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Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) US, Canada PE Output up, Exports Jump in August
Sep 16, 2015 | ICIS News
By Lane Kelley

North American polyethylene (PE) August output figures showed mostly gains for the major grades, according to preliminary data from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) obtained on Wednesday.
(ACC Mentioned) Reduce Food Waste 50 Precent Goal to Feed People Not Landfills
Sep 16, 2015 | Liberty Voice
By Dyanne Weiss

Ask most people if they want to save more than $600 a year and the answer is clearly “Yes.” Then, ask if they wind up throwing out a lot of leftovers, expired cans or produce that has gone bad. The fact is that American households throw out an average of $640 worth of food annually. To change that, the federal government is setting a goal and encouraging Americans to slash 50 percent of food waste that is going to landfills and not used to feed people.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) What They Are Not Telling You: The Senate TSCA Bill Would Weaken EPA's Ability to Stop Importation of Products with Unsafe Chemicals
Sep 17, 2015 | Natural Resources Defense Council
By Daniel Rosenberg

The Senate is poised to take up a bill to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), perhaps as early as next week.
(ACC Mentioned) Solana Beach May be First in County to Ban Polystyrene Food Containers
Sep 16, 2015 | Delmar Times
By Kristina Houck

Having been the first city in San Diego County to ban single-use plastic bags, Solana Beach could now become the first city in the county to ban polystyrene food containers.
Groups Warn Hoeven Oil Export Amendment Harmful to TSCA Work
Sep 17, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Sam Pearson

Lawmakers will need to work together to ward off nongermane amendments to a bipartisan bill to update how the federal government manages toxic chemicals -- like one proposed this week by Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) to link lifting the oil export ban, a top supporter said yesterday.
Bring Chemical Safety Bill to Floor, Coalition Says
Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

The Senate's primary bipartisan-backed chemical safety bill should be brought to the floor as soon as possible, a coalition of unions and environmental health and animal welfare organizations told Senate leaders in a Sept. 16 letter.
Groups Push for Senate Vote on Chemical Safety
Sep 16, 2015 | The Hill - Regulation
By Lydia Wheeler

Environment, health and consumer groups are pushing Senate leaders to hold a vote on bipartisan legislation that would reform chemical safety laws.
Benzo[a]pyrene IRIS Meeting to Be Rescheduled
Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

The Environmental Protection Agency will reschedule its Oct. 29 meeting to discuss scientific questions concerning its draft benzo[a]pyrene Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment, Bloomberg BNA learned from agency staff Sept. 16. An official agency response couldn't be immediately obtained.
Echa Committees Consider PFOA Restriction
Sep 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch

Echa’s Risk Assessment Committee (Rac) adopted an Opinion in support of a restriction on PFOA, PFOA salts and related substances, at its meeting, last week. The Socio-economic Analysis Committee (Seac) also agreed a draft Opinion, favouring the restriction.
EU Commission Seeks Scientific Opinion on Nano Titanium Dioxide
Sep 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch

The European Commission has requested an Opinion from one of its scientific committees on the safe use of nano titanium dioxide.
EU Chemicals Agency Moves on Flame Retardant Restriction
Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner

A wide-ranging European Union restriction on the use of the flame retardant decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE) has moved a step closer with the finalization of an opinion in favor of the restriction by the European Chemical Agency's Socio-Economic Analysis Committee (SEAC).
Green Chemistry Awards Called Best Value for Taxpayers
Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

Corporate chemists and engineers would have a harder time persuading their managers to invest in technologies that benefit public health and the environment if the Environmental Protection Agency were to end its Green Chemistry Awards program, policy experts familiar with the program told Bloomberg BNA.

Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Energy and Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) Non-Recycled Plastics: A New Energy Resource
Sep 17, 2015 | R & D Magazine
By Lindsay Hock

Over the past few decades, recycling programs have expanded both in terms of communities served and what items can be recycled. Yet, despite progress, approaches to integrated waste management have only begun to evolve.
McConnell Backs Crude Exports Push
Sep 16, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) today announced his support for lifting the federal ban on crude oil exports but didn't address the timing of a possible vote in the upper chamber.
McConnell Calls for Ending Crude Oil Export Ban
Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) publicly threw his weight behind ending the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports for the first time Sept. 16, calling the trade prohibition “a relic of the 70s,” according to a spokesman for the lawmaker.
Clinton Comes Out Against Bill to End Oil Export Ban
Sep 16, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor

Hillary Clinton opposes the burgeoning GOP-led effort to end the oil export ban through legislation, a campaign spokesman said today.
Ohio Supreme Court Blocks Anti-Fracking Ballot Initiatives
Sep 16, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Mike Lee

The Ohio Supreme Court today blocked elections in three Ohio counties that would ban oil and gas or pipeline development, upholding part of a decision by Secretary of State Jon Husted.
Clean Power Plan Sent Sept. 4 to Federal Register
Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna

The Environmental Protection Agency submitted its final Clean Power Plan for formal publication in the Federal Register Sept. 4 but still expects the rule won't be published until next month, Administrator Gina McCarthy told a Senate committee Sept. 16.
House Committee Pulls Energy Bill on Markup Eve
Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has postponed a vote on broad energy legislation that was to be marked up Sept. 17, according to a memo sent to committee staffers late Sept. 16.
Obama Defends Approach to Climate Change
Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna

President Barack Obama acknowledged room for disagreement with his strategy for combatting climate change Sept. 16, but said his approach through the Clean Power Plan would ultimately generate more benefits than costs.
Obama Points to Court Order in Defense of EPA Ozone Rule
Sep 16, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen

President Barack Obama today defended EPA's upcoming revision to its ozone standard because a federal judge directed the agency to do so, contrasting the plan with his landmark carbon rules for power plants.
Ozone Standards Expected Within EPA's Proposed Range
Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio

The Environmental Protection Agency's final decision on where to set national ozone standards will likely fall within the agency's proposed range of 65 parts per billion to 70 ppb, representatives of some of the leading advocacy groups said Sept. 16.
Industry, Greens Raise Fists over Tighter Ozone Regs
Sep 16, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Ariel Wittenberg

Industry representatives and environmentalists today found little common ground as they debated how costs and benefits should be weighed in tighter ozone regulations expected to be released at the end of the month.
Coal Group Outlines Candidate Positions on EPA Rule
Sep 16, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Manuel Quiñones

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity today released a memo outlining presidential candidate positions on U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.
Rubio Hammers Obama's 'Left-Wing' Policies on Climate Change
Sep 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and some of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination slammed the Obama administration’s climate policies during a short exchange on the matter during their Wednesday night debate.
What We Need to Hear on Climate Change in Tonight’s Debate
Sep 16, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Brandy Doyle

No questions on climate change were asked during the Fox Republican primary debate last month, and you didn’t hear any candidates complaining. After all, the ultra-conservative voters and donors that influence the Republican primaries either don’t believe in climate change, or don’t think it’s a priority.
Moderate House Republicans Call for Action Ahead of Papal Visit
Sep 17, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Jean Chemnick and Evan Lehmann

At least 10 House Republicans will sign on to a resolution today committing to work "constructively" to address climate change, "including mitigation efforts and efforts to balance human activities that have been found to have an impact" on warming.
D.C. Circuit Weighs Major Policy Questions For EPA SO2 Air Designations
Sep 16, 2015 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker

Appellate court judges at Sept. 16 oral arguments grappled with major policy questions that could set important precedent on how EPA makes designations for areas attaining or in nonattainment with its sulfur dioxide (SO2) ambient air standard, including the data the agency can rely on and the sources it assesses in making the findings.
Outdoor Air Pollution Kills 3 Million Globally, Study Says
Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alex Nussbaum

Outdoor air pollution contributed to 3.3 million deaths worldwide in 2010, with wood-burning stoves in China and India and ammonia-belching farms in the West among the biggest culprits, according to a new study.
UN: Carbon Pledges One-Third of What's Needed
Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott

Carbon emissions cuts now on the table ahead of the end-of-year Paris climate summit provide only about one-third of what would be needed to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius in the decades ahead, the top UN climate official said Sept. 16.

Transportation News

Panel Urges More Time on Train Safety Technology
Sep 16, 2015 | The New York Times
By Ron Nixon

Congress should extend the deadline for freight and passenger railroads to install technology that could prevent deadly train accidents like the Amtrak derailment in May that killed eight people and injured more than 200, according to a report released on Wednesday.
Lawmakers Struggle with Deadline for New Safety Systems
Sep 17, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly

Almost seven years ago, in the wake of a bloody train crash, Congress overwhelmingly gave final approval to legislation ordering railroads to implement costly, automated safety systems by this December.

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Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) US, Canada PE Output up, Exports Jump in August

Sep 16, 2015 | ICIS News

By Lane Kelley

North American polyethylene (PE) August output figures showed mostly gains for the major grades, according to preliminary data from the American Chemistry Council (ACC) obtained on Wednesday.
The data show an increase in production for the two largest grades – HDPE (high density) and LLDPE (linear low density) – though just barely for the latter. Production of LDPE (low density) dropped by 1%. PE watchers say LDPE has been oversupplied globally for quite some time.
Sales for all three grades increased 2-4%.
But the largest gains came in exports, with HDPE jumping nearly 65%, LLDPE rising almost 23% and even LDPE up 5%.
The export gains come on softening domestic demand, with contract prices dropping 5 cents/lb during August and producers expected to drop another 4 cents/lb in September. Producers have increased exports to make up for domestic material that is slow to move.
Preliminary estimates of PE inventory showed a slight rise of 1-2% in August.
Producers reporting the data included Celanese, Chevron Phillips Chemical, Dow Chemical, ExxonMobil, Formosa Plastics, INEOS, LyondellBasell, NOVA Chemicals, Total and Westlake.

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(ACC Mentioned) Reduce Food Waste 50 Precent Goal to Feed People Not Landfills

Sep 16, 2015 | Liberty Voice

By Dyanne Weiss

Ask most people if they want to save more than $600 a year and the answer is clearly “Yes.” Then, ask if they wind up throwing out a lot of leftovers, expired cans or produce that has gone bad. The fact is that American households throw out an average of $640 worth of food annually. To change that, the federal government is setting a goal and encouraging Americans to slash 50 percent of food waste that is going to landfills and not used to feed people.
According to the government, Americans throw away more than 130 billion pounds of food – or 31 percent of the national food supply – every year. As U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack phrased it, “It’s enough to fill the Sears Tower [technically now the Willis Tower] 44 times.”
To change that unconscionable and very costly waste, the Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency — along with several private sector and charitable partners — announced the creation of the first national target level for food waste on Wednesday. Visick commented that they are basically challenging everyone to cut food waste in half by 2030.
Regardless of whether foods have no added sugars or GMOs, are organic or gluten free, and other food topics, a lot of food is being thrown away. Here are some of the ways a lot of that food winds up in landfills:According to an American Chemistry Council survey of 1,000 adults, 76 percent throw away leftovers at least monthly.Consumers let food wilt or go bad in refrigerators and toss them; however, even though items may have passed their sell-by dates, some are still perfectly safe to consume and yet are tossed.Some will only eat perfect looking produce and discard items that are off color or bruised in one spot.Farms will not harvest produce that it not up to cosmetic standards, so it is discarded.Produce that is ripe but will not stay fresh enough to be shipped elsewhere is sometimes tossed.
While everyone agrees that such waste does not make sense while people are hungry in other areas of the U.S., the critical thing is improving shopping for groceries and promotion of ways to minimize food waste. The issue not jut about nourishment, it is about food as an economic issue.
By some estimates, food waste starts on the farm and spreads into waste of the labor and supplies needed to transport and sell the food. By some estimates, wasted food accounts for approximately 2 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, 35 percent of freshwater consumption, 31 percent of cropland and 30 percent of fertilizers used, according to data published in the journal PLOS earlier this month.
Besides the federal government seeking to raise awareness and reduce food waste 50 percent, some local jurisdictions are adopting measure to minimize food waste to feed people and not the area’s landfills. For example, Seattle fines homeowners for not sorts their garbage to keep food out of trashcans. Offenders get a bright red tag posted on a garbage bin to let any passersby know that the barrel’s owners were violating the rules. This July, a new feature was added to Seattle’s fine; a new provision includes fines for using too much recyclable materials.

