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Senate Democrats Urge Quick Vote On TSCA Reform Bill
Jul 9, 2015 | InsideEPA
A group of 13 Democratic senators is urging quick floor consideration of S. 697, a bipartisan bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), aiming to stop a push by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) for the Senate to instead take up a House-approved TSCA reform bill that is significantly narrower in scope than S. 697. -
Interim Chemical Safety Board Head Quickly Issues No-Bid Contracts
Jul 10, 2015 | All Gov
By Noel Brinkerhoff and Danny Biederman
The man accused of taking over the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) via a “coup” is now issuing no-bid contracts(pdf) for legal and consulting work, allegedly diverting agency funds earmarked for accident investigations. -
Congressman Criticizes US Port Biometric Security Card Program
Jul 9, 2015 | Biometric Update
By Justin Lee
In 2002, the US federal government pledged to improve port security by implementing new biometric security cards, but a full 13 years later, the DHS has failed to set guidelines on how to read these Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) cards, according to a report by My Fox Tampa Bay. -
DuPont Is Slapped With New Penalties Over Texas Plant Tragedy
Jul 10, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
The U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) on Thursday hit DuPont with a $273,000 proposed penalty for safety violations at its facility in La Porte, Texas. -
OSHA Fines DuPont $273K, Dubs it 'Severe Violator'
Jul 10, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued a $273,000 fine for safety violations at DuPont Co.'s La Porte, Texas, plant, where four workers were killed last year. -
White House Opens Doors to Eleventh-Hour Pleas on Clean Power Plan
Jul 10, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Rod Kuckro and Emily Holden
Multiple state environmental regulators will meet Tuesday with senior Obama administration staff in an attempt to shape the final version of the forthcoming U.S. EPA rule to curb carbon emissions from power plants. -
Some 2016 GOPers May Ignore EPA Coal Regs
Jul 10, 2015 | The Washington Post
By James Hohmann
Some Republican governors who are running for president are threatening to ignore Environmental Protection Agency regulations likely coming this summer that would limit power plant emissions. -
Top Utility Officials Make Final Push For White House To Revise EPA's ESPS
Jul 10, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lee Logan
Top electric utility industry officials are holding meetings with high-level officials in the Obama administration in a final push for the administration to overhaul EPA's greenhouse gas (GHG) rule for existing power plants, which is expected to be issued as soon as late July or August. -
Texas Sues EPA Over Final SSM 'SIP Call' Regulation
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ClimateWire's Holden Discusses White House Stakeholder Meetings Ahead of Final Rule Release
Jul 10, 2015 | E&E - TV
The White House Office of Management and Budget has been busy meeting with a wide range of stakeholders on EPA's Clean Power Plan in recent weeks. -
Is This the Most Anti-Environmental Bill of 2015?
Jul 10, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Thomas McGarity and Richard Murphy
GOP leadership of the House of Representatives have recently brought to the floor a bill that, if enacted, could result in 10,900 premature deaths; 5,000 non-fatal heart attacks; 1,110,000 asthma attacks in children; and 1,690,000 missed school and work days. -
Green Groups Mark Spending Bill’s Failure
Jul 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Green groups celebrated Republican leadership’s decision to pull an Interior and Environment spending bill amid a raucous debate over the Confederate flag on Thursday. -
Rebel Flag Debate Slams Brakes on House Spending Bills
Jul 10, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Jake Sherman and Rachael Bade
The explosive debate over the Confederate flag in federal cemeteries has ground the Congressional appropriations process to a halt, as Republican leaders try to find a way to solve the impasse. -
Unknowns About Chemical, Water Impacts Put Calif. at Risk -- Study
Jul 10, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Anne C. Mulkern
Numerous unanswered questions exist about the effect of unconventional oil drilling in California, including the toxicity of chemicals used and whether fluids disposed in pits threaten groundwater, a long-awaited study of hydraulic fracturing said yesterday.
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Senate Democrats Urge Quick Vote On TSCA Reform Bill
Jul 9, 2015 | InsideEPA
A group of 13 Democratic senators is urging quick floor consideration of S. 697, a bipartisan bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), aiming to stop a push by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) for the Senate to instead take up a House-approved TSCA reform bill that is significantly narrower in scope than S. 697.
“We urge you to bring up the substitute amendment of s. 697 that was reported by the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works (EPW) as soon as possible,” the 13 senators say in a July 9 letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). The senators include Tom Udall (D-NM), who originally introduced the bipartisan toxics law reform bill with GOP Sen. David Vitter (LA).
The letter expresses willingness to work with the House on its separate TSCA reform bill, H.R. 2576, to reconcile differences between the two bills, which could happen at a future conference committee meeting.
But the senators say the “best path to accomplishing the development of a final proposal that can achieve broad support in both Houses is to debate and amend” S. 697 bill as reported out of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) in a 15-5 vote earlier this year. The bill has not yet been slated for a floor vote.
The letter suggests a number of concerns with the House bill, that cleared the lower chamber in a 398-1 floor vote last month. For example, the letter warns that the legislation would create a “virtually unlimited pathway” for chemical reviews sought by industry rather than reviews of the most dangerous substances. That language is one of provisions in the lower chamber's bill that have prompted concern from the White House.
The senators also say H.R. 2576 does not take steps to improve EPA's new chemicals program, would fail to establish an adequate user-fee system for funding chemical safety reviews, does not seek to limit animal testing and provides no mandate for EPA to evaluate the appropriateness of confidential business information claims.
In addition to Udall, the other Senate Democrats that signed the letter are Cory Booker (NJ), Tom Carper (DE), Chris Coons (DE), Martin Heinrich (NM), Heidi Heitkamp (ND), Joe Manchin (WV), Mark Warner (VA), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Jeff Merkley (OR), Debbie Stabenow (MI), Gary Peters (MI) and Sherrod Brown (OH).
Although the senators are urging swift consideration of S. 697, Boxer and some environmental and public health advocacy groups are instead calling on the Senate to debate H.R. 2576 on the floor.
