Preview Newsletter
ACC AM July 15
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(ACC Mentioned) Registrations Now Open for the 24th Annual FlexPO Conference
Jul 14, 2015 | PR Web
Registrations are now open for FlexPO 2015. The annual FlexPO Conference is in its 24th year and will be held for the first time in Houston, Texas, USA, from October 19-22, 2015. Chemical Market Resources (CMR) is anticipating a large attendance in conjunction with the move to Houston and the exploration of the timely theme ‘Chemical... -
(ACC Mentioned) The Fight Over Plastic Bags Is About a Lot More Than How to Get Groceries Home
Jul 15, 2015 | New York Magazine
By Adam Sternbergh
Lauren Kuby had a simple ambition: She wanted to get something done. Kuby works by day at a sustainability institute that’s part of Arizona State University in Tempe, but last year she decided to run for City Council. President Obama had called for state and local action in his State of the Union address in 2015, encouraging municipalities to act... -
(ACC Mentioned) APR Appoints Leader Of Flexible Film Recovery Efforts
Jul 14, 2015 | Recycling Today
The Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR), Washington, has appointed longtime recycling industry executive Sandi Childs to direct its flexible film packaging recovery efforts. With the demand for film and flexible packaging expanding, efforts to recover and reclaim this material are becoming increasingly ... -
(ACC Mentioned) MRF Study Shines Light On Lost Material
Jul 15, 2015 | Recyling International
By Kirstin Linnenkoper
United States: An estimated US$ 11.4 billion of post-consumer packaging is 'wasted' each year in the USA, a new study by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and several other associations has concluded. The research evaluated five material recovery facilities (MRFs) of various sizes and streams to obtain a clearer picture of... -
(ACC Mentioned) Can Orlando Kick Its Polystyrene Habit?
Jul 15, 2015 | Orlando Weekly
By Erin Sullivan
When Michael DeFilippi, a Miami Beach sustainability committee member, proposed that his city ban the use of polystyrene products to protect the city's waterways, some people said it couldn't be done. "The American Chemistry Council, the ones who go round trying to fight the plastic bag bans, sent us a letter and said, 'You can't do this.... -
Nano Science Has Big Holes, Experts Say
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Martina S. Barash
Methods for assessing risks associated with nanomaterials in consumer products and in the environment are still developing, scientists at a recent government sponsored event on the state of nanomaterial-exposure science said. Scientists have made a lot of progress but still need to work on risk assessment methods, Treye Thomas of the... -
SB763 Threatens the Credibility of Product Safety Regulations & Consumer Communications
Jul 14, 2015 | Fox & Hounds
By Anne M. Northup
We are fortunate to live in a country with a strong commitment to consumer safety. Unlike some places in the world, Americans have a high degree of confidence that the products they see on store shelves or buy online have been evaluated by a trusted regulatory body and are safe. -
State Leaders Say House Chemical Bill Is Better
Jul 14, 2015 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Tony Iallonardo
In recent days, the National Governors Association (NGA), National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), and the Environmental Council of States (ECOS) have said they support the House approach to chemical safety reform. (See the letters below.) While Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families does not endorse the House or Senate bills... -
House Energy Panel Chides PHMSA for Slow Pace on Rules
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
Members of Congress reprimanded the nation's pipeline safety regulator at a House subcommittee hearing for its lagging pace in completing congressionally required pipeline rules and reports from 2012, citing a recent California crude oil pipeline spill as evidence of a broken system. -
EPA to Publish Final Underground Storage Tank Rule
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
The Environmental Protection Agency will formally publish July 15 the first updates to the regulations governing more than half a million underground storage tanks since 1988. Under the final rule, owners and operators of the underground storage tanks will be required to incorporate secondary containment mechanisms for new tanks... -
PHMSA Excess Flow Valve Proposal Published
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Federal Register will publish July 15 a Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration proposed rule expanding the type of gas pipelines that are subject to excess flow valve requirements. The proposed rule, released July 8, would require new or replaced pipelines that are serving larger homes or small businesses to install... -
Pipeline Safety Regulators To Slap Plains Over Illinois Spill
Jul 14, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration today plans to hit Plains All American, the operator behind a 101,000-gallon oil spill that reached the Pacific Ocean in May, with a new corrective order over a second spill it suffered last week in Illinois. PHMSA’s interim executive director, Stacy Cummings said that in addition to... -
House Panel Urges Speedup on Seismic Survey Permits
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Members of a congressional subcommittee urged the Interior Department to ramp up its issuance of permits allowing oil and gas companies to use seismic and other geophysical surveying to identify resource-rich drilling zones offshore, saying there is no scientific evidence such activity kills or injures marine mammals. -
Republicans Want Answers On Seismic Testing Permits
Jul 15, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Geof Koss
House Republicans want the Obama administration to get moving on permits to allow seismic testing of oil and gas resources off the Atlantic coast. That's the clear message members of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources sent to the head of the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management ... -
Michigan to Ban Heavy Crude From Enbridge Pipeline
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nora Macaluso
Michigan regulators proposed banning the transport of heavy “tar sands” oil through an Enbridge Inc. pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac, although a report from a task force stopped short of calling for an immediate shutdown of the 62-year-old pipe. The ban on heavy crude, which is not currently carried on the line, was one of 13... -
Century-Old Law Looms As Hurdle For Exports Push
Jul 15, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Geof Koss
With a growing body of research backing their economic and security arguments, supporters of ending the crude export ban are growing increasingly confident about the legislative prospects of repealing what they call an antiquated policy. "Really the momentum is building," Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) told reporters yesterday. -
What We Don't Know About Fracking Could Hurt Us
Jul 14, 2015 | LA Times
A year and a half in the making, a new scientific report on hydraulic fracturing in the state offers Californians the less than satisfying revelation that scientists are still in the dark about fracking. That's not to denigrate the report released last week by the California Council on Science and Technology, which was carefully researched, objectively written... -
California Should Not Issue Permits For Offshore Fracking
Jul 14, 2015 | The Sacramento Bee
By Miyoko Sakashita
The contrast couldn’t be more striking. Just as New York state banned fracking, California officials quietly issued nine offshore fracking permits in the wake of the state’s worst oil spill in 25 years. These permits for fracking on oil islands off Long Beach harbor are the first in California waters since public controversy over the dangerous ... -
LNG Exports, Efficiency Get Partisan Debate At Senate Small Business Hearing
Jul 15, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Ben Panko
Two contrasting outlooks on small businesses' energy costs were debated yesterday by the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. At issue was whether loosening federal regulations or encouraging energy efficiency improvements would be the best way to aid energy development companies or energy-intensive... -
Sanders Tries To Trump Clinton On Climate, Pipeline After She Meets With Senate Dems
Jul 14, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey and Jean Chemnick
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in an impromptu speech on Capitol Hill today touted his record on climate change and opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline while attempting to undercut former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for failing to make her positions clear. Following a Democratic luncheon where Clinton appeared, Sanders, who is... -
Murkowski Backs Assessment of U.S. Energy Exports
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
North American energy independence “is not only an attainable goal, but also increasingly the economic reality,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) wrote in a letter July 24 to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. “We are writing to strongly support analytical efforts by the intelligence... -
Midwestern Dems Call For Study On Oil Sands Byproduct
Jul 15, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Hannah Northey
Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Gary Peters of Michigan yesterday called for a deep look into the health and environmental effects of petroleum coke as well as possible new federal regulations to govern how the material is transported and stored. The senators introduced a bill, the "Petroleum Coke Transparency... -
Corker: Iran Deal ‘Could Build Some Momentum’ For Crude Exports
Jul 14, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
The landmark nuclear pact with Iran “could build some momentum around” calls to end the ban on U.S. oil exports Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker said today. Corker, who joined the growing ranks of GOP crude-exports backers in April, stopped short of predicting that energy ... -
GOP Senators Pitch Energy Production To Intelligence Chief
Jul 14, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A group of Republican senators led by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) are asking the nation’s top intelligence official to study the geopolitical impact of expanded American energy production. “We are writing to strongly support analytical efforts by the Intelligence Community assess the geopolitical and international security implications... -
Murkowski Plans To Start Moving Broad Bill Next Week
Jul 14, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
After months of hearings and discussion over more than a hundred bills, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said today she anticipates her committee will begin marking up a comprehensive energy package next week. "We are pretty much on track," she told E&ENews PM this afternoon. -
Greens Seek To Intervene In 2 Lawsuits Against New EPA Rule
Jul 14, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Peterka
Environmental groups are seeking to intervene in two lawsuits challenging U.S. EPA's recent rule that changed the way states are required to address excess air pollution that occurs during industrial equipment malfunctions or plant startups and shutdowns. Last night, the coalition of environmental groups filed a motion... -
Clinton Seeks To Balance Climate Change, Coal Country
Jul 14, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Darren Goode
Hillary Clinton on Tuesday told Senate Democrats she would continue the Obama administration’s climate agenda — while also emphasizing the need to protect coal workers and communities. At the same time, just around the corner from Clinton’s closed-door lunch meeting with Senate Democrats, Sen. Bernie Sanders, her top rival for the... -
EPA Is Fulfilling the Clean Air Act
Jul 14, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal - Opinion
By Janet McCabe
Your July 7 editorial, “Stopping EPA Uber Alles,” disturbingly equates the EPA’s Clean Air Act standards with the bombing of Dresden, a baffling comparison. When Congress enacted the Clean Air Act, its first stated purpose was, “to protect and enhance the quality of the nation’s air resources so as to promote the public health and welfare.” -
White House Subpoenaed on Water Rule Documents
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is seeking all documents and communications considered by the White House Office of Management and Budget during its evaluation of a final rule clarifying Clean Water Act jurisdiction as part of a subpoena issued July 14. In a statement, Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)... -
Senate Republicans demand legal basis for water rule
Jul 15, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Robin Bravender
Senate GOP critics of a new Obama administration water regulation are pressing U.S. EPA's chief to defend the rule's legal underpinnings. All 11 Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee called on EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a letter sent yesterday to provide a legal explanation of the Waters of the U.S... -
House Likely to Consider Coal Ash Bill July 22
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
House lawmakers are expected to consider legislation (H.R. 1734) granting states a larger role in the management and disposal of coal ash July 22, a Republican aide closely tracking the bill told Bloomberg BNA July 14. Rep. David McKinley's (R-W.Va.) bill, which was pulled from House floor consideration in late June to make... -
Bishop Seeks EPA Carbon Rule Documents From CEQ
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna and Andrew Childers
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) escalated attacks on the Obama administration's plans to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by pressing the White House to disclose its rationale for failing to conduct an Endangered Species Act review of the proposals. Bishop, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee... -
The Time Is Right for Freight Rail Reform
Jul 15, 2015 | Bloomberg BNA Law
By Cal Dooley
Unanimous consent. Those words are usually associated with the naming of a U.S. Post Office building or some other non-controversial piece of legislation. But in an era where Washington remains bitterly divided on so many issues, the U.S. Senate recently voted unanimously to modernize the nation's freight rail laws. -
Union Pacific, API Crude-by-Rail Suits Consolidated
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Union Pacific Railroad Co.'s lawsuit against the Transportation Department over a final rule that governs rail transport of crude oil has been consolidated with a suit filed by the American Petroleum Institute in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (Am. Petroleum Inst. v. United States, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1131, 7/13/15).
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(ACC Mentioned) Registrations Now Open for the 24th Annual FlexPO Conference
Jul 14, 2015 | PR Web
Registrations are now open for FlexPO 2015.
The annual FlexPO Conference is in its 24th year and will be held for the first time in Houston, Texas, USA, from October 19-22, 2015.
Chemical Market Resources (CMR) is anticipating a large attendance in conjunction with the move to Houston and the exploration of the timely theme ‘Chemical Industry Game-Changers: What’s Next?’
FlexPO 2015 will be held at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel & Convention Center, just 30 minutes north of downtown Houston and 25 minutes from George Bush Intercontinental Airport. The Woodlands Waterway Marriott is located on The Waterway, adjacent to retail shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues. The Convention Center is an exceptional meeting space with state of the art conference facilities.
Delegates have the opportunity to attend more than 30 expert presentations covering the latest industry news on the oil price reset and its impact on north American competitiveness; new technologies; catalyst innovations; product development trends; the latest market dynamics and more while also experiencing an industry-wide networking opportunity like no other.
Distinctive speakers already confirmed include Bob Kenworthy, Chemical Heritage Foundation; Martha Moore, American Chemistry Council; Robert Bauman, Polymer Consulting International; Paul Bjacek, Accenture; Ed Dineen, Siluria Technologies; Prem Cholia, Jacobs; Dr. Shimizu, Mitsubishi Corporation; Fernando Cevallos-Candau, Albemarle; Mike Musgrave, Total Petrochemicals USA, Inc.; Barbara Cohen, CBI Lummus Novolen; C.P Cheng & Yvonne Denkwitz, Clariant; Rick King, BASF Corporation; Dr. Rudy Sugimoto, PTT MCC BioChem Ltd; Karl Ebner, Borealis and Taylor Robinson, PLG Logistics with more still to be announced.
With the shale gas based revival in North America giving petrochemical producers here renewed weight in global petrochemicals, the market for NGL’s, intermediate and downstream products is poised for marked growth over the next seven years.
Whether that sentiment holds true, or if other raw material, demand or geo-political factors impact the market dynamics, attendance at FlexPO 2015 will provide critical insights over a range of contemporary topics that will help shape your future business decisions.
Discounted early bird registration is available until August 20th, 2015, and a discounted room rate at The Woodlands Marriott has been negotiated for delegates attending FlexPO 2015.
For more information or to register please contact flexpo(at)cmrhoutex(dot)com or call 281-956-2501
About CMR
Chemical Market Resources, Inc. (CMR) was established in 1990 to undertake business research and strategic planning for a global clientele base concentrated in the chemical, petrochemical, plastics, and allied industries.
