Baucus slams EPA, White House
Senator criticizes decision not to declare health emergency
by Kootenai Valley Record
October 3, 2008
A 50-page report released last week by U.S. Sen. Max Baucus blasts the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House for not declaring a public health emergency in Libby.
Baucus released the report during a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Thursday. He said he is "outraged" at the failure to issue the declaration that would have provided funding for health care for people suffering the effects of asbestos exposure associated with contaminated vermiculite formerly mined and processed in the Libby area.
In compiling the 50-page report, Baucus and his staff spent a year going through more than 14,000 internal documents provided his office by the EPA. The EPA, Baucus said, was on the verge of declaring a public health emergency in Libby in 2002, but abruptly halted that plan after interference by the White House Office of Management and Budget.
"EPA and OMB have played fast and loose with the facts and the law," Baucus said. "They have put saving money over saving lives. They have failed the people of Libby. And I am outraged."
The EPA began working in Libby in late 1999 after news reports linked death and illness due to exposure to asbestos from decades of vermiculite mining. Libby was declared a Superfund site in 2002, making funding available for long-term cleanup.
Baucus said his investigation found "a pattern of intervention from OMB, the White House, and political appointees at EPA" that undermined cleanup efforts, delayed necessary toxicity studies and prevented a public health emergency declaration.
Top-level officials at EPA were apparently ready to declare a public health emergency in 2002, Baucus said, but the plan was "derailed" following a meeting with OMB and the White House. While a public health emergency declaration had been intended to allow removal of contaminated vermiculite insulation from homes in Libby, the meeting resulted in a new plan that allowed removal on the grounds that the insulation was not a "product" – which would have required the declaration to remove – but waste material that had been given away.
"There was no factual basis for this claim," Baucus said. "In fact, it’s completely bogus."
Baucus said it’s time for the EPA to "listen to its own scientists and attorneys" and declare a public health emergency. He was supported at the hearing by Lincoln County Commissioner Marianne Roose.
"We are still waiting for EPA to declare a public health emergency in Libby," Roose said. "It’s needed now more than ever."
Baucus added that the effects of the decision reach far beyond Libby. The absence of a public health emergency declaration has prevented the EPA from putting into place a comprehensive plan to address the threat posed by vermiculite in an estimated 33 million homes in North America.
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Editor’s Note: See the September 29, 2008 edition of the Kootenai Valley Record for the printed version of this story. The Kootenai Valley Record publishes once a week, on Monday, in Libby, Montana. They are a locally owned community newspaper, located at 403 Mineral Avenue in Libby. For in-county and out-of-county subscription information, call 406-293-2424, or e-mail kvrecord@gmail.com.
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