Preview Newsletter
ACC PM
-
LyondellBasell Looking at Texas Sites for New Chemical Plant
Sep 21, 2015 | Fuel Fix
By Jordan Blum
While giant LyondellBasell has been expanding throughout the Houston area, CEO Bob Patel said the company is also looking to build a new polyethylene plant at one of its sites in southern Texas. -
Company Aims to Take Advantage of Cheap Natural Gas with New Plant
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
Giant chemical company LyondellBasell has announced plans to build a new polyethylene plant at one of its Texas sites. -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Urges EPA To Delay Test Orders As EDSP Moves To New Models
Aug 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Dave Reynolds
Industry groups supportive of EPA’s efforts to shift its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP) to computational toxicology methods are urging the agency to delay testing of additional chemicals until it is able to make the switch, saying it would be wasteful to start expensive, current tests if alternatives will be available soon. -
Maine Adds Formaldehyde to Priority Chemical List
Aug 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Maine has added formaldehyde to its priority chemical list under the Toxic Chemicals in Children's Products law. This will require reporting of the substance's use in certain products. -
EPA Finalizes Three Guidelines For Tier 2 Endocrine Disruptor Testing
Aug 25, 2015 | InsieEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA has finalized test guidelines for three of the animal-based assays that it intends to include in the second tier of screening of its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP), having revised the guidelines after industry and animal rights activists raised concerns in public comments last spring. -
Senate Cyber Bill Would Extend Liability Protections To Water Utilities
Aug 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Amanda Palleschi
A revised version of cybersecurity legislation expected to be debated on the Senate floor in the coming weeks would extend liability protections and information sharing incentives to publicly owned utilities, drawing praise from water industry groups that pressed for clarified language when the sector was excluded from the original version of the bill. -
US EPA to Decide Fracking Rulemaking 'Next Steps'
Aug 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA will, by January 2016, decide on its next steps on a proposed rulemaking that weighs federal disclosure requirements for chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) (CW 9 May 2014). -
Industry Senses Momentum for an End to U.S. Ban
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
The oil and gas community here thinks the stars are aligning in favor of at least a partial end to restrictions on crude oil exports from the United States. -
Reid Willing to Deal on Crude Exports
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said yesterday he sees potential for an agreement on lifting the crude oil export ban in exchange for extending renewable energy tax credits. -
Ruling Sets Standard For Future Administrations To Reverse EPA Policies
Aug 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
A recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruling could set a new standard -- at least within that circuit -- for the extent to which EPA and other agencies can reverse prior administrations' decisions without crafting a new factual record to justify the decision, which could affect a slew of EPA permitting and other policy choices. -
Energy Secretary Optimistic for Climate Pact
Aug 25, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said on Monday he is optimistic that world leaders will come to an agreement to fight climate change and that technology will play a key role in the effort. -
Technology Road Map Outlines Future for Long-Term Coal Use
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
A coalition of coal interests and the Electric Power Research Institute have drawn up a "roadmap" for developing over a period of 20 years advanced technologies that would preserve the carbon-rich fuel's long-term relevance as a source of electric generation. -
California Governor Spars with Oil Industry Over Climate Bill
Aug 25, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The oil industry is selling a “highly destructive” product, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said this week as he pushes a bill to cut the state’s oil consumption. -
President Obama Launches an 11-Day 'Climate Tour' to Broaden Clean Energy Use
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Brittany Patterson
Federal investment has spurred innovation in solar and wind power technologies, and now is "not the time to pull back on those investments," President Obama said yesterday. -
Utility Renews Bid For Stay Of MACT Emission Limit
Aug 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
A power company is renewing its bid for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to impose an emergency stay of a looming September deadline for it to comply with a hydrogen chloride (HCl) emission limit in EPA's utility air toxics rule, arguing that it has exhausted all administrative options to win a stay. -
Advocates' Suit Challenges CWA Rule Exclusions
Aug 24, 2015 | InsideEPA
Environmentalists are suing EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers over their joint rule to define the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA), claiming that the regulation's provisions are unlawfully narrow and exclude waters that should be jurisdictional and subject to CWA requirements without a sound legal basis for the exclusions. -
Crude in Va. Oil-Train Derailment was Highly Volatile -- Safety Data
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
A mile-long oil train that jumped the tracks and exploded in a Virginia town last year had been carrying unusually volatile crude, according to test results released last week.
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News
Energy and Environment News
Transportation News
-
LyondellBasell Looking at Texas Sites for New Chemical Plant
Sep 21, 2015 | Fuel Fix
By Jordan Blum
While giant LyondellBasell has been expanding throughout the Houston area, CEO Bob Patel said the company is also looking to build a new polyethylene plant at one of its sites in southern Texas.
Speaking at the Houston-based company’s sprawling Channelview complex where LyondellBasell will start up 250 million pounds of new ethylene capacity near the end of August, Patel said an announcement likely will come later this year on adding more production of polyethylene, the most common type of plastic.
He said it could be a combination greenfield-brownfield project in the greater Houston region, but he noted that the region stretches as far as its sites in Matagorda and Victoria. He declined to provide further details.
Patel said LyondellBasell is planning to spend up to $4 billion in capital through 2020 along the Gulf Coast, mostly in Texas, as the company looks to take advantage of cheap natural gas that is used as feedstock for manufacturing chemicals and plastics.
By the end of the month, the company will start up its $200 million project to add large cracking furnaces that will produce 250 million more pounds of ethylene per year. Ethylene is the chemical building block of plastics.
Eventually, LyondellBasell will further expand the Channelview complex to add 550 million pounds of ethylene production capacity a year. Patel said it will likely be completed by 2018 or 2019.
“We’re just working through the project. It’s going to happen. It’s really a matter of specific timing,” Patel said.
Patel said LyondellBasell’s board will make a final decision next year on whether to move forward with the company’s biggest project ever — a plant to produce 900 million pounds of propylene oxide, 2 billion pounds of tertiary butyl alcohol and its derivatives annually. Propylene oxide is a chemical used to make everything from antifreeze to cosmetics. The tertiary butyl alcohol is a byproduct used as a solvent to make chemicals and gasoline additives.
While the plant’s location is not yet announced, Patel said, “We’re working through that, but certainly Channelview is in the mix.”
Apart from the Channelview expansion, LyondellBasell is currently expanding its ethylene production capacity by 800 million pounds a year and its Corpus Christ plant. That project will be finished in mid-2016, Patel said. Last year, the company also added 800 million pounds of ethylene capacity at its La Porte plant.
The company recently completed a project in La Porte to add 800 million pounds of ethylene capacity and the same amount of capacity is being added to its Corpus Christi plant, with work slated to be done in mid-2016.
The capacity boost provided by those projects is equal to building a new ethylene plant he said. The expansions will boost LyondellBasell’s ethylene capacity to 1.85 billion pounds per year. Adding more to the Channelview plant would raise that number to 2.4 billion pounds per year.
-
Company Aims to Take Advantage of Cheap Natural Gas with New Plant
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
Giant chemical company LyondellBasell has announced plans to build a new polyethylene plant at one of its Texas sites.
CEO Bob Patel said LyondellBasell intends to shell out as much as $4 billion in capital through 2020 along the Gulf Coast as the company takes advantage of cheap natural gas used as feedstock for manufacturing chemicals and plastics.