CMR Inc. provides clients with thoroughly researched market studies emphasizing emerging trends in the industry, changes in technology supporting these trends and strategic direction assessment so that our clients can optimize opportunities in specific markets.
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(ACC Mentioned) The Fight Over Plastic Bags Is About a Lot More Than How to Get Groceries Home
Jul 15, 2015 | New York Magazine
By Adam Sternbergh
Lauren Kuby had a simple ambition: She wanted to get something done. Kuby works by day at a sustainability institute that’s part of Arizona State University in Tempe, but last year she decided to run for City Council. President Obama had called for state and local action in his State of the Union address in 2015, encouraging municipalities to act as laboratories for progressive change, and Kuby took his words to heart. After she was sworn in to her new council seat in January, she started looking for a project to take on. She quickly found one: plastic bags.
You are no doubt familiar with plastic bags — you probably own several dozen of them right now, likely folded in a drawer, or crammed under your sink, or stuffed inside other, larger plastic bags. (A singular feature of the plastic bag is that it’s one of the few pieces of refuse that can, cannibalistically, contain itself.) Because if you are a typical New Yorker, you go through roughly 620 single-use plastic bags a year. If that figure sounds high, consider this: It’s about two a day. Now think about the last 24 hours of your life. Did you get a plastic bag at the deli? At Fairway? Did a bag come wrapped around your Seamless order? All of the above? In a year, New York City as a whole manages to go through 5.2 billion single-use plastic bags. That’s about 10,000 bags a minute — the vast majority of which end up as landfill.
Tempe’s population is just 168,000, yet it goes through at least 50 million plastic bags a year. So Kuby started looking at other cities to see how they’ve dealt with bags. In 2000, when Mumbai discovered that plastic bags were clogging storm drains and exacerbating flooding during monsoon season, it banned them altogether. Plastic bags have also been banned in Bangladesh, Taiwan, Kenya, Rwanda, and Mexico City. By most accounts, these bans were accommodated and even embraced by locals.
Tempe, however, never had a chance to implement any bag legislation because, in April, the Arizona State Legislature passed SB 1241, a health-care bill with a curious amendment that declared that no city or town may “impose a tax, fee, assessment, charge or return deposit … for auxiliary containers.” In an unexpected, Dr. Seussian twist, Arizona had preemptively banned the ban: You ban bags? We’ll ban bag bans! Arizona is not the first state to enact a ban ban; Florida did so in 2008, and Missouri and Texas are investigating similar legislation.
Proponents of preemptively banning the bag ban argue that local bans create a confusing hodgepodge of regulation and that environmental fears over plastic bags are overblown. Others see the skirmish as part of a larger war: The unending fight to combat government tyranny and protect the American Way. Some commentators have even connected efforts to regulate plastic bags to a conspiracy involving Agenda 21, a U.N. sustainability initiative that’s become a focus of fears about the advent of one-world control. Of a bag ban enacted (and subsequently repealed) in Dallas, Glenn Beck, noted Agenda 21–ologist and famously sensitive barometer of societal cataclysm, warned his radio listeners: “You have got to stand up for little things like the plastic-bag thing … If I want to use a plastic bag, I will use a plastic bag … Fascists ban things. What are we doing?”
What Kuby hadn’t realized is that in attempting to address the tens of thousands that Tempe spends annually disposing of discarded plastic bags, she’d stumbled into a larger fight. It’s a battle being waged across the country — and one that’s about to open its newest front in New York: Mayor Bill de Blasio, who’d promised a bag ban in his campaign platform, is currently considering how, and whether, to tackle the issue. The battle is not just being fought over the fate of a familiar modern convenience but over, for one side, our last vestiges of freedom and, for the other, the future of planet Earth. And fluttering above this battlefield like the tattered banner of a besieged army, amid a haze of misinformation, counterarguments, and money, money, money, you’ll find a single, flimsy, humble plastic bag.
Plastic bags are amazing. You can carry your groceries in them. You can use one to line your bathroom trash can. You can put one on your head as an impromptu rain bonnet. You can quickly and cleanly pick up dog shit. You can even thank a plastic bag in your Oscar speech, as Alan Ball once did, when he concluded the thank-yous for his Best Screenplay award for American Beauty: “And finally, that plastic bag in front of the World Trade Center so many years ago, for being whatever it is that inspires us to do what we do.” American Beauty, of course, contains perhaps the single most famous appearance of a plastic bag in the entire cultural corpus: a scene in which a disaffected character watches a video of a plastic bag dancing in the wind and declares, “Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world.”
The single-use plastic grocery bag, which was born about 50 years ago, is the answer to a question no one was asking and the solution to a problem that didn’t exist. Back in the 1960s, not many people were wondering, How can I possibly carry my stuff around?, since people had been carrying their stuff around uneventfully for millennia — in cloth bags, burlap sacks, leather pouches, and, once upon a time, dried-out bull scrota. What some people were asking — petrochemical companies, most notably, since plastic is manufactured from by-products of petroleum and natural gas — was: “What else in the world can be made out of plastic?”
In 1962, a Swedish inventor, Sten Thulin, filed a patent for a thin, plastic bag, folded and made in such a way as to provide improbable strength and durability. Consumers were initially resistant to replacing their familiar paper bags, but by the early 1980s, national grocery chains were subbing paper for plastic, largely because plastic was cheaper: These days, the cost is one to two cents per bag, as opposed to six to eight cents for paper bags. The ascent of the plastic grocery bag, ironically, was applauded by many environmentalists, given that plastic didn’t require the consumption of trees.
But the heyday of plastics as a perceived modern miracle was surprisingly brief. In 1955, Life magazine published a story titled “Throwaway Living,” announcing that, thanks to the convenience of disposable plastic items, the average American had been freed from domestic drudgery. The accompanying photo showed a Cleaver-esque family tossing disposable items in the air like confetti: “The objects flying through the air in this picture would take 40 hours to clean — except no housewife need bother.” By 1967, however, Benjamin Braddock’s neighbor in The Graduate was passing on his famously chilling career advice: “Plastics!” Once the plastic grocery bag arrived in stores about ten years later, it seemed less like a miracle than like just another plastic thing to be absorbed into our increasingly plasticized lives. Homeless women became “bag ladies”; plastic bags picked up the derogatory nickname “Italian suitcase.” In her hit “Firework,” Katy Perry sings: “Do you ever feel / Like a plastic bag / Drifting through the wind / Wanting to start again?” Plastic bags have become symbols of the quotidian, the boring, the grindingly mundane.
They’ve also become a problem. They’re a problem for city sanitation departments, because they’re so light and aerodynamic, which makes them a particularly pernicious litter nuisance when they’re blown out of trash receptacles into trees, gutters, fences, and parks. Environmentalists dislike them because they often end up on beaches and coastal waters, endangering marine life. They’ve also become a target for anyone who’s generally concerned that we’ve reached a point in human history when manufacturing a brand-new item that’s intended to be used for, on average, 12 minutes, then discarded to linger more or less forever in a landfill, seems like a totally routine thing to do. If nothing else, the raw numbers are staggering. The world goes through more than a trillion bags a year. All this prompted a U.N. undersecretary-general to declare that bags “should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere” because “there is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere.”
But it’s not like plastic bags are that much worse than other plastic products. In a sense, plastic bags have become a victim of their own mundanity. Cars are an environmental problem, too, but few people are suggesting an outright ban on cars, because people love their cars and a world without cars is hard to imagine. Not so for plastic bags: Everyone uses them but nobody loves them, and they’re easily replaced with other kinds of bags. Which is precisely why they’ve become such a fitting symbol of a striking modern dilemma: They’re a ubiquitous convenience that’s not essential, that no one’s truly enamored of, yet one from which we can’t seem to extricate ourselves. Of all the perils facing the planet, plastic bags seem like an easy one to fix. But we can’t even do that.
"I’m not really involved in that many things,” says Don Williams, who runs the website stopthebagban.com. But when his hometown of San Jose, California, passed a plastic-bag ban three years ago, “I thought, This is crazy. I mean, a bunch of us were pulling our hair out.” So Williams started a mailing list for people who were interested in opposing the bag ban, which he says now boasts 175 to 200 people. On his site, Williams tackles and dismisses all the arguments in favor of banning, charging for, or otherwise regulating plastic bags. In part, he does this because he’s a fan of the convenience. But mostly it’s because he’s suspicious of what he calls “a greener-than-thou kind of thing,” which, for him, is fueled by “the typical elitist attitude that looks down on the common people.” In his experience, the common people want free plastic bags.
“You could hire ten to 20 workers for a fraction of the money they spend on advancing these bans,” he says, “and their whole job every day could be to go pick up, like, five bags each.” Problem solved. He also notes that plastic bags may be a litter concern, but there’s all kinds of garbage in his local creek. “There’s mattresses, there’s tires — so are we banning mattresses? Are we banning tires? They found a dead body in the creek. I wanted to write to my councilmember to say, ‘Hey, you need to pass a ban on dead bodies.’ ” For Williams, living in bag-free San Jose (where it turns out there is, in fact, an existing ban on the deliberate creation of dead bodies) must feel a bit like serving in the Resistance while living in Vichy France. I asked him what he uses to transport his own groceries, even as he fights the good fight online. He explained that he orders custom-made plastic bags by the boxful, each with ONE SAFE CLEAN CONVENIENT CONTRABAND PLASTIC BAG printed on one side and I CHOOSE PLASTIC printed on the other. “I take them to the grocery store. I hand them out to people in line. It’s like contraband. They look around — they’re like, ‘Are we allowed to use these?’ ” As for his wife, she uses reusable bags.
Among all the organizations with various homespun names like Bag the Ban and the American Progressive Bag Alliance, Williams’s is the rare one that isn’t funded, in some way, by the plastics industry. Understandably, plastic-bag manufacturers have reacted swiftly to efforts to regulate bags — after all, even the cigarette, a product with no practical purpose that has been proved to kill people who use it, is not facing calls for an outright ban. So lobby groups like the American Chemistry Council have fought back with anti-bag-ban messaging of their own, as well as aggressively pursuing lawsuits, funding referendums, and sponsoring petitions to overturn local bans already in place.
Here are a few of their arguments. Plastic bags, they claim, are more ecologically friendly than paper — because paper bags weigh more, require more resources to create and transport, and take up more space in the landfill. (Paper bags don’t, however, pose the same litter risk, have a much shorter life span, and are recycled at a much higher rate.) Reusable bags, they say, are both unsafe and unpatriotic — because bacteria might collect in them and many reusable bags are manufactured in China. Also, they contend, a mandatory fee on plastic bags — such as a five-cent fee introduced in Washington, D.C., in 2010 — is a tax grab that disproportionately affects the poor. (One paradox of the pro-bag position is having to argue that plastic bags are a valuable commodity that people nonetheless aren’t willing to pay a few cents for.) Plastic bags, they argue, are 100 percent recyclable — at least in theory. However, most cities, including New York, don’t accept film plastic (i.e., plastic bags) in their existing curbside recycling programs, and bag-return programs at stores are not very successful. Even by the industry’s own optimistic estimate, just 15 percent of bags are returned for recycling. (Environmentalists typically put this figure at lower than 5 percent.) Which means at least 85 percent of a trillion bags are left to find their way in the world, over their subsequent 1,000-or-so-year life span.
For Mark Daniels, the chairman of the American Progressive Bag Alliance and a senior vice-president of sustainability at Novolex, one of the largest manufacturers of plastic bags in the world, the argument is even simpler. “The environmental-activist community has basically hijacked the debate and used this as their fundraising tool,” he says. So, for example, environmentalists might show you a sad photo of a turtle eating a shredded-up plastic bag (which it likely tried to eat because it mistook the floating bag for a jellyfish), but can they tell you exactly how many turtles actually die from eating plastic bags? And how many dead turtles should mean that you can’t tote your groceries home in a free plastic bag? In addition, he’d like you to know that Novolex recently spent $30 million on a new plant in Indiana specifically designed to recycle plastic bags. Novolex also sends out educational DVDs to places like Walmart, where there is now an initiative called “Think 6” that encourages baggers to place six, not four, items in each bag. “We’re very much trying to create an equilibrium,” Daniels says, “so that the amount of plastic bags is the correct amount.” Now, if only there were a way to agree on what the “correct” amount of plastic bags might be.
The nadir of the plastic bag’s reputation, at least in certain circles, may have occurred on Wednesday, July 18, 2007, at eight in the morning. That’s when 15 Whole Foods in the New York area offered a $15 reusable canvas tote, commissioned by an environmental activist group and designed by Anya Hindmarch, that read I AM NOT A PLASTIC BAG. The bag presented a canny opportunity for performative rectitude: a reusable bag that publicly announced its own virtue. Naturally, it was a huge hit.
Only 20,000 such bags were offered for sale in New York, so they were snapped up and soon appeared on eBay for prices up to $300. People miffed by the bag’s haughty sentiment began sporting competing bags, including one that read I AM NOT A SMUG TWAT. Soon, gleeful reports surfaced that the Hindmarch bags had been manufactured in China by low-cost labor and weren’t organic. Hindmarch counterclaimed that the carbon cost of shipping the bags overseas had been offset by the purchase of carbon credits. In hindsight, l’affaire Hindmarch illustrates the confusing backlash that can greet any well-intentioned ecologically minded gesture. The conundrums — carbon credits! China! — can lead to a kind of ethical paralysis, which might well send you running back to your familiar plastic bags. Or running to stick your head inside a plastic bag.
