Panel agenda for Air Quality After 9/11 conference, March 2004

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

draft press release dated September 14, 2001, that was issued on September 16, 2001. Every change that was suggested by the CEQ contact was made. The CEQ official’s suggested changes added reassuring statements and deleted cautionary statements.”

“We were imable to identify any EPA official who claimed ownership of EPA’s WTC press releases issued in September and early October 2001. When we asked the EPA Chief of Staff whether she could claim ownership of EPA’s early WTC press releases, she replied that she was not able to do so because the ownership was joint ownership between EPA and the White House,” and that “final approval came from the White House.” She also told us that other considerations, such as the desire to reopen Wall Street and national security concerns, were considered when preparing EPA’s early press releases. The OCEMR Associate Administrator said of the September 16 release: “I did not feel like it was my press release.”

“Cautionary statements in a draft version of the September 13, 2001, press release were removed and replaced with more reassuring statements. For example, the second clause of the caption to the draft press release, which noted that EPA was testing for environmental hazards, were replaced with a statement reassuring the’ public about environmental hazards. Further, the press release did not contain a statement in the draft version that EPA considered asbestos hazardous in this situation. We were unable to locate any record that explained why the changes were made, and the OCEMR Associate Administrator did not recall ever having seen the draft.”

“In our opinion. Agency press releases are a very important form of communication. As detailed in our draft report, EPA press releases result from a deliberative process that should reflect the Agency’s official position on significant issues. Press releases are made available to essentially all news media and may be quoted or paraphrased in radio, television, and other forms of communication. In our opinion, the Agency could have provided more complete and useful information in the press releases.”

The following statement is contained in the report describing EPA’s response to the above

criticisms:

“In her August 8, 2003 response to our draft report, the EPA Acting Administrator stated that the report placed too much emphasis on EPA’s press releases and did not sufficiently acknowledge EPA’s many other communications. She further noted that EPA’s early statement that the

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