Waxman's Oversight Hearing on FEMA trailers: The Feds were poisoning the citizens they were "helping"
By Nicole Belle Wednesday Jul 18, 2007 8:50pmAnd the hits just keep on coming... The Gavel:
At 10:00 a.m. the Oversight Committee (held) a hearing, "FEMA's Response to Reports of Toxic Trailers." The Committee will hold a hearing investigating formaldehyde levels in FEMA trailers provided for victims of the Gulf Coast hurricanes and FEMA's response to these reports. The Committee will hear from current residents occupying FEMA trailers, experts who are familiar with the health impact of formaldehyde, and from FEMA Administrator Paulison. Formaldehyde is a chemical used in paint and adhesives, and is classified as a "known carcinogen" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. Reports of high formaldehyde levels found in FEMA issued trailers and FEMA's response raise serious public health concerns. Supplemental Memo and Exhibits
Waxman: "Another FEMA official wrote, the office of general counsel has advised ‘We do not do testing, because it would imply FEMA's ownership of this issue.' Early in the process, due to the perseverance of a pregnant mother with a four month old child, FEMA did test one occupied trailer. The results showed that their trailer had formaldehyde levels 75 times higher than the maximum workplace exposure levels recommended by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. The mother evacuated the trailer. FEMA then stopped testing other trailers."
More videos of testimony available at The Gavel.
Login or Register to post comments.
EXCERPTED FROM "FEMA: Florida Election Management Agency."
Mel Brooks once said, "it's good to be king." Well when it comes to hurricanes, it's even better being the President's brother. Especially in a vital swing state. In an election year.
Louisiana's Democratic Governor Kathleen Blanco is learning that the hard way. While her state suffered through a disastrous, disorganized and delayed response to Katrina from FEMA and the Bush administration, Florida governor Jeb Bush had no such problems as his state weathered four hurricanes in 2004.
There is no mystery to this discrepancy, as GovExec.com wrote in "How FEMA Delivered Florida for Bush" on November 3rd, 2004, literally the day after the President won reelection:
Waxman: “Another FEMA official wrote, the office of general counsel has advised ‘We do not do testing, because it would imply FEMA’s ownership of this issue".
Well, in their defence, they haven't taken ownership of anything so far.
So why start now.
/govt.assholes
have to wonder if this was an opportunity for some loyal bushie to unload a bunch of unsaleable trailers at obscene prices. you know the manufacturers of mobile homes are aware of the formaldehyde issue. what a disaster and what a tragedy for the people of new orleans.
Okay, to put it delicately.....
Who built these f**king trailers anyway?...
How come they aren't being held responsible?....
FEMA = SNAFU!!!!!!!!
since mike jerkoff was made the head honcho and then fled that to better and greener fields,, his like a pig in shit
LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT!!!!!!!!!!!
FEMA is an important organization that has been so badly ripped apart under Bush. He appoints the stupidest people to these important positions. Just look who he wanted on the Supreme Court - Harriet Miers. WTF? I guess he tries to find people even dumber than him so he feels like the smartest guy in the room.
And i have a request:
Can one of the great editors of CrooksandLiars please post the emotional video Robert Byrd gave about the dogfighting football player case. I have only read reports of it, but can't seem to find the video anywhere. I'm sure others would like to see it too. So can you please make a post on it?
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/07/19/278997.aspx
I can only pray that this isn't true as headlined.
Is there ANYTHING that this Administration can claim as NOT being a failure?
I grows worse every day, for over Six years now it has been not only failures but devastating failures.
We have become a laughing stock for the rest of the world.
Thank you presidiot bush, thank you PNAC, thank you NeoCons....And a very special thank you to the fundamentalist christian right.
May they all putrify
When is enough, enough? We have to impeach these guys. I'm going to write Henry and demand that congress starts impeachment proceedings.
Another iceberg in collision coarse of the Titanic of the U.S.A.
FEMA was a disgrace under the first Bush, and it's a disgrace under this Bush. In between, it was a very effective organization under Bill Clinton. Go figure.....
Hummm...
