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ACC July 24
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(ACC Mentioned) TTIP: A Corporate Lobbying Paradise – Which Businesses Are Pushing Most for EU-US Trade Deal?
Jul 23, 2015 | Global Research
Which businesses are pushing most for the proposed EU-US trade deal TTIP? Who’s influencing EU negotiators? Corporate Europe Observatory’s eight new info-graphics reveal the corporate lobby behind the TTIP talks. When preparing the mandate for the negotiations on TTIP, and in the first important months of the talks... -
(ACC Mentioned) Udall Sees Opening for TSCA Before August Recess
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Legislation reforming the nation's chemical statute is “ready to go” and could still secure coveted time on the Senate floor before the chamber breaks for its August recess, the bill's sponsor told Bloomberg BNA in a July 22 on-camera interview. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) acknowledged the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety... -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Economic Advisors Begin Multi-Year Whole Economy Model Review
Jul 23, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA’s panel of economic and scientific advisors is beginning what is expected to be a two or more year project to guide how EPA undertakes whole economy modeling in future regulatory analyses, particularly for the agency’s expensive air rules, a core concern of industry and the GOP. “You have to have your head in the ground not to realize... -
US Coalition To Develop Interstate Chemical Reporting Tool
Jul 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
US coalition, the Interstate Clearinghouse on Chemicals (IC2), plans to develop a multi-state system for chemical disclosures, and a database to compile the results of tests on chemicals of concern in products. The tool would serve as a single data-entry system that would satisfy manufacturers' reporting requirements from ... -
Furfuryl Alcohol, Not Furfural, to Go on Prop 65 List
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
A 2014 Environmental Protection Agency cancer assessment document fails to meet the criteria for administratively adding furfural to California's Proposition 65 list, the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment said July 22. Regarding furfuryl alcohol, the EPA document provides sufficient evidence to identify the substance... -
D5 Causes Cancer In Rats But ‘Not Relevant’ To Humans
Jul 23, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Philip Lightowlers
A two-year experiment in which rats were exposed to D5, a siloxane compound used as an industrial intermediate and as a cosmetic ingredient, found a significant increase in uterine cancers. But Dow Corning, the manufacturer who conducted the tests, says the results are not relevant to humans and provides... -
Chemical Site Inspections to Ramp Up Soon, DHS Says
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical facilities will start seeing many more security compliance inspections beginning this fall and winter, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said July 23. DHS has approved site-security plans for nearly 2,000 facilities and is quickly moving on the remaining plans, so the department is gearing up to conduct compliance... -
Obama Admin Hesitant On New Plant Requirements -- House Aide
Jul 23, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
Members of the Obama administration have concerns about mandating that chemical facilities consider how they could switch to safer procedures to reduce the consequences of toxic releases or other safety threats, a House committee staffer said today at a chemical industry conference. -
Senate Committee to Mark Up Bill on Crude Oil Exports
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Stand-alone legislation that would repeal the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports and expand offshore oil and gas drilling will be marked up by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the committee chair, said July 23. The bill, the Offshore Production and Energizing National Security Act... -
Senate Panel To Vote On Lifting Oil Export Ban
Jul 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources will meet within the next two weeks to consider lifting the 40-year-old ban on exporting crude oil. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said her panel will vote before the August recess, scheduled to start Aug. 7, on a bill that includes oil exports and state revenue sharing for offshore oil and... -
Murkowski To Move Export Ban, Revenue Sharing Bill Before August Recess
Jul 23, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski said today she plans to move a measure that combines offshore-drilling revenue sharing bills for Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic with a rollback of the oil export ban through her committee before the Senate breaks for its August recess. -
Gas Glut Heading South as Shale Boom Reaches Florida
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christine Buurma and Kelly Gilblom
A glut of cheap natural gas trapped in the U.S. Northeast will be heading south by the end of the year, radically changing the price differences between the regions. Pipeline expansions by Williams Cos., Kinder Morgan Inc. and Spectra Energy Corp. will carry shale gas from the Marcellus reservoir to southern states as early as the fourth... -
Senate Committee to Begin Energy Bill Markups
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter and Rebecca Kern
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee plans to begin at least two days of markups on a broad energy bill the week of July 27, but beyond the committee process, the path forward remains unknown, Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters. “I don't have a commitment from the majority leader as to a time certain... -
Lift The Ban, Cook The Climate
Jul 23, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By David Turnbull
It’s not often environmental organizations and the American Petroleum Institute (API) agree. But, when it comes to the crude oil export ban, we begin from a remarkably similar starting point: removing the longstanding ban would result in increased oil drilling in the United States. Recent analysis from Oil Change International has shown... -
EPA Issues ‘Methane Challenge' to Oil, Gas Industry
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging oil and natural gas companies to take voluntary steps to curb their methane emissions as part of a “methane challenge” proposal released July 23. The challenge program would encourage oil and gas companies to commit to “ambitious” methane reduction targets that would be reported to... -
EPA Touts Flexibility In New Voluntary Methane Control Plan For Gas Sector
Jul 23, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
EPA has released its revised plan for the natural gas sector to voluntarily cut its methane emissions from existing sources, proposing a program that the agency says includes more flexibility for industry, such as company-wide options, than the facility-based approach that the agency was forced to withdraw last year in the face of industry... -
EPA Proposes Voluntary Methane Reduction Program
Jul 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is putting together a program to encourage the oil and gas industry to voluntarily reduce methane emissions. The Methane Challenge Program would ask oil and gas companies to set specific goals for reducing methane emissions at their facilities and then detail annual progress made. -
Advocates Look To Methane NSPS To Preserve Options For Existing Sources
Jul 23, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Environmentalists are urging the administration to craft EPA’s forthcoming emissions standards for methane and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from new and modified sources in the oil and gas sector in a way that captures a broad range of sources, an approach that would preserve their options for eventually regulating a similarly broad... -
Greens Say EPA’s New Methane Plan Needs To Go Further
Jul 23, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
Environmental groups cautiously welcomed today’s EPA proposal for a new voluntary program to spur methane reductions from the oil and gas industry, but they pressed the Obama administration to use its regulatory authority to make good on planned emissions cuts. The EPA’s planned Methane Challenge, an expansion of its previous... -
Outrage over EPA emissions regulations fades as states find fixes
Jul 24, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Joby Warrick
Even after years of talk about a “war on coal,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell startled some of his constituents in March when he urged open rebellion against a White House proposal for cutting pollution from coal-fired power plants. The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan is “extremely burdensome ... -
Miss. Will 'Just Say No' To EPA Rule Whitfield Vows To Kill
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Jean Chemnick
Mississippi's governor yesterday joined a small but growing band of states pledging to "just say no" to implementation of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, saying the rule's environmental benefits did not justify its costs. Gov. Phil Bryant (R), in a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, cited a lack of credit for early action in the existing... -
White House Nominates DOE Undersecretary
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
The White House announced its intent July 23 to nominate Victoria Wassmer to be undersecretary for management and performance at the Energy Department. Wassmer has served as the assistant administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Finance and Management in the Transportation Department since 2011. -
Battle Brewing Over Amendments To House Bill
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Daniel Bush
Members of a House energy panel are headed for a partisan showdown over amendments to a sweeping energy package, with Republicans and Democrats staking out opposite ground on a range of divisive issues from crude oil exports to renewable energy. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) predicted that the... -
Republicans Turn Subpoena Power On Obama’s Environmental Agenda
Jul 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have turned their focus to the Obama administration’s environmental agenda. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) issued subpoenas to two Obama administration agencies this month, demanding information about the president’s delayed Keystone XL pipeline decision... -
EAB Petition Tests Judicial Deference For EPA’s CWA Permitting Decisions
Jul 23, 2015 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
A pending EPA Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) petition seeks to overturn an agency-crafted Clean Water Act (CWA) discharge permit by claiming federal officials failed to justify the permit limits and compliance schedule, a case that could test the boundaries of judicial deference to the agency’s technical decisions in CWA permits.
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Jul 23, 2015 | Global Research
Which businesses are pushing most for the proposed EU-US trade deal TTIP? Who’s influencing EU negotiators? Corporate Europe Observatory’s eight new info-graphics reveal the corporate lobby behind the TTIP talks.
When preparing the mandate for the negotiations on TTIP, and in the first important months of the talks themselves (January 2012 to February 2014), the European Commission’s trade department (DG Trade) had 597 behind-closed-door meetings with lobbyists to discuss the negotiations, according to internal Commission files obtained via access to information requests. 528 of those meetings (88%) were with business lobbyists while only 53 (9%) were with public interest groups. So, for every meeting with a trade union or consumer group, there were 10 with companies and industry federations. The rest of the meetings were with other actors such as public institutions and academics. In total, DG Trade met 288 lobby groups in the early phase of the TTIP talks – 250 of them from the private sector (Check the full data and how we gathered it here).
There is evidence that DG Trade actively encouraged the involvement of corporate lobbyists, while keeping pesky trade unionists and other public interest groups at bay. For example, in autumn 2012, DG Trade chased pesticide lobby group ECPA to participate in the then-ongoing public consultation on TTIP. As “the European crop protection/pesticides industry, is one of the key sectors we would be looking at in terms of improving the framework for business,” a DG Trade emailed ECPA, their contribution “would be most welcome”. The official added: “A substantial contribution from your side, ideally sponsored by your US partner, would thus be vital to start identifying opportunities of closer cooperation and increased compatibility”. ECPA responded a few weeks later, together with its US sister organisation CropLife America, demanding “significant harmonisation” for pesticide residues in food. Trade unions, environmentalists, and consumer groups did not receive such special invites.
DG Trade’s responses to contributions to the public consultations also differed greatly. While trade unionists received a standard confirmation receipt, business lobbyists were invited to initiate follow-up meetings with negotiators. The Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA), for example, got an email from DG Trade thanking “you for your readiness to work with us”, and offering a meeting, “to discuss about your proposal, ask for clarification and consider next steps”. Again, public interest groups did not receive this special treatment.
BusinessEurope and the US Chamber of Commerce, two of the most powerful pro-TTIP lobby groups, also had a follow-up meeting in November 2012, after responding to one of the Commission consultations on TTIP. On the table: their proposal for “regulatory cooperation”, a “potential game changer” which would allow business lobbyists to “co-write regulation”, as they put it. At the table: officials from DG Trade, but also DG Enterprise and the General Secretariat of the Commission. The atmosphere was clearly friendly. And the Commission stressed its desire to work closely with the two business lobbies to refine the proposal (renewed in another meeting with BusinessEurope in February 2013 where the Commission noted the importance of EU industry “submitting detailed ‘Transatlantic’ proposals to tackle regulatory barriers”1). A year later, the EU negotiation position for regulatory cooperation in TTIP was leaked. The demands of the US Chamber and BusinessEurope had been largely accommodated – one example showing that, while the number of lobby encounters does not have a simple correlation with levels of influence, it is an indicator, and these encounters do pay off.
Another example of the formidable alliance between EU negotiators and the corporate sector is the enthusiasm in the financial lobby community for the EU’s approach on financial regulation in TTIP. When the EU’s position on the issue was leaked in early 2014, Richard Normington, Senior Manager of the Policy and Public Affairs team at TheCityUK – a key British financial lobby group – applauded the Commission’s proposals, because it “reflected so closely the approach of TheCityUK that a bystander would have thought it came straight out of our brochure on TTIP”.
So, clearly, the close involvement of business lobbyists in drawing up the EU’s position for the TTIP talks is a result of the privileged access granted to them by DG Trade. Despite her PR to the contrary, this practice hasn’t changed significantly under the new Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström, as the next info-graphic shows.
1.European Commission (2013): Brief report – BusinessEurope US Network meeting, 21 February 2013, dated 22 February 2013. Obtained through access to documents requested under the information disclosure regulation. On file with CEO.
When European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström took office in November 2014 she promised a “fresh start” for the TTIP negotiations, including more civil society involvement and listening to public concerns as her “top priority”.
So, have things changed since the early phase of the TTIP talks? Has the Commission’s consultation policy on TTIP become less business-biased under Malmström?
The short answer is no. In the first six months since Malmström took office, she, her Cabinet and the director general of DG Trade had 121 one-on-one lobby meetings behind closed doors in which TTIP was discussed. 100 (83%) of these declared meetings were with business lobbyists – but only 20 (16,7%) were held with public interest groups (the other meeting was with a standard setting institution). So, for every meeting with a trade union or an environmental organisation, Malmström and her staff had 5 get togethers with companies and their lobby groups. (Check the full data and how we gathered it here).
The lobby groups with the most such high level meetings on TTIP were the Transatlantic Business Council (representing over 70 EU and US-based multinationals), pharmaceutical lobby group EFPIA (lobbying for pharma giants like Eli Lily, Pfizer, Novartis, and GSK) and the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. Second in line were BusinessEurope (the European employers’ federation and one of the most powerful lobby groups in the EU), the European Services Forum (a lobby outfit banding together large services companies such as Deutsche Bank and Telefonica, as well as federations like TheCityUK), CEFIC (the European Chemical Industry Council, lobbying for BASF, Bayer, Dow, and others), the German industry federation BDI, the Open Europe think tank, the French industry federation MEDEF, the European Roundtable of Industrialists (banding together together 52 bosses of European multinationals), the Confederation of Finnish Industries, and a Spanish law firm.
