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acc am 9/16
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(ACC Mentioned) Recycling Partnership Rolls out 100,000 Curbside Carts
Sep 15, 2015 | Associations Now
By Ernie Smith
A nonprofit initiative that works with local communities to help improve their recycling programs just hit a big milestone, but the group says it already has its eyes on future expansion. -
(ACC Mentioned) How Effective are MRFs at Sorting Flexible Film?
Sep 16, 2015 | Greener Package
By Anne Marie Mohan
That’s the question industry collaborative Materials Recovery for the Future hopes to answer through new sortation research aimed at driving solutions for increased recovery rates. -
EPA Inspector General Slams Green Chemistry Awards
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Environmental Protection Agency should stop using chemical companies' unverified pollution-prevention data to claim credit for having spurred cleaner air, less hazardous waste and other environmental benefits, the agency's inspector general said in a report released Sept. 15. -
EPA Targets Vapor Intrusion, PFCs As Federal Facilities Cleanup Priorities
Sep 15, 2015 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
EPA's top official for cleanups of contaminated federal facilities says the agency is preparing to heighten its focus on vapor intrusion and emerging contaminants including perfluorochemicals (PFCs) in 2016 efforts at Department of Defense (DOD) sites, following new guidances on both topics that faced criticism from DOD. -
Links to Essential Reading on the Lautenberg Act
Sep 15, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
The full Senate is expected soon to take up and vote on the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (the Lautenberg Act for short, S. 697), the bipartisan TSCA reform legislation introduced in the Senate in March and passed in revised form out of the Environment and Public Works Committee in April. -
US CPSC Withdraws Testing Exemption for Toys
Sep 15, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US Consumer Products Safety Commission has withdrawn a direct final rule that would have eliminated third-party testing requirements for heavy elements in unfinished and untreated wood, used in toys (CW 17 July 2015). -
H&M Joins NGO Campaign against Animal Testing
Sep 15, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Fashion retailer H&M has partnered with Humane Society International (HSI) to campaign against animal testing on cosmetic ingredients and products. -
Industry Defends DEP against Reported Miscarriage Link
Sep 15, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Phillip Lightowlers
The European Council of Plasticisers and Intermediates (ECPI) has defended the widely used additive, diethyl phthalate (DEP), following a recent study which linked a metabolite of the compound to miscarriage. -
Echa Committee Gives 'Nuanced' View on Proposed BPA Restriction
Sep 15, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Geraint Roberts
A proposal to ban thermal paper, containing bisphenol A, from the EU market received a mixed response, last week, from Echa’s Socio-Economic Analysis Committee (Seac). -
Proposed EU Ban on Deca-BDE Moves Forward
Sep 15, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A proposed EU ban on the placing on the market of the brominated flame retardant, deca-BDE, as a substance in mixtures and articles, advanced another step, last week, when Echa’s Socio-Economic Analysis Committee adopted its final Opinion. -
Report: House Leadership Looks to Schedule Vote on Oil Exports
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
House leadership is looking to schedule a vote on a measure lifting the ban on crude oil exports within the next few weeks, The Wall Street Journal reports. -
Hoeven to ‘Demand’ Crude Oil Export Amendment to TSCA
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said Sept. 15 he will “absolutely demand” that legislation to lift the 40-year-old ban on most crude oil exports be added as an amendment to a widely supported chemical safety bill that may be brought to the Senate floor soon. -
White House Won't Back Effort to Lift Export Ban
Sep 15, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey and Geof Koss
The Obama administration today said it will not support current legislative efforts to lift a national 40-year-old ban on crude exports, dealing a major blow to bipartisan proponents pushing language through both chambers of Congress. -
White House Opposes Bill to Lift Crude Export Ban
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
The White House said Sept. 15 it “wouldn't support” House legislation (H.R. 702) that would end the ban on most crude oil exports, as House leadership announced it planned to bring the bill to the floor at the end of September. -
White House Opposes GOP Bill to Lift Oil Exports
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The White House criticized Republicans’ efforts to lift the ban on oil exports Tuesday and said the Obama administration will not support them. -
GOP Claims Ability to Overcome Obama Veto of Export Bill
Sep 16, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Northey and Geof Koss
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) yesterday said there's enough support in the lower chamber to override President Obama's expected veto of legislation that would lift a 1970s-era ban on crude oil exports. -
House Leader: Congress Could Override Oil Export Veto
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) predicts Congress will be able to muster the votes necessary to overcome any potential veto of a bill ending the ban on crude oil exports. -
Trump Backs End to 'Archaic' Oil Export Ban
Sep 15, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
Donald Trump called for ending the "archaic" laws that block most U.S. oil exports during his speech in Dallas yesterday, aligning himself with Republican leaders who are preparing for a crucial House vote on the issue. -
Jewell Defends Fracking Rules
Sep 15, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell today declined to predict victory against the legal challenge to her department's landmark fracking regulations, but she vowed that new standards would take effect in one form or another. -
Interior Chief Defends Obama against Liberal Fire
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell fought back on Tuesday against criticisms of her agency from environmentalists who say the fossil fuel production it allows goes against President Obama’s climate goals. -
House Committee Plans Energy Bill Markup Sept. 17
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will vote on omnibus energy legislation Sept. 17, the committee announced. -
Lawmakers Blast Proposed Drilling Rule at La. Field Hearing
Sep 16, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Daniel Bush
Republican members of the House Natural Resources Committee blasted the Obama administration's push to impose new regulations on offshore drilling at a field hearing yesterday in Louisiana. -
GOP Moderates to Push to Fight Climate Change
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A group of moderate Republicans is working on a resolution calling for action to fight climate change. -
House Republican Group to Push Climate Resolution
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
A group of 10 moderate House Republicans is poised to take what could be the first, small step to rekindle the congressional debate over how the U.S. should confront climate change. -
Greens Question Industry Study on Ozone Rule Costs
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Environmentalists are pushing back against a manufacturing group's much cited study about the cost of new federal ozone rules. -
Earthjustice: Industry Report Inflated Ozone Costs
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
A new economic analysis commissioned by Earthjustice alleges that an industry-funded study of the cost of implementing tighter national ozone standards contains a number of flaws and unfounded assumptions that “greatly overestimated” the amount and cost of pollution controls that would be required. -
UN Climate Chief Outlines Draft Text for Paris Summit
Sep 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
A text that will form the basis of an international climate deal, which could be signed at the United Nations climate summit in Paris later this year, has seen faster-than-expected progress in recent days and will be issued during the first week of October, the UN's top climate change official said Sept. 15. -
Paris Talks Won't Hit Global Warming Target, U.N. Warns
Sep 15, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Kalina Oroschakoff
Global temperatures are likely to shoot past the agreed safety limit of 2 degrees Celsius even if a deal is reached at the upcoming Paris climate summit, U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres said in Brussels Tuesday. -
Chinese, U.S. Cities, States Unveil Emissions Pledges
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Nearly a dozen Chinese cities and provinces vowed Sept. 15 to peak their carbon emissions as much as a decade sooner than the 2030 national target China President Xi Jinping announced last November. -
U.S., China Build on Plan to Cut Emissions
Sep 15, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By William Mauldin and Colleen McCain Nelson
Next week, President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will add to earlier pledges to cut greenhouse-gas emissions with specific guidance on what the two countries will do at home to keep climate change at bay, officials said. -
Gov. Brown Challenges GOP Candidates on Climate Change
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By James Nash
As he struggles to bring under control devastating wildfires that he blames at least partly on global warming, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has an unwelcome message for the Republican presidential candidates gathering in his state for a debate Sept. 16. -
NAS Chair Sees 'Big Challenge' In Lack Of Quantitative Climate-Health Studies
Sep 16, 2015 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Dan Greenbaum, chair of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel that reviewed the Obama administration's recent report on the risks that climate change presents to human health, sees changing policy without quantitative risk assessments -- a recurring situation in the report, where many topics lack the necessary data -- as "a big challenge" that could hamper future policy development.
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(ACC Mentioned) Recycling Partnership Rolls out 100,000 Curbside Carts
Sep 15, 2015 | Associations Now
By Ernie Smith
A nonprofit initiative that works with local communities to help improve their recycling programs just hit a big milestone, but the group says it already has its eyes on future expansion.Getting people to commit to recycling every day isn’t always easy, but the Recycling Partnership has a pretty effective strategy: Give away free recycling carts.
The group, which changed its name from Curbside Value Partnership about a year ago, has been encouraging people to use large roll-carts, working with local communities to distribute the carts through a series of grants. Most recently, the cities of Roanoke, Virginia; East Lansing, Michigan; and Greenville, South Carolina have received the grants, which the cities have welcomed with open arms.
“Once fully implemented, the recycling roll-cart collection system will deliver numerous benefits to the Greenville community, including improved residential recycling rates, less waste entering the landfill, and, most importantly, a more convenient method for residents to recycle more at the curbside,” Allison Brockman, recycling coordinator for the city,said in a statement. “Working with the Recycling Partnership will help ensure that the transition to the new recycling collection system in 2016 is as seamless as possible for Greenville residents.”
And the efforts are paying off: Earlier this month, the Recycling Partnership revealed that it had distributed 100,000 carts nationwide since rebranding last summer.
In comments on the milestone, the group noted that it was just getting started. It cited its education initiative aiming to ensure that residents return carts with materials that are easy to recycle and are not contaminated.
“While this success is particularly rewarding, it’s only the beginning! In addition to the carts, over 430,000 additional households will benefit this year from our education materials outside of grant dollars,” Elizabeth Schussler, the group’s communication director, said in a news release. “Plus, another 47,000 carts will be in operation this fall, bringing our grand total to more than 150,000 carts on the street in 18 [months].”
The partnership’s initiatives are paid for by its members, which include an array of associations and multinational corporations. The American Chemistry Council, the American Forest & Paper Association, the Can Manufacturers Institute, the Coca-Cola Co., and Procter & Gamble are among the organizations helping to fund the effort.
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(ACC Mentioned) How Effective are MRFs at Sorting Flexible Film?
Sep 16, 2015 | Greener Package
By Anne Marie Mohan
That’s the question industry collaborative Materials Recovery for the Future hopes to answer through new sortation research aimed at driving solutions for increased recovery rates.
An industry collaborative has announced new research aimed at recovering more packaging that is currently destined for landfill. The project, Materials Recovery for the Future, brings together brand owners, manufacturers, and packaging industry organizations that are committed to enhancing recovery solutions for increasingly popular flexible film and packaging options. Some common forms of flexible packaging include resealable food packages, pouches for soups and tuna, petfood bags, and snack bags.
“Flexible packaging offers many benefits we take for granted. It typically uses less energy and materials than other packaging options, helps extend food shelf life and minimize spoilage, and reduces waste by preserving and protecting products until they are consumed,” says Jeff Wooster, Global Sustainability Director, Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics. “This new sortation research is critical in helping to close the recovery loop for flexible packaging, and we are committed to this collaboration to drive solutions for increased recovery rates.”