Patel said the site could be a combination greenfield-brownfield project in Houston but would not give more details. Meanwhile, the company looks to expand its Channelview complex, padding the production capacity by 550 million pounds per year. Patel said the deadline is likely 2018 or 2019.
"We're just working through the project. It's going to happen. It's really a matter of specific timing," Patel said (Jordan Blum, Fuel Fix, Aug. 21). -- KS
-
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Urges EPA To Delay Test Orders As EDSP Moves To New Models
Aug 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Dave Reynolds
Industry groups supportive of EPA’s efforts to shift its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP) to computational toxicology methods are urging the agency to delay testing of additional chemicals until it is able to make the switch, saying it would be wasteful to start expensive, current tests if alternatives will be available soon.
Environmentalists, however, are critical of EPA’s plan to use computational toxicology to assess chemicals under EDSP, arguing the new approach could worsen the program’s existing flaws.
EPA took comment through Aug. 18 on its plan to use high-throughput assays and a computational model to more efficiently screen thousands of chemicals for their potential to interact with the human endocrine system, a transition agency officials say will limit use of existing tests that use thousands of lab animals.
EPA created the two-tiered EDSP in response to a directive in the 1996 Food Quality Protection Act, but has struggled to implement the program, and acknowledged that current tests are not up to the task of screening an estimated 10,000 chemicals.
The agency has screened one list of several dozen pesticide ingredient chemicals through traditional first tier assays, and Aug. 25 finalized test guidelines for three of the animal-based assays that it intends to include in the second tier of screening. But EPA has yet to finalize test orders for a second list of chemicals that are primarily drinking water contaminants and which the agency proposed in 2010.
Industry groups, including the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the Endocrine Policy Forum (EPF) and Bayer CropScience, in separate comments, generally back EPA’s efforts to bring computational toxicology to EDSP but say additional improvements are needed before new methods replace existing tests.
“EPA has not yet fully demonstrated the reliability and performance of the [high throughput] screens,” says the EPF, which represents most recipients of orders for the initial round of EDSP. The group argues new methods are valuable for prioritizing chemicals for screening, but that “the assays may be less useful at this time for replacing current Tier 1 screens, especially the in vivo Tier 1 screens.”
EPF, and other industry groups, including pesticide producer Bayer, and ACC, urge EPA to strengthen the approach by releasing additional details of its computational model for external evaluation and establishing best practices for generating, characterizing and disseminating results to avoid misinterpretation, among other steps.
Testing Confusion
But in the meantime, numerous industry commenters argue that EPA should hold off on ordering EDSP testing for a second batch of chemicals known as List 2.
“Both industry and the Agency stand to benefit from the efficiencies that additional tier 1 study replacements will bring,” Bayer says, adding that “it makes little sense to immediately embark on another round of expensive, animal-intensive testing if alternatives may be available.”
The Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance, Inc. (HSIA) echoes this sentiment, urging EPA to delay issuing test orders for List 2 chemicals until the new assays have been developed to replace all tier 1 tests and validated. The group says subjecting List 2 chemicals to screening with a mix of original and new high-throughput assays “would only add further confusion and delay to a program.” The group represents producers and users of trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, and methylene chloride, which are among the List 2 chemicals expected to undergo Tier 1 testing.
EPA in September 2013 submitted an information collection request (ICR) to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review that would allow it to issue test order for its second list of chemicals, though industry commenters say the ICR is still pending review.
Meanwhile, environmentalists and a coalition of scientists, physicians and teachers, in separate comments are raising concerns that EPA’s new model produces “highly variable” results, and fails to flag chemicals that existing tests show have the potential to interact with the endocrine system.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) opposes EPA’s shift to using new modeling data as an alternative to three existing assays in Tier 1, saying the plan fails to address EDSP’s failure to regulate chemicals and protect the public.
And while not opposing EPA’s shift toward computational methods, the Endocrine Society, a coalition of scientists, physicians and teachers, asks the agency to clarify how new assays and models perform relative to the original Tier 1 tests, and to publish a clear plan for addressing discrepancies in results between the new and existing methods.
EPA officials have acknowledged EDSP in its current form is incapable of screening the universe of chemicals it was intended to address, and has been working for years to develop computational toxicology methods, known as CompTox, to speed screening and testing of potential chemical hazards.
Alternative Tests
In a June 19 Federal Register notice, EPA sought comment on a plan to adopt in vitro high-throughput assays and computational models as an alternative for three current Tier 1 assays -- an estrogen receptor binding in vitro assay, a estrogen receptor transcriptional activation in vitro assay and an in vivo uterotrophic assay.
EPA says a December 2014 meeting of its Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) backed use of modeling data as an alternative for two of the existing tests, but acknowledges the panel failed to reach a consensus on whether new methods should supplant the uterotrophic assay.
Future test order recipients will have to satisfy screening requirements for the three assays in one of three ways: by citing existing modeling data as other scientifically relevant information, by generating new data based on 18 high-throughput assays and a computational model, or by generating their own data using the current Tier 1 assays.
Given EPA’s improving ability to quickly test chemicals, the agency says “reconsideration of the EDSP List 2 chemicals may be appropriate.”
EPA also says recent advances have brought the agency’s CompTox approaches to a “critical juncture,” and that “Over time, the Agency’s goal is to develop a set of ‘non-animal’ high throughput assays and computational bioactivity models as an alternative to all of the assays in the current Tier 1 screening battery.”
Additionally, industry groups raise other concerns, arguing EPA should consider exposure in prioritizing chemicals for EDSP screening, determine if sufficient vendors are available to conduct the tests, and fully address concerns of the 2014 FIFRA SAP.
The Center for Regulatory Effectiveness (CRE), which consults for industry, notes the SAP that met in December 2014 did not validate EPA’s new modeling approach as a substitute for one of the three assays, and says the agency should convene another SAP meeting to review its arguments addressing that and other concerns the SAP raised in past meetings.
During the December 2014 meeting, EPA’s SAP, which peer reviews scientific research for the agency’s toxics office, enthusiastically supported the agency’s general approach for prioritizing chemicals to undergo endocrine disruptor screening using high-throughput and computational tools, but sought further work and validation of certain aspects.
In the June Federal Register notice, EPA acknowledges the SAP failed to reach consensus on replacing the third assay, but says the agency has published a paper clarifying the relationship between its modeling and uterotrophic results, and arguing the existing test would provide no added benefit if modeling data were available.
ESDP's Flaws
NRDC also notes the FIFRA SAP found the new in vitro assays unable to detect or account for altered chemical behavior due to biological processes like metabolism and absorption, which severely limits the models’ ability to predict toxicity in whole animal systems.
Replacing existing tests with new methods could worsen EDSP’s flaws, NRDC says, “by relying on a model that produces an unacceptably high rate of false negatives, does not evaluate all known relevant biological pathways, and has the potential to miss chemicals that could adversely impact” vulnerable populations including children and the developing fetus.
Although NRDC opposes using the new CompTox approach to evaluating chemicals, the group says new data streams have potential for prioritizing chemicals for screening, and backs continued efforts to develop and evolve the methods.
NRDC also says, “Unless and until EPA reorients itself toward identifying high priority chemicals and moving them quickly to a full evaluation and regulatory action, EDSP will remain unresponsive to its statutory mandate.”
Meanwhile, the animal rights group, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), backs use of the computational approaches and says discordant results between the new assays and some existing tests highlight the short comings of tests that have long been considered a gold-standard.
