news20090619BRT

[Biography of the Day] from [Britannica]
June 19
Aung San Suu Kyi
Myanmar democratic and human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of Aung San (a martyred national hero) and Khin Kyi (a prominent diplomat), was born this day in 1945 and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

[On This Day] from [Britannica]
June 19
1953: Rosenbergs executed for espionage

After the failure of court appeals and of a worldwide campaign for mercy, husband and wife Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death this day in 1953, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for espionage.

1963: Soviet cosmonaut Valentina V. Tereshkova, the first woman to travel in space, returned to Earth in the spacecraft Vostok 6.

1961: Great Britain recognized Kuwait's independence.

1944: During World War II the Japanese Combined Fleet and the U.S. Fifth Fleet engaged in a major air-and-sea battle, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, which ended the next day with a U.S. victory.

1934: The Federal Communications Commission was organized in the United States.

1903: Lou Gehrig (the “Iron Horse”), one of the most durable players in American professional baseball and one of its great hitters, was born.

1867: The emperor of Mexico, Maximilian, was executed by a firing squad.

1846: Alexander Joy Cartwright arranged a baseball game between the New York Knickerbockers and the New York Nine at Hoboken, New Jersey—the first baseball game to use the set of rules on which today's game is based.


[Today's Word] from [Dr. Kazuo Iwata]
June 19
"Alteration is not always improvement, as the pigeon said when it got out of net and into the pie."
C.H. Spurdgeon (born this day in 1834) : John Ploughman's Talk
（変更は必ずしも改善ではない。山鳩が網をのがれてパイになってしまったときに言ったように。）
(Henko-ha kanarazushimo kaizen-dewa-nai. yamabato-ga ami-wo nogarete pai-ni-natte-shimatta-toki-ni itta-youni.)

news20090619JT1

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, June 19, 2009
Immigration revision set to be passed
（入管難民法改正案 衆院を通過の予定）
Compromise paves way for state-issued foreigner cards
By MINORU MATSUTANI
Staff writer
The ruling and opposition camps have revised a contentious set of immigration bills in a way that increases government scrutiny of both legal and illegal foreign residents while extending additional conveniences, according to a draft obtained Thursday by The Japan Times.

Legislators from the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling bloc and the Democratic Party of Japan hammered out the bills to reach a balance on how the estimated 110,000 undocumented foreigners living in Japan should be tracked. Currently, municipalities issue alien registration cards and provide public services to foreigners, even if they know they are overstaying their visas.

The revised bills, expected to be passed Friday by the Lower House, will abolish the Alien Registration Act and revise the immigration control and resident registration laws with sweeping changes that put information on foreign residents completely in the hands of the central government.

"The bills are well made. Foreigners obeying the law will be treated better," said Hidenori Sakanaka, director general of the Japan Immigration Policy Institute, a private think tank. Sakanaka headed several of the government's local immigration offices, including the Tokyo bureau.

According to the draft, authority for managing foreign residents will shift from municipalities to the Immigration Bureau, allowing it to consolidate all personal information collected from foreign residents, including type of visa and expiration date.

Documented foreigners will be given more conveniences, including five-year visas and permit-free re-entry as long as they return within a year.

Undocumented foreigners, however, will have to keep in hiding, request special permits to stay, or face deportation.

To prevent illegal residents who have legitimate reasons for staying from being deported, the bills state that the Justice Ministry, which oversees the Immigration Bureau, must clarify and announce the standard for granting such permits so illegal residents will be motivated to turn themselves in.

"We have to make sure overstaying foreigners who are behaving as good citizens as ordinary Japanese will not have to be deported or go underground," said DPJ lawmaker Ritsuo Hosokawa, who helped draft the bills in the Lower House Justice Committee.

"We need these bills to be enacted. We need to know how many foreigners there are and where they live. So consolidating information into the Justice Ministry is necessary," Hosokawa said.

The draft also says a new form of identification called a "zairyu" (residence) card will replace the current alien registration cards, and the personal information and code numbers on them will be given to "the justice minister."

The bills also have a provision to prevent the ministry from using that data improperly, a decision that was made to ward off criticism that "the minister" could abuse the zairyu card number to violate foreigners' privacy. But no penalty for such abuse was listed.

The practice, dubbed data-matching, was outlawed by the Supreme Court in regard to its use on Japanese citizens.

The provision says "the justice minister" must limit the use of foreign residents' personal information to the minimum required for managing such residents and that the information must be handled with care to protect the rights of individuals. But no penalties or methods for enforcing such compliance are listed in the bills.

In addition, foreign residents will also be required to be listed on Juki Net, the contentious nationwide resident registry network that lists data on all Japanese residents in each municipality.

On the other hand, the Immigration Bureau will tighten control of foreign residents by stripping away their residential status if they fail to report changes in address, marital status or workplace within three months. No regulations for that exist under current law.

In addition, those who fail to report such changes within 14 days or are found not carrying their zairyu cards could be hit with a 200,000 fine, the same regulation as the current law.

To crack down on fake marriages, the bills allow the justice minister to cancel the residential status of foreigners holding spouse visas who have not conducted "normal spousal activities," such as living together, for six months without legitimate reason. Legitimate reasons include things like domestic violence, Hosokawa said.

The bills also say, however, that foreigners who lose their spouse visas for such reasons should be made eligible to receive other types of visas.

Special permanent residents, who are typically of Korean or Taiwanese descent, will not have to carry special permanent resident cards, but will still need to possess them.

Special permanent resident status is normally given to people who moved to Japan from the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan during Japan's colonial rule in the early 20th century, and lost their Japanese citizenship due to peace treaties, and their descendants.

The bills also state that the government is to review the new immigration law and make necessary changes within three years after it comes into force. If enacted, the new law take force within three years after it is announced.

Paperwork on foreign residents, including changes of status and renewal of their alien registration cards, are usually handled by their municipalities. If the new law is enforced, they will have to go to the nearest immigration office to handle everything except for changes of address, which will still be handled by their municipalities.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, June 19, 2009
Kids can be donors: Lower House
（臓器移植法改正Ａ案 衆院を通過 子供も可能に）
By ALEX MARTIN
Staff writer

The Lower House passed a bill Thursday recognizing brain death as legal death, scrapping the age limit for organ transplants and paving the way for transplants for children under 15.

The option, Plan A, the first of four amendments to be voted on, received 263 votes for and 167 against. The remaining three bills — Plans B, C and D — were scrapped.

Plan A recognizes people who are brain dead as legally dead with no exceptions and scraps the age limit for organ donations if family members agree, unless the prospective donor has clearly said no.

Due to the sensitive nature of the subject, lawmakers were asked to vote on one of the four choices on an individual basis and disregard party policies. The Japanese Communist Party abstained, saying deliberations had been insufficient.

The bill will now be handed over to the Upper House, where its prospects are sketchy because all Diet lawmakers are fixated on the timing of the dissolution of the Lower House, which will be followed by a general election that must be held by fall.

The dissolution would inevitably affect the deliberation schedule of the organ transplant bill in the Upper House.

Liberal Democratic Party lawmaker Taro Nakayama, the chief proponent of Plan A, said after the vote that the endorsement of the bill by the Lower House gives hope to families and children in need of transplants.

"I believe today's decision has shed a shining ray of hope on those across the nation watching the situation on television — especially those with family members who are ill," he said, adding he hopes lawmakers in the Upper House will follow suit and approve the amendment.

The 12-year-old law currently prohibits people under 15 from donating organs, forcing many children to seek transplants overseas.

The restriction has been criticized for promoting "organ transplant tourism" as well as undermining Japan's self-sufficiency in providing organs and leaving many patients waiting in limbo.

The World Health Organization was expected in May to officially ask member states to discourage people from seeking overseas transplants, but the plan has been put off while it deals with the swine flu pandemic.

Of the three amendments that were scrapped, Plan B was similar to the current law but would have lowered the age limit to 12.

Plan C stipulated maintaining the current age limit but would have tightened the terms and conditions for brain death.

Plan D would have basically prohibited people under 15 from agreeing to be an organ donor, but it would have allowed harvesting if the parents and a third-party panel acknowledged brain death and agreed to the donation.

Although these amendments were killed in the Lower House, there is a high possibility similar bills will be submitted in the Upper House.

Prime Minister Taro Aso, who said he sided with Plan D, said he believes many lawmakers struggled to resolve the question between saving lives through organ transplants and the definition of death.

"However, I believe it was good that we could at least present a conclusion as a legislature to those who desired organ transplants," he said.

Brain death is a highly sensitive issue, as many family members refuse to accept it as actual death if their loved ones' hearts are still functioning.

Tomoko Abe of the Social Democratic Party, the chief proponent of Plan C, said the government owes citizens a more detailed explanation of what brain death really entails to gain a true national consensus on the issue, and added that the decision was reached too quickly.

