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Advisors' Draft Review Urges EPA To Reconsider Novel Skin Cancer Risk
Aug 11, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA science advisors reviewing the agency's draft assessment of the human health risks of the petroleum chemical benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) are generally concurring with many of the agency's conclusions about the hazards the chemical poses, but are critical of most of the risk estimates EPA has calculated, particularly a novel skin cancer risk estimate. -
Senators Introduce Bill to Boost Lead Paint Rule Compliance
Aug 11, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Three Senate Republicans have reintroduced legislation that they say would help increase compliance with the US EPA's Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule (RRP). -
NGO Lists 'High Risk Professions' for Breast Cancer
Aug 11, 2015 | Chemical Watch
US NGO, the Breast Cancer Fund, has published a report naming occupations it believes expose women to greater risk of breast cancer. -
House Chamber Reopens After Asbestos Scare
Aug 11, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
The U.S. Capitol building's House chamber is set to reopen today after being shut down yesterday when construction workers found an unknown substance behind one of the walls that workers worried may have been asbestos or some other harmful material. -
Momentum Seems to be Growing for Lifting U.S. Ban
Aug 11, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
Support from Congress and oil industry bigwigs to export U.S. crude has gained traction, with the U.S. House likely to vote on lifting the export ban in early September with the U.S. Senate's decision probably occuring early next year. -
EPA Moves to Fix Air Pollution Rule After Supreme Court Loss
Aug 11, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to fix by this spring the problem that caused the Supreme Court to rule against its major air pollution regulation in July. -
EPA Push for Carbon Trading May Produce Some Unlikely Converts
Aug 11, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillen
The Obama administration’s push for carbon trading is finding potential converts in some unlikely places. -
What Will Obama's Power Plan Do to the Grid?
Aug 11, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Darren Samuelsohn
Environmentalists cheered last week when President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency issued the country's first-ever mandatory greenhouse gas standards for power plants. -
McCarthy: EPA Will Engage with States on Carbon Rule
Aug 11, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy does not plan to sit on her hands while waiting for states to file their plans to implement the agency’s power plant carbon rules. -
Oklahoma Cites EPA's Mercury Rule Plan To Reiterate ESPS Challenge
Aug 11, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lee Logan
Oklahoma's attorneys are reiterating their pending federal claim that the Clean Air Act plainly blocks EPA's greenhouse gas (GHG) rule for existing power plants because the agency is already regulating the plants' air toxics emissions, citing a new plan by the agency to fix legal flaws to its mercury rule without vacating the regulation. -
NEI's Fertel Talks Industry Growth Following Power Plan Changes
Aug 11, 2015 | E&E - TV
Are changes to how existing and new nuclear are treated in the final Clean Power Plan a win for the industry? -
Global Forces Foil Efforts to Slash Ozone in Western U.S.
Aug 11, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Amanda Peterka
Air pollution from China and ozone coming down from the upper atmosphere have together offset actions taken in the western United States to reduce emissions, according to a new study. -
13 States Join Chorus Asking Courts to Put WOTUS on Hold
Aug 11, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jeremy P. Jacobs
Thirteen states yesterday asked a federal judge to block U.S. EPA's major Clean Water Act jurisdiction rule from going into effect later this month. -
Sensible Rail Safety Improvements are Right Around the Bend
Aug 11, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Shane Skelton
A short commute up the Northeast rail corridor brings the state of the nation's rail infrastructure into perspective as emergency repairs and ongoing delays have become a commonality for East Coast railway passengers.
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Advisors' Draft Review Urges EPA To Reconsider Novel Skin Cancer Risk
Aug 11, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA science advisors reviewing the agency's draft assessment of the human health risks of the petroleum chemical benzo(a)pyrene (BaP) are generally concurring with many of the agency's conclusions about the hazards the chemical poses, but are critical of most of the risk estimates EPA has calculated, particularly a novel skin cancer risk estimate.
The panel's draft report agrees with EPA's September 2014 draft Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of BaP that the chemical is a developmental neurotoxicant, a reproductive toxicant, presents hazards to the human immune system and concurs with EPA's proposed classification of BaP as a human carcinogen.
The panel also concurs with two conclusions that tighten EPA's cancer risk estimates: that BaP causes cancer through a mutagenic mode of action, or biological pathway, and as a result, that EPA should use an additional safety factor intended to protect children from mutagenic agents in its BaP cancer risk calculations.
But the draft review report criticizes EPA's approaches for calculating its first-time skin cancer risk estimate and its non-cancer inhalation and oral risk estimates, while questioning EPA's justification for its approach to its oral cancer potency estimate. The Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee (CAAC) panel, a subgroup of EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) that is reviewing the draft BaP assessment, recently released a draft reportdated July 24, in advance of a CAAC conference call scheduled for Aug. 21 to discuss the draft review.
The draft report is important for several reasons, including the first-time attempt to calculate a skin cancer risk estimate, but also the fact that EPA's effort at re-assessing BaP's risk comes at the recommendation of a 2010 SAB panel that peer-reviewed an agency effort at crafting a relative potency factor approach for estimating the toxicity of mixtures of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, with the intent of using BaP as a reference chemical.That SAB panel pressed EPA to update its 1994 IRIS assessment of BaP before using it as a reference chemical in such an approach.
The draft assessment is also one of the first three being peer-reviewed by the relatively new CAAC, one of EPA's efforts to strengthen the IRIS program following a critical review from the National Academy of Sciences in 2011.
