the 150 cars on that train

were chemical cars. we have seen all of those photos and video. what types of chemicals re in that train? guest: happily, we have released at least a portion of the manifest for the train, the 38 railcars that were most impliced in the crackup and the release. they included cars with chemicals like vinyl chloride, a rather potent carcinogen, one that has generated an enormous amount of toxicological research, as well as concerns on how best to manage it. but also lesser-known chemicals like ethyl hexyl acrylate, heckerling glycol, butyl ether, and more may have recognized vinyl chloride then the others.

and a similar suite of chemicals that can change the flow of the most toxic chemicals into the environment -- into the air, into the water, and into the soil. as a toxicologist, you worry not just about the individual toxicity, although that is of supreme concern, but also, what does this mixture mean in terms of human exposures and exposures to pets and farm animals and the fish in the streams, and any living creatures downstream from this terrible incident. host: you mentioned and our short pre-chat before we came on air, your concern over what you called the downwinders of this spill, this accident, and the controlled burn they had after that. what are some of your concerns about those people and the aftereffects of this spill?

guest: through a lot of release of information about the incident -- i am in vienna, virginia, so i am not immediately close to the community in east palestine. but it is right on the border with pennsylvania. so when the incident began around 9:00 p.m. on february 3, it was a large release, and a fire ensued. that fire burned from february 3 to february 8, so six days worth of open pit burning. and that open pit burning not only included the cars burning themselves, but a decision to have a relief burn, because there was greater fear that there could be an explosive release of the vinyl chloride cars. that is the immediate fears for the community's exposure that

generated much interest, and i daresay there were horrific photos and videos on all sorts of tv media about t clouds that emanated from that burn. that is something a toxicologist looks at and says, i wish i had samples of that cloud, and samples closest to the people and the environment as it burned. host: typically, in that sort of situation with that controlled burn, would there be environmentalists, chemical experts, biologists, as the burn happened, to sample the smoke coming off the fire? guest: the ohio epa, which had the first responsibility to respond on behalf of the state of ohio, was aided and abetted when the governor called in the federal epa to build the sampling systems and networks. we not only want to protect the

people who might be exposed, but we have to ensure that we protect those first responders so they are not putting themselves in harm's way as they seek to protect the other innocent victims in this incident. host: gerry poje is a founding member of the chemical safety board. he has his phd in biology and environmental health sciences from nyu, and as part of that was on scene at a number of investigations into explosions and fires and chemical spills like this. as an investigator, as someone who would show up on the scene of an event like this, what are some of the first things you would look at? guest: the first thing i would be concerned about is not my job as an investigator. it is to ensure that the environmental safety response is being effectuated for benefit

for the people who are closest to the disaster. secondarily, but i don't think on importantly, to say, how did this happen? why did it happen? what are the preconditions that made it much more likely to happen? and how could we understand those and issue recommendations on how to prevent it from ever occurring again? so i understand the challenges in the most immediate incident. you really have to care for the people most at risk, ensure that they are evacuated if that is what is called for, also ensure that they are informed as to what is happening, and why. there have been to many toxic disasters where the community was an alerted to the nature of the disasters, and some of them

came on roadways into harms way. we can build much better systems, and we have to do that if we want to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and our fellow citizens. host: we welcome your calls and comments. the lines are (202) 748-8000 four the central time zone. and eastern. (202) 748-8001 is for mountain and pacific. for those of us in ohio or along the pennsylvania order, affected by this, that line would be (202) 748-8002. our supply chain i guess necessitates that we have to move things, these chemicals, by rail. as you look at it, based on your experience, what do you think the rail industry can do to better ensure the safety of these cars to prevent these types of chemical, in particular, derailments in the

future? guest: clearly, maintaining the system, maintaining every railcar, inspecting and ensuring it is in fully functional, operational state is essential. making sure you position your cargo appropriately. one of the few railcars that was identified in the partial manifest of what was involved in the toxic event was a real cart full of semolina. many of us know that as a delicious basic ingredient in pasta. it is material we could eat and do eat. if there were 40 of these semolina cars between each of these railcars full of the most toxic chemicals, we would have had a much lesser release. that is a serious question.

for the national transportation safety board, who were on scene almost immediately and began their investigation, they are the most responsible independent investigative body in this incident. and later today, they are going to have a preliminary report out that will be of great interest to the people listening on this call, and to me as well. host: we will get to calls and a little bit. i have a question to start out with from california. this is by text. he says, i am a retired fire captain from orange county, california, with experience in hazmat incidents. ask your guest about exothermic chemical reactions and ask about eleve. i'm not sure what that is. but perhaps you do. guest: on the second one,

unfortunately, one of the incidents we had to investigate as part of the chemical safety board was a boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion. a terrible, terrible challenge. a railcar filled with such material, or a tank -- in that case, it was a tank of fuel in, of all places, iowa, during the wintertime. we depend on turkeys iowa winters are very cold. the underlayment to this fuel tank that was heating up the barn was run over by an a.t.v. vehicle, opening up an open line of gas to the environment. propane gas. and unfortunately when the

emergency response firefighters came, they were a volunteer firefighter crew. they followed a wrong order that had been published by the -- i'm trying to think, the national organization responsible for this tank safety, and they thought if they had avoided the end caps of the tank and just poured water in the center, it would be safe because, if worse came to worst, the expanding vapor, the pressure would build up so high that the two caps at the end of the tank would release. they didn't, the whole tank sploalded, sending -- exploded, sending shrapnel left and right, up and down. and fortunately nobody was killed, but all the emergency responders could have been killed except for the odd happenstance of the way the shrapnel blew.

