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Coordinated nationally by the Institute for Children's Environmental Health |
To join the Partnership for Children's Health and the Environment (PCHE), please contact Elise Miller at emiller@iceh.org.
February 22, 2006
2:00 - 3:00 p.m. EST
Due to the high interest expressed for this lecture, the American Association for Mental Retardation (AAMR) is pleased to announce that we will again have Dr. Slotkin give his presentation for us on February 22, 2006. Stay tuned for details as we get closer to February.
Contact: Michele Gagnon, 202-387-1968 X201 mgagnon@aamr.org
February 22 - 26, 2006
Washington, DC
at the Washington Convention Center
The World Parkinson Congress, Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an international forum for the best scientific discoveries, medical practices and caregiver initiatives related to Parkinson's disease. By bringing physicians, scientists, allied health professionals, caregivers and people with Parkinson's disease together, we hope to create a worldwide dialogue that will help expedite the discovery of a cure and best treatment practices for this devastating disease.
Website: http://www.worldpdcongress.org/
Contact: info@worldpdcongress.org
February 24 - 25, 2006
St. Paul, Minnesota
at Weyerhauser Memorial Chapel, Macalester College
This presentation introduces the audience to the problem of environmental injustice/racism and links it to the issues of human rights abuses and ecological destruction around the globe. After laying out in some detail the contours of these problems, the presentation then considers the various ways that social activists are tackling the problems of ecocide and environmental racism. Examples may include New Orleans neighborhoods left wounded by Hurricane Katrina, communities in the Caribbean and Pacific Islands battling the US military and various corporations' environmentally and socially unjust polluting practices, and the efforts of Roma communities in Central and Eastern Europe to address environmental racism and human rights abuses in that part of the world. The main points are 1) to challenge our common wisdom about racism by connecting race to ecological destruction and human rights; and 2) to demonstrate the comparative and interrelated nature of environmental justice movements across racial, ethnic, and national boundaries.
Website: http://www.macalester.edu/americanstudies/afamconf7.html
Contact: scott@macalester.edu
February 24 - 26, 2006
Denver, Colorado
at the Adam's Mark Hotel
Living Beyond Breast Cancer and the Young Survival Coalition have created this conference for young women affected by breast cancer and those who support them. The conference offers 1) the latest medical, psychosocial and practical information from nationally acclaimed breast cancer experts; 2) workshops relevant to recently diagnosed young women, those who have completed treatment, those living with advanced or metastatic breast cancer and caregivers; and 3) opportunities to network and explore issues of concern with other women like you.
Website: http://www.youngsurvivorsconference.org/2006.html
Contact: mail@lbbc.org
February 28, 2006
London, England
at the Society of Chemical Industry, 14/15 Belgrave Square
Following the enthusiastic response to previous symposia, the Green Chemistry Network is holding its third Green Chemistry and the Consumer symposium 'Greener Products: Opportunities and Challenges'. This symposium will highlight the key opportunities and challenges facing the creation of greener products with a particular focus on the area of surfactants, which have a diverse range of applications from cosmetic and personal care products, detergents, paints, coatings, inks to pharmaceuticals and foods. This one-day symposium marks the beginning of a series of annual symposia, which will each year address a different cross-sectorial theme appropriate to greener products. Through a series of presentations, breakout sessions, case studies and current research, the symposium will provide an insight into understanding key challenges and drivers and identifying potential solutions and ways forward for the creation of greener products. This event presents a unique opportunity for academics, industry, retail, government, NGOs and other relevant organisations to come together for mutual learning and technology transfer, as well as providing an invaluable opportunity for networking.
Website: http://www.chemsoc.org/networks/gcn/events.htm
Contact: Louise Summerton, Green Chemistry Networks Assistant, 01904 434546
March 9, 2006
Seattle, Washington
at Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Avenue (at Seneca Street)
While global warming has captured a great deal of media attention, reports have often been framed in abstract or theoretical terms that do not explain, in practical terms, its effects on human health. Jonathan Patz, MD, MPH, is associate professor of Environmental Studies and Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he directs a university-wide initiative on Global Environmental Health. He is also the founder of the Program on Health Effects of Global Environmental Change at Johns Hopkins University and serves as an affiliate scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Dr. Patz will lecture on the relationships between land use, climate change and infectious disease.
This lecture is part of an annual environmental health lecture series, "Our Health, Our Environment: Making the Link" sponsored by the Seattle Biotech Legacy Foundation and organized by the Institute for Children's Environmental Health (http://www.iceh.org).
Website: http://washington.chenw.org/lectures.html
By Jeff Wheelwright, Discover Vol. 27 No. 03
March 2006
http://www.discover.com/issues/mar-06/features/toxic-inheritance/?page=2
On an early spring day in New York City, a clean wind from the north sweeps down the Hudson River. Cars are backed up on the George Washington Bridge, their tailpipes spewing, yet the air today seems to brush the pollution away. It is so clear I can make out every fissure in the rust-colored cliffs of the Palisades across the river in New Jersey. What a terrific view Frederica (Ricky) Perera has from her 25th-floor office.
However clear the day, the view is deceiving. For 25 years the 64-year-old professor of environmental health sciences at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health has been probing the long-term, invisible impacts of air pollution on health. An award-winning cancer investigator and defender of the welfare of newborn children, Perera comes from the public-health model of disease, which assumes that most ailments are conveyed from outside the body and can be prevented. She has pioneered a field called molecular epidemiology, a hybrid science that melds urban surveys with subtle molecular changes. Her work ranges from the noxious tailpipe to the precancerous cell, evaluating all the possible way stations of disease. It is an extremely complicated task because it is so broad. Progress in molecular epidemiology has been slow, but Perera is not one who gets discouraged.
Just blocks from her base at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health are the low-income neighborhoods of Washington Heights and Harlem. The poor there tend to live with more pollution than other people do. Some is of their own making, like cigarette smoke, but a lot of it they cannot avoid, like lead in old paint and smoggy urban air. The predominantly African American and Dominican subjects of her research live a world apart from Ricky Perera, yet she thinks about their health all the time.
Since it began in 1998, her Mothers and Newborns Study has enrolled 700 women. The project monitors women's exposures to airborne chemicals during pregnancies and tests their babies as soon as they are born. Tracking particles of pollution that pass from mother to child, Perera and her team have connected the process to lower birth weights and smaller head circumferences in some infants. She suspects cancer could be an outcome as well, although it's too early in the study to know for certain.
Perera has agreed to take me to a clinic where participants in her studies are recruited. Wearing black slacks and pale makeup, she puts on a black leather jacket and a black leather backpack. Thin and athletic, she walks at a rapid clip down 168th Street. When we get to the Audubon Clinic, which serves low-income patients and is supported by the university, we sit in the corner of the waiting room, trying to be unobtrusive. Perera's eyes flick about for pregnant women.
An assistant with a bunch of flyers strolls in front of the young women waiting in plastic chairs. Because of new rules protecting patients' privacy, the staffer cannot give them a hard sell about joining the study. Rather, she simply asks women if they would like some information about a research project. It helps that each mother-to-be in Perera's study receives a series of small payments.
The first research step, she says, is "collecting dust and air samples and interviewing the mom at home." After the pollutants are recorded, the next step is to look for biological signs of chemical exposure, which she calls markers. Some markers may represent early fingerprints of disease.
The simplest markers show concentrations of foreign substances in blood or fat. Take lead, perhaps the most dangerous of common pollutants. The amount of the metal in a child's blood has proved to be a reliable indicator of the amount of neurological or cognitive damage following exposure to leaded gasoline or paint chips. Although a mother's placenta is usually a barrier against many unwanted chemicals, lead, like some other chemicals, passes directly from the mother to the fetus. As Perera notes sardonically, "One way to get rid of lead is to have a baby."
