Oil Sand Industry in Canada Tied to Higher Carcinogen Level

Todd Korol/Reuters

An aerial view of a tar sands mine in Alberta, where cancer-causing compounds have been rising according to a study.

OTTAWA — The development of Alberta’s oil sands has increased levels of cancer-causing compounds in surrounding lakes well beyond natural levels, Canadian researchers reported in a study released on Monday. And they said the contamination covered a wider area than had previously been believed.

For the study, financed by the Canadian government, the researchers set out to develop a historical record of the contamination, analyzing sediment dating back about 50 years from six small and shallow lakes north of Fort McMurray, Alberta, the center of the oil sands industry. Layers of the sediment were tested for deposits of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, groups of chemicals associated with oil that in many cases have been found to cause cancer in humans after long-term exposure.

“One of the biggest challenges is that we lacked long-term data,” said John P. Smol, the paper’s lead author and a professor of biology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. “So some in industry have been saying that the pollution in the tar sands is natural, it’s always been there.”

The researchers found that to the contrary, the levels of those deposits have been steadily rising since large-scale oil sands production began in 1978.

Samples from one test site, the paper said, now show 2.5 to 23 times more PAHs in current sediment than in layers dating back to around 1960.

“We’re not saying these are poisonous ponds,” Professor Smol said. “But it’s going to get worse. It’s not too late but the trend is not looking good.” He said that the wilderness lakes studied by the group were now contaminated as much as lakes in urban centers.

The study is likely to provide further ammunition to critics of the industry, who already contend that oil extracted from Canada’s oil sands poses environmental hazards like toxic sludge ponds, greenhouse gas emissions and the destruction of boreal forests.

Battles are also under way over the proposed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would move the oil down through the western United States and down to refineries along the Gulf Coast, or an alternative pipeline that would transport the oil from landlocked Alberta to British Columbia for export to Asia.

The researchers, who included scientists at Environment Canada’s aquatic contaminants research division, chose to test for PAHs because they had been the subject of earlier studies, including one published in 2009 that analyzed the distribution of the chemicals in snowfall north of Fort McMurray. That research drew criticism from the government of Alberta and others for failing to provide a historical baseline.

“Now we have the smoking gun,” Professor Smol said.

He said he was not surprised that the analysis found a rise in PAH deposits after the industrial development of the oil sands, “but we needed the data.” He said he Hs not entirely expected, however, to observe the effect at the most remote test site, a lake that is about 50 miles to the north.

Asked about the study, Adam Sweet, a spokesman for Peter Kent, Canada’s environment minister, emphasized in an e-mail that with the exception of one lake very close to the oil sands, the levels of contaminants measured by the researchers “did not exceed Canadian guidelines and were low compared to urban areas.”

He added that an environmental monitoring program for the region announced last February 2012 was put into effect “to address the very concerns raised by such studies” and to “provide an improved understanding of the long-term cumulative effects of oil sands development.”

Earlier research has suggested several different ways that the chemicals could spread. Most oil sand production involve large-scale open-bit mining. The chemicals may become wind-borne when giant excavators dig them up and then deposit them into 400-ton dump trucks.

Upgraders at some oil sands projects that separate the oil bitumen from its surrounding sand are believed to emit PAHs. And some scientists believe that vast ponds holding wastewater from that upgrading and from other oil sand processes may be leaking PAHs and other chemicals into downstream bodies of water.

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American Delegation Arrives in North Korea on Controversial Private Trip

David Guttenfelder/Associated Press

Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman, arrived in Pyongyang on Monday.

SEOUL, South Korea — Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico, led a private delegation including Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, to North Korea on Monday, a controversial trip to a country that is among the most hostile to the Internet.

Kim Kwang Hyon/Associated Press

Bill Richardson led a private delegation to North Korea on Monday.

Mr. Richardson, who has visited North Korea several times, called his four-day trip a private humanitarian mission and said he would try to meet with Kenneth Bae, a 44-year-old South Korean-born American citizen who was arrested on charges of “hostile acts” against North Korea after entering the country as a tourist in early November.

