Preview Newsletter
ACC AM Aug 6
-
(ACC Blog) Panel Offers Insights In Proposed Nanotechnology Rule
Aug 6, 2015 | American Chemistry Matters
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed a new reporting and recordkeeping rule for nanoscale materials. Jay West, manager of ACC’s Nanotechnology Panel, said the group reviewed the proposed rule and provided comments to EPA in an effort to help create a workable, balanced, risk-based approach... http://blog.americanchemistry.com/ -
(ACC Mentioned) Water Utilities Press EPA For Nano Research, Sampling In Future Data Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Dave Reynolds
Drinking water utilities, in comments on EPA's proposed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) data collection rule for nanomaterials, are calling for additional research and water sampling to better assess nanomaterials' presence in the environment and potential risks, arguments that could support advocates' calls to address risks to aquatic species. -
(ACC Mentioned) Effort Afoot To Ban Flame Retardants In Furniture
Aug 6, 2015 | The Daily News of Newburyport
By Christian M. Wade
Flame retardants show up in a range of products from children’s clothes and toys to furniture and electronics, and over the years they’ve gotten credit for saving lives and property. But fire-slowing chemicals are also linked to health problems — including cancer, birth defects and nervous system damage — and are banned in at least 13 states. -
Companies, Groups Buying Fewer Chemicals of Concern
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Six businesses, organizations and a federal agency that are using divergent methods to screen and restrict chemicals in products they buy are profiled in a report the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production released Aug. 5. The Lowell Center plans to hold a webinar in September to discuss the report's findings... -
US Business Coalition Publishes 'Safer' Preservatives Guidance
Aug 5, 2015 | Chemical Watch
US-based business coalition, the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3), has published a guide, aimed at accelerating the development of safer preservatives for use in household and personal care products. The guidance says that regulatory bans and restrictions - as well as consumer, NGO and retailer pressure to eliminate their use... -
California To Reassess Lead Exposure Limit
Aug 5, 2015 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is to initiate a rulemaking to update the existing maximum allowable dose level (MADL) for lead, in response to an NGO petition. The 2 July petition from the Center for Environmental Health argues that the existing Proposition 65 MADL for lead of 0.5 µg/day is not protective of... -
Authorities Worry That Many U.S. Schools Could Have Dangerous Asbestos
Aug 5, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Lyndsey Layton
When the Ocean View school district in Orange County, Calif., began to modernize its facilities last year, school officials and taxpayers got an unwelcome surprise. Workers found asbestos in 11 buildings, triggering a costly and disruptive effort to remove the carcinogen. -
Even Your Couch Is Toxic, Senator…
Aug 5, 2015 | Environmental Leader
By Jack Pratt
How do you make Congress pay attention to an urgent problem? Make it hit home. To that effect, I recently grabbed some aluminum foil and a pair of scissors and set off for the Capitol to illustrate that nobody is safe from toxic chemicals – not even members of Congress. -
Oil, Gas Tank Standards Revised After Complaints
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Environmental Protection Agency revised the definition of storage vessel under its new source performance standards for oil and natural gas development operations in response to industry concerns. The agency, in a final rule (RIN 2060-AS49) signed July 31 but not yet officially published, changed... -
PHMSA Delays Deciding Safety Petitions
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Iafolla
Federal pipeline regulators might not address outstanding concerns from the natural gas industry about new safety regulation amendments until the changes take effect, according to a Federal Register notice scheduled for publication Aug. 6. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said it anticipates deciding three industry... -
PHMSA Corrects Technical Changes Rulemaking
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will replace paragraphs regarding requirements for components fabricated by welding that were inadvertently removed from pipeline safety rules when the agency finalized a recent rule. The agency will also make minor editorial corrections that were included in its Periodic... -
Senate confirms DOE, Chemical Safety Board, other picks
Aug 6, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Daniel Bush
The Senate confirmed two top Energy Department nominees and a new chairman and board member for the U.S. Chemical Safety Board yesterday in a flurry of activity before lawmakers headed home for the August recess. The upper chamber also confirmed picks for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials... -
(ACC Mentioned) Obama's Clean Power Plan Stirs Controversy
Aug 6, 2015 | ChemistryWorld
By Rebecca Trager
The first ever US standards to limit carbon pollution from power plants have been established under the Obama’s administration’s new Clean Power Plan. Announced on 3 August, the final version of the rule has met with anger from industry, as well as from President Obama’s political opponents. -
Inside Shell’s Extreme Plan to Drill for Oil in the Arctic
Aug 5, 2015 | Bloomberg
By Paul Barrett and Benjamin Elgin
In a windowless conference room in Anchorage, a dozen Royal Dutch Shell employees report on the highest-profile oil project in the multinational’s vast global portfolio. Warmed by mid-July temperatures, Arctic ice in the Chukchi Sea, northwest of the Alaskan mainland, is receding. Storms are easing; helicopter flights will soon resume. -
Cheap Oil Is Hurting Drillers — Energy Journal
Aug 6, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal - Money Beat
By Georgi Kantchev
Transocean Ltd., which boasts the world’s largest fleet of offshore drilling rigs, reported a sharp fall in its second-quarter profit in the latest example of how low oil prices are hurting the profitability of oil companies. The company logged nearly $800 million in charges as it continued to trim its fleet amid lower crude prices... -
Fracking-Related Earthquakes Could Ding Credit Quality
Aug 5, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Maxwell Murphy
More and stronger earthquakes, and the possible link to oil and gas drilling activities, could have far reaching economic implications, according to Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. “The earthquake trend has and will continue to have sharp economic consequences for home and business owners... -
Oklahoma Orders Disposal Well Volume Cuts
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Iafolla
Under new directives issued by Oklahoma's energy and gas regulator, disposal well operators in two counties will be required to begin cutting their water volumes by Aug. 23 in response to increased seismicity levels. Operators in northern Oklahoma County and southern Logan County will be directed to cut disposal volumes... -
Oklahoma Gov Links Earthquakes To Oil, Gas Industry
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Oklahoma’s governor is acknowledging a “direct correlation” between the exponential increase in earthquakes in the state and its oil and natural gas industry. Gov. Mary Fallin’s (R) comments at a meeting of the state Coordinating Council on Seismic Activity are some of her strongest yet on the links between ... -
Obama Spurns Natural Gas In Climate Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
President Obama’s love affair with natural gas is over. The president once touted gas as an essential clean bridge fuel to wean the United States off dirtier fossil fuels and onto renewable energy, and it was seen as a key to his landmark climate change rule for power plants. -
Obama Picks Familiar Faces For Top Science Posts
Aug 6, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Katherine Ling
President Obama yesterday announced nominations for two key positions in the nation's federal science programs. Obama nominated Cherry Murray to be director of the Office of Science at the Energy Department and Richard Buckius to be deputy director for the National Science Foundation. -
Leaders Cite Cost Increases as Problems With EPA Plan
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky
A federal energy regulator, a power grid operator and a rural electric cooperative executive predicted that the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan will produce a litany of problems. “Just about every negative consequence that comes out of the rule—primarily related to reliability... -
Facing Suits, EPA's Final ESPS Lays Ground For Broad Legal Defense
Aug 5, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lee Logan
Faced with expected suits from scores of parties, EPA's final greenhouse gas (GHG) standards for existing power plants offers a formal defense to many of the premiere legal arguments that critics plan to raise, including the agency's underlying legal authority to issue the rule and its ability to set targets based on supply-side changes... -
Sixteen States Seek Stay of Clean Power Plan
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
Sixteen states asked the Environmental Protection Agency to administratively stay its recently finalized Clean Power Plan until legal challenges can be resolved. The states, led by West Virginia, argue the EPA's Clean Power Plan is illegal because it usurps state authority over intrastate energy policy and exceeds... -
States Seek Delay Of EPA Climate Change Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Sixteen states have formally asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to delay its new climate rule for power plants. The long-shot request filed Wednesday by West Virginia and others is the first step in their plans to challenge the regulations in federal court. -
Heated Senate Panel Moves Bill to Kill Carbon Rules
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee advanced legislation Aug. 5 that would immediately kill off all attempts by President Barack Obama to regulate carbon dioxide emissions by voice vote with no Democrats present. The vote occurred off the Senate floor after Democrats walked out of a fiery committee... -
Senate Panel Votes To Block Obama's Climate Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama and Devin Henry
A Senate committee voted Wednesday to block implementation of the administration’s climate rule for power plants. The bill passed by voice vote at a hastily organized meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee just across the hall from the Senate chamber in the Capitol, because the panel’s 11 Republicans wanted... -
General Election May Include Republican Climate Shift
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna and Rachel Leven
Both the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees for president will likely have to moderate their stances—at least rhetorically—on climate change and other environmental issues, though the majority of two-dozen election observers told Bloomberg BNA the Republican pick would likely have a longer walk back to the political center. -
Dems Boycott Vote To Overturn Climate Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Senate Democrats walked out of a committee meeting Wednesday, denying Republicans the quorum they needed to pass a bill to overturn President Obama’s climate rule for power plants. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, organized the walkout to protest a separate... -
Dem Poll: Climate Rule Has Broad Support
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Tim Devaney
A poll from a progressive group shows broad public support for the Obama administration’s new climate rule for power plants. Fifty-eight percent of respondents to an Americans United for Change poll said they support the Clean Power Plan, the group said Wednesday, with 40 percent opposed. The poll — a survey of 4,517 registered voters in ... -
Swing-State Voters Back Clean Power Plan -- Poll
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jennifer Yachnin
A majority of voters in eight political swing states disagree with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) advice to state officials to buck the newly finalized Clean Power Plan, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released today. The poll, commissioned by liberal group Americans United for Chang... -
Enviros, Industry Rally To Put Energy, Climate In GOP Debate
Aug 6, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Jennifer Yachnin
Environmental activists and energy industry representatives may not agree on the answers, but in the lead-up to tonight's first Republican presidential debate, both sides are clamoring for answers to the same question: What are the candidates' energy platforms? -
Clinton Seen Unlikely to Shift Left on Environment
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna and Rachel Leven
Democratic rivals will push Hillary Clinton to adopt more progressive policy choices on environmental and energy issues during the party's primary, but the former secretary of state is unlikely to bow to the pressure, nearly two-dozen election observers told Bloomberg BNA. -
Lights Will Stay On With New Power Plant Pollution Rules. Find Out Why.
Aug 6, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Cheryl Roberto
The Clean Power Plan is designed with reliability in mind, a fact detractors tend to ignore. The specter of grid failure is a frightening image, one that critics of the new power plant pollution standards have fixated on, but it’s just that: a specter, an illusion not grounded in reality. -
Calif. Governor Asks GOP Hopefuls: What Is Your Plan On Climate?
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Anne C. Mulkern
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) today asked the 17 Republican presidential candidates how they planned to act to combat "the threat of climate change." Brown penned a letter to each of the GOP hopefuls and also submitted a question for tomorrow's Fox-televised debate. -
Obama's Historic Power Plan Won't Save the World
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Nussbaum and Alex Morales
President Barack Obama's plan to reduce carbon pollution—acclaimed by supporters, reviled by opponents—won't be enough to save the planet. That's the view of scientists, including European researchers who study climate policies. It is a numbers game: Even if the U.S., China, Europe and other nations meet their commitments... -
Large Ozone Precursor Cuts Linked to Power Plan
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Environmental Protection Agency's first-ever regulation on carbon emissions from existing power plants is also linked to significant reductions in emissions of ozone precursors. The projected emissions cuts from the Clean Power Plan are comparable to cuts achieved by past EPA air rules... -
President Signs Bill Authorizing Hazmat Programs
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
President Barack Obama signed July 31 a bill to extend authorization of hazardous materials and other surface transportation programs through Oct. 29. The Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 (H.R. 3236) was introduced by Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) on July 28.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News
Energy and Environment News
Transportation News
Full Text of Stories Below
-
(ACC Blog) Panel Offers Insights In Proposed Nanotechnology Rule
Aug 6, 2015 | American Chemistry Matters
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed a new reporting and recordkeeping rule for nanoscale materials. Jay West, manager of ACC’s Nanotechnology Panel, said the group reviewed the proposed rule and provided comments to EPA in an effort to help create a workable, balanced, risk-based approach to collecting information on nanoscale materials.
The Nanotechnology Panel’s main objective is to promote the safe and responsible development of nanotechnology, and its comments to EPA represent the Panel’s commitment to the field.
In the comments, the Nanotechnology Panel states that EPA should better describe and clarify this rule. Members of the Panel note that the proposed rule could create a confusing, subjective, arbitrary, and uneven regulatory playing field in the nanotechnology community. West notes the rule could also result in duplicative, unnecessary reporting of information.
The proposed rule differs in many important ways from the approach being taken by Environment Canada and Health Canada, and the Panel suggests that EPA use the work accomplished under the Nanotechnology Plan of the Canada-U.S. Regulatory Cooperation Council as a model of efficiency and cooperative learning.
The American Chemistry Council’s Nanotechnology Panel promotes the responsible development of nanotechnology by advancing knowledge of good product stewardship practices among nanomaterial producers and users. The Panel regularly supports and participates in partnerships with universities, regulatory agencies and other organizations to identify and communicate best practices concerning the responsible development and use of nanotechnology. - See more at: http://blog.americanchemistry.com/2015/08/panel-offers-insights-in-proposed-nanotechnology-rule/#sthash.8BPDkT2D.dpuf
-
(ACC Mentioned) Water Utilities Press EPA For Nano Research, Sampling In Future Data Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Dave Reynolds
Drinking water utilities, in comments on EPA's proposed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) data collection rule for nanomaterials, are calling for additional research and water sampling to better assess nanomaterials' presence in the environment and potential risks, arguments that could support advocates' calls to address risks to aquatic species.
"Data on the environmental occurrence of nanomaterials are lacking," the American Water Works Association (AWWA) says in June 30 comments, which were recently posted to a federal website. "To understand whether engineered nanomaterials are present in source waters at concentrations of potential concern requires sampling and analysis of surface waters, waste water treatment plant effluents, and groundwater."
AWWA also argues additional information is needed on methods for removing nanomaterials from water, and says data on removal through conventional drinking water treatment processes commonly used in the United States are "almost non-existent."
The drinking water utilities' call for research and sampling to better determine nanomaterials' presence in the environment and potential risks could back arguments from environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, to address the risks certain nanomaterials may pose risks to aquatic species.
But while AWWA says "there needs to be regulation of nanotechnology industries," the utilities group cautions that "regulators must not make decisions while there are still knowledge gaps in topics such as exposure and health effects."
EPA is taking comment through the end of Aug. 5 on a proposed TSCA section 8(a) nano reporting and record-keeping rule, which the agency has said will guide its future policies on the substances, including potential regulation of some nanomaterials found to pose risks to human health or the environment.
The American Chemistry Council has called on EPA to revise and re-propose the April 6 plan, arguing it lacks sufficient clarity and scientific backing, though some western states have said new reporting requirements are insufficient and that stronger action to address nanomaterials' potential risks is needed.
The California Department of Public Health has urged EPA to define all nanomaterials as new chemicals, subjecting them to premanufacture scrutiny.
And the Washington Department of Ecology has said a safety determination on the substances' potential risks to human health and the environment is needed to ensure regulation can be implemented when needed.
Federal agencies have long struggled with how to assess and potentially regulate nanomaterials because their unique properties that advance technology may also present health and safety risks.
Studying Nanomaterials
As part of the effort, EPA has conducted case studies of certain nanomaterials seeking information to prioritize and inform future risk assessment of the substances, though the agency has said those studies were not intended as a basis for regulatory or risk management decisions in the near term.
In one case study, EPA reviewed risks of nanoscale titanium dioxide (TiO2) used in sunscreen and drinking water treatment. The study identified areas for future research, including on potential long-term health effects associated with exposure to nano-TiO2, though environmentalist and industry sources said the review left core questions unresolved and was unclear on how the information could be used.
EPA's April 6 proposal follows years of wrangling with the nano industry and White House officials over the scope of the proposed reporting rule. The proposal would require a one-time data submission to EPA six months after issuance of the final rule, and the agency is also proposing that companies that intend to manufacture reportable substances after the rule takes effect would have to report to EPA at least 135 days before commencing manufacturing.
In comments, AWWA says environmental releases of nanomaterials occur from point sources, including manufacturing and wastewater treatment plants, as well as from runoff. While the proposed rule could fill some knowledge gaps related to nanomaterials, AWWA also says the agency should clarify and narrow an exclusion for substances that dissociate in water, and should remove "unique and novel characteristics" as a requirement for reporting, arguing the phrase could become a loophole allowing companies not to report.
The utilities group also opposes EPA's plan not to publish an inventory of nanomaterials based on information reported under the rule, saying that publishing "some aggregated anonymous information" on nanomaterials and the quantities reported of certain substances would help fill data gaps.
Additionally, AWWA says most studies on the health of effects of nanomaterials are of inhalation exposure, while only a few studies address the ingestion and dermal pathways. While data suggests some nanomaterials cause adverse effects, AWWA says that information is too limited to draw conclusions.
"There is a need for ongoing research and classification to identify which metrics to use in toxicology studies and to conduct experiments at environmentally relevant concentrations," according to the AWWA comments.
-
(ACC Mentioned) Effort Afoot To Ban Flame Retardants In Furniture
Aug 6, 2015 | The Daily News of Newburyport
By Christian M. Wade
Flame retardants show up in a range of products from children’s clothes and toys to furniture and electronics, and over the years they’ve gotten credit for saving lives and property.
But fire-slowing chemicals are also linked to health problems — including cancer, birth defects and nervous system damage — and are banned in at least 13 states.
A coalition of firefighters and environmentalists in Massachusetts is lobbying for a similar ban on flame-retardant children’s products and household furniture. They point to studies that suggest flame-retardant chemicals are a health threat that actually does little good.