PETA says it “fully support the use of this approach as a replacement for” three of the current Tier 1 tests, and urges “EPA to quickly phase out this older, less efficient and more animal-intensive technology in favor of methods that embody the shift to the more modern 21st Century toxicity testing paradigm.”
-
Maine Adds Formaldehyde to Priority Chemical List
Aug 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Maine has added formaldehyde to its priority chemical list under the Toxic Chemicals in Children's Products law. This will require reporting of the substance's use in certain products.
The rule applies to intentionally added formaldehyde in the following product types, when targeted at children under the age of 12:bedding and car seats;clothing and footwear;jewellery and accessories;personal care products and cosmetics; andtoys, games and craft supplies.
Separately, Maine's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has finalised its triennial review of the state's Chemicals of High Concern (CHC) list. During the process, it removed the following six chemicals, for not meeting CHC criteria:beryllium and beryllium compounds;metallic nickel;di-n-hexyl phthalate (DnHP);hexachlorobutadiene;tris(2-chloroethyl) phosphate; and2-naphthalenol, 1-[(4-methyl-2-nitrophenyl)azo]-.
In its update of the CHC list, the DEP notes that the toxicity classifications relied on to determine the original 2012 version, and to make subsequent reassessments for the 2015 list, “may have been overly stringent in identifying chemicals of high concern.”
The DEP says that it intends to update the criteria with which the state identifies and assesses CHC and priority chemicals. The state is accepting public comment on this until 28 August.
CHC listing does not require any regulatory action for named chemicals, but serves as the candidate pool for designating priority chemicals.
The addition of formaldehyde brings the state's list of priority chemicals to ten. Products which contain formaldehyde, as well as the four phthalates listed earlier this summer, must be reported by 18 December (CW 27 July 2015).
-
EPA Finalizes Three Guidelines For Tier 2 Endocrine Disruptor Testing
Aug 25, 2015 | InsieEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA has finalized test guidelines for three of the animal-based assays that it intends to include in the second tier of screening of its Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP), having revised the guidelines after industry and animal rights activists raised concerns in public comments last spring.
The program, developed after Congress in 1996 ordered EPA to test chemicals for their ability to interact with human hormones, is designed as a two-tiered screen. The first set of 11 animal-based assays are intended to screen chemicals for their potential to interact with the human estrogen, androgen and thyroid hormones. If flagged in that first tier, the program is designed to send that chemical to the second tier of testing, intended to collect dose-response information for use in risk analysis.
In an Aug. 25 Federal Register notice, EPA announces final test guidelines for the Medaka fish extended one-generation reproduction test (MEOGRT), the larval amphibian growth and development assay (LAGDA) and the avian two-generation toxicity test in the Japanese Quail (JQTT).
In public comments submitted to the agency last spring, industry and animal rights groups questioned the tests’ suitability for use in EDSP and protested the vast numbers of animals the tests will consume.
EPA indicates in the notice that it has revised the test guidelines “based on public comments, existing EPA test guidelines, and concurrent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) test guidelines for MEOGRT . . . and LAGDA.”
Comments from the Endocrine Policy Form (EPF), a group of chemical manufacturers who have or expect to receive EDSP test orders, urged EPA in March 31 comments to make alterations to its guidelines for the MEOGRT and LAGDA assays to harmonize them with the OECD guidelines for the assays.
“EPA worked with the OECD to harmonize test guidelines for MEOGRT . . . and LAGDA. The OECD test guidelines were approved at the Working Group of National Coordinators of the Test Guidelines Programme (WNT) and endorsed by the Joint Meeting of the Chemicals Committee and the Working Party on Chemicals, Pesticides and Biotechnology in June 2015 prior to EPA finalizing the U.S. MEOGRT and LAGDA test guidelines,” according to the Federal Register notice.
Perhaps most notably, EPA decided that consistent with OECD guidelines, “[t]he option for extending the MEOGRT through F2 generation reproduction has been removed from the final test guideline pending additional data. The test will end following hatching of the F2 offspring.” The decision reduces the number of animals that the test will consume, a concern raised by EPF and other stakeholders in public comments.
Revised Quail Test
The JQTT has yet to complete the OECD validation processes, leading Ellen Mihaich, the scientific coordinator for the EPF, to predict last February that the test would draw increased scrutiny from stakeholders. EPF and animal rights groups questioned the validation status of the quail test, as well as the lack of guidance on how EPA will determine which results in the Tier 1 screen will trigger a test order for the test. The stakeholders questioned the large number of lab birds the test will consume -- with estimates ranging between 1,500-4,000 birds per study -- because it requires a breeding pair and two additional generations of birds to produce the results.
The Federal Register notice says that EPA revised the JQTT “to address comments provided by the public, the draft OECD test guideline . . . as well as the existing EPA and OECD test guidelines for avian one generation toxicity tests . . .”
Specifically, the agency explains that the revisions include changes intended to, among other things, reduce the number of birds consumed per study. “The revised test guidelines include fewer endpoints. For example, the revisions eliminated behavioral endpoints to reduce the overall numbers of birds required for the study; eliminated endpoints that are difficult to obtain (i.e., hormone levels measured in embryo blood samples); eliminated redundant endpoints; and statistical analyses.”
EPA also clarified the test’s end, also intended to reduce number of birds per study, to “measurement of the 14-day survival of filial 2 (F2) generation chicks. This is the minimum length of the study necessary to evaluate and measure a chemical’s effect on the F1 generation’s reproductive performance . . . The decision to limit the length of the JQTT is consistent with EPA’s efforts to move to extended one-generation reproduction test protocols for Tier 2 tests rather than multigenerational studies . . . Extended one generation reproduction tests are technically sound, save animals, and reduce costs.”
The new test guidelines follow EPA’s June 30 release of its review of the first group of chemicals to undergo EDSP tier 1 screening. The agency announced that 18 of the original 52 chemicals should undergo tier two screening.
The EDSP has long been criticized by Congress and stakeholders for its long delays, as well as high costs and ambiguous tests. Though Congress required such a program in the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996, it was not until 2009 that EPA issued its first test orders for chemicals to undergo tier one screening. Chemical manufacturers submitted 52 chemicals for testing following these orders, with results sent to EPA through 2012.
The test guidelines come as EPA is attempting to pivot away from animal-based toxicity assays. Using the EDSP as its first implementation of this relatively new technology, EPA proposes in a document explaining its rationale that assays from the agency’s ToxCast high-throughput toxicity testing research program could serve as alternatives to some of the original 11 assays in the first tier of EDSP. The agency took comments on this rationale document through Aug. 18.
-
Senate Cyber Bill Would Extend Liability Protections To Water Utilities
Aug 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Amanda Palleschi
A revised version of cybersecurity legislation expected to be debated on the Senate floor in the coming weeks would extend liability protections and information sharing incentives to publicly owned utilities, drawing praise from water industry groups that pressed for clarified language when the sector was excluded from the original version of the bill.
The controversial legislation, S. 754, is intended to expand the information sharing of cybersecurity threats across sectors, including between several federal agencies and internet companies.
Although the information sharing described in the legislation is "voluntary," the bill has been widely criticized by civil liberties advocates because it would authorize incentives to government, public and private entities choosing to participate by sharing threat information -- including internet usage and IP addresses -- with the government.
Original versions of both the Senate bill up for debate as well as companion versions in the House -- one of which cleared the House in April by a 355-63 vote -- extended provisions involving incentives for participation in the voluntary information sharing programs authorized by the bill, as well as liability protections to private companies for participating.