In a July 7 letter to McConnell and Reid, the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition and 57 of its advocacy groups acknowledged flaws in both the House and Senate bills, but says H.R. 2576 “is clearer and more concise and would be more appropriate to use as the vehicle for changes as the process moves forward.”
Boxer, ranking member on EPW, has vowed to push various amendments to address concerns about what she sees as major problems with S. 697, including its broad state preemption.
In a July 8 statement, the senator said, “I have reviewed the letter released by the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition of 450 public health organizations, and it confirms my view that taking up H.R. 2578, with a few additional changes, is the best approach for meaningful TSCA reform.”
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Interim Chemical Safety Board Head Quickly Issues No-Bid Contracts
Jul 10, 2015 | All Gov
By Noel Brinkerhoff and Danny Biederman
The man accused of taking over the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) via a “coup” is now issuing no-bid contracts(pdf) for legal and consulting work, allegedly diverting agency funds earmarked for accident investigations.
Richard Engler, the CSB board member who last month declared himself the “interim executive and administrative authority” at the agency, has authorized nearly $100,000 in sole-source contracts for outside lawyers and consultants, according to documents disclosed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
He awarded the contracts without public notice or discussion and kept the contract amounts below a specific dollar ceiling which, if exceeded, would have triggered a series of federal procurement requirements.
“Federal contracts under $50,000 avoid a variety of procurement rules, including stronger competitive bidding and affirmative action requirements,” the Corporate Crime Reporter noted. “They also fall just shy of the $50,000 threshold requiring a full Board vote under an order passed this May (with Engler among the ‘aye’ votes) in the name of improving governance and ‘transparency.’”
The deals went to RGS, an organizational consultant in Arlington, Virginia ($49,998), and the Washington, DC firm of Shaw, Bransford and Roth ($45,000).
PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch accused Engler of “spending taxpayer money like a drunken sailor. He is assembling a mercenary force paid to do his only bidding,” he told the Reporter.
CSB, a small agency facing a budget cut later this year, has limited discretionary funds to support its mission—preventing chemical accidents and investigating their causes. A large amount of those funds have been diverted to pay for the legal and consulting contracts awarded by Engler, claimed Ruch.
“These contracts have little to do with chemical safety – the mission of this agency,” Ruch said. “These ham-handed maneuvers have set the Chemical Safety Board on a course to tear itself apart.”
Engler assumed control of the CSB after its embattled head, Rafael Moure-Eraso, resigned in March. During the 10 months prior to Engler’s coup, the agency under Moure-Eraso had issued nine investigative reports, but there hasn’t been a single one since.
When Engler took over CSB, there were only three seats filled on the five-member board. He reportedly used the support of outgoing board member Mark Griffon to designate himself “Board Member Delegated Interim Executive and Administrative Authority.” The board’s third member, Manuel “Manny” Ehrlich, objected to Engler’s power grab.
Engler then ordered the suspension of CSB’s entire executive staff, including Managing Director Daniel Horowitz and General Counsel Richard Loeb, putting them on administrative leave. The staffers were marched out of the building under armed guard and barred from returning or talking to other CSB staff.
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Congressman Criticizes US Port Biometric Security Card Program
Jul 9, 2015 | Biometric Update
By Justin Lee
In 2002, the US federal government pledged to improve port security by implementing new biometric security cards, but a full 13 years later, the DHS has failed to set guidelines on how to read these Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) cards, according to a report by My Fox Tampa Bay.
All workers, truckers, and other individuals without an escort require a TWIC card – which are encoded with fingerprint data and other data to confirm the person’s identity — in order to gain access through ports.
Homeland Security developed the TWIC card without issuing approved card readers or guidelines on how to read or use the cards.
Using grant money, Port Manatee and many other ports purchased systems that fail to scan and read the cards. However, the aforementioned ports are operating the systems without specific federal guidelines in place and with no set timeline as to when those rules will be introduced.
“We gave it our best guess,” said David St. Pierre, director of seaport security at Port Manatee. “One would have thought they would have that resolved much faster, but it’s not.”
A U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) review in 2013 called the pilot program to develop readers, “inaccurate, and unreliable.”
The government has already issued nearly three million TWICs, and five years later, many are up for renewal.
“They’re already reissuing cards that do not work,” said Mica. “Now we’ve got an expensive flash badge — costly to the government, costly for transportation workers, and useless as far as security.”
The House has passed a reform bill designed to assess the TWIC program and implement a corrective action plan, which must be executed without any additional funding.
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DuPont Is Slapped With New Penalties Over Texas Plant Tragedy
Jul 10, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Glenn Hess
The U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) on Thursday hit DuPont with a $273,000 proposed penalty for safety violations at its facility in La Porte, Texas. That’s on top of fines OSHA proposed in May that stem from an accident last November, in which a leak of methyl mercaptan killed four workers.
“These four preventable workplace deaths and the very serious hazards we uncovered at this facility are evidence of a failed safety program,” says OSHA chief David Michaels.
OSHA’s initial investigation found hazards in the facility’s pesticide unit, where the accident occurred, resulting in the agency levying a $99,000 fine. Those findings prompted OSHA to expand its inspection to other parts of the facility, where the agency says it found additional worker safety violations.
“I hope that our continued scrutiny into this facility and into working conditions at other DuPont plants will mean no family ever suffers this loss again,” Michaels adds. “We here at OSHA want DuPont and the chemical industry as a whole to hear this message loud and clear.”
OSHA issued citations to DuPont for three willful violations at the LaPorte plant, alleging that the company “purposefully disregarded” safety rules or “acted with plain indifference to employee safety.” The agency assessed a maximum penalty allowed by law of $70,000 for each violation.
In addition, OSHA cited DuPont for four “serious” violations, which means they could have led to injury or death, and added another $28,000 in fines, again the maximum allowed by law. A repeat violation of a previous worker safety citation brought the penalty total to $273,000.
Moreover, OSHA enrolled the Wilmington, Del.-based company in its Severe Violator Enforcement Program, which concentrates inspections on employers who have “demonstrated indifference towards creating a safe and healthy workplace by committing willful or repeated violations, and/or failing to abate known hazards.”