"The SAB commends the agency's efforts in deriving the IRIS Program's first dermal slope factor (DSF)," the peer review panel's draft report states. "However, the proposed DSF is not sufficiently supported scientifically."
Additional Studies
The draft report goes on to encourage EPA to use additional studies to bolster its analysis, specifically pointing to two additional toxicology studies of mice whose skin was treated with BaP to "consider combining results from the mouse skin tumor bioassays to strengthen the derived DSF. The SAB also recommends that the EPA more thoroughly review the evidence of skin cancer in studies of coke, steel and iron, coal gasification and aluminum workers given their relevance for evaluating the appropriateness of using the mouse-based risk assessment model for predicting skin cancer risk in humans."
Epidemiologists on the CAAC panel raised concerns at the panel's meeting last April that EPA had not made sufficient use of studies of workers exposed to BaP on the job, particularly in the dermal and inhalation cancer potency estimates. They proposed that EPA consider epidemiology studies to bolster these risk estimates.
The draft report also criticizes EPA's approach to the literature search for the BaP assessment, arguing that it is too restrictive and as a result, omits some of epidemiology studies that the panel is encouraging EPA to reference. "The SAB found that requiring a direct measure of BaP exposure to be unnecessarily restrictive, especially when evaluating epidemiology studies, as these studies would be relevant for hazard identification," the draft report states. "Epidemiological studies of coke oven workers and other occupational groups with known exposures to BaP should at least be reviewed in the tables if not the text."
Technical staff in EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment, which manages the IRIS program, developed the first-time skin cancer risk estimate after discussions with EPA's Superfund and other offices, an IRIS official told reporters in April. The chemical frequently occurs at Superfund and other waste sites.
Samantha Jones, associate director for science in EPA's IRIS program, explained after the April CAAC meeting that the large amount of data available on BaP made it possible to try the first-time effort. "It was something we decided to try after discussing with Superfund and other parts of the agency that have been thinking about dermal exposures," Jones said last spring. "This is a complex issue that is difficult to solve, and there is no scientific consensus on how to do it."
Technical Issues
This lack of consensus appeared during the CAAC panel's April meeting, as various panel members debated technical issues with the proposed skin cancer risk estimate such as the best dose metric and how to scale from lab mice to people. The draft report reflects some of these concerns.
For example, it does not reach a conclusion on how EPA should calculate its dermal dose metric, in mass of BaP or mass per skin area -- both metrics are used in published studies. Instead, the draft report "strongly recommends that in the absence of empirical data, the decision be based upon a clearly articulated, logical, scientific structure that includes what is known about the dermal absorption of BaP under both conditions of the [mouse] bioassays and anticipated human exposures, as well as the mechanism of skin carcinogenesis of BaP."
The report does, however, provide a clear recommendation that EPA should "calculate the [skin] cancer risk from the absorbed dose, and state clearly how the absorbed dose is estimated from the exposed dose."
Industry representatives, however, have protested the effort, arguing that EPA should develop guidelines for performing skin risk estimates before calculating such an estimate in an assessment. Asked about these concerns last April, Jones said it is helpful to have guidance but developing guidance documents can be time consuming and is informed by experience. She said that IRIS staff are trying to balance efforts to move the state of the science forward while making progress on IRIS assessments. Additionally, this is predominantly a chemical-specific issue and it is unlikely that this type of analysis would be warranted for most other chemical assessments, Jones said.
Industry representatives also argued that EPA's draft estimate is overly strict, and would predict more than a quarter of cases of skin cancer in the United States were caused by BaP. Industry speakers at the April CAAC meeting argued that this is not credible, since exposure to ultraviolet light is expected to cause most skin cancers.
Unreported Cases
But one member of the CAAC panel suggested during the April meeting that industry's calculation is likely off, because most cases of skin cancer are unreported. Kenneth Portier, managing director at the American Cancer Society's Statistics and Evaluation Center, said, "Something like 80 percent of skin cancer is not reported to the [cancer] registry."
A second advisor, Alan Stern, a toxicologist with New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, suggested that if 80 percent of skin cancers are not reported, then only about 5 percent of cancers would be linked to BaP instead of 26 to 30 percent as industry claims.
The draft report is particularly critical of the proposed reference concentration (RfC), the risk estimate calculated to protect against non-cancer effects from inhalation exposure to BaP. The draft calls the RfC "not currently scientifically supportable" due to concerns with EPA's choice of a single, problematic study as the basis for the calculation, as well as some decisions with uncertainty factors with which the advisors disagree. The draft report recommends that EPA consider two additional studies, which it says "may be useful in developing a more comprehensive dose-response relationship for BaP and, thus, perhaps increasing confidence . . ."
The draft report also criticizes EPA's proposed RfD, which is analogous to the RfC but for ingestion. The CAAC panel questions the basis for EPA's calculations, suggesting that a different effect might be more sensitive and a better endpoint on which to base the calculations.
"The SAB agrees that developmental endpoints, and in particular, neurodevelopmental endpoints, are an appropriate basis for deriving an RfD for BaP," the draft report says. "However, the SAB does not find that EPA has made a sufficiently strong case that the available developmental endpoints are the most appropriate non-cancer endpoints for setting an RfD, or that among the available neurodevelopmental endpoints, the observed results from the elevated plus maze test in [a study called] Chen et al. (2012) are the most appropriate results."
The report continues, "[w]ith respect to developmental toxicity as the most appropriate category of non-cancer effects, the SAB suggests that EPA give more consideration to the available reproductive outcomes including cervical hyperplasia and cervical inflammation in [a study called] Gao et al. (2011), and at least provide a firmer justification for not selecting these as critical endpoints."
