Clinton, Nadler and World Trade Center Expert Technical Panelists Press for Final Indoor Testing Plan

Clinton, Nadler and World Trade Center Expert Technical Panelists Press for Final Indoor Testing Plan

Letter to EPA Outlines Principles That Plan Should Incorporate and Asks for Meeting With EPA

In response to what they see as slowing progress in the efforts to determine the extent of remaining indoor contamination following the September 11th attacks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Congressman Jerrold Nadler wrote a letter to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Stephen Johnson to call for more action and to convene a meeting to develop a consensus plan. Clinton and Nadler were joined on the letter by four members of the World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel ("WTC Panel"), as well as the panel's community and labor liaisons.

The primary task of the WTC Panel is to help the EPA to design a testing plan to determine the extent of existing indoor contamination resulting from the collapse of the World Trade Center. The plan has been under development for 20 months by EPA and the WTC Panel.

The letter notes that the WTC Panel has met only three times this year, and that progress has slowed in recent months. The letter also notes that a revised plan is needed because a "signature" that the EPA planned to use in the testing program to identify World Trade Center contamination was found by an EPA peer review panel to be insufficiently developed to be used as intended.

"This has gone on long enough. I am calling on the EPA to meet with panelists, community representatives, and my office to finalize a testing plan that we can all support," said Senator Clinton. "We need to get this done before the next panel meeting."

"If the EPA wants to demonstrate that it is truly committed to a proper testing and cleanup plan, its next step must be to meet immediately with concerned parties to hammer out a scientifically sound and acceptable proposal," said Congressman Jerrold Nadler.

The Bush Administration committed to the creation of the WTC Panel in October of 2003, in response to Senator Clinton's call to address remaining health concerns about indoor air quality resulting from the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. These concerns followed an August, 2003 report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Inspector General that criticized the EPA's response to the September 11th attacks.

The full text of the letter follows:

November 21, 2005

The Honorable Stephen L. Johnson Administrator United States Environmental Protection Agency Ariel Rios Building - 1101A 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20460

Dear Mr. Johnson:

For the last 20 months, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has worked in conjunction with the World Trade Center Expert Technical Review Panel (WTC Panel) as well as community and labor representatives to develop a plan to determine the extent of remaining indoor contamination resulting from the collapse of the World Trade Center. EPA, the panel members, and community and labor participants have all invested considerable time and energy in this process.

Substantial progress has been made since the first WTC Panel meeting in March of 2004. However in recent months, development of the plan has drifted. Only two WTC Panel meetings have been held since February 2005, and the last meeting took place more than four months ago in July. We are dismayed by this lack of EPA focus at the most critical time in the development of the plan. It is critical that we refocus now to finalize and implement an appropriate plan.

Until recently, the plan centered on the use of a WTC dust signature. EPA's recent peer review of the WTC signature concluded that the signature concept had not been sufficiently developed to be used as intended. Given this development, the challenge before EPA and the WTC Panel is to develop a revised plan. We strongly believe that a new plan can and must be developed quickly, and should incorporate the following principles:

The plan should recognize and be designed within the financial resources that EPA has available to implement Phase 1 of the sampling plan.

The plan should include residential, commercial, and work places in expanded geographic areas, which has been supported by EPA in previous drafts.

The plan should offer clean up for exceedances of benchmarks that have been developed for Contaminants of Potential Concern (COPC) as an incentive for participation in the program.

The plan should provide for the continued development of a WTC signature, taking into consideration the recommendations of the peer reviewers without using the signature as a basis for clean up.

We strongly believe that the hard work of the last 20 months provides a strong foundation of knowledge and ideas that can be drawn on to quickly develop a revised plan that is based on these principles and resolves outstanding methodological issues. As previously requested, we urge the agency to work with us to convene a working group to develop a revised plan in advance of the next WTC panel meeting. Developing a consensus plan in this manner would enable the next WTC panel meeting to focus on implementation rather than design.

We ask for your immediate attention to this important matter, and continue to stand ready to work with EPA on this important and reachable goal.

Sincerely,

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Jerrold Nadler

Steven D. Markowitz, M.D. Professor and Director Center for the Biology of Natural Systems Queens College, City University of New York

David M. Newman, M.A., M.S. Industrial Hygienist New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health

David Prezant, M.D. Deputy Chief Medical Officer New York City Fire Department Professor of Medicine Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Jeanne Mager Stellman, Ph.D. Professor of Public Health Columbia University

Catherine McVay Hughes Community Liaison EPA WTC Expert Technical Review Panel

Micki Siegel de Hernández Labor Liaison EPA WTC Expert Technical Review Panel Health and Safety Director Communications Workers of America - District 1

CC: Timothy Oppelt

Alan J. Steinberg

http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=249264&&