    [House Hearing, 111 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

    CLEARING THE SMOKE: UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACTS OF BLACK CARBON POLLUTION

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the
                              SELECT COMMITTEE ON
                              ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
                               AND GLOBAL WARMING
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                 MARCH 16, 2010

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 111-15

                 Printed for the use of the Select Committee on
                     Energy Independence and Global Warming

                            globalwarming.house.gov

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                    SELECT COMMITTEE ON ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
                               AND GLOBAL WARMING

                   EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts, Chairman
    EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon              F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr.,
    JAY INSLEE, Washington                   Wisconsin, Ranking Member
    JOHN B. LARSON, Connecticut          JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona
    HILDA L. SOLIS, California           GREG WALDEN, Oregon
    STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN,           CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
      South Dakota                       JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma
    EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri            MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
    JOHN J. HALL, New York
    JERRY McNERNEY, California
                                     ------

                               Professional Staff

                          Michael Goo, Staff Director
                           Aliya Brodsky, Chief Clerk
                     Bart Forsyth, Minority Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page
    Hon. Edward J. Markey, a Representative in Congress from the
      Commonwealth of Massachusetts, opening statement...............     1
        Prepared Statement...........................................     3
    Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress
      from the State of Wisconsin, opening statement.................     5
    Hon. Jackie Speier, a Representative in Congress from the State
      of California, prepared statement..............................     6

                                   Witnesses

    Dr. Tami Bond, Associate Professor, Department of Civil and
      Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-
      Champaign......................................................     8
        Prepared Statement...........................................    11
    Dr. Veerabhadran Ramanathan, Professor of Climate and Atmospheric
      Sciences, Scripps Institution of Oceanography..................    21
        Prepared Statement...........................................    23
    Dr. Drew T. Shindell, Senior Scientist, NASA Goddard Institute
      for Space Studies..............................................    36
        Prepared Statement...........................................    38
    Mr. Conrad Schneider, Advocacy Director, Clean Air Task Force....    46
        Prepared Statement and Additional Materials..................    49

    CLEARING THE SMOKE: UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACTS OF BLACK CARBON POLLUTION

                                  ----------

                            TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010

                      House of Representatives,
                Select Committee on Energy Independence
                                            and Global Warming,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:10 a.m., in room
    1310, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Edward J. Markey
    (chairman of the committee) presiding.
        Present: Representatives Markey, Inslee, Cleaver, and
    Sensenbrenner.
        The Chairman. Good morning.
        On December 5th, 1952, soot-filled smoke from London's
    factories and fireplaces settled on the city, and over the next
    few days thousands of people died from the soot and fumes. For
    years, the iconic image of Los Angeles was not the Hollywood
    sign; it was an obscured skyline. And while much progress has
    been made to clean up this pollution, clouds of sooty smoke
    continue to blanket homes from Mexico City to Mumbai, harming
    the health of millions of people.
        Soot is the visible portion of carbon pollution from
    smokestacks and tailpipes, burning fields and forests. It
    sticks to our lungs. It causes asthma and heart disease. It is
    what gives smoke its ominous color.
        And, as the saying goes, where there is smoke, there is
    fire. In this case, the fire is increased global warming. The
    black carbon in soot is one of the most potent warming agents
    affecting our planet.
        From diesel trucks to inefficient factories, from the
    cookstoves in southeast Asia to the burning forests of the
    Amazon, black carbon and other components of soot rise into the
    atmosphere every time we burn fossil fuel or biomass. There,
    black carbon absorbs sunlight and traps heat. Stuck on water
    drops and ice crystals, black carbon reduces the cooling effect
    of clouds. And when black carbon eventually falls out of the
    air and settles onto ice sheets and mountain snow pack, it
    accelerates the melting of ice and snow, contributing to rising
    sea levels and threatening water supplies.
        Cutting emissions of black carbon could yield rapid
    benefits for our health and climate. Black carbon only stays in
    the atmosphere for a few days to weeks before settling out.
    That means that a global effort to reduce these emissions would
    act fast to prevent respiratory disease and aid in the fight
    against global warming pollution.
        And we already have the technologies needed to achieve deep
    reductions, including particle filters, improved diesel engines
    and efficient cookstoves. Developing and installing these
    technologies would create jobs and move us forward in the clean
    energy economy.
        Now, I am sure there are some who would argue that if we
    cut black carbon pollution, we can delay on reducing greenhouse
    gasses like carbon dioxide. This simply will not address the
    momentous challenge that we face. For homebuyers, a solid
    downpayment can keep the mortgage more manageable, but they
    still have to make the monthly payments. If we want to keep the
    planet a viable residence, a downpayment in the form of black
    carbon reductions won't replace the need to make sustained
    investments in clean energy. Each year of delay will make it
    more difficult to keep temperatures from rising, and it will
    continue to put the American economy at a competitive
    disadvantage.
        We recently took steps to cut black carbon and greenhouse
    gas pollution. Last year, the House passed the Waxman-Markey
    American Clean Energy and Security Act, which will set us on a
    pollution-cutting path and at the same time create millions of
    new jobs, making America the global leader of the clean energy
    economy.
        Working with Representative Inslee, we incorporated a
    number of provisions that would cut emissions of black carbon
    here at home and seek opportunities to curb emissions abroad.
    This will provide innumerable benefits for our health and for
    our climate.
        The deadly soot-filled London fog of 1952 encouraged the
    U.K. to enact their own clean air laws in 1956. My hope today
    is that, even in the fog of war that sometimes envelops our
    progress on clean energy and climate change, that we can still
    clear the smoke to find common ground on issues like black
    carbon.
        I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses and
    hearing from them how Congress can help address this important
    issue.
        I would now like to recognize the ranking member of the
    select committee, the gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr.
    Sensenbrenner.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Markey follows:]

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2588A.001

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T2588A.002

        Mr. Sensenbrenner. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        There is so much controversy about how to confront climate
    change that sometimes there seems to be no common ground.
    However, by taking a realistic approach to black carbon, we can
    have a positive effect on the environment without breaking the
    bank, which is something that both Democrats and Republicans
    should support.
        Black carbon, which is essentially soot, doesn't get the
    attention that CO2 receives. That is too bad because
    the more focus on black carbon would produce immediate results
    for the environment without requiring the types of regulations
    that stifle the economy.
        Scientists are learning that black carbon is one of the
    leading contributors to climate change. Most global emissions
    of black carbon come from energy-related combustion and the
    burning of biomass. By coating both the air and the planet's
    surface with soot, black carbon absorbs heat at a dangerous
    rate. But unlike CO2, which hangs in the atmosphere
    for decades, black carbon lingers for only days at a time.
        It is also easier for society to address the emissions of
    black carbon. There are already a number of ways to reduce
    these emissions without relying on the cost-prohibitive
    technologies that CO2 regulations would require.
        Most of the world's black carbon is produced in Asia.
    Surprisingly, when it comes to black carbon, the U.S. isn't
    cast as the bad guy, as North America produces less than
    Europe, South America, and Africa. But much of the black carbon
    produced in the developing world could be offset with simple
    technology and techniques.
        Improved farming and forestry policies would go a long way
    toward reducing the soot. So would cleaner-burning stoves,
    which are already readily available and could be cheaply
    deployed in many of the developing nations where dirty,
    inefficient stoves are commonly used. It would be a lot cheaper
    to buy clean stoves for developing nations than to implement
    draconian CO2 regulations.
        As Congress struggles over how to confront climate change,
    black carbon reductions, targeted investments in research and
    development, and improved transmission are cost-effective
    options that could have large impacts without crippling our
    economy.
        I want to welcome Dr. Drew Shindell of NASA Goddard
    Institute for Space Studies, who will talk about the immediate
    impact that could result from cleaning up black carbon
    emissions.
        Hybrid truck legislation that I have introduced would also
    help black carbon. Diesel engines are a primary source of black
    carbon. Since most trucks use diesel, reducing fuel use in
    trucks would reduce both CO2 and black carbon
    emissions. My bill would create a grant program in the
    Department of Energy to fund research and development of hybrid
    truck technology.
        This is one approach that is simple and affordable. There
    are many others, and I hope today's hearing leads to more
    understanding of this problem and its solutions.
        Thank you.
        The Chairman. I thank the gentleman very much. All time for
    opening statements of Members has been completed.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Speier follows:]

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        The Chairman. We will turn to our first witness, who is Dr.
    Tami Bond. She is a professor in the Department of Civil and
    Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at
    Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Bond's research considers the
    interactions between energy use, the composition of the
    atmosphere, and the global science system.
        We welcome you. Whenever you are ready, please begin.