. . . and again "they" are killing two birds with one stone !
It's about freakin time they started investigating this. I heard about this a long time ago. Of course nothing will be done about it and no one will be ultimately held responsible but at least it's out there.
Peptic Skeptic Says: Is there ANYTHING that this Administration can claim as NOT being a failure?
I can think of one thing.
It brought the Progressive/Liberal Democrats together for the first time in years. We now have a voice. For that " I thank you Chimpy". And to think, just a few years ago we were silent.
Please impeach these fools. Vote for solid politicians. And run for office yourselves. We are in desperate need of new leadership in the country. We can't get a damn thing right. And when was the last time that we truly invested in the infrastructure here in America. We need to restore our country. I don't want to live during the end of an empire, and it seems were are doomed to that if we don't start educating ourselves now. Peace.
Now chimpy wants to do the small pox thing, which his forefathers did not so long ago, unload the deathtraps unto the native Americans.
Yep all of chimpy's administration and friends are doing a heckofa job on the citizens of the US and the world.
It's just black and poor white folk. The Regime don't give 2 shits. If it were the country club set affected Bush and Cheney would be right there feeling their pain.
Kick Joe Lieberman off his committee assignments, while impeaching.
Remind me, who are the "terrorists" again?
Brownie, yer doin a heckva job.
A pregnant woman? Where are the howls of outrage from the fundies? /sarcasm off
Waxman doing all of the heavy lifting once again...imagine if Lieberman did his job as the Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (the Senate's version of Waxman's Committee) ?!?!?!???
We need to get Vitter removed from office, have him replaced with a Democrat and take our chance with Lieberman by removing him from the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
If these guys were working in the private sector, every one of their asses would be fired!
Dover Bitch @ 18:
YES!!!!
Im glad this issue is coming to light. I had doubts that it would ever surface.
Why would I clutter my beautiful mind with such stuff? Actually, it's working out quite well for a lot of them.
Uh, don't look now but bush just closed down FEMA yesterday and taking all control unto his own sweet self.
It means we're screwed during a genuine national emergency, it means he can CREATE a national emergency, and then do what he wants with us. (Blackwater) Yesterday he knighted himself and cheney as FEMA. (Felonious Emergency Martial Action).
Well if they are lazy and stay in the trailers to long, and not look for a job in a new city, they get their lazy ass poisoned. The my political base, the rich taxpayer, saves on welfare tax. This is perfectly fair and you libruls know it.
Don't look now but the Bushies just made it illegal to oppose the Iraq War
Don't look now but the Bushies just made opposing the Iraq war illegal.
http://www.truthcult.com/paul_roberts
It ist one new imbalming formula from shiffel labs in die Schweitz. You put ze people inside ze trailor, they are made dead and inbalmed at ze same time. Brilliant!
We have to test zis new product someplace you know. Why not ze poor swartzen peoples from New Orleans?
Zink of ze Profit!
Waxman's hearings are the best. Words can't express how great he is
Annnnnd .... Who got the no-bid contract for lethal trailers? Does anyone recall the Arthur Miller play, "All My Sons?" Well, looks like the family branched out into civilian markets since then. (Yah, I know he blew his brains out --- after decades of accepting the wealth, sending his innocent biz partner to prison, and his own son becoming a self-annihilating 'victim' of dad's irresponsibility. Sounds kinda familiar, don' it?
[Deleted. Banned poster]
Boop @ 7:
No, it's worse.
http://action.sierraclub.org/site/messageviewer?em_id+18401.0
sh@dow @ 34:
The war is good for you because it makes money. Hell its the only thing holding up the economy. You should be more appreciative. Just pat the idiots on the back that going to Iraq and quietly check for DOD contract opportunities. Thats all you have to do. This is a cruel world and YOU need to learn how to survive in it....before you end up on somebodies dinner plate.
Oh yeah and go to church once in a while. Make you feel better.