“Flame retardants cause cancer, and they don’t stop fires,” said Elizabeth Saunders, Massachusetts director for Clean Water Action, a coalition member. “It’s time for these toxic chemicals to go.”
The group — which includes the American Academy of Pediatrics and Massachusetts Nurses Association — wants a prohibition on the manufacture or sale of children’s products and upholstered furniture that contain any of nearly a dozen toxic chemicals identified as harmful.
With furniture makers and retailers moving away from using flame retardants anyway, the chemical industry is fighting back to protect a multibillion-dollar market that reaches into nearly every American home.
A spokesman for the American Chemistry Council defended the use of flame retardants in clothing and other products, adding that a “one-size fits-all” ban isn’t the solution.
“Fires have dropped significantly over the past 40 years, and a major contributor to the decline in fires and fire deaths since the 1970s was the development of a comprehensive set of fire-safety measures that includes flame retardants,” said council spokesman Bryan Goodman.
He pointed out that flame retardants are subject to review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other federal regulators. A recent study by the European Union concluded that one of the more common chemicals used in flame retardants doesn’t pose a health risk, he said.
Edward Kelly, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, said flame retardants do little to prevent fires but “pose a real threat” to firefighters working inside burning buildings.
Firefighters have cancer rates three times higher than the public, he said.
“When we enter a home fire, we breathe in toxins from flame retardants that put us at risk,” Kelly said.
Jennifer Lowry, a Missouri physician and chairwoman of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Council on Environmental Health, noted mounting evidence that flame-retardant products cause fertility problems in adults, as well as long-term health effects for children, but their pervasiveness makes them difficult to avoid.
“We live in a sludge of chemicals that are linked to some serious health problems,” Lowry said. “They get out into the dirt and dust in our homes, the air that we breathe, and ultimately into our bodies.”
At least 13 states — including California, Maine, New York and Vermont — ban flame-retardant products, while a dozen other states are considering similar restrictions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
But the industry is resisting and suing to block laws that seek to keep flame retardants off the market or require labeling of new products.
Advocates are pressing the Consumer Product Safety Commission to aggressively ban some products with flame retardant chemicals. The industry is fighting that effort, as well.
Meanwhile, furniture-makers have reacted to consumer concerns by shifting away from retardants.
Ashley Furniture — the country’s largest furniture retailer — stopped using flame-retardant chemicals in its upholstered furniture as of this year. A spokesman said the company changed its national policy when it was forced to comply with California’s ban on the use of flame retardants.
Lay-Z-Boy, Crate & Barrel and the Futon Shop also recently began selling flame retardant-free furniture.
Under a new federal “flammability” standard, upholstery fabric must resist a smoldering cigarette, which statistics indicate is the primary cause of residential fires involving furniture.
Advocates for banning flame retardants say the chemical industry is finding a way around restrictions imposed by states by merely adjusting the compounds it uses.
“It’s been a classic example of what we call the ‘whack-a-mole’ phenomenon,” said Saunders, of Clean Water Action. “One toxic flame retardant chemical gets phased out, and it’s just replaced with another, equally toxic chemical.”
-
Companies, Groups Buying Fewer Chemicals of Concern
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Six businesses, organizations and a federal agency that are using divergent methods to screen and restrict chemicals in products they buy are profiled in a report the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production released Aug. 5.
The Lowell Center plans to hold a webinar in September to discuss the report's findings, Joel Tickner, director of the center's Chemicals Policy and Science Initiative, told Bloomberg BNA. Aug. 5. The center is part of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
The report, “Advancing Safer Chemicals in Products: The Key Role of Purchasing,” discusses the role eco-labels play in helping purchasers source safer products. The report also discusses limitations of labeling programs.
Lessons the six organizations have learned as they sought to develop tools beyond labels and the third-party certification groups that provide them are described in the report. The organizations it profiles are:
• Seattle City Light, an electric utility that uses a nine-step purchasing policy, which includes designated worker representatives, to select the least hazardous chemicals that comply with certain directives;
• Oregon Environmental Council's Healthy Purchasing Coalition, which consists of universities, port offices, businesses and parties;
• Perkins+Will, an architectural firm that uses a transparency site to let its suppliers know its list of 25 chemicals of concern it would like to avoid when possible;
• Danish retailer Coop, which has 1,200 stores and restricts certain fragrances, antibacterial agents, boric acid and other chemicals from thousands of brand-name products sold in its stores along with products carrying its own corporate labels;
• Kaiser Permanente, a health-care company which has used a Supplier Sustainability Scorecard since 2010; and
• the National Institutes of Health, which launched its Substances of Concern Initiative in 2013. The initiative focuses on 350 chemicals and seeks to reduce or eliminate their use throughout the agency's facility maintenance, clinical, veterinary, food services and other operations.
The report's final chapter lists U.S. and international resources that may help other organizations striving to develop or update their own sustainability programs.
-
US Business Coalition Publishes 'Safer' Preservatives Guidance
Aug 5, 2015 | Chemical Watch
US-based business coalition, the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3), has published a guide, aimed at accelerating the development of safer preservatives for use in household and personal care products.
The guidance says that regulatory bans and restrictions - as well as consumer, NGO and retailer pressure to eliminate their use in some cases - are reducing the “palette of preservatives” available to formulators.
“As a result, product manufacturers are under pressure to identify new, safe and effective preservatives.”
According to the council, the purpose of the document is to: motivate increased research and development within the chemical supplier, entrepreneurial and academic communities of new, safe preservatives for cosmetics and household goods; andcreate a set of criteria to guide collaborative sponsorship of new technology research, testing and evaluation.
These criteria are divided into two stages. Stage 1 include performance and regulatory parameters to guide early R&D initiatives and testing, whereas Stage 2 address human health and environmental priorities.
-
California To Reassess Lead Exposure Limit
Aug 5, 2015 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is to initiate a rulemaking to update the existing maximum allowable dose level (MADL) for lead, in response to an NGO petition.
The 2 July petition from the Center for Environmental Health argues that the existing Proposition 65 MADL for lead of 0.5 µg/day is not protective of health, and that it should be repealed or amended.
“Studies have repeatedly shown that there is no safe level of exposure to lead and that even minute amounts of lead exposure can permanently reduce mental capacity in children,” the petitioners say.
A MADL is the established limit, below which a Prop 65 warning label is not required for a listed chemical.
The CEH attests that the current limit was incorrectly derived because it was based on an Occupational Safety and Health Administration permissible exposure limit (PEL) of 500 µg/day, rather than on a no observable effect level (NOEL).
The petition also argues that the OEHHA failed to establish a new MADL when it re-listed lead as a reproductive toxicant in 2013, ignoring decades of new studies (CW 22 November 2013). Instead, it maintained the limit established in 1989 when the substance was first listed.
“Under OEHHA’s interpretation of Proposition 65, the science around lead exposure should essentially be frozen in time,” the petition says. “This absurd construction of the statute does not withstand scrutiny.”
The OEHHA has set a 9 October hearing date, which will begin the formal rulemaking process.
-
Authorities Worry That Many U.S. Schools Could Have Dangerous Asbestos
Aug 5, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Lyndsey Layton
When the Ocean View school district in Orange County, Calif., began to modernize its facilities last year, school officials and taxpayers got an unwelcome surprise.
Workers found asbestos in 11 buildings, triggering a costly and disruptive effort to remove the carcinogen. Three elementary schools had to be shuttered for the year, displacing about 1,700 children. One school will reopen at the end of this month, but the other two remain closed as work continues. The school district had to take out a loan to help cover $15 million in costs.
“Everyone has asbestos, but they don’t want to deal with it,” said Gina Clayton-Tarvin, president of the Ocean View school board. “To abate it is absolutely astronomically expensive.”
Schools built before 1980 are likely to contain asbestos, a fibrous mineral that was widely used as a flame retardant in insulation, roof shingles, tile floors and other construction materials.
Asbestos was heavily used in schools built between the 1940s and the late 1970s, when the federal government banned its use in new construction. Asbestos is not considered a health risk when it is stable and undisturbed. But if asbestos deteriorates and its microscopic fibers become airborne, it can increase the risks of lung cancer, mesothelioma and other lung disease.
The Environmental Protection Agency estimated in 1984 that 15 million students and 1.4 million teachers and school personnel were at risk of exposure to airborne asbestos, based on a sampling of 2,600 public and private schools. Two years later, Congress passed legislation requiring public and private schools to regularly inspect their buildings for asbestos, clean up any hazards and publicly report their actions.
But no one knows how many schools now contain asbestos.
Sen. Edward M. Markey (D-Mass.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate subcommittee that oversees chemical policy, said it is unclear whether schools are complying with the law or a government agency is enforcing it.
“If there are gaps in enforcement, legislative or other reforms may be needed to ensure schools are free from this toxic hazard,” Markey said. He suggested that schools may also need government help to pay for asbestos abatement.
A spokeswoman for the EPA said the agency is mostly responsible for enforcing the federal law, but some duties fall to the states.
Markey and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wrote to all 50 governors in March to ask how many of their school districts are following the requirements of federal law. “As implementation of this law approaches the thirty-year mark, the extent of asbestos hazards remaining in schools across the nation is largely unknown,” they wrote.
Every governor responded, but the answers indicated that the federal law was not being followed uniformly, a Markey spokeswoman said.
“We don’t have any indication that the government is doing its job to make sure measures are in place,” said Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst at the Environmental Working Group, an environmental group whose lobbying arm, the EWG Action Fund, has launched a public awareness campaign regarding asbestos.
In Ocean View, district officials knew that asbestos had been sprayed on metal girders that were above ceiling tiles in several schools, and maintenance workers had been inspecting facilities every six months, looking for signs of asbestos deterioration, school board president Clayton-Tarvin said.
But when the board decided to modernize 11 schools, no one raised the issue of asbestos remediation, she said. As the work got underway, the contractor delivered the bad news, she said.
The state or federal government ought to help school districts with remediation costs, Clayton-Tarvin said. Instead, local taxpayers were on the hook.
“We spray this stuff on because it’s safe,” she said, referring to former beliefs about asbestos. “Then they find out it’s not safe. Really, whose responsibility is it? I don’t think it’s the school district. We’re trying to educate kids today. We shouldn’t be responsible for paying for past sins.”
-
Even Your Couch Is Toxic, Senator…
Aug 5, 2015 | Environmental Leader
By Jack Pratt
How do you make Congress pay attention to an urgent problem? Make it hit home.
To that effect, I recently grabbed some aluminum foil and a pair of scissors and set off for the Capitol to illustrate that nobody is safe from toxic chemicals – not even members of Congress.
Once inside, I unzipped the cushions of six congressional couches, snipped off thumbnail-sized samples of foam from the inside, wrapped the pieces of foam in tin foil and sent them to scientists at Duke University for analysis.
A few weeks later, the scientists delivered the bad news: Three of the samples tested positive for the toxic chemical flame retardant Tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate (TDCPP) – a chemical widely used in household and office furniture despite evidence that it’s a carcinogen that can also impair brain development.
Think Lobbyists Are Bad? Try Toxic Chemicals.
That result came as no surprise to scientists at Environmental Defense Fund or lawmakers like Sen. Tom Udall and Rep. Frank Pallone. Both are working to update the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, our nation’s primary chemical safety law.
Sen. Udall’s couch, along with couches in the Cannon and Rayburn House office buildings were those found to include TDCPP.
The New Mexico senator noted the irony of it all. “It’s crazy to think that there are toxic chemicals in the very furniture we’re sitting on while working [on this] law,” he said.
Today, finding toxic chemicals in furniture is nearly as easy as spotting a lobbyist in the Capitol. Thanks to our badly broken chemical safety law, toxic chemicals are ubiquitous in America, even the marble halls of Congress.
Indeed, chemicals surround us every day – they’re in our clothes, our cleaning products and, yes, even in our couches.
Under today’s toxic chemical law, no one can ensure that even widely-used chemicals are safe. Chemicals used as flame retardants, for example, do not need to be shown to be safe in order to be used in products.
Nor does the law allow the Environmental Protection Agency to effectively restrict the use of chemicals known to be dangerous.
This failed system has a real impact on our health.
Scientists link exposures to certain chemicals like flame retardants to cancer, developmental disabilities and other serious health concerns. Studies show that flame retardant chemicals do not remain encased in furniture, but become part of the dust that accumulates in the homes and offices, where they can then be ingested or inhaled.
Small children are especially at risk, because they spend more time on the floor and are more likely to put their hands in their mouths.
Not a Problem We Can Afford to Sit On
Thankfully, efforts to reform America’s broken chemical law are advancing in Congress.
Legislation awaiting floor action in the Senate would give the EPA new authority to require testing, restrict harmful chemicals and require a safety finding before a new chemical is allowed on the market. The House has already passed legislation and, with 52 cosponsors for the Senate bill, it is clear it has the support needed to pass, if the bill can get time on the floor.
The challenge now is making sure that senators make fixing this law a priority and bring the reform bill up for a vote. We hope our couch investigation will make it harder for them to just sit on this problem.
Read more: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2015/08/05/even-your-couch-is-toxic-senator/#ixzz3i1yoev41 -
Oil, Gas Tank Standards Revised After Complaints
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Environmental Protection Agency revised the definition of storage vessel under its new source performance standards for oil and natural gas development operations in response to industry concerns.
The agency, in a final rule (RIN 2060-AS49) signed July 31 but not yet officially published, changed the regulatory definition of storage vessel to remove the terms “connected in parallel” and “installed in parallel.” The revisions don't change any emissions reduction requirements included in the performance standards, the agency said.
The storage vessel definition was established in a 2014 rule (RIN 2060-AR75) that made several changes to the oil and gas performance standards, including language that was intended to clarify regulatory requirements for storage tanks. The EPA said it included the language about parallel storage vessels as a way to prevent well operators from avoiding the need to comply with the standards by dividing throughput between separate vessels.
However, the agency said in its new final rule that inclusion of those terms in the definition “inadvertently included storage vessels” beyond those the EPA intended to address in its oil and gas operation standards. Existing provisions on circumvention of air standards are sufficient for the agency to address a situation where storage vessels are divided into smaller tanks to avoid regulatory requirements, the agency said.
“We do not believe that our reverting to the prior definition of ‘storage vessel' will affect our ability to ensure control of these storage vessels,” the EPA said.
The Gas Processors Association in February asked the EPA to reconsider the definition of storage vessels because the language could potentially have a significant effect on how companies evaluate whether storage vessels are covered by EPA emissions standards. The reconsideration request was supported by the American Petroleum Institute, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America and other industry groups after the EPA issued a March proposed rule to revise the storage vessel definition (55 DEN A-19, 3/23/15).
Low-Pressure Well Definition Retained
The EPA's final rule also generally retained the agency's definition of a low-pressure well, with one minor change made in response to an industry suggestion.
Low-pressure gas wells are exempted from requirements to use emissions completion equipment, commonly known as green completions, because it's technologically infeasible to do so.
The Independent Petroleum Association of America and other industry groups asked the EPA to revise its low-pressure gas well definition, which they argued required the use of green completions at marginally cost-effective wells. The EPA retained the definition in its 2014 reconsideration rule, but the agency reopened the rulemaking process after realizing that an industry comment that recommended an alternative definition hadn't been included in the docket and wasn't considered by the agency.
The EPA rejected the proposed alternative definition, which the agency said may not adequately account for factors that must be considered when determining if a green completion would be feasible for a hydraulically fractured gas well.
The one change the EPA did make to its low-pressure well definition was to include a reference to “true vertical depth” rather than “vertical depth.” The revision includes more accurate terminology that better represents the agency's intent, the EPA said.
-
PHMSA Delays Deciding Safety Petitions
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Iafolla
Federal pipeline regulators might not address outstanding concerns from the natural gas industry about new safety regulation amendments until the changes take effect, according to a Federal Register notice scheduled for publication Aug. 6.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said it anticipates deciding three industry petitions that seek changes to a March 11 final rule (RIN 2137–AE59) amending safety regulations by the Oct. 1 effective date. The agency received the petitions April 10 but was unable to address them within the standard 90-day time frame due to their complexity, PHMSA said.
The delay appears to leave some gas companies in the lurch. Small municipal gas companies, for example, won't know whether they need to start the process of hiring third-party inspectors until PHMSA decides an American Public Gas Association petition, association official John Erickson told Bloomberg BNA Aug. 5.
That could mean they could go through a laborious process to hire an expensive consultant that is ultimately unnecessary or they could be unprepared when the rule becomes effective, Erickson said.
“We're in a quandary at the moment,” Erickson said.
PHMSA's final rule amends pipeline safety regulations in a variety of areas, including leak surveys, regulation of ethanol and filing offshore pipeline condition reports. The agency recognized in the rule's preamble that the most controversial aspect related to post-construction inspections of pipeline infrastructure (48 DEN A-10, 3/12/15).
In the final rule, PHMSA prohibited individuals who performed construction on transmission lines or mains to also perform the inspection. The agency noted that the prohibition wasn't intended to require third-party inspections.
Small Utilities Would be Affected
But the American Public Gas Association pointed out in its petition that hundreds of small utilities have one qualified crew to handle the construction, meaning that those companies would be forced to contract out third-party inspections.
The group, which represents publicly owned natural gas local distribution companies, asked PHMSA to amend the rule to say that a two-man utility crew can inspect one another's work and still comply with the post-construction inspection requirement.
The American Gas Association also targeted the new rule's inspection section, requesting a six-month extension to the effective date for those requirements. The gas group said in its petition that the new requirements require companies to make a number of changes that necessitate a Jan. 1 effective date for the inspection section.
“Changes will likely need to be made to quality assurance programs, operating standards and existing inspection protocols,” the group said. “In addition, operators will need to provide additional training and qualification for both company employees and contractors.”
