Following major reductions in health and safety oversight by the country's largest labor federation, the government has announced drastic cuts in its own worker education efforts, leaving advocates worried and weakened.

May 30 - With workplace fatalities on the rise, the government is once again on the verge of eliminating one of its most substantial sources of funds for groups that work to mitigate the dangers of employment. For the fourth time in as many years, a federal grant program that supports workplace health and education training and serves as an integral source of financial support for a loose-knit coalition of worker training organizations is on the chopping block, leaving the future of such efforts up in the air.

Named for a former official of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Susan Harwood Training Grant is a decades-old program that provides monetary backing for a variety of research, training, and educational efforts run by nonprofit organizations associated with universities and colleges, religious centers, businesses and organized labor.

Over the last several years, the Bush administration has proposed cutting the training grant by millions with each budget, only to have the efforts rebuked at the last minute by legislators. Proposed cuts to the overall OSHA budget have followed a similar route. As a result, funding has barely kept pace with inflation, according to OSHA budget figures.

Meanwhile, workers continue to die and suffer injuries on the job at alarming rates. In 2004, OSHA reported that 5 percent of the private sector workforce had incurred work-related injuries or illnesses in 2003, the last year for which it has compiled statistics. Of the 4.1 million incidents of injury, 68 percent affected service workers. The Department of Labor reports 5,575 work-related fatalities for the same year.

Funding for the Harwood grants has hovered around $10 to $11 million for the past several years, but, in a quiet February budget announcement, OSHA announced that the program was to be droppd outright, despite the agency's expected $2.8 million budget increase.

Before learning of the Harwood cut, workplace safety advocates had been happy to hear about new measures for standards enforcement and compliance, such as an additional $4.6 million to go for federal enforcement, which includes a planned 37,700 workplace inspections, and the proposal to provide $1 million for states to use in compliance assistance. But the proposed defunding of the Harwood grant quickly dampened their spirits.

Workplace Safety Training Works

Health and safety advocates say many of the work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths can be abated through the delivery of one-on-one and small group training, the very types of programs OSHA is moving away from funding.

Roger Cook, director of the Western New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (WNY COSH) can attest to the effectiveness of such training programs. COSH groups all over the country are regular recipients of the Susan Harwood grants.

From 1997 through 2000, WNY COSH ran a joint labor-management ergonomics safety training program funded entirely with a Susan Harwood Grant at grocery warehouses in Western New York. The results were dramatic, as evidenced by a 35-page report -- complete with letters from employers thanking the group and touting the results of the program -- provided to TNS.

One warehouse, the Tops Distribution Center in Buffalo, NY, experienced a 30 to 50 percent drop in work-related injuries during the years it participated in the program. The grocery chain's freezer facility reported a remarkable drop in injuries during the same time, from 1 in 5 when the program started to 1 in 50 two years later. Tops' parent company, Ahold USA, liked the results so much that it initiated similar programs at Giant and Stop & Shop stores in Maryland and elsewhere, according to documentation provided with the report.

Other companies enrolled in similar COSH-run programs reported parallel results. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Western New York saw its worker's compensation costs drop by $150,000 within three years of beginning an ergonomics program, and Try-It Distributing, a Western New York beverage distributor, reported a 44 percent reduction in injuries within just one year of implementing a similar educational regimen.

"I think we actually underestimate the role COSH and labor groups play in keeping the workplace safe," Tom Juravich, director of Labor Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, told The NewStandard. "They're out there, they know the system, and a lot of times they just know much more than OSHA -- or even employers -- know about the actual conditions that people work in."

"COSH groups are usually the only groups in a community doing this sort of training -- and the only ones doing it for free or at a very low cost," explained Susan O'Brien, the associate director of New York COSH. "This sort of one big blanket approach OSHA appears to be embracing doesn't work effectively. There are segments of our society who aren't going to get access to the items they're [OSHA] offering."

"If the COSH groups do lose this funding," said William Johnson, co-editor of Labor Notes, "it will mostly be noticed at the local level, where they operate., But the impact could be quite substantial. These groups fill in the gaps where unions either can't or don't want to operate. They're on the shop floor and out in the community, reaching out to immigrants and others who desperately need the training." Labor Notes is a monthly magazine that focuses on the union movement and is operated by a nonprofit organization of the same name.

On average, an individual COSH receives $20,000-$30,000 a year from the Harwood grants, O'Brien said, making the grant funding a substantial portion of most groups' budgets, which vary from less than $50,000 to over $1 million a year.

Houston COSH director Diana Dale admitted $30,000 does not sound like a lot of money, but she said groups like hers can do a lot with that much cash.

Dale said she expects OSHA to clarify the status of the Harwood grant money this summer, possibly by early July. She said her organization is quite dependant on the money, and she is worried that resources intended to go for training will have to be expended finding new sources of funding if the grant money isn't restored to the budget.

OSHA's Changing Priorities at Odds with Data

But funding levels are only one aspect of a larger problem, according to Tom O'Connor, national coordinator for COSH. A bigger obstacle for COSH groups and labor safety educators comes from the technology-oriented approach OSHA has increasingly embraced in the last several years, he said.

The shift in priorities has been noticed by health and safety advocates ever since Bush took office, but it began in earnest with the 2005 budget request, they say. For that year, Bush proposed revising the Susan Harwood training grants program to "focus on new technologies and emphasize development of training materials rather than delivery of training."

