Resuscitating the health care reform bill was the focus of President Obama's much publicized Blair House Summit. Political analyst John Dickerson speaks with Russ Mitchell about health care reform.

A POLL IS NOT A VOTE:

So many of the political pundits on talk radio, television and in the newspapers claim to know what "We, the People" want. They claim to have polled a sufficient number of folks from every persuasion, denomination, and walk of life and to know within statistical margins of error what it is the people desire.
Listening to the pundits to learn what it is that you and your fellow countrymen and women supposedly want is deeply frustrating. It makes actual participation in politics seem redundant. It may even, perversely, discourage the only form of direct participation our federal system provides: voting for one's representatives in the House and Senate, however infrequent and fraught with undue influence by corporate wealth that process may be.

Why bother with the ballot box when the polls are stocked with armies of surrogates purporting to speak for all the citizens and then scientifically sifted and collated to yield decisive numbers? Why not use daily tracking polls to take the ever-changing pulse of the public? Would it not be quicker and easier to have the percentages pop up on the TV screen like popcorn from the microwave?

So, you ask, what is the difference between views solicited by pollsters and pundits and views determined by people actually going to the ballot box or signing a petition? I may be really old fashioned here, but I believe a poll will never take the place of a vote. When you vote, you declare your views with your feet. You declare your loyalty to a person, cause, or action. And you stand with a larger group of like-minded individuals that, when the votes are counted, are bound to the outcome that your shared opinions have generated. And those opinions can then turn into political actions that meaningfully reflect the will of the people and can potentially redound to the good of the larger community of citizens.

Voting, unlike most forms of speech, is usually anonymous in order to protect voters from pressure either by government or by particular candidates or by their peers. But even when people vote behind a curtain, their actions connect them with others and with eventual political outcomes, whether they are voting for or against candidates for federal, state, or local legislative positions or, as is possible - and, some think, all too frequent - in some state and local governmental systems, for or against specific referendum or initiative proposals that purport to state policy choices in some usually binary form.

A poll, on the other hand, is anonymous in the worst possible sense. Opinions - whether about candidates or about policy proposals - that are bundled by polls are like disembodied mortgages that are repackaged and resold as high income instruments. The vacuity of those instruments can be seen only when the bubble bursts in the high, thin atmosphere of virtual reality. At best, polls are ephemeral political creatures. No deeds are generated by these virtual opinions and no loyalty attaches to their consequences. When a citizen's opinion is not actually counted in a way that tethers it to a political action that demands loyalty to the larger community, the substance of our political reality reveals our nakedness. Put otherwise, when an expression of view is disconnected from any real consequence other than that of offering fodder for talking heads to deploy in the manipulation of public opinion, that expression represents neither genuine speech nor actual participation in governance but something altogether phony and hollow.
Alexander Hamilton once commented on what constituted American freedom: Our freedom, he reasoned, lay in the capacity to govern ourselves. "The broad principle of civil freedom is to be understood as a determination to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government". His idea that the state ought to exist for men [and women]--that justice, protection, and the common good ought to be the aim of government--these were the sentiments and opinions of our revolutionary forebears. But when we participate in our democratic process not by casting binding votes but by offering ourselves up to the altar of statistical sampling, we will find our freedom to govern ourselves overtaken by avatars not of our own choosing.

