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Endosulfan manufacturer promotes its toxic products, while the chemical shipment on a capsized ferry prevents rescue attempts

2008-07-01T03:24:19Z

The dangerous pesticide endosulfan was in the news this week, as the presence of 22,000 pounds of it on a capsized ferry in the Philippines has prevented divers from recovering some 800 bodies from the vessel.

Although the presence of the endosulfan is not responsible for the tragic deaths, one has to ask why endosulfan was even on the passenger ferry, since it had previously been banned for use in the Philippines. Endosulfan is highly toxic, persistent in the environment, and bioaccumulative in human and animal tissues. Some in the Philippines are asking why the ban has been lifted. Senator Pia Cayetano, the Chair of the Philippine Senate’s Committee on Environment and Natural Resources Committee according to the Manila Times said: "the Fertilizer and Pesticides Authority (FPA) should explain why it had lifted the ban on endosulfan, a highly toxic chemical ... banned in many countries, including the Philippines,” The Senator further noted that, “Its hazardous effects on human and the environment have been thoroughly documented and established by experts.”

Some manufacturers including FMC and Bayer CropScience are finally doing the right thing by cancelling their registration and getting out of the endosulfan business. A media release from FMC in 2002 announced that although it had sold the chemical for over 40 years, it was selling all EPA registrations and formulations to the Makhteshim Agan Group (MANA), and Israel-based company.

What kind of business ethics must a company have to pick up the registration of a chemical that is so toxic it is being dumped by other companies, and is subject to calls for a global ban?

In this blog I have reported on a petition to the US government for a ban on endosulfan from NRDC and over fifty-five prominent international scientists, medical doctors, nurses, and other health professionals. I have also reported on a ban-endosulfan petition originating with unions and worker protection advocates worldwide. And, I have reported on workers and activists in India being threatened with jail for calling for a ban on endosulfan in their country, where workers are poisoned and even killed from exposure to this very toxic pesticide.

While the campaign to ban the use of endosulfan continues worldwide, countries and their residents have the right to know what dangerous chemical substances are entering their borders. That is why endosulfan should be listed in the Rotterdam Convention at the upcoming decision in October of this year, which would force exporters to notify potential purchasers that endosulfan has been banned in many countries, called Prior Informed Consent.

We need to continue to press for global chemical policies that protect consumers, workers, wildlife and the environment from dangerous and unnecessary products like endosulfan. Expanding the publics’ right to know about what, where, and how chemicals are being used, as well as which ones are banned in other countries, are a cornerstone of a sound environmental and public health policy.

Meanwhile, companies that market chemicals that are highly toxic and persist in the environment must be forced to stop their deadly profiteering.

Let's Respect the Public With More Information

2008-06-30T14:00:00Z

We need a lot more environmental information to begin to address the lack of public understanding of environmental harms.

This may seem obvious, but it isn’t. At a meeting a few years ago, I was shocked to find the head of a state water agency opposed to an effort to provide the public with more information on sewage overflows. His argument was that he didn’t want to scare the public, and that the public wasn’t sophisticated enough to understand the information.

About our families swimming in sewage, I thought?

Sewage overflows happen much more frequently than they should. In the Clean Water Act of 1972, Congress set a goal for our waters to be fishable and swimmable by 1983. Yet today, fewer than one half of our waters have even been assessed. Of those, only about half meet their designated uses. And for most of those, the designated use is something less than fishable and swimmable.

Take our beaches, for example. In 2007, the NRDC released the results of our annual water quality survey. The results were startling. In 2006, pollution caused a record number of beach closings nationwide. Closing and advisory days topped 25,000 – more than had ever been recorded in the survey’s 17-year history. The public needs to know about this. And yet, agencies are wary of releasing information that would hold them responsible.

In one EPA negotiated undertaking I was involved with, we were discussing the possibility of electronic filing of permit applications, permits, and monitoring data. Many dischargers were first supportive – after all, it would save them time and money. But once they realized that if electronically filed it would be easily accessible, they changed their minds. They knew that publicly available information leads to more awareness, more attention, and more enforcement. They were not sure that was good.