O'Connor said, "The top people at OSHA in this administration are greatly enamored with high-tech training, web-based training, production of DVD's and the like."

He continued, "These bureaucrats are so removed from the reality of low-income workers that they don't seem to realize that few of the workers who most need this training have the capacity to access such methods."

Workplace health and safety advocates also blame OSHA's increasingly cozy relationship with businesses -- a relationship marked by employer-focused training programs and increased efforts to help companies comply with the law.

O'Brien, of New York COSH, said the new direction OSHA appears to be heading cannot achieve the same results groups like hers do, namely because grassroots training casts a wide net, offers situation-specific programming, and teaches employees to be proactive and work with all elements of the communities they work in.

Labor Divisions Exacerbate Problems

Compounding the government's seeming disinterest in workplace safety issues are the recent shake-ups at the nation's largest labor federation. The AFL-CIO, which has historically worked closely with the COSH groups, recently announced it was dissolving its national Health and Safety Department and laying off some of the staff that has worked on those issues. Though unions don't provide much direct funding to the groups, they helped form the first COSH groups and every COSH has a union representative on its board of directors, O'Connor said.

In light of speculation that several unions may leave the Federation, coupled with the recently revealed restructuring and layoffs, national leadership on workplace protection measures at the AFL-CIO appears to be in danger.

"I'm actually scared to death about the direction workplace safety and health are heading," Juravich said. "Workplaces are becoming more dangerous. My real concern is that there hasn't been enough thought given to the effect the Federation's decision will have on the national level. They've played a strong coordinating role with employers, OSHA, and the COSHes. I don't really know what the other options are now. "

Unions have long organized around the issues of workplace health and safety, and a study of workers' attitudes towards their jobs conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the AFL-CIO in 2001 found that health and safety issues ranked highest among their priorities, with 98 percent of respondents citing a "safe and healthy workplace" as an essential or very important right at work.

Statistics like these give pause to labor educators observing the changes in organized labor. Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of Labor Education Research at Cornell University's New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations questioned the wisdom of focusing on organizing at the expense of core services unions have traditionally supplied.

"If you defund education, and health and safety and other critical functions at the center, you hurt organizing and political action because these are the departments that are at the core of motivating and educating people around the critical issues which you are trying to mobilize them around," Bronfenbrenner explained.

Larry Casey, director of the Building Trades Program with the Labor Education Service of the University of Minnesota, agreed. He questioned where the service part of belonging to a union is heading, but pointed out that many unions still have strong health and safety programs, especially larger, long-established unions in building trades, the auto and steel industries and mining. Still, Casey said, the oft-noted shrinking member base places a strain on labor's ability to serve its members.

Johnson, the Labor Notes co-editor, takes this critique one step farther in assessing the future of organized labor and workplace health and safety, especially the grassroots sort of efforts that the COSH groups undertake. "Why are we in a situation where the most reliable workplace health and safety advocates are government -- and not union -- sponsored," he asked. "Why would workers want to join unions that have stopped devoting resources to protecting them on the job?"

Lamphear, who heads Cincinnati's Children's Environmental Health Center and has published numerous scientific articles on childhood lead poisoning, was asked to serve on a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention childhood lead- poisoning panel in 2000.

After Bush took office, the board replaced Lamphear and several others on the panel with scientists friendly to the lead industry. The panel decided against lowering the blood level of lead at which children are considered to be poisoned.

Spurred by his belief that the Bush administration stacked the panel to help the lead industry avoid lawsuits, the pediatric epidemiologist joined more than 6,000 scientists in signing a statement circulated by the Union of Concerned Scientists that asks the administration to stop distorting science for political purposes.

The lead paint incident was not isolated. Two reports issued by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit alliance, allege dozens of cases of scientific interference by the Bush ad ministration. Among the claims: the ad ministration suppressed research that supported tougher mercury standards for coal-fired power plants; it distorted reproductive health facts, and it tried to weaken the Endangered Species Act.

"This type of thing has happened in previous administrations, but it has now reached unprecedented levels," says Lexi Schultz of the scientists' group.

Harvard University Professor Lewis Branscomb, who headed the National Bureau of Standards during the Nixon administration and signed the scientists' group statement, agrees that the frequency of complaints has increased dramatically under Bush.

"Science advice must not be allowed to become politically or ideologically constructed," Branscomb wrote in the October 2004 issue of Issues in Science and Technology.

The head of Bush's Office of Science and Technology Policy, former Brookhaven National Laboratory Director John Marburger, says nothing of the kind is happening. He accuses Bush's critics of patching miscellaneous incidents together to draw misleading conclusions and says his boss has boosted federal research and development funding by more than 40 percent since 2001.

"Agencies make rules in response to laws whose language is the result of compromises needed to get the bills passed," says Marburger. "Different parties to the compromise can have different understandings of what the words mean, and this leads to controversy during rulemaking. Laws like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Act are not unambiguous, and can be interpreted differently by different regulatory personnel."

University of Akron President Luis Proenza, who sits on Bush's scientific advisory council, says he's never seen any efforts to sway its deliberations. He also says he's pleased that the administration has implemented its suggestions on how the Department of Homeland Security should handle scientific and technical issues.

"In many of these issues, I think you will find there are sincere disagreements among knowledgeable people," Proenza says. "Many people object to individuals being appointed here or there."