“I heard from his son who lives in Washington State, who asked me to bring him back,” Mr. Richardson said in Beijing before boarding a plane bound for Pyongyang. “I doubt we can do it on this trip.”

In a one-sentence dispatch, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency confirmed the American group’s arrival in Pyongyang, calling it “a Google delegation.”

Mr. Richardson said his delegation planned to meet with North Korean political, economic and military leaders, and to visit universities.

Mr. Schmidt and Google have kept quiet about why Mr. Schmidt joined the trip, which the State Department advised against, calling the visit unhelpful. Mr. Richardson said Monday that Mr. Schmidt was “interested in some of the economic issues there, the social media aspect,” but did not elaborate. Mr. Schmidt is a staunch proponent of Internet connectivity and openness.

Except for a tiny portion of its elite, North Korea’s population is blocked from the Internet. Under its new leader, Kim Jong-un, the country has emphasized science and technology but has also vowed to intensify its war against the infiltration of outside information in the isolated country, which it sees as a potential threat to its totalitarian grip on power.

Although it is engaged in a standoff with the United States over its nuclear weapons and missile programs and habitually criticizes American foreign policy as “imperial,” North Korea welcomes high-profile American visits to Pyongyang, billing them as signs of respect for its leadership. It runs a special museum for gifts that foreign dignitaries have brought for its leaders.

Washington has never established diplomatic ties with North Korea, and the two countries remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce.

But Mr. Richardson’s trip comes at a particularly delicate time for Washington. In the past weeks, it has been trying to muster international support to penalize North Korea for its launching last month of a long-range rocket, which the United States condemned as a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions banning the country from testing intercontinental ballistic missile technology.

North Korea has often required visits by high-profile Americans, including former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, before releasing American citizens held there on criminal charges. Mr. Richardson, who is also a former ambassador to the United Nations, traveled to Pyongyang in 1996 to negotiate the release of Evan Hunziker, who was held for three months on charges of spying after swimming across the river border between China and North Korea.

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Reliving the Nightmare of Plague, 10 Years Later

Jakob Schiller for The New York Times

Survivors Lucinda Marker and John Tull at home a decade after having the plague.

It was November 2002, little more than a year after planes had been flown into the World Trade Center and anthrax mailings had killed five Americans. New York City was still on edge, in a state of high alert for suspected terrorists.

Suddenly all eyes were on a middle-aged married couple from Santa Fe, N.M., on a brief vacation to New York, who had the remarkably ill luck to come down with the city’s first case of bubonic plague in more than a century. Television news trucks surrounded Beth Israel Medical Center North, where they had dragged themselves after being stricken in their hotel room with rampaging fevers, headaches, extreme exhaustion and mysterious balloonlike swellings.

It took just over a day for public health officials to dispel fears about bioterrorism; there had been no unusual rise in the number of very high fevers that could have suggested an attack.

It turned out that the couple, Lucinda Marker and John Tull, had been bitten by fleas infected with Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague. Their home state, New Mexico, accounts for more than half of the average seven cases of plague in the country every year. (In 2012, just one case was reported in the state.)

“It was an absolute fluke,” Ms. Marker, now 57, said during a recent visit to New York. “Just rotten luck.”

Like most people who contract the disease and are quickly treated with antibiotics, she recovered in a few days. But 10 years later, her husband is still badly scarred.

In the days after they were bitten, Mr. Tull, a burly, athletic lawyer — a former prosecutor who volunteered with search-and-rescue teams — developed septicemic plague, as the infection spread throughout his body.

His temperature rose to 104.4, his blood pressure plummeted to 78/50. His kidneys were failing, and so much clotted blood collected in his hands and feet that they turned black.

Mr. Tull was put into a medically induced coma. When he was brought out of it, nearly three months later, he found out that both his legs had been amputated below the knee to drain the deadly infection. The surgery that saved his life radically changed it, but did not dampen his resilient spirit.