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) What They Are Not Telling You: The Senate TSCA Bill Would Weaken EPA's Ability to Stop Importation of Products with Unsafe Chemicals

Sep 17, 2015 | Natural Resources Defense Council

By Daniel Rosenberg

The Senate is poised to take up a bill to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), perhaps as early as next week. Supporters of the bill continue to overstate (see also here) the benefits of the legislation, while downplaying or ignoring its flaws - flaws that have led almost the entire environmental community to withhold its support, including more than 400 organizations that are part of the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition. (NRDC is a member.) Supporters of the Senate bill generically claim that it will "protect America's families, especially children, from harmful chemicals that are present in everyday consumer products." But one key provision of the bill will actually make it harder for EPA to identify uses of chemicals of concern in everyday products, and to prevent their importation from overseas. And industry is pushing this precisely because EPA is finally starting to act to protect the public against imported products that contain toxic chemicals.
Those who recall the Senate mark-up of the bill may be surprised to hear this. At the mark-up, industry-written (or supported) language that weakened EPA's current import authority was removed from the bill, which was an important improvement. But as part of that deal, new language was added that weakens EPA's current authority under a different part of the law, but is designed to have a similar, and arguably worse, effect.
The current provision creates additional legal hurdles before EPA can require notification about products that contain toxic chemicals the agency believes could harm public health or the environment. The new provision is directed at EPA's authority to issue Significant New Use Rules (or "SNURs"). These are rules EPA issues when the agency wants advance notice about the new use of a chemical that could have potential to harm human health or the environment.
Under current law, one of the few effective steps EPA can take to protect the public is to require notice before a new use of a chemical is adopted, which EPA does by issuing a SNUR. A SNUR requires EPA to be notified at least 90 days before a significant new use of the identified chemical (or group of chemicals) begins. This gives EPA an opportunity to obtain more information if necessary and make a decision whether limitations should be imposed on the production or use of the chemical to protect public health or the environment. This kind of assessment cannot typically be done up-front, because EPA does not at that point have the information about the potential use, or the full universe of potential uses, to sufficiently analyze the hazards and exposures attendant to that new use. If EPA does not act within 90 days of receiving the notice, then the entity that submitted the notice is free to use the chemical as proposed.
EPA has issued about 2,000 Significant New Use Rules since TSCA became law. EPA estimates that it receives only about seven Significant New Use Notices (SNUNs) proposing new uses of those chemicals of concern, each year, and that after EPA evaluates information on the potential exposures resulting from the specific proposed use, many of these Notices expire without any restrictions being imposed on the proposed use of the chemical.
Although SNURs are deeply in the weeds of TSCA policy, they are an important means of informing the agency and protecting the public. They ensure that EPA has an opportunity to address the potential use of a chemical of concern before it causes problems to human health or the environment. Most SNURs are issued because EPA is concerned about the toxicity of a chemical and the potential harm to health and the environment that it may cause. SNURs can also serve as an important signal to the marketplace to move toward use of safer chemicals. Even if you never know it is there, the Significant New Use Program is operating to protect the public from greater exposure to unsafe chemicals.
So why are companies like Honda, Intel, and GE trying to weaken the program?
When EPA initially adopted its rules for how to implement the Significant New Use program in the early 1980s during the Reagan Administration, it adopted a default exemption for chemicals that were imported in "articles" (without going further down a legal and policy rabbit hole, an "article" essentially means a formulated item or product). The exemption was adopted on an extremely thin and flimsy rationale - literally one sentence -- which would not hold up to scrutiny if it was offered today: "This decision was made in response to a comment received on this issue and because the identified risks from uses of these substances in articles are not likely to occur." (49 FR 35017, September 5, 1984) Unsurprisingly, the one comment received promoting the default exemption for articles came from the Chemical Manufacturers' Association, which later rebranded itself as the American Chemistry Council. (Forget it, Jake, it was the Ann Burford era). As a result, for the vast majority of Significant New Use Rules issued by EPA, entities interested in importing a chemical of concern for a new use in an article have not been required to notify EPA in advance. In fact, until last year, out of some 2,000 Significant New Use Rules, EPA had only lifted the articles exemption for two chemicals: mercury and erionite fibers - a fiber with properties and health effects similar to asbestos.
However, despite the agency's default policy of excluding imported articles from reporting requirements for significant new uses, the agency has always retained its existing authority to lift the exemption "if EPA decides that review under a SNUR is warranted for specific substances...in articles." (79 FR 77897 ellipsis in original)
In recent years, it has become clearer to everyone - industry, EPA, state regulators and legislators, public health professionals, environmental groups, and academics and researchers of various types - that we are frequently exposed to chemicals of concern from many types of products (or "articles"), including those that we have in our homes, our workplaces, our schools, and in our modes of transportation. The scientific and popular literature is replete with examples of sources of human and/or environmental exposure including toys, carpets, clothes, seat cushions, furniture, cleaning supplies, computers, building materials and auto parts. These products have all been identified as potential sources of exposure to one or more problematic chemicals, including brominated flame retardants, formaldehyde, phthalates, non-stick and non-stain chemicals (perfluorinated), mercury, cadmium and a host of other substances.
In short, our understanding of how we are typically exposed to chemicals has expanded since the 1980s - and EPA has begun to shift its approach accordingly. The agency is starting to look more carefully at instances when the default exemption from Significant New Use Notification requirements for chemicals imported in articles should be lifted.
In December, EPA finalized a Significant New Use Rule for of benzidine dyes - these dyes have been found to break down into their component chemical, benzidine, which is classified as a known human carcinogen. "[T]he primary human health concern for consumers is exposure to the benzidine-based chemical substances through oral, dermal, or inhalation routes. Evidence from animal studies suggests that there is early life susceptibility to benzidine carcinogenesis. Cancer potency for benzidine was substantially increased when the dose was given in early life as compared to adults." (77 Fed. Reg. 18756, March 28, 2012)
Because of concern about the toxicity of the chemical EPA opted to "lift" the articles exemption, so that any proposed new uses of the benzidine dyes - including importing articles containing benzidine dyes -- will need EPA review and approval via a Significant New Use Notice.
"Consistent with EPA's past practice for issuing SNURs under TSCA section 5(a)(2), EPA's decision to propose a SNUR for a particular chemical use need not be based on an extensive evaluation of the hazard, exposure, or potential risk associated with that use. Rather, the Agency's action is based on EPA's determination that if the use begins or resumes, it may present a risk that EPA should evaluate under TSCA before the manufacturing or processing for that use begins. Since the new use does not currently exist, deferring detailed consideration of potential risks or hazards related to that use is an effective use of resources. If a person decides to begin manufacturing or processing the chemical for the use, the notice to EPA allows EPA to evaluate the use according to the specific parameters and circumstances surrounding that intended use." (77 Fed. Reg. 18758)
It is in reaction (and opposition) to these recent steps by EPA that industry is now pressuring Congress to revise TSCA and make it harder for EPA to require reporting of potential new uses of chemicals of concern imported in products. A lobbying entity called the Chemical Users Coalition, which comprises nine major corporations, has been lobbying to weaken EPA's authority under existing TSCA. The other member companies of the Chemical Users Coalition are: Procter & Gamble, Lockheed Martin, PPG, Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Boeing.
Under current law, EPA is authorized to designate a use of a chemical as a significant new use requiring notification after it has considered all relevant factors including:The projected volume of manufacturing and processing of the chemical;The extent to which a use changes the type or form of exposure of human beings or the environment to a chemical;The extent to which a use increases the magnitude and duration of exposure of human beings or the environment to a chemical;The reasonably anticipated manner and methods of manufacturing, processing, distribution in commerce, and disposal of chemical.
These are all factors related to the form and substance of a chemical, the potential life cycle use of the chemical, and the potential for increased exposure from a new use of a chemical. The law does not now require a particular determination about the likelihood of exposure from a particular source, or product, or class of products.
The new provision goes well beyond these general factors for consideration, and imposes a new limitation on EPA - that it cannot impose a significant new use reporting requirement on an article being imported or processed in the U.S. unless the Administrator makes "an affirmative finding" that "the reasonable potential for exposure to the chemical substance through the article or category of articles subject to the rule warrants notification."
Thus, under the new language in the Senate bill, EPA would now have to make a specified finding on a case-by-case basis on the "reasonable potential for exposure" before requiring notice of a new use of a chemical in an article or category of articles. This is a substantial shift in the burden of proof the agency must meet before obtaining simple notice about a potential new use of a chemical in an article. The new language gives the industry a stronger legal basis to challenge a significant new use requirement in court and raises the bar as to what the agency would have to show about the potential for exposure to a substance, prior to having any concrete information about the potential new use. In essence, the provision requires EPA to evaluate something before the agency even knows what it is. It also gives ammunition to EPA's frequent opponents in the inter-agency process, including OMB and the Small Business Administration Advocacy Office.
Currently, if EPA has a concern about the toxicity (health or environmental effects) of a chemical, and therefore a generalized concern about increased human or environmental exposure, it can adopt a new use notice requirement, including for new use in an article to be imported into the U.S. It may be that industry could successfully sue to overturn a significant new use requirement under the current language of TSCA, but it hasn't happened yet and there is no question that the new language raises the legal bar on EPA. Industry is seeking this language for a reason.
Some supporters of the Senate bill have argued that, while the new provision does change current law, it will have no practical effect on how EPA currently administers its SNUR program. This is incorrect. EPA would have a more difficult time adopting new use notice requirements under the new language in the Senate bill for the substances for which it has previously required notice of potential new use of a chemical in articles. For example, in its proposal to require notice for any new use of erionite fibers, EPA focused almost exclusively on the serious toxicity of the fibers ("In inhalation or injection studies in the rat and mouse, erionite fibers are more potent than crocidolite or chrysotile asbestos in inducing malignant mesothelioma." 56 FR 2890). EPA noted that there were no current known uses of the fibers in the U.S. and that, because of the serious health concerns the fibers raised, any new use, including importing in an article, would pose a risk of exposure and a potential health threat that warranted agency notice. EPA finalized a significant new use rule that applied to any new use, and "lifted" the articles exemption making the notice requirement applicable to imported articles. As a result, the public has been protected from any exposure to these cancer-causing fibers.
Under the new Senate language, EPA would now have to affirmatively identify any potential use of erionite fibers and then make a determination -- subject to legal challenge and judicial review if it made it through the OMB gauntlet --regarding the reasonable potential of exposure to the fibers from any article or category of articles before it could require notification of its potential new use in an imported article. If EPA neglected to correctly predict one or more potential uses of erinonite fibers -using crystal ball gazing technology for the 21st Century -- it could not then impose a new use notification requirement for those uses. Failure to imagine in advance every potential use would leave the public vulnerable to importation of new articles that the Administrator did not anticipate or predict.
Or consider EPA's recent significant new use rule for benzidine dyes, finalized last December. EPA identified the breakdown products of benzidine dyes as known human carcinogens, and referenced evidence of potential exposure from the dyes in clothes and textile-related uses. Based on the available information EPA had regarding the chemical's toxicity, and the potential for exposure from clothing, footwear and textiles, EPA imposed a new use notice requirement for any new use of benzidine dyes, and lifted the articles exemption, making the notice requirement applicable to potential new uses of benzidine dyes in articles (products) to be imported into the U.S.
Under the new Senate language, EPA might be able to issue the same notice requirement for use of benzidine dyes in clothes, footwear and textiles - as long as it could clear the new hurdle of demonstrating satisfactorily (to a court reviewing EPA's action in a legal challenge brought by industry) that it had identified a reasonable potential for exposure to benzidine dyes from each of those types of articles. But for any other articles, or category or articles for which EPA could not as easily identify a "reasonable potential for exposure" from the chemical -- for example, other categories of articles for which EPA did not already have some exposure information -- a court might rule that EPA did not have the authority to extend notice requirements to those uses, despite the agency's concerns about the chemicals' potential harm to health or the environment. Relying on the argument that EPA might prevail in such a lawsuit as an excuse for not flatly rejecting the proposed weakening of current law is simply irresponsible. The new Senate language in fact makes it more likely that articles containing chemicals of concern to EPA will be imported into the U.S. It is also directly contrary to what the drafters of the original TSCA intended.
In the Committee report filed when TSCA was originally passed in 1976, the Senate Commerce Committee (which handled TSCA then) noted the heightened concern about chemicals causing cancer, birth defects and other harms to health and the environment and the limited scope of other existing laws that touched in various ways on the problem of chemical pollution including the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act and the Consumer Product Safety Act: "None of these statutes provide the means for discovering adverse effects on health and environment before manufacture of new chemical substances. Under these other statutes, the Government regulator's only response to chemical dangers is to impose restrictions after manufacture begins. The most effective and efficient time to prevent unreasonable risks to public health or the environment is prior to first manufacture. It is at this point that the costs of regulation in terms of human suffering, jobs lost, wasted capital expenditures, and other costs are lowest....If hazards are to be discovered and prevented prior to the manufacture of new chemical substances or prior to the imposition of significant new uses of existing substances, premarket notification is an essential provision... the pre-market notification provisions of the committee bill forms [sic] the backbone of the preventive aspects of health protection sought by this legislation."
EPA is currently working on several other Significant New Use Rules, for which it also has proposed to lift the default regulatory exemption for new uses of the chemical in articles to be imported into the U.S. These include new use notice requirements for:(take a deep breath before you say this one) Long-Chain Perfluoroalkyl Carboxylate and Perfluoroalkyl Sulfonate Chemical Substances (LCPFACs) - a group of substances that are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBTs);Toluene Diisocyanates (TDI) and related compounds - that are dermal and inhalation sensitizers that can cause asthma and lung damage;Hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD) - a flame retardant ingredient linked to hormone disruption, aquatic toxicity and a possible reproductive toxin that is already subject to authorization (meaning likely phase out) under the European Union's REACH regulation and a global phase-out under the Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) treaty;Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs) - another group of flame retardants that are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic.
In short, EPA is proposing to be notified before new uses of these chemicals - some of the "worst of the worst" that EPA has identified through its existing prioritization process - are introduced into the United States, including in the use of articles imported from China and other countries, to prevent people or the environment from being harmed by these toxic substances -- exactly what the agency should be doing under TSCA. EPA cannot possibly predict all the potential uses of these substances in advance -- or fully evaluate the hazards and risk of those that it can predict - without the information that the agency would receive in a significant new use notice from an entity seeking to use the chemical.
Efforts to limit EPA's ability to obtain information about potential new uses of chemicals of concern in products before they reach the market, are swimming against the tide of chemical regulation around the world, as well as consumer satisfaction and acceptance. Public demand (and therefore retailer demand) to know what chemicals are used in products is not going away. Contrary to the hopes of many in industry who are salivating for passage of the Udall/Vitter bill, flawed TSCA reform legislation will not stem that tide. EPA's existing authority to obtain information about potential new uses of chemicals of concern before they are imported into the U.S. in products is a modest and effective method of ensuring some degree of protection for the public. Constraining EPA's authority to target articles for significant new use notification is the industry's over-reaction to EPA's exercising its authority in a handful of instances. But increasing the burden on EPA and limiting its ability to take these steps will be met with its own reaction - more action at the state level, and in the marketplace - something these same industries should seriously contemplate before taking a step that could easily backfire.
Members of Congress who consider themselves supporters and protectors of EPA's role in protecting public health and the environment should carefully consider (or reconsider) their support for legislation containing this very problematic provision. If the Senate does not have the fortitude to tell these companies that this special interest provision to weaken current TSCA is an early Christmas gift that they cannot have, then the White House should make clear that it needs to come out of the bill before TSCA reform legislation reaches the President's desk.

