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ACC AM Aug 27
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(ACC Blog) On The Road With #ACCaugust – Updated 8/26/15
Aug 27, 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... http://blog.americanchemistry.com/ -
EPA Offers Tips for Filing Chemical Documents in 2016
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical company employees and contractors located outside the U.S. may need to register early to file documents for new chemicals using an electronic system the Environmental Protection Agency will require in 2016, agency staff said Aug. 26. The cloud-based Central Data Exchange (CDX) system that chemical manufacturers will be required... -
How To Choose Flame-Retardant Free Furniture AHow To Choose Flame-Retardant Free Furniture
Aug 27, 2015 | Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
By Alex Feitel
Keeping your family safe and healthy can be difficult these days. It seems like every new product that comes out has some scary toxic chemical in it just waiting to be linked to equally scary health problems. Brominated and chlorinated flame retardants are perfect examples of toxic chemicals hiding in everyday consumer... -
Industry Lawyer Disputes EPA Authority To Protect Workers From Vapor
Aug 26, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Dave Reynolds
An industry attorney is pushing back against EPA's assertion in its recently released vapor intrusion guidance that it has "broad authority" to protect workers from indoor air contamination, arguing the agency's position lacks legal backing and tries to compensate for weak Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) exposure limits. -
NTP: Inhaling Vinylidene Chloride Carcinogenic
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Inhaling vinylidene chloride causes mesothelioma and other cancers in rodents, the National Toxicology Program said in a final report issued Aug. 26. Vinylidene chloride (CAS No. 75-35-4) is used to make a variety of polymers, including films for food containers, and coating for divergent products ranging from carpets to railroad containers... -
US GAO Highlights Conflict Minerals Reporting Issues
Aug 26, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) says most firms that filed disclosure returns last year did not get details from their suppliers on where the minerals came from. In a report to Congressional committees, the GAO – an investigative agency of Congress – says its analysis of a... -
PHMSA Considers Changing State Pipeline Authority
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
The nation's pipeline safety regulator is considering changing and clarifying aspects of how it delegates authority to state regulators, and state regulators aren't thrilled. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is considering limiting the role some state regulators play in the regulation of interstate pipelines, a move a ... -
PHMSA Releases Midstream Processing Facility Guidance
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
A pipeline working group has drafted guidance to clarify which midstream processing facilities fall primarily under occupational or pipeline safety jurisdiction, a senior federal pipeline safety official said Aug. 26. The draft guidance specifically delineates whether hazardous liquid or gas processing facilities should be inspected... -
EPA: Failure to Gauge Water Pressure Likely Caused Spill
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Failure by the Environmental Protection Agency to measure the high level of water pressure behind a collapsed mine tunnel opening is the likely cause of a blowout that spilled 3 million gallons of mining waste and sediment into the Animas River watershed, the agency said Aug. 26. -
EPA Study Of Colorado Mine Spill Includes Call For New Cleanup Guidance
Aug 26, 2015 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
EPA's internal study of an agency cleanup team's accidental release of 3 million gallons of wastewater from a Colorado mine includes a call for new guidance aimed at minimizing the chances of, and environmental hazards from, such spills in the future, but makes no findings of negligence or improper practices by the workers involved. -
Town, County Seek Mining Cleanup Funds After Animas
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
A town and county in Colorado where the Environmental Protection Agency triggered a spill of mining wastewater into the Animas River are seeking federal funding to address leaking waste from nearby historic mining operations. The San Juan County Commission approved a resolution Aug. 25 requesting federal funding to address the issue ... -
EPA Says It Underestimated Mine Waste Blowout Risk
Aug 26, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Workers with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) underestimated the risks of the mine waste spill this month in Colorado, the agency said. The Wednesday report is the first extensive analysis of how the EPA allowed 3 million gallons of poisonous mine waste sludge with heavy metals to flow into a tributary of the... -
Agency Admits Lack Of Plans, Notification For Colo. Spill
Aug 26, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Manuel Quiñones
U.S. EPA today admitted several missteps in its handling of this month's wastewater blowout from an abandoned Colorado mine. The agency released an internal review of the incident that spilled roughly 3 million gallons of wastewater, which it caused while investigating ways of resolving pollution concerns at the site. -
Industry, States Face Tough Fight on BLM Fracking Rule
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The odds are against success for the lawsuits attempting to block the new federal regulations issued to govern hydraulic fracturing on federal and Indian lands, but the litigation may be just the start of the fighting, in the views of attorneys familiar with the subject. -
Environmental Groups to Sue EPA Over Fracking Rules
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Ware
A coalition of seven environmental groups filed a notice of intent on Aug. 26 to sue the Environmental Protection Agency to compel it to update its rules on handling and disposal of waste generated from oil and gas activities. The groups said during a teleconference they will file a lawsuit within 60 days unless the EPA reviews and revises... -
Green Groups Threaten To Sue Over Fracking Regulations
Aug 26, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Environmental groups are threatening to sue federal regulators if they don't issue new standards for hydraulic fracturing. The groups, a coalition that includes the Environmental Integrity Project and the National Resources Defense Council, sent a notice of intent to sue to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday pushing... -
Groups Push Feds For New Natural Gas Rules
Aug 26, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A federal rule cracking down on venting or leaks at natural gas drilling sites would save millions of dollars in royalty revenue for the government, two groups say in a new ad campaign out Wednesday. In the ads, the Western Values Project and Taxpayers for Common Sense are asking the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to issue a rule... -
Advocates Threaten Suit To Force EPA RCRA Rules For Oil & Gas Wastes
Aug 26, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Environmentalists are threatening to sue EPA to force development of first-time Resource Conservation & Recovery (RCRA) subtitle D solid waste rules for oil and gas wastes, after they failed with a push for EPA to reconsider its 1988 finding that disposal of the wastes should not be managed under subtitle C hazardous waste requirements. -
EPA Announces 3 Public Hearings on Methane Rules
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Aug. 26 that it will hold three public hearings next month on its proposal to curb methane emissions from new oil and natural gas facilities. The public hearings are scheduled for Sept. 23 in Denver and Dallas, and Sept. 29 in Pittsburgh, according to a notice slated for publication in the Federal... -
Smart, Comprehensive Approaches Will Reduce Methane Emissions
Aug 26, 2015 | The Huffington Post - Green Blog
By Kim Glas
Each year, billions of cubic feet of natural gas -- enough to heat more than six million American homes -- are directly released or leaked by the energy sector into the atmosphere, wasting a valuable energy resource, threatening the health of our communities, and accelerating the impacts of climate change. -
Protein Stores Copper For Methane-Digesting Bacteria
Aug 26, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Celia Henry Arnaud
Engineered methanotrophic bacteria could help us cut atmospheric levels of methane, a greenhouse gas. But scientists first need to understand how the microbes handle the copper required for their methane-oxidizing enzymes. Scientists have known how copper gets into the bacteria, but they haven’t known how the bacteria store... -
RGGI Allowance Prices Up Slightly in Secondary Market
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The price of Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon allowances in the secondary market increased slightly in the second quarter of 2015, compared with the first quarter, according to an Aug. 25 report from RGGI's market monitor, Potomac Economics. The average price in the secondary market was $5.53, up 1 percent from the first quarter... -
Boxer, Feinstein Join Fray On State Climate Bills
Aug 26, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Debra Kahn
California's U.S. senators took the unusual step today of urging their statehouse counterparts to pass climate legislation. Sens. Barbara Boxer (D) and Dianne Feinstein (D) sent a letter to members of the California Assembly urging them to pass bills to extend the state's climate reduction and renewable energy targets to 2030... -
EPA Taking Comment on Ozone Nonattainment Proposal
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Environmental Protection Agency is accepting public comment on when 11 areas that missed their deadline to attain the 2008 national ambient air quality standards for ozone should be required to submit plans outlining how they intend to come into compliance. The agency, in a proposal scheduled for publication Aug. 27, would determine that Atlanta... -
EPA Declares Several Ozone 'Nonattainment' Areas Achieving Air Standard
Aug 26, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA says that 17 out of 36 areas previously designated as being in “marginal nonattainment” with its 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) are now achieving the limit and can be reclassified to attainment, though questions linger about how many nonattainment areas might be created by a potential future stricter NAAQS. -
Ozone Alert: Smog Battle Heats Up Again, Manufacturers Say Cleaner Air Will Kill Them
Aug 26, 2015 | Cleveland Plain Dealer
By John Funk
Another battle about ozone is beginning. The air waves and blogosphere will soon be thick with warnings about lost jobs versus lost lives as the health and manufacturing industries engage in another round of fighting about lowering the amount of ozone in the air you breath. Most people know ozone as smog, the filthy air... -
Bennet Says Ozone Proposal 'Doesn't Make Any Sense'
Aug 26, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillén and Manu Raju
Sen. Michael Bennet came out swinging against EPA's proposal to lower ozone standards at an oil and gas industry conference today, saying he is "deeply concerned." EPA has proposed lowering the standard from 75 parts per billion to 65 to 70 ppb, but also took comments on keeping it at 75 ppb or cutting it as low as 60 ppb. -
In Smog Rule Fight, Industry Groups Make their Push in Purple States
Aug 26, 2015 | National Journal
By Jason Plautz
While the Obama administration spends the month promoting its much-awaited climate-change rule limiting carbon emissions from the power sector, industry groups are instead trying to put the brakes on a different environmental regulation. In a methodical march through swing states, major business groups such as the Chamber... -
EPA Pursues Carbon Trading Despite Congress's Failure
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan could succeed where congressional Democrats failed at the onset of the Obama administration in fostering a wide-scale carbon dioxide emissions trading program. But opponents of the rule say Congress's failure is one more indication that the EPA's actions are illegal. -
EPA Chief: ‘Tremendous’ Chance Offered for Carbon Capture
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Chisaki Watanabe
Gina McCarthy, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the need to reduce carbon emissions offers a chance to push ahead with low-carbon technology such as carbon capture and storage. “In the U.S. even with our Clean Power Plan, every fuel will still continue to play a part” including coal and gas... -
Buffett’s Energy Empire Draws Greens’ Ire
Aug 26, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Andrew Restuccia
Another billionaire is angering environmentalists these days: Democratic hero Warren Buffett. For Democrats, the world’s third-richest person is a champion who has advocated higher taxes for millionaires and donated money to put Hillary Clinton in the White House. But green-energy advocates are expressing increasing...
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(ACC Blog) On The Road With #ACCaugust – Updated 8/26/15
Aug 27, 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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EPA Offers Tips for Filing Chemical Documents in 2016
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical company employees and contractors located outside the U.S. may need to register early to file documents for new chemicals using an electronic system the Environmental Protection Agency will require in 2016, agency staff said Aug. 26.
The cloud-based Central Data Exchange (CDX) system that chemical manufacturers will be required to use employs a third-party service, LexisNexis, to verify the identity of users, according to Kathryn Schechter, a chemist with the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.
Non-U.S. individuals are unlikely to be identified through that service, Schechter said. Such individuals can mail a paper electronic signature agreement, but that can take 10 business days to process, she said.
Schechter was among the officials who spoke during the first of three webinars the EPA is hosting.
Each webinar offers chemical manufacturers tips on different aspects of the requirements companies, contractors and consultants will need to meet when submitting premanufacture notices (PMNs) and related documents using the electronic filing system that will become mandatory in 2016.
Rule Effective in January
In July, the EPA issued a final rule taking effect Jan. 19, 2016, that will require chemical manufacturers to submit PMNs and related documents using the new cloud-based software. The rule, issued under Section 5 of the Toxic Substances Control Act, also expands the range of documents that must be filed electronically (80 Fed. Reg. 42,739; 138 DEN A-3, 7/20/15).
The agency's presentation is available at a website announcing all three webinars. A recording of the presentation along with questions and answers will be posted, agency staff said.
The next two webinars are scheduled for:
• Sept. 16 to discuss the PMN form, the support form and joint submissions and
• Sept. 30 to discuss filing notices of commencement, biotech notifications, bona fides and alternative control submissions for significant new use rules.
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How To Choose Flame-Retardant Free Furniture AHow To Choose Flame-Retardant Free Furniture
Aug 27, 2015 | Safer Chemicals Healthy Families
By Alex Feitel
Keeping your family safe and healthy can be difficult these days. It seems like every new product that comes out has some scary toxic chemical in it just waiting to be linked to equally scary health problems.
Brominated and chlorinated flame retardants are perfect examples of toxic chemicals hiding in everyday consumer products. They are used in numerous common household and office products including upholstered furniture, electronics, insulation, wire, and cable to decrease the products’ flammability. However, recent studies have shown that toxic flame retardants may do more harm than good.
Some flame retardant chemicals have been linked to “serious health problems including cancer, reduced IQ, developmental delays, obesity, and reproductive difficulties…and have been found in 97% of all Americans tested.” (Center for Environmental Health.) Because flame retardants are not chemically bound to the materials they are incorporated in, they can easily leach out of products and be ingested or inhaled, making their way into our bodies as a result.
Scary, right? Fortunately, there’s a solution! Here’s how you can find flame-retardant free furniture:Big retailers eliminating toxic flame retardants in furniture
For the newspaper buffs:
These retailers told the Chicago Tribune they had mostly eliminated flame retardants:Ashley FurnitureCrate and BarrelRoom & BoardWilliams-Sonoma
Securing the commitment from Ashley Furniture was a big victory for Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families’ Mind the Store Campaign, as Ashley is the largest manufacturer and retailer of furniture in the country. This served as a major step in driving the furniture sector away from these harmful chemicals, influencing other furniture retailers and competitors to follow Ashley’s lead.
“If Ashley follows other companies and stops using flame retardants, the chemicals could be a thing of the past in residential furniture,” Bob Luedeka, executive director of the Polyurethane Foam Association, told the Chicago Tribune.
