Twice this year President Obama has traveled to Elkhart County, Ind., to promote his economic policies, first to the city of Elkhart on February 9 and then the nearby community of Wakarusa on August 5. Northeastern Indiana makes for a good backdrop for speeches on the economy since Elkhart County has 16 percent unemployment, worst in the state.

The region has been especially hard hit because it’s the nation’s center of travel trailer manufacturing, with several major companies doing business there. High fuel prices followed by tight credit and then the recession have just hammered the industry.

With all due respect for the President’s policies, the area just got excellent news on the economic front last week from the U.S. court system. On September 24, a jury in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, rejected the first of at least 30 lawsuits against trailer manufacturers who sold their products to FEMA in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

From The Associated Press:

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A federal jury on Thursday rejected a New Orleans family’s claims that the government-issued trailer they lived in after Hurricane Katrina was defective and exposed them to dangerous [formaldehyde] fumes.

The jury decided that a trailer made by Gulf Stream Coach Inc. and occupied after the 2005 hurricane by Alana Alexander and her son, Christopher Cooper, 12, was not “unreasonably dangerous” in its construction.

The jury also concluded that Fluor Enterprises, which had a contract to install trailers for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was not negligent in doing so. The government was not a defendant in this first of several “bellwether” trials.

Last year the House Oversight and Investigations Committee, then chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), held a hearing to drag the trailer manufacturers into the mud for supposedly dangerous manufacturing practices — charges the manufacturers have always forcefully rejected. The hearing built upon already one-sided media coverage that also served the interests of the trial lawyers suing the businesses.

This is just one jury verdict, but the message must be very, very encouraging to the people of Elkhart County, and especially those involved in the trailer industry: The companies built safe products that met consumers’ demand, and when responding to the Katrina disaster, they maintained their high standards.

Now that would be a good topic for a nationally televised speech.

Note: The RV trade industry publication/website “RV Business” did a thorough job covering the trial, and kudos to them.

• “Jury Clears Gulf Stream Coach in FEMA Trailer Case” (Sept. 25)
• “Federal Jury Deliberating Gulf Stream Coach Fate” (Sept. 24)
• “FEMA Suspected Sierra Club Bias in Gulf Stream Matter” (Sept. 23)
• “Gulf Stream Coach Inc. Trial Ends First Week” (Sept. 21)
• “Witness: Welding Fumes Caused FEMA Trailer Illness”(Sept. 17)
• “Lawyers Present Cases in First Day of FEMA Trial” (Sept. 15)
• “First Trial on FEMA Trailer Suit Starts Today” (Sept. 14)

With President Obama’s return to Elkhart County, Indiana, yesterday to hold an event at an RV manufacturer, it’s again worth recalling that just about a year ago, the House Committee on Oversight and Investigations — then chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) — was holding a hearing excoriating the trailer industry for meeting the government’s demands for trailers after Hurricane Katrina.

If ever there were a hearing to serve the interests of the trail lawyers — who were then mounting a campaign against “toxic trailers” — it was that one. A judge rejected class-action status for the lawsuits, but the litigation continues. (See Mass Tort Litigation Blog.)

You know what would stimulate the economy? Limits on frivolous lawsuits.

In a post yesterday we observed that formaldehyde was becoming the latest target of the alliance of trial lawyers, “consumer activists” and members of Congress out to demonize a widely used chemical for pecuniary and political purposes. This week a Senate Commerce subcommittee held a hearing on formaldehyde in textiles and consumer products, coinciding with a recent scare — and lawsuits, of course — over supposedly contaminated Victoria’s Secret bras.

The lingerie connection should have reminded us: The other essential player in this “industry is poisoning you” combine is the media. Philosophically receptive or just plain slothful reporters repeat claims about supposedly dangerous products without bothering to check their accuracy.  Poisonous bras, dangerous Katrina travel trailers: Stories too good to check, and besides, here’s a photo of a lingerie model.

The Formaldehyde Council — which we just learned about today — has been battling back against this media mudslide, today issuing an open letter correcting the many, many factual errors being spread.

Over the last year there has been a trend of erroneous and slanted stories about the use of formaldehyde in consumer and industrial applications. The falsehoods are often pushed by activist groups with a hidden financial or ideological agenda. The Formaldehyde Council, Inc. [http://formaldehyde.org], a non-profit association that represents the leading producers and users of formaldehyde in the United States — companies that are responsible for 3.6 million jobs in the U.S. and contribute $127 billion to our national economy annually — is urging reporters to apply strict standards of accuracy, objectivity and sourcing on these issues.

