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(ACC Mentioned) The Toxic Spin
Sep 18, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Linda Reinstein
In a September 16 article in The Hill, Groups push for Senate vote on chemical safety, writer Lydia Wheeler reported that "Environment, health and consumer groups are pushing Senate leaders to hold a vote on bipartisan legislation that would reform chemical safety laws." -
US EPA Issues Snur for HBCD
Sep 18, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has issued a final rule, designating as a significant new use, the utilisation in consumer textiles of hexabromocyclododecane or 1,2,5,6,9,10-hexabromocyclododecane, collectively referred to as HBCD. -
First PFOA Lawsuit Against DuPont, Chemours Goes To Trial
Sep 18, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
The first of six personal injury cases that could determine the liability ofDuPont and its successor Chemours for contaminated drinking water got under way last week in a Columbus, Ohio, federal court. -
Utilities Must Give Vendors a Cybersecurity Ultimatum -- Executives
Sep 18, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Peter Behr
A press release was a cybersecurity wake-up call for Michael Meason, manager of technical services for the Western Farmers Electric Cooperative in Anadarko, Okla. -
Half of U.S. Counties Wouldn't Hit Tighter Ozone Standard -- API
Sep 18, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Ariel Wittenberg
Almost half the counties in the United States wouldn't meet tighter ozone standards U.S. EPA has proposed, according to a new analysis from the American Petroleum Institute. -
Advanced Biofuel Groups Target EPA RFS 'Loophole' And Its GHG Impacts
Sep 18, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Doug Obey
A coalition of renewable fuel groups is arguing that EPA's proposed decision to scale back renewable fuel blend mandates in its recent renewable fuel standard (RFS) proposal represents a first of a kind decision by the agency to permit an air act “loophole” that undercuts both the RFS law and efforts to limit greenhouse gases. -
Minorities Exposed to More Pollution Hazards -- Study
Sep 18, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
African-Americans and Hispanics get more exposure to air pollution and toxic waste and suffer from a lack of green space and other health risks, according to a new study. -
Popular Pope Comes with a Climate Change Message that Congress May Not Want to Hear
Sep 18, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Malavika Vyawahare
Pope Francis, the 266th pope and the leader of more than 1 billion Catholics across the world, will begin a six-day visit to the United States on Tuesday, which will include a historic address to Congress, the first time in the history of the country that a pope will address lawmakers.
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(ACC Mentioned) The Toxic Spin
Sep 18, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Linda Reinstein
In a September 16 article in The Hill, Groups push for Senate vote on chemical safety, writer Lydia Wheeler reported that "Environment, health and consumer groups are pushing Senate leaders to hold a vote on bipartisan legislation that would reform chemical safety laws."
Just think what it was like in 1976 when the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976 was signed into law. We saw Apple computers, VHS cassettes, and wore bellbottoms! Whew, lots have changed in our world, but little with the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976.
TSCA provides the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the authority to require reporting, record-keeping and testing requirements and restrictions related to chemical substances and/or mixtures. While the EPA recognizes asbestos as a known human carcinogen and established regulations to reduce or eliminate asbestos exposure, their asbestos ban efforts failed in 1991. Left with the deadly legacy of asbestos, up to 15,000 Americans die every year from preventable asbestos-caused diseases – but there’s more.
On Wednesday, Fred Krupp, executive director of the Environmental Defense Action Fund, March of Dimes, the National Wildlife Federation, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, The Humane Society of the United States, and Moms Clean Air Force held a conference call with reporters to lobby for The Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, S.697. However, there were 450 organizations opposed to S. 697 that weren’t heard.
Validated by Jim Jones, assistant administrator of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention of the EPA, "More than three and a half decades since the passage of TSCA, the EPA has only been able to require testing on just a little more than 200 of the 84,000 chemicals listed on the TSCA inventory.”
For more than 100 years, we have known that asbestos exposure leads to horrific diseases, yet it remains legal and lethal today and imports continue. More than 31 million metric tons of asbestos have been used in buildings and consumer products, remaining an environmental threat.
The Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factor Study of 2013 (GBD 2013) study found occupational asbestos exposure to be responsible for 194,000 deaths in 2013 which is an increase of nearly 90,000 asbestos-related deaths.
Americans demand and deserve legislation written by the people for the people – not by industry profiteers like the American Chemistry Council (ACC). As written, S. 697 weakens the failed 1976 TSCA and doesn’t ensure the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can expeditiously ban asbestos and other deadly chemicals. Experts estimate it would take the EPA more than a century to test the most hazardous 1,000 chemicals that have been grandfathered into commerce.
Most Americans can’t identify asbestos or manage the risk. As our children return to school, we are yet again reminded about toxins on consumer shelves, in our homes, schools, and workplaces.
Without training and testing, it is nearly impossible to manage the risk during repairs, renovations, and hazardous debris removal after disasters. Our inability to identify and manage the risk of asbestos perpetuates this deadly threat into the lives of future generations.
The collateral damage from the man-made asbestos disaster is expensive in dollars and lives.
Residents from the quaint and charming town of Libby, Montana have paid a dear price for W.R. Grace and Company's greed and the weak TSCA law. Although the federal government has spent over $550 million dollars cleaning up the man-made disaster, asbestos occupational and environmental exposure still sickens and claims lives decades after the mine was closed.
In May of 2010, the United States President's Cancer Panel (PCP) reported, "Construction workers were found to be 11 times more likely to develop mesothelioma, due to asbestos exposures at the site."
The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recently reported, "The population of firefighters in the study had a rate of mesothelioma two times greater than the rate in the U.S. population as a whole."
I watched my husband die a slow and painful death by a 1,000 cuts for preventable mesothelioma, caused from asbestos.
As Acting U.S. Surgeon General Boris Lushniak stated: "The asbestos issue is not a thing of the past. It continues to this day." As a mesothelioma widow, I remind Congress, for every life lost from an asbestos-caused disease, a shattered family is left behind.
Congress must work together on behalf of those silenced by asbestos and other toxins. The time is now to reform TSCA and ensure the EPA can and will expeditiously ban asbestos and other deadly chemicals.
Reinstein is president and CEO of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO).
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Sep 18, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA has issued a final rule, designating as a significant new use, the utilisation in consumer textiles of hexabromocyclododecane or 1,2,5,6,9,10-hexabromocyclododecane, collectively referred to as HBCD.
However, the significant new use rule (Snur), which was proposed in 2012 (CW 26 March 2012), does not apply to its use in motor vehicles.
And the agency says the only current use of HBCD for consumer textiles is in motor vehicles.
“That use and other current uses of HBCD (for example in non-consumer textiles and in building insulation) are not covered by this rule, not because EPA has determined that these uses are not 'significant,' but because they are ongoing and thus not new uses,” it says.
The Snur makes inapplicable the exemption given to importers and processors of HBCD as part of an article subject to the rule, such as part of a bolt of cloth or an upholstered chair. It requires persons who intend to manufacture HBCD for use in consumer textiles to notify the EPA at least 90 days before starting that activity.
“The required notification will provide EPA with the opportunity to evaluate the intended use and, if appropriate, to prohibit or limit that activity before it occurs.”
The major use of HBCD is in polystyrene foam insulation boards used in construction. “Information available to EPA indicates that the use of HBCD in textiles is as a coating to function as a flame retardant,” the agency says.
HBCD has been listed as a prohibited substance under the Stockholm Convention and has also been withdrawn in the EU under REACH (GBB December2014/January 2015). But the US has not signed on to the treaty.
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First PFOA Lawsuit Against DuPont, Chemours Goes To Trial
Sep 18, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
The first of six personal injury cases that could determine the liability ofDuPont and its successor Chemours for contaminated drinking water got under way last week in a Columbus, Ohio, federal court.
About 3,500 cases are now pending against the two firms in a class-action suit that contends DuPont’s release of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) into drinking water near its Parkersburg, W.Va., plant caused residents nearby to become ill. For decades DuPont used PFOA as a surfactant to make Teflon and other fluoropolymers. PFOA has been phased out since 2006.
The other cases are on hold while the six bellwether suits—which could point the way for plaintiffs and defendants in the future—get under way. The cases name DuPont, but since the firm spun off its performance chemicals businesses, including fluoropolymers, as Chemours in July, Chemours is responsible for lawsuit costs.
In the first case, lawyers for 59-year-old Carla Bartlett, who lived near the Parkersburg plant, say exposure to PFOA caused her kidney cancer. The suit also alleges that DuPont exposed Bartlett and others to PFOA despite knowing the harm it could cause.
“We believe the plaintiff’s exposure to PFOA was insufficient to cause health problems,” a DuPont official responds. A Chemours spokesman adds that lifestyle choices and other causes of health issues will have to be weighed for Bartlett and those in the other pending cases. “Litigation of this type typically takes place over many years,” he notes.
An earlier suit started in 2001. In 2005, DuPont agreed to a $108 million settlement that included money to help utilities remove PFOA from drinking water. But the settlement didn’t prevent personal injury suits, should a connection be found between PFOA and disease.
In 2012, an independent science panel funded by DuPont found probable links between PFOA exposure and disease including kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, and high cholesterol.
“Whether the trials will bring justice and resolution for the plaintiffs is problematic,” says Patrick McGinley, a professor at West Virginia University College of Law. “Realistically, it boils down to how much it would cost to proceed to trial for both sides and how much to settle.”
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Utilities Must Give Vendors a Cybersecurity Ultimatum -- Executives
Sep 18, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Peter Behr
A press release was a cybersecurity wake-up call for Michael Meason, manager of technical services for the Western Farmers Electric Cooperative in Anadarko, Okla.
In it, an engineering firm bragged of its fine work involving one of Western's grid transformers.
"In this press release, they literally gave everything away," Meason told a conference on the cyber risks that utilities' vendors and service firms can create. The release disclosed the kind of transformer, its exact location, and the critical oil and gas facilities it supported.
Meason marched up to the company's legal team, demanding to know, "What's going on here? Who's approving this stuff?" It became a moment, he said, when he realized that Western had to pay even more attention to its contracts with supply chain vendors.
The security of supply chain vendors moved front and center for the power grid industry last year with the revelation that sophisticated cyberattackers had infiltrated hidden reconnaissance software into industrial control systems by infecting vendors' software upgrades.
"We're losing control of our supply chain," said Scott Goodhart, vice president for global business services for AES Corp., an electric power company based in Arlington, Va. Traditionally, the electric power companies have run closed, proprietary systems. "With grid modernization, we're moving that functionality out further, giving different companies access," Goodhart told industry colleagues at a conference on supply chain risk held by the Utilities Telecom Council.
Smart meters, remote sensors and cloud-based customer applications expand the risk, he added. "It gets worse," he said. "Some way to address that has to happen."
Other utility executives at the session agreed that it is time to read the riot act about cybersecurity threats to their crucial hardware and software suppliers.
"We started with vendor shaming," Meason quipped. "That didn't work."
Speaking at the UTC conference, Robert McClanahan, vice president and chief information officer of the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas, said the message must be, "Unless you take your part of this responsibly, we will not do business with you. It's really going to take that.
"We will weed out the ones who want to play from those who don't," he said.
Goodhart said, "It's only going to get more complicated. We're buying more and more services, and that is a different animal than buying assets," particularly major plant components. Software services are constantly undergoing upgrades and patching.
Another risk is the constant, online monitoring that some equipment suppliers such as turbine vendors perform after their units are installed, to watch for wear and maintenance issues, Goodhart said. "There is monitoring going on that I can't see," he said.
"We have to work with the suppliers to push them. They are not doing enough," he said. They are busy rolling out products they want to sell. "They aren't considering security," he said.
Goodhart said that AES asks vendors to fill out a cybersecurity questionnaire, and its security staff has worked with its lawyers to include cybersecurity language in contracts it signs with vendors. "Their lawyers will wrestle with some of that. Then you can have follow-up discussions. It's a start to tell them to make the statement that they have followed accepted practices," he said.
He told the conference, "Keep your foot on the accelerator. Don't let them off the hook. We have to all work together and push them to where they need to go."Spelling out standards
Regulatory requirements imposed by the North American Electric Reliability Corp.'s Critical Infrastructure Protection Committee (CIPC) Version 5 standards are putting pressure on utilities to pay closer attention to vendor and suppliers, McClanahan said. "In order to meet requirements of [CIPC], we have to have a much deeper understanding of the systems we buy from third parties.
"We started recognizing that in future procurements, that we're going to have to spell out very clearly what we need, what we expect from the vendor, and we're going to have to hold them to that in the contractual arena," he added.
Traditionally, the company did not look over its vendors' shoulders on cybersecurity issues, Goodhart said. "We're changing that. "We're going to actually go out and check their controls." It's a matter of trust, but verify, he added. "I'm sure they are honest," he said. "I'm just not going to take them at their word."
Deana Elizondo, manager of cybersecurity awareness at American Electric Power Co. Inc., the Columbus, Ohio-based power company, said her group got a lot of pushback when it started to push security language into vendor contracts.
Today, it sends vendors a 15-page security supplement and tracks vendor responses and performance through a comprehensive enterprise management database.
"Even though it has been a very difficult road, we've actually had some of our vice presidents who have made the decision they're not going to go with a particular vendor because they don't want to sign the cybersecurity supplement, or they don't want to let us come out and do an on-site assessment," Elizondo said.
"If we thought a particular vendor is now a high risk, we'll suggest that we go out" for an on-site look, she said. "If they don't let us do that and we feel like it's a very risky vendor, we'll go back to the business vice president and say, 'Here are all of our concerns. Here is why we think they are high risk. How important is this particular product or vendor to you?'
"We've actually had very good luck in having some of our VPs say, 'I'm not willing to accept that risk for the company. We'll pick somebody else,'" she said.
Meason said, simply, "Wow."
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Half of U.S. Counties Wouldn't Hit Tighter Ozone Standard -- API
Sep 18, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Ariel Wittenberg
Almost half the counties in the United States wouldn't meet tighter ozone standards U.S. EPA has proposed, according to a new analysis from the American Petroleum Institute.
EPA is considering reducing the national ozone standard from 75 parts per billion to between 65 and 70 ppb by 2025. The White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing the final rule, which is due out by the end of this month.
API analyzed ozone levels in each U.S. county and found 217 counties in the country are in nonattainment under the current 75 ppb standard. That number jumps to 958 counties as the standard drops to 70 ppb and hits 1,433 counties if the standard is set at 68 ppb, according to API. There are 3,007 counties in the United States.
"It is not a linear impact," API Senior Director of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs Howard Feldman said during a conference call this morning. "Its impacts become exponentially greater, with smaller and smaller towns being impacted in many more counties across the nation."
A tighter standard "will impact businesses, impose costs as states will have to develop implementation plans that haven't before," Feldman said. "We are talking about affecting regions that don't have experience with this -- not just the same areas that deal with it now in California, Texas and the Northeast corridor."
Feldman criticized EPA for considering setting levels "at below our peak background levels measured at Yellowstone" National Park.
"We are talking about the type of levels we see at very, very pristine locations in the U.S.," he said. "These are the levels we are talking about at national parks."
