It seems the Federal Emergency Management Agency refused, on the advice of its lawyers, to test whether the trailers it provided for hurricane evacuees contained unsafe levels of formaldehyde. According to documents released by Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, when FEMA staffers urged the agency to respond to reports of formaldehyde in the trailers, they received an e-mail from a FEMA lawyer that said, "Do not initiate any testing until we give the OK. Once you get results, the clock is running on our duty to respond to them."

In other words, if we discover that the more than 120,000 trailers and mobile homes we have provided to families along the Gulf Coast are reeking with a toxic gas, we'll be obligated to replace them. So it's better if we don't know.

Which raises a few moral questions of its own:

• Is it moral to let women breathe a gas that may cause respiratory illness in order to save money?

• Is it moral to leave men in conditions that may cause raw throats and burning eyes so as to avoid responsibility?

• Is it moral to expose children to a compound believed to cause cancer if it helps cover one's backside?

Apparently FEMA answered, yes, yes, and yes to the following questions.  A government agency sworn to help American citizens.  But this has always been  the Bush Administration's modus operandi.  You would think that they would care, at least, about voters.  No, they don't care about people AT ALL.

FEMA in Mississippi is trying to move its citizens out of those trailers with a quickness.  Amazing how a little independent truth-finding by the Sierra Club and a government hearing can move Administration bureaucrats to near-ecstasy:

FEMA officials are searching for a quick and efficient way to get people out of their FEMA trailers and away from the possibility of formaldehyde contamination. That move comes a week after congressional hearings on toxins in trailers, and as federal officials prepare to test trailers still in use in Mississippi and Louisiana.

On Tuesday, FEMA officials told WLOX News they are not sure exactly when the air quality testing will begin. Instead of doing the actual testing this week, the Center For Disease Control and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry will simply gather information to figure out how the tests will be done.

The Sierra Club, one of the first to blow the whistle on this latest incident of government-inspired environmental disaster (starting with the levees) says it's a bit too little too late.

FEMA officials also say they have suspended all sales and donations of FEMA trailers until the air quality study is complete. In the meantime, FEMA is aggressively looking for rental property and apartments to relocate as many trailer residents as possible.

Another lie.  They're still selling them to entities like the Equestrian World Games 2010.  As many royals, semi-royals and Old as well as New Money that attend and participate in these games...

To FEMA, they're just trying to turn a profit.  Can they help it if regular folks like Lou Finkle get permanently sick?

Now, according to the Bayou Buzz, they're trying to cover their collective asses through Alphonso Jackson, killer of New Orleans housing projects.

On Monday, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development gave the good news.  HUD has decided to extend its temporary disaster housing assistance program for 11,400 families who were displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita who are currently registered in the program. 

[...]

The DVP extension announced today is being implemented as follows:

• Families who lived in public housing prior to the storm are projected to continue receiving DVP assistance until June 30, 2008, based on current available funding and the number of families assisted. This extension also covers families who are assisted by other HUD housing programs, including those in senior and disabled housing, those in multifamily housing and families who were homeless prior to the storms. There are 3,800 families who will continue to receive assistance in this category.

• Families who participated in HUD's regular housing voucher program, known as Section 8 or the Housing Choice Voucher Program (HCV), prior to the storms will return to the HCV program that covered the cost of their housing. These families were transferred to DVP assistance temporarily to ensure they continued to receive their housing subsidy during the recovery period. These 7,600 families will be reverted to the original program.

• Families who were displaced by the hurricanes who have not registered for a disaster voucher must do so as soon as possible by contacting the public housing authority (PHA) where they currently reside or where they want to live. While new admissions for the DVP end on September 1st, PHAs that administer the DVP program in local communities need time to process new families in their systems to meet a September 30th deadline to use the DVP funding Congress appropriated. Families who were receiving HUD rental assistance or those who were homeless prior to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita are eligible for DVP assistance.

HUD created DVP to ensure families who were receiving HUD rental assistance prior to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita would continue to receive assistance under this temporary voucher program. Families were issued vouchers to cover the cost of housing in the city where they relocated. At its peak, 30,700 families were using DVP to cover their housing costs. Currently, 11,400 families remain on the program. Other families who were originally on DVP have found permanent housing, which allowed them to move off the temporary program.

Good news, eh?  Two years of government-inspired inaction, corruption and attrition have provided this reason why 30,700 families aren't using those vouchers: almost 20,000 probably cannot come home or have lost hope that they will ever return.

In addition to announcing the DVP extension, Jackson also announced that the Housing Authority of New Orleans has selected the University of Texas to conduct a survey of all of the residents who lived in public housing prior to Hurricane Katrina to determine if they want to return to New Orleans. Jackson repeated something he said after seeing Katrina's destruction, "Families who want to come back to New Orleans should have the opportunity to come back. HUD's goal is to bring families back to quality housing and safe communities."

Interesting he would say that.  Because I smell something just as foul and toxic as the formaldehyde. Why would the New Orleans Housing Authority choose the University of Texas for such an important study?  There are other entities able to do this job.  This is Bush's home state. Will they be able to find all of the people who used to live in public housing in New Orleans?  They're not just in Texas.

Or will Jackson live up to his oft-repeated vow to tear down the housing projects as the study goes forward?

Window-dressing, stonewalling and out-and-out slow murder with chemically-treated temporary housing.  As Maureen Dowd said in Bushworld, this is Bush's world and we're in it.