What brought this issue into stark relief for me was listening to the nightly television health care debate. Every time pundits, legislators, or newscasters talk about the issues--components of the various bills either in the House or the Senate - a new set of polls is trotted out to vindicate whatever sliver of the issue was being debated. "Experts" debate whether "We, the People" do or don't "want a public option," or "want to finance health care reform with a tax on Cadillac health plans," as though the systemic change that all honest and informed observers recognize as essential could possibly be reduced to a sequence of binary choices. Not even something as relatively simple as the redesign of the unfortunately fallible Toyota could be accomplished by polling potential users of the vehicle about each of the available options. How much truer is that of something as irreducibly interconnected and complex as the redesign of 17% of the nation's economy? So I am not advocating a substitution of representative democracy with the plebiscitary variety or an attempt to redesign the federal government into an approximation of those state governments where a sequence of statewide referenda renders governance a virtual impossibility. I do not claim to know exactly which choices of federal policy are sufficiently fundamental and sufficiently binary in character to lend themselves to resolution through direct electoral participation by the voters. Nor do I claim to have solved the considerable constitutional problem of how Congress could permissibly delegate to the people themselves the power to make choices that the Constitution's Framers clearly expected Congress to make.
But our nation has engaged in major constitutional innovations before. The alphabet soup of agencies, from the SEC, the FCC and the FDA to the FRB and the NLRB, were not dreamed of in the Framers' philosophy. Nor was the idea of a Military Base Closing Commission or a binding Bipartisan Debt Reduction Commission. The fact that our largely 18th century Constitution has proven flexible enough to accommodate these novel ways of tying the otherwise dysfunctional national legislature's hands to the outcomes of processes very different from those of the supposedly representative democracy embodied in the House and in the (distinctly unrepresentative) Senate should not escape our attention. Why not, then, explore ways of tying the hands of Congress to the outcomes of direct referendum processes for resolving the most fundamental policy choices presented by, for example, the health care debate? Assuming that we do not want to go the difficult and risky route of a constitutional amendment - or, riskier still, of a full-fledged Constitutional Convention - why not consider framework legislation that would permit an otherwise deadlocked or bought-and-paid-for Congress to turn certain basic choices back to the people themselves?

Again, I may be very old fashioned and naïve, but if a pundit or legislator is going to speak for me, I want my actual opinion to be registered somehow, somewhere at the voting booth. For example, I would love to register my opinion on having a public option for this new health care legislation. I would love to go to the voting booth and register that opinion - not as the experimental subject in a supposedly scientific poll but as a direct participant in this not always so-representative democracy. I would love to have my vote counted and then see the results of my and millions of other votes counted all over the land - and counted in a way that actually counted. After all the votes are tallied, if my opinion is not in the majority, I would live with that. My own opinion does not always have to win, but I do want our laws to reflect the desires of all American citizens who choose to exercise their right, duty, and honor in the voting process.

My opinion, registered first at the voting booth and then through my elected representative, must reflect the substance of the legislation that we as self governing Americans covenant and combine to live by and obey. Alexander Hamilton and so many of the other Founding Fathers, did not mince words. They saw clearly the dangers that await a democracy where the oligarchy of the few controls opinions, skips the ballot box, and renders the representatives of the people deaf and mute. When our Congress is made dysfunctional by the tyranny of the few, all the nightmare scenarios of the Founders begin to return, and their subject is not tyranny but anarchy. It was the anarchy inherent in the economic disequilibrium of the French Revolution that scared Americans. It was the anarchy inherent in the allocation of votes among the states that led to the infamous 3/5ths compromise. And it was the anarchy inherent in the corruption of judges that led to the creation of separate branches of government. And though we may not want to admit it, anarchy will return through our stymied electoral process and corrupt our freedom for self government.

America can be a country where self government is not just a poll in a virtual reality of whirling opinions but where a vote counts and is counted, where our civil freedom is determined by our capacity for self government and our self government reflects the love, generosity, and respect of our fellow countrymen.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is in "excellent health" and "fit for duty," the White House physician said Sunday after the 48-year-old commander in chief's first checkup since he took office.

Navy Capt. Jeffrey Kuhlman said after the 90-minute exam at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., that he saw nothing that would prevent Obama from fulfilling his term as president.

According to a White House release after the exam, Kuhlman recommended that Obama "continue smoking cessation efforts" and modify his exercise regimen to strengthen his leg muscles to overcome occasional pain from chronic tendinitis in his left leg.

The report said Obama uses a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory for the tendinitis and "nicotine replacement therapy" – believed to be nicotine gum – in his bid to quit smoking. Obama said at a June news conference that he still had an occasional cigarette. It was his first public acknowledgment that he hadn't kicked the habit.

White House officials were not immediately available for comment about whether the president was relying solely on nicotine gum or still occasionally smokes cigarettes.

The doctor said the president should modify his diet to bring his LDL, or bad cholesterol, below 130. At the time of his last exam, in January 2007, when he was an Illinois senator, Obama's total cholesterol was 173, while his LDL was 96 and HDL, or good cholesterol, was 68. That was an excellent report.

This time total cholesterol was up to 209, with HDL down slightly at 62. LDL was up to 138. Borderline high cholesterol starts at 200, with LDL considered in the same category at 130.

The overall results, the doctor said, indicated the president need not return for a physical until August 2011 – after he turns 50.

The president is the picture of health, eats modest portions and exercises regularly. He is an avid basketball player and golfer.