Even before he was released from the hospital to begin a long rehabilitation, he vowed he would once again be hiking on the rustic trails above his home.

Today Mr. Tull, 63, drives his own car, sometimes takes over the controls of a private plane, and goes on an annual trout-fishing trip to Colorado with friends. But he has not been able to hike that trail.

“That is one of the things I miss most,” Mr. Tull, now retired and receiving a disability pension, said in a telephone interview from his home. “Every single hour of every single day, the plague affects our lives, but about the only time I really get angry these days is when, because of my physical condition, there is something I want to do but can’t.”

He has appeared in several television documentaries, speaking to medical researchers around the world and dealing with a posse of journalists as his very private ordeal has been played out in public.

“Basically Lucinda and I surrendered our privacy to the press and the people who make documentaries,” Mr. Tull said. “But you know what? That didn’t bother us a bit. Lucinda had been an actress and I had been a trial lawyer. We were used to it.”

Ms. Marker, who has started to write about their ordeal, says that after 10 years she is coming to terms with it emotionally and psychologically. Yet many aspects of their case still puzzle medical experts.

In particular, no one knows why she was so easily cured while he nearly died.

Bubonic plague is transmitted by fleas that feed off pack rats, ground squirrels and prairie dogs in the mountains of New Mexico and several other states. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the disease probably came to the United States around 1900, in Asian rats that escaped from ships in the port of San Francisco.

Initially, plague was restricted to cities. The worst outbreak came in 1907, after the San Francisco earthquake. Vermin control programs prevented further outbreaks, but fleas hitched onto other animals in the wild.

Dr. Paul Ettestad, public health veterinarian for the New Mexico Department of Health, said prairie dogs became an “amplification host,” carrying the disease to their burrows and spreading it throughout their territory. Today, the easternmost limit of the plague roughly corresponds to the 100th meridian, which passes through central Texas. Known as the plague line, is it also the extent of the prairie dog population.

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Reliving the Nightmare of Plague, 10 Years Later

Jakob Schiller for The New York Times

Survivors Lucinda Marker and John Tull at home a decade after having the plague.

It was November 2002, little more than a year after planes had been flown into the World Trade Center and anthrax mailings had killed five Americans. New York City was still on edge, in a state of high alert for suspected terrorists.

Suddenly all eyes were on a middle-aged married couple from Santa Fe, N.M., on a brief vacation to New York, who had the remarkably ill luck to come down with the city’s first case of bubonic plague in more than a century. Television news trucks surrounded Beth Israel Medical Center North, where they had dragged themselves after being stricken in their hotel room with rampaging fevers, headaches, extreme exhaustion and mysterious balloonlike swellings.

It took just over a day for public health officials to dispel fears about bioterrorism; there had been no unusual rise in the number of very high fevers that could have suggested an attack.

It turned out that the couple, Lucinda Marker and John Tull, had been bitten by fleas infected with Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that causes plague. Their home state, New Mexico, accounts for more than half of the average seven cases of plague in the country every year. (In 2012, just one case was reported in the state.)

“It was an absolute fluke,” Ms. Marker, now 57, said during a recent visit to New York. “Just rotten luck.”

Like most people who contract the disease and are quickly treated with antibiotics, she recovered in a few days. But 10 years later, her husband is still badly scarred.

In the days after they were bitten, Mr. Tull, a burly, athletic lawyer — a former prosecutor who volunteered with search-and-rescue teams — developed septicemic plague, as the infection spread throughout his body.

His temperature rose to 104.4, his blood pressure plummeted to 78/50. His kidneys were failing, and so much clotted blood collected in his hands and feet that they turned black.

Mr. Tull was put into a medically induced coma. When he was brought out of it, nearly three months later, he found out that both his legs had been amputated below the knee to drain the deadly infection. The surgery that saved his life radically changed it, but did not dampen his resilient spirit.

Even before he was released from the hospital to begin a long rehabilitation, he vowed he would once again be hiking on the rustic trails above his home.

