ACC AM Aug 21

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Blog) On the Road With #ACCaugust – Updated 8/20/15

   Aug 20, 2015 | American Chemistry Matters

   During the August recess, our state affairs and political mobilization teams will fan out across the country to create opportunities to further our industry’s advocacy goals in a grassroots initiative we’re calling #ACCaugust. Through plant tours, in-district meetings, and industry roundtable discussions, we will meet with Members... http://blog.americanchemistry.com/

Chemical Management News

2. (ACC Mentioned) Toxic Chemicals Taint The 'Best Possible' Food For Babies

   Aug 20, 2015 | The Huffington Post - Healthy Living

   By Lynne Peeples
   
   
   Nature created the perfect food for a growing baby. A mother's breast milk is chock full of the essential vitamins, fats, proteins and carbohydrates needed to best build the brain, fight infection and resist chronic disease. But as new research published on Thursday reminds us, a mother's milk today also contains a cocktail of industrial chemicals.
3. (ACC Mentioned) New Spray Foam Insulation Formula Shortens Building Occupancy Times

   Aug 20, 2015 | Proud Green Home

   Most spray foam applications require the home to be unoccupied for 24 hours to allow VOCs to dissipate, which can slow construction times. New allowances for spray foam insulations from Icynene give builders more construction time with revised shorter re-entry and re-occupancy allowances. Trades and homeowners in the United States using...
4. EPA Lists Existing Hazardous Waste Drugs, OIG Says

   Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Pat Ware
   
   
   The Environmental Protection Agency has identified and reviewed existing pharmaceuticals that may qualify as hazardous waste, the agency's inspector general said in a report. The agency also has established a process to review new pharmaceuticals to determine if they qualify for regulation...
5. Breast-Fed Infants Exposed to Heat-Resistant Chemicals

   Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Pat Rizzuto
   
   
   A class of persistent chemicals linked with decreased immune function, cancer and other health problems builds up in breast-fed infants to surprising levels, according to the lead investigator of a study published Aug. 20. Scientists knew small amounts of perfluorinated alkylates can occur in breast milk, lead investigator Philippe...
6. Brazilian-Style Blowouts: Still Poisonous, Still in Salons

   Aug 21, 2015 | Environmental Working Group

   By Tina Sigurdson
   
   
   Hair straightening sessions are injuring clients and making stylists sick, so why are they still offered in salons across the country? Many salons straighten and smooth hair with what they call “keratin smoothing formulations.” These lotions are often called “Brazilian Blowouts,” based on a popular brand’s name.
7. 35 Firms Fight Echa Decision On Nano Silicon Dioxide

   Aug 20, 2015 | Chemical Watch

   By Geraint Roberts
   
   
   A group of 35 EU-based companies have asked Echa’s Board of Appeal to overrule the agency’s decision to make silicon dioxide subject to evaluation under REACH because of initial grounds for concern, relating to “the substance characterisation, nanoparticles and toxicity of different forms of the substance”.

Chemical Security News

8. Senators Push EPA Watchdog On Mine Spill

   Aug 20, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

   By Devin Henry
   
   
   A bipartisan group of Western senators are asking the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) inspector general to consider a litany of aspects of this month’s toxic waste spill in Colorado. The senators, led by Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), said they want the inspector general to probe everything from the...

Energy and Environment News

9. Second Circuit Affirms New York Fracking Lease Decision

   Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Leslie A. Pappas
   
   
   A federal appeals court has upheld a decision that allowed leases between landowners and oil and gas companies to expire following New York's effective state ban on hydraulic fracturing (Beardslee v. Inflection Energy LLC, 2d. Cir., No. 12-4897-cv, 8/19/15). The U.S. Court of the Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that...
10. Anti-Fracking Forces Sue Ohio Secretary of State

    Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Bebe Raupe
    
    
    Ohio residents looking to ban fracking through community rights charters adopted by popular vote are suing the secretary of state for denying their initiatives a place on the November ballot (Ohio ex rel v. Husted, Ohio, No. 2015-1371, 8/19/15. The lawsuit filed Aug. 19 with the Ohio Supreme Court accuses Secretary of State Jon Husted...
11. To Ease Climate Change, U.S. Should End Drilling On Federal Land - Study

    Aug 20, 2015 | Reuters

    By Chris Arsenault
    
    
    Up to 450 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases would be kept out of the atmosphere if the U.S. government stopped leasing federal lands to fossil fuel companies, according to a study released on Wednesday. The government currently allows energy companies to lease federal lands for drilling, and environmental groups...
12. EPA Methane Rule: A Good Start Toward Meeting Administration’s Landmark Goal

    Aug 20, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund

    By Mark Brownstein
    
    
    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took a big step this week, announcing the nation’s first methane pollution standards for the oil and gas industry. But to understand the impact of these new draft rules, it’s important to look at what they do – and what they don’t – and measure them against the nation’s bold but readily...
13. EPA Targets Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Operations

    Aug 21, 2015 | National Geographic

    By Tim Profeta
    
    
    On Tuesday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took another step to make good on the Obama administration’s pledge to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 26–28 percent by 2025 by proposing the first methane emissions rules for the nation’s oil and gas industry.
14. No End in Sight for Oil Glut

    Aug 20, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal

    By Russell Gold
    
    
    When oil prices started to edge down a year ago, most energy mavens thought the drop would be small and short-lived. Instead, the price of crude has plunged by almost 60% from its 2014 peak—and suddenly looks likely to stay low for months and maybe years to come.
15. Western Gas Market Shrinks as Eastern Supplies Expand

    Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Christine Buurma
    
    
    Eight years ago, a group of companies led by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners began building a $6.8 billion pipeline to carry natural gas from America's Rocky Mountains to fuel-hungry markets in the East. Then came the shale gas revolution. The eastern U.S. is now home to the country's most productive formation, the Marcellus, and the...
16. The Energy Policy That America Needs

    Aug 20, 2015 | Financial Times

    Energy is starting to emerge as an issue for the 2016 US presidential election. This week Hillary Clinton, still the frontrunner for the Democratic party’s nomination, marked a sharp break from President Barack Obama, saying the Arctic oil drilling that he supports was “not worth the risk”.
17. New Orleans, Anchorage in Climate Resilience Pilot

    Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Andrea Vittorio
    
    
    New Orleans and Anchorage, Alaska—both of which will play host to the president in August—were among 10 cities selected by the Obama administration Aug. 20 for a new AmeriCorps program focused on building resilience in communities especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
18. Courts Split Over Staying CWA Rule Suits Pending Consolidation

    Aug 20, 2015 | InsideEPA

    By Bridget DiCosmo
    
    
    Federal district courts are split over whether to stay a slew of lawsuits filed over EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule until a judicial panel on multi-district litigation responds to the Justice Department's (DOJ) push to consolidate all cases in one court, with four district courts granting DOJ stay request but one rejecting it.
19. Inhofe Warns EPA 'Waters' Rule Could Regulate Urban Stormwater Systems

    Aug 20, 2015 | InsideEPA

    By Bridget DiCosmo
    
    
    Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) is asking EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to respond to his concerns that the agencies' joint Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule could subject urban sewer and stormwater systems to federal authority under the water law for the first time and hinder their ability to protect public health.

Transportation News

20. T&I Railroads Subcommittee Gets New Staff Director

    Aug 20, 2015 | E&E News PM

    By Sean Reilly
    
    
    Fred Miller has been promoted to the job of staff director for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, according to a news release this afternoon from T&I Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.). Miller, who had served as the subcommittee's counsel since 2011...

Full Text of Stories Below

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Blog) On the Road With #ACCaugust – Updated 8/20/15

   Aug 20, 2015 | American Chemistry Matters

   During the August recess, our state affairs and political mobilization teams will fan out across the country to create opportunities to further our industry’s advocacy goals in a grassroots initiative we’re calling #ACCaugust. Through plant tours, in-district meetings, and industry roundtable discussions, we will meet with Members of Congress to raise awareness of the vital importance of our industry and showcase the economic benefits of the business of chemistry where it matters the most—in their districts.

   Take the #ACCaugust tour with us! Zoom in and out and pan around to see where we’ve been and where we’re going (don’t forget Alaska!)

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Chemical Management News

2. (ACC Mentioned) Toxic Chemicals Taint The 'Best Possible' Food For Babies

   Aug 20, 2015 | The Huffington Post - Healthy Living

   By Lynne Peeples

   Nature created the perfect food for a growing baby. A mother's breast milk is chock full of the essential vitamins, fats, proteins and carbohydrates needed to best build the brain, fight infection and resist chronic disease. But as new research published on Thursday reminds us, a mother's milk today also contains a cocktail of industrial chemicals.

   "It's really an absurd situation that women who are breastfeeding have to think about what chemical exposures they might contribute to their child," said Philippe Grandjean, an environmental health expert at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and author of the study. "Breast milk is supposed to be the best possible nutrition for the infant."

