Rep. Velazquez calls on colleagues to stop chemical company lawyer’s nomination to oversee EPA Superfund program

Sept. 08--President Trump's pick to oversee the Superfund toxic cleanup program is a chemical company lawyer with deep ties to the industry -- and Rep. Nydia Velazquez is not happy about it.

Velazquez , a Democrat representing parts of Brooklyn and the Lower East Side, will fire off a letter Monday to Senate leadership opposing Peter Wright's nomination, calling on her colleagues to keep the Dow Chemicals corporate lawyer from taking over the important post at the Environmental Protection Agency.

"This is yet one more example of Donald Trump putting big corporations before the public health and the Senate needs to reject this nomination," Velazquez told the Daily News.

If confirmed by the Senate, Wright would oversee the EPA office that responds to large-scale national emergencies such as oil spills and unauthorized releases of chemicals or radioactive materials. Wright would also oversee the Superfund hazardous waste cleanup program, which is responsible for cleaning up some of the country's most contaminated industrial sites.

There are three heavily polluted Superfund sites in Velazquez's district: the Gowanus Canal, Newtown Creek and the Wolff-Alport Chemical Co.

"This is an issue of social justice," Velazquez said. "I've got three Superfund sites in my district, and we had more than 17,000 cases of pediatric asthma in a single year. New Yorkers deserve a Superfund chief who cares about families and kids, not big polluters and Trump's corporate pals."

At Dow, Wright has served as managing counsel for environmental health and safety while advising the company on Superfund cleanups.

Wright described himself in a court deposition as "the company's dioxin lawyer" while fighting the EPA over a 2003 cleanup in Midland, Mich., where Dow contaminated the waters of the Saginaw River with historic levels of the toxic byproduct.

He was in a lead role organizing Dow's legal strategy and negotiating the cleanup when the EPA openly criticized the company for delays, testing lapses and presenting misleading information to the public.

Wright once argued that dioxins are not harmful to humans despite the World Health Organization categorizing them as carcinogenic and tying them to reproductive and developmental problems, Velazquez points out in her letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-S.C.) and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

In 2007, the EPA charged that Dow "has frequently provided information to the public that contradicts agency positions, and generally accepted scientific information."

Dow merged with rival DuPont last year, creating the world's largest chemical maker. The companies are financially responsible for cleaning up nearly 200 toxic sites.

Wright has already spent time serving as a "special counsel" to Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler -- despite not yet being confirmed by the Senate -- and has pledged to recuse himself from cleanups related to his former employer.

Wheeler, who began his career working for the EPA before becoming a lobbyist for coal companies, took over the beleaguered agency in July following the resignation of disgraced agency head Scott Pruitt.

Echoing the President, Wheeler complained recently that Democrats are slow-walking the confirmation process for Wright and others.

An EPA spokesman declined to answer questions about Velazquez's opposition, referring instead to the agency's March press release touting Wright's time at Dow.

The Trump administration's industry-friendly approach to environmental issues and promises to cut funds to the EPA have experts concerned about the future of sites such as the 1.8-mile-long sewage-strewn stretch of water that is the Gowanus Canal.

"Wright's nomination is emblematic of the Trump administration's approach to these issues," said Judith Enck, who served as regional EPA administrator for New York when the Gowanus Superfund was declared. "Putting a former Dow attorney in charge of Superfund is like literally having the fox guarding the henhouse."

The $506 million cleanup of the polluted waterway began in 2008. It was added to the EPA's national priorities list in 2010. The EPA has identified at least 28 different groups responsible for the contamination of the toxic waterway, including private companies, National Grid, the city and several federal agencies.

The EPA's Office of Inspector General, meanwhile, announced Friday it is auditing a task force Pruitt created to allegedly help speed up Superfund cleanups.

The task force was led by Albert Kelly, a banker buddy of Pruitt from his home state of Oklahoma. Kelly had provided several loans to Pruitt before being banned from banking for life by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Wheeler, while visiting a pair of contaminated mining sites in Montana on Friday, said that Superfund remains a priority for the agency.

"Superfund is a priority for the administration, for President Trump, and it's a priority for myself as well," he said, according to Montana Public Radio.

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