The report said Obama, at 6-feet,1-inch, weighs 180 pounds in shoes and exercise clothing. His pulse rate is 56, which is very good, as is his blood pressure – 105 over 62. The doctor said Obama's vision was 20/20 in both eyes for both distance and near vision.

The president was checked for and found free of colon cancer with a virtual colonoscopy, a scan that avoids the more invasive visual inspection with a camera device that is passed into the large intestine.

The tendinitis that Obama suffers in his left leg could be the result of his regular basketball playing. He is left-handed and he would use his left leg primarily in taking jump-shots.

(This version CORRECTS that LDL, not HDL, cholesterol is considered boderline high at 130.)

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Two weeks ago I wrote of Alexander McQueens' Suicide, yesterday I wrote about Andrew Koenig's. At the same time several suicides have taken place in Manhattan's subway this month.
Just now I have learned that in Los Angeles, Marie Osmond's 18-year-old son Michael Blosil has died. It is reported that Michael jumped to his death Friday night from a downtown Los Angeles apartment building.

"My family and I are devastated and in deep shock by the tragic loss of our dear Michael and ask that everyone respect our privacy during this difficult time," Marie Osmond said in a statement through her publicist.
It appears that Michael suffered from depression.

Dear Michael's mother, I understand your anguish only too well. I have no words of comfort as I myself am gravely wounded by my own son's death by suicide. My beloved twenty year-old son, Andrew Williamson-Noble, jumped to his death from the 10th floor of Bobst, NYU's main library on Novemebr 3rd, 2009.
Although not famous, my son's death was all over the internet and the media before we had even made it home from the hospital. A picture of Andrew, taken from his Facebook home page, was splattered everywhere. And I read on the internet that my son had left a note.
Shocked and distressed though I was at the time, I have come to see that talking about suicide is an important way to help prevent it.
While still by Andrew's side at the hospital, writhing in pain and reeling in shock to discover that my son, healthy as far as I knew, had taken his own life, my immediate reaction was not to disclose that he had killed himself, and looked for ways to explain his death when asked by family and friends. But as soon as I articulated the thought I discarded it.
My son was a Knight who had fallen in battle, whatever demons he fought it had taken his life to bring them down. Now he is a Fallen Knight and I stand with him.
Dear Marie, so is your son. It is up to us to take up from where they left off. To spread light where there is despair, to bring hope where there is hopelessness.
Our sons did their part, they gave their life that others may live. I stand with those who have died and anyone else who wants to join and help prevent suicide, which, in the United States alone takes the life of one person every sixteen minutes.
And you, dear Michael, take care wherever you are.

www.foreverinvictus.com

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The nation's largest Health insurance corporation has been facing tough questions about alleged insurance abuse. As Sandra Hughes reports, this was a case point in Obama's Health Care Summit.

Death Rattle With Suits

The forty-fourth president of the United States appears to be as possessed by a doomed agenda as the last one. Maybe at this point Barack Obama has no choice. It has now been over a year and there is still no National Health Care Reform Law, only a massively incoherent pile of legislation that only a minority of Americans want and less understand, a Democratic Party if not split, certainly splintered over, and a Republican opposition that despite hundreds of its amendments added to the thing, continue to rail against it for political leverage.

If the 2/25 Health Care Summit between lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle chaired by the chief executive displayed anything, it's that whatever remains of the national health care debate is merely a death rattle, some distant bugle call over a bloody and silent battle field.

For the most part, the crazy talk was over. It was lawmakers doing what lawmakers do, muddy the facts and refute the rebukes. Over seven or so hours of speeches and debate, boring presentations of facts and figures, and the obligatory spate of pointless drivel, there remained the same conclusion as when it began; the current Senate version of Health Care Reform is vehemently opposed by every Republican, hardly endorsed by moderate Democrats, and barely a boon for Liberal ones.

What began in spirit as a negotiation continued in a series of disjointed debates. And as hard as the president pained to keep it civil and above-board, many on his side and the other reduced it to talking points and posturing. There was serious points made, but just as many derided. So, as my beloved maternal grandmother, Carmella Martignetti, the great political philosopher of the twentieth century once mused; "It is over, but it doesn't know enough to lie down."