Moreover, the gas group said the new requirements will mean that some companies have to hire new personnel.
Pressure Test Factor
The American Gas Association and the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America separately asked PHMSA to reconsider the new rule's handling of the acceptable test factor for a pressure vessel, which it said is 1.5 times the maximum allowable operating pressure.
The interstate gas group argued in its petition that the industry has been using 1.3 times maximum allowable working pressure as a benchmark since the American Society for Mechanical Engineers changed its standard in 1999. PHMSA adopted this standard by reference on at least three separate occasions, the interstate gas group said.
“It is only now, years later, contrary to general industry understanding, that PHMSA offers a clarifying amendment stating that operators should have always used a 1.5 test factor for these vessels,” the interstate gas group said. “The regulatory history does not support this conclusion.”
-
PHMSA Corrects Technical Changes Rulemaking
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will replace paragraphs regarding requirements for components fabricated by welding that were inadvertently removed from pipeline safety rules when the agency finalized a recent rule. The agency will also make minor editorial corrections that were included in its Periodic Updates of Regulatory References to Technical Standards and Miscellaneous Amendments rule, it said in a public inspection notice to be published in the Federal Register Aug. 6. The rule (RIN 2137-AE85) requires pipeline operators for natural gas or hazardous liquids to comply with two new voluntary consensus standards on transportation of pipe by truck and on specifications for polyethylene gas pressure pipe, tubing and fittings, among other changes. The agency finalized the rule in January (02 DEN A-4, 1/5/15). The latest public inspection notice is available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2015-18565.pdf.
-
Senate confirms DOE, Chemical Safety Board, other picks
Aug 6, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Daniel Bush
The Senate confirmed two top Energy Department nominees and a new chairman and board member for the U.S. Chemical Safety Board yesterday in a flurry of activity before lawmakers headed home for the August recess.
The upper chamber also confirmed picks for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and General Services Administration (GSA).
In a voice vote, the Senate confirmed President Obama's long-stalled choices of Monica Regalbuto to be DOE assistant secretary for environmental management and Jonathan Elkind to serve as DOE assistant secretary for international affairs.
Regalbuto previously served as a top official in the agency's Office of Environmental Management, where she helped lead the ongoing federal cleanup of Cold War-era nuclear facilities.
The program has decontaminated 91 out of 107 former nuclear weapons production and research sites, DOE officials said at a House hearing earlier this year (E&E Daily, March 19). The remaining work is slated to cost between $190 billion and $220 billion.
Elkind was a deputy assistant secretary in DOE's Office of International Affairs, which coordinates foreign energy policy. Elkind worked as an energy specialist at the Brookings Institution before joining DOE, and has also served on the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
The confirmations ended a long waiting period for both DOE officials. Elkind's nomination was announced in October of 2013. Regalbuto was nominated in early 2014.
The Senate also signed off by unanimous consent on the nominations of Vanessa Sutherland to lead the CSB and Kristen Kulinowski to be a CSB board member.
Their confirmation doubles the membership of the struggling board, which has dwindled to just two members amid the departure of other officials. Earlier this year, controversial former chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso was forced out by the White House, and former board member Mark Griffon left in June upon the expiration of his term.
The leadership vacuum has had an impact on agency operations, with another board member, Rick Engler, assuming temporary administrative authority in the absence of a permanent agency head.
The two-member board became gridlocked last month, with Engler and board member Manuel Ehrlich unable to approve a final report because of internal divisions (E&ENews PM, July 22).
Sutherland previously served as general counsel at the Department of Transportation's PHMSA, while Kulinowski is a nanotechnology adviser and Rice University adjunct professor.
Both nominees stressed the importance of collegiality and cooperation at the CSB, which has been a focus of criticism from lawmakers.
Also confirmed was Marie Therese Dominguez to head PHMSA, which has been under acting leadership since last October.
Dominguez, who has been PHMSA's deputy administrator since June, had previously worked for the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Postal Service and the Federal Aviation Administration.
Dominguez sailed through a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee confirmation hearing two weeks ago, stressing her management skills in response to concerns voiced by Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) that she lacked expertise in pipeline and hazardous materials safety issues.
The Senate also confirmed Gregory Nadeau to head FHWA, which oversees tens of billions of dollars in annual road and bridge spending. Obama nominated Nadeau, who was serving as FHWA's acting administrator, earlier this year.
A former Maine state legislator, Nadeau joined the agency as deputy administrator in 2009. He told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee earlier this year that he has served as FHWA's de facto chief since December 2013.
Eric Martin Satz was also confirmed for a seat on the TVA's board of directors. Satz is a partner at TNCV, a Tennessee-based venture capital firm. Satz replaces Neil McBride on the nine-member board of directors. McBride stepped down from his post in late 2013.
The Senate also confirmed Denise Turner Roth to lead the GSA. Roth has been the agency's acting administrator since February. Obama nominated Roth in May.
-
(ACC Mentioned) Obama's Clean Power Plan Stirs Controversy
Aug 6, 2015 | ChemistryWorld
By Rebecca Trager
The first ever US standards to limit carbon pollution from power plants have been established under the Obama’s administration’s new Clean Power Plan. Announced on 3 August, the final version of the rule has met with anger from industry, as well as from President Obama’s political opponents.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has expressed concern that the plan might harm growth and job creation in the US chemical sector by raising costs for businesses and consumers. The ACC plans to conduct an in-depth review of the new rule, but the organisation says it continues to question whether the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the legal authority to ‘fundamentally change and regulate our nation’s electricity system’.
The final Clean Power Plan sets national standards to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector by 32% from 2005 levels by 2030. It will allow states to develop tailored plans to meet the goals. Although state plans are due in September 2016, they can make an initial submission and request extensions of up to two years. The White House explained that the emission reductions are phased in on a gradual ‘glide path’ to 2030.
Overall, the White House says the new plan will stop the emission of 789 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, and it estimates that the new rule has public health and climate benefits worth between $34 billion (£22 billion) and $54 billion per year by 2030. These financial benefits far outweigh the $8.4 billion in costs associated with the plan, the administration says.Unlimited carbon pollution
In announcing the final rule, Obama noted that US power plants are currently responsible for about a third of US carbon pollution. ‘That pollution contributes to climate change, which degrades the air our kids breathe. But there have never been federal limits on the amount of carbon that power plants can dump into the air,’ the president said.
Obama noted that the US government limits the amount of toxic substances such as mercury, sulfur and arsenic entering the environment, and he expressed frustration that ‘existing power plants can still dump unlimited amounts of harmful carbon pollution into the air’.
Joining the ACC to criticise the final power plant rule is the American Petroleum Institute (API), which said the plan imposes unnecessary costs on states and US consumers, while overlooking natural gas’s potential to help cut emissions. The API also believes that the rule oversteps the EPA’s authority.
Similar concerns were echoed by key Republicans in Congress, including Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and Jim Inhofe, who chairs the Senate environment and public works committee. McConnell warned that the new rule is projected to cost billions and threatens to ship US jobs overseas. Inhofe said it ‘represents a triumph of blind ideology over sound policy and honest compassion’. He added that the Senate, under a Republican majority, is ‘ready to push back’ on these regulations.States protest power plan
On 5 August, 16 states petitioned the EPA to put the rule on hold. ‘This request is a necessary first step and prerequisite to confronting this illegal power grab by the Obama administration and EPA,’ said West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrisey, who is leading the campaign against the rule.
David Doniger, who directs the Natural Resources Defense Council’s clean air programme, said the plan gives American industry ‘huge incentives’ to profit from industrial electricity efficiency, including combined heat and power. While Dallas Burtraw, an economist with Resources for the Future in Washington, DC, said there likely won’t be a noticeable rate change in electricity as a consequence of this rule. Although electricity rates will increase in states where coal is primarily used for electricity generation, he said those states typically already have relatively low electricity prices.
‘This rule is imposing a uniform standard across all states that closes the gap between those leadership states and the others that have yet to take steps to mitigate their carbon emissions,’ Burtraw tells Chemistry World. ‘Because it is such a flexible rule, it doesn’t require any plant to shut down,’ he says. ‘Every plant has multiple ways in which they can comply.’
-
Inside Shell’s Extreme Plan to Drill for Oil in the Arctic
Aug 5, 2015 | Bloomberg
By Paul Barrett and Benjamin Elgin
In a windowless conference room in Anchorage, a dozen Royal Dutch Shell employees report on the highest-profile oil project in the multinational’s vast global portfolio. Warmed by mid-July temperatures, Arctic ice in the Chukchi Sea, northwest of the Alaskan mainland, is receding. Storms are easing; helicopter flights will soon resume. Underwater volcanoes—yes, volcanoes—are dormant. “That’s good news for us,” Ann Pickard, Shell’s top executive for the Arctic, whispers to a visitor.
Overhead, a bank of video monitors displays blinking green radar images of an armada of Shell vessels converging on a prospect called Burger J. Company geologists believe that beneath Burger J—70 miles offshore and 800 miles from the Anchorage command center—lie up to 15 billion barrels of oil. An additional 11 billion barrels are thought to be buried due east under the Beaufort Sea. All told, Arctic waters cover about 13 percent of the world’s undiscovered petroleum, or enough to supply the U.S. for more than a decade, according to government estimates.
Despite the July 21 meeting’s military-like precision, peculiarities become evident. Radar shows an icebreaker called MSV Fennica heading in the wrong direction—south toward Portland. Three weeks earlier, the 380-foot vessel ripped open a 39-inch-by-2-inch gash in its hull, the result of scraping against a shallow-water hazard in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. Because the multipurpose ship also carries spill response gear, the accident caused federal regulators to restrict drilling to the topmost 3,000-foot section of Burger J—and not farther down into the oil-bearing zone—until the Fennica gets patched up in a Portland repair facility and travels 2,300 miles back north. The detour gave Greenpeace the chance to stage a social media-friendly “#ShellNo” photo op on July 30, with protesters in climbers’ slings hanging from a Portland bridge and temporarily inhibiting the Fennica’s movements, while “kayaktivists” heckled from the harbor. In another setback, U.S. wildlife officials concerned about noise-sensitive Arctic walruses have vetoed Shell’s original plan to drill two wells simultaneously. “That caught us by surprise,” Pickard concedes.
Surprise lurks in the Chukchi, whose frigid waters north of the Bering Strait span from Alaska to Siberia. Logistical and legal obstacles have repeatedly delayed the Arctic initiative, on which Shell is spending more than $1 billion a year—more than $7 billion so far and counting. The single well in the Chukchi Shell aims to excavate this summer could be the most expensive on earth, and it hasn’t yielded its first barrel of crude.
Activists have sued; judges have intervened. In 2010, work stopped when the Obama administration temporarily suspended offshore drilling throughout the U.S. after the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Back in action in 2012, Shell suffered a maritime fiasco with Keystone Kops undertones: Ship engines conked out, tow lines snapped, and a massive drill barge ran aground, requiring the U.S. Coast Guard to rescue storm-stranded workers. This July 16, former Vice President Al Gore called the Obama administration’s decision to approve Shell’s drilling “insane.”
Two weeks later, on July 30, Shell’s chief executive officer, Ben Van Beurden, announced that as a result of $50-a-barrel oil, a 55 percent decline since last year, the company’s profit fell by a third in the second quarter. Expecting prices to “remain low for some time,” Van Beurden announced plans to eliminate 6,500 jobs, part of a broader contraction in a reeling industry. Even against this challenging economic backdrop, Shell won’t postpone or downsize its Arctic dreams. The offshore Alaska field, Van Beurden said, “has the potential to be multiple times larger than the largest prospects in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, so it’s huge.”
This raises the question of why Shell is doubling down on the Arctic amid a worldwide supply glut, and at the same time that many politicians are vowing to address global warming. Among the major oil companies, it stands out for its frank discussion of the threat posed by its business to the world’s climate. Its top executives have even professed a desire to rethink fossil fuels and move toward renewable energy sources. And yet it’s assuming immense operational risks to drill in the Arctic.
Shell executives don’t deny the apparent contradiction. “We do believe in climate change,” says Pickard. Shell’s Scenarios group, an in-house think tank that management points to as an emblem of its open-mindedness, has done extensive work undergirding the company’s support for government policies encouraging development of renewable energy sources, she says. But the Scenarios research also justifies aggressive exploration for more crude. With the global population rising from 7 billion to more than 9 billion by 2050 and total energy demand nearly doubling, “hydrocarbons are going to be needed for an awfully long time,” Pickard says. “That’s where Alaska fits into the picture.”
Even sympathetic observers find it curious, though, that Shell and Shell alone sees future profit in the Chukchi, especially after its misadventures there in 2012. Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Statoil, and Total have all put Arctic plans on hold. “Given the environmental and regulatory risks in the Arctic and the cost of producing in that difficult setting, assuming they ever get to producing, Shell must anticipate an enormous find—and future oil prices much higher than they are today,” says Nick Butler, a former senior strategy executive at BP who does energy research at King’s College London. “It’s a dangerous wager.”
One of the most powerful women executives in a decidedly masculine industry, Pickard, 59, meets a reporter visiting Anchorage in jeans and a blue button-down shirt. Her rise through the ranks, first at the pre-merger Mobil and since 2000 at Shell, is especially impressive as she lacks the engineering or geology pedigree normally required of senior oil industry management. She has a graduate degree in international relations and has overseen exploration and production in Africa, Australia, Latin America, and Russia. “Ann doesn’t suffer fools,” says a (male) subordinate who pleads for anonymity.In 2005, Shell put Pickard in charge of sprawling operations in Nigeria long shadowed by pipeline thievery, militant attacks, and accusations—denied by Shell—of collaboration with brutal government crackdowns. Fortune magazine in 2008 labeled her “the bravest woman in oil”—a silly accolade, perhaps, but one that accurately reflects her reputation at Shell.
Most of the world’s “easy oil” has already been pumped or nationalized by resource-rich governments, Pickard says, leaving independent producers such as Shell no choice but to pursue “extreme oil” in dicey places. “I enjoy the challenge,” she says. That’s why in 2013, when she was planning to retire to spend more time with her husband, a retired Navy commander, and their two adopted children, she changed her mind and took over the troubled Arctic project.
Pickard emphasizes that she enjoys the outdoors as much as the next person, but she’s no purist. “You hear a lot that the Arctic is pristine,” she says, using air quotes. “Yeah, it’s pristine in parts, but there’s been oil and gas up here for a long time.” She points to maps showing the enormous Prudhoe Bay complex within the Arctic Circle on Alaska’s North Slope. Active since the 1960s and still one of North America’s largest oil fields, Prudhoe has provided more than 12 billion barrels of crude via the Trans-Alaska Pipeline. In 1989, it was Prudhoe oil that sullied Prince William Sound on Alaska’s south central coast after the grounding of the tanker Exxon Valdez.
Shell missed out on the Prudhoe Bay bonanza but later helped develop Cook Inlet near Anchorage. Even on the more temperate southern side of the state, conditions can get harrowing, says Robert Bea, a retired engineering risk professor at the University of California at Berkeley. While consulting for Shell in the late 1980s, he spent two months on a Cook Inlet drilling vessel. He recalls roiling seas, temperatures of -16F, and deck hands continuously chopping and hurling overboard two-foot-thick ice sheets that threatened to throw off the ship’s balance.
While producing in Cook Inlet, Shell also tentatively explored the Chukchi, identifying what looked like oil- and gas-bearing formations 8,000 feet beneath the ocean floor. The Chukchi posed greater engineering challenges than Cook Inlet because of its even more severe weather and sheer remoteness, Pickard says. By the early 1990s, Shell had shut down its Arctic exploration in favor of more readily available prospects in the Gulf of Mexico.
But the company never gave up on the extreme north. In 2004 it brought Bea to the Netherlands for a week of consulting on how to respond to a potential spill in the Chukchi. Of the many producers he’s advised over the decades, “Shell is one of the very best” in terms of safety, he says. Still, Bea worried when his client’s engineers asserted that methods used off the coast of Southern California and in the Gulf of Mexico would suffice in the Arctic.
Within the industry, Shell has a reputation for caution associated with its stolid Dutch cultural roots, says Butler, the former BP executive. But 15 years ago, competitive pressure from bulked-up rivals, combined with the growing scarcity of easily produced oil, began weighing on the company. In 2004, around the same time Bea was visiting The Hague, Shell admitted it had overstated its global proven oil reserves by 4.5 billion barrels, or 22 percent. The ensuing scandal led to government fines in the U.S. and U.K., settlement of investor lawsuits, the ouster of the company’s chairman, and consolidation of the Dutch and British branches of the corporation.
Beginning in 2005, Shell moved aggressively to snap up new drilling leases in U.S.-controlled portions of the Arctic Ocean. This process culminated near the end of the Bush administration in 2008, when Shell spent $2.1 billion at auction for rights to more than 2 million acres of subsea Arctic real estate. “Maybe in part to make up for the reserve scandal or maybe just because their [geologic] studies show more oil and gas than others see there, Shell got way out in front in the Arctic,” says Michael LeVine, Pacific senior counsel for Oceana, a Washington-based environmental group. Shell spokesman Curtis Smith says the 2004 reserve controversy had no bearing on the company’s aims in the Arctic.
In 2007, LeVine and other lawyers representing nongovernmental organizations and native Alaskan groups went to court to stop Shell. They argued that regulators didn’t know enough about the effects of drilling in the Arctic, that the company lacked adequate spill response plans, and that Eskimo tribal representatives hadn’t been adequately consulted. Years of Whac-a-Mole litigation unfolded in federal courts in Alaska, San Francisco, and Washington: Environmentalists identified planning flaws, judges halted drilling preparation, the government and Shell proposed fixes, drilling prep resumed, and the lawyers went back to court. The six-month post-BP-spill moratorium came and went in 2010. Shell’s cutting-edge three- and four-dimensional seismic technology, not available in the 1980s and 1990s, bolstered the company’s confidence. In the summer of 2012, with the courts and regulatory agencies temporarily in favorable alignment, Shell returned to the Arctic. “It’s just too big a prize,” Pickard says. “We can’t afford to leave it all there.”