But the original bills did not mention public utilities, which one water industry source says was "just an oversight" and that lawmakers "might not have been as familiar with the construct of what do utility services do."
"There's a lot of talk in the media about the challenges or threats to the electric grid from cyber attacks. So the initial response was to cover them in the legislation," the source says. "We did education to say that the water sector is online as well and could benefit from the same types of incentives."
A recent manager's amendment to the bill, introduced by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Richard Burr (R-NC), now includes a reference to "other utility," which observers say is intended to encompass both the water and gas sectors in addition to electric utilities.
"The term 'private entity includes a state, tribal or local government performing electric or other utility services," the bill's language states.
"There's nothing in particular addressed to the water sector but it puts all public utilities under the same type of treatment as the private sector would receive on the bill, which we think makes sense," the water industry source says. "Because if we think the sector is facing some of the same challenges as private industry it makes no sense to include one and then not the other."
Those private entities and public utilities, according to the language, are entitled under the bill to liability protections to "entities acting in accordance" with the act that monitor information systems, or share or receive indicators or defensive measures "provided that the manner in which an entity shares any indicators or defensive measures with the federal government is consistent with specified procedures and exceptions set forth under the [Department of Homeland Security] sharing process."
Liability Protection
The liability protections in the bill state that "no cause of action shall lie or be maintained in any court against any entity, and such action shall be promptly dismissed, for the sharing or receipt of cyber threat indicators or defensive measures." Participating entities, including public utilities, must report to Congress every two years assessing the impact of their participation on privacy and civil liberties, and all disclosures -- while considered voluntary -- are subject to disclosure to any federal agency.
While the water sector is supporting the broadened definition in the bill, water utilities have previously expressed skepticism about collaborating with the federal government on cybersecurity. When President Obama signed a key cybersecurity executive order in 2013, singling out the water industry as the only sector subject to EPA oversight, water utilities expressed concerns that although voluntary, the order would open the door to increased regulations.
The groups pressed lawmakers at the time to exempt the sector from new requirements, prompting a coalition of wastewater and drinking water groups to pen a voluntary plan focused specifically on cybersecurity for the water sector.
That guidance, spearheaded by the American Water Works Association, addresses what the industry says are gaps in "practical guidance . . . for protecting water sector process control systems from cyber attacks" -- an area the sector says is not specified in the administration's executive order or guidance, though water industry sources say their guidance is meant to complement the administration's tool, and EPA and the administration are supportive of both guidances.
EPA has encouraged water utilities to sign up for the Department of Homeland Security's voluntary program but has left open the option of adopting its own cyber regulatory requirements in the future if the water sector fails to widely adopt the voluntary measures, such as those addressed in S. 754.
-
US EPA to Decide Fracking Rulemaking 'Next Steps'
Aug 25, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA will, by January 2016, decide on its next steps on a proposed rulemaking that weighs federal disclosure requirements for chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) (CW 9 May 2014).
This will come after it has completed an evaluation of the public comments it has received on the issue.
The agency made the commitment after its Office of Inspector General (OIG) reported that the EPA had not developed a plan of action for “further steps in this proposed rulemaking.”
It recommended that it “establish and publish a plan with milestone dates that outlines all steps for determining whether to propose a rule to obtain information concerning chemical substances and mixtures used in hydraulic fracturing.”
The notice of proposed rulemaking issued in May last year sought comments on several factors, including:what information companies should report or disclose;the scope of reporting or disclosures; andthe possible use of third parties in data collection and verification.
The EPA received more than 260,000 comments, according to the OIG.
-
Industry Senses Momentum for an End to U.S. Ban
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
The oil and gas community here thinks the stars are aligning in favor of at least a partial end to restrictions on crude oil exports from the United States.
The top leadership at ConocoPhillips Co. has said as much, as has a prominent congressman. Earlier this month, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) told a lunchtime crowd at the Petroleum Club of Houston that confidence was growing that 1970s-era caps on oil exports could soon be coming to an end (E&ENews PM, Aug. 4).
Just a year ago, this seemed highly unlikely, given the years of hostility between the oil and gas industry and the Obama administration. But some see signs emerging that administration officials may grow more amenable to at least some revision in oil export rules put in place during the Arab oil embargo.
"I think there is some cautious optimism, I would say," said Eugene Elrod, a partner at Sidley Austin, citing Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski's monthslong efforts in pushing the issue forward.
The only serious opposition he sees is from independent U.S. refining companies, though their trade association has moderated its views on the debate. Elrod thinks it's highly unlikely that the Jones Act would be rescinded, a move that would make it easier for refineries to have crude delivered between U.S. ports.
Nevertheless, "I suppose maybe some sort of deal will be struck as Congress takes up the export ban, and maybe there will be some tradeoffs there," Elrod said.
The administration's own actions on petroleum product exports are giving proponents of lifting the ban hope that they may achieve at least partial victory toward that end.
For several months now, the government has permitted the export of lightly processed condensates, while approving in succession projects that aim to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG) from U.S. shale gas formations for sales abroad, including to Japan, a nation that the United States has not signed a free-trade agreement with.
The recent move to authorize swaps of crude oil with Mexico is further encouraging to proponents of removing oil export limitations (EnergyWire, Aug. 20).
Joe Brusuelas, an economist at McGladrey, said the Mexican crude swaps deal definitely got noticed by the U.S. oil industry, including companies that have been working behind the scenes to gain congressional support for an end to the crude export limits. But he cited other reasons to be optimistic that such a change is on the horizon.'An alignment of politics and economics' on the horizon?
With the global economy faltering, the U.S. dollar value is rising, and that's expected to exacerbate the U.S. current account deficit. The Census Bureau reported earlier this month that the U.S. trade deficit is on the rise.
A growth in the trade deficit pulls down the nation's gross domestic product growth. Brusuelas said it's likely that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats will come to realize that freer petroleum products exports will improve trade statistics and the GDP growth figure, and ahead of the 2016 presidential election race.
He sees "an alignment of politics and economics that will permit the lifting of the oil ban."
"I think it will become clear to Democrats that lifting the oil [exports] ban will create legislative relief with respect to the current account deficit, which will in later years pay off," Brusuelas said.
He also argued that it's clear President Obama wants to burnish his credentials as a free trade proponent given the high priority his team has taken on finalizing two sweeping trade bills currently under negotiations with Pacific Rim nations and Europe. Brusuelas said he also thinks it's clear that U.S. officials would like to integrate North America's energy industry more completely, tying in Mexico just as closely as the United States and Canada are now linked in oil and gas trade.
Proponents also routinely point out that the United States is already exporting large quantities of crude oil, only in the form of refined products, including diesel and gasoline.
There appears to be little economic risk to making the move, especially with oil prices at lows not seen since the outset of the 2008 global financial crisis. Past studies have suggested that domestic oil prices would rise only in the short run but that tying the United States more deeply into the global crude market would have the effect of keeping prices lower in the longer term. Refined products prices in the United States are already linked in part to global prices given refineries' ability to export products unhindered.
Congressman Barton said committees on Capitol Hill may begin taking crude oil exports under consideration sometime in September or October. Elrod thinks a move later this year is possible, while Brusuelas is more cautious in the outlook, thinking it may take a year or so for a new regime of U.S. oil exports to come into effect.
Allowing oil and gas companies here to sell U.S. crude abroad is unlikely to help the dire financial situation the industry finds itself in today, said Ed Hirs, a prominent energy economist at Hillhouse Resources.