      STATEMENTS OF TAMI C. BOND, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, ARTHUR AND
       VIRGINIA NAUMAN FACULTY SCHOLAR, DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND
      ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-
     CHAMPAIGN; VEERABHADRAN RAMANATHAN, VICTOR ALDERSON PROFESSOR
     OF APPLIED OCEAN SCIENCES, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF CLIMATE
    AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, SCRIPPS INSTITUTION OF OCEANOGRAPHY,
     UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO; DREW T. SHINDELL, SENIOR
    SCIENTIST, NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION, NASA
    GODDARD INSTITUTE FOR SPACE STUDIES; CONRAD SCHNEIDER, ADVOCACY
                     DIRECTOR, CLEAN AIR TASK FORCE

                       STATEMENT OF TAMI C. BOND

        Ms. Bond. Thank you, Chairman Markey and Ranking Member
    Sensenbrenner and members of the committee. Thank you for this
    opportunity to discuss black carbon and its role in climate
    change. I am really honored to be here and to participate in
    the committee's important discussions as you explore a wide
    variety of solutions to clean energy and climate change.
        I have been working on black carbon for about 15 years. I
    do everything from models of emissions in the atmosphere to
    measurements of diesel engines and cookstoves. So, although I
    sit in front of a computer most of the time, I have definitely
    gotten my hands dirty.
        Black carbon is the dark component of smoke. I am going to
    start by giving you an idea of what a powerful climate impact
    it has, putting some numbers on what Mr. Markey said.
        One ounce of black carbon in the atmosphere absorbs about
    the amount of sunlight that would fall on a tennis court. This
    light turns into heat and warms the atmosphere. One pound of
    black carbon absorbs about 650 times as much energy during its
    short lifetime as one pound of emitted CO2 does
    during 100 years.
        An old diesel truck, not our current regulations, but an
    old diesel truck driving for 20 miles would emit about a third
    of an ounce of black carbon. That is about the weight of two
    nickels. That would heat the atmosphere during its short
    lifetime as much as adding a home furnace to it. Now, after a
    week, that heating is gone because the particles fall out of
    the atmosphere. If they fall on snow, they can warm it and melt
    it.
        Over that same 20 miles, the same truck will emit about 70
    pounds of CO2. And that would add five times the
    warming of the black carbon but spread over 100 years. So there
    are two mayor effects: one short, one long.
        Estimates of black carbon ``forcing'' or the atmospheric
    warming today are between 20 percent and 60 percent of carbon
    dioxide's. We have high confidence that atmosphere and snow
    forcing by black carbon and its interaction with sunlight leads
    to warming and is significant in comparison with greenhouse
    gasses. One of the uncertainties, however, is how those same
    emissions change clouds.
        I would like to add an analogy to that of Mr. Markey.
    Reducing black carbon emissions is a short-term solution to
    climate change. It is a bit like applying an emergency brake to
    a car that is out of control. You slow the vehicle quickly, get
    a little time to think, but your vehicle will still run away if
    you don't take your foot off the gas pedal, if CO2
    emissions are maintained.
        The estimated emission rate of black carbon is about 8.3
    million tons per year. Total emissions from the United States
    are about 460,000 tons. That is about 5.5 percent of the global
    total. Of this total--that is, the global total--diesel engines
    provide about a quarter. Solid fuels like wood and coal burned
    for home cooking and heating are also about a quarter. Small
    industries are about 10 percent. And open forest and grassland
    burning is the remaining 40 percent.
        There are uncertainties in global emissions. The totals are
    probably underestimated, especially in developing countries.
    However, we are confident that the sources I mentioned are very
    large contributors to global black carbon.
        It is important to note that there are international
    initiatives working on both diesel engines and cookstoves. This
    doesn't mean that they have all the resources they need.
        I have given you a very simple picture. However, sources
    that emit black carbon also emit several other pollutants:
    Cooling particles that reflect light away from the Earth and
    gases that warm the Earth by changing ozone and methane. You
    can think of each source like a bathroom faucet. The mixed
    water can be very warm if you turn on the black carbon or the
    gasses, very cold if you turn on the cooling particles, and the
    net result depends on the balance.
        So sources with high emissions of warming pollutants are
    the most promising targets for reducing warming. Of the sources
    I listed above, diesel engines are the richest in warming
    pollutants by far, followed by residential cooking and heating,
    industrial sources, and, last, open burning of biomass.
        Since the late 1800s, emissions in the United States have
    gradually transitioned from residential wood and coal to
    industry to diesel engines. This development track is common
    through much of the world. In countries at low levels of
    development, black carbon emissions come mainly from solid
    fuels for heating and cooking. In developed regions like the
    United States and Europe, the main sources are diesel engines.
        There are three big drivers of cleaning up black carbon.
    First, technology. Our very first success was in the use of
    pulverized coal boilers to increase coal use and yet reduce
    black carbon emissions at the same time. Second, clean fuels.
    Introduction of natural gas, electricity, and liquified
    petroleum gas has played a large role in cleaning up
    residential emissions. That is just one example. And, finally,
    regulation and government participation in technology
    development, such as the initiative that Mr. Sensenbrenner
    mentioned. These have driven advanced technologies and retrofit
    programs for diesel, for example.
        Now, to confirm that reducing sources rich in black carbon
    will benefit----
        The Chairman. If you could just summarize, please.
        Ms. Bond. I am on my last paragraph.
        To confirm that reducing sources rich in black carbon will
    benefit climate, we have to estimate the net effect of cleaning
    up individual emission sources, our best estimate of cloud
    response to particle emissions, which is very important. I and
    three other scientists are leading a group of about 30
    coauthors in a study to assess those questions, and we expect
    to have a product in June.
        I don't think that all the questions about black carbon
    will be solved by June, but that report should be able to tell
    us which actions can be taken soon and what targeted research
    is needed to evaluate actions in the near future.
        Thank you.
        [The statement of Ms. Bond follows:]

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        The Chairman. Thank you, Dr. Bond, very much.
        Our second witness is Dr. V. Ramanathan. He is a
    distinguished professor of atmospheric sciences at the Scripps
    Institution of Oceanography at the University of California,
    San Diego, and the director of the Center for Atmospheric
    Sciences. He is the chair of the National Academy of Sciences
    panel that provides strategic advice to the U.S. Climate Change
    Science Program.
        We welcome you, sir. Whenever you are ready, please begin.

                  STATEMENT OF VEERABHADRAN RAMANATHAN

        Mr. Ramanathan. Chairman Markey, Ranking Member
    Sensenbrenner, and other honorable members of the committee, I
    am truly honored by this.
        My own work is using autonomous----
        The Chairman. Is your microphone on down there?
        Mr. Ramanathan. I think so. Can you hear me now?
        The Chairman. Yes.
        Mr. Ramanathan. Can I start over or get 20 seconds?
        The Chairman. All right.
        Mr. Ramanathan. My own work is using autonomous, unmanned
    aerial vehicles to measure this absorption of sunlight by black
    carbon directly.
        We also use instrumented aircraft like the Gulf aircraft,
    and we have followed black carbon transport all the way from
    China across the Pacific Ocean into the U.S. So these things
    travel long distances.
        We also have stations in the Himalayas and in the Sierras
    to see how the black carbon settling on the snow darkens the
    snows and causes melting. And we have measurements for all of
    these phenomena.
        And the first thing we have to recognize--first of all, I
    completely agree with the opening statement by both the
    chairman and the ranking member. The BC impact, impacts the air
    pollution and health at regional scales--and I will talk about
    that--and global scales, in terms of global warming.
        At the regional scale, black carbon influences cloud
    formation and heats the air around it, disrupts rainfall
    patterns, such as a monsoon in India. And the deposition of
    black carbon on bright snow surfaces darkens ice and snow. And
    this, along with the warming of the air by BC, contributes to
    the warming of the Arctic--my colleague, Dr. Shindell, will
    talk about that--as well as the elevated regions of the
    Himalayan-Tibetan glaciers and snow packs. Thus, black carbon
    is directly linked with the water budget of the planet.
        Relating to the global warming effort of BC, current
    estimates show the contribution of BC, black carbon, to the
    heat addition of the planet is as much as 20 percent to 60
    percent of that due to carbon dioxide. The 60 percent value is
    my estimate with Professor Carmichael, in which we constrained
    the global network of instruments and aircraft data.
        As has been mentioned, BC is an important fast-action tool
    in mitigating long-term warming due to greenhouse gases. To
    give an example, reducing black carbon emissions by 50 percent
    today will lead to a 50 percent reduction in the heat trapped
    by them within a few months so that policymakers will witness
    the success of their actions during their tenure. I think it
    would also be a great opportunity to test climate scientist
    theories and models. And it is instructive to compare the
    potential of BC as a mitigation tool with that of
    CO2 reduction.
        The manmade carbon dioxide blanket weighs a staggering 880
    billion tons. The weight of black carbon in the blanket is a
    minuscule 250,000 tons, except it almost has half the effect of
    CO2. However, we have to point out, CO2
    reductions are required to avert large warming. For example, we
    are currently adding about 35 gigatons every year, and it is
    growing at a rate of 2 to 3 percent. At this rate, we will be
    adding another 1,500 billion tons of CO2 during this
    century. So black carbon reduction should be thought of as
    complementary and not as supplementing CO2.
        As has been pointed out, two important targets for
    reductions of black carbon are those generated by diesel and BC
    generated by cooking with biomass fuels. For example, I am
    working with a village in India, trying to understand replacing
    the cookstoves, the traditional cookstoves, with nearly smoke-
    free cookstoves, how much climate warming we would avoid.
        So the last thing I want to conclude, the science of black-
    carbon-climate link we have to understand is relatively new,
    compared to what we have spent--over 4 or 5 decades--
    understanding the issue of CO2. And, as a result,
    every month we are finding out yet another way in which black
    carbon impacts the environment. So this is the science in the
    making.
        I just want to give you three major examples. The
    interaction of black carbon within clouds and the impact on
    precipitation and cloud extent--this might emerge as one of the
    bigger issues. The role the black carbon atmospheric heating
    and ice/snow darkening, its role on the observed warming and
    melting of the alpine glaciers and snow packs. It is an
    emerging science. Lastly, impact of black carbon on the Arctic
    warming and sea ice retreat, which I think will be covered by
    my colleague, Dr. Shindell.
        Thank you so much.
        [The statement of Mr. Ramanathan follows:]

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        The Chairman. Thank you, Doctor, very much.
        Our next witness is Dr. Drew Shindell, a senior scientist
    at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He is also a
    lecturer in the earth and environment sciences at Columbia
    University. Of his many distinctions, he received a National
    Science Foundation Antarctic Service Medal and a Scientific
    American Top 50 Scientists award.
        We welcome you, sir. Whenever you are ready, please begin.

                     STATEMENT OF DREW T. SHINDELL

        Mr. Shindell. I would like to first thank the committee for
    the opportunity to testify this morning.
        Direct observations of climate seldom reveal cause and
    effect, so that the influence of black carbon on surface
    temperature must be estimated using models as well as data.
    Several independent methods find broadly similar results, with
    an overall global mean warming due to black carbon that is
    about 15 to 55 percent of the warming due to carbon dioxide, as
    we have heard. Black carbon has likely had even larger regional
    effects, especially in areas such as the Arctic, due to its
    strong impact on snow and ice.
        Black carbon affects other aspects of climate in addition
    to surface temperature. Several studies have indicated that the
    large amounts of smoke and haze observed near Asia can cause
    shifts in a monsoon.
        The physical mechanism linking black carbon to changes in
    precipitation is clear and operates worldwide. Unlike
    temperature changes, shifts in precipitation nearly always have
    negative net economic impacts, as long-term infrastructure has
    quite sensibly been designed for norms over past decades.
        Actual policies will usually impact emissions of many
    compounds simultaneously, since incomplete combustion produces
    substantial amounts of other particulates and gases in addition
    to black carbon. Hence, it is necessary to examine the net
    impacts of all emissions from a particular activity on climate.
    Furthermore, emissions of pollutants also affect the quality of
    the air we breathe. Policies typically treat the air quality
    and climate effects separately, however.
        Encouragingly, research has shown that the optimal
    strategies to reduce black carbon and the ozone precursors
    carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and methane are
    similar whether the goal is improving air quality or limiting
    global warming. This argues for a stronger emphasis on
    reduction in emissions of these pollutants in air quality
    policies, for which there would be a climate co-benefit, and in
    climate policies, for which there would be an air quality co-
    benefit.
        Research suggests that strategies to simultaneously improve
    air quality and mitigate global warming differ from region to
    region. In the U.S., reductions in overall emissions from
    diesel vehicles appear to achieve both goals, with the
    substantial part of the benefits coming from reduced black
    carbon. More generally, increases in fuel efficiency coupled
    with reductions in emissions from both gasoline- and diesel-
    fueled vehicles show the most positive results for climate and
    air quality.
        In contrast, many countries in the developing world use
    fuel with high sulfur content, as the U.S. did years ago.
    Hence, in developing Asia, where particulate emissions are
    larger than in any part of the world, reductions in emissions
    from both industrial processes and residential cooking stoves
    offer ways to simultaneously improve air quality and mitigate
    warming.
        The health benefits that would be gained from reductions in
    particulate and ozone concentrations are clear from
    epidemiological studies. While these benefits are most strongly
    felt in nearby population, long-range transport of air
    pollution can also be substantial. And, hence, the health
    impacts of air pollution are not simply a local issue. Climate
    impacts extend even more broadly.
        Particulates also impair visibility, with detrimental
    impacts on tourism and recreation. Elevated levels of ozone
    cause damage to plants, leading to economic losses from reduced
    agricultural and forestry yields and decreased food security.
    Many projects to control black carbon, carbon monoxide,
    volatile organics, and methane emissions may therefore have
    higher benefits than costs, even without including any value
    from reducing warming. For example, both State and Federal
    diesel emissions regulations have shown human health benefits
    five times or more than the cost of implementing the
    regulations.
        Air pollution leads to $70 billion to $270 billion in
    damages per year in the United States alone. So there is
    clearly a great deal of potential for co-benefits, including
    health care cost savings.
        Though further research is clearly needed to reduce
    uncertainties, we can already conclude that reductions in
    emissions of black carbon are likely to be a useful component
    of strategies to mitigate climate change. Realistic emissions
    reductions would affect several types of particles and gasses
    and, thus, require a careful analysis of their net impact.
        In summary, while there is more to learn, several things
    are already clear: Reductions in emissions of products of
    incomplete combustion will virtually always improve health. And
    by targeting emissions rich in black carbon, carbon monoxide,
    volatile organic compounds, and methane, many options are
    available that will simultaneously mitigate climate change.
        Thank you.
        [The statement of Mr. Shindell follows:]

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        The Chairman. Thank you, Doctor.
        And our final witness is Conrad Schneider. He is the
    advocacy director of the Clear Air Task Force, a nonprofit
    environmental research, education, and legal advocacy
    organization.
        We welcome you, sir.

                     STATEMENT OF CONRAD SCHNEIDER

        Mr. Schneider. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
    Sensenbrenner, and members of the committee. My name is Conrad
    Schneider, advocacy director of the Clear Air Task Force. And I
    want to thank you personally for the leadership that you and
    this committee have shown on the issue of climate change and
    for the work done in passing the Waxman-Markey bill. I
    appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today regarding
    policy options for reducing black carbon emissions.
        The Waxman-Markey bill made an excellent start in dealing
    with this issue, and we appreciate you revisiting it today
    because it represents a promising approach that deserves
    immediate attention, both in the climate bill and in other
    legislation currently before Congress.
        At the outset of today's hearing, I just want to make one
    thing very clear: Addressing black carbon and the other short-
    lived climate forcing agents, such as methane and ozone, is not
    a substitute for enacting comprehensive climate change
    legislation to deal with carbon dioxide emissions. We are going
    to need both and then some in order to address the climate
    crisis.
        I want to try to give a sense of urgency to this hearing,
    as well, and these solutions. Imagine a world in which the
    Arctic is literally melting; that the Arctic Ocean is about to
    become ice-free, we are told; that permafrost is melting,
    potential releasing millennial stores of carbon dioxide and
    methane. And we are searching, globally, we are searching for
    strategies that can counteract this situation almost
    immediately. And we find a strategy that not only can act
    immediately to do so, but it could save hundreds of thousands
    of lives globally.
        We don't have to imagine very much. That is the situation
    we face today. And reducing black carbon is a strategy that can
    deliver those immediate benefits. In fact, some experts
    estimate that black carbon emissions to reduce global warming
    could deliver as much as one to two of the Socolow wedges that
    you all are familiar with--the goals of trying to use a variety
    of different steps to meet the Carbon Mitigation Initiative's
    200-billion-ton goal.
        And, as you have heard, black carbon is not only a climate
    forcing agent, it is a potent, deadly air pollutant. In the
    U.S., we have estimated that diesel particulate emissions alone
    will cause over 21,000 premature deaths this year.
        So black carbon is a win-win for climate and public health,
    but given the tremendous environmental and health benefits of
    reducing it, relatively little is being done in the U.S. or
    globally to actually attack this problem. The previous
    panelists identified diesel engines, cookstoves, and
    agriculture burning as the most controllable sources of black
    carbon. So I am going to focus there today on the policies that
    we can use to attack them.
        Now, last year, due in part to the leadership of
    Representative Inslee, Congress directed the U.S. EPA to study
    the issue of black carbon and report back early next year,
    about a year from now. It is supposed to inventory the sources,
    assess the potential metrics, and identify the most cost-
    effective approaches for reductions.
        Now, on one level, the solutions for these source
    categories are pretty simple. For diesel engines, there are
    filters available to trap up to 90 percent of this pollution.
    For cookstoves, the key is replacing existing smoking
    cookstoves with more efficient cookstoves. And for agriculture
    burning, it involves shifting the burning away from the spring
    season and using pyrolysis to turn waste into biochar that
    sequesters carbon and increases agricultural productivity.
        However, all of this is easier said than done. There are
    over 11 million diesel engines in use today without filters,
    tens of millions globally. Half the people on Earth use
    inefficient cookstoves, and unnecessary agriculture burning
    persists in many places.
        For diesels, the debated policies boil down to two things,
    and the kind of things that you don't want to hear,
    necessarily: mandates and money. The U.S. and the EU have
    adopted new engine standards that are going to reduce these
    emissions by 90 percent, but it will take decades before they
    are fully effective. In the meantime, we really need to focus
    on retrofitting the existing diesel fleet with these filters.
        Now, the Waxman-Markey bill directed EPA to exercise its
    existing authority over black carbon. And the lion's share, as
    you have heard, in the United States comes from diesels. But,
    unfortunately, the EPA, under the Clean Air Act, has the
    authority to regulate only 1 million out of those 11 million
    diesel engines. An analysis by MJ Bradley Associates estimated
    that targeting just that million could achieve the climate
    benefits of removing 21 million cars from the road and would
    save approximately 7,500 lives, yet EPA has failed to act.
        On the money side, the Kerry-Boxer bill that passed the
    Senate committee devoted a portion of that bill's allowance
    allocation proceeds to fund the Diesel Emission Reduction Act,
    DERA. DERA passed in 2005 and authorized a billion dollars over
    5 years to clean up diesel. However, it has been chronically
    underfunded. The Recovery Act provided $300 million for DERA,
    but EPA received $2 billion worth of applications for that
    money and is sitting on $1.7 billion worth of project
    applications that could cut black carbon emissions
    significantly today. Additional funding for DERA should be
    included in any jobs bill that passes this year. And since DERA
    expires next year, it should be reauthorized and fully funded.
        In addition, the upcoming transportation bill
    reauthorization offers the opportunity to reduce black carbon
    from diesel construction equipment. We believe that work on
    federally funded transportation infrastructure projects should
    be accomplished with clean diesel equipment paid for through
    the transportation bill funds.
        And Associated General Contractors, the people who own that
    equipment, they agree. Last year, we negotiated a set of joint
    clean construction principles with AGC. Now Representative Hall
    of this committee, with the support of several Members here, is
    championing the effort to see that those principles are
    included in the transportation bill.
        For cookstoves, the Waxman-Markey bill calls for providing
    assistance in foreign countries to reduce black carbon
    emissions and specifically outlines actions to provide
    affordable stoves for developing countries. It notably also
    provides a set of performance standards, which are excellent.
        However, the bill did not allocate any allowances or
    auction proceeds to fund the program. The U.S. should lead in
    the creation of jointly funded international programs to
    develop regionally appropriate strategies to deploy these
    stoves. But they face many other challenges, as well, including
    cultural acceptance of the stoves, the need for on-site
    verification and mitigation, and cheaper stoves that can be
    deployed at scale.
        And, lastly, stemming agricultural fires in the spring when
    Arctic ice and snow is most affected by the deposition of black
    carbon requires overcoming cultural resistance to long-held
    agriculture practices. Black carbon emissions from spring
    agricultural burning in the northern latitudes are highest in
    Eurasia and in North America, in the grain belt. Black carbon
    emissions can transport directly from there into the Arctic,
    darkening the surfaces there and accelerating melting. So these
    fires present a clear target for mitigation.
        So, in conclusion, policies targeting black carbon
    emissions offer a viable climate strategy that can be
    implemented without delay, that will deliver immediate climate
    benefits, using technology that is available today. And,
    moreover, they can deliver important public health protections
    from one of the most potent and widespread air-pollution-
    related public health threats.
        Winning these policies will not be easy, but their
    significant benefits make them extremely cost beneficial, and
    they may constitute our best hedge against near-term climate
    impacts.
        Thank you.
        [The statement of Mr. Schneider follows:]

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        The Chairman. I recognize the gentleman from Washington
    State, Mr. Inslee.
        Mr. Inslee. Thank you.
        This is really an excellent panel. Dr. Bond, if I had had
    someone like you in college, I would have fulfilled my
    fantasies of becoming a physicist. So, thanks for your
    educational work here.
        First question: Is black carbon a proxy for the health
    benefits of reduction of other emissions associated with fossil
    fuels? If we reduce black carbon, do we get the benefits,
    almost by necessity, of reductions of other emissions? Or are
    they different?
        Ms. Bond. There is a lot of similarity, and there are some
    differences.
        Black carbon is just a component of particulate matter,
    which has severe health impacts. And so you can reduce
    particulate matter and also reduce black carbon, or you can
    reduce particulate matter and if you don't target black carbon
    sources, then don't get the black carbon reductions.
        Now, your question was the other way around. If you reduce
    black carbon, do you always get the health benefits? In fact,
    the health benefits are more clear for black carbon reductions
    than the climate benefits. The climate benefits have some
    uncertainty. There are sources for which we are confident in
    the climate benefit. But the health benefits are always
    existing.
        Mr. Inslee. So let me ask a little different question. If
    we made an investment in our diesel transportation fleet of X
    dollars right now and our interest was on the health impacts,
    would the best investment to be, at least in the short term,
    the filtration systems to capture black carbon and then get
    health benefits associated with that, or would there be a
    better investment for better health impacts?
        Mr. Schneider.
        Mr. Schneider. I will try to take that one.
        The Clean Air Task Force has analyzed the benefits of
    looking at power plant pollution cleanup, diesel pollution
    cleanup, car pollution cleanup from both a health perspective
    and from a climate perspective. And if you factor in, if you
    take into a combination both the health and the climate
    benefits, there is no better investment than in a particle
    filtration system.
        Particulates are the most deadly air pollutant. Black
    carbon may deliver the fastest climate benefits. So, taken
    together--and when you have a technology that can deliver a 90
    percent reduction in the particulate/black carbon, you have a
    real winner for a technology.
        Mr. Inslee. I introduced this black carbon bill, I don't
    know, about a year, year and a half ago, and it seemed to me
    the right thing to do. But since then I have seen a documentary
    showing that the soot on the surface, it was either the Arctic
    or Greenland, and I can't recall which it was, but it showed
    these depressions. The whole sheet of ice I saw had these
    depressions. And at the bottom of the depression, there would
    be this patch of black soot, and I mean black soot, against the
    white ice. And it looked like the entire cap was covered with
    this stuff, at least at the bottom of each one of these little
    melt pools. It caught my attention.
        And I guess the question is, is the albedo effect of black
    carbon, how does that compare to the general climate change
    when it is in the atmosphere? Is it just a small part of the
    problem or a big part of the problem?
        Mr. Ramanathan. Maybe I can answer part of that question.
        If you look at global warming effect of black carbon, this
    albedo effect contributes about 10 percent of the total black
    carbon effect. But if you look in the Arctic or in Alpine
    glaciers, then the darkening effect may be the dominant effect.
    Because black carbon warming comes from trapping sunlight in
    the air. But, locally, in the sea ice and the glaciers and the
    ice sheets, the darkening effect may very well be the dominant
    effect.
        Dr. Shindell.
        Mr. Shindell. Thank you.
        We believe that anywhere where there is snow and ice, the
    effect you have been describing occurs. In places like the
    Himalayas, the results are somewhat more ambiguous because you
    have a fair amount of wind-blown dust and other types of
    pollutants that are already deposited on those glaciers. So it
    almost certainly contributes, but how much it contributes there
    is more ambiguous.
        In the Arctic, which tends to be very far from, say, dust
    sources, the snow is very clean, so the effect is extremely
    large. And there we believe that it is quite possible that
    black carbon is responsible for over half of the accelerated
    melting we have seen in the last few decades, or at least over,
    say, the 20th century.
        Mr. Inslee. Do you mean the albedo effect from the black
    carbon?
        Mr. Shindell. Well, it is both the effect of black carbon
    in the atmosphere and the albedo effect. And the effect on
    albedo is obviously very local, but even the effect in the
    atmosphere has an extra powerful impact on the Arctic because
    most of the sources are from the Northern Hemisphere
    industrialized or developing nations, which means that their
    emissions are closer.
        So, unlike CO2, which just drifts around
    uniformly everywhere, the black carbon being physically emitted
    in the Northern Hemisphere, fairly close to the Arctic, allows
    it to have an even stronger impact on the Arctic than it does
    on the global average.
        Mr. Inslee. Mr. Schneider, you pointed out what sounded
    like a potential imperfection of the Waxman-Markey bill, which
    we don't believe there could ever be an imperfection on that
    work of art. But you did make reference to, I thought that the
    provision that would implement a regulation on black carbon
    would apply only to 1 million of the 11 million units. Could
    you explain that?
        Mr. Schneider. I will. And thank you very much. And let me
    just offer another opportunity to thank and commend the
    committee and the people who worked so hard on that bill. And I
    appreciate you all revisiting the issue today, hopefully to
    maybe strengthen the black carbon provisions, which are already
    the best in any bill.
        Mr. Inslee. And, by the way, if there is an imperfection,
    it is not those two gentlemen's responsibility. I will take
    full responsibility.
        Mr. Schneider. I suspect that when----
        The Chairman. I actually praised Congressman Inslee in my
    opening statement for the provisions. So I think he deserves
    full credit for everything that is----
        Mr. Inslee. Including the imperfections.
        Mr. Schneider. The bill basically directs EPA to exercise
    its existing authority over all sources of black carbon, the
    largest, nearly 60 percent of that in the U.S. being diesel. So
    it is sort of directing EPA to deal with diesel.
        And the imperfection, if there is one, is not in the
    Waxman-Markey bill. It is in the Clean Air Act, which gives EPA
    only the authority, in terms of in-use diesels, to deal with a
    very small slice of those engines. The only provision in the
    Clean Air Act that allows that is one called--it is a rebuild
    provision. Whenever any truck engines are rebuilt--that is,
    taken from an old, rebuilt to be in a new--EPA has the
    authority to issue more stringent emissions standards for those
    rebuilt engines.
        And in this country, over the next decade, we project that
    only about 1 million vehicles will rebuild in that way. So if
    EPA exercised, as you directed them, to use the full extent of
    their authority, they could only cover that 1 million set of
    rebuilding engines over that period of time, whereas the in-use
    fleet is 11 million. That would include all the other trucks
    that don't get rebuilt and would include all the off-road
    engines: The construction equipment and other engines. EPA
    right now has no authority over those, and the courts have said
    so. I mean, it is very clear that that is constrained.
        So one of the first things we would say that needs to be
    fixed in that regard is to give EPA broader regulatory
    authority to require filters and after-treatment devices on the
    existing fleet. And we promote the idea of doing that in
    conjunction with incentives to turn over the fleet faster and
    potentially economic incentives, like in the Diesel Emission
    Reduction Act, to pay for some of that.
        But one of the things that is holdings us back right now is
    we have this golden opportunity to deal with these sources,
    which are public health threats and climate forcers, but EPA
    really can't go much further.
        I don't mean to be overly critical, but I would point out
    also that, even with respect to the engine rebuild rule, EPA is
    aware that that authority exists and is studying the question,
    looking at the question of whether to exercise that authority.
    And we hope they will shortly, but to date they have not.
        Mr. Inslee. What is the best assessment of the costs
    associated with that that has been done already?
        Mr. Schneider. In terms of the rebuild rule itself?
        Mr. Inslee. Yes.
        Mr. Schneider. I believe that to deal with those million
    engines, depending on what--not every engine can take the most
    advanced type of filter, so that you have a mixture of
    solutions. It is several billion dollars, with a ``B,'' to
    comply with that.
        Mr. Inslee. All right.
        So, next question: To what extent is black carbon an issue
    on our coal-fired utility plants? We have talked about diesel.
    Is black carbon an issue at all with coal-fired utility plants?
        Ms. Bond. Not to the best of our knowledge. The combustion
    in a coal plant is good enough that it burns out all the black
    carbon. And that has changed in the last hundred years, but
    that has been one of our successes. So there may be particulate
    matter, but most of it isn't black.
        Mr. Inslee. And I just was reading a little blurb today
    about a U.N. program to improve residential stoves,
    essentially, in the sub-Saharan African area, to try to get the
    more efficient stoves. Is this a viable strategy? On an
    international basis, what would it take to really have a
    meaningful system to improve the efficiency of these?
        Open question.
        Ms. Bond. I will say something. I am sure Dr. Ramanathan
    will want to speak, as well.
        Two answers, as any good scientist would give you, or any
    good economist. First, yes, it is, because people want new
    technologies, people want clean cooking. And of course there
    are some cultural barriers, but it is definitely a potential
    solution.
        The second answer is that you have to be careful how you do
    it. We have learned quite a lot about how to improve
    residential combustion. That includes both what to do and what
    not to do. What not to do is to parachute in, drop a bunch of
    improved stoves, and hope that people accept them.
        But there is a lot of history in that field. And, as
    mentioned, you need to work with the communities, follow up,
    and, above all, think big-scale. And that involves both
    technological and implementation innovation.
        Mr. Ramanathan. I will just follow that for India and South
    Asia. In India alone, 150 million households use mud stoves,
    using firewood. There has been a long history of trying to
    replace this, and, by and large, they have failed.
        And we got into this just since last year. We have taken a
    small village, and the first thing we found was that
    technologies were not ready. I mean, they were sort of built in
    a laboratory and really didn't adapt to village conditions. And
    just in the last year or two, there are several companies,
    Shell and British Petroleum have come with improved stoves.
    There are also some U.S.-based companies. And they, we find
    now--we have tried five of them. And I am not allowed to give
    the names yet because we will publish the data.
        At least one of them seems to do the job. The women are
    happy with it. I am happy with it because it cuts down the
    black carbon emissions. So it is a convergence of the
    scientific interest of reducing and cooking with something
    which is adaptable to local taste. So I think the technology is
    almost there.
        The last thing I want to mention is that India has now
    started on a major cookstove program nationwide. And it is not
    clear which way that program is going.
        Mr. Inslee. You mean not clear whether it is going clean or
    unclean?