Resource Recycling Systems (RRS), which developed the test methodology, will conduct the first phase of the research, which will include baseline testing of the existing sortation technologies commonly used in material recovery facilities (MRFs), such as screens and optical scanners. A representative mix of the flexible packaging generated by consumers will be created and added at an appropriate concentration to single-stream recyclables for testing. This mixed stream will be run through the sorters, and the amount of flexible packaging captured in the resulting bale will be measured to determine sorting effectiveness.
“The research is first to use this methodology to study the movement of films and flexible plastic packaging at material recovery facilities in the United States. We believe that data from this collaborative research will help us learn how to recover and divert more valuable resins from landfills,” says Diane Herndon, Manager, Sustainability, Nestlé Purina PetCare Company.
This research effort represents a first step in what will be a series of projects aimed at creating a mainstream recovery solution for flexible packaging. Results are expected to be published in the second quarter of 2016.
Project sponsors include The Dow Chemical Company, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Nestlé Purina PetCare and Nestlé USA, Sealed Air, and SC Johnson, as well as the Association for Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers (APR), the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA), and SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association (SPI).
Materials Recovery for the Future is an initiative of the Research Foundation for Health and Environmental Effects (RFHEE), a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization established by the American Chemistry Council.
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EPA Inspector General Slams Green Chemistry Awards
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Environmental Protection Agency should stop using chemical companies' unverified pollution-prevention data to claim credit for having spurred cleaner air, less hazardous waste and other environmental benefits, the agency's inspector general said in a report released Sept. 15.The report's title, “EPA's Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards Program Lacks Adequate Support and Transparency and Should be Assessed for Continuation,” explains the inspector general's key findings and recommendation.The EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention disagreed with several findings and recommendations in the report.The awards are an effective tool to acknowledge innovative technologies that solve important environmental problems, and the agency's use of the pollution prevention data is warranted, the office said.Basics on AwardsThe Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards carry out a mandate Congress gave the EPA through the Pollution Prevention Act, which was enacted as Title VI of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990, Pub. L. No. 101-508 (42 U.S.C. 13101-13109).The law, in which Congress said pollution should be prevented or reduced at the source, directed the agency to establish an annual award program to recognize a company or companies that operate outstanding or innovative source reduction programs.EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention sponsors the annual awards in partnership with the American Chemical Society's Green Chemistry Institute.The awards recognize small and large companies, universities and individual researchers who design chemicals or chemical manufacturing processes that prevent, reduce or eliminate pollution, waste and the toxic effects of chemicals.To demonstrate the program's utility, the EPA website says that from the award program's inception in 1996 through 2015, the 104 technologies EPA's awards have recognized have:• eliminated 826 million pounds of hazardous chemicals and solvents each year;• saved 21 billion gallons of water each year; and• prevented 7.8 billion pounds of carbon dioxide-equivalents from being released into the air.Unverified DataThe pollution-prevention claims EPA provides are from unverified industry-generated data, the inspector general said.“We determined that the EPA does not verify the validity of the results self-reported by award applicants. Nor does the agency require award recipients to supply any type of quality assurance certification,” Natasha Henry, a health scientist in the inspector general's office, said in a podcast it released together with its report.Adding to that, companies may report pollution-reduction achievements obtained by their use of these technologies outside the U.S., the inspector general's report said.“The program presents risks of misrepresenting the source of award-winning accomplishments and over-representing their application to the United States. Specifically, the EPA does not clearly state that work recognized is from private companies or differentiate between domestic and international results,” Henry said.“We recommended that the EPA stop using data from Green Chemistry Awards in its P2 [pollution prevention] performance metrics until it implements controls for ensuring data quality. Additionally, the agency needs to think about whether to retain the awards program,” Henry said.EPA Largely DisagreedThe EPA's chemical safety and pollution prevention office agreed with three of the inspector's recommendations including developing a process to track the long-term benefits of the innovations it recognizes.The office disagreed with the remaining six recommendations and provided examples of ways it said it already is meeting some of the report's goals, such as integrating the award program's activities to other pollution-prevention actions. -
EPA Targets Vapor Intrusion, PFCs As Federal Facilities Cleanup Priorities
Sep 15, 2015 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
EPA's top official for cleanups of contaminated federal facilities says the agency is preparing to heighten its focus on vapor intrusion and emerging contaminants including perfluorochemicals (PFCs) in 2016 efforts at Department of Defense (DOD) sites, following new guidances on both topics that faced criticism from DOD.
GOP legislators meanwhile appear to be renewing their efforts last raised in the 113th Congress to require federal agencies to follow state laws and regulations as well as federal policies when cleaning up contaminated sites they own, which would, if successful, add still more conditions to work at defense and other federal sites.
Speaking at the Environmental Council of the States' (ECOS) fall meeting here on Sept. 2, Charlotte Bertrand, acting director of the Federal Facilities Restoration and Reuse Office within EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, listed the PFC class of chemicals as a high-profile emerging contaminant that the agency is seeking to address in the future. Bertrand added that vapor intrusion is a new pathway for exposure that regulators will consider.
"As we move forward into 2016 and beyond, I think everyone recognizes that risk is not just static -- risk changes on us. There's always new information that comes forward. There are emerging contaminants, there are changes to toxicity values, there are land uses that you once thought might never come close to a property that change," she said during the ECOS Federal Facilities Forum.
But EPA's policies on vapor intrusion and PFCs -- contaminants commonly found in firefighting foams that were used by the Air Force and others to extinguish fires at its facilities and airports -- have met resistance from DOD.
The defense agency has strongly opposed EPA's proposal for a metric to list sites on the Superfund National Priorities List (NPL) due to vapor intrusion, and sought changes in EPA's order to clean up PFC contamination believed to be caused by chemicals at the former Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, NH.
On vapor intrusion, DOD has charged that EPA's pending "scoring" rule that would guide consideration of vapor intrusion risks when determining whether contaminated sites are eligible to be placed on the NPL is unnecessary, joining industry groups in urging the agency to drop development of the rule.
The proposal is currently undergoing interagency review at the White House Office of Management & Budget, and would permit the use of new factors -- specifically vapor intrusion and water intrusion -- that could be relied on to score sites under the agency's Hazard Ranking System. EPA applies that system to determine whether to place a contaminated site on the NPL. While contaminated sites with vapor intrusion can currently be listed on the NPL, they cannot be listed solely because of vapor intrusion.
Opponents of the rule, including DOD and industry groups, claimed in comments that there is no need for the change, since there are no sites that would be eligible for listing and that neither EPA nor the public had ever identified the 37 sites that the Government Accountability Office previously estimated may warrant listing.
Industry commenters said the costs of the rule would outweigh any benefits and that the Superfund program's flat budget cannot easily accommodate a flood of new sites.
Bertrand did not elaborate on how she expects EPA to approach vapor intrusion in cleanups, saying only that the agency considers the issue "a problem that can emerge" at facilities.
PFC Contamination
PFC contamination has gained prominence after EPA issued a first-time Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) administrative order to clean up the chemicals at the Pease base, which the Air Force has been slow to implement as it sought changes to the order -- despite pressure from lawmakers to quickly address contamination there.
EPA issued what appears to be its first SDWA order for a PFC cleanup on July 9, after the Air Force acknowledged that PFC levels in drinking water wells near Pease exceeded EPA's provisional health advisory levels for the chemicals. However, DOD sought changes to the order before implementation, and EPA revised the order on Aug. 3, making what the agency termed "minor alterations."
In a July 24 letter, Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D) and Kelly Ayotte (R) pressed the Air Force to immediately comply with the order, saying to Air Force Secretary Deborah L. James that "your failure to move quickly and comply with this Order continues to pose a public health risk to the community."
"I know some of the states here have dealt with [PFCs] -- they are something that we are working closely with the states to talk to DOD about," Bertrand told the ECOS forum.
She also listed two more general concerns as priorities for the agency in 2016: groundwater contamination and identifying buried munitions in watery conditions.
Groundwater remediation is a major concern for a host of facilities and contaminants that Bertrand emphasized can persist even after active cleanup is finished at the facility itself.
"Even after remedies are in place, we still have a lot of work remaining in this program," she said.
Identifying when a facility designated for cleanup has buried munitions, and what danger they pose, is a long-standing problem for EPA and DOD.
"Munitions technology is improving, but munitions are going to continue to challenge us -- particularly trying to identify munitions in a water environment," Bertrand said.
Cleanup Policies
Meanwhile, House Republicans are again raising the possibility that agencies should be forced to follow state waste policies at cleanups.
During a Sept. 11 hearing of the House Energy & Commerce Committee's energy and environment panel to discuss federal facility cleanups, subcommittee Chairman Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) and Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) both questioned DOD's John Conger on whether the department adheres to state mandates at its contaminated sites.
In his answer to Latta, Conger said DOD follows state rules at former federal facilities that are now owned by private parties or the state, but "Where it's federal property it gets more complicated."
Latta also questioned whether section 120 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as the Superfund law, is being interpreted to establish sovereign immunity for federal agencies against state law.
"Do you think that section 120 of CERCLA needs to be amended to make sure that federal agencies do comply with state regulations and laws dealing with cleanup?" he asked EPA waste chief Mathy Stanislaus.
Stanislaus replied that he could not answer the legal question, but said, "Where we are involved with federal sites, we view the states as a partner. I really can't speak to cases beyond that."
Shimkus' and Latta's questions echoed legislation they both backed in 2013 that would have strengthened the sovereign immunity waiver in CERCLA section 120 to make it clear that the waiver allows states to enforce their laws at current and former federal facilities -- a move states have long championed but which was strongly opposed by federal agencies and Democrats.
"What we've heard is, everyone views the states as a partner, but no one is required to treat the states as a partner," Shimkus said.
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Links to Essential Reading on the Lautenberg Act
Sep 15, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison
The full Senate is expected soon to take up and vote on the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (the Lautenberg Act for short, S. 697), the bipartisan TSCA reform legislation introduced in the Senate in March and passed in revised form out of the Environment and Public Works Committee in April.
In anticipation of this, I am posting here an update to a series of blog posts that examine how the Lautenberg Act would address key flaws in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). I am also posting links to brief and detailed side-by-sides of TSCA and the two bills, and also to two posts that address the contentious issue of preemption of state authority.
These posts compare the Lautenberg Act to current TSCA, and also to the TSCA Modernization Act of 2015,H.R. 2576, the bipartisan legislation introduced in the House in May and passed by the full House in June.
All of these materials (including this post) are available at blogs.edf.org/health.How would TSCA reform legislation address key flaws in TSCA? Update of our 5-part series on less talked-about but critically important elements of TSCA reform:Enhancing testing authorityEPA review of new chemicalsHow chemicals are selected for safety evaluationsConfidential business informationConsideration of costs and other non-risk factorsComparing the Senate and House TSCA reform legislation: A side-by-sideAnd now the gory details: A deep-dive comparison of the Senate and House TSCA reform legislationUnderstanding preemption in the Lautenberg ActA mixed bag: Comparing the preemption provisions of the House and Senate TSCA reform billsHow the Senate and House TSCA reform bills stack up against the Administration’s Principles for TSCA ReformWe don’t know how many chemicals are in use today. We should know.
