Lieberman, Collins AWOL on FEMA Oversight (again)

by: CaptCT

Fri Jul 20, 2007 at 09:11:13 AM EDT

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.
[...]
As many as 120,000 families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita lived in the suspect trailers, and hundreds have complained of ill effects.

What is Congress's role in a situation like this? To investigate. You might expect that Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, who chair the Senate Committee on Homeland Security—the committee that oversees FEMA—to lead an investigation. But you’d be wrong. Just as they failed to look into the incompetence that led to the Katrina disaster, Joe and Suzy have been AWOL on this scandal too.

It was Democratic Representative Henry Waxman—and Republican Tom Davis—who investigated this scandal and maybe saved some lives....

On the eve of yesterday's hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, FEMA reversed course on the issue and said it has asked federal health officials to help conduct a new assessment of conditions in trailers under prolonged use.

Is this one of those "partisan" attacks Joe Lieberman always talks about? Let's see ...

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) said FEMA had obstructed the 10-month congressional investigation and "mischaracterized the scope and purpose" of its own actions. "FEMA's reaction to the problem was deliberately stunted to bolster the agency's litigation position," Davis said. "FEMA's primary concerns were legal liability and public relations, not human health and safety."

This 10-month investigation apparently began before Waxman was named chairman of the Oversight Committee. Waxman was equally disgusted, as anyone would be:

Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) decried what he called FEMA's indifference to storm victims and said the situation was "sickening." He said the documents "expose an official policy of premeditated ignorance" and added that "senior officials in Washington didn't want to know what they already knew, because they didn't want the legal and moral responsibility to do what they knew had to be done."

A "moral" obligation? You would think that Holy Joe would be all over that one...but no. It was thanks to Waxman's and King's Congressional oversight, testing by the Sierra Club and subsequent lawsuits, that FEMA has replaced 58 trailers and moved five families into rental units, and are continuing to work to resolve the problem.

And no thanks to Lieberman and Collins. 

By the way, there's a bill that passed the House and is now in the Senate that would help Katrina and Rita victims move out of these trailers. The Gulf Coast Hurricane Housing Recovery Act of 2007 (H.R. 1227) would:

"... offer all low income households currently living in trailer camps the option of receiving a Section 8 housing voucher instead of the trailer. This will at least allow them the choice of moving elsewhere." - Sheila Crowley, MSW, Ph.D. President of the National Low Income Housing Coalition

In March, 2007, this bill was referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, which is chaired by Senator Chris Dodd. Urge Senator Dodd to move H.R. 1227 to the top of his list.