Her favorite chemicals -- favorite in the sense that she has studied them more than any others -- are the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in cigarette smoke, power-plant emissions, automobile exhaust, and other sources of combustion. These compounds cause cancer in laboratory animals, and studies of industrial workers strongly suggest they can cause lung cancer in humans too. Near the end of her pregnancy, each woman wears an air monitor, a small pump-and-filter system that records the hydrocarbons she breathes over 48 hours. No smokers are enrolled in the research, but many of the women report they are exposed to secondhand smoke at home or at work.
When a participant goes into labor, she is supposed to notify the Columbia center. A staffer retrieves the placenta and draws a tube of blood from the umbilical cord, in effect taking a sample from the baby. If possible, blood is collected from the mother, too, and the lab later identifies and compares markers in the samples. Perera isn't interested in raw amounts of pollutants in the subjects' tissue or fluids. Instead, she looks for signs of hydrocarbon exposure in the genetic material of the white blood cells, because chemical interference with DNA can initiate cancer.
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the health agency that pursues the environmental causes of cancer, has been a major funder of Perera's center. The institute has seen its support pay off in 54 publications by Perera's group in the past four years. A paper published just before my visit has caused a stir of media interest. The Columbia investigators analyzed three possible links in the tortuous chain from chemicals outside the mother to cancer inside the child.
The full version of this article can be read online by registered Discover Magazine subscribers or purchased by Discover.com members.
by Terrence J. Collins and Chip Walter, Scientific American
March 2006 issue
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=000A55EC-EAE2-13F5-A75F83414B7FFE9F
The fish that live in the Anacostia River, which flows through the heart of Washington, D.C., are not enjoying its waters very much. The Anacostia is contaminated with the molecular remnants of dyes, plastics, asphalt and pesticides. Recent tests have shown that up to 68 percent of the river's brown bullhead catfish suffer from liver cancer. Wildlife officials recommend that anyone who catches the river's fish toss them back uneaten, and swimming has been banned.
The Anacostia is just one of dozens of severely polluted rivers in the U.S. The textile industry alone discharges 53 billion gallons of wastewater -- loaded with reactive dyes and other hazardous chemicals--into America's rivers and streams every year. New classes of pollutants are turning up in the nation's drinking water: traces of drugs, pesticides, cosmetics and even birth-control hormones. The amounts are often infinitesimal, measured in parts per billion or trillion (a part per billion is roughly equivalent to one grain of salt dissolved in a swimming pool), but scientists suspect that even tiny quantities of some pollutants can disrupt the developmental biochemistry that determines human behavior, intelligence, immunity and reproduction.
Access to the full article is through http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=000A55EC-EAE2-13F5-A75F83414B7FFE9F
by Cornelia Dean, New York Times
February 19, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/19/national/19science.html
ST. LOUIS -- David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist and president of the California Institute of Technology, is used to the Bush administration misrepresenting scientific findings to support its policy aims, he told an audience of fellow researchers Saturday. Each time it happens, he said, "I shrug and say, 'What do you expect?'" But then, Dr. Baltimore went on, he began to read about the administration's embrace of the theory of the unitary executive, the idea that the executive branch has the power or even the obligation to act without restraint from Congress. And he began to see in a new light widely reported episodes of government scientists being restricted in what they could say in public. "It's no accident that we are seeing such an extensive suppression of scientific freedom," he said. "It's part of the theory of government now, and it's a theory we need to vociferously oppose." Far from twisting science to suit its own goals, he said, the government should be "the guardian of intellectual freedom."
Dr. Baltimore spoke at a session here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Though it was organized too late for inclusion in the overall meeting catalogue, the session drew hundreds of scientists who crowded a large meeting room and applauded enthusiastically as speakers denounced administration policies they said threatened not just sound science but also the nation's research pre-eminence. The session was organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit organization that has been highly critical of the Bush administration.
Not all of the speakers had harsh words for the administration. Rita R. Colwell, who headed the National Science Foundation, the government's leading financing organization for the physical sciences, from 1998 to 2004, said she had never experienced political pressure in that job. But, Dr. Colwell said, the free flow of scientific information is crucial for maintaining the nation's leadership in research. Threats to that, she said, are second only to terrorism as threats to the nation's security.
Another speaker, Susan F. Wood, former director of the office of women's health at the Food and Drug Administration, said administration interference with the agency's scientific and regulatory processes had left morale there at a "nadir." Dr. Wood, who received a standing ovation from many in the audience, resigned in August to protest agency officials' unusual decision to overrule an expert panel and withhold marketing approval for Plan B, the so-called morning after pill, a form of emergency contraception. She said she feared that competent scientists would leave rather than remain at an agency where their work was ignored because "social conservatives have extreme undue influence."
Later, in response to a question, she said that she might have consulted the agency's inspector general over the Plan B decision, but that inspectors general often had to be prodded by Congress before taking action. Democrats have little power in this Congress, she said, and Republicans who care about science have been "remarkably silent." Others in the audience said efforts to stifle researchers were attacks on more than science. "Administrative legitimacy has been violated as much as scientific legitimacy," said Sheila Jasanoff, an expert on science policy who teaches at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. "You can't get the most solid possible basis for making a decision unless you have not just the most credible and legitimate form of science but also the most credible and legitimate administrative process."
Leslie Sussan, a lawyer with the Department of Health and Human Services who emphasized that she was speaking only for herself, drew applause when she said she saw the administration's science policies as "an attack on the rule of law as a basis for self-government and democracy."
by Myron Levin and Alan C. Miller, Los Angeles Times staff writers
February 19, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-preempt19feb19,0,244158,full.story
WASHINGTON -- Near sunrise on a summer morning in 2001, Patrick Parker of Childress, Texas, swerved to avoid a deer and rolled his pickup truck. The roof of the Ford F-250 crumpled, and Parker didn't stand a chance. His neck broke and, at 37, he was paralyzed from the chest down. He sued, and Ford Motor Co. settled for an undisclosed amount. "You can imagine what happens when you're belted in and the roof comes down even with the door," Parker said. "Your options are death or quadriplegia."
Parker's case and hundreds like it are behind a beefed-up roof safety standard proposed in August by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But safety regulators tucked into the proposed rule something vehicle makers have long desired: protection from future roof-crush lawsuits like the one Parker filed. The surprise move seeking legal protection for automakers is one in a series of recent steps by federal agencies to shield leading industries from state regulation and civil lawsuits on the grounds that they conflict with federal authority. Some of these efforts are already facing court challenges. However, through arcane regulatory actions and legal opinions, the Bush administration is providing industries with an unprecedented degree of protection at the expense of an individual's right to sue and a state's right to regulate.
In other moves by the administration:
In a letter to President Bush on Thursday, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said, "It appears that there may have been an administration-wide directive for agencies ... to limit corporate liability through the rule-making process and without the consent of Congress." Administration officials said the initiatives had not been centrally coordinated. "Under the constitution, federal laws take priority over inconsistent state laws," said Scott Milburn, spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget. "Decisions about ... whether particular rules should preempt state laws are made agency by agency and rule by rule."
Preemption initiatives by regulatory agencies have drawn less public attention than controversial legislative moves supported by the White House. With administration support, Congress has restricted class-action suits and banned certain claims against gun makers and vaccine producers. By embedding similar protections for businesses in regulatory changes, the administration has advanced Bush's repeated pledge to rein in what he calls junk lawsuits. On Thursday, for example, when the Consumer Product Safety Commission adopted a rule to curb mattress fires, it recommended for the first time that courts bar suits against manufacturers that comply with the new standard. Schakowsky called the move "part of an unfortunate and troublesome pattern ... to undermine consumer rights."
In addition to trying to bar suits over vehicle roof failures, the highway safety agency in recent months has sought broad legal protection for manufacturers in two other rules on the grounds that lawsuits could undermine its safety goals. One rule related to rear seat belts and the other to visibility requirements for trucks. No similar exemption clauses have been attached to any other highway safety agency rule changes for 35 years. Industry executives, lobbyists and lawyers have shuttled through jobs in the highway safety agency and other departments over the years, but in the Bush administration, auto industry ties have grown more conspicuous.