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(ACC Mentioned) Solana Beach May be First in County to Ban Polystyrene Food Containers

Sep 16, 2015 | Delmar Times

By Kristina Houck

Having been the first city in San Diego County to ban single-use plastic bags, Solana Beach could now become the first city in the county to ban polystyrene food containers.
The Solana Beach City Council on Sept. 9 directed staff to draft an ordinance that would prohibit the plastic.
“We will be the first one in the County of San Diego to be embarking on this,” said City Attorney Johanna Canlas. “We can’t look to our neighbors, at least in the immediate county. But this is not new. Other cities in the state have done this.”
Dozens of cities across California already ban or regulate polystyrene, particularly the expanded form of the plastic commonly known as Styrofoam. Although no city in the county has such regulations, the Encinitas City Council agreed last year to consider similar restrictions and its proposed ordinance is expected in October.
Solana Beach Councilman Peter Zahn, who proposed the idea to the council, said the plastic is particularly harmful to the environment because it’s often made into single-use products and does not biodegrade.
Common uses for polystyrene include protective packaging, such as packing peanuts and CD and DVD cases, food containers, lids, bottles, trays, tumblers and disposable cutlery.
“It may have a useful life in your life for about 15 minutes, but it doesn’t degrade for hundreds of years,” Zahn said.
He suggested Solana Beach model its ordinance after one adopted by another city in Southern California. In 2007, Santa Monica banned businesses from dispensing prepared foods in expanded polystyrene or any non-recyclable plastic. Santa Monica also prohibits the plastics at all city facilities, city-sponsored events and city-permitted events.
Suggesting recycling as a solution, Councilwoman Ginger Marshall cast the sole vote against the resolution.
City Manager Greg Wade said residential recycler Waste Management does not have a polystyrene recycling program. Although commercial recycler EDCO has a program, it is limited, he added.
“We don’t want to just recycle,” Zahn said. “We want to get it out of the waste stream.”
He said he toured EDCO’s Escondido-based recycling facility and found that the company was not recycling such materials. Marshall, however, said she contacted EDCO and learned that the company recycles polystyrene food containers, but they must be cleaned before recycling.
“My point would be public education, public awareness, and maybe switch our residential trash service over to a company that does recycle polystyrene,” Marshall said. “It could be an alternative to banning it and causing businesses to have to buy more expensive food takeout containers.”
Two plastics industry representatives, the American Chemistry Council and the California Restaurant Association, also submitted letters to Solana Beach in opposition to the proposed ban.

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Groups Warn Hoeven Oil Export Amendment Harmful to TSCA Work

Sep 17, 2015 | E&E Daily

By Sam Pearson

Lawmakers will need to work together to ward off nongermane amendments to a bipartisan bill to update how the federal government manages toxic chemicals -- like one proposed this week by Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) to link lifting the oil export ban, a top supporter said yesterday.
Hoeven's plan to amend S. 697, or the "Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act," to lift the ban on oil exports would throw a wrench into what's been an extensive effort to build consensus, said Collin O'Mara, the president of the National Wildlife Federation.
"Our preference is that there is a clean bill," O'Mara said, noting Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), both supporters of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) bill, had pledged to derail "poison pill" amendments earlier this year.
O'Mara spoke on a call with reporters touting a letter sent yesterday by a coalition of animal welfare and environmental groups supporting the plan to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) urging floor consideration of the bill to update the TSCA as soon as possible.
The letter, which was signed by the NWF, the Environmental Defense Action Fund, the Humane Society of the United States, March of Dimes, Moms Clean Air Force, North America's Building Trades Union and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, said the broad array of co-sponsors and groups supporting S. 697 showed floor consideration was a no-brainer because the bill could easily be approved.
"It's a rare bill that has this sort of corporate support, nonprofit organization support, and the support of Democrats and Republicans in all regions of the country," Humane Society of the United States President Wayne Pacelle said. "There's so much frustration in the country about inaction; here's a bill that satisfies so many different constituencies, and that can show to the people of this country that progress can be achieved in Congress."
While lawmakers on the Environment and Public Works Committee advanced S. 697 on a 15-5 vote in April, the measure has failed to see floor consideration as lawmakers and stakeholders debate whether the Senate plan or a similar House bill, H.R. 2576, would be more effective. The House bill was approved by that chamber on a nearly unanimous vote this summer (E&E Daily, June 24).
EPW ranking member Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), an opponent of the bill, has said she plans to use procedural obstacles to delay floor consideration of the bill unless lawmakers address her concerns that it is not sufficiently protective, such as by using the House legislation as the basis for targeted amendments (Greenwire, June 26).
O'Mara, though, said he felt that was unrealistic "given the realities of the Senate calendar right now."
McConnell has made no decision on when the chamber will take up the TSCA bill, but "it's definitely something we'd like to get done," McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said in an email.

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Bring Chemical Safety Bill to Floor, Coalition Says

Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

The Senate's primary bipartisan-backed chemical safety bill should be brought to the floor as soon as possible, a coalition of unions and environmental health and animal welfare organizations told Senate leaders in a Sept. 16 letter.
“America desperately needs this legislation, which would require safety evaluations of all new and existing chemicals, give [the Environmental Protection Agency] stronger testing authority, modernize testing methods and remove the barriers that have prevented EPA from regulating known dangers like asbestos,” wrote Jennifer Howse, president of the March of Dimes; Collin O'Mara, president of the National Wildlife Federation; and other leaders of a coalition said to represent 25 million Americans.
The coalition wrote Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) asking it to bring the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, S. 697, to the Senate floor.
S. 697 would be the first overhaul of the U.S.'s primary chemicals legislation, the Toxic Substances Control Act, since 1976. The bill is supported by 52 senators representing 33 states.
Other signatories to the coalition's letter were the heads of the Environmental Defense Action Fund, the Humane Society of the United States, the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers, Moms Clean Air Force, North America's Building Trades Union and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which maintains that toxicity tests' accuracy would be improved by increased use of in vitro and other non-animal testing methods.
“It's a rare bill that has this sort of corporate and non-governmental organization support and the support of Democrats and Republicans,” Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society, said in a news briefing about the coalition's backing of the bill.
“Here's a bill that satisfies so many constituencies it shows progress can be achieved in Congress,” he said.
Opposition Remains
Not all NGOs support S. 697, however.
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a coalition of 450 health, environmental, labor and other advocacy groups, remains opposed to the bill, as does the Environmental Working Group.
Scott Faber, EWG's vice president of government affairs, told Bloomberg BNA, “Under the Senate bill, my children would have grandchildren before the most dangerous chemicals would be reviewed by EPA.”
“It's ridiculous that neither the House nor Senate versions of the bill would give the EPA the resources it needs to quickly review the most dangerous chemicals in commerce,” Faber said.
Linda Reinstein, co-founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, which belongs to Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, recently shared a different perspective on S. 697's congressional chances.
“There haven't been any new sponsors since July 16. Congress recognizes S. 697 is a deadly rollback,” she told Bloomberg BNA.
Crowded Senate Floor
The key challenge facing the bill may be securing floor time during the diminishing voting days left before the first session of the 114th Congress closes.
In addition to the expected squabble over President Barack Obama's nuclear agreement with Iran and the Sept. 24 diversion of activities for the first papal address to Congress, the end of fiscal year 2015 approaches with federal funding being in limbo after Oct. 1 and Republicans looking to make stands about federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
A crowded Senate floor complicates any vote on S. 697.
The bill faces other possible obstacles.
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 S. 697 (179 DEN A-3, 9/16/15).
The National Wildlife Federation's O'Mara described that as a nongermane “poison pill” amendment that S. 697's sponsors have pledged to fight.
He referred to a May 7 news conference with Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and other sponsors of S. 697.
“I don't think unfriendly amendments will get very far,” Whitehouse said with Inhofe nodding behind him (89 DEN A-1, 5/8/15).
Negotiations Said to Continue
During the Sept. 16 news briefing, Sarah Vogel, vice president for health at EDF, said senators are continuing their negotiations on possible changes while waiting for floor action.
“We're anxious to see what emerges,” Vogel said, adding EDF hopes any changes would make the legislation even more protective of public health and the environment.

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Groups Push for Senate Vote on Chemical Safety

Sep 16, 2015 | The Hill - Regulation

By Lydia Wheeler

Environment, health and consumer groups are pushing Senate leaders to hold a vote on bipartisan legislation that would reform chemical safety laws.
The Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, S.697, which passed the Environment and Public Works Committee in June, has 51 co-sponsors — 22 are Democrats and 29 Republicans. The legislation, introduced by Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Tom Udall (D-N.M.), would reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
On a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Fred Krupp, executive director of the Environment Defense Action Fund, said TSCA hasn’t worked since President Gerald Ford signed it into law on Oct. 12, 1976.
“The Senate needs to act and get this bill on the floor,” he said. “We’ve got an opportunity here for a historic win and it’s time to make chemical safety for our kids a priority.”
Leaders from March of Dimes, the National Wildlife Federation, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and The Humane Society of the United States joined Krupp in calling for action.
“We have joined together to fix things like car seats, second-hand smoke, lead in gasoline and lead in paint,” Dominique Browning, co-founder and senior director of the Moms Clean Air Force, said Wednesday. “We now have over half the Senate involved as co-sponsors. It’s really time for us to move.”
Udall’s Spokeswoman Jennifer Talhelm said the bill is ready to go.
“We expect it to pass by a wide margin,” she told The Hill on Wednesday afternoon. “Leadership is working on the schedule.”
In early August, before lawmakers left Washington for summer recess, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the Lautenberg bill could come up for a vote in the fall.
“The TSCA legislation is another example of something important that enjoys bipartisan support,” he said. “I’m going to continue to look for things that make a difference for this country, that can clear the Senate, a body that requires 60 votes to do most things.”
Sen. Barbra Boxer (D-Calif.), who introduced her own TSCA legislation, said the Senate should either fix the Lautenberg bill or take up the TSCA Modernization Act that passed the House by a 398-1 vote in June.
“The most important thing is that we get some improvements on it," she said. "That’s what I’m working on."
Boxer has criticized the bill for failing to ban asbestos specifically and for only directing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to assess 25 chemicals.
Wayne Pacelle, president of The Humane Society, praised the Lautenberg bill Wednesday for requiring EPA to exhaust all other methods before using animals to test chemicals.
“There’s really a revolution that’s afoot in terms of more efficient, more reliable testing methods and those notions are built into S.697,” he said.

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Benzo[a]pyrene IRIS Meeting to Be Rescheduled

Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

The Environmental Protection Agency will reschedule its Oct. 29 meeting to discuss scientific questions concerning its draft benzo[a]pyrene Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment, Bloomberg BNA learned from agency staff Sept. 16. An official agency response couldn't be immediately obtained. A contributing factor may be that the agency's Science Advisory Board hasn't completed its report that will peer review the science the agency used and conclusions it reached about the chemical, which is found in coal tar and released through diesel exhaust and other combustion sources. In a draft report, the SAB's Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee urged the agency to expand the scientific studies and potential health hazards it considers. The committee's draft agreed, however, with the EPA's core conclusions that benzo[a]pyrene is a human carcinogen that also can harm development, reproduction and the immune system ((144 DEN A-6, 7/28/15).

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Echa Committees Consider PFOA Restriction

Sep 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch

Echa’s Risk Assessment Committee (Rac) adopted an Opinion in support of a restriction on PFOA, PFOA salts and related substances, at its meeting, last week. The Socio-economic Analysis Committee (Seac) also agreed a draft Opinion, favouring the restriction.
Germany and Norway made the restriction proposal.
PFOA and its salts have been recognised as substances of very high concern (SVHCs), due to persistence, bioaccumulation and toxic (PBT) properties, which cause severe and irreversible effects on the environment and human health.
Rac adopted its Opinion on PFOA at its June meeting this year (CW 11 June 2015). However, this now supports a higher concentration limit, compared to the original proposal, for reasons of enforceability.
Chairman Tim Bowmer told Chemical Watch that the original concentration was too challenging to measure. "By accepting a higher limit, we are making it easier and more feasible to enforce," he said.
Some addition derogations for low volume industrial sectors have also been agreed. These include photolithography and medical devices. The production and use of alternative shorter-chain fluorinated compounds will also be supported.
Seac’s draft Opinion on PFOA was agreed last week, following previous discussions (CW 16 June 2015). The committee believes a restriction is the best way to address the risks in proportion to socio-economic costs and benefits. Its Opinion now also includes higher concentration limits, additional derogations and a longer transitional period.
Seac's Opinion will be published by Echa shortly for a 60-day public consultation, before being reconsidered for final adoption at the committee's November/December meeting.

