US Environmental Protection Agency

World Trade Center Expert Technical

Review Panel

December 13, 2005

US Customs House Auditorium

One Bowling Green

New York, New York

Comments of Paul Stein, Health & Safety Committee Chairperson

Division 199, NYS Public Employees Federation, AFL-CIO (PEF)

My name is Paul Stein.  I am the Health & Safety Committee Chairperson of Division 199 of the New York State Public Employees Federation, AFL-CIO (PEF).  My union represents approximately 53,000 professional, scientific and technical employees of the State of New York.  I speak today on behalf of several hundred PEF members who work at 90 Church Street, directly adjacent to the World Trade Center site.

We cannot support the EPA’s Sampling and Cleanup Program for 9/11 Contaminants, we cannot recommend it to anyone, and we firmly believe that the program should not be implemented.  There are several fatal defects in the program, which members of the Downtown Community Labor Coalition have described in detail.  I will take a minute or two to speak about one, namely, that, we, working people at our workplaces,  have been totally excluded.

For almost two years, representatives of numerous unions and other labor organizations, including the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) and the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA), have in good faith attended the EPA Panel sessions, conscientiously preparing and presenting testimony, and providing well thought-out suggestions.  We gave the EPA the opportunity to prove that it could do much better than it did in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.  We hoped our voices would be heard.  Unfortunately, by excluding workplaces from the sampling and cleanup program, the EPA has once again shown utter disregard for the health and safety of workers at risk from the environmental hazards of 9/11.

But perhaps the EPA has done us a favor by excluding us.  Why?  Because they have saved us the trouble of having to opt out of a plan that by its unscientific methods is clearly intended to be a coverup of health hazards, rather than an honest attempt to discover and eliminate contamination.