Norfolk Southern President and CEO Alan Shaw on Monday appeared before Pennsylvania's state Senate Veterans Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee.The railroad has been under scrutiny since the February derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Once again, the CEO opened his public comments with an apology."I'm determined to make this right. Norfolk Southern continues to make good on its promise to clean the site safely, thoroughly and with urgency. You have my personal commitment. We will get the job done and we will help these communities thrive," Shaw said. He emphasized, "How deeply sorry I am for the impact this derailment has had on the citizens of East Palestine and the communities in western Pennsylvania."Shaw was under oath during his testimony before the committee.Senators repeatedly asked him about the decision to vent chemicals in what was called a "controlled burn" at the derailment site of hazardous tank car cargo.His answer each time was that it was a decision made by the "unified command," led by the incident commander at the site. That commander was the East Palestine, Ohio, fire chief."There was concern, based on pressures in the rail cars and the fact that several of the rail- cars had been in a pool fire, of (the potential for) an uncontrolled explosion which would shoot harmful VCM (vinyl chloride monomer) gas and shrapnel throughout the community," Shaw said. "And so the decision made by the unified command under the direction of the incident commander was a controlled venting burn." Pennsylvania State Sen. Doug Mastriano, (R), chair of the committee, asked, "You're saying he was the trigger guy. He was the one that said, OK, we're going to make this happen after receiving all the input?""Senator, under the structure of the unified command, the incident commander takes the lead," Shaw said. "The response was managed under the unified command structure established shortly after midnight with a local fire chief serving as the incident commander," he said."So your cars are on fire. It's your rail, it's your incident, and you're going to leave it to a local fire chief who probably never had to deal with potentially such a catastrophe before. And he's going to make the decision," Mastriano said.Shaw testified that local, state, and federal authorities were all part of the unified command and were in the loop and that the final decision belonged to the fire chief in his role as incident commander. Shaw repeated his insistence that the decision for controlled release was the right one, when faced with the uncontrolled alternative."We avoided the potential for a catastrophic, uncontrolled explosion that would have shot-- potentially shot harmful gas and shrapnel throughout the community," Shaw said.As for Norfolk Southern's long-term obligations, he testified, "I've said from day one, Norfolk Southern plans to make this right, and we're going to be there as long as it takes. Which means we're going to be there today, we're going to be there tomorrow, we're going to be a year from now. We're going to be five years from now. ... We strive to make our safety culture the best in the industry. The events of the last several weeks are not who we are as a company."Shaw was invited to a public hearing last month in Beaver County but did not show.The committee then subpoenaed him to testify on March 8, but Shaw did not show, saying he was preparing to testify in Washington.At that hearing in Washington, D.C., Shaw apologized and said the company would help the community recover.