The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Used Batteries from U.S. Expose Mexicans to Risk,” provides just one more example why businesses need to be regulated for everyone’s good. For economic reasons, companies are exporting used batteries to Mexico for recycling purposes to avoid costly rules promulgated by the EPA for the health of both adults and particularly vulnerable children.

Exposure to lead can affect the natural development of kids and cause severe developmental disabilities, and now, as a result of this illegal exporting, the very ground in which Mexican children are playing is contaminated.

The degree of danger is sobering. With demand for lead up more than ten times in the past few years, the recycling of lead batteries has become a growth industry in Mexico, and little effort is made to police it. The workers end their shifts covered with lead powder, and their health is monitored only minimally by their employers. In addition, there is little control of smokestack emissions bellowing dangerous levels of lead into the atmosphere.

Whether The Times’ expose will bring any changes remains to be seen. One hopes that it will bring action, but it may take a real tragedy before any environmental remediation occurs.

It’s a shame to see such an example of greed and selfishness, especially during the holiday season.

The lead story in today’s New York Times, “Across Europe, Irking Drivers is Urban Policy,” illustrates how much more the environmental mindset has taken control there compared to the United States. Europe is making real progress in reducing its carbon dioxide footprint, often by adopting policies in clear contradiction to the U.S.

In Europe, they try to make owning a car an unpleasant experience to encourage pedestrian traffic and use of the public transportation system. While new buildings in the U.S. must meet a certain minimum number of parking spaces to comply with zoning law, in Europe they cap the parking spaces. In Europe, extra red lights are placed in cities, and the green period is reduced to ensure pedestrians do not have to wait more than 20 seconds to cross the street. Certain areas are entirely closed off to traffic; other streets are limited to low emission vehicles. Trams often have the power to turn green lights for cars into their favor.

Of course, some would say that with gasoline at $8 per gallon and a far better public transportation system, the Europeans can afford to do this. The truth, however, is that Europeans are meeting the Kyoto environmental treaty that we never signed. Instead, we try to sychronize green lights to improve traffic flow and cry out against congestion fees. As an environmentalist, I find it discouraging to see how far we have to go compared to our European allies.

The lead article in this morning’s New York Times, “Companies Knew of Cement Flaws Before Rig Blast,” represents the first results of an independent panel investigating the reasons for the Deepwater Horizon oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

The panel found that on two separate occasions Halliburton knew from lab tests that the cement they were using was unstable. Only one of the tests, on March 8th, was forwarded to BP. The final test prior to the disaster was on April 20th and was not sent to the oil company.

Why is Halliburton at the center of every unsavory activity? The company’s nefarious ways, and those of its former CEO, Dick Cheney, represent the epitome of corporate greed and malfeasance. If it had not been for Halliburton’s faulty cement, and the failure to act on it, billions in cleanup efforts and the anxieties of an entire region of the country would have been spared.

Cement is crucial in preventing a blowout because it prevents the oil from getting into the drilling structure and thus becoming vulnerable to explosion. Halliburton has largely stayed on the sidelines during the Gulf disaster and let BP take the lion’s share of the blame and approbation by so many people. Now, we learn it deserves the primary responsibility.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Offshore Wind Power Line Wins Praise, and Backing,” describes a giant leap forward for renewable energy. Finally, there is major financial support from Google and a top investment firm for a project to build a transmission backbone for winds farms up and down the Eastern seaboard.

In addition, the backbone would provide benefits before the winds farms are even built by enabling the transmission of cheaper electricity in Virginia to New Jersey where a more congested system currently makes electricity more expensive.

The dual nature of the project must have attracted Google and Good Energies because it makes it financially profitable from the inception. The 350-mile backbone also addresses another crucial element of wind energy, its variability, because the backbone could pick up winds in say, Virginia, when they are strong there or further north as a storm shifts.

The backbone also addresses several key bureaucratic elements that have held up projects like this in the past. It focuses on four major hubs, reducing the number of state governments required for approval, and only involves four property owners unlike a system on the land that would involve hundreds.

Finally, from an aesthetic standpoint, the turbines would be barely visible from the land unlike another controversial project currently under consideration for Cape Cod.

Google and Good Energy have each underwritten a 37.5 percent stake in the project, with another foreign organization considering 10 percent.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Cuba’s Oil Plans for Deep Waters Raise Concerns,” shows how political barriers can stand in the way of common sense.

The article notes that Cuba currently is authorized to drill deep water oil wells in its territorial waters just 45 miles from the Florida Keys, and United States companies are barred from providing any safety consulting due to the embargo that’s been in effect since 1960.

The Cuban oil industry is unprepared to respond to an oil spill and would have to mobilize equipment from the North Sea, Japan and China, a process that could take up to a week, while the oil could hit U.S. shores in just three days.

Cuba does not have its own underwater robots or submersibles similiar to the ones used by BP, and it does not have the rigging equipment capable of drilling a relief well. The ideal situation would be for U.S. oil companies to coordinate with Cuba in advance instead of reacting on an ad hoc basis.

But politicians are wary of crossing the Cuban immigrant vote in South Florida, and oil companies do not want to be the target of a boycott by the same. So, instead we have a situation where there is still a moritorium on drilling in the Gulf for U.S. companies while Cuba gets ready to drill its own wells that could prove just as dangerous.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Drilling Permits for Deep Waters Face New Review,” describes the implementation of new environmental reviews before approval of new offshore oil drilling.

The new procedure is a welcome change to bring multinational oil companies within the umbrella of public safety and a comprehensive regulatory system. The article describes the previous misuse of “categorical” exemptions widely accepted in the past. These exemptions allowed oil companies to forego environmental assessment requirements if they asserted a previous oil well with an assessment had already examined the issues involved for a similar location.

As expected, the American Petroleum Institute echoed its usual refrain about the regulations costing jobs, and even compared the new common-sense approach to the oil industry’s “Three Mile Island.” TMI, a nuclear plant that nearly underwent a meltdown, resulted in prohibitive regulations that halted the construction of new nuclear plants for 30 years.

In any case, the United States should be moving towards a system of clean energy promotion instead of trying to find oil in more and more difficult locations. It will not be a tragedy if we move away from offshore oil drilling with all its inherent difficulties to a more sustainable energy future for the United States and the world.

Please excuse the hackneyed title, but it conveys a measure of the truth. The lead article in today’s New York Times, “U.S. Report Says Oil That Remains is Scant Risk,” describes the effective end of the danger the BP oil spill poses to the Gulf region. The article notes that most of the oil has now either been captured, evaporated and dispersed and provides hard statistics to back up its claim.

According to the article, 25 percent of the chemicals have evaporated or dissolved, “in the same way that sugar dissolves in tea,” 5 percent was burned at the surface, 3 percent was skimmed, 8 percent was broken up by chemical dispersants, 16 percent dispersed naturally and 17 percent was captured by containment mechanisms. The remaining 26 percent is either a light sheen on the water or weathered tar balls.

Gulf residents seem unwilling to believe these facts and who can blame them after what they’ve been through, especially all the falsely optimistic reports. But this report is coming from the government, not BP, and it seems to be supported by scientific observation. Sometimes, you just have to accept good news for what it is, good news.

Meanwhile, BP seems to be moving forward successfully with its “static kill” with the relief well ready to provide backup assistance when required. “Oil’s well, that ends well.”

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “On the Surface, Oil Spill in Gulf is Vanishing Fast,” describes incredibly good news about the lack of surface oil in the Gulf of Mexico after an 86-day spill, capped on July 15.

Apparently, the warm waters and evaporation may have dissipated up to 40 percent of the surface sheen, and many oil-eating bacteria in the Gulf — due to natural seepage in this specific ecosystem — may have taken care of much of the rest.

And with 4,000 boats skimming the oil and executing controlled burns, the stoppage of the well means a constant reduction of the size of the spill.

The article does raise some concerns about the effect of the oil in the water column and along the sea bottom, but it also notes that the toxic percentage has been measured, and it is very low.

The most critical issue now, it seems, revolves around scaling back the response effort because it employs many fishermen who would otherwise remain jobless. However, even though a third of the Gulf is currently off limits to commercial fishing, it appears that problem will soon vanish as well.

The Food and Drug Administration is now planning to increase testing of the fish so the fishermen can resume their livelihood as well. Good news all around.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Siren in Oil Rig was Kept Silent,” notes the emergency alarm on the Deepwater Horizon rig was kept in the “inhibited” mode to avoid waking up the workers with false alarms in the middle of the night.

But the article is much more “alarming” in its interior details describing the actions, or lack of action, by Transocean, the owner of the rig. BP’s confidential audit of the rig in September showed 390 repairs uncompleted, including many labelled high priority. There were also power losses, computer failures and leaking equipment that was supposed to be waterproof.

And a previous audit by Lloyd’s Register Group showed 26 components in poor working order. All this neglect made the Deepwater Horizon rig an accident waiting to happen. It was not just an unfortunate and unlikely combination of events that caused the Gulf of Mexico oil spill; it was criminal neglect. And that neglect, based on this article, extends to Transocean every bit as much as BP.

Not to leave BP completely off the hook, however. The oil well was running behind schedule, and each day of delay was costing the company $1 million in rental costs for the rig. Workers were obviously pressured to “hurry up,” and haste leads to cutting corners and compounding the situation.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Workers on Doomed Rig Voiced Concern on Safety,” describes a corporate culture at Transocean, the owner of the rig, such that workers were afraid to report essential safety issues to management.

In a survey of workers just before the well blowout, many noted an emphasis on drilling priorities over safety priorities. One worker describes the attitude of Transocean at “Run it, break it, fix it,” and the article noted that the rig had never been in dry dock during its nine years of operation. In fact, 26 components on the rig were found to be in poor condition.

[In other "oil-related" developments, a squall may be moving into the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in temporary removal of the cap on the well. Another potential blow to residents of the area.]

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised at all these revelations, especially when you’re dealing with an unregulated industry and an inherently dangerous task with high profit potential. Still, a company’s most sacred duty is the protection of its employees, and that, at least, represents the most glaring failure of the Deepwater Horizon.

I’m certain there will be more revelations to come. And hopefully, they will spur the clean energy industry in our country at long last.