        Mr. Ramanathan. No, I mean to cleaner cookstoves, India's
    program towards cleaner cookstoves.
        Mr. Inslee. Got it.
        I am going to ask one more. This question is a little
    farther afield of this hearing, but I will ask Dr. Bond.
        I have experienced a lot of frustration at the lack of
    understanding in a lot of places, including the U.S. Congress,
    about science associated with climate change, ocean
    acidification, black carbon, and the like. And one of the
    sources of frustration is that the information the scientific
    community has does not get shared with Members of the U.S.
    Congress. They just don't have an appreciation, for one reason
    or another, because they haven't heard from scientists enough,
    frankly.
        I am surprised that--you know, we have people walking
    around here today, the U.S. Capitol, who are aggrieved, and
    they are petitioning their government for redress of grievances
    in a certain sort of direction. But I haven't seen scientists
    up here demanding action from the U.S. Congress, except in the
    most restrained, polite, academic, almost silent ways.
        If I was a scientist and I knew what, frankly, a lot of
    scientists know in this country is going on out there in the
    planet, in the climatic systems, and in the oceans, I would be
    in somebody's grill about that, telling them that we need
    action. And yet you just don't see that from the scientific
    community, with very few exceptions.
        We got a letter from, I think, 250 scientists last week I
    read, saying, ``Wake up and smell the roses. This problem is
    still there, even though there were some nasty e-mails out of
    England.'' But that is about it--a letter, not a person laying
    down on the tracks.
        Why doesn't that happen? Should it happen? And how do we
    engage the scientific community to be more sharing of the
    information they have when it needs to be shared?
        I am focusing on you, Dr. Bond, because you are an educator
    and you are responsible for the future crop of scientists that
    we are going to depend upon.
        Ms. Bond. Thank you, Mr. Inslee.
        I think it was just Monday when I told my air quality
    modeling class that some of them should run for office. So I
    hope that helps.
        Mr. Inslee. That would be great, just not against me.
        Ms. Bond. You are well-established enough. I think I voted
    for you when I was at University of Washington.
        Mr. Inslee. Well, I appreciate that.
        Ms. Bond. At any rate, this is a difficult question, and it
    has to do with the nature of scientists and how they approach
    science.
        If you have an action outcome, one is almost afraid that
    you will affect the science, because you are supposed to look
    at it dispassionately. And so, how we conduct our business,
    99.9 percent of the time we must step back from what we want
    the outcome to be. We are not allowed to want an outcome.
        And perhaps that leads to a disconnect between us and the
    people like you and like the rest of the committee who are able
    to put that science into action so wonderfully, to think of so
    many measures, as Mr. Schneider outlined, to implement action
    in society.
        Ms. Bond. I don't have a good answer for you. I can't
    advise the scientific community to become more passionate
    because they want to be very careful, and that is a very
    important component of the scientific method. But I can say
    that if you perhaps had discussions like this one, or even more
    informal discussions in which there was mixing between the
    committee, like yourself, and a group of scientists, that that
    communication might flow a little more easily.
        Mr. Inslee. Well, I will just take this one opportunity to
    encourage the scientific community to figure out a way to be
    dispassionate objectively, but passionate about sharing the
    information they do have with the people who can give effect to
    those policies. And I think that is possible in the human
    intellect to do both of those things.
        And if we don't have the scientific community doing that
    right now, we are not going to solve this problem because
    people, frankly, won't know about it. And this is great to have
    our committee doing this, but if we don't have scientists
    getting people and shaking them by the collars to get them to
    understand how significant this problem is, people are
    sleepwalking over a cliff. And frankly, the scientific
    community are the people vested with the intellect and
    knowledge who have the ability to get people to wake up. So I
    am just pleading with you, as members of the scientific
    community, to try to engage your members and colleagues in an
    effort to educate the U.S. Congress, because I think the moment
    demands it, and we don't have a lot of time.
        Thank you.
        The Chairman. I thank the gentleman very much.
        Let me ask this question: The temperatures in Alaska have
    warmed six degrees Fahrenheit since 1950. Could any of you
    comment on the role that black carbon has played in terms of
    the changes that are occurring in Alaska or in the Arctic?
        Mr. Shindell. That is something that, as I mentioned in my
    statement, cause and effect is very difficult to understand
    simply from observations because you only have one way that the
    real world happened to behave. So what has been happening that
    is distinct since the 1950's, while concentrations of
    CO2 have been rising steadily, concentrations of
    different types of particulate have been changing, with time--
    after the Clean Air Act some have gone down--and in different
    locations. So we can identify the pattern and try to attribute
    cause and effect to those. The difficulty there is that the
    effect of sulfate, which is something we have controlled well
    because of acid rain, looks very similar to the pattern of
    black carbon.
        So what we can see is that, in these kind of studies, more
    than half of the rapid warming in the Arctic is attributable to
    particulate, but some of that is due to a reduction in sulfate
    and some due to increases in black carbon, both of which have
    been taking place largely in the last 30 years. So it is very
    hard to really separate the two. Probably a third to a half, or
    slightly more, is the best number.
        The Chairman. Dr. Ramanathan.
        Mr. Ramanathan. I think just to echo what was said, we have
    been doing this air pollution reduction almost to speed up the
    warming. We talked about the smoke in the blanket, the sulfates
    and other aerosols act like mirrors on the blanket reflecting
    sunlight and shielding the greenhouse warming.
        So since 1975, we have decreased the sulfate pollution
    quite a bit, almost 25 percent globally, but just in the Arctic
    nations, the reductions in North America and Europe is almost
    50 percent. So the unmasking of the warming is definitely
    contributing to the Arctic warming.
        The second thing that has been contributing to the warming
    is that fossil fuel black carbon has increased. Not all black
    carbon is the same. The biomass black carbon cools a lot less
    compared to fossil fuel black carbon. So there are three things
    which are happening at the same time to contribute to the
    Arctic and the Alaska warming: One is the increase in the
    greenhouse gases; reduction of sulfur pollution and unmasking
    the warming; and the third is increasing the fossil fuel black
    carbon. So what fraction that is I have to leave it to modeling
    scientists like Dr. Shindell.
        The Chairman. Any other comments?
        The Congress, Mr. Schneider, is moving towards the
    encouragement of all electric vehicles, plug in hybrids. Could
    you talk a little bit about that trend and the role that that
    could play in reducing black carbon?
        Mr. Schneider. Sure. First of all, a lot of the discussion
    in this country around electric vehicles and plug in hybrids is
    in the light-duty sector. We don't have a lot of diesel
    vehicles in the light-duty sector here as in other countries,
    and particularly EU. So a conversion of the light-duty fleet to
    more electric vehicles and more plug in hybrids is critical
    with respect to the reduction of greenhouse gases, but probably
    won't make much of a difference with respect to black carbon
    reductions.
        Representative Sensenbrenner has a bill--it passed the
    House--that talks about hybridizing more heavy-duty vehicles,
    and that is a strategy that over a long period of time, if it
    was able to be successful and all the R&D and so forth worked,
    could have a benefit. But the technology immediately that could
    be implemented on heavy-duty diesels where most of the black
    carbon is coming from in this country really is the
    installation of the filters that I described.
        So these are all complimentary strategies, and it is
    important to look at which sector and what problem you are
    trying to address, but I think primarily the electrics and plug
    hybrids would be addressing greenhouse gasses from the light-
    duty automotive sector.
        The Chairman. The Recovery Act, the stimulus package from
    last February, included $300 million for projects to reduce
    diesel exhaust resulting in replacement of old dirty engines
    with new cleaner ones and in retrofitting engines to capture
    black carbon and other pollutants. There is still more to do.
        Could you outline the remaining needs in the United States
    and what we can do to reduce black carbon quickly and
    effectively?
        Mr. Schneider. Well, first of all, let me commend everyone
    who supported those provisions in the Recovery Act. That is
    probably the biggest breakthrough in terms of diesel retrofit
    money that there has been since DERA was passed. DERA was
    authorized at $1 billion. It has typically been funded in the
    annual appropriation of EPA at around $50 million to $60
    million, but in the Recovery Act, as you said, it got $300
    million. And as I said in my testimony, for that $300 million,
    the EPA received $2 billion worth of applications. So that
    really demonstrates that the demand is out there, that people
    want to participate in the program, both in terms of
    replacement and retrofits, but EPA is sitting on about $1.7
    billion worth of applications. And their internal review
    suggests that about $1 billion of those are very high quality.
        So we have suggested that in any jobs packages that move
    that include spending, that perhaps, like the Recovery Act,
    more money could be devoted to the Diesel Emission Reduction
    Act. And EPA's message is, we can move $1 billion worth of
    these immediately because we have the applications sitting at
    our desk. And that would be probably be the fastest thing
    because the idea of the Recovery Act and the Jobs Act is to get
    the money out quickly to create the jobs. This type of DERA
    investment was estimated by Key Bridge Research to generate
    about 19,000 jobs per $1 billion invested, which is very
    favorable when you look at the average of the Recovery Act. So
    this is a win-win-win: It is a climate win. It is a public
    health win. It is a jobs win. So probably the most immediate
    thing that could be done is more funding.
        The Chairman. Who won the $300 million, Mr. Schneider?
        Mr. Schneider. How do you mean?
        The Chairman. In terms of the $300 million, you said there
    was $1 billion worth of applications, who were the winners?
        Mr. Schneider. First of all, there were a diverse set of
    winners. Applicants included public entities, included public-
    private entities. So, for example, a public entity, that might
    be a school district that wanted to retrofit school buses and
    not only protect the community, but protect the kids on the bus
    from the fumes on the bus. It would include municipalities that
    wanted to retrofit their transit buses. It included contractors
    who wanted to retrofit their construction fleets, and there was
    some success in terms of those types of awards.
        There were other awards in which the people used the DERA
    money almost as a Cash-for-Clunkers type of situation where
    they were able to replace existing older vehicles, scrap the
    older ones and bring in ones with a new, cleaner technology. So
    that would include some private fleets, some State government
    fleets, and some fleets that work on contracts for State
    governments. So there was a whole variety of folks in every
    State of the Union I believe that were able to----
        The Chairman. What has been the results in terms of the