Before becoming White House chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr. served as a General Motors Corp. vice president and as chief executive of the top auto industry trade group. The acting head of the highway safety agency, Jacqueline Glassman, was a senior attorney for DaimlerChrysler Corp. before she became the agency's chief counsel in 2002. Jeffrey A. Rosen, who became general counsel at the Transportation Department in 2003, was a senior partner at Kirkland & Ellis, a powerhouse law firm that has defended GM in numerous product-liability suits and represents the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Rosen denied using his position to benefit automakers. "We have issued a number of major rules in the two years that I have been here," he said. "Some of them are supported by industry, some are opposed."
Michael S. Greve, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, has written that preemption is crucial to protect the economy from "trial lawyers, ambitious state attorneys general and parochial state legislatures." But critics say the preemption push contradicts the conservative ideals of a limited federal government and states' rights -- principles espoused by Bush. "This is the most aggressive federal government in the history of the United States," said California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, a Democrat.
Some say the election calendar is spurring the moves. "The message has been clear in the last couple of years that if industries are going to get protection, they need to get it now," because no one knows what will happen in the next election, said Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor. Rollover accidents kill more than 10,000 people in the U.S. each year, and seriously injure an additional 16,000. Consumer groups say better roofs would have saved thousands of victims over time.
Automakers counter with the "roof dive" theory -- that rollover victims fall head-first to the roof as it strikes the ground, injuring themselves whether the roof holds or buckles. Thus, they say, the value of stronger roofs is practically nil. Brian O'Neill, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, called this argument "patently nonsense." If it were true, he said, people would be "just as well-off in a rollover in a convertible as a hardtop."
The highway safety agency always has agreed that roof failures can cause death and injury. Its roof-crush proposal estimates that 596 deaths and 807 serious injuries a year are linked to roof collapse. Its proposed rule would increase the force a roof must withstand in a rollover from its current 1.5 times a vehicle's weight to 2.5 times -- at a cost per vehicle of about $12. It would cover large trucks and SUVs of more than 6,000 pounds for the first time. The agency also is considering requiring stability control systems to reduce rollover risk. The revised roof rule would create "the strongest ever uniform set of minimum ... standards" for automakers in the U.S., Transportation Department spokesman Brian Turmail said.
However, the safety agency is projecting relatively modest benefits from the upgrade: 13 to 44 deaths and 500 to 800 injuries prevented a year. One reason: Nearly 70% of existing vehicles already meet the proposed standard. Critics call this a token improvement. The stiffest criticism, however, has been reserved for the effort to grant immunity from lawsuits. The safety agency says its push to preempt personal injury litigation is based on a concern that automakers, fearful of lawsuits, might beef up roofs to such an extent that the vehicles become top-heavy and more prone to roll over.
John G. Womack Jr., a former acting chief counsel at the safety agency, said that equating roof strength with weight was a "very debatable proposition." Other options are to use high-strength steel or widen the stance of vehicles to compensate for heavier roofs, he said. Diverse groups -- including Public Citizen, a consumer watchdog, and the National Conference of State Legislatures -- have condemned the provision and questioned the highway safety agency's authority to protect automakers.
Some have complained that if companies could not be held liable for damages, it would remove incentives for automakers to exceed minimum safety standards. A bipartisan group of 26 state attorneys general said in a December letter to the highway safety agency that the lawsuit ban, if accepted by the courts, would shift significant costs of caring for seriously injured victims from the industry to taxpayer-funded programs such as Medicaid. It would also conflict with consumer rights, they said. "Such an extreme step is unwarranted in the absence of express congressional intent," they wrote.
Roof-crush suits have resulted in costly settlements and verdicts against automakers at a time of widespread financial trouble for the U.S. industry. In 2004, Ford paid $41 million in a case in which a California appeals court compared the company's use of a fiberglass and metal roof in the 1978 Bronco to "involuntary manslaughter." The same year, a San Diego jury awarded damages against Ford of $367 million, later reduced by the judge to $150 million. In 2003, GM was hit with a $19.6-million verdict, described as the largest product liability award in Nebraska history. The San Diego and Nebraska cases are being appealed.
For victims like Parker, the prospect of manufacturer immunity is an especially bitter pill. The paralyzed Texas man, who had worked as a technician for a local utility, said he at least gained some financial security through litigation by extracting a settlement from Ford. Otherwise, he said, he and his wife "would have been living from hand to mouth." He criticized the preemption clause, saying it was as if the industry had "this red phone and they just pick it up and it automatically dials NHTSA."
The immunity clause was unexpected, even to some in the industry. "Whether this was some conspiracy or whether it was a pleasant surprise, I really don't know," said Barry Felrice, director of regulatory affairs with DaimlerChrysler in Washington. Spokesmen for GM and Ford said that their companies had not lobbied for the lawsuit ban but that they supported it. Bill Walsh, a former highway safety agency senior executive who worked on the rule before retiring in 2004, said the immunity language "was dropped in from out of the blue." "Preempting lawsuits, he said, was "different from how we normally operated ... in issuing regulations."
Rosen, the Transportation Department's general counsel, said this was not the first time the highway safety agency had tried to override state liability laws. During the 1990s, the agency joined automakers in arguing that they shouldn't be sued for not installing air bags at a time when the agency allowed either air bags or automatic seat belts. In 2000, the Supreme Court agreed that such suits were preempted but said that compliance with a standard ordinarily "does not immunize a manufacturer."
Card, the White House chief of staff, and Glassman, the agency's chief counsel, declined to discuss how the roof-crush lawsuit preemption originated. Rosen said he did not want "to get into the specifics of who said what to whom.... As a legal matter, I'm obliged to protect the deliberative process."
The Rev. Lawrence Harris of Pittsgrove, N.J., sees the issue from the vantage point of his wheelchair. Had his claim been preempted after a devastating accident with his family in North Carolina, he might not be preaching on Sundays. Harris, then 46, was wearing a seat belt but suffered a fractured spine in 1997 when his Ford Econoline van rolled over. Except for minimal movement in his hands, he was paralyzed from the chest down. With the damage award he won from Ford, Harris installed a roll-in shower and wheelchair lift in his house, hired a caretaker to help him dress each morning, and modified a van so he could continue as pastor of Olivet United Methodist Church. Without the lawsuit, he said, "I would not be able to do the things I'm able to do." If automakers are immune, Harris said, "where is the check and balance going to be for them?"
Within days of its roof-crush proposal, the highway safety agency again backed the auto industry in challenging California's efforts to cut emissions. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers had gone to court to stop the state Air Resources Board from regulating tailpipe emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, contending the rule was preempted. Because carbon dioxide emissions drop when less fuel is burned, the industry attacked the rule as a backdoor attempt to regulate fuel economy -- under federal law, the exclusive domain of the highway safety agency. The agency agreed. On Aug. 23, it issued new mileage standards for light trucks, saying that its authority over fuel economy meant that "a state law that seeks to reduce motor vehicle carbon dioxide emissions is ... preempted."
Industry lawyers filed papers the next day in U.S. District Court in Fresno informing the judge of the agency's position. California's global warming rule, which would first apply to 2009 models, is not all that's at stake in the Fresno case. Ten states have copied California's emission rule, and all those rules could be wiped out if the industry wins.
Rosen's former law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, represents the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers in the suit to block California's global warming rule. The suit was filed in late 2004, a year after Rosen left the firm to join the Transportation Department. Transportation spokesman Turmail said Rosen did not discuss the matter with the law firm. In considering the safety agency's position on the matter, Rosen acted in the government's interest, Turmail said.
Eleven U.S. senators from both parties and 29 House Democrats from California have urged Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta to reverse the agency's opposition to the emissions standard. "Rather than attempting to thwart such state efforts, the federal government should encourage states to develop innovative solutions to serious public health and environmental problems," the senators wrote to Mineta in December.
