GOP sides with businesses over toxic trailers

Top executives from four companies backed the safety and quality of their products in what is shaping up to be a partisan fight over who is to blame for health issues afflicting Katrina victims who lived in their trailers after the hurricane.

Democrats say the manufacturers should have taken more tests when medical complaints surfaced and done more to protect the displaced Katrina victims living in these trailers. Republicans say it is the government's fault for not having standards for safe levels of formaldehyde in trailers.

About 1 million people were displaced because of Katrina, and thousands were sent to emergency travel trailers that were later discovered to have high levels of formaldehyde--a preservative commonly used in building materials. Prolonged exposure can lead to breathing problems and is also believed to cause cancer. Shortly after Katrina, residents of FEMA-issued trailers reported frequent headaches, nosebleeds and other ailments.

There is no industry standard for the amount of formaldehyde in travel trailers. The government sets standards for indoor air quality for materials used to build mobile homes, but not for travel trailers.

"It would be helpful to have a national standard for these kinds of products," said Jim Shea, chairman of Gulf Stream Coach--the trailer manufacturer that received the bulk of the contracts to make trailers after Katrina, collecting more than $500 million. "The lack of such a standard leaves our industry with no clear guidance on the issue."

But Democrats and hundreds of current and former trailer occupants who are suing the manufacturers do not accept this defense. Some Gulf Stream employees complained they, too, were suffering effects from formaldehyde exposure, including nose bleeds, shortness of breath, dizziness and bleeding ears. One employee told Democratic investigators there was a foul odor in the plant as the trailers were being made.

"FEMA failed by ignoring the dangers of formaldehyde," Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee Henry Waxman said.

But the California Democrat insists Gulf Stream's failure is different: "The company did test trailers after hearing the first reports of high formaldehyde levels. It found pervasive formaldehyde contamination in its trailers. And it did not tell anyone," Waxman said.

Gulf Stream's Shea said this is not the case. There was no actual "testing" of trailers, he said. Instead, there was informal screening with a handheld device that measures the level of formaldehyde in the air called a Formaldemeter, which is not a scientific test. And Gulf Stream asked FEMA if it should test the trailers, but FEMA said no, Shea said.