    implementation of the programs that the $300 million have
    incentivized?
        Mr. Schneider. Well, first of all, I think EPA is trying to
    calculate right now what the emissions benefits have been from
    that, and they can do that because the applications are quite
    detailed. But that money was able to be awarded very quickly.
    It is a reimbursement program, so it will take a little time to
    get the money out, but the orders came in and those fleets were
    transformed. I think that is the good news, is that many of
    those fleets were able to take advantage of that. And there
    have been announcements around the country where kids are
    riding cleaner buses to school, people are riding cleaner
    transit buses to work. Ferries have been retrofitted so that
    when they pull into their dock, the black smoke doesn't
    infiltrate the shore. All of these things have been
    accomplished through the Recovery Act.
        The Chairman. So I should ask the EPA then to give me
    their----
        Mr. Schneider. Their assessment of that, yes.
        The Chairman [continuing]. Report in terms of how
    successful the $300 million has been. You said that for $1
    billion, it would create how many thousands of jobs?
        Mr. Schneider. Nineteen thousand.
        The Chairman. So, theoretically, then 6,000 jobs were
    created with the $300 million.
        Mr. Schneider. Correct.
        The Chairman. So I think it is important for us to get the
    information on that as well because, as you said, it is win,
    win and win. Thank you.
        Again, you each, I think, made some reference to the fact
    that acting on this black carbon sector should not in any way
    reduce our activities to reduce CO2 in general. So
    could each one of you take 30 seconds to succinctly make your
    own point on that subject?
        Let me go to you, Dr. Bond.
        Ms. Bond. The fact that we should not reduce CO2
    endeavors because of black carbon? We have----
        The Chairman. No, that we should not reduce our efforts to
    reduce the CO2 because we are also working on the
    carbon issue.
        Ms. Bond. Correct. I think Mr. Schneider said it best; we
    need both and everything else that we can think of.
        Right now, we are in a position where we need to act
    quickly. We don't have the 50 years it will take to come up
    with new technologies to reduce atmospheric forcing. And so
    black carbon is a quick solution, but we will still be left
    with the bill after putting CO2 into the atmosphere.
    We can't afford to miss either opportunity.
        The Chairman. Dr. Ramanathan.
        Mr. Ramanathan. It is important to recognize that black
    carbon reduction is not supplementing our prevention efforts to
    reduce CO2 simply because we are adding 35 billion
    tons of carbon dioxide every year, and it is increasing at the
    rate of 2 to 3 percent. If we don't do anything about
    CO2 emissions, the CO2 concentration
    alone in this century can be double, and the warming from that
    added CO2 can exceed 2 degrees. So there is nothing
    BC reductions is going to stop this. The BC reduction is more a
    short-term gain to slow down the climate change. Ultimately,
    that climate change is from CO2, and we have to
    reduce it. Thank you.
        The Chairman. Dr. Shindell.
        Mr. Shindell. Well, in the nineties, the U.K. introduced a
    public health law that said that anybody emitting black smoke
    could be deemed a public nuisance, meaning legally actionable.
    So this led to the City of London suing the London Underground
    over a power plant emitting black smoke, which they got out of
    by claiming it was brown.
        And I bring this up because the interesting thing about
    this, as well as being amusing, is this was the 1890s, not the
    1990s. And we have known for a long time about the public
    health impact, and black carbon should be dealt with because it
    is a public health impact, whether or not it had any climate
    impact. There is an extra impetus now because climate is such a
    severe problem. And I don't even like the expression that this
    buys us time because we really don't have any time on the
    CO2 issue either. That problem is coming down the
    road; it is simply a different time scale.
        That problem, since CO2 accumulates in the
    atmosphere and lasts in the atmosphere for centuries, that
    problem will be with us for a long time, even if we begin to
    address it right away. And so addressing black carbon and the
    other short-lived pollutants can help, but really has to be
    side by side with already immediate action on CO2.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Mr. Schneider.
        Mr. Schneider. Mr. Chairman, I like your metaphor about the
    house payments, down payment and monthly payments. We have a
    lot of experience in this particular area right now; if you
    make a down payment and fail to make the monthly payments, you
    know what happens. You get a foreclosure. And if we act on
    black carbon and make that down payment but we fail to make the
    monthly payments we need on greenhouse gases, our project will
    fail. And maybe we theoretically have bought ourselves a few
    years, but we will have squandered that opportunity, that down
    payment, if we don't follow through and make the necessary
    reductions in greenhouse gases. It will take, as I said, both--
    and in order to reach the target levels that people say will
    avoid the worst effects of global warming.
        The Chairman. By the way, I wanted to tell you, Dr.
    Ramanathan, the reason we are having this hearing is I read
    this brilliant article that you had in Foreign Affairs. And
    from a public education perspective, if I could have 435
    Members of Congress read it, I think that we would have a
    different reaction to the actions that we have to take and the
    recommendations for actions that we have to take to solve the
    problem but also why it is a smart way to go because it is
    something that can happen relatively quickly and have a big
    payoff as well.
        If I could go to India for a second, and maybe you could
    expand a little bit more, Dr. Ramanathan, talk a little bit
    more about India and other countries and their cooking devices
    and what strategy you would recommend to be implemented. And
    what percentage of all black carbon comes just from those
    cooking mechanisms that are used in third-world countries?
        Mr. Ramanathan. In fact, some of the statistics I am going
    to give you come from the pioneering studies of my colleague
    sitting to my right. But we have verified it with observations
    collecting isotope data of black carbon. It turns out at least
    two-thirds of the black carbon over South Asia, which includes
    India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, comes from biomass burning
    in terms of cooking stoves.
        The Chairman. Did you say two-thirds from those countries
    or two-thirds for the whole world?
        Mr. Ramanathan. Two-thirds from those countries. If you
    look at the total emissions from India, about two-thirds is
    from biomass burning. I know my own grandmother cooked with
    these cook stoves. And they do that because the food from that
    is the most delicious at least I have ever eaten, just like the
    smoked salmon here. So that is the reason for the difficulty
    changing that to LPG stoves and others.
        But that was the reasons given by all of the nonprofits
    with which I have interacted. But our experience based on this
    1 year in this selected village is that the women are tired of
    cooking with these traditional mud stoves. It simply takes a
    long time to collect the fuel, and it is a lot of work.
        And so I think the communities, at least the communities I
    have worked with, are ready. We are working with the most
    densely populated part of India. It is called the Indo-Gangetic
    Plain. Over 600 million live there.
        And the other beautiful thing which is happening is the
    Indian Government has realized this is a development issue, a
    health issue. And now I have teamed up with some economists at
    Berkeley and Duke to show that it is also contributing to
    agriculture decrease of the yield. So all of this is coming
    together. And also the realization it may be impacting the
    glaciers is also bringing in a lot of communities together.
        So my personal feeling is the timing is really perfect for
    a major bilateral collaboration between U.S. and India to take
    it to the next stage.
        The Chairman. And what is the next stage? How can Americans
    change Indian cooking habits?
        Mr. Ramanathan. I think the change can happen, my feeling,
    is through technology, transfer of the stoves, and there are
    various ways to do that. And there are also ways we can remove
    the black carbon from the chimneys, and so let them use. And
    the third is, of course, funding. Those three.
        And the fourth I want to mention, the key thing is what we
    are doing; we have to document how much of the health we are
    saving, exposure studies. And we have to document how much
    global warming benefit will you get. My personal calculation
    suggests removing 1 ton of black carbon in those villages will
    have the same effect as removing thousands of tons of carbon
    dioxide, in terms of global warming. And these are theoretical
    calculations. So there are a number of scientific engineering,
    and just the question of giving loans to 150 million. So there
    are a variety of ways in which bilateral collaboration could
    just push it to the front page.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, Mr.
    Cleaver.
        Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I apologize, I am running between committees. I always like
    this committee and try to get here under almost any
    circumstances because of how significant it is.
        I walked in on this conversation. My family is in Tanzania,
    Arusha, about 400 miles south of Nairobi and at the foot of
    Mount Kilimanjaro. I stood out one evening with one of my
    relatives, and we looked up at the moon. And we could actually
    see the outline of craters. And I said to him, you are
    fortunate in many ways over the Western World because there is
    no pollution. I think, in Arusha, average income is $1,500 a
    year; there may be 10 cars. I mean, if I am underestimating,
    let's say 100 cars on the high side, and yet I get on this
    committee and start learning about the soot that is there
    because my cousins cook outside. I mean, everybody is cooking
    outside. In fact, my cousin, believe it or not, in Africa is
    running a barbecue business, and so people line up outside, and
    nobody is thinking about what is going on.
        But the concern I have is, it is low-hanging fruit. We can
    probably eliminate that intrusion into the atmosphere, black
    carbon, but how do we do it? It is something that we know we
    can do if we can just change the culture and also provide some
    kind of way for cooking that does not pollute, but it is going
    to cost money. I am thinking about my cousin or any of my
    relatives, they would easily probably go to another form of
    cooking if they could afford it.
        And so, in the absence of having the money, what do we do?
    I mean, is it something that the United States and the
    polluters, the big polluters--India, China, Europe--is that our
    responsibility, or are there any suggestions? I will go tell
    them. You tell me what to do, and I will go tell them. I know
    the mayor. Anybody.
        Ms. Bond. First of all, this is a big problem, of course.
    This is about half the people in the world. And there are
    places to target first to move rapidly. One of those areas is
    high-population density where that kind of cooking leads to
    high concentrations and impacts on quite a lot of people. And
    so it is easier to deliver to those groups of people than it
    would be to deliver to your cousin, who has a barbecue at the
    foot of Mount Kilimanjaro--forgive me if I have gotten your
    geography a bit wrong.
        Mr. Cleaver. No, you are right.
        Ms. Bond. Now, Mr. Markey asked about the role of the
    United States. There is some funding needed, but we are also in
    a really good position to develop enabling technologies. For
    example, we find that a better stove can be made not by making
    a great stove here and delivering it there or by paying them to
    make a stove, but by developing capability to build mass
    production for a combustion chamber so that people there can
    build their own stoves, but the critical piece is made
    possible.