   And it still is, Grandjean and other experts emphasize. It's just less pure and healthy than nature intended -- and than we previously believed. Researchers have already found that a number of fat-loving chemicals can hitch rides into newborns via breast milk. Flame retardants, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and pesticides, such as DDT, are just some of the known pollutants.

   In the new study, Grandjean and his team tested the blood of 81 children born in the Faroe Islands between 1997 and 2000 for a class of chemicals that don't have the same affinity for fat: perfluorinated alkylate substances, or PFASs. For every month that a mom exclusively breastfed, they found her baby's blood levels of these common water- and stain-proofing chemicals increased by an average of 20 to 30 percent. Partial breastfeeding led to lower increases. 

   Researchers discovered that the children's levels of PFASs exceeded those Grandjean's previous research had deemed safe. That research found that higher exposure to PFASs can make childhood vaccinations less effective. The chemicals are also suspected of causing cancer and disrupting normal hormone functions, noted Grandjean.

   You probably know PFASs as the stuff that protects your carpet from stains, keeps your food from sticking to packaging or pans, repels rain from your coat and prevents mascara from running down your cheeks. It likely even lines the waxy paper that held your morning pastry.

   And your body has likely been acquainted with the chemicals since you were in the womb, or drinking breast milk. "These compounds stay in your body for years and years," said Grandjean.

   He suggested that the new findings surprised him. How did these chemicals, as pervasive and long-lasting as they are, get into milk in such high quantities? In addition to having a high fat content, breast milk is also packed with protein. So protein may offer chemicals a similar "ride into the milk," Grandjean explained. Unfortunately, this implies that other, previously unsuspected toxins may also be contaminating breast milk. 

   "We happened to find this for perfluorinated compounds. Who knows when we'll find the next scandal like this?" he said. "For infants to be exposed at this early and vulnerable age is something that worries me greatly."

   Still Breastfeed, If You Can

   Asa Bradman, an environmental health expert at the University of California, Berkeley, underscored that mothers should not be fearful about breastfeeding. His own research has concluded that even among children whose mothers had high blood levels of DDT, those who were breastfed experienced healthier development than their formula-fed peers. 

   Given his findings, Grandjean suggests that the benefits of exclusive breastfeeding outweigh the risks, for at least a baby's first 3 to 4 months of life.

   And the benefits of breastfeeding extend to the mother. Women who are able and choose to breastfeed may more quickly shed pregnancy pounds. The practice can improve a mother's bond with the baby, and can even save the family money. Breast milk, unlike formula, is free.

   What's more, opting for formula doesn't necessarily protect an infant from dangerous chemicals, since community water supplies can carry high levels of PFASs. In a separate report also published on Thursday, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group found that even tiny concentrations of a PFASs chemical in drinking water can pose a serious threat to public health. The group refers to Grandjean's previous research, which concluded that the EPA's provisional drinking water limit for PFOA and PFASs, set in 2009, is between 100 and 1000 times too high.

   And if all that isn't enough to encourage breastfeeding, experts note that the practice can also decrease a mother's own burden of toxic chemicals.

   "Nursing a baby is the ultimate detox diet," writes Florence Williams in her book Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History. As she explains, mothers who breastfeed for a year can "siphon off" to their infants 90 percent of their body burden of perfluorinated compounds, including PFASs.

   In the new study, some of the children’s blood levels of PFASs exceeded that of their mothers' by the end of breastfeeding.

   Of course, therein lies the irony -- and the trouble. Is breast milk just another way we pass our pollution problems on to the next generation? 

   'Kicking The Can Down The Road' 

   Bill Walker, an investigations editor for the Environmental Working Group, suggested PFASs are a "poster child" for what is wrong with current toxic chemical regulation in the U.S. While the EPA was first alerted in 2001 to the class of chemicals contaminating drinking water, he noted, the agency remains another six to seven years away from enacting regulations.

   Experts raise similar concerns over the sources of these chemicals.

   By the end of 2015, some of the most notorious PFASs will be fully phased out of production in the U.S. "These voluntary industry efforts have resulted in reduction of these substances in the environment," wrote Jessica Bowman, the executive director of the FluoroCouncil, an arm of the industry group American Chemistry Council, in an emailed statement to The Huffington Post. “To help support that phase-out, our member companies developed alternatives, based on short-chain PFAS. The alternatives are some of the most robustly-studied new chemicals introduced into the market."

   But as HuffPost reported in May, experts worry this new group of PFASs may still share many of the same concerning characteristics as their predecessors. They also say this pattern of simply replacing known toxins with their chemical cousins, whose safety may remain largely unknown, is a result of the nation's outdated toxic chemical legislation, which allows chemicals to remain innocent until proven guilty.

   "The way the Toxic Substances Control Act is set up now, it's a dangerous experiment being conducted on all of us," said Walker. "Chemical companies are allowed to expose us to their products without knowing whether or not they're safe."

   "We're just kicking the can down the road. We're letting our children worry about it," added Tracey Woodruff, director of the University of California, San Francisco Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment.

   The U.S. Senate will be reconvening to consider an update to the nearly 40-year-old TSCA this fall. The bipartisan proposal has faced stiff criticism from some environmental health advocates. 

   "The bill has not gone far enough in terms of protecting state preemption and really reflecting the state of the science on chemical risks," said Woodruff. "But there's a lot of pressure to make something happen."

   While prospective and young mothers can take some precautions of their own, such as avoiding products that contain nonstick, stain-resistant, and waterproof coatings, their power to protect their progeny from tainted breast milk is limited. "You'd have to start as a teenager to prevent the buildup over time," said Grandjean. "That's not something that new moms can do much about."

   "I'm calling for more research attention on the passage of industrial chemicals into human milk. We are not testing for that," he added, noting that the FDA requires drug companies to provide information about whether their products are safe for use during pregnancy and breastfeeding. "But with industrial chemicals, we assume that they are safe."

   "Breasts, it turns out, are a particularly fine mirror of our industrial lives," Williams wrote in her book. And this fact may actually attract needed attention and drive change. It was after persistent organic pollutants began appearing in human milk, for example, that countries took steps to ban them. 

   
   

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3. (ACC Mentioned) New Spray Foam Insulation Formula Shortens Building Occupancy Times

   Aug 20, 2015 | Proud Green Home

   Most spray foam applications require the home to be unoccupied for 24 hours to allow VOCs to dissipate, which can slow construction times.

   New allowances for spray foam insulations from Icynene give builders more construction time with revised shorter re-entry and re-occupancy allowances. Trades and homeowners in the United States using ultra-low VOC Icynene Classic Max and Icynene ProSeal spray foam products are now permitted one hour re-entry for trades and two hour re-occupancy for homeowners. The announcement comes just three months after the introduction of the two ultra-low VOC spray foam products.

   The revised re-entry and re-occupancy allowances follow months of extensive research, testing and third-party evaluation of the two ultra-low VOC spray foam products based on protocols and procedures developed by a task group of the American Chemistry Council – Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (ACC-CPI).

   “Once again, Icynene leads the insulation industry through product and testing innovation. Shorter re-entry times allow builders in residential and commercial projects to continue construction with minimal impact on their schedules, while shorter re-occupancy times offer homeowners the opportunity to return to their homes the same day, within hours, of their spray foam installation,” said Icynene VP Marketing, Betsy Cosper.

   “Full scale testing and research evaluated by credible third party chemists and toxicologists has confirmed that re-entry and re-occupancy times can be further reduced to one hour and two hours respectively. Ultra-low VOC Icynene Classic Max and Icynene ProSeal spray foam, combined with the use of higher workplace ventilation rates of 40 Air Changes per Hour (ACH), have helped us reduce exposure risks to spray foam installers, to non-spray foam trades and, most especially, to homeowners and their families,” said Icynene VP Engineering Paul Duffy.

   The revised re-entry and re-occupancy allowances are only applicable for installations of Icynene Classic Max and Icynene ProSeal in the United States and are based on an active ventilation rate of 40.0 ACH.

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4. EPA Lists Existing Hazardous Waste Drugs, OIG Says

   Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Pat Ware

   The Environmental Protection Agency has identified and reviewed existing pharmaceuticals that may qualify as hazardous waste, the agency's inspector general said in a report.

   The agency also has established a process to review new pharmaceuticals to determine if they qualify for regulation as hazardous waste as it develops a rule to streamline the management of hazardous and nonhazardous pharmaceuticals, according to the report, which was released Aug. 19.

   Both actions were recommended by the inspector general in a May 25, 2012, report. The report expressed concerns that “inaction” by the EPA may have caused unknown but dangerous hazardous waste pharmaceuticals to be improperly disposed of and released into the environment (103 DEN A-5, 5/30/12)

   A third recommendation made in the 2012 report required the EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) to develop a nationally consistent outreach and compliance assistance plan to help states address challenges that health care facilities have in complying with the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) regulations for managing hazardous waste pharmaceuticals, the current report said. This action is open with corrective action pending, it said. The report makes no further recommendations and was closed when issued.

