EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas FRANK D, LUCAS, Oklahoma CHAIFIWOMAN RANKING MEMBER nf ?anitrd Starts must at COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 2321 RAYEIURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON, DC 20515?6301 (202} 225?6375 June 26, 2019 The Honorable Andrew Wheeler Administrator Environmental Protection Agency 1301 Constitution Ave. NW Washington, DC, 20460 Dear Administrator Wheeler, On March 6, 2019, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology sent a letter to you formally requesting ?all prepared or received by EPA officials in relation to the decision to prevent the NASA Atmospheric Tomography Mission from participating in post? Hurricane [Harvey] response.?1 The same day, we sent letters to the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality?s Toxicology Division (TCEQ) requesting comparable documents from each agency.23 The purpose of these requests was to understand why EPA and TCEQ declined an offer of assistance from NASA in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, which devastated the Houston area in late August and early September of 2017. NASA offered to redirect an advanced ?ying chemistry laboratory known as a DC-8 plane to the Houston region to help obtain more accurate air quality samples. Readings from the DC-S aircraft would have been particularly useful because it was equipped with more precise technology than equivalent aircraft, and could therefore have analyzed a broader range of chemical compounds.4 1 Letter from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee to EPA. March 6, 2019. Available here: .6. I 2 Letter from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee to NASA. March 6, 2019. Available here: 3 Letter from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee to TCEQ. March 6, 2019. Available here: 4 Los Angeles Times. ?Post-Hurricane Harvey, NASA tried to fly a pollution-spotting plane over Houston. The EPA said no.? March 5, 2019. Accessed here: harvev-201903 05-storv.html. Unfortunately, EPA has failed to provide documents that are responsive to the Committee?s requests. While NASA and TCEQ were able to provide comprehensive responses in an appropriate period of time, EPA missed every deadline and chose to offer irrelevant and unrelated documents rather than complying with the clearly de?ned terms outlined by the Committee. We are deeply troubled by non-responsiveness, which appears to be part of a pattern of uncooperative behavior with the Committee?s lawful oversight activities. In our March 6 letter requesting EPA documents related to offer of assistance after Hurricane Harvey, we detailed the scope of our request, which included ?any documents. . .related to the offer, receipt of the offer, and consideration of the offer to divert the [Atmospheric Tomography] mission to Houston.? We explicitly identi?ed ?any deliberations or communications between or among the State of Texas, EPA, and as part of our request and set a deadline of March 20 for the Agency?s response.5 TCEQ and NASA provided responses that were complete, TCEQ on March 19 and NASA on March 29. When EPA finally replied on April 5, the Agency did not provide a single document responsive to our request. Instead, EPA sent only a three-page letter from then-Associate Administrator for Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Relations Troy M. Lyons that presented an overview of actions during Hurricane Harvey. In light of this inadequate reSponse, we sent you a second letter on April 10. We pointed out that reply ?did not provide any responsive documents per our original request letter? and noted that ?the Committee does not consider the original request from March 6 to be complete.? We established a new deadline of April 12 for EPA to provide the appropriate documents to the Committee. Once again, EPA missed our deadline, only responding a week later on April 19 despite another follow-up email from Committee staff on April 12. In that response, EPA did provide thousands of pages of documents to the Committee. However, the overwhelming majority of the documents depicted unrelated aspects of response to Hurricane Harvey. Even the few documents that mentioned offer of assistance merely did so to record that the offer had been extended, with no further detail on response to the offer. EPA transmitted another batch of documents on May 17, but again, not one of those documents addressed the specific issues that we raised in our initial request. We know that EPA is in possession of documents responsive to our request, because we obtained those documents from other agencies. In the responses we received from NASA and TCEQ, both agencies submitted relevant email correspondence from the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Harvey that included EPA employees. We would remind EPA that agency compliance with Congressional oversight is not optional. That EPA itself did not submit any of the following documents in its response to the Committee illustrates the Agency?s failure to respond to our request: 5 Letter from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee to EPA. March 6, 2019. Available here: .6. 2 Date Document Participants Source Type Agency Sept 8, 2017 Email Arturo Blanco Barry Lefer (NASA) NASA Sept 8, 2017 Email Terry Keating Barry Lefer (NASA) NASA Sept 8, 2017 Email Arturo Blanco David Gray Sam TCEQ Coleman Richard Hyde Erin Chancellor Bryan Shaw (TCEQ) Sept 9, 2017 Email David Gray Albert Kelly Jon NASA and . Rauscher Ronnie Crossland TCEQ Michael Honeycutt Richard Hyde Thomas Zurbuchen (NASA) Sept 10, 2017 Email David Gray Michael Honeycutt NASA and Barry Lefer (NASA) TCEQ Sept 11, 2017 Email David Gray Michael Honeycutt NASA and Barry Lefer (NASA) TCEQ Sept 11, 2017 Email David Gray Albert Kelly Jon NASA and Rauscher Ronnie Crossland - TCEQ Michael Honeycutt Richard Hyde Ramiro Garcia Kelly Cook Thomas Zurbuchen Barry Lefer Michael Freilich Lawrence Friedl (NASA) Sept 11, 2017 Email Eric Koglin Barry Lefer NASA Gregory Sayles Terry Keating (EPA) This list re?ects only some of the examples of documents that we received from other agencies that we would have expected to see in document production for the Committee. It appears that EPA acted willfully to frustrate the Committee?s constitutionally-mandated oversight responsibilities on this issue. We are disturbed by refusals to cooperate with our inquiries and its refusals to explain its actions in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. Harvey was devastating for Houston and its surrounding communities; the Committee requested information from EPA in good faith. The Committee?s interest in this topic has discrete policy relevance that should concern all Americans: ensuring that federal agencies are deploying all available resources to inform the public and protect public health in the wake of a natural disaster. refusal to respond to Congress on this issue suggests EPA may also fail to learn from its mistakes after Harvey and take more appropriate steps in the future. Hurricane Harvey ?rst made landfall in the US on August 25, 2017. The Director of 3 Applied Sciences program reached out to EPA on September 8, offering to redirect the DC-8 aircra? to the Houston region to collect air quality information. For context, there is precedent for NASA to deploy chemical?sensing aircraft over areas exposed to concentrated pollutant releases. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2009, NASA deployed the aircraft from California to survey the spill site and the northern Gulf of Mexico. According to the documents that NASA provided to the committee, though there was sensitivity among EPA of?cials about another agency joining in their efforts to monitor air 3 quality, with careful communication and continuously brie?ng EPA during the mission, NASA was able to conduct the ?yover and gathered useful data about environmental conditions. EPA of?cials expressed appreciation to NASA for its contributions after the fact.?6 In its letter to the Committee responding to our request for documents, TCEQ asserted that it coordinated with EPA Region 6 to turn away the NASA DC-8 ?ight because the ?ight would not produce scienti?cally helpful data. However, NASA and TCEQ documents indicate that, in the words of one TCEQ of?cial, ?the ?ight was scrapped for reasons unrelated to science.? 7 Internal NASA email chains document that, in fact, EPA and TCEQ of?cials were ?worried that NASA will run with this dataset to the press and in the process, make EPA and TCEQ look ba They describe TCEQ Director Michael Honeycutt as noting that TCEQ had ?received numerous open records requests and that he sees this as opening up his agency to more negative scrutiny.?3 Another email chain described ?consternation owing to media reports?9 at EPA and TCEQ. We agree that state and federal agencies should take care that communications with the public . about scienti?c information that relates to human health are conducted with sensitivity. The documents we received from NASA and TCEQ demonstrate a concerted effort on part to ease EPA concerns about how the data from would be communicated: NASA agreed not to take the datas?et to the press.10 NASA agreed to gain approval from TCEQ and EPA before issuing any press releases.11 NASA of?cials instructed staff not to post any information about the ?ight on - social media.12 0 NASA designated a single point of contact for staff to direct any public inquiries about the D08 ?ight.13 - I NASA assured EPA that the data from the DC-8 ?ight would only become public after quality assurance/quality control process.14 However, EPA and TCEQ still refused. offer of assistance. EPA and TCEQ stated unambiguously to NASA that they did not wish the ?ight over Houston to take place. 15 This decision to turn away the NASA ?ight obstructed information~gathering that would have helped Houstonians, particularly those in low-income communities near industrial facilities, 5 From documents provided to the Committee from NASA, page 162 7 From documents provided to the Committee from TCEQ, page 311. 3 From documents provided to the Committee from NASA, page 18-19 9 Ibid, page 29 1? Ibid, page 18-19 11 Ibid, page 18~19 12 Ibid, page 5 13 Ibid, page 5 14 Ibid, page 18?19 15 Ibid, page 251 and documents provided to the Committee from TCEQ, page 304. 4 make decisions about how to protect their health during an environmental crisis.16 We have reason to believe that had the DOS mission ?own, it would have provided evidence that public declarations about air quality after the storm were overly optimistic. Air monitoring data from multiple other sources, including a City of Houston mobile monitoring unit and contractors for the Environmental Defense Fund, showed alarming concentrations of benzene near industrial facilities in the immediate aftermath of the Hurricane that were not reported by EPA or TCEQ.1718 Benzene exposure can cause headaches and nausea, and long?term exposure increases the risk of cancer. The assertion that the ?ight would not have yielded scienti?cally helpful data is dubious. DC-S instrument is designed to detect such plumes of benzene. The DC-8 ?ight that NASA offered to EPA and TCEQ would have informed where fence-line measurements should be taken and would have detected pollutants in areas not accessible to mobile units. The airborne surveillance capabilities TCEQ and EPA used to survey Harvey?s impacts, which spanned forty- one counties, were apparently only one Airborne Spectral Photometric Environmental Collection Technology (ASPECT) aircraft and one helicopter.19 In conclusion, we believe that EPA made a decision in the wake of Hurricane Harvey to . prioritize its appearance in the press over public safety in Houston. EPA should always welcome and evaluate additional information about environmental conditions that may threaten public health. EPA of?cials should have coordinated with other agencies whose capabilities complemented their own. EPA also should have worked to coordinate with the stakeholders whose data contradicted their own statements and ?gure out the cause of these discrepancies, rather than working to cover up the problem. It is also apparent that we need to restate the Committee?s oversight authority on EPA matters like this one. The Committee may compel EPA to turn over all pertinent documents and correspondence described in our March 6 and April 10 requests. That authority extends to all matters over which the Committee has jurisdictional authority. If necessary, we are prepared to exercise compulsory measures to ensure that Congressional oversight functions properly. If you have any questions or would like to discuss compliance with this request, please contact Ms. Janie Thompson at 202?225?63 75. ?5 NPR.org. ?Air Pollution from Industry Plagues Houston in Harvey?s Wake.? September 14, 2017. Accessed here: 1 7/09/14/5 harveys-wake ?7 Craft, Elena. Environmental Defense Fund Blog. ?Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on people?s health Texas should be better prepared next time.? March 6, 2018. Accessed here: 18 Propublicaorg. ?Independent Monitors Found Benzene Levels After Harvey Six Times Higher Than Guidelines.? September 14, 2017. Accessed here: '9 From documents provided to the Committee from TCEQ, page 25 5 Sincerely, EDDIE BERNICE Chairwoman Committee on Science, Space, and Technology LIZZIE FLETCHER Chair Subcommittee on the Environment MIKIE SHERRILL Chairwoman Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight