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Washington – An EPA report finds that air pollution at the nation’s ports can be reduced significantly at all port types and sizes through a variety of strategies and cleaner technologies. Implementing these approaches, the report finds, would reduce greenhouse gas and other harmful emissions from diesel-powered ships, trucks and other port equipment.

“The National Port Strategy Assessment: Reducing Air Pollution and Greenhouse Gases at U.S. Ports” examines current and future emission trends from diesel engines in port areas, and explores the emissions reduction potential of strategies like replacing and repowering older, dirtier vehicles and engines and deploying zero emissions technologies.

“This report shows that there are many opportunities to reduce harmful pollution at ports that we know will work,” said Christopher Grundler, director of EPA’s Office of Transportation and Air Quality. “This is great news for the roughly 39 million Americans who live and breathe near these centers of commerce.”

U.S. ports are set to expand significantly as international trade continues to grow, and the size of ships coming to ports increases. This growth means more diesel engines at ports emitting carbon dioxide that contributes to climate change. These engines also emit fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and other pollutants that contribute to serious health problems including heart and lung disease, respiratory illness, and premature mortality. Children, older Americans, outdoor workers and individuals with respiratory and heart conditions can be especially vulnerable. Many ports are located in areas with a high percentage of low-income and minority populations, who bear the burden of higher exposure to diesel emissions.

Accelerating retirement of older port vehicles and equipment and replacing them with the cleanest technology will reduce emissions and increase public health benefits. For example, the report found replacing older drayage trucks with newer, cleaner diesel trucks can reduce NOx emissions by up to 48 percent, and particulate matter emissions by up to 62 percent, in 2020 when compared to continuing business as usual.  In 2030, adding plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to these fleets could yield even more NOx and PM2.5 relative reductions from drayage trucks.

The new assessment supports EPA’s Ports Initiative’s goals to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gases, to achieve environmental sustainability for ports, and improve air quality for all Americans working in and living near our nation’s ports.  Through this initiative, EPA is engaging a wide range of stakeholders including ports and port operators, communities, tribes, state and local governments, industry, and other technical and policy stakeholders. EPA developed this national scale assessment based on a representative sample of seaports, and the results could also inform decisions at other seaports, Great Lakes and inland river ports, and other freight and passenger facilities with similar profiles.

EPA’s regulations are already reducing port-related diesel emissions from trucks, locomotives, cargo handling equipment and ships. For example, the North American and U.S. Caribbean Sea Emissions Control Areas require lower sulfur fuel to be used for large ocean-going vessels.  This requirement has reduced fuel-based particulate-matter emissions from these vessels by about 90 percent.  In addition, some port areas are already applying the emission reduction strategies assessed in the report. The emissions reduction strategies assessed in the report would make a significant difference in reaching the nation’s air quality goals, and would help reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

Olivia Covington for www.theindianalawyer.com

A set of foster parents do not have the right to adopt two children without their father’s consent despite the fact that the father does not have visitation with the children, the Indiana Court of Appeals found Friday.

In the case of In Re: The Adoption of J.S.S. and K.N.S., Rayburn and Beth Robinson v. M.R.S., 02A04-1603-AD-545, two children, J.S.S. and K.N.S., were considered children in need of services and were in the custody of the Department of Child Services. Their mother was incarcerated, and their father, M.S., was unaware of their location until an Allen County Department of Child Services caseworker informed him of their location in November 2012.

That month, the CHINS court found that M.S., who regularly paid child support, could have visitation with the children if their therapist thought visitation would be in their best interest. However, M.S. did not contact the therapist until April 2014. After that contact, the therapist recommended that visitation not be allowed, so the CHINS court ordered in June 2014 that DCS could petition for M.S.’ parental rights to be terminated.

Foster parents B.R. and R.R. subsequently filed a petition to adopt the children; their mother consented, but M.S. filed an objection. The Allen Superior Court found that the foster parents had failed to produce enough evidence to show that M.S.’ consent to the adoption was unnecessary and dismissed the adoption petition. The foster parents filed a motion to correct, which was denied.

B.R. and R.R. appealed, arguing that although M.S. was able to communicate with his children, he failed to do so. Although the CHINS court ultimately ordered that M.S. not be granted visitation with his children in 2014, proceedings before that time would have allowed visitation had the father contacted the children’s therapist in a timely manner, as he was instructed to do.

But in its affirmation of the denial of the adoption petition and the motion to correct error, the Indiana Court of Appeals wrote Friday that there was evidence that M.S. never gained the ability to contact the children. Even if he had contacted the children’s therapist promptly, the therapist was not required to authorize visitation, the court wrote. Even after M.S. contacted the therapist, visitation with the children was not recommended.

Further, the court pointed to the testimony of Dwila Lewis-Hess, a DCS caseworker who testified that a referral for M.S.’ visitation with his children was never made.

Based on that evidence, the Court of Appeals wrote that the foster parents failed to prove that M.S. did not contact his children when he had the ability to do so. Thus, the court wrote that the trial court was correct when it found that M.S.’ consent would be necessary to support the adoption petition.