CONTINUED ON news20090618JT2

news20090619JT2

[TODAY'S TOP STORIES] from [The Japan Times]

[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, June 19, 2009
Kids can be donors: Lower House
（臓器移植法改正Ａ案 衆院を通過 子供も可能に）
By ALEX MARTIN
Staff writer

CONTINUED FROM 20090618JT1

"Should we really endorse a law that recognizes brain death as actual death before we even ask our people?" she asked.

Michikata Okubo, director of the nonprofit Japan Transplant Recipient Organization, said he couldn't understand why it took 12 years to amend the law, when thousands of patients waiting for transplants were dying every year.

Developments in organ transplants
June 1997 — Organ Transplant Law is enacted.

October 1997 — The law comes into force.

February-March 1999 — Japan's first transplants are conducted using organs provided by a female donor declared brain dead.

August 2005 — Two bills to revise the law are submitted to the Diet but are scrapped due to dissolution of the Lower House.

March 2006 — The two bills are again submitted to the Diet.

December 2007 — A third bill is submitted.

2007 and 2008 — A record 13 transplants are conducted for two years in a row.

April 2009 — The ruling bloc and Democratic Party of Japan agree to vote on the revision bills in the current Diet session.

May 15 — A fourth bill is submitted to the Diet.

Thursday — The Lower House passes the so-called Plan A to designate brain death as legal death and scrap donor age limit.


[NATIONAL NEWS]
Friday, June 19, 2009
Pair seek POW apology from Aso
（２人の戦争捕虜 麻生首相に謝罪を要求）
By MASAMI ITO
Staff writer

For the first time since the end of the war, Australian Joseph Coombs stepped onto Japanese soil, bringing back bitter memories of his days as a prisoner of war forced to work for the mining company run by Prime Minister Taro Aso's family in Fukuoka Prefecture.

Coombs, 88, and James McAnulty, the son of late POW and Aso Mining Co. worker Patrick McAnulty, arrived Sunday in Tokyo hoping to meet the prime minister and receive an apology for the hardships they endured.

"We'd like an apology for the brutal treatment and the conditions we had to work under," Coombs told The Japan Times in an exclusive interview Thursday. "The memory will always be there, but an apology will help ease some of the pain that we experienced."

Coombs became a POW in 1942, building roads in Singapore and Kobe before arriving at Fukuoka Branch Camp 26 in May 1945.

Until the end of the war, Coombs was forced to drag his feet into the hot, suffocating depths of the Aso family's coal mines and toil on little food.

Coombs said he usually weighed more than 80 kg on average, but by the time he left Japan his weight had dropped to about 45 kg.

The labor was "very tough, very tough," Coombs said. "When we went down in the mines, we worked long hours on little food and I lost a lot of weight."

The conditions were terrible, Coombs said, recalling the ever-present danger of cave-ins. He said it was just "pure luck" he wasn't trapped and killed.

And along with the dust, there was always violence in the air.

"There was always some violence," Coombs said. "You only had to have one bad guard, one brutal guard, and that could ruin the whole thing; they could make our lives" difficult.

McAnulty, 62, meanwhile, said he spent his childhood in Scotland hearing about the pain and suffering his father went through as a POW. Like Coombs, McAnulty's father was captured in 1942 and wound up at Aso Mining's Yoshikuma coal mine in June 1945.

"The memories affected him tremendously," McAnulty said. "I heard horror stories of cruelty and humiliation and starvation."

While it was Aso's father who headed Aso Mining, Aso himself became president of Aso Cement Co., its successor, during the 1970s before going on to politics.

Both Coombs and McAnulty separately sent letters to Aso this year requesting an apology for the "inhumane treatment" and for neglecting to recognize that Aso Mining used POWs as laborers. They also sought financial compensation, saying the POWs were not paid.

Aso has not yet replied.

Katsuhiko Takaike, a lawyer who has been studying the issue of postwar compensation, admitted he was not familiar with the Aso Mining case but said Aso probably would be better off not apologizing.

"I can understand that (Coombs and McAnulty's father) suffered terribly and they want an apology," Takaike said. "But Japanese POWs also suffered illegal treatment too. We would have to start talking about that, too, or else it would be one-sided."

Takaike said a couple of civil lawsuits filed by former POWs against the Japanese government have failed. In 2004, the Supreme Court rejected two suits filed by POWs and civilians from various countries, including the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States.

The top court upheld the district and high court rulings, stating that compensation for war damages had already been resolved through treaties between Japan and the other countries and that individuals did not have the right to sue.

"Some argue that (the treaties) were concluded on a country-to-country basis and hence do not restrict (lawsuits) from individuals," Takaike said. "But I don't think that argument can be accepted."

Regarding Coombs and McAnulty, the government said it paid 4.5 billion in compensation to Allied POWs in accordance with the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, through the International Committee of the Red Cross.

"The money was not a payment of wages but for the government to express its intention to compensate for the unjust hardships that the Allied POWs suffered while they were prisoners in Japan," the government said in a statement, adding that while the money was allocated to 14 countries, including Australia, it does not know how each country distributed the cash.

Aiko Utsumi, a visiting professor at Waseda University and author of "Nihongun no Horyo Seisaku" ("The POW Policy of the Japanese Military"), agreed it would be difficult for former POWs to seek financial compensation and urged Aso to face the POWs instead of continuing to ignore them like he has done so far.

"I think should Aso meet with them — it is natural for him to apologize for the past," Utsumi said. "Aso is the heir to the mine that was using them . . . and just briefly saying that (he was sorry) for their past troubles and that they suffered difficult labor at his coal mine could change things."

Coombs and McAnulty both stressed that an apology was what they wanted and that compensation was not high on their list.

Although the Japanese government at first refused to acknowledge that Aso Mining used POWs, it was forced recently to come clean after the health ministry revealed evidence showing that 300 POWs, including over 197 Australians and 101 Britons, had worked there.

"Aso took a brave step by admitting that the forced labor was there," McAnulty said. "My point of view is that it would take a brave man, though, to apologize."

news20090619LAT

[Today's Newspaper] from [Los Angeles Times]
　
[Top News]
Supreme Court makes age-bias suits harder to win
The justices, overturning a jury award won by a 54-year-old who was demoted, say workers bear the full burden of proof.
By David G. Savage
June 19, 2009
Reporting from Washington -- With workplace age-discrimination claims rising rapidly, the Supreme Court made it much harder Thursday for older workers to win in court.

The 5-4 decision reversed a long-standing rule. Many federal appellate courts had decided that if a worker could show age was one of the factors in a layoff or demotion, then the employer was required to prove it had a legitimate reason for its action apart from age.

The court's conservative majority, led by Justice Clarence Thomas, threw out this two-step approach. Instead, the court said, workers bear the full burden of proving that age was the deciding factor in their dismissal or demotion.

Because workers claiming such discrimination almost certainly will not be present while their employers discuss laying them off or demoting them, analysts said, it will be extremely difficult to obtain hard evidence that age was the key factor.

"This is a significant and marked change," said Diana Hoover, a corporate defense lawyer in Houston. "It imposes a difficult burden on the employee. You are not going to have an employer stand up and announce, 'I'm discriminating against you because of your age.' "

The ruling comes as concern about age discrimination is rising, especially as companies downsize in the difficult economy. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said the number of new age-bias claims last year rose by 29% from 2007.

Businesses applauded the decision in Gross vs. FBL Financial Services, saying employers sometimes settle weak claims to avoid battling before a jury over the real reasons behind a layoff.

"This is extremely important to small-business owners," said Karen Harned, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business. She said employers should not have to defend themselves in court "based on speculative evidence that age was merely a motivating factor in an employer's decision."

But the National Senior Citizens Law Center, AARP and several civil rights groups sharply criticized it, urging Congress to trump the ruling with legislation.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) likened it to the Lilly Ledbetter decision from two years ago.

In that case, the same 5-4 majority said a woman who for years had been paid less than men for the same work could not sue because she had not learned about the discrimination until she retired -- long after the statute of limitations had expired.

Congress passed a bill to reverse the Ledbetter decision early this year. President Obama made it the first measure he signed into law.

Leahy said in a statement that the age-bias decision "reminds me of the court's wrong-headed ruling in Ledbetter. Five justices acted to disregard precedent and ignore the plain reading and common understanding of the statute that Congress passed to protect Americans from discrimination based on their age."

The court said the two-step rule could still be applied in bias cases involving discrimination claims on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin.

But age-bias claims must adhere to a stricter standard, Thomas said: An older worker must prove "that age was the reason" behind the employer's action.

In discrimination lawsuits involving what lawyers call "mixed motive" cases, a worker previously might have had a valid claim of discrimination if age or another prohibited factor, such as race, was one of the motivations behind a firing or demotion.