Kirkland & Ellis also represented automakers in another case against California regulators. In 2002, the industry -- backed by the Justice Department -- challenged a state rule that required production of a certain number of non-polluting vehicles. Rosen said he did not participate in that case while he was with the law firm. The case was settled when the state agreed to remove language that the industry said amounted to regulating fuel economy.
The Bush administration also helped two industry groups overturn a regulation requiring the purchase of cleaner-running fleet vehicles such as buses and garbage trucks in Southern California. The Engine Manufacturers Assn. and Western States Petroleum Assn. claimed the rule by the South Coast Air Quality Management District was preempted by federal law. Their challenge was rejected in federal district court and by a federal appeals court. When the case went to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Justice Department filed a brief siding with the industry. The high court agreed that the local rules were preempted.
In the past, said California's Atty. Gen. Lockyer, when industries challenged state regulations, "the federal government abstained from those lawsuits." Now, he said, there's "a policy of rubber-stamping whatever business wants, and that's too bad."
The idea behind another California law was simple: Tell credit cardholders on monthly bills how long it would take to retire their debt if they paid the minimum amount. But major banks issuing most of the nation's credit cards didn't like it. In a 2002 court challenge, they attacked the state's credit disclosure law with help from a powerful ally. The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency joined forces with the American Banking Assn., Citibank and other plaintiffs, arguing in a friend-of-the-court brief that the law interfered with federal authority to regulate national banks, and with powers granted to the banks by their federal charters. A federal judge blocked the law from going into effect, and the state lost a subsequent appeal. Intervention by the comptroller's office "definitely tipped the balance," said Gail Hillebrand, a lawyer for Consumers Union, which had backed the state's position.
In recent years, the comptroller's office on many occasions has helped national banks and their subsidiaries fend off investigations or enforcement actions by state officials on preemption grounds. In 2004, for example, the agency helped to shoot down a California law that would have required customer permission before banks shared their personal information with business affiliates. Although a U.S. District Court judge upheld the privacy law, an appeals court ruled last year that its major provisions were preempted by federal law.
Last year, the agency went to court on the side of a banking association to block an investigation by New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer into possible racial bias in the lending practices of several banks. A federal judge agreed that Spitzer's investigation "impermissibly infringes" on the authority of the comptroller's office. The state is appealing.
Turf battles over banking regulation have occurred in the past, but the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has become more aggressive in pushing preemption under Bush. Agency officials say they have zero tolerance for abusive practices and bristle at complaints that they might be chasing off state watchdogs to the detriment of consumers. The banks "have an enormous body of consumer compliance laws and regulations that we apply to them at the federal level," said Julie L. Williams, the agency's senior deputy comptroller and chief counsel. But Arthur E. Wilmarth Jr., a George Washington University professor specializing in banking law, said, "The OCC hasn't been, shall we say, a very zealous enforcer on the consumer side.... States have been far more vigorous."
Greve, the American Enterprise Institute scholar who has been a mainstay of the conservative brain trust promoting preemption, said well-connected industry law firms were part of a policy network providing legal and political rationale for the effort. He called them "a merry band of Washington lawyers ... who know how to push the buttons" and get things done.
Levin reported from Los Angeles and Miller from Washington. Times researcher Janet Lundblad in Los Angeles also contributed to this report.
by Rosemary Winters, the Salt Lake Tribune
February 19, 2006
http://www.sltrib.com/business/ci_3524127
Although his desk sits in the middle of a 15,400-square-foot manufacturing floor, Gary Aoki can spy peregrine falcons, bald eagles and red-tailed hawks through his binoculars. Bird watching is one of many advantages of the engineer's work space at Radius Engineering. The 20-year-old company designed its new facility on the banks of the Jordan River to have panoramic mountain views, abundant natural light, clean air and a comfortable climate. The "green" building is also projected to use half the energy of a conventional building its size.
Green building has been touted as a way to cut operations and maintenance costs, but it's increasingly being adopted to provide healthier workplaces for employees and boost productivity. Employers can boost productivity by 7.1 percent annually by improving indoor air quality, increasing sunlight and controlling office temperatures, according to a 2003 study of green building by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the state's development agency for renewable energy.
Spending on green goods and services in the United States hit $7 billion in 2004, up 37 percent from 2003, according to the U.S. Green Building Council, which certifies green buildings with its LEED rating system, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The group has certified 113 green offices and 385 green buildings nationwide and reports that at least 3,000 more projects are in development. The federal government is leading the movement, requiring that the General Services Administration find or build green buildings for government agencies. In Utah, only two office buildings -- the Scocroft Building in Ogden and the OSHA Salt Lake Technical Center in Sandy -- are LEED certified, and both were commissioned by the GSA, which leases the facilities on behalf of government tenants.
"In the building industry, change doesn't happen until the government makes it happen. Large corporations tend to follow suit," says Tammy Eatough, a realty specialist at GSA. "Our anticipation is that we will be spending fewer taxpayer dollars over time for LEED-certified buildings. . . . We've also noticed that people tend to be happier and take fewer sick days in these locations." At the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's new lab in Sandy, scientists analyze air-quality samples and materials from workplaces around the country. Before moving in two years ago, the employees worked in an old warehouse where only a few management offices had windows. "Everybody lived on anti-depressants because we were in a cave," says Lynn Kenison, a senior chemist at the OSHA Technical Center.
City firm Architectural Nexus designed the 72,000-square-foot building to have natural light in 75 percent of all occupied spaces. The building also used materials with recycled content, an energy-efficient HVAC system and automated lighting. The improvements boost the building's energy performance by 47 percent and result in annual savings of $43,853, according to Architectural Nexus.
If Radius Engineering is able to achieve LEED certification for its building, it could become the first private employer in Utah to do so. The company has registered for certification, but only a fraction of the projects that apply gain approval because of stringent requirements. LEED buildings are rated at four levels: standard, silver, gold and platinum. Chris Bachorowski, lead architect for the Radius project, expects the building to be rated silver, which is the same rating Utah's other two green workplaces earned. Dimitrije Milovich, founder and president of Radius, says he built green because he wanted to have a minimal impact on the environment and provide a high-quality workplace for employees. The biggest hurdle was financing -- the building's special features added about 15 percent to its price tag. Milovich approached several banks before securing loans from Utah First Bank and the U.S. Small Business Administration. "They could see the payback," Milovich says. "It's not easy to go to conventional lenders and say 'I want to do something unusual.' Banks don't want to hear that."
The Radius building's enhanced design was more expensive than most. Green buildings typically cost 2 percent more initially, but they recoup 20 percent of construction costs over 20 years through lower energy costs and other savings, according to a study released in 2003 by California's Sustainable Building Task Force. Milovich expects the biggest savings to come in labor costs. In a 10-year period, a building and its operation represents only 8 percent of a company's primary costs, but workers account for 82 percent, according to BOSTI Associates, a workplace research firm in Buffalo, N.Y. "If you can improve the satisfaction of employees and their performance on the job [by providing a better work environment], every percent benefit you get is enormous. It's worth 10 times the cost," Milovich says.
Milovich combined green building with high-performance work space design in the facility, which houses about 20 aerospace engineers and technicians. "Cool daylighting" -- natural light without the heat -- almost eliminates the need for artificial lighting during the day and reduces the building's heat load. Displacement ventilation and use of paints and materials with little or no Volatile Organic Compounds provide better air quality and more efficient cooling than a conventional building. Vents and task lighting in each office cubicle allow occupants some temperature and lighting control. "You feel like you've got a lot of breathing space here. It's just more comfortable" than the old building, Aoki says. Plus, employees generally are more productive simply because the space is designed better. San Francisco-based work space designer Phyl Smith interviewed employees before they moved and designed work spaces suited to their needs. The company's former location in Millcreek was so small that other projects would have to be moved out of the way to accommodate a larger one. It was an inconvenience that employees dubbed "the Radius shuffle."
The new South Salt Lake building is basically a one-room warehouse with office cubicles in the center and manufacturing around the perimeter. Virtually all surfaces have acoustic treatments to muffle the noise. The unusual design allows engineers to walk a few steps from their desks and see their designs being made. There's still a view to the outside from every desk.