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Senators Introduce Bill to Boost Lead Paint Rule Compliance
Aug 11, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Three Senate Republicans have reintroduced legislation that they say would help increase compliance with the US EPA's Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule (RRP).
The Lead Exposure Reduction Amendment Act (S 1987) would, among other things:
restore the “opt-out provision” allowing homeowners without small children or pregnant women residing in them to decide whether to require RRP compliance, not the government;
prohibit the EPA from expanding the RRP to commercial and public buildings until it has conducted a study demonstrating there is a need for it;
suspend the RRP if the EPA cannot approve one or more commercially available test kits that meet the regulation’s requirements; and
provide for an exemption for renovations after a natural disaster.
The senators behind the move are:Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee;John Thune (South Dakota), chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee; andChuck Grassley (Iowa), chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
They say the EPA's decision in 2010 to remove the opt-out provision “more than doubled the number of homes subject to the RRP rule.”
The agency has estimated that this would add more than $336m a year in compliance costs to the regulated community.
The EPA has approved two lead paint test kits for RRP compliance, but neither meets the rule’s standard of producing less than 10% false positives, the senators say.
“The lack of an EPA compliant test kit has even resulted in homeowners paying for unnecessary work because of false positive test results,” they say.
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NGO Lists 'High Risk Professions' for Breast Cancer
Aug 11, 2015 | Chemical Watch
US NGO, the Breast Cancer Fund, has published a report naming occupations it believes expose women to greater risk of breast cancer.
It says more than twenty professions, including nurses and teachers, have elevated levels of risk when compared to the general population.
Some of the strongest concerns, however, related to specific occupational exposure, for example, to:benzene;pesticides; andradiation.
The NGO criticises the "insufficient standards" of what it describes as the "broken" US occupational system.
It says the US Occupational Safety and Health Agency (Osha) should be "modernised" and act to protect workers ahead of federal regulations.
It also advocates involving workers in research, following the tenets of community-based participatory research (CBPR), arguing that employees need to be informed and involved in reducing workplace exposure.
"These concerns indicate it is well past the time for investment in prevention of workplace exposures and occupationally induced disease, in general, and breast cancer, in particular," says the NGO.
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House Chamber Reopens After Asbestos Scare
Aug 11, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
The U.S. Capitol building's House chamber is set to reopen today after being shut down yesterday when construction workers found an unknown substance behind one of the walls that workers worried may have been asbestos or some other harmful material.
Tests on the substance came back negative, and workers received an all-clear from building management to return to the House chamber, House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving said.
Workers have been performing renovations in the chamber while Congress is away on a six-week summer recess (Associated Press, Aug. 10). -- SP
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Momentum Seems to be Growing for Lifting U.S. Ban
Aug 11, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
Support from Congress and oil industry bigwigs to export U.S. crude has gained traction, with the U.S. House likely to vote on lifting the export ban in early September with the U.S. Senate's decision probably occuring early next year.
"Go back seven years, you would not have imagined that there would be a debate about U.S. exporting oil," said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of research firm IHS Inc.
While lifting the ban could surprise Americans, it's unlikely to make a dent on the economic status of crude prices. More than a dozen U.S. energy companies and top lawmakers assert opening up exports for U.S. crude would erase market distortions and streamline U.S. petroleum production.
Some Democratic lawmakers are reticent, worrying such a move would increase prices for U.S. consumers. Yet, most economists agree allowing oil exports would likely help bring down gasoline prices.
"I do think there are strong economic benefits to easing restrictions on oil exports, but the timing and magnitude of those are highly uncertain," said Jason Bordoff, founding director of Columbia University's energy center (Amy Harder, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 09). -- KS
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EPA Moves to Fix Air Pollution Rule After Supreme Court Loss
Aug 11, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is planning to fix by this spring the problem that caused the Supreme Court to rule against its major air pollution regulation in July.
The EPA told a lower court on Monday that it is formulating a plan to conduct cost-benefit analysis as part of a revision of its finding that the mercury rule is “appropriate and necessary.”
“EPA intends to submit a declaration establishing the agency’s plan to complete the required consideration of costs for the ‘appropriate and necessary’ finding by spring of next year,” the agency wrote in a filing with the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The high court told the agency in Michigan v. EPA that it should have considered the costs of regulating emissions of mercury, arsenic and acid gases from coal-fired power plants before deciding to write the regulation.
The circuit court is responsible for deciding how the case moves forward after the Supreme Court sent the case back to it. So far, it has not asked the EPA to submit anything about how the case will proceed.
The regulation remains in effect while the circuit court decides whether to block its enforcement and how the EPA can fix the cost analysis problem.
While the EPA conducted a cost-benefit analysis as part of the regulating process and found about a 10-1 ratio of health benefits to compliance costs, the Supreme Court found that the unique “appropriate and necessary” language in the Clean Air Act required the agency to go through such an analysis before even deciding to regulate.
The EPA’s statements about the harms of air pollution, both publicly and in the court filing, strongly hint that it will conclude that its regulation is justified.
EPA head Gina McCarthy said a week after the ruling that she is confident that the mercury regulation will stand up and its benefits will be realized.
“The majority of power plants have already decided and invested in a path to achieving compliance with those mercury and air toxic standards,” she said. “So we are well on our way to delivering the toxic pollution reductions that people expected.”
The Monday filing came in response to a motion from a Colorado utility, which faces an April deadline to either upgrade a specific coal-fired power plant or shut it down to comply with the rule.