"Lifting the export ban is a non-event while we are still a net importing nation," Hirs said in an email. "Furthermore, how does the U.S. shale oil producer expect to make money selling expensive oil below cost?"
-
Reid Willing to Deal on Crude Exports
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said yesterday he sees potential for an agreement on lifting the crude oil export ban in exchange for extending renewable energy tax credits.
In an interview with Greenwire at his eighth annual Clean Energy Summit here, Reid declined to take a position on ending the decades-old export prohibition, saying he sees merit in arguments for and against doing so.
But he made clear he is willing to sit down with Republicans and discuss the issue.
"And I would hope that we can get something in return if we're willing to do that," Reid said. "There's a lot of things that we could do, with more tax credits and things of that nature."
Reid is the latest -- and most senior -- Democrat to suggest the Senate minority may be willing to back a repeal of the export ban if provisions aiding renewable sectors are part of the deal. Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Maine independent Angus King, who caucuses with Democrats, floated the idea during last month's Energy and Natural Resources Committee markup of legislation to end the ban and expand offshore drilling (E&E Daily, July 31).
Senate Energy Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) earlier this month said other Democrats have approached her with compromise proposals for allowing crude exports as well (Greenwire, Aug. 7).
But Reid's remarks show that Democrats see the export issue as a bargaining chip for advancing their own energy priorities -- extending the renewable production tax credit and investment tax credit -- in a Republican-led Congress.
Pressed further on the issue during a news conference yesterday, Reid decried the lack of compromise in the "Koch brother, tea-[party]-driven" Republican Congress.
"And that's too bad," he said. "And I think this is one of those examples where we can sit down -- no one's going to get everything they want, but let's see if we can come up with something that's good for the country. That's something we need to do; I'm interested in this, to see if something can be done to help both parties."
Reid, who repeatedly criticized the Koch brothers throughout the daylong conference, struck a pessimistic tone for the prospects of the Energy Committee's bipartisan energy package, which Murkowski is aiming to bring to the floor in the fall.
"With people so afraid of the Koch brothers, I think the chances of getting something done like that are not very good," Reid said.
However, he conceded the measure -- which focuses heavily on boosting efficiency -- may be able to eventually make its way through the Senate before the end of the 114th Congress.
"We might be able to get something with energy efficiency, but I don't think we're going to get much that's going to be something to write home about," he said.
Reid's willingness to discuss exports is also notable given that environmentalists are starting to mobilize against lifting the ban. The liberal Center for American Progress last week released a report highlighting environmental concerns over crude exports, which it said would cause domestic demand for drilling to expand (Greenwire, Aug. 21).
Former CAP President John Podesta yesterday sidestepped a question from Greenwire about whether trading crude exports for renewable tax credits was a deal worth pursuing, saying he's not close enough to the "horse trading" on Capitol Hill anymore.
But he acknowledged White House appetite for extending the production tax credit and investment tax credit, as well as the approaching end of the fiscal year. "I think this will be in the discussion, in the mix," he said.
Podesta, who is leading Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, also declined to proffer an opinion on what the former secretary of State thinks about crude exports.
"I'm not going to get ahead of her on that because, frankly, I haven't discussed it with her," he said.
-
Ruling Sets Standard For Future Administrations To Reverse EPA Policies
Aug 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
A recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruling could set a new standard -- at least within that circuit -- for the extent to which EPA and other agencies can reverse prior administrations' decisions without crafting a new factual record to justify the decision, which could affect a slew of EPA permitting and other policy choices.
The divided en banc ruling by the full court in Organized Village of Kake, et al., v. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), et al., holds that a Bush-era move by USDA to reverse a Clinton administration application of forest management rules conflicts with a prior finding of fact on the same subject, and therefore runs afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). An agency "may not simply discard prior factual findings without a reasoned explanation," both for its new findings and for discounting the prior determinations, the ruling says.
Citing the Supreme Court's 2009 decision in Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations, Inc, Circuit Judge Andrew D. Hurwitz wrote for the majority that, "The absence of a reasoned explanation for disregarding previous factual findings violates the APA. 'An agency cannot simply disregard contrary or inconvenient factual determinations that it made in the past, any more than it can ignore inconvenient facts when it writes on a blank slate.'"
At least six of the court's 11 judges backed Hurwitz's July 29 opinion, but the ruling does not include a vote tally. Judge Morgan Christen wrote a concurring opinion, while Judges Consuelo M. Callahan, Alex Kozinski and Milan D. Smith, Jr. filed dissents. The ruling covers the 9th Circuit states of California, Nevada, Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Montana and Hawaii and could be persuasive -- but not binding -- in other circuits.
The standard articulated in Hurwitz's ruling could take on new importance if a Republican wins the presidency in 2016, as several GOP candidates have criticized EPA's regulatory agenda as overreach, including its greenhouse gas (GHG) standards for existing and future power plants known as the Clean Power Plan.
However, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has claimed that even if future administrations are less ambitious about climate policy they will struggle to undo existing GHG rules. "When you have a final Clean Air Act rule, it's a pretty solid obligation," she said during an Aug. 11 event hosted by the think tank Resources for the Future, citing the need "to have a substantial record" in order to rescind or change the rule.
She added: "A new administration I think will hopefully want to continue to support this. I think they'll see state plans in and moving forward, a significant number, by the time there's any transition in administration. And for those that don't want to, it's quite a significant hurdle for them to reverse this."
If a future Republican administration tries to undo permitting or other decisions by states within EPA regions covered by the 9th Circuit and those actions are then challenged by litigation, then the court could use the Village of Kake standard to determine whether EPA provided an adequate factual basis for the reversal. That could, in the 9th Circuit at least, set parameters for a future GOP EPA reversing Obama EPA decisions.
Reversing Position
According to two attorneys familiar with the case, the 9th Circuit's ruling is the first appellate decision applyingFox in an environmental context, but does not depart from the high court's ruling in a significant way.
"What it does is that it clearly sends a signal to agencies on how they have to write their findings when they make a reversal of position. If you need to go against a prior finding of fact, it will have to be justified very carefully and thoroughly," says one of the attorneys.
A second attorney says that while the ruling appears to be "a straightforward application of Fox," it is also the "first real discussion" of the ruling in the 9th Circuit and thus a key marker for how courts will weigh future cases.
However, in his dissent, Smith argued that the majority opinion goes too far in constraining a new administration's ability to roll back its predecessors' policies. "Inevitably, when the political pendulum swings and a different party takes control of the executive branch, the cycle begins anew. There is nothing improper about the political branches of the government carrying out such changes in policy," Smith writes.
"After analyzing essentially the same facts, the USDA changed policy course at the direction of the new president, prioritizing some outcomes over others. Fox fully envisions such policy changes," he continues.
Village of Kake dealt with the application of USDA's "Roadless Rule," which limits road construction and timber harvesting in national forests, to Alaska's Tongass Forest. The Clinton USDA promulgated the rule in 2001, just days before leaving office, and expressly refused to exempt Tongass from its restrictions.
But in 2003 the Bush administration reversed that decision and found that a forest management plan would provide adequate environmental protections even without the rule.
The 2003 decision was based on a finding that "the roadless values in the Tongass are sufficiently protected under the Tongass Forest Plan," but the 9th Circuit held that USDA failed to explain how it reached that conclusion despite a Clinton-era finding that proceeding under the forest plan alone "would risk the loss of important roadless area values," and that such value would be "lost or diminished" by even a limited waiver of the rule.