In my opinion, this is backwards. If there is a concern about the reaction, the answer is to provide the public with more, or better, information, not less. We should have more respect for the public.

To solve this problem, we need to begin by providing the public with more information – much more information than they currently have. But we also need to provide them with better information. It’s not just about quantity, but quality. The information should be about the full range of effects – health, environmental, cultural – and not just about the associated costs.

And we need to make the information available. The internet is a truly terrific opportunity for this (if you’re reading this blog, I hope you’ll agree). Environmental information should all be up on the web so anyone can find out about the permit (or lack of a permit) for the factory or whatever is down the street from one of their kids’ schools.

This is one of NRDC’s goals. We believe that an informed citizenry is an active citizenry – one more likely to hold the federal government to its promise of providing clean water for our families, and for our kids.

The bees need us to make a buzz for them!

2008-06-27T14:31:04Z

Honeybees make the world go round. Really! They contribute approximately $15 Billion..with a 'B'..billion dollars to the U.S. economy annually through their free services to pollinate over 130 cash crops, including 1/3 of the foods of the human diet. No bees, no halloween carved pumpkin, no thanksgiving pumpkin pie, no cherry, apple, or blueberry pie either. Stop and think about it!

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is devastating our bees. Anything that has its own name and acronym is serious! CCD describes the estimate loss of approximately 40% of the nation's bee colonies! No one understands exactly what causes CCD, and it's probably a combination of things: disease, viruses, weakened immune system, and toxic pesticides are all likely contributers.

These little plump creatures provide an essential service, asking only for a little consideration in return. The NRDC bee experts suggest the following considerations:

Don't kill bees when you see them. Instead, thank your little friends as they buzz by.
Read the labels and avoid using pesticides or chemicals on your lawn and garden that indicate they are harmful to bees.
Preserve green space, flowers, trees, and other food sources for bees.

And, what should our government be doing?

EPA must stop registering pesticides for agriculture use that EPA has determined to be "highly toxic to honeybees" (Duh!). This would include all of the organophosphate pesticides that EPA continues to approve for agriculture.
Senator Boxer (D-Calif) introduced The Pollinator Protection Act in June, 2007. In March of this year, Senator Boxer lead a bipartisan group of 18 Senators to support CCD research. In May, 2008, the U.S. Senate passed the 2008 Farm Bill conference report, legislation that included the Pollinator Protection Act provision that authorizes up to $100 million over five years for high priority research dedicated to maintaining and protecting our honey bee and native pollinator populations.

Private initiatives are helping a lot! Haagen Dazs is throwing $250,000 to the problem through its new ice cream flavor, Honey Bee Vanilla. Burt’s Bees natural personal care products donated $32,000 and the National Honey Board $13,000.

What can you do? Check out our NRDC website for more info and ideas you can try at home, including establishing a hive in your yard.

European Trade Union says Precaution needed for Nanomaterials

2008-06-26T15:18:35Z

Today, the headline blares to the world: "The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) adopted a first resolution on nanotechnologies and nanomaterials at its recent Executive Committee meeting. The key demand: the precautionary principle must apply to nanotechnologies.". What does this mean? ETUC identifies some gaping regulatory loopholes that nanomaterials would fall through under REACH (Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals), the progressive, precautionary European chemical policy that entered into force in June 2007.

REACH loophole #1: There is no clear guidance for how to evaluate nanomaterials under REACH. ETUC calls for the "no data, no market" principle of REACH to apply to nanomaterials, and we agree!

REACH loophole #2: Materials manufactured or imported under 1 metric tonne per year don't need to be registered under REACH. Yeow! Many nanomaterials will fall through this hole because of their incredibly miniscule mass. Without registration requirements, no safety data would be required. ETUC calls for closure of this loophole, and we agree!

REACH loophole #3: Materials manufactured or imported under 10 metric tonnes per year aren't required to provide a chemical safety report. This means no safety data, no risk assessment, and where risk is identified there would be no requirements for risk management measures. ETUC says all nanomaterials registered under REACH should be accompanied by a chemical safety report, and, guess what? We agree!