Today Mr. Tull, 63, drives his own car, sometimes takes over the controls of a private plane, and goes on an annual trout-fishing trip to Colorado with friends. But he has not been able to hike that trail.

“That is one of the things I miss most,” Mr. Tull, now retired and receiving a disability pension, said in a telephone interview from his home. “Every single hour of every single day, the plague affects our lives, but about the only time I really get angry these days is when, because of my physical condition, there is something I want to do but can’t.”

He has appeared in several television documentaries, speaking to medical researchers around the world and dealing with a posse of journalists as his very private ordeal has been played out in public.

“Basically Lucinda and I surrendered our privacy to the press and the people who make documentaries,” Mr. Tull said. “But you know what? That didn’t bother us a bit. Lucinda had been an actress and I had been a trial lawyer. We were used to it.”

Ms. Marker, who has started to write about their ordeal, says that after 10 years she is coming to terms with it emotionally and psychologically. Yet many aspects of their case still puzzle medical experts.

In particular, no one knows why she was so easily cured while he nearly died.

Bubonic plague is transmitted by fleas that feed off pack rats, ground squirrels and prairie dogs in the mountains of New Mexico and several other states. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the disease probably came to the United States around 1900, in Asian rats that escaped from ships in the port of San Francisco.

Initially, plague was restricted to cities. The worst outbreak came in 1907, after the San Francisco earthquake. Vermin control programs prevented further outbreaks, but fleas hitched onto other animals in the wild.

Dr. Paul Ettestad, public health veterinarian for the New Mexico Department of Health, said prairie dogs became an “amplification host,” carrying the disease to their burrows and spreading it throughout their territory. Today, the easternmost limit of the plague roughly corresponds to the 100th meridian, which passes through central Texas. Known as the plague line, is it also the extent of the prairie dog population.

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Frequent Flier: When Even 4 Hours of Layover Time Isn’t Enough

William Boutelle cycling on Lismore Isle in Scotland. He is  a psychiatrist at ServiceNet, which provides clinical services in Northampton, Mass.

Q. How often do you fly for business?

A. About twice a month, mostly domestic.

Q. What’s your least favorite airport?

A. Philadelphia International. Something always gets messed up there, without fail.

Q. Of all the places you’ve been, what’s the best?

A. The Greek islands. I love the people, their sense of independence, the ambience and, let’s face it, the islands are great for a beer on the beach.

Q. What’s your secret airport vice?

A. I don’t know if it’s a vice, but I try to always book a layover in Denver. There’s a great restaurant in the airport where I can get the best filet mignon. It’s my red meat quota until I get another chance to fly through there.

I WORKED for more than 30 years for the government as a psychiatrist with the Department of Veterans Affairs system. I flew all the time for meetings and other bureaucratic events. I now work in the private sector as a psychiatrist, and still fly for business about  twice a month.

I don’t like flying much. If I could take a train, that’s what I would do.  I don’t mind talking to seatmates, but I don’t advertise what I do. I might say I’m a doctor, and if they ask me what kind, I’ll usually answer “a pretty good one.”  I don’t want to get into a discussion about psychiatry when I’m trapped in a plane.

I’ve had my share of flying misadventures, but nothing like one recent experience where everything that could go wrong, did.

My wife and I were coming home  from Scotland. We booked plenty of time between our flight from Edinburgh to London and then on to Boston. We booked through a  British carrier, but the  London-to-Boston leg was subcontracted to an American carrier. We were feeling very hopeful that everything was going to go smoothly. That is, until we  got to the airport and saw the plane we were supposed to board was empty. Other travelers were gathering, so we figured that we were in the right place. After about  90 minutes, we found out the delay was caused by fog at Heathrow.

We finally boarded, but then we sat on the runway for another hour because we couldn’t take off because of the backup at Heathrow. We started with a four-hour cushion of time between leaving Scotland, landing in London and then going to Boston. So much for that, and even more time was eaten up as we  circled Heathrow because of continued congestion.