A more significant death knell for the plastic bag, however, occurred earlier, in August 1997, when a seafarer named Charles Moore discovered what’s come to be known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s a collection of plastic in the Pacific Ocean that is, depending on whom you ask, the size of Texas, or two Texases, or the entire continental USA. The patch is notable because, on the one hand, it’s hard not to be alarmed by the phrase “an island of plastic the size of Texas in the middle of the ocean.” On the other hand, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch isn’t actually like what most people envision. It’s not an enormous floating mound of Tide bottles and toothbrushes. It’s barely visible from a boat. That doesn’t mean it’s not a problem. Unlike paper, which biodegrades, plastic photodegrades, meaning it breaks down into ever-smaller pieces when exposed to UV rays in sunlight. So the so-called Garbage Patch is really more like a soup made up of millions of tiny flakes of plastic, floating just below the surface of the water, soaking up toxins, and looking to fish an awful lot like food.
Plastic bags, to be clear, are not a big part of the garbage patch — they’re too insubstantial to wind up way out in the middle of the ocean. But the news of the patch was a turning point in how people think about plastics and the planet — it felt like a bill coming due. It’s like the Garbage Patch of Dorian Gray: an ugly, previously hidden illustration, dragged down from the planet’s ecological attic, of the true cost of our perfect plastic lives.
Kathryn Garcia, New York’s commissioner of Sanitation, is talking about carrots and sticks. “We’re doing a lot on the promotional side,” she explains, sitting at the large board table in her office downtown. “We’re working with City Hall and the mascot Birdie [the city’s GreeNYC mascot], giving out Birdie’s Bags. We’re trying to use carrots — but occasionally, to get everyone to change, we need something more.” Garcia is currently in the middle of a fight to bring some sort of plastic-bag action to New York. She is less professionally concerned with plastic bags in faraway oceans than she is with the 1,700 tons that New Yorkers throw away each week. New York pays an estimated $10 million a year to transport single-use bags, both plastic and paper, to out-of-state landfills — and that doesn’t cover the money spent to pick them up as loose litter. Recently, I visited Manhattan Beach, a sliver of sand off Sheepshead Bay, early on the morning after Fourth of July weekend, and, sure enough, were I an alien, I’d have assumed the beach was some sort of plastic-bag farm, ready for harvest.
As a question of civic policy, the plastic-bag debate would seem to be a perfect one for contemporary New York, seeing as it resides precisely at the crossroads of bloodless Bloombergian autocratic problem-solving and de Blasian firebrand progressivism. Yet New York has continually lagged behind other cities and countries on the issue; for example, China, which is not exactly thought of as in the environmental vanguard, banned free plastic bags in 2008. That’s the same year that Mayor Bloomberg floated the notion of a six-cent fee on grocery bags, but it went nowhere. Currently, several City Council members are pushing for a ten-cent fee on plastic bags. But no legislation has been enacted. Bertha Lewis, a consultant to Mayor de Blasio and the head of the Black Leadership Action Coalition, wrote an editorial for the Gotham Gazette arguing that the bag fee “is counterintuitive, and hurts the working class and small-business owners that make our city strong.” Lewis was later asked by Capital New York to account for the fact that her foundation has received payments from the American Progressive Bag Alliance — that’s Mark Daniels’s group — and she responded, “That’s insulting. I think it is absolutely just the most egregious character assassination ever.” Elsewhere, the argument has fallen along predictable sectarian lines: “Ten Cents a Bag? That’s About Right,” opined the Times. “Trash This Tax,” bleated the Post.
The plastic-bag debate as a whole, though, highlights how New York exists as a kind of paradox: a self-consciously progressive city (certainly by national standards) that nonetheless, through political inertia or a weirdly proud embrace of civic dysfunction, has a difficult time supporting progressive policies. We, the populace, have proved both forward-looking and stubbornly resistant to change. Thanks to the once-divisive smoking ban, we’ve managed to live happily without our romantically smoke-clogged restaurants and bars for more than a decade. Yet a new bike lane can spark a fistfight. This is the city, after all, in which countless bureaucrats toiled tirelessly to rid the subways of graffiti, yet now we sit around and recall it wistfully. New York can seem at times like a vibrant laboratory for social progress, at others like a giant sclerotic machine that’s barely able to function, let alone improve. And the most insignificant detritus of daily life can take on hallowed status: Reusable versions of both the iconic deli Greek coffee cup and, yes, the I ♥ NY plastic bag are enshrined at the MoMA gift shop. The plastic bag, the throwaway coffee cup — not to mention overflowing garbage cans, sky-high rents, crammed subways, grinding commutes, subway rats, sidewalk roaches, and noxious smells — are all familiar by-products, even totems, of our romanticized go-go New York lifestyle. We don’t solve these problems; we survive them. We’re 8 million harried people crammed together. We can barely make it through the week, let alone be expected to save the world.
Recycling is a happy word. And recycling, in theory, seems like a cheery civic virtue designed for our common betterment, but, in practice, it’s a business like anything else. Sims Municipal Recycling, which contracts with the city to handle our recycling, has its main facility on the 30th Street Pier, near Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Above the ceaseless clatter of cans falling through three stories of sorting machines, Thomas Outerbridge, the facility’s general manager, stands on a catwalk and points at what’s below: “That I can sell, and that I can sell,” he says, gesturing toward piles of scrap metal and bundles of reclaimed plastic bottles. Dirty plastic bags, however, are hard to sell. Since plastic bags are so insubstantial, they’re just as likely to get tangled up in the recycling facility’s machinery, causing expensive shutdowns, as they are to be bundled up and processed to be sold. Their current worth, he says, is “somewhere between two cents a pound and landfill.” (As for so-called biodegradable plastic bags, they’re kind of a nonstarter, at least for environmental purposes, because they typically end up in a landfill, and nothing effectively biodegrades in a landfill, not even food.)
It’s true that clean plastic grocery bags are theoretically recyclable, just like any other plastic resin, but, as Outerbridge says, “ ‘theoretically recyclable’ doesn’t mean anything to me. There’s either a market for it or there’s not.” As a recycled product, film plastic is very hard to process (because it’s so light) and very hard to clean. This is why, technically, you’re not supposed to include plastic bags in your curbside recycling in New York.
It’s also theoretically possible to build an entirely new recycling infrastructure that recycles clean plastic bags — witness Novolex’s $30 million recycling plant. But anti-bag activists argue that the only reason companies like Novolex promote bag recycling is that it makes consuming plastic bags more palatable and helps assuage the guilt consumers feel. It’s not just activists who say this. In an interview with Susan Freinkel for her 2011 book Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, Roger Bernstein of the American Chemistry Council explained why the plastics industry has invested so much in promoting recycling. Concerns around plastic products, he says, can be divided into “fear issues” and “guilt issues.” And recycling, he says, functions as “a guilt eraser.”
Jennie Romer is a lawyer from California who moved to New York three years ago hoping to work pro bono with the city on plastic bags. A few years back, she’d gotten involved in San Francisco’s fight to ban bags, and she’s since become, somewhat accidentally, the country’s leading expert in plastic-bag law. Her anti-bag activism has earned her backlash from both sides. “I get a lot of tea-party-esque emails, but I also get pushback from environmentalists who say, ‘There are bigger things to spend your time on.’ But this is a thing I chose because it is small. Something like climate change — that’s really daunting. With this, you can see a difference.”
For New York, Romer favors a ten-cent fee. “With a ban, you’re saying, ‘You can’t have this thing anymore,’ ” she says. “But with a fee, consumers are presented with a choice: ‘Is it worth it to you to purchase this bag?’ ” In Ireland, after the government imposed a 15-cent fee in 2002, bag usage fell by 94 percent — in part because, as a reporter for the Times noted, “Plastic bags became socially unacceptable — on par with wearing a fur coat or not cleaning up after your dog.”
That last point may hint at another coming shift. Whether New York adopts a ban, a fee, or does nothing — in short, whether plastic bags go the way of smoke-filled restaurants or are temporarily snatched from the brink of oblivion like Bloomberg’s detested Big Gulps — the plastic bag’s day as a mundane everyday item, thoughtlessly ignored to propagate under our sinks, is likely over for good. Being the person at the grocery store digging out the goofy reusable knit shopping bag or that weathered WNYC tote no longer marks you as a hapless hippie but as a thoughtful citizen, or at least not a total weirdo. In fact, it’s the guy in line handing out custom-printed plastic bags that read I CHOOSE PLASTIC who now seems like the social outlier. When Washington introduced its fee, psychologists who studied it concluded that what caused consumers to reject plastic bags was not the added cost but the sudden social stigma of being the one person who still takes the plastic bags. The smoking ban, for example, would have failed miserably if they’d tried it ten years earlier. Ten years later, though, it seems like the most natural thing in the world.
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(ACC Mentioned) APR Appoints Leader Of Flexible Film Recovery Efforts
Jul 14, 2015 | Recycling Today
The Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR), Washington, has appointed longtime recycling industry executive Sandi Childs to direct its flexible film packaging recovery efforts. With the demand for film and flexible packaging expanding, efforts to recover and reclaim this material are becoming increasingly complex and critical, according to the APR. The trade organization, which represents the plastics recycling industry in North America, says Childs will help lead the way to meet the needs of the film reclamation industry.
“We are very pleased that Sandi has agreed to manage our film and flexible packaging recovery efforts,” says Scott Saunders, general manager of Troy, Alabama-based KW Plastics and chairman of the APR. “Building upon the development of the APR Design™ Guide for Film and Model Bale Specifications, Sandi is already working with industry leaders to define clear strategies that will lead to increased recovery of flexible packaging for recycling. With over 30 years’ experience in our industry, including positions with Coca-Cola Recycling, NAPCOR and Southeastern Container, Sandi has the perfect combination of insight and understanding of all aspects of the recycling process.”
“The committee plans to collaborate with all stakeholders, as well as other APR committees, to expand and improve existing film recycling infrastructure,” says Childs, adding, “We will also study and assess the impact of bags and films on MRFs (material recovery facilities) and curbside collection, and explore possible ways to redesign collection strategies or MRF equipment so that bags might be accepted in curbside programs in the future.”
According to data from the 2013 National Postconsumer Plastic Bag & Film Recycling Report prepared by the consulting firm Moore Recycling Associates, Sonoma, California, for the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council, Washington, there is opportunity in flexible film recycling. In 2013, more than 1 billion pounds of postconsumer film were recovered for recycling in 2013. However, the APR says there is still additional recycling capacity for mixed postconsumer film in the U.S. and Canada. Mixed film and bags from retail collection showed a significant increase over 2012, second only to commercial mixed color material, the APR explains. End uses for recycled film are split almost evenly between lumber and film sheet, with lumber having a slight edge, according to the report.
The APR says the vision for its Film Committee is that all packaging films are recycled. The basic strategies for achieving that vision, according to the APR, are:
Drive more supply of high-quality clean film stock. Support strong North American film markets. Inspire consumers to recycle film packaging in a way that encourages the highest and best end use.New Film Committee members include Trex, Procter & Gamble, EFS Plastics, WestRock (formerly MeadWestVaco and RockTenn) and PepsiCo Inc., bringing the membership to more than 20 companies.
“We are extremely pleased with the direction the APR Film Reclamation Committee has taken,” says Jon Stephens, senior vice president at Avangard Innovative and chair of the APR Film Reclamation Committee. “This diversity of membership ensures that all points of view will be considered as the committee moves forward with its work.” -
(ACC Mentioned) MRF Study Shines Light On Lost Material
Jul 15, 2015 | Recyling International
By Kirstin Linnenkoper
United States: An estimated US$ 11.4 billion of post-consumer packaging is 'wasted' each year in the USA, a new study by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and several other associations has concluded.
The research evaluated five material recovery facilities (MRFs) of various sizes and streams to obtain a clearer picture of post-consumer packaging recycling; across all five, approximately 20% of polypropylene cups were found in PET bales. ‘This is likely due to manual sorters positively sorting them to the PET stream because they so closely resembled PET cups,’ the report says.
The study showed that the average material loss to the paper stream was 5% for PET bottles; 10% for plastic cups; 12% for plastic containers; 18% for aseptic and gable-top cartons; and 29% for plastic clamshells. Additionally, it found that three-dimensional objects - such as packages in their original form - are more likely to make it through the MRF into the appropriate containers as opposed to flattened or crushed objects.
This proves that consumers should be educated about not flattening items before placing them in recycling containers, according to Jim Frey, ceo of Resource Recycling Systems.
Besides the ACC, the other parties behind the commissioning of the study were the National Association for PET Container Resources, the Foodservice Packaging Institute, the Carton Council of North America, and the Association of Postconsumer Plastics Recyclers.
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(ACC Mentioned) Can Orlando Kick Its Polystyrene Habit?
Jul 15, 2015 | Orlando Weekly
By Erin Sullivan
When Michael DeFilippi, a Miami Beach sustainability committee member, proposed that his city ban the use of polystyrene products to protect the city's waterways, some people said it couldn't be done.
"The American Chemistry Council, the ones who go round trying to fight the plastic bag bans, sent us a letter and said, 'You can't do this. You're pre-empted,'" he says.
The council pointed out that Florida has a law on the books that prevents municipalities from banning plastic bags and related products. The statute, in place since 2008, states that "no local government, local government agency or state government agency may enact any rule, regulation or ordinance regarding use, disposition, sale, prohibition, restriction or tax of such auxiliary containers, wrappings or disposable plastic bags."
DeFilippi says he took the state law to Miami Beach City Commissioner Michael Grieco to review. "I said, 'Can we look into this, because I think there's a loophole, and I don't think there is a pre-emption on this,'" DeFilippi says. "And we looked into it, and we weren't pre-empted, so we moved forward with banning it."
In 2014, the city started out with a ban on foam products within city agencies and at beachside cafés and restaurants, where the lightweight cups and takeout containers have the most potential to end up in nearby waterways. This year, Miami Beach is going for a full ban. On July 8, the city commission had a first read on a bill that would ban foam takeout containers and coolers throughout the city, and DeFilippi says the measure is expected to pass easily on its second read later in July.
The story has gained a lot of attention, and it has encouraged other cities to follow suit. It's even given Orlando residents hope that it could happen here, too.