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US CPSC Withdraws Testing Exemption for Toys
Sep 15, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US Consumer Products Safety Commission has withdrawn a direct final rule that would have eliminated third-party testing requirements for heavy elements in unfinished and untreated wood, used in toys (CW 17 July 2015).
The CPSC's rule had called to lift the testing requirement by 15 September, on the grounds that unfinished and untreated tree trunks do not contain covered heavy elements in excess of the limits detailed in the toy standard (ASTM F963-11).
These include: antimony;arsenic;barium;cadmium;chromium;lead;mercury; and selenium.
However, the agency received “significant adverse comments”, which resulted in the rule being withdrawn.
According to Randy Butturini, project manager for the CPSC's office of hazard identification reduction, the CPSC judges a comment 'significant' if it contains content that merits a response, and if it is within the scope of the rulemaking.
Mr Butturini said it is unlikely that the commission will revisit the submitted comments and rulemaking until the next fiscal year, which begins in October.
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H&M Joins NGO Campaign against Animal Testing
Sep 15, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Fashion retailer H&M has partnered with Humane Society International (HSI) to campaign against animal testing on cosmetic ingredients and products.
H&M already carries a line of cosmetics that it does not test on animals. With this new collaboration, it will join HSI's Be Cruelty Free campaign to encourage other brands to stop animal testing on their products as well.
The retailer will support HSI's campaign - which aims to achieve an end to all animal testing within the global beauty industry - through consumer advocacy, education programmes, and promoting cruelty-free cosmetics as a profitable business model, it has said.
Ultimately, the partnership will pursue policy change in countries around the world, focusing on legislative bans on animal testing of cosmetics, according to the HSI. It will also work towards developing a global standard for wool and down production.
“As a company that already eschews animal testing of its own cosmetics, H&M is now sending a strong message industry-wide that more needs to be done to end the suffering of animals in cosmetics tests,” said Troy Seidle, director of HSI’s research & toxicology department.
The NGO says the two organisations are still pinning down the specifics on campaign projects.
“They will be focused on educating global consumers on cruelty-free cosmetics, and lending H&M's voice in support of our extensive efforts to achieve cosmetics animal testing bans around the world,” a spokesperson told Chemical Watch.
H&M adds that it will also "support the work of the HSI locally" in those countries where animal testing in the cosmetic industry is still common.
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Industry Defends DEP against Reported Miscarriage Link
Sep 15, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Phillip Lightowlers
The European Council of Plasticisers and Intermediates (ECPI) has defended the widely used additive, diethyl phthalate (DEP), following a recent study which linked a metabolite of the compound to miscarriage.
The study published in Environmental Science and Technology, in August, reported that pregnant women in Beijing, with higher levels of three phthalate metabolites in urine, were more likely to suffer miscarriage (CW 26 August 2015).
The metabolites were mono ethyl phthalate (MEP), mono isobutyl phthalate (MiBP) and mono n-butyl phthalate (MnBP), indicating exposure to DEP, di-isobutyl phthalate (DiBP) and di-n-butyl phthalate (DnBP).
The study also pointed out that women’s DEP exposure in the US was ten times higher than observed in Beijing, based on urinary MEP levels. This is likely to be due to its use as a solvent and vehicle in fragrances and cosmetics.
Rainer Otter, chairman of the ECPI’s scientific working group, said the link to miscarriage “did not make sense” because an animal study for DEP’s REACH registration did not show oral developmental toxicity, except at very high doses.
The OECD 414 test found a no observed adverse effect level of 2.5% of the diet in rats, which is equivalent to 1,910 mg/kg bw/day.
He also pointed out that a 2001 review of DEP toxicity concluded that the compound had a “favourable toxicological profile”, and was “not considered to represent any significant toxic liability” from its use in cosmetics.
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Echa Committee Gives 'Nuanced' View on Proposed BPA Restriction
Sep 15, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Geraint Roberts
A proposal to ban thermal paper, containing bisphenol A, from the EU market received a mixed response, last week, from Echa’s Socio-Economic Analysis Committee (Seac).
According to Echa, the committee’s draft Opinion says the proposed ban, which would take the form of a REACH restriction, was “unlikely to be proportionate from an economic efficiency perspective”.
But Seac also decided it might have “favourable distributional and affordability considerations”, the agency said.
The Opinion was "nuanced", chairman Tomas Oberg told Chemical Watch.
A 60-day public consultation on the draft Opinion will be launched later this month. The committee’s final Opinion is expected in December.
Earlier this year, the proposed ban received the backing of Echa’s Risk Assessment Committee on the grounds that thermal paper products, such as till receipts, presented an uncontrolled risk to workers (CW 11 June 2015).
Once Seac has agreed its final Opinion - which may be different from the draft - it will be sent, along with Rac’s, to the European Commission, which then has three months to prepare a proposal for amending REACH Annex VII - the list of restrictions.
When doing so, the Commission can depart from the Opinions submitted by Rac and Seac, but must explain its reasons for doing so.
It is not obliged to go back to those committees with a restriction text, but may proceed to submit it to the REACH Committee of member state representatives.
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Proposed EU Ban on Deca-BDE Moves Forward
Sep 15, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A proposed EU ban on the placing on the market of the brominated flame retardant, deca-BDE, as a substance in mixtures and articles, advanced another step, last week, when Echa’s Socio-Economic Analysis Committee adopted its final Opinion.
The committee reiterated the view expressed in its draft Opinion that such a ban, which is proposed as a restriction under the REACH Regulation, is the most appropriate way to address the risks posed by the substance.
It said additional exemptions should apply to deca’s use in military aircraft, road vehicles, spare parts for machinery, agricultural and forestry vehicles.
The committee has already said the restriction should not apply to the restriction for electrical and electronic equipment because this use of deca-BDE is already banned under the EU Directive on the restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS).
The proposed restriction has already been backed by Echa’s Risk Assessment Committee because of concern about its persistence and toxicity, and its global distribution through the atmosphere (CW 11 June 2015).
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Report: House Leadership Looks to Schedule Vote on Oil Exports
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
House leadership is looking to schedule a vote on a measure lifting the ban on crude oil exports within the next few weeks, The Wall Street Journal reports.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will announce the effort during an energy policy speech on Tuesday in Houston.
“If there was ever a time to lift the oil export ban, it’s now,” McCarthy will say, according to the newspaper. “Lifting the oil export ban will not only help our economy, it will also bolster our geopolitical standing.”
Lawmakers have redoubled their efforts to pass a bill lifting the 40-year-old export ban this session. A Senate panel approved an export bill in August, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled to do the same on Thursday.
“It is time for our energy policies to catch up to our new era of abundance,” the committee's chairman, Fred Upton (R-Mich.), said in a Monday statement.
The oil industry supports ending the ban, saying it would help consumers and bolster the American oil sector. Some refiners and green groups, however, have warned that more exports could hurt gas prices and contribute to climate change.
Republican lawmakers and supporters of lifting the ban have been bullish on their chances of overturning it this session. Though most Democrats oppose the effort, some have said they’re willing to compromise on the issue, which has led supporters to pitch proposals doing just that.
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Hoeven to ‘Demand’ Crude Oil Export Amendment to TSCA
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said Sept. 15 he will “absolutely demand” that legislation to lift the 40-year-old ban on most crude oil exports be added as an amendment to a widely supported chemical safety bill that may be brought to the Senate floor soon.“I think it is a very good fit, and I have been and intend to continue pushing a deal with that underlying legislation,” Hoeven said during a forum held by National Journal.The legislation (S. 697) would update the Toxic Substances Control Act, which governs industrial and other commercial uses of chemicals in the U.S. and is considered bedrock environmental legislation.The bill, which proponents say has more than 80 votes for passage in the Senate, could be brought to the floor after the Senate finishes the Iran nuclear deal, although it remains to be seen how many Democrats would vote for an oil exports amendment (175 DEN A-6, 9/10/15).Stand-Alone Bill UnlikelyLegislation to lift the export ban is unlikely to come to the Senate floor as a stand-alone measure, Hoeven said, adding that in addition to S. 697, an oil exports amendment could be attached to other infrastructure or commerce-related measures.“I think there are more than seven Democrats that will join us if we put it on the right vehicle,” he said.Companies such as ConocoPhillips Co. are pushing to repeal the 1975 law that put the ban in place, but those efforts are opposed by refiners such as Valero Energy Corp.Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), speaking at the same event, said a compromise that includes Democrats' priorities, such as the extension of renewable energy tax credits, could bring minority support to lift the ban.“There is still an opportunity to build a good coalition in the middle,” said Heitkamp, who is the author of a bill (S. 1372) that would lift the crude oil export ban.Other Senate proponents of lifting the ban include Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who is the author of legislation (S. 1312) that also would end the trade prohibition. That bill was attached to a broader energy package approved by her committee in July (147 DEN A-5, 7/31/15). -
White House Won't Back Effort to Lift Export Ban
Sep 15, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey and Geof Koss
The Obama administration today said it will not support current legislative efforts to lift a national 40-year-old ban on crude exports, dealing a major blow to bipartisan proponents pushing language through both chambers of Congress.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at a briefing that lifting restrictions on exports of domestic crude should take place at the Commerce Department, not on Capitol Hill.
"This is a policy decision that is made over at the Commerce Department, and for that reason, we wouldn't support legislation like the one that's been put forward by Republicans," Earnest said.
Earnest also noted that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is expected today to announce a plan to advance Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton's bill, H.R. 702, to lift the export ban at an energy summit in Houston.
Earnest said the event will be "largely funded by four or five of the biggest oil companies in the United States," and criticized Republicans for pushing exports instead of scrapping industry subsidies and using that money to support investments in wind and solar power generation.
"Leader McCarthy has an opportunity to demonstrate some true political courage, were he to go and stand before that organization and actually offer up something bold, but also common-sense, which is to end the billions in subsidies that oil and gas companies in the United States already enjoy," he said, "and actually use that money to ensure the long-term success of our economy and our -- and the energy sector in this country, by making important investments in things like wind energy and -- and solar energy, investments that even some of those oil companies themselves have bragged about making."
Earnest was also asked about a recent U.S. Energy Information Administration report that found "petroleum product prices in the United States, including gasoline prices, would be either unchanged or slightly reduced" if restrictions on exports were eased (Greenwire, Sept. 1).
After reiterating that the Commerce Department makes any decision on policies surrounding oil exports, Earnest again criticized McCarthy.
"Regardless of the merits of this individual position, it is quite clear what Leader McCarthy's priorities are," he said. "They are the priorities of his party in Congress ... to cozy up to the oil interests and to pursue policies and to make policy announcements that are clearly in their interests at venues where they can be sure they see it."