For his part, the President revealed a side to him that I once believed, and to a lessoning extent still believe is his strongest asset, the ability to rise above the fray, beyond mere politics and generation, someone who is not tainted by Boomer angst and old-line rhetoric. It is a side that was rarely seen during his first tumultuous year, wherein this massive undertaking of national legislation which makes up roughly 17 percent of the federal budget was not enough to send him to the Hill but once. This legacy-making moment came and went, came again and then went again, with a steely resolve and almost robotic detachment.

Only one speech given at a special assembly of congress last year, arguably Obama's only effective oratory to date, could begin to budge events, but even that was not enough. Bringing us to yesterday's performance, which was even and presidential, a true display of leadership, and not in that phony, affected way you might have seen by pros like Reagan or Clinton, but more down and dirty with a bit more polish than the "everyman" version utilized by the last guy. An objective observer, if there is such an animal anymore, would have to admit to its courageous outreach and balanced effort to determine the agreements, differences and spaces between both when coming to difficult conclusions about a major overhaul in federal legislation.

But what was the point really?

Firstly, it is far too late. This should have been done, as clearly and concisely with a trust in the electorate to comprehend, from the very beginning, rather than the lofty presentations and bully-tactics that ushered it in and pushed it through. But most importantly, there is no time, never mind the four-to-six week psuedo-deadline given by the president at summit's end, to cobble together four or five or ten disparate philosophies over spending, the extent of government involvement, regulatory ceilings and floors, and the stemming of insurance and dictatorial fraud both in the private and government levels.

The next and only step for this President and his Democratic majority is to turn to Reconciliation, an oft-used process of avoiding a filibuster threat with a mere majority of fifty-one votes over the required sixty that is always vilified by the opposition until it gains power. It is pure democratic politics, as the law allows. Democrats and Republicans alike have used it to great effect, most dramatically with the infamous Contract With America in the mid-nineties. There is nothing to deride beyond its premise, which is another debate entirely. And although ramming a bill through a Reconciliation vote is an easy target to bash as one-party tyranny, as both the president and vice president decried when used several times by the previously Republican-controlled congress, it is now the only way any Health Care Reform Bill will be turned into law.

The Republican stance that there should be a new, drafted-from-scratch or piece-meal bill is at best naïve and at its worst, and probably more to the point, vindictive. It has no basis in reality. It would be tantamount to opponents of the Iraq War asking for the troops to be sent back to the ships and re-deployed the moment they reached the outskirts of Baghdad. The mere idea that anyone would articulate this in public is as hilarious as it is frightening.

And so the political fallout of Reconciliation, the only option beyond backing down for the president, will be devastating. Independents are gone for Obama now. And although National Health Care was one of the central themes of a stirringly successful 2008 campaign, in the face of ten percent unemployment, a dipping housing market and a slower recovery than anticipated, it has not only lost national traction, it has become a political albatross.

The president has three years to win the disbelievers back or get them to crawl back if the Republicans send a weak retread like Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney in opposition, or if a true conservative voice like Ron Paul emerges in a populist TEA Party configuration and hands the White House back to him on a silver platter.

For congress, the overwhelming majority of which is Democrat, it must do what it has never done; stand united. There are as deep divides among Democrats as Republicans over many details in the bill. There is even a deeper distrust between House Democrats and their colleagues in the Senate, which deconstructed the House bill and executed any chance of a single-payer option, the treacherous Third Rail of Health Care Reform.

It is an election year. The Democrats are looking at substantial losses. The Republicans have shown no interest in compromise and the majority party has shown it does not care. This President, like the last one, has bet it all on one hand, and as he wisely stated at the summit's conclusion, the results will out and its denouement is what elections are for.

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Lawmakers once more focus on lining up votes for an overhaul without Republican support. Many legislators indicate they may be open to compromise this round, but old fights may still break out.

Democrats on Friday turned from the drama of the healthcare summit to the nitty-gritty task of lining up votes to pass a bill without Republican support, as they sought to salvage the sweeping health overhaul championed by President Obama.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went further Friday than any top Democrat has before in confirming an open secret in Washington: Democrats are making tentative plans to use a controversial parliamentary shortcut to send the president a health care bill, with or without GOP votes.

On February 25, Guatemala's Constitutional Court ordered the removal of Education Minister Bienvenido Argueta for failing to provide the court with complete information regarding the beneficiaries of President Álvaro Colóm's flagship social program, Mi Familia Progresa. This latest development in a months-old political drama augurs poorly for Guatemala's fragile education system and President Colóm's claims to be supporting transparency measures in this notoriously corrupt nation.

