SENATOR LAUTENBERG REFUSES TO GO GREEN AND SUPPORTS MORE TRUCK POLLUTION !

TIMES SQUARE GOSSIP EDITORIAL
Senator Lautenberg wants more pollution

New York’s senators are co-sponsors of the Clean Railroads Act, introduced by Senator Lautenberg, of New Jersey. Lautenberg, however, has quietly amended the bill. It will now allow local officials to close rail facilities which ship waste. Governor Spitzer recently vetoed a similar NY law as it would have placed 78,000 heavy long distance waste trucks a year on the chronically jammed Cross Bronx Expressway. Moving waste by rail is a relatively new phenomena related to disposal facilities in the Northeastern United States reaching capacity. Major population centers east of the Mississippi now generate 6,827,213,260-ton miles on our highways to move household waste to distant disposal sites and that traffic is growing quickly. Most of that traffic could be handled by rail and doing so would save 999 million gallons of diesel fuel and avoid 341 accidents causing death or serious injury each year. However, railroads do not have many facilities needed to transfer this material from trucks to railcars and of the few that do exist, several are in North Jersey.

Lautenberg is driven by New Jersey local officials who object to these facilities as they are regulated by the US Surface Transportation Board, exempt from local control. Local officials can neither keep these facilities our of there towns or exact the fees and concessions allowed by State Law if they consent. Catering to these officials trumps any concern for drivers who will share Route 80 with the 150,000 additional annual truck trips which will be caused, one 65’ long heavy truck every 3.5 minutes 24 hours of every working day, 30% of which will be overloaded according the USDOT, and will cause 14 times more accidents than railroads.

Drivers are not the only constituency who’s interests are ignored by the Senator. Waste is a bulk commodity most economically handled by rail. Half of all waste is municipal. Taxpayers will pay the costs of this gift to NJ local politicians and truckers with higher fees or taxes.

But the major costs of this amendment are not directly financial. Rail generates 88% less greenhouse gasses and harmful emissions. New York neighborhoods near major truck routes have some of the highest rates of asthma and cardio vascular disease seen in the developed world. New Jersey also has high and rising rates of these same chronic diseases. Both types of disease have been linked by numerous studies to the products of exhaust generated largely by diesel trucks, the most recent appearing in the December 6, 2007 New England Journal of Medicine.

New York City, moves 97% of its interstate cargo by truck. In all other regions of the nation, railroads handle between 30 and 40% of such cargo. Thus, the region’s roads are crumbling as is the region’s health. The Lautenberg amendment will end the ability to remove a major portion of that traffic to rail, denying the regions residents the improved air quality readily available with relatively small investments in these transfer faculties.

It is time for New York’s senators to take a hard look at this amendment and to take action to protect the interests of not just the residents of the Bronx and Northern Manhattan, most immediately effected, but the residents down wind from all major highways who will pay in poor health for the power trip of New Jersey’s politicians.
CONTACT SENATOR LAUTENBERG NOW !
Newark Office
One Gateway Center Twenty-Third Floor Newark, NJ 07102
Phone: (973)-639-8700 Toll Free: 1-888-398-1642 Fax: (973) 639-8723
Camden Office
One Port Center Suite 505, Fifth Floor 2 Riverside Drive
Camden, NJ 08101 Phone: (856) 338-8922 Fax: (856) 338-8936
Washington, DC Hart Senate Office Building
Suite 324 Washington, DC 20510 Phone: (202) 224-3224 TTY: (202) 224-2087
Fax: (202) 228-4054

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