Thomas acknowledged that Congress and the Supreme Court had authorized this approach, but he said it could not be applied to age discrimination cases.

"The burden of persuasion does not shift to the employer," he said, "even when a plaintiff has produced some evidence that age was one motivating factor in that decision."

In 1991, Congress amended the law covering discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and national origin to allow mixed-motive claims. It did not revise the age bias law. Thursday's majority said that age, therefore, should be treated differently.

Joining Thomas were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

The dissenters, led by the court's senior justice, John Paul Stevens, described the ruling as "especially irresponsible" and "an unabashed display of judicial lawmaking." Stevens seemed particularly upset that the court had decided a different issue than it had announced when it accepted the case last year.

"Unfortunately, the majority's inattention to prudential court practices is matched by its utter disregard of our precedent and Congress' intent," he wrote.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer joined his opinion.

The dissenters maintained that if older workers could show some evidence that age had entered into the decision to fire or demote them, then the employer should be required to show it had a good and legitimate reason for its decision independent of age.

Thursday's ruling overturned a $47,000 jury verdict in favor of Jack Gross, 54, an Iowa insurance claims adjuster. He was demoted in a company reorganization, and his job was given to a woman in her 40s.

Gross sued under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, which bars bias against those over 40.

The judge instructed jurors that they should rule for Gross if his age was "a motivating factor" in the employer's decision to demote him and if the employer had failed to show that it would have made the same decision regardless of his age.

The high court majority said the judge had erred by allowing the plaintiff to win without proving he had been demoted because of his age.

A year ago, the court took a nearly opposite tack involving class-action cases, in which groups of older workers contend that a company's overall layoff policies discriminate against them. In a 7-1 ruling -- with only Thomas dissenting -- the court ruled that the company must defend its policies as reasonable.

Thursday's decision involved claims by individuals rather than a group.

"You don't see a lot of cases involving entire classes of employees," said Paul W. Mollica, a Chicago lawyer who handles job discrimination suits. "Virtually all the cases are like the one decided today, involving an individual."

news20090619NYT

[Today's Newspaper] from [The New York Times]

[U.S.]
Democrats Scramble to Cut Costs From Health Plan
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: June 18, 2009

WASHINGTON — The high cost of securing health insurance for all Americans, the top domestic priority of President Obama, has Congressional Democrats scrambling to scale back their proposals or find ways to trim tens of billions of dollars a year from existing health programs.

According to slides presented at a closed-door meeting this week, members of the Senate Finance Committee are debating several new ideas, including “an automatic mechanism” to reduce the growth of Medicare under an expedited procedure like the one used to close military bases.

The documents displayed in the slides show that the committee is also considering a proposal that would require some employers to contribute to the cost of Medicaid or private health insurance for low-wage workers. One purpose is to discourage employers from foisting the cost of employee health benefits onto the federal government, a maneuver that would push up the cost of revamping the health system.

Mr. Obama suggested earlier this week that the total cost to overhaul the health care system would be “on the order of $1 trillion over the next 10 years.” But initial estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, the official scorekeeper on the cost of legislation, have come in much higher, leaving many lawmakers with sticker shock and casting about for alternatives.

As the Senate health committee continued drafting a companion bill on Thursday, one of its Democratic members, Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland, said, “Obviously this is not going to go as fast as we thought.”

The Finance Committee has wrestled all week with the three biggest issues in the health care legislation: how to pay for coverage of the uninsured, whether to create a new public insurance plan and whether to impose new obligations on employers.

But it is the cost of the legislation that seems to bedevil lawmakers the most. A budget office estimate of $1.6 trillion as the cost of an earlier Finance Committee draft sent members hunting for ways to pare the expense. Peppered with questions about the legislation, the committee’s chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, has postponed a drafting session that was to have begun early next week.

Still, Mr. Baucus was upbeat on Thursday. “We are getting closer and closer and closer,” he said after a two-hour meeting of a half-dozen senators — three Democrats and three Republicans. “There’s no doubt in my mind that we will have a bipartisan bill.”

Other Democrats said the cost estimate and the resulting delays were a temporary setback, not a deal-killer.

Indeed, Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said they were evidence of a vibrant democratic process.

“The give and take, the back and forth of different ideas — you may call them snags, we call them the legislative process,” Ms. Pelosi said. “This is a situation where everybody wants to hear everyone’s ideas, put it all on the table, see what it does for the American people. What is it that we can afford?”

Three House committees have been working for months to develop a single big proposal of their own and expect to unveil it on Friday.

Under new cost-saving ideas being considered by the Senate Finance Committee, there would be a goal for Medicare spending that “ensures continued sustainability and bends the Medicare cost curve.” If the goal was not met, “an automatic mechanism would be triggered to achieve those spending reductions.”

An existing federal panel, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, would make recommendations to Congress on how to achieve the savings, and Congress would take an up-or-down vote on the recommendations, which could cut payments to hospitals, managed care plans and other health care providers.

The White House has said Mr. Obama is open to the idea of giving more power to the Medicare commission. To help pay for health care legislation, he has proposed more than $600 billion of Medicare and Medicaid savings, about a third of it from hospitals, over the next 10 years.

Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, urged his colleagues to consider the possible harm to hospitals and clinics. “More cuts to Medicare?” he said. “Let’s not do that right now, please.”

Democrats are also considering changes in a proposal that would require employers to provide health benefits for their workers or contribute to the cost of such coverage. Under the new option, employers would not have to provide coverage, but would have to pay “50 percent of the national average Medicaid costs for workers enrolled in Medicaid,” the program for low-income people.

Democrats plan to offer federal subsidies or tax credits to help people with low or moderate incomes buy insurance on their own. Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota said Democrats were looking for ways to limit the subsidies, a major cost. Under the latest option floated by Mr. Baucus, employers would be required to pay “100 percent of the cost of the tax credit for workers receiving the tax credit.”

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, said these proposals were misguided because they would create a disincentive for employers to hire low-income people.

“This means that small-business people won’t hire anybody who’s on Medicaid,” Mr. Hatch said. “They won’t hire any low-income workers. They get penalized for doing it.”

Some Democrats share that concern.

Finance Committee documents also flesh out proposals to tax employer-provided health benefits in excess of a certain value — say, $6,200 for individuals and $15,700 for families, which the documents project as the value of the standard Blue Cross plan for federal employees in 2013.

The documents say such a tax could raise $418 billion over 10 years. But the revenue would drop sharply, to $162 billion, if the tax applied only to more affluent people: individuals with incomes over $100,000 and families over $200,000.

For decades, employer-provided health benefits have not been counted in workers’ taxable income. Mr. Baucus and many economists say the tax break is inequitable because its benefits go disproportionately to people with higher incomes.

news20090619WP

[Today's Newspaper] fom [The Washington Post]

[Health Care]
Obama Initiatives Hit Speed Bumps On Capitol Hill
High Price Tag For Reform Bill Prompts Sparring And a Delay
By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 19, 2009

President Obama's hopes for quick action on comprehensive health-care reform ran headlong this week into the realities of Congress, as lawmakers searching for the money to pay for a broad expansion of coverage discovered that it wasn't easy to find and descended into partisan -- and intraparty -- bickering.

A set of unexpectedly high cost estimates -- arcane data that nevertheless carry enormous import in the legislative process -- sent shockwaves along Pennsylvania Avenue and forced one key committee to delay action on its bill, probably until after the July 4 recess.

In a high-level meeting at the White House yesterday, Obama conveyed his concern over early pronouncements by the Congressional Budget Office that a bill drafted by the Senate health committee would cover just 16 million additional people at a cost of $1 trillion, said one official with knowledge of the session who was not permitted to talk to reporters and so spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"That is not his idea of good, affordable, universal coverage," said this adviser. The preliminary estimate, pounced on by Republicans, "has rattled everyone."

House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, said they will wait until next month to unveil plans for financing their bill.

"All I know is that health-care reform is on life support because the Senate can't figure out how to pay for it," said Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), who was touting his bipartisan bill.

Obama has imbued the health-care debate with a sense of urgency, pressing party leaders to conclude action on the House and Senate floors by Labor Day. But progress has slowed because of the realization that any attempt to provide coverage to the bulk of the nation's 46 million uninsured people will cost an enormous amount of money, even when factoring in potential long-term savings from modernization and efficiencies.

In a speech to the American Medical Association on Monday, Obama bragged that he had spelled out $950 billion worth of budget cuts and tax increases over the next 10 years -- an amount, he said, that takes "us almost all the way to covering the full cost of health-care reform."

But the independent CBO estimated that a draft bill by the Senate Finance Committee would cost $1.6 trillion, a figure that Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) described as "a jolt of reality."