DuPont says it has not had the chance to review OSHA’s latest findings in detail but has been reexamining its procedures. “Operating the La Porte site safely is our number one priority. We have and will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure all units are safe to operate,” DuPont says.
The company says it has identified and is addressing most, if not all, of OSHA’s significant findings. “Through the course of our work, we have shut down the herbicide unit in order to take corrective measures, and the unit will not restart until the work is complete,” DuPont says.
DuPont is contesting the citations that led to the $99,000 fine, and has the option to fight the latest penalties. The company has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and proposed penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety & Health Review Commission.
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OSHA Fines DuPont $273K, Dubs it 'Severe Violator'
Jul 10, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued a $273,000 fine for safety violations at DuPont Co.'s La Porte, Texas, plant, where four workers were killed last year.
OSHA also enrolled DuPont in its "Severe Violator Enforcement Program," which is designed for employers who have "demonstrated indifference towards creating a safe and healthy workplace."
For years, DuPont was considered an industry leader in safety. OSHA, however, said that as it has broadened its investigation from the insecticide unit where the deadly chemical leak occurred, it has also found violations in other parts of the plant.
"We have concerns about the safety culture," OSHA Director David Michaels said. "We expect chemical facilities where highly toxic materials are used to have a culture that focuses on ensuring worker protection. It appears to have broken down."
The company said it will review OSHA's fundings.
"DuPont is disappointed with OSHA's classification, and we will be working with the agency to understand its decision," DuPont spokesman Aaron Woods said (Satija/Malewitz, Texas Tribune, July 9). -- SP
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White House Opens Doors to Eleventh-Hour Pleas on Clean Power Plan
Jul 10, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Rod Kuckro and Emily Holden
Multiple state environmental regulators will meet Tuesday with senior Obama administration staff in an attempt to shape the final version of the forthcoming U.S. EPA rule to curb carbon emissions from power plants.
The meeting is the latest in a string that began about a month ago with a visit by a six-person delegation from the Sierra Club to an Office of Management and Budget conference room in Washington, D.C.
OMB, an arm of the White House, is leading the interagency review that will culminate in the final EPA rule being released sometime in August, according to the current administration schedule.
Such meetings serve to punctuate the robust and often-acrimonious debate that has been going on during the more than 13 months since EPA proposed its Clean Power Plan, which is designed to cut CO2 emissions 30 percent compared with 2005 levels by 2030.
In the process, the EPA plan also would substantially change the way electric power has been fueled, produced and used for more than 100 years.
"Essentially, it's one last shot to lobby them on what your keys issues are and what you'd like to see in the final rule and why," said a participant in the National Climate Coalition's June 24 meeting at OMB.
The meetings are part of a Washington ritual that stakeholders engage in during the final weeks before OMB finalizes its interagency review of a rulemaking.
OMB does not initiate the meetings. Parties affected by the rulemaking ask.
The time is set at 30 minutes, and staff members from OMB, EPA, the Council on Environmental Quality and others are there to listen. If the attendees are lucky, a staffer may ask a clarifying question.
"They never tip their hand or get into a debate" or reveal what's in the rule under review, said one veteran Washington association executive who has sat in on numerous such meetings.
Tuesday's meeting was requested by the Georgetown Climate Center, which is known for its facilitation of discussions among states, power companies and nongovernmental organizations on options for complying with the Clean Power Plan.
Among those in attendance will be John Quigley, secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. He hopes to "stimulate a conversation" about how a state such as his can get the best outcome from EPA. "We're all in the same boat pushing against the string; until we see the final rule, it's difficult to have anything more than a conceptual conversation," he said. Washington state will also be represented.
In the past month, OMB and EPA officials have heard from:Edison Electric Institute and utility CEOs and representatives from American Electric Power Co. Inc., DTE Energy, Berkshire Hathaway Energy and Duke Energy Corp.MJ Bradley & Associates and electric utilities that are members of its Clean Power Plan Initiative, including the CEOs or senior executives of Dominion, National Grid, NextEra, Exelon, PSEG, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Calpine Corp.The National Climate Coalition and its members, including the American Public Power Association, Calpine, LS Power and Edison International.AJW Inc. and clients, including Siemens, Johnson Controls, Honeywell, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, Schneider Electric, Ameresco, United Technologies and the U.S. Green Building Council.The Gephardt Group, led by former House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), along with Prairie State Generating Co., the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission and T&A Inc.The National Mining Association.The Newmont Mining Corp.The Sierra Club.The Clean Air Task Force.The Canadian Electricity Association.
More meetings are scheduled.Trying to make an impression, change minds
The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, had its second meeting at OMB on June 6. This time, EEI President Tom Kuhn brought along Nick Akins, CEO of American Electric Power; Lynn Good, CEO of Duke Energy; and Greg Abel, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
The administration countered with EPA air chief Janet McCabe and her counsel, Joe Goffman, as well as Brian Deese, senior adviser to President Obama, and Dan Utech, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change.
EEI officials declined to talk about the session, but in a statement, EEI's Quin Shea, vice president for environment, said the meeting "was part of our on-going outreach efforts on the Clean Power Plan."
It may not seem productive for a CEO to come to Washington for a 30-minute meeting.
"When CEOs of big companies like to come into town, they want to talk," said one utility industry attorney. An association such as EEI "brings them in to show the impact, to show the importance and that the decisions made [about the final rule] are hugely critical and for those companies mean millions, perhaps billions of dollars over the long run," he said.
So even with the parameters of the meeting, "That's certainly a good investment of their time to fly into Washington and take that meeting even if they sit there and say nothing but their name," the attorney said.Meetings can bring about changes
"We've seen examples of when the interagency review process has brought additional facts and perspectives to the table," said Kirk Johnson, senior vice president of government relations for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
"There have been modifications and tweaks to rules that have occurred during the interagency review process," he said yesterday immediately after his meeting with OMB.