Orange County Soil and Water Conservation Supervisor 4 Eric Rollings is building a grass-roots coalition that supports a ban on polystyrene in Orlando city limits. He's already met with environmental groups, and he's talked to the city, and he says that so far, everyone has been supportive. He launched a website this week – nofoamzone.org – where businesses and community members can learn more and sign up to pledge to go foam-free.
When he goes out to do lake cleanups around Orlando, Rollings says, "The first thing you see, floating on the surface of the water, is 15 or 20 foam containers." Turtles and birds mistake it for a food source and eat it, which can be deadly, and because it doesn't break down, it stops up drainage pipes, forming a polystyrene dam that creates flooding in other areas. And it's not just because people are tossing their to-go cups in the gutter.
"People try to put it in the right place," he says. "They put it in a trash can, but a gentle breeze is all it takes. It blows into the water, and then it's there for eternity."
Ever since Miami decided to ditch foam, five other South Florida municipalities have followed suit, including Key Biscayne, Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor Islands, North Bay Village and Surfside, and DeFilippi says he is also meeting with the city of Fort Lauderdale to discuss it.
"People don't pay attention to the impact of their single-use lifestyle," he says. "But foam products are horrible. They are so lightweight, they are easily carried into the water and get into the storm-drain system, and it's so easy for them to make it into the waterways. And because they are so weak, they break up into a million little pieces, and that creates this toxic soup that's really hard to get out of the water."
The industry response is, not surprisingly, dismissive of concerns. The American Chemical Council, for instance, combats complaints that polystyrene is a problem by pointing out how convenient it is:
"Polystyrene foam and other plastic foodservice products are affordable, convenient, sanitary and sturdy," American Chemistry Council vice president of plastics Steve Russell says in a statement posted to the group's website. "They stand up to greasy chili, keep our hot drinks hot without scalding our hands and keep our food fresher and ready to eat. As more of us are eating and drinking far from home – while driving to work, on the street corner – they help make possible the way we eat and live today."
One of the organization's tactics to fight foam bans, DeFilippi says, is to offer to help with recycling efforts. "They come in saying, 'We can set up a recycling facility for free in your city,'" he says, "but the thing is, polystyrene can't be easily recycled and it isn't included in single-stream recycling many cities use. So what they are actually providing is a bin at City Hall, where people can go to drop off their foam products when they are done using them."
The council also says that "foam foodservice products" make up less than 1 percent of the nation's solid waste and that they're less expensive than the alternatives.
And expense is a valid concern for small businesses. But as Rollings points out, if more people switched to alternatives, prices would eventually drop.
"As with anything else, just because it's the cheapest option doesn't mean it's the best option," he says. "And prices for other products would begin to plummet if foam were eliminated and everybody went to the alternatives."
If you want to see for yourself where some of the foam packaging you're using ends up, visit the online version of this story at orlandoweekly.com for photos of foam products in Orlando streets, lakes, gutters and storm drains.
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Nano Science Has Big Holes, Experts Say
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Martina S. Barash
Methods for assessing risks associated with nanomaterials in consumer products and in the environment are still developing, scientists at a recent government sponsored event on the state of nanomaterial-exposure science said.
Scientists have made a lot of progress but still need to work on risk assessment methods, Treye Thomas of the Consumer Product Safety Commission said recently. Thomas leads the CPSC nanotechnology team.
Jim Zhang of Duke University gave an overview of consumer-exposure studies, highlighting the successes and inadequacies of existing methods. Scientists need better techniques to measure what's in consumer products, he said.
The agglomeration of nanoparticles can lead to incorrect assumptions, Zhang said.
“If we assume those particles are still below 100 nanometers”—the cutoff size as defined in the U.S.—“we're going to make a mistake, because that's not what people actually get into their lung,” according to one study, Zhang said.
Zhang looked at other factors as well. For example, dissolving silver nanoparticles can affect toxicity, he said. “If we're just looking for the silver nanoparticles, not looking at what else is put into the product, we probably are not getting the right picture in terms of health risk assessment,” he said.
Both Zhang and Bernd Nowack of Empa, a Swiss research institute, discussed the importance of looking at the entire life cycle of a product. Nowack spoke primarily about ecological exposure.
A product containing nanomaterials is linked to exposure through the release of those materials, Nowack said. But knowledge about the use and release of engineered nanomaterials is scarce, he said.
The workshop, “Quantifying Exposure to Engineered Nanomaterials from Manufactured Products—Addressing Environmental, Health, and Safety Implications,” was sponsored by the CPSC and co-hosted by the National Nanotechnology Initiative, an interagency research and development program. It took place July 7-8 in Arlington, Va.
Thomas, of the CPSC, said in concluding remarks that more resources are needed for exposure science and that the dialogue at the conference was particularly valuable for future efforts.
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SB763 Threatens the Credibility of Product Safety Regulations & Consumer Communications
Jul 14, 2015 | Fox & Hounds
By Anne M. Northup
We are fortunate to live in a country with a strong commitment to consumer safety.
Unlike some places in the world, Americans have a high degree of confidence that the products they see on store shelves or buy online have been evaluated by a trusted regulatory body and are safe.
One such regulatory body is the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), whose mission is to regulate more than 15,000 consumer products, keeping the public safe from preventable injuries and deaths caused by unsafe and defective products.
During my time as a commissioner at the CPSC, we worked to improve the safety of consumer products, such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters and household chemicals. I also understood that compliance requirements should not be unjustly burdensome on the manufacturers and small business owners who produced these products. When a regulation becomes overly burdensome, that raises the costs for Americans that need these products for their families. At the CPSC, we had to prove the benefits expected from any rule bore a reasonable relationship to its costs, and that the rule imposed the least burdensome requirement on manufacturers to reduce the risk of injury.
California is currently considering state legislation, SB 763, whose stated purpose – to help ensure the safety of children’s products – is a noble one. As a mother and a grandmother, I recognize how important it is for parents to know that their children are safe. But SB 763 seeks to impose a labeling requirement on already safe products, undermining consumer confidence and imposing a costly and unnecessary requirement on businesses.
Specifically, SB 763 would require twenty children’s products, which are already exempt from having to meet California’s flammability standard, to be labeled as containing flame-retardant chemicals or not containing flame-retardant chemicals. Imagine the confusion from expectant parents shopping for needed items when they see that the high chair is labeled as being free of flame-retardants and the crib mattress being labeled as containing them. What are they to conclude about which product is safe?
Numerous state and federal agencies already regulate product testing, formulations and warnings based on exposure and risk. In this case, the Federal Hazardous Substances Act (FHSA), administered by the CPSC, establishes categories of hazardous substances, and labeling requirements for these same consumer products. SB 763 would simply duplicate these efforts, creating confusion and unnecessarily raising their cost.
Additionally, warning labels have proven to be an ineffective mechanism for detailed consumer communication. Studies have repeatedly shown that consumers’ attitudes and beliefs are not influenced by the more specific information contained in warning labels. In fact, scientists reviewed more than 400 articles concerning warning labels on products such as seat belts, health products, and household chemicals and concluded that labels on product warning had no measurable impact on user behavior or product safety, not to mention the practical limitations of requiring more and more information on limited amounts of space.
Implementation of this proposed legislation would also be costly for California businesses. Local businesses and those businesses wishing to sell their products in the state would be required to spend significant time and resources to design and re-label their products.
Unfortunately, laws and regulations with the best intentions can have negative, and unintended consequences. SB 763’s labeling requirements are unnecessary, counter-productive and burdensome because of already existing consumer safety regulations, the confusion the proposed law will create for consumers and caregivers and the additional cost Californians will have to pay for these products.
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State Leaders Say House Chemical Bill Is Better
Jul 14, 2015 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Tony Iallonardo
In recent days, the National Governors Association (NGA), National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), and the Environmental Council of States (ECOS) have said they support the House approach to chemical safety reform. (See the letters below.)
While Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families does not endorse the House or Senate bills, we have said the House bill is the better approach and with a few targeted improvements would result in meaningful reform. The letters are significant in that they are from non-partisan organizations that represent different aspects of state government. They agree that House bill does a better job of preserving the state’s ability to act on a problematic chemical. As we’ve discussed often, states have been the leaders in acting on problem chemicals over the last several decades.
The House and Senate bills have different approaches, and preempt states to different degrees. Both bills preempt the states when a chemical passes a federal safety assessment or new federal restrictions take effect. Unfortunately, the Senate bill would preempt states years earlier during the process in which the federal government begins to look at a specific chemical. State Attorneys General have dubbed this a regulatory “void” in which neither the federal or state governments can actually restrict a chemical in commerce that is potentially dangerous to health and the environment.
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House Energy Panel Chides PHMSA for Slow Pace on Rules
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
Members of Congress reprimanded the nation's pipeline safety regulator at a House subcommittee hearing for its lagging pace in completing congressionally required pipeline rules and reports from 2012, citing a recent California crude oil pipeline spill as evidence of a broken system.
Representatives on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power grilled the acting head of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration July 14 on why the agency is moving slowly on its rules, the White House's role in vetting its rules and the timeline for completing pending mandates. While members looked for answers, pipeline industry representatives said the lag was already resulting in uncertainty related to safety investments.
“I don't know how we're going to stem the loss of confidence from the American public that we're doing all that we should be doing,” Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) said at the subcommittee hearing.
The hearing also encompassed discussions of what should appear in looming pipeline safety reauthorization legislation.
The Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty and Job Creation Act of 2011 (Pub. L. 112-90) expires Sept. 30. Sixteen out of 42 mandates assigned by Congress under this act when it was signed into law are still incomplete, Stacy Cummings, PHMSA's interim executive director, said.
Several committee members, including Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), questioned why rulemakings such as a proposal released in July that would require pipeline operators to notify a federal center within one hour of a pipeline incident have taken the agency so long to be completed (127 DEN A-11, 7/2/15).
Cummings offered little reason for the delays. Members of industry, a pipeline watchdog and state and local pipeline regulators also didn't offer explanations on why PHMSA's rulemaking process has lagged.
Congress sought to ferret out what the White House's role is in PHMSA's rulemaking process and whether delays due to Office of Management and Budget reviews are legitimate. Cummings explained that PHMSA values the White House office's reviews, which she said helps the agency “get the rules right.”
Line Drawn on Plains Pipeline
Some representatives sought to draw a line between the recent Plains All American Pipeline LP pipeline spill in Santa Barbara County, Calif., that resulted in closure and contamination of the Refugio beach and other environmental damages (103 DEN A-10, 5/29/15).
However, Cummings said the investigation of why that spill occurred is ongoing and will likely continue for months longer due, in part, to third-party reports regarding the affected pipeline.
PHMSA will be meeting with Plains representatives on July 17 to discuss safety culture and more, Cummings said. This follows a second 4,200 gallon crude oil spill July 10 from a Plains pipeline near St. Louis.
Despite the House members' attempts to show urgency though the California incident, Cummings wouldn't give a precise deadline for the mandates to be completed and said that the agency is committed to pipeline safety.
Agency Working to Address Remaining Mandates
The agency is working to address 11 of the remaining mandates through the rulemaking process and four mandates through reports being finalized by the agency, Cummings said. But she couldn't commit to completing those steps by the end of the next year.
“I simply can't look into the future and see what stakeholder input we may get, what new technology may be developed or what new requirements may come up to change our priorities to say that all 42 will be done,” Cummings said.
Cummings did provide some specifics on what could be expected from upcoming rulemakings. For example, the agency hopes to issue its proposed rule on hazardous liquid pipelines within the year, she said.
Additionally, Cummings said that based on a recent report on gathering lines that PHMSA sent to Congress in May, the agency will be proposing “in the near future” to “capture more information” regarding these lines and will be determining what parts of PHMSA rules should apply to gathering lines.
Rulemaking Uncertainty
Following Cummings' testimony, members of the pipeline industry sought to impress upon the committee the need for the completion of these rulemakings as soon as possible.
Companies that have taken voluntary actions to address issues identified in the last reauthorization face uncertainty regarding whether those investments will be in line with federal rules or accounted for once PHMSA proposes rules addressing those same issues. This could cause a company to pause before making these investments, they said.
For example, Ron Bradley, vice president of gas operations for PECO Energy who spoke on behalf of the American Gas Association, pointed to members’ actions taken to improve safety related to integrity verification processes, an area where PHMSA is set to propose a rule.
“[O]perators are uncertain if their actions to address missing or incomplete records would be nullified by future [Transportation Department] regulations,” Bradley said.
Upcoming Reauthorization
In light of the fast-approaching reauthorization deadline, House representatives questioned industry groups, a pipeline safety watchdog and regulators on the best path forward.
Cummings said that PHMSA is “grateful” for the funding appropriated for fiscal year 2015 that has allowed the agency to roughly double its pipeline enforcement staff. Additionally, she said there was room for collaboration with Congress in determining how to effectively utilize data.
Testimony submitted to the House also highlighted another upcoming debate for reauthorization—namely, whether the law should be reauthorized as it is normally for four years or five years versus reauthorizing it for only two years.
Carl Weimer, executive director of the nonprofit Pipeline Safety Trust, told regulators that two years should be enough time for PHMSA to complete the rest of its mandates.
Donald Santa, president of Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, said in his testimony that PHMSA needs certainty, too, and two years wouldn't provide that.
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EPA to Publish Final Underground Storage Tank Rule
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
The Environmental Protection Agency will formally publish July 15 the first updates to the regulations governing more than half a million underground storage tanks since 1988.
Under the final rule, owners and operators of the underground storage tanks will be required to incorporate secondary containment mechanisms for new tanks and piping, complete new training requirements, add new release prevention technologies and incorporate new periodic operation and maintenance requirements (120 DEN A-4, 6/23/15).
The rules will take effect on Oct. 13 and any legal challenges would be due then as well, under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Industry groups told Bloomberg BNA the EPA incorporated significant changes into the final rule in response to public comments that should make implementation easier and reduce compliance costs. There are some remaining concerns and unclear requirements, the groups said.