"That was a wake-up call that we have to approach this reform with some caution," she said.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel acknowledged that $1.6 trillion "is a big number" that forced administration aides and congressional staff to rework the plan. "Everybody now is going to take these bills back and come in below $1 trillion," he said yesterday.

But Emanuel described haggling over cost estimates as a routine part of lawmaking. "Since it's the first inning, I wouldn't call the game," he said.

Late yesterday, Finance Committee members began reviewing the outlines of a more modest approach in the hopes that scaling back some of their plans to cover the working poor could save money.

Though early in the process, administration allies are divided over the timetable.

Ralph Neas, a veteran liberal advocate who runs the National Coalition on Health Care, said a thorough debate is likely to continue through Thanksgiving or Christmas.

But John Podesta, who oversaw the Obama transition and now leads the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, said the most promising window of opportunity is before Labor Day.

"If this languishes into the fall, there's every reason to believe the attempts to make this bipartisan will be overwhelmed by the attacks coming from partisans in particular," he said.

The arduous task of overhauling the nation's entire $2.2 trillion health system has been further complicated by the absence of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the health committee, who is arguably the most knowledgeable lawmaker on the issue. He is battling brain cancer.

"His absence has an enormous impact," said Sheila Burke, a health-policy expert and longtime aide to former Senate majority leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.). Still, she said, tackling sweeping health reform would be difficult even with Kennedy on the job full-time.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, under the temporary leadership of Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), began work on a partial bill crafted largely by Kennedy aides. Republicans complained of being left out.

"I am personally somewhat -- well, actually, very -- disappointed," said Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah). "I wanted a thoughtful bipartisan compromise that could have become a lasting legacy for my dear friend, Ted Kennedy."

Like Obama, Sen. Mike Enzi (Wyo.), the panel's ranking Republican, said he was distressed by the CBO report showing that the bill would cost $1 trillion and cover just 16 million more people.

In addition, the draft did not include some of the most costly and controversial sections of the bill. That situation "does nothing to advance the cause," said Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager of the labor-backed pro-reform group Health Care for America Now.

Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said the price tag could easily reach $2 trillion, prompting Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.) to reply that Gregg was throwing "sand in the gears."

A frustrated Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) blamed the delays on Republicans.

"I'm sorry to say they have subscribed to more of the same stalling strategy that the American people are sick and tired of," he said in a floor speech yesterday.

But there was disagreement within his own party.

As Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) assembled a bipartisan group of senators dubbed the "coalition of the willing," Dodd played down the need to negotiate with the other side. "My goal is to write a good bill," he said. "My goal is not bipartisanship."

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[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Climate Change]
Here is the weather for 2080: floods, droughts and heatwaves
The UK government today issued the most detailed assessment yet of how global warming will unfold across the nation
David Adam, environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 June 2009 18.10 BST
Article history

And now for the weather. The 2020s are looking warm and dry, with occasional heavy winter showers. The 2050s should be sunny and warm, with scattered deaths due to heatwaves across London and the south-east. And looking ahead to the 2080s, temperatures could reach 41C, so be sure to pack the suncream for your picnic. And watch out for those great white sharks!

Scientists today issued the most detailed assessment yet of how global warming will unfold across Britain. In a range of possible scenarios published by the government, the experts painted a picture of a very different UK, with soaring summertime temperatures and dwindling rainfall.

Announcing the results, Hilary Benn, environment secretary, said global warming will affect "every aspect of our daily lives". The scientists say summer rainfall in south-east England could decrease by a fifth by the 2050s. Average mean temperatures are likely to rise by more than 2C across the UK by 2040s. If carbon emissions continue to rise, there is a 10% chance that temperatures in the southeast could rise by 8C or more by the 2080s.

The results are aimed at industries and organisations that need to make long-term investment decisions that could be influenced by a changing climate. They come as scientists urge politicians to focus on adapting to inevitable climate change as well as on efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Benn said: "There is no doubt about it, climate change is the biggest challenge facing the world today. It is already happening, the hottest ten years on record globally have all been since 1990. This landmark scientific evidence shows not only that we need to tackle the causes of climate change, but also that we must deal with the consequences."

The new predictions follow a similar exercise in 2002, that produced maps of likely changes across Britain for the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s. They showed the UK faced drier, warmer summers and wetter, milder winters. Experts say the new results are more powerful, because they present the relative probabilities of a range of possible outcomes. They also cover three different possible futures, in which carbon emissions are low, medium or high. Benn said the world was currently heading along the medium scenario, but that there was a risk that emissions could increase towards the high pathway.

Under the high emissions scenario, the results suggest the hottest summer days could be 12C warmer than today, with peak summer temperatures in London regularly topping 40C.

To produce the new predictions, the scientists at the Met Office Hadley Centre ran 300 versions of their sophisticated climate computer model, and pooled the results to see which outcomes were most likely. The results cannot be used to predict specific weather on future dates, but they indicate broad trends.

Andy Brown, climate change and environmental performance manager with Anglian Water, said the results would help the company plan key infrastructure such as reservoirs. "The increased resolution and probabilities will help to give us more focus." The breakdown into small regions, just 25km across, will help too. "Rainfall can be very localised so it will help us make plans to deal with events."

Paul Bettison, chair of the environment board at the Local Government Association: "We need to start encouraging people to plan for the future. Schools in other countries more used to blistering hot summers are built with large amounts of shade. Our teachers chase people out of shady classrooms to enjoy the sunshine."

Better projections of climate in the 2050s and even the 2080s can help local authorities to force developers to adapt their designs, he says. And existing regulations only insist on a minimum temperature inside buildings such as schools, that is likely to change to include maximum temperature too. "When the original act was written in the 1960s nobody had heard of climate change," he said. "Simply building in dirty great air conditioning units is not the answer."

Paul Williams, a climate scientist at the University of Reading, said: "Sceptics will no doubt question how scientists can confidently predict the climate of 2080, when we cannot even forecast next week's weather with any skill. But climate prediction and weather forecasting are completely different problems. We can say with confidence that July is always warmer than January, because more sunlight is received. Similarly, we can say with confidence that the 2080s will be warmer than the 2000s, because of the extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases."

The Department of Energy and Climate Change said the publication of the new climate predictions marked the first step towards a "five point plan" to tackle climate change. Later this month, Ed Miliband, energy and climate secretary, will publish the government's blueprint for a new global climate deal, which it hopes will be agreed at key UN talks in Copenhagen in December. Next month, ministers will publish a new national strategy for climate and energy, to set out policies to meet the government's domestic carbon reduction targets.

The climate predictions were welcomed by the University of Oxford's Sir David King, the former chief scientific advisor. "Now the question is whether or not the British public and their councillors, planners, civil servants and politicians have the appetite to provide sufficient funding to implement long-range schemes of adaptation across the regions covered by the report."

Green campaigners called for stronger action on emissions to avoid the damaging impacts the UK will face .

Andy Atkins, Friends of the Earth executive director, said: "This valuable new research highlights the damaging impact that climate change will have around the UK . The UK government must show real leadership by example ahead of crucial climate negotiations in Copenhagen."

Chris Smith, chairman of the Environment Agency said: "These new projections remind us starkly of the choices we face in ensuring a sustainable future for our fragile planet. A failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions will lead to a battle for survival for mankind and many other species across the globe by the end of this century."

news20090619GDN2

[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Coal]
Obama administration criticised over failure to disclose coal dump locations
Administration turns down senator's request to make public the list of 44 dumps, which contain arsenic and metals
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 18 June 2009 17.22 BST
Article history

A rift has opened between the Obama administration and some of its closest allies - Democratic leaders and environmental organisations - over its refusal to publicly disclose the location of 44 coal ash dumps that have been officially designated as a "high hazard" to local populations.

The administration turned down a request from a powerful Democratic senator to make public the list of 44 dumps, which contain a toxic soup of arsenic and heavy metals from coal-fired electricity plants, citing terrorism fears.

The refusal has put the Obama administration at odds with some of its strongest supporters over an emerging area of environmental concern in America.

Last Christmas, a retaining wall burst on a coal ash pond in Tennessee disgorging a billion gallons of waste and putting pressure on the authorities to bring in safety controls over the management of some 600 similar waste pools dotted across the country.

Some 44 of the most dangerous coal ash dumps are known to be located in populated areas in 26 separate locations. The high hazard designation means that a breach, like the one in Tennessee, could cause death and significant property damage if the sludge spills into surrounding neigbourhoods. But that is all the adminstration will disclose.

"Right now we have a blanket gag order," Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who heads the Senate environment and public works committee told a press conference last week.

"We are losing what we cherish in America: the citizens' right to know."

Boxer, who has seen the list of sites, said she was only allowed to share the information with fellow senators - not their staff and not local authorities in the affected areas.