Mi Familia Progresa (MFP) is Guatemala's conditional cash transfer (CCT) program, which provides cash payments to poor mothers, conditional upon them sending their children to school and for health check-ups. CCT programs have become increasingly popular in Latin America, as they have shown demonstrably positive results on school enrollment and child health.

President Colóm has hailed MFP as the cornerstone of his anti-poverty platform in Guatemala, but critics have argued that Colóm has used the program to reward voters who supported him in the 2007 elections. Colóm's critics also worry that the president has been transferring funds from other ministries to the program to use it as a campaign tool for his wife, Sandra Torres de Colóm, the coordinator and face of the Council of Social Cohesion that oversees MFP.

In recent months, congresswoman Nineth Montenegro has been leading efforts to force the Colóm government to divulge the names of program beneficiaries along with their identification numbers. Montenegro, former human rights activist and leader of Encuentro por Guatemala (the party that nominated Rigoberta Menchú as its presidential candidate in the 2007 elections), wants the information to determine the validity of accusations that the Colóm government was using this program for partisan ends. She won a court order demanding that the Ministry of Education provide a full list of program beneficiaries' names and ID numbers. The Ministry of Education proceeded to provide only the names, denying that it needed to provide further information.

Montenegro then went back to the Constitutional Court, which responded by issuing the order for Argueta's dismissal.

At the time of writing, the Colóm government had not responded to the Court's actions. But, whatever comes next, certain consequences of the ruling are already clear.

First, Argueta's dismissal will thrust an already-weak Guatemalan education system into further disarray. Since classes began in late January, the country's principal teacher's union has gone on strike repeatedly--closing schools, occupying Ministry offices and blocking roads. The teachers first took action in late 2009 and early 2010 to support the government's call for increased taxes to augment the nation's education budget. More recently, though, the union took to the streets after breaking off negotiations with Minister Argueta over salary increases.

As if that were not enough, the Ministry has also failed at many schools to distribute food and school supplies for students on-time. These delays, at least in part, reflect the broader fiscal crisis facing Colóm's government given its inability to get Congress to pass tax reform.

Now, assuming the government accepts the Court's order, Guatemala will have its third education minister in six months. Bringing in a new education chief will undoubtedly lead to further delays in putting out the union-related and logistical fires already dogging the ministry. Unfortunately, putting out these fires will also postpone the long-term task of improving the quality of Guatemalan education. Education experts all agree that, though education coverage has improved dramatically since the 1996 Peace Accords, the quality of education remains woefully low and nowhere near a level necessary for Guatemala to transform itself from being one of the poorest countries in the Americas.

The Court's action will also have further repercussions for Colóm's government. Colóm has recently tried to fashion himself as a leader in the struggle for greater transparency in Guatemala, criticizing widespread impunity and corruption and arresting former President Alfonso Portillo on corruption charges. In fact, hours before the Court ordered Argueta's dismissal, Colóm ousted his Minister of Agriculture, Mario Aldana, for irregularities in bids to supply a government program with fertilizer.

But Thursday's ruling against Argueta will undermine Colóm's pro-transparency stance. If Colóm were serious about his position, he would have ordered Argueta to abide by the Court's ruling. It is hard to believe that Argueta would have resisted if Colóm had insisted that he comply. As it stands, the ruling against Argueta gives the impression that Colóm's government is either incompetent or hiding something. And "stupid" or "corrupt" are not typically the adjectives between which a government would like to choose.

But perhaps the most distressing consequence of the MFP controversy will be the potential discrediting of government programs designed to address Guatemala's rampant poverty and inequality. CCT programs have a strong international track record of improving educational and health outcomes in Latin America. But, in Guatemala, this model has been tainted by accusations of malfeasance that the government has done nothing to dispel. Now, opponents of Colóm (the first Guatemalan president elected on a left-of-center platform since 1954) will feel emboldened in their criticisms against government spending to alleviate poverty and address its underlying causes. Already, the Guatemalan Right has held up much-needed tax reform, basing its opposition on arguments that taxes should not increase until taxpayers can trust that their tax dollars will be used effectively and transparently. This argument is, in large part, a spurious recasting of the anti-tax position that the Guatemalan Right has maintained since 1996, but Thursday's court ruling will likely bolster the anti-tax lobby's position.