Transparency International’s Integrity Watch platform reveals similar findings, but counts only meetings in which TTIP was explicitly listed.
However, none of the figures tells the full story of lobbying around TTIP under Malmström: only Commissioners, cabinet members, and director general bosses are required to log their meetings with lobbyists while the TTIP negotiating team and other DG Trade staff aren’t required to do so.
Still, the fact that Malmström and her team seem to primarily deal with the arguments of business representatives raises serious concerns that industry lobbyists continue to dominate the agenda of the TTIP talks and crowd out citizens’ interests. This is supported by the cosiness between Malmström, her team, and big business, as is made apparent in correspondence such asthis email of Big Finance lobby group TheCityUK, inviting Malmström’s head of Cabinet to “informal lunch” “on her way back from the US”, with “plenty of time for whatever questions she would like to raise with us”.
There is also evidence that Malmström and her team are close enough to Big Business to discuss joint strategies and communication challenges. In ameeting with French employer’s federation MEDEF on 26 March 2015, for example, the lobby group warned that “the 19 million European SMEs which do not export… will face increased competition” from TTIP and asked Malmström and her team “how the (Commission’s) communication services can reassure” the small and medium enterprises.
Malmström’s move on controversial rights for foreign investors in TTIP, which closely follows the big business agenda, also reinforces the view of her close alliance with corporate lobbyists. In a blatant disregard for democracy,the Commissioner brushed off thousands who have spoken out against excessive corporate rights, a full 97 per cent of about 150,000 contributions to a consultation on ISDS – including small businesses and governments – in order to adhere to the corporate agenda on the issue.
These are the corporate lobby groups which had by far the most lobby encounters with DG Trade in the preparatory and early phase of the TTIP negotiations (January 2012 to February 2014): BusinessEurope, the European employers’ federation and one of the most powerful lobby groups in the EU.Transatlantic Business Council, a corporate lobby group representing over 70 EU and US-based multinationals.ACEA, the European car lobby (working for BMW, Ford, Renault, and others) which had as many lobby encounters with DG Trade as CEFIC, the European Chemical Industry Council (lobbying for BASF, Bayer, Dow, and the like).European Services Forum, a lobby outfit banding together large services companies and federations such as Deutsche Bank, Telefónica, and TheCityUK, with the same amount as lobby encounters as EFPIA, Europe’s largest pharmaceutical industry association (representing some of the biggest and most powerful pharma companies in the world such as GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Astra Zeneca, Novartis, Sanofi, and Roche).FoodDrinkEurope, the biggest EU food industry lobby group (representing multinationals like Nestlé, Coca Cola, and Unilever).US Chamber of Commerce, the wealthiest of all US corporate lobbies, and DigitalEurope (whose members include all the big IT names, like Apple, Blackberry, IBM, and Microsoft), both with the same amount of lobby encounters with DG Trade.
Check the full list of lobby groups and how we gathered the data here.
These big business lobby groups have a nasty record of fighting stricter safety and environmental rules to protect people and the environment in the EU. To take a few examples: FoodDrinkEurope has fought against consumer-friendly food-labelling.The chemical lobby CEFIC and its members have waged an all-out lobbying war against an EU initiative to ban endocrine (hormone) disrupting chemicals.DigitalEurope fiercely lobbied against EU data privacy laws.BusinessEurope has lobbied against EU legislation to ensure gender equality on company boards, to extend maternity leave, to reduce air pollution, as well as the Financial Transaction Tax intended to create financial stability against further crises – to name just a few initiatives on the employers federation’s hitlist.
Through the secret TTIP negotiations, these corporate lobby groups are now attempting to achieve by stealth what they could not attain in an open political process: a roll back of regulation intended to protect the public interest.
These business sectors had most meetings behind closed doors with DG Trade when the TTIP negotiations were being prepared and after negotiations started (January 2012 to February 2014): Agribusiness and food, including multinationals like Nestlé, Mondelez (formerly Kraft Foods), and Cargill as well as numerous lobby groups for producers and traders of food, drinks, and animal feed such as FoodDrinkEurope (the EU’s biggest food industry lobby group, representing multinationals like Nestlé, Coca Cola, and Unilever), Eucolait (the dairy traders’ lobby), Clitravi (lobbying for the EU meat processing industry), Spirits Europe (working for alcohol producers such as Bacardi-Martine and Pernod-Ricard) and FEFAC (the animal feed lobby).Lobby groups representing multiple business sectors such as the European employers’ federation BusinessEurope (one of the most powerful lobby groups in the EU), the US Chamber of Commerce (the wealthiest of all US corporate lobbies), the Transatlantic Business Council (representing over 70 EU and US-based multinationals) and national industry federation such as the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the Federation of German Industries (BDI).Telecommunication and IT, including giant corporations such as IBM, Telefónica, Nokia, Google, and Ericsson as well as industry lobby groups such as DigitalEurope (whose members include all the big IT names, like Apple, Blackberry, IBM, and Microsoft).Pharmaceuticals, including direct lobbying of large pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Roche and Pfizer as well as lobby groups such as EFPIA (the European pharmaceutical lobby working for pharma giants like Eli Lily, Pfizer, Novartis, and GlaxoSmithKline) and its US sister organisation PhRMA (lobbying largely for the same companies).Finance, with lobbying by some of the world’s largest banks and insurers (including Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, HSBC, Allianz, and Citigroup) and powerful financial sector lobby groups such as the Association of German Banks (BDB), Insurance Europe (Europe’s main insurance lobby), and TheCityUK (promoting the interests of the UK-based financial industry).Engineering and machinery, including manufacturing behemoths such as Siemens, Alstom, and General Electric as well as industry federations such as Orgalime (lobbying for the mechanical, electrical and metalworking sectors) and the German Engineering Federation VDMA.Automobiles, with some of the most powerful car brands (including Ford, Daimler, and BMW) and automotive suppliers such as tyre producer Michelin, as well as industry lobby groups such as ACEA (representing Europe’s car, van, truck, and bus manufacturers) and the German automotive industry association VDA.Health technology, with, for example, Eucomed (representing the medical technology industry in Europe, including large corporations such as Siemens and Procter & Gamble), Cocir (lobbying for “medical imaging, health ICT and electromedical” companies such as IBM, Samsung, Orange, and Agfa healthcare “to open markets… in Europe and beyond”).Chemicals, including CEFIC (the EU’s biggest chemical industry lobby group, representing BASF, Bayer, Dow, and others) and its US counterpart, the American Chemistry Council ACC (also lobbying for BASF, Bayer, Dow, and others), the Germany industry federation VCI and direct lobbying by chemical giants such as Dow.Express & logistics, including direct lobbying by companies such as Deutsche Post DHL, UPS, Fedex and industry associations such as the European Express Association (lobbying for the same companies).
Check the full data and how we categorised it here.
Several industry sectors have significantly boosted their lobbying efforts for TTIP: The pharmaceutical sector has increased its TTIP lobbying seven-fold. While only 2.4% of DG Trade’s one-to-one lobby meetings on TTIP were with big pharma in the preparatory phase of the negotiations (January 2012 to March 2013), the sector’s share in lobby meetings jumped to 16.5% in the period after (April 2013 to February 2014).The engineering and machinery sector has tripled its TTIP lobbying effort in the same period – from 3.0% to 9.5% of the behind-closed-doors meetings with DG Trade.TTIP lobbying by banks, insurers, and other financial market actors has doubled, from a 5.1% share in the total amount of corporate lobby meetings in the preparatory phase of the negotiations to 10.8% in the period after.
Check the full data and how we gathered it here.
That big pharma and finance have stepped up their lobbying for TTIP is particularly worrying. The pharmaceutical sector is pushing for a TTIP agenda with potentially severe implications for access to medicines and public health. Longer monopolies through strengthened intellectual property rules and limits on price-controlling policies in TTIP could drive up prices for medicines and costs for national health systems. The joint attempt of lobby groups EFPIA and US sister organisation PhRMA to limit EU initiatives for data disclosure from clinical trials could bury knowledge about the true effects of medicines (including their safety and evidence of benefits – or lack thereof) and hamper innovation.
The US administration seems to have taken the big pharma wishlist – on intellectual property rules and other issues – on board, as recent revelations about its position in the negotiations over the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with 11 other countries indicate – to the detriment of consumers. This is in stark contrast to President Obama’s agenda to encourage more cost-saving generic medicines within the US health system. As in the TTIP talks, big drug companies have massively boosted their lobbying for TPP over time.
It’s a similar story with big finance. The financial sector has been remarkably candid in listing US and EU financial regulations that they would like to see scrapped via TTIP – from US rules on capital reserves (which require companies to keep aside a proportion of capital available to avoid risk of collapse or bailout), to regulations on too-big-to-fail foreign banks. Big finance on both sides of the Atlantic is also lobbying for a dedicated TTIP chapter on financial regulation, which could lead to the delay, watering down, or outright block of much needed reform and control of the financial sector necessary to avoid another financial meltdown, civil society groups have warned.
The EU’s TTIP proposals on the issue are indeed designed to prevent new financial rules from the other side of the Atlantic harming the interests of “market operators”, eg banks or hedge funds. The US administration, on the other hand, has expressed its opposition to agreeing to a TTIP chapter on financial regulation, concerned that the EU is taking aim at US rules. US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, for example, has said on several occasions that he opposed the inclusion of financial regulation in the TTIP because, “normally in a trade agreement, the pressure is to lower standards on things like [financial regulation or environmental regulation or labour rules]”. He also said that the US would “not allow these agreements to serve as an opportunity to water down domestic financial regulatory standards”, or “dilute the impact of the steps that we’ve taken to safeguard the US Economy”.1
1.Inside US Trade; Lew Resolute On Excluding Financial Services Regulations From TTIP Talks, 20 December 2013.
While the corporate agenda for TTIP is broad and often issue-specific, big business is united in what it wants to see at the core of the agreement: excessive rights for foreign investors and regulatory cooperation. These issues would further skew EU and US politics in favour of capital and transnational corporations and threaten any future regulation that limits big business profits – be it in food standards, chemicals approval, or rules on production methods, to name but a few.
TTIP’s “regulatory cooperation” chapter would provide business groups with a series of tools to apply pressure on decision makers in Brussels and Washington as well as in EU capitals and US states to scare them away from adopting rules that would hurt business interests, often to the detriment of other groups in society. According to leaked EU proposals, corporate lobbyists would be offered new opportunities to “provide input” which “shall be taken into account” by policy-makers. New regulations would have to undergo an “impact assessment” with questions that are primarily tilted towards the interests of business, not citizens. Companies could also use EU-US exchange procedures to complain about an “envisaged or planned regulatory act”, and regulations under review. And they would be given an agenda-setting role in new transatlantic regulator-to-regulator bodies. (Read our more encompassing analysis of regulatory cooperation here or watch our video on the issue here.)
On top of that, TTIP’s investment protection chapter would empower thousands of businesses on both sides of the Atlantic to legally attack decisions made by national parliaments, governments, and even courts if they undermine corporate profits. Around the world, companies are already using the so called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions to claim billions in compensation for perfectly legitimate government policies to protect health, the environment, and other public interests. Just the threat of such an expensive claim can be enough for policy-makers to abandon or water down a proposed or adopted law on public health and environmental protection. (See our analysis of the proposed investor rights in TTIP here or watch our video on the issue here.)
Taken together, the excessive rights for foreign investors and proposals for regulatory cooperation will significantly expand business power over politics across the EU and the US. The measures would make it easier for business to roll back regulation and block new rules intended to prevent the food industry from marketing foodstuffs with toxic substances, laws trying to keep energy companies from destroying the climate, or regulations to combat pollution, financial instability and protect consumers. No wonder, powerful business lobby groups like BusinessEurope and the US Chamber of Commerce see regulatory cooperation in TTIP as a “potential game changer”, a “gift that keeps on giving”, which would essentially allow business lobbyists to “co-write regulation”, as they put it.
The preparatory and early phases of the TTIP negotiations were largely driven by businesses with headquarters in the US, Germany, and the UK and by industry lobby groups organised at the EU level such as BusinessEurope. For the period between January 2012 and February 2014, we did not come across a single direct lobby encounter on TTIP between DG Trade and businesses from Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Portugal, and most of Eastern Europe (Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia).
This is in line with warnings that these countries will carry the weight of the social costs of TTIP as a result of the increased competition. With US export interests targeting mainly those sectors where the European periphery has defensive interests – such as agriculture – the opening up of the EU to more transatlantic competition is likely to exacerbate the divide between the EU’s economic core and its periphery, in other words: the EU’s richer and its poorer countries. It seems that businesses in the poorer EU countries have little to gain from TTIP and are therefore not pushing for the deal.
