Preview Newsletter
acc am june 25
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(ACC Mentioned) US Specialty Chemicals Market Softens in 2015
Jun 24, 2015 | Hydrocarbon Processing
The Specialty Chemicals Market Volume Index, a new tool created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) trade group, remains on a soft note, falling 0.4% in May from the previous month, on a three-month-moving average (3MMA). -
(ACC Mentioned) Report: Mixed-Waste Processing has the Potential to Increase Recycling and Waste Diversion Rates
Jun 24, 2015 | Recycling Today
A new report that looks at processing mixed waste to extract recyclables finds potential to significantly increase recycling rates of certain materials and diversion rates of municipal solid waste (MSW) in general, primarily due to improvements in processing technologies, such as optical sensors that can identify and separate specific plastics. -
(ACC Mentioned) With Eye on Committee Gavel, Shimkus Notches a Win
Jun 25, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
In a nearly unanimous vote, the House this week moved a long-simmering debate over overhauling the Toxic Substances Control Act one step closer to closure. -
(ACC Mentioned) House Vote on TSCA-Update Bill Applauded By Diverse Groups as Focus Moves to Senate
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Trade associations representing manufacturers of products as diverse as fragrances, electronics and automobiles are applauding the June 23 House passage of legislation to modernize the Toxic Substances Control Act by requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate the risks of some chemicals in commerce. -
(ACC Mentioned) US House Overwhelmingly Approves TSCA Reform Legislation
Jun 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Dinesh Kumar
The US Congress took a major step towards updating the country's federal chemical safety law, when the House of Representatives passed a bill to reform the decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act by a 398-1 vote, late on Tuesday. -
(ACC Mentioned) House Approves Bill to Overhaul Chemical Regulation
Jun 24, 2015 | Associated Press
By Matthew Daly
The House on Tuesday approved a bipartisan bill that would update regulation of harmful chemicals for the first time in nearly 40 years. -
(ACC Mentioned) House Passes Bipartisan Chemicals Regulation Reform Bill
Jun 25, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
In a strong bipartisan showing, the U.S. House of Representatives on June 23 passed legislation that would overhaul how commercial chemicals are regulated. Lawmakers approved the bill, which would update the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), voting 398-1. The proposed TSCA Modernization Act of 2015 (H.R. 2576) would... -
(ACC Mentioned) US House Sees Measure to Ban Cosmetic Animal Testing
Jun 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A bill introduced in the US House would ban the use of animals in cosmetics testing and the sale of products that use animal testing. -
(ACC Mentioend) Despite Challenges, IRIS Staff Defend Plan To Assess PCB Mixtures' Risks
Jun 24, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA staff is acknowledging the challenges in assessing the human health risks of exposure to mixtures of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), in part due to the varied nature of the mixtures that occur in the environment and new data about their non-cancer risks, but an existing assessment may provide a template for the new effort. -
(ACC Mentioned) Can the ‘Chemical Soup’ We Live in Cause Cancer?
Jun 24, 2015 | WebMD Health News
By Rita Rubin
Researchers have been testing individual chemicals for years to see if they can cause cancer. Now, a groundbreaking new report suggests scientists should also be looking at how low doses of chemicals considered safe on their own might cause cancer when mixed together. -
(ACC Mentioned) CDC Reveals that Swimmers’ Red Eyes are Caused by Urine not Chlorine
Jun 25, 2015 | Daily Times Gazette
Researchers said the red eyes are caused by urine in swimming pools, not chlorine and have launched a campaign to trample it down -
(ACC Mentioned) Red Eyes from Swimming in Pools Cause by Urine, Not Chlorine
Jun 25, 2015 | The Australian
By Amelia McGuinness
As someone who used to do 10 sessions of swimming training a week in a highly-chlorinated pool, followed by a university job of learn-to-swim teaching for children and adults, I’ve had my fair share of red eyes. -
(ACC Mentioned) Reassess US Flammability Standard, Say Trade Body, NGO
Jun 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Trade body, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA), and NGO, the Ecology Center, are calling for a reassessment of federal flammability requirements for children's car seats. Children's car seats must meet flammability requirements set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), as detailed in Federal... -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Groups Protest At California Prop 65 Website Proposal
Jun 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A coalition of more than 170 companies and trade groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, called into question the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment's (OEHHA) authority to create a lead agency website, and to request from businesses information that it contends is subject to legal privilege. -
(ACC Mentioned) Americans Waste $640 in Food a Year
Jun 24, 2015 | CNN Money
By Steve Hargreaves
Americans trash $640 worth of food a year, and they don't even care about the effects on the planet. -
(ACC Mentioned) Here’s How To Cut Down On Food Waste
Jun 24, 2015 | Time
By Alexandra Sifferlin
Americans waste $640 of food each year, according to a new survey released by the American Chemistry Council. That uneaten or unused food may end up in the garbage in part because consumers are really confused by expiration dates; one British study suggests that misinterpreting expiration dates is responsible for 20% of food waste. -
(ACC Mentioned) Study: Americans Throw Away A Lot of Food
Jun 25, 2015 | ABC Tulsa
By Jennifer Cop
A study from the American Chemistry Council has found that the average American wastes $640 worth of food every year. -
(ACC Mentioned) Americans Toss $640 in Food Each Year
Jun 24, 2015 | The Daily Beast
A survey released Wednesday found Americans throw out about $640 worth of food annually, and most people don’t care about the environmental impact of food waste. -
(ACC Mentioned) Survey: U.S. Individuals Waste $640 Worth of Food Per Year
Jun 24, 2015 | Palm Beach Post
By Chelsea Todaro
That’s a lot of wasted food. According to a survey from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), each American throws away around $640 worth of food each year, USA Today reports. -
(ACC Mentioned) Wasted Food A Bigger Problem Than People Realize, Report Says
Jun 24, 2015 | CBS News
By Bianca Seidman
Throwing food in the trash has more harmful lasting consequences than most people think about. -
(ACC Mentioned) Americans Throw Away $640 Worth of Food Each Year
Jun 24, 2015 | Time
By Nolan Feeney
Americans toss $640 worth of food each year, according to a survey released Wednesday. -
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Households Trash $640 in Food a Year
Jun 24, 2015 | USA Today
By Hadley Malcolm
American households throw away about $640 each worth of food every year, and consumers don't really care about the environmental impact of trashed leftovers piling up in landfills, according to a survey out Wednesday from the American Chemistry Council. -
(ACC Mentioned) $640 Worth of Food Is Thrown Away By Each American Household Per Year, Says Survey
Jun 24, 2015 | The Daily Meal
By Samantha Neudorf
A survey released by the American Chemistry Council on June 24 reveals that Americans throw away $640 worth of food each year. -
(ACC Mentioned) Food Waste Plagues American Households
Jun 25, 2015 | Chronicle Council
By Adam Martin
Different surveys and statistic have emerged recently to pinpoint how much food U.S. citizens are in fact wasting. -
(ACC Mentioned) Houston Food Bank is Troubled by Food Waste
Jun 25, 2015 | KTRH Radio
It's frustrating for food rescue operations like the Houston Food Bank to hear stories about billions of dollars of perfectly good food being thrown out each day. The American Chemistry Council says each American tosses 640 dollars worth of food per day. -
(ACC Mentioned) 20 Percent of Landfills Comprise of Food Waste, Claims Survey
Jun 25, 2015 | West Texas News
By Leah Gardiner
Turning a blind eye to the immense environmental damage that is caused by trashed leftovers piling up in landfills, a survey has found that Americans waste food worth approximately $640 every year. The results of the survey conducted by the American Chemistry Council, were out on Wednesday. -
(ACC Mentioned) Here’s How Much Money Americans Are Losing From Trashed Food
Jun 25, 2015 | Time
By Benjamin Snyder
Americans may be more environmentally conscious and health food-oriented these days, but that isn’t preventing each person from trashing $640 worth of food, on average, each year, according to a USA Today report. -
TSCA by Definition: A Helpful Guide
Jun 24, 2015 | Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
By Sophie Wunderlich
Here at Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, we’re excited to have community support for our efforts to reform our country’s broken chemical regulation system. That being said, getting into the finer details of TSCA reform can bring up some pretty complex points and language. We’ve created this helpful guide to provide a road-map... -
How Scary Are The Chemicals Around You?
Jun 24, 2015 | CNN
By Edward R.B. McCabe Tom Udall and David Vitter
Chemicals are a ubiquitous presence in our lives. Given this reality, most Americans are astonished to find out how little we truly know about many chemicals' effect on human health. Chemicals are all around us -- in our homes, our workplaces, our schools and the environment. They're fundamental to items as complex as our automobiles... -
Canadian Retailer Removes Phthalates, Triclosan and Microbeads
Jun 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Major Canadian grocery chain, Loblaw Companies, will stop using microbeads, triclosan and phthalates in its household, beauty and cosmetic products that come under the company's Life Brand and President's Choice labels by 2018. -
New California Oil Spill Documents Raise Questions On Response Pace
Jun 24, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Elana Schor & Andrew Restuccia
The pipeline company responsible for last month’s 100,000-gallon California oil spill said it could detect a leak and shut down oil flows within 15 minutes of oil escaping from the line, according to a copy of its response plan approved by federal regulators and obtained by POLITICO. -
BLM's New Hydraulic Fracturing Regulations Delayed by Court Pending Action in Lawsuits
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
A federal court June 23 delayed new federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing in a decision announced a day before the regulations were to go into effect (Wyoming v. Dep't of Interior, D. Wyo., No. 2:15-cv-00043, 6/23/15). The U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming announced the stay pending a filing at the court of the... -
EPA Sends Methane Standards for Oil, Gas Wells to White House; Rules Due in August
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency sent a proposed rule to set methane emissions standards for new oil and natural gas wells to the White House for interagency review. The EPA sent that proposal, as well as second proposed rule to clarify terms permitting officials use when issuing prevention of significant deterioration, new source ... -
Banks Step Up Oil Sector Loan Reviews As Regulators See Emerging Financial Risks
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dawn Kopecki
U.S. banks are stepping up the frequency of credit reviews for oil producers as regulators flag the “emerging risk” from the precipitous decline in the commodity's price during the past year. Lending to oil and natural gas producers poses a bigger threat to U.S. banks than most other industrial sectors, Bill Haas, deputy comptroller for midsize bank... -
OMB Begins Review Of EPA Proposals To Reduce Oil And Gas Emissions
Jun 24, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
The White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) has begun formal review of separate EPA proposals to cut emissions from the oil and gas sector, including one that would impose first-time methane limits on new and modified sources, and another that would clarify agency policy for when emissions for separate facilities are aggregated so... -
BOEM Forms Research Partnership With National Academies
Jun 24, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Phil Taylor
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management today announced a new partnership with the National Academies to bolster the government's understanding and engagement on offshore energy issues. The academies agreed to establish a new standing committee on environmental science and assessment for offshore energy and mineral... -
Funding Bill to Be Amended; Obama Threatens Veto
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Members of the House will be able to add more amendments to a bill that funds the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies for the 2016 fiscal year when the bill (H.R. 2822) comes to the floor this week. The House Rules Committee, which sets the terms for debating bills on the floor, moved at a June 23... -
House Passes Bill to Allow States to Opt Out of Clean Power Plan Compliance
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Congress took its first concrete step to stall President Barack Obama's efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from the nation's fleet of existing power plants by passing a bill (H.R. 2042) from Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) that would allow states to delay compliance or opt out of the Clean Power Plan. -
House Republicans Say Clean Power Plan Would Increase Costs, Hurt Grid Reliability
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
House Republicans at a hearing reiterated their complaints that the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed Clean Power Plan would drive up electricity costs and affect grid reliability. The June 24 joint hearing of the Environment and Energy subcommittees of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee discussed... -
Power Plant Bill Clears House, Capito Says Uphill Senate Fight 'Worth Happening'
Jun 25, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Jean Chemnick
The House voted last night to allow states to delay or opt out of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, but it is unclear whether Congress is any closer to invalidating the rule. -
Whitfield Sees Easy Passage For EPA Bill, But Next Step's Uncertain
Jun 24, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jean Chemnick
Legislation that would let states opt out of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan is expected to pass the House this evening "by a nice, healthy margin," the bill's sponsor said today. Kentucky Republican Ed Whitfield's measure, H.R. 2042, would let states decline to implement the existing power plant rule, which he deemed a moderate check to EPA's... -
Protecting Public Health and the Environment
Jun 25, 2015 | Office of Management and Budget Blog
By Ali Zaidi, Dan Utech, and Christy Goldfuss
President Obama is committed to protecting public health and the environment. Just yesterday, the White House hosted a Summit on Climate Change and Public Health. The Summit brought together senior White House and Administration officials, doctors, nurses... -
House GOP Jumps on Schumer Carbon Tax Boast
Jun 25, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
House Republicans' campaign arm seized yesterday on New York Sen. Charles Schumer's (D) declaration that a carbon tax could gain traction if Democrats win in the 2016 election cycle, suggesting his remarks could become a sparring point in competitive races next year. -
House Votes To Weaken Obama’s Climate Rule
Jun 24, 2015 | The Hill - Floor Action
By Timothy Cama and Cristina Marcos
The House voted Wednesday to delay the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rule for power plants and let state governors opt out of complying. The bill, passed 247-180, is a major blow to the main pillar of President Obama’s effort to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, although the White House has promised... -
Administration Officials Criticize House Riders on Ozone, Climate Regulations
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
A pair of administration officials criticized the House for taking up legislation that would block the Environmental Protection Agency from revising national ozone standards and moving ahead with rules to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. Dan Utech, deputy assistant to the president for energy... -
GOP Assails EPA 'Power Grab' Ahead Of Vote To Slow Climate Rules
Jun 24, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
More than a dozen House Republicans on Wednesday spoke forcefully against the Obama administration’s climate rule, hours before they vote on a bill to weaken and delay it. The GOP said the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule amounts to a massive power grab that is illegal and unconstitutional and that lawmakers are obligated to protect... -
White House Talks Up Ozone Update After Greens Protest
Jun 24, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
The White House is emphasizing the potential health benefits of U.S. EPA's proposed update of federal air quality standards for ozone after drawing flak from environmentalists today for not singling out the issue in its veto threat of the House Interior, Environment and Related Agencies spending bill. -
Generators' Suit Over Utility MACT Review Signals Future Legal Uncertainty
Jun 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
Power generating companies are suing EPA over its refusal to soften parts of its power plant maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air toxics rule, highlighting the future legal uncertainty for the agency's landmark rule regardless of how the Supreme Court decides in its imminent ruling in a separate suit over the MACT. -
Obama Nominates Two Officials To EPA Posts
Jun 24, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
President Obama has nominated two Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials to be full-time heads of the offices they currently lead. Obama formally nominated Ken Kopocis and Janet McCabe to be assistant administrators of the EPA on Wednesday, asking the Senate to confirm regulators who have overseen offices that... -
Obama Seeks to Jump-Start 2 Stalled Nominations
Jun 25, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Amanda Peterka
The Obama administration has renominated Janet McCabe and Kenneth Kopocis to hold top positions at U.S. EPA that are at the center of battles over air and water regulations. -
Obama Renominates McCabe to Lead EPA Air Office, Kopocis to Head Water Office
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio and Amena H. Saiyid
President Barack Obama formally renominated Janet McCabe to serve as the Environmental Protection Agency's top air official and Ken Kopocis to serve as the EPA assistant administrator for water. The nominations were submitted to the Senate June 24, according to the White House. McCabe has served as acting head of the Office of Air and... -
Communities' Crude-by-Rail Lawsuit Withdrawn
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
A challenge by two Illinois communities to the Transportation Department's final crude-by-rail rule has been dismissed, at their own request, by a federal appeals court (Village of Barrington v. DOT, 7th Cir., No. 15-02040, case dismissed, 6/23/15). The Illinois village of Barrington and the city of Aurora filed June 23 to dismiss the case from the U.S...
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(ACC Mentioned) US Specialty Chemicals Market Softens in 2015
Jun 24, 2015 | Hydrocarbon Processing
The Specialty Chemicals Market Volume Index, a new tool created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) trade group, remains on a soft note, falling 0.4% in May from the previous month, on a three-month-moving average (3MMA).
The index has seen steady declines since December as weakness in oilfield chemicals and a few other segments weighed on overall volumes. Of the 28 specialty chemical segments monitored, 11 expanded in May, 14 declined, and three were flat.
The overall specialty chemicals volume index was up just 0.6% year-over-year (Y/Y), also on a 3MMA basis. Year-earlier comparisons were generally in the 4.0% to 6.8% range since January 2012, but since February of this year they have been below that range as the downturn in the oil and gas sectors affected headline volumes.
Still, on a Y/Y basis, gains are fairly widespread among most market and functional specialty chemical segments and, in some cases, they are improving. Compared to last year, May volumes were up in 21 segments and down in only seven segments. Year-earlier comparisons have clearly moderated. Similar patterns were seen in year-to-date (YTD) comparisons, the ACC said.
Specialty chemicals are materials manufactured on the basis of the unique performance or function and provide a wide variety of effects on which many other sectors and end-use products rely. They can be individual molecules or mixtures of molecules, known as formulations.
The physical and chemical characteristics of the single molecule or mixtures along with the composition of the mixtures influence the performance end product. Individual market sectors that rely on such products include automobile, aerospace, agriculture, cosmetics and food, among others, the ACC said.
Some areas where specialty chemicals are used include adhesives, cleaning materials, cosmetic additives,construction materials, food additives, fragrances and detergents.
This data is the only timely source of market trends for 28 market and functional specialty chemical segments, the ACC said. Chemistry directly touches over 96% of all manufactured goods, and trends in these specialty chemical segments provide a detailed view of trends in manufacturing. The data also sheds light on how various consumer end-use markets are performing compared to others in the marketplace. -
Jun 24, 2015 | Recycling Today
A new report that looks at processing mixed waste to extract recyclables finds potential to significantly increase recycling rates of certain materials and diversion rates of municipal solid waste (MSW) in general, primarily due to improvements in processing technologies, such as optical sensors that can identify and separate specific plastics.
The report, The Evolution of Mixed Waste Processing Facilities, 1970-Today, by Gershman, Brickner & Bratton Inc. (GBB) of Fairfax, Virginia–notes that mixed waste processing (MWP) facilities use a variety of new and existing technologies to separate recyclable commodities from a stream of mixed trash, or MSW.
In a review of evolving technologies, the study’s authors recount how MWP facilities initially were designed to capture high-energy elements of waste for combustion-based energy recovery (also referred to as waste-to-energy). However, today MWP is attracting renewed interest as a means to boost recycling rates. This is important because even after many residents have separated out their recycled commodities, the average MSW stream may contain up to half of the total volume of recyclables, and in some cases, more.
