8 House Members View Draft Bill on Independent Science/Tech Probe of WTC 1, 2, 7 Collapses

8 House Members View Draft Bill on Independent Science/Tech Probe of WTC 1, 2, 7 Collapses

by Dr. Barbara Ellis

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A draft bill setting up an independent science and technology investigation into the destruction of World Trade Center buildings 1, 2, and 7 to mandate construction-code changes was presented Sept. 16-17 in Washington D.C. by three Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice for consideration to eight House members and the director and staff of the House Science and Technology committee.[1]

The bill proposes a 25-member committee with subpoena power, selected from the national and international community of renown scientists, structural engineers, architects, and other technological specialists including those in demolition, advanced weaponry, and 9/11 first-responders.[2]

The proposed legislation was researched and authored by four members of the Scholars for 9/11 Truth organization from Oregon and Maryland.[3]

The pdf of the suggested bill is at the end of this article.

Presentations were made to science and technology legislative staffers of House members Reps. Rush Holt (D-NJ-12), Jay Inslee (D-WA-1), Walter Jones (R-NC-3), Dan Lipinski (D-IL-3), Jim McGovern (D-MA-3), Ed Markey (D-MA-78), Dana Rohrabacker (R-CA-46), and John Tierney (D-MA-6). Two are members of the House Science and Technology committee: Lipinski is vice chair, and Rohrabacker is the third-ranking Republican. Only one staffer (Tierney’s) was disinterested. Another (Rohrabacker’s) asked the presenters for an additional hour of discussion.[4]

The bill’s aim is to investigate the 14 major theories about what destroyed WTC 1, 2, and 7 that have been widely circulating nationally and internationally since September 2001, and, secondly, to urge Congressional action to mandate federal building-code changes for high-rise buildings (115+ feet ) both before construction or in remodeling the more than the existing 16,000.[5]

They made three points in the presentation:

• That determination of the cause(s) of WTC 1, 2, 7 collapses are vital for a federally mandated national change in building codes for high-rise structures consistent with the investigation’s findings.

•That previous investigations on the collapses were either significantly limited, as was that of the 9/11 Commission in 2004 and the Federal Emergency Management agency (FEMA) in 2002. Two later studies by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)—2005 on WTC 1/2 and 2008 on WTC 7— at an estimated public cost of $50 million have been judged by scientific and technical experts to be significantly limited, biased, and heavily flawed in fundamental research methods.[6]

•That both national and international demands are growing for a substantive science and technology investigation by an independent group to determine the collapse cause(s).

If this proposed bill—with a $10 million price tag—is accepted by one or several House members, it will be revised for hoppering in the next session of Congress and presumably assigned to the 40-member House Science and Technology committee for hearings and a vote. If passed, it will move to a House floor vote and, from there, to the Senate committee for the same process. If signed into law by the next President, the House committee will select 25-member investigation group giving it subpoena power to probe the 14 theories of collapses to determine the cause(s). They will have a six-month deadline to issue a report on findings for recommendations to Congress mandating federal codes for developers, builders, and remodelers of high-rise buildings.

The draft bill’s origins stemmed from 2007 correspondence between Joel S. Hirschhorn, Ph.D. and Oregon attorney Virginia Ross. Hirschhorn was a former professor of engineering at the University of Wisconsin/Madison before becoming a Capitol Hill veteran as a senior associate at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. He was involved in providing expertise, drafting bills, and appearing in hearings as an expert witness on technology issues. Ross is former Air Force officer and an expert and lecturer on 9/11 events, and member of the Portland 911 Truth Alliance organization.

The two were among the thousands of science and technology experts questioning as limited, significantly flawed and largely implausible preliminary reports on the WTC collapses issued by FEMA and NIST indicating fire was the cause. This conclusion has even run counter to President George Bush’s press- conference statement in mid-September 2006 that “explosives” might have been planted in the three buildings. To draft and promote a bill to Congress, Ross contacted Portland’s three Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice: Barry Ball, Barbara G. Ellis, Ph.D., and Warren Pease.[7]

Their draft bill took months of research, discussion, and writing before the final draft was sent for review and changes to Hirschhorn and 22 nationally recognized experts either on the 9/11 event or renown in the scientific and technological fields about the collapses. Among them were three other Scholars in the vanguard of science and technology field issuing the initial adverse verdicts on NIST’s August 2008 report about the WTC 7.[8]

The last step was determining which of the 435 U.S. House members might have interest in and/or expertise in building-code safety regulations or in settling the 9/11 controversy concerning the WTC collapses. That involved a content analyses of every bill that members hoppered from January 2007 to August 2008 regardless of party affiliation. They followed up by the September trip to Washington, D.C. to talk to the Representative’s science and technology legislative assistants.

Post 9/11 Code Changes for High-Rise Buildings

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Dr. Ellis is the principal of Ellis & Associates, LLC, a writers group in Portland OR, a nominee for a Pulitzer Prize in history in 2004, and a former journalism professor at Louisiana's McNeese State University and Oregon State University. She is an active member of the South Side DFA MeetUp Group of Portland and a Scholar for 9/11 Truth & Justice as well as the PDX 9/11Truth Alliance.

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