        And so if you think of this as a large-scale problem and we
    have to solve every single household, it seems big and almost
    undoable. I think the role of the United States can be in
    identifying targeted research and targeted studies and targeted
    development for those things that are keeping new, clean,
    better technologies from spreading. And I don't want to
    underestimate the role of clean fuels as well as clean
    technology; clean fuel means not only modern fuels, but also
    methods for working on crop waste and creating pellets and that
    sort of thing. So I think we have the vision and we have the
    capability and we have a history of identifying those trigger
    points that make a big difference.
        Mr. Ramanathan. May I add to that, Mr. Chairman?
        Mr. Cleaver. Yes, please, Doctor.
        Mr. Ramanathan. First thing to recognize is that they are
    using the most environmental friendly fuel because it is not
    adding carbon dioxide to the air if you are cooking with crop
    residues and cow dung mixture.
        And the cost of these stoves is such that, I think of, for
    example, India, 750 million depend on this, 150 million
    households. It is a $4 billion problem. So to me, I think it is
    a solvable problem. You are not talking about trillions. We are
    not talking about hundreds of billions; with clever micro
    credits and others, we could distribute this.
        One thing I want to talk to you about is the brown clouds
    or the haze you saw covering Kilimanjaro. In Africa, part of
    the source of this black carbon is savanna burning.
        Mr. Cleaver. Is what?
        Mr. Ramanathan. Savanna burning, so that contributes quite
    a bit to that Africa-wide haze, plus the cooking, both those
    sources.
        Mr. Cleaver. Let me follow up.
        When I used to have knees, I could go up to the top of
    Kilimanjaro, and if any of you have done it, you know you start
    at the bottom, and you are in very tropical clothing because
    the temperature is going to be at the century mark. The higher
    you go, the colder it gets, and so you start changing. By the
    time you get to the top, you are on snow. That was a while
    back. Now you get to the top, and you may see little sprinkles
    of snow. The snow on Kilimanjaro, it hasn't completely
    vanished, but it is going there.
        In reading through the testimony and becoming a little more
    familiar with this issue, I started wondering, in this land
    where the Kilimanjaro Airport is not far from the mountain, and
    I am starting to think maybe more planes are landing here,
    maybe that is what is doing the damage. Because there is no
    industry. The industry there is the Western World stealing all
    the water to do plants so that we can have fresh plants in
    hotels every morning, but that is other another whole issue.
        So I am wondering if what causes that haze is the same
    thing that is causing the melting of the snow.
        Mr. Ramanathan. I will comment on that. First, you have to
    understand, when you see the haze above your head, particularly
    if it is above a mile, it may have nothing to do with the local
    source. These things transport over thousands of kilometers.
        For example, in the dry season, between October to April,
    the entire Arabian Sea and the North Indian Ocean is filled
    with haze. It is transported both from the South Asian side and
    from Africa. We have seen elevated regions of the Himalayas
    covered with thick brown clouds. We have been there. We have
    taken pictures with aircraft.
        So the issue of the whole Kilimanjaro, as you know, its
    retreat, originally it used to be thought it was all due to
    global warming. Now, some glaciologists have estimated at least
    half of that, a lot of it is coming from really what we call
    sublimation, just the air becoming dry and the snow
    evaporating.
        So there are multiple causes happening in Kilimanjaro, but
    I would point out, no one has taken a look at really what this
    black carbon is doing to that retreat. It is an area, new
    research to find out. But we know from satellite images that
    soot looms hover around the Kilimanjaro region.
        Mr. Cleaver. Dr. Shindell.
        Mr. Shindell. I was going to comment on the previous
    question a little bit, which was, if, say, the Waxman-Markey
    bill becomes law in this country, there will be a price on
    carbon, like there is in much of the world. I would think that
    it is not necessarily a useful thing to link funding that has
    been associated with the greenhouse gases that are controlled
    under the Kyoto Protocol, the clean development mechanism
    whereby the United States and other wealthy countries pay for
    reductions in other countries; I don't think it makes sense to
    link those with the short-term pollutants like black carbon
    because, as we have talked about, they operate on very
    different time scales.
        But analogous sources, for example, there was an editorial
    in the Wall Street Journal about a global methane fund, where
    the U.S. could help other countries to pay for reductions or a
    global black carbon fund. I think all of these kind of ways
    that the United States can help the developing world to do
    things, like intervene in residential cooking stoves, are quite
    sensible, but I really think we need partners there.
        I am chair of a United Nations environment program
    assessment of the effects of black carbon and ozone on climate.
    And what we are really trying to do is bring in the developing
    world scientists, as Dr. Bond was mentioning, and there is
    capacity there, too. I think if those scientists are able to
    convince their countries that these things are really in their
    own best interests because they are damaging their ability to
    grow crops to feed their population and they are affecting
    their development goals by air pollution--one of the leading
    causes of adverse health impacts in the developing world--if it
    is in their own interest and there is this additional kind of
    carrot of having funding from developing nations to help them
    do something about it, I think that is a combination that would
    actually help to get something done.
        Mr. Cleaver. It is a major challenge because the people who
    live in this area, the Maasai Tribe, which inhabits this
    particular area, they know nothing about global warming. I
    mean, you may as well keep speaking English because they have
    no idea what you are talking about when you start talking about
    global warming because all they know is that the snow on the
    mountain is not as thick as it used to be. That is all they
    know. And they have not had any intellectual conversations or
    debates about it, and nobody is bringing the issue forth. It is
    a challenge to us because I think we are partially responsible
    for much of what they experience. I simply wanted to get some
    kind of reading on this because I guess maybe I am personally
    involved in it and was hoping that--and I still hold that
    hope--that the Waxman-Markey bill will be approved, and if we
    need to tweak it later.
        I like a world black carbon fund idea. I think if we tweak
    it later, it can be the major step to save the planet.
        Anyway, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Cleaver, very much.
        Here is what I am going to do; I am going to ask each one
    of you to give us your 1-minute summation of what it is that
    you want us to remember, which is a test because you have a lot
    that you want us to know about these subjects. We will go in
    the reverse order of the opening statements.
        And we will begin with you, Mr. Schneider.
        Mr. Schneider. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
        I am going to just tick off the policy pieces that you
    really asked me to address today.
        The first one is funding through the climate bill, if we
    are lucky enough to have one, funding for the Diesel Emission
    Reduction Act and through the Jobs bill, a reauthorization in
    funding, and funding through a transportation bill,
    reauthorization, which requires clean construction equipment
    and funds it as a part of that transportation bill.
        And then, lastly, giving the EPA the regulatory authority
    to cover more of the existing in-use diesels that could require
    the use of today's technology to reduce the black carbon
    emissions from them. We have had a good discussion just now
    about the cook stove issue; I am not going to add to that. I do
    talk about the black carbon fund in my written testimony, so I
    would refer you to that.
        And then, lastly, we haven't talked as much about the
    agriculture burning issue. That is an issue that deserves more
    attention. It is going to require international cooperation and
    enforcement of national laws in other countries to really
    accomplish that, but we probably can't get the full benefits of
    black carbon reduction unless we address that.
        Thank you very much for the time today, I appreciate it.
        The Chairman. Dr. Shindell.
        Mr. Shindell. Well, I would start by reiterating that we
    have two problems: a long-term climate change problem and a
    near-term climate change problem. And we can't deal with the
    long-term problem without beginning to reduce carbon dioxide
    emissions as soon as possible.
        But for the near-term problem, I think that consideration
    of the short-lived warming agents, as we are talking about
    today, and not just black carbon, but also methane, carbon
    monoxide and volatile organic carbons, which are also emitted
    by similar processes--for example, the diesel particulate
    filters we have been talking about substantially reduce about
    90 percent black carbon, but also carbon monoxide and volatile
    organics. So if you target all of these as a basket, you are
    likely to make more effective decisions, reductions that can
    lead to significant improvements in air quality as well as
    mitigating climate change.
        And I just repeat the summary of my testimony, that
    reductions in emissions of products of incomplete combustion
    will virtually always improve health. And if targeting
    emissions that are rich in black carbon, carbon monoxide, VOCs
    and methane, you can often find options whose co-benefits are
    so large that they can simultaneously mitigate climate change
    and improve air quality at substantially reduced cost.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Dr. Ramanathan.
        Mr. Ramanathan. The Copenhagen Accord requires us to limit
    climate change to less than 2 degrees from pre-Industrial. We
    have already put enough greenhouse gases on the planet,
    according to our climate models, they would already warm the
    planet by 2 degrees. So we are losing time. So we have a
    Herculean task in front of us to meet the Copenhagen Accord,
    and I consider black carbon reductions as an important
    component of our battle to meet that 2 degree warming.
        Thank you.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Dr. Bond.
        Ms. Bond. Thank you very much.
        We have discussed some emission sources that produce black
    carbon and other pollutants. And we have also discussed how
    there is the long-term and the short-term effect. What I really
    want you to think about is that we have a portfolio of
    potential solutions that can address climate change in the long
    term and the short term. So don't think about either/or; think
    about, how will we manage the atmospheric trajectory during our
    lifetimes and your children's lifetimes and our grandchildren's
    lifetimes? And our lifetime is a significant component of that
    and of interest to many people.
        The United States has the opportunity to lead in both
    technology and in engagement internationally in this endeavor.
    There are ways to improve both climate and human welfare at the
    same time. I will leave it there. We have a lot in front of us,
    but we have a lot of solutions, and I think we have a lot of
    opportunities.
        The Chairman. Thank you very much.
        And a lot of opportunities to create new jobs, a lot of
    opportunities to engage in technological transfer, a lot of
    incredibly great side benefits from working on this problem if
    we do so in a way that sees the opportunities as well.
        We thank all of you for your tremendous testimony and for
    your incredible work on this subject. That is what made it
    possible for us to have this hearing today.
        With that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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