The utility asked the court to extend its deadline due to the Supreme Court ruling, a motion that both the EPA and a group of competing utilities opposed, arguing that the lower court should be allowed to go through its normal considerations regarding the future of the rule.
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EPA Push for Carbon Trading May Produce Some Unlikely Converts
Aug 11, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Alex Guillen
The Obama administration’s push for carbon trading is finding potential converts in some unlikely places.
While officials are still poring over the details of the rule, EPA’s emphasis on trading is attracting significant attention. Officials in Minnesota and North Dakota, which is being asked to implement some of the steepest carbon dioxide cuts, have discussed setting up a trading program. Policymakers in New England, which has had a cap-and-trade program in place for six years, are fielding calls from around the country asking how they did it. And some power providers are exploring how plant operators could trade with each other directly even when their state governments do not establish formal programs.
“I think there’s a willingness now in some states to at least look at that,” said Dave Glatt, the head of the North Dakota Department of Health’s Environmental Health Section, which is responsible for implementing EPA’s Clean Power Plan.
EPA said cap-and-trade-style approaches likely would provide the easiest and cheapest option for states that have to enforce its new carbon rules for power plants, and it outlined several possible applications for such programs when it finalized the rules last week.
While at least a dozen state attorneys general and various fossil fuel interests are preparing for a years-long court battle in an effort to topple the rules, the officials and executives who will be in charge of enforcing the regulations are eyeing cap-and-trade as attractive option to comply if the rules survive legal challenges.
To EPA and its defenders, the benefits of trading are significant, especially for greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change no matter where they are emitted. Trading helps identify the cheapest carbon dioxide reductions available, eases fears over grid reliability and could smooth wrinkles across differing regulatory regimes across state lines.
Those potential benefits may prove enough to win grudging support from even the most anti-cap-and-trade governor.
“Putting the politics and the rhetoric aside, when it comes down to developing a state plan that works for the state and its ratepayers, I think that folks are going to realize that they’re going to want to have an option for trading,” said David Thornton, an assistant commissioner at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
EPA’s proposed federal implementation plan, which serves both as a guide for states writing their own plans and a starting point for whichever states will have a plan written by EPA, outlines in detail the potential of emissions trading.
When EPA first proposed the carbon rule last year it envisioned multi-state trading agreements, similar to the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, as a leading compliance option. But it quickly became clear that some states would find it difficult to implement a formal compact, for political or logistical reasons.
For example, Thornton noted that Minnesota’s neighbors “think a little bit differently about this issue than we do” and said it would have been difficult to envision Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton partnering with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination and vocally opposes the rule.
Critics such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also claimed that such compacts would need congressional approval, a virtual impossibility in the current political environment.
The final rule avoids some of those concerns by encouraging states to design a“trading-ready” system that could allow power plant operators to trade credits with facilities in other states even if the states have not formally agreed to cooperate.
“I think that if it comes down to the point that they actually have to submit a plan and the courts are not going to rule against EPA, I’m going to guess that the utilities in those states are going to be very much interested in having the opportunity to trade,” said Thornton.
North Dakota’s Glatt is no fan of EPA’s carbon rule, which he thinks gives too little credit to the state’s wind power sector and risks increasing utility bills for residents who face some of the most brutal winters in the nation. He said that Sen. Heidi Heitkamp was “being kind” when she described the final rule’s quadrupling of the state’s reduction goal as a “slap in the face,” but he is not dismissing trading as an option to comply.
“Everything’s on the table as we evaluate the potential for an acceptable plan,” Glatt told POLITICO in a recent interview. That’s assuming North Dakota, which relies heavily on coal power for its electricity, even can meet its steep reduction goal, Glatt added.
North Dakota and Minnesota are among those states that have begun mulling whether to use trading to comply with EPA’s mandated carbon cuts. An informal working group of utilities, environmental groups and plant operators in Minnesota has been discussing compliance for more than a year, Thornton said, and they quickly recognized the potential benefits of trading.
“We got the clear sense from our group that having the option of trading, certainly within a utility in the state and even between utilities in the state, would be a feature that they wanted us to keep our minds open about,” Thornton said. “And also trading about the country was something that they wanted to be a potential option of any plan that we considered.”
Power providers also acknowledge that trading could be beneficial, although officials caution that much will depend on how trading programs operate in practice. Kirk Johnson, the senior vice president of government relations at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, said the benefit of such a program would depend on the price of carbon credits, the costs of which would be passed through to co-op members.
“Co-ops are investigating the various options, and we’re not going to take anything off the table if it means it would help lower the impact of the plan on our consumers,” Johnson said. “And trading may very well be one of those strategies.”
To be sure, some in the industry are convinced that emissions trading would increase prices regardless of how a program was designed and resist EPA’s involvement in any case.
“If we were able to do this on our own, using our own methods, our own goals, we’d be able to achieve these types of things more economically than we would have if the EPA wasn’t with us the whole time looking over our shoulder,” said Jason Bohrer, president and CEO of the North Dakota-based Lignite Energy Council.
While states and industry are sorting through the details, some are looking to the trading pioneers at the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative for guidance.
It’s impossible to say how much an emission reduction credit might sell for in any future trading market. At its June auction, RGGI sold more than 15.5 million carbon dioxide allowances, just under half of the lot offered, at a clearing price of $5.50 per ton.
Katie Dykes, the chair of RGGI’s board of directors, said that the nine RGGI states already have cut their emissions by 40 percent since 2005 while growing their economies and maintaining grid reliability.