The accused agencies also deny scientific tampering. Mary Jean Brown, chief of the Centers for Disease Control lead poisoning and prevention branch, says there was no industry bias on the lead-poisoning panel. Although she says she doesn't know why Lamphear was bumped - it happened before she arrived - she insists that its current members "represent the best minds of this generation that have looked at childhood lead poisoning."

Brown, a Lakewood native who started her nursing career at MetroHealth Medical Center, says it makes no sense to lower blood-level standards for lead poisoning because there's no proven way to reduce lead concentrations beneath the current level.

"The best way to use our scarce resources is to prevent children from having elevated blood levels in the first place," she says.

Childhood lead poisoning can cause learning disabilities, stunted growth, hyperactivity, impaired hearing and brain damage.

One of the newest Bush administration policies to evoke scientific bias claims is the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to reduce mercury emissions from the coal-fired power plants that supply much of Ohio's electricity. Ten states sued EPA to overturn the policy.

The plan would cut the nation's power plant mercury pollution from 48 tons annually to 15 tons by 2018, and would establish a cap-and-trade program that lets polluting utilities buy credits from nonpolluting counterparts. Critics say the EPA should have cut mercury emissions to five tons yearly, and argue the trading program will cause mercury "hot spots" at plants that don't clean up. Mercury exposure can cause neurological damage.

The EPA's inspector general and the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office both issued reports that concluded the agency distorted scientific evidence in issuing the rule. EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley said the agency's staff was ordered to justify a conclusion reached in advance by senior EPA officials. She said the rule's development was "compromised and therefore may not represent the lowest emission levels that could be achieved by coal-fired electric utilities."

Jeffrey R. Holmstead, EPA assistant administrator for air and radiation, disputed her assessment. He said her report contained inaccurate, flawed information, and was based on drafts that weren't final.

"The EPA proposal is grounded in careful analysis as to what levels of mercury control reasonably can be expected," Holmstead said.

Another watchdog group, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, has drawn repeated attention to conflicts it perceives on low-profile boards that oversee public safety issues. Merrill Goozner, who heads its Integrity in Science project, believes that scientists who accept research money from drug companies should be barred from panels that oversee drug approvals.

"When the federal government is getting advice on the safety and efficacy of a drug, and people who have accepted part-time employment from their makers are sitting on the committee, should you take their word for it that they will not be swayed?" Goozner asks. "Isn't it safer to put someone on that committee without a conflict of interest?"

Goozner recently found that 10 members of a Food and Drug Administration panel that examined cardiovascular risks posed by painkillers including Celebrex, Bextra and Vioxx accepted research money from their makers. The panel voted to allow sales of all three, and Goozner believes that industry ties factored into the decision.

Two of the drugs, Bextra and Vioxx, were later voluntarily withdrawn from the market by their makers, Pfizer and Merck.

"This is an administration that has demonstrated time and time again that it's willing to lend an extra ear, if you will, to the concerns of industry," says Goozner.

Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Steven E. Nissen was a member of that FDA advisory committee and accepted research money from both Merck and Pfizer. He says the painkiller panel was objective despite those ties. Nissen says he agrees with the premise that the Bush administration has run roughshod over science to push a political agenda, but says "this is not an example of that."

"The panels are composed of people who are considered legitimate experts," says Nissen, who voted to keep Celebrex on the market but to ban Vioxx and Bextra. He says he does not view industry funding of his research as a conflict.

Nissen says FDA advisory panels aren't political, and neither is the agency's staff, which is composed predominantly of civil servants. Still, Nissen says political interference occurred when the top echelons at FDA nixed over-the-counter sales of a morning-after emergency contraceptive pill called "Plan B" after a review panel recommended it. Family planning groups say the decision catered to anti-abortion groups.

"A lot of people believe that was the hand of the Bush administration," he says.

A Democratic congressman from California, Henry Waxman, has compiled his own report on Bush-era scientific chicanery. He introduced a bill designed to prevent government tampering with scientific analysis, outlaw censorship of scientific reports, stop dissemination of information known to be false or misleading, and extend whistleblower protection to federal employees who expose such manipulations.

No hearings have been held on the bill, co-sponsored by Democrats including Cleveland's Dennis Kucinich and Lorain's Sherrod Brown, since its February introduction.

Do you think the government is doing enough to clean up the toxic dust at the World Trade Center site?

Imran Hussein, Managing director, Manhattan

"Absolutely not. Its contaminated. The EPA is putting out false reports, and weve been breathing in toxic chemicals like asbestos."

Jordan Greenberg, Systems administrator, Manhattan

"No way. I live five blocks south of the site and they havent done jack since late 2001."

Tim Gage, Systems administrator, Manhattan

"No. I want to see guys in orange suits examining the area every six months and giving status reports."

Jesse Kelley, Account executive, Jersey City

"No. Im in the WTC pit every day when I take the PATH train and I dont see anyone cleaning up anything."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/25/nyregion/25air.html?

"We're not happy at all with the cleanup," said one critic, Jean Hartman, who lives in the Independence Plaza North development in TriBeCa. "It wasn't done correctly the first time, and there are still so many problems with the way it is going now."

Ms. Hartman's comments came at a public hearing to discuss the agency's plan to inspect some of the thousands of apartments and workplaces that may have been exposed to a cloud of dust when the World Trade Center collapsed.

Federal officials said that the plan was still evolving, and that they were working to address critics' concerns.