USDA's 2003 action "does not explain why an action that it found posed a prohibitive risk to the Tongass environment only two years before now poses merely a 'minor' one. The absence of a reasoned explanation for disregarding previous factual findings violates the APA," Hurwitz wrote.
-
Energy Secretary Optimistic for Climate Pact
Aug 25, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said on Monday he is optimistic that world leaders will come to an agreement to fight climate change and that technology will play a key role in the effort.
Moniz said advances in technology are the main reason that he is optimistic about the results of the December meeting in Paris hosted by the United Nations, where world leaders hope to come to a deal on reducing greenhouse gases.
Technology sets the Paris meeting apart from previous attempts at a deal, including the 2009 U.N. meeting in Copenhagen that did not yield a deal, Moniz said at the National Clean Energy Summit 8.0 in Las Vegas.
“I believe that continued technology innovation and cost reduction ultimately will be the determinant of strong policy moves, because a lot more becomes possible with cost reduction, especially in the emerging economies,” Moniz said in a conversation with John Podesta, chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and a former adviser to presidents Obama and Clinton.
“And so I’m very pleased that in Paris there’s going to be, I think, a stronger focus on technology innovation than has been the case in the past,” he said.
President Obama is scheduled to give the closing keynote address later Monday at the event, which is hosted by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).
Earlier Monday, the White House said Obama would speak at length about renewable energy’s role in fighting climate change, and would announce efforts to boost clean energy.
Moniz and Podesta singled out carbon capture and storage (CCS) — in which carbon dioxide is removed from a fossil fuel-fired power plant and stored — as a promising technology to reduce greenhouse gases.
“CCS certainly, I think remains a very important area for us to develop, because we need all the tools that we can get,” Moniz said.
Moniz said the climate deal Obama struck with China last year will enable the countries to collaborate extensively on carbon capture.
-
Technology Road Map Outlines Future for Long-Term Coal Use
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
A coalition of coal interests and the Electric Power Research Institute have drawn up a "roadmap" for developing over a period of 20 years advanced technologies that would preserve the carbon-rich fuel's long-term relevance as a source of electric generation.
The report by EPRI and the Coal Utilization Research Council went largely unnoticed when it was quietly released just days before U.S. EPA released its Clean Power Plan on Aug. 3.
The road map is noteworthy not just because it proposes a major new congressionally funded federal research effort to shore up the coal industry, but because it omits the all-too-common industry rhetoric against the need to control CO2 emissions to mitigate the effects of climate change.
"EPRI evaluates all technologies related to electricity generation, distribution and use without bias," said spokesman Jeff Brehm.
The "CURC-EPRI Advanced Technology Roadmap" outlines a plan to spend more than $14 billion between now and 2035 with roughly two-thirds of the funding provided by federal taxpayers.
The road map cautions that should the Clean Power Plan move ahead, "additional funding to support accelerated [research, development and demonstration] will be necessary to enable the availability of a coal technology option based on the proposed timeline."
The plan envisions research into demonstrations of "first-of-a-kind, low-carbon coal technology options" including carbon capture and storage, highly efficient ultrasupercritical coal plants, coal gasification, and "transformational" technologies to sharply boost efficiency and reduce levels of emission and costs.
The projects represent the "coal replacement options" needed "when we must consider fleet retirements," said Mark McCullough, executive vice president of generation at American Electric Power Co. and co-chairman of CURC.
McCullough's counterpart, Arch Coal Inc. Senior Vice President Deck Slone, said the road map shows how the need for "reliable and affordable energy can be harmonized with aspirations for a cleaner and more climate-compatible future."Industry contributions have to materialize
In the past, utilities and the coal industry have had an uneven record of contributing large sums to developing the next generation of coal technology.
The most notable example in recent years has been the FutureGen 2.0 project, which aspired to be a first-of-a-kind zero-emissions coal-fired plant with oxy-combustion technology that would capture 90 percent of its CO2 and store it underground.
The 275-megawatt project in Meredosia, Ill., proposed in 2003 was set to cost $1.65 billion, with $1 billion in federal funding and the rest from industry partners in the FutureGen Alliance.
But the Department of Energy terminated the project in 2008 as costs were rising and the industry contributions did not occur.
In 2010, DOE revived FutureGen as a 168-MW project, but still industry funding was lacking, and in February of this year, DOE suspended the project (EnergyWire, Feb. 4).
The latest technology road map calls for a $4.5 billion industry match.
"Part of the challenge with FutureGen and any technology related to CO2 emissions control of coal is that up to this point there has been no legal requirement to reduce CO2 emissions from coal power plants," said Jeff Phillips, EPRI's senior manager in charge of its Fossil Fleet for Tomorrow program.
"This is a conundrum that has been faced up until now," Phillips said in an interview. "I don't know if the reality of actually having" an EPA rule "will change the situation or not," he added.
"Up until now, the basic argument has been, 'Why should I and my customers incur a cost for something that is going to benefit the entire world? And the entire world doesn't have to pay for it.' In a competitive environment, that's a really tough question to answer," he said.
Now that there is a final EPA rule that encourages carbon capture, "it does definitely change the equation" for owners of power plants, Phillips said.
"The question will be, can they make a convincing argument to regulators" that adding a CO2 capture system to power plants is a better investment than a "lower-risk solution," such as building a natural gas combined-cycle plant and shutting down the coal plant, he said.
While some coal companies were funders of FutureGen and Peabody Energy Corp. and Arch Coal have made multimillion-dollar commitments to support coal research at Washington University in St. Louis, the track record overall has been spotty, he said.
"If [coal interests] want to get any value out of their asset, the resource in the future, they should be investing in technologies that will reduce CO2 emissions from coal. But for the most part, you just don't see it."
Phillips ascribed the reluctance to funding research and demonstrations to the "freeloader" phenomenon once described to him by a coal company executive.
"Coal company X could put $2 billion into the development and demonstration of a technology and then all of his competitors would benefit from the availability of that technology," Phillips said the argument went.
-
California Governor Spars with Oil Industry Over Climate Bill
Aug 25, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The oil industry is selling a “highly destructive” product, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) said this week as he pushes a bill to cut the state’s oil consumption.
Oil companies “have a product that is highly destructive, while highly valuable at the same time,” Brown told reporters on Monday, the Los Angeles Times reports. "And we're trying to work out the right policies."
Brown and his allies in the state Legislature are working to pass a bill that would cut the state’s oil consumption in half by 2030.
The state Senate has already passed the bill, and members of the Assembly are considering it during a session set to end next month.
Oil and gas interests have said the measure would hurt drivers, businesses and the state’s petroleum industry. In April, when a Senate committee held a hearing on the bill, the California Chamber of Commerce warned it would “compromise the availability of transportation fuels,” raising concerns about supply problems for the state’s drivers.
The bill's supporters dispute the claim, and Brown accused the industry of “making up things” about the measure.
“I have no intention of backing down,” the governor said Monday. “We’re going to intensify our effort to do lower-carbon fuels and lower-carbon pollution, now and into the future.”
Brown has proposed some of the most stringent environmental standards in the country, signing an executive order in April calling for a 40 percent cut to the state’s emissions from 1990 levels by 2030.
President Obama hailed the effort during a speech on climate change and energy policy on Monday night.
