Former EPA Administrator Whitman to Appear at June 25th Hearing on
Post 9/11 Air Quality

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Congressman Jerrold Nadler (NY-08), Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, will conduct an oversight hearing on Monday, June 25, 2007, at 1:00 P.M, to examine possible violations of the "substantive due process rights" of individuals living and working in the vicinity of the World Trade Center on, or after, September 11, 2001, by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) and other federal agencies.

Former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and other key governmental actors in the federal government's World Trade Center response will testify at the hearing. Ms. Whitman's appearance will mark the first time she has testified at a Congressional hearing dedicated solely to the EPA’s response to the World Trade Center attacks in New York and the first time she has testified on these matters since a damning EPA Inspector General’s report was released in August of 2003. (See http://www.house.gov/nadler/archive108/9-11interference_081303.htm and http://www.house.gov/nadler/archive108/EPAIG_082203.htm) This report concluded that the Administration made misleading public statements about post-9/11 air quality, based at least in part on White House interference, and has failed to provide a proper testing and cleaning of indoor spaces contaminated by WTC toxins. 

Thousands of individuals exposed to World Trade Center environmental contamination are sick with respiratory illnesses and cancers, according to peer-reviewed, published medical reports. A number of deaths have also been positively linked, via government medical examiners, to exposure to these contaminants.

"At long-last, the American people will finally have their first opportunity to hear directly from former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and other former government officials -- on the record," said Rep. Nadler. "Too many questions remain about the federal government’s response to post 9/11 air-quality, why certain decisions were made, and who was ultimately responsible for them. For the thousands that have since become sick, and the several who have died, we owe it to them to determine the absolute truth about what happened."

This hearing, and its companion Senate hearing to be conducted on June 20, 2007, by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Superfund and Environmental Health, represent the first comprehensive Congressional oversight investigations into the federal government’s handling of post-9/11 air quality since the immediate aftermath of the attacks.  While in the Majority, Republican House leadership steadfastly refused to hold a single House hearing on these matters, or even respond to a written request made in September 2003 by Nadler, then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and then-Ranking Members John Conyers, John Dingell, George Miller, and Henry Waxman. (See http://www.house.gov/nadler/archive108/EPA_091703.htm).

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