For the conscious consumers:
Earlier this year, the Chicago Tribune reported these retailers told their vendors to stop adding flame retardants to their products:IKEA La-Z-BoyThe Futon ShopScandinavian DesignsWal-Mart
Others like Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams, have responded to consumer queries indicating their furniture no longer contains toxic flame retardants.
For the Twitter addicts:
Some retailers, such as Ethan Allen, have tweeted that all of their furniture was free of toxic flame retardants:
Ethan AllenSome retailers lagging behind – it’s time they Mind the Store!
The furniture retail industry isn’t totally perfect yet.
To date, these major furniture retailers have remained silent about whether or not they’ve taken action on toxic flame retardants in furniture, some of which did not respond to NRDC’s furniture survey last year:
Aaron’s
American Signature
Art Van Furniture
Berkshire Hathaway (who owns Nebraska Furniture Mart, RC Willey Home Furnishings, Star Furniture Company, and Jordan’s Furniture, Inc.)
Big Lots
Costco
Haverty
Macy’s
Mathis Brothers
Mattress Firm
Pier 1 Imports
Raymour & Flanigan
Rooms to Go
Select Comfort
Target
The Mind the Store campaign is calling on these major retailers to join the growing market movement away from toxic flame retardants in furniture and other products.
If other big retailers like Ashley Furniture can do it, so can they! And if they have already taken action, we believe their customers have the right to know, so they can purchase safer furniture for their families.Simple steps to reduce your exposure to toxic flame retardants
Until all of these retailers are able to accomplish this, in the meantime here are some easy tips for you to kick toxic chemicals out of your life:Check the label before you buy upholstered furniture — don’t buy furniture that carries the old TB 117 label. Look for the new TB 117-2013 label and verify with the store or the other label (see below) that the product does not contain flame retardants.Look for flame-retardant free labels under furniture and cushions, which are required thanks to a new California lawOpen windows and clean your office and/or living area frequently to minimize contact with dust. Vacuum carpets with a vacuum that contains a HEPA filter.Damp mop floors and damp dust furniture on a regular basis.Wash your hands often, especially before eating.Learn more: Check out the Center for Environmental Health’s two new reports, Kicking Toxic Chemicals Out of the Office and Residential Furniture Survey. The reports provide a comprehensive summary of flame retardants, their health effects, and what is happening with them in terms of policy and legislation. The reports also include even more extensive lists of brands that have eliminated or pledged to eliminate flame retardants from their products.Watch Toxic Hotseat.Get involved in our Mind the Store campaign to call on big retailers like Costco and Macy’s to eliminate toxic flame retardants and other harmful chemicals.
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Industry Lawyer Disputes EPA Authority To Protect Workers From Vapor
Aug 26, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Dave Reynolds
An industry attorney is pushing back against EPA's assertion in its recently released vapor intrusion guidance that it has "broad authority" to protect workers from indoor air contamination, arguing the agency's position lacks legal backing and tries to compensate for weak Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) exposure limits.
EPA appears to resolve in its June 11 guidance for assessing and mitigating risk from vapor intrusion a long-standing debate over whether EPA risk-based standards or OSHA limits should be used to protect workers from toxic vapors in indoor air in non-residential buildings.
In the guidance, EPA clearly states it has authority to protect workers "in residential and nonresidential settings arising from a chemical release that causes subsurface contamination by volatile hazardous chemicals." The agency also advises against using OSHA's Permissible Exposure Limits (PELs) to protect workers from vapor intrusion.
During an Aug. 19 webinar, Laurence Kirsch of Goodwin Procter, argued that EPA's position lacks sound legal backing. He said conflicts over whether EPA or OSHA standards should be used to protect workers will continue to play out in the coming years.
EPA "really has no case," Kirsch said during a webinar hosted by the American Law Institute Continuing Legal Education. "It's legal support is as ethereal as are vapors inside office buildings."
EPA worked for years to craft guidance for assessing and mitigating risks from vapor intrusion, which occurs when vapors from below-ground contamination rise into the indoor air of overlying buildings. EPA took more than a decade finalizing the guidance, an effort marked by both scientific challenges and critical comments from industry and federal agencies.
Whether OSHA's PELs or EPA risk-based limits should apply at occupational sites at risk of vapor intrusion brought conflicting comments on EPA's 2013 draft guidance, and prompted industry calls for EPA to withdraw its proposed guidance. Industry and federal agencies argued in comments that EPA ignored OSHA's role, while regulators from Virginia and California urged EPA to clarify its authority to protect workers.
An environmentalist tracking the guidance says EPA has already been addressing vapor intrusion in non-residential buildings, so the clarification will likely affirm current practice. The strong language in the EPA guidance suggests that EPA and OSHA prevailed over other federal agencies in negotiations on the draft guidance at the White House Office of Management and Budget, the source says.
Historically, OSHA has set standards for indoor air at occupational sites. But OSHA's PELs have not been updated in decades and are typically weaker than EPA's risk-based standards, sometimes by orders of magnitude.
'Critical Mandate'
In the final guidance, EPA says it has a "critical mandate" to protect human health, and that its authority to protect workers from indoor air contamination stems from statutes, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
The agency guidance also cites memoranda of understanding (MOU) between OSHA and EPA dating from the early 1990s. One MOU sought improved environmental and workplace safety and a second established a process for inter-agency coordination on identifying and enforcing against environmental and workplace health and safety problems.
During the webinar, "EPA Vapor Intrusion: Analysis and Application," Kirsch said that over the last decade, EPA has slowly proffered legal arguments to support encroaching on OSHA's authority, though they are not convincing.
"We have authority because we need authority,'" Kirsch says, assessing the agency's reasoning in the recently released guidance. "It really isn't clear how OSHA's statutory authority will be factored in, if at all."
Kirsch said OSHA has "overall authority" for providing a safe workplace, and that OSHA's authorities are specifically directed to the workplace environment. Meanwhile, in years past, EPA rebuffed calls to regulate indoor air, saying it lacked authority.
EPA first said it would oversee workplace exposures that stem from environmental contamination in a 2002 draft of the vapor intrusion guidance, though that document also included a statement saying that OSHA limits, rather than EPA standards, should apply to "primarily occupational" facilities. That language was not included in the April 2013 draft, spurring critical comments from industry and federal agencies.
Noting that OSHA appeared to bolster EPA's stance in May by acknowledging on its website that many of its PELs are outdated and inadequate for protecting workers, Kirsch argued that OSHA should address that problem by revising its PELs, rather than abdicating its authority to another agency in a way Congress never intended. "Even if the MOU's did purport to 'allocate' this role to EPA, which they do not, administrative agencies cannot create statutory authority by agreements between themselves," Kirsch said. "Administrative agencies can't switch their authorities proscribed by the laws that created them."
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NTP: Inhaling Vinylidene Chloride Carcinogenic
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Inhaling vinylidene chloride causes mesothelioma and other cancers in rodents, the National Toxicology Program said in a final report issued Aug. 26.
Vinylidene chloride (CAS No. 75-35-4) is used to make a variety of polymers, including films for food containers, and coating for divergent products ranging from carpets to railroad containers, NTP's Technical Report said.
The Dow Chemical Co. and Shin Etsu manufactured vinylidene chloride in 2011, the most recent year for which chemical manufacturers had to submit production information to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Because only two companies are listed, the EPA withheld the total national production volumes. NTP's report said U.S. production has varied between 68,000 tons and 90,000 tons.
Workers face the highest potential for exposure, NTP's report said.
Scientists advising the NTP supported its conclusions about the carcinogenic potential of vinylidene chloride when they peer reviewed the program's draft report in 2014 (76 DEN A-11, 4/21/14).
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US GAO Highlights Conflict Minerals Reporting Issues
Aug 26, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) says most firms that filed disclosure returns last year did not get details from their suppliers on where the minerals came from.
In a report to Congressional committees, the GAO – an investigative agency of Congress – says its analysis of a “generalised sample” of returns filed in 2014 – the first reporting year – found that only 47% of the companies said they received responses from suppliers.
Some 67% were unable to determine whether those minerals came from the covered countries.
Under the Dodd-Frank Act, US listed companies using one or more of the four “conflict minerals” determined by the US government to be financing conflict in central Africa must file annual disclosure reports.
The minerals are: tantalum;tin;tungsten;and gold.
Some companies told the GAO they had difficulty getting “necessary information from suppliers because of delays and other challenges in communication.”
The findings are in line with a recently published study conducted by Tulane University for the consultancy Assent. This also says 67% of the 2014 filers did not disclose their minerals country of origin (CW 25 August 2015).
The GAO report notes that the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) are taking steps to help implement the conflict mineral rule, but “a difficult operating environment complicates this implementation.”
The agencies' initiatives include validation of conflict-free mineral sites and strengthening “traceability mechanisms that minimise the risk that minerals that have been exploited by armed groups will enter the supply chain,” it added. As a result, 140 mineral sites have been validated.
But, the implementation of the US conflict minerals strategy still faces “multiple obstacles”, says the GAO. For example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is “plagued by insecurity because of the presence of illegal armed groups and some corrupt members of the national military, weak governance and poor performance.”
Almost all of the companies (99%) reported making country-of-origin inquiries for the conflict minerals used. Ninety-four percent said they had exercised “due diligence on the source and chain of custody of conflict minerals used,” the report says.
The companies that disclosed that conflict minerals came from covered countries (4%) “indicated that they are, or will be, taking action to address the risks associated with the use and source of conflict minerals in their supply chains,” the report says.
One said it would tell suppliers that it intends to stop doing business with those who continue to source conflict minerals from smelters that are not certified as conflict-free.
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PHMSA Considers Changing State Pipeline Authority
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
The nation's pipeline safety regulator is considering changing and clarifying aspects of how it delegates authority to state regulators, and state regulators aren't thrilled.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is considering limiting the role some state regulators play in the regulation of interstate pipelines, a move a state regulators' group opposes.
PHMSA also is establishing a process for decertifying a state's intrastate pipeline program if it is deemed inadequate, which the Pipeline Safety Trust says could offer the agency leverage in enforcement.
“We would like states to focus their limited resources on [intrastate systems], but certainly interface with us on the interstate pipeline systems—where it makes sense for both of us [to work],” Zach Barrett, a director of state programs at PHMSA, said Aug. 26.
These shifts come months after the agency received a boost in funding from Congress that will allow it to add federal inspectors for the pipeline program. And even as state pipeline programs' performance has improved, all deaths or injuries associated with pipeline incidents in 2014 occurred on intrastate systems, according to Barrett.
Timing for these actions by PHMSA remains unclear. Barrett said that for the interstate pipelines, “we're not looking any time soon to de-structure our current interstate agents.”
Officials made their comments at a joint meeting of PHMSA's gas and liquid advisory committees, which was held in Arlington, Va., Aug. 25 and Aug. 26.
Stage of States
With the exception of Alaska and Hawaii, all states as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have state pipeline safety authority over either or both gas and hazardous liquid pipelines. States are responsible for inspecting and enforcing rules for more than 80 percent of domestic intrastate transmission and distribution lines.
Under 49 U.S.C. §§ 60105-60106, states may have authority over intrastate gas and hazardous liquid pipelines through certifications or agreements with the federal regulator, using rules at least as stringent as those under PHMSA. Additionally, states through an agreement with PHMSA may obtain authority to inspect interstate pipelines; however, PHMSA would conduct enforcement actions.
States' performance right now is “good,” although it can always be better, Barrett said.
States have reduced the rate of “serious” incidents that resulted in deaths or injuries on gas distribution systems by two-thirds over the last 30 years, Barrett said. And while there was a slight uptick in 2014 in serious incidents to 26 incidents, serious incidents in 2012 and 2013 were 24 and 21, respectively—the lowest on record, he said.
Interstate Authority
It isn't clear how or when PHMSA is looking to alter its use of interstate agreements that allow states to inspect interstate pipelines, or how many states currently use those agreements.
When asked whether the agency is looking to do away with interstate agreements, Barrett said, “We're not looking to do anything with all interstate agents that have formal agreements in place.” He highlighted that the agency could use or expand work with states through temporary interstate agent agreements for individual projects.
Barrett said the agency is interested in hearing from states that want to “relinquish” their interstate status and still coordinate with PHMSA on individual instances. Those states could use their resources on their intrastate pipelines, he said.
However, Robert Miller, chairman of the National Association of Pipeline Safety Representatives, told Bloomberg BNA that what was discussed at the Aug. 26 meeting by Barrett equated to altering full joint partnerships between the state and PHMSA to be more at the agency's discretion. This would make it more difficult for states to inspect pipelines that they were trained to inspect and were doing a good job of inspecting, Miller said.
“We [NAPSR] don't think that it would be beneficial to pipeline safety to take programs that are already within the interstate agency agreement program to take them out of that program when they're doing a good job,” Miller, who is also program manager for Arizona, said. “We do take care of our state business. In our certification, we have to take care of our business in order to even participate in the interstate program.”
‘Turf Battle.'
Massoud Tahamtani, the Division of Utility and Railroad Safety director for Virginia's State Corporation Commission, told Bloomberg BNA Aug. 26 that Virginia is an interstate agent because there was a need for inspections and, at the time it entered the agreement, PHMSA didn't have the resources to adequately address that need.
Now, PHMSA has more resources and staffing and wants states to use their resources on their intrastate pipelines to ensure those are safe, Tahamtani said.
“Unlike some of the other states, I want to spend the resources where it's needed. This is not a turf battle that the more you have the better off you are, in my opinion,” Tahamtani said.
Tahamtani said the temporary interstate agreement is still important, though, and states may still want to get involved.
For example, there is a potential 500-mile interstate gas transmission line that would go through Virginia. If that starts, Tahamtani said he would want Virginia to play a role in inspecting that line as a temporary interstate agent, “because PHMSA probably won't have enough resources to inspect that pipeline like we would.”
A PHMSA pipeline official has already told Tahamtani “no problem,” he said.
Intrastate Programs
The move to develop an administrative process for decertifying states' intrastate programs when they are not performing adequately is far less controversial, though still important.