Technological advances make today’s mixed waste processing facilities “different and in many respects better” than older versions, the report’s authors say, which could enable communities to recycle at much higher rates than under existing collection systems.
The authors conclude, “Based on its roots in single-stream sortation, today’s MWP technology appears promising. The results in terms of outputs, net revenue and reduced collection costs could be attractive for some communities. The combination of recycling with energy recovery for nonrecycled materials is an excellent approach to managing post-use materials more sustainably.”
The report also identifies outstanding issues that need to be addressed to achieve these improvements. For example, in some cases technologies may deliver more volume of recycled material, but increased contamination could lead to reduced commodity prices. The authors point out the need for better data and case studies to demonstrate realistic recovery numbers for MWP.
The authors also suggest that coupling MWP facilities with existing large materials recovery facilities (MRFs) could help communities increase diversion rates. “GBB finds that combined MRF and MWP systems have the potential to significantly increase both the volume and total revenue from recycling materials. The potential exists to divert 180 percent more high value metals and plastics from landfill than are diverted today,” the report states.
The report was commissioned by the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), Washington, which is examining methods to increase recovery of plastics.
“The goal of diverting more materials from the waste stream to higher uses compels us to explore all options,” says Craig Cookson, director of sustainability and recycling for ACC’s Plastics Division. “As the waste stream continues to evolve, we must consider new strategies and innovations that could help us to meet these challenges.” -
(ACC Mentioned) With Eye on Committee Gavel, Shimkus Notches a Win
Jun 25, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
In a nearly unanimous vote, the House this week moved a long-simmering debate over overhauling the Toxic Substances Control Act one step closer to closure.
In doing so, the chamber may have also boosted the political fortunes of the House Republican at the center of the tough negotiations, Illinois Rep. John Shimkus.
As he approaches the 20th anniversary of his election to the House, Shimkus ranks among the most senior of his Republican colleagues on the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee. According to the current roster, only Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) has more seniority among Republicans who haven't already served as chairman.
However, Shimkus has already shown a willingness to jump the seniority line in pursuit of the energy gavel. In 2010, he was among a handful of Republicans who threw their hats in the ring to lead the panel, before ultimately stepping aside for the current chairman, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.).
In an interview with E&E Daily yesterday, Shimkus confirmed his interest in making another run at the chairmanship in the 115th Congress, when Upton faces GOP term limits that would require him to seek a waiver from his caucus to continue as chairman.
"It's no secret," Shimkus said of his interest in the chairman's seat, adding that for now, he's focused on supporting Upton's agenda.
"So we'll deal with the race and other issues when the time comes," he said. "We're just doing a lot of work through our committee, and we want to stay loyal to Fred."
The Energy and Commerce Committee has indeed been in overdrive in the first six months of the 114th Congress, moving legislation on a multitude of subjects that reflect its broad jurisdictional reach.
As chairman of the Environment and Economy subcommittee, it's Shimkus' job to deal with a handful of particularly difficult policy issues, including the TSCA overhaul, legislation responding to U.S. EPA's final coal ash rule, and the always vexing topic of long-term storage of nuclear waste (see related story).
If his performance is viewed as an audition for the chairmanship, Shimkus passed the first test with flying colors. Not only did the TSCA bill pass on a 398-1 vote this week, but it also drew tempered praise from Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who called on Senate Republicans to scrap their own chemical safety overhaul in favor of the version Shimkus negotiated (E&E Daily, June 24).
He was still savoring the victory yesterday, while noting that the measure still has to traverse the Senate floor and bicameral negotiations before crossing the goal line.
But Shimkus also conceded that scoring a slam-dunk bipartisan vote on a contentious issue such as chemical safety helps his case to become chairman.
"There's a lot of legs of the stool," he said. "Being successful at major public policy is part of the résumé. And I think that was pretty successful."
Another bipartisan victory appears within reach. Shimkus expects the House to take up his coal ash bill sometime after the July 4 recess. That measure advanced through the Energy and Commerce Committee in April with a handful of Democratic votes after Shimkus solicited input from EPA (Greenwire, April 15).
While environmentalists and many Democrats call the bill unnecessary, the Obama administration hasn't yet been as vocal on the measure as it has with other bills that seek to curb EPA's powers.
The nuclear waste bill may be another story. Shimkus' long-standing support for the Yucca Mountain repository has been a thorn in the administration's side as it looks to move past the fight over the Nevada site, and he said yesterday that the difficulties surrounding the issue have already slowed his legislative push.
"We're diligent, but we've actually intentionally delayed the schedule because there's too much to handle," he said. "We've got to work through some stuff with some friends and make sure we've got everybody engaged."
For now, Shimkus said he's too busy trying to attend to his legislative workload to spend much time thinking about the next Congress.
"I can only do so much," he said, laughing.
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(ACC Mentioned) House Vote on TSCA-Update Bill Applauded By Diverse Groups as Focus Moves to Senate
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Trade associations representing manufacturers of products as diverse as fragrances, electronics and automobiles are applauding the June 23 House passage of legislation to modernize the Toxic Substances Control Act by requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate the risks of some chemicals in commerce.
By a 398-1 vote, the House of Representatives approved the TSCA Modernization Act (H.R. 2576,) which legislators said would increase regulatory certainty for chemical and other manufacturers and improve public confidence that chemicals in commerce are safe (121 DEN A-1, 6/24/15).
“H.R. 2576 will build confidence in the U.S. chemical regulatory system, protect human health and the environment, and address the commercial and competitive needs of the U.S. chemical industry and the national economy,” Cal Dooley, president and chief executive officer of the American Chemistry Council, said in a statement issued after the vote.
“Now the Senate must act. We strongly urge Majority Leader [Mitch] McConnell [R-Ky.] to bring the complementary ‘Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act,’ S. 697, to the floor for a full Senate vote right away,” Dooley said. “Through the passage of S. 697 by the Senate, and working with their colleagues in the House, Congress can deliver a much-needed update to TSCA as well as a major environmental and commercial policy accomplishment to the president's desk for his signature this year.”
Other trade associations issuing statements applauding the House vote included the Adhesive and Sealant Council; the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers; the Consumer Electronics Association; the Consumer Specialty Products Association; the International Fragrance Association, North America; the IPC-Association Connecting Electronics Industries; the National Association of Manufacturers; and the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates.
Focus Turns to Senate
Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) joined in praising the House's effort but focused on future Senate actions.
“Last night's huge, overwhelming vote in the House is another step toward comprehensive chemical safety reform. Now it's the Senate's turn to act on our extremely bipartisan legislation,” Vitter said in a June 24 statement. S. 697 has 21 Republican co-sponsors and 20 Democratic co-sponsors, his statement added.
Five Democratic senators, who support S. 697, praised the House but said the bill doesn't go far enough.
Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said, “While we don't agree with the details of the House bill, tonight's vote is yet another bipartisan demonstration that Congress must act.”
Features Called Critical
Features they said are critical to have in a bill modernizing TSCA include providing the Environmental Protection Agency with:
• the necessary tools, resources and mandates to establish a comprehensive chemical safety system;
• a clear mandate to review the safety of all existing chemicals and those that manufacturers would like to enter into commerce; and
• authority to oversee confidential business information claims chemical manufacturers make to ensure the public that companies no longer “hide information from the public.”
Environmental and health advocacy organizations provided a range of responses, with most saying the House bill needs more work for it to provide the EPA with the tools it would need to protect the public and environment.
Nancy Buermeyer, senior policy strategist at the Breast Cancer Fund, said, “While the House bill is flawed, it provides a path forward and we commend the Energy and Commerce Committee for its thoughtful consideration of this critical issue.”
Revisions Needed in House Bill
The House bill, however, must be revised to better protect public health, the Breast Cancer Fund said. It called on an amended House bill that would:
• “Strengthen the EPA's authority to focus on the most dangerous chemicals.” As approved by the House, the bill would allow chemical manufacturers to demand that the EPA assess an unlimited number of chemicals of the industry's choosing, potentially diverting the EPA from the critical work of assessing chemicals it has already deemed the highest priority because of those chemicals’ potential to endanger public health, the fund said.
• “Strengthen public right to know.” H.R. 2576 wouldn't require the EPA to evaluate the legitimacy of new confidentiality claims, and it would allow thousands of un-evaluated confidential business information claims to remain in place, “resulting in only a marginal improvement over existing law and its implementation by the EPA,” the fund said.
• “Provide the EPA with adequate funding to fully assess the chemicals of highest concern.” The House bill would allow the chemical industry to pay fees only for those chemicals it asks the EPA to evaluate rather than paying its fair share to help the agency review the safety of the chemicals of greatest concern to public health, the fund said.
House, Senate Bills Fall Short
The Environmental Working Group maintained the position it has voiced throughout this year's TSCA-reform debate: Both the House and the Senate bills fall far short of offering true public health protection, Ken Cook, president and co-founder of EWG, told Bloomberg BNA June 24.
“Under either bill it will be a century or more before EPA finishes reviewing the 1,000-plus chemicals of greatest concern,” Cook said.
“Both are so deficient that we will see a consumer revolt no matter what bill passes,” Cook said, adding, “that is ultimately what is driving the process.”
TSCA hasn't had its core provisions changed since it became law in 1976.
Using different means to accomplish some of their goals, H.R. 2576 and S. 697 would for the first time require the EPA to evaluate the risks of chemicals in commerce, make it easier for the EPA to obtain toxicity and other data from chemical manufacturers and impose fees on chemical manufacturers for certain services the agency provides them as it reviews new or existing chemicals.
TSCA Doesn't Require Such Evaluations
By contrast, TSCA does not require the agency to evaluate the risks of chemicals in commerce; the agency can obtain toxicity, exposure and other data on chemicals from manufacturers from rulemaking or consent agreements negotiated with them; and the agency imposes fees only to review new chemicals before they are made but not for any work it does addressing the many more thousands of chemicals in commerce.
The House and Senate bills would, however, achieve their goals in different ways.
H.R. 2576 would revise a few provisions of the 39-year-old TSCA, primarily those that have made it difficult for the agency to regulate chemicals that have been in commerce since the statute became law.
S. 697 would provide a whole new approach to chemicals management that would establish a safety standard and then require the EPA to eventually review all chemicals to be sure they met that standard.
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(ACC Mentioned) US House Overwhelmingly Approves TSCA Reform Legislation
Jun 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Dinesh Kumar
The US Congress took a major step towards updating the country's federal chemical safety law, when the House of Representatives passed a bill to reform the decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act by a 398-1 vote, late on Tuesday.
The TSCA Modernization Act (HR 2576) was taken up under the suspension of rules procedure, which is usually used to fast track non-controversial measures. This meant that no amendments could be made to the bill.
It had already been approved unopposed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee (CW 4 June 2015) and the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy (CW 15 May 2015).
The next step is for the Senate to pass its own TSCA measure, the Udall-Vitter bill (CW 29 April 2015) . If this happens, a conference committee of the two chambers will work to reconcile differences between the two bills. The unified version would then go back to both chambers for passage, before heading to the president's desk for his signature. The Senate bill is expected to receive floor consideration next month (CW 22 July 2015).
A more targeted measure than the comprehensive Senate bill, HR 2576 says it would:
repeal the current TSCA's requirement that the EPA use “the least burdensome requirements” to impose restrictions on toxic chemicals;
require the EPA to start ten or more risk evaluations in each fiscal year, subject to the availability of funding;
allow industry to designate chemicals for EPA risk evaluations if they are willing to pay the administrative costs;
require the EPA to complete risk evaluations “as soon as possible, subject to the availability of resources, but not later than three years”. The agency would have to complete evaluations initiated by a manufacturer in two years;
let stand any state or local action on chemical management taken before 1 August, this year, unless it conflicts with federal law. But once the EPA makes a final decision on a chemical subject to risk evaluation, it applies to all states; and
require confidential business information claims, made after enactment, to be “designated, substantiated and reasserted every ten years”.
In a floor speech before the vote, the bill's author John Shimkus (R-Illinois), chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, said HR 2576 reflects things learned over the last three years, in which the committee had worked on TSCA reform. The bill, he said, “does not try to be all things to all people”. He added that major sections of TSCA are not changed at all. For example, the bill leaves the process for new chemical review in TSCA section 5 unchanged because “it's working pretty well right now, and changes could make it worse.”
Calling it “landmark reform legislation”, subcommittee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-New Jersey) said HR 2576 would remove “major obstacles to EPA action and give the agency new authority and new resources”.
The House measure will “build confidence in the US chemical regulatory system, protect human health and the environment, and address the commercial and competitive needs of the US chemical industry and the national economy,” said Cal Dooley, president of the American Chemistry Council.
The bipartisan bill addresses key shortcomings of the status quo, while maintaining areas of the statute that work well or could work better, said Bill Allmond, vice president of government relations at the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates. With the passage of HR 2576, “we believe Congress is just steps away from making TSCA reform a reality.”
The lawmakers, who worked together, have “crafted a targeted bill that addresses many of the core issues with the existing law, and they have done what many thought was impossible – bringing Democrats and Republicans together for the first time since 1990 to pass legislation updating a major environmental law,” said Chris Cathcart, president of the Consumer Specialty Products Association.
Andy Igrejas, director of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition said it “addresses the biggest problems in the current law and avoids some of the pitfalls of the Senate approach”.
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(ACC Mentioned) House Approves Bill to Overhaul Chemical Regulation
Jun 24, 2015 | Associated Press
By Matthew Daly
The House on Tuesday approved a bipartisan bill that would update regulation of harmful chemicals for the first time in nearly 40 years.
The House vote, 398-1, moves the bill to the Senate, where a similar measure awaits a floor vote after winning approval from a Senate committee.
Both bills would set safety standards for tens of thousands of chemicals that now are unregulated. The bills also would offer protections for people, such as pregnant women, children and workers, who are vulnerable to the effects of chemicals and set deadlines for the Environmental Protection Agency to act.
If enacted into law, the bill would be the first significant update to Toxic Substances Control Act since the law was adopted in 1976.
Regulation of chemicals took on new urgency after a crippling spill in West Virginia last year contaminated drinking water for 300,000 people. The chemical, crude MCHM, is one of thousands unregulated under current law.
The House bill differs from the Senate version in a number of areas, including a provision that allows states to continue regulating toxic chemicals as long as the state law does not conflict with the federal statute.
Lawmakers in both chambers have struggled to find language acceptable to those seeking strong state regulation of dangerous chemicals while not creating a situation where industry faces 50 sets of rules for chemicals.
Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., lead sponsor of the House bill, said the measure was a long time in the making, noting that similar efforts have stalled in each of the last few years.
Shimkus, chairman of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on environment and the economy, said the bill "takes a common-sense approach" to protecting people from unsafe chemicals while setting reasonable standards for regulation.
"We want our constituents to be safe and we want markets to work. This bill delivers both," he said.
Rep. Paul Tonko of New York, senior Democrat on the environment and economy subcommittee, called the bill a significant improvement over current law.
"The public has too little information about the safety of chemicals they are exposed to every day in virtually every product they use," Tonko said. "Even in the face of overwhelming evidence of harm to people's health, EPA is unable to regulate exposure to toxic chemicals" such as BPA, formaldehyde, styrene and other hazardous substances. Current law is so weak that it even prevented EPA from completely banning deadly asbestos, Tonko and other supporters said.
Under the House bill, "industry gains a fair, predicable federal program for chemical regulation" that will inspire public confidence in the safety of their products, Tonko said, while "the public health and environmental communities gain a federal program in which EPA evaluates chemicals and acts to regulate" those it determines pose a risk to health or the environment.
Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., warned that the bill did not adequately address legal ambiguities concerning how states may enforce their own chemical laws. Eshoo and other lawmakers said they worried that the bill could pre-empt aggressive regulation by states such as California, Vermont and Massachusetts that monitor chemicals closely.
The American Chemistry Council, an industry lobbying group, said in a statement that the House bill "will build confidence in the U.S. chemical regulatory system, protect human health and the environment from significant risks, and meet the commercial and competitive interests of the U.S. chemical industry and the national economy."
But Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the bill has an untested and ambiguous safety standard and fails to require tough deadlines for final agency action. Promised reviews of dangerous chemicals could languish if Congress does not approve adequate funds for the program, he said.
"Congress has neglected the problem of dangerous chemicals in consumer products for decades, to the great benefit of chemical industry profits," Cook said. "American families should not have to wait more decades for a regulatory system that aggressively protects their health from toxic chemicals."
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(ACC Mentioned) House Passes Bipartisan Chemicals Regulation Reform Bill
Jun 25, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
In a strong bipartisan showing, the U.S. House of Representatives on June 23 passed legislation that would overhaul how commercial chemicals are regulated. Lawmakers approved the bill, which would update the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), voting 398-1.
The proposed TSCA Modernization Act of 2015 (H.R. 2576) would change how thousands of chemicals that are already on the market are controlled. It would, however, leave in place existing rules for approving new substances.
It also would give the Environmental Protection Agency sweeping new authority to ask chemical manufacturers for safety data if the agency finds a substance poses a risk to human health or the environment. But some environmental activists are questioning whether EPA can determine that a chemical poses a risk if it lacks safety data.
H.R. 2576, introduced by Rep. John M. Shimkus (R-Ill.), is more narrowly targeted than a Senate bill to revise TSCA (S. 697), introduced by Sens. David B. Vitter (R-La.) and Tom S. Udall (D-N.M.). Notably, the House bill omits controversial provisions found in S. 697 that would override state chemical laws. Preemption of these state statutes, which has been a goal of the chemical industry, remains a sticking point that the House and Senate will have to hash out.
The chemical sector is applauding passage of H.R. 2576 and urging the Senate to act quickly. “Congress can deliver a much-needed update to TSCA as well as a major environmental and commercial policy accomplishment to the President’s desk for his signature this year,” says Calvin M. Dooley, president and chief executive officer of the American Chemistry Council, an industry group.
Many environmental groups back TSCA reform, but they are particularly worried about a provision in the House bill that would allow manufacturers to pay for EPA safety reviews of chemicals that the manufacturers select. This would shift the agency away from reviewing the riskiest substances on the market, activists argue. “It tips much too far in favor of an industry in serious need of regulation,” says Ken Cook, president and cofounder of the Environmental Working Group.
The Senate is expected to vote on S. 697 in coming weeks.
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(ACC Mentioned) US House Sees Measure to Ban Cosmetic Animal Testing
Jun 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A bill introduced in the US House would ban the use of animals in cosmetics testing and the sale of products that use animal testing.
The Humane Cosmetics Act was introduced by Representatives Don Beyer (D-Virginia), Martha McSally (R-Arizona), Joe Heck (R-Nevada) and Tony Cárdenas (D-California).