Here you can see how many corporate actors lobbied DG Trade on TTIP in the period between January 2012 and February 2014, listing only the countries with more than 5 actors lobbying: Country of origin
Total number of corporate actors EU-level business lobby groups
115 US companies & industry associations
89 German companies & industry associations
28 UK companies & industry associations
25 French companies & industry associations
18 International lobby groups
16 Danish companies & industry associations
10 Spanish companies & industry associations
10 Dutch companies & industry associations
8 Swedish companies & industry associations
While the above figures relate to the total number of lobby encounters – meetings behind closed doors, contributions to public consultations, and stakeholder meetings – US businesses jump to the top of the list when considering only the one-on-one meetings with DG Trade: in the early phases of the TTIP negotiations, DG Trade met 78 US-based companies and industry federations – compared to 66 EU-level lobby groups. This reflects the strong presence of US corporations in the top-10 biggest spenders on EU lobbying, with ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Dow, Google, and General Electric all spending more than €3 million per year on lobbying the EU institutions.
Check the full data and how we gathered it here.
1.European Commission (2013): Brief report – BusinessEurope US Network meeting, 21 February 2013, dated 22 February 2013. Obtained through access to documents requested under the information disclosure regulation. On file with CEO.One in every 5 corporate lobby groups which have lobbied DG Trade on TTIP (80 out of 372 corporate actors), are not registered in the EU’s Transparency Register, amongst them large companies such as Maersk, AON, and Levi’s. Industry associations such as the world’s largest biotechnology lobby BIO, US pharmaceutical lobby group PhrMA, and the American Chemical Council are also lobbying under the radar. More than one third of all US companies and industry associations which have lobbied DG Trade on TTIP (37 out of 91) are not in the EU register. (see the full data and how we gathered it here)
Also, several lobby groups who have lobbied DG Trade most actively in the early phases of the TTIP talks do not list the agreement amongst the important issues they are currently lobbying on in their Transparency Register entry. 1So, for those who want to find out who is lobbying on TTIP and what amount they spend to make the deal happen, the register provides few to no answers.
This indicates two serious flaws of the EU’s Transparency Register: first, it is voluntary, which leaves companies and lobby groups free to avoid appearing in it – as many do. Second, disclosure requirements are limited as registrants are, for example, not obliged to report exactly which specific issues they lobby on (such as TTIP).
But the public has a right to know who is lobbying for TTIP, how many lobbyists are involved, and how much money they spend. Only a mandatory register which requires comprehensive and reliable information about lobbying will shed light on corporate lobby pressure behind the TTIP talks. The EU must make its lobby transparency register TTIP-proof! 1.For example, European employers’ federation BusinessEurope, digital technology lobby group DigitalEurope, and pharmaceutical lobby group EFPIA.
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(ACC Mentioned) Udall Sees Opening for TSCA Before August Recess
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Legislation reforming the nation's chemical statute is “ready to go” and could still secure coveted time on the Senate floor before the chamber breaks for its August recess, the bill's sponsor told Bloomberg BNA in a July 22 on-camera interview.
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) acknowledged the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697) faces competition for floor time with a cybersecurity measure but said the bipartisan support from 52 co-sponsors across the political spectrum meant it was “primed” for chamber consideration.
“The fact is this is ready to go right now,” Udall said. “I'm not sure anything else is” immediately after the Senate completes its work on a surface transportation authorization bill (H.R. 22).
S. 697, introduced by Udall and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), would update the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, which governs industrial and other commercial uses of chemicals in the U.S. Supporters of the bill include Dupont; 3M; the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers; American Chemistry Council; BASF Corp.; Consumer Electronics Association; Dow Chemical Co. and the National Association of Manufacturers, among others.
That optimism from Udall comes shortly after Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told Bloomberg BNA it “shouldn't take very long” for the chamber to consider TSCA and said there was time before the August recess (140 DEN A-17, 7/22/15).
An aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Bloomberg BNA July 23 the bill was “something the Senate could turn to” after the highway bill but said no decision had been made.
Boxer Role Key
Key to the measure's chances may be how many amendments Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), an opponent of S. 697, insists on during floor debate. Udall said it was clear Boxer was “going to play a role in this” but said he hoped she would be “constructive” in offering amendments.
Udall said it would not be a death blow for the bill if it didn't get a vote before the Senate is expected to leave for recess on Aug. 8, but said he and Vitter were pushing hard for a vote before then.
“I think anytime between now and the end of the year is fine,” Udall said. “But we are focusing all of our efforts right now on between now and Aug. 8.”
Boxer has threatened to offer “hundreds” of amendments if the Senate refuses to use narrower House-passed TSCA reform (H.R. 2576) as the starting point for debate. Udall said a majority of senators favored moving forward with the Senate version and said both chambers of Congress were already beginning preliminary discussions on how to combine their bills.
“I think the best way to go, from the point of view of our 52 co-sponsors, is [the] Senate takes up the Senate bill, where a majority of senators are behind that bill,” Udall said.
Highway Bill Complicating Factor
Uncertain timing surrounding the highway bill poses another obstacle for TSCA supporters. McConnell said consideration of the highway bill would take a “week or so” but a number of senators have pledged to seek votes on amendments related to issues like gun control, defunding Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act that could prolong debate on the measure.
With floor time already scarce, such tactics imperil the chances of a vote on TSCA before the recess. Nevertheless, an aide to Vitter echoed Udall's optimism July 23 that the chamber could act on the chemicals bill before leaving town.
“TSCA reform is in a very good position to be scheduled and pass the Senate before August recess,” the aide said. “We just have to get through highways first.”
Supporters of the legislation range from some of the Senate's most conservative members, like Republican Sens. John Barrasso (Wyo.) and Pat Roberts (Kan.), to some of its most liberal, like Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and Sherrod Brown (Ohio).
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Economic Advisors Begin Multi-Year Whole Economy Model Review
Jul 23, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA’s panel of economic and scientific advisors is beginning what is expected to be a two or more year project to guide how EPA undertakes whole economy modeling in future regulatory analyses, particularly for the agency’s expensive air rules, a core concern of industry and the GOP.
“You have to have your head in the ground not to realize how important this is,” said Al McGartland, director of EPA’s National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE) during a July 15 conference call with the advisors. “The notion of moving to economy-wide [modeling and analysis] . . . is an exciting new chapter to explore, and how it might be used scientifically. Having [EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB)] involved is a critical element to our long-term success.”
Economy-wide modeling differs from the existing cost-benefit process EPA uses to evaluate its proposed rules by trying to model all costs of regulation, including the indirect effects, such as job losses, that might occur across the economy because of higher energy costs created by a regulation. EPA has traditionally been skeptical of economy-wide computable general equilibrium (CGE) models because they often do not account for a rule’s benefits and are highly dependent on the quality of assumptions used in the model.
EPA typically employs partial models that focus directly on the regulated industry, but critics argue that the existing process dramatically underestimates the economic costs of agency rules. The new SAB panel review is an effort to resolve GOP and industry criticism that EPA routinely understates the economic costs of its rules, particularly air regulations.
As EPA economists and advisors described during the new panel’s first meeting July 15, there are challenges to using whole economy modeling.
Ann Wolverton, the EPA economist leading its whole economy modeling work group, noted that agency economists have “struggled with internally” the fact that CGE models ignore benefits -- such as lives “saved” from a premature death due to exposure to pollution or reduced numbers of sick days from work and school.
“Where CGE models [have been] used to date . . . [they’re] challenging to use in a regulatory context [because of] lack of benefits in most cases. They have been used to analyze large scale policies,” Wolverton said. “Other economy-wide approaches have been used even less by EPA. Most don’t characterize changes in the economy [like] workforce. But they are potentially useful.”
The agency also has little experience with using whole economy approaches, especially those other than CGE models, she said, adding that there is little guidance on whether these types of approaches are feasible and may add value to EPA analyses.
“Very, very broadly, given finite [resources] and . . . resource constraints, what are the merits and challenges of using CGE and other economy-wide models for [regulatory impact analysis],” Wolverton said, seeking to describe the agency’s charge to the panel.
Modeling Efforts
One possible approach is “trying to link” EPA’s traditional single-sector approach with an engineering or model plant method with a CGE model “in a hybrid model to get the best of both worlds. But that comes with its own challenges,” Wolverton said.
Wolverton’s workgroup includes economists from NCEE and EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation -- most of EPA’s rules, as well as its most costly rules -- come from the air office. The agency’s charge questions to the panel focus on air rules. Unlike many SAB panels, this one is not reviewing a draft document or report for the agency. Instead, the panelists are asked a series of questions intended to guide agency whole-conomy modeling efforts. The workgroup plans to provide the advisors with a handful of white papers to assist their deliberations.
EPA’s charge questions led to criticism last year that they focus too heavily on the shortcomings of economy-wide modeling, which critics say suggests the agency is leaning against the approach even before deciding whether it would be better than cost-benefit analysis. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Chemistry Council (ACC) reiterate their concerns in July 14 comments.
“The Chamber and ACC (‘the Associations’) believe that whole economy modeling should be the standard modeling tool for EPA Clean Air Act (CAA) regulations in order to more fully and accurately portray the effects of these far-reaching regulatory actions. The Chamber has previously noted that the EPA has too often relied upon partial economy, or partial equilibrium analysis, in its modeling of the economic impacts of CAA regulations. Research has demonstrated how disparate the costs and labor market impacts of rules can be when the effects of regulation outside the directly regulated market are considered versus when they are ignored.” The groups re-submitted their 2014 comments with a list of issues their members believe the SAB panel should consider.
Wolverton told the SAB panel that agency staff received nine comments on the draft charge questions they released last year, and that “we did consider these when finalizing the charge.”
Some of the SAB panelists also questioned EPA staff about the scope of the charge, suggesting they may look to broaden it. “To the extent there are things the panel feels are important questions about how CGE models work or how they should be used outside the charge questions -- how much flexibility do we have?” asked Roberton Williams III, an associate professor in the University of Maryland’s agricultural economics department.
The panel’s designated federal officer, Holly Stahlworth, replied, “You have a great deal of flexibility.”
Another panelist asked about the type of air pollutants the panel should consider in its deliberations. “[Y]ou tell us that the focus is air pollutants. Some are local, others are more global in nature,” said one panelist, Sergey Paltsev, a principal research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Should we consider carbon?”
“We designed the charge with traditional air pollutants in mind,” Wolverton replied, adding that the National Academy of Sciences will be reviewing social cost of carbon estimates as a separate effort from the new SAB panel’s task. “It doesn’t preclude addressing social cost of carbon here, but rest assured it’s being addressed.”
In documents prepared for the meeting, EPA staff outlines four white papers and two memos that it intends to produce for the SAB. The white papers describe “Using CGE Models to Estimate the Social Cost of an Air Regulation”; “Integrating Benefits into CGE Models”; “Using CGE Models to Evaluate Economic Impacts of Air Regulations” and “Uncertainty and Economy-Wide Modeling.” The two memos will address “Using Other (Non-CGE) Economy-Wide Models to Estimate Social Cost of Air Regulations” and “Using CGE Models in the Literature to Evaluate Competitiveness Impacts.” None of the papers are finished yet, but Wolverton said that the economists expect to deliver the first paper and memo to SAB in September, before the panel’s scheduled Oct. 22-3 meeting in Washington, DC. The rest will be submitted to SAB as soon as the workgroup can get them completed.
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US Coalition To Develop Interstate Chemical Reporting Tool
Jul 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
US coalition, the Interstate Clearinghouse on Chemicals (IC2), plans to develop a multi-state system for chemical disclosures, and a database to compile the results of tests on chemicals of concern in products.
The tool would serve as a single data-entry system that would satisfy manufacturers' reporting requirements from multiple states. US states that have adopted chemicals management policies currently require manufacturers to submit different chemical reports to each state agency.
IC2 project manager, Topher Buck, says that the primary reasons for developing the new system are to:
reduce manufacturers' reporting burden;
make it easier for states to adopt similar laws, by lowering barriers to implementation, and by providing an infrastructure for creating chemical reporting programmes “out of the box”; and
make more efficient use of states' limited resources.
The IC2 also plans to develop a database of product test results to establish a larger national dataset. It hopes that this could help in measuring the effectiveness of state reporting programmes, and could support additional research.
Mr Buck said that the new systems remain in their early planning stages. Working with NGOs, product manufacturers, retailers and states and local regulatory agencies will be a “key aspect” in developing these programmes, he said.
Additional strategic focuses announced by the group include: the expansion of the interstate Alternatives Assessment Guide (CW 10 January 2014);an increased focus on chemical management training and information-sharing via webinars and outreach; andcontinued support of state legislation aimed at the management of hazardous chemicals.
The IC2 is a project of the Northeast Waste Management Officials' Association (Newmoa) which aims to help chemical management programmes by increasing local laws' efficiency and reducing redundancy.