The rule would formalize an authority the federal agency already has—and has used—to decertify an intrastate program and to assume the state's inspection and enforcement duties “if we think a state is not up to speed,” John Gale, the PHMSA Office of Pipeline Safety's director of standards and rulemaking, said Aug. 25.
“Not that we plan on using that very often, but it will be a tool in the toolbox that we have in our regulations so that—if need be—we can [use it],” Gale said.
Barrett cited Hawaii as an example where, when the state wasn't adequately inspecting pipelines or enforcing relevant laws, PHMSA decertified the state. Miller told Bloomberg BNA that the agency always had the decertification authority, it just wasn't codified.
Carl Weimer, executive director for the Pipeline Safety Trust, told Bloomberg BNA Aug. 26 that incidents such as one in 2010 in San Bruno, Calif., that resulted in eight deaths have highlighted instances where states haven't done a great job and have put “a lot of pressure on PHMSA” regarding its oversight of states.
Bluffing States
With the funding Congress recently appropriated, it may be that the agency now has the resources to assume responsibilities in certain states in a limited fashion, if states aren't adequately doing their job, Weimer said. This move by PHMSA could be its attempt to “define under what circumstances they would step in and use [that authority],” he said.
“I think it's an important tool to have in your tool bag—to bluff states with. I'm guessing it's more of a bluff than a reality at this point because I don't think they want to take on many states,” Weimer, who also emphasized his support for state inspectors, said. “But it's good [to] have that defined so that if states aren't doing what they're supposed to, then they can hold that over states’ heads.”
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PHMSA Releases Midstream Processing Facility Guidance
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
A pipeline working group has drafted guidance to clarify which midstream processing facilities fall primarily under occupational or pipeline safety jurisdiction, a senior federal pipeline safety official said Aug. 26.
The draft guidance specifically delineates whether hazardous liquid or gas processing facilities should be inspected under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's Process Safety Management program or under Sections 192 or 195 of PHMSA's pipeline safety law.
The draft guidance is intended to clarify which federal regulations apply when “complex facilities” are covered by rules from both regulators, said Linda Daugherty, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's deputy associate administrator for pipeline safety-field operations. It would be a policy document, not a change in regulation, that would result in “net-overall safety” equivalence, she said.
“Often times, overlapping regulations can create confusion and contradictions among the people who are trying to operate a safe facility,” Daugherty said. “Our goal was to come up with clarity, and [to ensure] no gaps and no overlaps.”
It was developed by a multi-stakeholder working group—the Subcommittee for Midstream Safety—by PHMSA's Gas and Liquids Advisory Committees and included government officials and pipeline industry representatives. Daugherty, who was part of the subcommittee that worked from 2014 to 2015, made her comments at committees' joint meeting in Arlington, Va.
Guidance Answers Frequently Asked Questions
The guidance—set up as a set of seven frequently asked questions—lays out definitions such as “processing facility,” sets out boundaries and establishes oversight responsibilities and distinctions. It doesn't include input from the Environmental Protection Agency, a federal agency that regulates some aspects of midstream facilities under its Risk Management Program and Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure Plans.
Much of the burden would be on the operator to use this draft guidance, along with regulations, to determine which agency is the predominant inspector, and Daugherty said the facilities would need to maintain records that would prove this alignment, “so that it doesn't flip flop.” This will also require improved communication at the field level of OSHA and PHMSA inspectors.
Among next steps, the agency said it would seek “input and confirm the support” of the advisory committees. It also plans to send guidance to PHMSA inspection and enforcement staff and operators.
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EPA: Failure to Gauge Water Pressure Likely Caused Spill
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Failure by the Environmental Protection Agency to measure the high level of water pressure behind a collapsed mine tunnel opening is the likely cause of a blowout that spilled 3 million gallons of mining waste and sediment into the Animas River watershed, the agency said Aug. 26.
Drilling a hole near the adit—the entrance to the underground Gold King Mine near Silverton, Colo.—might have discovered “the pressurized conditions that turned out to cause the blowout,” said the EPA, which knew about the risk of blowout at the Gold King nearly 14 months ago.
The EPA said it did not do so, because the procedure would have been expensive and technically challenging. Soil and rock conditions around the mine would have been costly and required much more planning and multiple field seasons to accomplish, the agency said following a preliminary investigation into the Animas Spill.
‘Rapid Analysis.'
An EPA Gold King Mine Internal Review team released the “rapid analysis” of what led to the release of the mine wastewater, which flowed down the Animas River into three states and two Native American reservations.
“Although the removal investigation team was quite experienced and followed standard procedures of a well thought out work plan that included state and [stakeholder] involvement, the underestimation of the water pressure in the Gold King Mine workings is believed to be the most significant factor relating to the blowout,” the review team said in its 11-page report.
The blowout risk was cited in a June 2014 work order describing the EPA's plan to open the adit to identify actions that may be needed to reduce contaminant loading to a nearby stream, Cement Creek, and downstream waters.
Gold King and three other mining facilities—the American Tunnel, Mogul Mine and Red and Bonita Mine—leak 540 gallons of mining waste per minute into Cement Creek, which flows into the Animas River above Silverton.
The Animas merges with the San Juan River in New Mexico, which then empties into the Colorado River at Lake Powell in Utah.
Work Plan
The agency plan outlined work to be done in coordination with the Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety within the Colorado Department of Natural Resources and the Animas River Stakeholder Group, which includes representatives of industry, state and federal agencies and citizens, as well as former miners and equipment operators who have worked on some of the mine adit closures in the area of Gold King.
Opening the adit was designed to give the EPA more information about what could be done to reduce the flow of mining waste.
The EPA work plan accounted for the possibility of pressurized mine water conditions, meaning mine water at a level of pressure high enough to result in a high-velocity exit from the Gold King adit.
“Conditions may exist that could result in a blowout of the blockages and cause a release of large volumes of contaminated mine waters and sediment from inside the mine, which contain concentrated heavy metals,” the work order said.
Draining, Control of Water
The work plan outlined steps to be taken to deal with the pressurized water, such as lowering the debris blockage at the adit and using a stinger—a metal pipe inserted from above the top of the adit front at an angle to allow for drainage and control of the water.
The EPA Internal Review team, which included representatives of four EPA regional offices and one representative from EPA headquarters, concluded that the on-scene team failed to estimate the potential water volume prior to opening up the collapsed adit.
While EPA took several steps to investigate the likelihood of pressurized mine water at the Gold King, the blowout suggests additional tools—such as remote sensing or drilling into the mine pool from the top or side—should be seriously considered, the review said.
The review team also said the on-site team—which included employees of EPA's site contractor, Environmental Restoration LLC of St. Louis—responded appropriately during and after the blowout by moving personnel and equipment and diverting mine waste discharge. No workers were harmed in the incident.
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EPA Study Of Colorado Mine Spill Includes Call For New Cleanup Guidance
Aug 26, 2015 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
EPA's internal study of an agency cleanup team's accidental release of 3 million gallons of wastewater from a Colorado mine includes a call for new guidance aimed at minimizing the chances of, and environmental hazards from, such spills in the future, but makes no findings of negligence or improper practices by the workers involved.
The report, dated Aug. 24 but released Aug. 26, assesses the causes of the spill from the Gold King Mine and makes five recommendations to tighten protections on future abandoned mine cleanup efforts. Those include EPA crafting a new guide for cleaning up closed sites and compiling a “toolbox” of mechanisms that can detect conditions for a blowout with greater accuracy, along with requiring cleanup operators to craft plans for dealing with a “blowout” of wastewater.
“It’s important to recognize that underground mines may be extremely complex, making characterization of the internal hydraulic conditions and flow paths challenging. . . . In the end, while additional information gathering may reduce the uncertainty, a complete understanding of the underground conditions may not be attainable,” the report says.
The study, conducted by regional and headquarters officials, does not find specific failings by the EPA team that triggered the spill, saying the blowout “was likely inevitable” given conditions at the mine.
But it faults EPA for not incorporating measures to deal with a blowout in its plans for the cleanup and calls on regulators to make such measures a mandatory part of future operations.
The report also recommends that the agency seek outside assistance in reviewing mines' safety prior to future cleanup activities. And it calls on EPA to convene a panel of experts “to further analyze the situation encountered at this site and come up with recommendations on additional safeguard measures to reduce the risk and minimize the consequences of such incidents in the future.”
EPA's study is the first of at least three executive branch reviews of the Gold King spill. An independent assessment led by the Department of Interior (DOI) is underway, as is an investigation by EPA's Inspector General (IG) office which began shortly after the spill at the request of lawmakers.
All three studies target the circumstances under which the EPA cleanup crew triggered the release, which has prompted significant scrutiny from Congress and regular updates from the agency on its response.
Lawmakers are also seeking more information on the spill, with the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee set to hold a hearing Sept. 9.
Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is already faulting EPA for not meeting his request to turn over “all available documents” on the spill by Aug. 17.
“It is disappointing, but not surprising, that the EPA failed to meet the House Science Committee’s reasonable deadline in turning over documents pertaining to the Gold King Mine spill. These documents are essential to the Committee’s ongoing investigation and our upcoming hearing,” Smith said in an Aug. 26 statement.
EPA Report
EPA's internal report finds that the agency Gold King mine cleanup team underestimated the water pressure that had built up from wastewater trapped in the abandoned mine, leading to a massive spill when debris holding the water back was breached. The review says cleanup workers measured water pressure at the site by measuring “seeps” and drilling into nearby channels.
It adds that workers could have used a more intensive drilling operation to measure water pressure at Gold King, but that a high risk of cave-ins at the area raised the cost and safety concerns of the technique to where operators considered it impractical.
“The inability to obtain an actual measurement of the mine water pressure behind the entrance blockage seems to be a primary issue at this particular site. If the pressure information was obtained, other steps could have been considered. However, the [Review] Team cannot determine whether any such steps would have been effective, or could have been implemented prior to a blowout,” the review says.
The report does not explicitly hold that the EPA team acted properly, and finds no specific faults with how they approached the cleanup, stressing that other authorities reviewed their plans and procedures.
“The EPA site removal investigation team and the other entities consulted or who provided information about the proposed activities had extensive site knowledge of the mine workings and extensive experience evaluating and working on mine sites. None of those participating or informed parties raised any significant concerns with the proposed activities,” it says.
None of the internal report recommendations call for stricter controls on private mining or mine closures, despite hopes from environmental groups that review of the Gold King spill would bolster their long-standing arguments for new financial assurance rules on the hardrock mining industry.
“What I would hope is that especially the IG report gets at the underlying causes as to why EPA was forced to intervene on an ad hoc basis” by doing the cleanup work at the mine, which was abandoned around 1923, one source with the environmental group Earthworks told Inside EPA after the IG office announced its investigation.
“[T]hat's because there's no unified organization in how you look at abandoned mines,” the source continued.
Earthworks and other groups have long argued for rules under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), known as the Superfund law, that would require hardrock mine owners to set aside funds to pay for cleanup, accidental releases and post-closure care.
Without such rules, the source says, EPA and state environment departments are forced to address problem sites as their own funding allows, and without an overarching regulatory strategy.
“There's a will, but there's not a way, because there is no money. There's no systematic way of inventorying the mines, prioritizing them for cleanup, and then cleaning them up,” the source says.
Cleanup Policies
Small-government advocates are hoping the spill spurs an expansion of Good Samaritan policies that encourage private parties to clean up mines by limiting or waiving liability for potential releases.
The EPA study and the pending studies from the agency's IG and DOI are also likely to inform litigation over the spill. The Navajo Nation has already declared its intent to sue EPA for damages from the Gold King release, and the agency also faces possible legal action by downstream states.
Attorneys familiar with cleanup law say that EPA will likely be sued for both natural resource damages and response damages under CERCLA, which would deal with both environmental harms from the spill and the cost of addressing drinking water contamination and other short-term issues respectively.
DOI is performing “an analysis of the incident that took place at Gold King Mine, including the contributing causes,” according to an Aug. 18 statement from EPA, with a report set for release by Oct. 17. Meanwhile, the IG is still determining the scope of its review, according to a spokesman for the office. An Aug. 17 IG memo announcing the investigation said it would target “the cause of, and the EPA’s response to,” the spill.
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Town, County Seek Mining Cleanup Funds After Animas
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
A town and county in Colorado where the Environmental Protection Agency triggered a spill of mining wastewater into the Animas River are seeking federal funding to address leaking waste from nearby historic mining operations.
The San Juan County Commission approved a resolution Aug. 25 requesting federal funding to address the issue of leaking mines in the aftermath of the spill, a 3 million-gallon release of mining waste and sediment triggered by the EPA at the Gold King Mine above Silverton. The Town of Silverton Board of Trustees approved the resolution Aug. 24.
The resolution calls for elected leaders and staff in Silverton and San Juan County to immediately begin working with partners in the Animas River Basin to secure immediate and long-term funding to address the issue of leaking mines.
540 Gallons Per Minute
Gold King and three other facilities in the Eureka Basin, a high-altitude mining region upstream of Silverton, leak 540 gallons of mining wastewater per minute into Cement Creek, which flows into the Animas. The Animas merges with the San Juan River in New Mexico, which pours into the Colorado River at Lake Powell in Utah.
The resolution was significant because Silverton and San Juan County have historically resisted the listing of the Eureka Basin and other nearby mining areas on the National Priorities List under Superfund.
Such a listing brings with it the potential for new federal funding, but also could stigmatize a region that now depends heavily on summer and winter tourism, local leaders have said. Some downstream communities have criticized Silverton and San Juan County for fighting the Superfund listing.
‘Starts in Our Neighborhood.’
In the aftermath of the Animas Spill, caused when EPA investigators and contractors dug into a collapsed area near the entrance to the Gold King Mine, the county and the town “recognize that this is a regional problem and that it starts in our neighborhood,” Willy Tookey, chair of the San Juan County Commission, said in a statement.