In a speech on the House floor urging support for the bill, Mr Beyer pointed out that cosmetic companies have, over the last 20 years, been reducing the use of animals for cosmetics testing in “favour of more reliable, cost-effective and technologically advanced methods that can more accurately predict whether cosmetics are safe for humans.” Saying the US is in “no danger of losing its competitive role as a leader in the global cosmetics industry” as a result of the ban, he said the Humane Cosmetics Act would “match US law to the EU, Israel and India”.
John Paul DeJoria, CEO of professional hair care products company Paul Mitchell, said his company “is the first professional hair care brand to take a strong stance against animal testing … we just refused to do it. Since our beginning in 1980, we have been extremely proud to be cruelty free.”
Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said that given the “ready availability of alternatives, there is no compelling reason to continue using outdated animal testing methods that cause tremendous animal suffering.”
The American Chemistry Council did not comment on the legislation. But in a blog, Mike Walls, vice president of regulatory and technical affairs, said the ACC has worked with organisations like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) to develop a set of animal welfare priorities that have been incorporated into the group's principles for modernising TSCA. For example, ACC supports giving the US EPA the flexibility to use data from a variety of test methods not just animal testing, he added.
The Personal Care Products Council did not comment by our deadline.
A similar bill has been introduced in the Canadian Senate (CW 19 June 2015).
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(ACC Mentioend) Despite Challenges, IRIS Staff Defend Plan To Assess PCB Mixtures' Risks
Jun 24, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA staff is acknowledging the challenges in assessing the human health risks of exposure to mixtures of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), in part due to the varied nature of the mixtures that occur in the environment and new data about their non-cancer risks, but an existing assessment may provide a template for the new effort.
There are 209 PCB congeners, chemicals that were developed and used starting about 1930 until EPA banned their use in 1979. EPA's planning and scoping document for its pending Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of the human health risks of PCBs estimates that "more than 600 million [kilograms] of PCBs were commercially produced in the United States," due to their multitude of uses in electrical applications for insulating and inflammability, as well as other uses in paints, inks, coatings, sealants, caulks and others.
But the breadth of the number of congeners, and the fact that they persist in the environment in various mixtures, complicates EPA's efforts to craft an IRIS assessment. Industry stakeholders pressed IRIS staff on these challenges during a public meeting June 17-18 in Arlington, VA, to discuss the agency's draft scoping and planning document for the PCB assessment. Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com. (Doc. ID: 182440)
"I don't envy you people at EPA, there are so many choices and not much data in the tasks at hand," one speaker said during the meeting. "On the other hand, it's so important. Inhaled and higher-chlorinated, less dioxin-like PCBs are not in IRIS . . ."
An industry representative questioned whether EPA's efforts to assess non-cancer risks of exposure to PCBs, with a focus on ingestion and inhalation pathways is necessary, and given competing priorities and limited resources, whether IRIS' existing publications on PCBs are sufficient for the time being. EPA in 1996 published assessments containing reference doses (RfDs) for three Aroclors, the original, commercial form of PCBs.
"Since you already have RfDs for two Aroclors -- they might be sufficient and protective," suggested Nancy Beck, senior director of regulatory science policy at the American Chemistry Council. "Maybe you don't need a full assessment . . ."
"We thought about that," replied Geniece Lehmann, EPA's chemical manager for the PCB IRIS assessment. But "there is much more recent data" than what was available in the early 1990s, she continued. "So even if we were sticking with Aroclors, we'd want to update them." The newer data, she added, "would definitely change the" risk estimates for the Aroclors, but she added that she could not speculate on the magnitude of the changes.
Lehmann identified groups susceptible to PCBs exposure as recreational and subsistence fishers, Native Americans, occupants of PCB-contaminated buildings and breast-fed infants. PCBs were banned due to concerns over their health effects -- some are carcinogenic, and newer evidence suggests some pose non-cancer health risks as well -- and their persistence. PCBs are also bioaccumulative, magnifying up the food chain and accumulating in fish and other meats and fats.
IRIS program director Vincent Cogliano explained in response to other questioning from Beck that several EPA regional offices sought the non-cancer numbers from IRIS to relate to air concentrations measured in schools and other buildings, as well as to provide new benchmarks for fish consumption advisories.
"As you know, there are concentrations of PCBs in air in schools . . . As far as I know, no federal agency has a [benchmark] concentration of air levels [that is safe]," Cogliano replied. "We're trying to help answer a question a lot of people have with this."
Environmental exposures are generally to mixtures of PCBs, which are often different to the toxicity of individual Aroclors. The complexity of the mixtures, and the number of possibilities of mixtures, given the 209 congeners, led speakers throughout the meeting to question how EPA could advance a general PCBs assessment.
But EPA has already performed one IRIS assessment of multiple PCBs which may provide an approach for the new assessment to follow, an agency source says, pointing to a 1994 cancer assessment of several PCBs.
The 1994 assessment -- written by Cogliano -- includes toxicity studies of four PCBs: Aroclors 1260, 1254, 1242 and 1016. The assessment includes three different "tiers of human slope factors [cancer potency estimates for ingestion] for environmental PCBs," titled high risk, low risk and lowest risk. The assessment provides information for the circumstances in which the different slope factors should be used. Such an approach could perhaps be used in the new assessment of non-cancer risks, the source says.
IRIS assessors could calculate "different estimates from different segments of PCB mixtures and then apply them to different" scenarios, the source says.
For example, in the 1994 cancer PCBs assessment, the high risk and persistence tier, with a slope factor of 1-2 milligrams per kilogram body weight per day (mg/kd-day) is to be used in cases where there were instances of: "[f]ood chain exposure"; "[s]ediment or soil ingestion"; "[d]ust or aerosol inhalation"; "[d]ermal exposure, if an absorption factor has been applied"; "[p]resence of dioxin-like, tumor-promoting, or persistent congeners" and/or "[e]arly-life exposure (all pathways and mixtures)."
The assessment provides a range of slope factor for the low risk tier of 0.3-0.4 milligrams per kilograms of body weight per day (mg/kg-day) to be used with "[i]ngestion of water-soluble congeners"; "[i]nhalation of evaporated congeners" and/or "[d]ermal exposure, if no absorption factor has been applied." The lowest risk tier gives a slope factor range of 0.04-0.07 mg/kg-day with instructions to use this potency range if "[c]ongener or isomer analyses verify that congeners with more than 4 chlorines comprise less than 1/2% of total PCBs."
Agency sources indicate that since the last assessments were published, there are new animal and human data indicating that some PCBs pose non-cancer risks as well as cancer risks, and particularly, that inhalation can be a pathway of concern. It is the suggestion of these new risks that led to the decision to undertake a non-cancer assessment, the sources say. In comments submitted to EPA's docket, the Department of Defense (DOD) questions EPA's decision not to calculate dermal risk estimates in the PCBs assessment, calling it inconsistent with EPA's decision regarding its IRIS assessment of benzo(a)pyrene (BaP). "Given that Lehmann et al., 2015 … state that the major source of ingestion and inhalation of PCBs is dust in the house and given that EPA assumes that household dust is mainly due to outdoor soil, IRIS should use the same assumptions it is using for BaP and [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)] regarding dermal exposures to contaminated dust and soil as these chemicals have similar properties," according to DOD's June 3 comments. "Please also explain why dermal exposure to BaP and PAHs is considered important and the same exposure is not for PCBs."
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(ACC Mentioned) Can the ‘Chemical Soup’ We Live in Cause Cancer?
Jun 24, 2015 | WebMD Health News
By Rita Rubin
Researchers have been testing individual chemicals for years to see if they can cause cancer.
Now, a groundbreaking new report suggests scientists should also be looking at how low doses of chemicals considered safe on their own might cause cancer when mixed together.
“We’re swimming in this chemical soup ... and we really don’t know what it’s doing to us,” says William Goodson III, MD, lead author of the report. “We’re pushing for the idea that the chemical testing has to basically go back to step one. Instead of looking at individual chemicals, look at chemicals in mixtures. We live in a mixture every day.”
Other experts agree with the report. It was written by a team of international scientists from 28 countries.
“We must take on the significant challenge of evaluating mixtures and not just evaluate one chemical at a time,” says Linda Birnbaum, PhD, director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences and the National Toxicology Program. She was not involved in writing the report, but her institute helped fund the work.
WebMD asked Goodson, a senior scientist at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, and Birnbaum about the need for such research and whether consumers should be concerned about encountering everyday chemicals.
Q. What percentage of cancers might be related to chemicals in the environment?
A. The report says that “credible estimates” by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer puts the percentage at 7% to 19%.
“We discussed this among ourselves,” Goodson says. “Some people argued it is as low as 5% or 10%.” But, he says, he suspects it could be higher than 19%.
Q. Are there certain cancers that are more likely to be linked to chemicals?
A. “The issue is that we don’t know,” Goodson says.
Q. Are there certain periods in life when exposure might be most harmful -- say, in the womb?
A. “The newest research clearly shows that biology is affected by low doses of chemicals ... and that these biological changes can be harmful, especially during periods of development,” Birnbaum says.
She says researchers need to study how coming in contact with small amounts of chemicals affects people in all stages of life.
Q. What types of chemicals are we talking about, and what are some of the main ways we’re exposed to them? Are they only manmade chemicals, or do some occur naturally?
A. “There are things that occur naturally, in water, for example,” Goodson says, noting arsenic is found in groundwater. Then, he says, there are manmade parabens and phthalates, used in personal care products such as shampoo, food products, and food packaging.
Q. Since we come in contact with infinite combinations of chemicals, how can you figure out which combinations might cause cancer?
A. “It’s going to be a huge project,” Goodson says. “We don’t underestimate how complicated this will be.”
But there is research that shows the importance of pursuing this question, he says. For instance, British scientist Philippa Darbre, PhD, showed that exposing cancer cells to a mixture of parabens, but not individual parabens, spurred growth, Goodson says.
Q. Should we try to minimize our exposure to any particular chemicals?
A. “We sort of tried to stay away from specific chemicals, because then you start telling people to go throw this away or throw that away,” Goodson says. “It’s almost impossible to live a life that’s going to get you away from these things.”
But he says he has made a few changes.
“Probably the biggest thing I’ve done is stop drinking bottled water” because of the chemicals in the plastic bottles, Goodson says. “Whatever I decide to do is just my best guess.” Still, he says, “if I go to a place where the only water available is bottled water, yes, I will drink it. I don’t have a choice.” Goodson says he’d prefer to buy milk in glass bottles, but it’s hard to find.
Everyone, particularly pregnant women, children, and the elderly, should try to avoid coming in contact with chemicals known to be harmful, Birnbaum says. Also, she says, “people need to be aware of their environment, including the air they breathe, the water and food they consume, and the products they use in their home. All of these things even at low doses can impact a person’s health.”
The Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group focused on the environment and public health, recommends you drink filtered tap water rather than bottled water. Also, the group’s Skin Deep cosmetics database looks at the safety of thousands of ingredients in personal care products. The FDA offers guidance on phthalates used in cosmetics, too.
A spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council says the organization hasn't yet reviewed the report and has no immediate comment.
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(ACC Mentioned) CDC Reveals that Swimmers’ Red Eyes are Caused by Urine not Chlorine
Jun 25, 2015 | Daily Times Gazette
Researchers said the red eyes are caused by urine in swimming pools, not chlorine and have launched a campaign to trample it down
Health experts from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Water Quality and Health Council and the National Swimming Pool Foundation (NSPF) say the problem of people urinating in pools is so distressing that they have launched a new campaign to educate people.
“Chlorine and other disinfectants are added to a swimming pool to destroy germs. Peeing in a pool depletes chlorine and actually produces an irritant that makes people’s eyes turn red” said Michele Hlavsa, chief of CDC’s Healthy Swimming Program.
Pool operators may receive complaints from swimmers and pool staff about stinging eyes, nasal irritation, or difficulty breathing after being in the water or breathing the air at swimming pools, particularly indoor pools. Researches indicates that these symptoms may be an indication of poor water and indoor air quality at the pool caused by a build-up of irritants, known as chloramines, in the water and air.
Chloramines are the result of insufficient free chlorine and usually result in a strong chlorine odor in and around the swimming pool. Chloramines are formed as a product of nitrogen and active chlorine (hypochlorous acid — HOCl). The nitrogen is most commonly introduced into the pool water as ammonia in the form of sweat and unfortunately urine.
“That ‘chlorine’ smell at the pool isn’t actually chlorine. What you smell are chemicals that form when chlorine mixes with pee, sweat and dirt from swimmers’ bodies” said Chris Wiant, Chair of the Water Quality and Health Council.
According to a new survey conducted by Survata on behalf of the Water Quality and Health Council, nearly half of Americans surveyed incorrectly believe that there is a chemical that is added to pools that turns a conspicuous color in the presence of pee. In the same survey, 71 percent also incorrectly blame chlorine for causing swimmers’ eyes to become red and irritated.
“The solution isn’t rocket science; it’s common courtesy. Swimmers should use the pool to swim, the restroom to pee and the showers to wash up before getting in the pool. It’s that simple. There isn’t a dye that turns red. It’s the eyes that turn red. Swimmers’ eyes are the real color indicator that someone might have peed in a pool” said Thomas M. Lachocki, CEO of the NSPF.
The CDC and the American Chemistry Council also have collaborated on a brochure that includes key messages about healthy swimming, which include showering before swimming and not peeing in a pool.
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(ACC Mentioned) Red Eyes from Swimming in Pools Cause by Urine, Not Chlorine
Jun 25, 2015 | The Australian
By Amelia McGuinness
As someone who used to do 10 sessions of swimming training a week in a highly-chlorinated pool, followed by a university job of learn-to-swim teaching for children and adults, I’ve had my fair share of red eyes.
There were days when the burning was so severe that I could barely keep them open without it looking like I was bawling my eyes out.
So it came as a shock to me when I learned that it may not have been the chlorine that was causing such irritation.
Researchers have found that the cause for red eyes is even more unappealing than too much chlorine.
It’s actually urine.
Yep, you read that right. Every morning, when I’d arrive at class with glowing red eyes, seemingly aggravated by chlorine, they were really being attacked by other people’s piss.
Health experts from the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Water Quality and Health Council and the National Swimming Pool Foundation (NSPF) have said that people are peeing in pools so much that they have had to start educating people about the nasty effects of urine.
“Peeing in a pool depletes chlorine and actually produces an irritant that makes people’s eyes turn red,” said Michele Hlavsa, chief of CDC’s Healthy Swimming Program.
And as if things couldn’t get worse, all those times people complained about me reeking of chlorine as I sat next to them in class? Well, that wasn’t just chlorine either.
“That ‘chlorine’ smell at the pool isn’t actually chlorine. What you smell are chemicals that form when chlorine mixes with pee, sweat and dirt from swimmers’ bodies,” said Chris Wiant, Chair of the Water Quality and Health Council.
Wow. Classmates, I am so, so sorry. I came to appreciate that scent, and even now it still invokes a hint of nostalgia whenever I smell it these days. But now I get why everyone was so grossed out by it.
The CDC and the American Chemistry Council are spreading the message about healthy swimming in the US.
But for us, the message must be spread. Please, Australia, I beg you, stop this epidemic before another swimmer falls victim to urine-induced red eyes.
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(ACC Mentioned) Reassess US Flammability Standard, Say Trade Body, NGO
Jun 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Trade body, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA), and NGO, the Ecology Center, are calling for a reassessment of federal flammability requirements for children's car seats.
Children's car seats must meet flammability requirements set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), as detailed in Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) No. 302, “Flammability of interior materials”.
Enacted in 1971, the purpose of the standard “is to reduce the deaths and injuries to motor vehicle occupants caused by vehicle fires, especially those originating in the interior of the vehicle from sources such as matches or cigarettes”.
Julie Vallese, managing director of public and government affairs for the JPMA, said her association supports an exemption for children's car seats. “JPMA initiated discussions with NHTSA as well as various NGOs to exempt children’s car seats from the flammability requirements, not because there is a concern with the use of various approved flame retardant chemicals, rather a question of whether their presence improves the safety of the occupant,” she said.
The Ecology Center’s fifth report investigating the chemicals present in car seats, released earlier this month, notes that despite efforts by some companies to remove them, chemical flame retardants are still needed to meet the federal standard. The group recommends that the federal fire test be updated “to reflect causes of fire in modern cars” and that consideration be given to exempting child car seats from FMVSS No. 302.
For the report, the NGO examined 15 car seats manufactured in 2014. Brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and non-halogenated organophosphate flame retardants (PFRs) were found in more than half of the tested samples, with chlorinated organophosphate flame retardants (CFRs) present in roughly 30% of the reviewed seats. No polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) were detected.
“Added flame retardant chemicals are not bound to the car seat materials and, thus, are released over time,” says the report. It adds: “These substances have been linked to thyroid problems, learning and memory impairment, decreased fertility, behaviour changes and cancer.” (CW 7 May 2015, CW 14 January 2015 and CW 9 October 2014).
In addition to flammability standards, juvenile products like car seats are subject to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), which requires manufacturers to undergo third-party testing and certification, and places content limits on certain substances like lead and phthalates. The CPSIA and the Federal Hazardous Substance Act (FHSA) also outline safety metrics that juvenile products must meet.
A federal legislative effort to restrict or ban certain flame retardants and require further oversight from the CPSC was introduced in September 2014 but failed to get traction (CW 16 September 2014). Meanwhile, laws that govern children's products, in particular, with regard to flame retardants, are being introduced at the state and local level.
Earlier this month, Minnesota became the latest state to restrict the use of flame retardants in children's products (CW 4 June 2015). In California, a bill has passed the Senate that would require the labelling of all children's products to note the presence or absence of added flame retardants (CW 9 June 2015).
Ms Vallese said that these overlapping regulations can prove problematic for manufacturers, as products are researched and developed for national marketplaces. She said that the group supports passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform “to instil uniformity on chemical regulations and strong preemption of differing state laws”.
The US Congress took a major step towards updating the country's federal chemical safety law this week, with the House of Representatives passing a bill to reform the decades-old TSCA (CW 24 June 2015).
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Groups Protest At California Prop 65 Website Proposal
Jun 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A coalition of more than 170 companies and trade groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, called into question the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment's (OEHHA) authority to create a lead agency website, and to request from businesses information that it contends is subject to legal privilege.
The agency is proposing to develop a site that would provide the public with more exposure data for chemicals included on the state's Proposition 65 list (CW 22 May 2015).
The coalition said, in its comments, that in addition to allowing the OEHHA to compile its own information on the website, the proposed website regulation empowers the office to require manufacturers, producers, importers and distributors of products, bearing a Prop 65 warning, to “provide the agency with a plethora of complicated and highly technical information”.