"There have been a huge number of additions and modifications to the plan reflecting that we've accepted recommendations from the public and from the panel," said E. Timothy Oppelt, the acting assistant administrator for research and development for the agency, referring to a technical panel of experts who have been advising the agency. "That includes expanding the boundaries into Brooklyn, expanding the list of contaminants of concern, and looking for contamination not only in residential buildings but also in commercial establishments."

Although the plume of smoke that bellowed from the trade center collapse traveled several blocks, scientists have not been able to determine how far the microscopic particles of asbestos, lead and other toxic substances spread after the Sept. 11 attack. The plan calls for inspectors to clean desktops, carpets and other spaces in 150 buildings south of Houston Street in Manhattan and along part of the Brooklyn waterfront, and to test for traces of gypsum, concrete and slag wool, a type of insulating material, to distinguish trade center contamination from background dust. If slag wool and other traces of toxic soot are identified, the government has said, it will offer to clean the site and possibly the entire building.

But residents, environmental advocates and lawmakers have called the plan inadequate. At the hearing yesterday, in an auditorium at the United States Custom House, just a few blocks from where the twin towers once stood, scores of people complained that the agency would never get building owners to cooperate. To conduct inspections, the agency must receive approval from landlords, something critics said was unlikely because of concerns about liability.

Mrs. Flynn and others at the meeting said that the agency should force landlords to agree to testing. But Michael Brown, a senior official with the environmental agency, said that most landlords would probably want to know if their buildings were contaminated, and that it was unlikely that those who were asked to participate would refuse. Still, he said, the agency has also come up with a list of "backup" buildings.

Some critics said the zone of buildings eligible for testing should be expanded, but the E.P.A. said that that was unlikely.

The agency also came under fire for its testing procedures. Under the plan, for example, if slag wool and other substances are discovered in areas described as "inaccessible," like some ventilation systems, the government will not offer to clean it up. The agency is looking primarily for slag wool, and because some slag wool particles might be heavier than other toxins, residents said it was possible that buildings farther from ground zero would test negative for slag wool but still have other contaminants that had traveled farther. Officials said the plan would be completed in a week or two.

 

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

 

    Back to Top

On May 13, the day after he was named to the post, Mr. Cahill canceled the contract with the company in charge of demolishing the Deutsche Bank building, hoping to speed up the construction of a new building on the site. The building was damaged beyond repair in the attacks of 2001, and its demolition has been repeatedly delayed by a series of environmental disputes.

Since then, Mr. Cahill, who as Gov. George E. Pataki's chief of staff spent most of his time in Albany, has been passing most of his days in Lower Manhattan, gripped by daily meetings with community board members, agency officials and others who have a stake in Lower Manhattan's future.

Yesterday, he flew to Washington to meet with members of Congress to discuss the use of $2 billion in tax credits that President Bush has approved to pay for a rail link between Lower Manhattan and Kennedy International Airport.

"I'm trying to reintroduce myself to the folks down here," said Mr. Cahill in a telephone interview from Washington, "and to emphasize how important this is not just to Lower Manhattan but to the entire United States."

The rebuilding process for Lower Manhattan has been stymied in recent months as myriad agencies, private corporations, residents and scores of other interested parties have sparred over how to proceed with various aspects of the plan.

In the most significant setback, Goldman Sachs recently scrapped plans to build a $2 billion headquarters across the street from the former trade center site, citing uncertainty and security issues. Mr. Cahill is laboring to reverse the decision.

An important component to rebuilding the site has been the demolition of the Deutsche Bank building, where one of the new trade towers is scheduled to be built. Last year, the Gilbane Building Company, which had been hired to bring down the building, released a draft plan for the first phase of deconstruction to meet Mr. Pataki's goal of demolishing the building by the end of the year.

But when the Environmental Protection Agency and other groups raised concerns that those plans did not adequately guard against the potential release of contaminants in the air, the project became more or less deadlocked, with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation and Gilbane wrestling with how to meet the new deconstruction demands. After federal officials decided that the project would be covered in scaffolding for decontamination, Mr. Cahill concluded the entire project needed to be put up for bidding again. Gilbane's original contract was for $45 million, but that figure is expected to increase vastly.

Gilbane will be invited to bid on what will be either two or three contracts, one for scaffolding alone, which Mr. Cahill wants up by August, and the others for decontamination and demolition of the building.

"There is a complete sea change in the thinking," said Charles Maikish, executive director of Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, which coordinates construction at the site. "Good public policy dictates that when you have a change in scope you rebid the project."

George Cavallo, senior vice president and regional manager for the Northeast office of Gilbane, said he was not inclined to bid again, but remained ambivalent. "I do understand their position," said Mr. Cavallo, who said he had other pressing contracts around New York.

Mr. Cahill has also tried to turn 1 Liberty Plaza - home to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the Memorial Foundation and the site's construction command center - into a bull's-eye for constant meetings and discussions among agencies.

"There seems to be an increased sense of coordination, particularly among the state agencies," said Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff, whose portfolio includes Lower Manhattan. "There are meetings that are taking place that did not happen before and there is an increased sense of urgency."

The involvement of Mr. Pataki's closest aide in every aspect of the project has given many interested parties a sense that stalled projects and unraveled conversations are back on track, after months of grumbling that Mr. Pataki had become disengaged. "I think that is a big plus, when a senior aide to the governor is accessible," said Carl Weisbrod, the president of the Alliance for Downtown New York.

Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the panel's senior Democrat, agreed to meet later on Wednesday with two other senators to consider issues, such as speedy payments to the terminally ill.

Specter said he was inclined to push for a committee vote on Thursday.

"My practice is not to count any chickens until the eggs are hatched, but it is my hope we will do that (vote) tomorrow," he said at the end of the committee's fifth working session on amendments to the asbestos bill.

Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, who has withheld his support from the bill, said it appeared the legislation would pass -- and so it was more important than ever to focus on the adequacy of the fund.

"It looks like this bill is going forward, and if it does, the worst thing that could happen is if it goes forward and fails," Coburn told the panel. He worried some medical criteria for claims are too loose and would "bankrupt" the fund, and said he could not support it until that problem was fixed.

Asbestos fibers were used in building materials, auto parts and other products for decades but are linked to cancer and other diseases. The bill would take asbestos injury claims out of courts and pay them from the fund, to be financed by asbestos defendant companies and their insurers.

How victims and companies paying into the fund would be treated in the first year, and the effect this would have on the fund's finances continue to be a sticking point.

Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl was to discuss the start-up issue later on Wednesday with Specter, Leahy and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat.

Kyl is worried some companies would end up paying twice -- once to the fund and once in court. The bill allows the claims of terminally ill victims to go back to court if the fund is not operational in nine months from the legislation's passage.

Assuming the fund does begin to operate, some kind of offset should be considered for companies that had to pay court verdicts during the transition, Kyl says.

The AFL-CIO, meanwhile, says terminally ill victims should not have to wait nine months to return to court. In a May 24 letter to Specter and Leahy that listed objections to the bill, the AFL-CIO warned it would vigorously oppose the bill unless changes were made.

Specter and Leahy only have seven publicly declared backers out of the ten they need to vote the bill out of committee. But expectations that they will succeed have grown with the adoption of amendments to satisfy various senators.

Stocks of several companies with asbestos liabilities were up on Wednesday as work progressed on the bill.

Shares of bankrupt building materials maker Owens Corning (OWENQ.OB: Quote, Profile, Research) were up 9.5 percent at $4.98 on Wednesday, while chemical maker W.R. Grace and Co. (GRA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) saw its shares climb 5.4 percent to $11.07.

The committee rejected, 12-5, an amendment by Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy that would have let people with lung cancer but no markers in their lungs of asbestos exposure, file asbestos claims in court. They are being shut out of the fund.

May 24 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency won't require New York property owners to cooperate with its search for toxic dust from the destruction of the World Trade Center, officials said.

The agency rejected calls to make participation in the inspections mandatory as it plans its second examination of the disaster's long-term environmental impacts, said Jacky Rosati, an EPA researcher, speaking at a hearing in lower Manhattan.

Evidence of trade center-related contamination, such as asbestos and lead, could trigger a new government-financed cleanup of apartments and workplaces in lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. People living near Ground Zero complain of elevated levels of asthma and other respiratory ailments that they attribute to residue from the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack.

"We're not going to bully people into offering up their units and apartments for any purpose," said Timothy Oppelt, interim chairman of the EPA's trade center technical review.

The plan calls for voluntary inspections of 150 buildings and for indoor areas deemed inaccessible, such as under beds and behind copying machines, to have different thresholds for cleanup than highly trafficked walkways and exterior surfaces.

Residents and environmental activists assailed the EPA, saying the decisions attempt to minimize the extent of contamination. Linda Rosenthal, an aide to U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat, said federal law empowers the agency "to enter any vessel, facility or property, to conduct responsible testing and cleanup.''

Access

"The EPA gains access to sites all over the country all the time," she said. "Lower Manhattan should not be an exception.''

The agency plans a "spatially balanced statistical selection of 150 buildings'' from among 6,000-plus structures ranging from Ground Zero to downwind Brooklyn, said Matthew Lorber of the EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment. If a landlord refuses access, the inspection will shift to a statistically equivalent building, Lorber said.

The program follows a cleanup in 2002 and 2003, in which the U.S. government paid professionals to remove contaminants from 4,300 apartments close to Ground Zero.

Oppelt, who is director of the EPA's National Homeland Security Research Center, said the agency responded to community criticism by doubling the size of the study area and adding Brooklyn, after initially planning to test only below Canal Street in lower Manhattan.

The agency, which had planned to test only for asbestos, will also search for insulation fibers known as "slag wool," polychlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons and lead, Oppelt said.

Concessions

Still, opponents pressed for more concessions, such as more attention to limited and inaccessible areas.

"My young children hide under the bed during hide and seek sessions," said Craig Hall, a resident of Battery Park City and president of the WTC Residents Coalition. "I open my windows and dust that has collected in the window wells is blown into our living space. Why are these classified as inaccessible?''

The danger from inhaling trade center pollutants comes from routine exposure, Lorber said, not from a one-time or occasional encounter.

"Not everyone is going to agree with us 100 percent, but what we have tried to do is to have an overlapping confluence between what the community wants and what is scientifically credible and valid," said Michael Brown, an EPA spokesman.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aTRkFldwBuWs&refer=us

Shares of Toledo, Ohio-based Owens Corning, the largest U.S. insulation maker, jumped $1.16, or 33 percent, to $4.69 at 12:06 p.m. in over-the-counter trading. W.R. Grace, based in Columbia, Maryland, rose $1.55, or 17 percent, to $10.68 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

The legislation would eliminate lawsuits that have forced 74 companies into bankruptcy. Senate Democrats had twice halted debate on the bill as Republicans planned to invoke the so-called nuclear option, stripping Democrats of power to block President George W. Bush's judicial appointments using filibusters. A showdown was averted yesterday when 14 senators agreed to a compromise.