“We were pleased to see that EPA recognized … in the final rule that this structure of this multi-state mass-based program would be a pathway for compliance,” said Dykes, who serves as deputy commissioner for energy at Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Dykes said RGGI has gotten informal requests from several states interested in possibly setting up their own interstate trading groups.
New Jersey, which last week completed the final steps to withdraw from RGGI, is not among them, she said.
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What Will Obama's Power Plan Do to the Grid?
Aug 11, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Darren Samuelsohn
Environmentalists cheered last week when President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency issued the country's first-ever mandatory greenhouse gas standards for power plants.
But an anxious power industry has also been warning: What about reliability? Any major shift in how America makes electricity, especially away from the reliable but high-carbon "baseline capacity" of coal, poses a threat to the crucial national power grid.
How serious is that risk? That's the question facing FERC, the independent agency that played only a tangential role advising the EPA on its rules, but maintains a core mission of helping consumers get reliable energy services at reasonable costs. In May, all five of FERC's commissioners urged EPA to give states more time to comply with the Clean Power Plan and also to include additional flexibility safeguards to ensure the country's lights stay on.
POLITICO senior policy reporter Darren Samuelsohn interviewed Philip Moeller, FERC’s longest-serving commissioner, about the likely impact of the new rule. While Moeller praised EPA for addressing early concerns about maintaining a reliable power supply, he nonetheless warns that the states who are big coal producers and exporters still have "a lot to worry about." He also sees the outcome of the 2016 presidential election playing a big part in determining how some of the more obstinate states proceed.
Darren Samuelsohn: What's next for the country's power grid now that the EPA rule is finished?
Philip Moeller: We'll spend some time analyzing the rule because it's so long, but the next, I think, critical part is when, assuming the rule survives litigation, the states will have to come up with their plans to comply with the rule, and that's going to be a massive undertaking.DS: What do you see as the biggest change coming to the electric grid because of the Clean Power Plan?
PM: We're going to have state air regulators who are suddenly having a major impact on how the electricity system is designed and how power is produced and how it flows, because they will have a major role in putting together the state plans. I'm sure that they are all fine individuals, but moving from an air regulator to essentially an electricity regulator without a lot of background in it is going to be extremely challenging.
From an actual physics perspective, it kind of depends really on how the infrastructure is built out. If the pipes and wires are built, that will probably allow for greater expansion of renewables as proposed under the final rule, and much more gas capacity that is being used generally for base load, and also to support the renewables when their intermittency comes in and the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining.
We're going to have a lot of challenges in terms of making sure that the market rules are such that generators that have to respond quickly, particularly gas plants, are compensated not only for the wear and tear on those units, but also in terms of their quick response that will be increasingly necessary as intermittent generation has a greater penetration on the grid.
DS: Did EPA address FERC’s concerns in the earlier draft rule when it comes to electricity reliability?
PM: In many cases, yes. They extended the timeline to 2022. That was certainly helpful. They came up with some type of reliability mechanism which is needing further analysis, but is better than nothing.
DS: Why is a longer compliance timeline — it initially was 2020 — so important?PM: It's big because almost everybody was concerned that 2020 was just too aggressive... That timeline just didn't mesh with building pipes and wires... That extra two years will make a difference, but a positive difference, but it would still be extremely challenging, particularly on the transmission side, because even when certain things all line up in the favor of a new line, it can still take five to seven years to build something, and that's without a lot of significant opposition. The extra years, I think, are greatly appreciated by the folks who actually have to do the work to comply with the regulation.
DS: What are you hearing so far from state regulators?
PM: They're still digesting the rule, but I've certainly met with them hundreds of times over the last year and a- half, and it kind of breaks down as to whether they have a state that uses coal or not. Those that don't use coal don't have really a lot to worry about. Those that do have a lot to worry about. And those states that are particularly exporters have to be very concerned. The importers have to be concerned, too, if they're importing power that is essentially going to be affected by an exporting state.
DS: Many states will be writing their own implementation plans, but it's also clear some states — like Indiana, Wisconsin and West Virginia — say they will just let the EPA do it for them instead. What's the effect on the grid going to be from this disparity?
PM: That's a great question because we're not quite sure how it will work. A regional approach would certainly be better. Again, given the interstate nature of the grid, some regions already kind of see themselves in that position. Others are looking at it and yet there could be issues with one state taking one approach, the neighboring state taking another approach and there's just things that need to be really thought through.
DS: Are there any specific regional hotspots you see for potential blackouts because of the Clean Power Plan?
PM: I think it's too early because of the fact that we have to see how the state plans work together. That's going to be the real challenge. But again, there's a potential there that if one state is doing it one way and another state is doing it another way that there could be some issues related to reliability. With enough time, presumably, they can be worked through, but...we have to be cognizant of that potential set of problems.
DS: Are some of the industry predictions about blackouts and higher energy costs as dire as their warnings?
PM: I think it's a little early, but those areas that are more coal-dependent, that has to be pretty high on the agenda.... Part of the issue related to the Clean Power Plan is it produces winners and losers, and the winners can be gas and renewables, and the losers, generally speaking, coal and the consumers that consume coal power are generally going to be paying higher prices. Those that don't, their prices may be coming more in line with those other areas, but nevertheless, it's producing winners and losers, including in the energy industry.
DS: What real-world effects will energy consumers notice from the Clean Power Plan?
PM: Areas that have to shut down coal plants and replace them with new generating units are going to see rate increases because of the very fact that these are going to be significant investments that, in some cases, go directly into rates. Other markets, it's absorbed by the company in terms of a competitive model. But we're going to see costs increase.