"There is a huge muzzle on me and my staff," she said. "They're putting ridiculous restrictions on me."

The local newspaper in Tennessee also ridiculed the decision.

"These waste sites may be environmental and health hazards. But they are unlikely terror targets," said the Knox group of newspapers. "As the muckety-mucks in Washington know, the real danger of disclosure is from angry Americans. If citizens realise they are downstream from fragile mountains of gunk, they will demand action and accountability."

Environmental groups see the gag order on the coal ash sites as a betrayal of Obama's promise, during his speech to staff on his first day in the White House in January, of a new era of openness in government.

"For a long time now, there's been too much secrecy in this city," Obama said in the speech. "That era is now over. Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information but those who seek to make it known."

The Environmental Protection Agency under Lisa Jackson has also put emphasis on its moves for greater openness and a greater role for science at the agency - in sharp contrast to the policies under George Bush when government scientific reports were doctored to remove references to global warming.

Lisa Evans, an attorney at Earth Justice which has long campaigned about the potential dangers of the dumps, said environmental organisations were perplexed by the secrecy. "Is this consistent with the way we treat other hazardous sites in this country?" she said. "One Google click will give you the locations of all the nuclear power plants in the US."

Other environmentalists said the Obama administration's failure to disclose the location of the sites was an issue of social justice.

"We know that there are no coal ash sites in Manhattan. So where are these sites?" said Virginia Cramer of the Sierra Club. "They are generally in low income and minority communities, so we are concerned about those communities knowing what types of danger are surrounding them."

An EPA official said the agency was consulting with the US department of homeland security and the army corps of engineers to review the decision.

However, the official said that when it came to revealing the location of the dumps, its hands were tied because of security concerns. Since the 9/11 attacks, the authorities have methodically scrubbed websites listing dams and other structures that could present targets for terrorist attacks. The national inventory of dams now no longer ranks the hazard rating of its structures - although they will list location.

The Obama administration appears to have maintained the policy.

In a letter earlier this month, the army corps of engineers told the EPA to keep the sites secret. "Uncontrolled or unrestricted release [of the information] may pose a security risk to projects or communities by increasing its attractiveness as a potential target," Steven Stockton, the army corps director of civil works wrote.

"It was our attention to release the list, but we certainly feel obligated to take into account any recommendations from our agencies as they release to terrorist attacks," said an EPA official.

"It was very strong language cautioning us from releasing this list."

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[Business > Drax]
Carbon capture plans threaten shutdown of all UK coal-fired power stations
Radical proposals to require existing plants, including Drax, to fit the technology would force their closure, government admits
Tim Webb and Terry Macalister
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 June 2009 18.54 BST
Article history

All of Britain's coal-fired power stations, including Drax, the country's largest emitter of carbon, could be forced to close down under radical plans unveiled by government today.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, is proposing to extend his plans to force companies to fit carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) onto new coal plants – as revealed by the Guardian – to cover a dozen existing coal plants.

The consultation published by his Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) conceded that if this happened "we could expect them to close".

A spokeswoman said that no decision had yet been made. The government could instead decide to allow coal plants still open in 2020 to operate for a limited period or to keep them in reserve to stop the lights going out.

A spokesman for a company operating several coal plants in the UK said that even if Miliband did not carry out his threat and force existing coal plants to fit expensive CCS equipment, any further restrictions on their operation would be likely to result in their closure. It will probably prove too difficult and expensive to fit CCS to plants nearing the end of their lifespan.

Drax is the UK's newest and biggest coal-fired station. The Yorkshire plant, which provides about 8 per cent of Britain's electricity, is technically able to continue to operate into the 2030s. But since it is 40 miles from the coast, transporting captured carbon for storage in the North Sea would be particularly difficult.

Dorothy Thompson, chief executive of Drax, accepted that the plant might eventually need to fit CCS but did not say when this would be feasible or economic.

David Porter, head of trade body the Association of Electricity Producers, said he welcomed CCS as a way of making coal plants environmentally acceptable, but said existing stations which could not fit the equipment should not be forced to close. "There are already quite enough coal-fired plants coming off the system. Security of supply should be taken seriously," he warned.

The Guardian has also learnt that E.ON's controversial plans to build a new coal-fired station in Kingsnorth – the first in the UK for more than 20 years – are likely to be delayed by several years at least. It would represent a temporary victory for environmental campaigners, who staged last summer's climate camp near the Kent site. The Kingsnorth plans could be scrapped altogether.

E.ON has entered the new station into a government competition to build the first commercial-scale CCS demonstration project. DECC has now admitted that the decision to pick a winner has been delayed and will not take place until the autumn of 2010 at the earliest. Miliband reiterated the government's ambition to have the winning project operational in 2014.

E.ON is becoming increasingly concerned about the tight schedule of four years to build its first highly efficient coal plant in the UK which is also equipped with experimental CCS technology. The delay in the competition could favour Scottish Power's entry at Longannet, which involves attaching CCS to an existing coal station.

Miliband told the Guardian that the short space of time for E.ON to build a new plant was "one of the factors" which would influence the decision but declined to comment further.

Paul Golby, E.ON's chief executive, has admitted the firm would not build Kingsnorth if it did not win the competition. Under Miliband's plans announced in April, all new coal plants must fit CCS to part of the operation. Golby said it would not be economic to do this without government subsidies and added that E.ON could build a gas plant instead.

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, urged the government to make all existing coal plants fit CCS: "If we fail to act, Drax will remain one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide in the world for decades," he said. "The government's own advisors on climate change have stated that all emissions from coal must cease by the early 2020s.

"That's all coal, not just new coal, so it's vital that Ed Miliband's new policy doesn't ignore the inconvenient truth that we need to deal with the reality of Drax every bit as urgently as the threat of Kingsnorth."

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[Environment] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > Bolivia]
Multinationals eye up lithium reserves beneath Bolivia's salt flatsMetal deposits may be key to green car revolution but government in La Paz yet to agree deal
Rory Carroll and Andres Schipani in Salar de Uyuni
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 June 2009 19.26 BST
Article history

Half the world's reserves of lithium, the metallic element used to make batteries in electric cars, are believed to be in the salt desert, Salar de Uyuni.

Stand in the middle of Salar de Uyuni, the world's greatest salt desert, and the first word that springs to mind is ­nothing. As far as the eye can see, ­nothing. Not a shrub or tree, not a hill or valley, just an endless expanse of white.

This salt flat in Bolivia, the landlocked heart of South America, is a harsh and eerie landscape, perhaps the closest thing nature has to a void. From the Incas to the present day, humanity has made little impression here.

But that may be about to change. Dig down and you find brine – water saturated with salt – rich in deposits of lithium, the lightest metal.

As the invention of the pneumatic tyre turned rubber into a precious commodity in the 19th century, the world's tilt towards greener energy is expected to do the same for lithium in the 21st. For years, tiny amounts have been used in laptops, BlackBerrys and other devices, but now its main use is expected to be in batteries for electric cars, which campaigners, manufacturers and governments say will – or should – replace petrol and diesel vehicles.

For Bolivia, this is good news. It is thought to possess 5.4m tonnes of lithium, half the world's supply. "Lithium is very important for us and the world," Bolivia's mining and metallurgy minister, Luis Alberto Echazú, said. "We hope to extract 1,200 tonnes next year and that's just the beginning. When we're up and running we'll be producing 10, 15 times that."

Four wells have been dug in Salar de Uyuni and a state-run pilot plant is being built near the village of Rio Grande on the fringe of the desert.

But there is a problem. Bolivia's socialist government has a habit of clashing with foreign multinationals in other sectors and has not clinched a deal – and, according to some, may never seal one – with the investors needed to extract significant quantities of lithium.

Foreign companies are afraid to deal with a government that confiscates assets and rips up contracts, said Carlos Alberto López, a former energy minister and consultant with Cambridge Energy Research Associates. "Bolivia's ­ideological face does not square with business and commercial realities. I doubt lithium's potential will be realised in the short or medium term." Pessimists fear a fiasco: carmakers lacking batteries to power electric vehicles and Bolivia, one of the continent's poorest countries, losing an opportunity to develop. President Evo Morales, a former llama herder and trade union leader, has a different fear: that western multinationals will suck the wealth of Salar de Uyuni like capitalist vampires. Morales swept to power in 2005 promising to end 500 years of plunder. Lithium is a test case. "The government of Bolivia will never give away control of this natural resource," he said. He acknowledges, however, that a foreign partner is needed.

The government is talking to France's Bollore Group, South Korea's LG Group and Japan's Sumitomo and Mitsubishi. Bollore has been asked to join the government's scientific commission on lithium, suggesting it has the edge.