We finally landed, but then had to wait for an open gate, and then found out we had to be bused to a terminal. By the time we got to Heathrow Terminal 5, our Boston flight was gone.

We went to the flight connections desk, where about 2,000 people were in line ahead of us. I called the American carrier whose flight we missed and was told that since it wasn’t a simple round-trip booking, I would have to buy another ticket to get home. I refused, and was told to call  the British carrier with whom I booked the ticket originally.

They told me that we could get on a flight offered by the same American carrier I had just spoken with. Fine by me. It was leaving in 90 minutes. I asked what gate the flight was departing from. It was Terminal 3. It took 45 minutes to get there, only to find out bookings for the flight had closed.

I’m pretty sure tears of frustration were streaming down my face as I explained we had just been sent there from Terminal 5. They found our names, which was great, but we still had to clear security, and then make it to the gate. I was beat up at this point, but we finally boarded our flight home only to discover that we left a backpack at security. The attendant gave me 10 minutes to run back to security and then run back to the plane.

I’m 72 years old. I thought I was going to die, but somehow ran the mini-marathon. When I finally sat down on the plane, we were delayed another 30 minutes. I drank wine. We landed in Boston. My luggage was lost. It did arrive one week later, dirty laundry still intact. After that ordeal, I figured someone might have at least washed it.

 

 

By William Boutelle, as told to Joan Raymond. E-mail: joanraymond@nytimes.com

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Letter From Washington: U.S. Fiscal Talks Made No One Look Good

WASHINGTON — A grand fiscal bargain, with perhaps $2 trillion more in deficit reduction over 10 years — more than a quarter of which would be additional revenue, with much of the rest obtained through well-crafted, significant cutbacks in big-ticket entitlements — could have been a win-win for Republicans and Democrats.

Along with terminating the high-end Bush tax cuts, this would have earned lawmakers public approbation for working together and given investor and business confidence a boost.

The corollary is the small-bore deal cobbled together to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, which may be a lose-lose for both sides. Defying political physics, the White House and congressional Republicans emerged politically weaker and facing more trouble ahead.

President Barack Obama, who Republicans acknowledged had all the leverage in the latest round, could have hung tough and persevered with one goal: the bigger deal. Indisputably, Democrats got much more than Republicans. Yet even with this unusual leverage — without a deal, taxes would have increased for everyone — the Democrats got only about 60 percent of what the House speaker, John A. Boehner, had once been willing to give on taxes.

Republicans reinforced their image as protectors of the privileged. In the House of Representatives, which they control, they displayed dysfunction remarkable even by Washington standards. With bigger fights ahead over the debt ceiling and indiscriminate across-the-board spending cuts, the problems outweigh the possibilities for both sides.

The estate tax epitomizes this state of affairs. It is assessed on fewer than 1 percent of the wealthiest estates. Michael J. Graetz, a former Treasury official in the administration of President George H.W. Bush who has written a book on the subject, says that with huge deficits and worsening income inequality, “it is amazing that our political system cannot maintain an estate tax that contributes less than 1 percent of federal revenues from those Americans best able to afford it.”

Lawrence H. Summers, a former Treasury secretary, once observed, “There is no case other than selfishness” for cutting the estate tax.

There are legitimate debates about the effect on economic growth of tax rates on capital gains, dividends or corporate income. It’s tough to find a serious economist who makes that case for the estate tax; years ago, the conservative economist Irwin M. Stelzer described a low tax as “affirmative action” for wealthy heirs.

Still, reducing or eliminating the estate tax was a top priority for Republicans in this latest round. The White House essentially caved to a measure that will cost about $100 billion over 10 years and will benefit fewer than 5,000 wealthy estates.

In the 2010 year-end tax-cut deal, the Obama administration insisted on extending the refundable tax credits for the poor; resistant Republicans said they would go along only if the White House accepted two years of lower estate-tax rates. Agreed. This time, however, the refundable credits for the poor were extended only temporarily, while the more generous estate-tax provision is permanent.

