FAQ Goes to Washington

originally published August 6, 2008

Note: Kathy Prescott and Grady Thrasher, co-founders of For Athens Quality-of-life, or FAQ Inc., were in Washington, DC recently to attend the Department of Homeland Security’s first “scoping” meeting on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement recently published regarding the proposed National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, or NBAF. They also had an opportunity to visit with the chief of staff for Rep. John Dingell. Dingell and Rep. Bart Stupak have been outspoken critics of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plan to bring live Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) virus from its research facility on Plum Island, NY to any of the five U.S. mainland sites (of which Athens is one) being considered for the new NBAF.

Since Washington, DC is not on the “short list” of potential sites for the NBAF, we were curious about the Washington scoping meeting DHS had scheduled for July 24. So, we decided to investigate. Maybe the DHS gathering at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Washington could be a good forum to voice the Athens opposition point of view to Capitol insiders. It turned out to be a good idea.

We shared the idea with Judy Winters and Suzanne Moody Smith of the Granville Non-violent Action Team (G.N.A.T.), leaders of the opposition to NBAF being located in their rural North Carolina community. They decided the trip would be worthwhile for their effort, also.

Prior to leaving Athens, we sought the opportunity to meet with John Dingell, Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, whose Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, led by Bart Stupak, had in May grilled DHS’s Jay Cohen about NBAF and the prospect of live FMD virus being studied on the U.S. mainland. Cohen had ignored Dingell’s request that he show up for a similar hearing Dingell and Stupak held in October, 2007 and had failed to answer written questions submitted to him. It was at the May hearing that the Government Accountability Office released its report entitled “DHS Lacks Evidence to Conclude That Foot-and-Mouth Disease Research Can Be Done Safely on the U.S. Mainland.”

On Capitol Hill

Chairman Dingell was not available on such short notice, but Chief of Staff Michael Robbins graciously invited us to a Wednesday morning meeting at Dingell’s office in the Rayburn House Office Building on Independence Avenue. At the meeting with Robbins, we gave him a file containing a letter to Chairman Dingell and other information explaining FAQ’s concerns for Athens and the NBAF site selection process.

We then discussed what, if any, legislative hurdles remained before DHS had a “green light” to move forward with the construction of NBAF. We had hoped that Congress might still stop the whole process, since House Bill 1717, proposed legislation that would specifically authorize DHS to develop NBAF, had not been voted on by the House or the Senate. We learned that, unfortunately for those who oppose NBAF, the insertion of Section 7524 into the omnibus Farm Bill, recently overwhelmingly passed in the House and Senate over a Bush veto, gave DHS the authority to study live FMD virus on the mainland, overriding a federal prohibition in force for decades. “Now it’s just a matter of how the budgetary process goes forward,” Robbins said.

We asked if a new president’s administration could stop or change the direction DHS is going with NBAF, and he stated that it was possible, but federal law prohibited a new administration from voiding most long-term contracts entered into during a previous administration. This seemed to mean that if DHS hurried up its location “competition” and design process and were given the authority, while the present administration is still in power, to enter into long-term construction and other contracts, an NBAF on the mainland could become a reality regardless of how politics eventually may change in Washington.

“But, remember, Sebelius“ - referring to the present Democratic governor of Kansas, where Manhattan, KS is one of the short-listed locations for NBAF - ”is very close to Obama,” Robbins added, almost as an afterthought. Somewhat discouraged, we returned to our hotel to prepare for the next morning’s scoping meeting.

At the Meeting

Thursday dawned fair and mild in Washington. With tourist traffic light, the uncrowded, green mall stretching between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol gave the city a peaceful feel. We met Judy and Suzanne for early lunch at the Grand Hyatt.

The scoping meeting, in a downstairs hotel conference room (with seating for maybe 60 people) was arranged and organized as what we might expect in Athens. Jamie Johnson, the NBAF Program Manager, along with principals from Dial Cordy, the Florida-based environmental consulting firm which led the DEIS production effort, and one or two officials from the Department of Agriculture, acted as hosts for a pre-meeting get-acquainted session before Mr. Johnson led a brief presentation of what the DEIS covered. There were perhaps 40 or so people at the meeting, including a reporter from Congressional Quarterly and one from USA Today. The presentation, which had been billed to last an hour, was over in about 30 minutes.

A new wrinkle was then offered which was absent at last year’s scoping meeting - the opportunity for each attendee to ask one question prior to beginning the scoping input segment. The attendees, whom we later found out mostly were congressional and agency staffers, remained quiet. One person, who identified himself as a Washington lawyer, came forward and noted that the DEIS stated that DHS would use the scoping comments as well as “information from other sources” to make its “preferred alternative” site choice in the Final EIS (or FEIS). He asked if these “other sources” would be revealed, including the information they contained. Johnson’s reply was that information from the other sources generally would not be made public, but he (the questioner) could try a Freedom of Information Act request.

Only four more persons asked questions. Our two friends from Butner and the two of us from Athens spoke up. Kathy’s question, which was not answered with any clarity, was: “Why does the Executive Summary draw conclusions and make statements that contradict the information in the body of the DEIS? Since most people, when faced with a 1,000-page document, usually will read only a summary when available, isn’t this being disingenuous?”

Grady had a follow-up to the issue of misleading summations: “Why, in the chart summarizing the expected effects of NBAF on the environment at a site, do you have a line designating ‘benefits’ under which is shown ‘substantial’ for all sites, when looking into the body of the DEIS one finds that the ‘substantial benefit’ described does not apply to the environmental effect of building NBAF on a particular site, but applies to speculative future worldwide benefits if new cures and countermeasures for diseases are discovered?” The question was taken as a “statement” by DHS and was not answered.

Suzanne from Butner asked a relevant question. “Since both North Carolina and Georgia have large numbers of deer near the proposed NBAF sites and all over each state, and since deer are susceptible to FMD, what is DHS’s plan if FMD gets into a deer population? Do you plan to shoot them all, poison them all?” The Department of Agriculture representative finally admitted that most of the deer probably would have to be exterminated, but he was relatively sure poison would not be used. He failed to say what method of extermination would be used.

During the comment period, only the four of us from Athens and North Carolina came forward to make a statement for the record. We were restricted to three minutes each, even though an hour and a half remained for the comments portion of the meeting. Suzanne reminded DHS, “The Bible teaches us David kicked Goliath’s butt.” We believe she made her point.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the scoping meeting was the informal 20 minutes or so afterwards, when representatives of Dial Cordy seemed to make it an urgent point to assure us that “we were being heard” and that they would make sure that the “FEIS would correct the flaws in the DEIS.” Well, that may be so, but how does that help the present situation in Athens, if community decision makers or other proponents, using only the DEIS Executive Summary and/or the summary tables to inform them, make statements supporting NBAF in Athens or take action to create or enhance incentives to attract NBAF, again, without having the complete story?

Kathy Prescott and Grady Thrasher