The EPA is trying to weaken the rules for
the Defense Department so they can pollute
communities without the fear of any kind of
oversight at all. And so where we're really
seeing this is the topic on PFOA, I mean C8.
You know, the case, The Devil We Know, how
do you get a better documentary? This documentary
is winning every kind of award you can possibly
win. It's called The Devil We Know. It talks
about the tragedy of C8 and how it's killing
people in your, it's in your drinking water.
It's killing you with, with cancer. It's killing
with neurological disease. It's causing birth
defects. And the public has barely paid attention
to it until we tried that case in the Ohio
River Valley. Remember I tried, we tried four
one behind each other and punished DuPont,
and then all of a sudden, now all this information's
coming out, except the DOD and the Pentagon
want to keep it quiet.
Right, because this, these PFOA chemicals,
it's not just C8, this stuff is, is everywhere.
It's in firefighter foam and that's where
a lot of the contamination from the Department
of Defense comes from. The firefighting foam,
they use it all the time on military basis.
It's in rain coats, it's in any kind of nonstick,
slick coating. PFOA's are in 98% of our bodies
in this country and it stays there for years
and years.
Teflon pans, you go to your kitchen and you're
going to find it all over your kitchen Teflon
pans. Okay, so here's what they found. These,
these military bases where there's about 600
of them, they use this for firefighting as
you point out. And now we know that they've,
they've identified 172 sites where we know
that because of that military base, the drinking
water and the groundwater in that area around
the base has been affected and it's been affected
this way.
We know this for sure. We know that if there's
a certain level of C8 in your drinking water,
you are multiple, multiple increased risk
for cancer. Now in and when we tried the case
up in Parker's, I mean, up in the Ohio River
Valley, most scientists will tell you there
should be zero C8 in your water. But the EPA
to begin with said, oh no, let's make it if
it's okay, if there's only 30 parts per trillion
in your drinking water. Now to put it in perspective,
one drop in a, an Olympic size pool, one drop,
just a regular job in an Olympic size pool
is one part per billion. And they're saying
30 parts per trillion is acceptable. But the
Department of Justice, I mean the Pentagon,
that's not even enough for them is it? Pentagon's
fighting back on that aren't they?
Right, the Pentagon wants to up it because
they know how much contamination they have.
And they say, how about for just us, EPA,
how about you, you give us a special deal
that's 300 parts per trillion. They want to
take it up to 300 parts per trillion. We're
talking about more than roughly five times
what the EPA even says is borderline acceptable.
And the Pentagon wants to say, you know what?
We want to save $2 billion because that's
how much they'll save if they up the standards.
So could you just do it for us? I mean, this
is a department that has $750 billion in fund
money per year.
And they're complaining that it's going to
cost them a billion or so to clean this up.
Right.
They could do it tomorrow. The second thing
they're doing is they're trying to slow the
process down. The EPA is dysfunctional and
as, you know, awful as they are, had enough
sense to say, this is an emergency. We need
to handle this as an emergency. And the Pentagon
is saying, no, we don't really want to handle
the emergency. Let's slow play this. Let's
see where it goes. Where, where it goes is
people are drinking C8. They're bathing in
it, they're filling, they're feeding it to
their children in baby formula when they mixed
baby formula. This stuff is very, very dangerous.
And the Department of Defense, the Pentagon
is doing everything they can to play, slow
play this out. And if you're living in Michigan,
if you're living in California, if you're
living in New Jersey, buddy, you are in the
red zone. You are in the red zone for this
because it's in your drinking water, probably.
That's what's so ugly and the Department of,
the Pentagon says, eh, so what. You know,
so we poisoned your water. We don't have enough
money to pay for it right now. They got plenty
of money.
Well, you and I right now are sitting in an
area that's basically surrounded by three
massive military bases and we know according
to maps by the Environmental Working group,
this area you and I are sitting in right now
is one of those sites that is hugely contaminated.
We, we, we have it right here in our backyard,
quite literally, and the people in this area,
I don't even think that they understand. But
that's what people have to realize is that
just because it's not on the national news
doesn't mean that you're not being exposed
to this. People should be talking about this.
The media absolutely is God awful.
