EPA administrator Michael Regan insists that air and water in East Palestine, Ohio is “safe” following the Norfolk Southern train derailment on February 3rd. But should anyone believe him?

In 2016, Christine Todd Whitman, who was the head of the EPA under President George W. Bush at the time of the 9/11 attacks, issued an apology for having falsely asserted the air quality in New York City was “safe” following those attacks.

In the days following the collapse of the Twin Towers — which sent dangerous plumes of debris and toxins into the air over Manhattan — Whitman issued a statement assuring New Yorkers that they had nothing to fear. “I am glad to reassure the people of New York … that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink,” the statement read.

Whitman’s assurances in 2001, of course, were based on the information that “government scientists” were telling her. “The good news continues to be that air samples we have taken have all been at levels that cause us no concern,” she professed.

Even while Whitman acknowledged that it was known that asbestos, lead, and other toxins had been released from the wreckage in 2001, she maintained that beyond the immediate vicinity the air did “not pose a public health hazard.”

Fifteen years later Whitman did a 180. From The Guardian:

‘I’m very sorry that people are sick,’ she said. ‘I’m very sorry that people are dying and if the EPA and I in any way contributed to that, I’m sorry. We did the very best we could at the time with the knowledge we had.’

Is that supposed to restore public trust? Does that soothe the pain of those thousands of families, whose loved ones either died or suffered from respiratory illnesses or cancer because they breathed in the toxic air in Manhattan under the false assumption that the air was “clean” — because the government told them so?

Since the EPA’s failure to accurately measure the air quality in 2001, another government organization has also been outed as lying to the American people. Prior to the latest ecological disaster in East Palestine, Ohio, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention got their entire COVID response wrong.

The CDC, which once issued guidelines demanding that Americans wear cloth masks indoors, now concedes that cloth masks offer no protection. The CDC, which once rejected natural immunity as a viable and scientific protection against COVID infection, now concedes that natural immunity offers strong protection.

But the CDC’s prior assertions that masks worked and natural immunity did not were not based on any prior scientific understanding, or even studies. In fact, both recommendations were counter intuitive, defied scientific acceptance, and were lies.

Just as the CDC’s COVID guidelines and the EPA’s claims that the air was safe following 9/11 both defied logic, so too does the latest EPA claim that the air and water are safe in East Palestine, Ohio defy logic; not only logic, but experience.

The streams and creeks in East Palestine are visibly contaminated. Residents have experienced illness and seen dead fish, pets, fowl, and livestock in the aftermath. But the EPA says everything is okay. Officials mock residents expressing hesitation about drinking the tap water. The government has minimized the tragedy.

Neither organization — the EPA nor the CDC — has a shred of credibility. How could these government agencies and scientists get it so wrong? And whose interests are they protecting? Certainly not the American people, who suffered needlessly because of their “mistakes.”

The confidence Whitman expressed back in 2001 is eerily similar to the confidence the current EPA administrator, Michael Regan, is expressing today, more than twenty years later.

“I trust what the science is saying,” Regan recently said. Does he mean like how Whitman trusted the science in 2001?

What is this so-called science the EPA or even the CDC continues to trust? Is it science if that science is proven to be thoroughly inaccurate? The so-called science in 2001 said the air was fine in Manhattan. That science was wrong. How has the EPA’s science changed in the decades since?

The agency’s air quality measurements seem to be as sound as their climate science and predictions — which is to say it’s a bunch of hocus pocus. The same people telling us to have anxiety attacks over climate predictions, which fail to materialize, tell us not to be anxious about toxic chemicals in our air and water. Both their “scientific” climate predictions and their clean air and water assurances have been proven lies.

A comparison of the reality experienced and observed by residents of East Palestine, Ohio to that which is promoted by the EPA is as contradictory as the experience of those living in Manhattan in 2001; both times, the EPA said not to believe your lying eyes and body.

How can the same EPA, which got it so wrong in 2001, have the audacity to irresponsibly tell Ohioans to trust its science, as if it has a track record of success?

What’s frightening about East Palestine — and even areas beyond — is that these health impacts continue to rear their ugly head long after the immediate disaster. How can the EPA be certain there won’t be future risk? They can’t. But they lie anyway.

What will Michael Regan say in 2038 — fifteen years from now — if and when residents of East Palestine report reparatory illnesses and cancer? Will he, like his predecessor Christine Todd Whitman, say “I’m very sorry that people are sick. I’m very sorry that people are dying and if the EPA and I in any way contributed to that, I’m sorry. We did the very best we could at the time with the knowledge we had.”

The EPA’s very best is a history of lies — lies which have gotten Americans killed. And their knowledge isn’t knowledge at all; it’s ignorance. Why should anyone trust the EPA?

Drew Allen, the Millenial Minister of Truth, is the host of “The Drew Allen Show” podcast and a widely published columnist and political analyst. He is the Vice President of Client Development at Publius PR and also the Editor of the Publius National Post. Subscribe to read his work at drewallen.substack.com.

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