Members of IC2 include states and local governments. Businesses, academia, and NGOs also take part as supporting members.
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Furfuryl Alcohol, Not Furfural, to Go on Prop 65 List
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
A 2014 Environmental Protection Agency cancer assessment document fails to meet the criteria for administratively adding furfural to California's Proposition 65 list, the state's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment said July 22. Regarding furfuryl alcohol, the EPA document provides sufficient evidence to identify the substance as a carcinogen under the law, officially known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, OEHHA said in a separate notice published July 22. Furfural (CAS No. 98-01-1) is a solvent made from corn cobs and other cellulosic fibers. “Furfural remains in our tracking database for possible future consideration by the Carcinogen Identification Committee,” OEHHA spokesman Sam Delson told Bloomberg BNA July 23. The office intends to list furfuryl alcohol (CAS No. 98-00-0) on the Prop 65 list. Furfuryl alcohol is used to produce furan resins and as a solvent in textiles and alkaline paint strippers. It also can form in foods during thermal processing and from the hydrogenation of furfuryl. Comments on the plan to list furfuryl alcohol must be received by 5 p.m., Aug. 31. Information on the proposed listing is available at http://oehha.ca.gov/prop65/CRNR_notices/admin_listing/intent_to_list/NoilPkg64furfurylalcohol.html.
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D5 Causes Cancer In Rats But ‘Not Relevant’ To Humans
Jul 23, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Philip Lightowlers
A two-year experiment in which rats were exposed to D5, a siloxane compound used as an industrial intermediate and as a cosmetic ingredient, found a significant increase in uterine cancers.
But Dow Corning, the manufacturer who conducted the tests, says the results are not relevant to humans and provides a toxicological explanation.
Risk assessment is more and more about understanding toxicological mechanisms. The carcinogenicity of decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) in the F344 strain of rats is an interesting example.
Rats were subjected to D5 through inhalation, at several doses, for up to two years, according to a paper by Paul Jean of Dow Corning, published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. A small but statistically significant number of females, in the highest dose group, developed cancers – called adenocarcinomas – in the uterus.
This type of tumour is commonly found in untreated ageing rats of this strain, the paper says. But the increase in occurrence, when exposed to D5, is probably due to a change in the animals’ oestrous cycles.
A second paper by James Klaunig of Indiana University, also published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology, looks in more detail at how this change happens.
What is clear is that rats do not have reproductive cycles like humans. Hormonal control is different. They do not menstruate. Repeated oestrus – being ‘in heat’ – is unusual. And rats of this strain frequently enter a state of ‘pseudopregnancy’ as they get older.
The repeated unusual hormonal environment in these ageing rats may be the cause of natural adenocarcinomas, Dr Klaunig argues.
D5 treatment appears to be causing an earlier onset of these cancers, he maintains.
The paper considers four possible mechanisms: genotoxicity, direct endocrine activity (through oestrogens, androgens or progesterone), oxidative stress and damage and alteration of the pituitary gland control of the oestrous cycle.
The last of these is the most likely, Dr Klaunig finds. Alteration in the oestrous cycle, caused by a decrease in the hormone progesterone with an increase in the oestrogen to progesterone ratio, is the probable route. This is triggered by a decrease in the concentration of prolactin, a hormone secreted by the pituitary gland.
The paper concludes that D5 is accelerating the ageing of the reproductive system in the F344 rat. Furthermore, this mode of action for generating adenocarcinomas in the uterus is “not relevant for humans”.
The industry body, Silicones Environmental, Health and Safety Center, said: “This study is consistent with other peer-reviewed publications that consistently demonstrate the safety of D5, and is also consistent with the independent assessment of D5, conducted by the Government of Canada, which concluded that its use does not pose a danger to human health.”
D5 is also under consideration by Echa's Risk Assessment and Socio-economic Analysis Committees, following a proposal for REACH authorisation by the UK competent authority, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
The major concern is not carcinogenicity but persistence in the environment (CW 11 June 2015).
The recent HSE authorisation proposal mentions the adenocarcinomas formed in rats, but does not regard them as important.
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Chemical Site Inspections to Ramp Up Soon, DHS Says
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical facilities will start seeing many more security compliance inspections beginning this fall and winter, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said July 23.
DHS has approved site-security plans for nearly 2,000 facilities and is quickly moving on the remaining plans, so the department is gearing up to conduct compliance inspections, said Kelly Murray, section chief of Homeland Security's Infrastructure Security Compliance Division.
About 60 percent of all regulated chemical facilities have received approval for plans to keep their facilities safe, according to a recent fact sheet from the department (138 DEN A-2, 7/20/15).
Compliance inspections are intended to verify that the existing and planned measures detailed in the approved plans are being implemented, she said.
Murray spoke on the final day of the 2015 Chemical Sector Security Expo organized by the department and the Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates.
Under the Protecting and Securing Chemical Facilities from Terrorist Attacks Act of 2014 (Pub Law. 113-254), which reauthorized the federal Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program for four years, chemical facilities that have more than a threshold amount of specific explosive, toxic or other “chemicals of interest” are required to provide “top-screens” to DHS with information about those chemicals.
Those deemed high-risk facilities must then implement Site Security Plans (SSP) or Alternative Security Plans (ASP) to demonstrate they have infrastructure, personnel and other tools in place to safeguard those chemicals.
Conduct Annual Audit, DHS Says
During her presentation, Murray offered expo participants some lessons the department has learned from initial inspections.
“The best way for you to prepare for your compliance inspection is to conduct the required annual audit,” she said.
“Review your SSP/ASP in its entirety and ensure that you have visual evidence of each measure to demonstrate compliance to the inspection team,” she said.
For example, Murray said, a security plan may state that a facility has security personnel onsite 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The department will verify whether the shift personnel work reflects 24/7 hours, she said.
A common concern the department has found is that facilities' background checks on key personnel with access to restricted areas are insufficient, she said.
Appropriate Credentials
Chemical facilities are responsible for ensuring the appropriate credentials for plant personnel with access to restricted areas or critical assets and for confirming the credentials of unescorted visitors to those areas, Murray said.
Required actions include:
• verifying the identity of such personnel or visitors;
• conducting criminal history checks; and
• verifying that the individual is legally authorized to work.
A facility may have established procedures years ago to check all this information and performed those checks for all personnel hired since, she said.
“Legacy” employees, meaning individuals with access to restricted areas that began work at a facility before those procedures were in place, also must have background checks, Murray said.
Detection Measures
Inspectors also are likely to ask about cameras or other measures facilities in place have to detect intruders, she said.
Such detection devices must:
• cover the appropriate areas and/or entry points;
• be active at appropriate times; and
• alert a designated individual who has been trained to initiate a response if one is needed.
Having a camera, by itself, isn't sufficient, Murray said.
Many facilities have cameras, but they only review the footage if there has been an incident, she said.
Inspectors will ask who checks the camera's images and how often. If the footage is checked only after problems have been detected, that won't be adequate, Murray said.
“Review your planned [security] measures and ensure you have documentation showing the successful completion of each,” she said.
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Obama Admin Hesitant On New Plant Requirements -- House Aide
Jul 23, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
Members of the Obama administration have concerns about mandating that chemical facilities consider how they could switch to safer procedures to reduce the consequences of toxic releases or other safety threats, a House committee staffer said today at a chemical industry conference.
Known as inherently safer technologies (IST), the proposal, favored by public interest groups, is meant to improve safety by pushing sites to continually improve the way they operate.
Whether an interagency working group launched by an executive order will propose such regulatory changes is a topic of sharp debate among chemical companies and environmental and advocacy groups, many of which are frustrated the administration has not actively called for the change.
"We know that the administration still had some concerns about IST," said Chris Schepis, the minority staff director for the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies. "They're still digesting what's come out of the executive order on this, and maybe next year we'll have some recommendations from them."
Schepis was speaking at the Chemical Sector Security Summit, an annual conference held by the Department of Homeland Security and the Chemical Sector Coordinating Council in Alexandria, Va.
Schepis, who declined to elaborate on the administration's thinking, defended the concept of IST as in line with a long series of improvements at chemical facilities over the decades.
His boss, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, has in the past pushed the policy and advocated to expand DHS's Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) program to include water and wastewater facilities currently exempted from DHS oversight.
Though the industry largely opposes IST proposals, "there are many people in Congress who feel that it's at least a handle that we can use as a better tool," Schepis said.
The executive order signed in the aftermath of a Texas fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people has led to a variety of actions meant to improve information sharing and outreach. But officials have largely shied away from consideration of new regulatory requirements for chemical facilities.
Several agencies have launched rulemakings to update their safety rules, though it's not clear what requirements will be in any proposed changes to the programs, which include U.S. EPA's risk management program, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's process safety management standards, and DHS's CFATS program.
EPA expects to issue a notice of proposed rulemaking to update its risk management program by September, according to its most recent regulatory agenda. That would leave the agency spending most of next year completing a final rule.
However, on several occasions, administration officials have suggested they are not eager to impose new regulations requiring plants to assess whether they can change operations to reduce the risk of a chemical incident.
On a conference call last month, Mathy Stanislaus, EPA's assistant administrator for solid waste and emergency response, declined to say whether EPA was interested in adopting some form of an IST policy in a proposed rule. Another EPA official, Reggie Cheatham, the acting director of the Office of Emergency Management, a unit of the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, told the industry conference he couldn't discuss the agency's plans this week.
"There isn't any intent to force people to use certain chemicals," said Lisa Long, the director of OSHA's Office of Engineering Safety.
EPA issued an alert last month outlining voluntary actions chemical facilities can take to reduce risk (E&ENews PM, June 9). However, public interest groups criticized the seven-page document as insufficient to ensure safety at facilities.
Public interest groups and advisory bodies like the U.S. Chemical Safety Board have touted tighter regulations, including IST, as something that could have prevented the West, Texas, explosion. A string of accidents involving ammonium nitrate, the fertilizer stored at the West facility, have occurred since as far back as the 1920s, the CSB said. The board and other groups contend EPA has broad legal authority under the Clean Air Act's general duty clause to mandate these changes (Greenwire, April 22, 2014).
A top White House official, though, took a softer tone before chemical industry officials this week.
"No one would have foreseen the kind of devastation that could have been caused by this incident," said Amy Pope, a deputy homeland security adviser at the White House National Security Council.
Pope added that the West incident "highlights why we need to be prepared, why we need to plan, why we need to share information."
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Senate Committee to Mark Up Bill on Crude Oil Exports
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Stand-alone legislation that would repeal the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports and expand offshore oil and gas drilling will be marked up by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the committee chair, said July 23.
The bill, the Offshore Production and Energizing National Security Act (no bill number available), introduced by Murkowski, combines four previously introduced pieces of legislation that ultimately didn't make it into a broad bipartisan bill released by the committee July 22 (141 DEN A-8, 7/23/15).
The legislation, which is scheduled to be marked up July 28, is likely to draw opposition from Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and other committee Democrats.
In addition to ending the 1970s-era ban on crude oil exports, the bill would lift restrictions on oil and gas drilling in federal waters, expand federal oil and gas revenue sharing received by coastal states and increase the number of oil and gas leases required under the Obama administration's proposed five-year drilling plan.
Bill Reflects New ‘Energy Landscape.'
“America's energy landscape has changed dramatically since the export ban was put in place in the 1970s,” Murkowski said in a statement. “We have moved from a situation of energy scarcity to one of energy abundance. Unfortunately, our energy policies have not kept pace.”
The ban is opposed by major oil producers such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP and Shell while supported by a coalition of independent refiners comprising Alon USA, PBF Energy Inc., Philadelphia Energy Solutions and Delta Air Lines’ Monroe Energy LLC.
The bill also incorporates legislation (S. 1276) by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) that would lift a moratorium on oil and gas development in the eastern Gulf of Mexico put in place following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The legislation would direct the Interior Department to hold three lease sales in the eastern Gulf of Mexico in 2018, 2019 and 2020 and would lift a cap on revenue sharing in the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act of 2006 from $500 million in 2017 to close to $700 million annually from 2018 to 2025 and to $1 billion annually from 2026 to 2055 (92 DEN A-15, 5/13/15).
Atlantic Lease Sales Addressed
Also included is a bill (S. 1279) by Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) that would require the Interior Department to hold three oil and gas lease sales in the south Atlantic and allow states on the Atlantic Coast to participate in federal revenue-sharing.
The Obama administration's draft five-year offshore oil and gas leasing program for 2017 and 2022 proposes a single Atlantic lease sale in 2021, which, if held, would be the first time leasing is allowed in federal waters off the Atlantic Coast since the early 1980s.
In addition, the bill incorporates S. 1278 by Murkowski that would expand revenue-sharing in the state of Alaska.
Alaska currently receives 27 percent of revenues from oil and gas leasing and production in an area between three miles and six miles from shore known as the 8(g) zone, but it doesn't receive revenue-sharing from beyond the six-mile limit.