   The EPA has the authority under RCRA to determine whether pharmaceuticals should be regulated as hazardous waste but hasn't updated the list of hazardous waste pharmaceuticals since 1980, according to the inspector general.

   The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) completed its review Aug. 11 of the EPA's proposed rule to manage waste pharmaceuticals (160 DEN A-14, 8/19/15).

   The proposed rule submitted to OMB, as revised with the inspector general's recommendations, provides the means to be “protective of human health and the environment by preventing the release of unused pharmaceuticals into the environment,” the Aug. 19 report said.

   The rule is expected to be proposed soon in the Federal Register. OSWER has said it may take an additional 18 months or longer to finalize the rule once it is proposed.

    

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5. Breast-Fed Infants Exposed to Heat-Resistant Chemicals

   Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Pat Rizzuto

   A class of persistent chemicals linked with decreased immune function, cancer and other health problems builds up in breast-fed infants to surprising levels, according to the lead investigator of a study published Aug. 20.

   Scientists knew small amounts of perfluorinated alkylates can occur in breast milk, lead investigator Philippe Grandjean, adjunct professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, told Bloomberg BNA Aug. 19. The study provides new information about the amounts of five of these chemicals that build up through breastfeeding, he said.

   If a baby is exclusively fed breast milk for six months as recommended the concentrations of one of the chemicals—perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)—shoots up four times higher than it did in babies who are not breast fed, Grandjean said. “We were surprised.”

   Production Stopped; Exposure Continues

   3M and DuPont have stopped making PFOS and another chemical measured in the study—perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA).

   The chemicals remain a concern, however, because they are extremely persistent in the environment and resistant to typical environmental degradation processes, and because they are linked with a variety of health problems in human and laboratory animal studies, according to a fact sheet from the Environmental Protection Agency.

   PFOS and PFOA have been detected in surface water serving a number of U.S. cities and in sediments downstream of former fluorochemical production facilities. They also are found in wastewater treatment plant effluent, sewage sludge and landfill leachate, the EPA said.

   Thus exposures continue even though U.S. manufacture of the chemicals has ceased.

   In conversations with chemical regulators, Grandjean said he also has been told that manufacture of the chemicals has increased in India and China.

   “Two cornerstones of public health are breastfeeding and vaccinations. Both are crucial to give the next generation its best start in life,” Grandjean said.

   At least three previous studies have found exposure to these chemicals makes vaccines less effective. That possibility is concerning, Grandjean said.

   “I'm a physician. I'm trying to prevent disease,” he said.

   Grandjean discussed a study called “Breastfeeding as an Exposure Pathway for Perfluorinated Alkylates,” which was published online in Environmental Science & Technology, a peer reviewed journal published by the American Chemical Society.

   Chemical Class Widely Used

   The study examines levels of five perfluorinated alkylates, including PFOS and PFOA.

   Perfluorinated alkylates have been used for decades to make chemicals that make industrial, aerospace and consumer products heat, corrosion, stain and grease resistant. Uses of the chemicals include the production of aviation hydraulic fluids, fire fighting foams, metal plating, coatings for wiring and for electronic equipment, and stain-resistant carpets and textiles.

   The perfluorinated alkylates remain in the body through a mechanism that differs in a key way from other persistent pollutants. Traditionally, persistent organic pollutants or POPS, such as the 12 original ones banned under the Stockholm convention, persist by clinging to fat.

   Perfluorinated alkylates cling to proteins, such as the proteins in blood.

   The chemicals appear to pass from mothers to their breastfeeding babies through protein in their milk, Grandjean said.

   NTP Currently Focused on Hazard, Not Exposure

   The exposure study was published one week after the National Toxicology Program requested information about ongoing or recently completed studies about whether PFOS and PFOA harm the immune system for an evaluation it will conduct (158 DEN A-14, 8/17/15).

   Kris Thayer, director of NTP's Office of Health Assessment and Translation, which is conducting the PFOS and PFOA analysis, said exposure research such as Grandjean's breastfeeding study would supplement the information NTP is gathering.

   Exposure data, however, are not directly relevant to the analysis the program will initially conduct, she said.

   NTP is focused on determining whether these chemicals can harm the immune system, or focused on their hazard, she said.

   Down the road, the program may be interested in both hazard and exposure data, but Thayer said there is no timeline for that possible next phase of the analysis.

    

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6. Brazilian-Style Blowouts: Still Poisonous, Still in Salons

   Aug 21, 2015 | Environmental Working Group

   By Tina Sigurdson

   Hair straightening sessions are injuring clients and making stylists sick, so why are they still offered in salons across the country?

   Many salons straighten and smooth hair with what they call “keratin smoothing formulations.” These lotions are often called “Brazilian Blowouts,” based on a popular brand’s name.

   The truth is, they contain as much as seven percent formaldehyde, a toxic chemical, which the U.S. government in 2011 designated a known human carcinogen. Formaldehyde also triggers allergic reactions.

   Formaldehyde-based hair straighteners are banned in many other countries and expressly denounced by the personal care product industry’s own trade association. But they are still being sold to professionals for use in salons in the U.S. Despite their known dangers and countless resulting injuries, Brazilian Blowout has actually declared August 21st “National Brazilian Blowout Day”!

   In 2011, the Environmental Working Group exposed these dangerous practices in a groundbreaking report entitled Flat-Out Risky.  EWG petitioned the federal Food and Drug Administration to crack down on hair straighteners containing formaldehyde. EWG demanded that the FDA investigate misleading marketing portraying the products as formaldehyde-free, require warning labels and consider a ban on formaldehyde-laced products.  The agency has yet to respond.

   It is no surprise that formaldehyde-laced hair straighteners harm people. Besides the long-term risk of cancer, formaldehyde irritates the skin, eyes, nose and throat. It is a potent sensitizer, meaning a chemical that, after repeated exposure, causes allergic reactions such as hives, blisters and asthma. Once sensitized, a person is likely to suffer an allergic reaction to formaldehyde again and again, including when she encounters formaldehyde fumes from other sources, such as wrinkle-proof fabrics, personal care products, plastics and plywood. 

   Using the Freedom of Information Act, EWG obtained FDA documents showing that salon personnel and clients have filed numerous “adverse event” reports after hair straightening sessions, including massive hair loss, neck and face rashes, blistered scalps, nosebleeds, bleeding gums and loss of taste and smell. Because adverse event reporting is voluntary and many people don’t know about it, these complaints probably represent a small fraction of actual injuries associated with these services.

   How can companies keep selling such dangerous products?  It’s not as if the FDA has been unaware of them. As far back as 2007, Allure Magazine was writing about the hazards of formaldehyde hair straighteners. When it shared its conclusions with Linda Katz, director of the Office of Cosmetics and Colors in the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Katz responded that "if the FDA determines that a health hazard exists, the agency will advise the industry and the public, and will consider its options under the authority of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in protecting the health and welfare of consumers."

   Since then, several state and federal agencies, including the FDA, have concluded that formaldehyde in hair smoothing chemical mixtures is hazardous to public health. But no agency has actually stopped sales of the stuff to unwary people.

   On August 22, 2011, the FDA issued a warning letter to GIB, LLC, the company that makes Brazilian Blowout. The letter asserted that the product was adulterated, i.e., too dangerous to sell in interstate commerce, and misbranded, due to its false claims that the product was formaldehyde-free.  Five weeks later, the Cosmetic Ingredient Review Expert Panel, a scientific advisory board assembled by the trade association that represents the major personal care companies, asserted that formaldehyde in hair straightening products was “unsafe under present conditions of use.”  With these damning words, the mainstream cosmetics industry essentially disavowed the small businesses that sell formaldehyde hair straighteners.  

   But, the FDA has taken no further discernible action to get these products off the market. It has posted a web page warning of the products’ dangers and suggesting that consumers protect themselves by reading ingredient labels, but as the agency and the Cosmetic Ingredient Review panel pointed out, sometimes the labels do not disclose the presence of formaldehyde.

   In the absence of meaningful FDA action, state agencies have taken the lead. In November 2010, California Attorney General Jerry Brown, now the state’s governor, sued GIB LLC for deceptive advertising. In January 2012, the company agreed to a settlement that required GIB to pay $300,000 in civil penalties and $300,000 in attorneys’ fees, to disclose the product’s formaldehyde content in its advertising and to comply with state air quality standards.  

