Congressman Jerrold Nadler today applauded the Federal District Court in New York for allowing key claims in a WTC-related class-action lawsuit to go forward.  Judge Deborah Batts ruled that EPA, and its former Administrator Christine Todd Whitman, violated residents’ and workers’ constitutional rights by taking actions and making statements that knowingly placed the victims in the way of harmful contamination.

“As courts have made clear, a governmental agency cannot, even in following discretionary regulations, choose to flout a person’s constitutional rights,” Judge Batts wrote.  The plaintiffs had brought a 5th Amendment claim on the grounds that EPA’s statements and actions denied their right to protection against bodily harm by the government.

Batts’s opinion also condemned Whitman’s handling of the case: “Whitman’s deliberate and misleading statements made to the press, where she reassured the public that the air was safe to breathe around Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, and that there would be no health risk presented to those returning to those areas, shock the conscience.”

“Finally, a court of law has recognized the tremendous injustice carried out by our government in dealing with post-9/11 New York,” Congressman Nadler said.  “For more than four years, EPA has refused to take appropriate action to ensure the health and safety of the victims of the World Trade Center attack.  I hope today’s decision will force EPA to do its job, and to do it right.”

Immediately following September 11, 2001, Congressman Nadler launched an investigation into EPA’s wrongdoing, and documented EPA’s legal responsibilities in a White Paper issued in April 2002.  That white paper served as the initial basis for the lawsuit.

In August 2003, EPA’s own Inspector General released a report confirming that EPA is mandated to clean up buildings under Presidential Decision Directive 62, signed in 1998.  The National Strategy for Homeland Security, issued in July 2002, reiterates that EPA is “responsible for decontamination of buildings and affected neighborhoods” following a major incident.

Judge Batts denied EPA’s motion to dismiss the case, allowing the Constitutional claim and the complaint against Whitman to move forward.

“Judge Batts’s decision proves that the people exposed to World Trade Center contamination do, in fact, have a legal case to make against EPA, and against Whitman,” Nadler said.  “I hope that EPA’s lies and wrongdoing will finally be laid bare for all to see, and that they will be forced – finally – to exercise their responsibilities:  to clean up the WTC dust completely and provide medical treatment to all those affected.”