The moment when it ought to have become clear that the 2012 Arctic mission deserved a rethink came in mid-July, when the Noble Discoverer, a 514-foot self-propelled drill ship, dragged anchor in 35 miles-per-hour wind during a stopover in Dutch Harbor and nearly ran aground. The Coast Guard said the vessel came within 100 yards of shore, but photos posted by local radio station KUCB seemed to indicate it came a lot closer than that. A tugboat pulled the Discoverer back into deeper water.
That September, the test of a $400 million “containment dome” went seriously awry. A faulty electrical connection caused the gigantic dome, designed to limit the spread of oil in case of a blowout, to rise to the surface without warning—and not in the storm-tossed Arctic but in the relatively tame Puget Sound, off Seattle. The head of the Alaska office of the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement reported that the dome “breached like a whale,” sank again, and reemerged, its top “crushed like a beer can.”
Despite these forbidding omens, in September and October 2012, Shell went ahead and drilled two shallow “top holes,” one in the Chukchi and one in the adjacent Beaufort Sea. The U.S. Department of the Interior banned penetration of hydrocarbon-bearing zones because of the containment dome snafu. Operating in the Chukchi, the Discoverer, a converted log carrier built in 1966, had to detach prematurely from the ocean floor when wind pushed a 10-mile-wide ice floe directly at the vessel. The Discoverer then suffered an onboard fire and propeller shaft malfunction that required the crew to shut down its engines and accept a tow to Seward, Alaska, where the Coast Guard impounded the vessel. Ultimately, Noble Drilling, Shell’s contractor, pleaded guilty to eight federal felony counts related to pollution and safety infractions and paid penalties totaling $12.2 million. The Discoverer was loaded onto a heavy-lift ship and taken to South Korea for extensive repairs.
That wasn’t the worst of it. The most spectacular failure involved the Kulluk, a round-shaped drilling barge that floated 250 feet above the waterline and had to be pulled by another vessel because it lacked its own power. Built in 1983 in Japan and mothballed a decade later, the Kulluk was purchased by Shell in 2005 and refurbished. In October 2012, after poking a shallow top hole in the Beaufort ice cap, the barge began its journey west and south, just ahead of fast-forming autumn ice. Bad weather and rough seas delayed its progress. By December it reached Dutch Harbor, where it could have spent the winter. Shell instead decided to tow the Kulluk on to Seattle. Subsequent government investigations found that Shell wanted to make offseason repairs that would have been more expensive and difficult to execute in Dutch Harbor. The oil company, with $467 billion in 2012 revenue, also wished to avoid $6 million in state port taxes that might have come due if the Kulluk remained in Alaska.
December is a perilous month for any vessel to cross the Gulf of Alaska. The dangers are multiplied by a complicated towing maneuver. The captain of the Aiviq, the ship pulling the Kulluk, sent an e-mail to a member of the 18-man skeleton crew on the barge. “To be blunt,” Captain Jon Skoglund wrote on Dec. 22, “I believe that this length of tow, at this time of year, in this location, with our current routing guarantees an ass kicking.”
On Dec. 27, with gale-force winds and 25-foot swells buffeting both vessels, the 600-yard towline snapped, setting the Kulluk and its crew adrift. The Aiviq circled back and reconnected the ships with an emergency line. The next day, however, the Aiviq’s four main engines all failed, apparently a result of seawater flooding. On Dec. 29, hovering Coast Guard helicopters lowered baskets on ropes to scoop the 18 crew members from the Kulluk’s heaving deck. Just in time, as it turned out: The towline broke once again—and later, a third time. On New Year’s Eve, Shell executives gave up. Cut loose, the Kulluk beached itself near Kodiak Island. Declared a total loss, the barge was dry-hauled to Singapore and cut up for scrap.
Multiple investigations followed. The Coast Guard faulted a series of poor decisions by Shell and its contractors. “Inadequate assessment and management of risks ... was the most significant causal factor,” the agency concluded. The Department of the Interior similarly found “shortcomings in Shell’s management and oversight of key contractors.” In March 2013, then-Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar told reporters: “Shell screwed up.”
Following the Kulluk mess, Shell executives at the highest levels describe a period of intense internal reflection on whether to persevere in the Arctic. “I had the opportunity very early on in my tenure to say, ‘That’s it, let’s pull the plug on it,’” Van Beurden, who was named CEO in 2013, told the Guardian in a May 2015 podcast. “I had to go through a personal journey on that.”
Introspection and internal debate are part of the corporate ethos at Shell. While the company declined to make Van Beurden available for this article, several current and former executives were willing to discuss the tradition of looking inward, not only in the wake of mishaps, but as part of the company’s year-in, year-out Scenarios process.
A dedicated Scenarios team of a half-dozen engineers, economists, and scientists working in The Hague, periodically supplemented by hundreds of experts from elsewhere around the company, compile monograph-length analyses with titles such as “Scramble,” “Oceans,” and “Mountains.” Pierre Wack, a Frenchman who headed Shell’s planning division in the 1970s, formalized the Scenarios process. “Wack was inspired by George Gurdjieff, a Greco-Roman guru who believed that most human beings who are awake act as if they are asleep,” according to 40 Years of Shell Scenarios, a coffee-table book the company published in 2012. Wack “opted for a confrontational approach, breaking down [top management’s] assumptions.” Arguing for greater reliance on human intuition, he anticipated the 1973 OPEC crisis, the 1979 Iranian oil shock, and the decline of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s—or so goes company lore. Wack died in 1997 at the age of 75, spending his final years in a 14th century château in the Dordogne, in southwestern France.
In the years since, the Scenarios process has gravitated from mystical intuition toward econometric modeling, according to more recent participants, but it retains at least a whiff of the transcendent. “We help create memories of the future,” Jeremy Bentham, who took over the unit in 2006, says in an interview.
Perhaps that helps when forecasting geopolitics. But on the environment, the Scenarios approach resembles a conscience-salving exercise that makes status quo strategies seem inevitable, former Shell executives say. As a result of Scenarios research, Shell in 1998 was one of the first major oil producers to acknowledge man-made climate change. For several years the company has even endorsed imposition of taxes on burning oil and other CO₂-emitting fuels, such as those enacted by some European countries. Bentham blames the U.S., China, and other major economies for failing to put their muscle behind this trend and impose levies that would create incentives to develop noncarbon alternatives. “We’ve lost 20 years collectively for the potential to moderate greenhouse gas emissions,” he says.
As the number of air conditioners and automobiles proliferates in Asia, “Shell has convinced itself that renewable energy can’t grow fast enough to meet growing energy demand,” says Dave McCormick, who worked for the company for 30 years and on the Scenarios team from 2002 to 2009. In Shell’s view, it has no real choice, he adds. It’s “the responsibility of oil and gas companies to meet that demand in as reasonable a way that they can.” As for Alaska, he says, the company thinks “it’s not about Shell exploring for hydrocarbons in the Arctic. It’s society that is demanding this energy.” At the end of his personal journey, Van Beurden gave the Arctic project a green light.
Pickard says that before she accepted the Arctic assignment, she, too, did extensive due diligence, not wanting to end her celebrated career on a down note. Her reasoning and conclusions offer a window on how a big oil company evaluates risk and benefit.
First, she says, on closer inspection, 2012 really wasn’t all that bad: “A lot of things went right. They had a successful exploration season in terms of getting rigs up here, operating to top holes, and then getting back down to Alaska quite successfully.” (From Alaska south, of course, not so much.)
What of the spill containment system crushed like an empty beer can? “That didn’t go well,” she admits. Also, “the Kulluk ended up on the beach. That’s not anything anyone wants to see in pictures.”
But past failure doesn’t guarantee future failure, Pickard points out. “The perception was that the weather is far worse [in the Arctic] than anywhere else we operate,” she continues. Not so. Off the U.K., she says, “North Sea conditions are actually worse.” Before taking over in Anchorage, she oversaw the construction of Prelude, a mammoth floating liquefied natural gas plant off northwestern Australia. It’s designed to withstand Category 5 cyclones, she explains, and those don’t happen in the Arctic. “We know how to operate in places where there’s challenging weather,” she says. “Alaska is no worse, and in many ways better than some other places.”
Continuing to accentuate the positive, Pickard says the Burger J prospect lies beneath only 140 feet of water, and its crude oil reservoir is under relatively low pressure as these things go. In contrast, BP’s ill-fated Macondo well lay beneath a mile of ocean and was under extremely high pressure. “The blowout scenario is quite different than the case of BP’s Macondo,” Pickard says. Burger J “is the kind of thing we’ve done all over the world for decades.”
Not to say there will be a blowout. “It’s not going to happen on my watch,” Pickard maintains. She has hired new talent, including a retired Navy admiral and several ex-Coast Guard officers. She’s “flattened the organization a lot.” Her predecessor and his inner circle in Anchorage perched several floors above the operations people; Pickard and her aides-de-camp mingle with the rank and file.
Ninety percent of the hands-on crew on an offshore project work for contractors. Pickard acknowledges that in 2012, Shell didn’t supervise the hired help adequately. “The contract management side has entirely changed,” she says. She has designated senior Shell employees as “contract holders” who each supervise one or two outside companies to the exclusion of other duties. “I expect our contract holder to know what the captain of the Aiviq had for breakfast yesterday.”
Yes, she confirms, that’s the same Aiviq that was part of the misadventure three years ago. It’s been repaired and returned to action; same with the rehabilitated Noble Discoverer and containment dome. The wrecked Kulluk has been replaced by the Polar Pioneer, a rectangular eight-leg drilling unit 279 feet long and 233 feet wide. Built in 1985, the Pioneer is owned and operated by Transocean, the same Switzerland-based drilling contractor responsible for the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded while working for BP in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, killing 11 men. Thirty vessels are expected to be in the vicinity of the Burger J prospect, about the same as in 2012, with the Discoverer backing up the Pioneer and available to drill a relief well in the event of the blowout Pickard guarantees won’t occur.
The National Research Council, the working arm of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, has a more pessimistic view. “Coast Guard personnel, equipment, transportation, communication, navigation, and safety resources needed for oil spill response are not adequate for overseeing oil spill response in the Arctic,” the council concluded in a report last year.
Pickard disagrees. She says she can get all of her gear—capping stack, containment dome, surface booms, skimmer boats, tankers—in position within 60 minutes of an accident.
As she sees it, the damaged Fennica’s detour to Portland proves her point. Yes, the icebreaker suffered a puncture wound in Alaska. But rather than attempt a quick fix, she sent it to Portland for a more thorough repair in dry dock. The Fennica also happens to carry the capping stack, a massive piece of spill response equipment that would come into play to plug an out-of-control well if another device, the blowout preventer, failed to do the job. Pickard left the capping stack on the Fennica, even though that decision prompted the Department of Interior to ban Shell from penetrating Burger J’s oil zone until the Fennica returned to the vicinity of the well.
Pickard calls the management of the Fennica “a perfect example of operating exceptionally well.” On July 30, the ship maneuvered past nine remaining protesters hanging from Portland’s St. Johns Bridge and headed out to the Pacific on its way to the Chukchi. Anticipating the Fennica’s return, the Polar Pioneer’s drill bit began spinning into the seafloor to carve a “mud-line cellar,” a 20-by-40-foot space that will house the blowout preventer (BOP). In most offshore projects, the BOP projects above the seabed. Shell is burying the device to minimize potential damage from any large, unseasonal underwater ice floes of the sort that forced the Discoverer to detach and retreat from its top hole in 2012.
If all goes well, Shell will drill through in late September, at which point Pickard says she’ll order the fleet to move south for the cold months. Shell will have to come back for 15 summers before “first oil” flows through an as-yet-unconstructed 70-mile seafloor pipeline to the Alaska coast and then a 350-mile overland connector (also yet to be built) to the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.Pickard acknowledges that if 2030 oil prices are no higher than today’s, all the effort will have been for naught. If prices are 40 percent higher, or $70 a barrel, Chukchi oil would be “competitive,” she says. At $110, which the company sees as a realistic possibility, it would be a smashing success. The vicissitudes of petroleum pricing aren’t Pickard’s concern right now. A Norwegian oil regulator she’s friendly with reminded her recently that if Shell makes progress, other companies and nations will be emboldened to try the Arctic. “A lot’s riding on your performance,” the Norwegian told her. “The world’s watching you."
-
Cheap Oil Is Hurting Drillers — Energy Journal
Aug 6, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal - Money Beat
By Georgi Kantchev
Transocean Ltd., which boasts the world’s largest fleet of offshore drilling rigs, reported a sharp fall in its second-quarter profit in the latest example of how low oil prices are hurting the profitability of oil companies.
The company logged nearly $800 million in charges as it continued to trim its fleet amid lower crude prices. It slashed its dividend to 60 cents a share, from $3 a share, and sharply cut its number of rigs, taking some out of service and scrapping others.
Contract backlog was $18.6 billion as of July 15, down from $19.9 billion on April 16 and $21.2 billion on Feb. 17. Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Chevron Corp. accounted for about 41% and 20%, respectively, of Transocean’s contract backlog up to Feb. 17, according to regulatory filings. Both companies have cut spending to counter the sharp decline in crude prices, but oil still trades below their lowered price assumptions, suggesting further cuts.
Meanwhile, Marathon Oil Corp., the Houston exploration and production company, swung to a second-quarter loss as revenue plunged on the sharply lower crude prices. In the latest period, the sales volume from continuing operations rose 4%, while net production available for sale from continuing operations, and excluding Libya, rose 6%.
FEWER RIGS IN MEXICO
Mexico’s national oil company, Petróleos Mexicanos, is also cutting back on drilling rigs to bring its costs down. The oil company is renegotiating the rates on rigs that it wants to keep under contract as it slashes $4 billion from this year’s investment budget and prepares for more austerity next year, officials at Pemex said.
“The idea here was not to strangle or squeeze our suppliers, it is to get through a very hard time which we hope at some point is going to even out,” said chief procurement officer Arturo Henríquez Autrey.
A Brazilian judge sentenced five construction company executives to as many as 16 years in prison Wednesday over the Petrobras corruption scandal. Builder OAS’s president, José Aldemario Pinheiro Filho, was sentenced to 16 years and four months in prison, and four other of the company’s executives received equal or shorter sentences, for their involvement in a corruption scheme that stole billions of dollars from state-controlled oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras. Mr. Pinheiro is no longer the company’s president, according to prosecutors.
OBAMA PUSHES FOR IRAN DEAL
President Barack Obama argued Wednesday that a diplomatic agreement to restrict Iran’s nuclear program presents U.S. Congress with a fundamental choice between war and peace. Mr. Obama’s nearly hour-long speech at American University marked his most strident effort to win over skeptics since the deal was reached July 14. It came as lawmakers head home for the summer recess, where many will face pressure by opponents of the Iran deal to defy the president.
The Iran deal carries significance for the oversupplied global oil market as Tehran has said it will ramp up its oil output when the international sanctions are lifted. Analysts say Iran could increase its production by up to a million barrels a day.
MARKETS
Oil prices traded near multi-month lows Thursday as a persistent oversupply continued to spook the market. Resilient U.S. output coupled with high production from other major suppliers and worries about China’s economy have soured investor sentiment in recent weeks.
The latest weekly data showed a fall in U.S. crude oil inventories—usually a bullish sign of strong demand—but the positive effect was overshadowed by an increase in stockpiles of gasoline and other finished products. U.S. oil production, meanwhile, rose last week by 52,000 barrels a day to 9.5 million barrels a day.
-
Fracking-Related Earthquakes Could Ding Credit Quality
Aug 5, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Maxwell Murphy
More and stronger earthquakes, and the possible link to oil and gas drilling activities, could have far reaching economic implications, according to Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services.
“The earthquake trend has and will continue to have sharp economic consequences for home and business owners, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, and investors exposed to real estate in earthquake affected areas,” S&P analysts said.
S&P noted that Oklahoma, a popular site for horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, had 585 earthquakes last year. That’s up from an average of one or two a year before fracking was introduced in 2008 and more than triple the annual number in earthquake-prone California.
Companies exposed to these risks need to assess if they need earthquake coverage, and whether their policies change if the earthquake is declared man-made.
“Whatever the cause,” wrote S&P credit analyst Andrew Foster, “we believe the potential for property damage from increased incidences of earthquakes may be a liability.”
-
Oklahoma Orders Disposal Well Volume Cuts
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Robert Iafolla
Under new directives issued by Oklahoma's energy and gas regulator, disposal well operators in two counties will be required to begin cutting their water volumes by Aug. 23 in response to increased seismicity levels.
Operators in northern Oklahoma County and southern Logan County will be directed to cut disposal volumes in increments totaling 38 percent by Oct. 2, according to an Aug. 3 advisory the Oklahoma Corporation Commission's (OCC) Oil and Gas Conservation Division (OGCD) has issued.
The new directive will cut the total disposal volume in the area to 2.4 million barrels less than levels from 2012, which is when the area saw its “sharpest rise in seismicity,” the commission said.
The measure will affect 23 wells run by 12 operators, an OCC spokesman told Bloomberg BNA Aug. 5.
The move is the latest effort to combat Oklahoma's surging seismicity levels, following a July announcement by the state that it will place an additional 200 oil and gas wastewater disposal wells under scrutiny for potential linkages to seismic activity (141 DEN A-14, 7/23/15).
In March, the state issued a directive covering 300 disposal wells that inject into the state's Arbuckle formation, informing operators conducting operations in “areas of interest” that they had 30 days to prove that their wells aren't releasing wastewater below the state's deepest geologic formation (60 DEN A-13, 3/30/15).