The Obama administration, he said, believes the public would be better served by pursuing the "kind of approach that also invests in good renewable energy" and will create jobs in the clean energy industry.
Senate Republicans were unhappy over the administration's position.
While noting that he had not heard Earnest's exact comments, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said he was concerned that the White House would criticize Barton's bill, "when they've shown some willingness to address the issue" by allowing the lightly processed form of crude known as condensate to be exported without running afoul of restrictions.
"But even beyond that, particularly with their advocacy for the proposed agreement with Iran, in essence, then, they'd be taking the position where they're advocating allowing Iran to export oil, but not the United States, and that makes no sense at all," Hoeven told E&ENews PM this afternoon.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) said Earnest's comments reverse "encouraging signs" from the administration on exports, including the recent oil swap with Mexico.
"It makes a lot of economic sense when our economy is growing so slowly to allow trade of oil, much as we've facilitated through the trade promotion authority for other products," he toldE&ENews PM. "So it seems to me that it's somewhat anomalous. And then having lifted the sanctions on Iranian exports and maintaining essentially domestic sanctions on our own exports strikes me as very contradictory."
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White House Opposes Bill to Lift Crude Export Ban
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
The White House said Sept. 15 it “wouldn't support” House legislation (H.R. 702) that would end the ban on most crude oil exports, as House leadership announced it planned to bring the bill to the floor at the end of September.“This is a policy decision that is made over at the Commerce Department, and, for that reason, we wouldn't support legislation like the one that's been put forward by Republicans,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters during a briefing.Earnest's remarks, the most explicit to date on the Obama administration position of lifting the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports, came prior to an announcement by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that a bill to do so would be brought to the House floor.‘Time for a Change.'“It was put in place in 1975 and it has held this nation back,” McCarthy said in remarks before the Greater Houston Partnership, a business group whose members include oil producers such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP. “It is time for a change. Now is the time to lift the ban.”McCarthy added be believed Congress would muster enough votes to override a presidential veto.The bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), is scheduled for markup in the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Sept. 17. It has been gaining momentum in recent months amidst record domestic oil production and low gasoline prices.In addition to repealing the section of the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act that established the crude export ban, the legislation bars the federal government from imposing or enforcing any similar restrictions and requires an Energy Department report on the appropriate size and makeup of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.In his remarks, Earnest repeated the White House's longstanding request to repeal billions in dollars worth of preferential tax treatment received by the oil and gas industry, and instead use that money to boost renewables.White House Open to a Deal?“The one thing that I would note is that this policy announcement is being made by Leader McCarthy in front of an organization in Houston that is largely funded by four or five of the biggest oil companies in the United States,” Earnest said, according to a transcript. “So it is pretty clear, once again, where Republicans in Congress and their political benefactors stand when it comes to their energy policy priorities.”Still, some analysts, such as Joseph P. McMonigle, a senior energy analyst at Potomac Research Group, said they didn't see the White House closing the door completely on legislative action to remove the oil export restrictions and could instead be trying to gain leverage for a potential future deal.Recent moves by the Commerce Department, such as a the approval of a swap of 100,000 barrels of U.S.- produced crude for similar quantities of heavy oil from Mexico in August, and a decision in late 2014 to allow the export of condensate—an ultralight oil that has been lightly processed—have been seen as signs the Obama administration may be willing to loosen the oil export ban (01 DEN A-4, 1/2/15).The trade prohibition is opposed by oil producers such as ConocoPhillips Co. and Marathon Oil Corp., but some refiners, such as Valero Energy Corp., argue it should be left in place.The ban, which doesn't apply to refined products such as gasoline and jet fuel, prohibits the export of U.S. crude oil, with exceptions for crude from Alaska and California and crude destined for Canada. -
White House Opposes GOP Bill to Lift Oil Exports
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The White House criticized Republicans’ efforts to lift the ban on oil exports Tuesday and said the Obama administration will not support them.
Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the fact Republicans are focusing on oil exports shows that they are beholden to oil and natural gas interests.
“We’ve got on a position on this, which is that this is a policy decision that is made over at the Commerce Department,” Earnest said at the daily press briefing, referring to Commerce’s role in approving oil exports to specific countries in limited cases.
“And for that reason, we wouldn’t support legislation like one that’s been put forward by Republicans,” he said.
Earnest’s comments came the same day House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is expected to announce that the House will vote this month to end the 40-year-old ban on exporting crude oil.
McCarthy will give his remarks at an event hosted by the Greater Houston Partnership, which is largely funded by major oil companies based around Houston.
“The one thing that I would note is that this policy announcement is being made by Leader McCarthy in front of an organization in Houston that is largely funded by four or five of the biggest oil companies in the United States,” Earnest said. “So it is pretty clear once again where Republicans in Congress and their political benefactors stand when it comes to their energy policy priorities.”
Earnest challenged McCarthy to push oil companies to endorse ending tax breaks that benefit them and putting the money toward wind and solar energy.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will vote on the oil exports bill Thursday, after a subcommittee of that panel approved it last week.
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted in August to lift the ban.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), the lead Democratic sponsor of the exports bill, said Tuesday that including renewable energy incentives might bring in more Democrats to support oil exports.
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GOP Claims Ability to Overcome Obama Veto of Export Bill
Sep 16, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Northey and Geof Koss
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) yesterday said there's enough support in the lower chamber to override President Obama's expected veto of legislation that would lift a 1970s-era ban on crude oil exports.
"If Iran is able to sell their oil around the world, which the president supports in his agreement, shouldn't America at least have the same opportunity?" McCarthy asked attendees at the Greater Houston Partnership in Houston. "I think with that question being answered, there would be enough to override his veto."
McCarthy was reacting to White House spokesman Josh Earnest's comments to reporters yesterday that Obama would not support legislative efforts to lift the 40-year-old ban on crude exports and that the Commerce Department -- not Congress -- should handle such policies (E&ENews PM, Sept. 15).
McCarthy also announced that the full House would cast its vote on Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton's bill, H.R. 702, which would allow companies to export domestic crude, during the last week of September. The House Energy and Commerce Committee will begin marking up the measure today.
McCarthy also rejected the assertion that the federal government should make the final call on lifting the ban.
"One of the greatest strengths of this country is that our power doesn't come from government; it comes from the people," he said. "And the people lend their power to Congress to have a voice. So I think Congress should actually have the voice of where it goes."
Other Republican House leaders were quick to follow suit, seizing on the Iran deal.
"I am disappointed the White House would voice opposition to lifting the crude oil ban when a good number of prominent studies have indicated that the price at the American pump would actually go down by lifting the ban," House Energy & Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said in a statement. "Many are asking why the Iranians are now allowed to export crude and only the Americans are denied."
And Senate Banking Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) said yesterday that his committee will soon mark up a bill ending the ban that includes issues that fall under the panel's jurisdiction.
Shelby was unfazed by the White House's opposition to lifting the ban.
"It doesn't bother me at all," he said. "I think the White House is wrong on a lot of stuff."
The scuffle between the GOP and the White House comes after weeks of legislative maneuvering among bipartisan House members to shore up Democratic support for Barton's bill (E&E Daily, Sept. 15). Barton and other members have even expressed hope in recent days that the White House was on board with lifting the ban and said they hoped to have the bill on the president's desk by Christmas.
Yet discussions unraveled yesterday, with Earnest's comments drawing fire from the Greater Houston Partnership, which hosted McCarthy's speech. Earnest, meanwhile, criticized McCarthy's decision to make the announcement about the timing of the House vote before a group "largely funded by four or five of the biggest oil companies in the United States." He also criticized Republicans for pushing exports instead of scrapping industry subsidies and using that money to support investments in wind and solar power generation.
The Greater Houston Partnership -- whose members include Exxon Mobil Corp., Valero Energy Corp. and Marathon Oil Corp. -- shot back in a statement.
"In the context of this visit, the White House down played the importance of this action and criticized Majority Leader McCarthy and the Partnership, and in the process disparaged Houston for being the 'energy capital of the world,'" the partnership said.
The White House drew support, however, from green groups and Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who yesterday cast doubt on any dealmaking in the Senate to swap the ban for renewable incentives. Earlier yesterday, a coalition of the nation's largest labor and environmental groups urged the White House in a letter to oppose Barton's bill.
"The White House is right to oppose Republican legislation in the House to lift the crude export ban that would hurt consumers, our economy and national security when the only beneficiary would be Big Oil's bottom line," Markey said in a statement. "We should keep our oil here to benefit our economy not hand a multi-billion windfall to Big Oil by allowing it to be sent overseas to the highest bidder."
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) last night kept the door open slightly for such a deal but said lifting the ban should come at the expense of the billions of dollars in tax breaks enjoyed by oil and gas companies.
"There's the makings of a deal assuming that we can get rid of the subsidies, replace the dirty oil with clean energy," she told E&E Daily. "There's something there."
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) yesterday also said he's interested in discussing a deal to lift the ban in exchange for helping renewables.
"I think that's a conversation we should have," he told E&E Daily. "And it could be that the president who actually signs any change into law will not be the current president."
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House Leader: Congress Could Override Oil Export Veto
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) predicts Congress will be able to muster the votes necessary to overcome any potential veto of a bill ending the ban on crude oil exports.
McCarthy said Tuesday that allowing crude exports is an “easy question” in light of the nuclear agreement lifting sanctions on Iran, allowing its oil industry to tap into the global market.
“It’s an easy question: If Iran is able to sell their oil around the world, which the president supports in his agreement, shouldn’t America at least have the same opportunity?” McCarthy said at a meeting with businesses in Houston. “I think with that question being answered, it’ll be enough to override a veto.”
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will vote Thursday on a bill lifting the crude oil export ban, something McCarthy said he hopes to bring to the House floor by the end of the month.
Proponents of repealing the ban have alluded to the end of Iranian sanctions as reason enough to do so, often also citing the potential economic benefits for both consumers and the oil industry.
But some oil refiners and green groups have opposed the effort, warning about higher gasoline prices and oil’s impact on climate change and the environment.
The White House stopped short of threatening to veto the House bill on Tuesday, but Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the administration opposes it because the Commerce Department already has some power to approve limited export agreements on its own.
“And for that reason, we wouldn’t support legislation like the one that’s been put forward by Republicans,” he said.
McCarthy rebutted that argument in Houston, saying Congress has the right to overturn the 40-year-old ban if lawmakers deem it necessary.
“I think Congress should actually have a voice for where this goes,” he said.
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Trump Backs End to 'Archaic' Oil Export Ban
Sep 15, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
Donald Trump called for ending the "archaic" laws that block most U.S. oil exports during his speech in Dallas yesterday, aligning himself with Republican leaders who are preparing for a crucial House vote on the issue.