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EU Commission Seeks Scientific Opinion on Nano Titanium Dioxide

Sep 16, 2015 | Chemical Watch

The European Commission has requested an Opinion from one of its scientific committees on the safe use of nano titanium dioxide.
The Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS) will evaluate whether the nanomaterial is safe, when used as a UV-filter in sunscreen and personal care spray products, at a concentration up to 5.5%.
The issue was previously addressed by the committee in 2013, when it advised against the use of nano titanium dioxide in spray products (CW 1 August 2013).
But recently the Commission received new data from industry to support the use of the substance, triggering this second request for an Opinion.

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EU Chemicals Agency Moves on Flame Retardant Restriction

Sep 16, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Stephen Gardner

A wide-ranging European Union restriction on the use of the flame retardant decabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE) has moved a step closer with the finalization of an opinion in favor of the restriction by the European Chemical Agency's Socio-Economic Analysis Committee (SEAC).ECHA said Sept. 15 that the committee adopted its opinion at a Sept. 8–11 meeting, where it agreed that a restriction on decaBDE was “the most appropriate EU-wide measure, in terms of the proportionality of its socioeconomic benefits to its socioeconomic costs.
”The restriction on decaBDE, which is classified persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic, and very persistent and very bioaccumulative, would be a general prohibition of its use, except for some specific applications in the aviation industry, in road and non-road vehicles, and in spare parts for machinery.ECHA's Risk Assessment Committee (RAC) adopted its opinion, also in favor of the restriction, in June.The European Chemical Agency will forward the RAC and SEAC opinions to the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, which will finalize the restriction (117 DEN A-9, 6/18/15).The restriction will be adopted under the EU's REACH law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals).More Proposed RestrictionsIn addition, the European Chemical Agency opened public consultations Sept. 16 on two other proposed REACH restrictions: on bisphenol A (BPA) and on pentadecafluorooctanoic acid (PFOA).The consultations invite comments on the Socio-Economic Analysis Committee's draft opinions on the BPA and PFOA restrictions, which were adopted during its September meeting, according to ECHA.The proposed BPA restriction would limit the use of the substance in thermal paper used for cash register receipts. The French authorities proposed the restriction.The SEAC draft opinion on BPA said the restriction was “unlikely to be proportionate,” and it was “uncertain whether illness or disease will actually occur in the population at risk,” but that the restriction would be “implementable, enforceable and manageable.”ECHA's Risk Assessment Committee previously came out in favor of the BPA restriction.On PFOA, its salts and related substances, the SEAC draft opinion backed a restriction, proposed by Germany and Norway, that would broadly prohibit the manufacture and use of the substance (05 DEN A-10, 1/8/15).The European Chemical Agency said Sept. 15 that RAC also had dopted an opinion in favor of the PFOA restriction.The consultations on the Socio-Economic Analysis Committee's BPA and PFOA draft opinions are open through Nov. 16.

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Green Chemistry Awards Called Best Value for Taxpayers

Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

Corporate chemists and engineers would have a harder time persuading their managers to invest in technologies that benefit public health and the environment if the Environmental Protection Agency were to end its Green Chemistry Awards program, policy experts familiar with the program told Bloomberg BNA.
The program “highlights the use of scientific innovation for the mutual benefit of environmental protection and economic profitability without the need for regulation, and accomplishes this for less than 0.0001 percent of the EPA's budget,” said Paul Anastas, director of the Yale University's Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering, by e-mail.
“It is simply the best value for the taxpayer that I know of anywhere in government,” said Anastas, described by Wikipedia as “the ‘Father of Green Chemistry’ for his groundbreaking work on the design and manufacture of chemicals that are nonhazardous and environmentally benign.”
Anastas, who served as EPA's assistant administrator for research and development from 2009 to 2012, offered Bloomberg BNA his thoughts after reading a recently released Office of the Inspector General's report.
The inspector general released “EPA's Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards Program Lacks Adequate Support and Transparency and Should be Assessed for Continuation” Sept. 15 (179 DEN A-5, 9/16/15).
In 2015, the awards program received between $80,000 and $90,000 of the agency's $8.1 billion budget, according to the report.
Joel Tickner, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell who focuses on sustainability issues and green chemistry, told Bloomberg BNA he is puzzled that the inspector general's office—charged with preventing and detecting fraud, waste and abuse—focused on this “small, underfunded” EPA program.
Better Data Encouraged
Anastas said the report should be read as a call to strengthen the awards program and provide it further resources. “Any recommendations to make it genuinely stronger should be welcome,” he said.
Ken Zarker, pollution prevention manager at Washington state's Department of Ecology, said the EPA probably could and should do a better job validating the pollution prevention data companies provide.
Measuring the reduction or elimination of chemical waste isn't easy, he said, referring to challenges his department has faced as it seeks to measure the accomplishments of pollution-prevention efforts recognized by the state's Safer Chemistry Champion Awards program.
“It's a challenge to measure something that isn't being produced any longer,” Zarker said.
That challenge is magnified with the technologies that the EPA's awards program recognizes, which aren't fully commercialized, Zarker said. “Sometimes these metrics take years before you see the results.”
Efforts Under Way to Improve Calculations
State agencies and universities are, however, constantly working on ways to improve these calculations and would be pleased to work with the EPA, he said.
Brian Sansoni, spokesman for the American Cleaning Institute, which represents companies that have received EPA's Green Chemistry awards, told Bloomberg BNA, “We would certainly agree that EPA should use valid and accurate data in its pollution-prevention reporting.”
The institute would like the program to continue, however, he said.
“It is our understanding that a number of the awards were for technologies that had not yet been commercialized and such an awards program is useful in allowing innovators—especially small companies—to have a fair chance in the market place,” Sansoni said in an e-mail sent from a sustainability conference he was attending.
Zarker pointed to another benefit of the awards program. “These programs help tell the story of how you do green chemistry. How you implement it,” he said.
One company will often be spurred to pursue its own innovation based on the success story it hears about another, Zarker said.
CEOs Affected by Others' Awards
David Constable, director of the American Chemical Society's Green Chemistry Institute, said “most CEOs are enormously competitive.”
The recognition a competitor receives through the EPA awards program provides tremendous leverage to help convince another company to invest in green chemistry, he said. The Green Chemistry Institute helps the EPA implement the awards program by identifying scientists with the expertise to evaluate the divergent competing technologies.
The program has enormous value driving innovation, Constable said.

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Energy and Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) Non-Recycled Plastics: A New Energy Resource

Sep 17, 2015 | R & D Magazine

By Lindsay Hock

Over the past few decades, recycling programs have expanded both in terms of communities served and what items can be recycled. Yet, despite progress, approaches to integrated waste management have only begun to evolve.
“While production and consumption are still dominated by a linear model, where goods are manufactured from raw materials, sold, used and then discarded, the growing population of middle-class consumers has created a rise in demand for good that’s challenging the sustainability of this system,” says Jeff Wooster, Global Sustainability Leader at Dow Chemical Company.
Today, the concept of a “circular economy” is rapidly capturing attention as a way to reconcile economic growth with environmental responsibility. “In fact, circular supply chains that increase the rate of recycling, reuse and remanufacture have the potential to generate more than $1 trillion a year by 2025,” says Wooster.
In the U.S. we create about 254 million tons of trash each year. And while recycling programs have expanded, more than half all U.S. trash—approximately 134 million tons—ends up in landfills. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), almost one-fifth is from plastic items used every day, but aren’t recycled. “One key gap is the failure to address changes in the composition of the recycling stream and find a way to capture value from many of the materials that are growing in use, such as lightweight multi-material plastic packaging,” says Wooster.
However, emerging technologies offer solutions that divert non-recycled plastics from landfills and “recycle” them into feedstocks, valuable energy resources and other plastic products. In fact, if the U.S. took all the paper, wood, plastics, old clothes and other garbage that goes into landfills and converted them into useable energy, the U.S. could power nearly 14 million homes every year, according to the American Chemistry Council.
Non-recycled plastics as an energy resource
Believe it or not, plastic is a valuable energy resource. And, through energy recovery, companies can recover the embedded energy content of this valuable resource.
Through a collaborative effort to explore an alternative for plastic waste, Dow co-sponsored a three-month pilot program in Citrus Heights, Calif., with Agilyx to convert non-recycled material and low-value plastics collected in purple bags into a high-value synthetic fuel.
And according to a recent report by the Flexible Packaging Association, if recycling programs like Dow’s Energy Bag Pilot were implemented across the U.S., we could keep more than 4 million tons of plastic waste out of landfills, enough to produce one billion gallons of fuel every year. Additionally, the American Chemistry Council reported making synthetic crude oil from plastics reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 60 to 70% compared to conventional extraction of crude oil.
“Our Energy Bag Pilot used pyrolysis to convert non-recycled plastics into 512 gallons of synthetic crude oil, recovering nearly 12 barrels of oil, but other recovery technologies can also be used to capture the energy value of plastics,” says Wooster.
Pyrolysis is a resource recovery technology that uses heat in the absence of oxygen to chemically transform plastic into end products, including synthetic crude oil, synthetic wax and syngas. The crude oil can be further refined and made into valuable products for everyday use such as gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, fuel oil and lubricants. It can even be transformed back into plastic.
“Energy recovery technologies like pyrolysis (plastic to oil) are complementary to mechanical recycling because they allow value to be captured from additional materials,” says Wooster. “Many materials that can’t be easily recycled provide other lifecycle benefits which lead to their selection for use, and those materials have an embedded energy value even after they have served their primary function.”
Through the Energy Bag Pilot Program, 512 gallons of synthetic crude oil was produced from the plastic conversion. Samples of the shredded plastic and oil are pictured here. Image: Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics
Yet, a key challenge for any recovery process, whether energy recovery or mechanical recycling, is collecting a sufficient quantity of materials to provide the scale needed for beneficial economics. Due to plastic’s light weight, it takes combining materials from many households to provide enough material to make their collection and processing worthwhile.
“Since there isn’t an established infrastructure supporting the recovery of plastic for energy, new programs must fit within the constraints of existing recycling and municipal waste management systems,” says Wooster.
The Energy Bag Pilot
The idea of a collection pilot has been a few years in the making, according to Wooster. And Dow has been actively reviewing new energy-recovery technologies, and analyzing the quantity and quality of non-recycled plastics available for recovery.
In 2014, Dow partnered with Republic Services and they connected the City of Citrus Heights, allowing Dow to have a resource management expert and an engaged community to start the pilot. Agilyx had a pyrolysis facility located relatively close to Citrus Heights and accepted the invitation to process the materials from the pilot. The pilot was also supported by Reynolds, the Flexible Packaging Association and the American Chemistry Council. “It’s extremely exciting to have organizations working together to find solutions for current challenges,” says Wooster.
During the three-month pilot program in Citrus Heights, which included six collection cycles, neatly 8,000 purple Energy Bags were collected; approximately three tons of non-recycled items diverted from landfills; and 512 gallons of synthetic crude oil produced from the conversion.
“There was a strong level of citizen participation, with 30% citizen participation in the pilot,” says Wooster. “The city’s leadership was enthusiastic in their support of the pilot program because they saw the value in the opportunity offered by this program to divert more materials from landfills, and 78% of citizens said they would be likely to participate if given another chance.”
The key result of the pilot program proved that non-recycled plastic items—like juice pouches, candy wrappers and plastic dinnerware—could be collected and converted into an energy resource.
The future energy benefits
The Energy Bag Pilot Program is just a first step towards changing the way the U.S. handles waste. “We will share the success of the pilot with the industry and other communities with the hope that municipalities and industry stockholders will adopt programs like Energy Bag to move the potential for large-scale plastics-to-energy conversion forward,” says Wooster.
In an effort to achieve this, Dow recently announced ambitious 2025 Sustainability Goals.
“The Energy Bag Pilot is a story about the power of collaboration—how companies, communities, organizations and everyday people can work together to make the changes the world wants to see—and that’s what we hope the industry takes away from this,” says Wooster.