Quake Prompts Action
Pointing to a recent pair of earthquakes, including a July 27 earthquake in the town of Crescent, Oklahoma Sierra Club Executive Director Johnson Bridgwater said recent seismic activity close to the capital has served as a catalyst for the state's latest action.
“These earthquakes … seem to have brought the OCC to the realization that much more needs to be done to bring about a change in the earthquakes—they have issued two new sets of actions since last Monday,” Bridgwater said in an Aug. 5 e-mail.
Registering 4.6 in magnitude, the epicenter for the quake was located 37 miles north of Oklahoma City and 30 miles or less from the cities of Stillwater, Edmond, and Guthrie.
In an example of the letter addressed to well operators, OGCD Director Tim Baker announced the state “is expanding its efforts to reduce the risk of earthquakes potentially triggered by saltwater disposal wells.”
Under the plan, operators will be given 60 days to cut disposal volumes by 38 percent, carried out in a series of 13 percent reductions with deadlines of Aug. 23 and Sept. 12, concluding with a 12 percent reduction that must be carried out by Oct. 2.
“I fully support going forward with a plan based on volume cuts, and am pleased to see a real beginning in that regard,” Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Dana Murphy said in an Aug. 3 statement.
Directive Called ‘Prudent' Step
Chad Warmington, president of the Oklahoma Oil & Gas Association, hailed the commission's latest seismicity directive for being a “reasonable and prudent” next step.
“The data for this area of interest suggested that a volume reduction was necessary,” Warmington said in an Aug. 4 statement. “We appreciate the commission taking a targeted approach.”
Sierra's Bridgwater warned that even if a moratorium is applied to the commission's “areas of interest” spanning 21 counties in north central Oklahoma, the earthquakes will continue for months to come.
“[T]here is a very real threat that the underground injections have already overcharged the faults to the point that we are going to have some very damaging quakes ahead,” Bridgwater said.
“It is absolutely past the point of doling out directives in piecemeal fashion—the OCC directives are all leading to the point that many people have seen was needed all along—stop injecting into the area of concern,” Bridgwater added.
-
Oklahoma Gov Links Earthquakes To Oil, Gas Industry
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Oklahoma’s governor is acknowledging a “direct correlation” between the exponential increase in earthquakes in the state and its oil and natural gas industry.
Gov. Mary Fallin’s (R) comments at a meeting of the state Coordinating Council on Seismic Activity are some of her strongest yet on the links between injecting wastewater from drilling into the ground and earthquakes.“We all know now there is a direct correlation between the increase in earthquakes we've seen in Oklahoma and the disposal wells, based upon many different factors, whether it is volume or location or whether it is on a fault line, how deep that disposal well goes into the earth itself," Fallin said, according to The Oklahoman.
“Oklahoma recognizes there is an earthquake problem in our state,” she continued. “We’re trying to actively deal with it, come up with solutions and make sure they are based on scientific fact that helps develop a response plan to address this problem and ensure that homeowners and business owners and agencies are all working together.”
The council, which met Tuesday to brief Fallin, does not have regulatory authority. Fallin organized it to look into the hundreds of recent earthquakes Oklahoma has been experiencing, a sharp increase from the single-digit annual frequency of years past.
The state has already put in place standards for injection wells to stop the activities that are most closely linked to earthquakes, such as injecting near known faults.
Oklahoma has been resistant to blaming oil and gas for the earthquakes, despite years of conclusions from outside scientists studying the issue.
Only earlier this year did Oklahoma’s official seismologists declare that oil and gas drilling can cause the earthquakes.
-
Obama Spurns Natural Gas In Climate Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
President Obama’s love affair with natural gas is over.
The president once touted gas as an essential clean bridge fuel to wean the United States off dirtier fossil fuels and onto renewable energy, and it was seen as a key to his landmark climate change rule for power plants.But when Obama unveiled the finalized rule this week, he barely spoke about natural gas. Instead, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) boasted that the new regulation will accommodate a large transition from coal power directly to renewables like wind and solar, skipping over natural gas altogether.
The White House said the proposed rule encourages a boom in natural gas use because of a set of carbon reduction deadlines for states in 2020, which would be too soon for many states to deploy renewables.
“The proposed rule relied on a large, early shift of coal generation to natural gas,” officials said in a fact sheet. “For example, the share of natural gas in the generation mix was projected to be significantly higher in 2020 than in the baseline.”
But that deadline was pushed back two years.
“Instead, the rule drives early reductions from renewable energy and energy efficiency, which will drive a more aggressive transformation in the domestic energy industry,” it said.
The rule does not actually instruct states to choose some generation sources over others, and promises that no coal-fired power plant will have to be retired before its useful life is over.
But the changed date, along with an incentive program for states to earn credits for renewable installation, has officials convinced they can avoid some gas increases. It also allowed the White House to seek a nationwide 32 percent cut in power plants’ carbon pollution in the final rule, more than the 30 percent proposed last year.
The gas industry is furious. Obama had previously held up gas as a top driver of the United States’ recent emissions reductions, because gas emits as little as half of the carbon dioxide as coal when burned.
And while gas companies are still working to figure out that actual impact of the rule, they aren’t happy with the way the administration presented it.
“We’re disappointed in the shift in messaging,” said Frank Macchiarola, top lobbyist for America’s Natural Gas Alliance.
“The rhetoric out of the White House has been trying to send a clear message that they’re creating a shift from natural gas to more renewables being emphasized in the rule,” he said.
Macchiarola said the president presented a “false choice” between natural gas and renewables. In reality, they can be used together, especially because wind and solar power only provide electricity intermittently.
“The fact is that for a diverse fuel supply, you’re going to need both out into the future,” he said.
The American Petroleum Institute had a similar take.
“The announcement yesterday will dramatically increase consumer cost, it will destroy jobs, and at the end of the day it doesn’t recognize clean-burning natural gas, which has brought us to a 20-year low [for greenhouse gas emissions] today,” said Jack Gerard, the group’s president.
To the conservative Institute for Energy Research, the move shows that Obama opposes all fossil fuels.
“What it really says is that the Obama administration is not enamored with anything that emits carbon dioxide emissions, whether that’s coal or even natural gas,” said Dan Simmons, vice president for policy at the organization.
“We’ve long believed that the administration would go after natural gas like they’re going after coal,” he said. “This is just one of the opening salvos in what the administration’s long-term plans are.”
Obama’s relations with natural gas had started to strain in recent years, due largely to his regulatory agenda. Federal agencies have written or are working on rules for hydraulic fracturing on federal land, methane leaks from natural gas drilling and other policies that could impact the industry.
To environmentalists, avoiding natural gas is great news.
“We’re thrilled about any opportunity to replace coal directly with renewable energy, because the whole idea of natural gas as a bridge fuel has become debunked as we get more and more understanding of how bad natural gas is, and how ready to go renewable energy is,” said Julian Boggs, the global warming outreach director for Environment America. “Deploying as much renewable energy as possible is essential to solving global warming. Natural gas can’t solve global warming.”
EPA head Gina McCarthy maintained that the administration is not trying to favor any power source over others.
“I don’t want you to get the impression that we are putting our finger on any particular type of energy generation,” she told reporters when asked about the role of gas. “If you take a look at the energy mix you’ll see that natural gas still remains a very strong part of the energy mix.”
And Jason Grumet, president of the Bipartisan Policy Center, argued that because gas generation will increase under the rule, the industry should be thankful.
“The natural gas industry is expected to overlook modest deprivations, since no one likes a sore winner,” Grumet said.
-
Obama Picks Familiar Faces For Top Science Posts
Aug 6, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Katherine Ling
President Obama yesterday announced nominations for two key positions in the nation's federal science programs.
Obama nominated Cherry Murray to be director of the Office of Science at the Energy Department and Richard Buckius to be deputy director for the National Science Foundation.
Murray is no stranger to DOE, serving on the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board and the Commission to Review the Effectiveness of the National Energy Laboratories, for which she received a waiver to participate given the "limited nature" of her paid consulting work for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) (Greenwire, Sept. 2, 2014).
Murray is currently a professor of technology and public policy and physics at Harvard University, and she stepped down from a five-year stint as dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences last year. She formerly worked as a principal associate director for science and technology at LLNL and also for more than two dozen years at Bell Laboratories and Lucent Technologies Inc.
She is a former president of the American Physical Society and has made significant scientific contributions in the fields of condensed matter and surface physics, for which the White House named her one of the nation's top 15 scientific minds and awarded her the National Medal of Technology and Innovation last year. Discover magazine named her one of the "50 Most Important Women in Science" in 2002 (E&ENews PM, Oct. 3, 2014).
Murray was also appointed to the national commission reviewing the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and offshore drilling in 2010. She received her Bachelor of Science and doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The top Office of Science position has been vacant for more than two years. Obama nominated Marc Kastner, dean of MIT's School of Science, to the position in November 2013, but he was never confirmed by the Senate (E&E Daily, Nov. 15, 2013).
Similarly, fellow nominee Buckius would have an easy transition to the position of NSF's deputy director, as he is currently the chief operating officer at NSF and also serves as a senior science adviser. He previously held the position of assistant director and directorate for engineering at NSF from 2006 to 2008.
He is also currently a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University and previously taught at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, for almost 25 years, including as head of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering. He received his bachelor's degree, Master of Science and doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley.
-
Leaders Cite Cost Increases as Problems With EPA Plan
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky
A federal energy regulator, a power grid operator and a rural electric cooperative executive predicted that the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan will produce a litany of problems.
“Just about every negative consequence that comes out of the rule—primarily related to reliability or especially affordability—are directly things that are going to impact you,” Commissioner Tony Clark of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission told a Seattle gathering of lawmakers with the National Conference of State Legislatures Aug. 4.
“If there is a reliability, if there's an affordability issue—it's not going to be the EPA's phone that rings. It's going to be all your phones and all of our phones that ring,” said Clark, a former Republican state legislator from North Dakota appointed to FERC by President Barack Obama.
Clark said FERC held four conferences around the country on reliability issues while the EPA rule was under development, and the three areas of common concern that emerged were “EPA's very aggressive timeline,” the impact on interstate grids and the creation of “some sort of off-ramp in case something goes bad.”
The EPA released the final rule (RIN 2060-AR33) Aug. 3 (150 DEN A-2, 8/5/15).
Clark said of the EPA's final rule: “I would say that there was some movement on those matters, but not as much as I would have liked to have seen. With regard to timing, there were some baby steps made in that the timing was pushed back so that the interim compliance goal will start in 2022, which is about two years longer than the EPA had proposed before.”
The problem, Clark said, is that there will be major infrastructure projects required in the states such as pipelines, gas plants that are replacing coal and new transmission lines that are hooking up widely dispersed renewable power. Such investments take more time to plan, build and put in service than the rule takes into account, he said.
Ensuring Grid Reliability
On the issue of ensuring reliability of the grid, Clark said FERC, the EPA and the Department of Energy will have “ongoing discussions.” And while the final rule contemplates a reliability safety valve, “it's a fairly narrow one. As I understand it, it is about a 90-day safety valve. It's not very long in the utility industry. What happens after that I think we need to dig into.”
Clark called affordability “the flip side of the issue of reliability. Utilities and their regulators will go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that there is not a blackout.” But that can result in increased costs such as by retiring coal-based assets early and constructing new infrastructure.
“If you have a primarily hydrocarbon base and you're expected to reduce carbon intensity by 40 percent beginning in the glide path of 2022, there is no way you can do that without significant costs increases,” Clark said. “You may be able to keep the lights on, but it will come at very significant cost increases.”
Clark identified states in the core of the country as facing the most significant costs in implementing the rule. The top 12 states having carbon reduction goals of 40 percent or more are South Dakota, Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Colorado, Minnesota and Nebraska, he said.
Craig Glazer is vice president of federal government policy for regional grid operator PJM Interconnection, which bills itself as “the largest power grid in North America and the largest electricity market in the world’’ operating in 13 states and the District of Columbia. Glazer said the question of whether the new rule will work depends in large part on how it is implemented and how a host of variables in the marketplace play out.
“We are doing this at a time of incredibly low natural gas prices,” Glazer said. “You're rolling the dice that prices will stay low. This plan really, really works depending on low natural gas prices going forward. That's a key component to ensure that we can actually keep this in a reasonable cost structure.”
‘No One is Really in Charge.’
Glazer said the rule is written for individual state plans, but electricity moves in an interstate grid. Because the rule is heavily dependent on complex trading programs that cross state lines, failure of such programs would be difficult for states like North Dakota that will have to meet big cuts in carbon emissions.
“Everyone's got a piece of this, but no one is really in charge of this incredibly complex machine called the electric grid,” Glazer said. And while PJM is supportive of regional solutions, he said regionalism “is not in the structure or the DNA of how we govern ourselves. We need to figure out regional solutions that aren't easy.”
“And let's not forget the judicial system,” said Glazer, who noted this whole rule may get overturned. He believes that corporate boards might balk at investment until judicial challenges play out. “I suspect in every board room there's going to be that discussion. ‘Maybe we ought to wait. Maybe the courts are going to throw this whole thing out.’ ”
Steve Tomac, a vice president of Basin Electric Power Cooperative, said on the day after release of the final rule: “If you are a utility in the upper Midwest, yesterday was not a good day.” The cooperative servies some 3 million members in 128 rural distribution coops in nine states stretching from New Mexico to the Canadian border.
‘Stranded Costs Hit Hard.’
Most of the generation in that area, Tomac said, was developed in the 1970s and 1980s when federal law restricted or prohibited building any type of generation except coal. Coal generation was built in that era and, “We have approximately half of the useful life of those plants still remaining.”
“The issue of stranded costs in central America hits really hard,” Tomac said. “It hits the coop family very hard as it does investor owned utilities. This rule sets the stage for a huge change potentially in the Great Plains because we are the hardest hit.”
Tomac identified eminent domain issues as a big problem that will grow bigger as utilities seek to site new facilities to meet federal mandates. He raised the case of a county commission in North Dakota that denied an application of a wind farm because of pressure from local citizens.
“If you can't site the wind; if you can't site the pipeline, what are you going to do?” Tomac said.
“What was originally proposed a year ago, we thought probably may have been achievable,” Tomac said. “What was finally proposed yesterday, we don't think is.”
Flexibility
“We were told there was going to be great flexibility,” Tomac said. “Actually that flexibility tightened up a little bit.” He cited as an example doubts over whether his coop would be able to use a wind plant in South Dakota as a compliance resource in a different state.
Clark said: “If you're one of these states that's going to propose a regional block of states and you're one of these states that has the hardest target, you're the ugliest kid at the dance. No one wants to join with you because they are buying your carbon problem. And that's going to become a real political challenge of trying to put together interstate compacts.”
The consequence, Clark said, will be that some states that can easily meet their target will go off on their own, as well states with cap and trade.
“All you are going to have left with are states with the very highest targets,” Clark said.
-
Facing Suits, EPA's Final ESPS Lays Ground For Broad Legal Defense
Aug 5, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lee Logan
Faced with expected suits from scores of parties, EPA's final greenhouse gas (GHG) standards for existing power plants offers a formal defense to many of the premiere legal arguments that critics plan to raise, including the agency's underlying legal authority to issue the rule and its ability to set targets based on supply-side changes to the power sector.
It also rejects critics' claims that the rule will unlawfully reshape the power sector, that it unconstitutionally “commandeers” states into writing compliance plans, and that the agency lacks authority to set binding state targets and can merely issue a “procedure” for states to follow when crafting standards.
The legal justifications, contained in EPA's final existing source performance standards (ESPS), are important because they will be central to litigation over the rule, given early promises from state and industry critics to file a host of challenges.
Ohio-based coal mining firm Murray Energy Corp., which is already pursuing two legal challenges to block EPA from finalizing the rule, announced Aug. 3 at it will file five new lawsuits seeking to block EPA's “flagrantly unlawful” ESPS after the rule is published in the Federal Register.
And West Virginia Attorney General (AG) Patrick Morrisey (R), who is also leading state litigation to block the rule's finalization, said he would form a coalition of “many states, consumers, mine workers, coal operators, utilities and businesses” to begin formulating a legal challenge to the final rule, which he called a “radical and illegal policy."
A group of 16 state AGs on Aug. 5 then announced they are asking the agency to voluntarily stay the ESPS until litigation over the rule is resolved, the first formal challenge to the regulation since its unveiling -- though EPA is almost certain to deny the request.
One critical legal argument over the rule will be the threshold question of whether the agency has the legal authority to regulate power plants' GHG emissions under section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, given that it already regulates plants' mercury emissions under section 112.
ESPS opponents argue that a “plain reading” of section 111 prohibits EPA from restricting plants' GHG emissions, but the issue is uncertain due to differing House and Senate amendments to section 111(d) that were never reconciled before the 1990 air act amendments were signed into law.
The Senate amendment would explicitly allow EPA's proposed rule by limiting section 111(d)'s "112 exclusion" to pollutants already regulated under that section. The House amendment could be read as prohibiting the rule because it focuses on source categories, not pollutants.
But the issue has never been addressed on the merits by a federal court, although it is currently being litigated in ongoing suits brought by Murray Energy and other industry groups, as well as West Virginia and other states, who challenged the proposed version of the rule.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit earlier this year declined to hear the petitioners' suits on procedural grounds, finding the litigation was premature. But petitioners have since asked the court to rehear the litigation -- or in the alternative to allow new litigation over the final rule to be heard by the same three-judge panel that the critics believe is favorable.
New Interpretation
In the pending litigation, EPA offered a range of potential interpretations of the House amendment, including a 2005 interpretation, the agency's most recent, that had sought to reconcile the two provisions.
But in the final ESPS, EPA adopts a new formal interpretation, saying that the House amendment alone would permit the rule.