“The private sector is increasingly all in. Cities and states are increasingly doing their part,” Obama said at a green energy summit in Las Vegas. “Leaders in California are aiming to generate 50 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2030 — 50 percent — while cutting carbon pollution from oil by 50 percent.”
-
President Obama Launches an 11-Day 'Climate Tour' to Broaden Clean Energy Use
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Brittany Patterson
Federal investment has spurred innovation in solar and wind power technologies, and now is "not the time to pull back on those investments," President Obama said yesterday. Speaking at the eighth annual National Clean Energy Summit, hosted by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Obama touted clean, renewable energy as a way to not only cut emissions that contribute to climate change but also create jobs and grow the economy. For Congress and other naysayers, the president had little patience.
"And as long as I'm president, the federal government is going to do its part beyond the investments we have already made," Obama said, speaking at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center to a crowd of about 1,000 people. "Now's not the time to insist on massive cuts to the investments in R&D that help drive our economy, including the hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts that many Republicans want to take from these successful job-creating clean energy programs."
The president's remarks came after the administration earlier yesterday pledged money toward a slew of programs aimed at expanding everyday Americans' access to renewable energy technologies (Greenwire, Aug. 24).
Chief among the initiatives, the White House called for $1 billion in additional federal loan guarantee authority to support distributed energy projects, such as micro-grid technology, storage and rooftop solar.
The administration also launched a joint effort between the Department of Energy and the Department of Housing and Urban Development focused on giving low-income households more access to renewable energy, including rooftop solar panels. Soon, single-family homeowners will have access to dollars under the Property-Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program.
PACE financing allows homeowners to install energy improving technologies and pay back the cost over time through their property taxes. When the property is sold, the remaining PACE loan stays with the more energy-efficient property, and the next owner is responsible for repaying the loan, according to the White House's fact sheet on the executive and private-sector actions. In addition, HUD's Federal Housing Administration, which administers the PACE program, will make it easier for homeowners to borrow money to make energy efficiency improvements.
"We're taking steps to allow more Americans to join this revolution with no money down," Obama said.
The National Clean Energy Summit has emerged as a destination for those in the renewable energy industry, said John Podesta, Obama's former top environmental adviser and current chairman of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
Speaking with reporters, Podesta said Nevada, due in large part to Reid's prominent position in the Senate, has emerged as a leader in the clean energy movement. Since 2009, renewable energy generation has increased 180 percent in Nevada.
"I think what this forum has done is become a go-to place in August," he said. In reference to the 100-plus-degree heat, he added, laughing, "Everybody can begin to think about what the future is going to be like with climate change."'An all-in perspective'
The summit has been the creative birthplace of the kinds of ideas and support that have enabled the president to do what he's been able to do, Podesta said.
"Look, I think the president has just done game-changing efforts," he said. "He's got a sort of all-in perspective on this, and that's really created the opportunity for him to be a leader internationally."
Also announced yesterday were the approval of a California transmission line that will bring online a 485-megawatt solar array in Riverside County to power more than 145,000 homes and an interagency task force to promote clean energy.
As part of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy's Micro-scale Optimized Solar-Cell Arrays with Integrated Concentration (MOSAIC) Program, $24 million for 11 projects in seven states across the country was announced to develop innovative solar technologies. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said the goal with these projects is to double the amount of energy each solar panel can produce from the sun while reducing costs and the space required to produce electricity.
Speaking at the summit, Moniz said all clean energy tools, including carbon capture and sequestration, are crucial to develop in the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stave off global warming.
"We need all the tools we can get," he said.
Solar is no longer just for those who want to save the environment, or the "tree huggers," the president added.
"You don't have to share my passion for fighting climate change," he said. "A lot of Americans are going solar or becoming more energy efficient not because they're tree huggers -- although trees, you know, are important; this is why you hug them -- but because it costs less. They like saving money, and I'm all for consumers saving money, because that means they can spend it on other stuff."The economic case for 'moving forward'
Increased choice was a recurring theme during the all-day summit, which was originally created to bring together governments and the private sector to work together on clean energy solutions and modernizing the electricity grid, according to organizers. In addition to Obama, speakers included leaders from utilities, solar technology companies, renewable energy finance firms and electric carmaker Tesla.
Geisha Williams, president of electric operations for Pacific Gas and Electric Co., said that as recently as just a few years ago, Americans seemed to take energy for granted, but not anymore.
"Today, we're seeing a huge movement toward customer choice," Williams said. "They still want affordability, but they're keenly aware of carbon. It's almost a moral obligation to become greenhouse gas emissions-free. The expectation is that we will help them get there."
Last year, wind accounted for almost 5 percent of all electricity generated in the United States, and solar less than 1 percent, but the president noted that solar made up almost one-third of all new generating capacity installed last year. Wind power made up another 20 percent.
"There's a big shift underway that goes beyond simply putting solar panels on your home," Obama said. "The revolution going on here is that people are beginning to realize they can take more control over their own energy, what they use, how much, when."
The president also took time to lambaste "fossil fuel interests who want to protect the outdated status quo."
Obama took aim at fossil fuel companies and investors like the Koch brothers, calling into question their commitment to a free market, but only when it suited them.
"Think about it. Normally, these are groups that tout themselves as champions of the free market," the president said. "But in this situation, they're trying to undermine competition in the marketplace and choke off consumer choice and threaten the industry that is churning out jobs at a fast pace."
The remarks are the latest from the president in attempt to speak "frankly and frequently" about climate change, said Brian Deese, the president's senior climate change adviser, on a call with reporters. In the coming days, the president will travel to New Orleans and Alaska on a 11-day "climate tour."
Obama added that there still remains a lot of work to be done in order to grow the renewable energy sector, but between technology improvements and market growth driven by consumer desire, clean energy presents itself as a worthwhile bet.
"Folks whose interests or ideologies run counter to where we need to go, we've got to be able to politely but firmly say we're moving forward," he said.
-
Utility Renews Bid For Stay Of MACT Emission Limit
Aug 25, 2015 | InsideEPA
A power company is renewing its bid for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to impose an emergency stay of a looming September deadline for it to comply with a hydrogen chloride (HCl) emission limit in EPA's utility air toxics rule, arguing that it has exhausted all administrative options to win a stay.
In an Aug. 24 filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association says that it is resubmitting a previous request for a stay of the limit that the court rejected. The judges previously said that the company needed to first try to win a compliance extension from either air regulators in Colorado -- where the company's affected power plant is based -- or through a request to EPA.
Tri-State says that within 24 hours of the court's Aug. 17 order it sent a letter to EPA, the Department of Justice lawyer assigned to the utility maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air toxics rule suit, and Colorado's Air Pollution Control Division (APCD) seeking the same relief it asked from the court.
The company says that in an Aug. 18 email, the director of APCD said Colorado does not have authority to grant such relief and that a suspension of the deadline would have to come from EPA.
On Aug. 21, acting EPA air chief Janet McCabe then emailed Tri-State's counsel to say that “every source has unique concerns and constraints in responding to regulatory requirements” and that EPA would not be granting the company the relief it is asking for, according to the company's filing.
Tri-State wants an emergency stay for its Nucla plant from having to meet the rule's HCl limit by a Sept. 1 deadline until EPA has complied with the Supreme Court's June 29 remand of the MACT.
The high court faulted EPA for not considering costs when it issued its finding that a utility MACT was “appropriate and necessary,” even though the Clean Air Act is silent on whether costs must be a factor. EPA said it considered costs when it set the rule's emissions limits, but the justices said it should have been a consideration for the initial decision to regulate. As a result, the court sent litigation over the utility MACT back to the D.C. Circuit.