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McConnell Backs Crude Exports Push

Sep 16, 2015 | E&E News PM

By Geof Koss

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) today announced his support for lifting the federal ban on crude oil exports but didn't address the timing of a possible vote in the upper chamber.
"I support eliminating the oil export ban," McConnell told reporters after the weekly policy lunches. "Apparently, the deal with Iran is going to go into effect; the Iranians will be able to export their oil, and we're not? It's absolutely illogical."
McConnell made similar remarks earlier today at a meeting held by the Business Roundtable, during which he referred to the ban as a "a relic of the [1970s]," a spokesman said via email this afternoon.
His support comes as the House is gearing up for floor debate in the coming weeks on legislation (H.R. 702) that would end the ban, which the Energy and Commerce Committee will start marking up later this afternoon.
However, McConnell sidestepped a question on when a Senate vote may take place. "I do support lifting the oil export ban, and that will be among other items that we discuss with the administration as we move toward resolving all of these differences," he said.
The American Petroleum Institute hailed McConnell's backing.
"Bipartisan momentum is strong and lawmakers are ready to lift the outdated ban, create new American jobs, and bolster our energy security for generations to come," Louis Finkel, API's executive vice president for government affairs, said in a statement. "With the administration set to allow Iran to sell oil on the global market, it does not make sense to restrict our own country from exporting this valuable commodity."
The support from the top Senate Republican is the latest development in a fast-moving series of events surrounding the export ban.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest yesterday said the administration does not support the House bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), saying the Commerce Department should have the final say on any policy changes.
The department this afternoon noted Earnest's comments about Barton's bill.
"The Department of Commerce's primary role with respect to crude oil is to apply longstanding crude oil regulations," Commerce's Office of Public Affairs director, Beneva Schulte, said in an emailed statement. "There is no question that domestic oil production has grown in recent years, and that's a good thing. Homegrown energy strengthens our economy, supports new American jobs and enhances energy security while we transition to a low carbon economy."
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who is leading efforts to reverse the ban in the upper chamber, said today she was disappointed by Earnest's remarks.
"I don't think that helps the administration right now because you're having a fresh look at an old issue, or a policy that's been around for four-plus decades," she told E&ENews PM. "And I think sometimes the White House can be very premature in shutting the door on things, and I don't think that's necessary and I find that disappointing."
She added that the White House's opposition won't cause a shift in strategy for ending the ban.
"What I don't want, and what I think would be really disappointing, is if the president through his acts or statements turns this into a partisan issue," she said. "It is not partisan. It's just not. Let's look at this from a holistic policy perspective: Is this a policy that should be allowed to continue or not? And let's not be afraid of that conversation. So I hope it doesn't shut people's minds off to further exploration."

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McConnell Calls for Ending Crude Oil Export Ban

Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Ari Natter

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) publicly threw his weight behind ending the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports for the first time Sept. 16, calling the trade prohibition “a relic of the 70s,” according to a spokesman for the lawmaker.
“He pointed out that if Iran will be able to export its oil under the president's deal with Iran, why not us?” spokesman Don Stewart, characterizing McConnell's remarks before the Washington-based Business Roundtable, told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail.
Still, McConnell appears in no rush to bring legislation that would end the trade prohibition to the Senate floor. When asked about it during his weekly press conference, McConnell dodged.
“I support eliminating the oil export ban and apparently the deal with Iran is going to go into effect, the Iranians are going to be able to export their oil and we're not?” McConnell said. “I do support lifting the oil export ban and that will be among other items that we discuss with the administration and we look forward to resolving.”
McConnell's remarks come as the House prepares to vote on legislation (H.R. 702) as soon as month's end. The bill, by Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), is scheduled to be marked up by the House Energy and Commerce Committee Sept. 17. The White House has said it is opposed to the bill (179 DEN A-12, 9/16/15).
Uphill Climb Seen in Senate
The ban was put in place in 1975 in the wake of the Arab oil embargo. It doesn't apply to refined products such as gasoline and jet fuel and also makes exceptions for crude from Alaska and California and crude destined for Canada.
More than a dozen oil producers, including ConocoPhillips Co., Marathon Oil Corp. and Hess Corp., are lobbying to have the restriction lifted, arguing it no longer makes sense amidst booming oil production. Refiners that include Valero Energy Corp. support keeping the ban in place.
While the House is expected to pass H.R. 702, passage in the Senate is seen as an uphill climb as Republicans need support from Democrats for passage.
Among the possible Senate bills is an (unnumbered) bill by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) that was approved by the committee July 30 on a party line vote of 12-10. It includes other policy changes such as an expansion of offshore drilling and revenue sharing(147 DEN A-5, 7/31/15) .
Another Senate bill that would lift the export ban is S. 1372 by Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), which is expected to be marked up by the Senate Banking Committee later this fall, Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) previously told Bloomberg BNA.
Speaking at an energy forum Sept. 15, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said it was unlikely a crude oil export bill would move as stand-alone legislation and was more likely to be paired with a widely supported measure such as chemical safety legislation (S. 697) that would update the Toxic Substances Control Act.
“We might do it,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told Bloomberg BNA. “If we find out we lose a bunch of co-sponsors by doing it that might make a difference, but again, that test hasn't been tried yet.”

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Clinton Comes Out Against Bill to End Oil Export Ban

Sep 16, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Elana Schor

Hillary Clinton opposes the burgeoning GOP-led effort to end the oil export ban through legislation, a campaign spokesman said today.
The Democratic presidential front-runner's stance comes 24 hours after the White House aired its opposition to the crude exports bill that's expected to reach the House floor in the next several weeks.
The public resistance from the Democrats' two most high-profile figures could hurt the GOP effort to win enough bipartisan support to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, where Minority Leader Harry Reid told POLITICO last month that he is open to reaching a deal on exports.

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Ohio Supreme Court Blocks Anti-Fracking Ballot Initiatives

Sep 16, 2015 | E&E News PM

By Mike Lee

The Ohio Supreme Court today blocked elections in three Ohio counties that would ban oil and gas or pipeline development, upholding part of a decision by Secretary of State Jon Husted.
The proposals in Athens, Medina and Fulton counties were couched as amendments to the counties' charters. The Supreme Court said yesterday in a written opinion that the petitions are invalid because they don't seek to make a bona fide change in county government.
Husted, a Republican, issued an order in August saying the initiatives were illegal because Ohio courts have already ruled that local governments can't control energy development (EnergyWire, Aug. 17).
"If advocates of these local proposals truly want to effect change, they should use the legislative process available to them and either work with their representatives in the Ohio General Assembly or propose a statewide initiated statute," Husted said in an emailed statement.
The decision effectively bars the proposals from the Nov. 3 elections, since local officials have to start mailing ballots to overseas voters Saturday, according to Husted's spokesman, Joshua Eck.
Ohio has seen its oil and gas production climb since fracking and other new technology made it possible to develop the Utica Shale field. The drilling boom has led to complaints about lax oversight, pollution and other side effects.
The three counties are outside of the Utica Shale, but Athens County has several disposal sites for oil and gas waste. Fulton and Medina counties are in the path of the proposed 250-mile Nexus pipeline, which would carry gas from Ohio to Michigan.
The Athens County initiative would have blocked hydraulic fracturing and disposal of oil and gas waste; the Fulton and Medina county petitions would have blocked pipeline development.
Organizers in the three counties were helped by the Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which has promoted the idea of a "community bill of rights" in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and other energy-producing states.
When Husted blocked the elections in August, the petition organizers appealed to the Supreme Court, saying Husted overstepped his authority. Husted argued in court filings that the law allows him to decide whether contested initiatives are valid, and also argued that a charter election had to include a change in the form of a county's government.
The Supreme Court decision agreed with Husted that the petitions aren't truly a change in county government, but it also said there are limits on his power to decide elections.
State law "does not permit election officials to sit as arbiters of the legality or constitutionality of a ballot measure's substantive terms," the majority opinion states.
That section of the decision offered hope to the petition organizers, said Terry Lodge, an attorney for the groups.
"They're off the ballot; however, this means if the current three counties circulate petitions with a meatier charter or county government proposal in them that they're not going to be kept off the ballot," Lodge said.

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Clean Power Plan Sent Sept. 4 to Federal Register

Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Anthony Adragna

The Environmental Protection Agency submitted its final Clean Power Plan for formal publication in the Federal Register Sept. 4 but still expects the rule won't be published until next month, Administrator Gina McCarthy told a Senate committee Sept. 16.
Formal publication of the regulation to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the nation's fleet of existing power plants is important because it kicks off a 60-day period in which legal challenges can be filed under the Clean Air Act and a period in which Congress can attempt to block it through the Congressional Review Act.
The slow publication was noted by Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Republicans.
“Are you aware that delaying publication until the end of October interferes with the ability of Congress and the public to challenge the rules before the big show in Paris?” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) asked during the hearing, which focused on the agency's response to the August spill from Colorado's Gold King Mine .
McCarthy indicated she would like to see the regulation, announced by the agency Aug. 3, published promptly.
“Both you and I want this to be published in the Federal Register as soon as possible,” the administrator told Inhofe.
The regulation (RIN 2060-AR33) would set unique carbon dioxide emissions rates or alternatively mass-based targets for the power sector in each state. State regulators will be tasked with developing plans to meet the targets, which will be phased in between 2022 and 2030.
This isn't the first time Inhofe has expressed concerns that the EPA is deliberately slow-walking the publication of final rules.
Earlier in 2015, Inhofe questioned whether there were political reasons the EPA took more than three months in publishing a final rule on the regulation of coal ash, and the Environment and Public Works chairman said in 2014 the agency delayed publishing final limits for greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants to protect endangered Democratic lawmakers (55 DEN A-6, 3/23/15).

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House Committee Pulls Energy Bill on Markup Eve

Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Ari Natter

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has postponed a vote on broad energy legislation that was to be marked up Sept. 17, according to amemo sent to committee staffers late Sept. 16.
The bill, the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act (H.R. 8), would streamline the federal siting process for interstate natural gas pipelines and allow the Energy Department to take certain measures during “grid security emergencies.”
“Consideration of [H.R. 8] North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2015, has been postponed indefinitely,” said the memo, which was sent to Democratic committee staffers. A new date was not announced.
The committee's markup of H.R. 702, legislation that would end the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports, is still scheduled to occur, according to the memo.
The 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.

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Obama Defends Approach to Climate Change

Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Anthony Adragna

President Barack Obama acknowledged room for disagreement with his strategy for combatting climate change Sept. 16, but said his approach through the Clean Power Plan would ultimately generate more benefits than costs.
“You can legitimately go after me on the clean power plant rule because that was hatched by us... so we can have a lengthy debate about that,” Obama told the Business Roundtable. “[But] if you look at the regulations we've generally put forward, the costs are substantially lower than the benefits that are generated.”
Obama also encouraged the business leaders, including the heads of companies such as AT&T Inc., Bank of America Corp., Duke Energy Corp. and Ford Motor Co., to treat climate change as an “opportunity rather than as a problem.”
“If you know how to do oil and gas well, you can figure out how to do solar well, you can figure out to make money doing it,” the president said. “You can figure out how to create efficiencies that help your bottom line.”
Many lawmakers and various sectors of the business community have repeatedly attacked Obama's approach to climate change as too costly and likely to incur significant job losses. Some of those same business groups plan to go after the Clean Power Plan in court once it is formally published.
The Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33), announced by the Environmental Protection Agency Aug. 3 and the centerpiece of Obama's strategy to address climate change, seeks to drive carbon dioxide emissions reductions from the nation's existing power plants. The regulation sets state-specific power sector carbon dioxide emissions rates or alternatively mass-based targets. States must develop plans to meet these rates or targets. The plans will be phased in between 2022 and 2030.
‘Different Ways to Skin the Cat.'
That plan sets “a baseline in which all of us understand the direction we need to go,” but allows states to lean on U.S. innovation and technological development to hit their individual goals, Obama said.
“What we've tried to do with the Clean Power Plan is to give states flexibility, understanding everybody has got a different energy mix,” Obama said. “I'm a big believer that there are going to be different ways to skin the cat on this thing.”
Critics frequently say Obama's plan to combat climate change will do nothing to address the problem, given the amount of pollution generated by China, but the president said the U.S. has told the world's second-largest economy that “with power comes responsibility” and that it has “got to step up” to tackle environmental problems.
“You've got to be concerned about environmental issues [if you're China], because you can't breathe in Beijing,” Obama said, adding that he expects to continue to see “constructive progress” from China on energy and climate change issues.
The president also encouraged business executives, including those from companies that have traditionally relied on fossil fuels, to support a strong international agreement later this year in Paris to address climate change.
“This is coming; it's coming generationally,” Obama said of recognizing the need to act on climate change. “And for us to be out ahead of [climate change] and to think about how our ingenuity and our science can solve these problems is going to give us a jump on everybody else.”

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Obama Points to Court Order in Defense of EPA Ozone Rule

Sep 16, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Alex Guillen

President Barack Obama today defended EPA's upcoming revision to its ozone standard because a federal judge directed the agency to do so, contrasting the plan with his landmark carbon rules for power plants.
There’s a “misperception that the EPA can do whatever it wants here,” Obama told a gathering of the Business Roundtable.
“We've got some legal constraints, this is not something that just popped out of my head full blown,” Obama said, adding that he is amused by advertisements linking the rule to him.
The Clean Air Act requires EPA to revisit the ozone standard every five years, though there is no requirement to always lower it. The George W. Bush administration lowered the standard to 75 parts per billion in 2008, and in 2011 Obama stopped EPA from moving forward with a reconsideration of that decision, citing economic concerns.
Now, however, EPA is under court order to finish a new standard by Oct. 1. The agency proposed lowering the standard to between 65 and 70 ppb.
“You can legitimately go after me on the Clean Power Plan rule because that was hatched by us and I believe that we need to deal with climate change. We can have a lengthy debate about that,” said Obama. “On ozone, this is an existing statute and an existing mechanism and we are charged with implementing it based on the science that's presented to us.”
He also said that EPA does not issue regulations where the costs outweigh the benefits.