``The perception is the bill will ultimately be approved,'' Cantor Weiss & Friedner money manager Warren Harrison said in a telephone interview. ``The odds now have risen significantly with the compromise on the nuclear option.''

Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, probably has enough votes to pass the measure out of committee tomorrow or Thursday, Harrison said. The bill probably will be approved by the full Senate next week. The House then would probably approve the legislation, he said.

"The whole dynamics have changed,'' Harrison said.

The bill would use money from companies and insurance companies facing asbestos lawsuits to pay victims of asbestos diseases $25,000 to $1.1 million. Asbestos, a fibrous mineral used to make insulation, ceiling tiles and building materials, is known to cause cancer and respiratory ailments.

Filibusters

The seven Democrats who signed yesterday's deal remain free to support filibusters under ``extraordinary circumstances.'' The seven Republican backers can vote to eliminate the filibuster should they believe the Democrats have reneged on that provision.

The filibuster is a long-standing parliamentary tactic that can only be overcome when at least 60 of the 100 senators agree to shut off debate.

The agreement, which would remain in force through 2006 when the current congressional session ends, probably will be tested when Bush gets a chance to make what would be the first Supreme Court appointment in 11 years. That might happen as soon as next month should Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, and battling thyroid cancer, decides to step down at the end of the court term.

To contact the reporter on this story:

Jack Kaskey in Princeton at jkaskey@bloomberg.net;

James Rowley in Washington at jarowley@bloomberg.net.

     Back to Top

In the event of an emergency involving the 130 Liberty Street Building at this time please call 911

http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/47437

Meanwhile, thanks to the persistence of some lower Manhattan residents a separate building with some potentially significant environmental issues will NOT be torn down this week. WNYC's Bob Hennely reports.

REPORTER: The residents of 125 Cedar Street, keep a close watch on their block near the World Trade Center. So when they saw scaffolding and fencing go up around a three story commercial building on Greenwich Street they called their Congressman Jerald Nadler.

His office learned the Department of Buildings had granted a demolition permit. But, that was rescinded when the Department of Environmentral Protection said it wanted a closer look for asbestos and potential contamination from 9/11.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/13/nyregion/13pataki.html?pagewanted=print

In a speech to the Association for a Better New York, Mr. Pataki took pains to portray the situation downtown as one that has moved from a dreaming and planning process to active construction.

The governor, who has been on the hot seat in recent weeks over the stalled progress at the site, said that a new design for the Freedom Tower would come out in a month, and that a design for the cultural building planned for the site would be revealed next week.

Mr. Pataki also stressed that work on the World Trade Center transportation hub and the demolition of the former Deutsche Bank would happen on schedule, and that he would try to win Goldman Sachs back downtown. The investment bank recently pulled back on its plans to build a new headquarters across the street from the site.

"Goldman, downtown is your home," Mr. Pataki said yesterday, directing his attention to a group of Goldman Sachs executives who had been placed at a table front and center before the governor's podium. "You belong here." The executives sat stone faced and declined to applaud along with others in the room at less-well-placed tables.

Goldman Sachs scrapped its plans to build a $2 billion tower when the state refused to back down from a plan to bury West Street-Route 9A in a tunnel with a mouth that would have opened at its doors. The state subsequently dropped the tunnel plan, which the governor had once embraced; yesterday he denounced it as expensive and time-consuming.

The governor also strongly hinted yesterday that the role of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation would shrink over the coming months, ceding power to other authorities and boards.

For instance, Mr. Pataki announced the appointments of both Mr. Kallstrom and his chief of staff, John P. Cahill, who is charged with overseeing the entire development process, before mentioning Mr. Pryor's new job. Later, at a news conference, Mr. Pataki said he was not sure whether the state and city would fill the four open spots on the development agency's 12-member board, and added that it "has always been viewed as an interim agency."

Almost in passing, the governor said for the first time that he supported a plan to build a second rail tunnel under the Hudson River, giving New Jersey commuters another way into Manhattan.

The remarks were greeted warmly. Anthony R. Coscia, chairman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said it "means that there is unequivocal bistate support for a project that could be the most important project the Port Authority has undertaken in a generation." Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey of New Jersey thanked Mr. Pataki for "his support of this important regional transportation project."

Mr. Pataki stressed early in his speech that the Freedom Tower would be redesigned to incorporate security concerns raised for months by Police Department officials. "I am pleased to announce that the N.Y.P.D. has reviewed the preliminary redesign and has determined that the building can be constructed in a manner that will provide the appropriate level of security," he said.

On Wednesday, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly wrote in a letter to Larry A. Silverstein, the tower's developer, that "the preliminary information shared with us indicates that the alterations currently under consideration" would meet security standards, according to a spokesman for Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Pataki also announced a financial package for various components of the site, including $300 million for the memorial fund, $1 billion in Port Authority funds for a rail link between Lower Manhattan and Kennedy International Airport, and $70 million to restore the TriBeCa section of Hudson River Park.

