When it comes to his bill to increase rail safety after the East Palestine train derailment disaster, criticizing fellow Republicans who oppose it doesn’t concern U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance.

The freshman Republican senator from Cincinnati responded to criticism from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to the bill during a Wednesday session of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

Cruz said he is open to rail reforms, but that the bill co-sponsored by Vance and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Cleveland, goes too far. Cruz said the bill would “empower” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and President Joe Biden, both Democrats, to “further and aggressively restrict the movement of American energy products.”

Cruz, the committee’s ranking Republican member, said: “In the hands of overzealous Biden bureaucrats, the mandates in this bill would make it much easier for this administration to restrict the transport of coal, of oil, of natural gas, of ethanol and the burdens of moving those commodities would carry over to the many other trains in the rail network that carry crops and building materials and cars to market. That means more time and cost to deliver everything from industrial chemicals to orange juice.”

Vance responded to Cruz’s statements by saying: “The ranking member himself has supported a number of pieces of legislation, even out of this committee, that gives plenty of discretion to the Biden administration including giving the Biden administration discretion over things like capital gains tax cuts for tech CEOs. If we can give the secretary discretion over capital gains tax cuts for CEOs, surely we can give the secretary discretion to make communities like East Palestine safer.”

Vance wasn’t done.

He also said: “I think it’s ridiculous to say that we’re going to discover a principle when that principle would protect the people of East Palestine and ignore that principle when it benefits tech CEOs and others who get capital gains tax cuts. So let’s actually do something here. Let’s not rely on vague promises. Let’s not send out celebratory press releases because industry has finally decided to make a promise, not to follow through on that promise, but to make a promise. Let’s actually do something for the people of East Palestine and all across our country.”

The “celebratory press releases” part was in response to Cruz’s statement he sent the night before the Senate committee’s vote touting a letter from Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw that included the establishment of a fund to compensate homeowners in the village for declining property values should they decide to sell their houses. Norfolk Southern is the rail company responsible for the Feb. 3 East Palestine derailment.

In the letter, Shaw wrote Norfolk Southern “commits to compensate homeowners who sell their homes for less than their property’s pre-Feb. 3 appraised value with the understanding that such homeowners will execute a release of any future claims for property value diminution from the property fund once established and will have substantially complied with the terms of the fund.”

In his news release, Cruz referred to the Shaw letter as a “groundbreaking commitment,” and that the fund “is an important step in repairing the damage done to the community.”

Vance still wasn’t done.

He also said, “Let’s be honest, we have allowed the rail industry to socialize the risk of their business while privatizing the rewards. The people of East Palestine are going to deal with the costs of what Norfolk Southern did for the next generation ä the mental health costs, the physical health costs, the economic damage, the loss of home and property value.”

This wasn’t the first time Vance has stood up to fellow Republicans regarding the rail bill.

During a March 9 hearing in front of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, Vance, directing his comments at Republicans who oppose the bill, said: “We are faced with a choice, with this legislation and how we respond to this crisis. Do we do the bidding of a massive industry that is in bed with big government or do we do the bidding of the people who elected us to the Senate and to the Congress in the first place?”

Vance concluded, “We have a choice: are we for big business and big government or are we for the people of East Palestine? It’s a time for choosing.”