Braun
U.S. Senator Mike Braun (R-Ind.) released a statement Tuesday after the Environmental Protection Agency announced shipments of toxic materials to Indiana would be paused, with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management confirming shipments would be paused until testing confirms there are no harmful levels of dioxins.
Last week, Sen. Braun and Representative Jim Baird (R-Ind.-04) sent a letter to the EPA demanding answers to several questions about the agency’s decision to send this material to Indiana and if partisan politics was the only reason an in-progress shipment of materials was diverted from Michigan and sent back to East Palestine, Ohio.
Senator Braun and Rep. Baird called on the EPA to explain what testing procedures were in place in East Palestine to test contaminated materials before they were transported, and called on EPA to preemptively test and determine if facilities are certified to process the contaminants they are being asked to process. The EPA has not responded to these concerns, six days later.
“The EPA never should have sent one ounce of this material into Indiana without testing it for dioxins in the first place,” Sen. Braun said. “This halted shipment should stay halted, and the Biden EPA should explain why they started shipping material to Indiana instead of Michigan as originally planned.”