Johnson said he used his 30 minutes to focus "on some of the high-level concerns that we've outlined previously that the plan as drafted would result in some significant costs to electric co-ops, would result in some significant stranded investments to co-ops, and there are ways to modify the proposal that would reduce or eliminate" those costs, such as "modifications to each of the building blocks, changes to the interim and final goal dates, and the idea of a dynamic reliability safety valve."
Chris Miller is with AJW, a Washington-based lobbying shop. He was formerly senior adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on energy and environmental issues.
On June 22, Miller brought energy technologies companies Honeywell, Siemens, Schneider Electric and Johnson Controls to OMB for their 30-minute confab.
The value of these sessions is to bring up aspects of how the rule could play out "that EPA doesn't necessarily have to think about but OMB does," he said.
For his clients, which he describes as "American companies with American jobs," Miller said it's vital that OMB "understands that energy efficiency is a compliance option that's low-cost and very flexible and real. It's been a little bit of a challenge for EPA to get their arms around that, so we wanted to make sure that OMB saw the economic potential in addition to the environmental compliance part of it, that we could deliver probably the lowest-cost or one of the lowest-cost solutions for compliance."
His pitch may have hit home, as the normally half-hour session was prolonged by about 10 minutes of "solid" questions from staff, Miller said.
Two lawyers from one of the proposed rule's harshest critics, the National Mining Association -- Katie Sweeney and Michael Kennedy -- met with OMB on June 23. They brought along Peter Glaser, an attorney with Troutman Sanders who has been arguing that the rule is illegal and that EPA does not have authority to enforce the Clean Power Plan. Glaser represented NMA in a recent Supreme Court case challenging EPA's mercury standards. Also at the meeting were two consultants from Energy Ventures Analysis, a firm that has conducted research for NMA claiming electricity prices could increase substantially under the rule.
"This is partly due diligence," said Luke Popovich, NMA's spokesman. "There's always going to be a difference in tone between an agency like OMB and an agency like EPA that is hastily trying to do the president's bidding and push the rule out the door by the deadline," he said.
"Our experience with OMB is they just listen," said Conrad Schneider, advocacy director at the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental nonprofit focused on promoting low-carbon energy. Schneider said his group used its 30 minutes to highlight major concerns, and OMB asked just one clarifying question.
"We were not expecting that something we said there was going to make a major change in the rule," he said. "We were really just reinforcing points we had already made."
If anything, Schneider said he hoped some of what CATF presented might "shore up" decisions EPA already made that OMB is reviewing.
CATF brought OMB a two-page summary of proposals to avoid gaming and carbon leakage under the rule and to expand expectations about the reductions states can achieve.
On June 24, when OMB and other staff met with the National Climate Coalition, a single attendee acted as spokesman for the group.
"You want to make wise use of that 30 minutes," an attendee said. "It's a step in the process and an opportunity that you have to take, frankly, whether it does any good or not."
The coalition had five specific "asks" for OMB. The first was to let states have flexibility to design their own glide path or at least move the interim goal back, he said. Next was to give flexibility to owners of electric generating units to "make sure there is as wide a diversity of compliance options as possible."
The third was the need for a reliability safety valve and reliability review of state plans, followed by some promise that improvements in the heat rate of a generating unit would not trigger review under EPA's New Source Review program.
Lastly, the attendee said, the coalition wants OMB to provide the "maximum opportunity for interstate cooperation, collaboration and trading short of formal multistate plans" such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.
"Prudency requires that we at least go in and take the meeting. Whether there's any realistic chance that there's room for changes or that they'll take to heart what we say, one never knows," the attendee said.
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Some 2016 GOPers May Ignore EPA Coal Regs
Jul 10, 2015 | The Washington Post
By James Hohmann
Some Republican governors who are running for president are threatening to ignore Environmental Protection Agency regulations likely coming this summer that would limit power plant emissions.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal have both been the most vocal in telegraphing their planned resistance. To combat climate change, President Obama’s goal is to cut carbon pollution 30 percent by 2030 and to reduce pollution that causes soot and smog by 25 percent from 2005 levels.
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“Our office will continue to evaluate our options,” Walker spokeswoman Laurel Patrick emailed last night, “in the case that there are not significant and meaningful changes incorporated in the final rule addressing the concerns expressed by Governor Walker and other governors across the country.”
“While we believe the proposed rule should be immediately withdrawn, we are considering all options to mitigate the damage if it becomes final, including not submitting a plan,” added Jindal spokesman Mike Reed.
So far, other Republican candidates have been more reticent to make such provocative pronouncements. Some privately lament the optics of defying federal regulations at the same time they attack Obama for not respecting the rule of law. There is also fear that it could be self-defeating for governors not to submit plans to the EPA because, if they lose in court, the federal government may actually be able to impose more onerous requirements. Finally, it is also unclear whether emphatic resistance — though encouraged by the fossil fuel industry — is a political winner for the GOP at a time of increased concern over global warming.
A spokesman for Gov. John Kasich (R-Ohio) — who is not yet formally in the presidential contest — said Thursday that the governor is not talking about non-compliance, but that the state filed more than 200 pages of concerns with the federal government and signed onto a lawsuit aimed at blocking the rules. Kasich has clashed with the energy industry in his state because he proposed higher taxes on fracking as part of tax reform.
A spokeswoman for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie did not respond to requests for comment on whether he would defy the EPA. Neither did a spokeswoman for Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor.Emboldened by last month’s Supreme Court decision calling for further review of EPA mercury regulations, the fossil fuel industry — heavy donors to Republicans — wants states to take on the new rule in the courts. At the very least, that might tie up the regulations long enough for a Republican president to undo them.
Other industry insiders said that they hope the threat of massive resistance from GOP governors will deter Obama from going as far as he otherwise might in the rule-making process. In recent weeks, mining industry lobbyists made a final effort to convince the administration to water down the rules during a White House meeting.