   Michael Brady, GIB LLC’s chief executive officer, didn’t seem chastened. Following the settlement, he bragged to the New York Times that insurance would cover the company’s expenses and that GIB would “get to sell the product forever without reformulation.” GIB failed to fully comply with the settlement until Kamala Harris, Brown’s successor as state Attorney General, obtained a court order against the company in November 2012. Only then did GIB change its product formula – and not by much. The new formula contains between three and seven percent liquid formaldehyde, down from 11.8 percent in the original formula.

   Meanwhile, other formaldehyde hair products escaped similar legal action and FDA attention.  

   The federal Occupational Safety and Heath Administration has made a more concerted effort to protect workers. In early 2011, it issued a hazard alert to salons. That year and the next, it cited 49 workplaces, including manufacturers, distributors, beauty schools and salons, for violations including failing to protect their workers from formaldehyde and failing to communicate the dangers of these products to hair stylists and customers.

   Enforcement punishes offenses that have already happened.  It does not prevent salons from using products with dangerous levels of formaldehyde. Nor does it protect consumers who purchase such products on the Internet.

   Reform of federal law could mean the end of formaldehyde-loaded hair straighteners  

   Although Congress has frequently updated the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 to modernize the FDA’s powers to keep food and drugs safe, it has largely ignored the cosmetics provisions. The FDA cannot order a mandatory recall of bottles of Brazilian Blowout already in salons or private homes.  To seize dangerous cosmetics, the FDA must persuade the Department of Justice to file a federal lawsuit against a company, an exercise Justice is unlikely to undertake in a non-emergency. The constraints on the FDA’s authority and competing demands on its resources and personnel present obstacles to the agency’s regulation of formaldehyde in hair products, and that’s not likely to change until Congress changes the law itself.  

   The Personal Care Products Safety Act, introduced by Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), would strengthen and modernize federal regulation of personal care products under the 1938 law. The Feinstein-Collins bill would require companies to ensure that their formulations were safe before marketing them.  It would give the FDA more tools to protect the public, including authority to order a mandatory recall.  It would require the FDA to review five risky chemicals per year, starting with formaldehyde, and empower the FDA to restrict the use of any cosmetic ingredients found to be harmful.

   Executives in the personal care products industry often boast that they police themselves. Obviously, they don’t. The long-running Brazilian Blowout saga presents a frightening example of how profits trump public safety. Injuries are piling up. Many stylists have quit their jobs because exposure to formaldehyde has made them too sick to work. 

   This situation needs to change. Congress should enact the Personal Care Products Safety Act to ensure that the FDA has the power to take these poisonous products off of the market once and for all.

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7. 35 Firms Fight Echa Decision On Nano Silicon Dioxide

   Aug 20, 2015 | Chemical Watch

   By Geraint Roberts

   A group of 35 EU-based companies have asked Echa’s Board of Appeal to overrule the agency’s decision to make silicon dioxide subject to evaluation under REACH because of initial grounds for concern, relating to “the substance characterisation, nanoparticles and toxicity of different forms of the substance”.

   The case has wider importance for nanomaterials. If the contested Decision is allowed to stand, it could set precedents for the evaluation of other nano substances, such as silver and titanium dioxide, which are also subject to evaluation.

   The firms argue that none of these grounds are criteria for inclusion of a substance on the Community Rolling Action Plan (Corap) of substances for evaluation. As a result, they say, Echa’s decision to include it was adopted in breach of the REACH Regulation (Article 44).

   They have also asked the board to annul the contested Decision, sent to the companies by the evaluating competent authority earlier this year. They say that since the decision to include the substance in the Corap was illegal, the contested Decision lacks a legal basis.

   Furthermore, they say Echa has no powers under the REACH Regulation to seek information on “forms” of substances.

   The evaluation, says the Board of Appeal, “was targeted to the characterisation of the substance, human health hazard assessment in relation to the inhalation route and exposure assessment of the registered synthetic amorphous silica (SAS).”

   According to a 2013 report by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), nano SAS is "widely used as an additive in a broad variety of final products, for example, as a functional filler in polymers, and to add strength to rubber (for example, in car tyres), paint and varnishes. Other examples are addition to paper to create different paper qualities, and to food as an anti-lumping agent."  The report quotes SRI Consulting  as saying precipitated SAS "is the most abundant nanomaterial on the market in terms of quantity".

   Echa's contested Decision asks for the following information, by March 2017: information on seven physico-chemical properties of each individual SAS form;a sub-chronic toxicity study in rats via the inhalation route, using four specific forms;information on the uses of each individual form of SAS;information on each of eight physico-chemical properties of “each individual surface treated SAS form”; and“all toxicological information on surface-treated SAS as manufactured, imported and/or placed on the market as available to the registrant(s)”, and a scientific justification that substantiates if and why the toxicological information on untreated SAS can be used for assessing the safety of surface-treated SAS.

   In a separate case, two companies, Grace GmbH & Co KG and Advanced Refining Technologies GmbH, have asked the Board of appeal to annul the same contested Decision.

   One of their arguments is that Echa is not empowered to classify SAS as a nanomaterial.

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Chemical Security News

8. Senators Push EPA Watchdog On Mine Spill

   Aug 20, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

   By Devin Henry

   A bipartisan group of Western senators are asking the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) inspector general to consider a litany of aspects of this month’s toxic waste spill in Colorado. 

   The senators, led by Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), said they want the inspector general to probe everything from the work EPA contractors were doing in the Gold King Mine before the Aug. 5 spill to the safeguards the agency put in place to prevent other spills in the future.In a letter sent Wednesday to the EPA's inspector general, the senators acknowledged that the agency has taken responsibility for the incident. But they said the inspector general report will “assist in determining the details of the accident, provide a better opportunity to improve future remediation projects and prevent spills of this nature at other legacy mines across the West.” 

   Lawmakers included a list of 13 questions they had about the incident, including the expertise of contractors inspecting the Gold King Mine and the agency’s legal requirements for responding to it and coordinating with local communities. 

   “Including these questions in an [inspector general] report, along with a full investigation of the Gold King Mine accident, will help prevent future spills of this magnitude and ensure that recovery for tribal, state and local economies is expeditiously put on the best path forward,” the letter said. 

   The EPA inspector general said Monday that it was launching an investigation into the spill, which sent 3 million gallons of toxic sludge in the Animas River. Lawmakers have promised to probe the incident on their own when they return to Washington next month.

   Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.) also signed Gardner’s letter.
   

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Energy and Environment News

9. Second Circuit Affirms New York Fracking Lease Decision

   Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

   By Leslie A. Pappas

   A federal appeals court has upheld a decision that allowed leases between landowners and oil and gas companies to expire following New York's effective state ban on hydraulic fracturing (Beardslee v. Inflection Energy LLC, 2d. Cir., No. 12-4897-cv, 8/19/15).

   The U.S. Court of the Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that a federal district court's March 31 decision in favor of landowners was correct, affirming the court's opinion that ‘force majeure' provisions in oil and gas leases did not serve to extend the leases' terms.

   The case affects leases between more than 30 landowners in Tioga County, N.Y., and three energy companies: Inflection Energy LLC of Denver, Victory Energy Corp. of Austin, Texas, and Megaenergy Inc. of Ithaca, N.Y.

   “My clients are very pleased with the decision,” said Robert R. Jones of Coughlin & Gerhart LLP, who represented the landowners. “This should be the end of the case as far as we're concerned.”

   The ongoing litigation had made it difficult for landowners to refinance or sell their properties because they were “encumbered by these oil and gas leases,” which expired in 2012 because there had been no oil or gas production for 10 years, Jones told Bloomberg BNA Aug. 20. Now they are finally “out from under these encumbrances.”

   Force Majeure

   The landowners sued in federal court in 2012 after the energy companies tried to extend the leases beyond their initial five-year terms. Landowners maintained their leases had expired. The companies argued that the state's ban on fracking caused drilling delays and triggered “force majeure” provisions in the leases, thus changing the leases' “habendum” clauses and extending the terms of the leases.

   Force majeure is a legal term that refers to events that occur outside the control of the parties of a contract, such as an act of God. The habendum clause generally sets the duration of a lease.

   The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York ruled in favor of the landowners that the leases had expired (152 DEN A-10, 8/7/14).

   Upon the industry's appeal, the federal court on July 31, 2014, called on the New York State Court of Appeals to decide two questions: whether New York's moratorium on hydraulic fracturing was a force majeure event, and whether the force majeure clause modified that habendum clause to extend the lease's primary terms.

   New York's highest court ruled on March 31 that force majeure could not extend the primary term of the lease, while declining to rule on the question of whether fracking constituted a force majeure event. The court said the question had become “academic” given that force majeure did not force an extension of the lease.

   The energy companies asked for the New York Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision and were denied.

   Case Closed

   The Aug. 19 opinion affirmed the district court's decision and reasoning, effectively closing the case.

   Thomas S. West of the West Firm PLLC, who represented Inflection Energy, told Bloomberg BNA in a phone call Aug. 20 that the court's decision “was the end of the line” for the case and that the energy companies would not try to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

   West said the case centered on “pretty straightforward contract language” and the courts' interpretation about the force majeure provisions was “unique and hard to accept.”

