GOP: Don't blame manufacturers for toxic trailers

[DogPoundPup]

Source: USA Today

WASHINGTON (AP) — Companies that make recreational vehicles should not be blamed for high levels of formaldehyde in FEMA trailers, according to a report by House Republicans.

The analysis instead points the finger at the federal government for not having standards for safe levels of formaldehyde before Hurricane Katrina victims lived in the trailers.

"Blaming trailer manufacturers for doing what was expected of them would be misplaced and ineffective," according to the report by the Republican staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The committee is holding a hearing Wednesday where the heads of four major travel trailer manufacturers will testify.

The report also faults the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency for controversial testing that led to misleading results about the formaldehyde exposure. Last year, scientists tested hundreds of FEMA trailers and found potentially dangerous levels of formaldehyde.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-07-08-toxic-trailers_N.htm

[LakeSamish706]

1. Lol.. Now isn't that special... So many Americans are now living in trailers/Mobile homes...

that are laden with high levels of formaldehyde... How F***ed up is that?

[FarCenter]

8. Formaldehyde levels in mobile homes are regulated

Levels in travel trailers are not.

It comes from pressed wood, particle board, and other manufactured wood products.

Bear in mind that even "stick-built" houses have a lot of manufactured wood products in them.

Ventilation is a good idea. Keeping temperatures cool also reduces the evaporation of formaldehyde into the air.

It decreases with time.

[LakeSamish706]

11. Well as far as I recall my 1991 Mobile Home has pressed wood, particle board etc... SO?

And of course then comes the next question, who is regulating them? It seems to me that any and all departments that have anything to do with is Government are AWOL...

[FarCenter]

12. By now it should certainly be safe

HUD does the regulation. Have no idea whether there is any enforcement.

[ellenfl]

2. didn't they miss two of the culprits . . . the dems and the tenants?

"according to the report by the Republican staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee"

now THAT'S funny.

ellen fl

[Nite Owl]

3. Ummmm

I thought that the GOP has kept repeating that regulation by the federal government was wrong, corps should be 'trusted' to do the right thing?

[louis-t]

10. Right, and corporations will police themselves.

And stupidface has gutted the EPA, FEMA and any other regulatory body has been taken over by lobbyists.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Case law in products liability says otherwise.

If a manufacturer makes a product with parts that are unsafe for use, then that manufacturer is liable for any damage or injury as a result of use of that product.

[DS1]

5. I really wanted this to be from the Onion

especially this

Blaming trailer manufacturers for doing what was expected of them would be misplaced and ineffective


:crazy:

[paparush]

6. Don't blame the Telcos, Don't blame Enron, Don't blame Haliburton, Don't blame Blackwater

Don't blame the Oil Speculators.
Don't blame the Mortgage Brokers.
Don't blame Trailer Manufacturers.

They were all just following orders. Sieg Heil!
(Translated - Now watch this drive!)

[Igel]

27. Call it a "tragedy".

Which my world lit instructor told me decades ago was essentially when everybody does everything right, everything that's required, everything they could, but things still go hideously wrong.

Katrina hits. People are homeless, and FEMA needs trailers.

The media are going ballistic: Why were there no trailers stockpiled, and why the hell is it going to take more than a day to get a hundred thousand trailers designed, bid, and built?

So you design them quickly and ask that they be built.


Builders in production shops look at the call for bids specs, know they have a week or so, and put one together.

You go with the lowest bid that doesn't violate federal standards. There are no federal standards, and, in any event, you're struggling to get bids to cover all the trailers you need. Pretty much you accept all of them.

Trailers get built and distributed.

At that point, environmental people step in and say the trailers have too much formaldehyde, and set a standard. Not an unreasonable standard. Just an ex post facto standard, a post hoc standard.

Quick: Let's play "spot the goof!"

FEMA personnel should have stated what the standards were, even if it meant conducting studies for several months and holding hearings. The environmental engineers should have been involved at the beginning, even if it added weeks to the design process.

The builders should have taken a few months with a variety of sample trailers and measured toxic compounds the building materials released, so as to design one that produces the least toxic emissions and could conform to the bid requirements. Bids that didn't meet specs should have been rejected, even if it meant homeless people stayed homeless.

The media were screaming that they needed something yesterday, people were suffering. The media should have screamed that no trailer is better than a dangerous one, and the government should take all the time it needed to determine safe levels of indoor pollutants given the use the trailers would be put to.


Any problems with that? Sure. It would have meant that the design phase would have been more expensive, and construction also more expensive and probably slower. It would have meant the media would have had to show some sort of intellectual rigor, instead of emoting in ink, judging the inconvenience to people and the costs to the federal budget necessary or at least understandable. It would have required either that FEMA plan not days, or weeks, but probably a year in advance, and then store trailers that might never be used at considerable expense, or sit back and watch while thousands of people, mostly of color, sat in shelters or motels waiting for a trailer--also at considerable expense.