The government said it would choose as a partner the company which will help Bolivian industry and not just ­mining. The idea is to process and add value to the lithium after it is extracted, for instance by making batteries or even fleets of electric cars in the impoverished country. The $6m (£3.6m) state-run pilot plant near Rio Grande is the first step. At the end of a dirt track dozens of workers are building barracks to house technicians and miners. Over a generator's hum Marcelo Castro, 48, the site manager, exuded patriotic pride. "We are building every­thing from scratch. This is a historic moment. We are working for ourselves." Rich countries would no longer plunder Bolivia's resources. "There is a new dialectic."

Sceptics say that is delirium. Work at the pilot plant has proved slow, talks with multinationals remain inconclusive and there is no production timetable.

The 2006 nationalisation of the oil and gas industry is a troubling precedent. Foreign investment evaporated, production fell and the state-owned energy company, YPFB, became mired in corruption. "The trustworthiness of the Bolivian state has come into question," said López, "and I don't think investors will expose themselves to being hammered on the head."

Time will tell. With a lithium shortage forecast for 2015, Bolivia may also have the upper hand. "We have had bad experiences in the past," said Paulino Colque, leader of an indigenous workers' group Uyuni. "If there are any investors that want to come, they can come – but as partners, not patrons."

Running on lithium

Lithium ion batteries, first proposed in the 1970s but not commercialised until 20 years later, are the technology most likely in the short-term to make the clean electricity dream viable. Several times lighter than current rechargeable batteries (usually made from nickel compounds) and with a better performance and longer lifetime, ­Li-ion cells have already been developed for laptops and mobile phones. Now they face their biggest challenge. For cars, they will have to be more powerful, more reliable and – a big sticking point – far cheaper. Most experimental electric vehicles today use some form of Li-ion batteries and many experts agree the technology is ready for the first generation of electric vehicles. The other big hurdle is size: the batteries are still too big. Alok Jha

news20090619SAM1

[Environment] from [Scientific American Magazine]

[Automotive Technology]
June 18, 2009
Clean Diesel Comes of Age
A new study shows that diesel trucks and buses are spewing far less soot and smog into the air than they did just a few years ago
By Marla Cone and Environmental Health News

For decades, diesel trucks and buses have spewed large amounts of soot, smog-causing gases and carcinogens into the air.

But new diesel engines are more than 90 percent cleaner than a few years ago, far exceeding the emission reductions required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to a new study released Thursday.

The quest to clean up diesels has been mounted for several decades, yet its progress has long lagged behind the success stories of car exhaust. But now tests--conducted by independent researchers funded by a coalition of government and industry--now show the diesel technologies are working even better than expected. Truck and bus engines are much cleaner than they are required to be under new federal standards, and for many pollutants, the latest models are emitting the same levels as gasoline-powered automobiles, the researchers said.

Ultra-fine particulates—the tiny pieces of soot that can lodge in lungs and cause respiratory and heart problems—were 99 percent lower in 2007-model trucks and buses than in 2004 models, and 89 percent lower than the amounts allowable under the EPA’s 2007 standards, according to the study.

Particulates have long been considered one of the most dangerous pollutants spewed by diesel engines. The fine particles from diesel can trigger asthma attacks, heart attacks, bronchitis and other serious ailments, and the EPA says they cause several thousand deaths each year.
Other important air pollutants—hydrocarbons, a major ingredient of smog—were 95 percent lower in the new diesels than the amounts required under EPA’s 2007 standards, according to the study. Carbon monoxide was 98 percent lower than required.

Daniel Greenbaum, president of the Health Effects Institute, a nonprofit research group that directed the study with another research group, said "likely a lot of lives will be saved once we get the older fleet replaced."

He said the new models of diesel trucks and buses emit the same levels of particulates as gasoline-powered vehicles. They are equipped “with essentially the same technology that is required in cars,” Greenbaum said.

The one major pollutant that still lags behind is nitrogen oxides, which react with hydrocarbons to cause ozone, or smog. It is particularly a problem in smoggy regions, such as the Los Angeles basin. For the new trucks and buses, levels of nitrogen oxides were 70 percent lower than in 2004, and 10 percent below current federal requirements. Another 80 percent reduction is required beginning in January.

The study was overseen by the Health Effects Institute, a Boston-based independent research group that has studied air pollution since 1980, and the Coordinating Research Council, a nonprofit research partnership between industry and government agencies. It was funded by the EPA, U.S. Dept. of Energy, the diesel and petroleum industries and the California Air Resources Board, but the tests were designed, administered and reported without their influence and using federal test procedures, according to the research teams.

Diesel engine manufacturers say the new data reinforces that “clean diesel” is a reality. They are nearly as low in emissions as engines powered by alternative fuels such as natural gas. “These findings underscore just how clean this new generation of fuels, engines and emissions control technology really is,” said Allen Schaeffer, executive director of the Diesel Technology Forum, which represents manufacturers of diesel engines, fuel and emissions systems.
It would take 60 of the new truck or bus models to emit the same soot as one of the old 1988 models, Schaeffer said. More than 360,000 of the new trucks and buses were purchased in the past two years, which he said will go a long way toward cleaning many cities’ air.

For the study, part of a five-year project, heavy-duty diesel engines from the four major manufacturers--Cummins, Detroit Diesel, Caterpillar and Volvo-- were tested for more than 300 air pollutants at a laboratory in San Antonio, Texas. The researchers only tested new engines, so the trucks and buses might put out more emissions as they age, Greenbaum said. But under the EPA rules, their warranties for emissions equipment must last 450,000 miles, four times longer than cars.

Greenbaum said one surprise was the extent of reductions in cancer-causing and other toxic compounds. Diesel exhaust is considered a potent human carcinogen because of a variety of substances. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons declined 79 percent from 2004 models, while elemental carbon and metals were down 98 to 99 percent.

The challenge in cleaning up diesel has been finding technologies that can trap particles and gases without reducing fuel efficiency. Spurred by new standards adopted by California and the EPA, the engine manufacturers and oil industries had to develop ultra-low sulfur fuel and new catalysts and other gas-control technologies.

Controlling nitrogen oxides, or NOx, has been the biggest challenge. EPA’s rule for 2007 engines, adopted in 2000 by the Clinton Administration, gave manufacturers three extra years for fully meeting that standard. “The original rule basically recognized that while the [particulate] traps were ready, the NOx control was not,” Greenbaum said.

Schaeffer of the diesel industry added, “clearly more work is needed on NOx, and 2010 models will deliver that starting January 1, 2010.”

“Everything you do to drive down NOx tends to reduce fuel economy,” he said.

Most diesel manufacturers said they will meet the tougher nitrogen oxides standard next year by equipping engines with new catalysts—a technology called selective catalytic reduction, already used in Europe--and an advanced gas recirculation system.

However, one company, Navistar, has said it cannot meet the standard next year so it will use credits to offset the difference and filed suit against the EPA to change the rule. The other three companies have filed a brief in court supporting the EPA rules.

Other diesels, such as construction and farm equipment, must meet the same emission standards, but have until 2013, or in some cases, 2015, to do so. The new tests only checked truck and bus engines.

To meet health standards at many U.S. cities with heavy particulate pollution, manufacturers of both gasoline and diesel engines may have to face even tougher emission standards in the future, Greenbaum said.

news20090619SAM2

[Environment] from [Scientific American Magazine]

[Alternative Energy Technology]
June 18, 2009
How to Sell Cap & Trade
First, drop that name
By Alex Kaplun

The American public is eager for dramatic change in U.S. energy policy, but Democratic efforts to sell their agenda on energy and climate change aren't reaching voters, a prominent Democratic Party polling firm is warning.

The strategy memo from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and the think tank Third Way also warns that while few voters expect a national energy overhaul to be inexpensive, Democrats are susceptible to Republican arguments that energy proposals will be overly burdensome.

The 12-page memo [pdf] was based on a dozen focus groups conducted with swing voters in six states. Based on those sessions, the memo says clean-energy advocates face "significant" challenges in selling their agenda.

The memo advises that the best sales pitch for Democrats' plans is "Get America running on clean energy." Forget talk about "green jobs" and "cap and trade."

Democrats should drop "cap and trade" altogether since it carries negative connotations, the memo advises. "The problem with 'cap-and-trade' isn't only that it lacks meaning for voters, it actually focuses on the wrong things," it says.

Specifically, the memo says "cap" is a problem since voters are focusing on policies that promote economic expansion, not limit it.

"By focusing on capping something, rather than creating something," the memo warns, "we steer the debate down a dead end."

Other recommendations in the memo:

* Broaden the message beyond jobs to overall domestic economic growth, as voters are looking to embrace policies that will jump-start the economy and make the United States a world leader.

* Do not focus on global warming as a primary vehicle for selling the energy agenda, since voters do not see it as an immediate threat to the United States or to themselves.