Well the media is responsible for a lot of
this. You understand, corporate media didn't
tell this story because DuPont and 3M were
their big advertisers. So they refuse to tell
the story. Even, this is so interesting, even
when I was in trial, they wouldn't tell the
story. So, you know, this is a story, this,
this, this stuff is killing people. Farron,
thanks for joining me. Okay.
Thank you.
Ethiopian investigators say the preliminary
report in the last month's deadly Ethiopian
Airlines plane crash shows the two pilots
tried everything they could do to stop the
airplane from nose-diving. Lawsuits against
Boeing are already being filed over the crash.
Mollye Barrows, legal journalist with the
Trial Lawyer Magazine, joins me now to talk
more about that. I'll tell you, you probably
had the same impression I did. After Ethiopia,
30 countries grounded this airplane.
That's right.
But not the US.
Not right away no.
And as I look at it, I mean, it's the same
old story. Boeing has a huge footprint in
politics and so we kept the airplanes flying,
running the risk again and again for all those
people that were flying on the airlines. What
caused the crash as far as what they found?
Well, of course it's going to take a year
as far as the Ethiopian investigation for
them to pinpoint an exact cause or go on the
record with it, but right now the preliminary
findings, which just came out recently, the
investigators are essentially suspecting that
these pilots couldn't get this anti-stall
software to control it. It basically was overriding
them. It was sending the plane into a nosedive
very similar to a crash that happened in October
in Indonesia; same plane, same Boeing 737
Max with this updated software that essentially
they can't override it.
When they started coming out and they call
them glass cockpits. In modern jets it's called
the glass cockpit, and what it means is you're
getting away from traditional digital. What
you're moving into is something that's so
sophisticated. If you talk to a lot of pilots
about this, they'll tell you it's getting
too smart.
That's what they said. There wasn't enough
training for it.
Yeah, they put in some new system and when
you look at the decision, you go, great. You
know, the airplane will land itself if it
has to, but right now, in this situation,
the criticism is technology is exceeding the
training and capability of some of the pilots.
Yeah.
And that's exactly what this story's about,
but as you watch this develop, I mean you're
going to see Boeing push back in a big, big
way. They're going to push back politically.
I mean here again, 30 countries grounded the
airplane, but not the FAA.
Yeah, so it was basically right after that
Ethiopian crash last month that within days,
30 countries from India to Africa were saying
no more of this jet and not until we get a
handle on what's going on with this software,
and the FAA was saying, we're fact-based.
We're data driven. We need to get all our
ducks in a row before we do this because of
course Boeing is an American company and they're,
like you said, politically entwined so that
could perhaps be their motivation, but their
on the record was that they wanted to get
all the data first. And of course the data
that they did go and find suggested the same
thing that these other investigators have
found, which is why the other countries suspended
and grounded the jet, which was that they
still didn't have a handle on this software
and they felt it was to blame for these planes
nose-diving because the pilots basically tried
to override it and couldn't.
Right. I'm intrigued by this governmental
response. We see the same thing with the FDA
all the time. The FDA, there'll be a drug
that's killing people and it'll be on the
market in Europe and the European agencies
will say get it off the market. So sometimes
they'll get the product off the market a full
year before the United States even takes action,
and when you look at why that happens, it
is part of that lobbyist intrigue. It is who
do you know? Who can you talk to? How much
money have you spread around? So even though
this was a short period of time, oddly enough,
it was Trump demanding that they ground this
airplane.
Only because Canada by the Wednesday afternoon.
So basically then the crash happened over
the weekend, March 17th and then that following
Wednesday, those 30 countries, including Canada
by the end of the day had said, we're grounding
this jet, and that's when president Trump
stepped forward and said, well, we're going
to ground this jet as well, which was an unusual
move because as you said, the FAA normally
makes that call. And it wasn't until after
president Trump said that, that they went
ahead and grounded the jet as well. But you
know, they're also saying that Boeing's going
to be under investigation by the Justice Department
as well as the FBI for whatever they knew
or didn't know.
And for whatever they concealed I'm telling
you.
And Boeing says they support grounding the
jet, and you know there are lawsuits; so that's
the other thing. And they're saying the same
thing that the software, wasn't it.
We're going to find a document trail in here.
This is going to scare the bejesus out of
people. Thank you for joining me, Mollye.
Yes, thank you, Pap.