Yesterday, May 11, 2005 the LMDC received the New York State Department of Labor’s (NYS DOL) ruling on the Request for Variance that was submitted to them on April 12, 2005. LMDC is submitting Section 1- Waste Management Plan, Section 2- Ambient Air Monitoring Program, Section 3- Emergency Action Plan, and Section 5 Health and Safety Plan to the regulators today and will be submitting Section 4, the Asbestos and COPC Abatement and Removal Plan upon review for compliance with the variance conditions. To view the comments from NYS DOL on the Request for Variance, click here: http://www.renewnyc.com/plan_des_dev/130liberty/variances.asp

The LMDC will present an overview of the revised plan at the Community Board 1 Meeting on Wednesday May 25, 2005 at 6:00 PM. There will also be a Public Information Open House regarding the deconstruction project in early June.

http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/308638p-264095c.html

May 11 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will double the area it examines for toxin-laden dust left behind by destruction of the World Trade Center, agency officials said, following congressional complaints that possible contaminated areas were being overlooked.

The testing, originally confined to lower Manhattan, will be expanded east into Brooklyn, New York's most populous borough, the EPA said in a statement.

The sampling, coming almost four years after the twin towers were leveled, could lead to cleanup efforts like those closer to Ground Zero, where the U.S. government paid professionals to remove traces of asbestos, poisonous metals and other contaminants from 4,300 apartments.

"By conducting this sampling program, we can determine the geographic extent of WTC contaminants that may remain and whether or not they are present at levels of concern,'' said E. Timothy Oppelt, acting EPA assistant research administrator and head of a panel that reviewed the proposal. "If they are, we will clean those units -- entire buildings if necessary -- that pose a concern.''

The original plan was criticized by residents and environmental activists as not being extensive or thorough enough. The new tests, while covering more area, will be limited to asbestos, lead, polychlorinated aromatic hydrocarbons and man- made fibers such as those found in insulation, the EPA said.

`Inadequate'

"It appears at first glance that the EPA's long-awaited plan has been designed in a way that is fundamentally inadequate,'' U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler, a Manhattan Democrat whose district includes the trade center site, said in a statement posted on his Web site.

A panel of scientists and toxicologists, led by David Carpenter of the State University of New York at Albany, said in January the search should be expanded to include mercury, dioxin and other contaminants. The group also called for testing to be mandatory; the EPA will rely on landlords to volunteer their buildings for testing.

"That is a hollow promise if employers can bar access for testing,'' David Newman, industrial hygienist for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, a labor-backed committee, said in a statement. ``EPA must gain access to test buildings near Ground Zero.''

People who live near Ground Zero have complained about elevated levels of asthma and other respiratory ailments that they attribute to World Trade Center dust.

The plan calls for the sampling area to be divided into five zones, with 30 buildings sampled in each zone.

The program is a follow-up to a cleanup program the agency conducted in 2002 and 2003.

http://208.198.20.182/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=203&aid=50790

About 150 buildings are expected to take part.

Meanwhile, Governor George Pataki on Thursday is expected to update the rebuilding efforts in Lower Manhattan, in an address to the Association for a Better New York. NY1 will broadcast the speech live beginning at about noon.

     Back to Top

Amid the chaos of Sept. 11, 2001, a powerful moment of silence vested Deputy Chief Peter E. Hayden with the leadership of the New York City Fire Department, even if it would be nearly three years until he was formally named chief of the entire department.

Today, it is not silence nor official rank but rather his voice that will distinguish him: he is due to appear before the City Council as the first senior official in the Bloomberg administration who has publicly criticized a policy of the mayor who appointed him.

Chief Hayden, 58, will be testifying on the city's new emergency response protocol, which he has said is "a recipe for disaster" that leaves the city no better prepared for a terrorist attack than it was on 9/11.

Last month, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg signed an executive order that, among other things, gives the Police Department charge of hazardous materials incidents caused by terrorism, or suspected of being caused by terrorism, citing the Police Department's expertise in criminal matters.

That position is expected to be presented at the hearing by Joseph Bruno, the commissioner of the Office of Emergency Management, and Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.

Among those expected to testify, only Chief Hayden responded to the events of 9/11. Moments after the second tower collapsed that morning - as scores of firefighters and senior commanders lay dead and missing in the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center and hundreds of surviving firefighters wandered, stunned and shocked - Chief Hayden, a Manhattan deputy chief who had barely survived the collapse, climbed atop a fire engine.

His corneas scratched by debris, he lifted his helmet from his head and drew the gaze of scores of dazed firefighters. Then he called for a moment of silence.

As symbol and substance, that instant established Chief Hayden's command, firefighters say. He held the silence an extra beat, he said later, knowing it would focus the rescuers.

"He took command from total destruction," said Joseph Pfeifer, a chief at ground zero. Donning his helmet, Chief Hayden turned to a procedure used by the United States military and by rescuers across the country that organizes rescuers into teams and sets up a chain of command. He marshaled firefighters to fight blazes in Battery Park City and 90 West Street. He ordered others to begin search and rescue work in the rubble.

Chief Hayden has said that the lives of firefighters and civilians at similar disasters would be imperiled under the new protocol. He has said publicly that the new protocol departs from the traditional national model, which the Department of Homeland Security has endorsed. He has also said that under the city's new protocol, the city and its rescuers would be worse off than they were on Sept. 11, when a lack of communication and coordination between the Police and Fire Departments doomed some of the rescue workers, a finding corroborated by federal investigators.

