Hearing on FEMA's "Toxic Trailers": Waxman's Opening

[babylonsister]

Run time: 08:37 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv3Hssai9Po   Posted on YouTube: July 19, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: July 19, 2007 By DU Member: babylonsister Views on DU: 802

 

[whistle]

1. I call this republican directed sabotage against the victims of Hurricane Katrina

...and criminal extortion by republican selected contractors and suppliers of FEMA assistance. Beyond that, it will be the role of this and future investigations to determine what other criminal charges can be brought against FEMA and the Bush Administration who clearly had an agenda, goals and plan to render the FEMA agency aid as toxic and lethal. The "why" of this all is yet to be revealed, but when reasons for this are determined I only hope those responsible will be properly punished.

[L0oniX]

2. Ah good ol Americans screwing other Americans again...

that's what America is all about!

[Vilis Veritas]

3. And the media will not shed a single tear...

Or will they...?

This is not America anymore. It can't be true. I must have been caught in a tornado and I am in f'ing Oz!

[Divernan]

4. Battle between FEMA field staff & Bush/controlled hacks at FEMA hdqtrs.

As detailed in this morning's NYTimes, the (Bush-appointed) top layer of FEMA have been stone-walling FEMA field staff on this issue for OVER ONE YEAR! Way back in March of 2006, FEMA field staff became aware of the problem and requested testing of the trailers for formaldahyde fumes. Just as DHS blocked FEMA staff from going into NOLA a week before Katrina made landfall, to help with the evacuation, YET AGAIN, the Bush admin./GOP political hacks have blocked dedicated FEMA civil servants from helping US citizens.

Here are some excerpts from the Times report.
www.nytimes.com

"The chairman of the oversight committee, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, said 5,000 pages of documents released Thursday revealed a battle between the FEMA field staff and officials at the agency’s headquarters. “They wanted to ignore the problem,” Mr. Waxman said, referring to headquarters officials. “What we have is indifference to the suffering of people who are already suffering because of Hurricane Katrina, and this is from an agency that’s supposed to serve the public.”

Mr. Waxman said that after news reports in March 2006 about formaldehyde in the trailers, members of the field staff urged immediate action. He quoted a response in an e-mail message from a FEMA lawyer who said: “Do not initiate any testing until we give the O.K. Once you get results, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them.”

The documents include an e-mail exchange among agency staff members dated June 27, 2006, relating the news that one person had been found dead in a trailer in St. Tammany Parish, La. Referring to the use of air-conditioning, one e-mail message said: “We do not have autopsy results yet, but he had apparently told his neighbor in the past that he was afraid to use his A.C. because he thought it would make the formaldehyde worse.”

The staff member who wrote it recommended further investigation and said that the agency’s office of general counsel had told a different employee that it “has not wanted FEMA to test to determine if formaldehyde levels are in fact unsafe.” On the eve of the hearing, the agency announced it that it had asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test air quality in occupied trailers. The study will begin next week.