The Murkowski bill would expand revenue-sharing beyond that zone and require a minimum of three lease sales in each of the Beaufort, Chukchi and Cook Inlet planning areas during any five-year period and annual lease sales in the 8(g) zone of the Beaufort and Cook Inlet planning areas, according to a the bill summary.
The path forward for the bill, assuming it gets approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, remains to be seen, Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Murkowski and other committee Republicans said.
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Senate Panel To Vote On Lifting Oil Export Ban
Jul 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources will meet within the next two weeks to consider lifting the 40-year-old ban on exporting crude oil.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said her panel will vote before the August recess, scheduled to start Aug. 7, on a bill that includes oil exports and state revenue sharing for offshore oil and natural gas drilling.“[Offshore] revenue sharing and oil exports are very keen priorities of mine,” Murkowski told reporters Thursday. "I do a have a bill, it’s a consolidated bill, and it’s my intention that bill will move through the committee markup process before we adjourn for the August break.”
Murkowski has long advocated lifting the oil export ban, arguing that it is outdated and that ending it would help the nation’s economy and reduce the power of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC.
She introduced a bill in May along with Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and nine other senators to open the United States’ oil market to the world.
Oil producers, amid historically low domestic prices, have endorsed the idea, which would open a much larger market for their product.
But oil refiners, along with some Democrats, environmentalists and labor groups, argue that ending the ban would increase domestic energy prices and spur more demand for oil.
For those reasons, Murkowski left oil exports out of the broad energy bill she introduced Wednesday with Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the panel’s top Democrat, who is waiting for more research on the issue before taking a formal position on it.
The oil export legislation will be combined with three bills to increase the amount of money states get from offshore drilling in federal waters on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and around Alaska.
Gulf states currently get a small share of the royalties from drilling off their shores. There is no federal-water offshore drilling off Alaska and the East Coast, but it could start within the next decade.
The three offshore drilling bills would also mandate that the federal government offer more areas in the outer continental shelf for drilling.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) is sponsoring similar oil export legislation in the House. It also was excluded from the House’s broad energy bill unveiled this week.
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Murkowski To Move Export Ban, Revenue Sharing Bill Before August Recess
Jul 23, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski said today she plans to move a measure that combines offshore-drilling revenue sharing bills for Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic with a rollback of the oil export ban through her committee before the Senate breaks for its August recess.
Dubbed the Offshore Production and Energizing National Security Act, the proposal incorporates Murkowski's previously introduced language to end the crude export ban, as well as her expansion of lease sales and revenue sharing for coastal Alaska development, Sen. Bill Cassidy's Gulf-region coastal drilling bill, and Sen. Mark Warner's offshore exploration bill for the southern Atlantic.
The bill's consideration in committee could come during one of the markup sessions in the works for Murkowski's separate energy policy bill, which she crafted alongside Democratic counterpart Sen. Maria Cantwell. -
Gas Glut Heading South as Shale Boom Reaches Florida
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christine Buurma and Kelly Gilblom
A glut of cheap natural gas trapped in the U.S. Northeast will be heading south by the end of the year, radically changing the price differences between the regions.
Pipeline expansions by Williams Cos., Kinder Morgan Inc. and Spectra Energy Corp. will carry shale gas from the Marcellus reservoir to southern states as early as the fourth quarter. That will narrow the premium for gas in the Southeast to as little as 30 cents per million British thermal units from more than a dollar versus the Northeast, Genscape Inc. and Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. said July 20.
New pipelines are closing the divide between the winners and losers of America's shale revolution as long-awaited supplies from tight-rock formations move to southern states and other regions. Without a Marcellus of its own, the Southeast, including Florida, where demand is booming, has missed out on the cheap fuel that has come with increased output.
“These projects will definitely reduce the spread between the Northeast and other regions,” Tony Franjie, senior natural gas analyst for Genscape in Sugar Land, Texas, said July 20. “Everyone but those near the shale plays has kind of missed out on the boom. It's just crazy what's happened in the Northeast.”
Spot gas in Florida rose 2.8 percent on the Intercontinental Exchange to $2.94 per million British thermal units on July 21, while Marcellus supplies at the Leidy hub slumped to $1.2615.
Price Difference
The difference between the two has averaged $1.48 this year and will shrink to about 30 cents as pipelines come online over the next three years, Franjie said. Tudor Pickering analyst Jeff Schmidt similarly forecast between 20 to 30 cents.
Natural gas futures rose 0.5 percent to settle at $2.897 per million Btu on July 22 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Gas output in the Marcellus has jumped more than 14-fold since January 2007, reaching a record 16.5 billion cubic feet a day in June, U.S. Energy Information Administration data show. Some of that will be shipped overseas in the form of liquefied natural gas, with average daily exports from the U.S. reaching 9.6 billion cubic feet by 2025, according to IHS CERA.
An expansion of Williams's 10,200-mile (16,400 kilometer) Transcontinental Gas Pipeline system on the East Coast may enter service in December. Other proposals totaling as much as 7.5 billion cubic feet a day of capacity are scheduled to come online in 2016 and 2017. One billion cubic feet of gas is enough to heat about 10,000 U.S. homes for a year.
Shrinking Discount
The new capacity will allow so much gas to leave the Marcellus that the discount for supplies at the Leidy hub will shrink by as much as 50 cents versus gas at the U.S. benchmark Henry Hub in Louisiana, said Charles Blanchard, a Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst in New York. The spread was $1.62 on July 21.
Projects capable of carrying as much as 2.1 billion cubic feet a day, or about 17 percent of Southeast demand, are scheduled to begin service by the end of the year. Kinder Morgan's Tennessee Gas Pipeline system will boost deliveries beginning in November. Spectra's Ohio Pipeline Energy Network will start shipping to the South and Midwest in the fourth quarter.
Some of that shale gas will flow to Florida, where power plant demand for the fuel hit a record for April, up 13 percent from a year earlier, based on the latest EIA data. The state is home to six of the 20 fastest-growing U.S. metropolitan areas. Gas flows to the Southeast have more than doubled since 2007, according to LCI Energy Insight in El Paso, Texas.
Disney Benefits
The Reedy Creek Improvement District, which supplies power to Walt Disney World in central Florida, is already benefiting because of Northeast shale gas. The district, which has a gas-fired cogeneration plant and operates its own electric grid, is connected to Kinder Morgan's Florida Gas Transmission pipeline system.
Reedy Creek customers “have seen lower electric energy supply costs as a result of shale gas supply,” Ann Blakeslee, the district's deputy administrator, said by e-mail July 17. Southern Co., which has 4.5 million customers in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Mississippi, also buys gas from suppliers “active in the Marcellus region,” spokesman Jack Bonnikson said by e-mail.
The shipments underscore how quickly the Marcellus shale formation—spread across Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio—has dominated the gas market. It has become America's biggest producer in less than a decade and is now spreading its wealth across the country.
The pipelines coming online over the next three years will mark an “opening of the floodgates” to the U.S. Southeast, Schmidt said. “It's a little bit of the best of both worlds. The producers should see some relief and consumers should see some relief in the heaviest demand season.”
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Senate Committee to Begin Energy Bill Markups
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter and Rebecca Kern
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee plans to begin at least two days of markups on a broad energy bill the week of July 27, but beyond the committee process, the path forward remains unknown, Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters.
“I don't have a commitment from the majority leader as to a time certain, and in fairness, I wouldn't expect him to give me one,” Murkowski said during a July 23 press conference. “We have to produce a product from our committee first.”
The 357-page legislation, the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015 (no bill number), revealed July 22, includes a broad range of policy measures ranging from expediting the Energy Department's approval process for liquefied natural gas exports to boosting the cyber security protections for the electric grid, and it represents months of bipartisan negotiations within the committee (141 DEN A-8, 7/23/15).
Several amendments to the bill are expected, and if needed the committee is ready to hold an additional markup during the first week of August, Murkowski said.
“If you don't like what's in it, you think something should be added, this is your opportunity to weigh in,” Murkowski said. “There will be opportunity for good debate, and I welcome that.”
Among the highlights of the legislation, which if enacted would be the first comprehensive energy bill since the Energy Security and Independence Act of 2007, is a provision that would permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
The fund, which uses revenues from offshore oil and gas development to establish national parks and other public spaces, is set to expire in September.
Land Conservation, Research Reauthorized
“This important program has helped to protect many of our nation's iconic and most popular national parks, forests and public lands, and is itself a treasure,” Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the committee's top Democrat, said in a statement.
The energy bill also incorporates the energy title of legislation championed by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act, which would reauthorize basic energy research programs, including the Energy Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which funds experimental energy research.
In addition, the bill would authorize $65 million for fiscal years 2017-2025 to the Energy Department to develop cyber security applications and technologies for the energy sector.
In the case of emergencies, it would direct the department to protect the bulk power system from cyber security threats. It also would direct the department to communicate with Canada and Mexico on cyber security incidents and call on the department to enhance cyber resiliency and study risks from geomagnetic disturbances, like solar storms, and electric magnetic pulses from malicious parties.
It also would direct the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to adopt regulations to permit entities under an emergency order to seek recovery of costs required as a result of actions ordered by the Energy Department. Also, it would stipulate any rate or charge approved under the regulations must be “just and reasonable and not unduly discriminatory or preferential.”
Grid Reliability Addressed
Furthermore, the bill would amend the Federal Power Act (FPA) to require regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) to report to Congress on the state of electric reliability in their respective regions six months after the legislation is enacted and every three years thereafter.
It would also amend the FPA to require FERC to obtain a reliability impact statement from the RTO/ISO affected by a proposed rulemaking from a federal agency that affects the reliability of the bulk power system.
The bill also would establish an Interagency Rapid Response Team for Transmission to expedite and improve the permitting process for electric transmission infrastructure. It also would be responsible for facilitating the maintenance and upgrades of the electric transmission lines.
The team would be made up of FERC; DOE; the Environmental Protection Agency;, the departments of Interior, Defense, Agriculture and Commerce; the Council on Environmental Quality; and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
However, the bill doesn't authorize new appropriations to this team.
Energy Efficiency Programs
The bill also includes 26 energy efficiency provisions, 19 of which are related to building efficiency, according to an analysis from ClearView Energy Partners LLC in a July 23 report.
Additionally, the bill would allocate $50 million from fiscal years 2017-2026 to the Energy Department to establish a grid energy storage research, development and deployment program addressing technology, grid-scale testing, cost-benefit analyses, standards for storage device performance and a public database, among other requirements.
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Lift The Ban, Cook The Climate
Jul 23, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By David Turnbull
It’s not often environmental organizations and the American Petroleum Institute (API) agree. But, when it comes to the crude oil export ban, we begin from a remarkably similar starting point: removing the longstanding ban would result in increased oil drilling in the United States.
Recent analysis from Oil Change International has shown that removing the ban would result in increased oil drilling on the order of 476,000 barrels per day (bpd) by 2020, similar to API’s own estimate of 500,000 bpd. But the agreements start and end there. For API and its members, ever-increasing oil production and the profits that come with it seems to always be the goal, come hell or high water. For us at Oil Change International, protection of our communities and our climate is paramount. No bump in quarterly earnings for an oil company should ever take precedence over the imperative to tackle the greatest crisis in generations.
U.S. oil producers want an end to the export ban in order to gain access to international markets, which would raise the price they receive for their crude oil. Their rationale is obvious: they seek to increase their profits. The industry claims that eliminating the ban will also result in benefits to the consumer. They hail potential gas prices reductions that could come from lifting the ban, while ignoring the fact that the few cents per gallon potential decrease looks remarkably unimpressive when placed in the context of a highly volatile global market.
Estimates reviewed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office range from essentially zero to a maximum decrease of 13 cents per gallon. That 13 cents, if it even materializes, would amount to less than 8% of the $1.67 per gallon drop in average U.S. gasoline price experienced last year. What we really need is to wean ourselves off our addiction to oil and to stop bowing to the whims of an ever-volatile oil market.
On the other hand, the hazardous increases in oil production that could come with the removal or weakening of the crude export ban presents much greater dangers that simply cannot be ignored. Everyday, dangerous fracking wells, sprawling rail lines carrying so-called “bomb trains” and a network of leaking pipelines threaten our communities with spills and explosions with far-too-frequent regularity. If the highest estimates of increased oil production are realized, eliminating the crude oil export ban could lead to as much as a doubling of crude-by-rail traffic from today’s already perilous levels.
But what’s more, unchecked oil production in the United States imperils us all due to our deepening climate crisis. The world’s top scientists have shown that the vast majority of known fossil fuels must remain unburned if we are to avoid the most devastating and disruptive impacts of unchecked climate change, and yet our Congress is considering unleashing a barrage of new oil drilling.
While the crude oil export ban is not a climate policy, lifting it would hinder, not help, progress towards the goal of climate protection. As the president has said in his climate test for the Keystone XL pipeline, if a project or policy exacerbates the problem of greenhouse gas emissions, it should be rejected. Given the conditions of the current global oil market and Saudi Arabia and OPEC’s recent policy of focusing on maintaining market share rather than maintaining price, additional U.S. oil production will almost certainly lead to an increase in global oil on the market and thus an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Eliminating the export ban will harm the climate by incentivizing the extraction of more oil that should otherwise be left in the ground, and by stimulating oil demand by raising oil supply.