Raging Moderate by Will Durst

We might as well be watching a 30-car pile-up the way Americans are holding hands over their eyes trying to avoid the grisly bits of the most grotesque presidential race we have witnessed in this, the second decade of the 21st Century. Of course, it’s only the 2nd election during that time, but still.

That is not to say 2012 wasn’t genuinely gruesome, with more than its share of cataclysmic collisions and demolition derby debacles, but this time they’re headed downhill faster than an 18-wheeler with burned out brakes carrying a load of nitroglycerine on the western slope of the Andes.

This is a race to rock bottom to see which team ends up least wrecked, and right now they’re both jostling for pole position. Everybody is losing paint riding into each other while running over rocky roads gouged by their own staffs. Must be why they call them pit crews.

You’ve heard the term “Accidents waiting to happen?” Well the opposite is “accidents waiting for a break in the action.” The two most polarizing drivers in the history of American politics have veered into so many walls, both their nicknames could be Crash.

Recently the Donald and the Hillary pulled into the paddock to attack their opponent’s foreign policies, a shock to the majority of spectators who were unaware either had a foreign policy that didn’t consist on calling in air strikes on the other’s campaign. And tire irons swung at their fuel lines.

Now we’re getting to the point in this short track race where driver fatigue kicks in, and the unforced errors have begun to accumulate. Hillary Clinton said she was wrong to call half of Trump’s supporters a basket of deplorables. And she was wrong. It’s more like 63 percent.

Donald Trump used the Mexican president as a prop, then gave an immigration speech that spurred most of his Hispanic advisory board to resign. Although to be honest, Trump Hispanic Advisory Board sounds like Democratic Leadership Council. Trump also praised Vladimir Putin for being a strong leader with an 84 percent approval rating. It would be higher, but the KGB hasn’t been able to track down the other 16 percent. Yet.

Even the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, got in trouble for not knowing what Aleppo was. Presumably he was thinking a small leopard or someone suffering from the initial stages of Hansen’s Disease.

Time is running out for all the major candidates to grab some clean air. Hillary needs to prove she’s not a robotic automaton who will do or say anything to get elected. And she intends to do that as soon as she installs a larger hard drive and updates her operating system. Pneumonia, right.

Trump knows he needs to assure the electorate he’s more than some spoiled rich guy whose diplomatic horsepower is measured in arrogant smirks; he’s even gone so far as to hire a female campaign manager to smirk for him.

The good news is the finish line is only two months away. The bad news is one of these lug nuts is going to take the checkered flag. The upside being, on November 8th, our long national nightmare will be over. Until November 9th, when the funny car race for 2020 begins. Gentlemen and ladies, prepare to start your engines.

Marilyn Odendahl for www.theindianalawyer.com

Five graduates of Indiana Tech Law School have filed appeals with the Indiana Board of Law Examiners to have their bar exams reviewed, according to the law school’s dean Charles Cercone.

The Fort Wayne law school had only one graduate of its charter classpass the July 2016 Indiana Bar Exam. However since the results were announced, the school has maintained the pass rate could not be determined until the appeals process has been completed.

Cercone, speaking publically for the first time since the bar exam results were announced, said he is confident the law school will turn the results around. The school is offering a “very expensive re-taker program” to the graduates free of charge and is offering other bar prep and doctrinal courses to the graduates and the current third-year students.

“If they do what we tell them to do, they’ll pass,” Cercone said.

At the start of classes in August, Indiana Tech Law School welcomed its largest class ever with 55 new students. Cercone said the law school had a meeting with the student body about the bar results and the students are supportive and committed to working together.

“This is more of a media story than reality because all of them recognize that 12 students is not any kind of representation of our program,” the dean said, referring to the total number of graduates who sat for the July exam.

Cercone was angry about the attention the law school has received since the results were publicized Sept. 12. He said the graduates have been put under a level of scrutiny that graduates of other Indiana law schools have not had to face.

“I understand it’s your job and the media’s job to make law schools look bad, but you overlooked in your zeal to make us look bad that you hurt young men and women trying to take the bar,” Cercone said. “Now these people will be branded for the rest of their careers.”

Cercone said the law school has shared a number of facts internally with the university as to the reasons for the disappointing bar results. He declined to share the details of that memorandum, saying enough damage had been done to the graduates’ reputations.

Going forward, the dean said he is not worried about Indiana Tech Law School’s provisional accreditation, which was granted by the American Bar Association in March 2016. Both he and Barry A. Currier, managing director of the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, said the ABA has not been in contact with the school about the bar passage rate.

“I don’t think the ABA would take any action based on one test with 12 students,” Cercone said.

Currier declined to answer whether the dismal passage rate could put the school’s provisional accreditation in jeopardy. Currier said the Council and Accreditation Committee may review a provisionally approved law school’s ongoing efforts to meet compliance standards. But, he noted, that is a confidential process and he declined to speculate about or have any public comment on the matter.

Retired Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard, who led a national examination of law schools as chair of the ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education, pointed out the 12 graduates who took the bar was a very small sample and Indiana Tech is just starting to graduate law students.

Still the law school has work to do.

“This number will have to improve a lot if they are going to achieve permanent accreditation,” Shepard said, noting the ABA is considering a rule change that would require law schools to post at least a 75 percent bar passage rate. “Ultimately they will need to achieve a lot better performance to say accredited.”