The political appeal here is to reward big campaign contributors; that matters to Democrats as well as Republicans. When Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in the private bargaining, argued for a tougher provision, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, asked that it be put to a vote. The vice president knew that Democrats like Senators Max Baucus of Montana and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana would side with the rich heirs.

Lawmakers are braced for a tougher battle in the next two months over the debt ceiling and across-the-board spending cuts that neither side likes. Republicans contend that, unlike with the fiscal cliff — the package of tax increases and spending cuts that had been set to take effect with the new year — this time they have the leverage to force the president to accept big spending cuts, particularly of big-ticket entitlements.

House Republicans insist on the “Boehner rule,” that any increase in the debt ceiling be matched by a comparable reduction in spending. That isn’t realistic: The debt ceiling will have to be increased by almost $2 trillion over the next two years, and spending cuts of that order would be politically and economically disastrous. The speaker’s ability to maneuver may be limited, though. On the fiscal deal, his own majority leader and whip deserted him, as did seven current committee chairmen and almost two-thirds of his caucus.

Tougher still is the substance. House Republicans are all for big spending cuts, though other than some easy ones, including going after programs for the poor, they duck specifics.

They are fierce deficit hawks in principle, yet when specific cuts to Medicare, a health insurance program for the elderly, or Social Security, a retirement fund, are raised, they turn into pacifists.

And the president, who wouldn’t play for keeps when he had the leverage, vows this time will be different. He won’t negotiate over the debt ceiling; that would be tantamount, he proclaims, to negotiating with terrorists.

Mr. Obama demands that any spending cuts be accompanied by revenue increases.

He correctly notes that there already has been more than twice as much in spending cuts as in tax increases and that any subsequent action that involves only cuts would run counter to the recommendations of bipartisan panels like the 2010 commission headed by Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator, and Erskine Bowles, a former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton. Republicans dismiss that as a nonstarter.

The bottom lines: The White House believes Republican leaders privately realize that holding the nation’s full faith and credit hostage to cutting popular programs is a loser. Congressional Republicans dismiss Mr. Obama’s lines in the sand, saying that he invariably backs down and that any economic fallout ultimately hurts his presidency.

Both points are persuasive.

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Design: Who Made That Universal Product Code?

On a Sunday afternoon in 1971, an I.B.M. engineer stepped out of his house in Raleigh, N.C., to consult his boss, who lived across the street. “I didn’t do what you asked,” George Laurer confessed.

Laurer had been instructed to design a code that could be printed on food labels and that would be compatible with the scanners then in development for supermarket checkout counters. He was told to model it on the bull’s-eye-shaped optical scanning code designed in the 1940s by N. Joseph Woodland, who died last month. But Laurer saw a problem with the shape: “When you run a circle through a high-speed press, there are parts that are going to get smeared,” he says, “so I came up with my own code.” His system, a pattern of stripes, would be readable even if it was poorly printed.

That pattern became the basis for the Universal Product Code, which was adopted by a consortium of grocery companies in 1973, when cashiers were still punching in all prices by hand. Within a decade, the U.P.C. — and optical scanners — brought supermarkets into the digital age. Now an employee could ring up a cereal box with a flick of the wrist. “When people find out that I invented the U.P.C., they think I’m rich,” Laurer says. But he received no royalties for this invention, and I.B.M. did not patent it.

As the U.P.C. symbol proliferated, so, too, did paranoia about it. For decades, Laurer has been hounded by people convinced that he has hidden the number 666 inside the lines of his code. “I didn’t get the meat,” Laurer said ruefully, “but I did get the nuts.”

CODE BREAKER
Bill Selmeier runs the ID History Museum, an online archive dedicated to the bar code.

You worked at I.B.M. in the 1970s and then helped promote the U.P.C.?
Yes, I started the seminars where we invited people from the grocery and labeling industry into I.B.M. We were there to reduce their fear.