In addition, ETUC calls for more health and safety research of nanomaterials, and more workplace protections. See the full ETUC proposal on their website. Go ETUC!

Back in the good ole' U.S. of A. we are still trying to get our government to regulate any toxic chemical in a precautionary manner. When will we get a, "no data, no market" approach to chemicals? Soon, I hope!

Hurray for Home Depot!

2008-06-24T15:36:27Z

This weekend, the husband and I stopped by Home Depot to see if we could find shelves to house my out-of-control Kidrobot collection. We got our shelves -- at a huge discount in fact -- but still walked out a couple thousand dollars poorer.

How? Well, we finally bought a new refrigerator, replacing our ancient grumbling sweating box with a sleek French door model from LG. Most importantly, it was an Energy Star model and from I could tell from comparison shopping, it operates at the lowest end of the energy consumption scale.

So what transformed a simple trip for cheap shelving into a major investment in home appliances? Home Depot was offering a gift card worth as much as $250 for buying an Energy Star appliance. Combine that with a 10 percent sale and free delivery and removal of the existing refrigerator and I figure we saved about $600. That's real money and we're not even talking about the energy savings.

After our credit card failed to melt at checkout, I felt good about the purchase and about Home Depot for offering the $250 gift card as an incentive to switch to Energy Star. I recognize that it is their enlightened self interest to help sell refrigerators and other appliances but it also educates -- and prods -- folks like us who knew our refrigerator was a energy monster to make the shift.

And then this morning, while flipping through The New York Times, I saw the prominent news that Home Depot has started a recycling program for compact fluorescent light bulbs. Home Depot -- the nation's second largest retailer -- will announce today that it will take back CFLs at all of its 1,973 stores in the United States, a move that the Times says will create "the nation's most widespread recycling program for the bulbs."

CFLs carry a very small amount of mercury -- roughly equivalent in size to the tip of a ballpoint pen -- and, according to an excellent NRDC fact sheet, it is sealed within the glass tubing.

I've previously applauded Home Depot for starting, among other programs, a new line of environmentally friendly paints and for actively encouraging the purchase of energy saving bulbs.

"We're trying to do the right thing," Ron Jarvis, Home Depot's senior vice president for environmental innovation, told the Times. "Some of the things we do are for the community and not for the bottom line."

The cynical journalist in me finds that really hard to swallow, but in this case I'm prepared to let go and believe. It feels good to do that every once in a while.

High diesel prices...

2008-06-23T22:28:46Z

With all of the stories being written about the increase in gasoline prices lately, it’s only a matter of time before reporters and producers start writing and taping stories about the increase in diesel prices and what that means for the prices of so many products we use every day.

Over the past year, diesel prices have risen even faster than gasoline. According to AAA, gasoline costs, on average, 4.07 right now, up from 3.00 a year ago. Diesel costs, 4.77, up from 2.89 last year. That’s a 65 percent increase!

Think about it: at this time of the year, diesel fuel is usually cheaper than gasoline, thanks to the price pressures created by the annual peak driving seasons of spring and summer. That, along with the better efficiency, durability and reliability of diesel engines usually added up to a summertime win-win-win-win for truckers, transit operators and others who relied on diesel fuel and engines.

Now, fuel costs are up by two-thirds to our nation’s truck operators.

This is really tough, especially in an industry known for long hours, thin margins, and plenty of ups and downs. (A personal aside: I spent several summer vacations in high school and college loading and unloading refrigerated trucks hauling meat from the Midwest to New York, so I have some sense of how hard the trucker’s life can be and how little margin there is for dramatic changes in operating costs).

Recently, CNN really blew it by implying that cleaner diesel fuel was the culprit. They could not have been more wrong. Sure, today’s ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel is 97 percent cleaner than it was two years ago. As a result, every diesel truck and bus is operating 5-10 percent more cleanly, and new engines are 90-95 percent cleaner, thanks to new pollution-cutting filters and catalysts that can only use the new fuel.

