- WASHINGTON (AP) -- At the
White House's direction, the Environmental Protection Agency gave New Yorkers
misleading assurances that there was no health risk from the debris-laden
air after the World Trade Center collapse, according to an internal inquiry.
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- President Bush's senior environmental adviser on Friday
defended the White House involvement, saying it was justified by national
security.
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- The White House "convinced EPA to add reassuring
statements and delete cautionary ones" by having the National Security
Council control EPA communications in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks,
according to a report issued late Thursday by EPA Inspector General Nikki
L. Tinsley.
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- "When EPA made a Sept. 18 announcement that the
air was 'safe' to breathe, the agency did not have sufficient data and
analyses to make the statement," the report says, adding that the
EPA had yet to adequately monitor air quality for contaminants such as
PCBs, soot and dioxin.
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- In all, the EPA issued five press releases within 10
days of the attacks and four more by the end of 2001 reassuring the public
about air quality. But it wasn't until June 2002 that the EPA determined
that air quality had returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels ó well after
respiratory ailments and other problems began to surface in hundreds of
workers cleaning dusty offices and apartments.
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- The day after the attacks, former EPA Deputy Administrator
Linda Fisher's chief of staff e-mailed senior EPA officials to say that
"all statements to the media should be cleared" first by the
National Security Council, which is Bush's main forum for discussing national
security and foreign policy matters with his senior aides and Cabinet,
the inspector general's report says.
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- Approval from the NSC, the report says, was arranged
through the White House Council on Environmental Quality, which "influenced,
through the collaboration process, the information that EPA communicated
to the public through its early press releases when it convinced EPA to
add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones."
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- For example, the inspector general found, EPA was convinced
to omit guidance for cleaning indoor spaces and tips on potential health
effects from airborne dust containing asbestos, lead, glass fibers and
concrete.
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- James Connaughton, chairman of the environmental council,
which coordinates federal environmental efforts, said the White House directed
the EPA to add and delete information based on how it should be released
publicly. He said the EPA did "an incredible job" with the World
Trade Center cleanup.
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- "The White House was involved in making sure that
we were getting the most accurate information that was real, on a wide
range of activities. That included the NSC ó this was a major terrorist
incident," Connaughton said.
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- "In the back and forth during that very intense
period of time," he added, "we were making decisions about where
the information should be released, what the best way to communicate the
information was, so that people could respond responsibly and so that people
had a good relative sense of potential risk."
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- Andy Darrell, New York regional director of Environmental
Defense, an advocacy group, said the report is indicative of a pattern
of White House interference in EPA affairs. "For EPA to do its job
well, it needs to be allowed to make decisions based on the science and
the facts," he said.
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- Marianne L. Horinko, EPA's acting administrator, said
the White House's role was mainly to help the EPA sift through an enormous
amount of information.
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- "We put out the best information we had, based on
just the best data that we had available at the time," said Horinko,
who headed the agency's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, which
oversaw the World Trade Center environmental monitoring and cleanup.
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- "And it was using our best professional judgment;
it was not as a result of pressure from the White House," she said.
"The White House's role was basically to say, 'Look, we've got data
coming in from everywhere. What benchmarks are we going to use, how are
we going to communicate this data? We can't have this Tower of Babel on
the data.'"
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- The EPA inspector general recommended that EPA adopt
new procedures so its public statements on health risks and environmental
quality are supported by data and analysis. Other recommendations include
developing better procedures for indoor air cleanups and asbestos handling
in large-scale disasters.
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- Copyright © 2003 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority
of The Associated Press.
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- http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=513&u=/
ap/20030823/ap_on_go_ot/epa_air_safety_8&printer=1
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