When everybody's wrong, nobody's wrong. The only sure things are small in number. Some poor people suffered in one way, when, in hindsight (and pretty much only in hindsight), they should have suffered in a different way. The people making up FEMA and the trailer companies, like the people who suffered, and, well, pretty much everybody else, are fallible. When you rush to design and implement something, you're likely to screw it up.

[liberal N proud]

7. No, we will blame the republican led government who changed regulations

To allow manufactures to build a dangerous product.

[Historic NY]

9. I guess the only other person they can blame is Clinton....

amazing. The manufacturers are required to have hazard certifcate for the chemicals they use in the manufacturing process, so they are aware if they are using the chemical or handling it.

[Igel]

28. The builders didn't use the chemicals.

The chemicals were used in the production of the raw materials the builders used.

When I buy a piece of particle board or PVC pipe at Home Depot, they don't ask to see that I'm licensed to use all the chemicals used in producing the board or the pipe, nor do they even give me a list of the VOCs likely to be emitted by the products.

Builders know these chemicals are emitted, and have limits on what tests in the completed buildings can show those chemicals' concentrations are.

No regs for the trailers. There were none. None were changed before or soon after Katrina. None existed. None were imposed. Moreover, nobody had even looked, it seems, at what the concentrations were or would be in the trailers, and if they did the numbers wouldn't have had any real implications (except now, during the litigation phase of the disaster).

[whistle]

13. Bullshit, republicans have moved to deregulation and the result has

...been use of higher concentrations of toxic chemicals in all forms period. Cheaper materials means higher profits for the RV industry and toxic chemicals make the use of the cheaper materials feasible. Class action lawsuits by consumers ought to offset this industry arrogance

[pipoman]

14. Nothing new

I remember going to a local mobile home manufacturer's open house back in the 1970's. It was summertime, the homes were hot and the formaldehyde smell was so strong it would make your eyes water and I remember feeling nauseous.

[DogPoundPup]

15. I think the moral of this story is ... Cons support fascism n/t

[pipoman]

21. I'm getting that

the moral of my story is that this is nothing new. It has been going on since the 1970's thru administrations and congresses of both parties. Has anyone from either side of the isle proposed 'The Elimination of Formaldehyde in Manufacturing Act'? Maybe its time someone did.

[dysfunctional press]

16. i thought that therepugs were for less government and less regulation...?

now these nanny-staters want the feds to set the allowable amounts of individual chemicals allowed in the manufacture of trailers?

how do they propose paying for such a boondoggle...? ( :sarcasm: )

[Miss Chybil]

17. It's ironical, isn't it? nt

[uncle ray]

20. the only way they know how.

a tax cut for the rich of course!

[Voltaire99]

18. GOP: toxicity is as toxicity does.

To paraphrase the Grand Bitch, Barbara Bush, herself: these people have never had it so good!

[rpannier]

19. That's fine... I won't...

I blame FEMA and the bush admin because they should have inspected them to insure their safety

[pipoman]

22. Since my post earlier in this thread

I have done some reading on the subject. It seems near unanimous among building material manufacturers that elimination of formaldehyde in the manufacture of plywoods and pressed wood products is near impossible and/or cost prohibitive. It also sounds like the only way to reduce the problem is through allowing these products time for dissipation of the chemical, time which was not available when thousands of people were homeless. Again, this has been going on at least since the 1970's and no administration or congress has eliminated this problem through legislation. Now I am all about blaming the *ies for all they have done and destroyed, I'm just not sold on the belief that this is one of them.

[salin]

23. It would seem that knowledge about the problem was known,

yet there were no flags raised that perhaps that this was an unsafe alternative for the disaster? Perhaps part of the problem was having the top administrator of FEMA whose primary experience before being handpicked by bushco was work in the horse-show industry.

[pipoman]

25. I, not being an expert by any means,

can't think of another alternative to get masses of homeless people shelter in a hurry. Many small, intermediate, and large mobile home/trailer manufacturers dropped everything after this disaster to begin pumping out this temporary housing in attempt to meet the demand. It didn't matter where you lived in the country, there were convoys of this temporary housing heading south on the highways. Again, I'm not convinced that the manufacturers should be held as responsible as our legislators on both sides of the isle should be.

[Solly Mack]

24. Now that's rich

"The analysis instead points the finger at the federal government for not having standards for safe levels of formaldehyde before Hurricane Katrina victims lived in the trailers."

[pipoman]

26. I agree

completely with that statement.

[WriteDown]

29. This whole issue is interesting for one reason....

Others who keep reptiles will understand. Its been known for several years that enclosures made from melamine have caused health problems in reptiles. Amazing that we are just figuring this out for humans.

[Bake]

30. Gee, maybe the Dems in Congress can give THEM immunity too

Since they seem to be in such a giving mood.

Bake

[kiranon]

31. Blame trailers for allowing themselves to be built? Just say "No".

Of course the builders are to blame. Surely, no one will fall for this spin.

[pipoman]

32. Surely you aren't suggesting that only cut lumber be used in the construction??

Increase the cost by x5 and deplete the forests faster than they already are. What about the makers of plywood and pressed wood? The builders only have what materials are available from the suppliers, Georgia Pacific, etal.