Barney Frank Urges Zoellick To Release World Bank Pollution Death Estimates For China - Reuters

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WASHINGTON, July 16 (Reuters) - A senior U.S. lawmaker on Monday urged World Bank President Robert Zoellick to release mortality figures the congressman said were omitted from a draft bank report on the effects of pollution in China.

Barney Frank, a Democrat from Massachusetts, in a letter to Zoellick made public on Monday, applauded the bank's efforts to investigate the effects of pollution problems in China.

But Frank said he was troubled to read that Chinese health and environment officials suppressed estimates of the nearly half-million people who die prematurely each year from breathing polluted air and drinking dirty water, and the parts of China that were worst hit. "I write to urge you to release this data in order to achieve the report's goal of making public the best and most inclusive information available on the effects of environmental problems," said Frank, who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. "The world community can only seek solutions to global problems of this type when governments and the multilateral institutions operate without censorship of relevant information that affects the global community," he added.

Frank has led U.S. congressional hearings this year on the World Bank and, separately, on Washington's dispute with Beijing over the value of the Chinese currency, which the U.S. has said is undervalued.

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