How the 9/11 Commission’s Investigation of the EPA Got Started

A document paxvector found at the National Archives tells us how the 9/11 Commission’s investigation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) got started. The commission’s final report did not mention the EPA in its main text, but included a long endnote about it (No. 13 to Chapter 10). The document paxvector found comprises minutes from a commission meeting in the autumn of 2003, which has been posted to the 9/11 Document Archive at Scribd. They say:

EPA/CEQ Investigation. Commissioner Ben-Veniste inquired about the status of an offer to receive pro-bono work from a private law firm in order to investigate allegations of White House interference with EPA health warnings after the 9-11 attacks. The General Counsel stated that he was reluctant to use private law firms to conduct investigative work for the Commission, and furthermore, that the matter was a relatively small investigative piece that he believed could be handled by Commission staff. The Executive Director and General Counsel agreed to develop a plan on how the investigation would be staffed.

You can find that on page 17 of the .pdf file. The General Counsel was Daniel Marcus, the Executive Director was Philip Zelikow. This indicates that the commission may not have investigated the air quality and controversial statements made by the EPA had it not been for the law firm’s offer. AFAIK the commission’s investigation of this was led by Barbara Grewe of the Special Projects team.

All the documents we find about the EPA angle of the commission’s work are grouped here (not many yet, but I’m sure there must be more).

9/11 Commission Documents Related to EPA Investigation (last updated 26 June 2009)

This post lists documents related to the 9/11 Commission’s investigation of false statements made by the Environmental Protection Agency about the air quality in New York after the attacks. The documents have been posted at the History Commons site at Scribd. I am reading through them gradually and highlighting interesting information. This post will be updated if and when I find new information about this topic.

New Categories Being Implemented

Okay, you talked me into it. If we’re going to discuss the projects, we need categories to organize the discussion. Otherwise the whole thing becomes a big mess. The categories are in the system. I’m cheating and adding all the categories to this single post. They will display in the sidebar. You won’t be able to miss it: it will be by far the single biggest menu over there.

There is also a “Books We Read” and a “Miscellaneous” category. The first one gives us a chance to talk about the books we’re reading. The second one is, well, miscellaneous. Think off-topic chats over coffee.

Put it to use, folks!