"In a traditional manufacturing plant, administration is in the front and production is in the back -- often, without windows. You get this really distinct hierarchy," Milovich says. "We feel like we're all in this together. . . . The model I had in mind was a campfire." The design also improves communications among employees, who bump into one another more often, says human resources manager Barbara Boehme. She's seen a boost in morale since Radius moved to its new building. "It does a lot for employees' attitudes and emotional and psychological well-being to come into a building with this much natural light. As employees, we all know that Dimitrije put the time, the energy and the money into creating a building that we would enjoy working in. When the owner's goal is not to save as much as he can, but to create a healthy environment for employees, a lot is said."
The Boston Globe contributed to this article.
by Martin Mittelstaedt, Environment Reporter, The Globe and Mail
February 18, 2006
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060218.SMOG18/TPStory/Environment
TORONTO -- Ontario's Environment Minister says a Bush administration proposal to weaken pollution laws on hundreds of the oldest and dirtiest coal-fired power plants in the United States is a "backward step" that will undermine the province's clean-air programs. The U.S. proposal is "bad news for the health of people living anywhere in our shared air shed, no matter if you've got a postal code or a ZIP code," Laurel Broten said yesterday. Her comments came after Ontario joined 11 U.S. states, mainly from the northeast, in filing objections to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposal that would allow aging coal-fired power plants to continue operating without up-to-date pollution controls. Most of these plants are in the Midwest or the Ohio Valley area.
Ontario has the most aggressive program in North America to fight pollution from coal-fired plants, and has promised to shut its five coal-fired power plants by 2009. But the province is worried the beneficial effects of its actions on air quality will be overwhelmed by continuing high levels of pollution from the U.S. plants. Fallout from U.S. air pollution is so extensive that unless there are significant additional reductions in trans-boundary pollutants, Ontario won't be able to comply with Canadian smog standards in 2010 when its coal plants are closed. "We could reduce our province's emissions to zero, and airborne pollutants from the U.S. carried in by prevailing winds would still trigger smog days," Ms. Broten told a news conference.
In its filing, the Ministry of Environment said there are 617 coal-fired power plants in states near Ontario that are so old (several hundred have been operating for 50 years or more) they have no abatement equipment at all, or don't have modern controls. These plants dump about six million tonnes of pollutants into the air. Comparable emissions from Ontario's five coal plants are about 230,000 tonnes. By Ontario's estimates, only 11 per cent of the U.S. fleet of coal plants have a full set of equipment to take out pollutants responsible for acid rain and smog.
In many parts of Southwestern Ontario, about 70 per cent to 90 per cent of air pollutants originate in the United States, according to the province's filing. Ontario says these pollutants then move through the province to affect Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.
Environmentalists welcomed Ontario's intervention, but expressed concern that the federal government hasn't indicated whether it will take a similar high-profile stand. There are worries that the new Conservative government may not be anxious to raise a cross-border pollution issue with the Bush administration, even though more than half the Canadian population lives downwind of harmful U.S emission sources. "I really hope this is not a case where the Prime Minister and the new Environment Minister think that by being silent they gain some favour with the U.S. government," said Paul Muldoon, a spokesman for the Canadian Environmental Law Association. "I think most Canadians, particularly those in Ontario and Quebec, should be appalled by the lack of federal action." Federal Environment Minister Rona Ambrose could not be reached yesterday for comment.
Under the U.S. Clean Air Act, old coal-fired power plants are required to install advanced pollution abatement equipment as they are refurbished. Enforcement of this law would lead to a reduction of more than 90 per cent in smog- and acid-rain-causing emissions. The Bush administration wants to replace this tough requirement with a relaxed rule that Ontario estimates would "at best" lead to a 70-percent drop in these pollutants, indicating that far bigger reductions would occur simply by enforcing existing rules.
U.S. environmentalists have also criticized the Bush administration proposal because the reductions would take 15 years to come fully into force. Ontario said the Bush proposal is "seriously flawed" and "will not address the immediate human cost of trans-boundary air pollution in Ontario." The filing said Ontario public health authorities estimate pollution from the United States causes about 2,700 deaths annually and about 12,000 additional hospital admissions as people seek treatment for smog-related ailments.
Cross-border air pollution
Ontario has joined 11 U.S. states in objecting to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposal that would allow coal-fired power plants to operate without up-to-date pollution controls.
Population |
Acid rain (thousand tonnes/year) |
Acid rain (pounds/person/year) |
Smog emissions (thousandtonnes/year) |
Smog emissions (pounds/person/year) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ontario |
12,259,600 |
169.5 |
27.65 |
62.6 |
10.21 |
Illinois |
12,653,544 |
365.3 |
57.74 |
145.9 |
23.06 |
Michigan |
10,079,985 |
350.8 |
69.60 |
118.8 |
23.57 |
Pennsylvania |
12,365,455 |
967.2 |
156.44 |
174.3 |
28.19 |
Ohio |
11,435,798 |
1,175 |
205.50 |
355.2 |
62.12 |
Source: Ontario Ministry of Environment
by Susan Levine, Washington Post staff writer
February 18, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021702033.html
More testing for groundwater problems in Northwest Washington neighborhoods where the U.S. Army researched chemical weapons during World War I has found new locations of perchlorate contamination, at some of the highest levels detected to date, according to officials. Undetermined is whether the contamination could end up in the Dalecarlia Reservoir or the Washington Aqueduct, both of which supply drinking water to more than 1 million people in the metropolitan area.
The three federal and city agencies involved in a multimillion-dollar cleanup of the Spring Valley community released data this week that showed elevated perchlorate concentrations in a monitoring well near the reservoir and in two other wells adjacent to where ordnance and laboratory glassware were dumped during the heyday of the Army's American University Experiment Station. The latest findings were from sampling in December. Perchlorate, a compound that was used nine decades ago in tests with mustard agent and screening smokes, can disrupt thyroid function and can contribute to developmental delays and infertility.
Given that two of the wells are just west of major disposal pits, the December findings were not surprising. They showed levels of 60 and 70 parts per billion, which exceed the previous high of 58 parts per billion detected in 2003 on the grounds of Sibley Memorial Hospital and are more than double a federal recommendation for perchlorate cleanup. Much more unexpected, however, was the 48 parts per billion reading from the third well, about 1,000 feet south of Dalecarlia at Loughboro Road and MacArthur Boulevard. "It's not real apparent where that perchlorate is coming from," said Gary Schilling of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is leading the project.
Twenty-nine wells have been installed throughout Spring Valley in the past nine months, aimed at answering that and other questions. Chief among the questions is whether the groundwater could breach the reservoir. Schilling considers that highly unlikely but acknowledged, "We're concerned with finding out where this stuff is flowing." No Spring Valley residents use groundwater for drinking, cooking or bathing. Officials continue to vouch for the safety of the drinking water processed from the reservoir by the Washington Aqueduct and supplied to the District, Arlington County and Falls Church. "It is not a drinking water concern," District Health Director Gregg A. Pane reiterated yesterday. Testing of water in the reservoir and of the aqueduct's finished product has only periodically shown the presence of perchlorate, at amounts about 2 parts per billion or less, officials said. But even those traces have raised questions given the ever-closer proximity of perchlorate in the groundwater, especially at the more elevated levels.
While praising the investigation for taking "all the right actions," Pane said anything that could put the reservoir at risk is worrisome. Virginia Commonwealth University scientist Peter deFur, the consultant to a residents advisory board on the cleanup, agreed that the reservoir's potential vulnerability is "the controlling question in terms of an immediate threat to public health." How and where further sampling will be conducted and how the investigation will be broadened should be determined during the next month.
