GUEST COLUMN
10/07/05 - They say those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But you would think it would take more than four years to forget valuable lessons.

After the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, we realized the necessity of protecting public health in the wake of a disaster.Days after the attacks, the Environmental Protection Agency found that worrisome levels of asbestos, a cancer-causing agent, contaminated parts of lower Manhattan. But that warning never reached the public because the White House edited it out of its news release to speed recovery.

Today, 70 percent of the thousands of workers who cleaned up the nearby buildings are sick, many have been left incapacitated and others have died. Doctors predict the related death toll will eventually reach the thousands.

Now, Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and David Vitter (R-La.) are trying to edit out life-and-death information as America begins to recover from Katrina. They are proposing legislation that would give the EPA administrator authority to waive or change any law under EPA's jurisdiction or that applies to any activity in the nation carried out by the agency for up to 18 months. They have failed to provide any evidence of need for this sweeping legislation.

In short, the bill exploits the human suffering from Katrina by allowing private industry to operate above the law, ultimately risking more suffering to the very people injured by the hurricane.

The EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded that "a complex array of environmental health problems exists in New Orleans." This includes threats from contaminated drinking water, polluted floodwaters, broken sewage treatment systems, oil and chemical exposures, toxic sediments and sludge, and the safety of recovery personnel as well as returning residents and business owners. The people of New Orleans need public health and environmental protections now more than ever.

After all the talk about how the federal government left thousands of New Orleans residents out in the cold during Katrina, it is incomprehensible that they would do it again. The known health threats and significant uncertainties faced there are of particular concern to low-income and minority communities, who were disproportionately harmed by Katrina and who are especially at risk from public health and environmental dangers because of their close proximity to chemical plants, refineries and other potentially hazardous facilities. By authorizing the elimination of protections that ensure they have clean water and air and the right to live in a toxic-free community, the federal government is again showing its disregard for environmental justice.

Inhofe and Vitter's bill represents the most sweeping grant of authority ever considered by Congress, giving an unelected official the power to override any federal or state law. EPA and Congress should be providing enhanced air and water quality monitoring to both inform the cleanup process and to give confidence to residents and businesses returning to and rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast that their health will be protected.

Congress must defeat this bill — it can't let the people of New Orleans down again.

Robert Bullard is the author of "Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality."


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