But guess what: there’s no appreciable difference in the price of this cleaner, ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel and the older, higher-sulfur fuel (which you can still buy for farm, construction, and industrial uses). In fact, you’d see more price differences driving any stretch of U.S. 1 or Route 66 than you’d see between the two diesel fuels. For examples, take a look at the fuel prices at the Flying J nearest you.

So what’s causing the price hike?

There are a few factors worth noting. Obviously, most of the reasons for high gasoline prices are true for high diesel prices also. These factors include high petroleum commodity prices; record high profit margins throughout the oil industry; the declining dollar and the increasing trade imbalance; rapidly increasing demand in China, India, and other emerging economies; commodity speculators (and their regulators); and so on.

The diesel story is further complicated by the fast-increasing demand for diesel fuel and other so-called “distillates” (like home heating oil) in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. In Europe, more than half of all new car sales are diesel-fueled, up from only 28.4 percent of the new car market in 1999 (In the US, it’s about 1 percent. This market will certainly expand as numerous new diesel cars enter the market in the next few years, which may create even more supply constraints for diesel). In Asia and Middle East, diesel vehicle sales are surging—especially for the diesel-fueled construction and industrial equipment that is critical to building all of those new buildings, roads, airports, and other huge projects that typify many growing cities in those regions. You can read more about this on the Diesel Technology Forum site.

But, in the meantime, what can a diesel truck or bus operator do?

Just like car owners, truck operators can trim their costs by doing some simple things more often.

First, cutting unnecessary idling should be a no-brainer, for starters. Every year, unnecessary idling wastes 1 billion gallons of diesel fuel—that’s almost $5 billion wasted, yet recoverable if we cut unnecessary idling.

Second, keeping tires inflated at the proper pressure and performing regular maintenance is critical to ensuring that diesel engines operate as efficiently as possible. As with cutting idling, this will save fuel, cut costs and reduce pollution in the long run.

And, of course, investing, whenever possible, in more efficient technologies will be helpful to cut costs in the long run. EPA’s Smartway Transport Partnership offers many more ways to cut fuel consumption, including on the three quick ideas I’ve mentioned above. This website is a must-look for anybody who want to invest in more fuel-efficient trucking.

In future posts, I’ll detail some key policy options and report on political responses to these higher diesel fuel prices.

Stay tuned.

Global Warming: it could look a lot like Iowa

2008-06-17T19:18:32Z

“Call back later---we are busy sandbagging.”

That was all my worried sister-in-law heard from her former neighbors in Iowa City after calling to check up on them. The Iowa River runs through the leafy college town and after weeks of rain it has risen to 31.5 feet above flood stage, inundating much of the town and University of Iowa campus. Later, she had a chance to catch up with her drenched former neighbors and heard the same painful stories that are sadly common throughout the Midwest this week.

Both of her former homes had been affected by the rising river. Earlier in the week, police pounded on doors in the middle of the night to hurriedly evacuate the neighborhood and her old house was soon swamped by the flood. And the landmark apartment building she had lived in for a time had waters lapping at the top of the steps, despite sitting at the peak of a huge hill overlooking much of the now-submerged town.

The horrible damage is not limited to Iowa City. Most of the state is waterlogged, with the governor declaring 83 of 99 counties as disaster areas. Over 36,000 people are left homeless. And damage is already being estimated in the hundreds of millions to buildings and infrastructure---billions when you factor in this year's lost corn crop. And it will only get worse as the Mississippi is set to crestat levels not seen since the horrific floods of 1993.

My mother flew over the carnage from the 1993 flood in a National Guard helicopter to survey damage to Illinois historic sites. She came back shaken from the experience of seeing coffins that had been floated out of their graves making their way down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico amidst neon glowing water flush with myriad chemicals.

At the time, the 1993 flood was being described as the flood of the century.

Only fifteen years later, Iowa's governor described this year's weather as a "500-year storm."

Unfortunately, these events are likely to become more and more common. While no single weather event can be attributed to global warming, scientists agree that we are likely to see more and more in the way of violent weather patterns as a result of climate change.