But the law does not empower the OEHHA to require companies to provide it with information related to their products or regarding their decisions to provide Proposition 65 warnings for listed chemicals, the coalition said, and urged it to “stay within the statutory boundaries of Proposition 65”.
The proposed rulemaking would require manufacturers to provide the OEHHA, upon request, with the location and concentration of chemicals in each component of a product, estimated levels of human exposure, and “any other related information that the lead agency deems necessary concerning exposures to listed chemicals.”
Also, any person could provide information to be posted on the website, at the agency's discretion.
The American Chemistry Council, in its comments, raised concern with the provision of the rule that would allow the public to submit data for inclusion on the site, “regardless of source, quality or verification”.
“It is essential that the manufacturers have an opportunity to correct information contained on the website,” said the Rubber Manufacturers Association. “This will ensure that the public does not have access to information about a product that is misleading,” it added.
Other issues raised by industry included the cost and burden of compliance, sensitivity to trade secrets, and concerns that providing consumers with overly technical information may cause confusion that would inhibit making informed decisions on chemical exposures.
Nonprofit Clean Water Action submitted comments in favour of the proposed rulemaking, disagreeing with industry's position that it would be overly expensive. “Information about chemical exposures is not only a basic human right, it is a cost effective way to prevent or limit the impacts of that exposure and avoid the medical or social expenses that can result,” said toxics programme manager Andria Ventura.
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(ACC Mentioned) Americans Waste $640 in Food a Year
Jun 24, 2015 | CNN Money
By Steve Hargreaves
Americans trash $640 worth of food a year, and they don't even care about the effects on the planet.That's from a new study by the American Chemistry Council, which found that just 15% of respondents were concerned about the environmental impacts of throwing away so much food.
What upset people most about the waste was cost, with 79% saying lost money was the biggest concern. About half of the 1,000 surveyed said they felt bad about tossing food in light of worldwide hunger.
Yet food waste is a major pollution problem. It's the single biggest item in U.S. landfills, where it rots and releases methane -- a powerful greenhouse gas. Several cities around the U.S. have institutedcomposting programs to divert some of this waste.
Related: Your reusable bag can save the turtles
The biggest reason why food spoils is because people either buy too many perishables to begin with or fail to eat leftovers. Three-quarters of respondents said they threw away food once a month. Half said they did it once a week.
The results were self reported, and actual food waste may be even higher. The Chemistry Council noted that the U.S. government puts food waste at over $900 a year per household.
The Chemistry Council -- which represents makers of plastic bags and containers -- unsurprisingly recommends putting food in plastic bags or containers.
"It's an extremely efficient way of storing food," said Steve Russell, vice president of plastics at the Chemistry Council. Russell said plastic bags are better than some other storage containers because the air can be squeezed out, and some plastic cling wraps are designed to release carbon dioxide while keeping oxygen out -- which extends the life of some vegetables.
It's worth noting that there are many ways of preserving food without plastic, including freezing, pickling, or using glass or ceramic containers.
Related: World wastes $400 billion in food a year
But before you get too down on yourself, consider this: While consumer food waste is bad, even more is wasted on farms or in transit, according to the United Nations.
And it's not just fat cat Americans. Most food spoilage occurs in Asia, largely due to lack of refrigeration.
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(ACC Mentioned) Here’s How To Cut Down On Food Waste
Jun 24, 2015 | Time
By Alexandra Sifferlin
Americans waste $640 of food each year, according to a new survey released by the American Chemistry Council. That uneaten or unused food may end up in the garbage in part because consumers are really confused by expiration dates; one British study suggests thatmisinterpreting expiration dates is responsible for 20% of food waste.
While many people think “best by” or “sell by” dates are indicators for food safety, the reality isn’t as clear cut.
Expiration dates and food labeling emerged during the 20th century as Americans increasingly stopped making their own food but still wanted to know how fresh it was. According to a 2013 report from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC), many Americans think their food is unsafe if the date they see on the label has already passed. However, these dates are not indicators that the food will make you sick; they only indicate when they are considered still fresh. Eating refrigerated food slightly past its prime may not taste as good as eating it fresh, but in most cases, it’s not going to harm you, according to the report. (And you might be surprised how long foods do last in the fridge.)
Here’s what those labels really mean:
“Sell by”: This date only indicates when the manufacturer suggests grocery stores should stop selling the product. It’s a way for companies to make sure their food is being sold when they determine it’s at the best quality.
“Best by” or “Best if used by” or “Use by”: Similar to “sell by”, this label marks the maker’s estimate of when the food will no longer be at its freshest, highest quality. It doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get sick if you eat it after the date, nor is it a guarantee that the food has even gone bad. Consumers may not notice a difference in quality.
None of these labels is actually an indicator of food safety; often, the date on the packaging and when the food may actually be no longer safe to eat don’t match up. For instance, raw shell eggs can last in the refrigerator for up to five weeks, according to FoodSafety.gov—which may be longer than the date stamped on the carton.
To keep your food safe, it’s important to make sure that refrigerated food doesn’t spend too much time in warmer temperatures, which make it more susceptible to bacteria growth. Certain foods like “ready to eat” dishes, infant formula and baby food should be consumed promptly.
Public health experts, like those at the NRDC and FLPC, argue better labeling that more accurately reflects spoiling dates would not only mean safer food consumption, but could also cut down on food waste. If labels could differentiate between safety and quality, it would be a much more useful system to consumers, the groups say.
To look up the shelf life and refrigerator life of your foods, try theFoodkeeper storage guide, a collaboration between the Food Marketing Institute at Cornell University and U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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(ACC Mentioned) Study: Americans Throw Away A Lot of Food
Jun 25, 2015 | ABC Tulsa
By Jennifer Cop
A study from the American Chemistry Council has found that the average American wastes $640 worth of food every year.
Researchers say 15% of those surveyed were concerned about the environmental impact of throwing away so much food, but 79% were more concerned about throwing away so much money.
Food is the biggest item in U.S. landfills. Rotting food releases methane, which is a powerful greenhouse gas.
About half of the 1,000 surveyed say they felt bad with how many people in the world go hungry.
Researchers noted the government says the average household family wastes $900 a year on food.
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(ACC Mentioned) Americans Toss $640 in Food Each Year
Jun 24, 2015 | The Daily Beast
A survey released Wednesday found Americans throw out about $640 worth of food annually, and most people don’t care about the environmental impact of food waste. The American Chemistry Council survey found that more than half of respondents repurpose leftovers for new meals, but 76 percent admitted to throwing away leftovers at least monthly. The waste in money bothered 79 percent, 45 percent felt bad because other people don’t have enough to eat, and just 15 percent said they were concerned about the environmental impact. Food waste makes up more than 20 percent of landfills, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
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(ACC Mentioned) Survey: U.S. Individuals Waste $640 Worth of Food Per Year
Jun 24, 2015 | Palm Beach Post
By Chelsea Todaro
That’s a lot of wasted food.
According to a survey from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), each American throws away around $640 worth of food each year, USA Today reports.
The survey also found that although many Americans use leftovers for other meals, 76 percent throw them away monthly. This reportedly bothers 79 percent of people--- 45 percent who feel bad for the hungry, and 15 percent who care about the environment.
“For years we’ve been told to finish our plate, there are hungry people,” said Steve Russell, vice president of plastics at ACC, to USA Today. “I just don’t think we’ve done a good enough job yet talking about the environmental impacts of food waste.”
The Environmental Protection Agency also reports that 20 percent of landfills are made up of wasted food---which produces a lot of methane gas, according to USA Today.
It also effects global warming by producing 2 percent of greenhouse gases, and accounts for 35 percent of freshwater, 31 percent of cropland and 30 percent of fertilizer, according to an article by John Hopkins School of Public Health.
Government data also found that almost a third of the food ready for consumption in the U.S. is not eaten, USA Today reports.
But why do we waste so much food?
Brian Wansink, author of “Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life”, told USA Today most people don’t think about the impact of the environment when throwing away food.
“What bothers most people is that it makes them feel foolish … having to admit you were wrong to prepare so much food or serve so much food if we’re not eating it,” Wansink said to USA Today.
Research from an article in PLOS found that more than half of consumers throw away 10 percent of their food because they want “to eat the freshest food possible,” and “consumers may be underestimating how much food they throw away,” USA Today reports.
Russell said Americans can decrease the amount of wasted food by portioning the right amount in containers and storing them in the right places.
“Air is the enemy,” Russell told USA Today. “It causes food to rot faster.”
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(ACC Mentioned) Wasted Food A Bigger Problem Than People Realize, Report Says
Jun 24, 2015 | CBS News
By Bianca Seidman
Throwing food in the trash has more harmful lasting consequences than most people think about.
According to a new national survey, 70 percent of Americans say they feel badly about throwing food in the trash. Most said they were bothered by it because throwing out food is a waste of their money or because others don't have enough to eat. However, in the survey of 1,000 people commissioned by the American Chemistry Council, only 15 percent mentioned the environment as a reason for the guilt.
That's likely because many people don't know the true life-cycle of their food once it becomes waste. It may seem that food would decompose quickly in a landfill, like it does in nature. But the reality of what happens to the 133 billion pounds of food wasted annually, according to USDA estimates, is very different.
"I think we're just waking up in this country to the issue of wasted food," Dr. Roni Neff of Johns Hopkins University told CBS News in a recent interview. Johns Hopkins' own surveys showed that people often throw food away because they are concerned about food-borne illness or freshness.
Food that goes out with the trash is usually trapped in plastic bags and, often, also in packaging or take-out containers that don't let light or air in to finish the natural breakdown. What would normally be organic matter that breaks down quickly becomes artificially preserved in these dark catacombs of containers, sometimes for decades.
Researchers also noted that many people also undervalue the cost of the food they waste. Respondents estimated their households throw out $640 per year in food. But the latest USDA report, based on 2010 figures, puts the amount at around $900 per household and $161 billion nationwide per year. That's 30-40 percent of the food supply.
"There may be a gap in peoples' awareness of what they're actually doing in terms of wasting food. They say they're wasting very little but we know that doesn't quite match with the actual numbers regarding waste," said Neff.
Most food waste comes from homes and food-based businesses like restaurants and grocers. Part of the problem is that many people aren't sure if their food is still fresh or get rid of it when it reaches its sell-by date, even though it would still be safe to eat.
To address environmental concerns about food piling up in landfills, several municipalities including Seattle, San Francisco, New York City and all of Massachusetts have implemented composting programs, asking businesses and residents to put food waste in separate bins. Some college cafeterias and landfills themselves are working to sort compostable materials from the rest of the trash, as well. But the most recent statistics from the EPA, through 2013, show that still, only five percent of food waste is composted.
Keeping food compost separated from the main trash haul has two big advantages: reducing the waste pile-up in already overburdened landfills and adding a secondary source of funding from the compost production.
Food waste contributes to methane in landfills, and landfills account for more than 20 percent of methane emissions in the U.S., according to the EPA. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas which contributes to global warming.
Food that is purposefully composted in bioreactors -- cylinder-shaped machines that look like silos and decompose food waste at high speed -- produces two energy products that can actually make money for cities. Bioreactors capture the methane and other bio-gas that's emitted by the decomposing food, which can be used as a power supply. The final product of the compost is a fertilizer that is often sold back to cities to help maintain their public green spaces.
In another approach to reducing food waste, non-profit organizations like City Harvest in New York help to reclaim food that would be thrown out by stores and restaurants and put it to good use feeding some of those who are hungry. City Harvest says it rescues at least 136,000 pounds of food each day and feeds more than 1.4 million New Yorkers each year.
Officials in Seattle, where residents could face fines if they don't compost, recommend the following strategies for reducing food waste:Purchase less food in grocery shopping trips so that less goes to wasteOrganize food in the fridge by what needs to be eaten firstFreeze food that isn't eatenFinish leftovers first; repurpose food for another mealDon't discard food just because it reached the "sell-by" date, check it for freshness firstCompost as much food waste as possible in separate bins
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(ACC Mentioned) Americans Throw Away $640 Worth of Food Each Year
Jun 24, 2015 | Time
By Nolan Feeney
Americans toss $640 worth of food each year, according to a surveyreleased Wednesday.
Though more than half of Americans say they reuse leftovers for new meals, 76% of the 1,000 adults surveyed say they throw away leftovers at least once a month; 53% say they do so once a week, the American Chemistry Council found.
All that wasted food makes Americans unhappy, but for different reasons. An overwhelming majority (79%) say they’re bothered by the wasted money spent on thrown-out food, 45% say they’re bothered because other people in the world are hungry and 15% say they’re concerned about the environment. The EPA says food waste makes up 20% of landfill content and releases the greenhouse gas methane as it rots.
“For years we’ve been told to finish your plate, there are hungry people,” Steve Russell, vice president of plastics at ACC, told USA Today. “I just don’t think we’ve done a good enough job yet talking about the environmental impacts of food waste.”
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Households Trash $640 in Food a Year
Jun 24, 2015 | USA Today
By Hadley Malcolm
American households throw away about $640 each worth of food every year, and consumers don't really care about the environmental impact of trashed leftovers piling up in landfills, according to a survey out Wednesday from the American Chemistry Council.
At a time when Americans may be more attuned than ever to the chemical makeup of food, buying organic and sourcing locally, they're still struggling to avoid throwing a lot of food away, data show.
While many Americans live on leftovers — more than half use them to make new meals and nearly two-thirds repurpose leftovers for other meals, like lunch — 76% also say they throw away leftovers at least monthly, according to ACC's survey of 1,000 adults.
The wasted money bugs 79%, and 45% are bothered because other people don't have enough to eat, but just 15% say they're bothered by the impact on the environment.
"For years we've been told to finish your plate, there are hungry people," says Steve Russell, vice president of plastics at ACC, a trade organization for chemical companies that also advocates for the use and recycling of plastics, such as food storage containers and packaging. "I just don't think we've done a good enough job yet talking about the environmental impacts of food waste."
Food waste makes up more than 20% of what's in landfills and is a significant source of methane gas as it rots, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to Earth's warming. Plus there's the environmental impact created by growing and shipping food across the country. Wasted food accounts for about 2% of greenhouse gas emissions, 35% of freshwater consumption, 31% of cropland and 30% of fertilizer usage, according to data cited in an article on food waste from Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future – part of the university's public health school – published in the journal PLOS earlier this month.
But most consumers aren't thinking about that when they throw away food, says Brian Wansink, author of Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life. That may be because the environmental effects of food waste aren't as visceral as feelings of guilt.
"What bothers most people is that it makes them feel foolish ... having to admit you were wrong to prepare so much food or serve so much food if we're not eating it," Wansink says.
The survey's findings fall in line with other research. In the PLOS article, "Wasted Food: U.S. Consumers' Reported Awareness, Attitudes and Behaviors," consumers were asked to rank their motivations for reducing food waste, and saving money came out on top, while factors like greenhouse gas emissions and using up resources such as energy and water ranked last: 22% said those issues were "not at all important" to getting them to reduce food waste.
Asked why they throw away food, consumers said it was mostly due to food safety and wanting to eat the freshest food possible, according to the research. Data suggest consumers may be underestimating how much food they throw away. More than half of consumers say they discard just 10% of their food, while 13% say they don't throw away any, according to the PLOS research. Yet government data estimates that nearly a third of food available for consumption in the U.S. goes uneaten.
Wansink, who studies consumers' food habits at Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab, says the most common sources of food waste are when consumers buy too much food or prepare too much for a given meal.
Cutting waste may be as simple as changing the way food is stored after it's opened, Russell says, making sure food is portioned into the right-sized containers and that air is squeezed out of plastic bags. Plus, consumers need to understand where items should be stored, such as putting bread and pastas in cool, dry areas while relegating fruits and vegetables to the refrigerator or at least out of sunlight.
"Air is the enemy," Russell says. "It causes food to rot faster."
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(ACC Mentioned) $640 Worth of Food Is Thrown Away By Each American Household Per Year, Says Survey
Jun 24, 2015 | The Daily Meal
By Samantha Neudorf
A survey released by the American Chemistry Councilon June 24 reveals that Americans throw away $640 worth of food each year.
The survey asked 1,000 adults how often they throw away food. Seventy-six percent of people said that they throw away leftovers at least once a month, and 53 percent said they throw away leftovers every week. Over half of the people surveyed said that they throw away food that they bought but did not cook or eat.
Even though all of this food is wasted, 70 percent of the survey participants said they are bothered by how much is thrown away, and for various reasons: 79 percent said it’s a waste of money, 45 percent said others may not have enough to eat, and 15 percent said that it’s bad for the environment.
The United States is addressing this problem in a number of ways. The Department of Agriculture has stated that many foods are still good past their expiration dates,and there’s even a grocery store that sells expired foods.
The survey notes that food waste is the most prevalent item in our landfills and contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
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(ACC Mentioned) Food Waste Plagues American Households
Jun 25, 2015 | Chronicle Council
By Adam Martin
Different surveys and statistic have emerged recently to pinpoint how much food U.S. citizens are in fact wasting.
The most recent survey, published on Wednesday and coming from TNS Global states that a number of 76 percent U.S. household throw away food at least once per month. The survey, conducted on behalf of American Chemistry Council also revealed that 53 percent of U.S. household throw away food at least once per week.
The numbers add up, yet they are not consistent with the general perception of the public regarding food being wasted. The same survey found that 70 percent of those questioned are deeply bothered by food waste across the U.S.
Even so, the overall estimates indicate that approximately 640 dollars per household are being thrown in the trash bin with wasted food.
Another estimate, coming from the U.S. governmental statistics place the wasted food at an overall amount of 900 dollars yearly per household.
What drives people to throw out food amounting to these sums seems to be a misreading of labels. According to Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic and Natural Resources Defense Council which released a study in 2013, 90 percent of U.S. citizens do not read the expiration dates correctly.
This leads them to throw perfectly viable food and causes a loss of in between 640 and 900 dollars yearly per household.
Other causes must be factored in when talking of food waste, but a mashup between phrases which are intended solely for stores to regulate the life shell of products and phrases which are intended to tell consumers when the food product went bad causes a lot of confusion.
To this extent, the 2013 study concluded:
“It is time for a well-intended but wildly ineffective food date labeling system to get a makeover”.
Another recently published report comes to support this conclusions. Developed by researchers at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the report finds that concerns surrounding food safety drive U.S. citizens to throw it out. A label reading “sell by” does not pinpoint that by that date the food goes bad, but that the store has to sell it by then. “Use by” is intended for consumers to know when food reaches peak.
Faulty labels and confusing language hold up the trend of food waste. Thus, 40 percent of food products in the U.S. end up being thrown away. This is indicative of a total loss of 165 million dollars yearly due to food waste.