“We are determined to work collaboratively with our downstream neighbors and federal, state and local agencies to restore the water quality in the rivers and to make sure all affected communities recover from this environmental and economic catastrophe,” he said.
The county and town hope a formal request for disaster funding can be made to Congress within several weeks, he said.
Possible cleanup projects identified in the resolution include building and operating a water treatment facility for the acid mine drainage in upper Cement Creek; remediation of the contaminated mines in the Upper Animas River Basin; supporting scientific research and the development of technology to protect the watershed; and funding for economic and environmental recovery for downstream communities, including those of the Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute and Navajo nations, the resolution said.
Effect on Tribal Lands
On Aug. 26, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, announced the committee would hold an oversight hearing Sept. 16 into the effect of the Animas spill on Native American lands.
“Tribes use the waters from these rivers and this hearing will be a good chance to hear firsthand how this disaster is impacting them,” Barrasso said. “The EPA needs to work with these tribes to ensure the mess is cleaned up, the sovereignty of the tribes is respected, and that the concerns of the tribes are acted on.”
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EPA Says It Underestimated Mine Waste Blowout Risk
Aug 26, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Workers with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) underestimated the risks of the mine waste spill this month in Colorado, the agency said.
The Wednesday report is the first extensive analysis of how the EPA allowed 3 million gallons of poisonous mine waste sludge with heavy metals to flow into a tributary of the Animas River near Silverton, turning it bright orange and closing it for more than a week.The EPA and Colorado’s mining agency knew there was likely some fluid behind a part of the mine that had been filled in with rock, where workers were exploring.
But the agencies’ extensive analyses found that the water pressure was low, leading them to not take precautions or preparations for a high-pressure blowout.
“Despite the available information suggesting low water pressure behind the debris at the Adit entrance, there was, in fact, sufficiently high pressure to cause the blowout,” the internal report states. An adit is an access path into a mine.
“Because the pressure of the water in the Adit was higher than anticipated, the precautions that were part of the work plan turned out to be insufficient.”
It is unclear whether additional steps could have prevented the blowout and its effects.
The investigation team concluded that the underestimation of pressure “is believed to be the most significant factor relating to the blowout.”
It also concluded that the high-pressure blowout was “likely inevitable.”
Investigators identified one test that could have determined the true pressure behind the filled-in mine section: drilling a hole from above the mine in a spot further back from the entrance.
But since every indication showed that there was no risk of the higher pressure, the agencies had no reason to conduct such an expensive, difficult task.
The EPA has taken full responsibility for the spill at the abandoned Gold King Mine.
The internal report released Wednesday concludes only the first investigation of the incident. The EPA’s inspector general and the Bureau of Reclamation are conducting their own inquiries, as is the House Science Committee and others on Capitol Hill.
The day before the report was released, Senate Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tenn.) said the EPA has neglected its responsibilities to be transparent in its response to the spill.
Smith said the EPA had not provided his committee with the documents it requested in the timeframe it had set.
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Agency Admits Lack Of Plans, Notification For Colo. Spill
Aug 26, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Manuel Quiñones
U.S. EPA today admitted several missteps in its handling of this month's wastewater blowout from an abandoned Colorado mine.
The agency released an internal review of the incident that spilled roughly 3 million gallons of wastewater, which it caused while investigating ways of resolving pollution concerns at the site.
Acting EPA Deputy Administrator Stan Meiburg, describing the review during a conference call with reporters, said there was an "underestimation" of blowout risk at the mine.
The report released today, dated Monday, said workers considered the risk of a blowout to be low. They did not think it was necessary to conduct expensive drilling to double-check.
Meiburg also said the report showed that "there was, in fact, high enough water pressure to cause a blowout" and that "provisions for a worst-case scenario" were not in contingency plans.
EPA critics, particularly Republicans on Capitol Hill, say the agency was too slow to inform communities about the incident. They also say the agency is now being too slow to turn over information.
Mathy Stanislaus, head of EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, said on today's call, "We acknowledge that broader notification should have been done."
But describing the blowout as "likely inevitable," the report says the site leader's decision to "pull out the site personnel and crew" from the area "probably avoided any fatalities."
Meiburg said the report found that the team at the site was "experienced and professional." After the plan was presented at public meetings, he said, "no informed parties raised concern about the plan."
Documents released by EPA on Friday from contractor Environmental Restoration LLC show workers at the site knew about the risk of a blowout. Plans for responding were general in nature.
The report tasks the agency with preparing guidance for minimizing the likelihood of blowouts. It also recommended better protocols and emergency action plans.
"We are taking these recommendations seriously," said Meiburg, promising quick implementation. "EPA remains committed to transparency and will continue to share information with the public and our stakeholders."
Asked about other mines and remaining problems at the Gold King mine, Stanislaus said, "There is the possibility of surges." He said EPA was working with Colorado regulators to address those.
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee is planning to hold a hearing on the incident. So is the House Science panel, which has asked EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Environmental Restoration's head to testify.
Environmental groups have been pointing to the problem of abandoned mines around the country, particularly those for which liable companies are hard to track down. Many of those mines release tainted water.
Many Republicans and the mining industry are backing a forthcoming bill to help good Samaritan groups assist with the problem. But environmentalists would like new rules and mine reform legislation to create a federal system for non-coal mine cleanups.
EPA is working on a proposal to reform mine financial assurance requirements under the Superfund law. Groups have sued the agency to speed up the process. Mine industry backers say proper requirements already exist.
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Industry, States Face Tough Fight on BLM Fracking Rule
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The odds are against success for the lawsuits attempting to block the new federal regulations issued to govern hydraulic fracturing on federal and Indian lands, but the litigation may be just the start of the fighting, in the views of attorneys familiar with the subject.
Negotiated changes in the regulations from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) also are a possibility, or a remand of the rule for tweaks and clarifications, the attorneys said.
If the rule goes into effect, there could be any number of lawsuits over whether leases have been undercut in value—arguably a “taking” of property—because of the burdens created by the new regulations.
If nothing else, the added layer of regulations will serve as another reason for companies to avoid bidding on federal leases and look instead to state and private property for exploration and development opportunities, the attorneys agreed.
Rule Stayed for Lawsuits
The BLM, an Interior Department agency, issued the rule March 26 to update federal regulations on well integrity, wastewater handling and chemical reporting for oil and natural gas wells using the well stimulation technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking (80 Fed. Reg. 16,127; RIN 1004–AE26). The BLM said the rule, now stayed by a court, is needed to keep pace with changing industry practices.
Two oil and gas associations, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Western Energy Alliance, sued Interior for what they called an arbitrary and capricious rulemaking in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. Wyoming and three other states sued the agency for what they called a violation of state sovereignty, their position bolstered by the Ute Indian tribe, which said the rule ignored tribal sovereignty and posed the risk of unreasonable economic harm.
The lawsuits were consolidated while the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming considers whether to issue a preliminary injunction.
Judge Scott Skavdahl said in June that he would decide on an injunction about three weeks after the BLM files an administrative record on the rule with the court. He issued a stay on the rule pending his injunction decision (Wyoming v. Interior, D. Wyo., No. 2:15-cv-00043, 6/23/15; 122 DEN A-8, 6/25/15).
The BLM was given until Aug. 28 to file the administrative record, which would make a decision on a preliminary injunction likely in September.
Uphill Battle Anticipated for Plaintiffs
It is always an uphill battle to convince a federal court to throw out a significant rulemaking, said Matt Douglas, an attorney in the Denver office of the law firm Arnold & Porter LLP. That also led him to express skepticism about a preliminary injunction, which requires a court to be convinced that the plaintiffs have a likelihood of success in their lawsuit.
Courts are reluctant to overturn a federal rule when the agency issuing the rule is operating within its purview, agreed Larry Nettles, an attorney in the Houston office of Vinson & Elkins LLP.
“Congress has given the agency broad discretion to adopt regulations it thinks are reasonable,” Nettles said.
Nettles was willing to entertain the possibility that the rule could be remanded for corrections to address the elements that the oil and gas associations described as unclear or impractical.
Douglas suggested the possibility of the BLM and state officials negotiating an agreement that harmonizes the federal and state regulations, but he did not express an opinion on whether that is likely.
But Douglas said the difficulty for the BLM in any remand for substantive changes would be the need for another rulemaking process, including a public comment period. “I'm not aware of a way around that,” he said.
State, Federal Regs Can Conflict
States regulate oil and gas drilling—including fracking—on federal as well as other lands with a state's borders. The new federal regulations will form an additional layer that, in the view of the oil industry, will be a very poor fit, creating a mix of redundancies and differences that will at the very least slow down work.
“That to me just sounds like a nightmare,” said Bill Kroger, an attorney in the Houston office of Baker Botts LLP. “You really want to have one-stop shopping.”
The lawsuits in the Wyoming court may be just a step in a prolonged conflict. “I can also see the battle shifting to a legislative one,” Kroger said. “It may not be resolved until the next election.”
Republicans in Congress have indicated their willingness to curtail the BLM's regulatory effort, but they cannot force anything they want through the Senate, and they do not have an ally in the White House.
If lawsuits and legislation fail to overturn the rule, it will not necessarily be the end of the litigation. Individual companies may find that they cannot economically develop a lease. “There might be all kinds of additional claims” from companies,” Kroger said.
Complications Can Mean Delays
The complications of a set of federal regulations that do not neatly match up with state regulations could discourage competition for federal leases. Some companies already avoid federal lands.
BLM approvals of drilling permits took an average of 300 days three years ago. Last year, the agency had cut the permitting time to under 200 days, according to BLM Director Neil Kornze (66 DEN A-5, 4/7/14).
By contrast, the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources took an average of only 44 days to issue a drilling permit in the fourth quarter of 2014.
Nettles at Vinson & Elkins said his clients in the oil and gas sector are pessimistic about the delays that the new regulations will create for getting a drilling permit.
“They've told me, with the new requirements of the rule, they expect it to take more than a year,” he said.
The BLM rule has a provision for a waiver of the federal regulations if state regulations are at least as stringent, but the waiver would apply only to one procedural element at a time, such as pressure testing of a well in a particular way at a particular stage of a project, rather than applying to a state's whole regulatory regime.
“I think that whole waiver program is illusory,” Nettles said.
Costs Expected to Go Up
The overlay of new federal regulations will increase costs for companies on federal lands, although the amount of increase is disputed. The BLM estimated the rule's cost at an average of $11,400 per well, a tiny part of the $4 million to $8 million typically spent on a well involving fracking and horizontal drilling.
In its final rule in March, the agency wrote, “The BLM understands that delays in approvals of operations can be costly to operators and the BLM intends to avoid delays whenever possible.”
The agency did not attempt to make a cost estimate for delays in permitting. That would be speculative, it said.
“There's a lot of small operators that look to be affected,” Kroger said. “I think those regulations really hurt some of the smaller operators.”
The smaller operators, including family-owned businesses, do not have large permitting staffs and decade-long time frames for development projects. And large or small, companies add up the incremental costs, which can be higher on federal lands because of such varied factors as inadequate geological data, inadequate infrastructure and the sheer distance to an appropriate refinery for a particular type of crude oil.
“Operators are going to look for lower-cost places to drill and develop,” Kroger said.
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Environmental Groups to Sue EPA Over Fracking Rules
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Ware
A coalition of seven environmental groups filed a notice of intent on Aug. 26 to sue the Environmental Protection Agency to compel it to update its rules on handling and disposal of waste generated from oil and gas activities.
The groups said during a teleconference they will file a lawsuit within 60 days unless the EPA reviews and revises federal rules under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act that govern drilling and hydraulic fracturing waste. Filing the legal notice were the Environmental Integrity Project, Earthworks, Natural Resources Defense Council, Responsible Drilling Alliance, San Juan Citizens Alliance, West Virginia Surface Owners' Rights Organization and the Center for Health, Environment & Justice.
Waste from hydraulic fracturing, a process that forces fluids into sheets of rock to develop oil and gas, can contaminate groundwater and sources of drinking water, Aaron Mintzes, policy advocate for Earthworks, said.
“We're asking that EPA finally do what if found to be necessary back in 1998—update the regulations for oil and gas wastes,” Adam Kron, an attorney at EIP, said. “The oil and gas industry has grown rapidly since then, and yet EPA has repeatedly shirked its duties for nearly three decades.”
Under RCRA, the EPA must review regulations every three years and, if necessary, revise them, Kron said.
Waste ‘Dumped Irresponsibly.’
Matthew McFeeley, an attorney at NRDC, said in a statement, “Oil and gas waste is extremely dangerous—yet the EPA admitted decades ago that federal rules are inadequate to protect the public. The scary truth is that right now this waste—complete with carcinogens and radioactive material—is being dumped irresponsibly or disposed of like everyday household garbage,” he said.
Over the past decade, the oil and gas industry's fracking-based practices have produced a “vast amount” of solid and liquid wastes, the groups said in a statement. “Each well produces millions of gallons of wastewater and hundreds of tons of drill cuttings, which contain contaminants that pose serious risks to human health. These include known carcinogens such as benzene, toxic metals such as mercury, and radioactive materials. However, the current RCRA rules that govern oil and gas wastes are too weak because they are the same rules that apply to all ‘non-hazardous' wastes, including household trash,” the statement said.
Kron said “evidence is stacking up” that fracking can contaminate drinking water, citing an EPA study released in June as one example.
In that study the EPA found that oil and gas activities, including fracking, can contaminate sources of drinking water but that few instances of such contamination have been found (108 DEN A-1, 6/5/15)
In their intended lawsuit, however, the environmental groups are “looking at the broader picture—what happens before and after” waste disposal, Kron said. “This is the whole bag,” he said.
States Implement RCRA
McFeeley said during the teleconference, “If EPA commits to a schedule, we would consider not filing a suit. We're looking for credible steps.”
Mintzes said the EPA develops rules governing the solid waste portion of RCRA, which are implemented by the states. “We need the to EPA to set good clear rules with very specific guidelines,” he said during the teleconference.
Lois Gibbs, founder of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, said in a statement that the EPA must update its “woefully outdated” regulations on the oil and gas industry. “I have been called the ‘Mother of the Superfund' because of the work that I did to get relief for children and families poisoned by toxic wastes in Love Canal,” she said. “We won relocation for over 800 families because President Carter and EPA finally stepped up. The EPA must act now before more rural, indigenous, innocent communities are destroyed.”
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Green Groups Threaten To Sue Over Fracking Regulations
Aug 26, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Environmental groups are threatening to sue federal regulators if they don't issue new standards for hydraulic fracturing.
The groups, a coalition that includes the Environmental Integrity Project and the National Resources Defense Council, sent a notice of intent to sue to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday pushing the agency to institute new rules. They say the agency needs to update its standards for fracking wastewater after studies have tied disposal wells to earthquakes in Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas.
The EPA has only a basic level of regulations on wastewater disposal wells and traditionally delegates its enforcement to states.
But the groups said the agency has a legal responsibility to review and update federal rules for oil and gas drilling waste. They said the EPA agreed to update its standards in the 1980s but never followed through.
“We’re asking that EPA finally do what it found to be necessary back in 1988: update the regulations for oil and gas wastes,” Environmental Integrity Project attorney Adam Kron said.
“The oil and gas industry has grown rapidly since then, and yet EPA has repeatedly shirked its duties for nearly three decades. The public deserves better protection than this.”
Oklahoma officials acknowledged in April that the state’s fracking sites had contributed to a surge in earthquakes there. After their own earthquakes over the last few years, regulators in Texas and Ohio instituted new rules for fracking wastewater disposal.
In their letter to the EPA on Wednesday, the groups said it’s time for new federal rules as well. They threatened to sue to force the rules through unless the EPA acts soon.
“It is past time for the EPA to put public and environmental health and safety first,” said Barbara Jarmoska, a board member for the Responsible Drilling Alliance. "EPA should revise existing regulations and specifically address issues relevant to the modern oil and gas industry.”
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Groups Push Feds For New Natural Gas Rules
Aug 26, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A federal rule cracking down on venting or leaks at natural gas drilling sites would save millions of dollars in royalty revenue for the government, two groups say in a new ad campaign out Wednesday.
In the ads, the Western Values Project and Taxpayers for Common Sense are asking the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to issue a rule cutting down on venting, flaring and leaks of natural gas at drilling sites in the U.S. “Gas that doesn’t go up in the air and that stays in the pipeline is money in the bank,” Gwen Lachelt, a county commissioner in in La Plata County, Colo., said in a television ad, which is part of a “six figure, multi-state” buy, according to the groups.
When the Obama administration announced its plans to cut down on emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is the primary component of natural gas, the BLM said it would update standards for venting, flaring and leaks at new and existing oil and gas wells on public lands.
Obama officials pitched their methane strategy in January. Other aspects of it, including proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules, have begun rolling out, but the BLM hasn’t released its proposals yet.
“The BLM should do what they can to put a very strict rule in place,” former Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter (D) said in the ad.
The oil and gas industry has opposed new federal regulations on methane emissions, noting that drillers have a financial incentive to cut down on leaks on their own. They point out that emissions have already fallen over the last several years.
The Obama administration pitched the methane plan as climate policy, but the groups behind Wednesday’s ads made an economic argument for new standards. They cited a 2014 Office of Natural Resources Revenue report that predicts a $800 million gap in tax revenue from natural gas sales if venting rules don’t change.
“Communities that are impacted by oil and gas development deserve a fair return on their resources,” Western Values Project Director Chris Saeger said in a statement. “But without the BLM rule to limit the waste of taxpayer-owned resources on public lands, that fair return just isn’t happening.”
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Advocates Threaten Suit To Force EPA RCRA Rules For Oil & Gas Wastes
Aug 26, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Environmentalists are threatening to sue EPA to force development of first-time Resource Conservation & Recovery (RCRA) subtitle D solid waste rules for oil and gas wastes, after they failed with a push for EPA to reconsider its 1988 finding that disposal of the wastes should not be managed under subtitle C hazardous waste requirements.
A coalition of environmental advocacy groups Aug. 26 filed a notice of intent (NOI) to sue EPA alleging the agency is violating the waste law by not updating its RCRA requirements for oil and gas wastes -- a broad definition of wastes that includes, but is not limited to, produced waters, drill cuttings, drill muds and tailings from the energy extraction process.
The wastes are currently regulated under the same subtitle D solid waste standards as other solid waste disposal, but environmentalists want EPA to craft specific controls for the oil and gas industry.
The groups argue that EPA has failed to update the RCRA subtitle D regulations despite significant increases in the volumes of drilling and hydraulic fracturing wastes, even though RCRA requires review of the rules every three years. They cite a federal judge's 2013 ruling that found the agency violated the waste law by not reviewing its coal ash rules on that three-year deadline, and advocates say the ruling extends to the oil and gas waste rules.
The groups plan to file a lawsuit in 60 days unless EPA takes steps under RCRA to review and revise its subtitle D rules for oil and gas wastes. Environmentalists argue that the agency determined in 1988 that revisions of the regulations were necessary to address specific concerns with oil and gas wastes, but has yet to issue those revisions.
“We’re asking that EPA finally do what it found to be necessary back in 1988: update the regulations for oil and gas wastes,” the Environmental Integrity Project's (EIP) Adam Kron said in an Aug. 26 statement.
EIP is one of several advocacy groups signing onto the legal notice, as well as the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Responsible Drilling Alliance, the San Juan Citizens Alliance, the West Virginia Surface Owners Rights Organization and the Center for Health, Environment and Justice.
In the NOI, environmentalists take issue with a number of waste management practices they say are inadequate for the contaminants used in modern drilling, which may be different than the constituent that were historically used and generated in heavier volumes.
“These include: spraying fracking waste fluids onto roads and land near where people live and work; disposing of billions of gallons of oil and gas wastewater in underground injection wells; sending the drill cuttings and fracking sands to landfills not designed to handle toxic or radioactive materials; and storing and disposing of wastewater in pits and ponds, which often leak,” the groups say in an Aug. 26 press release.
Waste Requirements
In addition to updating the current general RCRA subtitle D solid waste requirements, which would apply to wastes such as drill cuttings and mud, the groups are asking EPA to take the novel step of strengthening underground disposal of oil and gas wastewater under its little-used RCRA authority, a second environmentalist says.
The groups say that EPA should institute stricter controls for underground injection wells, which accept two billion gallons of oil and gas wastewater every day and have been linked to numerous earthquakes in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas and ban the practice of land spreading of fracking wastewater.
Additionally, they seek stricter requirements for ponds and landfills where waste from the sector is disposed, such as mandated liners and structural integrity measures to prevent accidental releases.
The NOI says that RCRA mandates that EPA revisit its RCRA rules every three years and that the agency has failed to meet this obligation for its oil and gas waste disposal rules.
The environmentalists' argument could get a boost from an October 2013 ruling by U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Reggie Walton that agreed with advocates that section 2002(b) of RCRA mandates the agency review, and if necessary revise, its coal ash rules every three years.
Environmentalists involved in litigation to force a deadline for review of the ash rules said the decision sets an important precedent subjecting all other RCRA rules to the three-year review mandate.
The NOI cites the 2013 ruling in Appalachian Voices v. McCarthy as finding that section 2002(b) “creates a nondiscretionary duty requiring the EPA to undertake a review and, if necessary, revision of each regulation promulgated under the RCRA at least every three years.”
The notice adds, “Under the most generous reading of the statutory deadline provision, EPA was required to have completed these necessary revisions for oil and gas wastes by July 6, 1991, at the latest. . . . However, twenty-seven years later -- indeed, nine successive deadline cycles later -- it appears that EPA has not taken a single action to implement or even begin these revisions. At no time in these twenty-seven years has EPA attempted to revise or even review the Subtitle D regulations with respect to oil and gas wastes.”
During an Aug. 26 call with reporters announcing the NOI, Kron said the recently issued coal ash rule could be considered a model for the oil and gas waste rules, saying “We'll see how the coal ash rules get implemented by the states.”
Regulatory Determination
EPA in 1988 issued a regulatory determination that oil and gas exploration & production (E&P) wastes should be excluded from RCRA subtitle C rules. But environmentalists say the determination also indicated a three-prong approach that included improving existing regulatory programs for managing oil and gas wastes.
EPA's July 6, 1988 Federal Register notice announcing its finding said in preamble language that while the existing federal requirements for RCRA subtitle D provide general standards for oil and gas wastes, “these standards do not fully address the specific concerns posed by oil and gas wastes.”
But the notice also said that EPA has authority to promulgate more tailored criteria under RCRA. The Register notice says that “efforts are already underway” to fill gaps in not only RCRA but the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure the wastes are adequately regulated.
The agency's regulatory determination stems from a three-decade-old provision in the waste law -- originally offered by then-Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-TX) -- addressing whether oil and gas E&P wastes should be excluded from strict RCRA subtitle C hazardous waste rules. The so-called Bentsen amendment, one of several addressing high-volume, low-toxicity wastes, required EPA to determine whether these wastes should be regulated as hazardous and subject to strict subtitle C requirements.
NRDC in a 2010 petition urged EPA to reconsider its determination in light of the toxicity of the waste, the failure of states to adequately regulate the disposal of the waste and the recent boom in oil and gas production from hydraulic fracturing. The factors EPA used to justify the original exemption -- the infeasibility of regulations, the adequacy of state regulations and the economic harm rules would cause industry -- are no longer true, the group argued.
But EPA has indicated it does not plan to revisit the subtitle C issue, in part over a “legal disagreement” with environmentalists over whether it must seek congressional approval to do so, one environmentalist says.
“Our position is they could go ahead and” revisit the issue now “because they've already made that finding” referenced in the Bentsen amendment, and therefore the statutory language no longer applies, the source adds.
Reversing the determination would subject such wastes to stricter transportation, treatment, storage and disposal requirements. It would also subject underground disposal of drilling wastewater to strict Class I underground injection control (UIC) requirements for hazardous waste, which requires regulators to assess and mitigate potential seismic risks. Because drilling waste is not viewed as hazardous, UIC disposal of the material is now subject to less stringent Class II UIC requirements for wastewater, which does not require consideration of seismic risks. The UIC issue has gained considerable attention after disposal operations in Ohio, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas were found to have caused earthquakes and other seismic activity.
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EPA Announces 3 Public Hearings on Methane Rules
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Aug. 26 that it will hold three public hearings next month on its proposal to curb methane emissions from new oil and natural gas facilities.
The public hearings are scheduled for Sept. 23 in Denver and Dallas, and Sept. 29 in Pittsburgh, according to a notice slated for publication in the Federal Register Aug. 27.
On Aug. 18, the EPA unveiled a series of proposed rules (RIN 2060-AS27; RIN 2060-AS06; RIN 2060-AS30) to slash methane emissions from new and modified oil and natural gas wells. The petroleum industry, led by the American Petroleum Institute, has called the proposed rules “redundant” (160 DEN A-1, 8/19/15).
Environmental advocacy groups have said President Obama's administration will also need to regulate existing oil and natural gas facilities if it hopes to meet its goal of reducing methane emissions by as much as 45 percent by 2025.
The proposed rules have not been formally published in the Federal Register.
Landfill Standards to Be Published
Separately, the EPA also intends Aug. 27 to formally publish stricter methane emissions limits for new and existing landfills.
Existing landfills (RIN 2060-AS23) would have to meet a lower landfill gas threshold of 34 metric tons of methane organic compounds per year under the proposed rule. The current limit is 50 metric tons per year for active landfills.
New landfills would have to meet that same 34 metric ton standard under a separate supplemental proposed rule (RIN 2060-AM08). That is stricter than the 40 metric ton threshold the agency proposed for new landfills in 2014.
Both proposals were announced Aug. 14, and the EPA projects they will reduce methane emissions from municipal solid waste landfills by 436,000 metric tons per year beginning in 2025 (158 DEN A-6, 8/17/15).
Public comments on the proposed rules would be due Oct. 26.
Though they voiced support for a single standard for all landfills, waste industry representatives previously told Bloomberg BNA they were unsure if the control technologies were available to meet the lower threshold.
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Smart, Comprehensive Approaches Will Reduce Methane Emissions
Aug 26, 2015 | The Huffington Post - Green Blog
By Kim Glas
Each year, billions of cubic feet of natural gas -- enough to heat more than six million American homes -- are directly released or leaked by the energy sector into the atmosphere, wasting a valuable energy resource, threatening the health of our communities, and accelerating the impacts of climate change.
The EPA recently took a significant step forward to rein in emissions from methane (the primary component of natural gas) by setting a reduction target and guidelines to help the energy sector deploy available technologies and improve practices at new methane-emitting facilities (our statement outlines support for this bold move).
States across the country are ahead of the curve when it comes to reasonable programs to limit methane emissions in the energy sector, and we're already seeing good outcomes for workers, communities, and businesses from strong methane policies in states like Colorado and California. But EPA's proposed standards will help all states deploy best practices and technologies to combat unnecessary waste and pollution.
While this week's announcement is promising, there are other sources of methane waste that need to be addressed if we want to keep natural gas in the system producing energy -- rather than spilling into the air we breathe. Existing facilities are often the worst emitters and need oversight, as well. In addition, there are more than 100,000 miles of leak-prone natural gas distribution pipes under our cities -- many dating back to the 19th century -- that leak natural gas at more than 50 times the rate of advanced pipe materials available and in use today.
Not only do these old pipes waste gas, which consumers and businesses often end up paying for, but uncombusted methane has at least 25 times the climate change impact as the same amount of carbon dioxide over a century. The labor unions of the BlueGreen Alliance (a partnership of 10 national labor unions and 5 environmental organizations), whose members work throughout the natural gas industry, know firsthand that keeping gas in the system -- including distribution networks delivering gas to our homes and businesses -- means safer workplaces and a better environment for their families and communities. Every day, they work diligently toward that end.