While the appellate judges weigh how to proceed in the case White Stallion Energy Center, et al. v. EPA, et al., the agency has said it plans to craft a new appropriate and necessary finding that considers costs.
But Tri-State in its new filing argues that because it has exhausted its administrative options for a stay of the HCl emission limit deadline, the court should grant its request to delay its compliance before the Sept. 1 deadline takes effect. It also asks for an expedited briefing schedule to allow for a decision before the deadline.
The company says that the the court should suspend the compliance obligation for the Nucla plant until EPA makes its new appropriate and necessary finding that complies with the Supreme Court's ruling.
-
Advocates' Suit Challenges CWA Rule Exclusions
Aug 24, 2015 | InsideEPA
Environmentalists are suing EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers over their joint rule to define the scope of the Clean Water Act (CWA), claiming that the regulation's provisions are unlawfully narrow and exclude waters that should be jurisdictional and subject to CWA requirements without a sound legal basis for the exclusions.
Puget Soundkeeper and other advocates filed their suit Aug. 20 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle, one of many legal challenges to the policy that have been filed in both federal district and appellate courts. Other environmental groups have already filed challenges to the rule in appellate court, where pending suits have been consolidated in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.
In the new district court suit, Puget Soundkeeper claims that the final CWA rule -- which the agencies published June 29 and which takes effect Aug. 28 -- is at odds with one of the two competing tests for determining CWA jurisdiction as established in the 2006 Supreme Court ruling in Rapanos v. United States.
“By the combined effect of narrow or limiting treatment of tributaries and subsurface connections, the limitation of case-specific significant nexus determinations to artificial distance limitations and specified ecological types of wetlands, and the Agencies' wholesale abandonment of case-specific for any other waters, the Final Rule excludes waterbodies across the United States from mandatory protections under the CWA, even where those waters might meet the significant nexus test set forth,” according to the group's initial complaint.
The administration and its supporters say that the final waters rule resolves doubts about the law's reach, while most critics say it expands the scope of the CWA far beyond what Congress intended.
But Puget Soundkeeper and its allies argue that some of the provisions in the final rule are unlawfully narrow and leave some waters unprotected. For example, the rule would define “tributaries” as “characterized by the presence of physical indicators of a bed and banks and ordinary high water mark(OHWM),” which the complaint says means that waterbodies that do not share those characteristics “would not be categorically protected under the CWA.”
The groups also take issue with the final rule's determination to narrow the field of waters that can be jurisdictional based on case-by-case decisions to those specific regional features, including Texas coastal prairie wetlands, Carolina and Delmarva bays, pocosins, prairie potholes and Western vernal pools; and waters within the 100-year floodplain and within 4,000 feet of the high tide line or OHWM of a jurisdictional waterbody.
The complaint says “by narrowly defining the waters that are eligible for a case-specific determination of significant nexus, the Final Rule purports to relinquish the Agencies authority and duty to determine whether scientific evidence demonstrates that particular waters not specifically included in the regulatory definitions are, in fact, waters of the United States under applicable case law entitled to protection from pollution, degradation, or destruction.”
-
Crude in Va. Oil-Train Derailment was Highly Volatile -- Safety Data
Aug 25, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
A mile-long oil train that jumped the tracks and exploded in a Virginia town last year had been carrying unusually volatile crude, according to test results released last week.
A newly disclosed analysis of the CSX Corp. train's cargo shows it had vapor pressures above the normal range for oil produced in North Dakota's Bakken Shale play. The crude burst into flames during an April 30, 2014, derailment in downtown Lynchburg, Va., injuring no one but prompting 350 people to evacuate (EnergyWire, May 2, 2014).
Bakken crude has come under scrutiny since a 72-car train derailed and exploded in Quebec two years ago, killing 47 people. Canadian investigators later determined that the light, flammable crude in that incident behaved more like gasoline than conventional oil.
One sample of crude in the Lynchburg derailment had a vapor pressure about 1½ times higher than the oil in the Quebec disaster, according to data released as part of an ongoing National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the Virginia crash.
That vapor pressure reading of 18.5 pounds per square inch (psi) is also well outside the "typical" range of 8 to 15 psi recorded by an industry-backed study of Bakken crude last year (EnergyWire, May 21, 2014).
Still, the reading is "not very significant from the standpoint of [Department of Transportation] regulations," according to hazardous materials consultant Frits Wybenga, who pointed out in an email that the vapor pressure reading would have to be closer to 50 psi for crude to be considered a gas (and thus need different packaging).
The 18.5 psi sample was collected on April 14, 2014, before the oil was loaded into tank cars and shipped east toward a coastal terminal operated by Plains Marketing LP.
In the wake of the Lynchburg derailment and a string of other fiery oil train crashes across the country, state regulators in North Dakota ordered drillers to reduce crude vapor pressure, a key measure of a flammable liquid's volatility.
Since the North Dakota Industrial Commission's order took effect in April, oil companies have had to "condition" their crude in order to bring its vapor pressure below 13.7 psi. The 14 samples of crude collected before the Lynchburg derailment had an average vapor pressure of 14.3 psi, and just four samples would have met the new standard.
Alison Ritter, spokeswoman for the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, said the department had received more than 5,000 vapor pressure tests so far, with fewer than 10 results showing levels above 13.7 psi.
"We are at a near 99 percent compliance [rate] with quarterly vapor test submittals," Ritter said in an email, adding that those found in violation "immediately made modifications and retested" their crude within a 48-hour window.
Several Democratic lawmakers have called on the Obama administration to set a national volatility standard for crude shipped by rail, a step the oil industry opposes (EnergyWire, June 3). The Department of Transportation passed new tank car and hazardous materials regulations earlier this year to keep up with swelling crude-by-rail traffic, but the rules stopped short of regulating vapor pressure.
Still, the DOT's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has warned in the past that Bakken crude is more volatile than other types of oil. The agency said in a 2014 report that "given Bakken crude oil's volatility, there is an increased risk of a significant incident involving this material due to the significant volume that is transported, the routes and the extremely long distances it is moving by rail."Still no cause
Skeptics of tougher crude chemical standards have pointed out that the oil itself does not lead to derailments, which are typically caused by track defects, human error or equipment failures.
A spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board declined to comment on whether Bakken crude's chemical properties may have played a role in the Lynchburg derailment. The spokesman added that the final results of the investigation would likely be posted this fall.
But the transcripts and analyses released by the NTSB last week offer a detailed look at other events surrounding the April 30 crash.
In an interview with an NTSB investigator, Lynchburg fire chief Robert Lipscomb reported "getting kind of frustrated" while waiting for CSX personnel to arrive on the scene after the train derailed in the middle of town, tipping three tank cars into the James River. Lipscomb said it took about two hours for a CSX representative to meet with him, sowing "delay and a little bit of confusion" into the response effort.
The NTSB documents also show that CSX carried out a series of track inspections in the days leading up to the crash, and had even scheduled repairs for the section of track where the derailment took place.
CSX spokesman Rob Doolittle declined to comment on the NTSB data, citing the active investigation. "Safety is CSX's highest priority, and the company is committed to using the safest solutions available to deliver shipments to their intended destination," he said, adding that the company "looks forward to reviewing the NTSB's findings and recommendations when its investigation into this incident is complete."
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News
Energy and Environment News
Transportation News
Add recipients
Suggested