The Clean Air Act, Did it Move the Needle?

Since 1970 many have wondered if the Clean Air Act has made a difference in reducing air pollution despite population growth. However, the answer isn't as simple as a "Yes" or "No.

On the one hand, some anti-environmental circles believe there is not an air pollution problem to fix (as they drive their Teslas to keep up with the Joneses) and are unsure why it was even a policy. Then there are others that think we already have too many environmental policies in place that are making things more expensive than they need to be.

On the other hand, some environmental circles believe the Clean Air Act has made a difference, and then others believe that it has only benefited some and has systemically exposed communities of color to more air pollution. In my opinion, it has made a difference, but the benefits have not been equal across the board especially for low income communities.

And while many have studied the data to try an prove their respective cases, the data in this field is a little extra tricky and skeptics abound. There are constant attempts to debunk the notion it has helped improve air quality and to undermine new supporting policies. However, a new study on hard to dilute data has come out this month.

A group of 9 social scientists, led by Yanelli Nunez, PhD from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health analyzed various data sets covering a 40 year time span, going all the way back to the beginning of the Clean Air Act in 1970.

Their study, An environmental justice analysis of air pollution emissions in the United States from 1970 to 2010, was recently published in Nature Communications on January 17, 2024 and they evaluated air pollution changes in 6 core source generation sectors:

1. Transportation: nitrogen oxides [NOx]

2. Agriculture: ammonia [NH3]

3. Residential: particulate organic carbon [POC]

4. Commercial: nitrogen oxides [NOx]

5. Industry: sulfide dioxide [SO2]

6. Energy: nitrogen oxides [NOx] & sulfide dioxide [SO2]

Overall the study finds that the U.S. has seen reductions in air pollution emissions from various pollution sources since the Clean Air Act was enacted in 1970. The Clean Air Act has in fact helped to substantially improve air quality in the U.S., which is something to celebrate. The study's findings also validate environmental justice concerns that some communities bear a higher burden of air pollution, and more importantly, it provides hard to dispute evidence for environmental justice naysers.

Specifically the data reveals the following key findings:

• Median family income was a driver in air pollution reductions in the major pollution sources.

• Counties with median family incomes above $75,000 had larger declines in industry, energy, transportation, residential and commercial related emissions.

• Racial and ethnic air pollution disparities exist, particularly in the industry and energy pollution generation sectors.

• Mitigating traffic-related pollution in the most burdened areas will be key in reducing current racial, ethnic and economic disparities and preventing them from getting worse as a result of the current electric vehicle adoption trends among higher income households.

In an interview with Columbia Magazine, one of the researchers, Marianthi Kioumourtzoglou, notes that in the study they "provide information about potential racial/ethnic and socioeconomic inequalities in air pollution sources," which can inform future policy development and complement local-level analysis.

Nunez also shares that "policies specifically targeting reductions in overburdened populations could support more just reductions in air pollution and reduce disparities in air pollution exposure." The lessons learned from the 53 years of the Clean Air Act should be used to address the fact that air quality has not improved for everyone, especially as we develop policies to transition to renewable energy resources, "which will have a collateral impact on air quality and, as a result, on public health.

Brooklyn Bridge Noir

I always have my ears perked up to learn something new, it's a habit I leaned into as I explored New York neighborhoods in college. Every corner offered something new. I learned not to underestimate the potential of learning something from wherever or whomever. The City has a way of teaching you things you never knew you wanted to know, but are good to know.

I recently stumbled across a bit of New York architecture and women's history noir while watching the HBO hit series, The Gilded Age that was not on my radar. In Season 2, episode 5, the young Larry Russell learns and lets the viewers in on the secret that the Chief Engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge is actually the wife of the commissioned Chief Engineer and not who the bridge's board thought was the person in charge.

Knowing that the series is a mixture of historical facts and fictional twists I was not sure if what I heard about the Brooklyn Bridge was actually true, or if it was just the writers retelling oral histories with partial truths that couldn't actually be verified with a few Google searches. So of course I went to Google to see if what they mentioned about the Brooklyn Bridge indeed happened or not. While I didn't want to get my hopes up, I was hoping it was true even though I was a little surprised it was new information about New York architecture and women's history that I didn't know already. It turns out it was TRUE.

Both the New-York Historical Society and Wikipedia acknowledge Emily Roebling as one of the Chief Engineers of the Brooklyn Bridge. Regrettably, New York City's Department of Transportation only mentions the designer of the bridge, her father-in-law. They make no mention of the chief engineer even though when it comes to bridges engineers are kinda of a big deal. I'm not sure what to make of it, NYC is usually good about giving credit where credit is due, perhaps the updates are backlogged in some bureaucratic purgatory stalemate.

In my opinion what makes the +1.1 mile long bridge so special is it's ability to handle various transportation forms. More than 4,000 pedestrians, 3,100 bicyclists and 120,000 vehicles cross the Brooklyn Bridge every day.

The other thing that makes it extra special is that pedestrian access is a focal point of the design. After all its popularity among pedestrians has contributed to the Brooklyn Bridge's notoriety and put it in a class of its own. No other bridge in NYC has as many people visit it to simply walk across it and take pictures commemorating their visit to one of New York's crown jewels. And if you've ever walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's grandeur is exhilarating and breathtaking, it has always one of my favorite places to visit.