* Make the case that clean energy will reduce dependence on foreign energy sources, but do not call for "energy independence." Many voters realize that such a promise is false and will react poorly if that goal is not met.

* Drop "green jobs," which conjures images of "people making environmentally friendly soaps and household products and is seen as exclusionary by some." Instead, focus on talking about getting the country running on clean energy.

* Embrace the "all of the above" message on energy policy -- that is, getting energy from a variety of sources, including fossil fuels -- as voters already see Democrats supporting renewable energy development.

* Argue that opposing a clean-energy agenda is "more of the same," since voters appear hungry for change.

In addition, the memo argues that advocates need to be more willing to use numbers to combat claims from some Republicans that cap-and-trade legislation will dramatically increase prices on consumers.

The charge that Democrats' energy plans will cost families an average of $3,000 a year -- a number commonly circulated by opponents of the climate legislation -- has "resonance and is memorable," the memo warns. Thus the best way to counter that claim is to provide voters with another dollar figure, especially because they have shown willingness to support some cost increases.

"Voters in our groups are willing to weigh competing claims about the real costs of clean energy reform," the memo advises. "It would be helpful if the entire progress community agreed on a cost figure -- a unified message here would make it more credible."


[Science in Service]
June 18, 2009
Subsidized Fertilizer: The Answer to Africa's Food Crisis?
Heavy use of fertilizers causes environmental problems in the United States and China, but a global team of scientists is prescribing more use of fertilizers for sub-Saharan Africa
By Brendan Borrell

FERTILE DEBATE: Scientists recommend Africa boost fertilizer levels in the production of corn and other crops and warn that China needs to cut back.
SCOTT BAUER/USDA

Although overuse of fertilizer has caused environmental damage around the world, some scientists are calling for an increase in its application in African agriculture.

In a paper published today in Science, a group of 16 researchers from the United States, Brazil and China want to provide more subsidies for fertilizer use to enrich poor quality soil in Africa, while decreasing fertilizer use in other parts of the world. “The situation in Africa is totally different from where China is now or where the United States and Europe are,” says lead author Peter Vitousek, an ecologist at Stanford University.

Their commentary came out of a workshop at the Aspen Global Change Institute last year, sponsored by NASA and several nonprofits. The researchers point out the “nutrient imbalance” between corn growers in northern China, who are using 1296 pounds (588 kilograms) of nitrogen fertilizer per hectare every year compared with 15.7 pounds (7 kilograms) per hectare in Kenya.

With 500 pounds (227 kilograms) of China’s nitrogen input going to waste every year on each hectare of land, the researchers say it could halve fertilizer use with no decline in its impressive corn yields. Kenya, by contrast, is losing 114 pounds (52 kilograms) of nitrogen per hectare per year, meaning that soil fertility is on the decline, trapping farmers in a cycle of land degradation and poverty.

Of course, asking China to cut its use of fertilizer use isn’t likely to upset environmentalists, Vitousek says. Human fertilizer use has doubled the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous entering rivers. Agricultural runoff pollutes freshwater streams, leading to the kind of unchecked algae blooms that have smothered marine ecosystems in the “dead zone” at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

That's why controversy will likely stem from the scientists’ call to increase subsidies for fertilizer use in Africa. Vitousek’s colleagues in the environmental community, who he declined to name, have already approached him and said, “I understand there’s a move to introduce fertilizer in African agriculture . . . Haven’t we learned anything?”

But there are concerns from the policy side as well. Ephraim Nkonya, an agricultural economist at the International Food Policy Research Institute, says that increasing fertilizer subsidies is not going to solve Africa’s food problems and they may in fact aggravate them. He points out that 35 percent of Zambia’s agricultural budget goes to fertilizer. Nkonya, a Tanzanian, says the problem is that the subsidies often end up in the hands of the “rich” and “well-connected” rather than poor farmers.

Nkonya says that getting fertilizer to the right people is only a small part of the puzzle. He recommends using organic soil fertility management by adding manure to the soil and alternating corn crops with beans, which fix nitrogen from the atmosphere and make it available to crops. These practices, he says, "are quite environmentally friendly and at the same time they increase yields.”

news20090619NTR

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

Published online 17 June 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.579
News
Italy cancels G8 research meeting
Scrapped ministerial summit may jeopardize pressing climate change decisions.
Alison Abbott

The Italian government has caught scientists off-guard by unexpectedly, and mysteriously, cancelling the G8 science and technology meeting planned for next week.

The meeting was planned for 25-28 June. It would have brought together science ministers of the rich G8 nations to discuss issues of long-term and global concern, such as how to monitor climate change, maintain environment-friendly energy supplies and how to deal with the ageing society.

It was one of nine ministerial meetings to prepare for the main G8 summit, this year under Italian presidency, in L'Aquila in July. The summit is now left without a formal mechanism for introducing science input.

"We were surprised and disappointed by the cancellation," says James Wilsdon, director of the science policy for Britain's Royal Society. The society is one of 13 national academies — including one from each of the G8 countries, plus one each from South Africa, India, Mexico, China and Brazil — that had prepared a joint statement on climate and energy policy to funnel through the meeting. The meeting was particularly important, he said, given the United Nations decision-making climate summit in Copenhagen in December.

Loss of credibility
The Italian government gave no clear reason for the cancellation, and it is the first time a planned ministerial meeting has been cancelled in advance of a G8 summit. Italian newspapers have said that government officials are referring variously to concerns about security, and failure to complete translation of relevant preparatory documents.

Giuseppe Fioroni, science spokesman for Italy's opposition Democratic Party, says that the cancellation — which he puts down to infighting in different government ministries over the core themes of the research G8 — is "humiliating for Italy as the host country". He says that a research G8 has meaning only if it is held before the summit. "The failure of [research minister Mariastella Gelmini] to carry out her responsibilities ... means a further loss of credibility among our international partners."

The Ministry of Education, Universities and Research did not answer calls or respond to e-mails from Nature News.

Deplorable decision
The 13 academies met in Rome in March to knock out a joint statement on climate and energy that emphasises a common belief in the need to reduce carbon emissions while developing environment-friendly energy sources, including safe nuclear sources, and to ensure basic energy services to all countries.

"It is a missed opportunity to have a strong science discussion at the summit," says Wilsdon, "and one which shows the agreement of scientists in both developed and developing countries."

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, a member of the Germany Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research was one of the driving forces behind the joint statement. "It is never good to cancel or even delay a meeting," he says, "but deplorable to do so when there is a decisive international climate conference planned at the end of this year."

But the German research ministry was more sanguine. An official there said that they had been told that the meeting would be reconvened in some form during autumn. "It is always good when G8 ministers meet," he said. "It does not have to be before a summit."



Published online 17 June 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.578
News
Beijing's clean air claims questioned
Environment ministry now plans to monitor ozone and small particles.
David Cyranoski

Beijing spent the run-up to last year's Olympic Games claiming that the city's air had been drastically cleaned up, but those measurements are now being called into question.

Using an air pollution index (API) in which a score of 100 or lower indicates air quality as 'good', all 17 days of Olympic events in Beijing made the grade. Overall, the city hit an all-time high of 274 good air days in 2008.

APIs can be calculated in various different ways; Beijing's includes measurements of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and particles smaller than 10 micrometres across — dubbed PM10. Controversially, it has not previously used low-level ozone measurements to calculate APIs, and it does not report on the level of particles smaller than 2.5 micrometres across (known as PM2.5). Both ozone and PM2.5 have potential negative impacts on health.

Now, Jian Wang of the Chinese environment ministry's pollution-prevention division has admitted that visibility in eastern cities in China is deteriorating. He says that the cause is ozone pollution and, especially, PM2.5.

"PM2.5 is to blame for the haze," he told the official state newspaper, China Daily, on 5 June. "Vehicle exhausts that contain black carbon, sulfates, and nitrates contribute a lot to the density of PM2.5, which is more damaging to the respiratory system than PM10," he said. He added that the ministry will soon start to include ozone and PM2.5 in its API calculation, with pilot projects to monitor the pollutants expected to start in the deltas of the Yangtze and Pearl rivers next year.

"This is quite a turnaround," says Steven Andrews, an environmental consultant who spent 12 months in Beijing from September 2006 as a Princeton-in-Asia fellow.

Andrews says the attention to ozone and PM2.5 is welcome, but is concerned that the data might not be reported openly. He says that the Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau previously listed ozone readings but stopped in 2002 (see archived website).

Ailun Yang of Greenpeace's Beijing office thinks that the failure to report data is probably a political decision. Having recently visited Beijing's Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, she notes that "they have all the latest technology. They should be able to do anything."