The EPA has said the updated standards (RIN 2050-AG46) will protect groundwater and reduce the risks of hazardous compound releases. The revised regulations will apply to underground storage tanks regulated under Subtitle I of RCRA, which contain mainly petroleum products.
EPA Responsiveness Noted
The Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America said there were no major surprises in the final rule and noted several areas where the EPA had been especially responsive to public comments.
“I think, generally speaking, we're not surprised by this rule and we think they have made things clearer and potentially simpler,” Eva Rigamonti, an associate with Steptoe & Johnson LLP representing SIGMA, told Bloomberg BNA.
Key improvements in the final rule include the elimination of a requirement to retrofit underground storage tanks, simplification of training requirements to explicitly allow the use of contractors, amended mandates for walk-through inspections and the codification of tank compatibility certification for units storing gasoline with greater than 10 percent ethanol or diesel containing more than 20 percent biodiesel, according to Rigamonti.
Though there were “no surprises” in the final rule, Rigamonti said SIGMA would discuss the regulation in greater detail with its members to determine what remaining concerns they might have.
Another group, the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, told Bloomberg BNA July 14 it had some lingering problems with the rule after saying earlier it was “pleased” the EPA had accepted most of its recommendations.
“We do have some concerns with the final rule and need some clarification from EPA,” Rob Underwood, president of the group, told Bloomberg BNA July 14. Underwood declined to outline specific problems until after discussing the rule further with an executive committee.
Another industry group affected by the regulation, Airlines for America, told Bloomberg BNA it was still assessing the impact of the EPA's final rule.
“When EPA proposed to extend the federal underground storage tank rules to the piping comprising certain airport hydrant fueling systems, adding another layer of federal regulation is unnecessary,” Vaughn Jennings, a spokesman for the group, said. “EPA says it took these issues into account in the final rule by tailoring certain provisions. A4A and its members continue to assess the potential impact of these provisions, a process that requires detailed review as airport hydrant systems are complex and vary significantly across airports.”
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PHMSA Excess Flow Valve Proposal Published
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Federal Register will publish July 15 a Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration proposed rule expanding the type of gas pipelines that are subject to excess flow valve requirements. The proposed rule, released July 8, would require new or replaced pipelines that are serving larger homes or small businesses to install excess flow valves and would require pipelines serving certain high-quantity gas consumers to install manual service line shut-off valves, known as curb valves (131 DEN A-12, 7/9/15). The proposed rule (RIN 2137-AE71) is available for comment for 60 days—through Sept. 14—under Docket ID No. PHMSA-2011-0009. The public inspection notice is available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2015-17195.pdf.
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Pipeline Safety Regulators To Slap Plains Over Illinois Spill
Jul 14, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration today plans to hit Plains All American, the operator behind a 101,000-gallon oil spill that reached the Pacific Ocean in May, with a new corrective order over a second spill it suffered last week in Illinois.
PHMSA’s interim executive director, Stacy Cummings said that in addition to beginning the enforcement process against Plains — which reported that 4,200 gallons of oil leaked from its failed Illinois pipeline — the agency plans to meet with Plains executives on Friday.
That Friday sit down will focus on “their safety record, safety culture, what they’re doing to address these issues, but also the safety of their entire systems,” Cummings testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A PHMSA spokeswoman said a copy of the signed corrective order against Plains was not immediately available. -
House Panel Urges Speedup on Seismic Survey Permits
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Members of a congressional subcommittee urged the Interior Department to ramp up its issuance of permits allowing oil and gas companies to use seismic and other geophysical surveying to identify resource-rich drilling zones offshore, saying there is no scientific evidence such activity kills or injures marine mammals.
“There hasn't been a verifiable take,” Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said during a July 14 oversight hearing of the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources. “You ought to issue the permits. This is ridiculous.”
“Companies have to go through this long, drawn-out process when we can't prove there has been any marine mammal harassment, death or maiming,” he added.
Abigail Ross Hopper, director of the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said eight applications are pending for seismic surveying in the Mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf.
The bureau won't issue permits until applicants secure authorizations from the National Marine Fisheries Service under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act in addition to completing coastal state consistency review determinations under the Coastal Zone Management Act, Hopper said.
The bureau issued a permit July 10 to ARKeX, a non-seismic geophysical company, Hopper said, adding that she supports the issuance of permits to other companies planning to explore in the Atlantic OCS region.
Seismic Waves Created
Seismic surveying employs a noise like that generated by an air gun to generate seismic waves that are then sensed by receivers, yielding an image of the Earth's geophysical properties.
Seismic and non-seismic geophysical imaging reduces the overall footprint for exploration, Jim White, president of ARKeX, testified at the hearing. It provides greater certainty for the energy industry by increasing the likelihood that exploratory wells will successfully tap into hydrocarbons “and helps avoid drilling in areas where we won't be successful,” he said.
It can be done safely, industry representatives said.
“There is at present no scientific support for statements that seismic sound kills or injures animals, causes them to beach themselves or disrupts their behavior to the extent that it affects the health and well-being of the individuals or the populations of which they are a part,” said Robert C. Gisiner, director of Marine Environmental Science/Biology for the International Association of Geophysical Contractors.
Protective Measures Addressed
BOEM issued a record of decision for Atlantic geological and geophysical activities in July 2014, establishing stringent protective measures and safeguards for seismic survey activity while reducing or eliminating impacts on the environment and marine life, Hopper said.
Protective measures include vessel strike avoidance, special closure areas to protect the main migratory route for the highly endangered North Atlantic right whale, consideration of geographic separation of simultaneous seismic air gun surveys and passive acoustic monitoring to supplement visual observers and improve detection of marine mammals prior to and during seismic surveys, she said.
The regulatory process began in January 2009, noted Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), subcommittee chairman.
“Now, more than six years later, not one seismic surveying permit has been granted by the federal government—despite the fact that BOEM's own chief environmental officer has found that there is no evidence of seismic activities adversely affecting marine animal populations or coastal communities,” he said. The permit issued to ARKeX on July 10 was for non-seismic imaging.
Richie Miller, president of Spectrum Geo Inc., a processor of seismic data for the oil and gas industry, discussed the process for the NMFS issuance of incidental take authorizations, or IHAs.
Spectrum Geo in August 2014 submitted its authorization and environmental assessment to NMFS. “At the time, we understood that we would complete the process in the spring and could begin acquiring seismic [data] this summer,” he said.
Timeline Slipped
“That timeline has since slipped considerably until the end of 2015, and our application has still not been deemed complete. We also understand that NMFS has added a new, unprecedented ‘public review’ period to the process in addition to the existing public comment period,” he said.
Duncan said it was ironic the federal government is requiring IHAs for geophysical and geological research in the Atlantic OCS “at the same time IHA equivalents are being issued by the Fish and Wildlife Service for wind and solar development, which kills hundreds of thousands of birds and other animals that are fried on solar displays or taken out by wind turbines.”
The committee heard from one scientist who attested to the harmful effects of seismic surveying on marine life, in contrast to what other panelists said about the practice.
“Seismic airguns generate the most intense sounds that humans put in the ocean short of explosives,” Douglas P. Nowacek, Repass-Rodgers Chair of Marine Conservation Technology at Duke University, said in testimony submitted to the panel.
“Firing a standard airgun array deployed behind a seismic survey vessel generates approximately 250-260 decibels of sound, and while it is difficult to draw exact equivalents in air, these levels approximate the epicenter of a grenade blast and would easily cause the rupture of the human eardrum,” he said.
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Republicans Want Answers On Seismic Testing Permits
Jul 15, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Geof Koss
House Republicans want the Obama administration to get moving on permits to allow seismic testing of oil and gas resources off the Atlantic coast.
That's the clear message members of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources sent to the head of the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management yesterday.
Subcommittee Chairman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) noted that scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey, National Science Foundation and Columbia University recently conducted seismic testing off the East Coast to measure sediment thickness. They employed a technique Lamborn said was very similar to those of eight companies that are currently awaiting federal permits to search for oil and gas in waters farther south.
"The only difference is the eight companies I describe want to collect data to determine potential hydrocarbon resources," he said at the outset of the hearing. "But they can't -- because they are still awaiting permits from the federal government."
Republicans spent much of the hearing seeking to establish the safety of seismic tests, which emit loud blasts of compressed air to locate mineral deposits below the seabed.
Industry witnesses testified that the blasts do not harm marine animals.
"I will start by stating categorically and confidently that there is at present no scientific support for statements that seismic sound kills or injures animals, causes them to beach themselves or disrupts their behavior to the extent that it affects the health and well-being of the individuals or the populations of which they are a part," said Robert Gisiner, director of marine environment for the International Association of Geophysical Contractors.
That point was contradicted by the minority witness, Douglas Nowacek of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment and Edmund T. Pratt Jr. School of Engineering, who testified that the seismic tests industry wants to conduct from Delaware to Florida would cause adverse effects to marine life.
"If these permits are granted, ocean animals located in that wide area of the Atlantic Ocean would be exposed to noise levels that are likely to cause impacts and to disrupt essential behavior patterns," he told the panel.
Republicans pressed BOEM Director Abigail Ross Hopper on the safety of the practice, with Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) asking if she was aware of any documented cases of harm to marine life during the 50 years seismic testing has been used in the Gulf of Mexico.
"Not to my knowledge, sir," she told Fleming.
But Hopper told the panel that the reviews of the industry permits are ongoing, with the National Marine Fisheries Service still needing to consider the effects of seismic testing on animals under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act.
"BOEM will not issue permits until those processes are complete," she said.
Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.), who is soliciting support from his colleagues for an upcoming letter to the Commerce Department -- which houses NMFS -- about seismic permitting delays, accused the administration of having a double standard for supporting the widespread development of wind and solar, which can harm birds.
"It is a fact that wind and solar kills hundreds of thousands of birds," he told Hopper.
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Michigan to Ban Heavy Crude From Enbridge Pipeline
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nora Macaluso
Michigan regulators proposed banning the transport of heavy “tar sands” oil through an Enbridge Inc. pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac, although a report from a task force stopped short of calling for an immediate shutdown of the 62-year-old pipe.
The ban on heavy crude, which is not currently carried on the line, was one of 13 recommendations in a July 14 report from a task force on pipeline safety headed by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette (R) and Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant.
“Michigan is safer now because of these recommendations,” Schuette told reporters at a press conference announcing the report's release. Other recommendations include calling for the state to undertake an independent risk analysis, paid for by Enbridge, of potential liability from an oil spill from the straits pipeline; requiring Enbridge to carry insurance coverage that would cover that liability; assessing options for the pipeline, including decommissioning it and replacing it with an overland line; and requiring Enbridge to disclose additional information about its operations, including details about inspection and repairs.
The report, the result of year-long consultations with business, regulatory and environmental groups, also makes broader recommendations for pipeline safety in Michigan, including that it improve coordination among the federal and state agencies charged with overseeing pipelines, ramp up procedures for responding to spills, and investigate whether the state should establish a hazardous liquids pipeline safety program of its own.
Enbridge said the task force's work “will help advance the safe and reliable operations of pipelines in the State of Michigan.”
“Enbridge will review the entire report and will work with the Michigan state government to further understand the recommendations and the additional analysis that is being proposed,” the company said in a statement e-mailed to Bloomberg BNA July 14.
Line 5's ‘Days Are Numbered.’
Much of the report focuses on Line 5, the Enbridge pipeline running through the straits, because of calls for its shutdown after the rupture of another Enbridge pipeline resulted in the release of more than 800,000 gallons of heavy crude into a Kalamazoo River tributary (93 DEN A-9, 5/14/15).
Schuette said he doesn't see a long-term future for Line 5.
“My personal opinion is, its days are numbered,” he said.
However, he said there needs to be some way of transporting the 500,000 barrels of oil per day that currently flow through the line.
“If you didn't have the pipeline, it would be 30 to 50 tankers a day on the Great Lakes, 2,500 trucks a day—some of those going over the Mighty Mac [the Mackinac Bridge, which spans the straits]—700 railcars transporting light oils and petroleum product—the fact is, you have that reality,” he said. “We're trying to balance all of that and have enhanced safety precautions.”
The National Wildlife Federation praised the report, saying it “sets the stage to stop the flow of oil through the Straits of Mackinac.”
“The report creates a framework for a broader conversation about options for transporting fossil fuels in environmentally, socially and economically responsible ways throughout Michigan and the Great Lakes region,” Mike Shriberg, regional executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's Great Lakes Regional Center, said in a statement. NWF research on the pipeline and the potential impacts of a spill were cited in the report as part of the impetus for the task force review.
Others said the task force fell short in its mission. David Holtz, chair of the Sierra Club's Michigan chapter, called the recommendations “a rearranging of deck chairs on Michigan's Titanic of oil pipelines, only worse.”
“Given that many of the recommendations in the report could take months and years to implement, the report constitutes a failure on the part of state officials to prioritize protecting the Great Lakes over protecting the oil industry's profits,” Holtz said.
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Century-Old Law Looms As Hurdle For Exports Push
Jul 15, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Geof Koss
With a growing body of research backing their economic and security arguments, supporters of ending the crude export ban are growing increasingly confident about the legislative prospects of repealing what they call an antiquated policy.
"Really the momentum is building," Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) told reporters yesterday. "You've got a lot more information out there showing that it's good for the country, it's good for job creation, and it ultimately will help us continue to build our energy industry and lower prices at the pump."
But there's another aspect of the export debate that has gotten less attention -- one that requires lawmakers to tread carefully to avoid stirring up long-simmering discontent over a statute that predates even the 1970s-era crude export ban.
That law is the Jones Act, which was signed in 1920 by President Woodrow Wilson and requires that commodities move between U.S. ports only on American-built and -owned vessels operated by crews that are three-quarters U.S. citizens.
A host of industry sectors have long complained about the costs the Jones Act imposes on intra-country shipments, but the clout of the domestic shipbuilding industry and coastal lawmakers has kept the law intact.