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Ozone Standards Expected Within EPA's Proposed Range

Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Patrick Ambrosio

The Environmental Protection Agency's final decision on where to set national ozone standards will likely fall within the agency's proposed range of 65 parts per billion to 70 ppb, representatives of some of the leading advocacy groups said Sept. 16.
Various industry groups have urged the agency to retain the 75 ppb current standards for economic reasons, while many public health and environmental groups have argued that the standards should be set at a level no higher than 60 ppb to adequately protect public health.
However, when asked for a prediction at the conclusion of a panel discussion on ozone hosted by OurEnergyPolicy.org, representatives from the National Association of Manufacturers, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers said the final rule will likely be consistent with the agency's November 2014 proposal.
“I think they will land somewhere in the range they proposed,” Ross Eisenberg, vice president of energy and resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers, said.
The agency is under a court-ordered deadline of Oct. 1 to sign a final decision (RIN 2060-AP38) on whether to revise or retain the current ozone standards, set in 2008 under President George W. Bush. The rule is under review by the White House Office of Management and Budget, which has scheduled meetings with various advocacy groups
John Walke, clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said he didn't know where the EPA would land but said he didn't disagree with Eisenberg's prediction that the final standards would likely fall within the proposed range.
Walke said he feared that some members of the Obama administration want to “call it a day” and set the ozone standards at 70 ppb, the least stringent level proposed, but he said there are those within the administration who “want to do better than that.”
Sarah Magruder Lyle, vice president for strategic initiatives at the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, also highlighted potential disagreement within the administration over where to set the ozone standards, noting that she heard that part of the administration supports 70 ppb standards while other administration officials would like to see tighter standards. Magruder Lyle agreed with the predictions that the final ozone rule will fall within the proposed 65 ppb to 70 ppb range.
Dispute Over Need for Rule
The panel members spent most of their discussion sparring over the need for revised ozone standards.
Magruder Lyle argued that tightening the ozone standards could factor into decisions not to expand domestic refining capacity, pass on building new petrochemical facilities and force manufacturers to relocate outside the U.S. Increased development of shale gas has helped fuel the manufacturing industry in the U.S. in recent years, but six of the seven most productive shale plays in the country would be unable to attain more stringent ozone standards consistent with the EPA's proposal, Magruder Lyle said.
“In many of those places, energy is their largest industry,” she said. “In some places, it's their only industry.”
Eisenberg said that debate over ozone often fails to consider “the big picture” that ozone levels have dropped dramatically since the Clean Air Act was amended in 1990. He said there are “dozens” of existing regulations that will continue to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, precursors to ground-level ozone formation.
Progress Seen
“We've made remarkable, remarkable progress,” Eisenberg said. “We're going to continue this progress regardless of what EPA does on Oct. 1.”
Walke countered industry cost arguments by referencing a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the EPA is prohibited under the Clean Air Act from considering cost when setting national ambient air quality standards (Whitman v. Am. Trucking Ass'ns, 531 U.S. 457, 51 ERC 2089 (2001)).
Television advertising campaigns organized by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute have focused on costs but don't attempt to counter the science that shows the current 75 ppb standards need to be tightened, Walke said.
Walke also cited Eisenberg's reference to existing regulations as a reason to set a tighter standard. A 70 ppb level effectively would be the “status quo” because it will be achieved largely through the enforcement of standards that are already on the books, Walke said.
“That's why setting the standard at 70 would be an utter failure of responsibility and leadership,” he said.
Obama: Concerns Being Addressed
President Barack Obama addressed industry concerns on ozone during a Sept. 16 meeting with the Business Roundtable, which supports retaining the current ozone standards.
Obama acknowledged cost concerns, but he said the EPA has “some legal constraints” in its review of the ozone standards.
“I think there may be a misperception that the EPA can do whatever it wants here,” Obama said, according to a transcript of his remarks. “There are some fairly stringent statutory guidelines by which the EPA is supposed to evaluate the standards. So the EPA is following the science and the statutes as best as it can.”
The administration is mindful that the nature of air pollution, including the interstate transport of pollutants, can end up with some states and counties being hit by regulation worse than others, Obama said. The administration is trying to work with those areas to take those concerns into account, he said.
Obama also highlighted the public health benefits of tightening the ozone standards, which include avoided asthma attacks and premature deaths.
“The EPA has been listening to I think every stakeholder there,” Obama said. “But I think what you'll see in the analysis overall is—we don't issue a regulation where the costs are not lower than the benefits.”
‘Vastly Different' Effects Within Range
There are “vastly different” economic effects possible within the EPA's proposed 65 ppb to 70 ppb range for the ozone standards, Alan Krupnick, senior fellow and co-director of the Center for Energy and Climate Economics at Resources for the Future, said.
At a 70 ppb level, the Los Angeles, New York, Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas, which struggle to meet the current standards, would fall further out of attainment, Krupnick said. However, there would be a “relatively small” impact on the rest of the U.S., he said.
At a 65 ppb level, areas in Colorado, Utah and other states would be brought into nonattainment with the ozone standards for the first time.
“That would be disruptive,” Krupnick said.
Krupnick said the Center for Energy and Climate Economics will soon release its own cost analysis of the EPA's ozone proposal. The cost estimates included in that analysis are “closer” to the compliance costs identified by the EPA than they are to much higher estimates identified in an analysis prepared by NERA Economic Consulting for the National Association of Manufacturers, Krupnick said.
That NERA study has been frequently cited by opponents of tighter ozone standards, while environmental and public health groups have pointed out what they identified as flaws in the study that “greatly overestimated” compliance costs (179 DEN A-20, 9/16/15).

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Industry, Greens Raise Fists over Tighter Ozone Regs

Sep 16, 2015 | E&E News PM

By Ariel Wittenberg

Industry representatives and environmentalists today found little common ground as they debated how costs and benefits should be weighed in tighter ozone regulations expected to be released at the end of the month.
Ross Eisenberg, vice president of energy and resources policy for the National Association of Manufacturers, said his organization's members are not given enough credit for gains they have previously made.
Citing a statistic that the industry had reduced nitrogen oxide emissions by 13 million tons since the Clean Air Act was amended in 1990, Eisenberg said the debate surrounding ozone regulations ignores "the big picture -- because the big picture is actually really good."
"We are doing things better and better. Manufacturers are doing our part and will continue to do so," he said during a forum hosted by OurEnergyPolicy.org about how EPA's ozone rule could affect the energy sector.
U.S. EPA is considering reducing the national ozone standard from 75 parts per billion to between 65 and 70 ppb by 2025. Doing so, the agency says, would prevent between 750 and 4,300 premature deaths, between 1,400 and 4,300 asthma-related emergency room visits, and between 320,000 and 960,000 annual asthma attacks in children (Greenwire, Sept. 10).
But Eisenberg said the costs for industry to meet a national ozone limit of 65 or 70 ppb would outweigh the benefits, causing manufacturers to leave nonattainment zones and reduce American jobs, saying, "We are butting up against what is technically feasible and realistically reasonable.
"This will be the most expensive regulation ever, and the real question is whether the manufacturing sector can take another costly regulation," he said.
Though he acknowledged that the updated rule would likely tighten the ozone standard, Eisenberg urged the Obama administration to quit while it's ahead and decline to update the standard as it did in 2011.
"This administration has accomplished a lot on environmental issues from the Clean Power Plan to the Waters of the U.S. rule, so practically speaking, they are in the end zone. They scored the touchdown. Do they really need to spike the ball?" he said. "And know that if they do spike that ball and they do that end-zone dance, it will be on the backs of the 12 million Americans who work in manufacturing."
John Walke, director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, slammed Eisenberg for bringing economics into the debate and NAM for using cost as a key point in its media campaigns against the rule (Greenwire, Aug. 5).
Walke said the campaign was essentially asking EPA to break the law because the Supreme Court has previously ruled that the Clean Air Act "squarely prohibits economic costs and compliance costs from influencing safer standards."
"[Eisenberg] in his remarks referred to costs 14 times, and that pretty much summarizes the way his advertising campaign has been done," Walke said. "I cannot recall another time with such transparent appeals to unlawful influences, such transparent appeals for EPA to break the law."
Instead, Walke said, EPA should rely solely on medical literature, which, he said, concludes that the current 75 ppb ozone standard is inadequate to protect human health.
Prior to Eisenberg's and Walke's remarks, OurEnergyPolicy.org President Bill Squadron acknowledged that the ozone rule is a divisive issue and joked that, for those in the energy sector, the outcome of the rule is as important as the 2016 presidential race.
"This is the real debate today," he said, referencing the Republican debate on CNN tonight.
In her remarks, American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers Vice President for Strategic Initiatives Sarah Magruder Lyle said that economic considerations are as important as health issues because one impacts the other.
She accused Walke of not "connecting the dots," saying that a stricter standard would force manufacturers to leave the country and put costs back on consumers.
"We have to have a realistic discussion about the health benefits," she said. "Is there really a health benefit by making those unable to pay electric bills chose between medicine and power?"
She also criticized EPA for relying on "unknown controls" to reach a stricter ozone limit, saying, "We have plenty of experience betting the farm on things that do not exist."
"Guess what happens?" she said. "The cost of energy goes up, and that is not helpful to the person we should be talking about, who is the consumer, the citizen."
Economist Alan Krupnick, co-director and senior fellow at the Center for Energy and Climate Economics at Resources for the Future, disputed that point, saying it created a false scenario because if consumers are paying more, that would negate the need to close or move plants.
He also said environmental costs incurred by plants would not be enough to relocate a plant because they are a "small fraction" of costs individual facilities face.
Krupnick explained that EPA is "in a bind" because it is required to set standards to protect public health within a margin of safety.
"The problem with doing that is that the relationship between ozone and health is pretty much a linear one, and pretty much goes down to background levels," he said. "So how do you protect human health when there are effects at any level of ozone?"
That means, he said, the lower the ozone standard is set, the more the benefits outweigh the costs.
Noting that the four largest areas of the country that would be in noncompliance under a 70 ppb standard are already in noncompliance under the 75 ppb standard, Krupnick said the 65 ppb standard would be more effective because it would force additional jurisdictions to limit their ozone. Though a tighter standard would incur more costs, he said, the benefits outweigh them.
"The benefit is that you would have so much more population effected by the change, meaning the benefits of meeting that standard get very great," he said.

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Coal Group Outlines Candidate Positions on EPA Rule

Sep 16, 2015 | E&E News PM

By Manuel Quiñones

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity today released a memo outlining presidential candidate positions on U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.
The document comes as hopefuls for the Republican nomination prepare for their second debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., this evening.
The ACCCE memo says 12 GOP candidates have expressed opposition to the rule, while four Democratic candidates have made supportive statements, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
However, ACCCE said Republican candidates, including real estate mogul Donald Trump and neurosurgeon Ben Carson, have yet to issue a strong public statement on the Obama administration's landmark climate action.
"As Americans tune in to hear where the candidates stand on critical issues facing our country," said ACCCE spokeswoman Laura Sheehan, "we are hopeful that those few Republican candidates who have yet to take a position on Obama's costly climate crusade will make their opposition clear."
Earlier this month, ACCCE released another memo on the political risks of supporting the Clean Power Plan (E&ENews PM, Sept. 8). Environmental groups have issued the opposite message.
Green activists, for example, have criticized candidates like former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Carly Fiorina for saying climate change is more about ideology than science.
"At the first Republican primetime presidential debate last month, the GOP candidates spent shockingly little time talking about the issues most important to the American people and critical to our nation's future," said a League of Conservation Voters release, "and a whole lot of time grandstanding, bickering, and hiding behind empty rhetoric."
LCV added, "As we prepare for round two tonight, the League of Conservation Voters is once again calling on the Republican candidates to finally address climate change, the single biggest challenge of our time -- but we're not holding our breath."

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Rubio Hammers Obama's 'Left-Wing' Policies on Climate Change

Sep 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Devin Henry

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and some of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination slammed the Obama administration’s climate policies during a short exchange on the matter during their Wednesday night debate.
“We’re not going to destroy our economy the way the left-wing government we’re under wants to do,” Rubio said at the main-stage event. “Every proposal they put forward are proposals that will make it harder to do business in America, that will make it harder to create jobs in America.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said he wouldn’t insist on a “massive government intervention” to deal with climate change, but rather make clean energy “economically feasible” by expanding nuclear, natural gas and solar power as president.
Christie, Rubio and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker all hit Obama for pushing climate change policies designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions, something they warned will wreak havoc on the American economy.
“We shouldn’t be destroying our economy in order to chase some wild left-wing idea that somehow, us, by ourselves are going to fix the climate,” Christie said.
Rubio, who has vowed to undo Obama’s landmark climate rules for power plants if he’s elected president, said he’s not skeptical of the science behind climate change, an accusation leveled against him by debate moderator Jake Tapper.
Rather, he said, he’s concerned about the impact Obama’s policies will have on the economy.
“I know the impact those are going to have, and those are all going to be on our economy,” he said.
“They will not do a thing to lower the rise of the sea, they will not do a thing to cure the drought here in California, but what they will do is make America a more expensive place to create jobs.”
The three candidates discussed climate change for only about four minutes on Wednesday night. Except for one question directed at Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) during the first “happy hour” debate last month, it was the first time the GOP candidates have discussed the issue during their four debates this cycle.