Finally, looking forward to Guatemala's next elections, the potential ramifications of the current crisis are even more worrying. It's no secret that the man to beat in the upcoming elections will be retired General Otto Pérez Molina, who barely lost to Colóm in 2007. The election of Pérez Molina, who played a critical role in the genocide of rural indigenous Guatemalans in the 1980s, would signal a major step backward for a country that has only begun its fight against impunity.

With all these issues in mind, it is clear that Argueta's dismissal could have a major impact on the remainder of President Colóm's term. It will now be up to Colóm to show leadership by respecting the Court's decision and appointing a new Minister who will provide the required information on MFP. If Colóm is serious about supporting greater transparency in Guatemala, his government must share its complete files and shed light on MFP. Continued secrecy will only prolong this scandal, and, in the process, further weaken the education system, undermine transparency initiatives, and strengthen Colóm's right-wing opposition.

(Copied with permission from www.americasquarterly.org.)

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Many, if not most, of the products that we have in our homes first passed through one of the country's seaports. As gateways of global trade, our seaports give consumers access to a wide range of goods at a low cost. However, these gateways also create enormous amounts of pollution. And for those Americans that happen to live near a seaport, this pollution is a serious health hazard leading to negative health outcomes and even death.

In 2006, the neighboring ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach decided to tackle the problem of port-related pollution head-on. It was clear that immediate action was needed: a California study found that 2,400 premature deaths could be attributed to port-related pollution statewide every year. The ports teamed up to implement a plan that would reduce port-related emissions by 45 percent in five years.

The plan cut emission from every source of pollution at the ports, but perhaps most importantly from the two largest sources of pollution: oceangoing vessels and the diesel trucks that carry goods from the ports to points inland. It was the effort to reduce pollution from diesel trucks that became the most politically charged, however, as an alliance between environmental justice groups and organized labor pushed to implement the Clean Truck Program. Today's New York Times describes this seemingly unlikely alliance:

The labor-green alliance is getting under the trucking industry's skin by asserting that short-haul trucking companies working in ports -- and not the truck drivers, who are often considered independent contractors -- should spend the billions needed to buy new, low-emission rigs that can cost $100,000 to $175,000 each.

The Teamsters union says seaport air is so dirty largely because port truck drivers earn too little to buy trucks that would belch out fewer diesel particulates, tiny particles that contribute to cancer and asthma. Working with environmentalists, the union helped persuade the Port of Los Angeles to adopt a far-reaching plan that bars old trucks from hauling cargo from the port and puts the burden of buying new vehicles on the trucking companies, not the drivers.

The program was approved in 2008, and now 6,000 older, dirtier trucks have been replaced with the cleanest new models. New trucks are about ten times cleaner than trucks that were built before 1997. The result of the program so far, according to John Holmes, deputy executive director of operations at the Port of Los Angeles, is a 70 percent reduction in diesel truck emissions at the ports. That's definitely good news for residents of nearby communities who will be breathing a little easier.

But Los Angeles is not the only city where port activities impact local residents. In the communities surrounding the Port of Newark and Elizabeth, the health consequences of port-related emissions are just as real. At a New York City based event in 2008, Kim Thompson-Gaddy of the North Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance joined Chris Ward, Executive Director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Congressional Representative Jerold Nadler, and Sean Arian from the City of Los Angeles to talk about the health impacts of the port in her community.

The PANY/NJ currently has its own clean port program, but it isn't nearly as ambitious as it should be. The Port Authority currently has money available to replace 630 dirty trucks, but this is only about one quarter of the number of trucks that need to be replaced. Which is why the Port Authority should consider doing what Los Angeles has done: put a $70 fee on cargo containers that come into the port to fund the purchase of more clean trucks.

And because port truck drivers in New Jersey cannot afford to purchase new, clean trucks, the Port Authority should place the burden of purchasing new trucks on the trucking companies. Port truck drivers in New Jersey make about $29,000 a year after expenses like fuel, insurance, tolls, and truck maintenance are taken into account. In the Times story, Rafael Prestol, a truck driver at the Port of Newark, makes this clear.

"If we invest $100,000 in a new vehicle and we're making $2,000 a month or less, it doesn't make sense," said Mr. Prestol, who blames trucking deregulation for pulling down drivers' pay. "And what guarantee do you have after you buy a new truck that you'll continue to get work?"