The December results from the six newest wells also showed low levels of arsenic and an unconfirmed finding of HMX, or high melting explosive. But recently validated analyses from samplings of more than a dozen wells revealed no detectable traces of more than 160 chemicals and elements used at the experiment station during World War I, groundwater project manager Ed Hughes said.
by Jonathan Richards, The Times
February 18, 2006
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2045700,00.html
THE next time you reach for bottled water stacked on the supermarket shelf, spare a thought for the planet. You may think that it is better for you to buy such water, but better for the environment it certainly is not. Despite its pure image, bottled water is making a significant contribution to climate change. The industry produces as much greenhouse gas as the electricity consumption of about 20,000 homes in a year, according to research by The Times.
To supply the more than two billion litres of bottled water that is consumed by Britons every year, a quarter of which comes from abroad, bottled-water companies produce 33,200 tonnes of CO2 emissions, just less than the electricity consumption of 20,000 households, and the equivalent of the energy needs of 6,000 households. The principal environmental cost comes from transport -- about a fifth of bottles come from southeast France, about 600 miles (1,000 km) away -- but there are also costs involved in the manufacture and disposal of bottles. Evian transports its water about 930km from Lake Geneva, producing about 14,000 tonnes of CO2 in the process. Volvic, whose water comes from Auvergne, produces about 9,000 tonnes. British suppliers, with smaller distances to travel, are less environmentally costly. Highland Spring, whose plant is in Blackford, Perthshire, produces about 5,500 tonnes each year, while Powwow produces an estimated 3,000 tonnes.
Most water bottles are made from PET plastic, a crude-oil extract that accounts for about 0.25 per cent of the world's annual oil consumption. The majority end up in landfill sites, where they take about 450 years to break down, or are incinerated. Of the 10 per cent of bottles that are recycled, more than half are shipped to countries such as China, 13,000km away, to be processed, and produce around half a million kilos of CO2 emissions getting there.
The industry said that it was unreasonable to single out bottled water for transport-associated costs because natural mineral waters had tastes "characteristic of the places they come from" for which people were willing to pay. Companies said that bottle production used about 30 per cent less plastic than ten years ago. Next year one company, Belu, will use Britain's first biodegradable bottle, which is made out of corn and will "compost" back into soil in ten weeks. "There is no doubt that all consumer industries have issues with products, including waste and packaging, but bottled water is one of the most responsible industries, partly because water is the end product, so companies treat the environment with respect," Richard Hall, the chairman of Zenith International, a drinks consultancy, said.
But environmental groups have urged consumers to return to tap water, which they say is 10,000 times cheaper, just as healthy and far less environmentally costly. "Bottled water ranks alongside patio heaters as one of the absurd producers of greenhouse gas emissions," Mike Childs, the head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, said. He recommended using filters if consumers wanted to remove the taste of chlorine. A standard carbon tap filter costs about 35 pounds.
A report by the Earth Policy Institute this week concluded that of the 154 billion litres of bottled water consumed globally each year, about a quarter had been imported, a fact disputed by the industry, which says that the figure is closer to 3 per cent. Evian exports about 50 per cent of its water to more than 120 countries. Volvic exports about 60 per cent. The report accused some producers of disrupting the water supply of local communities. The water-extraction facilities for Coca-Cola's Dasani line in India, for example, had caused water shortages in more than 50 villages, it said.
Bob Geldof, who has worked on water conservation issues in Africa, said: "It is the great irony of the 21st century that the most basic things in the supermarket, such as water and bread, cost the most. Getting water from the other side of the Earth to sell here is ridiculous."
Last year the bottled-water market was worth 1.7 billion pounds in Britain, and analysts predict that the market will grow at a rate of 9 per cent per year over the next five years, largely because of an increasing awareness of the importance of drinking plenty of water, and the fact that more consumers are choosing healthy alternatives to sugary drinks. The carbonated soft-drinks market, by contrast, fell by about 5 per cent in 2004.
by Megan Kinniment, The Northern Star (Australia)
February 18, 2006
http://www.northernstar.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3673113&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=
Research points to link between deadly disease and pesticides exposure. It start with a slight twitch in your face, or a loose grip on your coffee mug. However, within two years, sometimes three, the fatal Motor Neurone Disease (MND) ravages the body to the point where the sufferer can no longer breathe or swallow. It eventually leads to paralysis. And there is no known cure.
However, new research by Sydney University scientists may shed some light on the cause of the horrific disease, which has killed thousands of Australians including former Lismore mayor Bob Gates. But the findings will also sound warning bells for agricultural communities such as the Northern Rivers, which has a significantly higher rate per population of neurological disease than the rest of NSW.
The studies by Sydney University neurologist Dr Roger Pamphlett have uncovered a deadly link between exposure to pesticides and the degenerative disease MND. With pesticide exposure a daily occurrence for many on the North Coast, could the 'green and clean' region we call home be harbouring a toxic time bomb?
After being diagnosed with MND in 2002, former Lismore mayor Bob Gates naturally wondered what had caused it. Tragically, seven months after his diagnosis, with his movement limited and barely able to breathe, Cr Gates died without discovering the answer. Three years later his widow, Helen Gates, is still asking why. "He was very health conscious, there was no history of illness in the family, he was never underweight, never overweight...it was just out of the blue," said Mrs Gates, president of the NSW MND Association Northern Rivers Support Group.
Before he died, Cr Gates had been an active man; a surf lifesaver with the Ballina SLSC who had watched what he ate, barely drank and knew of no previous incidence of MND in his family history. As he faced death he reflected on a lifetime growing up on the Northern Rivers and the environmental factors that may have led to his MND. "After he got MND we were trying to work out 'how?'," Mrs Gates said. "Bob said maybe it was from his work as a quarry manager." Or, perhaps, she said, it was from his exposure as a child to pesticide residue in the Richmond River. "As a child he used to swim in the river and in those days everything went in -- pesticides, slops from the piggery, everything. You wouldn't let your kids swim in it these days," she said.
Helen Gates joins the growing number of local families who have lost loved ones to the mysterious disease. North Coast Area Health Service statistics from 2000/01 show the Northern Rivers has a significantly higher number of hospitalisations for nervous system disorders, compared with other areas of NSW.
On the Northern Rivers, 1533.22 men per 100,000 of population were hospitalised with nervous system disorders, compared with 1491.85 statewide; while 1465.68 Northern Rivers women were hospitalised, compared with 1385.7 statewide.
After three decades of practice, Lismore neurologist Dr Geoffrey Boyce has seen so many cases of MND in the past two years it has left him shaking his head. "I've seen more cases of Motor Neurone Disease in the Northern Rivers in the past two years than in the 10 years I worked in Cairns," he said. Dr Boyce said the incidence of degenerative Parkinson's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis was also higher than average on the Northern Rivers. But he cannot pinpoint why.
The Sydney University research may provide a clue. Dr Pamphlett's study of 900 people, including 300 with MND, has suggested regular exposure to pesticides may increase a person's risk of developing the condition. In particular, the Sydney University studies found that some patients with the progressive paralysing disease have differences in a gene known as paraoxynase, involved in the breakdown of organophosphates, the active ingredient of many commonly used pesticides. "We have found that people who had regular contact with pesticides, such as once a week for six months, are at greater risk of getting Motor Neurone Disease," Dr Pamphlett said.
That there is a high incidence of Motor Neurone Disease in this region, and that scientists are now making links between MND and pesticides, comes as no real surprise to environmental scientist and National Toxics Network president Jo Immig. Ms Immig, of Possum Creek, has devoted her scientific career to raising awareness of the hidden dangers of pesticides residue in our food, water and air. She has instigated changes to NSW environmental legislation regulating agricultural pesticides, making NSW the first State where it is mandatory for farmers to undertake training in using pesticides and farmers are now required to keep records of what pesticides they use. From 2007, it will be also mandatory for the public to be notified if pesticides are to be sprayed in a public place.
