Since I live about half way between New York City & Washington DC, I frequently get the opportunity to visit these cities – but a couple of visits in September were particularly memorable.

Chinese delegation in DC

An 18 member delegation from my GEF/World Bank SO2 trading project came to visit Washington in mid-September as part of a two-week U.S. tour (which also included a couple of West Coast stops as well). I thus had a chance to bring them up to speed about the CSAPR SO2 trading regulations, which had also been the topic of my earlier March lecture in Beijing. The court ruling in mid-August surprised many of us, since we thought that EPA might lose on the timing issue – but not on the technical merits themselves (which had been crafted to address a previous court loss). The two Republican-appointed judges on the Appeals Court thought otherwise, however, and the blistering (as these things go) dissent by the Democratic-appointed judge on the panel provided our Chinese visitors with a hint about problems in regulatory market development when the government itself is polarized.

It was great to be able to catch up with my DC friend & colleague John Palmisano once again as well. He had a six hour lecture/discussion session with the Chinese delegation, and thus this group had access to one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet concerning emissions trading! (You might remember John from an October 2010 posting which mentioned our 30+ years of working together, including the HK Stock Exchange project & many others).

9/11 Memorial in NYC

And on a trip to New York City to get my China visa renewed, I also arranged to visit the 9/11 Memorial. I was in Manhattan on the morning of 9/11, at the U.N. — and I was scheduled to fly that afternoon from NYC to DC. My family knew about my travel, but not the specific flight arrangements – and so, of course, when they heard about plane crashes in both cities, they were very, very concerned. It took a few hours to get through to them on my cell phone to assure them that, in my case, everything was fine. That day was certainly a memorable one for everyone in the city – and one of the things that made it so was the spirit of cooperation and even camaraderie that bound everyone there (a most unexpected development for city folks with a reputation for being jaded & non-caring). I was eventually able to leave Manhattan late that afternoon on a U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers’ tugboat, watching as medical personnel were streaming in on those same docks to deal with a still-expected triage situation. I found the new 9/11 Memorial to be very nicely done – a suitable setting for reflecting on how precious but unpredictable life can be, with a diverse crowd and visitors from everywhere around the world paying respect to those who gave everything that day.