Source: http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=71110

Former EPA Boss Grilled on 9/11 Air Quality

June 25, 2007

Former EPA Chief Christine Todd Whitman faced fierce questioning in Washington Monday as she testified under oath about her declaration that the air was safe to breathe immediately following 9/11.

Whitman took the stand at the hearing, led by Manhattan Congressman Jerrold Nadler, to answer questions about the cleanup of the Trade Center site and on what she knew and when about the air quality in Lower Manhattan in the days and weeks following 9/11.

The former EPA head declared the air around the site to be safe to breathe just days after the attacks. But in the nearly six years since, independent government reports have been critical of the EPA's handling of the clean up, and studies have shown that a staggering 70 percent of first responders now have some degree of respiratory problems, leading some on the panel to denounce the EPA and its former chief for negligence.

Whitman said her assurances that the air was safe to breathe in Lower Manhattan in the days after the attacks were based on scientific evidence.

Source and Video: http://wcbstv.com/local/local_story_176060933.html

Former EPA Chief Whitman On Hot Seat Over 9/11 Air
Ground Zero Workers Head To D.C. To Protest

See Also -- Slideshow: The World Trade Center Remembered
WCBSTV.com's 9/11 Special Report

Magee Hickey
Reporting

(CBS) NEW YORK Lawmakers in Washington are holding a health hearing Monday about environmental issues at Ground Zero.

Former Environmental Protection Agency chief Christine Todd Whitman is expected to testify about what she knew about air quality in lower Manhattan in the weeks after the terrorist attacks.

Dozens of first responders boarded buses in Manhattan early Monday morning for the long trip to Washington, D.C., to make their voices heard.

They are demanding prison time for Whitman, and are scheduled to join a protest march at 1 p.m. Monday.

Nearly six years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Christie Whitman must finally answer some very tough questions at a congressional hearing about 9/11 health issues and air quality.

From http://c-span.org/

"Christine Todd Whitman, former Environ. Protection Agency Admin. (2001–2003), testifies about her agencies response to the 9-11 attacks. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) conducts a House Judiciary subcmte. hearing on due process violations arising from the EPA's handling of air quality issues."

This will air on CSPAN3 and streaming at http://c-span.org/watch/cs_cspan3_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS3

On a related note, from John Feal of the FealGood Foundation:

Source: http://www.1010wins.com/pages/599748.php?contentType=4&contentId=625724

Posted: Wednesday, 20 June 2007 10:41AM

Top White House Aide Defends Handling of 9/11 Air Problems

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top White House official on Wednesday defended the government's handling of post-Sept. 11 air contamination at ground zero.

"In all instances, federal agencies acted with the best available data at the time, and updated their communications and actions as new information was obtained,'' James Connaughton, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in prepared testimony to a Senate panel led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Clinton, D-N.Y., has sternly criticized the government for not doing enough to protect ground zero workers and lower Manhattan residents from the tons of toxic dust released by the collapse of the World Trade Center.

An internal government investigation found the Environmental Protection Agency offered public assurances in the days after the attacks without scientific data to back up those claims.

FINALLY! This should be BIG news for First Responders all over the country. Nothing more than mere drywall masks were provided to most workers

Now if only someone can get that bitch Christine Whitman before the bench, we may get a foot in the door of the Whitehouse before the pResident escapes to his family's new 100,000 acre ranch in Paraguay.

"If even a minority of the plaintiffs suffered serious injuries to their respiratory tracts arising from the acrid air of September 11, their claims deserve to be heard when a recovery could make a difference in their lives… The scar to the public interest needs to be cleansed, speedily, in good time." the judge wrote in his opinion.

"The workers at the site were presented with a dangerous environment, below and surrounding their work activities, threatening their health and safety," the judge said.

“The fact-intensive nature of the issue makes its resolution unsuitable for resolution by motion,” Judge Hellerstein concluded. “Discovery, additional proceedings and a more extensive factual record, and perhaps a trial, will be required.”

Judge Hellerstein wrote that long after the attacks, there were "critical lapses in the enforcement of safety standards and in the dissemination of vital information about the safety of the air at Ground Zero to those most affected, the workers themselves."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/07/AR2006100700834.html

Advocates Say Illegal Workers Suffer After 9/11 Cleanup
But a Recent N.Y. Program Offers Help to Many With Lung, Other Diseases

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 8, 2006; Page A10

Jose Moncada watched the World Trade Center towers tumble, and, like so many Americans, felt a patriotic urge to help rescue survivors and rebuild after Sept. 11. "It was my time to put my hand on my heart," he said. "It was my time to help somebody."

It did not matter to him that he was an illegal immigrant from Honduras. And that did not seem to matter to supervisors who oversaw the retrieval of human remains and the removal of toxic debris at Ground Zero. They welcomed Moncada and thousands of other illegal immigrants, no questions asked.

The Immigration Debate
The Washington Post's coverage of the immigration issue, from the politics of revising the nation's immigration laws to the impact of illegal immigration on the U.S.-Mexico border and the Washington region.

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