DS: Sen. Jim Inhofe is warning that the EPA rule will be especially painful for seniors, minorities and low-income people. Do you think that's right?
PM: Given that electricity is usually a much higher proportion of those folks' costs, in terms of their income, they have a higher proportion in electric bills, yes, I think that's fair.
DS: How does uncertainty over the future of the Clean Power Plan — due to the 2016 presidential election and lawsuits — influence what states will be doing in the meantime?
PM: That's a tough one, because states can either do nothing, fight it in court, but then they face the potential of having a federal implementation plan imposed upon them. Generally speaking, I think most of the states have been at least quietly or more prominently discussing the potential, how they could work together, what some of the tradeoffs are, and so those discussions I think have been relatively productive. But it's going to be a long, long discussion and a decision-making process in terms of coming up with a state plan that will be very complicated.
DS: Do you think some of the states will just hang back and wait on implementing the rules until they know who is the next president?
PM: Oh yeah, I think that's fair. In the meantime, though, some states are going to be very active, some kind of moderately, and some perhaps not doing much at all. But there will be plenty of talk between now and the election in terms of how this impacts various states.
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McCarthy: EPA Will Engage with States on Carbon Rule
Aug 11, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy does not plan to sit on her hands while waiting for states to file their plans to implement the agency’s power plant carbon rules.
“We have no interest in going from something that was incredibly engaging and sitting and waiting for things to happen,” McCarthy said today at an event hosted by Resources for the Future. McCarthy, a former state environmental regulator, said EPA can work with states as their plans develop over a period of years.
“Once we start going, people will see that this is a challenge we can address,” she said. -
Oklahoma Cites EPA's Mercury Rule Plan To Reiterate ESPS Challenge
Aug 11, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lee Logan
Oklahoma's attorneys are reiterating their pending federal claim that the Clean Air Act plainly blocks EPA's greenhouse gas (GHG) rule for existing power plants because the agency is already regulating the plants' air toxics emissions, citing a new plan by the agency to fix legal flaws to its mercury rule without vacating the regulation.
Oklahoma and other EPA critics argue that the mercury rule, issued under air act section 112, prohibits EPA from regulating plants' GHGs under section 111(d) because the air act prohibits such “double regulation."
The Sooner State is pressing this case in pending litigation, Scott Pruitt, et al v. Gina McCarthy, et al., before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit that is seeking to block EPA from finalizing its GHG existing source performance standards (ESPS), issued under section 111 (d), even though the agency issued the final rule Aug. 3.
In an effort to advance its pending litigation, the state's lawyers are citing EPA's Aug. 10 filing in litigation over the mercury rule, where the agency asked the D.C. Circuit -- in response to an adverse Supreme Court ruling inMichigan v. EPA -- to remand the regulation “without vacatur” while it overhauled measure.
“This filing undermines any possible argument by EPA that Michigan authorizes it to proceed with” the GHG rule, Baker Hostetler attorney David Rivkin writes in an Aug. 11 notice of supplemental authority to the 10th Circuit.
“The agency is, in effect, trying to have it both ways, maintaining its Section 112 standards while also rushing to finalize Section 111(d) standards for the same sources -- the very thing that it is precluded from doing on the face of the Clean Air Act,” Rivkin adds.
The notice reiterates the state's novel request for an injunction of the rule pending its appeal to the 10th Circuit, though EPA has earlier has called the effort a “Hail Mary Pass” that is unlikely to succeed.
While Oklahoma's suit faces procedural hurdles, the legal issue at its heart is complicated because House and Senate amendments to section 111(d) -- that may prohibit the “double regulation” as EPA critics argue -- were never reconciled in conference before the 1990 air act amendments were enacted. 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.
EPA has not argued that Michigan -- which found that EPA unreasonably failed to consider costs when making an initial finding that it was “appropriate and necessary” to regulate power plants' toxics -- would allow the ESPS to proceed.
Instead, the agency has called the ruling “narrow” and that making a connection between the ruling and the ESPS “is comparing apples to oranges.”
And in the final ESPS, it offers a new interpretation of section 111(d), finding that even the House language would permit the rule because it is ambiguous and that the interpretation offered by critics is at odds with the overall context of the air law.
In the mercury rule suit, which is now being considered in the D.C. Circuit, EPA in an Aug. 10 brief said it will meet a self-imposed April 15 deadline for crafting a new threshold finding, including the high court-mandated cost consideration, while objecting to a power company's request for the court to issue an emergency stay of the rule.
The agency said it “intends to seek remand without vacatur to address the Supreme Court’s limited holding in”Michigan. That plan would leave the mercury rule in place while EPA issues the new “appropriate and necessary” finding.
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NEI's Fertel Talks Industry Growth Following Power Plan Changes
Aug 11, 2015 | E&E - TV
Are changes to how existing and new nuclear are treated in the final Clean Power Plan a win for the industry? During today's OnPoint, Marv Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, discusses the impacts of U.S. EPA's action on nuclear and explains what the agency missed in the rule with respect to his industry.Transcript
Monica Trauzzi: Hello, and welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. With me today is Marv Fertel, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute. Marv, nice to have you back on the show.
Marv Fertel: Thanks for having me, Monica. Nice to be here.
Monica Trauzzi: Marv, a shift on how nuclear is treated in the final Clean Power Plan. Is it a win overall for your industry?