A separate study found that only 15 percent of what end in the trash bin would suffice to feed a staggering 25 million Americans yearly. That is not to say food waste is solely plaguing the U.S. France for instance introduced legislation that bans supermarkets from wasting food by throwing it away.
Not only is food waste an economy drainer, but it is also a grave factor in environmental decline. The amount of food trashed yearly in the U.S. makes the country the largest contributor to the filling of landfills.
Yet, little seem to make the connection. Societal effects are more obvious than what food waste does to the environment.
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(ACC Mentioned) Houston Food Bank is Troubled by Food Waste
Jun 25, 2015 | KTRH Radio
It's frustrating for food rescue operations like the Houston Food Bank to hear stories about billions of dollars of perfectly good food being thrown out each day. The American Chemistry Council says each American tosses 640 dollars worth of food per day.
Food Bank Chief Communications Officer Betsy Ballard says, “Anybody in hunger relief would be downright disgusted or depressed on hearing news like that.”
Most of that food isn’t recoverable.
“The only thing I can think of to help prevent food waste is to have better planning,” Ballard says. “Don't buy the food if you know you can't prepare it and eat it, in a certain time frame, while it is still healthy.”
All of that wasted food may be having environmental impact. To organizations like the Houston Food Bank, the bigger problem is that is food that could be used to help people and families in need.
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(ACC Mentioned) 20 Percent of Landfills Comprise of Food Waste, Claims Survey
Jun 25, 2015 | West Texas News
By Leah Gardiner
Turning a blind eye to the immense environmental damage that is caused by trashed leftovers piling up in landfills, a survey has found that Americans waste food worth approximately $640 every year. The results of the survey conducted by the American Chemistry Council, were out on Wednesday.
The survey concluded that waste food made up as much as 20 percent of landfills. This piled up, rotten trash became a significant source of methane, which is a prominent greenhouse gas. Thus, the food waste added to the global warming, to the extent of two percent. Furthermore, the growing and shipping of food across the country also inflicted damage to the environment. In fact, wasted food accounted for 35 percent of freshwater consumption, 31percent of cropland and 30 percent of fertilizer usage.
The findings of the current survey fall in line with a previous research article titled ‘Wasted Food: US Consumers' Reported Awareness, Attitudes and Behaviors’, published in the journal PLOS. Herein, consumers were asked to rank their motivations for reducing food wastage. Saving money came out as the top driver, whereas environmental factors like greenhouse gas emissions and resources like energy and water ranked the last.
Such results are upsetting when Americans have already shifted to organic foods, owing to their increased consciousness of the chemical composition of food. This means that even this organic food is ending up in their dustbins. When the researchers enquired of them as to why they wasted food, the reasons that were given were food safety and they wanting to consume the freshest food possible.
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(ACC Mentioned) Here’s How Much Money Americans Are Losing From Trashed Food
Jun 25, 2015 | Time
By Benjamin Snyder
Americans may be more environmentally conscious and health food-oriented these days, but that isn’t preventing each person from trashing $640 worth of food, on average, each year, according to a USA Today report.
The newspaper cites data from the American Chemistry Council that show 76% of us dump leftovers almost every month, despite the popularity of leftovers for meals — apparently over half of us use them for new meals, such as lunch. The American Chemistry Council tabulated its results by surveying 1,000 people.
According to the publication:
The wasted money bugs 79%, and 45% are bothered because other people don’t have enough to eat, but just 15% say they’re bothered by the impact on the environment.
“For years we’ve been told to finish your plate, there are hungry people,” said Steve Russell, the vice president of plastics at ACC, in an interview with USA Today. “I just don’t think we’ve done a good enough job yet talking about the environmental impacts of food waste.”
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TSCA by Definition: A Helpful Guide
Jun 24, 2015 | Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
By Sophie Wunderlich
Here at Safer Chemicals Healthy Families, we’re excited to have community support for our efforts to reform our country’s broken chemical regulation system. That being said, getting into the finer details of TSCA reform can bring up some pretty complex points and language. We’ve created this helpful guide to provide a road-map so you can more easily understand the concepts and language addressed in the bill:
TSCA: (pronounced toss-ka) stands for the Toxic Substances Control Act. It is the country’s main law aimed at regulating hazardous chemicals used in everyday products. In a nutshell, it requires that government prove actual harm in order to control or replace a toxic chemical, rather than requiring that manufactures demonstrate that products are safe before they are sold. In its current form, it allows chemical manufacturers to keep ingredients in some chemicals secret (20% of 80,000 chemicals!) and makes it difficult for consumers to find information about which chemicals are safe.
A Brief History of TSCA: TSCA was passed back in 1976, when the country was just starting to regulate harmful chemicals in household products. Given the improvements in science and changes to consumer products over the last 40 years, this bill could really use an update. Famously, the law failed to even authorize EPA to regulate asbestos in the 1980s and 90s, even though the chemical that was already widely known to be extremely dangerous. In order to bring chemical regulation into the 21st century, we’re urging Congress to update TSCA with a comprehensive policy that better protects public health and the environment.
PBTs (Persistent, Bio-Accumulative Toxins): PBT pollutants include chemicals that are toxic, persist for long periods of time in the environment, and bioacculumate—meaning that if a pollutant is contained in organisms at a low level on a food chain, it will passed through the food chain as predators absorb the pollutant contained in their prey. PBTs threaten human health as well as ecosystem stability and are very difficult to contain.
Risk Management: The system by which chemicals are determined to either be safe for consumers or a danger to human health. In TSCA’s current form, EPA must choose the “least burdensome” requirement when choosing to regulate a substance. However, if a substance is deemed an “unreasonable risk”, it means that it actively poses a threat to consumers.
Aggregate Exposure: This would require EPA to examine and determine the sum of the various exposure sources an average person experiences in their everyday life. Aggregate exposure measures the toxicity and establishes the safety of tested chemicals realistically.
CBI (Confidential Business Information): Companies can claim that information about their products not be disclosed by EPA because it counts as a “trade secret” under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Claims of CBI can and have been used too freely and serve to undermine the interests of EPA to protect public health and welfare.
Preemption: Preemption is the policy in which the federal government has power over the state governments to act on toxic chemical regulation. State governments have actually been historically instrumental in protecting the public from toxic substances, but preemption would slow down or even block states from continuing to regulate a substance if EPA was reviewing it.
Grandfathered: State actions on chemicals that took place before any legislation passage would be protected from governmental preemption. When TSCA was first passed, it meant that all preexisting chemicals were assumed safe and therefore were allowed to remain unregulated and available to consumers despite possible toxicity.
Co-enforcement: Co-enforcement is essentially the opposite of preemption, meaning that the federal and state governments would be given authority to regulate toxic chemicals. Therefore, the work already done by states would not be disregarded.
“Industry Request” Policy: The chemical manufacturing industry would be the one to determine which chemicals EPA chooses to evaluate for toxicity and public safety.
“Low Priority” Policy: If EPA determines that a substance is “likely to meet” the decided safety standard, the chemical is deemed low priority and therefore will not undertake a full evaluation.
(Photo Credit: tslac, Flickr)
S.697 (Udall-Vitter Legislation): Introduced by the Senators Udall (D-NM) and Vitter (R-LA) on March 10, 2015, this legislation proposed reforms to TSCA. It would provide EPA with authority over imports and consumer products, broadly preempting—even blocking—states from acting while the organization reviews a chemical. It also allows EPA to collect fees to fund regulatory work, but with a cap. The bill creates a “pipeline” of 25 chemical evaluations to occur in the first 5 years, so any new chemicals would only be initiated into the pipeline after the initial reviews were completed, with a “low priority” policy.
H.R.2576 (TSCA Modernization Act of 2015): More clearly drafted and effective, the House bill was introduced in April, 2015 (with a revision introduced in May) by Representative Shimkus (R-IL), the Chair of the Environment and the Economy Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The bill requires that more chemicals be reviewed more quickly, with a minimum of 10 per year. Co-enforcement power is more adequately balanced. However, chemical evaluations would be decided mainly by industry request rather than public health concerns.
Cut-Go: The House Republicans have a “cut as you go” rule, meaning that the 10-per-year minimum would only be “subject to the availability of appropriations”. This provision weakens the House bill and decreases the likelihood that the minimum reviews would be achieved.
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How Scary Are The Chemicals Around You?
Jun 24, 2015 | CNN
By Edward R.B. McCabe Tom Udall and David Vitter
Chemicals are a ubiquitous presence in our lives. Given this reality, most Americans are astonished to find out how little we truly know about many chemicals' effect on human health.
Chemicals are all around us -- in our homes, our workplaces, our schools and the environment. They're fundamental to items as complex as our automobiles and computers and as simple as a scented candle. They play a central role in medical equipment and keep our clothes from wrinkling and staining.
Yet, of the over 80,000 chemicals in major production and use, only a tiny fraction have ever been studied thoroughly for their effects on human health.
It's time for that to change.
Congress is working on a major overhaul of the antiquated Toxic Substances Control Act. First passed in 1976 to establish an initial framework for regulating chemicals, TSCA has undergone no meaningful changes for nearly 40 years.
Since this law was first passed, the Cold War ended, the Internet was created and the human genome was mapped. But TSCA did not change. As a result, thousands of chemicals entered commerce with little or no information available about their long-term effects.
In recent decades, the presence of chemicals in household products, consumer goods, building materials, furnishings, transportation and even sporting goods has increased dramatically. That means that the average individual, whether adult or child, is coming into contact with hundreds of chemicals throughout each day.
Even fewer have been studied to determine whether they affect the health of vulnerable groups such as pregnant women and young children.
Research studies have shown that many chemicals can be detected in blood and breast milk, but without a proper regulatory system, there is no way to be sure that the chemicals being used are safe at their levels of exposure. For many decades, our federal laws have been allowed chemicals to be used widely despite a lack of strong evidence demonstrating their safety.
This lack of knowledge has profound implications for human health.
Today, we have no way of knowing which chemicals are safer or more dangerous for expectant mothers or young children.
In some studies, certain chemicals have been associated with higher risks of birth defects, preterm birth, low birth weight and other poor pregnancy outcomes. But we don't fully understand if certain chemicals or products should be avoided or which ones would be safe substitutes. Parents are keenly interested in knowing whether toxic chemicals are in the products they purchase for their families, but we don't know enough to advise them how to protect their and their children's health appropriately.
We can and must do better.
The bipartisan legislation under consideration in the U.S. Senate would leave behind the weak, failed TSCA framework and establish a modern chemicals regulation, taking advantage of the latest technology and research. This bill would direct the Environmental Protection Agency to prioritize evaluation of those chemicals already suspected to pose a higher risk, and to collect information about their impact on all groups, especially on vulnerable populations such as pregnant women and children.
The TSCA reform bill would ensure that chemicals are evaluated, and that any appropriate restrictions are put in place through a timely, deliberate process. Moreover, states are enlisted in co-enforcing the EPA rules and given flexibility in many cases to impose their own safety standards.
We have a long way to go in catching up on 40 years of inaction, and we cannot afford any further delay. Congress should pass TSCA reform speedily, and President Barack Obama should sign it into law, so that scientists, manufacturers and the EPA can protect the public health under a sensible, meaningful chemicals regulation law.
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Canadian Retailer Removes Phthalates, Triclosan and Microbeads
Jun 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Major Canadian grocery chain, Loblaw Companies, will stop using microbeads, triclosan and phthalates in its household, beauty and cosmetic products that come under the company's Life Brand and President's Choice labels by 2018.
“Emerging science and public opinion suggest a measured move away from some specific ingredients is prudent,” said Galen G Weston, Loblaw executive chairman and president.
Microbeads, tiny synthetic plastic beads used as exfoliants in some personal care products, can make their way through water treatment systems and end up in waterways. A recent UN Environment Programme (Unep) report recommended a voluntary phase-out and eventual ban on microplastic use in personal care products (CW 11 June 2015). US and Australian cosmetics industry groups have both supported efforts to phase them out of products (CW 6 May 2015 and CW 21 November 2014).
“Microbeads create a lifecycle issue for our organisation,” says Mr Weston. “We sell skin care with microbeads. We sell fish. And, in an odd twist, our beauty products may ultimately impact our commitment to sustainable seafood.”
Triclosan is used as an antibacterial agent in some soaps and cosmetics, and studies have demonstrated that it can affect hormone regulation in animals and may contribute to bacterial resistance to antibiotics (CW 2 June 2015).
Several phthalates have been linked to reproductive issues and cancer, and there are concerns that they may be disruptive to the endocrine system (CW 26 March 2015, CW 5 June 2015 and GBB May 2015). The group of chemicals is used to promote flexibility in plastic materials and to add fragrance to lotions and cosmetics.
“It's encouraging to see companies like Loblaw responding to customer concerns and taking the lead where governments continue to lag,” says Tim Gray, executive director to the Canadian nonprofit group Environmental Defence.
Environment Canada does not regulate the use of microbeads, and legislative efforts to control their use have, thus far, been unsuccessful. A House of Commons bill (C-680) to amend the Food and Drugs Act to prohibit the sale of cosmetics with microplastics, with diameters under 5mm, was introduced on 13 May, but has not progressed.
Canada's Cosmetic Ingredient Hotlist prohibits or restricts certain chemical uses in cosmetic products. Triclosan's use is restricted in cosmetic products to 0.03% for mouthwashes and 0.3% for other personal care products, and Health Canada requires that the ingredient is disclosed on product packaging labels.
Health Canada says that the phthalates most commonly used in cosmetics, diethyl phthalate (DEP) and dibutyl phthalate (DBP), “are safe at the levels at which they are currently used”. Diethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP) is prohibited for use in cosmetic products.
The second phase of Canada's Chemical Management Plan (CMP) identified 14 phthalate substances to assess for potential health and ecological impacts. The State of the Science report, including a cumulative risk assessment of the group, is expected this summer (GBB February 2015).
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New California Oil Spill Documents Raise Questions On Response Pace
Jun 24, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Elana Schor & Andrew Restuccia
The pipeline company responsible for last month’s 100,000-gallon California oil spill said it could detect a leak and shut down oil flows within 15 minutes of oil escaping from the line, according to a copy of its response plan approved by federal regulators and obtained by POLITICO.
According to documents released Wednesday by four Democratic lawmakers, federal regulators at the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said earlier this month they were still working to redact portions of that 1,100-plus-page spill response plan that the regulator approved last year for Plains All American, the company behind the May 19 oil spill at Santa Barbara’s Refugio Beach.
Cleanup costs stemming from the spill have reached $92 million, Plains said Wednesday.
PHMSA also told the Democrats that an inspection of the failed Plains pipeline last year found enough evidence to open an enforcement case against the company that it plans to begin within two months.
The documents could stoke new debate over whether Congress should seek to reform PHMSA, an agency bedeviled by a the slow pace of regulating and a lackluster record of fulfilling mandates from Capitol Hill. President Barack Obama’s nominee to fill the pipeline safety overseer’s long-vacant top post has yet to have her confirmation hearing scheduled.
In its description of the initial spill response to Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), and Ed Markey (Mass.), as well as Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), Plains described a communication failure between employees at the leak site and their colleagues in an offsite office that may have delayed the company’s notification that an accident had occurred to the National Response Center. The NRC received word of the spill more than three hours after Plains shut down pumps along the broken pipeline.
“When accidents like this happen, speed is essential,” Boxer, whose office told POLITICO it is preparing the response plan for release Thursday, said in a statement. “It appears as though it took too long to detect and respond to this spill.”
The speed of industry response to pipeline spills has sparked controversy since 2010, when Canadian heavy oil giant Enbridge continued to pump oil through a ruptured Michigan line for 17 hours before a massive 834,000-gallon spill was discovered.
Congress told PHMSA in 2011 to write new rules requiring NRC notification within one hour, but the pipeline safety agency has only issued a non-binding advisory so far.
A difference of as little as 15 minutes between detection and shutdown of a ruptured pipeline can mean “a lot more oil on the ground,” Carl Weimer, an outside adviser to PHMSA and chief of the independent watchdog Pipeline Safety Trust, said in an interview.
The documents the Democrats released Wednesday leave hazy the question of whether Plains adhered to its 15-minute response time for detecting an incident and shutting down its pipeline.
According to the timeline, on the morning of May 19, there was an unplanned shutdown at Plains’ Sisquoc pump station, which is located 45 miles downstream of the location of the rupture. The Las Flores pump, which is located upstream of the rupture location, was then shut down when line pressure increased.
The Las Flores pump was eventually restarted, the company said, but then shut down again once it became clear that the Sisquoc pump couldn’t be restarted. Plains said 37 minutes elapsed between the time that the Las Flores pump was restarted and when it was ultimately shut down at 11:30 a.m.
“[T]he sequence of events on the day of the release is being thoroughly analyzed and evaluated by [the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration] and we are fully cooperating with PHMSA by providing it with requested information … answering questions and making our employees available,” Plains told lawmakers.
Indeed, PHMSA and Plains have engaged a more proactive public communication effort than regulators and operators have during previous pipeline failures, holding an open house and releasing regular cleanup updates.
But the Santa Barbara Independent newspaper this week uncovered a “media briefing proposal” that was signed by officials of the Unified Command jointly run by Plains, federal authorities and state officials.
The proposal contains personal profiles of individual California reporters being eyed as potential targets for favorable coverage of the spill response effort that would tamp down any “perception that we are abandoning some areas or not completing operations.”
“It is important to get ahead of these incorrect concerns and not leave tarballs or questions about oil fingerprinting as the main topics currently trending in media coverage,” authors of the document wrote.
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BLM's New Hydraulic Fracturing Regulations Delayed by Court Pending Action in Lawsuits
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
A federal court June 23 delayed new federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing in a decision announced a day before the regulations were to go into effect (Wyoming v. Dep't of Interior, D. Wyo., No. 2:15-cv-00043, 6/23/15).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming announced the stay pending a filing at the court of the administrative record on the Bureau of Land Management's fracking rule. The record is due at the court by July 22.
About three weeks after that, Judge Scott Skavdahl will address requests for a preliminary injunction filed by several states, two industry associations and an Indian tribe.
The BLM rule, to govern oil and natural gas drilling on federal and Indian lands when fracking is used, could have a substantial cost impact on some companies and would be, at the least, a complicating factor for permitting.
Plaintiffs' Hopes Raised
During a July 23 hearing, the judge did not directly address the merits of the case, but his passing remarks on the legal grounds for a preliminary injunction gave hope to the plaintiffs.
In the view of the Western Energy Alliance, a Denver-based oil and gas trade association, the judge's remarks indicated the plaintiffs may have shown that they face a credible threat of irreparable harm if an injunction is not issued.
Kathleen Sgamma, vice president of government and public affairs for the association, attended the hearing and later issued a statement saying, “The judge agreed that it makes no sense to implement an ill-conceived rule which could ultimately be overruled in court.”