Interestingly, according to the show, when the bridge was completed they didn't want to give credit to Emily because they feared people would think the bridge would not be safe to cross, yet 140 years later the bridge's engineering has stood the test of time and then some. In the show Larry calls it the 8th wonder of the world and today it has become a UNESCO World Heritage site. Historian David McCullough has even famously called it the "Eiffel Tower of America," and earlier this montg, on January 11th, the City of New York unveiled a new LED light system to light up the bridge's iconic towers, and so it's story continues.

If you've never walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, think about it, you'll see what what the hype is all about.

Mexico's New Interstate Train: Tren Maya

On a recent trip down to Riviera Maya, we decided to drive down to Bacalar to check out the Bacalar Lagoon, and it's 7 hues. On our drive we noticed something was being constructed next to the main road, and we figured it was a toll road because usually in Mexico multi-lane toll roads are built next to free all-access bumpy 2-lane roads. But we were wrong. Once we asked around we learned that they aren't building a toll road; they are building a train. However, it isn't just any train connecting one city to another city, this is Tren Maya, a mega infrastructure project with a big vision connecting the entire Yucatan Peninsula and with a familial name paying homage to the region's mighty ancestors, the Maya.

Tren Maya Aerial View October 2023

Tren Maya or also known as Mayan Train or Train Maya is a 1,525-kilometre (948 mi) railway in Mexico that will connect major cities in the Yucatan Peninsula's 5 states. It will have 7 sections with 34 stations across Tabasco, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatán and Quintana Roo. Construction began for all 7 sections simultaneously in June of 2020 and it is slated to open in December 2023. It is anticipated to have about 8,000 daily riders and ticket fares will vary for locals and tourists. For example, a trip fare from Cancun to Playa del Carmen will cost locals around 50 pesos (US $2.75) and it will cost tourists around 1,000 pesos (US $55.40).

When I got home I started to do some more research on Tren Maya to get a better idea of the project, it's economic impact and costs. On the one hand I found that UN-Habitat, estimates Tren Maya will create 945,000 jobs for Mexico and potentially help bring over 1.1 million people out of poverty. On the other hand, I also learned that the project approval politics got tricky and pretty sticky around it's climate, archeological and equity implications, nonetheless it got approved.

From Tren Maya's Wiki page the crowd-sourced authors shared that the tactics used by President Miguel Lopez Obrador to get the project approved created lots of chatter amongst rivals, which wasn't surprising, but what was a head turner was the criticism that came from the Mexican Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The UN's criticism was mostly focused on the approach used by Lopez Obrador to get the project started and who it excluded. Specifically, the UN raised concerns that the voting materials only focused on the positive aspects of the project and were not translated properly. They also didn't like that the identified voting locations excluded those with no means to travel to them and essentially left indigenous women without a vote.

Project approvals in any country are never easy for projects of this size and can get quite lengthy. However, it is important to note that while the approval process for this project compared to approval processes in countries like the US didn't take that long, it did take several years to get approved. Also, Tren Maya wasn't conceived overnight, it was something Lopez Obrador had been thinking about for a long time.

Knowing the price tag for mega projects of this magnitude can get up in the billions, I was curious about the price tag for Tren Maya. In 2018, the agency building the project Fonatur (National Fund for Tourism Development) said it would cost $150 billion pesos (US$8.3 billion in October 2023 dollars) to build. In 2022 they updated their construction cost projections to 200 billion pesos (US $11.1 billion). However, early on there was skepticism around the cost projections the government put out and in 2019 a local think tank, the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, considered the Mexico City-Toluca train project costs to come up with their own construction projections of 480 billion pesos (US$26.6 billion), which was 2.4 times the amount of the 2022 projected costs.

As I kept searching for the project costs I just couldn't see how this project was only going to cost $11.1 billion with the extent of the project scope of work, the accelerated timeline, the people power working around the clock to get this project built that we saw on our drive to Bacalar, and the increasing costs of construction materials. The optimist in me thought that perhaps Lopez Obrador is trying to prove a point that projects don't have to cost so much if Mexican politicians don't take their lions-portioned political grafts, but the core project costs just weren't adding up so I decided to keep digging some more. While I didn't dig deep into the project financials because they are confidential, I did use my Spanish skills to find that the Mexican government had tripled it's project cost projections last month, and now expects to spend 515 .8 billion pesos (US $28.6 billion). That's a much more believable figure, and even though its way more than they expected to spend, it is still a pretty good price when you compare it to the $128 billion that California's high-speed rail project is projected to cost to build 800 miles.

After getting a better idea of how much the project will cost I looked into the project financing details. It turns out the government turned to tourism tax revenue to help the deal pencil out. And while it's hard to confirm, I'm pretty certain tourism taxes will be paying for a good chunk of the project if not all it. It's a smart and logical move considering the popularity of Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum among tourists and the many tourism tax line items I saw on my hotel bill. The cash is specifically coming from the 3 government backed banking institutions that together financed the deal: National Bank of Public Works and Services (Banobras), the Nacional Financiera (Nafin) bank and the Foreign Commerce Bank (Bancomext). Interestingly, while the project is being built by Fonatur, it will be managed and operated by the military.

To see this project being built in it's entirety all at the same time on our drive to Bacalar was pretty mind blowing. California's high-speed rail is being built in small segments over many more years. Only 422 miles of the high-speed rail project's 500-mile Phase 1 from San Francisco to Los Angeles/Anaheim has received environmental clearance, with only 119 miles in active construction.

After learning about Tren Maya's journey I hope Lopez Obrador, his team and his successors are able to identify ways to mitigate the main environmental, archeological and equity concerns to help improve Tren Maya's legacy for the Yucatan Peninsula and Mexico as a whole.

#todossomostrenmaya

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