Congressional Democrats demanded answers on why Texas and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prevented a special NASA plane from monitoring for pollution in Houston following Hurricane Harvey, the focus of our story Tuesday.
A NASA-operated DC-8 stationed in Palmdale California sits between missions. The plane can be loaded with equipment to monitor pollution, but was not used following Hurricane Harvey, after Texas state officials and EPA waved off a NASA offer of help.
However, emails obtained via a Times public records request to NASA show that David Gray, the deputy administrator for EPA’s Texas region, and the chair of the agency’s Emergency Response Center after the storm, declined the offer. In an email from later that day, Barry Lefer, the NASA program manager for the jet, wrote to NASA officials that Gray had contacted the space agency “to indicate EPA’s desire that the NASA DC-8 not conduct air quality measurement flights in Houston.”
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