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Top Utility Officials Make Final Push For White House To Revise EPA's ESPS
Jul 10, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lee Logan
Top electric utility industry officials are holding meetings with high-level officials in the Obama administration in a final push for the administration to overhaul EPA's greenhouse gas (GHG) rule for existing power plants, which is expected to be issued as soon as late July or August.
In three separate meetings this week, the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) has hosted a half dozen CEOs of major electric utilities, as well as officials representing “clean utilities” and rural electric cooperatives.
Administration attendees at the recent meetings include Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Director Howard Shelanski; Ali Zaidi, associate White House budget director for natural resources, energy and science; White House climate advisors Brian Deese, Dan Utech and Megan Ceronsky; as well as acting EPA air chief Janet McCabe and air office attorney Joe Goffman.
Meeting records indicate that in all, six utility CEOs attended: Edison Electric Institute (EEI) President Tom Kuhn, American Electric Power's Nick Akins, Berkshire Hathaway Energy's Greg Abel, Duke Energy's Lynn Good, Public Service Enterprise Group's Ralph Izzo, and Dominion Resources' Thomas Farrell.
One meeting was held July 6 at the request of EEI, the trade group for investor-owned utilities.
A second meeting, held July 8, featured M.J. Bradley & Associates' Clean Power Plan Initiative, which features 11 utilities with lower-emitting portfolios.
Finally, OMB held a July 9 meeting with officials from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), which represents smaller co-ops that often rely heavily on coal.
While industry officials who attended the first two meetings would not comment on their substance, the discussions likely touched on a range of issues that the power sector has previously raised about EPA's existing source performance standards (ESPS), which would set state-specific GHG targets while giving state regulators wide flexibility to achieve the goals.
The power sector has been split on the rulemaking, with utilities that have lower-emitting fleets or plans to move in that direction supporting the proposal, while coal-heavy companies have sharply criticized the plan as overly stringent or unworkable.
The industry, however, has largely been wary of calls by some EPA critics and Republican lawmakers for states to “just say no” to writing compliance plans, fearing that a federal implementation plan would be much more inflexible and costly.
“In Michigan and with our company, and with most of my peers, looking at 'just say no' gives you tremendous uncertainty,” Skiles Boyd of DTE Energy said during an April event. Boyd attended the July 6 meeting with EEI.
Interim Targets
The trade association has made softening the proposed ESPS' interim targets its chief issue, creating a premiere dispute with environmentalists over the program's overall stringency. The group argues the early goals create a compliance “cliff” because they would require so many emission cuts in the early years of the program. EEI had recommended scrapping the interim goals altogether and focusing solely on the rule's 2030 targets.
But EEI's Karen Obenshain during a May event noted that EPA officials publicly and privately have said “that's not going to happen. They're not going to eliminate the interim goal. So, we're now in the process of trying to think about how to develop different glide paths from 2020 to 2030 that get rid of that cliff.”
She suggested that EPA consider phasing in all of its proposed building blocks -- compliance strategies used to set state targets -- to ease standards in the early years. The first two building blocks, concerning plant-level efficiency and greater use of existing gas plans, are assumed in EPA's proposal to be implemented in 2020, while the renewables and energy efficiency portion of state goals are phased in during the 10-year compliance window.
EPA has signaled it is open to such ideas, with EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and other officials repeatedly hinting that the agency will weaken the controversial limits in response to industry and state requests.
So-called “clean” utilities -- those with large portions of nuclear, renewable or gas generation -- have largely supported the ESPS. A second group run by M.J. Bradley & Associates, the Clean Energy Group, said in formal comments that the proposed targets “are achievable” with some changes, and that meeting them would not jeopardize electric reliability.
The Clean Power Plan Initiative, which requested the July 8 OMB meeting, did not submit comments on the rule, though it shares several utility members with the Clean Energy Group.
Similar to EEI, the Clean Energy Group has called for a smoother “glide path” toward the 2030 targets, though it supports retaining the interim limits -- a position more closely aligned with EPA's stance.
The group offered ways to soften the plan's targets related to existing gas units, while also urging EPA to credit GHG cuts before the 2020 compliance period begins. The group also urged EPA to clarify how states can alter compliance plans over time if they would like to join multi-state compliance efforts.
Rural Co-Ops
During the July 9 OMB meeting, NRECA officials pressed their case for softening the ESPS, with the group's chief issue centered on avoiding “stranded” coal assets.
The issue is particularly acute for co-ops compared to investor-owned utilities because they generally serve smaller, residential markets that are not easily able to cover the cost of plant upgrades and have fewer generation assets, making it more difficult to make up lost generation if plants are retired.
NRECA has said if coal units -- including those that have recently installed expensive pollution control equipment to comply with other rules -- are forced to retire early, cooperatives would have to continue paying off the debt on those units while also paying for either replacement power or new generation.
The group has been strongly opposed to the rule, though it also offered a series of ways that EPA could offer flexibilities to small utilities in the ESPS, reiterating its message to allow coal units to operate through the remainder of their useful lives.
An association spokeswoman said the group during the recent OMB meeting also called for softening the plan's interim goals, while urging a “safety valve” for plants needed to maintain grid reliability and highlighting the rule's potential negative financial impact on co-ops.
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Texas Sues EPA Over Final SSM 'SIP Call' Regulation
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ClimateWire's Holden Discusses White House Stakeholder Meetings Ahead of Final Rule Release
Jul 10, 2015 | E&E - TV
The White House Office of Management and Budget has been busy meeting with a wide range of stakeholders on EPA's Clean Power Plan in recent weeks. On today's The Cutting Edge,ClimateWire reporter Emily Holden discusses what's at stake in these meetings and how they may affect the timing of the rollout of the final rule.Transcript
Monica Trauzzi: Welcome to the Cutting Edge. The While House Office of Management and Budget has been busy meeting with a wide range of stakeholders on EPA's Clean Power Plan. Here to tell us what it all means for the final rule is ClimateWire's Emily Holden. Emily, you and our colleague, Rod Kuckro, have been following these developments closely. Who's been in these meetings, and what does this tell us about the final rule?