What were they afraid of?
They were afraid that anything that didn’t work right would reflect badly on them — particularly if it was only their own package that wouldn’t scan. The guy from Birds Eye said, “My stuff always has ice on it when it goes through the checkout.” So we put his package in the freezer and took it out and showed him how it scanned perfectly.

Why are you still so interested in the history of the U.P.C.?
Let me put it this way: What bigger impact can you have on the world than to change the way everyone shops?

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Despite New Health Law, Some See Sharp Rise in Premiums

Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.

Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times

Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner, said some insurance companies could raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.

In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.

 In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.

The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.

Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10 percent or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.

The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of the 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.

New York, for example, recently used its sweeping powers to hold rate increases for 2013 in the individual and small group markets to under 10 percent. California can review rate requests for technical errors but cannot deny rate increases.

The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that costs may increase just 7.5 percent next year, well below the rate increases being sought by some insurers. But the companies counter that medical costs for some policy holders are rising much faster than the average, suggesting they are in a sicker population. Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.

Critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act,” he said.

While Mr. Jones has not yet weighed in on the insurers’ most recent requests, he is pushing for a state law that will give him that authority. Without legislative action, the state can only question the basis for the high rates, sometimes resulting in the insurer withdrawing or modifying the proposed rate increase.

The California insurers say they have no choice but to raise premiums if their underlying medical costs have increased. “We need these rates to even come reasonably close to covering the expenses of this population,” said Tom Epstein, a spokesman for Blue Shield of California. The insurer is requesting a range of increases, which average about 12 percent for 2013.

Although rates paid by employers are more closely tracked than rates for individuals and small businesses, policy experts say the law has probably kept at least some rates lower than they otherwise would have been.

“There’s no question that review of rates makes a difference, that it results in lower rates paid by consumers and small businesses,” said Larry Levitt, an executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which estimated in an October report that rate review was responsible for lowering premiums for one out of every five filings.

Federal officials say the law has resulted in significant savings. “The health care law includes new tools to hold insurers accountable for premium hikes and give rebates to consumers,” said Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare, which is helping to oversee the insurance reforms.

“Insurers have already paid $1.1 billion in rebates, and rate review programs have helped save consumers an additional $1 billion in lower premiums,” he said. If insurers collect premiums and do not spend at least 80 cents out of every dollar on care for their customers, the law requires them to refund the excess.

As a result of the review process, federal officials say, rates were reduced, on average, by nearly three percentage points, according to a report issued last September.

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Despite New Health Law, Some See Sharp Rise in Premiums

Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.

Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times

Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner, said some insurance companies could raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.

In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.

 In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.

The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.

Under the health care law, regulators are now required to review any request for a rate increase of 10 percent or more; the requests are posted on a federal Web site, healthcare.gov, along with regulators’ evaluations.

The review process not only reveals the sharp disparity in the rates themselves, it also demonstrates the striking difference between places like New York, one of the 37 states where legislatures have given regulators some authority to deny or roll back rates deemed excessive, and California, which is among the states that do not have that ability.

New York, for example, recently used its sweeping powers to hold rate increases for 2013 in the individual and small group markets to under 10 percent. California can review rate requests for technical errors but cannot deny rate increases.

The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that costs may increase just 7.5 percent next year, well below the rate increases being sought by some insurers. But the companies counter that medical costs for some policy holders are rising much faster than the average, suggesting they are in a sicker population. Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.

Critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act,” he said.

While Mr. Jones has not yet weighed in on the insurers’ most recent requests, he is pushing for a state law that will give him that authority. Without legislative action, the state can only question the basis for the high rates, sometimes resulting in the insurer withdrawing or modifying the proposed rate increase.

The California insurers say they have no choice but to raise premiums if their underlying medical costs have increased. “We need these rates to even come reasonably close to covering the expenses of this population,” said Tom Epstein, a spokesman for Blue Shield of California. The insurer is requesting a range of increases, which average about 12 percent for 2013.

Although rates paid by employers are more closely tracked than rates for individuals and small businesses, policy experts say the law has probably kept at least some rates lower than they otherwise would have been.

