Congress

On Monday I went to my first Congressional hearing in the House office building called Rayburn. It was about the Sept. 11 dust issue in Lower Manhattan. Or rather, if you want the real subcommittee and hearing name - try this on for size:

House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Oversight Hearing on "Substantive Due Process Violations Arising from the Environmental Protection Agency's Handling of Air Quality Issues Following the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001."

Yeah, trying repeating that 45 times every time you call a different House press office and ask if the media can attend. If you've not been following the dust issue from Sept. 11 like I have (it's been my pet issue since I first covered 9/11 back in that fall of 2001) - it involves whether or not government officials lied about the air quality around Lower Manhattan when the World Trade Center towers came tumbling down. Whether you believe they lied or not, what is true is that thousands are now sick, and that includes both rescue workers who worked at Ground Zero and also residents and people who work in that area.

This committee hearing was huge because it was the first time former EPA head Christine Todd Whitman was to testify under oath about her role in the EPA when Sept. 11 happened. She was the one who gave the 'all clear!' words numerous times about the safety of the air around Ground Zero. Many NYC environmental organizations chartered buses down to DC to watch this hearing - people were ready for Whitman to answer some questions.

Should you want to read further into this issue, feel free the read the articles we've written about it by clicking here.

Anyway, fun times. I took a train down to DC and then hiked from Union Station over to the Rayburn office building. I say hiked because I was told that laptops were allowed, so I brought mine along. It becomes heavy when hoofing it in hot weather across 10 or 15 blocks.

When I got to the Rayburn building, I was sweaty and there was already a protest going on outside. I saw some folks I knew from NYC who work for organizations who help those affected by 9/11 and walked inside with them. There was a huge line waiting to get into the hearing room and thankfully there was still room left for the press to get in. The hearing room was amazing - huge high ceilings and the US seal and all the pomp and circumstance you'd expect.

When I took my seat I realized by reading nearby nametags that I was in between a reporter from the NY Times and one from the NY Daily News - both of whom's articles I've read for years on this same issue. I'm a huge fan of them both - especially the guy from the Daily News (I have his book). I refrained from going all fangirl on them and instead just smiled and took out my laptop.

Wow - what a long hearing. It was cool to watch the House Reps argue very heatedly with Whitman, who would yell right back. She even got the occasional boos and jeers from the audience - which were always met with the Subcomittee chair slamming down his gavel and yelling out, "THERE WILL BE NONE OF THAT! WE WILL NOT HAVE DEMONSTRATIONS IN THIS ROOM!"

It was also interesting to see the party lines evident on the subcommittee. The dems were very interested in pinning Whitman down when she'd obviously not be answering a question or would quickly trot out "Terrorists!" excuses. The republicans (the two who actually showed up to the hearing, the other five or six never showed) talked long about how pointless this hearing was and lobbed easy questions to Whitman. They also rambled on about how the dems are trying to find a conspiracy that did not exist between the White House and the EPA right after 9/11.

Some of the dems (and public) are convinced that because all of the EPA's press releases that went out in the weeks after Sept. 11 were OK'd and sometimes changed by White House Council on Environmental Quality folks, that the White House was pushing its own wants instead of public safety. Because Lower Manhattan and Wall Street were reopened so quickly after 9/11 due to Whitman saying "the air's fine to breathe!", many think the White House just wanted those open for its own reasons.

It's hard to explain if you don't have hours to read or listen, really. It boils down to some thinking Bush was more interested in the US economy getting back on its feet and on "showing them terrorists that we're back open so quick!" rather than being truly interested in the health and safety of those who worked in that area.

Another issue - OSHA and the EPA were not requiring recovery workers working at Ground Zero to wear respirators and protective gear. They advised them to do it, but neither required it. OSHA gave the excuse that it had no jurisdiction to do that. The EPA said they didn't take federal control of Ground Zero to require it because they didn't think it was necessary. Whitman even said at the hearing that she couldn't have imagined how the US people would have skewered her if the EPA had taken over Ground Zero for that reason.

So, back to the hearing. The republicans lobbed softball questions at Whitman, the dems nailed her.

Where do I stand? I agree with the republicans who said that there was no conspiracy to maliciously hurt US citizens. No one was out to reopen things so quick because they wanted people to get sick.

But I do think things reopened too quickly. There are test results that showed high levels of asbestos and other toxins in the air during the weeks and months the buildings smoldered. The EPA advised people to clean their offices and apartments of these toxins using wet rags and mops.

I don't know - it is hindsight. One republican bored the crap out of the audience for 20 minutes making an allusion to how one battle in the Civil War might have gone differently if one cannon had shot a different direction. The point he was making was that looking back on things in history - sure, we can make the corrections we want because we can see the whole thing.

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. The EPA and OSHA weren't being malicious, no - but it also seems like they sure moved real quick on things before really studying the effects. It's true that a terrorist attack like this was unprecedented, but at one hearing witness pointed out - the EPA and OSHA have both long studied the effects of buildings collapses and buildings burning. They know what kinds of things are released into the air and have both released reports on how toxic demolitions like that truly are.

In any case, it's certainly been a fascinating topic to cover in the past six years (some of those years I wasn't on it due to a different job, but I still followed it).

I'm glad I got to go to a hearing. I was glad this one was not all day, but instead started at 1pm. I left at 5, I just couldn't take it anymore. My butt was numb (I texted that to Amber - thinking how odd it was that I was covering this huge important hearing while sitting there texting someone about my butt) and my brain was fried.

It was an interesting experience sitting there with all those other big time reporters - there were tons of us there. Whenever Whitman came into the room there was a blur of cameras flashing and clicking. It was cool to hear the public getting involved by jeering, I like when people get vocal and have to be quieted by a gavel.

My notes from the hearing are interesting. I'm glad I took my laptop as my writing hand would've been numb from all that. I type much faster than I can write, plus - my typing is usually more legible. At certain points I typed in things like "I've now discovered that Congressional hearing room chairs are uncomfortable after about 2 hours" and "why the hell is this guy rambling on about the civil war?"

Oh - also cool was hearing Whitman take swipes at the media. She even made some statement at one point to a subcommittee member about "Oh, well keep saying that - the press is just DYING to quote you on that one." To which all the reporters around me rolled their eyes and shook their heads. We just looked at each other and laughed. She hates us, but then used in her presentation quotes from news articles to back up her viewpoints.

It was cool toward the end of the hearing to see the other reporters start typing up their stories right then to be filed. So I did that too. It was a time to feel good being a reporter for me - listening to a Congressional hearing while typing up my story.

I did not bring my camera because it would've been one more thing to lug around. Plus, this hearing was serious enough that those who were there to take pictures were professional photojournalists and not regular journalists taking photos and writing a story. I did snap a few quick camera phone shots that will have to tide you over. They are smattered in with this post. In one you can see all the photogs snapping away at Whitman (whom you can barely see).

And that's that - me getting political on my blog.