[Deleted. Banned poster]
Peptic Skeptic @ 8:
___________________________________________________
I have been reading a lot of books about our great leader. It seems he has always screwed up everything he's touched and either his father or his father's friends bail him out. He doesn't give a damn about anybody but his buddies and himself. I think he is stupid and his staff is pulling the strings.
bmw 528 @ 35:
Try that again:
I live in Louisiana, just north of new Orleans. My kids, the dog and I went to family in another state, while my husband stayed as a first responder. We ended up being gone for 6 weeks. On the way home, we passed a huge field near Purvis, Mississippi. As far as you could see were FEMA trailers of varying sizes. I figured they were waiting to be delivered to people who needed them. The following spring we made the trip again, same field, no noticable decrease in the number of trailers. Most recently we made the trip last month. Still the same huge field, filled to the brim with trailers, nearly 2 years after the storm. Who's paying for these trailers to sit, unused, for almost 2 years? While it took many people almost a year to get a trailer in the first place?
bmw 528 @ 39:
Oh for the Love of Christ you gotta be kidding me.
Can't these stupid sons of bitches do ANYTHING RIGHT?
Shame on the whole worthless pack of weasels.
[Deleted. Fred. Take this unintelligible babble to your regular hangout-Sitemonitor]
AJ Fan @ 30:
What a looney bin. king chimpy just can't handle the truth.
Is it just me or isn't the whole point of Republicanism since the Reagan years to "break" the government so badly that people have no choice but to go begging to the private sector for services? Then paying through the nose, ears, and every other orifice for those services.
I am not surprised by this. The GOP's vision of America in the future is one of gated communities for those who can afford it and .... but really, who cares about those other people! This is another small incremental step for the Republicans in an ongoing war against the federal government of America.
And by America I meant the US.... lost my sense of place there for a minute... a little mad y'know? I apologize to any readers from Canada and Mexico.
Can I adopt Henry Waxman into my family. It is this that brings back confidence, pride, credibility, back into the America I served and fought for.
As Waxman stated that FEMA was a top notch gov dept. It has been meat grinded by cronies with no care experience to apply for the job. Other than supporting Bush's election.
So under Clinton who believes in Government, it is a top agency that is very effective. Under Bush who doesn't beleive in Government, FEMA becomes worthless and ineffective. There is the difference between President's and their ideology.
Aren't some house plants, like spider plants, possibly helpful in removing formaldehyde from the air? It might be worth a try for anyone living in these trailers, because I have a strong suspicion that they'll be waiting for quite some time for the government to do anything useful.
Is this really just more incompetence, or am I paranoid in suspecting a Tuskegee Syphilis kind of experiment going on here? As in, let's find out how much formaldehyde really is unsafe, and let's use the lowest income Katrina victims as guinea pigs.
...formaldehyde levels 75 times higher than the maximum workplace exposure levels recommended by the NIOSH.
That's the rub. BushCo will just argue that these trailers were provided as LIVING units, not WORKPLACE units and then they'll boot it over to DoJ who will just sit on it until 2009.
You have to wonder what our opposite halfs are thinking...um I mean reacting
to news like this. 'Well dats the govment for ya!' No thats yousalls govment not mine.
I watched the FEMA tractor-trailer caravan idling their engines, parked in rows for weeks here in Memphis, and now this:
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/politics/article/0,1426,MCA_1496_563...
"the only emperor is the emperor of ice cream..."
It would be worthwhile to check out any connection between Bob Corker, senator from Tennessee, and Jim Clayton, who sold a lot of trailers to FEMA.
Once talked to a Gulf Coast woman whose family had to abandon their trailer because of mold, which can also sicken and kill. The loyal Bushies have no regard for ordinary folks caught in dire straits, except how they can make money off them or send them to war.
Not to worry. Those trailers are going to the Pine Ridge Reservation!
http://www.silvrdrach.homestead.com/Schwartz_2007_Jul_16.html
Ethnic cleansing. They couldn't drown them with the flood from Katrina. So they tried to gas the survivors with the trailers.
Ludicrous thinking yes, but the indigent and poor always seem to get the short end of the stick. They were harassesed from voting in the elections. They were treated like animals in the dome during the flood.