Attorney Michael McGrady of the Wyoming Attorney General's Office, while hesitant to read too much into the judge's remarks, said his office was pleased with the way the hearing went and with the stay.
Practicality, Sovereignty at Issue
The Western Energy Alliance and the Independent Petroleum Association of America have argued that the federal rule violated the Administrative Procedure Act because of vague and impractical elements and unrealistic cost estimates.
The Ute Indian Tribe has joined in the case because of fears of unreasonable economic harm and a failure to respect the tribe's sovereignty on reservation land.
Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and North Dakota have argued that the rule interfered with state sovereignty to regulate hydraulic fracturing. States typically regulate oil and gas activity within their borders, including on federal land.
The BLM has argued that it has a legal responsibility to assure adequate regulation on federal and Indian lands, and that the costs of the rule would be very modest compared to the overall cost of drilling an oil or gas well.
It issued the final rule (RIN 1004-AE26) in March with a provision for variances on specific elements wherever state regulations provide equivalent protections (55 DEN A-14, 3/23/15).
Lawmakers Take Notice
The BLM fracking rule has been the subject of much discussion in Congress, with several Republicans wanting to delay or block the rule and some Democrats proposing bills to toughen the regulations.
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, issued a statement June 24 welcoming the stay.
“This is a rule based on fear not facts that favors Washington bureaucracy over progress and science,” Bishop said. “The regulation is fundamentally wrong and should be ended entirely. The U.S. District Court of Wyoming's decision to grant this stay is a positive step in that direction.”
The court followed up its announcement of the stay with a posting of the order June 24 as part of the case record. The court also detailed the schedule for making an injunction decision.
Within seven calendar days of the lodging of the administrative record, parties will need to file citations to the record in support of their positions. The court said it will issue a ruling on an injunction within two weeks thereafter.
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EPA Sends Methane Standards for Oil, Gas Wells to White House; Rules Due in August
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency sent a proposed rule to set methane emissions standards for new oil and natural gas wells to the White House for interagency review.
The EPA sent that proposal, as well as second proposed rule to clarify terms permitting officials use when issuing prevention of significant deterioration, new source review and Title V permits for oil and gas wells to the White House Office of Management and Budget June 23.
The rules are part of a push by President Barack Obama's administration to curb emissions of methane, a short-lived but very potent greenhouse gas.
The EPA announced the methane standards for oil and natural gas wells in January as part of its methane strategy. The agency has said it plans to issue new source performance standards for methane from new wells under Section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act. The EPA has not said whether it also would issue standards for existing wells under Section 111(d) of the act (10 DEN A-1, 1/15/15).
The proposed rules are expected in August.
The oil and gas industries have called the rules unnecessary, because the EPA previously issued performance standards for the wells in 2012. Although that rule didn't directly regulate methane emissions from the wells, it included volatile organic compound standards that are expected to reduce methane emissions as well.
Methane is 28 to 36 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period, according to the EPA. Methane accounted for nearly 10 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2012, according to the administration.
The Office of Management and Budget is also reviewing methane standards for municipal landfill, which are also part of the EPA's methane strategy (121 DEN A-15, 6/24/15).
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Banks Step Up Oil Sector Loan Reviews As Regulators See Emerging Financial Risks
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dawn Kopecki
U.S. banks are stepping up the frequency of credit reviews for oil producers as regulators flag the “emerging risk” from the precipitous decline in the commodity's price during the past year.
Lending to oil and natural gas producers poses a bigger threat to U.S. banks than most other industrial sectors, Bill Haas, deputy comptroller for midsize bank supervision at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates 1,620 national banks and thrifts, said June 24. The OCC's National Risk Committee in April put oil and gas lending near the top of its list of threats that warrant closer scrutiny, given the unpredictable swings in oil prices, he said.
In response, bankers have reduced credit lines and are updating internal pricing models used to value oil and gas reserves more often than the usual twice a year, Matthew White, associate deputy comptroller, said in an interview. “We've heard of institutions doing that monthly or weekly in the height of the decline to make sure they stay on top of the emerging risk,” he said.
That's making it harder to access capital as more drillers fight to stay afloat amid persistent low oil prices. Among the 28 U.S. companies that defaulted on their debt through May this year, 11 were energy firms with $3.5 billion in outstanding obligations, according to Fitch Ratings Ltd. As a group, the sector's credit ratings have taken a nosedive in recent months, falling at a faster rate than other industries.
Credit Deterioration
Bank examiners started noticing some oil and gas companies running into problems staying current on their loan payments this quarter.
“We are beginning to see some deterioration in the credit quality of oil and gas loans to borrowers that used high volumes of debt to finance their growth over the past several years,” said Grant Wilson, director of commercial credit for the OCC. That has begun showing up in data reports from large banks as an increased probability of more troubled loans on their books, he added.
The OCC developed its first guide on oil and gas lending last year, following 30 percent and 22 percent surges in loans to the sector in 2012 and 2013, respectively. The manual is highly technical and outlines concerns specific to the industry, including accounting rules for oil reserves, how to review engineering reports, environmental issues such as potential oil spills and other risks.
Red Flags
One red flag for lenders is the volume of energy debt rated CCC or below—the weakest ratings among junk bond issuers—more than doubled to $62 billion from a year ago, Fitch said in a June 12 report. That is almost triple the number of CCC ratings for the three next-largest industries combined, the report found.
Revolving credit lines are based on the value of a company's oil reserves, which generally are revalued and adjusted twice a year, around April and October. In between those reviews, some banks have started to reduce credit lines.
BreitBurn Energy Partners LP executives knew in 2014 that the Los Angeles-based oil producer's $2.5 billion credit line with Wells Fargo & Co. was probably going to get cut, according to people familiar with the matter. The company had almost maxed out its revolving credit line to purchase QR Energy LP when U.S. oil was trading above $100 a barrel.
BreitBurn Funding
By the time the deal closed last November, prices were below $60. BreitBurn executives began searching for new funding sources and ended up raising $1 billion from private-equity firm EIG Global Energy Partners in April. That money mostly went to paying down its revolver. Wells Fargo reduced BreitBurn's borrowing base to $1.8 billion and agreed to maintain that credit limit through April 2016 as part of that EIG deal, the people said.
Banks weren't that hard on oil producers when they revised credit lines this spring, said Omar Samji, a partner in the energy practice at Jones Day in Houston. That is because most drillers had derivatives in place to offset the drop in oil prices. But many of those contracts are scheduled to expire before the fall, raising the specter that October could be more difficult.
“There hasn't been much pressure or pain inflicted by the banks in April,” Samji said in an interview. “While the banks did bring their underlying valuation for reserves down a little bit, they certainly weren't very aggressive about it. There's speculation now about October.”
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OMB Begins Review Of EPA Proposals To Reduce Oil And Gas Emissions
Jun 24, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
The White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) has begun formal review of separate EPA proposals to cut emissions from the oil and gas sector, including one that would impose first-time methane limits on new and modified sources, and another that would clarify agency policy for when emissions for separate facilities are aggregated so the facilities are subject to strict “major source” permits.
The agency sent both proposed rules to OMB on June 24, according to OMB's website, and anticipates releasing the proposals in August for comment.
EPA expects to publish a final methane rule by June 2016, which would allow it to comply with the President's strategy for cutting emissions of the potent greenhouse gas, which requires a final rule by the end of 2016 -- shortly before the administration leaves office.
In accordance with the strategy, the rule will amend the agency's 2012 new source performance standards (NSPS) for the sector, which include first time hydraulic fracturing controls for cutting emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC). The 2012 rule has had a co-benefit of also reducing emissions of methane.
But environmentalists have long sought direct methane regulations for the sector, arguing that a VOC-only rule captures only upstream sources, many of which are already strictly regulated under the 2012 rules.
Industry groups and some GOP lawmakers have opposed direct methane controls and have urged the agency to instead expand the number of sources covered by VOC standards.
Some industry officials have also suggested that EPA must first craft a finding showing that methane endangers public health and welfare before issuing its first-time Clean Air Act rules regulating the potent GHG from the oil and gas sector, previewing a possible legal challenge.
Under the Clean Air Act, an affirmative endangerment finding is considered a prerequisite before the agency can regulate sources' emissions.
But environmentalists say that EPA's earlier endangerment finding, which the agency conducted for its rule governing vehicle GHG emissions, including methane, is adequate to justify the forthcoming NSPS for the sector.
The amendments will examine how to best reduce emissions under section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act for VOC and methane emissions from the sector's new and modified sources, including oil wells, liquids unloading, leaks, pneumatic devices, and compressors.
The second measure EPA sent this week to OMB, “Source Determination for Certain Emissions Units in the Oil and Natural Gas Sector,” will define “source terms” as they apply to the oil and gas sector within the air law's prevention of significant deterioration and new source review programs.
The rulemaking aims to resolve lingering uncertainty about how emissions from the sector should be “aggregated” or combined, in Clean Air Act permitting decisions, following appellate court rulings against EPA's strict administrative test for determining whether sources are “adjacent.”
The permitting issue is a major concern for industries looking to avoid triggering aggregation, as combining emissions from disparate sources could exceed the air law's threshold for major pollution sources subject to stringent, potentially costly emissions controls compared to the less-stringent controls applicable to minor sources. While aggregation can affect many industries, it has featured prominently in debate over permitting for oil and gas facilities, which often have related sources or equipment that are several miles apart from one another.
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BOEM Forms Research Partnership With National Academies
Jun 24, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Phil Taylor
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management today announced a new partnership with the National Academies to bolster the government's understanding and engagement on offshore energy issues.
The academies agreed to establish a new standing committee on environmental science and assessment for offshore energy and mineral resources.
BOEM signed a three-year contract with the National Research Council (NRC), the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering. The new committee will furnish independent information to guide BOEM's environmental studies and assessment activities.
"BOEM is thrilled to enter this partnership with the National Academies," said BOEM Director Abigail Hopper in a statement. "The Academies' scientific credentials and the quality of experts affiliated with the organization make it a perfect choice to provide guidance to the bureau on scientific matters."
NRC yesterday issued a call for nominations seeking candidates for its new committee. The committee's roughly 15 members will be drawn from academia, the private sector and other organizations, and will be announced later in the summer. The committee's first meeting will take place in the fall.
Topics to be explored by the committee, the research council said, could include: "strategic approaches to environmental monitoring to assess ecosystem health and mitigation effectiveness; stakeholder discussions on controversial issues; reviews of proposed BOEM studies; high level reviews and expert advice on gaps and priorities for research; technical input related to BOEM's environmental programs; enhancing understanding of innovation in science and technology; and if warranted, NRC studies on specific topics."
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Funding Bill to Be Amended; Obama Threatens Veto
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Members of the House will be able to add more amendments to a bill that funds the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies for the 2016 fiscal year when the bill (H.R. 2822) comes to the floor this week. The House Rules Committee, which sets the terms for debating bills on the floor, moved at a June 23 hearing to allow a limited number of amendments to the nearly $30.2 billion appropriations bill. A Democratic attempt at the hearing to allow for an unlimited number of amendments failed. According to leadership officials, the House will debate amendments to the bill June 25 but won't vote on those amendments or on the bill itself until after its Independence Day recess. However, that vote may be irrelevant because President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the bill. In a June 23 letter to the House Rules Committee, the White House reiterated its earlier complaints about the bill's sequester-level funding and said that “the President's senior advisors would recommend that he veto [the bill] and any other legislation that implements the current Republican budget framework.”
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House Passes Bill to Allow States to Opt Out of Clean Power Plan Compliance
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Congress took its first concrete step to stall President Barack Obama's efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from the nation's fleet of existing power plants by passing a bill (H.R. 2042) from Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) that would allow states to delay compliance or opt out of the Clean Power Plan.
The June 24 vote was 247 to 180 with eight Democrats joining all but four Republicans in backing the measure.
The House effort is exceptionally unlikely to succeed—the White House has threatened to veto the bill—but the vote marks the first concrete expression of dissatisfaction toward the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed power plant rule.
Senate legislation (S. 1324) that would go further still by immediately killing off the regulation and setting strict requirements for any future rules also could get a vote this summer (121 DEN A-2, 6/24/15).
The House accepted two amendments to the bill but voted down three offered by Democrats.
“We can't sit around and wait,” Whitfield said at a June 24 press conference. “We are simply, at the request of many states, trying to give them more time to respond [to the rule] and then if they find it significantly adversely affects their electric rates or reliability, then they can opt out for that state.”
Would Allow State to Delay Complying
Whitfield's bill would allow states to delay complying with the Clean Power Plan until all legal challenges are exhausted and would allow a state to opt out of complying with the regulation if its governor certifies doing so would significantly raise electricity rates or affect reliability.
The EPA expects to release a final Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33) in late summer. As proposed, the regulation would set a unique emissions rate for the power sector in each state but give states flexibility in how best to meet the targets.
States would have to meet interim targets between 2020 and 2029, with a final emissions rate to be achieved in 2030.
“They don't care about the law,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said of the EPA. “They don't care about the people of Central Appalachia. All they care about is putting coal out of business.”
House Democrats criticized Republicans for devoting time to legislation they described as “veto-bait” and messaging for those who don't want the EPA to regulate emissions from the nation's power plants.
Republican Amendments Accepted
House lawmakers accepted two amendments to Whitfield's bill by voice vote. One, from Reps. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) and Doug Collins (R-Ga.), expressed the sense of Congress that the EPA should specifically address how megawatt hours discharged from pumped hydroelectric storage systems would be treated in compliance plans.
The other accepted amendment, from Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.), would require the EPA to treat hydropower as a renewable energy source in the Clean Power Plan.
Three amendments from Democrats fell. House members beat back an attempt from Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) to require that governors certify that power plants contribute to human-induced climate change if they want to opt out of developing their own compliance plans. It fell on a 181 to 245 vote.
Rush, McNerney Amendments Also Rejected
Another amendment from Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) would have required a governor to certify opting out of developing a state implementation plan wouldn't have a significant impact on the state's ability to respond to extreme weather events fueled by climate change, including flooding, intense storms, wildfires and drought. It was rejected on a 182 to 243 vote.
House members then defeated an effort by Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.) to remove the opt-out and legal challenge provisions from the bill and replace them with broader consultation requirements. That amendment fell 177 to 250.
Indiana Floats Noncompliance
Separately June 24, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) said his state won't comply with the Clean Power Plan unless the final rule is substantially different from the proposed version.
Pence said efforts to cap emissions will result in higher electricity prices, hurting Indiana's efforts to expand manufacturing. In addition, the “premature” closing of coal-fired power plants raises concerns about electricity shortages, he said.
“Energy policy should promote the safe, environmentally responsible stewardship of our natural resources with the goal of reliable, affordable energy,” Pence said in the letter. “Your approach to energy policy places environmental concerns above all others.”
“As governor of Indiana, I am deeply concerned about the impacts of the Clean Power Plan on our state, especially our job creators, the poor, and the elderly who cannot afford more expensive, less reliable energy,” Pence said in the letter. “I reject the Clean Power Plan and inform you that absent demonstrable and significant improvement in the final rule, Indiana will not comply.”
EPA Responds
The EPA said in a statement e-mailed to Bloomberg BNA June 24, “The agency's draft final rule, currently undergoing interagency review, takes into account the unprecedented input we received on the proposed plan, including the 4.3 million comments that were submitted to the agency during the six-month public comment period.”
The agency added, “This vital input is giving the agency the opportunity to address a wide range of issues” raised by the draft.
Oklahoma is to date the only state to formally say it won't comply with the Clean Power Plan, though Wisconsin and Texas have indicated they are seriously considering the same approach. Most of the nation's governors, however, have rejected calls for them simply to ignore the final EPA rule (95 DEN A-6, 5/18/15).
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House Republicans Say Clean Power Plan Would Increase Costs, Hurt Grid Reliability
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
House Republicans at a hearing reiterated their complaints that the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed Clean Power Plan would drive up electricity costs and affect grid reliability.
The June 24 joint hearing of the Environment and Energy subcommittees of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee discussed the Energy Information Administration's May 22 analysis of the Clean Power Plan (100 DEN A-1, 5/26/15).
Lawmakers focused on electricity rate increases of between 3 percent to 7 percent for consumers from 2020 to 2025, as projected by the EIA.
“We have a rule that will be extremely costly” and “relies on dubious assumptions,” said Rep. Jim Bridenstine ( R-Okla.), Environment subcommittee chairman. He also said the EPA's own models show cuts in carbon emissions and global temperatures “will be negligible on a global scale.”
Proposed under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33) would establish a unique carbon dioxide emissions rate for the power sector in each state.
Stephen Eule, vice president for climate and technology at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, testified at the hearing that the rule would lead to a retirement of 29 percent of coal-fired power plants by 2020 and 31 percent by 2030.
Eule said the North American Electric Reliability Corp. has said that replacing this lost capacity would present a significant reliability challenge.
Democrats Fight Back
In her opening statement, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas), ranking member of the Science, Space and Technology Committee, defended the Clean Power Plan.
“As history has shown us time and again, stricter pollution limits have invariably led to innovation and the creation of new technologies that end up creating jobs while protecting our environment,” she said.
Similarly, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), ranking member of the Energy Subcommittee, stressed the importance of the plan leading to more energy innovation.
“The world is pursuing clean energy technologies. Any effort to undermine those investments, including by stopping the Clean Power Plan from moving forward, is short-sighted,” he said.
Bills to Stop Plan Implementation
The hearing occurred the same day the House passed the Ratepayer Protection Act of 2015 (H.R. 2042). The bill would allow states to defer compliance with the Clean Power Plan if the state's governor determines the plan would negatively affect electricity rates.
The Senate has a similar bill from Republicans, called the ARENA Act, which would immediately stop all in-progress regulations on carbon emissions from power plants and set strict requirements for the EPA to meet before beginning new regulations. Republicans hope to move it for Senate floor vote before the Clean Power Plan is expected out in August (121 DEN A-2, 6/24/15).
Separately, the White House issued a statement on June 23 threatening to veto the House Ratepayer Protection Act.
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Power Plant Bill Clears House, Capito Says Uphill Senate Fight 'Worth Happening'
Jun 25, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Jean Chemnick
The House voted last night to allow states to delay or opt out of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, but it is unclear whether Congress is any closer to invalidating the rule.
The bill, by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), was approved on a 247-180 vote, with eight Democrats voting for it and four Republicans voting against.
The eight Democratic supporters were Reps. Brad Ashford of Nebraska, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Andre Carson of Indiana, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, Terri Sewell of Alabama and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. The Republican foes were Reps. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, Bob Dold of Illinois, Chris Gibson of New York and Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey.
But while House Republicans celebrated their victory over what many called EPA's regulatory "power grab" and Democrats and environmentalists decried a House vote they said would "sabotage" vital protections, the bill's prospects for enactment are in fact bleak.