Marv Fertel: Yes, we believe it is. We believe that the new Clean Power Plan actually recognizes the power of nuclear much better than the proposed plan. We're obviously still reviewing it. We're not through it all, but on just a few points. First of all, they took our recommendation of those of our companies and others to treat new nuclear plants like Vogtle and Summer and Watts Bar, and new uprates post-2012 not in rate setting, but certainly in compliance, and we think that was the right thing to do and we're really pleased. We also believe that by going to a mass-based regime, which they are encouraging and seems to be cheaper from a compliance standpoint, at least according to their numbers, that will also help recognize the value of nuclear much better, something that we've been arguing for for years about getting better appreciation and understanding for the value of nuclear. So we see real progress there. We think that dropping the 6 percent, which never made any sense, makes sense. So that was good. We probably are continuing to try to understand on the issue of like license renewal, which we don't think they wanted to do, whether we did a good enough job in educating them on the business decisions, the regulatory reviews and particularly the costs involved in making those decisions.
Monica Trauzzi: So what did they miss? I mean, would it just be that last point?
Marv Fertel: I think so. I think that they don't appreciate -- maybe didn't appreciate, and again, we would take some responsibility for that, that it's a pretty expensive endeavor from a capital expenditure thing to renew a license from 60 to 80, and it is a major business decision.
Monica Trauzzi: What does the Clean Power Plan tell you about the way this administration views nuclear overall as a part of the U.S. energy strategy?
Marv Fertel: Well, actually, one of the things in the Clean Power Plan that we were encouraged by was the recognition in it explicitly by EPA that nuclear energy and renewables have the same value. And we've always felt that way. In fact, to be honest with you, we feel we actually have maybe more value. Not that renewables are bad, but we're there 24-7 and they're not. So we've always said we should be getting more value and more recognition, and we were real pleased to see that, and I think that also the emphasis on mass-based, we think shows that they're appreciating that all low-carbon sources are really very important.
Monica Trauzzi: But there's also this emphasis on renewable energy like wind and solar. There's this Clean Energy Incentive Program. Do you think that sort of that overall push could drive some utilities away from continuing with nuclear investments and more towards renewables?
Marv Fertel: Well, I think the administration has been very high on renewables all along, so I think the companies are making their decisions, looking at the bigger picture of what they need for their particular customer base as opposed to maybe what the administration may be telling them. I think that we would look at the way they treated renewables in that 2021 and 2022 time frame and maybe think about whether you should have treated uprates similar. But we haven't gotten that deep into it yet, Monica, to know whether that makes any sense.
Monica Trauzzi: So there are some states and utilities that are grappling with the challenges of expensive nuclear facilities and whether to keep them operational. How does this plan fit into those scenarios and affect those states and utilities?
Marv Fertel: Well, I think -- well, first of all, one of the things we need to remember is that if it goes forward and doesn't run into lots of litigation, it's still a number of years away before you're really implementing. So we've got a period where you know what's coming but you're not there yet, and knowing what's coming can be very helpful. If you go mass-based, it has, I think, a positive impact on even some of our plants at risk because what's going to happen is you're going to have a trading program which is going to result in some "cost" to our fossil competition, which will drive a bit on market prices, which may help some of our plants that are at risk in those competitive markets.
Monica Trauzzi: So how much uncertainty currently exists because of that potential for legal challenges, the possibility that the rule could be struck down fully or partially? How much uncertainty exists in the industry?
Marv Fertel: Well, I would assume in the utility industry, all of our companies are reviewing it from every aspect possible, as are their states. So there's going to be significant uncertainty, at least till they get through it and see what parts of it are implementable and which parts are going to be challenged. So there clearly is uncertainty for some period of time, but again, you know, you deal with uncertainty in business all the time, and this'll be just another dimension that the companies will deal with, and they've managed, Monica, from my perspective, to keep the lights on really well, so I'm sure they'll continue to keep the lights on and be a reliable supplier to customers in America.
Monica Trauzzi: All right, we'll end it right there. Thank you for coming on the show.
Marv Fertel: Pleasure. Thank you.
Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
[End of Audio]
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Global Forces Foil Efforts to Slash Ozone in Western U.S.
Aug 11, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Amanda Peterka
Air pollution from China and ozone coming down from the upper atmosphere have together offset actions taken in the western United States to reduce emissions, according to a new study.
The study done jointly by researchers affiliated with NASA and a Netherlands institute found that, between 2005 and 2010, emissions transported from China offset 43 percent of the reductions in ozone that were expected to occur in the atmosphere over the western United States. Ozone from the upper atmosphere offset the remaining 57 percent.
The authors said the study shows the need for a global approach to reducing air pollution.
"We conclude that global efforts may be required to address regional air quality and climate change," the authors wrote.
The study was published online yesterday in the journal Nature Geoscience. The California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which Caltech manages for NASA, collaborated with researchers from the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.
Ground-level ozone is a key component of smog that's been linked to negative health problems such as reduced lung function. It's formed when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds react in the presence of sunlight. Ozone can also make its way from the upper atmosphere to ground-level in high-elevation areas in the West (Greenwire, Nov. 17, 2014).
To study the levels of ozone in the mid-troposphere, about 10,000 to 30,000 feet above the ground, the research team at Caltech and the Netherlands used NASA satellite measurements and computer modeling.
They found that emissions of ozone precursor pollutants in the western United States dropped by 21 percent between 2005 and 2010. That reduction should have resulted in a drop of more than 2 percent in the mid-troposphere.
But during that time, emissions of ozone precursors in China increased and an unusually large amount of ozone from the upper atmosphere made its way to ground level. Over the western United States, there was no drop in the amount of ozone in the mid-troposphere despite the local actions taken to reduce emissions.