During remarks in Dallas late Monday, Trump blamed the "archaic laws" for stopping the U.S. from achieving "things with energy that are so, so incredible." He spoke less than 24 hours before House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced the full chamber would vote on legislation that would end the 1970s-era ban by next month.
"Try sending your oil outside of the boundaries of the United States -- how ridiculous," Trump said. "We could be the number one energy producer in the world." Total U.S. oil and gas production rose to the global top spot last year, supplanting Russia, according to recent estimates from the Energy Information Administration and oil giant BP.
The Senate remains short of a filibuster-proof 60 votes for legislation to end the export ban, although Minority Leader Harry Reid has suggested that Democrats may be open to a deal. But today's comments today from Josh Earnest that the White House oppeses the House bill may yet slow down efforts to reach a compromise.
Trump also used his Dallas speech to mock President Barack Obama for calling climate change the "single biggest threat in the world" after veering away from the use of the term "global warming," then embracing the frame of "extreme weather."
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Sep 15, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell today declined to predict victory against the legal challenge to her department's landmark fracking regulations, but she vowed that new standards would take effect in one form or another.
Jewell's remarks come ahead of a decision from a federal court in Wyoming that could emerge any day nowon whether it will ssue an injunction against Bureau of Land Management rules on well construction, chemical disclosure and other aspects of the fracking process, ruling.
"Ultimately, I'm confident that our rules, which are common-sense, based on science, and taking into account where industry has gone, will be put into place," Jewell told a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
A separate BLM proposal to curb venting and flaring of methane from drilling operations on public lands is expected to soon head to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review before its official proposal, Jewell affirmed.
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Interior Chief Defends Obama against Liberal Fire
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell fought back on Tuesday against criticisms of her agency from environmentalists who say the fossil fuel production it allows goes against President Obama’s climate goals.
Jewell oversees agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which allow oil, natural gas and coal production on federal land and the outer continental shelf.
Responding to greens who have asked for a halt to new leases for energy companies, Jewell said it’s unreasonable to ask for such a dramatic shift away from fossil fuels.
“We are a nation that continues to be dependent on fossil fuels,” she said Tuesday at a breakfast event hosted by The Christian Science Monitor.
“Right now, we are sitting under lights that are most likely powered by coal, in the East,” she told reporters. “Maybe some of you walked here, but most of you probably burned some fossil fuels in one way or another to get here. There are millions of jobs in this country that are dependent on these industries, and you can’t just cut it off overnight and expect to have an economy that is, in fact, the leader in the world.”
She cited regulations to cut down on natural gas venting and the Environmental Protection Agency’s carbon limits for power plants as examples of how the Obama administration is taking action against climate change.
“We all have a responsibility to act and there are things that we are doing and will continue to do to reduce the carbon footprint, put incentives in place for all of us to do a better job at how we use carbon than we have in the past,” Jewell said.
“The president, in his climate action plan, has said very clearly that we need to move to a lower carbon future, and I am very proud to work for a president that has been as direct and forceful in his messaging as President Barack Obama.”
She later said that her goal is not to anger environmentalists one day and the energy industry the next day, despite the fact that it sometimes looks that way.
“I have a complicated job,” she said. “And most of the decisions that are required of my position will make some people happy and some people very unhappy.”
A number of decisions by Jewell, her deputies and her predecessors have angered greens, who say that the Obama administration either is expanding fossil fuel development or missing opportunities to cut back on it.
That includes the decision to allow Royal Dutch Shell to drill exploratory oil and gas wells in the Arctic Ocean this year and continued coal mining in the Powder River Basin, which is federally owned and one of the most productive coal mining areas in the world.
Greens say such moves go completely against Obama’s pledge to crack down on greenhouse gas emissions.
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House Committee Plans Energy Bill Markup Sept. 17
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will vote on omnibus energy legislation Sept. 17, the committee announced.A manager's amendment is planned for the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act (no bill no.), draft legislation that would streamline the federal siting process for interstate natural gas pipelines and allow the Energy Department to take certain measures during “grid security emergencies.”The committee also plans to mark up legislation (H.R. 702) sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) that would lift the 40-year-old ban on most crude oil exports.“It is time for our energy policies to catch up to our new era of abundance,” Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) announced. “These two bills will help create jobs, keep energy affordable, boost production and improve energy security—all areas that should achieve broad bipartisan support.”Negotiations Before MarkupThe committee's consideration of the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act will occur after weeks of negotiations between majority and minority committee members over sticking points, such as language that would have repealed a 2007 law requiring federal buildings to phase out the use of fossil fuels by 2030.Other issues that were being negotiated ahead of the markup included whether the bill would block the Energy Department from implementing energy efficiency standards for furnaces.Those measures were included in an original draft of the bill, only to be stripped out in a later version that was approved by voice vote in July by the Energy and Power Subcommittee (141 DEN A-13, 7/23/15).Amendments PossibleThe oil export bill, which would repeal a section of the 1975 Energy Policy and Conservation Act that established a ban on most crude oil exports, is expected to be approved by the committee, possibly with amendments.Among the amendments Democrats are considering offering is language that would give the administration authority to reimpose the ban on crude exports if doing so is in the national interest, Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) said.Other concerns of Democrats include the legislation's impact on refiners and its implications for the Jones Act, which requires ships moving between U.S. ports to be U.S.-built and U.S.-crewed, Green said.“We have a couple of amendments we're looking at,” Green said in an interview, adding that Barton, the bill's author, has yet to agree to any.House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) announced Sept. 15 the bill would be brought to the House floor the last week of September, although the White House signaled opposition to the legislation (see related story).Proponents of ending the ban, which doesn't apply to refined products such as gasoline and jet fuel, and makes exceptions for crude from Alaska and California and crude destined for Canada, include oil producers like ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil Corp. Refiners such as Valero Energy Corp. support keeping the ban in place. -
Lawmakers Blast Proposed Drilling Rule at La. Field Hearing
Sep 16, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Daniel Bush
Republican members of the House Natural Resources Committee blasted the Obama administration's push to impose new regulations on offshore drilling at a field hearing yesterday in Louisiana.
GOP lawmakers zeroed in on the well control rule, a measure proposed earlier this year by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) that would improve the reliability of blowout preventers, the device that failed to stop oil from flowing into the Gulf of Mexico after BP PLC's fatal Macondo well explosion in 2010.
The massive oil spill that followed led the Obama administration to impose a brief moratorium on drilling in the Gulf and launch a series of reforms governing offshore energy production.
BSEE's post-BP reforms include new performance-based safety standards for offshore drilling and the creation of a team of investigators tasked with reviewing spills and other incidents. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has also taken steps to strengthen its oversight of offshore drilling projects.
But GOP lawmakers said the well control rule represented the latest attack on offshore energy producers still struggling to recover from the Deepwater Horizon fallout.
The rule could lead to "another virtual shutdown of a majority of the Gulf fleet," Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said at the field hearing, which was held in New Orleans.
According to BSEE data, offshore oil production in the Gulf of Mexico generated 529 million barrels in 2014, the first year-over-year rise in production since the BP spill.
Despite the uptick in production, Bishop said energy producers remain wary about investing in the region due to the flood of new federal rules surrounding drilling activity. Bishop noted that the two offshore lease sales for the Gulf resulted in the lowest number of bids in two decades.
"We should encourage the production of affordable energy," instead of moving forward with new regulations that could hamper the industry's growth, Bishop said.
Other critics chimed in, with Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) calling the White House's offshore drilling reforms a "regulatory avalanche" and a threat to Louisiana's economy.
"We need a clear and strong regulatory scheme that promotes stringent safety standards while allowing industry to thrive and do its business," Vitter, who is running for governor this year, told the panel (E&E Daily, Sept. 11).
Administration officials defended the proposed well control rule.
Oil production in the Gulf is expected to rise to 620 million barrels next year -- the highest total in a decade, according to Lars Herbst, BSEE's regional director for the Gulf of Mexico. Herbst testified that the rule was aimed at preventing future spills, not stopping the growth of offshore drilling.
"We need the well control rule, as loss of well control incidents are still occurring at the same frequency" as prior to the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Herbst said.
Energy executives dismissed the argument, insisting that the rule would make drilling more costly and difficult. BSEE projects that compliance costs will be $883 million, while an industry-backed study has pegged the total at $32 billion.
"Let the experts in their respective fields guide the decisions that impact our energy future," said Lori Davis, the president of RIG-CHEM Inc. "We can't control OPEC or the forces of nature, but we can stop imposing more regulations that will drive us out of business."
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GOP Moderates to Push to Fight Climate Change
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A group of moderate Republicans is working on a resolution calling for action to fight climate change.
The effort, led by Rep. Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.) seeks to get at least some in the GOP on the record as agreeing with Democrats and the vast majority of scientists that the climate is changing and that human activity is to blame.
But it would stop short of endorsing any particular policy to reduce greenhouse gases, instead calling for research into what could be done about it, according to a GOP aide familiar with the declaration.
The lawmakers are planning to introduce their non-binding legislation Thursday, exactly a week before Pope Francis speaks to Congress.
Francis is expected to make climate change a major part of his speech, following on the heels of his encyclical earlier this year calling on the world to fight climate change.
“As an Eagle Scout and Scoutmaster for many years, I know firsthand why we must all work to strengthen conservation programs and other policies that promote public health, protect our environment and keep our air clean,” Rep. Robert Dold (R-Ill.) said in a statement.
“Climate change is occurring and human contributions to this change are important to acknowledge and understand,” he said. “Protecting the environment is not a partisan issue, which is why we must work together to find a sensible path forward that improves our planet for future generations.”
ClimateWire first reported on the resolution Friday.
Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), Dave Reichert (R-Wash.), Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.), Ryan Costello (R-Pa.), Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.) and Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) told National Journal that they are also co-sponsoring the measure.
Republicans have stood united against President Obama’s climate policies, including carbon emissions limits for power plants, saying such rules would hurt the economy and jobs.
Some measures in Congress, such as legislation sponsored by then-Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) in 2009 to implement a cap-and-trade system for carbon, have gotten a handful of Republicans on board.
But overall, the GOP has not been eager to fight climate change or go on record linking human activity to it.
Gibson, who represents a very moderate district, told National Journal that the resolution “is a call for action to study how humans are impacting our environment and to look for consensus on areas where we can take action to mitigate the risks and balance our impacts.”
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House Republican Group to Push Climate Resolution
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
A group of 10 moderate House Republicans is poised to take what could be the first, small step to rekindle the congressional debate over how the U.S. should confront climate change.
Rep. Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.) plans to introduce a resolution “to create and support economically viable, and broadly supported private and public solutions to study and address the causes and effects of measured changes to our global and regional climates,” according to a draft text obtained Sept. 15 by Bloomberg BNA.
“If left unaddressed, the consequences of a changing climate have the potential to adversely impact all Americans, hitting vulnerable populations hardest, harming productivity in key economic sectors such as construction, agriculture, and tourism, saddling future generations with costly economic and environmental burdens, and imposing additional costs on state and federal budgets,” the resolution states.