Therein lies economic opportunity. Last year, we released a report outlining the benefits to consumers, workers, and communities that are achievable if we were to accelerate natural gas distribution system upgrades. On average, it could take 30 years or longer to replace and repair the most vulnerable segments of the natural gas pipes under America's cities and towns. Speeding that timeline up to a decade, which is achievable using current policy and finance mechanisms, would spur:
• $30 billion in GDP growth over 10 years;
• More than 250,000 more jobs created throughout the economy;
• Consumer and business savings of $1.5 billion of gas otherwise wasted;
• Prevention of an additional 81 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution (akin to taking 17 million cars off the road for an entire year).Reducing leaks in our natural gas distribution networks, along with broader efforts to keep gas in the system throughout the energy sector, offer ways to grow our economy and make it more efficient. American workers are already developing, manufacturing, and implementing technologies that prevent leaks and venting -- creating high-quality jobs and stimulating local economies -- all while reducing emissions that contribute to climate change. Reaching the administration's economy-wide goal of reducing methane emissions up to 45 percent over 10 years will ensure these technologies and practices are deployed at an even greater scale.
Coupling the EPA's proposal with potential to upgrade the gas distribution networks serving our cities and towns, and preventing methane waste and leaks at existing energy facilities, provides wins all around -- employing American workers in safer workplaces, conserving energy resources, ensuring cleaner air, and averting climate change impact. On behalf of the millions of members and supporters of our labor union and environmental partners, the BlueGreen Alliance lauds this important step forward, and will continue working to keep natural gas in the system.
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Protein Stores Copper For Methane-Digesting Bacteria
Aug 26, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Celia Henry Arnaud
Engineered methanotrophic bacteria could help us cut atmospheric levels of methane, a greenhouse gas. But scientists first need to understand how the microbes handle the copper required for their methane-oxidizing enzymes.
Scientists have known how copper gets into the bacteria, but they haven’t known how the bacteria store the copper they take up. A newly identified protein is a good candidate for that storage space.
Christopher Dennison of Newcastle University, in England, and coworkers discovered a new protein, called Csp1, that can bind up to 52 Cu(I) ions (╚Nature╚ 2015, DOI: 10.1038/nature14854). Using bioinformatics, the researchers discovered two other copper storage proteins belonging to the same family in the same bacterium.
The X-ray crystal structure and in vitro studies of Csp1 show that the tetrameric protein binds 13 Cu(I) ions in each of its four four-helix bundles. The ions line up down the middle of each bundle bound by cysteine residues that point into the bundle’s core.
“This report shows that Cu(I) ‘copper sponges’ do indeed exist and provides atomic-level details on how they might function in copper homeostasis,” says Amy C. Rosenzweig, an expert on metalloproteins at Northwestern University.
And such copper sponges might not be limited to methanotrophs. Additional bioinformatics suggests that many other bacteria have similar copper storage proteins.
“There is a broadly accepted idea in the community that bacteria have very little in the way of an intracellular copper requirement,” says David P. Giedroc, an expert on bacterial transition metal homeostasis at Indiana University. “This paper challenges that view.”
The findings also could help bioengineers working with methane monooxygenases (MMOs), says Ramon Gonzalez, who studies metabolic engineering at Rice University. “It has been pretty much impossible to recombinantly express MMOs in a foreign host,” he says. Adding Csp1 to these strains could pave the way for industrial microbes that use methane as a chemical feedstock, Gonzalez says.
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RGGI Allowance Prices Up Slightly in Secondary Market
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The price of Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon allowances in the secondary market increased slightly in the second quarter of 2015, compared with the first quarter, according to an Aug. 25 report from RGGI's market monitor, Potomac Economics. The average price in the secondary market was $5.53, up 1 percent from the first quarter and close to the $5.50 clearing price at RGGI's most recent auction. The volume of trading in RGGI allowances in the secondary market significantly declined from the first quarter to the second, as expected, because high volume in the first quarter was driven by a RGGI compliance deadline, the report said. The secondary market includes the trading of actual allowances and financial derivatives such as futures and options. One RGGI allowance allows the holder to emit one ton of carbon dioxide. The report is available at http://www.rggi.org/docs/Market/MM_Secondary_Market_Report_2015_Q2.pdf.
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Boxer, Feinstein Join Fray On State Climate Bills
Aug 26, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Debra Kahn
California's U.S. senators took the unusual step today of urging their statehouse counterparts to pass climate legislation.
Sens. Barbara Boxer (D) and Dianne Feinstein (D) sent a letter to members of the California Assembly urging them to pass bills to extend the state's climate reduction and renewable energy targets to 2030 and halve petroleum consumption. The bills have come under increasing fire by oil industry opponents as the state's legislative session comes to a close.
"In the coming decades, all of us will be asked by our children and grandchildren, 'When you served in public office, did you do everything in your power to combat the threat of climate change?'" the senators wrote. "This is a chance to seize a historic opportunity to protect the health and safety of our people, to expand our economy, and to help safeguard our environment for generations to come."
The primary bill, S.B. 350 by Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León (D), would extend the state's current renewable portfolio standard to 50 percent by 2030, beyond the current target of 33 percent by 2020. It would also mandate a halving of vehicles' petroleum use by 2030 and a doubling of existing buildings' energy efficiency.
De Leon said yesterday that he would amend the bill to increase oversight of the California Air Resources Board, the agency that would be tasked with achieving the majority of the goals. That didn't mollify the Western States Petroleum Association, the main trade group funding the opposition campaign (ClimateWire, Aug. 26).
Another bill, S.B. 32 by state Sen. Fran Pavley (D), would extend the state's 2020 emissions target of 1990 levels to 40 percent below that by 2030. Both bills are awaiting passage by the Assembly Appropriations Committee and must pass the full Assembly by Sept. 11.
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EPA Taking Comment on Ozone Nonattainment Proposal
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Environmental Protection Agency is accepting public comment on when 11 areas that missed their deadline to attain the 2008 national ambient air quality standards for ozone should be required to submit plans outlining how they intend to come into compliance. The agency, in a proposal scheduled for publication Aug. 27, would determine that Atlanta, Chicago and nine other marginal nonattainment areas missed a July 20 deadline to demonstrate compliance with the 75 parts per billion standards and should be redesignated as a moderate nonattainment area. The proposed rule includes two possible deadlines for the submission of plans to bring the new moderate areas into attainment: the beginning of each areas' ozone season in 2017 or a deadline of Jan. 1, 2017, for all 11 areas. The EPA also proposed to provide eight other marginal nonattainment areas, including the Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia areas, a one-year extension due to improved air quality results in 2014 (161 DEN A-10, 8/20/15). Comments, which will be accepted until Sept. 28, can be filed at http://www.regulations.gov under Docket No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2015-0468. The proposed rule is available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2015-21196.pdf.
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EPA Declares Several Ozone 'Nonattainment' Areas Achieving Air Standard
Aug 26, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA says that 17 out of 36 areas previously designated as being in “marginal nonattainment” with its 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) are now achieving the limit and can be reclassified to attainment, though questions linger about how many nonattainment areas might be created by a potential future stricter NAAQS.
In a proposal slated for publication in the Aug. 27 Federal Register, EPA also says that 11 of the 36 areas that were marginally exceeding the 75 parts per billion (ppb) standard have failed to meet the limit and will be subject to a tougher nonattainment status. Localities are eager to avoid such designation because they must impose strict, potentially costly, controls on industrial sources of ozone in order to cut emissions and come into attainment.
Metropolitan areas newly attaining the current ozone standard include Baton Rouge, LA; Cincinnati; Columbus, OH; Memphis, TN and San Francisco, according to the agency's Register notice.
A further eight areas also missed the deadline to attain, but have ozone levels only slightly above the NAAQS and therefore qualify for a one-year extension of their marginal status, EPA finds. They include Cleveland, Houston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Washington, D.C. Marginal areas do not have to write state implementation plans (SIPs) outlining the pollution controls they will impose in order to meet the standard.
In addition to the obligation for states to impose pollution controls on industry, nonattainment status requires new or expanding industrial facilities to buy “offsets” from other facilities to compensate for their higher emissions. Industry groups, Republican lawmakers and some states say these requirements drive away business.
The economic argument is at the center of debate over EPA's looming decision -- due by an Oct. 1 judicial deadline -- on whether to follow through on its proposal to tighten the 2008 ozone limit to within the range of 65 to 70 ppb. By law EPA cannot consider costs when setting a NAAQS and must do solely based on scientific data on a “criteria” pollutant's health and environmental impacts, but can weigh costs when implementing the standard.
While the implementation of any new NAAQS is still years away, EPA is seeking to implement the 2008 standard of 75 ppb. One key aspect of this is the air law's “good neighbor” provision, which requires that states craft SIPs to mitigate their air pollution that drifts downwind to cause NAAQS attainment problems in other states.
Interstate Pollution
To help states meet this obligation, EPA has created a series of rules to reduce interstate pollution, the latest of which is the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) emissions cap-and-trade program.
Although the Supreme Court last year upheld key principles of CSAPR, which established an air trading program among power plants in 28 states, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on remand then found state emissions limits, or “budgets,” flawed and has directed EPA to recalculate them.
The D.C. Circuit found that EPA “overcontrolled” a number of states by requiring them to reduce emissions by more than is required for downwind areas to attain or maintain the NAAQS.
The court's reasoning, which is critical of EPA's use of cost-effectiveness thresholds to determine states' emissions reduction obligations, will likely result in a revised version of CSAPR that will include larger budgets and perhaps leave some states out of the program entirely, sources say.
However, CSAPR only addressed EPA's 1997 ozone NAAQS, expressed as 85 ppb, and not the 2008 standard of 75ppb. The agency is now preparing a proposed “backstop” rule to address interstate ozone pollution under the current NAAQS, if states cannot submit adequate SIPs on their own. The rule is being developed in parallel with the CSAPR remand and is expected for proposal sometime this fall. In a notice of data availability (NODA) issued Aug. 4, EPA released computer air quality modeling data that will inform its forthcoming backstop rule. The NODA projects eight states will have nonattainment areas for the 75 ppb standard in 2017: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, New York, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin. The NODA further appears to predict at least 26 states contributing to downwind ozone problems at levels that would have qualified them for inclusion in CSAPR.
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Ozone Alert: Smog Battle Heats Up Again, Manufacturers Say Cleaner Air Will Kill Them
Aug 26, 2015 | Cleveland Plain Dealer
By John Funk
Another battle about ozone is beginning.
The air waves and blogosphere will soon be thick with warnings about lost jobs versus lost lives as the health and manufacturing industries engage in another round of fighting about lowering the amount of ozone in the air you breath.
Most people know ozone as smog, the filthy air that is mostly the lung-irritating three-atom version of oxygen, or O3. The stuff can also damage vegetation, including crops.
Ozone high in the atmosphere blocks ultraviolet radiation. No one is arguing to limit that.
At ground level, sunlight creates ozone from nitrogen oxides (smoke stacks, diesel and car exhausts) and volatile organic compounds or VOCs (paints, solvents, vinyl floors, car exhausts, fossil fuel combustion and hundreds of chemicals).
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is releasing its new ozone standards on Oct. 1 -- nearly one year after seeking public comment.
The announcement has led to a flurry of congressional hearings, proposed bills to limit the EPA's constant tightening of standards, a prediction by the National Association of Manufacturers that the proposed standards would cost the nation $140 billion a year, and this week the release of a 90-page study detailing the impact of new ozone standards on Ohio.
The study was done by the Center for Regulatory Solutions, a small business think tank, which recently produced similar reports for the state of Colorado and the City of Chicago.
The studies focus on job loss and the impact the standards would have on the economy -- issues the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled the EPA cannot even use when developing ozone standards.
Here in Ohio, U.S. Rep. Bob Latta of Bowling Green, this week hosted a news conference to talk about the study, about legislation he had co-sponsored to limit the EPA's rule making and to introduce Eric Burkland, Ohio Manufacturers' Association president.
Burkland said the EPA's latest standards would put the entire state in violation.
"We would not be able to expand any factory without shutting down other factories," he said.
The manufacturing groups have also started an "air war" with television spot criticizing the EPA as a job killer.
The EPA is proposing to lower the current ozone limit of 75 parts per billion to a range of 65-to-70 parts per billion. The EPA's science advisory committee has recommended capping the level at 60 parts per billion.
Organizations including the American Lung Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics are arguing the EPA should adopt the lower limit.
In a March 17 letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, the organizations argued a standard limiting ozone to 60 parts per billion would prevent up to 7,900 premature deaths every year, 1.8 million asthma attacks in children and 1.9 million missed school days nationwide.
"Across the country, children look forward to playing outside in the summer days. But breathing ozone pollution can harm kids' lungs. For some people, it can also mean premature death," said a written statement from Harold P. Wimmer, national president and CEO of the American Lung Association. "President Obama needs to adopt a more-protective ozone standard based on the scientific evidence of what is needed to protect Americans from the harmful health effects of ozone smog."
Playing political hardball, the Natural Resources Defense Counsel has ridiculed the estimated $140 billion the National Association of Manufacturers says ozone reductions would cost annually, saying the cost estimate was based on a Cash for Clunkers program that had nothing to do with ozone reductions.
"What this is about is delivering on the law's promise to provide all Americans with clean air. And the rules are supposed to be based exclusively on medical science," said John Walke, senior attorney and clean air director for the NRDC.
Walke also dismissed the separate Ohio study as "re-packaged rhetoric" that tallies the number of Ohioans living in counties predicted to not meet the new standards "and then leaping to the absurd contention that their jobs and economic well-being are at risk. There is zero analysis."
The U.S. EPA a year ago said it would lower the current limit of 75 parts per billion to a range of 65-to-70 parts per billion and then asked for comments.
In the meantime, Congress has debated at least three bills that would change the original congressional mandate the EPA has been following. The legislation has at least 130 sponsors, mostly Republican but also including some Democrats. One idea has been to limit the agency from issuing new rules until the existing ones have been met.