Ms. Immig said organophosphates, the group of pesticides targeted in the Sydney University studies on MND, were known nerve poisons. "They derived from World War II nerve gases," she said. "They kill insects by disrupting the nervous system. What hasn't been explored is the low-level impact these toxins have over time. We're only beginning to see the wave of illnesses coming through. It takes about 30 years for these degenerative diseases to manifest. I think what we are seeing here is the tip of the iceberg." It is the tip of an iceberg scientists have been bumping into for decades, ever since organophosphates were introduced, first as weapons of war, then as weapons against agricultural pests.
Dr Pamphlett stresses that a larger scientific study is needed to prove his initial findings, but he said it was not the first time pesticides had been linked with neurological disease. He said the connection had been made between pesticides and Parkinson's Disease, and studies in the Northern Hemisphere had shown that farmers regularly exposed to pesticides were two times more at risk of contracting MND.
by Tom Pelton, Sun Reporter
February 15, 2006
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-power0215,0,7643401.story?coll=bal-local-headlines
Air pollution from Maryland's six largest coal-fired power plants is estimated to cause about 700 premature deaths and 30,000 asthma attacks a year, according to a study by a Harvard School of Public Health scientist. The research by Jonathan Levy, assistant professor of environmental health, was funded and released Wednesday by the Maryland Nurses Association as part of a campaign with environmental groups to pass stronger air pollution laws in Maryland.
During a telephone news conference, Levy said that air pollution in Maryland had been improving from 1999 to 2003, but got worse in 2004 and 2005. "Power plant pollution is a major public health problem in Maryland, and this public health study documents the problem," said Brenda Afzal, community health specialist for the Maryland Nurses Association. "This makes a telling case for public action. Death and illness strike the most vulnerable among us, the youngest and elderly."
Robert Gould, a spokesman for Constellation Energy, the largest owner of power plants in Maryland, said the study's findings seem similar to conclusions reached by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency several years ago that spurred the creation of strict new federal air quality standards for air pollution. "Constellation Energy is very supportive of these new [federal] rules," Gould said. "And we have already announced our intention to spend an additional $500 million to $600 million to install additional air pollution controls on top of the $250 million we have already spent."
Levy said his estimate was based on previous studies -- some by the EPA -- that compared levels of fine soot in the air to rates of asthma attacks and heart attacks in different areas. He then examined data on the amount of pollutants coming out of Maryland's largest six coal-fired power plants, and extrapolated what the health impact of those pollutants would be in the region. In Maryland, Levy said, about 100 people a year die because of this power plant pollution, many from heart attacks, with the other 600 deaths annually in downwind states including Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. Maryland residents suffer about 4,000 asthma attacks because of this pollution, and state citizens miss about 100,000 work or school days, his report estimates.
The Maryland Nurses Association is working with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Environmental Integrity Project, the Maryland Public Interest Research Group and others to try to achieve passage of the Healthy Air Act, which is designed to reduce pollutants from state power plants by up to 90 percent by forcing them to install pollution control equipment. The power industry and business groups oppose the Maryland bill, warning that it could cost billions of dollars and potentially raise electricity rates or force older coal-fired power plants to shut down or operate less.
The Ehrlich administration, after opposing similar legislation the last two years, released proposed regulations last fall aimed at curbing pollution. The rules would cover fewer power plants and pollutants than the Healthy Air Act. Steve Peregoy, chief executive of the American Lung Association of Maryland, said either the Healthy Air Act or the governor's regulations would be a step in the right direction. "Maryland ranks as one of the highest polluted areas, and unfortunately power plants have been a major contributor to the problem," Peregoy said.
by Randall Chase, ABC News
February 15, 2006
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=1624471
DOVER, Del. (AP) -- A group of scientific advisers to the Environmental Protection Agency voted unanimously Wednesday to approve a recommendation that a chemical used in the manufacture of Teflon and other nonstick and stain-resistant products should be considered a likely carcinogen. The approval of the EPA's Science Advisory Board is conditioned on minor clarifications being made to a draft report submitted by a review panel, but no major changes will be made to the panel's findings.
The revisions called for by the SAB include making a cover letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson more reader-friendly and clarifying the scope of dissent among members of the SAB panel that reviewed the EPA's draft risk assessment of perfluorooctanoic acid, also known as C-8. Board members also agreed that the report should clarify why some unpublished scientific studies were considered by the panel while others weren't, and that the panel's findings should not be considered the last word on PFOA but should be updated as additional data become available.
PFOA is a processing aid used in the manufacturing of fluoropolymers, which have a wide variety of product applications, including nonstick cookware. The chemical also can be a byproduct in the manufacturing of fluorotelomers used in surface protection products for applications such as stain-resistant textiles and grease-resistant food wrapping. Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont Co., owner of the Teflon brand, is the sole producer of PFOA in North America.
Some members of the review panel disagreed with the majority view that PFOA should be classified as a "likely carcinogen," a finding that went beyond the EPA's own determination that there was only "suggestive evidence" from animal studies that PFOA and its salts are potential human carcinogens. "Are we talking two-fifths of the panel, or are we talking about a small number?" asked SAB Chairman M. Granger Morgan, head of the department of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Deborah Cory-Slechta, chair of the PFOA risk assessment review panel, said dissent from the majority views of the 16-member panel on issues it was asked to study typically was limited to three or four members.
Cory-Slechta also noted that an unpublished study from the 1980s linking PFOA to mammary tumors in laboratory rats was considered by the panel because it was peer-reviewed within the EPA and included in the original risk assessment submitted by the agency for review. The same could not be said for a 2005 review sponsored by the DuPont and 3M Co. challenging the earlier study's conclusion. "We do not feel that it rose to the same level of scrutiny as the other information we were considering," she said.
But 3M scientist John Butenhoff accused the panel of making "selective use" of information to make an unwarranted recommendation about PFOA's potential carcinogenicity. Robert Rickard, director of health and environmental sciences at DuPont's Haskell Laboratory, said the company had asked the review panel after its February 2005 meeting if it would be appropriate to submit new data, and was told it could.
The only SAB member to offer significant criticism of the PFOA review panel was James Bus, a lead toxicologist for Dow Chemical Co. Bus, who did not submit his written comments until shortly before Wednesday's meeting, said the review panel should have considered the DuPont-3M paper, and should have offered a stronger rationale for upgrading the recommended cancer descriptor from "suggestive evidence" to "likely carcinogen." Johnson, the EPA administrator, is free to accept the SAB's recommendations regarding PFOA, or to reject them. The EPA will use the report "as well as all new information that becomes available, to formulate the next steps in our continuing assessment of these chemicals," said Oscar Hernandez, director of the risk assessment division in the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.
By Danny Hakin, New York Times
February 15, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/15/nyregion/15emissions.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
ALBANY, Feb. 14 -- As New York and other states grapple with the gradually tightening requirements of the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency is refusing to turn over records detailing the levels of smog-causing compounds found in common household and industrial products like paints and varnishes. The Cost of Pollution Such volatile organic compounds are not only significant contributors to smog, but they have also been linked to a variety of health problems, including the rising asthma rates in cities like New York and Los Angeles.
After trying for two years to obtain the records, New York State sued the E.P.A. on Tuesday, saying that the agency has violated the Freedom of Information Act by denying the state's repeated requests for the records. State officials say they need the records to draw up a plan to comply with strict new rules on smog-forming pollution being phased in under the Clean Air Act. The records are submitted to the E.P.A. by manufacturers of paint products. New York and California, as well as some other states on the East Coast, have stricter regulations on volatile organic compounds because they have worse summertime smog problems than other states.
In refusing to turn over the records, the E.P.A. appears to be siding with paint manufacturers, which have been battling in court to prevent state attempts to regulate their products. And the paint companies have been aided in the past by at least one influential friend, Senator George V. Voinovich, an Ohio Republican who personally appealed to the E.P.A. on behalf of Sherwin-Williams, based in Cleveland. A letter he wrote in October 2004 asked the agency to heed the industry's objections to allowing some states to tighten their regulations of volatile organic compounds.
