[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11410-11411]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW . . .

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. MALONEY. Madam Speaker, according to the latest figures from 
OSHA, at this time there are over 27,000 workers employed by BP or its 
contractors and more than 2,000 Federal employees directly involved in 
the massive cleanup operation now underway in the gulf coast. At a 
hearing last week, another Federal agency, the CDC, tried to assure 
Congress that it was doing all it could to keep these workers safe and 
that it is closely tracking surveillance data across the Gulf Coast 
States for health effects that may be related to the oil spill. This 
was good to hear.
  But a workshop held by the Institute of Medicine down in New Orleans 
this week made one thing abundantly clear. When there are that many 
people engaged in such a complex cleanup effort of such unprecedented 
size over such an unforeseeably long time, the true danger levels for 
exposure simply are not known. As a story in USA Today put it: ``While 
some health officials say they don't think long-term illnesses are 
likely, they've never seen pollution of this scale, and there are just 
too many unknowns to say for sure.''
  The Institute for Medicine workshop participants noted that proper 
protective gear can help keep exposure at safe levels, but the problem 
comes when heat and humidity cause workers

[[Page 11411]]

to remove their gear. The average daytime high temperatures in New 
Orleans for the next 2 months is 91, very hot and very humid.
  Now, consider an assessment of BP's overall attitude toward worker 
safety that was contained in a letter sent to BP by an OSHA official 
back in May: ``The organizational systems that BP has in place, 
particularly those related to worker safety and health training, 
protective equipment, and site monitoring, are not adequate for the 
current situation or the projected increase in cleanup operations.'' 
The letter also noted that ``these are not isolated problems. They 
appear to be indicative of a general systematic failure on BP's part to 
ensure the safety and health of those responding to this disaster.''
  The unknowable risks of an environmental disaster of this scale, the 
foreseeable weather conditions of the near future, and the known 
failures of BP in the recent past should all raise some great big red 
warning flags for OSHA, for the Centers for Disease Control, and for 
NIOSH. I am writing OSHA to ensure that the workers have the proper 
protective gear, such as respirators, in order to ensure their safety 
and to protect their health.
  This is a region of the country that was previously devastated by a 
natural disaster that was made worse by the Bush administration's 
failure to respond with timely assistance and adequate safeguards. Many 
lost their lives. The gulf coast is now under siege by a manmade 
disaster. Far too many have already lost their livelihood. The entire 
region is at risk for losing a way of life. No one should also lose 
their health simply because we failed to help them when more help was 
clearly needed.
  In my great City of New York, we have witnessed firsthand the 
terrible price that can be paid over time by those who labor day after 
day in a toxic environment helping their city recover from a terrible 
blow on 9/11. I hope that this Congress will do everything in its power 
to ensure that those who have been asked to clean up this mess and are 
cleaning up this mess are not asked to pay for their efforts with the 
loss of their health.

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