   “It just demonstrates that it's hard for the oil and gas industry to get a fair shake in New York,” he said.

    

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10. Anti-Fracking Forces Sue Ohio Secretary of State

    Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Bebe Raupe

    Ohio residents looking to ban fracking through community rights charters adopted by popular vote are suing the secretary of state for denying their initiatives a place on the November ballot (Ohio ex rel v. Husted, Ohio, No. 2015-1371, 8/19/15. The lawsuit filed Aug. 19 with the Ohio Supreme Court accuses Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) with improperly refusing the proposals and repudiating “the peoples' right to initiative,” even though residents of Medina, Fulton and Athens counties collected enough signatures for ballot qualification. Husted said Aug. 13 that provisions in each initiative tied to oil and gas exploration represent “an attempt to circumvent state law” and would undoubtedly be overturned in court (158 DEN A-5, 8/17/15). Citizens of the three counties, each with substantial fracking potential, are asking the court for an expedited decision in hopes that their proposals can still be voted on this fall. Earlier this year, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that state law supersedes “home rule” when it comes to oil and gas drilling (32 DEN A-15, 2/18/15). The complaint is available at http://www.sconet.state.oh.us/pdf_viewer/pdf_viewer.aspx?pdf=773902.pdf.

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11. To Ease Climate Change, U.S. Should End Drilling On Federal Land - Study

    Aug 20, 2015 | Reuters

    By Chris Arsenault

    Up to 450 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases would be kept out of the atmosphere if the U.S. government stopped leasing federal lands to fossil fuel companies, according to a study released on Wednesday.

    The government currently allows energy companies to lease federal lands for drilling, and environmental groups say if the practice is not halted, the United States will be unable to meet its obligations to combat climate change.

    The oil, coal and gas under lands owned by the federal government constitute up to half of the potential emissions from all remaining U.S. fossil fuels, according to the analysis by the consultancy EcoShift on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity and Friends of the Earth environmental groups.

    "Our government has already leased more public fossil fuels then can be safely burned," Marissa Knodel, a campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said in a statement.

    "Each new lease puts us farther down the path toward climate catastrophe, and is a direct contradiction to the president's pledge to attack the climate crisis head-on."

    The potential greenhouse gas emissions released if all of the energy reserves buried under federal lands were burned is equivalent to a quarter of the total international emissions that can be released if the world is to limit global warming to below 2 degrees, the study said.

    United Nations scientists say that rises above 2 degrees would cause a climate disaster.

    U.S. government agencies do not track the amount of greenhouse gas emissions coming from federal leasing of land to energy companies, environmentalists said.

    The study is thought to be the first attempt to measure the pollution potential of fossil fuel reserves on U.S. government land, the study's author said.

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12. EPA Methane Rule: A Good Start Toward Meeting Administration’s Landmark Goal

    Aug 20, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund

    By Mark Brownstein

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took a big step this week, announcing the nation’s first methane pollution standards for the oil and gas industry. But to understand the impact of these new draft rules, it’s important to look at what they do – and what they don’t – and measure them against the nation’s bold but readily achievable goals set out by the Obama administration earlier this year.

    The president’s target of reducing methane emissions by 40 to 45 percent in the next decade is historic – currently there are no national limits on methane pollution from the oil and gas industry. It’s also critical to protecting the climate and public health – methane packs more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year timeframe, and is released along with other toxic pollutants.

    The scale of the problem is massive, with industry releasing more than 7 million tons of methane each year. It could also be even bigger than we realize. A new study published just this week reported unrecorded methane emissions from thousands of facilities in only one part of the supply chain. It concluded gathering facility emissions were eight times higher than estimated, a staggering figure that if included in EPA’s inventory would increase current estimates of total industry emissions by 20 percent.

    So, how does the new proposal measure up? Here is our first take on some of the key elements:

    A down payment on the nation’s goal

    EDF has always believed that a direct approach is the best approach. So it’s great to see that EPA addressed methane head-on. But targeting existing sources of methane pollution will be critical to achieving the nation’s reduction goal, and EPA’s proposed rules deal largely with methane from new and modified sources, leaving 6.7 million metric tons on the table from infrastructure supporting the 1 million wells already in operation. Taken together, EPA projects these actions will reduce methane by 560 to 620 thousand short tons which, for context, represents about 7 to 8 percent of the total emissions from the oil and gas supply chain in the 2012 Inventory.

    While the EPA rules are just one of several actions that will help the nation cut methane pollution by 45 percent, they are one of the most important.

    Additional actions will be needed to meet this goal, including decisive action to tackle the biggest part of the problem—emissions from wells, pipelines, and facilities in operation now. Indeed, over the next few years, 90 percent of emissions will come from existing, not new sources.

    The proposed standards include a pathway for addressing existing sources in non-attainment areas, through control technique guidelines (CTGs) to get at volatile organic compounds, an ozone precursor. For many of the existing sources covered by CTGs, EPA leverages the same technologies and practices that the agency proposed to apply to new sources in the rest of its rules – demonstrating that we have the technologies to cost-effectively deal with new and existing emission sources. Indeed, states like Colorado and Wyoming have effectively applied standards to reduce oil and gas emissions from existing and new operations based on these technologies, and EPA should follow.

    Frequent Leak Monitoring is a Priority

    We know that leaks are a big source of oil and gas methane emissions and that regular inspection and maintenance can go a long way toward reducing the emissions. It’s a good thing that EPA’s proposal included leak detection and repair, and that these requirements apply to both well sites and compressor stations across the natural gas supply chain. They also require operators to look for leaks at components and pieces of equipment (like storage tanks) that can be very significant sources of emissions.

    Frequent monitoring for leaks is critical to mitigating methane emissions, as leaks can emerge anywhere at any time and can be difficult to predict. EPA’s proposal included provisions for semi-annual and annual monitoring, and in certain cases, also proposed to allow facilities to reduce the frequency of their monitoring requirements.  States like Colorado and Wyoming have recognized that more frequent monitoring is necessary and highly-cost effective to stay on top of emissions. EPA has requested comment on this and it will be important for the final standards to reflect these states’ leading practices.

    Liquids unloading sidelined, for now

    Last fall, EPA issued a set of five technical white papers, analyzing the biggest sources of methane and cost-effective technologies capable of reducing those emissions. EPA’s new standards address new and modified sources in four of these five categories—equipment leaks, pneumatic devices, compressors, and oil well completions. It took some good steps here, including extending green completions to oil wells, as leading states Colorado and Wyoming have already done. And, these requirements apply across segments—including production, gathering and boosting, processing, and transmission and storage.

    EPA took comment on, but did not propose to address, the fifth source—liquids unloading, a common maintenance practice operators use to purge liquids that accumulate during production.  We know from scientific research that this is a big source of emissions, and states like Colorado have already taken action to address these and standards for liquids unloading will be an important feature of a rigorous final rule.

    Let’s Get Going

    The lion’s share to the reductions needed can be achieved simply by transforming the best practices already demonstrated by companies in the industry into the standard practices used throughout the industry.

    Those who have first-hand experience successfully putting these practices to use didn’t shy away from sharing their thoughts on the rule. Some of the more responsible companies in the field, who have already seen the benefits of methane reduction efforts, showed support for EPA’s action, despite the typical outcry against regulation by many of the usual industry players.

    And from Colorado, which in 2014 became the first state to directly regulate methane emissions, Governor John Hickenlooper also put his support behind the rule, saying that “protecting public health and the environment, and promoting our energy industry are not mutually exclusive endeavors.”

    It’s time to translate this success and support into action – working over the coming months to strengthen EPA’s rules so we can put them into practice and start achieving the reductions we need to protect our health, environment and economy.

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13. EPA Targets Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Operations

    Aug 21, 2015 | National Geographic

    By Tim Profeta

    On Tuesday the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took another step to make good on the Obama administration’s pledge to limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions 26–28 percent by 2025 by proposing the first methane emissions rules for the nation’s oil and gas industry.

    Reducing emissions of methane, which have 25 times the heat-trapping capacity of carbon dioxide, is a central component of the administration’s overall climate strategy. The administration’s goal is to cut methane emissions 40 to 45 percent from 2012 levels by 2025. The EPA expects to release its final methane rules next year, after it hears public comments.

    “Today, through our cost-effective proposed standards, we are underscoring our commitment to reducing the pollution fueling climate change and protecting public health while supporting responsible energy development, transparency and accountability,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a statement. “Cleaner-burning energy sources like natural gas are key compliance options for our Clean Power Plan and we are committed to ensuring safe and responsible production that supports a robust clean energy economy.”