The open letter cites many examples of the irresponsible reporting, providing fact sheets or blog links (Formaldehyde Facts) for each incident. Not surprisingly, Good Morning America leads the bunch. Morning shows are notorious for consumer scares and shoddy reporting:

A Senate Commerce subcommittee on Tuesday held a hearing on formaldehyde in textiles and consumer products, and we have two posts — a preview and a review –over at the Point of Law blog.

Judging from yesterday’s testimony, it sure looks like the trial lawyer/”consumer activist”/pro-regulation political machinery is gearing up to turn formaldehyde into the latest phthalates or BPA, and in the process we could wind up with another sledge-hammer, jobs-killing bill like the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act. (Not to deny that formaldehyde is a dangerous chemical that requires careful handling.)

So to set a solid foundation for future policy debates, we’ll just offer this summary from the testimony of Dr. Phillip J. Wakelyn of Wakelyn Associates, LLC (who has worked for the cotton industry):

There have been no valid safety related problems raised in the US concerning the low levels of formaldehyde on clothing and textiles. In view of all the studies over the last 30 years indicting that there is not a formaldehyde problem with US textiles products and regulations already in place concerning formaldehyde and textiles, no new regulations are necessary. Because the evidence is so strong that formaldehyde in textiles does not pose a problem to consumers, there is no need for legislative or regulatory action concerning formaldehyde and textiles unless the results of the GAO study, required by Section 234 of the CPSIA which became law August 14, 2008, indicate that action is necessary.

It’s not just FEMA trailers that have excessive formaldehyde problems. So do Capitol Hill offices. While the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee was preparing for this week’s hearing on problems with the Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers housing Hurricane Katrina victims, a Republican staff member on the committee decided to test the formaldehyde levels of select congressional offices.

Using a home test kit, staffer John Cuaderes and other staff discovered that the lounge room to the committee’s main hearing room has about the same high level of formaldehyde gas as many FEMA trailers.

From Rep. Tom Davis’ opening statement at the House Oversight Committee hearing on FEMA’s use of travel trailers after Katrina (our emphasis):

But the federal agency witnesses who might help explain this formaldehyde Tower of Babel aren’t here today.  FEMA is focusing all its attention on Midwest flood relief.  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and HUD, also have information relevant to our discussion this morning.  But they were only invited to participate late last Thursday, as federal offices were closing for the holiday weekend.  Understandably, they declined to participate without more time to prepare. 

That tactic sure sounds familiar. Earlier this year, Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) hammered the EPA over and over again for failing to provide thousands of documents to a “field briefing” — not a hearing — she was holding in Los Angeles by her deadline of January 7th. Of course, her request wasn’t made until December 20th, right before the Christmas break, making it next to impossible to meet. And when EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson couldn’t attend the event, she put an empty chair on stage in an effort to embarrass him. 

SOP, apparently.

Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) is the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, which yesterday held a hearing on environmental health and safety issues raised by the emergency housing of Katrina Hurricane survivors in travel trailers. Rather than engage in the outrage and “gotcha” politics that are the committee’s SOP — the hearing referred to “FEMA’s Toxic Trailers” — Davis gave a balanced opening statement that respected the fact that sometimes the world is complicated and people and businesses do their best in difficult circumstances. From his news release, “Government Confusion, not Industry Conspiracy“:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said today he hopes Wednesday’s hearing on formaldehyde levels in trailers distributed to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita won’t focus on a “majority-manufactured conspiracy theory among trailer makers” but rather on the dysfunction of government agencies that has led to and sustained most of the problems.“We saw first-hand the confusion that reigned on the Gulf Coast after the 2005 storms,” said Davis, who chaired the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina and produced a report highly critical of the government’s efforts.

“But we have to remember trailer manufacturers were pushed to their limits and did their best to help ill-prepared and disjointed government agencies respond to the disaster. Standards did not exist. Testing methods were not reliable. And occupants – already victimized by a 500-year storm – were caught in the middle.”

His prepared statement is here.

As we noted yesterday, the manufacturers who spoke did a stellar job in explaining the realities they faced, putting environmental issues in context, and describing the efforts they made to ensure their products’ safety. It’s nice to see that some members of the committee were receptive to the facts instead of promoting a pre-determined storyline.