WASHINGTON -- A report released Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)'s Inspector General found that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not act quickly or effectively when it became aware that trailers housing survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita may have had elevated levels of formaldehyde. In a letter sent to FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., asked FEMA to implement the report's recommendations without delay and report back to Congress in 90 days.

"The report is a disturbing testament of FEMA's missteps and delays that might well have had a detrimental effect on the health and safety of those living in the trailers," the Senators wrote. "It found that FEMA officials acted neither quickly nor effectively to determine the extent of the formaldehyde problem once they were aware that such a problem might exist, resulting in an almost two-year lapse before reaching the conclusion that a problem, in fact, did exist."

The report, FEMA Responses to Formaldehyde in Trailers (OIG-09-83), was required by an amendment passed by the Senate to the DHS Appropriations Act for FY 2008 that was sponsored by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn; Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery Chair Landrieu; Committee Members Mark Pryor, D-Ark, Senator Claire McCaskill, D-Mo; and Senator John Kerry, D-Mass.

The report details how FEMA spent a year deciding how best to ventilate the trailers, only to come to the same conclusion that had been reached long before, and how FEMA dragged its feet on testing the occupied trailers, acting only after senior DHS management became involved. Even after the decision was made to begin testing, FEMA caused months of delay by failing to promptly produce the necessary paperwork and telling the contractor to hold off on testing until it had decided how to respond publicly to the test results. Because of these missteps, FEMA did not have test results of formaldehyde levels in occupied trailers until almost two years after becoming aware of potential problems.

The report lays out several recommendations for FEMA to protect the health and safety of future disaster victims.

The letter sent by lawmakers also asks FEMA to report back with additional information within 30 days, including how many people remain in FEMA trailers, what policies have been put in place to ensure the health of survivors of future disasters and what system has been put in place to track health complaints in the future. The Committee will hold a hearing on the nomination of Alexander G. Garza to be The Department of Homeland Security's Chief Medical Officer next Tuesday, July 28.

For the full letter, please visit: http://landrieu.senate.gov/media/Trailer_Letter.pdf