We all saw the devastation in New Orleans. Expect the same slow, painful recovery in the flood zones of Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. After the flood waters recede, the cameras will go away too. That is when the worst of the floods' damage will be revealed. My mom was astonished by the damage left in the wake of the ’93 flood:

Trees went into hibernation for years. There were objects of every kind hanging from the limbs—chicken coops, clothes, toys, window shutters –everything imaginable. And the filth and stench left behind by the toxic water was awful. I feel great empathy for the people in Iowa and the other flooded states. They have months, and maybe even years, of clean up and repairs ahead of them. It is a daunting and exhausting task to put your life back together after this kind of destruction and displacement.

We cannot stop the floods ravaging the Midwest right now, but we can take action to help prevent future grief and loss by actively moving ahead with efforts to address the climate change issue immediately. Certainly, any assertion that the increase in violent storms we have seen this year are directly related to climate change are anecdotal---but there is no denying that, as the New York Times’ Dot Earth blog pointed out today, global warming will result in more dangerous weather patterns. Hotter air holds more water. And hot air loaded with water vapor is the stuff of raging storms…

We must work to ensure that the devastation in Iowa is not a prelude to more common events in our future. If we continue to sandbag on climate change now, we are guaranteed to be a lot more desperate when we sandbag to protect our homes in the future…

The Federal Maritime Commission Does the Right Thing

2008-06-17T00:29:01Z

On June 13, 2008, the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) wrote to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and stated that the FMC would “allow the early effectiveness” of the Ports’ agreement that authorized the Ports to cooperate in their Clean Trucks Programs. The FMC concluded that: “there was no basis at this time to determine that the Agreement is likely to result in an unreasonable increase in transportation costs or decrease in services.” In other words, the FMC has refused the trucking industry’s request to shut down the Ports Clean Trucks Programs.

Here’s the background to this letter. The trucking industry formally asked the FMC to block implementation of the clean truck programs enacted by the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. The FMC sent an onerous list of questions to both ports, which the ports responded to. Recently, FMC Commissioner Harold Creel was quoted as saying:

“So it would seem fairly clear from the divergent approaches taken by the two Harbor Boards that, although there may be strong agreement on the health benefits of their common environmental goals and emissions standards, the ‘employee mandate’ remains somewhat problematic.” These were encouraging words for the trucking industry, which had hoped to use the FMC as a tool to delay implementation of both Ports’ clean trucks programs.

Last week, 31 Members of Congress from Southern California penned a letter to the Federal Maritime Commission to support the LA Clean Trucks Program. The letter begins:

“We are writing to express our support for the Clean Trucks Program, a groundbreaking green growth initiative approved by the Port of Los Angeles on March 20, 2008. This program will produce sustainable environmental and public health improvements, enhance the efficiency and productivity of port trucking, and reduce congestion, while appropriately placing the financial responsibility for operating and maintaining a fleet of clean trucks on the trucking companies that negotiate haul rates instead of on the truck drivers who are trying to make ends meet. For these reasons, we are encouraging the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) to give this important clean-air proposal full and fair consideration as it moves towards implementation."

The Representatives went on to say:

“The LA Clean Trucks program will actually strengthen competition within the port trucking industry as well as between port trucking and their retail clients. Since port trucking costs are a relatively small component of overall transportation costs, the increased operational costs required by this program will be far outweighed by the overwhelming public benefits.”

“As the FMC moves forward in its review of the LA Clean Trucks Program, we hope to work with you to ensure we avoid the huge economic, environmental, and public health costs that would result if this vital program is delayed.”

The letter was signed by Representatives (Loretta) Sanchez, (Linda) Sanchez, Miller, Lee, Fillner, Roybal-Allard, Harman, Baca, Farr, Berman, Solis, Eshoo, Woolsey, Waxman, Tauscher, Watson, Lofgren, Waters, Thompson, Schiff, Matsui, Speier, Richardson, Sherman, Cardoza, Napolitano, Becerra, Davis, Honda, Capps and Costa. Last month, Speaker Pelosi wrote to the FMC in support of the Port of LA plan. NRDC has also urged the FMC not to delay the Ports’ Clean Trucks Plans.