“EPA has concluded that the two differing amendments are not properly read as conflicting. Instead, the House amendment and the Senate amendment should each be read to mean the same in the context presented by this rule: that the Section 112 Exclusion does not bar the regulation under [air act] section 111(d) of non-[hazardous air pollutants (HAP)] from a source category, regardless of whether that source category is subject to standards for HAP under [air act] section 112,” EPA says.
EPA's new interpretation finds that, even when only considering the House amendment, it has authority to issue the ESPS. The agency says the House language would allow the rule in part because it must be read in context of Congress' broader goals in creating section 111 and the overall air law.
It says the new interpretation is reasonable -- and thus worthy of judicial deference under the Supreme Court's Chevron precedent -- because it would not create “a wholesale exclusion” of source categories from section 111 regulation, but rather determine “the scope” of regulated pollutants.
Also, its interpretation “furthers -- rather than undermines -- the purpose” of section 111(d), and remains “consistent with the legislative history” that Congress intended in 1990 to “expand EPA's regulatory authority across the board, compelling the agency to regulate more pollutants, under more programs, more quickly.”
Among several possible readings of the House language, EPA identifies only one as detrimental to the final ESPS. Were a court to determine that particular reading is valid, “that would not be the end of the analysis,” EPA argues.
“Instead, that reading would create a conflict between the Senate amendment and the House amendment that would need to be resolved,” the agency adds, arguing that the agency would then revert to its interpretation in the proposed ESPS, in which a section 112 rule would prohibit EPA from regulating that sector's HAP emissions under section 111, while still leaving authority to regulate GHG emissions from the same source category under section 111.
Building Blocks
EPA also responds to critics' claims that its ESPS targets for states must be based on measures that can be implemented “inside the fence line” of power plants. For example, an industry attorney says the final rule's targets, by relying heavily on building new renewable energy, are “unhinged from the limited statutory authority of Section 111(d).”
The agency argues that the statutory basis for targets -- the “best system of emission reduction” -- is “capacious enough” to include actions taken by power plant owners or operators, “including actions that may occur off-site and actions that a third party takes pursuant to a commercial relationship with the owner/operator, so long as those actions enable the affected source to achieve its emission limitation.”
The agency adds that building blocks 2 and 3 -- which rely on greater use of natural gas and renewables to displace coal power -- fall within that framework “because they consist of measures that the owners/operators of the affected [power plants] can implement to achieve their emission limits.”
EPA rejects industry's source-specific interpretation of the statute, arguing, “it is common sense that buildings, structures, facilities, and installations can take no actions.”
The agency also offers a limiting principle to its target-setting authority, saying the air act focuses “on how to most cleanly produce a good, not on how much of the good should be produced.”
The agency adds: “Building blocks 2 and 3 entail the production of the same amount of the same product -- electricity, a fungible product that can be produced using a variety of highly substitutable generation processes -- through the cleaner (that is, less CO2-intensive) processes of” shifting coal generation to gas or renewables.
The legal reasoning on this issue is a key reason why EPA dropped the proposed block 4 -- which would have set targets based on an assumed level of end-use energy efficiency.
“The focus under the Clean Air Act has really been about making manufacturing cleaner, not restricting the amount of manufacturing that can happen,” acting EPA air chief Janet McCabe said during an Aug. 3 call with environmental justice advocates. She added, “In this [rule], what is being manufactured is electrons. The first three building blocks are directly within that precedent, squarely within how we write these rules. Demand-side energy efficiency is not.”
Further, EPA in the rule says dropping block 4 allays concerns that “individuals could be 'swept into' the regulatory process by imposing requirements on 'every household in the land.'” By not including block 4, the final rule “resolves any doubt on this matter.”
EPA also says its rule does not run afoul of language in the 2014 high court ruling in Utility Air Resources Group v. EPA, in which the court said it is skeptical “When an agency claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to regulate 'a significant portion of the American economy.'”
The agency says that critics “appear to interpret” the ruling as prohibiting the agency from basing state goals on renewable power, which has not previously been subject to the air act. “However, in this rule, the EPA is not attempting to subject any entity other than the affected” power plants to agency regulation.
The agency adds that it is not finalizing its “portfolio approach” that would allow states to include in compliance plans “federally enforceable requirements on entities other than affected” power plants. As such, the only regulated entities in state plants would be power plants, and other entities “and the parts of the economy that they represent will not be regulated by the EPA.”
Constitutional Concerns
EPA also rejects opponents' constitutional arguments -- most prominently offered by Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe -- that the rule would “coerce” or “commandeer” states into taking actions in order to avoid a federal plan or the loss of federal funds.
This argument gained ground after the high court, in National Federation of Independent Businesses v. Sebelius, vacated portions of the federal health care law that sought to require states to expand the Medicare program.
But EPA says the ESPS' structure of offering states the opportunity to craft a compliance plan instead of sources facing federal limits “is consistent with ordinary cooperative federalism regimes that federal courts have routinely upheld against Tenth Amendment challenges,” the rule says.
Also, states that decline to craft plans “will not face the prospect of sanctions, such as withdrawn federal highway funds.”
“The EPA never intended to even imply that we would contemplate using this authority [for highway fund sanctions in Clean Air Act section 110(m)] to encourage state participation in this rule under section 111,” the agency says, noting it included an provision in the final rule explicitly prohibiting the agency from imposing highway fund sanctions for states that do not submit or implement a compliance plan.
Binding Targets
EPA also faces a question of whether it can set binding targets for states, or whether the air act limits the agency to creating a “procedure” for how states can set their own standards.
An Aug. 4 client alert from the law firm King & Spalding notes that since the law directs states to craft performance standards, “Arguably, by specifying emission rates that must be met by the states, EPA’s rule may go beyond its authority under Section 111(d).”
Also, a group of 17 GOP AGs said the issue is one of six “legal deficiencies” in formal comments urging EPA to withdraw the proposed rule.
But in the final ESPS, EPA notes that it is following the practice for crafting section 111 rules laid out in a 1975 implementing regulation that is still in effect.
That rule “carefully considered the allocation of responsibilities as between the EPA and the states for purposes of [air act] section 111(d), and concluded that the EPA is responsible for determining the level of emission limitation from the source category, while the states have the responsibility of assigning emission requirements to their sources that assured their achievement of that level of emission limitation.” EPA argues that Congress in subsequent 1977 amendments to the air law endorsed this approach, and that EPA “has followed the same approach in all subsequent section 111(d) rules.”
-
Sixteen States Seek Stay of Clean Power Plan
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
Sixteen states asked the Environmental Protection Agency to administratively stay its recently finalized Clean Power Plan until legal challenges can be resolved.
The states, led by West Virginia, argue the EPA's Clean Power Plan is illegal because it usurps state authority over intrastate energy policy and exceeds the agency's authority under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act. The states said in their Aug. 5 petition for a stay that they will seek “emergency relief in court” if the EPA fails to respond by Aug. 7.
“The lion's share of the Section 111(d) rule relies not upon regulating coal-fired power plants to make them more environmentally friendly, but on requiring states to adopt broad energy policy measures to replace demand for coal-fired energy with demand for EPA's preferred sources of energy,” the states said. “This novel approach is unlawful in numerous respects.”
The states seeking the stay are West Virginia, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky Louisiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
The National Mining Association has also petitioned the EPA for a stay.
The EPA released its final Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33), issued under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, Aug. 3. The rule sets a unique carbon dioxide emissions rate for the power sector in each state. The standard would be implemented by state regulators and is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 (149 DEN B-1, 8/4/15).
The states argue they would face immediate harm in implementing the rule if it is not stayed pending judicial review.
“The character and enormous scope of the obligations that the Section 111(d) rule imposes upon the states is far beyond anything the states have ever experienced under the Clean Air Act, or any other federal rule,” they said. “Preparing these state plans will be a complicated endeavor, which experienced state regulators believe will take the states many years to complete.”
States Also Pursuing Lawsuits
Most of the same states seeking the stay had joined early lawsuits to block the EPA's rule before it was finalized. Those cases were rebuffed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit as premature, but the states have asked the court to rehear their challenges (In re: Murray Energy Corp., D.C. Cir., No. 14-1112, petition for rehearing, 7/24/15; .
The states also have vowed to file additional lawsuits challenging the rule (149 DEN B-11, 8/4/15).
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Aug. 5 advanced a bill that would kill the EPA's Clean Power Plan (See related story).
-
States Seek Delay Of EPA Climate Change Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Sixteen states have formally asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to delay its new climate rule for power plants.
The long-shot request filed Wednesday by West Virginia and others is the first step in their plans to challenge the regulations in federal court.They want the Obama administration to put the rule on hold until all litigation against it is complete.
The request came two days after President Obama unveiled the final version of the rule, which mandates a 32 percent reduction in the power sector’s carbon emissions by 2030.
“This request is a necessary first step and prerequisite to confronting this illegal power grab by the Obama administration and EPA,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a statement. “These regulations, if allowed to proceed, will do serious harm to West Virginia and the U.S. economy, and that is why we are taking quick action to bring this process to a halt.”
The states contend that the EPA greatly exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act and the Constitution in writing its regulations. It says the courts are likely to agree.
In the formal request to the EPA, the states said waiting to implement the rule would protect consumers and others from regulations that are likely to be overturned.
“Absent an immediate stay, the section 111(d) rule will coerce the states to expend enormous public resources and to put aside sovereign priorities to prepare state plans of unprecedented scope and complexity,” they wrote.
“In addition, the states’ citizens will be forced to pay higher energy bills as power plants shut down. In the end, the courts are likely to conclude that the section 111(d) rule is unlawful.”
EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison reiterated the Obama administration’s position that the rule falls within the confines of the law and will stand up to court scrutiny.
“These final guidelines are consistent with the law and align with the approach that Congress and EPA have always taken to regulate emissions from this and all other industrial sectors — setting source-level, source-category-wide standards that sources can meet through a variety of technologies and measures,” she said.The National Mining Association filed a similar request Monday. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said he was “not aware of any decision to do that.”
The states and other interested parties had to wait until the rule was published in the Federal Register to file lawsuits.
-
Heated Senate Panel Moves Bill to Kill Carbon Rules
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee advanced legislation Aug. 5 that would immediately kill off all attempts by President Barack Obama to regulate carbon dioxide emissions by voice vote with no Democrats present.
The vote occurred off the Senate floor after Democrats walked out of a fiery committee markup earlier in the day to deny Republicans a sufficient number of members to vote on the Affordable Reliable Electricity Now (ARENA) Act (S. 1324).
Republican attempts earlier in the day to limit discussion to the bill at question, introduced by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R–W.Va.), failed as Democrats broadened the full committee markup to the impacts of climate change on sea level rise, public health, extreme weather and national security.
With both parties digging in their heels to now-familiar positions on climate change, the panel ultimately voted down six amendments from Democrats along party-lines. The bill now heads to the Senate floor where Republican senators told Bloomberg BNA Aug. 4 they expect it will be considered this fall (150 DEN A-15, 8/5/15).
Capito's bill would allow states several ways to delay compliance with or opt out of any future attempts to regulate carbon pollution, bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating new power plants unless the emissions standards sought had been demonstrated at six units for at least a year and require the agency to submit 50 model plans for how each jurisdiction could meet any future regulatory requirements. It has 35 co-sponsors but just one Democrat: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).
“Clearly, we have to have the votes to override a veto,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the committee, told reporters. “Whether or not we pick up enough Democrat votes to do that, I don't know. But you have to try.”
Walkout Delays Vote
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), ranking member of the committee, was the last Democrat to leave the initial markup over what she said was opposition to S. 1500—a separate measure related to pesticide spraying—because it had not received a committee hearing.
Other Democrats, though, appeared to be frustrated over limitations on discussion of climate change from Inhofe. The walkout by committee Democrats seemed spontaneous and unplanned.
Though he said he was not angry about the walkout, Inhofe did express dismay over the heated tone of the hearing and said he was surprised Democrats left the initial markup.
“We had a level of civility that began with the highway bill, and I thought some of that would endure,” Inhofe told reporters.
“I'm not going to make a big issue out of it,” Inhofe said later. “They had their one walkout and we passed it anyways, so let's see what happens.”
Inhofe said he never spearheaded a Republican walkout of a hearing while in the minority, though the party did initially boycott a committee vote on the nomination of Gina McCarthy to serve as EPA administrator in May 2013. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) was the ranking member on the panel at that time (91 DEN A-1, 5/10/13).
Climate Discussion Heated
During the morning markup, the debate turned heated at several points during the hearing when Democrats repeatedly hit Republicans for denying the scientific consensus that human activity contributes to climate change.
Inhofe, who is outspoken in his belief that human activities do not impact the climate, cut off amendment debate on climate change several times saying that subject was not the focus of the hearing and questioned if Democrats were attempting to stall the bill's consideration.
“If it's really your wish to stall this so we don't have a hearing, then let's just go out and say it,” Inhofe said. “If you want to just stop everything, we can just do that.”
Democrats responded they wanted to thoroughly debate the issue of climate change and said the ARENA Act would delay vital action to address the issue.
“I've never been in a committee where debate has been cut off by the chairman,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said. “I don't think that one morning of debate on an issue that means so much to our states is asking too much.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Whitehouse offered similar amendments expressing the sense of Congress that climate change is real and due to human activity. The committee voted both down by votes of 9-11 with no Republicans backing the measures.
“This is about lives,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) said. “I want you to consider what happens in other parts of the country. This is not an esoteric debate.”
-
Senate Panel Votes To Block Obama's Climate Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama and Devin Henry
A Senate committee voted Wednesday to block implementation of the administration’s climate rule for power plants.
The bill passed by voice vote at a hastily organized meeting of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee just across the hall from the Senate chamber in the Capitol, because the panel’s 11 Republicans wanted to pass the bill before August recess starts later Wednesday.Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) called the vote while senators stood along the side of the room.
The nine Democrats on the committee did not attend the afternoon meeting. They walked out on an earlier meeting, denying Republicans a quorum for their vote, due to objections over an unrelated bill on pesticides.
“They’ve had their one walkout and we passed it anyway,” Inhofe said after the vote.
The bill, known as the Affordable Reliable Energy Now Act, sponsored by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), would overturn the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulations limiting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, which President Obama released Monday.
It would also put certain restrictions on the EPA that would make it extraordinarily hard, if not impossible, to rewrite the rules.
“This ... would pretty much take care of the problems that are out there, that are causing the economic demise of America,” Inhofe said.
Democrats accused the GOP earlier Wednesday of ignoring the facts and effects of climate change.
“The bill creates giant loopholes, making it nearly impossible to take any meaningful action to address climate change and reduce harmful carbon pollution, which hurts our families,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the panel.
“If we turn away from the president’s Clean Power Plan, we move toward the most devastating impacts of climate change,” she said.
Democrats unsuccessfully introduced a number of amendments to delay or block the effects of the legislation, including one from Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) that would require regulations that have similar health benefits.
“To put a fine point on it, if you don’t like the Clean Power Plan, then what’s your plan to cut carbon pollution and address the negative health impacts of climate change? What’s your plan to avoid the asthma, the deaths, the missed workdays?” he asked.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is one of the most outspoken opponents of the EPA’s rule and would likely want to get a vote in the full Senate quickly.
Inhofe said he hopes to see the bill come to the Senate floor for consideration soon after Congress’s August recess.
“I would hope so, but I will have to talk to the leadership, because we just did this a few minutes ago so we didn’t have time to talk,” he said. “They have a lot of scheduling to do.”
The House in June passed the Ratepayer Protection Act, which would let states opt out of complying with the rule and delay its effectiveness until all court proceedings are concluded.
-
General Election May Include Republican Climate Shift
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna and Rachel Leven
Both the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees for president will likely have to moderate their stances—at least rhetorically—on climate change and other environmental issues, though the majority of two-dozen election observers told Bloomberg BNA the Republican pick would likely have a longer walk back to the political center.
Many of the former congressmen, aides, academics and lobbyists told Bloomberg BNA it would be difficult for the Republican nominee to outright question the role of human activity in climate change—something many of the candidates have done in the primary—though careful rhetorical changes could be enough to allay the concerns of the average U.S. voter.
“[Republicans] are going to have a long way to come back depending on who their nominee is,” Chris Miller, former adviser to Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on environment issues, told Bloomberg BNA.
“Based on most all of the polling I've seen, if they want to capture the independents, they can't slam EPA, can't deny the science, they have to have some solutions,” said Miller, now with the consulting firm AJW.
A Pew Research Center poll in June found 68 percent of the public believe the Earth's climate is changing, 45 percent believe that it is caused by human activity and 46 percent believe it is a very serious problem.
Republican Shift
In the Republican primary, candidate views on climate change range from denial to acknowledgement that it is occurring and has to be addressed. The candidates include front-runner Donald Trump, who has called global warming a “hoax.”
To have a shot at winning the general election, however, the Republican nominee will have to at least acknowledge climate change and have potential solutions to address it, a former congressman, environmentalists and strategists from both parties said.
Mike McKenna, a Republican strategist, told Bloomberg BNA that he expected the candidate who emerged from the Republican primary to shift to the center on climate change, because denial of the problem would be a difficult position to hold in the general election.
McKenna pointed to the rhetorical shifts already undertaken by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who has assumed the moderate stance of acknowledging the role of human activity in climate change while staunchly opposing actions by President Barack Obama to address it. Other candidates might stake out similar ground if they win the primary contest, he said.
A candidate who denies climate change altogether would leave the party at odds with many voters and face a steep climb to secure the presidency, they said.
“I don't think a Republican that denies the problem, thinks humans are not substantially responsible and opposes all mandatory control programs can be viable in the general election,” former Rep. Frederick “Rick” Boucher (D-Va.) told Bloomberg BNA.
For a more moderate candidate, however, such as Jeb Bush (R) or Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), the pivot would be possible, former congressional aides said.