    The rules target new and modified oil and natural gas operations, but as Greenwire reports, they could eventually trigger regulation of methane leakage from the entire sector (subscription). The proposed rules call for oil and gas processing and transmission facilities to locate and repair methane leaks, capture natural gas from hydraulically fractured oil wells, and limit emissions from equipment—actions netting climate benefits of $120 to $150 million in 2025, according to the EPA.

    As they are now, the proposed rules could achieve a cut of 25 to 30 percent by 2025, according to Janet McCabe, acting assistant EPA administrator for air and radiation. To meet the full 40–45 percent goal, the administration expects to rely on voluntary efforts, state regulations and a Department of the Interior rule covering drilling on public lands.

    The rules supplement recently announced voluntary initiatives to address methane emissions at existing wells—emissions that may be greater than the EPA estimates according to new research.

    A study conducted by scientists at Colorado State University and published in Environmental Science & Technology, quantifies emissions from thousands of gathering facilities, which consolidate gas from wells and feed it into processing plants or pipelines. These emissions have been largely unreflected in federal statistics, the report says, but may be the largest methane source in the oil and gas supply chain. These newly identified emissions would increase total emissions from that chain in EPA’s current Greenhouse Gas Inventory by approximately 25 percent.

    Climate Action Declaration

    Muslim scholars from 20 countries issued an “Islamic Declaration on Climate Change” on Tuesday, calling on the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims to work to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and to commit to renewable energy sources.

    The declaration drawing on Islamic teachings and to be presented at the global climate summit in Paris was finalized at the International Islamic Climate Change Symposium in Istanbul this week.

    “The pace of global climate change today is of a different order of magnitude from the gradual changes that previously occurred throughout the most recent era, the Cenozoic,” the declaration reads. “Moreover, it is human-induced: we have now become a force dominating nature. Our species, though selected to be a caretaker or steward on the earth, has been the cause of such corruption and devastation on it that we are in danger [of] ending life as we know it on our planet.”

    The declaration asks Muslim countries, particularly those that are “well-off” and “oil-producing,” to lead the greenhouse gas phase out and to provide financial and technical support for climate change efforts by less-affluent states.

    Alaska and Climate Change

    Climate change could exacerbate one of Alaska’s worst wildfire seasons—one that has burned some 5 million acres of tundra and forests and ignited fears that large stores of carbon are being emitted into the atmosphere.

    “We really need to start considering the long-term implications of big fires that are being predicted,” said Nicky Sundt, a climate change expert for the World Wildlife Fund. “In the Arctic, you have a lot of carbon locked up, and the fires will release that. We need to start thinking seriously about the carbon emissions from these fires.”

    A recent Climate Central analysis shows that in the last 60 years large wildfires in Alaska have essentially doubled and that the wildfire season is 40 percent (35 days) longer than it was in the 1950s, mainly due to rapid warming in the globe’s northern reaches.

    “The primary driver is temperature. The warmer we get, the more fires we seem to get,” Mike Flannigan, a wildland fire expert at the University of Alberta, said. “We need a 15 percent increase in precipitation to account for the warming. Very few climate models suggest there will be an increase in precipitation to compensate for the increase in temperature. The fuels will be drier in the future and it will be easy to start the spread of fire.”

    Of particular concern—drying of peat, which then becomes susceptible to burning and release of centuries’ worth of carbon in the span of a few hours of intense fire. Teresa Hollingsworth, a researcher and ecology professor with the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told NPR that many of the state’s fires burned seven feet deep, where vast amounts of carbon are stored.

    “The carbon released from fire emissions during a large fire year in Alaska is roughly equivalent to 1 percent of the global fossil fuel and land use emissions,” said Dave McGuire, a research scientist and leader of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Alaska Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, in a recent press release.

    Obama is visiting the state at the end of this month to highlight climate change impacts that go beyond fires.

    “In Alaska, glaciers are melting,” Obama said in a video released last week. “The hunting and fishing upon which generations have depended for their way of life and for their jobs are being threatened. Storm surges once held at bay now endanger entire villages. As Alaskan permafrost melts, some homes are even sinking into the ground. The state’s God-given natural treasures are all at risk.”

    The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

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14. No End in Sight for Oil Glut

    Aug 20, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal

    By Russell Gold

    When oil prices started to edge down a year ago, most energy mavens thought the drop would be small and short-lived.

    Instead, the price of crude has plunged by almost 60% from its 2014 peak—and suddenly looks likely to stay low for months and maybe years to come. The reason: In the global battle for market share, nobody has backed down. Nobody has even blinked. Not Saudi Arabia, not the U.S., and not even troubled producers from Russia to Iraq. Everyone who can seems locked into pumping as much oil as possible.

    Far from going out of business, American oil companies have stunned their global rivals by maintaining or even adding production as U.S. prices nose-dived from $100 a barrel to $70 late last year to, as of Thursday, just above $40. Even more surprisingly, the Saudis have actually increased their production in the face of falling prices, in what analysts say is a pre-emptive effort to keep competitors like Iraq from stealing customers in Asia.

    The result is the energy-industry version of trench warfare, with producers all trying to gain an inch of market share no matter the cost. And it is producing winners and losers around the world, luring American drivers into gas-guzzling pickup trucks while sending the Venezuelan economy into chaos.

    While it might make sense for producing countries or companies to cut back and erase the glut, there is no political will or business rationale to do so, analysts say, as all participants need to keep cash coming in.Advertisement

    “Everyone is in the mode of, ‘Oil prices are down and I need to produce as much as I can to make up for it,’” said Jamie Webster, a senior director at IHS Energy, an energy consultant. “That makes lots of sense on a micro level, but on a macro level it brings us to the situation we are at right now.”

    Crude-oil markets were mixed on Thursday, as the price of a barrel in the U.S. inched up to $40.94, while the price of a barrel in Europe fell to $46.19. The price of gasoline in the U.S. fell slightly to $2.65 a gallon, from $3.44 a year ago according to AAA, and there were stations in 12 states selling gasoline for less than $2.

    Until last summer, global oil prices had been relatively stable, shedding their historical volatility to trade slightly above $100 a barrel for a few years.

    But behind the scenes, the U.S. oil boom was unsettling things. Using horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, drillers found and pumped millions of new barrels of oil.

    Between 2008 and 2015, American oil production rose by 75%, topping nine million barrels a day late last year.

    Meanwhile, global demand for oil appeared to soften, and prices began to weaken, too. Saudi Arabia faced a choice. It could cut production to prop up global prices, which would allow Iraq and others to snap up market share in Asia. Or it could maintain its output, even if that meant oversupplying global markets and pushing down prices even more.

    In a dramatic meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in November, the Saudis chose to stay the course and let prices fall.

    But recently, the country has done something even more unexpected: it has opened up its wells. Last fall, at the time of the meeting, the Saudis were producing 9.6 million barrels a day. Last month, it was 10.4 million barrels. OPEC, which no longer dictates production quotas for its members, has a 30-million barrel a day output target that it routinely exceeds.

    Despite predictions, U.S. shale producers didn’t panic—and neither did their bankers. Instead, they focused on lowering the cost of producing oil. Service companies cut their prices to keep their crews working. The pace of U.S. oil growth slowed but only showed signs of flattening in May.

    U.S. output may now be starting to fall, but many companies are still increasing production. Some are cagily refusing to disclose their drilling plans, perhaps hoping that others cut back first.

    “It is hard to make a sensible outlook for next year,” Occidental Petroleum Corp. Chief Executive Steve Chazen told investors earlier this month. “With the volatility of the prices, we are loath to say exactly what we are going to do.”

    “We’re battling an economic war against the fall in oil prices,” President Nicolás Maduro said in a televised address Saturday. Earlier this month, the leftist leader said he was campaigning for an emergency meeting between OPEC and Russia to rescue oil prices.

    Oil producers such as Egypt, Angola, Gabon and Indonesia have cut domestic fuel subsidies as crude-oil export revenue has tanked.

    In corporate boardrooms, falling oil prices have led companies to reconsider some of the complex, expensive oil projects that looked feasible in an era of $100 crude.

    They have suspended work on $52.9 billion worth of deep-water projects that could tap 2.8 billion barrels of oil, according to an analysis by Rystad Energy in Oslo. They also pushed back $47 billion in oil-sands projects holding 8.2 billion barrels.

    The International Energy Agency, a global watchdog formed by advanced economies, recently said it expected global demand for oil to grow “stronger than anticipated” next year.

    But as the IEA forecast was released, China’s central bank devalued its currency amid growing apprehension that the giant Asian economy was slowing. Its increasing thirst for crude helped drive up global demand and prices for the past few years.

    Another wild card is Iran. If sanctions are lifted under a nuclear agreement, Iran is expected to increase its oil exports. This could add even more supply to a world struggling to absorb current production.