Now states are having trouble determining even what the levels of such pollutants are. Companies like Sherwin-Williams are stating that the information about the pollutants in their products, which they submitted to the E.P.A., is proprietary and represents trade secrets, an assertion that the agency has supported, according to New York's court filing. New York officials say the information should be made public, arguing that the agency, despite a request under the Freedom of Information Act, has not made a sincere effort to determine, as required by law, whether companies were making valid claims that the data was a trade secret.
One of the few documents that New York has received from the E.P.A. indicates that paint producers are often using a loophole in the regulatory system to pay their way out of reducing the pollutant levels of their products. Sherwin-Williams paid more than $5 million in 2002 to avoid fully reducing its levels of volatile organic compounds to required limits, according to the document. The amount was more than 15 times the noncompliance fee paid by any competitor. In a statement on Tuesday, New York's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, said that "the state is entitled by law to this critical information so it can effectively implement its clean air programs to preserve public health." He added, "The E.P.A. has no grounds on which to deny such a request." Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, is suing on behalf of the state's Department of Environmental Conservation, a branch of Gov. George E. Pataki's administration.
An E.P.A. spokesman, John R. Millett, said in a statement on Tuesday that the agency's intent "is to provide New York with all the information it is entitled to. The agency is looking into the matter in order to provide the state a final response to its request." Conway G. Ivy, a senior vice president at Sherwin-Williams, said a great majority of his company's products complied with the regulations on volatile organic compounds, though not the specialty products like paints used on roads or for industrial maintenance. "Our customer base indicates they would prefer the performance of these noncomplying products," he said.
The stalemate is the latest in a series pitting states, including those like New York and California, which have Republican governors, against the environmental policies of the Bush administration. In one battle, automakers, with the support of the E.P.A., are suing both New York and California over state plans to aggressively regulate emissions of carbon dioxide from cars and trucks. The Bush administration has rejected such state moves. Last year, Mr. Pataki and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California wrote a letter to President Bush asking him to preserve their ability to set stricter environmental rules.
The new lawsuit comes as the Bush administration has come under criticism for restricting the flow of information on issues related to smog-forming pollutants and global warming emissions. Last month, a top NASA scientist said that Bush administration officials were trying to censor his views on climate change. Last year, the administration delayed the release of a report on the gas mileage of cars and trucks until after the voting on the energy bill.
S. William Becker, executive director of the State and Territorial Air Pollution Program Administrators, an association of state and local air quality regulators, said the disclosure that 75 companies like Sherwin-Williams were paying fees in lieu of at least some of their required pollutant reductions was troubling. "What E.P.A. is doing is allowing the industry to buy their way out of federal regulations," he said. He added that states would be forced to regulate similar pollutants from the small businesses that cannot afford such fees, like bakeries and auto body repair shops.
Paul Recer, American Association for the Advancement of Science
December 21, 2006
http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2005/1221abelson.shtml
A growing global epidemic of chronic disease, such as heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, will cause at least 35 million deaths this year, costing the world economy billions of dollars, even though medical science has identified the principal causes and knows ways to prevent it, experts said at a AAAS seminar in Washington, D.C. Speakers at the first Philip Hauge Abelson Advancing Science Seminar said that twice as many premature deaths are caused worldwide by chronic diseases as by all infectious diseases, maternal and perinatal conditions and nutritional deficiencies combined. And while the toll from infectious diseases is declining globally, deaths from chronic disease are expected to increase by 17 percent in the next 10 years.
The 8 December seminar included speakers from the World Health Organization (WHO), from pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers and from university research labs. It was the inaugural event in a series named for Abelson, a researcher in physics, biology and other sciences, and the editor for 22 years of Science, which is published by AAAS. Abelson died last year at the age of 91. Alan I. Leshner, AAAS chief executive officer and executive publisher of Science, said the seminar series would address major societal challenges and focus on the frontiers of science and technology. Robert Beaglehole, WHO's director of Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion, said in the keynote address that the toll of premature death from chronic disease is increasing worldwide principally because of unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and the use of tobacco and the aging of populations in almost all countries.
Diet and the lack of physical activity is contributing to a growing pattern of obesity, a key risk factor for diabetes and early heart disease. And it's not just happening in the rich countries, such as the United States and South Africa, where recent reports show that 75 percent of women aged 30 and over are overweight. A "very frightening statistic," said Beaglehole, is that in countries both rich and poor, about 22 million children worldwide under the age of five are already obese. "We've done a lot to observe the emergence of this problem," he said. "We have done practically nothing to solve it."
Beaglehole said that common misunderstandings about chronic disease have affected policy decisions and slowed the worldwide response to the emerging epidemic. For instance, he said it's widely believed that premature heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other chronic diseases are mostly a plague among the elderly and among the rich in high-income countries. Actually, said Beaglehole, 80 percent of deaths from chronic diseases are in low- and middle-income countries. A WHO report found that poor people, in all but the least developed countries, are more likely than the rich to develop chronic diseases and are more likely to die early. And it is not just the elderly who are victims. The WHO report found that almost half of the deaths from chronic diseases occur in people under 70 years old. "A very dangerous misunderstanding is that chronic disease is the result of unhealthy lifestyles under the control of individuals," Beaglehole said. "The reality is that poor people and children have very limited choices, and it is unfair to blame them for the environmental conditions in which they suffer."
There's also the belief by many that chronic diseases and premature deaths cannot be prevented. "The reality is that approximately 80 percent of premature heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes is preventable, as are 40 percent of all cancers -- many of which result from tobacco consumption," said Beaglehole. "A few known risk factors explain the vast majority of premature chronic disease deaths."
A global effort to attack the causes of chronic disease could reduce death rates by 2 percent a year and save 36 million lives within a decade, he said. Ninety percent of the lives saved, said Beaglehole, would be in low- and middle-income countries. Slowing the epidemic of premature death from chronic diseases will have to involve policy issues beyond the health field, he said. For instance, farm subsidies often affect the type of food available in some countries. An example: The consumption of full fat milk is encouraged in schools in some European countries because of subsidies, said Beaglehole. Excessive fat, sugar and salt in the diet lead to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke. Other specialists at the Abelson seminar reported recent findings that offer new hope for treatment and management of heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and cancer.
Eric J. Topol, provost of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, said studies of families with heart attack have demonstrated specific genes that are causative or induce susceptibility. This will allow strategies of lifestyle and individualized therapy early in life to prevent heart attacks decades later. The battle against the growing epidemic of obesity will require fundamental changes in attitudes toward food and exercise, said Holly Wyatt, the program director at the Centers for Obesity Research and Education at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. In American society, she said, "we've had a lot of pressures to not expend more energy than we have to and we had a lot of pressure to eat more than we need."
To change the behaviors that lead to obesity will require encouragement from virtually every element in society -- employers, schools, churches, community centers and retail stores, she said. Such programs have worked in the past to discourage tobacco use and encourage using seat belts in cars. Without such an effort, Wyatt said that by 2008 about 75 percent of Americans will be at a body weight that negatively affects health.
Basic research on how the kidneys regulate salt in the body has given medical science a new understanding of the causes of high blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart attack, stroke and kidney failure, said Rick Lifton, Sterling Professor and chairman of Genetics atYale University School of Medicine. He said there are biological pathways and gene mutations that cause the kidneys to sequester sodium, leading to increases in blood pressure. Drugs to counter these effects could lead to dramatically improved treatments for hypertension, a disorder that affects a billion people world wide and is linked to about 5 million deaths annually.
Dr. Gerald I. Shulman, an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and professor of internal medicine and cellular & molecular physiology at Yale University, said that new, non-invasive studies using magnetic resonance spectroscopy have demonstrated that the development of insulin resistance in type 2 diabetes is directly related to the build-up of fat inside muscle and liver cells where it disrupts normal insulin signaling and action in these organs. Studies in transgenic and knockout mice as well as in humans have shown that removing this excess intracellular fat can restore insulin sensitivity and cure type 2 diabetes. The results from these studies provide new targets for novel therapies that might be developed to reduce intracellular fat levels and reverse insulin resistance in patients with type 2 diabetes, said Shulman.