We don’t know which arguments convinced the FMC not to block the Ports’ much-needed Clean Trucks Plans. But the FMC did the right thing by siding with 31 members of Congress, NRDC, other leading environmental and public health organizations, labor organizations, and many others in declining industry’s offer to act as an obstructionist to cleaner air. We hope the FMC will continue to allow the Ports to clean up the trucks doing business in San Pedro Bay.

What He Said

2008-06-12T19:56:39Z

On Friday, May 16, 2008, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster gave a talk that blew the roof off the business-oriented FuturePorts conference in Long Beach. The beautiful setting, right by the water (thank you, Nancy), was a strong contrast to the tough words that Mayor Foster directed at industry. He told them, bluntly, that if the environmental measures that his port has enacted are halted, port expansion will halt also. “I'll see to it,” he said. And he will.

I hope that trucking industry representatives were in the audience, because they were the focus of Mayor Foster's promise. As reported in the May 19, 2008 Journal of Commerce, the American Trucking Association contends that the Long Beach plan is "unacceptable" because it contains a "command and control structure in the concession plan." Curtis Whalen, executive director of the American Trucking Association’s (ATA) Intermodal Conference, is quoted as saying: "We're definitely moving toward a trigger date for a lawsuit." Well, if ATA pulls the trigger, Mayor Foster says he will pull the plug on Port of Long Beach expansion, something no group with economic investment in the port wants to see.

The ATA's "command and control" trope hides the silliness of their core position: that the ports cannot legally decide that some trucks can come onto their land and some can't. Industry interprets the Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution to mean that because port-serving trucks are in interstate commerce, a truck full of fertilizer and fuel oil driven by a terrorist could not be denied admittance to the ports. Their interpretation says that while the ports may own their property and oversee cargo delivery from ships, trucks, or trains, they do not have any legal authority on their property to say the trucks should be electric and the ships should use low-sulfur fuel. It's like having a neighbor with a dilapidated, oil-leaking truck who parks on your driveway. According to the ATA, even though it's your property, you can't tell him not to park there/to fix his truck/maintain the truck because he has his own standards of upkeep that supersede yours because he owns the truck.

This is not just silly; it is plainly wrong. The Cities of Long Beach and Los Angeles are landlords who can control access to their property - here, their ports. As high courts have emphasized in several decisions, there is a "market participant" exception to the usual Commerce Clause rules when a governmental body is acting to buy, sell or lease property, rather than as a regulator. That is precisely the situation at the ports of LA and Long Beach who must consider public health impacts, just as airports have used this same exception to say, ban smoking on the premises.

The more the port expands, the more money the port makes. Stalling expansion projects is not good for business, but it is essential that any expansion project consider environmental and community health impacts. Some companies understand this: Maersk, the world’s largest shipping line, and Foss Maritime, which supplies tugs and barges on the West Coast and elsewhere, have already moved away from using heavily-polluting high-sulfur marine fuel. But the ATA doesn't want to play by those rules and Mayor Foster responded by saying he’ll just take the port expansion off the table.

We're committed to working with both ports to ensure community and environmental concerns are heard while the port develops. Mayors Villaraigosa and Foster, Councilwoman Hahn, and LA Harbor Commissioner Freeman are also committed to this goal. At the end of the day, it will be the trucking industry, not NRDC, stalling the clean trucks plan at both ports, a plan that would provide cleaner air to port residents beginning this fall. But, depending on how the federal court rules, they may have to wait a lot longer than that.

The Copenhagen Consensus and Diesel Pollution

2008-06-02T21:43:40Z

Over the weekend, I read, with great interest, Andy Revkin’s recent dotearth blog post about the Copenhagen Consensus. The Copenhagen Consensus is shorthand for a research effort by a group of 8 leading economists, including 5 Nobel Laureates, which attempted to create a menu for resolving some of the world’s most pressing challenges in the most cost-effective manner. Run by writer and gadfly Bjorn Lomborg (author of such controversial books as Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming), this project is bound to spark controversy.

Three of the top thirty issues are related to NRDC’s work to “Dump Dirty Diesels” in the U.S. and abroad.

