TikTok could separate from ByteDance, the Chinese technology firm which controls the exceedingly popular social media platform, in an effort to ease American lawmakers’ concerns about national security risks and data privacy.

Executives are weighing the sale of TikTok to another company or an initial public offering as a last resort should American officials reject an existing national security proposal offered by the company called Project Texas, according to a Tuesday report from Bloomberg. Authorities with the Chinese Communist Party would have to permit the divestiture.

The report comes as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, a board composed of nine cabinet-level officials who weigh the national security implications of international investments into American companies, conducts a review of TikTok. Representatives from the Justice Department have reportedly not accepted the proposal from the firm.

“Neither a ban of TikTok nor a divestiture of TikTok from ByteDance does anything to address national security concerns about data transfers,” TikTok spokeswoman Brooke Oberwetter said in a statement to Bloomberg, adding that American users “would be held to a significantly higher security standard than any comparable American company” under Project Texas.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) recently exhorted Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who leads the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, to force the divestiture of TikTok. A letter from the lawmakers referenced the body mandating that Beijing Kunlun Company divest itself of homosexual dating site Grindr and health care platform PatientsLikeMe four years ago under the Trump administration.

Renewed controversy over TikTok comes amid worsening tensions in broader Sino-American relations sparked by at least one Chinese surveillance balloon recently traversing the continental United States. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew is scheduled to testify before members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee next week.

Beyond the prohibition of TikTok on federal devices issued by President Joe Biden and similar actions from multiple state governments, lawmakers have unveiled a number of bills that would force the divestiture of TikTok or otherwise significantly restrict the platform, which outranks other social media companies such as Meta and Twitter with respect to daily usage. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) unveiled the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, abbreviated as the RESTRICT Act, to grant the Commerce Department authority to review information communications and technology transactions that pose undue risk to American security.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) recently publicized allegations from a former TikTok employee who claimed that employees of the firm, including members of the Chinese Communist Party who are on the company’s payroll, can allegedly switch between Chinese and American data with “nothing more than the click of a button.” Workers allegedly use proprietary software created in China to reduce foreign scrutiny and let engineers “insert software backdoors,” Hawley described on the basis of the unnamed whistleblower’s account.

“I have seen first-hand China-based engineers flipping over to non-China datasets and creating scheduled tasks to backup, aggregate, and analyze data,” the whistleblower told Hawley. “TikTok and ByteDance are functionally the same company. They use the same data analysis tools and chat apps, and managers are in constant contact.”

The state of Ohio filed a lawsuit against rail company Norfolk Southern in federal court on Tuesday over the train derailment in East Palestine and subsequent chemical fallout.

Residents of the small rust belt community continue to suffer weeks after the February 3 disaster. Local and state authorities previously evacuated all citizens within one mile of the derailment site and started a controlled burn of chemicals on the vehicle to decrease the risk of an explosion. The lawsuit, which contended that Norfolk Southern should be held financially liable for the derailment, characterized the incident as “entirely avoidable” and the result of executives neglecting the “welfare of the communities in which Norfolk Southern operates.”

“Ohio shouldn’t have to bear the tremendous financial burden of Norfolk Southern’s glaring negligence,” Attorney General Dave Yost (R-OH) said in a statement. “The fallout from this highly preventable incident may continue for years to come, and there’s still so much we don’t know about the long-term effects on our air, water and soil.”

Vinyl chloride, a known human carcinogen used to manufacture PVC, was emitted during the controlled burn from five train cars in the form of massive plumes of black smoke visible throughout eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Analysts from Texas A&M University and Carnegie Mellon University announced that nine of the 50 chemicals the EPA said were present on the derailed train now have higher concentrations than normal in East Palestine, even after state and federal officials claimed that air and water supplies were safe.

The EPA has additionally directed Norfolk Southern to sample for dioxins, a class of pollutants that can be formed by vinyl chloride combustion and can bind to soil particles for decades.

The lawsuit further noted that accident rates for Norfolk Southern have doubled over the past decade and involved at least 20 chemical releases since 2015. Officials therefore demanded reimbursement for all response costs “incurred and to be incurred” as a result of the disaster.

“The state of Ohio is the owner in trust of public lands, waters, and resources within its political boundaries and has a duty to protect and preserve those natural resources,” the lawsuit continued. “Ohio brings this action to redress the derailment and the resulting contamination of Ohio’s natural resources, which has caused significant damage and poses a significant ongoing threat to Ohio’s natural resources and the citizens of Ohio.”

Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw testified before Congress last week regarding the derailment, but made no specific promises regarding the firm’s commitment to handle economic and health fallout into the future. Another train controlled by Norfolk Southern derailed in Piedmont, Alabama, as Shaw delivered his testimony.

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) introduced the Railway Safety Act of 2023, which would require rail companies to report hazardous materials present on trains to state authorities, raise inspection requirements, and increase the rigor of defect detection efforts. The bill would meanwhile increase several civil penalties for violations of rail safety regulations tenfold and require that each train must operate with at least two-person crews.

Federal investigators have preliminarily concluded that the derailment was caused by a malfunctioning rail axle. “Surveillance video from a residence showed what appears to be a wheel bearing in the final stage of overheat failure moments before the derailment,” the NTSB said in a press release. “The wheelset from the suspected railcar has been collected as evidence for metallurgical examination.”