The offices of Republican Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Fla.), Carlos Curbelo (Fla.), Ryan Costello (Pa.) and Mike Fitzpatrick (Pa.) all confirmed those lawmakers had signed onto the resolution. In addition, Republican Rep. Dave Reichert (Wash.), Patrick Meehan (Pa.), Richard Hanna (N.Y.), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Robert Dold (Ill.) have also joined, according to the National Journal, though their offices did not respond to Bloomberg BNA.
Gibson's office did not respond to multiple phone and e-mail messages seeking comment.
The resolution emerges the week before Pope Francis makes a much-anticipated visit to Capitol Hill where he is expected to urge strong action to address climate change. There has been virtually no action on climate change legislation since Democratic-led cap-and-trade legislation collapsed in the Senate in 2010.
Congressman Wants to ‘Shift Debate.'
In a statement to Bloomberg BNA, Curbelo said the effects of climate change were already being seen in his South Florida district and said the time was right to shift the tone of debate in Congress.
“Our goal with this resolution is to shift the debate from whether climate change is real to what we can do to mitigate its effects,” Curbelo said. “South Florida is the frontline of climate change, where we have seen its negative impact in the form of rising sea-levels and the erosion of our coastal communities.”
Many elected Republicans privately acknowledge the consensus from at least 97.2 percent of climate scientists that human activity significantly contributes to climate change but have worried speaking out on the issue could result in primary challenges while still not generating momentum in Congress for action (158 DEN BB-1, 8/15/14).
Aaron Clark, a spokesman for Fitzpatrick, said the Pennsylvania Republican believes lawmakers have a “duty” to support smart policies “that ameliorate those effects while also advancing pro-growth and pro-energy policies that strengthen American economic leadership.”
“Rep. Fitzpatrick believes that the climate is changing and humans have an impact on the environment,” Clark said.
Impact of Resolution Unclear
Catrina Rorke, director of energy policy at R Street Institute, a free-market think tank, told Bloomberg BNA Sept. 15 it remains unclear what impact the resolution would have but said that it likely understates the support for climate action among the House Republican caucus due to fears of speaking out on the issue.
Some House Republicans have grown frustrated by the lack of a congressional alternative offered to the “bad policy” advocated by President Barack Obama's Environmental Protection Agency and the resolution might be an attempt to express the need for a legislative approach on climate change, Rorke said.
“Through that process in pushing back against the Clean Power Plan, I think they've matured their rhetoric on climate change, but I don't think they've offered an alternative,” Rorke said. “And this may be a step toward that.”
But a Senate Democratic aide working on climate change issues cautioned against reading too much into the resolution, given just 10 Republicans have signed onto it.
“It's important for what it is—a sign that some Republicans feel they can and need to signal a concern about climate,” the aide told Bloomberg BNA. “But, of course, it is only 10 and only a resolution so we have a long way to go” for real debate on the issue.
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Greens Question Industry Study on Ozone Rule Costs
Sep 15, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Environmentalists are pushing back against a manufacturing group's much cited study about the cost of new federal ozone rules.
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) commissioned a report earlier this year concluding that the new ozone regulations could cost up to $1.1 trillion to implement and deliver a $140 billion annual hit to the gross domestic product.
But Earthjustice released a study of its own on Tuesday, contending NAM’s research firm overshot the price estimates due "to major flaws, math errors and unfounded assumptions."
Earthjustice researchers found instead that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) own $16.6 billion assessment also overstates the likely cost of complying with the standards.
The White House is currently reviewing the EPA’s final ozone rule ahead of a court-mandated release at the end of the month.
The EPA is looking to cut the ground-level ozone standard from its current 75 parts per billion to between 65 and 70 parts per billion.
Supporters say strict new regulations will lead to health benefits. But industry groups contend implementing the rules will be costly and they’ll hurt economic output in areas of the country that don’t meet the new standards.
In the ongoing public battle over the rules, NAM’s study has been one of the industry's most often deployed arguments. The industry, and its Republican allies in Congress, have often referring to the rule as the most expensive regulation in history, a contention based in part on NAM's research.
But Earthjustice said the report is based on faulty math, which negates the group’s warnings about the ozone rule’s costs.
“This industry trade group has spent huge sums of money to deceive the American public and elected officials into believing that Americans must make a choice between their health and the economy,” Earthjustice attorney Seth Johnson said.
“Today’s report shows that the economic threat NAM claims is baseless.”
NAM defended its research firm's study on Tuesday.
The group's analysis, NAM spokeswoman Erin Streeter said in a statement, "remains the most comprehensive and accurate that has ever been performed on this issue. Manufacturers have been leading the way in ozone emission reductions over the past 30 years and will continue to do so, but need balanced, achievable regulations. It is time to move past rhetoric."
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Earthjustice: Industry Report Inflated Ozone Costs
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
A new economic analysis commissioned by Earthjustice alleges that an industry-funded study of the cost of implementing tighter national ozone standards contains a number of flaws and unfounded assumptions that “greatly overestimated” the amount and cost of pollution controls that would be required.
The analysis concluded that a February report from NERA Economic Consulting overestimated the cost of complying with national ambient air quality standards of 65 parts per billion by more than 700 percent.
Seth Johnson, an attorney with Earthjustice, told reporters during a Sept. 15 conference call that the analysis prepared by Synapse Energy Economics Inc. reveals several errors and unreasonable assumptions that overstated the cost of attaining 65 ppb standards.
“NERA grossly inflated the cost,” Johnson said.
The NERA report, commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), has been widely cited by industry opponents of more stringent ozone standards and has been the focus of a public relations campaign warning that a looming EPA decision on whether to revise or retain the current 75 ppb ozone standards could be the “most expensive regulation ever.” NERA projected that 65 ppb standards could impose about $1.1 trillion in compliance costs on industry from 2017 through 2040, while also costing the U.S. economy billions in lost gross domestic product and millions of lost job equivalents (39 DEN A-14, 2/27/15).
The Synapse analysis found that even the EPA's cost estimates could be too high for tighter ozone standards. The agency estimated 65 ppb standards would cost $15 billion in 2025, but Synapse said applying updated cost estimates for controlling power plant emissions results in an estimated cost of $13.6 billion in 2025, about $1.4 billion less than the EPA's estimates.
Erin Streeter, NAM senior vice president of communications, defended the NERA cost report in a Sept. 15 e-mail statement to Bloomberg BNA.
“NERA's analysis of EPA's ozone regulation remains the most comprehensive and accurate that has ever been performed on this issue,” Streeter said. “Manufacturers have been leading the way in ozone emission reductions over the past 30 years and will continue to do so but need balanced, achievable regulations.”
Report Will Be Sent to OMB
David Baron, managing attorney at Earthjustice, told reporters that the cost estimates in the NERA report have been used to “divert attention” from whether more stringent ozone standards are needed to protect children and other at-risk populations.
Earthjustice will provide a copy of the Synapse cost analysis to the White House Office of Management and Budget, which is currently reviewing the EPA's final ozone rule (RIN 2060-AP38), Baron said. The OMB will be meeting with various industry, environmental and public health groups over the next few weeks in advance of the EPA's Oct. 1 court-ordered deadline to issue a final decision (174 DEN A-6, 9/9/15).
The Synapse report was critical of NERA's decision to estimate that “unknown controls” would cost about $500,000 per ton, much higher than the EPA's estimate of $15,000 per ton. NERA's analysis was based on cost estimates of the Car Allowance Rebate System, an economic stimulus program commonly known as “Cash for Clunkers,” to estimate the cost of unknown pollution control.
Jeremy Fisher, principal consultant at Synapse and one of the authors of the report, told reporters that his team could not find “good justification” for using $500,000 per ton as the price of unknown pollution controls. Even assuming that a vehicle replacement program would be the best option to achieve the necessary reductions of ozone precursors, there are studies that have found that the Cash for Clunkers program was probably more effective than was shown in the data that NERA based its analysis on, Fisher said.
‘Unknown' Pollution Controls
In addition, Synapse found that NERA overestimated the amount of “unknown” pollution controls that would be required to meet 65 ppb ozone standards. The EPA projected that under 65 ppb standards, states in 2025 would require unknown controls to cut about 750,000 tons of nitrogen oxides, a precursor to ground-level ozone formation. NERA's analysis increased that number to 1 million tons of reductions through unknown controls, which led to “excess and unnecessary” compliance costs, Synapse found.
A re-analysis of NERA's work, using the assumption that a vehicle scrappage program would be required, found that the cost of unknown controls for 2025 would be $21.5 billion, about one-seventh of the costs identified by NERA, according to the Synapse report.
Fisher told reporters that other flaws identified in the NERA report included a decision to assume a 2022 compliance deadline even though moderate nonattainment areas would likely not need to be in compliance until October 2023 and a decision to ignore the projected pollution reductions under the Clean Power Plan. The EPA's first-ever regulation of carbon emissions from existing power plants (RIN 2060-AR33) is projected to result in significant reductions in emissions of ozone precursors (151 DEN A-2, 8/6/15).