so it's a very dangerous situation and there were fires underneath the rail cars in this particular situation that generated heightened degrees of concern for the emergency responders. i haven't talked or met with any of them. so i'm only speculating but i'm so thankful that a retired expert is calling in to offer his wisdom on what we can do better. the challenge in this case, though, is how do you begin to understand the trigger points for actually doing an open release of a vinyl chloride tank, letting it pour out, and then igniting it as an emergency response burn? the u.s. chemical safety board had one such incident several years ago during the terrible hurricane harvey down in texas, where stored chemicals started

to react, and this walz the first question -- and this was the first question. chemicals can sometimes cook while they are being in transport. cooking means that they start to react with themselves, generating heat so that if you don't deliver the cargo in time, you have a very dangerous situation. and the event in texas, down at a plant in 2017, precipitated the emergency responders needing to go and set up an explosion underneath some truck trailers packed with these highly reactive chemicals. it is a night marish situation to know how to brokeerly the best re-- broker the best response. and we need to have the best training capacity for smaller fire department response teams,

you know, to be capable of understanding this, get the right counsel at the right time on how to do that. really important questions for our country. host: looks like we're getting some calls from the region. we'll go first to our ohio line in galleon, ohio. kevin, go ahead. caller: hi, this is a question for the intoxicatologist -- toxologist. why was it that a week before the train derailment happened, the people from palestine, ohio, were saying that the government came there with biometric watches for people to wear to track their biometrics while they had -- whether they had exposure or not? and that the movie that happened, "white noise," was awful familiar that this movie happened and about six months later the train derailment happens, don't you think? and why is it the c.d.c. took off vinyl chloride and what it does to children?

why did they take it off their guidelines? guest: let me try to track some of those questions. it's so interesting that you mention the newly released movie "white noise" from a novel. it's a fictional account of a community of people visited with a toxic chemical release and all trying to escape. that's one of the underpinnings to the novel. and it is even more amazing to me that one of the residents of east palestine was actually used as an actor, as a stunt act -- not a stunt actor, but as an extra actor, in a crowd scene for that very movie. i think it makes it all too hyperreal. i know nothing about c.d.c. setting up a biometric system.

there's certainly sampling for toxic chemicals is very different than me putting on a fit bit to tell me how many paces i've walked and how much i'm alleviating my personal weight problem. so there could be reasons for different branches of federal health agencies to try to help us all. we have a terrible affliction of so many americans being overweight. that's a very different situation than the immediate response after the february 3, nearly 9:00 p.m. rail disaster. host: let's hear from albrightsville, pennsylvania. dave, good morning. dave, pennsylvania, you're on the air. caller: yes, i'm here.

hello. host: good morning. caller: hello, can you hear me? hi, buddy. i heard your last caller from ohio, made all the sense in the world. i have a lot of the same questions he does. i'm also confused on why the weather channel didn't directly follow these disgusting clouds throughout the united states and where their potential damage is going to end up. and if either one of you still think that these derailments happening everywhere, these toxic spills happening everywhere, and these insane wars happening everywhere, and -- host: on the cloud itself, the smoke from the fire, the controlled burn, to the caller's point, how far would that smoke have traveled in is there a way to tell? guest: there is. in our current world there were immediate deployments from some vantage points to put drones into the air. drones can fly into a toxic

cloud without getting sick and dying. they're just mely mechanical devices. and we did get much better pictures of what happened with those burned clouds and how the black, sooty smoke traveled down stream. so there will be, as we speak, modelers who will be looking at that and trying to assess what were the cumulative impacts in the downstream community. i have great faith in our scientific community, when given the right information and the right tools, to give us a better, tighter perspective on where did it go, how many acres were impacted by this and who were the people and the pets and farm animals in the downstream environment who likely were most affected by the toxic cloud. host: let's go to ron calling

from cleveland. you're on the air. oh, sorry about that, ron. there you are. go ahead. caller: hello? host: you're on the air. go ahead. caller: i'd like to know, why didn't the mayor in palestine didn't ask donald trump how coming he de-regulated the railroad so stuff like this wouldn't happen? i'm so sick and tired of people saying donald trump is such a great man. he doesn't care about nobody but himself. he de-regulated the railroad for stuff like this to happen. and no one asked him that question. how come. host: the role of deregulation, gerald poje. your thoughts. guest: let me give a perspective. i actually am glad that president trump went to the scene because he has kept alive our passion for understanding what happened and how could we do better. at least that's what i would like to believe all of us on this portion of "washington journal" are feeling.