Emily Holden: It's the usual cast and crew, sort of who you would expect, so the utility trade groups, their CEOs, the National Mining Association, the Sierra Club, the Clean Air Task Force, actually a lot of energy technology companies, and what it really shows is that this is a far-reaching rule. It's very broad. It's going to have impacts on the industry and really anyone working on any climate initiative, and so everyone has a horse in the race, so to speak. The meetings are really short. They're about 30 minutes, but a lot of people still feel like it's their last chance to really influence any changes that might happen in the rule.
Monica Trauzzi: And there's a big meeting set for this Tuesday. What do you know so far?
Emily Holden: So there are some states that have been meeting as part of this initiative with the Georgetown Climate Center, and the environmental agencies that we know that are going are from Pennsylvania and Washington state. We think they're probably going to be there to tell EPA some of the information that they think they need that they've gathered from these discussions with each other, including on, you know, how they could potentially work together and trade compliance credits, that sort of thing.
Monica Trauzzi: And the major sticking point for many of these stakeholders is the economic impacts of the rule. Do you think that that could ultimately sway minds at the White House?
Emily Holden: Right. So I think a lot of the changes that are going to be made to the rule have probably already happened, anything major that's going to change the scope or the potential economic impact. At the same time, the National Mining Association and other said, you know, we feel like there's a different tone in OMB than there is with EPA, and if they're already thinking about a change that they might want to make, that it might be our last chance to kind of sway that and push them over the fence.
Monica Trauzzi: So, of course, we're all trying to read the tea leaves on the timing of the final rule release. What do the series of meetings tell you about when we could see that final rule drop?
Emily Holden: We're still all looking at August, and historically these meetings that OMB have gone anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month, but the Clean Power Plan is a bigger rule than we've ever seen before, so it's a little hard to tell, but we'll be following that very closely, and the best place to watch for it is on E&E's Power Plan Hub.
Monica Trauzzi: Of course. We will keep watching. Thank you for coming on the show.
Emily Holden: Thank you.
Monica Trauzzi: More Cutting Edge coming next Friday. We'll see you then.
[End of Audio]
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Is This the Most Anti-Environmental Bill of 2015?
Jul 10, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Thomas McGarity and Richard Murphy
GOP leadership of the House of Representatives have recently brought to the floor a bill that, if enacted, could result in 10,900 premature deaths; 5,000 non-fatal heart attacks; 1,110,000 asthma attacks in children; and 1,690,000 missed school and work days. Passage would also enable the emission of 730 metric tons of climate-disrupting carbon dioxide and waste up to $572 million in taxpayer money. All of these harms and more would come courtesy of H.R. 2822, the appropriations bill to fund the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and several related environmental agencies for the next fiscal year.
How could a piece of legislation that is nominally about funding agencies to carry out their statutory missions of protecting public health and the environment so seriously undermine the public interest? The answer is that this bill, like virtually all of the appropriations measures the Republican-controlled House of Representatives has considered in recent years, has been larded up with “negative earmarks”—that is, riders that specifically prohibit an agency from spending any of the appropriated funds on a particular activity. These riders that block agencies from spending on disfavored projects deserve this name of “negative earmarks” because they suffer from all the democracy-denying defects associated with those earmarks, like the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” that force agencies to spend on favored projects. Either type of earmark abuses the appropriations process by conferring benefits on special interests, often at the expense of the broader public interest. Congress, responding in part to the calls of conservative lawmakers, has barred “classic” earmarks to force wasteful spending. Negative earmarks should suffer the same fate.
When these negative earmarks are used to block vital public health and environmental programs, the damage adds up quickly. The House Interior and Environment appropriations bill includes negative earmarks that would stop EPA rules aimed at limiting greenhouse gases from fossil-fueled power plants, protecting children and the elderly from dangerous levels of ozone air pollution, and safeguarding families against toxic lead paint. The bill would also block the Department of Interior from protecting fragile mountain streams against harmful mountaintop removal mining and improving the safety of hydraulic fracturing operations.
What is also disturbing is the large amount of financial support the legislative sponsors of these negative earmarks have received from the very industries that would directly benefit from the regulatory relief they provide. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) sponsored the negative earmark to block the Department of the Interior’s hydraulic fracturing rule. During the most recent election cycle,Cole received $114,500 from the oil and gas industry. Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-W.Va.) sponsored the negative earmark blocking the EPA’s ozone air pollution standard. During the past election cycle, Jenkins received $187,400 from the mining industry, $48,666 from the oil and gas industry, and $25,950 from the manufacturing industry. In all, just three of the most influential House appropriators received a whopping $546,816 from polluting industries that would receive millions of dollars in regulatory relief from these negative earmarks.
As the pending House Interior and Environment appropriations bill illustrates, the use of “negative earmarks” is wholly inconsistent with our system of representative democracy and ought to be abandoned. By attaching them to “must pass” appropriations bills, the sponsors of negative earmarks rely on coercion rather than persuasion to obtain their policy demands. Compared to normal legislative order, the process of adding negative earmarks involves little transparency and deliberation. Because they confer significant benefits on favored industries, negative earmarks also risk encouraging lawmakers to pander to corporate interests.
One straightforward solution to the earmark problem is for Congress to enact legislation with restrictions similar to those imposed by the “Byrd Rule” for budget reconciliation bills. The bill could specify that negative earmarks constitute “extraneous provisions” and are thus subject to a legislative point of order, which any member could raise during consideration of the underlying appropriations bill. Unless the point of order is waived by a three-fifths majority vote, the offending provision would be automatically stricken from the bill. Congress began the process of cleaning up the appropriations process when it restricted the use of positive earmarks; it should now turn its attention to eliminating negative earmarks as well.
Professors McGarity (University of Texas at Austin School of Law) and Murphy (Texas Tech University School of Law) are member scholars of the Center for Progressive Reform and co-authors of a new study, “Earmarking Away the Public Interest: How Congressional Republicans Use Antiregulatory Appropriations Riders to Benefit Powerful Polluting Industries.”
