We can talk about whether ECP brakes are necessary and appropriate for high-hazard trains, sure enough. But let me rewind the tape a bit to something I got my hands dirty on in the 2013-2015 period: Notifications to state and local officials of hazardous shipments. Here's what Gov. DeWine said today: 'We need to look at this. Congress needs to take a look at how these things are handled. We should know when we have trains carrying hazardous material that are going through the state of Ohio.'

To those who breathlessly say 'no national media is covering this,' I present.

https://twitter.com/eilperin/status/1625602653844545544

While we're at it, one of the most corrosive aspects of this discussion is the fallacy that a 'national' news organization has to cover it to make it important. I would argue local reporter know the region best. dispatch.com/story/news/loc…

So many people expressing so many opinions supported by so few facts. You'd think it might help to keep a knowledgeable reporter on a beat for more than a few years. So that regulatory changes don't go unnoticed and basic facts don't fall through the cracks.

WV Senate has voted 33-0, to 'strongly encourage' FirstEnergy's Mon Power to purchase the Pleasants Power Station from Energy Harbor. Pleasants is scheduled to shut down at the end of May. Not everyone agrees that Mon Power should buy the plant: wvpublic.org/groups-say-psc…

I have to express something that may be unpopular about journalism. Everyone lauds Woodward and Bernstein for the reporting they did on Watergate. It was profoundly consequential, no doubt. But it is also what any good journalist could and should have done. For some years now, my exemplar has been John Siegenthaler, the longtime editor of the @Tennessean. I had the chance to meet John while he was still alive, and I’m profoundly grateful that I did.