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What We Need to Hear on Climate Change in Tonight’s Debate

Sep 16, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog

By Brandy Doyle

No questions on climate change were asked during the Fox Republican primary debate last month, and you didn’t hear any candidates complaining. After all, the ultra-conservative voters and donors that influence the Republican primaries either don’t believe in climate change, or don’t think it’s a priority.
But most Americans, including a majority of Republicans, do want government action on climate change. And fortunately, CNN anchor Jake Tapper, the moderator of tonight’s debate, has a history of pressing politicians on global warming. Tapper should not only raise the issue, but should ask candidates to explain their policy positions.
In other words, the CNN debate question on climate change shouldn’t be “Is it real?” but rather, “What’s your plan?”
The impacts of climate change are already being felt at home and abroad with intensifying droughts, wildfires, and extreme precipitation. As global temperatures rise, we risk greater threats to our environment and our economy. The stakes are too high to devote more airtime to a misleading debate on already well-established science.
The truth is, most candidates have already addressed the issue and made their positions known (with the exception of Wisconsin’s Governor Walker, who has so far avoided making a clear statement of his views). Former Governor Bush, Sen. Paul (Ky.), Carly Fiorina, and Governors Christie (N.J.) and Kasich (Ohio) have all acknowledged that climate change is real and at least in part due to human activity.
Yet despite this acknowledgment, most of these candidates oppose climate regulations such as the President’s Clean Power Plan, even with broad support from voters, including a plurality of Republicans. Rather than allowing candidates to engage in one-upsmanship over who hates the president’s plan the most, Tapper should ask for their alternatives.
Granted, it may not be worth asking Sen. Cruz (R-Texas) or Donald Trump for their climate plans, but candidates with an eye to the general election should be hesitant to dismiss the question outright. Voters deserve to know which, if any, candidates have real policy proposals to offer.
Apart from flat-out denial, the most common argument that Republican candidates have made against climate action has been economic: they have claimed that acting to regulate global warming emissions will kill jobs and hurt the economy.
That’s why the candidates should be asked to address the economic potential of transitioning to clean energy. Last year, the solar industry employed twice as many people as did the coal industry. The renewable energy industry also keeps more money in local communities, supporting the local tax base and employing local workers for installations.
Tapper has expressed an interest in pushing candidates toward real debate, and this is one place where he might elicit meaningful differences in their views. Governor Walker has blocked clean energy development in his state, as has Kasich. How do other candidates see the value of clean energy, particularly Ben Carson (who has advocated for greater energy independence) and Christie (who signed a bill to support rooftop solar in his state)?
Finally, what about the economic risks of inaction? A recent Citibank report found that the U.S. could save $1.8 trillion by the year 2040 if we act now to address climate change, or lose as much as $44 trillion by 2060 if no action is taken. If the business community is concerned with climate risks, why aren’t Republican candidates?
Now is the time. Later this month, Pope Francis will deliver a historic address to the U.S. Congress framing climate change as a moral issue. In December, negotiators at the United Nations climate talks in Paris will seek to achieve the first-ever binding climate agreement from all world nations. With these events on the horizon, it’s time for candidates to put their own views on the record.
The next president of the United States will have the responsibility to lead the country on climate for four to eight crucial years. Voters need to know how (and if) Republican candidates would respond to this challenge.
Doyle is a campaign manager with ClimateTruth.org.

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Moderate House Republicans Call for Action Ahead of Papal Visit

Sep 17, 2015 | E&E Daily

By Jean Chemnick and Evan Lehmann

At least 10 House Republicans will sign on to a resolution today committing to work "constructively" to address climate change, "including mitigation efforts and efforts to balance human activities that have been found to have an impact" on warming.
Rep. Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.) will introduce the resolution today, which will put some of his moderate Republican colleagues on the record for the first time in support of climate action. The resolution text assigns human emissions some responsibility for driving harmful warming, and it states that "if left unaddressed, the consequences of a changing climate have the potential to adversely impact all Americans, hitting vulnerable populations hardest." It goes on to call for "broadly supported private and public solutions."
Gibson's list of original co-sponsors include Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Carlos Curbelo of Florida; Robert Dold of Illinois; Dave Reichert of Washington; Pat Meehan, Ryan Costello and Mike Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania; and Richard Hanna and Elise Stefanik of New York, asNational Journal first reported and E&E Daily confirmed. A handful of other moderate Republicans are expected to sign on later today and will be counted as original co-sponsors, according to those familiar with the resolution.
Reichert is the only one of the co-sponsors who also voted for cap-and-trade legislation that cleared the House six years ago. Republican Reps. Frank LoBiondo and Leonard Lance, both of New Jersey, supported the measure by former Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) but have yet to sign on as co-sponsors of Gibson's resolution.
Dold, an Eagle Scout, said it's time for lawmakers to go beyond the partisanship around climate action to enhance public health.
"Climate change is occurring and human contributions to this change are important to acknowledge and understand," he said in a statement. "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."
The resolution goes further than a set of amendments the Senate voted on in January that affirmed that human emissions were driving climate change by calling for action to address the problem (E&E Daily, Jan. 28).
The Gibson text doesn't emphasize people's influence on the climate, but it embraces the impacts that scientists say are already occurring or are likely to in the future. The document doesn't mention humans except in the last sentence, when it asserts that Congress should "balance" the impacts of our species through mitigation and other undefined policies.
That statement was softened over the summer. An earlier draft of the resolution obtained byE&E Daily stated that Congress should seek to "proactively reverse or balance human activities that have been found to be contributing factors."
The final resolution says that Congress should 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, including mitigation efforts and efforts to balance human activities that have been found to have an impact."
The resolution begins by saying "it is a conservative principle to protect, conserve, and be good stewards of our environment," perhaps marking the discomfort that some Republicans feel about their party's positions on environmental policies.
It also embraces mainstream climate science by citing the "noticeable, negative impacts" that warming could have "in every region of the United States." It points to "longer and hotter heat waves, more severe storms, worsening flood and drought cycles, growing invasive species and insect problems, threatened native plant and wildlife populations, rising sea levels, and, when combined with a lack of proper forest management, increased wildfire risk."Pope's visit a catalyst?
Gibson's resolution comes one week before Pope Francis will address a joint session of Congress on issues including his highly publicized papal encyclical titled Laudato si'. The papal letter, released in June, made a moral case for urgent action on climate change and the environment (Greenwire, June 18).
It was lauded by environmentalists and Democrats who hoped the pontiff would help bridge the gap between people of faith -- often Republicans -- who dispute man-made climate change and a secular climate movement frustrated by partisan gridlock. Thirty-four faith groups from traditions as diverse as Catholicism, Judaism and the Quakers released a letter yesterday asking members of Congress to consider co-signing Gibson's resolution "as a statement of our shared moral authority."
"We see this resolution as a much-needed step toward creating, within Congress, bipartisan resolve for action," they wrote.
Jose Aguto of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), which signed the letter, said Gibson's text was "in line with Pope Francis' call for dialogue by all peoples to address the care of our common home."
But while the pope's effectiveness in prompting congressional action has yet to be seen, Gibson's resolution is the product of a grass-roots coalition of faith and environmental groups that has been working quietly behind the scenes for two years under the umbrella name Call to Conscience on Climate Disruption (CCCD). The coalition, which included the FCNL, Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), Environmental Defense Action Fund, and Citizens' Climate Lobby, among others, has been meeting discreetly with moderate House and Senate members of both parties in the hopes of defusing the partisan vitriol that clings to the climate issue and eventually forging policy.
After meeting with a CCCD delegation last September, Gibson agreed to spearhead the effort. Since then, both the congressman and coalition members have been searching for other moderate Republicans to join him -- a roster that has only come together in the past few months.
Some of Gibson's 10-plus original co-sponsors were compelled by religious considerations, Aguto said, while others were more concerned about economic or national security impacts.
Gibson and Fitzpatrick are retiring at the end of this Congress -- though both could seek other offices in the future. Several moderate Republicans, particularly Dold, are top Democratic targets this election cycle.
"We're hoping that this opens the door for bipartisan dialogue on solutions, moving the marker from whether we should talk about climate change to how we should talk about climate change," Aguto said.
Most legislators privately accept the science and the impacts of climate change, Aguto contends, and the group aims to meet them where they are politically rather than emphasize partisan divisions. The next goal is to help lay the groundwork for bipartisan legislation to curb emissions to move as soon as next Congress, he said.
Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.), a member of the House's Democratic Safe Climate Caucus, mixed praise for Gibson and his co-sponsors with criticism for the GOP as a whole.
"I hope that the bold leadership of these 10 Republicans and of Pope Francis in his call for environmental action can finally give the political cover for forward movement by other members of the Republican caucus who I know agree with this resolution, but are hesitant to make waves within their party or upset their fossil fuel industry campaign donors," he said in a statement.
Meanwhile, a poll released yesterday shows that the pope's words are resonating with churchgoing Catholics who may not be as receptive to other messages about climate change.
The poll by the Catholic University of America and Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies showed that Catholics who frequently attend Mass were more likely to support U.S. government actions to combat climate change after reading about the pope's encyclical (59 percent) than after receiving the message from an alternative source (50 percent).
While young Catholics are among the biggest boosters of the pope's climate message, they were the least likely to be more persuaded by his message than they were by alternative messengers. They agreed with alternative sources who argued the need to protect the environment (81 percent) slightly more than they agreed with the pope (80 percent).
The survey of 1,000 American Catholics was taken July 22-31 by the polling firm YouGov. It did not list a margin of error.

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D.C. Circuit Weighs Major Policy Questions For EPA SO2 Air Designations

Sep 16, 2015 | Inside EPA

By Stuart Parker

Appellate court judges at Sept. 16 oral arguments grappled with major policy questions that could set important precedent on how EPA makes designations for areas attaining or in nonattainment with its sulfur dioxide (SO2) ambient air standard, including the data the agency can rely on and the sources it assesses in making the findings.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit weighed those questions inTreasure State Resource Industry Association (TSRIA) v. EPA, which consolidates suits over EPA's attainment decisions for its 2010 one-hour national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) of 75 parts per billion (ppb).
Other fights over the SO2 designations process are still pending, including a 9th Circuit case in which several states are faulting a consent decree that would set a schedule the states say is too slow for classifying areas for which the agency is yet to issue a designation of either attainment or nonattainment for the SO2 standard.
Industries oppose such findings because nonattainment status requires states to impose potentially costly air pollution reduction measures on sources of SO2, which critics say discourages investment in such areas.
In the TSRIA case, Judges Thomas Griffith, Patricia Millet and Stephen Williams heard a novel claim from a Michigan steelmaker saying EPA should have also designated part or all of a neighboring county nonattainment to include a power plant that the steel producer says is partly responsible for high SO2 readings at a local school.
U.S. Steel Corp., which has a plant located in Wayne County, MI, says that EPA ignored SO2 emissions from a power plant in neighboring Monroe County when designating Wayne County nonattainment for the 2010 NAAQS.
The Monroe Power Plant contributes significantly to the nonattainment of Wayne County, and had EPA expanded the Wayne County nonattainment area to include the power plant, this might reduce the regulatory burden on U.S. Steel, attorney for the company Douglas McWilliams said at arguments.
The company asks the court to vacate EPA's nonattainment designation, which it claims is “arbitrary and capricious,” and remand the issue back to the agency for redesignation.
Legal Questions
The case is unusual because U.S. Steel seeks to overturn the Wayne County designation based not on air quality, as all parties concede that Wayne County monitoring indicates nonattainment with the 75 ppb standard.
Instead, the company wants the finding overturned based on EPA's failure to designate a larger area as nonattainment. This raises questions with respect to U.S. Steel's standing, judges said at arguments, because it is unclear whether the company can demonstrate a clear injury that can be redressed by expanding the nonattainment area.
Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney Amanda Berman for EPA said that because Wayne County is clearly in nonattainment, U.S. Steel will be subject to Clean Air Act regulatory requirements applicable to nonattainment areas regardless of the status of other areas. Berman said that DOJ sees issues of “causation” and “redressability.”
Judge Williams noted, however, that reasonably available control technology -- a level of pollution control required by the Clean Air Act -- requires that states apply controls only to the extent that their nonattainment areas attain the NAAQS. Therefore, it is possible that burden-sharing between U.S. Steel and the Monroe Power Plant with respect to emissions reductions would result in a lighter regulatory burden for the steel maker.
DOJ's Berman, however, said it is up to states to ensure that their nonattainment areas attain the NAAQS, and that regulators in Michigan could opt to require more controls on the Monroe plant.
EPA is still examining the issue of whether Monroe County should be designated nonattainment, Berman said, which the judges acknowledged also raises issues of “finality.” If EPA's determination with respect to Monroe County is not final, U.S. Steel cannot now pursue litigation over the issue, DOJ argues.
On causation, Berman contradicted data from U.S. Steel, sourced from Monroe plant owner DTE, that shows that emissions from the power plant actually affect the air quality at the school close to the steel plant. “There is no evidence in the record” to show that the utility's emissions actually cause the NAAQS violation in Wayne County, Berman said, noting an area between the plant and U.S. Steel's facility that is currently in attainment with the NAAQS. U.S. Steel claims that meterological factors carry Monroe County emissions to the Wayne County monitoring site.
Nonattainment Finding
The judges also heard a dispute filed by industry and labor interests challenging a nonattainment designation for an area in Montana. These groups claim EPA in issuing the Montana designation violated its own data quality guidelines in order to designate part of the state nonattainment,
Attorney William Mercer argued for TSRIA, an industry and labor group, that the court should vacate EPA's nonattainment designation for the Billings, MT, area, because the air monitoring data EPA relied on were old and do not comply with the agency's own standards for data quality.
Seeking to avoid the courts' traditional deference to federal agencies on technical questions within their areas of expertise, Mercer insisted that “this case is not about EPA's exercise of its technical expertise.” Rather, EPA failed to follow its own guidelines that data be of “adequate quality,” among other criteria, Mercer said.
Mercer said that in addition to problems with the quality of some of the data, EPA imposed unlawful retroactive regulation on Montana by using a data set that predates the introduction in 2010 of the 75ppb one-hour NAAQS.
Judge Griffith pressed Mercer on when TSRIA raised its full list of data quality objections, and Mercer conceded that the full list was not included in proceedings until the group filed its petition for administrative reconsideration with EPA. This is significant because DOJ's Berman said the group failed to raise its objections with sufficient specificity during the public comment period on the area designation, hence failing to meet an air law requirement for a subsequent legal challenge to proceed.
The three judges also pushed back on the notion that EPA wrongly placed the area in nonattainment retroactively because of its use of “old” data. Mercer claimed that because it has adverse regulatory consequences for an area, a nonattainment designation cannot rely on old data, but a designation of “attainment” or “unclassifiable” can.
Berman replied for DOJ that there is no issue of retroactivity, and that the timing of the NAAQS designation process laid out by the air law in fact necessitates the use of data predating an update in a NAAQS standard.
SO2 Designations
The arguments over EPA's process for defining nonattainment areas come amid an ongoing dispute over the agency's whole approach for SO2 designations under the NAAQS.
The agency has fallen years behind schedule in the designation process, largely because of an argument with certain states and industry over to what degree they should rely on air quality modeling to determine SO2 NAAQS compliance. EPA initially preferred modeling to monitoring, but then backtracked when faced with opposition.
The agency is allowing states that wish to use a redesigned air quality modeling network instead to do so, but creating the new networks is taking time. EPA is subject to a consent decree schedule agreed with environmentalists for issuance of the remaining designations that gives EPA until the end of 2020 to complete designations, far beyond the three years allowed by the air law following issuance of a new NAAQS standard.
EPA initially designated only 29 areas of the country “nonattainment,” and will wait to designate many more, but in ongoing legal proceedings a group of states say this remains unlawful and the agency must designate remaining areas either “attainment” or “unclassifiable” without further delay.
Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, Nevada, North Dakota and Texas are appealing the consent decree in the 9th Circuit, saying EPA is still violating the Clean Air Act by failing to designate most of the country within the three years.
In an Aug. 10 brief, these states say that, “The Consent Decree requires EPA to act in excess of its statutory authority, enacts new regulation of the designation process, imposes extra-statutory obligations on the Appellant States who were not a party to the decree, and is the product of an improper application of law.”
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming are also amici in the case.
Response briefs are due from EPA and environmentalists Oct. 13.