With the domestic oil and gas boom, the familiar Jones Act complaints have resurfaced in recent years, exacerbated by the lack of infrastructure for moving energy supplies to market.
The Jones Act prompted a mini war of words last year between refiners and shipbuilders, when Charles Drevna, who was then president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, suggested that refiners could live with a repeal of the crude exports ban if it were accompanied by changes to the Jones Act.
Drevna's comments were met with a sarcastic response from Tom Allegretti, chairman of the American Maritime Partnership, which represents shipbuilders. In a speech last fall, Allegretti slammed Drevna's suggestion that foreign mariners could move U.S. goods at a lower cost than Jones Act flagged vessels.
"Well, that's an unconventional idea!" Allegretti said. "We'll replace all the American workers with foreign workers, pay them Third World wages and see if we can't reduce the cost of domestic shipping! And when we are done with shipping, perhaps we can do the same with Drevna's refineries. Then eventually we can replace all American workers with cheaper foreign workers."
The dust-up illustrates why crude export backers are so wary about bringing the Jones Act into the crude exports debate.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), who is leading repeal efforts in the House, sought to separate the issues, even while acknowledging they're intertwined.
"It is related, but it is not tied to it," he told E&E Daily last month. "It needs to be looked at, and I think on a separate track. But I'm not opposed to looking at it. I don't want to tie that to this. That's a lot more controversial; there's a lot more gray area in that than in a straight-out repeal of the ban on crude oil, [which is] is a pretty black-and-white issue."
In the Senate, Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) yesterday sought to downplay the issue.
"Jones Act is certainly out there," she told E&E Daily. "I don't think it's insurmountable at all. I hear those same arguments, but I don't think it's a showstopper. I think it's probably premature to be talking about is there a need for reform, because right now what we're trying to do with the issue is gauge where that level of support is. And I'll be honest, I haven't had anybody come up to me and say, 'Lisa, I'd be with you on oil exports if we got rid of Jones Act.' Not one person has said that."
But she, too, acknowledged that ending the crude export ban would prompt concern over the Jones Act.
"I do think that it clearly is an issue out there in terms of how we move the oil, but not in terms of it being something that we have to negotiate with ourselves right now," she said.
The Congressional Research Service detailed the connection between the two policies last year, noting estimates that transporting Gulf of Mexico crude to Northeastern refineries on Jones Act tankers adds $5 to $6 a barrel, while shipping the same crude to Canada (allowed under agreements that generally mean the refined product is reimported into the United States) on foreign-flagged tankers was $2.41.
"For a Texas oil producer using a tanker with capacity of 300,000 barrels, this rate difference amounts to receiving $1 million less for a shipment of oil to a U.S. refinery than for a shipment to a more distant Canadian refinery," CRS said.
Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) raised the issue last week during an Energy and Power Subcommittee hearing, where he noted that lifting the crude export ban without accompanying changes to the Jones Act would make it cheaper to send U.S. crude to Europe than to Philadelphia-area refineries.
"And that's going to cost a lot of jobs -- high-paying union jobs," he said.
Hoeven, who supports making changes to the Jones Act, said yesterday that the issue is likely to surface when Congress actually takes votes on the crude export ban.
"I think it's likely to be voted on; whether we get enough votes to pass it or not, I don't know," he said. "But I think that would likely be an amendment that you're going to see on one of these bills."
Murkowski yesterday noted that the administration has authority to waive the Jones Act on a case-by-case basis, which different presidents have done in extenuating circumstances, usually when hurricanes have disrupted Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production.
"We have seen, as there have been requests for specific waivers over the years, arguments and cases made that are fact-specific," she said.
However, Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), who noted that he represents not just the oil patch but a port in Houston -- and therefore supports the shipbuilding industry -- said the disparities that would be created by ditching the crude export ban and keeping the Jones Act intact don't rise to the level that would warrant a waiver.
"The administration has the ability to do waivers now, but it's only been in catastrophes," he told E&E Daily last week. "That crude oil from the Gulf Coast up to Pennsylvania is not something that's because of a natural disaster; it's because we don't have enough infrastructure. I would rather us encourage infrastructure so we could do that instead of hurting our U.S.-flagged ship industry."
Doyle, who expressed concern about the effect on his state's refineries, was more blunt during last week's hearing.
"We have no intention of lifting the Jones Act in the United States Congress," he said. "Just so that's clear. That's not going to happen."
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What We Don't Know About Fracking Could Hurt Us
Jul 14, 2015 | LA Times
A year and a half in the making, a new scientific report on hydraulic fracturing in the state offers Californians the less than satisfying revelation that scientists are still in the dark about fracking. That's not to denigrate the report released last week by the California Council on Science and Technology, which was carefully researched, objectively written and based on the best available information. The problem is that the best available information is terribly deficient, which should give pause to state residents and regulators.
Fracking, a form of oil well stimulation, uses chemical-laced water injected into the ground at high pressure to open fissures and extract previously unreachable oil or gas. According to the report, there is inadequate information about more than half the chemicals used in fracking, including their toxicity levels and potential danger to the environment and public health. That information is important because wastewater from fracking operations has to be dumped somewhere, and in some cases ends up in unlined ponds, from which it can trickle into groundwater that might be used for drinking, the report said.
The wastewater also might be used to irrigate crops, the report noted, and although such water is supposed to be treated first, no agency is making sure that happens.
How big is the risk? Probably low, the report surmised, but we don't know that either. It certainly doesn't inspire confidence that lax oversight by the state's Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources allowed wastewater from oil drilling operations to be stored in hundreds of wells that were supposed to have been protected. Californians wouldn't even have this new report if not for legislation passed in 2013, which required the state's minerals overseer to commission it and develop regulations requiring extensive monitoring of and reporting on fracking operations.
But because of timing glitches, the regulations came out a week before the report did — not an ideal process. And although the agency overseeing oil and gas is under new management and has pledged to take the report's findings into consideration when issuing new rules, Californians need more — including an independent overseer — to guarantee that this mission is carried out effectively.
Sen. Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills), author of the 2013 fracking bill, is adding provisions to an existing bill to address some of the issues in the report. SB 248 would phase out the use of unlined ponds for waste and call for a uniform list of allowable chemicals in fracking. That's good as far as it goes, which isn't nearly far enough.
Pushing forward in the dark isn't smart. It has long been apparent that a moratorium on major new fracking is in order until more is known about its risks and benefits. That's all the more reasonable now that we understand how little we understand.
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California Should Not Issue Permits For Offshore Fracking
Jul 14, 2015 | The Sacramento Bee
By Miyoko Sakashita
The contrast couldn’t be more striking. Just as New York state banned fracking, California officials quietly issued nine offshore fracking permits in the wake of the state’s worst oil spill in 25 years.
These permits for fracking on oil islands off Long Beach harbor are the first in California waters since public controversy over the dangerous practice sent the industry on a hiatus. The permits add insult to injury considering Big Oil just coated the Santa Barbara coastline with crude and killed hundreds of birds, dolphins and other wildlife.
Miyoko Sakashita
California and New York enjoy a healthy rivalry in many realms, but California is now playing catch-up on environmental leadership. Environmentalists and public officials in both states have pushed for fracking bans for many years, citing evidence of the significant dangers posed by hydraulic fracturing, which extracts more oil and natural gas from existing wells by blasting them with huge amounts of water and toxic chemicals.
In New York, regulators decided a ban was the only reasonable alternative given fracking’s impact on the environment and public health.
Yet California regulators recently approved the offshore fracking permits without acknowledging the growing public concern. Environmentalists are now urging Gov. Jerry Brown to reverse the decision before the fracking begins in August.
The last time Santa Barbara was coated in oil, not only did the state make offshore drilling leases off-limits, but the spill also sparked a national movement that led to our nation’s primary environmental laws. Offshore drilling and fracking is dangerous; it risks oil spills, water contamination, air pollution and earthquakes.
The governor should halt these fracking permits and come up with a plan to retire California’s aging oil rigs.
Gov. Brown has noted that California is setting the pace on responding to climate change. “We’re going to take whatever steps are needed to get the job done, because our future depends on it,” he told a conference in April as he announced new targets for reducing the state’s carbon emissions.
If the governor is serious about his climate leadership, then he needs to ban fracking.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article27280264.html#storylink=cpy -
LNG Exports, Efficiency Get Partisan Debate At Senate Small Business Hearing
Jul 15, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Ben Panko
Two contrasting outlooks on small businesses' energy costs were debated yesterday by the Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.
At issue was whether loosening federal regulations or encouraging energy efficiency improvements would be the best way to aid energy development companies or energy-intensive manufacturers.
The flash points were over proposals to expedite the approvals for exporting liquefied natural gas.
"Our small businesses have the potential to unleash a new generation of affordable energy and highly skilled and highly paid jobs across the country," Chairman David Vitter (R-La.) said. "Unfortunately, policies and regulations coming from the Obama administration, and specifically the Environmental Protection Agency, are slowing down our economic growth and domestic energy production."
Vitter referenced a 2010 study from the Small Business Administration that found federal regulations cost American business about $1.75 trillion annually. He promised to introduce a bill in the next few days to reduce regulatory burden on small businesses.
Sens. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) both followed Vitter's lead, mentioning the negative impacts of federal regulations in their states on coal mining and coal-fired power plants, respectively.
But ranking Democrat Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire argued that helping small businesses become more energy efficient is the best way to help them succeed as energy costs rise. She touted her introduction yesterday of the "Small Business Energy Efficiency Act of 2015," which would ensure that small businesses can apply for SBA loans for energy efficiency improvements.
"By helping small businesses take full advantage of energy efficiency, we reap a wide range of benefits," Shaheen said.
Kateri Callahan, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, spoke in favor of two bills sponsored by Shaheen, the "Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2015," (S. 720), which would promote energy efficiency in residential and industrial buildings, and the "Smart Manufacturing Leadership Act," (S. 1054), which would direct the Energy Department to create a "smart manufacturing plan" for small and medium-sized businesses to help improve their productivity and energy efficiency.
"Energy efficiency is America's greatest natural resource," Callahan said, but the problem is that many small business owners lack the expertise to make energy efficiency improvements on their own. "We need a central location for businesses to come to so they can get the help that they need," she said. Shaheen serves as honorary chairwoman of the ASE.
But Toby Mack, president of the Energy Equipment and Infrastructure Alliance, argued for relaxing the approval process for exporting LNG.
"Policies that support increased exports of energy will result in a great number of new well-paying jobs and strong growth of business output in the American energy supply chain, and especially for its many small businesses," Mack said.
Tyson Slocum, director of the Public Citizen Energy Program, placed himself firmly against any plan to allow increased LNG exports, and in fact argued that the Department of Commerce should clamp down on the process.
"There's no question that if we ramp up the exports of natural gas, we're going to see higher domestic prices," Slocum said. And while that would help energy companies, he said, "there are a lot more businesses out there that would be harmed by increasing gas exports."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) agreed with Slocum, pointing out that the United States is not energy independent and still imports millions of barrels of oil per day from the Middle East.
"We finally have a surplus, and the first thought of the oil and gas industry is export it out of the country," Markey said.
Neil Aspinwall, chancellor of SOWELA (Southwest Louisiana) Technical Community College in Lake Charles, La., asked the committee to amend regulations on federal financial aid to accommodate the condensed training programs that his college provides to workers in the oil and gas industries.
"SOWELA and the Louisiana Community and Technical College System have a golden opportunity to shape the future of Louisiana and the nation as a whole by producing the workforce needed to ensure that America continues to produce the energy necessary to fuel an economy that will provide financial and economic stability, vitality and prosperity for generations to come," Aspinwall said.
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Sanders Tries To Trump Clinton On Climate, Pipeline After She Meets With Senate Dems
Jul 14, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey and Jean Chemnick
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in an impromptu speech on Capitol Hill today touted his record on climate change and opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline while attempting to undercut former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for failing to make her positions clear.
Following a Democratic luncheon where Clinton appeared, Sanders, who is competing with Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, told reporters on Capitol Hill that he has been an adamant defender of climate protection and pushing against fossil fuels. Clinton spoke at the Senate Democratic Caucus meeting, and John Podesta, the chairman of her presidential campaign and a climate activist who served as a counselor to President Obama and chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, was in attendance.
"I happen to agree very strongly with Pope Francis that climate change is the great planetary crisis, environmental crisis that we face, I have helped lead the opposition against the Keystone pipeline," Sanders said. "I think that Secretary Clinton has not been clear on her views on that issue."
Sanders also attempted to differentiate himself from Clinton on regulatory matters. Sanders said he spearheaded the opposition to deregulating Wall Street when he was a member of the House and reiterated his belief that Congress should break up the country's major financial institutions and restore the Glass-Steagall Act, a 1930s law that limited the activities of commercial banks.
"To the best of my knowledge, those are ideas that Secretary Clinton has not agreed with," Sanders said.
When asked about the nuclear deal with Iran that the Obama administration announced early this morning, Sanders said the "devil is in the details" but that it was a significant step forward. He criticized Republicans for opposing the deal and other high-profile environmental issues like climate change.
When asked about campaign finance reform, Sanders tied Republican opposition to success at the polls.
"Out of all of the issues that face the American people, from climate change to health care to the Iranian agreement, this disastrous and corrupt campaign finance system that we have impacts all of them," Sanders said.
Of those issues, Sanders said climate change was a top contender.
"I do not believe that my Republican friends do not believe the science, I think they are afraid to come out and take on the Koch brothers, take on Exxon Mobil and say, 'You know what, maybe climate change is real,'" the senator said. "If they say that, the next day they will be challenged in the primaries with huge amounts of money coming from the big energy companies and the Koch brothers."
But Democrats told reporters after the luncheon that Clinton had touched on global warming during the Senate meeting and had even offered a positive message about Sanders.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said during an interview that Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) had raised the issue of climate change at the meeting and that Clinton has been working on the issue for a long time and has been very persuasive.
