EPA under investigation for not announcing asbestos hazard loudly

The Seattle Post Intelligencer reports that Congress is looking into the EPA’s work in the Libby Montana asbestos hazard debacle. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an internal government watchdog agency, and according to the article the GAO will release a report criticizing the EPA’s

W.R. Grace sold the vermiculite under the name Zonolite and it was used in the contruction of hundreds of thousands of houses across the country. The article quotes former Surgeon General Richard Lemen as saying the EPA’s failure to warn homeowners of asbestos hazards as “outrageous.” In 2003 the EPA promised to launch an awareness campaign to alert people to the possible hazards in their attics, but the campaign never came to fruition.