 Christie Todd Whitman takes a shot at Rudy for failing to protect Ground Zero workers from the toxic air spewing from the fallen Twin Towers after 9/11. Of course, she isn't exactly blameless in the entire sordid affair herself, since she was EPA administrator at the time and famously declared the air at Ground Zero safe to breathe just days after 9/11 ... but I digress. Ahem ... Bang, bang...
Former Environmental Protection Agency Chief Christine Whitman is testifying at a congressional hearing about the environmental impact of the September 11th attacks in Washington today.
Whitman took the stand at the hearing, led by Manhattan Congressman Jerrold Nadler, to answer questions about the cleanup of the Trade Center site. The former EPA head famously declared the air around the site to be safe to breathe just days after the attacks. But in the nearly six years since, thousands of first responders have come down with respiratory problems.
Speaking on WNBC yesterday, Whitman criticized former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and his staff for not adequately protecting workers, saying the city should have made them wear respirators.
"It wasn't nearly as clear who was in charge. The city is the primary responder,” said Whitman. “And then you have OSHA can't enforce – interestingly enough OSHA regulations can't be imposed on public servants and those were mostly, by the time you started the real clean-up, firefighters, emergency responders. EPA was not in charge of being able to enforce that." Of course, the Giuliani people wasted no time slapping back, fearing that Rudy's single-note campaign could suffer yet another bout of sour pitch. From the Rudy camp: “Every effort was made by Mayor Giuliani and his staff to ensure the safety of all workers at Ground Zero in the aftermath of this unprecedented act of terror," said former deputy mayor Joe Lhota in the press release. "All workers at Ground Zero were instructed repeatedly to wear their respirators. This is well-documented and indisputable. No one from the City ever tried to block the Environmental Protection Agency. Any statement or suggestion to the contrary is simply baseless. Administrator Whitman never voiced any of these concerns at the time – not at the daily meetings which included federal, state and local officials, not at any press conferences. Doing so now is revisionist at best.” Blah blah blah blah 9/11! Terrorism! Vote for Rudy or DIE!!!!!! Oh, and apparently, the crowd at the hearings no likey Christie either... Update: Rudy's new SC campaign co-chair ... well, he's not a coke head like his son, but he's got a history of racist remarks. Actually, sounds like he's just Rudy's type!!!
Labels: 9/11, Rudy, Rudy Giuliani, September 11 |