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Green Groups Mark Spending Bill’s Failure
Jul 10, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Green groups celebrated Republican leadership’s decision to pull an Interior and Environment spending bill amid a raucous debate over the Confederate flag on Thursday.
Environmentalists had deeply opposed the GOP’s $30.17 billion spending bill because of several climate and environmental provisions in it. A Republican amendment to undo anti-Confederate flag language adopted earlier this week imperiled the bill on Thursday, and Republican leadership pulled it from the floor before members could vote on it.
"House Republican leadership has turned this important appropriations legislation into a toxic mess, again proving they are fully out of step with the American people,” Sierra Club legislative director Melinda Pierce said.
“The underlying bill and a slew of dangerous amendments are a vicious assault on the health of our families and our communities. And, as if that weren’t bad enough, some House Republicans have decided to further derail the process by trying to force a vote on a symbol of hate that deserves no place on our public lands.”
The bill cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by 9 percent from current levels, on top of the 20 percent cut the agency has absorbed since Republicans took control of the House in 2011.
It would block the Obama administration’s upcoming limits on power plant emissions and surface-level ozone, as well as a rule defining which waterways it can regulate and Department of Interior hydraulic fracturing restrictions.
“The fact remains that polluters and their allies in Congress will do everything they can to slash funding for environmental protections,” League of Conservation Voters Legislative Director Alex Taurel said.
“Their radical agenda threatens to roll back the clock on the American people, back to a time when polluters could threaten our clean air and water with impunity. We are calling on Republican leaders to go back to the drawing board to craft a bill that protects our environment and the health of our families.”
The bill included smaller cuts to the U.S. Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service, along with provisions blocking Endangered Species Act listings for some animals.
Republicans increased funding for wildfire prevention and some Native American programs, but overall their bill spends $246 million less than current levels and $3 billion less than President Obama requested for 2016.
Democrats and the administration had slammed the bill, with EPA administrator Gina McCarthysaying Tuesday it would “threaten the core work of the agency.”
But it was the Confederate flag flap that brought it down on Thursday, a fact not lost on environmentalists.
“This spending bill is finally drowning under the weight of its own extremism,” Friends of the Earth campaigner Lukas Ross said.
“Apparently the only thing that matters more to House Republican leadership than sacrificing American’s air and water is defending the legacy of slavery. We can only hope that this bill stays dead and buried.”
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Rebel Flag Debate Slams Brakes on House Spending Bills
Jul 10, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Jake Sherman and Rachael Bade
The explosive debate over the Confederate flag in federal cemeteries has ground the Congressional appropriations process to a halt, as Republican leaders try to find a way to solve the impasse.
The concern for the GOP is that Democrats can use each spending bill to debate whether the Confederate flag belongs on tombstones in federal cemeteries.
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In light of those concerns, the House is unlikely to consider the Financial Services appropriations bill next week, as originally planned. On Thursday of this week the House had to abandon its plan for a vote on the Interior Department’s spending bill.
The stalled bills could push House leadership into abandoning their goal to pass all 12 individual spending bills, forcing them to take up a short-term plan to fund the government, which runs out of money on Sept. 30. They’ll have to cobble together a continuing resolution after August recess — or risk a government shutdown.
House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) acknowledged that the debate over the battle flag “could be a problem” as the House looks to clear all 12 spending bills. He said that it would be “next to impossible” to finish the remaining half-dozen spending bills before the August recess, as originally planned.
ALSO ON POLITICOConfederate flag comes down for good at S.C. Statehouse
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“We’re discussing how best to move the appropriations process forward. Passing appropriations bills is one of the most basic responsibilities Congress has,” said Mike Long, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Long added, “Congressional Democrats have been working to grind the appropriations process to a halt since it began. Our leadership has asked for a thoughtful conversation to resolve this issue. To continue to use this issue has a political weapon and reject dialogue is just wrong.”
The debate over the flag has consumed Capitol Hill for the past 24 hours. Democratic amendments to ban the flag from federal cemeteries and prohibit the U.S. Park Service from doing business with shops that sell it passed Tuesday evening. The GOP leadership tried to reverse the amendments, which caused an uproar in the House.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) Thursday attempted to pass a resolution to strip the symbol from the Capitol, but McCarthy and House Republicans beat back that effort.
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called for bi-partisan talks on Thursday to resolve the disagreement.
McCarthy on Friday met with Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat who was a Civil Rights leader in the 1960s. Lewis said Thursday that the flag doesn’t belong anywhere on federal property.
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Unknowns About Chemical, Water Impacts Put Calif. at Risk -- Study
Jul 10, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Anne C. Mulkern
Numerous unanswered questions exist about the effect of unconventional oil drilling in California, including the toxicity of chemicals used and whether fluids disposed in pits threaten groundwater, a long-awaited study of hydraulic fracturing said yesterday.
A report from the California Council on Science and Technology with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory recommended that the state investigate multiple issues related to the drilling process also known as fracking.
The independent study, ordered by state law S.B. 4 -- which took effect last year -- did not uncover any significant problems connected to fracking or other well stimulation activities in the state. At the same time, the analysis said, there are many gaps in collection of information that make it difficult to know whether negative effects exist.
"We found that there is not a lot of data to support obvious impacts," said Jane Long, co-lead of the study for the California Council on Science & Technology (CCST), during a phone call with reporters. "You can't find clear impacts in terms of either human health or contamination of groundwater. But we found practices that we did not think were inherently safe that should be examined and made safer."
For example, the analysis noted that oil and gas operators have "unrestricted use of many hazardous and uncharacterized chemicals in hydraulic fracturing," including ones with "relatively high toxicity." Toxicity is unknown for about one-third of the chemicals, Long said.
"All chemicals should be revealed," Long said. "We should know what they are."
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Although the study did not find existing evidence of negative impacts from chemicals "the fact that we haven't looked for it is an issue, and we think that we should be looking for the direct impact and also be preventing them with precautionary measures by limiting the chemicals that can be used."
The study looked only at existing data. It did not conduct any new testing, Long said.