The agency has countered that it is only following existing law requiring it to look at the rules every five years.
The Bush administration in 2008 set the current 75 parts per billion limit, a reduction from the 84 parts per billion set in 1997. The next review and proposed standard was to have been released in 2013, but the EPA has been slow in its review.
The EPA's science advisory committee, including volunteer health professionals and industry representatives, has twice recommended 60 parts per billion. But the advisory committee is only advisory in nature. And the agency has chosen the higher level.
The U.S. Supreme Court already has ruled the EPA must base its ozone standards on the impact of ozone on health, not the economy. The EPA will release the standards to the Obama administration's Office of Management and Budget, which will then review them before finalizing.
That's where the politics come in. The OMB is not under those Supreme Court orders.
Wadsworth GOP Rep. Jim Renacci responded to Monday's report by saying the EPA should give Ohio time to meet the current ozone standards. He argued that "moving the goalposts now will only lead to more uncertainty and higher compliance costs which will ultimately be passed onto the consumer.
"This new proposal has the potential to directly and indirectly harm jobs and economic growth in the manufacturing, energy, healthcare, and construction employment sectors – the lifelines of Northeast Ohio," said a written statement from Renacci. "Our region has already improved its ozone levels and while further impacts on the environment from this proposed rule are questionable, the rules will be harmful for Ohio's economy."
Last month, Renacci was among more than 130 members of Congress from both political parties who signed the letter spearheaded by Latta that urged the EPA's McCarthy to "allow time for the benefits of the current ozone standard to become effective by retaining the current ozone standard.
"It could prove burdensome to force states to implement a new ozone standard at the same time they are only starting to implement the current one," said the letter, which was also signed by Russell Township Republican Dave Joyce, Holmes County Republican Rep. Bob Gibbs and Niles-area Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan. "We believe allowing sufficient time for existing measures to take hold, before setting a new ozone standard, would yield the desired results EPA is currently seeking."
Several legislators have proposed bills to keep the EPA from imposing the new ozone standards, but none have become law.
Some legislators, such as California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer have argued for tighter ozone standards. In a June statement before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, Boxer said ozone pollution has been shown to cause "thousands of lost school days and work days each year, as well as an increased number of asthma attacks and bronchitis cases, and more emergency room visits and hospital admissions."
"The American people strongly support a tighter ozone standard," Boxer said. "Last November, the American Lung Association found that 68 percent of voters nationwide support strengthening the ozone standards, including 54 percent of Republicans."
The EPA last fall estimated that the benefits of meeting the proposed standards will significantly outweigh the costs. It said that if the standards are finalized, every dollar invested to meet them would return up to three dollars in health benefits by avoiding asthma attacks, heart attacks, missed school days and premature deaths.
The agency estimates yearly costs of implementing a 70 parts per billion standard would be $3.9 billion in 2025, and $15 billion for a standard at 65 parts per billion.
"Bringing ozone pollution standards in line with the latest science will clean up our air, improve access to crucial air quality information, and protect those most at-risk," said a written statement from McCarthy. "It empowers the American people with updated air quality information to protect our loved ones - because whether we work or play outdoors – we deserve to know the air we breathe is safe."
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Bennet Says Ozone Proposal 'Doesn't Make Any Sense'
Aug 26, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillén and Manu Raju
Sen. Michael Bennet came out swinging against EPA's proposal to lower ozone standards at an oil and gas industry conference today, saying he is "deeply concerned."
EPA has proposed lowering the standard from 75 parts per billion to 65 to 70 ppb, but also took comments on keeping it at 75 ppb or cutting it as low as 60 ppb. The agency says the lower standards will protect public health, but the energy industry and manufacturers argue it will hamstring economic development across the nation.
Bennet said on a panel moderated by POLITICO's Manu Raju at a Colorado Oil and Gas Association gathering in Denver that EPA is applying the law "in a way that doesn't make sense on the ground."
"Because of the pollution that's come in from other western states, across the globe from wildfires in the West, we have significant parts of our state that would be in non-attainment zones from the beginning of the law. That doesn't make any sense. That's not going to work,” Bennet said. “Having said that, we need to care a lot about the elderly, and the air that they breathe and the children in our state that have asthma. So my hope is that we can work together to get to a rational outcome, but the one that has been proposed .. is not yet there."
Bennet declined to say whether he believes the standard should be lowered.
EPA is set to issue a final decision by Oct. 1. -
In Smog Rule Fight, Industry Groups Make their Push in Purple States
Aug 26, 2015 | National Journal
By Jason Plautz
While the Obama administration spends the month promoting its much-awaited climate-change rule limiting carbon emissions from the power sector, industry groups are instead trying to put the brakes on a different environmental regulation.
In a methodical march through swing states, major business groups such as the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers are launching attacks against the Environmental Protection Agency's proposal to limit ground-level smog (also known as ozone pollution), calling it the most expensive regulation in history.
And they may have picked up an influential purple-state Democrat, as Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado said Wednesday that he was "deeply concerned" about the EPA's proposal, although he stopped short of saying he opposed it.
The lobbying campaign has so far targeted Colorado, Ohio, and Virginia, and is expanding this week to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, with more states on the horizon. They tend to follow the same model: playing up numbers about the employment and cost impact of new rules, a Chamber of Commerce report about harm to local transportation projects, and ads about the EPA cracking down. The Environmental Policy Alliance came out with its own ad branding the Environmental Protection Agency as cops ready to crack down on lawn mowing and parking spaces.
Opponents have also recruited members of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and local African-American groups, among others, in a bid to build a local-level opposition campaign and get the issue in front of lawmakers during the August recess.
"Common sense; does it exist in our nation's capital?," asks a National Association of Manufacturers television ad running this week in Wisconsin. The ad goes on to say the new rules will "stifle our economy and kill millions of jobs" and highlights opposition from states and mayors.
Environmentalists say the ads are full of exaggerations and are a desperate attempt to derail much-needed regulation, but the flurry of attention shows how significant the ozone rule is. It would lower the legal limit of ground-level smog pollution and require state and local governments to limit pollutants that create ozone, such as manufacturing and transportation emissions.
The timing of the push seems odd—the EPA isn't required the finalize their rule until Oct. 1 and the environmental community has largely been focused on the landmark rule putting limits on greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, the centerpiece of President Obama's climate agenda.
But the ozone rule occupies a massive space in the environmental lobbying war. Industry groups say it's the most expensive regulation that the administration will undertake, with effects that would ripple across the economy. Environmentalists, meanwhile, say it's a public-health necessity and are determined to protect it, especially since the White House pulled the plug on tightening the standard in 2011.
While the White House has given no indication it's going to reverse itself this time, the business lobby is holding out hope that by pushing on soft-purple states, they can build up a groundswell to make history repeat itself. Or, at the very least, they can put the screws on vulnerable members to pass legislation limiting the standards.
"Counties and localities are going to be hit over and over again on an economic basis, and we want everyone to understand that," said Jay Timmons, president of the National Association of Manufacturers. "We're rolling this out where the discussion has been most intense … and ultimately we'd like to take this to all 50 states."
The EPA last year proposed lowering the ozone standard from 75 parts per billion to between 65 and 70 ppb after agency scientists said the current mark was not sufficient to protect public health. The rule is set to be finalized this fall.
Public-health groups are pushing for the EPA to look to the low end of the standard. The EPA has said tightening the standard would avert nearly a million asthma attacks, thousands of cases of acute bronchitis, and up to 180,000 missed work days by reducing pollution-related symptoms.
But industry groups say anything lower than the current standard would plunge the country into nonattainment status, opening counties and states up to costly fines. They say the country has already lowered ozone levels by more than 30 percent since 1980 (coming after standards from the Clean Air Act went into effect), and that more stringent regulations would put a stranglehold on the economy, especially for areas already out of compliance.
The new standards wouldn't take effect until 2020 at the earliest; because of the long time line of air quality standards, states are still working on implementation plans for the last revision, set in 2008.
Legal challenges have proven unsuccessful, so industry groups are now trying to build public opposition from the ground up, releasing state-level reports and using local businesses to make the case. The Chamber of Commerce has also been releasing individual reports warning that EPA could imperil local transportation projects if cities fail to meet the new standard (a report for Washington, for example, said an expansion of the Purple Line and I-66 would be in jeopardy).
The EPA could penalize transportation funding, but only for states that refuse to file state plans, and it's an authority that hasn't been used before.
And recent ad campaigns have pointed out that certain National Parks, including Yellowstone and Acadia, would be out of compliance using the lower end of the proposal, although parks groups have said that's because of pollution from nearby coal-fired power plants.
It all adds up to a lobbying blitz meant to mobilize local voters and officials to send a message to the White House.
"Remember that President Obama withdrew the last EPA ozone proposal in 2011 after listening to state and local concerns," said Matt Dempsey of the Center for Regulatory Solutions. "Through our August campaign we have been amplifying similar voices from across the political spectrum hoping he will listen to them again and keep the current standard in place."
The White House pulled a proposal lowering the standard to 70 ppb in 2011, overruling the EPA and setting of a firestorm with environmental groups. Of course, Obama was facing a tight reelection race then, and his environmental agenda has ramped up in the second term.
But groups are also looking to Congress—and their campaign not-so-subtly targets states where legislators face tough reelection bids. A bipartisan Senate bill forcing EPA to hold off on the new ozone standard until 85 percent of the nation's counties meet the 2008 levels already has 27 cosponsors. And Republicans have sought to attach similar language as a rider to appropriations bills as one of a slew of environmental riders.
Bennet said Wednesday at an energy summit hosted by the Colorado Oil and Gas Association that the ozone standard "is a perfect example of applying the law … in a way that doesn't make sense on the ground" and that EPA should consider more flexibility for pollutants from wildfires or from other states, according to a transcript of his remarks. Bennet's office clarified that he understands EPA "must make recommendations based on the science," but that he "thinks the standards need to be applied fairly to Colorado."
Bennet, one of the most vulnerable Democrats in 2016, would represent a significant pickup for ozone opponents should be vote against the rule on the floor. Republicans largely oppose the regulations, but turning moderate Democrats would help them attach anti-ozone language onto a must-pass bill, like a budget package.
And environmentalists are worried that the White House may see ozone as a reasonable trading chip when faced with a slew of other riders targeting the climate-change agenda.
"I'm very concerned about it because of the weak-kneed approach the White House took several years ago," said Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch. "The battle here is to pile on Democratic politicians and intimidate the White House."
Still, John Walke, clean air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, pointed to White House veto threats against similar bills. In an email, he dismissed the campaign as "increasingly desperate and scattershot" and proof that even the industry thinks they can't kill the standards any other way.
"So a crass political lobbying campaign is all they have, even when—especially when—it means relying almost entirely and nakedly on economic factors that the Supreme Court has ruled unanimously to be illegal considerations," Walke said.
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EPA Pursues Carbon Trading Despite Congress's Failure
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan could succeed where congressional Democrats failed at the onset of the Obama administration in fostering a wide-scale carbon dioxide emissions trading program.
But opponents of the rule say Congress's failure is one more indication that the EPA's actions are illegal.
“During the time Congress was considering a cap and trade program, EPA's stance was the Clean Air Act didn't authorize a trading program and it required congressional action,” Richard Alonso, a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, told Bloomberg BNA.
The EPA's Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33), released Aug. 3, sets individual state emissions targets and allows states to craft their own plans to meet those requirements. Those compliance plans could include emissions trading schemes. With that rule, the EPA also proposed a model federal plan it will impose on states that choose not to submit their own. That federal plan focuses entirely on emissions trading (149 DEN B-4, 8/4/15).
Environmental advocates say the EPA is building on proven emissions trading programs it has developed under other provisions of the Clean Air Act to support its rule.
“I think EPA has done a very persuasive job in the final rule explaining how common emissions trading, emissions credit trading, cap and trade are in rules under the Clean Air Act,” David Doniger, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate and clean air program, told Bloomberg BNA.
State regulators said they still are evaluating the EPA's rule and considering all their compliance options, which could include strategies other than emissions trading.
“States were told before the proposal came out it wasn't cap and trade and were told after it came out it wasn't cap and trade,” Clint Woods, executive director of the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies, told Bloomberg BNA.
Democratic Efforts Failed
Emissions trading was a key feature of Democratic-led efforts to pass legislation that would have put economywide caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. The House, under Democratic control in 2009, passed the cap-and-trade bill co-authored by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) largely along party lines—only eight Republicans voted yes—and the legislation died in the Senate in 2010.
The House bill would have cut U.S. emissions 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels and 83 percent by 2050 by establishing a cap and trade system but also would have imposed a renewable electricity standard on states. The cap-and-trade bill would have gone well beyond the EPA's current focus on the power sector, with the legislation calling for most significant emitters, including the manufacturing sector, to hold allowances for the greenhouse gases they emit.
Opponents of the Clean Power Plan point to that failure as evidence that Congress has not given the EPA the authority to pursue a cap and trade program for greenhouse gases.
“President Obama, and his EPA know that Americans do not support his costly carbon mandates, as most prominently on display when the U.S. Senate expressly rejected such an economically disastrous idea by failing to pass cap and trade legislation in 2009,” Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said in an Aug. 3 statement when the Clean Power Plan was announced.
However, Obama in his 2013 State of the Union address—four months before his administration announced its climate action plan—said he would order his administration to take action on climate change if Congress did not.
“But if Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will,” Obama said. “I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy.”
Announcing the climate action plan, which includes the EPA's rule, Obama said he was open to working with Congress on a market-based system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
“I'm willing to work with anyone to make that happen,” he said at the time.
Other Programs Included Trading
The EPA has previously enacted trading schemes for emissions of conventional pollutants such as sulfur and nitrogen, but those programs were established under separate provisions of the Clean Air Act and occasionally came at the direction of Congress.