how do we help make it, the system get better and never have something like this occur again? we do have a history of regulation and deregulation in this country. some of it for the good and some of it for the ill. an event like this should trigger the best collaborative approaches. we have a republican governor in ohio, governor dewine. we have a democratic, newly elected democratic governor in pennsylvania, governor schapiro. both of them seem to be working together on how do we both get the best done for the people who live on both sides of the state lines and who have been impacted. none of the people who woke up the morning of february 3 had anything in their heads except their daily life, chores and slings and arrows. they never knew by 9:00 p.m.

that evening they would become people with the lived experience of a toxic disaster. and i empathize with them. they're confused. they're needing to have better answers. they should be put into the center of the follow crumb of how do we get the better answers to both ensure their own personal health but also the health of the surrounding environment that they hope to continue to live within, but hopefully also on behalf of all the other small communities who were on the same rail line, that 32-n rail train traveled from illinois, it was headed to pennsylvania. so the terrible event on february 3 could have occurred in other places, in other communities. and we all bear not only an awareness of that risk, but a responsibility to get better systems of safety established.

host: to that point, east palestine and other towns and city, do you think the federal and -- the federal government and the industry can do a better job of informing the public of the type of chemicals that move through, number one, and the response, the reaction, the plan for what if an incident as horrible as this one was -- happens in other places? guest: that's a great question. in fact, governor dewine in one of his recent press commentaries asked for a better right to know about the flow of hazardous materials through communities. be it on rails or otherwise. but the state of ohio was the start of such a movement in the 1980's. the city of cincinnati recognizing the dangers to their own firefighters put in a right to know for firefighters to know what kind of toxic chemicals

were located in buildings that they would be called to respond to. that start of a right to know eventually became a national law, the emergency planning community right to know act, that expanded that knowledge for fixed facilities handling hazardous chemicals. fixed facilities, not rail cargo in transport. and i think this is a great time for the mixed senators, republicans and democrats and congress people, to ask the question, what is the status of needs to know for all the communities, particularly the emergency response teams in those communities, to have a better grasp of the toxic chemicals flowing through them? what's the responsibility for the corporation to do that work as well? host: a call from republic, pennsylvania, next.

andy, good morning. caller: good morning. long time listener, first-time caller. good morning to you both. i was just curious why when president trump came to and was speaking to the crowd, why didn't anybody have -- wear masks? if there's toxic fumes and everything in the air, nobody had masks on. i love "washington journal" and that was just a simple question. host: i don't know, andy. we were voing video earlier, the president near the crash scene. gerald poje, go ahead. guest: let me give a little perspective on that. there has been an extensive amount of air and water sampling in the area. and the e.p.a. has actually even gone in to individual homes to test the inside environments of those homes in the down-wind

flow of that large toxic cloud. they have showed that it is not a danger, breathing the air. i don't know where president trump exactly was situated. i would imagine nobody should be entering into the most immediate site of the burn pit without some enhanced respiratory and thermal protection. you don't want to put your bare skin into soil that has such chemicals layden in it. nor do you want to breathe that right on top of where the spillage occurred. i don't believe that it would have been incumbent upon anybody to let a former president be in such a dangerous situation. and the people who attended to his appearance in east palestine

likely also would have

administrator was on scene very recently talking about the next steps. it has only been two days since the epa has moved from the first phase of action, and emergency response to the second phase, which is environmental remediation. the epa is still with a number of different technical expertise for monitoring air and water, understanding the materials that are toxic on site and the best ways to clean them up. but for a health agency, the department of health holds the branch with extraordinary skill fullness and competencies and this is the cdc.

they are the public health professionals who have skills, including the field of epidemiology. expert medical people trained to understand, what is the pattern of disease or symptoms in populations. it is not like going to your own doctor and saying , doc, i have a fever, what do i do? these are people who will go to hundreds of people who might have been in the immediate and downwind environment, how many have such symptoms and do we need to do anything more to benefit them? are there medical interventions that could aid them and their children? are there some populations in this area that already have a weak respiratory system?

it is a problem around the country. people are at likely to be greater risk to a stressor to their breathing. i am 72 years old. i am toward the elder category. elders oftentimes have a bigger loss of physical capacity, including their breathing systems. they might be a special type of person or demographic that the cdc would want to ascertain, are they safe now and are they healthy, or if they have been exposed, what do we do to monitor their health into the future and intervene if necessary? host: let's go to alexandria, virginia and hear from eric. caller: thank you. i have a question about root causes and whether we could have

avoided this and a lot of other toxic chemical problems if we were to move toward bringing chemistry and reduce our use of fossil fuel based chemicals, and whether that might be a longer-term solution to this kind of problem. guest: terrific question. thank you so much. we ethic chemical safety board, while i was there, were focused on this very issue. how do you understand the real root causes of the problem? our friends at ntsb have rightly focused on the one car that got so overheated, it might have started the incident. as an investigator, you say bearings can get hot a million different ways. why did happen this way? how much stress