A breath of fresh air
Last year, Andrews accused Beijing's environment bureau of moving some of its seven air-monitoring stations to improve the API results. In a paper in Environmental Research Letters,1 he claimed that two stations measuring vehicle emissions — which the bureau has labelled the largest source of air pollution — were dropped from the API list in 2006, and that three others were added to cleaner areas outside the city centre. Beijing officials deny the charge. Andrews says there is now no way to prove this because data from individual monitoring sites, which had previously been available online since January 2003, have now been removed.

Andrews also points out that a remarkably high number of days have an API that is just below the crucial threshold of 100. During 2006 and 2007, Beijing reported a total of 107 days with an API of between 96 and 100, and only 7 days with an API between 101 and 105.

Beijing officials attribute this to their ability to head off short-term rises in pollution by targeting certain factories. But in a nationwide analysis published in May2, Andrews accuses local officials throughout China of manipulating data to meet the API targets. In 2007 the cities of Chengdu and Xian, for example, reported 52 and 48 days, respectively, with an API of between 96 and 100, and no days with an API of between 101 and 105.

Despite the criticism surrounding the API, Beijing last week reported that it was halfway to its goal of having 260 days with excellent or fairly good air quality this year.

news20090619SLT1

[Today's Paper] from [Slate Magazine]

North Korea Ready To Attack Hawaii?
By Daniel Politi
Posted Friday, June 19, 2009, at 6:43 AM ET

Iran is out of the lead slot in all of the papers, and the New York Times (NYT) and Washington Post (WP) turn back to Washington infighting to warn that President Obama is losing momentum on some of his most important domestic policy initiatives due to doubts from lawmakers. The WP has a two-story lead, focusing on doubts from lawmakers about increasing the power of the Federal Reserve and the fighting that has broken out over the price tag for health care reform. The NYT also leads with health care, noting that the high cost of insuring all Americans is worrying Democrats, who are trying to find a way to either make the plan less ambitious or cut back on existing programs. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) leads with news that the United States is deploying ground-to-air missile defenses to Hawaii out of fear that North Korea may soon try to fire a long-range missile in that direction. Most U.S. officials don't think a North Korean missile would actually be able to reach Hawaii, but, just in case, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the United States is deploying a high-tech radar in the ocean near Hawaii that can track whether a missile is approaching.

The Los Angeles Times (LAT) leads with the Supreme Court's 5-4 decision that makes it much more difficult for older employees to win an age-discrimination suit. For a while, courts had decided that if a worker could show age was one of the factors that led to a layoff or demotion, then the employer had to prove the decision was made for other reasons besides age. Now, the court's conservative coalition has put all the burden on proving that age was the key factor in the hands of the worker. USA Today (USAT) leads with news that the percentage of Army soldiers diagnosed with alcoholism or alcohol abuse almost doubled since 2003, in what many see as yet another sign of the toll that repeated deployments to a warzone can take on servicemembers. The number of Marines who screen positive for drug or alcohol problems has also been increasing in the past few years.

Why is everyone so spooked about health care reform? It goes back to that Congressional Budget Office statement that a bill currently being proposed in the Senate would cost more than expected and cover just a fraction of the uninsured. The estimate "has rattled everyone," one official tells the Post, noting that Obama made his concerns known during a "high-level meeting" yesterday. Democrats aren't just fighting Republicans, but also each other as they try to tackle the complicated issue without Sen. Edward Kennedy, who would be the natural leader on this issue. The NYT points out that Democrats are discussing several ways to cut costs, including a way to rapidly reduce the growth of Medicare and a plan that would require some employers to foot at least part of the bill for the insurance of low-wage workers. Democrats insist it's only natural there's going to be lots of back-and-forth when discussing such an important piece of legislation and no one should take it as a sign that it's doomed to fail. "You may call them snags," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, "we call them the legislative process."

In a piece inside, the WP notes that a draft proposal that made the rounds in the Senate Finance Committee yesterday scaled back several provisions from earlier versions in an effort to reduce costs. The proposal lacks a so-called "public option" for health insurance, instead choosing to create consumer-owned cooperative plans.

Yesterday, the papers were eager to argue that the most controversial part of Obama's proposal to overhaul financial regulations was the creation of a new consumer protection agency. Today, the WP declares that it is the proposal to increase the Federal Reserve's power that has become "the most controversial element of the president's plan." In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee yesterday, senators repeatedly questioned Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on whether giving the Fed more power was really the best idea. This "hostility toward the Fed stands in marked contrast to the way the central bank has been viewed for most of the past 30 years," notes the Post.

A Japanese newspaper reported that North Korea is planning on launching a long-range missile at Hawaii around July 4. Defense Secretary Robert Gates didn't address that report, or say anything about a specific date, but noted there are "some concerns if they were to launch a missile … in the direction of Hawaii" while assuring that "we are in a good position … to protect American territory." Meanwhile, in another sign of the growing tensions with North Korea, there's word that the United States is tracking a North Korean ship suspected of carrying banned weapons.

The Supreme Court's age-discrimination decision is particularly significant as it comes at a time when these types of lawsuits are increasing. But analysts said that now it would be much more difficult for workers to prove their case since, well, "'You are not going to have an employer stand up and announce, 'I'm discriminating against you because of your age,'" as one corporate defense lawyer put it. Justice John Paul Stevens led the dissenters and called the decision "an unabashed display of judicial lawmaking."

The NYT off-leads, and the WP fronts, another Supreme Court decision that stated prisoners don't have a constitutional right to DNA testing after their conviction. The court's conservative majority said it was up to states and lawmakers to decide the issue. "To suddenly constitutionalize this area would short-circuit what looks to be a prompt and considered legislative response," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, even while acknowledging that DNA testing gives an "unparalleled ability" to "exonerate the wrongly convicted and to identify the guilty."

The LAT and NYT are alone in putting their Iran stories on Page One. In another day of demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of Mir Hossein Mousavi supporters marched in silence through Tehran. Mousavi addressed the crowd and asked his supporters to return to the streets on Saturday. The government invited the three presidential candidates who allegedly lost the election to meet with the Guardian Council, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad backtracked from his earlier statements that the Mousavi supporters marching in the streets were "dust." At the same time, arrests continued. The NYT states that while yesterday's demonstration seemed larger than in previous days, it wasn't bigger than Monday's, when there were apparently three million people in the streets, according to Tehran's mayor.

The NYT notes that the situation in Iran "had all the hallmarks of a standoff." The LAT agrees, noting that no one really knows what can happen, mainly because there seems "to be no constitutional mechanism to end Iran's biggest political challenge in 30 years." There are suggestions that perhaps Ahmadinejad will end up giving reformers prominent positions in his government. But not only would that be out of character for him, it's also unlikely the reformers would agree to such a move, knowing full well they're not likely to have any real power.

Yesterday, everyone was anxious to hear what Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's statement on the issue during today's prayers from Tehran University. But anyone hoping for any sort of recognition of the protesters was surely disappointed. Early morning wire reports reveal that Khamenei offered no concessions and once again affirmed that last week's election gave Ahmadinejad a "definitive victory." He said protests would be "held responsible for chaos" if they refused to end their demonstrations. Khamenei then proceeded to blame Western countries for the current unrest. As the LAT points out, Khamenei "is considered God's representative on Earth" so there is no constitutional way to appeal his decisions.

Inside, the NYT points out that so far the pro-government Basij militia has mostly attacked at night, and allowed the protests to go on during the day. That could all soon change, and some analysts think there are sign that the government is getting ready to take "its gloves off." But so far, the large numbers of people that have taken to the streets means that there are too many people "to enable the vigilantes to intimidate people in their customary way." When they have tried to attack demonstrators, crowds have sometimes turned on them.

Continued on news20090619SLT2

news20090619SLT2

[Today's Paper] from [Slate Magazine]

North Korea Ready To Attack Hawaii?
By Daniel Politi
Posted Friday, June 19, 2009, at 6:43 AM ET

CONTINUED FROM news20090619SLT1

A student in Iran, Shane M., writes an interesting op-ed piece for the NYT, where he declares that Western analysts who caution that there might not have been fraud in the elections "are basing their arguments on an outdated understand of Iran." Those who proclaim that the protests are taking part in the rich areas of Tehran, where Mousavi's support lies, are drawing "on pernicious myths of an iron correlation between religion and class, between location and voting tendency, in Iran." Many U.S. analysts seem "able to view our country only through anxieties left over from the 1979 revolution." But right now, Tehran "is not the Iranian anomaly it was 30 years ago." Almost 70 percent of Iranians live in cities, so the much talked-about rural vote in no way provides "a decisive bloc" for Ahmadinejad. "No one knew that it would come to this," he writes. "Iran is this way. Anything is possible because very little in politics or social life has been made systematic."

Have $15 million lying around? You could snap up Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis House in Los Feliz, reports the LAT. Sure, you'd also have to put in a couple of million extra to restore the dilapidated masterpiece to its former glory, but just think of how jealous all your friends would be.