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UN Climate Chief Outlines Draft Text for Paris Summit
Sep 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
A text that will form the basis of an international climate deal, which could be signed at the United Nations climate summit in Paris later this year, has seen faster-than-expected progress in recent days and will be issued during the first week of October, the UN's top climate change official said Sept. 15.Speaking in Brussels to members of the European Parliament's environment committee, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Christiana Figueres gave a generally upbeat report on preparations for Paris and said the “first draft of the true Paris agreement” when it is released in October “will bring a smile to your face.”Environment committee members will be “quite surprised” at progress, after voicing their concern that preparatory talks for Paris were moving too slowly, Figueres said. Negotiators concluded their penultimate session of pre-Paris talks Sept. 4, leaving only a five-day negotiating session from Oct. 19–23 in Bonn prior to the climate summit (173 DEN A-7, 9/8/15).At the meetings that ended Sept. 4, Ahmed Djoghlaf and Daniel Reifsnyder, co-chairmen of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action negotiating track, were given a mandate from delegates to produce a new document.Figueres said Sept. 15 that an agreement based on the draft text should be possible in Paris “without drama and without delay.”Elements of DealFigueres said the text to be issued in early October will have three main elements: a baseline assessment of emission reduction pledges submitted by countries, a process for reviewing pledges in order to build on them, and a “clearly defined final destination,” which will be “cemented in the Paris agreement.”The final destination will be “climate neutrality, certainly in the second half of the century,” meaning that sufficient greenhouse gas emissions reductions would have to be achieved to keep the global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, Figueres said.Ahead of Paris, national emissions reduction pledges for the post-2020 period are contained in Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), which countries have been submitting to the UN .According to Figueres, 62 INDCs have been submitted so far (including one for all 28 EU nations), representing about 70 percent of global emissions. She expects INDCs from major emitters Brazil and India on Sept. 27, while Indonesia's is expected “sometime soon,” she added.Figueres added that is was “absolutely clear” that the INDCs for Paris would be insufficient to stay within a 2 degrees temperature rise, but, assuming the INDCs are implemented, “we will probably be around 3 degrees by the end of the century,” which she said was a significant improvement on the 4 or 5 degrees of warming that could be expected without the pledges.The challenge for the Paris summit would be “how are we going to build ambition over time” to ensure deeper greenhouse gas emission cuts that those contained in the INDCs, Figueres said.Five-Year Reviews?Figueres signaled that the pre-Paris text will probably opt for five-year review periods of national emission reduction pledges. The drafters were “coming round to the five-year periodicity rather than 10,” she said.Many INDCs set out pledges through 2025, or five years into the post-2020 commitment period, but some economies, such as the European Union, have opted to make pledges up to 2030.Figueres said some flexibility would be given to economies that have made longer-term commitments. They would not necessarily be obliged to review their pledges after five years, but would receive an “invitation” to do so, she said.She emphasized the importance of financial offers to developing countries from developed countries at the Nov. 30–Dec. 11 Paris summit.Developed countries have promised to provide $100 billion a year by 2020 in climate finance to poorer countries, but climate finance for the post-2020 period was “not getting the attention that it should,” Figueres said.There also is “an understandable expectation” on the part of developing countries that at Paris, developed nations would confirm the $100 billion a year figure for 2020 and would clarify the sources of the finance, she added.Aviation, Shipping SectorsPeter Liese, a German center-right member of the European Parliament, said the Paris conference also should address greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation and maritime sectors.Aviation and shipping were “handled far more generously than other industries,” with decisions on measures on emission reductions left to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), he said.Figueres said aviation and shipping emissions were being considered outside the INDC pledge-and-review process, and ICAO and IMO were “looking at a flattening rather than a reduction” of emissions. -
Paris Talks Won't Hit Global Warming Target, U.N. Warns
Sep 15, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Kalina Oroschakoff
Global temperatures are likely to shoot past the agreed safety limit of 2 degrees Celsius even if a deal is reached at the upcoming Paris climate summit, U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres said in Brussels Tuesday.
The problem is that the pledges made by countries ahead of the COP21 talks on how they would reduce their emissions “do not add up to 2 degrees,” said Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Two degrees above pre-industrial temperatures has been agreed by countries as a threshold beyond which climate change risks become unacceptably high.
Instead, the climate promises now on the table mean a temperature increase of about 3 degrees by the end of the century, Figueres warned the European Parliament. But even that scenario is better than what would happen without an agreement in Paris, which would mean a global temperature increase of 4-5 degrees Celsius.
“Three degrees is much better than 4 to 5 degrees, but it is still unacceptable,” she said.
That level of potential warming worries scientists.
"Three degrees of warming increases the risk of strong sea level rise from, for example Antarctica, or the collapse of marine ecosystems, such as Arctic sea ice or coral reefs," Anders Levermann of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change Research, told the Carbon Brief for a paper on the effects of overshooting the 2 degree target. "Beyond two degrees of warming we are leaving the world as we know it."
So far, 62 country pledges — so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions — have been made ahead of COP21, accounting for almost 70 percent of global emissions. These commitments spell out the steps countries will take after 2020 to cut emissions and strengthen resilience to climate change risks.
Although Figueres said any deal hammered out in Paris won’t be a “miraculous solution,” she did say that the summit marks the beginning of a long-term process.
The question is how to ensure that countries will increase their ambitions over time. The EU, under the leadership of Miguel Arias Cañete, the climate action and energy commissioner, has been pushing hard for an agreement that includes regular, five-year reviews and strong transparency and accountability rules to ensure countries not only implement their promises but boost their efforts.
For Figueres, the combination of national climate action pledges, regular review cycles and a long-term goal constitute the "triangle of ambition" that must be the heart of a Paris agreement. “We need to end Paris with a legally binding text,” one that is clear, concise and comprehensible, she said.
Her visit came just days before EU environment ministers meet on Friday to sign off on the bloc’s negotiating position for the Paris talks. Her comments should serve as a warning to them that COP21 must build a system to keep climate change under control, said Liz Gallagher of E3G, an environmental think tank.
“Paris must be more than just the aggregate of the pledges,” she said. “It’s not a one-off deal for emissions reductions.”
Working out the transition
But, the level of ambition ahead of a Paris agreement also implies a monumental effort for many poorer and developing countries to shift to a low-carbon economy.
“This is a huge request,” Figueres said, adding that developed countries will have to step up with new technologies, rules, environmental standards and incentives, and cash to help poorer countries with the transition.
“There is no doubt that financial and technical support for the transformation in developing countries is a very important piece of the puzzle in Paris,” she said.
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Chinese, U.S. Cities, States Unveil Emissions Pledges
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Nearly a dozen Chinese cities and provinces vowed Sept. 15 to peak their carbon emissions as much as a decade sooner than the 2030 national target China President Xi Jinping announced last November.China's capital city, Beijing, would peak its carbon emissions “around 2020,” according the U.S-China Climate Leaders' Declaration, which also touted new goals for New York, San Francisco and 13 other U.S. cities as well as Miami-Dade County and two states, Connecticut and California.The pledges kick off a two-day climate change and low-carbon cities summit in Los Angeles a week before Xi's state visit to the U.S., which is to include a meeting with President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C.Xi's state visit is not expected to result in new climate pledges beyond those the two leaders unveiled jointly in November 2014 in which China vowed to peak its carbon emissions by 2030 if not sooner. The U.S. pledged a cut of up to 28 percent by 2025 from 2005 levels. Both offers were meant to spur momentum toward getting a global climate deal agreed to at a Paris summit this fall.In a related development, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, discussed details of the “first draft” of the text for the Paris talks during a meeting in Brussels with members of the European Parliament's environment committee (see related story).Widening Climate EngagementThe pledges from cities, states and other local jurisdictions in both countries “shows the determination of both countries to continually deepen and strengthen cooperation on climate change” and widen that engagement to local governments and the private sector ahead of Nov. 30-Dec. 11 UN talks, according to a press statement.Under China's pledges, Sichuan province would peak its emissions before 2030; the island province of Hainan by 2030; the city of Shenzhen by 2022. Zhenjiang offered China's most ambitious pledge: That city's emissions would peak in 2020.Also, the Chinese cities and provinces that are pledging to peak their carbon dioxide emissions ahead of the national 2030 goal have formed the Alliance of Peaking Pioneer Cities to coordinate those efforts.In addition to San Francisco and New York, the other U.S. cities pledging action under the announcement are Atlanta, Boston, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, Houston, Salt Lake City, Portland, Ore., Des Moines, Iowa, Carmel, Ind., Pinecrest, Fla., and Lancaster, Pa.New California ActionsCalifornia, which has already pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050 below 1990 levels, offered several new actions by 2030 under the announcement. By 2030 it will cut emissions 40 percent from 1990 levels; increase the amount of electricity from renewable sources to 50 percent; halve the amount of petroleum used by cars and trucks; and double the energy efficiency for existing buildings. -
U.S., China Build on Plan to Cut Emissions
Sep 15, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By William Mauldin and Colleen McCain Nelson
Next week, President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will add to earlier pledges to cut greenhouse-gas emissions with specific guidance on what the two countries will do at home to keep climate change at bay, officials said.
The United States and China announced Tuesday that cities, states and provinces in both countries would commit to taking parallel steps to address climate change.
The participating Chinese cities and provinces, which represent about 25% of total urban emissions in that country, will offer plans to have their emissions peak sooner than the national target of 2030.
Beijing and Guangzhou, two of China’s largest cities, will aim for their peak emissions to come as early as 2020.
Climate officials and leaders from both countries are meeting in Los Angeles this week to lay out the steps the regions will take and to set the groundwork for next week’s summit between the two presidents.
U.S. officials said the Obama-Xi summit is part of an effort by the two biggest polluters—which account for more than a third of global greenhouse-gas emissions—to demonstrate progress on meeting the terms of a bilateral accord reached in November.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Tuesday that Mr. Obama would use next week’s meeting to discuss additional opportunities for U.S.-China cooperation on cutting carbon pollution.
The U.S. commitments are coming from states such as California and Connecticut and an array of cities including Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, Seattle, and Houston.
The U.S. pledged last year to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by between 26% and 28% by 2025, compared with 2005 levels, while China said it would make sure its emissions peak by 2030 or earlier.
To achieve its goal, the Obama administration this summer finalized new rules for coal power plants.
Some prominent Republicans in Congress say the moves will damage the U.S. economy and are moving to block the rules in court; they are seeking to undermine Mr. Obama’s authority to conclude a binding agreement among nearly 200 nations, which is meant to come to a head in Paris later this year.
“Last year was a year for setting goals and targets,” said Brian Deese, a senior White House adviser who specializes in climate issues. “This year needs to be a year of implementation.”
The Chinese cities’ commitment to early peaking highlights the country’s efforts to achieve its national target as early as possible, Mr. Deese said, and the joint U.S.-China actions show the seriousness of the effort to meet the terms of the countries’ agreement.
The cities, states and provinces that sign the declaration and pledge to address climate change also will track and report their emissions on a regular basis. Such commitments create a measure of accountability, Mr. Deese said.
For the world’s highly developed economies, a top goal of the agreement expected in Paris in December is signing up fast-growing emerging markets, which have avoided the burden of reducing emissions in previous agreements organized by the United Nations.
The U.S.-China climate discussions will spill into a range of wider discussions among countries gathering later this month at the U.N.
China’s move last year reassured environmentalists about Beijing’s commitment, but India and other emerging markets haven’t submitted their own proposals for cutting emissions through the Paris accord.
Republicans in Congress say China got off easy by agreeing to start reducing emissions only in 2030. A slowing Chinese economy and rebalancing away from heavy manufacturing could allow China to achieve the goal much earlier without significant costs, according to some climate experts.
A survey this summer by the China Carbon Forum, an independent organization that promotes efforts to curb climate change in China, found that 82% of industry experts say China will reach its emissions peak before 2030, with 39% saying before 2025 and 16% before 2020.
Mr. Earnest, the White House press secretary, said the pledges announced Tuesday signaled that China’s emissions could peak before 2030.
Environmentalists have cheered China’s commitment to boosting green energy, a shared goal U.S. officials say will likely come up during Mr. Xi’s visit.
The two leaders may also tackle some of the thorny unresolved issues of the international climate talks, including poorer countries’ insistence that developed economies help finance their transitions at a cost of around $100 billion a year for all countries combined.
“Anything that signaled a preparedness to find some common ground on the outstanding issues would be welcomed,” said Jo Tyndall, New Zealand’s climate-change ambassador, in Washington last week.
