Under a new rule to be imposed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture starting September 16, all wood pallets or crates shipped to the U.S. must either be heated to a temperature that kills bugs, or fumigated with methyl bromide and certified as having been treated. "Environmentalists and worker-safety advocates have fought the use of methyl bromide in agriculture since the 1980s. Now they have been joined by defenders of the forests," writes author Steven Bodzin. Alternatives to the wooden pallets or crates would be plywood, plastic, or metal containers, but these alternatives would be much more costly. There is also concern that the certification would be counterfeit and that the pests would still be imported. For instance, Asian longhorned beetles have gotten loose in New York, New Jersey, and Illinois causing almost 10,000 trees to be cut down. If such an infestation were to spread to cities, it could devastate the North American hardwood forests, with a potential economic impact of more that $600 billion, Bodzin reports.