If members of Congress do not deny the science of climate change, the last thing they should do is encourage more fossil fuel production. In fact a gradual phase down in U.S. – and global – oil production over the next 35 years in line with a climate safe scenario is exactly what we need in order to avoid catastrophic climate change.
We have dug ourselves an enormous climate hole that will take tremendous resolve to claw ourselves out of. Removing the crude export ban only serves to dig that hole deeper. It fails the climate test and would be a step in the wrong direction for this nation’s climate and energy policy.
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EPA Issues ‘Methane Challenge' to Oil, Gas Industry
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging oil and natural gas companies to take voluntary steps to curb their methane emissions as part of a “methane challenge” proposal released July 23.
The challenge program would encourage oil and gas companies to commit to “ambitious” methane reduction targets that would be reported to the EPA through the annual greenhouse gas reporting requirements.
The EPA said the voluntary measures in the Natural Gas STAR Methane Challenge Program are intended to drive best practices throughout the oil and natural gas industry.
“The two hallmarks of the proposed program—ambitious commitments and transparency—will facilitate information sharing about accomplishments and progress made,” the EPA said in its proposal. “Thus, the program can serve as a catalyst for broad industry adoption of best practices to reduce emissions.”
The proposal would build on the EPA's existing Natural Gas STAR program, which allows companies to commit to voluntary emissions reduction targets at the company, facility or regional level.
Part of Administration's Plan
The methane challenge is part of an administrationwide plan to reduce emissions of methane, a short-lived greenhouse gas that is 28 times to 36 times more potent than carbon dioxide when measured over a 100-year period, by between 40 percent and 45 percent from 2012 levels by 2025.
The voluntary program comes as the EPA is expected to propose the first-ever methane emissions performance standards for new oil and natural gas wells in August (122 DEN A-8, 6/25/15).
The EPA said it will hold webinars on the proposed methane challenge program this month with the intention of finalizing the program in October. The program would take effect in 2016, with the first annual progress reports issued in spring of 2017.
Voluntary Program Called Insufficient
Environmental groups said voluntary programs wouldn't be sufficient for reducing methane from the oil and natural gas sector.
“If voluntary measures worked, they'd already be in place,” Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Meleah Geertsma said in a July 23 statement. “In order to meet the administration's commendable methane reduction goals, we need legally required nationwide standards. A self-policing approach is no substitute.”
The industry touted steps it has already taken to reduce methane emissions even as oil and natural gas production has boomed, citing EPA emissions data showing that methane from natural gas systems as a whole has declined by 11 percent since 2005.
“Industry is already incentivized to best determine how to cost-effectively reduce emissions and will consider participation in a voluntary program provided it has the necessary flexibility and incentives,” Howard Feldman, director of regulatory and scientific affairs at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a July 23 statement.
The EPA will accept comments on the methane challenge proposal through Sept. 1. Comments can be submitted at http://www.epa.gov/gasstar/methanechallenge/feedback.html or at methanechallenge@tetratech.com.
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EPA Touts Flexibility In New Voluntary Methane Control Plan For Gas Sector
Jul 23, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
EPA has released its revised plan for the natural gas sector to voluntarily cut its methane emissions from existing sources, proposing a program that the agency says includes more flexibility for industry, such as company-wide options, than the facility-based approach that the agency was forced to withdraw last year in the face of industry opposition.
While the revised proposal may provide more flexibility than the agency's first plan, the measure may also go part way to meeting some environmentalists' calls for a strong voluntary program, for example, by requiring companies to set near-term reduction targets, though most environmentalists reiterated their calls for the agency to issue strong regulations to bolster any voluntary program.
“If voluntary measures worked, they'd already be in place,” the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a July 23 press release, adding that nationally enforceable standards are needed to meet the administration’s reduction goals. “A self-policing approach is no substitute.”
EPA July 23 quietly released a new plan for its proposed program, touting its flexibility for industry participants and renaming it as a “challenge” for industry. “The proposed Methane Challenge Program incorporates flexibility into several program elements, including implementation timeframes to inspire ambition in a structure that is achievable,” EPA says in its proposal.
EPA is taking comment on the plan through Sept. 1 and aims to revise and finalize the approach by the end of October, with a launch with charter partners planned for the end of the year and implementation starting Jan. 1, 2016.
The voluntary program aims to build on the success of the agency's existing Natural Gas Star voluntary program to identify cost-effective technologies and options for voluntary emission reductions from the sector.
The agency is crafting the framework as part of a package to cut the sector's methane emissions in accordance with the President's goal of reducing 40-45 percent of the sector's methane by 2025.
Included in the package is a first-time proposed rule directly regulating methane from some "new" sources, which is currently undergoing White House review and is slated for release next month.
The proposed rule's issuance will mark a win for environmentalists, who have long sought such "direct" regulation of methane, a greenhouse gas that is significantly more potent than carbon dioxide.
But environmentalists have been unable to convince the administration to regulate existing sources. Instead, the administration is developing the voluntary program to address existing sources' methane emissions, while also crafting guidelines to reduce ozone-forming emissions, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs), in areas out of attainment with EPA air quality standards which may have a co-benefit of also reducing methane.
The proposed voluntary program is intended as a partnership between EPA and industry, setting best practices for facilities to cut emissions of methane. As a result, many in industry have urged EPA to allow participation in the voluntary program as an alternative to strict new emissions standards.
They also had success in getting the agency to scrap its 2014 plan for the voluntary program after complaining that it would have been too burdensome and few companies would have participated. They said the agency must ensure a new program provides significant flexibility in how and where to reduce emissions, saying it is the key issue to address if the program is to win the robust industry participation the agency is seeking.
Two Options
EPA acknowledged the earlier industry concern, noting in its new proposal that “the feedback received on the Gas STAR Gold proposal, which EPA is not moving forward with, has resulted in this new Methane Challenge approach to an expanded voluntary program,” EPA says in the proposal.
In an effort to provide more flexibility, EPA has scrapped the facility-based framework it proposed in 2014 and instead is floating two options that companies would be able to choose.
The options are a best management practice (BMP) approach that would aim to drive near-term, widespread implementation of mitigation activities from specific sources of methane, such as liquids unloading, and an approach in which companies could participate through One Future, an existing industry-led program involving ambitious reduction targets based on emission rates.
On the BMP option, EPA says it would provide lists of key sources and corresponding BMPs, and companies would address one or more of these sources, and designate the timeline for achieving company-wide implementation. The approach is flexible because it would allow companies to set different timelines for each source depending on their historic progress with and anticipated ability to meet the commitments.
The second option would allow EPA to recognize ONE Future participants’ commitments and provide a reporting platform for transparently tracking company progress against commitments -- which would include annual reporting requirements aligned through EPA's GHG reporting program for the sector.
EPA is also taking comment on a third option, reducing their methane emissions by a certain percentage from an agreed company-wide emissions baseline by a future date -- to be determined by company -- but has not yet committed to its inclusion because the agency says such an option appears to have some obstacles.
For example, EPA says it has there are some concerns that committing to emissions reductions could be problematic for companies wishing to expand their operations, that tracking baseline emissions could present a challenge and that companies participating in the program whose emissions fall below the GHG reporting program's 25,000 metric tons per year threshold may show higher total emissions than non-participating companies.
EPA is seeking comment on ways it could address the implementation challenges, saying, “What is the minimum target company-specific reduction level that should be set for participation in this option?” and asking whether companies would avail themselves of such an option.
The agency is also soliciting comment on a number of specific questions, including on possible incentives other than recognition; how the agency can encourage BMPs for sources at which companies have not already committed to mitigation measures; the appropriateness of a five-year time frame for achieving BMPs; and whether the GHGRP would be a suitable mechanism for reporting data.
EPA also asks, “To what extent is differentiating the voluntary actions from regulatory actions important to stakeholders,” seeking potential mechanisms for distinguishing actions driven by state or federal regulation from those undertaken voluntarily.
Environmental Groups
Most environmental groups are already responding to the proposal, warning that voluntary measures will be unable to accomplish significant methane reductions on their own. "Relying on the oil and gas industry to voluntarily reduce air pollution is allowing the fox to guard the hen house," Earthworks Oil and Gas Accountability Project said in a July 23 statement.
But some environmentalists have sought to shape the voluntary program even as they call for strict new regulations. In a blog post July 20, Environmental Defense Fund's Mark Brownstein urged EPA to set strict "benchmarks" for the plan, including frequent leak detection and repair (LDAR) inspections, regular updates of near-term reduction targets, a broad listing of BMPs and an explicit "additionality" requirement that would limit BMP credits for early actions.
Brownstein, vice president of the climate and energy program at EDF, said that such measures were needed for a voluntary program to be "valid and constructive," though he echoed other environmentalists that a voluntary program is not a substitute for regulation.
EPA does not appear to have heeded his call on LDAR, saying that companies would have to undertake monitoring and repair activities at “specified minimum intervals,” though the agency does not elaborate on the frequency of any monitoring. EPA does, however, appear to be willing to set near-term targets, saying “EPA is proposing that timing for full completion of commitments should not exceed five years from the commitment date, and that commitments should include interim milestones (e.g. on an annual basis) to ensure steady progress towards full completion by the commitment date.”
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EPA Proposes Voluntary Methane Reduction Program
Jul 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is putting together a program to encourage the oil and gas industry to voluntarily reduce methane emissions.
The Methane Challenge Program would ask oil and gas companies to set specific goals for reducing methane emissions at their facilities and then detail annual progress made. “The program can serve as a catalyst for broad industry adoption of best practices to reduce emissions,” the EPA wrote in a fact sheet about the proposal.
According to the EPA, the program builds on the 20-year-old Natural Gas STAR Program, which encourages reductions in methane emissions at oil and gas facilities. The EPA says the program has stopped more than 1 trillion cubic feet of methane emissions since then.
Methane is the main component of natural gas. It’s a potent greenhouse gas, with an impact on global warming up to 20 times higher than carbon dioxide.
The EPA’s new program comes before the agency releases a proposed set of regulations to limit methane emissions at newly drilled or modified oil and natural gas wells. Administration officials have said they hope to eventually put in place policies to reduce methane emissions by up to 45 percent by 2025.
The industry has criticized that proposal. Even as the American Petroleum Institute (API) said it would work with the EPA on the program it announced on Thursday, it reiterated its opposition to hard government limits on emissions.
“Voluntary programs are the best way to reduce methane emissions from existing sources,” said Howard Feldman, the API’s senior director of regulatory and scientific affairs. The API said the industry has worked to reduce methane emissions from natural gas operations by 11 percent since 2005.
“Industry is already incentivized to best determine how to cost-effectively reduce emissions and will consider participation in a voluntary program provided it has the necessary flexibility and incentives.”
Green groups were more skeptical about the impact of voluntary emissions reduction efforts.
“The industry would like us to believe it will reduce this potent climate pollution out of the goodness of their hearts — we don’t buy it,” Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Meleah Geertsma said in a statement.
“If voluntary measures worked, they'd already be in place. In order to meet the administration’s commendable methane reduction goals, we need legally required nationwide standards. A self-policing approach is no substitute.”
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Advocates Look To Methane NSPS To Preserve Options For Existing Sources
Jul 23, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Environmentalists are urging the administration to craft EPA’s forthcoming emissions standards for methane and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from new and modified sources in the oil and gas sector in a way that captures a broad range of sources, an approach that would preserve their options for eventually regulating a similarly broad range of existing sources.
“It’s a question of having a full list of sources, new and existing, to make sure [EPA] sets standards for new sources that they’d want to regulate” as existing “further down the road,” says one environmentalist. The overarching issue is [crafting a rule] that covers all sources as broadly as possible,” the environmentalist says.
Environmentalists’ advocacy, in meetings at the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) last week, comes after EPA officials largely rejected their requests to quickly regulate existing sources, a larger universe of sources than what the agency’s new source performance standards (NSPS) will initially regulate.
EPA is developing the rule under the terms of President Obama’s cliamte plan to cut emissions of the potent greenhouse gas from the oil and gas sector. The president’s plan required EPA to publish a final methane rule, under section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act, by the end of 2016 -- shortly before the administration leaves office.
The proposed rule, a draft version of which EPA sent to OMB June 24, will target VOCs and methane for sources of emissions within the sector, some of which were the subject of five 2014 white papers: completions of hydraulically fractured oil wells, leaks, pneumatic devices, compressors and liquids unloading operations.
The rule will amend the agency’s 2012 standards for some sources that only targeted VOCs.
But environmentalists have been suggesting that once the NSPS is finalized, they will press the administration to craft a rule for existing sources, a much broader universe of sources than the NSPS will address. They argue that under the Clean Air Act, once EPA sets regulations for new and modified sources under section 111(b), the agency “shall prescribe regulations” that would require states to craft plans for meeting standards for existing sources under section 111(d) -- as the agency is doing in its GHG standards for the power sector.