“There’s no question that review of rates makes a difference, that it results in lower rates paid by consumers and small businesses,” said Larry Levitt, an executive at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which estimated in an October report that rate review was responsible for lowering premiums for one out of every five filings.

Federal officials say the law has resulted in significant savings. “The health care law includes new tools to hold insurers accountable for premium hikes and give rebates to consumers,” said Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare, which is helping to oversee the insurance reforms.

“Insurers have already paid $1.1 billion in rebates, and rate review programs have helped save consumers an additional $1 billion in lower premiums,” he said. If insurers collect premiums and do not spend at least 80 cents out of every dollar on care for their customers, the law requires them to refund the excess.

As a result of the review process, federal officials say, rates were reduced, on average, by nearly three percentage points, according to a report issued last September.

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U.S. and 14 Lenders Said to Be Near Deal of Foreclosure Claims

A $10 billion settlement to resolve claims of foreclosure abuses by 14 major lenders is expected to be announced as early as Monday, several people with knowledge of the discussions said on Sunday.

The settlement comes after weeks of negotiations between federal regulators and the banks, and covers abuses like flawed paperwork and botched loan modifications, said these people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal had not been made public.

An estimated $3.75 billion of the $10 billion is to be distributed in cash relief to Americans who went through foreclosure in 2009 and 2010, these people said. An additional $6 billion is to be directed toward homeowners in danger of losing their homes after falling behind on their monthly payments.

All 14 banks , including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup, are expected to sign on.

The agreement comes almost a year after a sweeping deal in February between state attorneys general and five large mortgage lenders.

The settlement almost fell apart over the weekend. Some officials at the Federal Reserve threatened to scuttle the deal unless the banks agreed to pay an additional $300 million for their role in the 2008 financial crisis, which upended the housing market and led to millions of foreclosures.

The Fed officials argued for additional aid for homeowners ensnared in a flawed foreclosure process, according to several people briefed on the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity. The $300 million demand was to come on top of the $10 billion payout, but was met with resistance from the banks, especially because it was raised late in the day on Friday, according to these people.

The Federal Reserve officials backed down, allowing the $10 billion pact to move forward ahead of bank earnings releases this month, these people said.

During the last week, officials from the Federal Reserve met with community groups and consumer advocates to gather comments about a settlement. It was those talks that induced the Fed to forgo the request for additional money, according to three people familiar with the matter. The thinking, these people said, was that broad relief was better than a lengthy review process that had not yielded much relief.

Representatives from the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which led banking regulators in the negotiations, declined to provide further details on the settlement.

Still, some housing advocates said the settlement did not go far enough in providing relief. Bruce Marks, chief executive of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, expressed cautious optimism about the deal, but added that the “devil is in the details.”

It is still unclear how the monetary relief will be distributed among homeowners, but one immediate result of the settlement is the end of a troubled review of millions of loan files.

As part of a consent order in April 2011, the comptroller’s office and the Federal Reserve established the Independent Foreclosure Review, which mandated that banks hire independent consultants to audit loan files and look for illegal fees, bungled loan modifications and instances where borrowers lost their homes even though they were current on their payments. Only 323,000 homeowners submitted files to be reviewed.

Within the comptroller’s office, senior officials raised concerns that the reviews had grown bloated and inefficient, especially after each loan took more than 20 hours to review, up from original estimates of eight hours a file.

The mounting costs of the reviews, up to $250 an hour, began to worry the banking regulators, according to several of the people with knowledge of the matter. So far, the foreclosure review program has cost the banks an estimated $1.5 billion, according to these people.

Banking regulators grew concerned that the reviews were not producing meaningful instances of banks wrongfully seizing the homes of borrowers who were current on their payments, according to these people.

Told last week of the plans to stop the foreclosure reviews, some consumer advocates expressed concern that the full extent of the damage to homeowners would never be known. Some of the advocates have questioned whether the banks were getting off too easily because they selected and paid the consultants charged with examining their loans.

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