Moderate Pivot Possible
“Republicans maybe need to soften the tone a bit without upsetting the base,” said Chris Vieson, a former staffer for then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.). “That's a fine line to walk right there, but I think it's doable.”
Oscar Ramirez, a principal at the Podesta Group, said the Republican nominee will have to acknowledge climate change and offer what he described as likely a watered-down plan.
“For Republicans, the question can't be whether or not they care about the issue,” Ramirez said. “If the way the voters view it is that Democrats care about it and Republicans don't, that's a difficult position for Republicans to be in next year.”
Energy, Overreach Issues
On issues of energy development and government overreach, however, there won't be much movement for the Republican nominee, several observers said.
These issues, such as whether to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, have been hashed out in Congress with recorded votes and the positions are generally established, former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) told Bloomberg BNA.
“I think that the Republicans will be united and [their final stance will] be the same in the primary as in the general,” said Hutchison, now senior counsel with the Bracewell & Giuliani LLP law firm in Dallas.
Many Democrats held that their nominee wouldn't have to pivot on climate change for the general election since many see the presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton's views as already moderate.
But according to Robert McNally, president of the Rapidan Group LLC, a consulting group, Clinton will likely hit Republicans on climate change and play it safe when it comes to energy issues.
The former secretary of state will likely avoid taking a position on issues such as crude oil exports and the Keystone XL pipeline for as long as possible, he said.
“She'll be downplaying the Clean Power Plan and how she'll decarbonize the economy,” McNally said, referring to the Environmental Protection Agency's initiative that seeks to reduce carbon emissions from the power sector. “She'll soften her tone quite a bit.”
Chris Warren, spokesman for the American Energy Alliance, questioned whether it was even possible for Clinton to be tenable in the general election. Clinton already is “pandering” to the “far left,” he said.
At the end of the day, any shift to the center will likely be aimed at a very small portion of Independent voters who might switch their allegiances, Alan Abramowitz, a professor of political science at Emory College, told Bloomberg BNA.
“There's always that risk [someone could be pushed too far to one end of the political spectrum], but I would say these differences on environmental issues, like so many other issues, are already baked in the cake,” Abramowitz said. “These parties, they're already aligned on these issues.”
-
Dems Boycott Vote To Overturn Climate Rule
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Senate Democrats walked out of a committee meeting Wednesday, denying Republicans the quorum they needed to pass a bill to overturn President Obama’s climate rule for power plants.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, organized the walkout to protest a separate bill on pesticides that has not had a hearing. Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) could not find enough senators to get to the 11-person quorum.
While not a stated intention of Boxer, the action pushed back, if only by a few hours, the committee’s vote to block the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from implementing its climate rule.
The walkout followed nearly two hours of tense debate on the climate bill, marked by impassioned speeches and Democrats speaking at length about their proposed amendments, all of which failed on party lines.
“I think this has been a terrific hearing. It’s been emotional and difficult, but we got through it,” Boxer said of the climate debate.
“What is very disturbing to our side is that the other bill you have on here, which would say for the first time since 2011 that if you spray pesticides on water, you don’t have to get a Clean Water Act permit,” she said. “We have not had a single hearing on that bill. Not one hearing.”
She asked Inhofe to delay a vote on that bill, but he declined.
The meeting’s main purpose was to consider Sen. Shelley Moore Capito’s (R-W.Va.) bill to overturn the Clean Power Plan and make it all but impossible for the EPA to re-write it.
Throughout the meeting, Democrats castigated Republicans for trying to overturn the most significant action the United States has taken on climate change.
“The bill creates giant loopholes, making it nearly impossible to take any meaningful action to address climate change and reduce harmful carbon pollution, which hurts our families,” Boxer said.
“If we turn away from the president’s Clean Power Plan, we move toward the most devastating impacts of climate change.”
The Democratic amendments would have kept the rule in place unless certain conditions are met, including that the GOP pass legislation to accomplish similar carbon or public health goals, or that Capito’s bill would not exacerbate sea level rise.
“To put a fine point on it, if you don’t like the Clean Power Plan, then what’s your plan to cut carbon pollution and address the negative health impacts of climate change?” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said of his amendment, which would mandate other measures to protect public health. “What’s your plan to avoid the asthma, the deaths, the missed workdays?”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) wanted a provision to block the bill if it would cause more sea-level rise, which has been linked to climate change.
She told an impassioned story from 2012, when Superstorm Sandy hit her state.
“A wall of 10 feet of water came into communities. A mother holding two children lost her handle on her two kids and they drowned,” she said. “This is not an issue about money. This is an issue about lives lost. And we have to care about the whole country.”
Inhofe was visibly annoyed by the Democrats taking what he saw as too much time to talk about their amendments, and started to cut off their speeches, reminding them that the panel has had hearings on many of their concerns with climate change.
“We’ve had hearings on all this,” he said. “I can come up with my book of science on this. The science, it’s divided. We all know that. You speak of it as fact.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) refuted the Democrats’ contention that their concerns were related to climate change, or that carbon dioxide from human activity is to blame.
“The point that ... I would make is that the climate has always been changing,” he said. “This is about a colorless, tasteless, necessary part of the atmosphere called carbon dioxide.”
Wicker said the naming of Greenland is proof of climate change, because it shows that the island was not covered in ice when people first settled it, a claim that experts have repeatedly refuted.
Inhofe said he hopes to hold a vote on Capito’s bill Wednesday afternoon between or shortly following votes on the Senate floor in the Capitol.
-
Dem Poll: Climate Rule Has Broad Support
Aug 5, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Tim Devaney
A poll from a progressive group shows broad public support for the Obama administration’s new climate rule for power plants.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents to an Americans United for Change poll said they support the Clean Power Plan, the group said Wednesday, with 40 percent opposed. The poll — a survey of 4,517 registered voters in a handful of swing states — included positive and negative descriptions of the plan, which looks to cut carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Americans United’s poll looks to give the Clean Power Plan’s supporters a bit of political cover. More than 60 percent of the voters in every state the group surveyed said they would have a more favorable or neutral view of elected officials that support the plan rather than oppose it.
Respondents to the poll also said they consider climate change a problem, especially Democrats (77 percent) and independents (55 percent).
The poll also showed waning support for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) call for the nation’s governors to ignore the Clean Power Plan by refusing to write proposals for cutting carbon pollution. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said states should comply with the rule.
The Obama administration finalized the climate rule on Monday, prompting legal and legislative responses from foes and publicity pushes from green groups, like Americans United, to defend it. The group launched a weeklong campaign on Monday against the Republican state attorneys general who have already promised to sue over the plan.
-
Swing-State Voters Back Clean Power Plan -- Poll
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jennifer Yachnin
A majority of voters in eight political swing states disagree with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) advice to state officials to buck the newly finalized Clean Power Plan, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released today.
The poll, commissioned by liberal group Americans United for Change, surveyed 4,517 registered voters in Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
Public Policy Polling Director Tom Jensen said the survey found widespread support for the Obama administration's effort to reduce carbon emissions from existing power plants, as well as concern for climate change generally.
"We found across these eight swing states ... that the Clean Power Plan is overwhelming popular," Jensen said in a teleconference.
Participants in the survey were read arguments for and against the new regulation -- such as criticisms that it could cause job losses -- and then were asked whether they would support or oppose the plan. The poll found 58 percent in favor of the regulation, while 40 percent opposed it.
"What I think is really noteworthy is that you find 44 percent of Republicans in support of it, compared to only 53 percent who are opposed," Jensen added. "It's been pretty hard over the last 6 ½ years now to find anything that the president's pushing forward that 44 percent of Republicans support."
Support for the regulation was stronger among Democrats, 81 percent of whom backed the new rule along with 58 percent of self-identified independents. The poll had a 1.5-point margin of error.
Participants were also asked whether they agreed with McConnell's call for state governments to buck the Clean Power Plan by refusing to develop emissions reduction plans. Among those polled, 59 percent said states should develop their own plans, while 31 percent agreed with McConnell.
But Frank Maisano, an energy specialist and senior principal with the law firm Bracewell & Giuliani, dismissed the survey's findings, arguing that voters cannot be polled on a regulation that was formally released on Monday. The poll was conducted July 31 to Aug. 3.
"I always think that polling questions surrounding the environment are very misleading," said Maisano, who is also the spokesman for the Partnership for a Better Energy Future.
Although voters will endorse action on climate change, Maisano asserted that it remains "a low priority" when compared to issues like the economy and job creation.
"In reality, it's such a low priority for most voters that it just registers at the bottom of the barrel, and that's why it's always misleading," Maisano said.
-
Enviros, Industry Rally To Put Energy, Climate In GOP Debate
Aug 6, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Jennifer Yachnin
Environmental activists and energy industry representatives may not agree on the answers, but in the lead-up to tonight's first Republican presidential debate, both sides are clamoring for answers to the same question: What are the candidates' energy platforms?
A total of 17 Republican candidates are set to face off tonight in one of two debates hosted by Fox News, Facebook and the Ohio Republican Party.
A prime-time event will feature the 10 candidates who polled at the top of the five most recent national polls on the race, and an afternoon forum will feature the remaining seven candidates who failed to make the cut.
The 9 p.m. EDT debate will include businessman Donald Trump, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, physician Ben Carson, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
The 5 p.m. EDT debate will include former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, former New York Gov. George Pataki, former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore and former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Carly Fiorina.
In recent days, both environmentalists and fossil fuel advocates have called on the Fox News moderators to query the candidates on energy-related issues.
American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard said Tuesday that while he expects energy production issues will be included in the debate, he wants to ensure candidates have ample time to focus on the issue.
"I'm not concerned that energy won't be a part of the debate," Gerard said in a teleconference with reporters. He added: "What I want to make sure is that when it comes up, we have a robust discussion around it, and we find out where these candidates are on this historic opportunity."
But environmentalists like California billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer, who serves as president of NextGen Climate, are also pushing candidates to discuss their views on climate change policy.
"We urge you to ask the Republican candidates for their plan to power our country with more than 50 percent clean energy by 2030 and put us on a path to a completely clean energy economy by 2050," Steyer wrote yesterday in a public memorandum to the Fox News moderators Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace. "The American people will be tuning in to hear how the Republican candidates propose to lead our country -- and we urge you to make sure they answer the important questions."
The League of Conservation Voters similarly published an unsigned memorandum urging candidates to discuss the Clean Power Plan and their position on reducing carbon pollution.
Still other activists are working more directly to put energy-related questions before the candidates.
Michele Combs, founder and chairwoman of Young Conservatives for Energy Reform, told E&E Daily that her organization -- along with the Christian Coalition of America and the Ohio Conservative Energy Forum -- has urged its members to submit questions via Facebook. Fox News has said it plans to use submissions from the social media website to formulate some of the debate questions.
"I'm hoping that we'll see a question come out on Thursday night about clean energy. Republicans are really starting to see that they need to embrace this more," Combs said.
She added: "I know they all want to be energy independent and they want to use our resources in this country. ... If you hear most of the candidates talk about it, they all agree, it's just a matter of how we're going to get there."
But advocates for both renewable energy and fossil fuels could be faced with disappointment.
According to a study released by the Winston Group last month, questions about energy policy made up 1.7 percent of all questions asked during a series of 20 GOP presidential primary debates in the 2012 cycle.
The research firm examined 719 questions put to Republican candidates in the 2012 cycle and found 12 related specifically to energy policy. Another six questions, or less than 1 percent of all questions asked during those 20 debates, focused on the environment.
The most-asked-about topics included queries on the economy, which claimed 187 questions, and on foreign policy, which was the focus of 146 questions.
-
Clinton Seen Unlikely to Shift Left on Environment
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna and Rachel Leven
Democratic rivals will push Hillary Clinton to adopt more progressive policy choices on environmental and energy issues during the party's primary, but the former secretary of state is unlikely to bow to the pressure, nearly two-dozen election observers told Bloomberg BNA.
Democratic rivals Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, seen as the more progressive environmental options in the field, will look to push Clinton on issues such as the Keystone XL pipeline, offshore drilling and hydraulic fracturing. They will be joined by some environmental advocates who see Clinton as weak on climate change.
But their efforts will likely fall short due to Clinton's consistent lead in polling and enormous financial advantage over her rivals, according to former members of Congress, lobbyists, former congressional aides, academics and others.
“Unless O'Malley or Sanders rise in the polls, she's not going to feel pressure to say more [on these issues],” Elizabeth Gore, policy director for law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck and former Democratic aide, told Bloomberg BNA. “Absolutely, there's going to be an effort from the outside groups and candidates for her to do more. There's no reason for her to do so. She can adopt a more moderate or more opaque position on these issues, and she is better positioned going into the general [election].”
Observers acknowledged that a lingering question going into the Democratic primaries is whether Vice President Joe Biden will jump into the race, which would change the entire dynamics. They also noted that climate change and energy issues are low priorities for most voters, and few are likely to change their votes based on environmental stances alone.
“There are very few Democratic voters who are going to be attracted to a Jeb Bush position. Very few Republicans would cross over and vote for Hillary Clinton,” Alan Abramowitz, a political science professor and election expert with Emory University, told Bloomberg BNA.
Less Divisive for Republicans
Still, environmental and energy issues are likely to play a much bigger role in the Democratic primaries than the Republican primaries, where observers see few significant policy differences among the many candidates.
Republican presidential candidates are nearly unanimous in their opposition to President Barack Obama's efforts to address climate change, favor expanding energy development and want to reduce regulations. That means energy and environmental issues will not be a way for these candidates to distinguish themselves in the crowded field of 17 candidates.
“On the Republican side, they are all basically singing from the same hymn book when it comes to energy and the environment,” Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist who advised Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on energy issues during his 2008 presidential run, told Bloomberg BNA. “They're all pretty much saying the same thing.”
Many see opposition to regulations and skepticism about the impact of human activity on the Earth's climate as a “litmus test” that will disqualify any candidate from the nomination if he or she fails to meet it.
“It's not to me a voting issue on the Democratic side, but it is on the Republican side,” former Rep. Frederick “Rick” Boucher (D-Va.), now with law firm Sidley Austin LLP, told Bloomberg BNA. “Any variance from these degrees of faith would go a long way to eliminating someone from contention.”
Former Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) told Bloomberg BNA that embracing continued development of U.S. energy sources would be a key issue for Republicans during the primary contest.
“I would be surprised if any Republican candidate is not for American energy independence. As a policy, as a part of our platform, it's probably one of the top five issues to be addressed [now],” said Hutchison, now a senior counsel for law firm Bracewell & Giuliani.
Progressives Push Clinton
Environmental advocates and progressive groups are trying to gauge how strongly the Democratic candidates are committed to addressing climate change according to their positions on issues such as Arctic drilling and the Keystone pipeline.
“We're trying to move [Clinton] to the left by underlining the groundswell for climate action on the left,” Karthik Ganapathy, a spokesman for grass-roots organization 350 Action, told Bloomberg BNA. “We're not as worried about a Republican winding up in the White House as we are about Hillary Clinton allowing Arctic drilling or negotiating another weak trade deal or approving the Keystone pipeline.”
Several other major environmental organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council Action Fund and League of Conservation Voters called climate issues a “race to the top” in the Democratic primary, pointing to Clinton's strong renewable energy plan and impressive record on environmental issues while serving in the U.S. Senate and as secretary of state.
But that view of Clinton is hardly unanimous among the environmental community, where uneasiness over the former secretary of state's commitment to tackling climate change has been bubbling for years. Ben Schreiber, climate and energy program director for Friends of the Earth Action, which endorsed Sanders Aug. 1, called Clinton's plan to address climate change “pretty moderate” so far.
“Sen. Sanders has made up a lot of ground, and he's done so by talking about areas where Hillary is weak,” Schreiber said, citing trade as an example. “Climate change is a weakness for Hillary.”
‘Too Smart' to Engage
Although they acknowledge that Clinton will face pressure from the left, observers—even many Republicans—told Bloomberg BNA that she is unlikely to take the bait from progressives on the environment.
“She's not going to say ‘hell, no' on fracking or any of the things that would alienate the base in the general,” Chris Miller, a former adviser on environmental issues to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), told Bloomberg BNA. “She's too smart for that, and she's too far ahead in the polls. She doesn't have to.”
Unless the dynamics of the race change significantly, Clinton isn't likely to feel the pressure to clarify her stances on issues like the Keystone XL pipeline, which she told a New Hampshire television station July 31 she could not discuss due to her prior official role in considering the project.
“I don't think she [Clinton] has to take a couple of big steps to the left to win, so I don't think she will,” another former Senate Democratic leadership aide told Bloomberg BNA.
Part of the concern among Democratic strategists is Clinton venturing too far left on environmental issues and making herself less electable during the general election in November 2016.
“It just depends on how much pressure Sanders puts on Clinton,” former Rep. Zachary Space (D-Ohio), now a principal at law firm Vorys Advisors LLC, told Bloomberg BNA. “If she has to turn her back on fossil fuels to cater to the left, she will pay a price in the general election.”
Some Republicans told Bloomberg BNA they see Clinton moving too far left as a real possibility and would attempt to exploit it.
Continue to Dodge
Still, the overwhelming opinion of observers is that Clinton will successfully rebuff attempts from progressives in the party to shift leftward on a host of environmental and energy issues, even if she adopts more liberal positions on other topics.
“I think she'll continue to dodge,” Robert McNally, president of the Rapidan Group, a Washington-based energy market and policy consulting firm, told Bloomberg BNA. “She'll take water for lots of reasons, but this I don't think will be one of the bigger ones.”
Some Democrats see complications for Clinton if she tries to cater to the progressive wing of the party. They would prefer her to shrug off the pressure and not risk alienating white-collar Democratic voters who may not embrace some of these policies.