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Gov. Brown Challenges GOP Candidates on Climate Change
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By James Nash
As he struggles to bring under control devastating wildfires that he blames at least partly on global warming, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has an unwelcome message for the Republican presidential candidates gathering in his state for a debate Sept. 16.“I would challenge these Republican presidential candidates to speak to what is certainly one of the fundamental issues of our time,” Brown said in an interview. “They fancy themselves defenders of life but they actually are willing merchants of destruction. I would like to see them be honest about climate change.”Brown, a 77-year-old Democrat currently grappling with a series of wildfires, one of which has destroyed more than 400 homes and burned an area more than twice the size of San Francisco, said none of the 15 Republicans scheduled to appear on stage 400 miles (700 kilometers) south, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library has a credible plan to deal with climate change. The governor, who himself sought the presidency in 1992, backed a bill that the state Legislature passed Sept. 11 to mandate more renewable power sources and increase energy efficiency of buildings.Though 37 percent of self-identified conservative Republicans, and 64 percent of moderate and liberal Republicans, believe that global warming will happen in their lifetimes, according to aggregate Gallup polling data from 2010 to 2015, the issue does not appear to be a top concern among voters. In a March 2014 Gallup poll climate change ranked as the 14th most important issue out of 15 surveyed, topping only race relations among issues about which survey respondents said they cared a “great deal.” The Republican presidential candidates are equally non-alarmist.Prime-Time DebateOf the 11 who will appear on stage for CNN's prime-time debate among the top-tier candidates, only a few acknowledge the possibility that human activities are contributing to global warming and even they are reluctant to support regulations on carbon usage.Brown said the candidates’ positions reflect an ideologically rigid Republican Party, noting that Richard Nixon signed the Clean Air Act and that George H.W. Bush reauthorized it. “There ought to be some dissent on this topic,” the California governor said. “Otherwise they're going to be increasingly irrelevant to tens of millions of people.”Democratic and Republican presidential candidates have backed away from policies such as subsidizing solar and wind power because they are unpopular with the public, said Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, the free-market group backed by the billionaire Koch brothers. Regardless of the rhetoric around climate change, candidates know better than to advocate policies that drive up energy prices and stifle economic growth in the name of minimizing global warming, Phillips said in a telephone interview.“When it comes to policies emanating from the global-warming movement, our side is winning with the American public,” he said. “The candidates on both sides know that.”Here's what the candidates leading the Republican polls have to say.Donald TrumpThe billionaire real-estate developer and Republican front-runner , told CNN's Jake Tapper, the moderator of Wednesday's debate, that he's not convinced that humans are warming the planet. “I'm a huge believer in clean air,” Trump said June 28 on CNN's “State of the Union.” “I'm not a huge believer in the global-warming phenomenon.” Even if human activities are contributing to global warming, he said the U.S. shouldn't bear the burden of changing its practices while China is allowed to continue polluting.Ben Carson:The retired neurosurgeon, during a campaign stop in San Francisco Sept. 8, said believers in climate change assert it without being able to produce evidence. “There is no overwhelming science that the things that are going on are man-caused and not naturally caused,” Carson said, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle. In response, Brown mailed Carson a flash drive containing a United Nations report concluding that “human influence on the climate system is clear and growing.” Last year, in an interview with Bloomberg, Carson called the question of global warming “irrelevant” and said the Environmental Protection Agency “should be told to work in conjunction with business, industry and universities to find the most eco-friendly ways of developing our energy resources.”Jeb Bush:The former Florida governor has said he believes in climate change, but said there's no scientific consensus on man's role. “For the people to say the science is decided on this is really arrogant, to be honest with you,” Bush said in New Hampshire May 20, according to CNN. “It's this intellectual arrogance that now you can't have a conversation about it, even. The climate is changing. We need to adapt to that reality.”Ted Cruz:The junior U.S. senator from Texas dismissed global warming as a “pseudoscientific theory” in a June 29 interview with Yahoo global news anchor Katie Couric and asserted that politicians are invoking it to increase their power over people's lives.Marco Rubio:Florida's U.S. senator has consistently cast doubt on the scientific consensus of man-made climate change. In 2009, while running for Senate, he responded to a question about it by saying, according to the Miami Herald: “I'm not a scientist. I'm not qualified to make that decision. There's a significant scientific dispute about that.” In April 2015, days after launching his presidential campaign, Rubio said on CBS' Face The Nation: “Humans are not responsible for climate change in the way some of these people out there are trying to make us believe” and argued that while it's impossible to tell what the effect of limiting carbon would be on the environment “I can tell you with certainty, it would have a devastating impact on our economy.” During a campaign stop in Londonderry in late August, Rubio elaborated: “The climate's been changing forever and it's going to continue to change,” he said. “But here's the bottom line. I'm not supporting any laws that destroy our economy, make life more expensive for our people and don't change the climate.”Carly Fiorina:Hewlett Packard's former chief executive Carly Fiorina has said that regardless of whether global warming is human-caused, a single country or state shouldn't be forced to act on its own.Scott Walker:Wisconsin's governor hasn't articulated a position on the issue, according to published reports.Chris Christie:The New Jersey governor said he believes climate change is real and at least partly caused by humans, but he said all countries need to do their part to combat it.John Kasich:The Ohio governor has said that while he believes there is climate change, he's not convinced about how much human activity is responsible. He advocates what he calls a balanced approach that acknowledges a need to care for the environment while not causing economic disruptions. “I think humans play a part in this, and I think that we have a responsibility to do some things to make sure that we address this,'” Kasich said a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on Sept. 2. “But not to the point where we take such drastic action that I put a bunch of people out of work.'”Mike Huckabee:The former Arkansas governor has said climate science is “not settled.”Rand Paul:Unlike Cruz and Rubio, the Kentucky senator voted to endorse the idea that climate change is real and at least partly human-caused as part of an amendment to a bill in January regarding the Keystone XL oil pipeline. But Paul has said he's skeptical of government action to address climate change. -
NAS Chair Sees 'Big Challenge' In Lack Of Quantitative Climate-Health Studies
Sep 16, 2015 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Dan Greenbaum, chair of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel that reviewed the Obama administration's recent report on the risks that climate change presents to human health, sees changing policy without quantitative risk assessments -- a recurring situation in the report, where many topics lack the necessary data -- as "a big challenge" that could hamper future policy development.
For many of the climate-related health effects described in the U.S. Global Change Research Program's (USGCRP) report -- written by an interagency group including EPA -- there isn't enough information to provide quantitative assessments, Greenbaum said in a recent interview, adding that it is hard to change policy without such quantitative analyses, even though human health impacts are a major driver for policy change.
And there is also risk to getting in front of what data exists, he said.
"The underlying theme for [the NAS panelists] is that health issues are important. [They're one of the] biggest drivers for policy change," Greenbaum said.
But, "you can get out on a limb, and people will come after you and saw off the limb," said Greenbaum, who is the president of the Health Effects Institute, an air quality research group that is jointly funded by EPA and the automobile industry.
Complicating the lack of data is the fact that climate-related risk analyses are better addressed as cumulative risk assessments rather than traditional single pollutant risk assessments used for regulatory purposes, Greenbaum said. "It is not a simple task to predict quantitative . . . impacts climate will have on some of these things," he said.
But cumulative risk assessment methodology is still developing, and the practice is far more complicated than single pollutant assessments. EPA, for example, continues to grapple with these issues.
While the agency's pesticides office (OPP) has legislative requirements from the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996 that it consider multiple chemical exposures in its assessments, other parts of the agency do not.
Some consider OPP's multi-chemical assessments to be lacking, because they include other pesticides that have common mechanisms of toxicity, but do not consider anything beyond that, such as non-chemical stressors that can also affect individuals.
EPA's Risk Assessment Forum, an agency-wide body of risk assessment experts, continues to toil over a decade-long cumulative risk guidance document.
Quantitative Assessments
Greenbaum argued that it is important to further bolster the USGCRP document's credibility by transparently explaining choices that agencies' staff made, in part because of the challenge of performing quantitative assessments on so many aspects of the report.
For example, Greenbaum pointed to the NAS panel's recommendation that EPA and the other agencies explain why the included health effect examples were selected, and the level of certainty or evidence for various predictions. "It's important to the credibility of the document -- how did they pick the health outcomes they focused on," Greenbaum said. "For the most part [the NAS panel] didn't disagree [with the examples selected] but … they need to do a better job of [explaining] the criteria." In fact, Greenbaum could think of just one case where the NAS panel disagreed with the agencies' selections of diseases or health effects to include in the report: Legionnaire's Disease.
Greenbaum added that another way to bolster the report's transparency and credibility is for its authors to rank the level of evidence behind its examples as low, medium and high.
The draft USGCRP report, released earlier this year, projects "thousands to tens of thousands of additional deaths each year from heat in the summer" due to climate change -- offset partially by fewer deaths in cold months -- as well as changing weather conditions that are "increasingly conducive" to ground-level ozone formation that will stress EPA and states' air quality efforts.
The document's nine chapters examined available literature on a range of possible adverse climate impacts on human health, including from changes in air and water quality, increased temperature, and other factors.
The draft concluded that climate change threatens human health in two ways -- "by changing the severity or frequency of health problems that are already affected by climate and weather factors" and also "by creating unprecedented and unanticipated health problems or health threats in places where they have not previously occurred," according to an executive summary of the report.
The document has already been cited by top White House officials to justify EPA's pending GHG controls.
Greenbaum's comments follow criticism on the report from environmental and public health groups, who argued that the report was insufficiently hard-hitting, failed to provide enough quantitative assessments and did not provide policy recommendations.
But Greenbaum largely praised the report, and defended it from its detractors.
'Great Job'
Greenbaum said that the administration strictly narrowed the report scope to preclude policy recommendations, and that its authors "did a great job on [the] quantitative analyses" that they did undertake, such as risks from ozone and heat 15-20 years in the future.
He added that there were areas with the "best data" where the agencies "did a really good job" with their analyses, such as work addressing heat, air quality -- especially ozone --vector-borne diseases like Lyme disease and water borne diseases.
But he also noted criticisms from some groups, including the Cato Institute, the American Petroleum Institute and the Utility Air Regulatory Group, who argued in their comments on the draft report that the agencies could better address uncertainties regarding adverse health impacts from higher temperatures. Inside EPA acquired the comments through a Freedom of Information Act request.
"We had some comments on how to do that better and how to capture uncertainty better," Greenbaum acknowledged. Still, he said, the report contains "some hard numbers in the document about premature deaths because of heat."
Specifically, the commenters argued that newer data show heat-related deaths falling, even during heat waves, and argued that humans' abilities to control their own climates with heating and air conditioning alleviated this concern.
Greenbaum, however, was unconvinced by the argument. "We came out pretty strongly [in the report]: talk more about adaptive behavior. It's not simple to do that," he said. "Heat wave deaths are down not because there have been less heat waves but because public health officials are responding. That's not a long-term solution. . . . You can get pretty quickly to equity issues in who gets access to air conditioning."
Greenbaum added that heat waves are "an area where people talk not about adaptation, but talk about mitigation . . . we're almost certainly not going to act soon enough to avoid adaptation." -
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