Congress directly authorized the EPA to pursue an emissions trading program for sulfur dioxide when the Clean Air Act was last amended, adding Title IV to the statute. The agency has gotten no such grant for greenhouse gases, Alonso said, and opponents will likely argue that it is overstepping its statutory authority.
“Because Congress had tried to implement a trading program in the past, it seems now for EPA to do it administratively seems to bypass congressional action,” he said.
Given the EPA's past reluctance to pursue carbon trading without explicit authorization from Congress, Alonso said opponents of the Clean Power Plan will likely spotlight language from Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion in a case that limited the scope of the EPA's greenhouse gas permitting program that cautioned the agency against reading new powers into existing statutes.
“When an agency claims to discover in a long-extant statute an unheralded power to regulate ‘a significant portion of the American economy,' ... we typically greet its announcement with a measure of skepticism,” Scalia wrote in that decision (Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, 2014 BL 172973, 78 ERC 1585, 134 S. Ct. 2427 (2014)).
Authority Seen in Statute
Proponents of the rule argue, however, that the Clean Air Act does authorize the EPA to consider emissions reductions options such as trading programs. Section 110(a)(2) of the Clean Air Act allows states to include “economic incentives such as fees, marketable permits and auctions of emissions rights” as part of their plans to implement the EPA's national ambient air quality standards. Though the Clean Power Plan was issued under Section 111(d) of the act, the section of the law calls for states to submit compliance plans under a “procedure similar to that provided by” Section 110.
Doniger said that can be read to grant the EPA similar license to pursue market measures such as cap and trade programs under Section 111 as well. The NRDC had written a model plan that informed the EPA's Clean Power Plan that had also included a trading program.
“All that being the same, I think it's very reasonable to say EPA has the same authority to build an emissions trading concept into the guidelines and into any federal plan that implements for states that don't carry out their own plans,” Doniger said.
Doniger said another analogous situation was when Congress considered adding a requirement to regulate carbon dioxide from vehicles as part of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. Though the mandate was never added to the law, the EPA retained the underlying authority to regulate those emissions as pollutants under the Clean Air Act, which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court (Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 63 ERC 2057 (2007)).
The Ghost of the Mercury Rule
The Clean Power Plan is the EPA's latest attempt to fashion a power plant emissions trading program under Section 111 of the Clean Air Act.
The EPA during the George W. Bush administration had tried to establish a trading program for mercury emissions from power plants under Section 111 as part of its Clean Air Mercury Rule, arguing that cap and trade would satisfy the act's requirement for a system of continuous emissions reduction.
The rule was struck down by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2008, but the judges never addressed the merits of establishing trading programs under Section 111 (New Jersey v. EPA, 2008 BL 24283, 517 F.3d 574, 65 ERC 1993 (D.C. Cir. 2008)).
At the time, the trading program was supported by industry coalitions such as the Utility Air Regulatory Group, which has opposed the Clean Power Plan, that argued the mercury trading program was a sound policy to address a “global pollutant” such as mercury. Meanwhile, environmental groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, had opposed the mercury trading program because it would allow mercury emissions to increase in several states and contribute to localized hot spots of the pollutant.
Costs, Administration Not Detailed
Opponents of the Clean Power Plan also argue the agency has not yet explained how it would fund and administer any trading program.
“It's the only thing they have experience for and it makes sense, but it's a huge political lift and an administrative lift,” William Yeatman, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Bloomberg BNA.
Yeatman said the EPA's proposed federal plan lacks details on how the trading program would operate and how much it would cost to administer.
The Congressional Budget Office had estimated that implementing the Waxman-Markey legislation, which would have created a much larger emissions trading program than that envisioned under the Clean Power Plan, would cost $49.9 billion between 2010 and 2019 when the law was to have taken effect.
“Our most recent experience with cap and trade is a 1,300-page bill,” Yeatman said.
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EPA Chief: ‘Tremendous’ Chance Offered for Carbon Capture
Aug 27, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Chisaki Watanabe
Gina McCarthy, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the need to reduce carbon emissions offers a chance to push ahead with low-carbon technology such as carbon capture and storage.
“In the U.S. even with our Clean Power Plan, every fuel will still continue to play a part” including coal and gas, she said at a town hall meeting in Tokyo Aug. 26.
The Clean Power Plan, an initiative (RIN 2060-AR33) announced earlier in August, would require the American power sector to cut carbon pollution 32 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels (149 DEN B-1, 8/4/15).
“There's a tremendous opportunity today to accelerate our progress on cleaner combustion and carbon capture and storage,” McCarthy said.
Her remarks came as the Department of Energy and China's National Energy Administration agreed to share their results as they refine technologies to capture the greenhouse gases produced from burning coal, according to a report by the Associated Press late Aug. 25, which cited Christopher Smith, the Energy Department's assistant secretary for fossil energy.
“Over time, higher levels of capture will be available as CCS technology advances,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy is in Japan to meet with officials, including Yoshio Mochizuki, Japan's environment minister.
CCS is a technology that promises to absorb the pollution blamed for global warming before it reaches the atmosphere. CCS is designed to capture and bury the carbon dioxide byproduct from burning fossil fuels.
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Buffett’s Energy Empire Draws Greens’ Ire
Aug 26, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Andrew Restuccia
Another billionaire is angering environmentalists these days: Democratic hero Warren Buffett.
For Democrats, the world’s third-richest person is a champion who has advocated higher taxes for millionaires and donated money to put Hillary Clinton in the White House. But green-energy advocates are expressing increasing frustration with Buffett, whose sprawling business empire is opposing them on fronts including solar power, oil train safety and the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The friction is evident in Nevada, where a Buffett-owned power utility, NV Energy, is fighting to hike the costs for residents to use rooftop solar panels — a push that’s similar to campaigns being promoted around the country by groups tied to conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch. President Barack Obama and Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid slammed that effort during a clean-energy summit Monday in Las Vegas, although Obama aimed his criticism most directly at the Kochs and Reid noted that Buffett has put huge money into wind and solar power, too.
Others were far less reluctant to point the finger.
“Buffett, through NV Energy, is attacking rooftop solar because it directly competes with his monopoly,” said Lauren Randall, the public policy manager for the major residential rooftop solar company SunRun. She denounced the utility’s solar push as an “extreme anti-consumer proposal.”
Greens in regions like the Pacific Northwest, as well as Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate’s energy panel, are also criticizing Buffett-owned Berkshire Hathaway Energy for trying to weaken a 1978 federal incentive program for wind, solar and other renewable power.
And Buffett supports approving Keystone, the long-delayed oil pipeline that has sparked a nationwide opposition movement by climate activists and angry protests in the Oracle of Omaha’s home state of Nebraska. He told CNBC in March that Keystone is probably “good for the country,” which would run afoul of the White House’s messaging if Obama ultimately kills the project as expected.
The Republican National Committee is trying to turn Buffett into a Clinton problem, saying his activities show a stark conflict between the Democratic front-runner and one of her most visible backers.
“Energy issues are another example of how Hillary Clinton is caught between her major donors and the grass roots,” RNC spokesman Michael Short said. “Environmentalists and the left are right to question whether they can trust Clinton when she and [the Clinton] foundation are busy taking money from those who don’t share their priorities.”
Most Democrats hesitate to publicly criticize Buffett. But privately, some green-minded Democrats acknowledge that Buffett’s business priorities often conflict with Clinton’s and Obama’s renewable energy agendas.
“What’s good for Buffett might not necessarily be good for the clean-power sector,” one environmentalist following the issue said.
The mismatch points to another reality about Buffett: his reluctance to use his vast personal wealth to promote his personal political agenda, unlike liberal billionaire Tom Steyer and conservatives such as Sheldon Adelson and the Kochs.
“Philosophically and politically [Buffett is] probably out there hoping to continue to promote greener energy,” said economist Charles Cicchetti, who used to work with Buffett’s companies and more recently consulted for the rooftop solar company SolarCity. “But there’s a gap between his brain and his [business] philosophy. He hires aggressive people who are out there to win at any cost. He doesn’t acquire utilities so they can enhance the public good.”
In the Nevada rooftop solar dispute, Buffett’s company is largely on the same page as the Koch brothers in seeking to cut incentives and impose extra fees on residents who use their solar panels to sell excess electricity back to the power grid — a move that greens warn would make installing the panels unaffordable for many people.
Obama alluded to the controversy in his keynote speech at Monday’s energy summit, excoriating utilities that stand in the way of rooftop solar power and other clean energy innovations.
“So here, and across the country, this is about whether big polluters control the system, or whether consumers have freedom to choose cleaner, cheaper, more efficient energy; whether we protect old ways of doing business even when they’re not efficient, or we dream up new business models that bring new technologies into our homes and businesses, and new jobs into our communities,” the president said.
Clinton has also warned against utilities putting up new roadblocks for solar power. “No. 1, we’ve got to prevent backsliding,” she said in July. “That’s why I said watch out for utilities that want to stop clean renewable energy and enabling customers to sell back to the grid, because they want to prevent the transition.”
Reid, who hosted Monday’s energy summit, said Buffett’s company has “to get real on rooftop solar, understand that there’s a new world out there.”
“If NV Energy goes on the path they’re going, they’ll almost certainly end up losing” in the court of public opinion, Reid said. Still, he said Buffett’s purchase of NV Energy in 2013 has ultimately “been good” for the state.
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is one of the biggest conglomerates in the country, with holdings ranging from insurer GEICO to Fruit of the Loom. It is deeply entrenched in the energy industry through its ownership of Nevada’s NV Energy and MidAmerican Energy, as well as BNSF, the biggest U.S. railway oil shipper and a major transporter of coal.
Buffett has famously pledged to donate his vast fortune to philanthropic groups like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and he’s avoided bankrolling political candidates — even Clinton, whom he once called “one of my favorite women in the world.”
He has publicly backed Clinton and predicted she will win the presidency next year, but he gave a relatively modest $25,000 last year to the Ready for Hillary super PAC (now the ReadyPAC), the committee’s self-imposed maximum, and donated $2,700 to Clinton’s campaign in April.
Earlier this year, Buffett told CNN that he doesn’t plan to write “a huge check” for Clinton because he doesn’t believe that “elections should be decided by the super-rich.”
“I like what she believes in and I think she’s extraordinarily able and energetic, for that matter, in pushing those beliefs. I don’t see how you could have anyone better qualified,” he said in a 2012 interview.
He backed both Clinton and Obama in 2008, joking recently that it’s the “only time he’s been a bigamist.”
While Berkshire’s fossil fuel operations may rub up against some Democrats’ priorities, other parts of the business make liberals swoon. MidAmerican Energy is the largest regulated wind power owner in the country, operating 2,285 megawatts of capacity, or slightly more than the output of two big nuclear reactors. That figure is set to grow to 3,335 megawatts, the company says, making up almost 40 percent of MidAmerican’s electricity generating capacity.
MidAmerican’s solar business also owns one of the world’s largest solar plants, the 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Farms in California, and is developing the 579-megawatt Solar Star projects in California’s Kern and Los Angeles counties. And it owns a 49-percent interest in the 290-megawatt Agua Caliente solar project in Yuma County, Ariz.
People following Buffett said he backs Democrats like Clinton not because it will boost his company’s profits, but because his personal beliefs align more closely with the left.
“Part of the reason that he leans progressive on the political side is that he’s made enough money that he just thinks it’s right,” said one energy lawyer with ties to Democrats. “I don’t think an investment in Clinton by him is really an investment for the Berkshire Hathaway empire.
“Frankly, there are probably some of his businesses that would be better off under a Republican president than a Democratic one. But that’s not what moves him.”
Meanwhile, parts of Buffett’s empire are moving in directions that leave greens and liberals fuming.
Berkshire Hathaway’s BNSF Railway has lobbied the White House against some safety regulations meant to prevent explosive derailments by oil trains, and earlier this summer, Berkshire infuriated Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, by pushing to weaken a 1978 law requiring it to buy power from small renewable power generators.
Jonathan Weisgall, vice president for legislative and regulatory affairs at Berkshire Hathaway Energy, recommended reworking the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, which was designed to expand renewable energy, saying the changes would protect utility customers from “unnecessary costs and inefficiencies.” But Cantwell accused Berkshire of trying to hamper green power to boost its own profits, and she added a dig at BNSF on the oil trains controversy.
“I just see you making money coming and going on the repeal of this PURPA language,” Cantwell told Weisgall at a hearing in May. “To me, it’s bothersome, to say nothing of oil trains and your slow response on removing old oil trains. Now you’re coming in here and trying to undo a very important law.”
Rachel Shimshak, executive director of the Oregon-based advocacy group Renewable Northwest, said the push against the 1978 law is a sign of Berkshire Hathaway Energy-owned utility PacifiCorp’s reluctance to embrace more green power. “They’re hanging on to a lot of dirty plants,” she said.
But people following the billionaire’s energy plays say they aren’t surprised about the disconnect between Buffett’s political leanings and business dealings. Buffett, they say, is running a corporation, not a political campaign.
“He’s like any other powerful special interest entity in Washington, D.C., pursuing a narrow strategy to benefit his financial position without a real regard for larger, overarching policy goals or ideals,” said Tyson Slocum, the director of Public Citizen’s energy program, who has long criticized Berkshire. “It’s not evil. He’s doing what every other vested interest in Washington does.”
Indeed, Buffett’s businesses’ “all of the above” approach to energy investments make it difficult to fit neatly into traditional ideological frames, complicating his role as a political player.
“While Warren Buffett often offers his ‘personal’ opinion on politics, legislation, taxes, elections and the economy, they do not represent the opinion of his vast network of subsidiary companies,” said Robert Miles, the author of two books on Buffett and a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder.
When it comes to the myriad businesses owned by Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett is notoriously “hands-off,” Miles said
“Each company has a manager that is free to run their business as best they see fit,” he said. “So any energy-related policy, legislation, strategic decision would be made by Berkshire Hathaway Energy executives without checking with Warren.”
Neither Berkshire Hathaway nor the Clinton campaign responded to requests for comment.
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