It travels now to the Senate, where the majority leader and key committee chairmen are vocal EPA critics but where passage of controversial legislation requires 60 votes, which will be difficult to come by.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) has introduced a measure, S. 1324, which like the Whitfield bill would allow states to delay submitting an implementation plan to EPA or choose not to implement the power plant rule at all, citing reliability or economic concerns.
Her bill would also scuttle EPA's rules for new and modified power plants, which like the Clean Power Plan are set to be finalized this summer. Whitfield has said he plans to tackle those rules in a separate bill.
But Capito, who chairs the Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said this week that while she hopes her bill will move through committee during the July legislative work period, she is unsure of a floor strategy.
And the White House has already issued a veto threat for the Whitfield measure, which Congress would have no hope of overriding.
Still, Capito told E&E Daily yesterday that moving a bill is still worth the effort.
"I think this is a fight worth happening," she said. "Just because the president says he would veto something like this, these are real people, real lives, real economies. So we're going to keep fighting for that."
Republicans say that whether or not their bids to stymie EPA's regulations succeed, it is important for them to keep trying. Whitfield noted yesterday that the efforts will carry on into next year's presidential campaign.
"At least going into the 2016 elections, the American people need to be aware of the consequences of radical regulations like this and the impact that it could have," he said.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who chairs the full Environment and Public Works Committee, said it's important to put lawmakers on record on the power plant rules.
"It doesn't hurt anything, in my opinion, and others may not agree with this, but the reason I say it doesn't hurt anything is because at least you put those people who were riding in the elevator with us in a position where they have to cast a vote that doesn't make a lot of sense, and it's not consistent with the people back home," he said after exiting a Capitol elevator packed with senators. "So that can start the process moving of getting people plugged into this issue. Do they really want to have that kind of vote?"
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has made scuttling the EPA rules a personal priority, using his perch on a key Senate Appropriations subcommittee to insert policy language that would prohibit their implementation and writing to all 50 governors to advise them not to comply with the rule. His "just say no" strategy gained a new recruit yesterday, as Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) pledged that absent significant changes to last year's EPA draft, he would not comply with the rule.
In a letter to President Obama, Pence said he is "deeply concerned" about the power plant rule's potential impacts on his state's coal sector.
"I reject the Clean Power Plan and inform you that absent demonstrable and significant improvement in the final rule, Indiana will not comply," Pence wrote.
McConnell argued in his letter to state governors that EPA may not have the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the section of the Clean Air Act it is using and is likely to see its power limited by the courts. If governors shun the rule, they are unlikely to be faced with a more stringent federal implementation plan than they would have devised themselves, his argument goes. And if they allow the courts and Congress time to weigh in, they may not face any obligations at all.
But Rep. John Yarmouth (D-Ky.) said the danger in bills like Whitfield's is that it might convince governors that Congress can pre-empt the Clean Power Plan when it cannot.
"This bill is part of a national political strategy to convince others that they won't have to comply with the Clean Power Plan and shouldn't work with the EPA in creating a state plan that works for them," he said.
And some conservative proponents of a revenue-neutral carbon tax swap said yesterday that it is time for Republicans to abandon the idea of doing nothing to address climate change and instead embrace a solution that works for them.
In a Washington Post op-ed yesterday, R Street Institute President Eli Lehrer wrote that while conservative criticism of the Clean Power Plan is warranted, trying to block the rule without offering an alternative will not be effective. The courts have ruled that EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases using the Clean Air Act, he noted.
"If Republicans actually want to stop the Obama administration's damaging policies, they're going to need more than blind faith in the eventual arrival of some landmark future decision or clean electoral sweep," he wrote.
Instead of passing messaging bills, Republicans should negotiate a rollback of the rule in exchange for a carbon tax that would return revenue in the form of tax reductions, Lehrer said.
"Conservatives have a lot to gain and nothing to lose by offering their own credible solution to climate change," he said. "Their current strategy is a loser that, at best, will just delay a liberal victory."
The Whitfield bill coincided with a two-day volunteer fly-in by the Citizens' Climate Lobby in support of a revenue-neutral carbon tax. Former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), who has spent much of his post-congressional life lobbying for a similar policy, was also on Capitol Hill this week meeting with former colleagues.
Zaurie Zimmerman, a CCL volunteer from Boston who volunteered for the event, said it is more important to engage Republicans on climate policy than Democrats.
"We don't want to sing to the choir," she said.
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Whitfield Sees Easy Passage For EPA Bill, But Next Step's Uncertain
Jun 24, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jean Chemnick
Legislation that would let states opt out of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan is expected to pass the House this evening "by a nice, healthy margin," the bill's sponsor said today.
Kentucky Republican Ed Whitfield's measure, H.R. 2042, would let states decline to implement the existing power plant rule, which he deemed a moderate check to EPA's "radical regulation."
A group of states and Murray Energy Corp. have already launched a pre-emptive legal strike against the EPA proposal, Whitfield noted, and while the courts declined to hear the challenge to the EPA draft, plaintiffs are expected to try again when the rule is finalized this summer.
"So we're simply, at the request of many states, trying to give them more time to respond, and then if they find that it significantly and adversely affects their electric rates and reliability, then they can opt out," the chairman of the Energy and Power Subcommittee said in an afternoon news conference at the House Triangle.
Whitfield's bill would bar EPA from implementing a federal plan to regulate power plant carbon dioxide in states that do not choose to comply with the rule. It also would grant all states a reprieve from requirements to submit implementation plans until judicial review has concluded.
In an op-ed this morning in The Hill, Whitfield wrote that the "Ratepayer Protection Act is a practical solution that ensures states have ultimate control over their electricity systems."
"States have been, and will always be, better suited to identifying their needs, especially when it comes to electricity rates and reliability," he wrote.
Co-sponsor Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said the rule has little prospect of surviving court challenge, and EPA appears to be banking on its ability to pressure states to implement it before that becomes clear.
"They don't care about the law, and they don't care about the people of central Appalachia; they only care about putting coal out of business," he said.
But the fate of Whitfield's gambit is uncertain. The White House has already issued an unequivocal veto threat for the bill, and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who sponsored the Senate bill to stop the rule, said yesterday that while she expects her measure to clear the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in the July legislative work period, she is unsure when it might come to the floor.
A bill Whitfield introduced in the last Congress in tandem with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) easily cleared the lower chamber but never saw a vote in the Senate. It is unclear how Republican control of the Senate changes that equation, but the Capito measure would need a 60-vote supermajority to clear the upper chamber.
Whitfield said after this afternoon's news conference that today's bid wouldn't be the last GOP effort to scuttle the rule. When the rule becomes final, there will be more opportunity for its opponents to litigate and legislate against it, he noted.
Congress could move to veto the rule under the Congressional Review Act, which allows for easier passage in the Senate, he said.
"We'll pass this bill and move it over to the Senate and see if they can do anything with it," he said. "So we're going to continue to be active and do anything we can do to let the executive branch know they're not the only players in town."
Senate Republicans led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have called upon states to "just say no" to implementing the EPA rule in order to give Congress and the courts a chance to roll it back. And today, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) responded by informing President Obama in a letter that he would not submit a plan for implementation unless the final EPA rule is "demonstrably and significantly improved."
"If your administration proceeds to finalize the Clean Power Plan, and the final rule has not demonstrably and significantly improved from the proposed rule, Indiana will not comply," he wrote. "Our state will also reserve the right to use any legal means available to block the rule from being implemented." Call for carbon tax
The Citizens' Climate Lobby, a grass-roots advocacy group that focuses on outreach to Republicans on a carbon tax, scheduled its annual two-day gathering in Washington, D.C., to coincide with the vote on Whitfield's bill.
So Whitfield found himself fielding questions from the group about whether he might support some form of market-based response to climate change if it came attached to language pre-empting the EPA rule.
The Kentucky Republican said after the briefing he wouldn't support cap and trade, but he'd "look at" any future bill that is released.
Zaurie Zimmerman and Callie Hancock, who quizzed Whitfield, said they were making a tour of congressional offices when they saw the gaggle. The group has 900 volunteers on Capitol Hill yesterday and today and hopes to visit every office to tout a revenue-neutral carbon tax that would provide refunds to consumers.
"We have gotten very positive feedback," said Zimmerman, a businesswoman from Boston who said she had visited some lawmakers who participated in the Whitfield news conference. "We need to depoliticize it. It has become this left-versus-right thing, and that's not helpful."
"We understand that regulations are a blunt instrument, and we don't want the president to have to select clean energy programs anywhere," said Hancock, a New Jersey architect who said she missed her daughter's high school graduation to participate in the fly-in. "We agreed that her future was more important than one day."
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Protecting Public Health and the Environment
Jun 25, 2015 | Office of Management and Budget Blog
By Ali Zaidi, Dan Utech, and Christy Goldfuss
President Obama is committed to protecting public health and the environment. Just yesterday, the White House hosted a Summit on Climate Change and Public Health. The Summit brought together senior White House and Administration officials, doctors, nurses, students, mothers, public health organizations, and deans from medical, public health and nursing schools around the country to, in the words of President Obama, “address the gathering challenges and costs that the threat of a changing climate poses to our nation’s health.”
Congress is moving in the other direction. This week, the House will begin debate on H.R. 2822, a bill that would undermine the Administration’s efforts to protect the health of communities around the country, including those that are the most vulnerable like children and the elderly. It would block common-sense carbon pollution standards for power plants, which if finalized as proposed would prevent more than 150,000 asthma attacks in kids and up to 6,660 premature deaths each year.
The bill would also prevent EPA from updating one of our most important air quality standards – the National Ambient Air Quality Standards for ozone. Updating national standards for ozone pollution, which is particularly harmful for children and adults with asthma, would, if finalized as proposed, prevent thousands of premature deaths and hospital admissions and prevent up to a million lost school days each year. These are just two of many provisions in the bill that would force EPA to ignore science at the expense of public health.
We have benefited from 40 years of success under the Clean Air Act. In fact, since the Clean Air Act was enacted with bipartisan support in 1970, the economy has more than tripled in size, while harmful air pollution has decreased by nearly 70 percent. The Administration will continue to defend the Clean Air Act and protect public health.
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House GOP Jumps on Schumer Carbon Tax Boast
Jun 25, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
House Republicans' campaign arm seized yesterday on New York Sen. Charles Schumer's (D) declaration that a carbon tax could gain traction if Democrats win in the 2016 election cycle, suggesting his remarks could become a sparring point in competitive races next year.
The National Republican Congressional Committee took aim at Democrats, including New York Rep. Steve Israel and Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, calling on both lawmakers to denounced Schumer's comments.
Speaking at the Rhode Island Energy and Environmental Leaders Day on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, Schumer asserted that Democratic victories both in the presidential election -- specifically by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- and in the Senate could prompt bipartisan negotiation on a carbon tax.
"I think in 2016, people of both parties might come to that as the best way to fund the government," said Schumer, who is widely expected to become the top-ranking Democrat in the next Congress (E&E Daily, June 24).
NRCC spokesman Zach Hunter used that news to highlight Peterson's vote in favor of the "American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009," a cap-and-trade proposal authored by then-Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and now-Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.).
"Collin Peterson made it clear that he will put politics before the best interests of Minnesota farmers and their families when he voted to push Nancy Pelosi's carbon tax plan back in 2009," Hunter said. "If Peterson wants to prove to his constituents that after 24 years he hasn't gone Washington, he should tell Hillary Clinton and Sen. Chuck Schumer to take a hike when it comes to devastating Minnesota agriculture."
Although the 2009 measure did not contain a carbon tax, Peterson, then chairman of the Agricultural Committee, helped broker its passage by negotiating the Department of Agriculture's oversight of a carbon offset program for farms and forests.
Republicans could pursue similar messages in other largely agricultural or rural districts, including competitive races in Arizona, Nevada and Nebraska this cycle.
But League of Conservation Voters Senior Vice President for Campaigns Daniel Weiss argued that while Republicans will try to hang any discussion of a carbon tax around the necks of Democratic candidates, "It's not going to work."
"The carbon tax will only be an issue in the campaign if it is proposed by one of the candidates; otherwise, the issue in all campaigns will be how to address the climate crisis," Weiss told E&E Daily. "At the presidential level, we have nearly all the candidates from the Republican Party denying that it's even a problem. On the Democratic side, all of the candidates want to build on President Obama's Climate Action Plan.
"The national Republican Party will accuse any Democrat of supporting a 'job-killing energy tax' anytime Democrats propose cutting carbon pollution and addressing the climate crisis. But that's all Republicans have to offer when more than half of all Americans want the government to address climate change and reduce carbon pollution," he added.
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House Votes To Weaken Obama’s Climate Rule
Jun 24, 2015 | The Hill - Floor Action
By Timothy Cama and Cristina Marcos
The House voted Wednesday to delay the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate rule for power plants and let state governors opt out of complying.
The bill, passed 247-180, is a major blow to the main pillar of President Obama’s effort to reduce the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, although the White House has promised a veto to protect his legacy.
Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s power subpanel, sponsored the legislation as House Republicans’ principal response to the EPA’s climate rule. The rule has become the most controversial aspect of the Obama administration’s environmental policy, and one of its most controversial regulations.
Under the bill, state governors could opt out of adopting state plans for the EPA’s regulation if such a plan would harm electricity rates, reliability or important economic sectors in the states.
The regulation’s enforcement would also be delayed until all court challenges are resolved.
The GOP believes that the rule will not withstand judicial review, so the delay is designed to ensure that the regulation never takes effect.
“They’ve picked up a shotgun and pointed it at the heart of the American economy, our power generation,” Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) said of the EPA.
But Democrats warned it would ultimately gut the regulation intended to help mitigate the effects of climate change.
“This ‘just say no’ bill would effectively give governors the power to sabotage EPA’s proposed clean power plan by allowing them to opt out of the federal requirements of the plan based on arbitrary and ambiguous determinations,” said Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.).
The EPA proposed the regulation last June, and plans to make it final this August. It seeks a 30 percent cut in the carbon emissions of the nation’s power plants by 2030, with specific targets assigned to each state.
Regulators will give states 13 months to draft plans to hit their targets. If they don’t, the EPA will write its own plans and impose them — something the GOP is trying to prevent.
“Earlier we heard the gentleman from Illinois say that this was a ‘just say no’ bill,” Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said in response to Rush. “You bet it is. That’s exactly what it is. It’s a ‘just say no’ bill. No to a weaker electric grid. No to fewer jobs, particularly in manufacturing and also in the coal and energy industries.”
The White House sees the bill as a threat to the centerpiece of Obama’s climate legacy, and it has threatened a veto.
“The bill would give governors unprecedented and broad discretion to avoid compliance with the [CAA, Clean Air Act], thereby delaying the delivery of important public health benefits,” the White House wrote to lawmakers Tuesday.
“The bill’s effects would be felt hardest by those most at risk from the impacts of air pollution and climate change, such as the elderly, the infirm, children, native and tribal groups, and low-income populations,” it said, calling the bill “premature and unnecessary” and saying that Obama’s advisors would urge a veto if it gets to his desk.
The White House added that it “is not aware of any instance when Congress has enacted legislation to stay implementation of a CAA standard during judicial review.”
Senate Republicans have put their efforts into a similar bill that would go even further in its attempts to weaken the rule and impair the EPA’s ability to set carbon rules for power plants.
Their bill, led by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), would give governors even more reasons they could cite in rejecting compliance, including if doing so would hamper economic growth, competitiveness or jobs.
The Senate legislation would also repeal the EPA’s rule and reinterpret the Clean Air Act to make it extremely difficult for the agency to regulate power plants’ carbon.
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Administration Officials Criticize House Riders on Ozone, Climate Regulations
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
A pair of administration officials criticized the House for taking up legislation that would block the Environmental Protection Agency from revising national ozone standards and moving ahead with rules to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.
Dan Utech, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, and Ali Zaidi, associate director for natural resources, energy and science at the White House Office of Management and Budget, authored a June 24 blog post criticizing inclusion of those legislative riders in the House's fiscal year 2016 interior-environment appropriations bill (H.R. 2822).
The House June 25 is scheduled to begin debate on the $30.2 billion funding bill, which would cut EPA's funding by 9 percent compared to current levels and restrict the agency from moving ahead with various regulations on climate change, air pollution and jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act.
The OMB June 23 issued a statement of administrative policy indicating that White House advisers would recommend that President Barack Obama veto the bill (see related story).
“This week, the House will begin debate on H.R. 2822, a bill that would undermine the Administration's efforts to protect the health of communities around the country, including those that are the most vulnerable like children and the elderly,” Utech and Zaidi said.
The blog post specifically objects to the inclusion of two legislative riders: language that would restrict the EPA from implementing the proposed Clean Power Plan rule (RIN 2060-AR33) to address carbon emissions from existing power plants and language that would restrict the EPA from implementing a more stringent national ambient air quality standard for ozone.
The EPA is projected to issue its final Clean Power Plant rule in August and has a court-ordered deadline of Oct. 1 to issue a final decision on whether to revise or retain the current ozone standards of 75 parts per billion. Both proposed regulations have been criticized by Republican leadership and industry groups for imposing billions in compliance costs.
Officials Make Public Health Argument
Utech and Zaidi used the blog post to make a public health argument in favor of the two regulations. The Clean Power Plan would prevent more than 150,000 child asthma attacks and as many as 6,660 premature deaths each year once implemented, they said.
The agency's proposal (RIN 2060-AP38) to revise the ozone standards to somewhere in the range of 65 parts per billion to 70 ppb would prevent thousands of premature deaths and hospital admissions each year, Utech and Zaidi said.
The ozone language in the House appropriations bill would effectively ban the EPA from moving ahead with its ozone proposal for one year (118 DEN A-3, 6/19/15).
“These are just two of many provisions in the bill that would force EPA to ignore science at the expense of public health,” they said.
Prior to release of the blog post, the nonprofit organization Clean Air Watch criticized the administration for failing to mention the ozone language in the statement of administrative policy. Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, told reporters in a June 24 e-mail that it was “disappointing and disturbing” that the White House didn't address the ozone standards and questioned whether that indicated a lack of support for the EPA proposal.
Referenced President's 2011 Decision
O'Donnell referenced the president's 2011 decision to order the EPA to halt its reconsideration of the 2008 ozone standards, set under President George W. Bush. The agency later revealed it had intended to revise the 75 ppb standards to 70 ppb.
“We would hate to think that the White House is prepared to throw the smog standards under the proverbial bus …again,” O'Donnell said.
O'Donnell, in a June 24 tweet, acknowledged that the White House had “finally” mentioned the ozone rider.