That rule would set state-specific GHG limits and then defer to states on writing compliance plans.
However, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has said the air law gives EPA considerable discretion on when to promulgate a rule, though environmentalists say the air law does not grant EPA endless discretion in holding off on regulating existing sources after it establishes an NSPS.
Existing Sources
But the agency is also taking some steps to address emissions from existing sources. EPA is developing a new voluntary program to reduce existing sources’ methane emissions over the next several years. The agency says that if the industry adequately reduces its emissions, it may obviate the need for regulation since the Clean Air Act mandates that regulations must be based on the best technology that is economically achievable.
Additionally, EPA July 21 sent to OMB its proposed control technique guidelines for curbing VOCs and other ozone precursors for existing sources in the sector for areas out of attainment with the agency’s national ambient air quality standards for ozone and the Ozone Transport Commission -- a measure that is expected to have a co-benefit of also reducing methane.
But environmentalists in meetings with OMB and EPA officials last week reiterated concerns that focusing on new and modified sources from the oil and gas sector will not achieve the 40-45 percent reductions over the next decade that the president has called on the agency to accomplish with regulation.
“As a practical matter, a comprehensive new source program is important in its own right, but it’s not going to achieve the kind of reduction the administration is setting out to achieve,” a second environmentalist says, adding that states are already taking their own actions on existing methane sources, including Colorado, which should make it easier for the agency to set a federal floor.
In the meetings with OMB, the environmentalists underscored the importance of swiftly pursuing an existing source rules, the first source says, but also that an NSPS should consider setting standards for sources to create a framework to precede existing source limits.
During the meetings, groups also floated the 2014 report by Sierra Club, Clean Air Task Force and Natural Resources Defense Council , “Waste Not, Common Sense Ways to Reduce Methane Pollution form the Oil and Natural Gas Industry,” which outlines sources the groups say EPA must address to achieve the greatest methane cuts.
Those include strict leak detection and repair programs -- which environmentalists say must be mandated on a monthly or similarly frequent basis as opposed annual monitoring requirements -- that they say could reduce up to an estimated 1.7 million to 1.8 million metric tons per year, and those should be applied to wellpads, processing plants, compressor stations and large aboveground distribution facilities.
For pneumatic devices, the report says that while EPA’s 2012 NSPS for the sector includes controls for some new compressors and pneumatic equipment, Colorado has already applied those controls to existing sources, and that EPA should “set additional standards that require the same practices for all such equipment--both new and existing--throughout the industry.” The first environmentalist says that EPA may be considering holding off on applying standards to liquids unloading, a production process involving the removal of excess fluids form mature wells, because it is unclear whether the process would be considered a “new or modified” source since it often is used at older wells. Environmentalists say the process could be considered a “modification” because it involves a physical change to the well which may increase emissions, but an industry source says, “I don’t think EPA is pressing on liquids unloading.”
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Greens Say EPA’s New Methane Plan Needs To Go Further
Jul 23, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
Environmental groups cautiously welcomed today’s EPA proposal for a new voluntary program to spur methane reductions from the oil and gas industry, but they pressed the Obama administration to use its regulatory authority to make good on planned emissions cuts.
The EPA’s planned Methane Challenge, an expansion of its previous Natural Gas STAR efforts to secure voluntary methane reductions, aims to get oil and gas companies to set specific targets and track their progress in detail through the agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting platform. But climate activists who see methane as an environmental challenge on par with carbon warned that new EPA regulations would be necessary.
“While this voluntary program is a step forward, strong EPA standards are where we’ll see real progress in achieving the goal of up to 45 percent reduction in methane pollution by 2025 established by the president earlier this year,” BlueGreen Alliance Executive Director Kim Glas said in a statement.
Meleah Geertsma, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said: “If voluntary measures worked, they'd already be in place. In order to meet the administration’s commendable methane reduction goals, we need legally required nationwide standards.”
The Clean Air Task Force sounded a similar note, calling the voluntary program “an important step, but not the only step the administration is committed to taking in the coming months” in order to meet its methane-cutting goals. -
Outrage over EPA emissions regulations fades as states find fixes
Jul 24, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Joby Warrick
Even after years of talk about a “war on coal,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell startled some of his constituents in March when he urged open rebellion against a White House proposal for cutting pollution from coal-fired power plants.
The Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan is “extremely burdensome and costly,” the Kentucky Republican said in letters advising all 50 states to boycott the rule when it goes into effect this summer.
The call for direct defiance was unusual even for McConnell, who has made a career of battling federal restrictions on coal. Yet more striking is what has happened since: Kentucky’s government and electric utilities have quietly positioned themselves to comply with the rule — something state officials expect to do with relatively little effort.
In this coal-industry bastion, five of the state’s older coal-burning power plants were already scheduled to close or switch to natural gas in the next two years, either because of aging equipment or to save money, state officials say. As a result, Kentucky’s greenhouse-gas emissions are set to plummet 16 percent below where they were in 2012 — within easy reach of the 18 percent reduction goal proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency in a draft of the agency’s controversial carbon-cutting plan.
“We can meet it,” Kentucky Energy and Environment Secretary Leonard Peters, speaking at a climate conference, said of the EPA’s mandate. A homeowner displays a "war on coal" sign in a mountain village near Whitesburg, Ky. (Joby Warrick/The Washington Post)
[Everything you need to know about the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.]
The story is the same across much of the country as the EPA prepares to roll out what is arguably the biggest and most controversial environmental regulation of the Obama presidency. Under the Clean Power Plan, states will have to find ways to achieve dramatic cuts in carbon pollution over the next 15 years, with reduction quotas topping 50 percent over 2012 levels for some states. But despite dire warnings and harsh political rhetoric, many states are already on track to meet their targets, even before the EPA formally announces them, interviews and independent studies show.
Iowa is expected to meet half of its carbon-reduction goal by next year, just with the wind-power projects already planned or in construction. Nevada is on track to meet 100 percent of its goal without additional effort, thanks to several huge solar-energy farms the state’s electricity utilities were already planning to build. From the Great Lakes to the Southwest, electric utilities were projecting huge drops in greenhouse-gas emissions as they switch from burning coal to natural gas — not because of politics or climate change, but because gas is now cheaper.
“It’s frankly the norm,” said Malcolm Woolf, a former Maryland state energy official and now senior vice president for Advanced Energy Economy, an industry association that includes electricity providers and major manufacturers. While some power companies have logistical concerns about meeting the EPA’s targets, Woolf said, “we’ve yet to find a state that is going to have a real technical challenge meeting this.” EPA promises ‘flexibility’
States’ interest in the EPA’s Clean Power Plan has soared in recent weeks as the agency prepares to reveal the final contours of a proposal that was first announced more than a year ago. Administration officials have been meeting privately for weeks to craft a final version that will withstand legal and legislative challenges. One senior administration official said the revised plan will include provisions that will make it easier for most states to comply.
“The administration has made it clear that there will be changes that will increase flexibility to allow states to meet the standards,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity in discussing ongoing deliberations.
The essentials of the regulation are expected to remain unchanged: In a major step to reduce the pollutants linked to climate change, the Obama administration will require states to reduce carbon pollution by a certain percentage — the exact rate varies depending on each state’s mix of power sources and current levels of fossil-fuel emissions — by 2030. A stream carrying runoff from an abandoned Eastern Kentucky coal mine runs bright orange from chemical contaminants in mine waste. (Joby Warrick/The Washington Post)
The plan’s highly touted “flexibility” is a key selling point. Under the EPA’s proposal, each state has the option of devising its own strategy for cutting carbon, based on local circumstances and economic considerations. One state may opt to phase out older coal-burning power plants, while another might seek to expand the use of solar and wind energy. Or a state might add new energy-efficiency programs to cut electricity consumption.
If a state makes no attempt to come up with its own plan — as McConnell has advised — the EPA can impose its own, made-in-Washington plan.
Critics of the EPA plan, including McConnell, say the flexibility provisions are a mirage. Soon, opponents say, states will find themselves bound to mandatory pollution cuts that will make electricity costs soar, hurting consumers and costing jobs — especially coal-industry jobs.
“EPA, like the [Greeks], is asking governors to willingly accept a Trojan horse, the Clean Power Plan,” said Luke Popovich, spokesman for the National Mining Association. “Once that plan is brought into a state, EPA will be in command of that state’s energy economy.”
Opponents are organizing to defeat the proposal across multiple fronts. In addition to McConnell’s efforts to organize a boycott, a number of states have joined a lawsuit challenging the legality of the proposed rule. Members of Congress from both political parties have supported measures to block or delay the measure’s implementation.
“We are witnessing the Obama administration wage an all-out assault on our energy abundance, deploying the EPA to do whatever it takes to shut down fossil-fuel-fired power plants across the country,” said Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), sponsor of a bill that would delay the proposal’s implementation and allow states to opt out without penalty.
Six governors have taken up McConnell’s call to “just say no” to the EPA’s proposal. Five are Republicans — including presidential contenders Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and Scott Walker of Wisconsin — and one, Earl Ray Tomblin of West Virginia, is a Democrat.
Yet, even in states that have joined lawsuits against the measure, state regulators and utility companies are hedging their bets, drawing up plans for carbon-cutting to avoid having to accept a plan crafted by the EPA.
“Our utilities don’t want a federal plan; they want a state plan they can control,” said John Lyons, Kentucky’s assistant secretary for climate policy under outgoing Gov. Steve Beshear (D). “We have an obligation to the next administration to prepare.” Changes in coal country
The shift from coal to cleaner energy is particularly striking in McConnell’s home state, where the majority leader’s call for defiance has been met with a shrug.
The coal industry still wields enormous political power, defended by a mostly Republican congressional delegation that has vowed to save coal-mining jobs by blocking burdensome regulation. McConnell, shortly before taking the Senate majority leader’s post early this year, declared that his No. 1 priority was to “do whatever I can to get the EPA reined in.” In eastern coal towns, a common roadside sign still urges voters to “Fire Obama” and “Stop the war on coal.”
Yet, scattered throughout the state are other signs that point to decreasing dependence on coal, moving the state closer to meeting its emissions targets.
Early this month, the coal furnaces at Louisville Gas & Electric Co.’s Cane Run power plant — a towering structure on the banks of the Ohio River — shut down for good, replaced by a new unit that burns cheaper natural gas. The switch occurred in the month when natural gas officially surpassed coal nationwide as the No. 1 fuel for electricity production, government figures show.
[Supreme Court deals setback to EPA on mercury pollution.]
In Hazard, a town of 4,500 people some 40 miles from the Virginia border, gargantuan machines called draglines still tear away at four different mountains within a few miles of downtown. In a practice known as mountaintop mining, companies shear off entire peaks to expose narrow coal seams buried beneath. But these days, even mountaintop mining is in steep decline. Since 2008, the number of mine permits has dropped 62 percent, reflecting an overall drop in domestic demand for coal, according to the federal Energy Information Administration.
Appalachia’s coal fields are also losing to competition from other parts of the country. An ever greater share of U.S. coal production now comes from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana, where the coal seams lie just below the surface and can be recovered without expensive tunneling or mountaintop removal. The number of coal-related jobs in Kentucky has fallen from 48,000 in 1980 to 18,000 in 2013, with an even steeper drop forecast for the coming decades. A 2009 study by the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that Appalachian coal production was on the cusp of a “period of irreversible decline.”
With the likelihood of a coal resurgence increasingly in doubt, some Kentuckians are questioning whether the energy expended in fighting coal regulations would be better applied to bringing new kinds of industries to the state’s coal counties, where measures of poverty, health care and life expectancy are among the most dismal in the country.
“They blame Obama for everything,” said Stanley Sturgill, 70, a retired miner from Lynch, a village near Kentucky’s eastern border with Virginia. “But he’s only been in office for six years, while these other politicians have been around for 30 years or more, and their pockets are full of coal money. They’ve been riding the coal train and not bringing anything back.”
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Miss. Will 'Just Say No' To EPA Rule Whitfield Vows To Kill
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Jean Chemnick
Mississippi's governor yesterday joined a small but growing band of states pledging to "just say no" to implementation of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, saying the rule's environmental benefits did not justify its costs.
Gov. Phil Bryant (R), in a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, cited a lack of credit for early action in the existing power plant carbon draft, which he said placed states like his own at a disadvantage because they had new nuclear energy in the pipeline at the time the rule came out. That zero-carbon power was built into the draft rule's baseline rather than counted toward its compliance goal.
He also argued the rule represented an "unfunded mandate, requiring Mississippi to invest substantial amounts to obtain and implement new technology without allowing the state adequate time to prepare."
The power plant rule does not mandate that the state government do anything toward meeting a proposed 37 percent reduction in power-sector emissions by 2030. But the goal -- which is higher than the 30 percent nationwide average -- would compel the state's utility sector to shift even further toward gas and away from coal than it already has. The state already draws three-fifths of its power from gas, with coal and nuclear making up a fifth of its portfolio each.