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Outdoor Air Pollution Kills 3 Million Globally, Study Says

Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Alex Nussbaum

Outdoor air pollution contributed to 3.3 million deaths worldwide in 2010, with wood-burning stoves in China and India and ammonia-belching farms in the West among the biggest culprits, according to a new study.
And if nothing is done, the annual toll from dirty air may double to 6.6 million premature deaths by 2050, with the biggest rise coming in Asia, researchers said Sept. 16 in the journal Nature. The study used new atmospheric models and emissions data to offer a more comprehensive view of pollution sources and how the effects vary across the globe.
“If the projected increase in mortality attributable to air pollution is to be avoided, intensive air quality control measures will be needed, particularly in South and East Asia,” wrote the researchers, led by Jos Lelieveld of Germany's Max Plank Institute for Chemistry.
About a third of the deaths were caused by pollution from burning wood, diesel and other sooty fuels at homes and businesses, predominantly in Asia, according to the study. Agricultural operations were the second-biggest cause and a major pollution source in the eastern U.S., Europe, Russia and Japan, accounting for a fifth of deaths. More than 70 percent of the deaths were in Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific, the scientists said.
Ammonia from fertilizers and animals drifts into cities and is a key ingredient in producing ozone and microscopic pollutants known as fine particulates that damage the heart and lungs, Lelieveld said in an conference call with reporters.
Emissions from power plants, factories, vehicles and burning biomass accounted for almost a third of the deaths, the researchers found.
The impact of agriculture was “quite surprising” and shows how pollution needs to be viewed as a regional problem, Lelieveld said. “Much of the agricultural emissions that are being inhaled in a city like London are actually originating from outside the city.”

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UN: Carbon Pledges One-Third of What's Needed

Sep 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Dean Scott

Carbon emissions cuts now on the table ahead of the end-of-year Paris climate summit provide only about one-third of what would be needed to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius in the decades ahead, the top UN climate official said Sept. 16.
Pledges from some 60 parties—including top emitters such as the U.S., the European Union and China—will trim a total of 5 gigatons “from where we would have been without them” by 2030, a “marked improvement” from a business-as-usual trajectory without any action, said Christiana Figueres, who oversees the talks as executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
“But we have to be very clear that if we want to be on a 2-degree pathway by 2030, we would have to reduce [emissions] 15 gigatons,” Figueres said on a press call held by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The UN is to report on the aggregate impact of all pledged reductions on the table in an October report ahead of the Oct. 19-23 climate talks in Bonn, Germany, where negotiators hope to ready the text for two final weeks of high-level talks in Paris that begin Nov. 30.
The pledges thus far from developed and developing nations amount to “movement in the right direction,” Figueres said. “But it does not get us to the 2-degree pathway.”
To address the shortfall, the Paris accord could include provisions allowing nations to ratchet down their emissions further in future years without reopening the entire agreement, Figueres said.
Movement in the Right Direction?
The U.S. and China jointly unveiled their pledges in November 2014, with China vowing to peak its carbon emissions by 2030 if not sooner. The U.S. vowed to cut its emissions from 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025 from 2005 levels (62 DEN A-15, 4/1/15).
Both offers were meant to spur momentum toward getting a global climate deal signed in Paris.
There are still pledges to come from many developing nations responsible for significant emissions, notably India, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia.
Keeping global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels has been a goal for the climate negotiations dating to the 2009 Copenhagen summit. Negotiators hope to include that and perhaps some sort of long-term energy-related goal “decoupling” economic growth from carbon emissions—aspiring to net zero emissions by 2050, for example, or calling for a “near” or “complete” phaseout of fossil fuels by mid-century—when the Paris negotiations conclude in December (170 DEN A-5, 9/2/15)).
Pledges Would Lead to Decoupling
The pledges now on the table would “lead us to decoupling over time but not overnight,” Figueres said. But negotiators “will be putting in place in Paris a long-term effort to increase both national and global effort over time until we are on the 2-degree pathway,” Figueres added.
Without massive global action to cut emissions, climate scientists say, temperatures are projected to soar past the 2-degree C limit in about three decades.

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Transportation News

Panel Urges More Time on Train Safety Technology

Sep 16, 2015 | The New York Times

By Ron Nixon

Congress should extend the deadline for freight and passenger railroads to install technology that could prevent deadly train accidents like the Amtrak derailment in May that killed eight people and injured more than 200, according to a report released on Wednesday.
Congress set a deadline of Dec. 31 for freight and commuter rail companies to install the technology, which is known as positive train control, after a California passenger train accident in 2008 killed 25 people. But the new report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, found that the vast majority of railroads would not meet that deadline.
Amtrak has said it will be able to install and activate the safety systems in the busy Northeast Corridor — which extends from Washington to Boston — by that date, but the new report says that is not the case because parts of that line are owned and operated by different entities.
The report said that several problems had contributed to delays installing the system, including that the technology is new and that there are a limited number of suppliers. The report said the government had also contributed to delays. For example, railroads had to stop construction along tracks on radio poles — which make the GPS technology work — because they had not gone through an environmental evaluation process.
The report also found that the Federal Railroad Administration had not provided adequate oversight; it took the agency seven months to review the first safety plan it received from a railroad.
Matthew Lehner, a spokesman for the railroad administration, said the agency had already addressed many of the issues raised in the new report, including adding more staff and creating an internal task force to collect data from the railroads on their implementation of the positive train control technology.
Railroads across the country that have not installed and activated the necessary equipment could face federal fines and other mandates if they continue operating without it past Dec. 31, according to the railroad administration. Some railroads said they would not haul crude oil or hazardous chemicals after the deadline because of the potential liability.
“Railroads are beginning to notify their customers of the possibility of an impending rail shutdown as they, too, have to prepare for such a worst-case scenario,” said Edward R. Hamberger, president and chief executive of the Association of American Railroads, an industry trade group. “If lawmakers want to avert a massive disruption of passenger and freight transport this fall, which will inflict significant hardships on businesses and passengers alike, it must take action now to extend the deadline.”
The Government Accountability Office report bolsters assertions by some lawmakers that an extension is needed. A Senate bill that was passed in July would push the deadline to 2018. The bill would add money to the Department of Transportation’s budget to help the industry with installation of the technology because the equipment is expensive and time-consuming to install across thousands of miles of track.
“Passenger and freight railroads need time beyond the current deadline to finish implementation of a complex system that relies on new technology,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. “Failure to extend this legal deadline would create significant hardships for customers and passengers who rely on railroads.”
But advocates of greater safety measures for trains and many lawmakers from the Northeast, who oppose extending the deadline to install the train safety technology, said that the railroads had been under orders to upgrade their safety systems for years and should have been able to meet the 2015 deadline. The National Transportation Safety Board said that about 30 rail accidents it has investigated since 2004 could have been prevented if the technology had been installed on locomotives.
The new report echoes findings by the Federal Railroad Administration. Areport by the agency last month said that just 29 percent of commuter railroads were expected to complete installation of the safety equipment by the end of 2015. Full implementation of the technology for all commuter lines was projected to be completed by 2020, five years after the deadline, according to the railroad administration.

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Lawmakers Struggle with Deadline for New Safety Systems

Sep 17, 2015 | E&E Daily

By Sean Reilly

Almost seven years ago, in the wake of a bloody train crash, Congress overwhelmingly gave final approval to legislation ordering railroads to implement costly, automated safety systems by this December.
With that deadline now barely three months away, many carriers are far from meeting it. What to do next has abruptly emerged as one more autumn conundrum for lawmakers and the White House.
The bulk of freight and commuter railroads are one to five years away from meeting the timetable for implementation of "PTC," or positive train control, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report released yesterday. While a Senate-passed bill would grant a three-year extension, the Obama administration wants to handle requests for more time on a case-by-case basis. The House has yet to decide on a legislative course.
Without an extension, however, some freight railroads are warning that they will no longer let trains carrying passengers or "toxic-by-inhalation" commodities like chlorine on their tracks for fear of the potential liability. Halting shipments of those chemicals "could have a negative ripple effect throughout many aspects of the economy," 20 companies and trade groups said in a letter to lawmakers earlier this summer. Amtrak, which relies heavily on routes controlled by freight carriers, is evaluating its options, a spokeswoman said in a statement.
As the deadline meanwhile draws near, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) should ramp up oversight of railroads that fail to comply, the report said. Among other steps, the agency should:Develop an enforcement strategy.Report to Congress on the status of individual railroads' progress.Identify resources needed to support implementation.
On that last point, 21 of 29 railroads surveyed by GAO "raised concerns" about the railroad administration's ability to oversee implementation. The agency currently has only 13 employees to provide technical support to railroads; although other staff and contract workers may be tapped to help review railroad safety plans, those documents can span more than 5,000 pages, according to the report, and the agency needed seven months to review the first one it received.
In a written response appended to the report, Jeff Marootian, the Transportation Department's assistant secretary for administration, said that FRA is committed to enforcing the existing deadline with everything from fines to compliance agreements. The agency is also continually reviewing workforce needs to ensure the "timely implementation" of positive train control, Marootian said.
In a joint statement, key lawmakers involved in requesting the GAO review were quick to call for a blanket extension. "Passenger and freight railroads need time beyond the current deadline to finish implementation of a complex system that relies on new technology," said Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.).
Extending the deadline "is essential to preventing significant disruptions of both passenger and freight rail service across the country," added House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.).
But the report's findings implicitly question whether the three-year extension approved by the Senate in H.R. 22 would give all railroads enough time, while House leaders have yet to decide on how to proceed. The issue is certain to surface at a Commerce Committee hearing this morning on acting FRA Administrator Sarah Feinberg's bid to get the job on a Senate-confirmed basis (E&E Daily, Sept. 15).
Taking a harder line with the industry was Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a Commerce Committee member who has opposed legislation giving railroads a blanket delay. Any extension "must be granted based on need and upon proof that all efforts are being made to install PTC technology as quickly as possible," Blumenthal said in a statement. "I'm eager to ensure we find a solution to this issue, but economic disruption and open-ended extensions aren't the answer." While the committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, voted for H.R. 22, he would prefer that railroads take fewer than three years to get PTC "installed and running," a spokesman said.
PTC is an umbrella term for an approach that uses a central dispatch office and wireless signals to stay in touch with a locomotive's computer and thus serve as an automated safety backup to the engineer.
It has long been expected that most railroads won't meet the current deadline, set in a 2008 law signed barely a month after a Los Angeles-area crash between a commuter train and freight train killed 25 people. By any measure, PTC implementation has been an enormous undertaking, described by some experts as the biggest change to hit the industry since the shift from steam to diesel locomotives, according to an earlier GAO report. For the largest freight railroads, implementation will cost more than $9 billion, according to an industry estimate. Commuter railroads will spend more than $3.5 billion, the American Public Transportation Association has projected.

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