Representative Press Blog

For all you Bush apoligists and Republican robotic sheep, did you forget how the White House treated the American people?

For all you clowns that insist that US policy makers don't screw over people in foreign countries: LOOK HOW THEY TREAT FELLOW AMERICANS!:

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available.

That finding is included in a report released Friday by the Office of the Inspector General of the EPA. It noted that some of the agency's news releases in the weeks after the attack were softened before being released to the public: Reassuring information was added, while cautionary information was deleted.

"When the EPA made a September 18 announcement that the air was 'safe' to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement," the report says. "Furthermore, the White House Council on Environmental Quality influenced . . . the information that EPA communicated to the public through its early press releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0823-03.htm

This story was underreported. Why didn't we hear more about this? Think it is a game to have New Yorkers tricked into breathing in asbestos? And no action has been taken after we find out about these outragous actions!

NO INVESTIGATION OF WHITE HOUSE DOCTORING GROUND ZERO AIR QUALITY INFO: After 9/11, the White House intervened to force the EPA to downplay toxic dangers at Ground Zero, explicitly ignoring a top federal scientist who warned in a memo against the re-occupation of buildings in lower Manhattan because of dangers from asbestos and other toxins. Just seven days after the attack, the White House had the EPA delete words of caution and add reassuring language in a release that told New Yorkers the air around Ground Zero was safe. Republicans in Congress have launched no investigation into the White House's doctoring of information and endangerment public health. [Sources: New York Daily News, 10/28/03; Knight Ridder, 9/12/03; NYT, 10/28/03]