Mr. Bloomberg has defended his plan. Two federal investigations and an independent consultant hired by Mr. Bloomberg said the city needed better coordination among its agencies. Mr. Bloomberg has said that the coordination would be best achieved at some major incidents with only one agency in charge.

Chief Hayden's comments about the protocol, made in an interview last month, led the Bloomberg administration to try to keep fire officials and, some council members said, Chief Hayden from testifying before the Council, which had planned the hearings before the mayor signed the protocol on April 11. The Council then called Chief Hayden under subpoena.

For Chief Hayden, who serves at the pleasure of the mayor until June of next year, the moment has risks.

Those close to him say he wants to keep his job, and he also does not want to be considered dismissively as another fire officer in a long line who have tried to persuade the city that the problems between police officers and firefighters at rescue scenes - often seen as petty turf wars - have deeper implications for the two agencies and the city.

After 9/11, Chief Hayden spent most of the following year undertaking an internal review of what went wrong, including the failures of the Police Department and his own department, and catalogued the mistakes in reports that have become the basis of major investigations.

While it is unknown what the chief will say in his testimony, in the interview last month he said the new protocol was flawed.

It expands the powers of police commanders at disasters and, at some hazardous materials disaster sites, removes fire officials entirely from the tier of commanders who draw up strategy, set goals and deploy firefighters. Firefighters, however, will still be sent in to rescue people and clean up disasters.

But Chief Hayden said it was dangerous for firefighters and civilians that fire commanders do not have a voice at the planning table. He and other fire officials say that change codifies the worst practices of 9/11, in which communication between the Police and Fire Departments failed.

The old protocol, signed in 1996 by Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, called for police and fire commanders to work together at disasters but was largely ignored by both agencies on 9/11. They began independent rescue efforts, which a federal report found compounded the loss of life.

Police helicopter pilots reported that the north tower appeared to be on the verge of collapse, but the two departments did not share the information. Witnesses said as many as 100 firefighters were resting on the 19th floor in the tower's final minutes, unaware of the calamity the police had predicted.

Another problem with the new protocol, Chief Hayden said last month, is that it abandons the language of the highly technical rescue trade, an omission akin to a court document stripped of legal terms, or a medical paper that uses no scientific words. As a result it blurs meanings that define, with precision, the work, duties and expectations of firefighters and their commanders.

Those who know Chief Hayden say he is a careful student of emergency response. He studied law for a year after college, then joined the Fire Department in 1968 and was quickly moved into Rescue 2, one of the department's elite rescue companies. A succession of promotions over the years led him to his position on 9/11.

With his round face, smiling eyes and salt and pepper hair, Chief Hayden has the exterior of a kindly grandfather, an appearance that belies a man who is a smart and shrewd commander who demands discipline, his associates say.

He has pushed the department to decentralize its hazardous materials operations, increased antiterrorism training, and extended the number of officers trained to command at disasters. He has said he believes profoundly that the Fire Department is not the same institution it was on Sept. 10, 2001.

A month after the terrorist attack, he was leading firefighters at another major disaster. On Nov. 12, while walking his dog near his home in Belle Harbor, Queens, he saw a passenger plane plunge to the ground. It was American Airlines Flight 587, en route to the Dominican Republic. He ran home, phoned in the alarm, then rushed to the scene to lead the rescue and recovery work. It had been his first day off since Sept. 11.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/nyregion/09homeland.html

According to federal Environmental Protection Agency records, the plant poses a potentially lethal threat to 12 million people who live within a 14-mile radius.

Yet on a recent Friday afternoon, it remained loosely guarded and accessible. Dozens of trucks and cars drove by within 100 feet of the tanks. A reporter and photographer drove back and forth for five minutes, snapping photos with a camera the size of a large sidearm, then left without being approached.

That chemical plant is just one of dozens of vulnerable sites between Newark Liberty International Airport and Port Elizabeth, which extends two miles to the east. A Congressional study in 2000 by a former Coast Guard commander deemed it the nation's most enticing environment for terrorists, providing a convenient way to cripple the economy by disrupting major portions of the country's rail lines, oil storage tanks and refineries, pipelines, air traffic, communications networks and highway system.

Since 9/11, those concerns have only been magnified. Law enforcement officials have warned of the need to prepare for an assault on one of the four major chemical plants in the area or an attempt to ship nuclear or biological weapons through its two port complexes.

Trying to safeguard more than 100 potential terrorist targets in two miles surrounded by residential communities, industrial areas and commuter corridors has proved a daunting challenge. Federal, state and local officials have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to install gates, roadblocks and security cameras and to provide additional patrols, surveillance and intelligence operations.

But even those in charge of the effort say the job is incomplete, bogged down by obstacles that are a microcosm of the nation's struggle against potential terrorist threats.

After distributing tens of billions to state and local governments since 9/11, the federal Department of Homeland Security cut New Jersey's financing this year to about $60 million from $99 million last year. Many security experts have complained that the formula - which provides Montana with three times as much money per capita as New Jersey - is guided more by politics than by the likelihood of an attack.

Meanwhile, security at Newark Airport, while more rigorous and time-consuming for passengers, has been marred by embarrassing breakdowns, as screeners have repeatedly failed to prevent federal officials from sneaking weapons and fake bombs onto planes.

The time and expense of screening shipping containers has slowed attempts to tighten security at Port Newark and Port Elizabeth, where customs officials say their radiation screening devices are ineffective and need replacement