"The large contribution from the stratosphere is part of a natural up-and-down cycle of upper-atmosphere winds," Jet Propulsion Lab scientist and co-author Jessica Neu said in a statement. "We know pretty well what will happen to the stratospheric contribution in the next few decades; it will continue to go up and down every two years or so."
But she added: "On the other hand, the contribution from China increased steadily throughout the study, and we don't know what will happen to it in the future because it depends on human rather than natural factors."
The results show that local and regional air quality and climate change policies could have a "limited impact if not considered in a global context," the authors wrote. It comes as U.S. EPA is considering reducing the national ambient air quality standard for ozone from 75 parts per billion to between 65 and 70 ppb.
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13 States Join Chorus Asking Courts to Put WOTUS on Hold
Aug 11, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jeremy P. Jacobs
Thirteen states yesterday asked a federal judge to block U.S. EPA's major Clean Water Act jurisdiction rule from going into effect later this month.
Led by North Dakota, the states have requested that a federal judge issue a preliminary injunction against the Waters of the U.S. rule before its Aug. 28 implementation date.
The Obama administration rule will expand the number of streams and wetlands that automatically qualify for federal Clean Water Act protections.
It has been largely applauded by environmental groups, but more than 25 states have filed a flood of lawsuits seeking to block it, largely claiming that it is an unconstitutional federal power grab that infringes on their states' rights.
"The rule is perhaps the most controversial and widely objectionable rule that would usurp state and local control over vast reaches of water in North Dakota and across the nation," North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem (R) said in a statement.
North Dakota's lawsuit is joined by Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota and Wyoming, as well as New Mexico's environmental agencies. It was filed in federal district court in southeast North Dakota. The states also asked for an oral argument to be scheduled on the injunction question the week of Aug. 24.
A separate lawsuit from 11 other states was filed in federal court in Georgia. That court will hold a hearing tomorrow on whether to grant an injunction against the rule, with a ruling coming as soon as later this week.
In either case, the bar for a court to grant a stay of a regulation while the litigation plays out is high. The challengers must show that they will suffer irreparable harm if the regulations are not put on hold and that it's likely that their arguments will ultimately succeed in court.
The lawsuits are two of several challenges filed against the water proposal. Several industry and farming groups have also gone to court, as have environmentalists who claim the rule should be more far-reaching.
Most of those cases are on hold at this point, however, as the court system is in the process of merging them into one case and determining the best court to review the consolidated litigation.
The injunction motions are the earliest opportunities for the states to block the rule, which is an effort by EPA to clarify the Clean Water Act's jurisdiction after two muddled decisions from the Supreme Court.
Click here for the injunction motion.
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Sensible Rail Safety Improvements are Right Around the Bend
Aug 11, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Shane Skelton
A short commute up the Northeast rail corridor brings the state of the nation's rail infrastructure into perspective as emergency repairs and ongoing delays have become a commonality for East Coast railway passengers. In recent weeks, the New Jersey Transit system displaced thousands of commuters for several days because of emergency repairs. In Maryland, leaks into a rail tunnel from winter soil erosion called for immediate repairs. All of these incidents are varying symptoms of one underlying problem: aging railway infrastructure in need of investment.
The Northeast Corridor serves as the busiest rail sector in the country, connecting rail lines from Washington, D.C. to Boston, Massachusetts. Ridership for the Northeast Corridor has doubled in the last 30 years and is projected to continue increasing. Currently the Northeast Corridor transports nearly 750,000 commuters each day. According to the Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission (NEC), the shutdown of the corridor could cost the country $100 million a day in congestion and lost productivity of commuting workers.A robust rail transportation network is essential for the flow of traffic, not just for rail passengers, but for commerce as well. Passenger trains, especially in the Northeast Corridor, serve as a primary means of transportation for many businessmen and women. Making this mode of transportation as safe as it can possibly be means ensuring the latest technological advances and best practices are implemented.
While commuter rail safety is of critical importance, freight rail introduces challenges as well. More than 550,000 carloads and intermodal units with commodities were shipped throughout one week in July alone. Goods, such as grains, metals, and hazardous materials, like crude oil, constitute a large portion of daily rail traffic. Getting these products to market is critical for the nation's economic stability.
While crude oil specifically has traditionally been shipped primarily by pipeline, oil from recently discovered fields in North Dakota and Texas, where sufficient pipeline capacity does not yet exist, are uniquely reliant on rail. More generally, the rail network's flexibility makes it an attractive mode of shipment for all commodities. Just like energy commodities are found wherever they lay, crops are harvested in areas conducive to their growth, but both are needed all over the country - the vast U.S. rail network is well suited to get these products to market.
However, it is difficult to build public support for moving the consistently increasing volumes of these commodities, especially hazardous materials, if the public does not trust that all possible precautions are in place to protect safety. Recent incidents, such as the Pennsylvania Amtrak crash, and derailments of trains carrying crude oil rattle public trust in the current state of rail safety. Strengthening the nation's rail network and improving best safety practices will go a long way to rebuild public trust.
The fist step to improving rail safety is to begin a serious dialogue on how to leverage new technologies and improve operations in an effort to eliminate all avoidable incidents. Emerging systems, such as Positive Train Control (PTC) are a great start, but there are a number of smaller steps, which when used together as part of a larger safety effort, will make rail transportation a safer mode of moving the nation's commuters and commodities well into the future.Skelton currently serves at the executive director of the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii), a non-profit focused on updating the nation's infrastructure. He is also a former member of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Northeast Corridor Safety Committee (NECSC).
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