"I think she understands the potency of the issue increasingly for everyday Americans," Schatz said. "She made reference to John Podesta's leadership in her campaign and the need to stand by the president's Clean Power Plan. So we're very encouraged."
Podesta was a key player at the White House as the U.S. EPA formulated the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration's signature proposal for curbing carbon emissions.
Schatz said Clinton emphasized the role the coal industry had played and said that coal miners in particular have helped create what is modern America.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Clinton talked about how to send the best message to millennials on climate change and the upcoming negotiations in Paris.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said the former secretary of State made positive comments about Sanders and that nobody asked her specifically about the Keystone XL pipeline. "She talked a good deal about climate," Kaine said.
When asked by reporters about the contentious pipeline before the luncheon, Clinton smiled but did not provide a comment.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) was also pleased with Clinton's message. "It was so exciting. She was so good and knowledgeable," Boxer said. "I was pleased with everything she talked about because she's basically unifying Democrats with her message of jobs and fairness and opportunity."
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Murkowski Backs Assessment of U.S. Energy Exports
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
North American energy independence “is not only an attainable goal, but also increasingly the economic reality,” Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) wrote in a letter July 24 to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. “We are writing to strongly support analytical efforts by the intelligence community to assess the geopolitical and international security implications of our nation's energy renaissance, and to ensure that policymakers are kept fully informed of this analysis,” the letter said. The letter also was signed by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.).
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Midwestern Dems Call For Study On Oil Sands Byproduct
Jul 15, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Hannah Northey
Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Gary Peters of Michigan yesterday called for a deep look into the health and environmental effects of petroleum coke as well as possible new federal regulations to govern how the material is transported and stored.
The senators introduced a bill, the "Petroleum Coke Transparency and Public Health Study Act of 2015," which would require the first federal study of the effects of pet coke, a waste byproduct of refining oil sands.
Based on those results, the bill would also require new federal rules for storing and moving the black industrial byproduct.
Concern in both chambers of Congress over the composition of pet coke is tied to industrial processes in both Illinois and Michigan. Dust blowing off large piles of petroleum coke near Detroit and Chicago has concerned residents in those areas and prompted U.S. EPA to require companies owning the piles to increase monitoring.
Democratic Rep. Robin Kelly of Illinois introduced a sister bill in the lower chamber earlier this year.
Durbin said in a statement that the government has made progress containing the material on Chicago's Southeast Side, but Congress needs to ensure that the material doesn't land in another state's backyard.
"The comprehensive study of petroleum coke authorized by this bill can give us the information we need to continue expanding our energy economy while protecting our public health and environment," he said.
Peters has made a legislative attempt in the past to float the proposal. In January, the senator introduced an amendment to legislation that would have approved the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.
The proposal, which never advanced, would have required EPA to study the health impacts of petroleum coke storage (E&E Daily, Jan. 29).
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Corker: Iran Deal ‘Could Build Some Momentum’ For Crude Exports
Jul 14, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
The landmark nuclear pact with Iran “could build some momentum around” calls to end the ban on U.S. oil exports Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker said today.
Corker, who joined the growing ranks of GOP crude-exports backers in April, stopped short of predicting that energy geopolitics would get airtime as his committee holds hearings on the nuclear deal and crafts a likely resolution of disapproval against it. But the Tennessee Republican openly described the prospect of Iran’s imminent entry onto the global oil export market as an argument in favor of allowing U.S. crude producers similarly unrestricted access to overseas buyers.
“It is interesting,” Corker said, and “supporters of exports like me will certainly point out that” the export ban handcuffs the domestic oil industry even as Tehran stands to have the sanctions lifted for its fuel sales. -
GOP Senators Pitch Energy Production To Intelligence Chief
Jul 14, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A group of Republican senators led by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) are asking the nation’s top intelligence official to study the geopolitical impact of expanded American energy production.
“We are writing to strongly support analytical efforts by the Intelligence Community assess the geopolitical and international security implications of our nation's energy renaissance, and to ensure that policymakers are kept fully informed of this analysis,” the senators wrote in a letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper on Tuesday.
A 2012 report from the National Intelligence Council called increasing American energy production a potential “tectonic shift" in policy. It said that by 2020, the U.S. “could emerge as a major energy exporter” thanks to the shale oil boom, and Republicans have argued that could have a big impact on American foreign policy.
Murkowksi and other Republicans are pushing a bill to end the federal ban on crude oil exports, something they have said could help American allies overseas lessen their reliance on oil from the Middle East or Russia.
Republicans are also looking to expand liquefied natural gas exports, and have touted its potential benefits for allies. In June, while visiting Lithuania, Speaker John Boehner said it is “one of the biggest things we can do for the region,” which currently relies on Russia for a lot of its energy imports.
As GOP bills on energy exports move forward, “our nation is also exporting record volumes of other types of energy, including petroleum products, natural gas by pipeline, natural gas liquids, coal, and nuclear and renewable energy,” the senators, which include Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) wrote.
“We agree that energy independence within North America and, perhaps, the Western Hemisphere is not only attainable but also increasingly the economic reality,” the senators wrote.
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Murkowski Plans To Start Moving Broad Bill Next Week
Jul 14, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
After months of hearings and discussion over more than a hundred bills, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said today she anticipates her committee will begin marking up a comprehensive energy package next week.
"We are pretty much on track," she told E&ENews PM this afternoon. "We're hoping we'll be able to keep our schedule for markups next week and the following week. That's the plan."
The committee will hold four markups over two weeks to meet Murkowski's goal of completing the bill before the August recess. Each markup will focus on one of the four titles of the bill, which addresses infrastructure, supply, accountability and efficiency.
Murkowski said she'll meet tomorrow with ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) to discuss the bill, which she acknowledged remains under construction.
"We're going to hopefully clear up some of the outstanding issues," she said. "So I can't say that we've got text that we can commit to right now because we've got to get a few things worked out."
A Cantwell spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.
Cantwell is leading efforts by Senate Democrats to write their own energy bill before August, a marker that is expected to guide the minority when the broader package hits the floor later this year (E&E Daily, July 7).
That effort will span the jurisdictions of multiple panels, including Finance, on which Cantwell sits.
Among the topics for discussion when the two senators meet is whether to include provisions addressing the crude oil exports ban, which Murkowski wants to overturn.
"That's something that we're engaged in [for] further discussion," she said.
Supporters of ending the ban are pointing to the deal announced today that would ease economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for steps intended to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons (Greenwire, July 14).
Republicans have criticized the agreement as doing too little to block Iran from eventually going nuclear, promising to vigorously examine the agreement during the 80-day congressional review period prescribed by a law enacted earlier this year.
The Senate Republican Policy Committee this afternoon highlighted the potential effects of eased sanctions, which would allow Iran to increase its oil exports while U.S. producers are hamstrung by the 40-year ban on crude exports.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) echoed the talking point earlier today.
"It seems ironic that the administration would want to lift sanctions on Iran's oil and maintain the sanctions on our own domestic production," he told reporters. "That makes no sense to me."
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Greens Seek To Intervene In 2 Lawsuits Against New EPA Rule
Jul 14, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Peterka
Environmental groups are seeking to intervene in two lawsuits challenging U.S. EPA's recent rule that changed the way states are required to address excess air pollution that occurs during industrial equipment malfunctions or plant startups and shutdowns.
Last night, the coalition of environmental groups filed a motion to intervene in the two cases launched by energy producers, the state of Texas and a free-market law firm.
The coalition includes the Sierra Club, Citizens for Environmental Justice, People Against Neighborhood Industrial Contamination, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice.
At issue is EPA's final rule published in June that rescinded long-standing state provisions known as "affirmative defense" that shield industrial facilities from civil penalties for violations of national ambient air quality standards that occur during startups, shutdowns and malfunctions.
The final rule also found that states cannot automatically exempt facilities from emission limits during those times. EPA required that 36 states reopen pollution control plans and submit revisions within 18 months to comply with the changes (Greenwire, May 22).
But industry groups opposed the rule, arguing that it would lead to more enforcement actions against facilities for emissions that are neither foreseeable nor controllable, as well as increase the burden on state regulators.
On June 12, the Southeastern Legal Foundation and Walter Coke Inc. petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to review the rule.
Four days later, Luminant Generation Company LLC joined the state of Texas and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, as well as other power producers in Texas, in challenging the rule in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
EPA's rulemaking arose out of a petition from the Sierra Club. Environmental groups are seeking to enter both lawsuits. They've long characterized affirmative defense and exemptions as "loopholes."
"EPA is required to close these loopholes because they are inconsistent with the Clean Air Act," said Andrea Issod, senior attorney at the Sierra Club, in a statement today. "The loopholes also have the real-world consequences of compromising air quality and public health."
In a public comment in January filed with EPA, Luminant noted that a recent court decision in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas had upheld Texas' affirmative defense clause in a lawsuit by the Sierra Club against Luminant parent company Energy Future Holdings Corp.
Luminant argued that EPA was "bound" by the case's outcome and should have changed its proposal.
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Clinton Seeks To Balance Climate Change, Coal Country
Jul 14, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Darren Goode
Hillary Clinton on Tuesday told Senate Democrats she would continue the Obama administration’s climate agenda — while also emphasizing the need to protect coal workers and communities.
At the same time, just around the corner from Clinton’s closed-door lunch meeting with Senate Democrats, Sen. Bernie Sanders, her top rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, argued he has a greener record.
While climate change was just one of the myriad issues Clinton addressed on her first trip to Capitol Hill as a candidate, her nod to the coal industry showed the balancing act she’s undertaking to establish a broad appeal in her party, even as Sanders builds momentum to her left.
Clinton and her rivals have been competing for the support of the army of activists who have stymied the Keystone XL pipeline and are intensely focused on climate change. But she is also courting swing states and voters who are still very much tied to the fossil-fueled economy, and who may be crucial in the general election if she wins her party’s nomination.
“She did talk at length and with some passion about the need to recognize that as we go through this transition that we have to respect the contribution that the coal industry has made to American growth and that coal miners in particular, the sacrifices that they’ve made to create what is modern America,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told reporters afterward.
“That was an important area of emphasis that she wants to show that she understands what people are going through [during the transition to cleaner sources of energy] … that we gotta respect people in every walk of life including those who are currently in the fossil fuel industry.”
Clinton’s message could resonate in traditionally blue or purple states that count tens of thousands of coal miners among their ranks, including Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado and New Mexico, although the Republican nominee is likely to carry the largest coal-mining states — Wyoming, West Virginia and Kentucky, according to the National Mining Association.
While Clinton held court with her former colleagues, Sanders, an independent from Vermont, held an impromptu press conference right around the corner on the second floor of the Capitol Building to reiterate the differences between them and tout his early opposition to the Keystone pipeline.
“I don’t believe we should be excavating or transporting some of the dirtiest fuel on this planet,” Sanders said. “I think Secretary Clinton has not been clear on her views on that issue.”
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee and head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told POLITICO Tuesday morning that he planned to ask Clinton about climate change ahead of a meeting she held with the caucus later in the afternoon. Grijalva said climate change did not come up at a meeting with the broader House Democratic membership in the morning.
Keystone XL didn’t come up at either the broader House and Senate Democratic gatherings, lawmakers said. Clinton, who was secretary of state when the department’s years-long review of TransCanada’s pipeline project began, has repeatedly declined to stake out a position while the review continues.
Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), a leading voice on climate and clean energy issues, asked Clinton about climate change during the lunch meeting, and she defended her green credentials.
“She’s been working on this for a long time, she’s very persuasive and I think she understands the potency of this issue increasingly for everyday Americans,” said Schatz, a member of the Environment and Public Works Committee who has focused heavily on climate change in the Senate.
However, Clinton did not get into details of her policy positions, Schatz said.
Heinrich said he asked Clinton about climate change because it is an issue he cares about and one that resonates with younger voters. “And I think it’s very important that we speak to millennials,” he told POLITICO. He said Clinton’s response was “very good.”
Clinton also touted the work of her campaign manager John Podesta, who accompanied her to her series of meetings today in the Capitol Building. As a senior White House adviser before joining the Clinton campaign, Podesta helped Obama put together and roll out his climate strategy, and Clinton said she would “stand by” the greenhouse gas rules for power plants that are the centerpiece of that strategy, Schatz recalled.
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EPA Is Fulfilling the Clean Air Act
Jul 14, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal - Opinion
By Janet McCabe
Your July 7 editorial, “Stopping EPA Uber Alles,” disturbingly equates the EPA’s Clean Air Act standards with the bombing of Dresden, a baffling comparison. When Congress enacted the Clean Air Act, its first stated purpose was, “to protect and enhance the quality of the nation’s air resources so as to promote the public health and welfare.” The EPA, states, tribes and communities have implemented the Clean Air Act for nearly 45 years. The result? Fewer cases of pollution-related illnesses, including heart attacks, lung disease and premature death—while the economy has steadily grown.
The EPA is cutting pollution from power plants because of the law, not despite it. Power plants are the largest single source of both mercury and carbon pollution in the U.S. With every rule the EPA creates, the agency is committed to meeting the law’s letter and spirit, while following strict procedures for public review and input. Over the past six years, the courts have upheld the EPA’s air rules far more often than not, agreeing that the agency acts within the authority Congress gave it and makes decisions based on the transparent factual record before it.
The Clean Air Act has helped the U.S. phase out lead in gasoline, significantly curb acid rain and reverse damage to the Earth’s protective ozone layer. Since 1970, the Clean Air Act has cut air pollution by 70% while the U.S. economy has tripled. Reversing this legacy through questionable legal maneuvers would be the true disaster.
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White House Subpoenaed on Water Rule Documents
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is seeking all documents and communications considered by the White House Office of Management and Budget during its evaluation of a final rule clarifying Clean Water Act jurisdiction as part of a subpoena issued July 14.
