Nadler: EPA "killing more people than the terrorists"

posted by ewing2001 on Monday September 15, @10:59AM

International Association of Firefighters about ex-EPA Whitman:
"She's trying to cover her ass"

9/11 Air Report Cover-up: "Outrage" (NY Post)

NY Post -September 14, 2003

Christie Whitman has three words for many of the Ground Zero rescue workers suffering from "tower lung" and other lingering health problems: We warned you.

Whitman, who headed the federal Environmental Protection Agency on 9/11 and afterward, said yesterday her agency did everything it could to warn rescue teams they needed to worry about their own health and safety while conducting their heroic work...

...Firefighter reaction to Whitman's statement was swift and angry.

"She is ultimately responsible," said Steve Cassidy, president of the firefighters union. "When she said that everything was OK, the firefighters believed those statements. For her to say now that we are responsible is outrageous."

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The head of the country's largest firefighter union called Whitman's comments "a slap in the face to all firefighters."

"She's trying to cover her ass," fumed Harold Schaitberger, general president of the International Association of Firefighters.

"You could end with the EPA killing more people than the terrorists," added Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes Ground Zero.

Whitman said she wore a mask during a press conference near Ground Zero on Sept. 13, two days after the attacks, and personally urged others to do so.

The former New Jersey governor said she understands the workers were under great stress and emotional strain, but that the EPA cannot be faulted for failing to warn them of dangerous toxins at Ground Zero.

She said some EPA workers were "verbally abused" when they tried to urge recovery workers to don respirators and use washing stations set up by the feds.

"They were run off the site on a couple of occasions," Whitman said.

She paraphrased some angry remarks by rescuers and volunteer firefighters: "'Don't you tell us what to do. Those are my brothers and sisters in there. Get out of my way."

Whitman said the EPA "unfortunately does not have the authority to force people" to wear the cumbersome breathing devices, but that the city Health Department or federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration, which oversees workplace safety, might have required the protection.

Calls to the Health Department weren't immediately returned.

Whitman said that within "days," the agency provided some 30,000 respirators, a claim called "totally false" by the international firefighters union.

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