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15. Western Gas Market Shrinks as Eastern Supplies Expand

    Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Christine Buurma

    Eight years ago, a group of companies led by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners began building a $6.8 billion pipeline to carry natural gas from America's Rocky Mountains to fuel-hungry markets in the East.

    Then came the shale gas revolution. The eastern U.S. is now home to the country's most productive formation, the Marcellus, and the 1,698-mile Rockies Express is carrying lower-cost gas in the opposite direction.

    On Aug. 1, the pipeline was partially reversed, shrinking the market for Colorado and Wyoming drillers who've seen their share prices fall as much as 93 percent from 2008 highs.

    The burgeoning supply from Pennsylvania and West Virginia has transformed the U.S. gas market, redirecting pipeline flows and sending prices plummeting. Output from the Niobrara shale formation in Colorado and Wyoming has dropped 12 percent from an all-time high in 2012 as production from the region competes with the Marcellus shale formation, where output is near record levels.

    “There has been a lot less demand for western gas because of an abundance of supply in the Marcellus, and the Rockies Express reversal is exaggerating that effect,” Aaron Calder, an analyst at Gelber & Associates in Houston, said Aug. 19 by phone. “Marcellus gas is very cheap to produce and it's been a very prolific play.”

    Rockies Pipeline

    The Rockies Express pipeline was built in three segments by Kinder Morgan, ConocoPhillips and Sempra Energy, with the final leg becoming operational in 2009. Tallgrass Energy Partners bought Kinder's 50 percent stake in 2012 and operates the line. When construction began in 2007, gas production in the West had been isolated from eastern markets for decades, and Northeast output was negligible.

    Circumstances have changed dramatically. Supplies from the Marcellus have surged 14-fold since 2007, and production from there and the neighboring Utica formation has accounted for 85 percent of shale supply growth since the start of 2012, government data show.

    The bounty has been bad news for Rockies producers, who have struggled to compete with the lower-cost output. Gas at the Dominion South-Leidy hub in Pennsylvania has averaged $1.44 per million British thermal units this year, compared with $2.59 at the Opal hub in Wyoming. The price gap isn't closing any time soon, according to Macquarie Capital.

    “More competition is certainly not helpful for Rockies producers,” Paul Grigel, an analyst at Macquarie Capital in Denver, said in an Aug. 13 phone interview. “The Marcellus is truly a world-class asset, and even with transportation costs factored in, it can unseat Rockies gas.”

    Drillers Adapt

    Western drillers, including Encana Corp. and Bill Barrett Corp., have tried to adapt by boosting output from wells that yield oil and so-called natural gas liquids such as ethane and propane. Natural gas accounted for 18 percent of Bill Barrett's production in the second quarter, compared with 93 percent in the same period in 2010.

    “While we still have substantial exposure to natural gas, the majority of our capital over the past two years is being invested in growing our total liquids production from the Eagle Ford, Permian and Duvernay plays,” Jay Averill, a spokesman for Encana in Calgary, said by e-mail Aug. 17.

    Larry Busnardo, a spokesman for Bill Barrett in Denver, said the company is focused on oil production in Colorado's Denver-Julesburg basin. The company has cut capital spending, lowering drilling and well-completion costs by 25 percent this year, compared with the fourth quarter of 2014, according to an Aug. 17 investor presentation.

    Falling Prices

    The oil-focused strategy worked better when West Texas Intermediate crude futures traded at $100 a barrel, compared with $41.25 at 11:34 a.m. New York time on Aug. 20. Gas liquids, or NGLs, have also tumbled, with propane at the Mont Belvieu hub in Texas down 64 percent from a year earlier.

    “Anybody who has shifted to oil and NGLs is coming under pressure,” Macquarie's Grigel said.

    Western producers have one gas-hungry market for their supply: California. Transporting Marcellus gas to the West Coast is costly, so the Rockies area will retain its position as the major supplier for the region, Grigel said. Demand from industrial users in the Golden State, the second-biggest consumer of the fuel after Texas, climbed 18 percent in the five years through 2014.

    That may be little consolation for investors in drillers like Bill Barrett, which slumped to a record low of $4.27 a share on Aug. 6.

    “Rockies producers are in a tough spot,” said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital LLC, a New York-based hedge fund that focuses on energy, said by phone Aug. 13. “They're now isolated geographically, and it's hard to compete with the economics of the Marcellus.”

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16. The Energy Policy That America Needs

    Aug 20, 2015 | Financial Times

    Energy is starting to emerge as an issue for the 2016 US presidential election. This week Hillary Clinton, still the frontrunner for the Democratic party’s nomination, marked a sharp break from President Barack Obama, saying the Arctic oil drilling that he supports was “not worth the risk”.

    Her comment was a low-cost way for Mrs Clinton to tack to the left, to head off the rising threat from her “democratic socialist” challenger, Bernie Sanders. The only company actively exploring the US Arctic is Royal Dutch Shell, headquartered in The Hague. The other principal losers from a drilling ban would be Alaskans who were unlikely to vote for Mrs Clinton in the general election anyway.
    

    Her anti-oil position on the Arctic cannot necessarily be read across to other issues, including the planned Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the US, a subject on which Mrs Clinton has remained carefully enigmatic.

    Still, her opposition to Arctic oil exploration is misguided. Although conditions in the region are undeniably challenging, drilling is safe if conducted properly, and uncertainties about the long-term future of energy could make Arctic reserves a useful insurance policy.

    More fundamentally, she is aiming at the wrong target. Banning oil production in the Arctic, and blocking Keystone XL, as environmental campaigners hope, would affect only the supply of oil in the US. If Mrs Clinton is serious about helping the environment by curbing greenhouse gas emissions, while improving US energy security, she needs policies that will curb demand.

    If demand remains unchanged, restricting US oil production will merely forego economic activity and undermine energy security for no net environmental benefit.

    Mr Obama has, to his credit, been attempting to address oil demand with more stringent fuel efficiency standards for vehicles.

    US oil consumption this year is running at about 1.4m barrels per day below its peak in 2005. However, much of that decline is accounted for by a weak economy and high crude prices. The steady economic recovery and the oil price crash are helping consumption rebound, and this year it is expected to hit its highest level since 2008.

    The weakness of oil, which has sent US retail fuel prices tumbling, has created a historic opportunity to use a more effective means to curb consumption: raising the federal tax on petrol. US fuel taxes are a national embarrassment. The federal tax has not been raised since 1993, meaning that it has been dwindling in real terms, and overall taxes are the lowest in the developed world. They fall well short of estimates of the external costs of fuel use, such as pollution and congestion. FT series

    The New Oil Order

    How the energy landscape could be reconfigured by the dramatic slump in crude prices
    
    Further reading

    Because almost all the revenue from the federal tax goes to the Highway Trust Fund, which pays for spending on roads, freezing it has starved US infrastructure of investment.

    An increase would have adverse distributional consequences; in many parts of the US a car is a necessity, not a luxury. But those could be mitigated by offsetting cuts in taxes on income.

    Lawmakers in nine states have approved increases in their fuel taxes this year, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Mrs Clinton and any presidential candidate who wants to be taken seriously on energy should be prepared to back the same move at a federal level.

    The US has been enthusiastic about urging other countries to cut their energy subsidies. It is high time it took a look at its own.

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17. New Orleans, Anchorage in Climate Resilience Pilot

    Aug 21, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

    By Andrea Vittorio

    New Orleans and Anchorage, Alaska—both of which will play host to the president in August—were among 10 cities selected by the Obama administration Aug. 20 for a new AmeriCorps program focused on building resilience in communities especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

    First, on Aug. 27, President Barack Obama will mark the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, where AmeriCorps members will soon be deployed in neighborhoods with high environmental risk and high percentages of poverty. When Katrina hit the city in 2005, it was low-income, low-lying neighborhoods such as those in the lower Ninth Ward that bore the brunt of the pain, while more affluent residents in the Garden District and other areas outside the flood plain were better protected from the storm (132 DEN A-4, 7/10/15).

    On Aug. 31, as part of a multi-day tour of the Alaskan Arctic, Obama will highlight the consequences of rapid warming in Anchorage, where resilience efforts will focus on ways to help the city contend with high food and energy costs (157 DEN A-3, 8/14/15).

    AmeriCorps will also help Boulder, Colo.; Chicago; El Paso, Texas; Minot, N.D.; Norfolk, Va.; Phoenix; Pittsburgh; and Tulsa, Okla., brace against flooding, sea level rise, extreme heat, wildfires and other threats.

    Projects will range from installing microgrids to setting up lines of support for residents who may need extra help in an emergency, such as the elderly and disabled.

    The idea for the program came from talks between administration officials and a task force of state, local and tribal leaders who, over the course of a year, suggested ways the federal government could better serve their needs when it comes to dealing with climate change (222 DEN A-2, 11/18/14).

    The winning cities were selected by three federal agencies and the Corporation for National Community Service, which administers AmeriCorps, in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation and Cities of Service.

