EPA Administrator Quietly Postpones Africa Climate Change Trip With Idris And Sabrina Elba As Ohio Train Disaster Unfolds

EPA Administrator Michael Regan postponed a climate change trip to Africa with celebrity couple Idris and Sabrina Elba amid fallout from the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.

Local and state authorities previously evacuated all residents within one mile of the February 3 derailment and started a controlled burn of industrial chemicals on the vehicle to decrease the risk of an explosion, which could have sent shrapnel throughout the small town. Vinyl chloride, a known human carcinogen used to manufacture PVC, was emitted from five train cars in the form of massive plumes of dark smoke visible throughout eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

Regan was previously scheduled to visit sub-Saharan Africa alongside the Elbas, according to a report from The Grio. An editor’s note affixed to the top of the article now clarifies that Regan postponed the trip “due to his department’s emergency response to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, which has caused environmental…