“There's no doubt Sanders and O'Malley are going to push her to the left, but she should just be herself,” former Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), now a partner at law firm Venable LLP, told Bloomberg BNA. “Ignore Sanders and O'Malley. You've got to run your own race.”
-
Lights Will Stay On With New Power Plant Pollution Rules. Find Out Why.
Aug 6, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Cheryl Roberto
The Clean Power Plan is designed with reliability in mind, a fact detractors tend to ignore. The specter of grid failure is a frightening image, one that critics of the new power plant pollution standards have fixated on, but it’s just that: a specter, an illusion not grounded in reality.
The fact is that regional and state-level regulators have repeatedly demonstrated they are up to the task of planning for future power needs without any threat to grid reliability. And if, for some reason, it proves an especially daunting task this time, the final plan includes special provisions that further address grid reliability issues: moves deadline for emission reductions to 2022allows multi-state compliance approachesrequires states to show they considered grid reliabilityallows states to apply for extensions if grid concerns arise Some states already ahead of the game
Of course, some states are already on track to meet their goals under the Clean Power Plan, as a recent article in the Washington Post noted. The plan’s purpose-built flexibility in meeting those targets is one reason why.
“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,” the newspaper reports.
There are many roads to the clean energy future, and each state can and will choose the path that best and most reliably meets its needs. Bold action in California, impressive results
Environmental progress is too often framed as coming at the expense of something else, such as reliability or economic growth. But these are invariably false dichotomies.
My colleague Diane Regas reminded me that when California’s Global Warming Solutions Act was signed into law in 2006, the naysayers who preferred the broken status quo claimed it would hurt the state’s economy. Quite the contrary, Diane noted. California’s economy is, in fact, on a growth spurt.
In 2014, the state added 471,200 jobs, and its economy is growing faster than the United States economy as a whole – even as greenhouse gas emissions are declining. Clean-tech jobs in California have grown 10 times faster than jobs in other sectors over the past decade.
And, since 2006, the state has seen clean energy venture capital investments worth $27 billion, more than the other 49 states combined. Consider acid rain in the 1980s
Going further back, the plight of acid rain in the 1980s offers some interesting parallels.
The National Academy of Sciences concluded that sulfur dioxide emissions, mostly from coal-fired power plants, were turning rain and snow acidic, to the detriment of aquatic life and forests.
The solution Environmental Defense Fund proposed, a cap-and-trade program for sulfur dioxide emissions, was met with strong resistance. The power sector participated, however, and not only did the lights stay on, but the emissions were cut in half at a fraction of the expected cost.
That’s one of the reasons The Economist called it “the greatest green success story of the past decade.” The Clean Power Plan, facing similar misinformed resistance, could be this decade’s crowning environmental achievement. An American solution aligned with global trends
The Clean Power Plan is an American solution in line with a growing global commitment to policies that support and advance clean energy generation and distribution. Reliability is an essential consideration in programs around the world, and here in the U.S. it’s no different.
As we head toward Paris and COP-21, a strong national program such as the Clean Power Plan will demonstrate to the international community that we’re fully committed to a clean energy future.
The past and present show us that we can reduce harmful carbon pollution while keeping our power system strong. The future is up to us, and a future with the Clean Power Plan is far brighter.
The lights will stay on - they’ll just be powered in more responsible, sustainable ways.
-
Calif. Governor Asks GOP Hopefuls: What Is Your Plan On Climate?
Aug 5, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Anne C. Mulkern
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) today asked the 17 Republican presidential candidates how they planned to act to combat "the threat of climate change."
Brown penned a letter to each of the GOP hopefuls and also submitted a question for tomorrow's Fox-televised debate.
"Longer fire seasons, extreme weather and severe droughts aren't on the horizon, they're all here -- and here to stay. This is the new normal. The climate is changing," Brown said in his letter. "Given the challenge and the stakes, my question for you is simple: What are you going to do about it? What is your plan to deal with the threat of climate change?"
Brown submitted the question to the debate using the "debate uploader" on the Fox News Facebook page, according to a statement from his office. Brown also sent the letter separately to each of the candidates.
The letter elaborated on how he sees climate affecting the Golden State.
"Over the past week millions of Californians, from the San Joaquin Valley to the North Coast, woke up to a familiar sight and smell: thick, smoke-filled air," Brown said. "As I write, 10,000 federal, state and local emergency personnel are fighting fires spanning more than 100,000 acres across California -- the equivalent of San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Manhattan all being fully enveloped by flames. ... The average fire season here used to span six months; now it's year-round."
"As the state's drought stretches into its fourth year, California is also hotter and drier than it's ever been," Brown added. "Last year was the warmest on record and the three-year period from fall 2011 to fall 2014 was the driest since records were first kept in 1895."
The letter continued, "These conditions have not only turned the state's forests into a tinderbox, they've left reservoirs at historically low levels and growers, who collectively produce nearly half of American grown fruits, nuts and vegetables, reeling. Billions of dollars in revenue, hundreds of thousands of acres of crops and tens of thousands of jobs have been lost."
He added that the impacts of climate change -- "in California and the rest of the nation -- are real."
Brown said in the letter that "continuing to question the science and hurl insults at 'global warming hoaxsters' and 'apostles of this pseudo-religion' won't prevent severe damage to our health and economic well-being. Americans, their children and generations to come deserve -- and demand -- better."
"From the lab to the boardroom and even to the pulpit, global leaders aren't waiting around. They understand there's no time for delay or denial," the governor added.
In the letter, Brown told the GOP candidates of the moves he had made on climate, including recently traveling to the Vatican to speak after Pope Francis called the need to act on climate a moral issue.
Brown has called for California to reduce carbon emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, increase to 50 percent from one-third the electricity made from renewable sources and cut petroleum use in cars and trucks by up to half in 15 years.
He noted that the state acted on climate under his predecessor, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who signed California's earlier greenhouse gas reduction targets into law in 2006.
-
Obama's Historic Power Plan Won't Save the World
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Nussbaum and Alex Morales
President Barack Obama's plan to reduce carbon pollution—acclaimed by supporters, reviled by opponents—won't be enough to save the planet.
That's the view of scientists, including European researchers who study climate policies. It is a numbers game: Even if the U.S., China, Europe and other nations meet their commitments on cutting carbon, world temperatures will rise by 3.1 degrees Celsius (5.6 degrees Fahrenheit) on average by 2100, too much to avoid calamity, they say.
The latest and toughest version of Obama's Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33) and measures already announced by other world leaders aren't sufficient to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius this century (150 DEN A-2, 8/5/15).
That's what's needed to prevent dangerous changes to the environment, including rising seas, deadly heat waves and disruptions to world food supplies, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations-organized panel of thousands of scientists.
“It's worth pointing that out, for everybody who's high-fiving themselves right now,” said Paul Bledsoe, a climate aide in President Bill Clinton's administration. “Because we're addicted to cheap energy, we haven't been able to take more ambitious steps.”
Not Enough
While the Clean Power Plan released Aug. 3 is more ambitious than its previous version, it's unlikely to make a difference on its own, said Hanna Fekete, a policy analyst at the New Climate Institute in Cologne, Germany.
“The change is too small in comparison to global emissions,” Fekete said by telephone. “There are also many other countries driving this.”
Yet Fekete isn't despairing. Her organization is one of four European research centers that run Climate Action Tracker, which studies global-warming policies, including Obama's power-plant rules, as well as pledges by Europe, China, Russia and others.
Without action from any of those countries, the world will be in much worse condition at the end of the century, with the temperature rising 3.9 degrees Celsius instead of 3.1, according to Climate Action Tracker.
Her organization sees progress in the new Obama plan. The latest iteration will reduce carbon dioxide pollution by an extra 50 megatons, bringing total U.S. cuts to 530 megatons in 2030, Climate Action Tracker said.
‘Remarkable’ Plan
That's “remarkable, as governments tend to water down plans after their initial announcements, not strengthen them,” the organization said in an e-mail.
Yet the almost 200 countries trying to reach a landmark global agreement on climate change this year are facing a steep climb. Those talks, hampered by disagreements between poor and rich nations, are moving toward a high-stakes meeting in Paris in December.
At the same time, Obama faces a U.S. Congress dominated by a Republican Party that has done little to support his initiatives. Instead, they have launched multiple efforts to nullify the power plant rules, either through a standalone bill or a resolution of disapproval on the Senate floor. (See related story)
Republican congressional leaders also are working with state officials to bring legal action to stop Obama's new effort.
The U.S. accounted for about one in seven tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2012, according to the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based research center. America lost its place as the world's leading greenhouse-gas polluter in 2006 and most emissions growth in coming decades is expected to be from developing countries like China and India.
More Needed
The Paris-based International Energy Agency concluded last year that it would take $5 trillion in additional investments in efficiency and new energy supplies, beyond what's already in the works, to reach the goal of keeping global warming to only 2 degrees Celsius this century.
Nonetheless, the latest version of the U.S. plan shows momentum toward eventually meeting that goal, Fekete said.
“The number itself is not so important,” she said. “What would be important coming out of Paris is to have an agreement that makes clear that what we are starting with is only the lower floor, and from there, ambition has to increase.”
As part of the UN talks, the U.S. promised in March to cut emissions by as much as 28 percent by 2025, relying on policies including the power plant limits and stricter fuel-economy standards (62 DEN A-1, 4/1/15). The plan released this week targets a cut in power plant emissions of 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.
Dirtiest Fuel
Its most notable feature is its “very strong move against coal,” the dirtiest fossil fuel, according to Nicholas Stern, a member of the U.K. upper chamber, the House of Lords, and a former chief economist at the World Bank.
“It's a strong statement of intention to deliver, and that will be noticed,” Stern, now a professor at the London School of Economics, said in a phone interview. “This will add to determination around the world” to reduce emissions.
The European Union has pledged a 40 percent cut by 2030. China has said it would reach an emissions peak by 2030 and will boost its share of electricity from renewable energy. Brazil promised last month to protect an England-sized chunk of the Amazon rainforest, preserving its carbon-absorbing plants.
Still, “a large gap remains between the carbon-cutting pledges that countries, including the U.S., are making ahead of the Paris talks and what science says is needed,” said Lou Leonard, vice president for climate change at the Washington-based World Wildlife Fund.
-
Large Ozone Precursor Cuts Linked to Power Plan
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Environmental Protection Agency's first-ever regulation on carbon emissions from existing power plants is also linked to significant reductions in emissions of ozone precursors.
The projected emissions cuts from the Clean Power Plan are comparable to cuts achieved by past EPA air rules, including the Tier 3 motor vehicle emissions and low-sulfur fuel standards. State officials were split over how significant a tool the climate rule will be for states to attain and maintain national ambient air quality standards, but public health advocates called the reductions significant.
“Power plants are a huge source of air pollution that spreads far,” Janice Nolen, assistant vice president of national policy at the American Lung Association, told Bloomberg BNA. “This is one more step to help reduce the serious burden of air pollution that they produce.”
The Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33), signed Aug. 3, is projected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector by 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 (149 DEN B-1, 8/4/15).
Additionally, the EPA's cost-benefit analysis attributed billions in annual health benefits to implementing the Clean Power Plan, driven by reductions in emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx). Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, described the collateral, non-greenhouse gas pollution reductions as a “big deal” for air quality.
“They're bonus points,” Becker told Bloomberg BNA.
The EPA projected the criteria pollutant reductions attributed to the fully implemented Clean Power Plan will help avoid up to 3,600 premature deaths and 90,000 asthma attacks annually. The Obama administration has repeatedly emphasized the public health benefits of regulating power plant emissions of carbon since the administration proposed the rule in June 2014 (115 DEN A-7, 6/16/14).
Reductions Compared to Tier 3
The EPA's regulatory impact analysis for the Clean Power Plan assessed two different options: a rate-based compliance strategy and a mass-based compliance strategy. The agency's draft federal plan for Clean Power Plan compliance also proposes a rate-based and a mass-based emissions trading program to achieve necessary carbon reductions from the power sector.
The agency projected that in 2030, a mass-based compliance strategy would cut power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide by 280,000 tons, annual nitrogen oxides emissions by 279,000 tons and ozone-season nitrogen oxides by 121,000 tons. For a rate-based approach, the rule in 2030 would result in annual emissions reductions of sulfur dioxide by 318,000 tons, annual nitrogen oxides emissions by 282,000 tons and ozone-season nitrogen oxides by 118,000 tons.
Becker said the nitrogen oxide reductions from the Clean Power Plan are “in the ballpark” of the reductions expected from implementation of the Tier 3 motor vehicle and fuel rule.
The EPA projected the Tier 3 rule would result in annual nitrogen oxides reductions of about 264,000 tons by 2018 and about 329,000 tons by 2030.
Reductions May Not Occur in Problem Areas
The low-sulfur fuel component of the Tier 3 rule, which goes into effect in 2017, is expected by many state officials to have an immediate positive impact on air quality because removing sulfur from gasoline will improve the effectiveness of catalytic converters in motor vehicles.
Becker said the criteria pollutant reductions will help some areas attain and maintain their air quality standards, but not all state officials were as confident that the Clean Power Plan will be a significant compliance tool.
Clint Woods, executive director of the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies, was skeptical that the Clean Power Plan will have a similar effect as Tier 3 for the purposes of meeting and attaining national ambient air quality standards.
“I think it's probably less significant than some other things for state programs,” Woods told Bloomberg BNA.
The EPA's benefit calculations are a “bit crude” and make several assumptions about the “linearity” of benefits associated with emissions cuts, Woods explained. For the purposes of air quality planning, the nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide reductions achieved under the Clean Power Plan may not occur in areas that have attainment problems, he said.
“Those reductions, while helpful, are not helpful in the area where EPA says there is a problem.” Woods said.
Effects Unclear in the West
It's too soon to tell how the Clean Power Plan will affect air quality across the western U.S., according to Tom Moore, air quality program manager for the Western Regional Air Partnership and the Western States Air Resources Council.
Moore told Bloomberg BNA that emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide from power plants in the West have been “declining precipitously” over the past two decades.
Power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide in the 11-state Western Interconnection fell from more than 550,000 tons per year in 1996 to slightly more than 150,000 tons per year in 2014, according to EPA data cited in an April presentation given by Moore. Over that same time period, Western power plant emissions of nitrogen oxides fell from more than 500,000 tons per year to less than 300,000 tons per year.
Western states will likely wait for the EPA to issue its final decision (RIN 2060-AP38) on revising or retaining the current ozone standards of 75 parts per billion before doing analysis of how the Clean Power Plan will impact ozone levels in the West, Moore said. The agency is under an Oct. 1 court-ordered deadline to determine whether it will revise or retain the standards.
Once that decision is final, western states will conduct their own modeling and determine whether the expected reductions from the Clean Power Plan will have a large effect on Western ozone levels, Moore said.
Possibility of Pollutant Increase
Eric Massey, director of the Air Quality Division in the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, told Bloomberg BNA that before the final rule was released there was concern that implementation of the Clean Power Plan could actually hurt air quality in some areas.
The proposed version of the Clean Power Plan placed so much of an emphasis on converting from coal-fired electric generation to natural gas that there were concerns that the rule could have driven hydraulic fracturing operations closer to ozone nonattainment areas, Massey said. Arizona is still reviewing the final Clean Power Plan, but Massey noted that the EPA is touting the final plan as “less of a rush” to natural gas as the proposal.
The EPA's decision to establish a Clean Energy Incentive Program to reward states that make early investments in wind and solar power is seen as potentially weakening the role of natural gas, though EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told reporters Aug. 2 that natural gas will remain a key part of the nation's energy mix (149 DEN B-11, 8/4/15).
Some Plants May Boost Operations
The agency does acknowledge in the Clean Power Plan that there may be a “relatively small number of plants” that boost operations as a result of the rule, which would increase criteria pollutant emissions.
The agency said those plants are likely to be the “highest-efficiency natural gas-fired units,” but it encouraged states to evaluate the effects of their compliance plans on low-income communities and communities of color to ensure they benefit from implementation.
The EPA increased its focus on vulnerable communities in the final Clean Power Plan, requiring that states meaningfully engage with those communities on their state compliance plans (149 DEN B-13, 8/4/15).
While states were split on whether the anticipated criteria pollutant reductions will help with ozone compliance, supporters of the Clean Power Plan have touted the health benefits of the rule.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) cited the health benefits during an Aug. 5 markup of a bill (S. 1324) that would block the Clean Power Plan, legislation that she said would harm public health.
“Why would we want to do something that would mean up to 90,000 more asthma attacks, 1,700 more heart attacks, 3,600 more premature deaths, and 300,000 more missed days at school and work?” Boxer said during the markup of the bill, which was eventually approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. (see related story)
Improvements Anticipated
The Clean Power Plan will help improve air quality in the areas that have been burdened the most by power plant emissions, including downwind areas, Nolen said.
She noted that the EPA's cost-benefit analysis “actually underestimated the benefits” of the Clean Power Plan because many benefits couldn't be quantified. Those benefits include the benefits of reducing direct exposure to nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, as well as the benefits of reducing direct particulate matter emissions from power plants.
-
President Signs Bill Authorizing Hazmat Programs
Aug 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
President Barack Obama signed July 31 a bill to extend authorization of hazardous materials and other surface transportation programs through Oct. 29. The Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015 (H.R. 3236) was introduced by Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) on July 28. It passed the House by a 385-34 vote, with one member voting present, on July 29. The Senate passed the bill July 30 by a 91-4 vote, and it was presented to the president July 31. The bill is yet another patch to what many have called a broken reauthorization process for surface transportation programs, as there have been nearly three dozen “patch” extensions of the authorization in the last six years alone. The legislation text, which is now Pub. L. No. 114-41, is available at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-114hr3236enr/pdf/BILLS-114hr3236enr.pdf.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News
Energy and Environment News
Transportation News
Full Text of Stories Below
Add recipients
Suggested