     

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18. Courts Split Over Staying CWA Rule Suits Pending Consolidation

    Aug 20, 2015 | InsideEPA

    By Bridget DiCosmo

    Federal district courts are split over whether to stay a slew of lawsuits filed over EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule until a judicial panel on multi-district litigation responds to the Justice Department's (DOJ) push to consolidate all cases in one court, with four district courts granting DOJ stay request but one rejecting it.

    At press time the division appeared to be one ruling against a stay, four backing a stay, and decisions still pending in at least five other district court cases. At the appellate level, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit has consolidated litigation over the rule in one suit, and DOJ is trying to have the overall challenge to the rule heard in that court.

    Many environmental statutes, including the Clean Air Act and the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act, provide that judicial review of final agency rules must proceed in a court of appeals as opposed to a federal district court. But section 509 of the CWA says that only specific types of rules must be initiated at the appellate level.

    Section 509 of the water law says that legal challenges to approval or promulgation of any effluent limitation “or other limitation” under sections 301, 302, 306, or 405, permit approvals under section 402, or individual water quality control strategies under section 304 must seek initial review in an appeals court.

    However, the jurisdiction rule does not fall within a specific section of the water law, and so the open question is whether it will be considered as an “other limitation” under the courts. The legal uncertainty has led to the myriad lawsuits over the rule filed at both the district court and appellate court levels.

    The jurisdiction rule, issued jointly by EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers is designed to resolve uncertainty about the reach of the law following the 2006 Supreme Court ruling Rapanos v. United States that created competing tests for assessing CWA jurisdiction. The administration and its supporters say it resolves doubts about the law's reach, but critics say it expands the scope of the CWA far beyond what Congress intended.

    The rule is scheduled to take effect on Aug. 28, but state and industry challenges to the rule filed in at least 10 district courts are seeking preliminary injunctions to block the administration from implementing the rule until the cases have been decided -- though none of those motions have yet been granted.

    Pending Litigation

    Four district courts have granted DOJ's request to stay litigation over the rule pending a decision from the judicial panel on multi-district litigation on whether to consolidate the suits. However, a district court in North Dakota recently denied the bid for a stay of a case filed in that court, saying DOJ failed to show it was necessary.

    “In this court’s view, plaintiffs have shown a 'fair possibility' that a stay would result in damage to them, and defendants have not demonstrated 'a clear case of hardship or inequity' as is required under Landis.,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Alice Senechal of the U.S. District Court for the District of North Dakota writes in an Aug. 18 order, citing the 1936 Supreme Court ruling in Landis v. North American Company.

    Senechal, presiding over the suit, States of North Dakota, et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has not yet ruled on the coalition of 13 states' Aug. 10 motion for a preliminary injunction to block the agency's final CWA rule from taking effect, saying in the order that the issue has not yet been fully briefed.

    The court indicates in an Aug. 19 order that a hearing on the injunctive relief may be scheduled either Aug. 28 or in October, depending on scheduling conflicts with other cases on the court docket.

    The states in North Dakota, et al., argued in their Aug. 10 motion that they seek postponement of the rule's implementation to “maintain the status quo while the serious legal failings” can be addressed by the courts.

    The motion cites a memo from the Corps' Lance Wood, assistant chief counsel for environmental law and regulatory programs, to Major General John Peabody, which says the rule is “not likely to survive judicial review in federal courts” -- one of several Corps memos about development of the rule released by House Republicans last month. The memos include substantive, often strongly worded critiques of the rule and EPA's economic and scientific analysis supporting the rule and are seen as boosting critics' claims about legal flaws in the policy.

    Granting Stays

    Meanwhile, judges in four of the 10 district courts weighing challenges to the rule have opted to grant the DOJ's requests for stays, whereas the other five district courts are continuing to accept briefing on the issue.

    The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Galveston Division, in American Farm Bureau Federation v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in an Aug. 3 order signed by Judge George C. Hanks, agreed to stay the litigation pending a ruling from the judicial panel on multi-district litigation on DOJ's push to consolidate the cases and transfer them to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Hanks also granted a stay in State of Texas v. EPA Aug. 14 in that court, saying “good cause exists” for the stay.

    On July 31, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma granted a stay of litigation over the rule in State of Oklahoma, et al. v. EPA, and Chamber of Commerce, et al., v. EPA.

    In the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, District Court Judge Lisa Wood heard oral arguments Aug. 12 on a stay request and motion for a preliminary injunction sought by Georgia in State of George v. EPA. Wood said that she would rule on the motions by Aug. 28 when the rule is slated to take effect, according to the clerk's minutes.

    “The judge looked at the jurisdictional question issue of the government's” stay request, and appeared skeptical of EPA's argument that the litigation should be stayed in the event that the 6th Circuit decides it has jurisdiction to hear the overall challenge to the rule, says on industry source who attended the hearing. DOJ argued in a July 31 motion for an injunction the states filed in the federal district court in Georgia that because it identifies what "water bodies will require CWA permits when pollutants are discharged into them rather than purely exempt a category of activities from permitting requirements," the rule constitutes both a "limitation" under Section 509(b)(1)(E) and an underlying permitting regulation under Section 509(b)(1)(F).

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19. Inhofe Warns EPA 'Waters' Rule Could Regulate Urban Stormwater Systems

    Aug 20, 2015 | InsideEPA

    By Bridget DiCosmo

    Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) is asking EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to respond to his concerns that the agencies' joint Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule could subject urban sewer and stormwater systems to federal authority under the water law for the first time and hinder their ability to protect public health.

    “Under your radical expansion of federal regulatory authority, these sewer and stormwater systems could now be regulated as waters of the United States, precluding their use to protect the public health and welfare of city residents,” wrote Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee, in an Aug. 20 letter to EPA's de factor water chief Ken Kopocis and Jo-Ellen Darcy, assistant secretary of the Army for Civil Works.

    “It has recently been brought to my attention that under your new rule, the Army and EPA are claiming the authority to regulate not only current streams and wetlands, but land where streams and wetlands may have existed long before the enactment of the Clean Water Act,” wrote the senator, a leading critic of the CWA rule.

     The policy aims to resolve uncertainty about the water law's scope following Supreme Court rulings that created competing tests for jurisdiction, but critics say it expands the CWA's reach far beyond what Congress intended. The final rule faces a host of pending legal challenges in federal district and appellate courts.

    Inhofe points out in the letter that in earlier years it was common practice to construct city sewer and stormwater systems in existing streams, refreshing previous criticism that the agencies should have engaged in more thorough consultation with local governments before issuing the rule June 29.

    “Many stormwater and sewer systems were built in areas that under the new rule may be considered 'tributaries,'” the letter says. “Since they are not covered by the exclusions for ditches and stormwater management features, they may be regulated 'waters of the United States'” under the new final rule, he writes.

    The rule, which takes effect Aug. 28, finds that tributaries and "adjacent waters" share a significant nexus with downstream waters and are jurisdictional, and identifies specific types of other waters, such as prairie potholes, that could share a significant nexus to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

    The rule would define “tributaries” as "tributary," as "characterized by the presence of physical indicators of a bed and banks and ordinary high water mark.”

    The final rule excluded waste treatment systems and "stormwater control features constructed to convey, treat, or store stormwater that are created in dry land" but it is not clear how that would apply to urban stormwater systems built in streams, the letter says.

    In the letter, Inhofe cites a number of Washington, D.C. examples of former streams that have now been turned into sewer or stormwater systems, and asks the agencies, “If built in a former stream, are these sewers also waters of the United States?”

    The letter asks the agencies, “If you believe that these sewers are exempt waste treatment systems, please explain how a stormwater system that does not meet the terms of the specific exclusion for stormwater control features can be exempt under the more general waste treatment system exemption?” Inhofe does not set a deadline for the agencies to respond but does ask them to give his questions “prompt attention.”

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Transportation News

20. T&I Railroads Subcommittee Gets New Staff Director

    Aug 20, 2015 | E&E News PM

    By Sean Reilly

    Fred Miller has been promoted to the job of staff director for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials, according to a news release this afternoon from T&I Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.).

    Miller, who had served as the subcommittee's counsel since 2011, replaces Mike Friedberg, who is going to work for the law and lobbying firm Holland and Knight, a committee spokesman said.

    Miller was involved with development of H.R. 749, a House-passed Amtrak reauthorization bill; he has been "integral" to the committee's work, Shuster said in the release, adding that "I am pleased that he will be leading our staff as we continue our efforts to improve and reform passenger rail service in the United States."

    Since joining the Railroads panel four years ago, Miller has also worked on the Keystone XL pipeline, hazardous materials regulation and rail labor disputes. Before working on Capitol Hill, he spent three years as attorney-adviser with the Surface Transportation Board and 2 ½ years in a similar position at the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

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