The shutdown of the state's coal-fired power plants would usher in reliability problems and cost ratepayers in one of the nation's poorest states, Bryant asserted.
"In light of the high cost of EPA's proposal, not only to Mississippi's economy, but also to its most vulnerable citizens, any environmental benefits that may result from the implementation of EPA's proposal ... cannot be justified," he wrote.
The existing power plant rule is slated to be final in very early August along with rules for new and modified power plants. And congressional Republicans are already sharpening their knives.
Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power, said yesterday the GOP would use all tools at its disposal to scuttle the rule, including the rarely used Congressional Review Act.
"We're going to pursue legal grounds, we're going to pursue legislative grounds, and we're going to pursue everything else that is available to us," he said.
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White House Nominates DOE Undersecretary
Jul 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
The White House announced its intent July 23 to nominate Victoria Wassmer to be undersecretary for management and performance at the Energy Department.
Wassmer has served as the assistant administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Finance and Management in the Transportation Department since 2011. From 2004 to 2010, she held a variety of positions at the FAA, including deputy assistant administrator, deputy chief financial officer, deputy director of the office of budget and manager of the performance and cost analysis division.
The undersecretary for management and performance is a new position created by the department in 2013, and Wassmer would be the first person to hold the position.
The administration plans to formally nominate Wassmer for confirmation by the Senate.
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Battle Brewing Over Amendments To House Bill
Jul 24, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Daniel Bush
Members of a House energy panel are headed for a partisan showdown over amendments to a sweeping energy package, with Republicans and Democrats staking out opposite ground on a range of divisive issues from crude oil exports to renewable energy.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) predicted that the committee's members would have "a lot of good, constructive comments" on the bill when lawmakers return from their summer recess in September.
Upton said the bill, which passed out of the Energy and Power Subcommittee earlier this week, would receive a full committee markup after the break.
"We're working together, and we're off to a good start," Upton said in an interview.
But as lawmakers on the committee get set to head home to their districts, many are already preparing a slew of amendments that will test the panel's willingness to compromise.
On the right, Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) said GOP members are prepared to introduce a provision that would lift the decades-old ban on crude oil exports. The proposal is popular with American oil producers but has been roundly criticized by environmental groups and many Democrats, who say it would encourage more fossil fuel production.
"Crude oil exports will be one" of the amendments offered by Republicans, said Flores, who is also backing a stand-alone measure to lift the ban.
The Senate is also expected to address the export ban as part of a debate over its energy package, which is scheduled for a round of markups next week. But it remains unclear if the language will be included in the final bill or if there's enough votes in the upper chamber to pass the House's stand-alone measure.
The House export measure is moving along faster than the broader energy package and could receive a floor vote as early as September, Flores said.
"If ours passes and the Senate hasn't acted on it, then for sure we'll" include it in the energy package, Flores said.
The Texas Republican also said GOP members would introduce an amendment aimed at blocking new ozone pollution regulations U.S. EPA proposed last November.
Meanwhile, House Democrats on the energy panel say they'll draw up provisions to promote clean energy development, setting up a stark contrast with Republicans as both sides negotiate the first big energy reform package in a decade.
"I want to find ways to try to empower the clean energy sector and energy-efficient small businesses," Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) said. Castor said she would be meeting with renewable energy developers in her Tampa-based district to get input on the bill over the August recess.
Other Democrats, like Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), appear to be caught in the middle. Green said he plans to propose language that would cut regulations for cross-border oil and gas pipelines and transmission lines.
Green also said he would propose language amending a section of the 2005 energy law that requires federal buildings to transition to using renewable energy.
"I'd like to reform the section to [reflect] what the market is today," Green said. "We all thought we were going to be able to turn our lights on with renewables, but that's not the case."
It's still unclear how many amendments will make their way into the final bill. At the markup earlier this week, Upton and Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the Energy and Commerce Committee's top Democrat, indicated that they want a relatively clean bill that could draw bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress.
Several members of the panel said they expected the amendments would be kept to a minimum. But Upton told E&E Daily that he plans to give lawmakers a chance to air their differences while pushing for bipartisan policy riders.
"I'm never in a position to deny germane amendments. That's not my style," Upton said. "But if they're going to be adopted, they're going to be bipartisan."
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Republicans Turn Subpoena Power On Obama’s Environmental Agenda
Jul 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have turned their focus to the Obama administration’s environmental agenda.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) issued subpoenas to two Obama administration agencies this month, demanding information about the president’s delayed Keystone XL pipeline decision and deliberations leading to the release of a sweeping new water rule. The subpoenas come after Chaffetz vowed in February, shortly after taking the gavel of the investigative panel, to probe management problems and the pace of rule-making at the Environmental Protection Agency. The subpoenas suggest Chaffetz’s focus has broadened to include the State Department and the White House itself.
“We gave these things, in the case of Keystone, months to percolate, and it gets to be a point of frustration when you see no movement or even a hint that they might be complying with the requests, then you have to ratchet it up and maybe that will get their attention,” he said.
Throughout his administration, Obama’s aggressive push to institute new environmental regulations has generated relentless criticism from Republicans who have long sought to undo his administration’s policies — or, in the case of approving the Keystone project, force his hand. The subpoenas have opened a new chapter in the way congressional Republicans are working to stymie that agenda.
The new subpoenas stem from what Republicans view as foot-dragging or, at worst, open refusal from administration officials to respond to their requests for information. Chaffetz said environmental issues are an important topic for him, given the policies’ effect on Western states and his role as the first Mountain State chairman of the powerful Oversight panel.
“A Democratic administration, I guess that’s not too much of a surprise,” he said of Obama’s rule-making. “But that doesn’t mean we’re not going to investigate. If they’re going to turn up the volume of regulations, we have a right to see that information.”
Chaffetz’s committee has waded into a handful of cases of employee misconduct at the EPA since he took over this session. In some cases, he has been able to find a measure of common ground with committee Democrats, including ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.).
That bipartisanship may not extend as far when Chaffetz begins probing policy issues instead of staffing problems.
In a statement, Cummings said Chaffetz has been more “responsible” in issuing subpoenas than his predecessor, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). But he said “there are serious problems” with the renewed committee focus on the Keystone XL pipeline.
“The State Department has already said it would provide the requested documents after a final decision is made,” he said. “But until that time these are deliberative documents designed to inform a presidential decision based on his authority under the Constitution, so the agency has a strong case.”
Committee Republicans have twice asked the State Department to give it all “reports, recommendations, letters and comments” the agency is using to review the long-delayed pipeline project.
The administration has steadfastly refused to release those documents while the review is underway. In a statement after the subpoena came out, State Department spokesman John Kirby said that “after a decision [on Keystone] is made, we will release the comments of the eight executive advising agencies.”
Chaffetz called that promise “hogwash” and said he hopes the subpoena puts more pressure on Obama to either consider the project or at least release documents that might explain the delays.
Other Republicans agree.
“Under these subpoenas I am hopeful we can get the truth of what the motivation is for holding up a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline for over six years,” said Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who chairs the Oversight subcommittee that oversees the Interior Department. “If the decision-making delays on the pipeline are justified then show the documents that prove it.”
The committee’s other subpoena centers on the information the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) used to review the EPA’s rule establishing regulatory power over smaller bodies of water.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), one of Chaffetz’s lieutenants on the Oversight Committee, said the subpoena could help Republicans restore balance between the Obama administration’s rule-making and Congress’s ability to write laws.
“I don’t see it as combating the Obama administration as much as it is really combating a rule-making process that is beyond the scope of what our founding fathers originally set out and really beyond the scope of the walls of separation between the executive branch and the legislative branch,” he said.
At a March hearing, Meadows asked OIRA Administrator Howard Shelanski to give the committee all communications between OIRA and the EPA to illustrate how the rule was developed. Shelanski declined, saying the communications were part of a “deliberative process” and Congress had no right to see them.
Meadows said the subpoena could help fuel lawsuits against the rule, which is the main way opponents have tried combating Obama regulatory orders outside of the legislative process. He suspects the administration focused more on the legal justification for the rule than its economic impact.
“For us, there was a whole lot of impact from stakeholders across the ideological spectrum that talked about the financial impact,” he said. “There is great concern that some of that impact was either ignored or certainly not taken into the same consideration or given the same merit as some other impacts.”
Chaffetz said the committee’s work on environmental issues is just beginning. Beyond the subpoenas, he’s already scheduled another hearing on EPA management issues for next week.
“You’re just seeing us now with all engines moving in the right direction,” he said. “There was a transition time, there was new staff; one-third of our committee on the Republican side are new freshman members. But now we’re fully engaged, the staff is up to speed, and you’re seeing a much more fully-functional committee.”
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EAB Petition Tests Judicial Deference For EPA’s CWA Permitting Decisions
Jul 23, 2015 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
A pending EPA Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) petition seeks to overturn an agency-crafted Clean Water Act (CWA) discharge permit by claiming federal officials failed to justify the permit limits and compliance schedule, a case that could test the boundaries of judicial deference to the agency’s technical decisions in CWA permits.
In a July 2 petition to EAB, the Brattle Road Farm Condominium Trust says EPA had no scientific justification for setting a strict limit on phosphorus discharges from the trust’s Lincoln, MA, wastewater plant and therefore EAB should scrap the permit.
The petition claims that when EPA set the permit’s phosphorus limit, it directly contradicted the state’s own reading of its water quality rules. It also claims EPA ignored its own internal guidance on when such limits are appropriate -- errors which, the trust says, mean the agency forfeits the deference that courts often show to the agency on scientific issues, for example its interpretation of data in setting pollution standards.
“EPA’s development of the total phosphorus limit is diametrically opposed to [the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP)] interpretation of its own state narrative criterion and must be considered arbitrary, erroneous and unreasonable based on the facts and law applicable to this permit,” the petition says.
If the petition reaches a federal appellate court -- which would be the next step after an EAB ruling if either side seeks review of the board’s eventual decision -- it could lead to new precedent on when judges will defer to EPA’s scientific judgment when its actions appear to conflict with states’ decisions or the agency’s own prior guidance.
The case contests the CWA permit limit of 0.1 miligram per liter (mg/l) for phosphorus discharges from the Brattle Road plant. The petition says EPA applied that limit to discharges to a wetland even though its guide on the subject, known as the “Gold Book,” says that standard is appropriate for streams and should be tempered by site-specific studies the agency did not perform.
“Despite acknowledging that the 0.1 mg/l recommended total phosphorus criteria is applicable for a stream, EPA erroneously applied it in this instance to a wetland,” the petition says.
The petition also touts a MassDEP finding that “The Gold Book criterion used as the basis for the phosphorus limit in the draft permit ‘is for any stream not discharging directly to lakes or impounds,’” which the petition argues directly contradicts the agency’s use of the limit.
While courts generally defer to the agency’s scientific judgment, “in the context of review of a state water quality standard, EPA is not entitled to . . . deference when their interpretation was not ‘consistently held’ and “reasonable,’” the petition says.
'Extreme Deference'
In order to win a favorable ruling, the Brattle Road trust might have to overcome a 2012 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit on another EPA-crafted CWA permit in Massachusetts, Upper Blackstone Water Pollution Abatement District v. EPA.
In that case -- which also dealt with a phosphorus limit based on the Gold Book -- a unanimous panel held that courts should treat the agency’s decisions in crafting permits based on narrative standards with “extreme deference,” and specifically upheld EPA’s use of reference studies that the water district argued were inapplicable to local conditions.
Under the CWA, states draft and EPA approves water quality criteria, risk-based limits that regulators use, along with waterbodies’ designated uses and antidegradation policy to set enforceable water quality standards and permit limits.
However, states’ use of narrative criteria -- based on avoiding effects of pollution such as algal blooms or reductions in fish population, rather than measuring numeric levels of specific pollutants -- has in the past made it difficult to comply with the water law’s requirement that states determine whether a discharger has a “reasonable potential to cause, or contribute to an excursion beyond applicable water quality criteria.”
Regulators seeking to apply narrative standards must “translate” the adopted criteria into a numeric limit, often using non-binding guidance or technical handbooks to inform the process.
If the petition goes before an appellate court, it could give judges an opportunity to balance the Upper Blackstone court’s refusal to second-guess the agency’s technical analysis with the 8th Circuit’s 2013 decision in Iowa League of Cities v. EPA, where it restricted EPA’s use of informal guidance in conjunction with permitting. After the Upper Blackstone ruling, the district argued, in petitions for rehearing to the 1st Circuit and for certiorari before the Supreme Court, that the ruling conflicts with the D.C. Circuit’s 1993 decision in American Paper Institute, Inc. v. United States EPA. The American Paper ruling held that when EPA crafts a discharge permit to meet a state’s narrative water quality criteria, it must “tailor the federal standard to any relevant site-specific circumstances in order to effectuate the intent of a particular state narrative criterion.” But neither court sided with the district on those arguments.
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