If you didn't already fully grasp just how eager the reactionary right is to take risks with your life and that of your family, for the most absurd and petty reasons, the last two weeks should have been sobering.
On Thursday, two years after the Sierra Club first reported its test results showing that FEMA trailers used to house victims of Hurricane Katrina emitted toxic levels of formaldehyde and were death traps, the Center for Disease Control confirmed these findings. Up until the last minute, FEMA was desperately trying to pretend that it didn't know this already, and that it could continue to house people in these trailers. As recently as two weeks ago, fearing that the CDC study would be manipulated, Reps. Brad Miller (N.C.) and Nick Lampson (Texas), both members of the House Science and Technology Committee, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Julie Gerberding, head of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), saying:
"Documents obtained recently by the [House Science and Technology Committee] make us question whether you used 'best science' or provided 'trusted health information' to some of the nation's most vulnerable citizens, or just provided the evaluation that FEMA preferred."
With good reason. Other documents recently released show that a year ago FEMA knew about the problem from its own review, not just the Sierra Club's initial investigation.
CDC didn't fudge the results. CDC yesterday said people living in 38,000 FEMA trailers need to move before this summer because high heat can cause the wood inside the trailers to emit dangerous levels of formaldehyde gas. Now House Democrats led by Representative Henry Waxman are stepping up their investigations of the scandal, but it's clear that there has been a sustained, conscious, and unconscionable cover up at the ill-named Department of Homeland Security.
But playing games with our lives doesn't stop with trailers, and CDC can no longer be trusted. The Center has been suppressing a 400-page scientific report that documents toxic hot spots threatening the citizens of eight Great Lakes states. CDC also demoted the scientist who prepared the study that found that more than nine million people face health risks from exposure to dioxin, PCBs, pesticides, lead, mercury, and other toxics. The Center for Public Integrity revealed that the report had been suppressed even though it shows not just potential risks, but that populations in these hot spots are already suffering low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer.
Homeland Security and CDC have company in their assault on public safety. EPA scientists are up in arms because the Agency has proposed to end the regulation of lead as a toxic air pollutant under the Clean Air Act. Rogene Henderson, chair of EPA's Clean Air Science Advisory Committee called the options being proposed by Administrator Steve Johnson "a disaster," saying they lacked scientific basis and were being driven by the lead industry.
And the Consumer Product Safety Commission showed just how determined the Administration is to run out the clock on meeting its obligations to protect the public. After the Sierra Club petitioned the Consumer Product Safety Commission to deal with the problem of lead-tainted jewelry being sold to children, Congress took special action to make sure that CPSC, even though it currently lacks a quorum, could crack down on toxic jewelry. But the Commission deliberately ran out the clock until its special authorization to act on lead hazards without a quorum expired -- so that after a year of knowing that American children are being poisoned by toxic products, no safety net has been put in place, and next Christmas could be just as bad as this year.
I'm proud that in three of these cases -- toxic trailers, hot spots in the Great Lakes, and the tainted-jewelry scandal -- it was the Sierra Club that originally identified the hazard and created the public firestorm. But I'm profoundly upset that, even so, the outgoing Administration is determined to thwart the public demand that someone do something to protect our families. The predatory ideologues that Bush stuffed into federal agencies used to have quasi-adult supervision in the form of Karl Rove -- now they see the clock running, and are both trying to leave behind some legacy from their predatory values -- and perhaps also looking to find a lucrative landing place after next January by doing a favor, any favor, for one of K Street's toxic special interests.