In a statement, Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) expressed frustration with the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Director Howard Shelanski over his refusal to hand over the material used in developing the rule (RIN 2040–AF30).
“Therefore, issuing a subpoena became the necessary next step,” Chaffetz said, adding that “Congress and the American people have a right to understand how rules are developed. OIRA plays a key role in ensuring agencies are meeting statutory guidelines in their proposed rules.”
The Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published June 29 that seeks to clarify the scope of Clean Water Act jurisdiction over waters and wetlands (80 Fed. Reg. 37,054; 125 DEN A-4, 6/30/15).
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee's subpoena was issued the same day that Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, including Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.), wrote to EPA, demanding legal justification for the rulemaking.
EPA Ignoring Requests
The Senate Republicans said the agency had ignored their requests. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Environment Subcommittee on Fisheries, Water and Wildlife, and others have been asking the EPA and the corps to provide legal justification for the rulemaking since the first joint House-Senate hearing took place on the rule in February.
The congressional requests came after the U.S. Chamber of Commerce led four national and regional business groups in challenging the rule.
The Ohio-based Murray Energy Corp., a national coal producing company, has filed challenges in both the U.S. District Court for the District of West Virginia and on July 13 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (Murray Energy Corp. v. EPA, 6th Cir., 15-03751 , petition for review 7/13/15).
Murray Energy, which announced plans in May to lay off about 1,800 workers from its mines, has blamed the decline in coal production to low natural gas prices, and President Barack Obama's anti-coal policies.
In the petition to the Sixth Circuit, the coal producer claimed, “Murray Energy is immediately, directly and adversely impacted by the Final Rule, which expands federal jurisdiction over many geographic features on Murray Energy's mine sites, such as ditches and isolated waters, never before subject to Clean Water Act jurisdiction.”
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Senate Republicans demand legal basis for water rule
Jul 15, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Robin Bravender
Senate GOP critics of a new Obama administration water regulation are pressing U.S. EPA's chief to defend the rule's legal underpinnings.
All 11 Republican members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee called on EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a letter sent yesterday to provide a legal explanation of the Waters of the U.S. rule.
EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers in May released the final rule that would increase the number of streams and wetlands that receive automatic protection under the Clean Water Act (Greenwire, May 27). Critics of the regulation argue that the agencies overreached and could vastly restrict business activities, and more than two dozen states are challenging the rule in court.
"This final rule tramples the Constitution, Supreme Court precedent, and the language of the statute itself," Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), EPW chairman, said yesterday in a statement. "I am not surprised that 28 states have already filed lawsuits to stop this unlawful encroachment of state authority over land and water."
In their letter, the lawmakers accused the EPA chief of failing to respond to a request made at a March hearing to provide the legal rationale for the draft rule. And they warned that the final rule "raises even more questions regarding its legality."
"In fact, it appears that EPA is once again rewriting a statute to meet its policy goals despite repeated warnings from the Supreme Court against such actions," they wrote.
The Obama administration and supporters of the regulation have heralded the new policy as a way to provide clarity and certainty to businesses about which waters are protected by the Clean Water Act. Two muddled Supreme Court decisions had created extensive confusion around whether some small streams fall under the scope of the act.
The lawmakers asked McCarthy to send them EPA's legal justification within 30 days.
"It's important to remember that EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers finalized the Clean Water Rule because protection for many of the nation's streams and wetlands had been confusing, complex, and time-consuming as the result of Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006," EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison said in a statement yesterday.
"In order to clearly protect the streams and wetlands that form the foundation of the nation's water resources, the Agencies developed a rule that ensures that waters protected under the Clean Water Act are more precisely defined, more predictably determined, and easier for businesses and industry to understand," she added.
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House Likely to Consider Coal Ash Bill July 22
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
House lawmakers are expected to consider legislation (H.R. 1734) granting states a larger role in the management and disposal of coal ash July 22, a Republican aide closely tracking the bill told Bloomberg BNA July 14.
Rep. David McKinley's (R-W.Va.) bill, which was pulled from House floor consideration in late June to make room for other legislation, would also bar the Environmental Protection Agency from ever regulating the residue from coal-fired power plants as a hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
A spokesman for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) did not respond to a request for confirmation of the bill's timing.
Separately, the House Rules Committee announced it would accept amendments on the McKinley bill until July 20 at 3 p.m., paving the way for committee consideration of the measure. That process usually marks the last step before chamber consideration of legislation.
In April (80 Fed. Reg. 21,302), the EPA opted to regulate coal ash under the nonhazardous waste provisions of Subtitle D of RCRA. The regulation (RIN 2050-AE81) establishes a number of requirements for landfills and impoundments currently receiving the material, including groundwater monitoring, fugitive dust controls, location restrictions and inspections, but it contained no federal EPA enforcement mechanism (74 DEN A-4, 4/17/15).
Groups have warned the self-implementing nature of the final rule means companies would have to comply with the minimum federal standards and existing state requirements. Eliminating this potential for dual regulation is a key objective of the legislation, which enjoys the backing of utilities, state environmental regulators and coal ash recyclers.
Aides to Sens. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) have said a Senate companion version of the bill is nearly ready for introduction, but they have also said there is no firm date to unveil it yet.
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Bishop Seeks EPA Carbon Rule Documents From CEQ
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna and Andrew Childers
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) escalated attacks on the Obama administration's plans to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by pressing the White House to disclose its rationale for failing to conduct an Endangered Species Act review of the proposals.
Bishop, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, asked the White House Council on Environmental Quality July 13 to provide copies of all “emails, documents and other communications” showing why the administration decided not to conduct any analysis on the impacts of its carbon pollution rules on endangered species.
“In promulgation of these Clean Air Act rules, EPA must carefully and lawfully consider all the effects of its rulemaking, including the effects on endangered and threatened species listed under the Endangered Species Act,” Bishop said. “However, as the rulemaking process concludes, it appears that EPA has not satisfied its obligations under Section 7 of the ESA.”
In particular, the letter sought records of communications between the CEQ, the EPA and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regarding the Endangered Species Act as related to the EPA's proposed carbon emissions limits for new and existing power plants.
Bishop's letter was sent to Christy Goldfuss, managing director of CEQ. Bishop requested a response by July 27.
The EPA has proposed regulating carbon dioxide emissions from both new (RIN 2060–AQ91) and existing (RIN 2060-AR33) power plants. The rules are expected to be finalized in August.
Bishop and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) raised similar concerns in a June 15 letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.
An EPA spokeswoman said the agency responded to Bishop's letter July 13.
Carbon Emissions Declining
Carbon dioxide emissions from power plants are already declining in 42 states, according to a benchmarking report prepared for Ceres, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other business and power industry groups. The July 14 report said that 42 states have already seen carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector decline between 2008 and 2013.
The report, the 11th issued since 1997, tracks emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury and carbon dioxide from the 100 largest power producers. Those companies represent 85 percent of the electric power generated in the U.S. and 87 percent of the industry's air emissions.
The 2014 iteration of the report found that carbon dioxide emissions from power plants increased 13 percent between 1990 and 2012, but between 2008 and 2012, carbon emissions from power plants decreased by 8 percent (103 DEN A-12, 5/29/14).
To contact the reporters on this story: Andrew Childers an
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The Time Is Right for Freight Rail Reform
Jul 15, 2015 | Bloomberg BNA Law
By Cal Dooley
Unanimous consent. Those words are usually associated with the naming of a U.S. Post Office building or some other non-controversial piece of legislation. But in an era where Washington remains bitterly divided on so many issues, the U.S. Senate recently voted unanimously to modernize the nation's freight rail laws.
Freight rail provides a vital link that connects thousands of U.S. manufacturers, farmers and energy producers with consumers. Unfortunately, consolidation in the rail industry and antiquated policies have weakened this link by decreasing access to competitive and reliable freight rail service.
How did we get to this point and where do we go from here?
Congress last passed substantive freight rail legislation 35 years ago with the Staggers Rail Act of 1980. The law eliminated many burdensome regulations and helped foster a far healthier railroad industry. These reforms benefited not only railroads themselves, but also shippers, consumers and the entire economy. Since then, the market has changed dramatically while freight rail polices have stayed the same. For instance, there were 26 major railroads in 1980, but after a series of mergers, just four major railroads now dominate 90 percent of the market since the end of 2001.
This consolidation, along with policies designed to protect the economic health of the rail industry, has driven freight rail rates steadily higher. In fact, economic analysis of public data found that freight rail rates have doubled since 2001 – increasing at roughly three times the rate of inflation and far outpacing increases in the highly-competitive trucking market. Defying the basic principles of supply and demand, rates have risen even though the volume of freight carried by the railroads has barely increased in the past decade.
Preventing Railroad Abuse of Market Power
The same legislation that was passed in 1980 to revive the nation's freight rail system was also intended to prevent railroads from abusing their market power over their customers. To accomplish these two important goals, Congress created the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to ensure that railroads earn adequate returns and to promote access to competitive and efficient rail service. Under the Staggers Rail Act, Congress freed the railroads from government restrictions through deregulation and charged the STB with creating an equitable process for mediating disputes between railroads and shippers.
While the financial health of the railroads has improved significantly, the STB suffers from persistent administrative and policy problems that disadvantage freight rail customers. For instance, the STB estimates that it takes an average of three years and costs a shipper more than $5 million to complete a rate challenge. Some cases take longer and cost much more. STB Chairman Elliott acknowledged in a recent decision, “We should never be satisfied with a process that is so expensive and time consuming for all parties.”
The STB's arbitration system has also proven to be ineffective and has failed to create an incentive for parties to come to consensus and find solutions. Yet despite years of deliberation and extensive public input, the STB has not reformed its outdated policies. As a result, many shippers are left without access to competitive rail service and without a viable way to resolve rate and service issues.
This is not what Congress intended when it passed the Staggers Rail Act.
A large group of rail customers is calling for sensible reforms to modernize the STB so that it works better for both the railroads and the large and small American businesses that rely on them. Groups representing farmers, steel producers, automobile manufacturers, chemical producers and energy producers across the United States have come together to form the Rail Customer Coalition. This diverse coalition represents industries that provide 4.7 million jobs and contribute $2.4 trillion in economic output. The Coalition's members operate in just about every congressional district in the country and comprise the bulk of freight rail customers. Because of the growing problems associated with outdated freight rail policies, the Coalition is strongly urging Congress and the STB to adopt meaningful policy improvements. And they're not alone.
The Transportation Research Board, a part of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), issued a report recognizing that the rail system is in desperate need of reform and offering policy recommendations to improve it.
The report concludes: “While the U.S. freight railroad industry has become modernized and financially stable since the Staggers Rail Act of 1980, some of the industry's remaining economic regulations have not kept pace and should be replaced with practices better suited for today's modern freight rail system. … More appropriate, reliable and usable procedures are needed for resolving rate disputes; better data are required to assess railroad service quality; and certain functions left over from the previous regulatory era… serve purposes that are no longer valid.”
Fixing the STB
Thanks to the steady leadership of Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), the Senate passed the “Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act of 2015,” which would make many important changes to how the Board operates. The Senate legislation is a very good start for helping the STB catch up with the times.
For example, the bill will expand voluntary arbitration procedures to resolve disputes more quickly and at less cost. It will also provide the STB with the authority to proactively initiate investigations on freight rail issues and to streamline the STB's overly burdensome rate review process. To increase transparency and encourage progress, the legislation would require the STB to establish a database of complaints and prepare quarterly reports on them. To facilitate better communications among the STB commissioners, the bill will allow board members to talk with one another without a prior public hearing notice. It would also expand membership from three to five members.
Competitive Switching
The task of fixing these problems, however, does not rest solely with Congress; the STB has the authority to enact policy reforms on its own. For example, rail customers continue to urge the STB to enact competitive switching reforms. Competitive switching would allow a rail customer that is captive to a single major railroad to have its traffic switched to a different carrier at a nearby interchange, letting the shipper seek competing bids for rail service. Competitive switching has proven to work well for our neighbor, Canada, and would help provide greater access to competitive service for rail customers in the U.S.
The STB can also enact changes that would make rate case procedures more efficient. As highlighted by the NAS report, the STB's procedures “lack a sound economic rationale and are unusable by most shippers.” Even the economists who defined the benchmark that plays a key role in rate case procedures acknowledge that the current approach taken by the STB is “the wrong answer.”
Alternative Rate Standards
The STB is currently exploring ways to implement alternative rate standards better suited for how the railroad industry looks today. Moving forward with these more rational and less burdensome standards would help ensure the economic health of the rail industry, while at the same time preventing the railroads from abusing their pricing power.
These smart policy reforms have attracted broad support, because they will allow the market and the STB to operate more effectively. If adopted, railroads will be able to operate freely in competitive markets, to earn profits and to invest in a healthy rail system. Any claim that these proposals are part of an effort to re-regulate the railroads by capping rates or forcing railroads to “share their tracks” is false and an attempt to undercut common sense reforms.
It's time to progress past these hollow claims and move our nation's freight rail policies forward. Through its unanimous action, the Senate has sent a strong message that the time is right to promote a more competitive, dependable freight rail system that meets the needs of today's economy.
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Union Pacific, API Crude-by-Rail Suits Consolidated
Jul 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Union Pacific Railroad Co.'s lawsuit against the Transportation Department over a final rule that governs rail transport of crude oil has been consolidated with a suit filed by the American Petroleum Institute in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (Am. Petroleum Inst. v. United States, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1131, 7/13/15). Union Pacific's suit against the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration rule that sets tank car requirements and operational controls for certain large shipments of Class 3 flammable liquids, including crude oil, was filed June 29 in the D.C. Circuit (127 DEN A-2, 7/2/15). So far, the D.C. Circuit has added challenges by industry groups, such as the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, and environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club, to the American Petroleum Institute case. The July 13 court order consolidating the cases is available at http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/Union_Pacific_Railroad_Company_v_Pipeline_and_Hazardous_Materia_e.
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