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GOP Assails EPA 'Power Grab' Ahead Of Vote To Slow Climate Rules
Jun 24, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
More than a dozen House Republicans on Wednesday spoke forcefully against the Obama administration’s climate rule, hours before they vote on a bill to weaken and delay it.
The GOP said the Environmental Protection Agency’s rule amounts to a massive power grab that is illegal and unconstitutional and that lawmakers are obligated to protect states and citizens from it.“It is a radical regulation that will dramatically transform the way electricity is produced and regulated in America,” Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on power and the sponsor of the bill, told reporters outside the Capitol.
“It’s such a power grab, unprecedented, that we are going to take it up on the floor today,” he said.
“They’ve picked up a shotgun and pointed it at the heart of the American economy, our power generation,” Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) said of the EPA.
“This is just another example in a multitude of rules and regs so that [Obama] can complete an agenda, which is depriving us of low-cost, reliably, base-load energy,” said Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.). “When you do that, you raise rates.”
The EPA’s rule, which it plans to make final this summer, would seek to cut the power sector’s carbon output by 30 percent by 2030. It would mandate states to write plans to comply with individual carbon targets pre-determined by the agency.
Whitfield’s bill, the Ratepayer Protection Act, would let state governors opt out of the rule if they determine that compliance would raise electricity rates, hurt certain economic sectors or harm power reliability, at the governor’s sole determination.
The rule’s implementation would also be delayed until all court challenges to it are exhausted.
“If there were a real environmental reason that we needed to implement this, it’d be one thing,” Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) said of the rule.
“But even by EPA’s own models, the benefit of this plan is hundreds of years in the future. It’s all on this theory of global climate change, that the temperature of the Earth is getting warmer on average, because of CO2 emissions, primarily from coal-fired power plants. That is a theory, it is not a fact,” he continued.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said the EPA is only giving states 13 months to write compliance plans because it is afraid that a court will overturn the rule.
“The reason that they’re only giving the states 13 months to comply with their plan, and they’re insisting that implementation begin in 2020, the EPA in my opinion is on this fast track because they know that their legal case is very, very weak,” he said.
GOP lawmakers said their bill is necessary to protect economies, consumers and states.
Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) called it a "common sense approach to addressing why the EPA’s rule will quite simply make it more expensive for power and energy, not only in Kentucky, but any area of the country."
“Quite simply, this bill puts consumers first,” he added.
“The Ratepayer Protection Act puts control and the authority to say ‘no’ in the hands of state governors,” said Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio). “That is the right thing to do.”
Democrats have sharply criticized the bill.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), top Democrat of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said it would “unnecessarily stall and delay implementation of the Clean Power Plan and also, it will spur countless and, in most cases, frivolous and meritless challenges to the plan in order to extend the ultimate compliance plan” and would weaken the decades-old protections of the Clean Air Act.
The Obama administration has also taken a dim view and pledged Tuesday to veto the bill if both chambers of Congress pass it.
Obama adviser Brian Deese said earlier this week that the president “has made it very clear that he is not going to accept attempts to undermine this very important work by Congress.”
The Senate GOP is working on a similar measure that would repeal the rule, give state governors more reasons they could reject compliance for a future rule, delay its implementation and make it much harder for the EPA to regulate power plants’ carbon emissions.
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White House Talks Up Ozone Update After Greens Protest
Jun 24, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
The White House is emphasizing the potential health benefits of U.S. EPA's proposed update of federal air quality standards for ozone after drawing flak from environmentalists today for not singling out the issue in its veto threat of the House Interior, Environment and Related Agencies spending bill.
In a blog post that appeared this afternoon on the Office of Management and Budget website, two White House officials affirmed President Obama's commitment to protecting public health and the environment by referencing yesterday's Summit on Climate Change and Public Health.
The post, signed by Obama energy and climate adviser Dan Utech and Ali Zaidi, OMB's associate director for natural resources, energy and science, takes the House to task for including riders targeting EPA's carbon rules for power plants and the proposed update of the national ambient air quality standards for ozone in the Interior-Environment bill.
"Updating national standards for ozone pollution, which is particularly harmful for children and adults with asthma, would, if finalized as proposed, prevent thousands of premature deaths and hospital admissions and prevent up to a million lost school days each year," states the post. "These are just two of many provisions in the bill that would force EPA to ignore science at the expense of public health."
The post follows concerns from Clean Air Watch President Frank O'Donnell over the omission of the ozone rider from yesterday's White House veto threat against the spending bill (Greenwire, June 24).
While the post concludes with a pledge that "the Administration will continue to defend the Clean Air Act and protect public health," it stops short of threatening to veto the bill over the ozone rider.
"It is certainly encouraging to see the White House mention ozone and defense of the Clean Air Act," O'Donnell wrote in an email. "It would be even more encouraging if it said an attack on the process for setting the ozone standard would merit a veto of the underlying legislation."
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Generators' Suit Over Utility MACT Review Signals Future Legal Uncertainty
Jun 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
Power generating companies are suing EPA over its refusal to soften parts of its power plant maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air toxics rule, highlighting the future legal uncertainty for the agency's landmark rule regardless of how the Supreme Court decides in its imminent ruling in a separate suit over the MACT.
The justices are reviewing claims by industry groups and some states that EPA erred by not considering costs when it decided to craft a Clean Air Act section 112 air toxics rule for utilities -- though the agency argues the statute is silent on whether costs needed to be part of the decision on it being “appropriate and necessary” to develop a MACT. EPA counters that it properly assessed costs when it developed the actual emissions limits in the rule.
If the court rules against EPA and vacates or remands the rule, the agency could try and revive the regulation by either using its cost-benefit analysis for the standards as justification for the appropriate and necessary finding, or craft a new cost analysis that still leads to the conclusion that a MACT is necessary.
But if the agency does that and largely retains all other aspects of the rule, it will prolong legal uncertainty because challenges such as the new utility suit over the denial of the reconsideration petition will proceed.
Should the high court decide to uphold the utility MACT, the agency would still face legal doubts as attention will then shift to the new suit filed by the coal-fired utilities in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and others held in abeyance pending the resolution of high court proceedings.
The Anthracite Region Independent Power Producers Association (ARIPPA), a Pennsylvania-based group representing power generators using coal refuse as fuel, filed suit June 22 in the D.C. Circuit over the agency's rejection of its petition asking EPA to reconsider and soften the rule's emissions limits on hydrogen chloride (HCl), and seeking changes to technical definitions within the rule in order to ease the facilities' compliance.
Reconsideration Request
ARIPPA said in its April 16, 2012, petition for administrative reconsideration that using control technologies required to meet the existing HCl limit of 0.002 pounds per million British Thermal Units would be uneconomic. The group asked EPA to modify its MACT rule to render it achievable for its member companies.
The petition also called on the agency to alter the rule's definitions of “coal refuse” and “flue-gas desulfurization” to resolve regulatory ambiguity and favor the coal-waste-to-energy sector.
The petition claimed neither EPA nor ARIPPA “has identified any instance” in which an existing coal-refuse-fired circulating fluidized bed (CFB) boiler -- the type used by ARIPPA's member companies -- has installed control equipment in a retrofit setting to further reduce sulfur dioxide or HCl emissions, “nor otherwise achieved through any control measure the HCl (or corresponding SO2 surrogate) emission standard” in the utility MACT.
The group said that control technology options seemingly available were in fact not viable for various reasons, writing, “increased limestone injection consistent with current design and operational constraints cannot further reduce HCl emissions from these existing units to levels consistent” with the MACT. “To the extent that installation and operation of add-on emission control equipment could be technically feasible for retrofit application to coal refuse fired CFB units, the capital costs associated with such equipment would render the facilities economically non-viable, largely due to the relatively small size of these facilities and the inconsistency of the add-on equipment platform with the combustion zone-based emission control inherent in the design of the units,” the petition said.
Further, introduction of sodium-based sorbents, “to the extent effective at sufficiently reducing HCl emission rates, would render the ash generated by coal refuse-fired CFB units unsuitable for beneficial reuse.”
This means the ash cannot be sold, and must be disposed at the expense of the power plant, which “would clearly render continued operation of these sources economically non-viable,” ARIPPA argued.
Petition Denial
EPA disagreed with the group's claims and in an April 30 Federal Register notice announced its formal denial of the reconsideration petition issued the month before, prompting ARIPPA to sue in the D.C. Circuit.
The agency said that the group failed to raise its complaints outlined in the petition when it filed earlier comments on EPA's proposed version of the utility MACT with sufficient specificity as required by the Clean Air Act. This suggests that EPA may claim ARIPPA lacks standing to sue under the air law.
EPA also says that some of the issues in the petition were raised in the original D.C. Circuit case over the utility MACT, White Stallion Energy Center v. EPA, in which the court issued a 2-1 ruling in April 2014 that upheld the rule in its entirety. ARIPPA was one of many industry groups and states involved in that suit.
“[P]arties may not use this final action denying reconsideration as a basis to litigate issues that could have been
raised in the initial litigation,” the agency says in the recent Register denial notice.
EPA says that other petitioners raised many of the same issues ARIPPA did during the public comments period on the proposed MACT, so ARIPPA could have done the same, but did not.
“Because the Petitioner has not demonstrated it was unable to comment on these issues, we are denying reconsideration. In addition, the decision not to subcategorize CFBs and coal refuse-fired CFBs was challenged in the White Stallion case, and the court rejected those challenges,” the agency says.
Further, EPA says that data subsequently supplied to the agency by ARIPPA after its reconsideration petition refute the group's assertion that no coal refuse CFB boilers meet the MACT rule's emissions limits. Also, the agency doubts the group's claims about the affordability of compliance for these power plants.
“The EPA does not believe (as Petitioner implies) that the cost of such add on (or additional) 'polishing' equipment is prohibitive for coal refuse-fired [electric generating units (EGUs)] or that the add-on technologies are not 'available.',” EPA says in the notice. The agency also says that it disagrees with ARIPPA's claim that its definition of “coal refuse” is inconsistent with other federal regulatory definitions of the term.
Legal Challenges
Given that the case, ARIPPA v. EPA, has only just been filed the agency has not yet submitted any legal briefs that might ask the D.C. Circuit to reject the case for lack of standing.
But if the Supreme Court upholds the utility MACT and the appellate court does not throw out the case, it will pose a fresh legal challenge for various provisions of the air toxics rule. The justices agreed to hear the utility MACT appeal State of Michigan v. EPA and related cases solely on the question of whether EPA erred by not considering costs in deciding that regulation of utilities with a MACT was appropriate and necessary. As a result, while the justices could rule against EPA on that issue, it is doubtful they would rule on the merits of specific provisions of the MACT.
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Obama Nominates Two Officials To EPA Posts
Jun 24, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
President Obama has nominated two Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials to be full-time heads of the offices they currently lead.
Obama formally nominated Ken Kopocis and Janet McCabe to be assistant administrators of the EPA on Wednesday, asking the Senate to confirm regulators who have overseen offices that have formulated and implemented major and controversial agency rules. Kopocis has served as deputy assistant administrator for the agency’s Office of Water since last summer. In May, the EPA finalized its “waters of the U.S.” rule, which expands the definition of waterways that the federal government can regulate. Obama had nominated Kopocis to head the office in 2011 but he never received a vote in the Senate.
McCabe has led the Office of Air and Radiation on an interim basis as the agency finalizes a rule setting strict new limits on surface-level ozone concentration. She has been the Obama administration’s point person on both the ozone rule and the federal ethanol fuel mandate.
Obama had previously nominated McCabe to the post full-time, but like with Kopocis, the Senate never voted on her.
Congressional Republicans have looked to block both the water rule and the ozone regulations, which will be finalized by this fall, and given their connections to the contentious EPA rules, Kopocis's and McCabe's nominations are likely to run into opposition in the Senate.
Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), for one, has threatened to hold up three lower-profile nominations last month over his opposition to EPA rule-making, including the water rule, and the agency’s legal justification for its regulations.
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Obama Seeks to Jump-Start 2 Stalled Nominations
Jun 25, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Amanda Peterka
The Obama administration has renominated Janet McCabe and Kenneth Kopocis to hold top positions at U.S. EPA that are at the center of battles over air and water regulations.
The White House yesterday sent the Senate the nominations for both McCabe and Kopocis to be assistant administrators at the agency.
It's unclear when either could be taken up by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. EPW Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) yesterday said he was not in a hurry to move nominations and that working on a long-term transportation bill was his priority.
"We haven't even talked about that," he said. "We actually haven't talked about anything except the highway bill."
McCabe has been serving as acting chief of EPA's Office of Air and Radiation since the summer of 2013. She took over the position when Gina McCarthy resigned to become administrator of the agency.
As acting administrator, McCabe has been the agency's point person for efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and to tighten the national ozone standard. The White House first nominated McCabe for the permanent role in December 2013, but she has never received a vote in the Environment and Public Works Committee -- even when it was under Democratic control.
Before joining EPA in 2009, McCabe was executive director of Indianapolis-based Improving Kids' Environment Inc. She also previously served in leadership roles in the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
In an interview earlier this year, McCabe said that being in an acting role did not hinder her ability to lead in key areas in air policy within EPA.
"I have an excellent relationship with the administrator," she said. "She seems to have confidence in me to do this job, and I just do my work."
The Obama administration is trying again on Kopocis' long-stalled nomination to be assistant administrator for water at EPA, although it faces ever-longer odds of moving.
Kopocis, who was first nominated for the post in 2011, has been awaiting an up-or-down vote for nearly 1,220 days (E&E Daily, July 31, 2014).
The renomination comes as the Obama administration is locked in an intense battle with congressional Republicans and industry groups over its controversial Waters of the U.S. rule. Kopocis, who has been serving as deputy assistant administrator for the water office for nearly a year, has been the lead architect and most vocal voice in support of the rule.
Indeed, it is his previous work on the issue of Clean Water Act jurisdiction that first hamstrung his nomination. Before heading to President Obama's EPA, he worked on former Rep. Jim Oberstar's (D-Minn.) staff at the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee during efforts to deal with confusion over the scope of the Clean Water Act legislatively.
The White House has previously sent over five EPA nominations to the Senate for review this congressional session.
Earlier this month, the Environment and Public Works Committee held a hearing for Ann Dunkin to be assistant administrator of the Office of Environmental Information, Thomas Burke to be assistant administrator of the Office of Research and Development, and Jane Nishida to be assistant administrator of the Office of International and Tribal Affairs (Greenwire, June 11).
At that hearing, Inhofe said that the Senate committee was still waiting on final paperwork to consider the other two nominees: Stan Meiburg to be deputy administrator and Karl Brooks to be assistant administrator for the Office of Administration and Resources Management.
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Obama Renominates McCabe to Lead EPA Air Office, Kopocis to Head Water Office
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio and Amena H. Saiyid
President Barack Obama formally renominated Janet McCabe to serve as the Environmental Protection Agency's top air official and Ken Kopocis to serve as the EPA assistant administrator for water.
The nominations were submitted to the Senate June 24, according to the White House.
McCabe has served as acting head of the Office of Air and Radiation since July 2013, when she filled the role vacated by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. Prior to that, she served as principal deputy assistant administrator from 2009 until she replaced McCarthy.
Obama first nominated McCabe in December 2013, but she failed to be confirmed before the end of the 113th Congress, which triggered a need to resubmit her nomination to the Senate.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee held a confirmation hearing on McCabe in April 2014, but it took almost seven months for McCabe to respond in writing to dozens of questions from committee members (69 DEN A-2, 4/10/15).
As acting head of the air office, McCabe has overseen the development of the EPA's proposed Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33) to regulate carbon emissions from power plants and the agency's proposal (RIN 2060-AP38) to revise the national ambient air quality standards for ozone. McCabe has defended both proposals during congressional hearings over the past year.
Officials Limited on Time in Acting Role
Federal officials are permitted to serve in an acting capacity for 210 days once a vacancy requiring Senate confirmation occurs under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (Pub. L. No. 105-277). That statute allows acting officials, once nominated, to serve in an acting capacity “as long as the nomination is pending in the Senate.”
Members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, including now-Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.), told Bloomberg BNA in December that high-profile nominees for positions with the EPA can expect to have a harder time getting confirmed now that Republicans control the Senate (237 DEN A-2, 12/10/14).
Kopocis's Renomination
The administration also is renominating Kopocis to serve as the EPA assistant administrator for water.
Kopocis, who currently is serving as deputy assistant administrator for water, was first nominated by Obama in 2011. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee initially approved his nomination in August 2013, and then again in February 2014, but both times the Senate was unable to confirm the appointment.
Republican Senators who opposed the agency's water jurisdiction rulemaking efforts blocked the nomination from proceeding each time on the Senate floor.
Until Kopocis's nomination was withdrawn in August 2014, he served as the Office of Water's senior policy adviser. He was the longest delayed of nominees appointed to the cabinet agencies, judiciary and independent boards, having waited more than a 1,000 days for a Senate vote, according to White House data.
Prior to his appointment, Kopocis was the senior counsel to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which has jurisdiction over the EPA Office of Water.
Republicans say Kopocis was instrumental in helping the former Committee Chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) in writing the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007 (H.R. 2421), which they opposed because it clarified which waters and wetlands fell under Clean Water Act jurisdiction.
It is unclear whether Inhofe will block or allow the nomination of Kopocis to proceed through the committee. Prior to taking the helm of the committee in January, Inhofe told Bloomberg BNA that he supports the right of Obama to have his team in place at federal agencies, but added that “if somebody's bad, we shouldn't vote for them” (237 DEN A-2, 12/10/14).
“The committee still hasn't received the nomination papers for Kopocis,” Inhofe spokeswoman Donelle Harder, told Bloomberg BNA.
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Communities' Crude-by-Rail Lawsuit Withdrawn
Jun 25, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
A challenge by two Illinois communities to the Transportation Department's final crude-by-rail rule has been dismissed, at their own request, by a federal appeals court (Village of Barrington v. DOT, 7th Cir., No. 15-02040, case dismissed, 6/23/15). The Illinois village of Barrington and the city of Aurora filed June 23 to dismiss the case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit's docket. According to their motion, the Transportation Department has determined challenges against this rule (RIN 2137-AE91) should be heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Second Circuit dismissed the case the same day. Richard Streeter, the attorney representing the Illinois communities, previously told Bloomberg BNA that he planned to re-file his case in the D.C. Circuit by June 29 (120 DEN A-9, 6/23/15). This is the third lawsuit to move to the D.C. Circuit, where two industry groups already had filed lawsuits consolidated into one case (97 DEN A-20, 5/20/15). The motion to dismiss is available at http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/Village_of_Barrington_et_al_v_TRAN_et_al_Docket_No_1502040_7th_Ci. The order is available at http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/Village_of_Barrington_et_al_v_TRAN_et_al_Docket_No_1502040_7th_Ci/1.
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