This got me thinking…

Here’s why:

Over the past year, I have started to notice that many people ask me what I’m up to, now that “we’ve cleaned up all of the diesels.” I’m usually at a loss when asked this question, because I see dirty diesel trucks and construction equipment all over New York City, on the New Jersey Turnpike when I visit family in Pennsylvania, and on the tarmacs of every airport I visit while traveling for NRDC. And when I have travelled to Mexico City, Sao Paolo, Delhi, or elsewhere, I am stunned at urban pollution levels that are several times as high as the most polluted day in New York City--pollution levels that are dominated by staggering levels of diesel particulate soot pollution.

So, on one level, the job of cleaning up the toxic soup of diesel emissions seems quite far along. Certainly, the regulatory story of cleaning up diesel pollution in the United States is one of the few, truly bright stars in the mostly dark sky of the Bush environmental record.

In 2007, new diesel truck and bus engines eliminated at least 90 percent of their particulate soot pollution, thanks to an EPA rule signed by President Clinton in 2001 and then implemented by President Bush’s EPA.

In 2004, President Bush went against stereotype when he signed another EPA rule that would ensure that future construction equipment, farm engines and industrial diesel engines would be comparably clean.

Earlier this year, the Bush EPA did it again, finalizing a comparable rule to clean up locomotive and marine diesel engines.

Together, these rules will eliminate more than 21,000 premature deaths and more than $160 billion in health costs every year, once all of today’s dirty diesel engines have been replaced by new engines that meet the new EPA rules.

No question, these are major steps forward.

On the other hand, most of the diesels in use today are still the dirty type: so, we have to advance policies, programs, incentives and other mechanisms to accelerate the retirement, retrofitting, or replacement of these dirty diesels. And, on this score, we have a long way to go.

Here in New York, most of the transit buses are clean. The clean-up of the MTA New York City Transit fleet has been a smashing success: today’s fleet emits 97 percent less particulate soot pollution than it did in 1995, when NRDC successfully sued for the right to place ads on the buses that read “Standing behind this bus could be more dangerous than standing in front of it.”

New York's air seems less diesel-clogged, and we're beginning to see long-term data trends to confirm this. (Come back for more on this point in a few days, readers).

But, most diesel fleets have not followed the MTA’s lead. For example, 90 percent of New York’s construction equipment and school buses (two fleets that have had a great deal of attention in recent years) still lack meaningful emission controls, despite city and state laws that require their clean-up.

Plus, we need to find more and more ways to adapt our programs (and other successful programs from around the world) to clean up the staggering numbers of dirty diesels in use around the world. After all, the thick plumes of black soot from diesel buses in Mexico City, Sao Paolo, or Nairobi would be unrecognizable to New Yorkers who are now used to the MTA’s hybrid-electric buses.

So, what’s the connection between the Copenhangen Consensus and the questions about diesel pollution being a solved problem?

It’s this:

The U.S. is on the path to clean diesels that will provide almost soot-free, efficient service in years to come. But for most of the world’s population, diesel pollution will continue to be a major pollution problem, especially in urban areas. It’s a key part of an urban pollution problem that is linked to 865,000 premature deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of these deaths occur in developing counties. In fact, according to the Copenhagen Consensus folks, roughly three-quarters of these deaths occur in 15 counties, with 45 percent in China and India.

Diesel pollution is a solvable problem, and, without opining on anything else the Copenhagen Consensus covers (especially its reliance on some very controversial and problemmatic cost-benefit approaches), the Copenhangen Consensus outlines some of the most important steps to solving it: switching to cleaner, ultra-low sulfur diesel fuels; retrofitting buses and other key urban fleets with soot-busting filters; adapting U.S. or European emissions standards to developing country contexts; and creating systems to ensure that vehicles that leave the factory at low-emissions levels stay that way throughout their useful lives. In short, closing the gap between the developed and the developing world’s diesel vehicles.

Is the diesel job done?

Unfortunately, despite the great progress in creating a regulatory framework to reduce diesel pollution in the U.S., the global answer is still, regrettably, “no.”