A Chance to Build Again
Many of the 85,000 dams in the United States are so old — an average of half a century — that every time one is repaired, two more become dangerously weak. Cities across the country discharge billions of gallons of untreated wastewater into rivers and lakes, and more than a quarter of all bridges are either deficient or obsolete.
The statistics are both frightening and familiar, though they tend to come up only in the “crumbling infrastructure” articles that appear after major disasters. In practice, government — with its lack of cash and consensus — keeps most of these projects on distant back burners until people actually lose their lives.
And then a disaster occurs — like the one in Japan, which was a reminder that even a well-prepared small country can suffer terribly from a natural disaster. The hazards are even greater for a sprawling one with a long history of indolent maintenance and planning.
Last week, though, a bipartisan group of senators came up witha promising idea to get some of these projects started, and very possibly put thousands of people back to work by doing so. The proposal, to create an infrastructure bank that would lend out seed money, represents a refreshing break from the extremist culture of cutting for the sake of cutting that grips Washington and so many state capitals. That culture blocks vital investment just to avoid sensible tax increases.
The proposal was presented by John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts; Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas; and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia. The bank would lend money to build big-ticket transportation, water and energy projects that have a clear public benefit. The loans, or loan guarantees, would be designed to attract private capital as well. In fact, at least half a project’s financing would have to come from the private sector. As much as $640 billion could be leveraged this way over the next decade, proponents say.
The bank would initially be funded with $10 billion from the treasury, which would be given out as loans, not grants. To make that possible, the bank would invest largely in projects that generate money, like toll bridges and tunnels, water systems backed by ratepayers, and energy projects built by utilities, governments or corporations. An independent, bipartisan board appointed by the president and Congress would choose the investments and oversee construction, audited by an inspector general and the Government Accountability Office.
By providing low-cost capital to states, cities and authorities, the bank would help these strapped governments kick-start projects that are now unaffordable, while attracting investments from pension and private-equity funds that are looking for stable money-generating ventures in which to invest. “We can either build, and compete, and create jobs for our people,” said Mr. Kerry, “or we can fold up, and let everybody else win. I don’t think that’s America.” The bank was backed by unions and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The idea builds on one that President Obama has proposed, a $30 billion bank limited to transportation projects that would also make grants. It is designed to be more palatable to lawmakers who are politically averse to spending, but alreadyconservatives are railing against what some have called a “boondoggle,” a phrase used to demonize virtually any public investment.
What will these opponents tell voters when the dams break and the bridges fall? Before more lives are lost, lawmakers should ask themselves whether they used their public office only to slash spending (and taxes for the wealthy), or to spend money wisely.
Long-Delayed Rules for Cleaner Air
After 20 years of delays and interminable litigation, the Obama administration has proposed a new rule requiring power plants to reduce emissions of mercury and other airborne toxics by 91 percent within the next five years. Some environmental groups saw the rule as the most important step forward for healthier air since the Clean Air Act was last updated in 1990. It is unquestionably a victory for the public: when fully effective, the rule could save as many as 17,000 lives a year.
Some — but by no means all — power companies complained that the rule would impose high costs yielding relatively little payoff. So, too, did Congressional Republicans who have been on a two-month crusade to undermine the E.P.A.’s authority to regulate a whole range of pollutants, including greenhouse gases.
The numbers do not support them: The E.P.A. estimates the annual cost of compliance at $10 billion a year, compared with health benefits from reduced hospital visits and lost time on the job at $100 billion a year. Mercury and other airborne toxics like lead, arsenic and chromium can adversely affect the nervous system in children and fetuses and worsen respiratory ailments.
Nor is there merit in the argument that the technology for controlling these pollutants is not available. About one-third of all states have imposed their own rules on air toxics. In response to these rules, as well as earlier federal regulations governing other pollutants, plants with 60 percent of the country’s coal-fired capacity have already installed pollution controls that can be upgraded to meet the new standards.
The new rules bring to a close a bitter regulatory battle in which industry’s lobbying power has largely had the upper hand. President Bill Clinton waited until the end of his tenure to issue rules. They were promptly rescinded by President George Bush, whose own rules — ghost-written, in part, by industry — were thrown out of court as inadequate and inconsistent with the law.
More broadly, the new rules will help drive the power sector toward greater investments in more efficient plants and cleaner fuel sources. While many older coal-fired units can be retrofitted without great cost, some will be retired and others switched to cleaner-burning natural gas. This is something industry can afford and the nation needs.
False Confessions
Douglas Warney, a person of limited mental capabilities who has been diagnosed with AIDS and AIDS dementia, served nine years in New York State prisons for a murder he did not commit. Now the state is seeking to compound the injustice by denying Mr. Warney compensation, even though there is a state law to provide redress for people who are wrongly convicted. New York’s highest court, which is considering his case, should not permit it.
Mr. Warney was convicted in 1997 based on a false confession that contained incriminating details the police said only the real killer could know. Mr. Warney’s wrongful conviction rested on that signed confession. There was no physical, eyewitness or forensic evidence tying him to the crime, and he was exonerated in 2006 by DNA evidence that showed the murder was actually committed by a man Mr. Warney had never met.
New York State has primarily argued, and lower state courts have rashly agreed, that Mr. Warney’s false confession makes him ineligible for compensation because the Unjust Conviction and Imprisonment Act bars recovery for those whose own misconduct caused their conviction.
That limit was meant to weed out deliberate misconduct to gain some tactical advantage, say a confession intended to conceal a loved one’s guilt. Mr. Warney’s false confession was not the product of misconduct. It was the reaction of a particularly susceptible individual to common police interrogation techniques that sometimes cause innocent people to confess. That phenomenon was illuminated in a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the American Psychological Association.
Peter Neufeld of the Innocence Project, who represents Mr. Warney, says roughly a quarter of DNA exonerations in New York have involved false confessions.
If there was misconduct in Mr. Warney’s case, it was on the part of police officers, who fed him “held back” facts about the murder and then claimed those facts in his typed confession originated with him, providing reliable proof of his guilt. When the case was argued before the Court of Appeals in February, several judges seemed troubled by these circumstances.
A ruling making clear that a false confession does not per se bar recovery under New York’s law would honor its language and intent and provide a measure of justice for Mr. Warney. It would set a worthy example as states with similar statutes confront the same issue.
Reconsidering the Robin
Emily Dickinson may have “dreaded that first robin so,” but she speaks for herself alone. To the rest of us, robins bring a mixture of joy and relief, the sign of a natural cycle still intact. The snow withdraws, and returning robins follow it across newly open ground like shorebirds tracing a falling tide. Their movement is almost as distinctive as their call: hasten and pause, hasten and pause. Once the ground is thoroughly thawed, there they are, tugging on earthworms as though they were the hawsers of the S.S. Earth.
And yet it’s only the first few robins in spring that really stand out. Soon we overlook them — because they’re so common and so open in manner, always in plain sight, flying low, nesting just out of reach above us. We see the familiarity as much as the bird itself, which wears, as always, a morning coat of gray and a waistcoat of the most understated red.
Give it a breast as vivid as the shoulder patches on a red-winged blackbird and the robin would never seem to recede the way it does as spring rushes onward, out-colored and out-sung by the birds of summer.
Somehow the robin stands for all the birds migrating now, the great V’s of geese heading north, the catbirds that will show up surreptitiously in a month. It also stands for the surprise of spring itself, which we had begun to fear would not arrive. We have all been keeping watch, as though one morning it might come sailing over the horizon. And now it’s here — the air a bit softer, snowdrops and winter aconites blooming, the bees doing their cleaning and the robins building their nests again.
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