Of course the flood could have been prevented if the funding for shoring up the levies wasn't pulled. Again, the neighborhoods in the poor sections get the bad treatment, or worse, simply ignored.
I bet you some of those white bastards in Louisana and even in the federal government thought it was great that the floods cleared out those neigborhoods. They probably thought it was a good opportunity to rebuild them to their liking. Yes, I'm white. But I see alot of racial bias and discrimation in my race. Ignoring the needs of the people is just as bad as harrasing or discriminating. There are simply no excuses.
I hate my race for what it's done and doing to the world. Ever since we invaded this land and slaughtered the Indians its been like this. Even centuries before that, white anglo-saxons have raped and pilaged lands across the earth, treating other races like second class citizens.
The neo-cons are the epitomy of this thinking. And what color are all of them may I ask? Old white pasty bastards who are cowards if you get them alone in a corner.
Our only hope is for these people to die off and hope a new generation will take over, but from what I see so far these young white republicans in the Bush administration are just as bad, if not worse.
What a waste of taxpayer’s money. Not only were they built poorly – and now we find out lethally – but the profiteering contractors built way too many at some ridiculous cost-per-unit – FEMA paid over $40,000 each for these shoeboxes with windows. Now 10,770 unused units sit rusting on the property of a Hope, Arkansas airport at a cost of $431,000,000.00. Heck-of-a-job Chimp.
[...] looks like FEMA might have known early on that there were problems with these trailers and tried to distance themselves. “Another FEMA official wrote, the office of general counsel has advised ‘We do not do testing, [...]
The GOP MO is to "shrink the government down to size small enough to drown it in the bathtub". You expect anything less from a GOP lead FEMA?
...er, make that anything more?
I'm beginning to think that you people don't think that I'm doing a very good job as the leader of this great nation. What do you suggest that I do to improve my reactions to this and other events in the country?
Another scandal to take our eyes off the previous hair-on-fire scandals.
Rep. Waxman, the path of atrocities mushrooms, but nothing sticks to the Decider. Let's have a commitment to a result of all these inquiries. Why is our democracy going down in flames as the Congress diddles?
FEMA knew, and continued poisoning, ie. with premeditation. Now they try to finish off the Native Americans in the reservations dumping these toxic boxes on them.
When finally the personal responsibility will get into light, from Bush down? Or,f rom crooks who signed the orders, UP ?
The Parliament of Whores is totally ineffective. Dems are complicit, despite Waxman's work - a tiny rattle drop in a bucket. These ARE crimes ! Financed by all of us, the taxpayers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR200707...?
FEMA Knew Of Toxic Gas In Trailers
Hurricane Victims Reported Illnesses
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 20, 2007; Page A01
The Federal Emergency Management Agency since early 2006 has suppressed warnings from its own field workers about health problems experienced by hurricane victims living in government-provided trailers with levels of a toxic chemical 75 times the recommended maximum for U.S. workers, congressional lawmakers said yesterday.
A trail of e-mails obtained by investigators shows that the agency's lawyers rejected a proposal for systematic testing of the levels of potentially cancer-causing formaldehyde gas in the trailers, out of concern that the agency would be legally liable for any hazards or health problems. As many as 120,000 families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita lived in the suspect trailers, and hundreds have complained of ill effects.""
The link has much more.
I guess it wasn't enough to steal Native American land, kill their people, and extinguish their culture, now, we'll send them unfit housing that nobody else will have. What an appalling and sickening thing to do---to increase their wretched misery under the guise of "Help." Have any of the FEMA leadership ever been on a reservation? No? How shocking! With friends like FEMA---who needs enemies?
These moronic clods should actually go to a reservation or New Orleans sometime to witness personally what their wretched policies do. But they're too busy inventing excuses to cover their incompetent ass. Your tax dollars at work---what an outrage.
bmw 528 @ 64:
These are a few of my favorite things.
[...] FEMA Lawyers are Murderers [...]
[...] for the environments closer to home, the Oversight Committee is holding a hearing to investigate the response to trailers that FEMA provi... in which there were dangerous levels of formaldehyde. After they tested one trailer on the [...]
Login or Register to post comments.