State officials said that they needed to digest the findings of the nearly 900-page report plus appendices and after that would decide how to proceed. Any new regulations probably would require a formal procedure allowing for public input, said Steven Bohlen, oil and gas supervisor and head of the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR). That agency last week released regulations on fracking that were mandated by S.B. 4.
"There will be an abundance of activity once we have a chance to study it," Bohlen said. He did not place any time frame on when the state would act or how long it might take.
Sen. Fran Pavley (D), author of S.B. 4, said she planned to move more quickly. The senator said she would amend one of her existing bills, S.B. 248, to incorporate recommendations in the study. S.B. 248 has passed the state Senate and is awaiting a hearing Monday in the Assembly's Natural Resources Committee. As it exists now, the measure requires DOGGR to enhance its work on a number of factors such as reporting all oil and gas well activities including the composition of injected fluids.
Pavley said she was concerned about the study's finding that drillers in Kern County had disposed of some water produced by fracking into percolation pits.
"The effluent has not been tested to determine if there is a measureable concentration of hydraulic fracturing chemical constituents," the analysis said. "If these chemicals were present, the potential impacts to groundwater, human health, wildlife, and vegetation would be extremely difficult to predict, because there are so many possible chemicals, and the environmental profiles of many of them are unmeasured."
Pavley said that she would press to pass legislation that "phases out the use of about 900, so-called percolation ponds that threaten to taint groundwater basins."
"The scientists are emphatic that state regulators must protect underground sources of drinkable water from being contaminated by fracking in shallow wells and other potentially unsafe practices," Pavley said. "These ponds, which dispose of waste associated with fracking, other forms of enhanced oil recovery, and, indeed, all drilling, pose a risk to the health of animals and humans."
Pavley also said that she expected and would watch for DOGGR and the State Water Resources Control Board to adopt the scientists recommendations.Water use lower in Calif.
About 85 percent of the state's fracking operations takes place in four or five fields in the San Joaquin Valley, Long said. There also are a few operations in Los Angeles suburbs near the airport.
While the study found that California does not use as much water in drilling as other states, it noted that "hydraulic fracturing takes place in relatively water-scarce regions" in the state. It also said that fracking uses less water than other types of oil recovery such as steam flooding. That process consumes "at least twice and possibly fourteen times as much fresh water ... than all the water used for hydraulic fracturing throughout the state."
The report found that in California, about three-fourths of all hydraulic fracturing operations take place in shallow wells less than 2,000 feet deep.
"In a few places, protected aquifers exist above such shallow fracturing operations, and this presents an inherent risk that hydraulic fractures could accidentally connect to the drinking water aquifers and contaminate them or provide a pathway for water to enter the oil reservoir," the report said.
S.B. 4 required for the first time groundwater monitoring, with advance testing of water if requested by nearby residents. In the 18 months since the law took effect, there has been only one such request for a test, state officials said.
The report cautioned that "groundwater monitoring alone may not necessarily detect groundwater contamination from hydraulic fractures. Shallow hydraulic fracturing conducted near protected groundwater resources warrants special requirements and plans for design control, monitoring, reporting, and corrective action."
The analysis looked into whether the injection of wastewater from fracking and other well stimulation is causing earthquakes in the tremor-prone state. It found no evidence of a connection but said that "it can be very difficult to distinguish California's frequent natural earthquakes from those possibly caused by water injection into the subsurface."
The scientists recommended "a comprehensive multi-year study to determine if there is a relationship between oil and gas-related fluid injection and any of California's numerous earthquakes."Oil group, greens debate report meaning
The Western States Petroleum Association, the trade group for oil and gas companies, said that it would review "the voluminous report with great care in the days and weeks ahead.
"The CCST report will undoubtedly be a major source of information and topic of discussion as we continue to implement the extensive new regulations embodied in Senate Bill 4," WSPA President Catherine Reheis-Boyd said in a statement. "The science-based findings of the CCST report stand in sharp contrast to much of the inflammatory and inaccurate commentary offered by anti-oil organizations about hydraulic fracturing and oil production in California.
"While there is much to absorb in the 858-pages of the report, the overarching conclusion is that no science-based evidence was identified that hydraulic fracturing in California has harmed the environment in any significant way," the group said.
Green groups, in contrast, said the study showed what they have been arguing for several years: that fracking is dangerous and shouldn't be allowed.
"This study exposes California's oil producers as the polluters that they are," said Andrew Grinberg, Clean Water Action's oil and gas program manager. "The science clearly identifies numerous threats from fracking and other oil production activities that California's laws, regulations, enforcement and available data do not adequately address.
Grinberg called for Gov. Jerry Brown (D) to order an immediate moratorium on well stimulation activities "until all the significant threats in this report are addressed. ... The science is clear that the State should act immediately and implement major reforms on oil and gas wastewater disposal, limiting dangerous chemical use and requiring mandatory setbacks from communities to protect health."
The Center for Biological Diversity said that the report uncovered numerous alarming findings.
"This disturbing study exposes fatal flaws in Governor Brown's weak fracking rules," the center's Hollin Kretzmann said. "Oil companies are fouling the air we breathe and using toxic chemicals that endanger our dwindling drinking water. The millions of people near these polluting wells need an immediate halt to fracking and other dangerous oil company practices."
The study found that "California places no limits on how close oil and gas wells can be to homes, schools or daycare facilities, which can expose people to dangerous air pollution from fracking and other oil extraction procedures," the center said.
The analysis noted that there are two locations in the state -- in the San Joaquin Valley and in Los Angeles -- where fracking happens near homes.
"Oil and gas development poses more elevated health risks when conducted in areas of high population density, such as the Los Angeles Basin, because it results in larger population exposures to toxic air contaminants," the report said.
Long with the study however warned that fixes aren't clear cut, such as in the area of chemicals. She said that the state should "engage in discussion with industry to collaboratively figure out how to reduce the use of toxic chemicals.
"This is not a straightforward process because if you change one thing," such as eliminating a toxic chemical, she said. "Then the industry may have to change other things that make things worse."
Click here to view a summary of the report.
Reporter Debra Kahn contributed.
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