Other opponents to tighter ozone standards have underscored the change's potential impact on national parks (Greenwire, Aug. 5). Advocacy groups have disputed the claim that air at national parks is pristine, with reports finding air quality in national parks is degraded due to haze, among other things (Greenwire, July 28).
API is scheduled to meet next week with officials at OMB to present its analysis to the Obama administration in hopes that EPA will maintain the current ozone standard.
"All they are required to do is review the standard, they are not required to change it," he said.
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Advanced Biofuel Groups Target EPA RFS 'Loophole' And Its GHG Impacts
Sep 18, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Doug Obey
A coalition of renewable fuel groups is arguing that EPA's proposed decision to scale back renewable fuel blend mandates in its recent renewable fuel standard (RFS) proposal represents a first of a kind decision by the agency to permit an air act “loophole” that undercuts both the RFS law and efforts to limit greenhouse gases.
The coalition in a Sept. 16 letter to the White House amplifies ongoing arguments from the sector that EPA's rule improperly limits proposed RFS volumes based on demand concerns rather than constraints on the supply of renewable fuels -- an argument that could figure in future lawsuits if the administration does not change course.
“This issue has not been litigated to our knowledge, but redefining supply to mean demand seems like a difficult thing to defend,” says one renewable fuel industry source. The source cites EPA's 2010 RFS rulemaking, which cited the availability of renewable fuel as a crucial main factor in driving EPA's willingness to waive RFS requirements, as evidence of a “major shift” in policy at EPA.
“Our industry is . . . dealing with the reality that on May 29 that your administration proposed to insert a loophole into the RFS -- a Clean Air Act program that is the most aggressive U.S. climate policy enforced today -- that would allow oil companies to avoid their obligations under the law,” says the letter, which was signed by officials from roughly two dozen companies, including Abengoa, POET and Novozymes.
The letter also seeks to raise the political costs of EPA's proposed rule by branding it as a measure that would “gut the core concept” behind the RFS and also suggesting the policy runs counter to administration efforts to demonstrate a commitment to GHG cuts prior to Paris climate talks later this year.
EPA has also raised the ire of many in the renewable fuels sector by recognizing concerns over the “blend wall” -- the maximum amount of ethanol that RFS critics say can be blended into the motor fuel supply without damaging vehicles and other fueling infrastructure -- when setting blend mandates.
Oil industry and other RFS critics say the blend wall is a major barrier to boosting renewable fuels in the fuel supply due to concerns over corrosiveness of high level ethanol blends. But renewable fuel backers say the concerns over the blend wall are exaggerated in order to divert attention from a lack of investment by the oil industry in alternative fueling infrastructure.
Seeking to tamp down the industry criticisms, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy Sept. 16 urged renewable fuel industry officials to put aside their differences with the agency. “I understand different folks have different perspectives on our proposed numbers, but our goal is to grow the market for renewable fuels. Rather than focus on where we disagree, we need to find common ground and focus on how to get to the levels set by Congress,” she said.
Proposed Rule
The RFS generally requires refiners to blend increasing volumes of renewable fuels into the fuel supply, according to step increases mandated by Congress in part to promote the uptake of fuels with lower GHG emissions than gasoline.
Specific volume requirements are established for advanced and cellulosic renewable fuels -- which have lower GHG emissions than corn-based ethanol -- but the bulk of the overarching renewable fuel requirement is met through corn ethanol. And EPA also sets targets for biomass-based diesel.
EPA sets annual volumes requirements that can be lower than the statutory levels if the agency invokes its RFS waiver authority. The agency has historically set volumes lower than the congressional requirements for certain categories of biofuels where production has fallen short of expectations.
Prompted by oil industry litigation, EPA now faces a court-ordered Nov. 30 deadline to finalize its proposed rule setting fuel volumes for 2014, 2015 and 2016, after the agency fell years behind schedule in setting annual volumes requirements and is now attempting to catch up.
In its proposed rule, issued May 29, EPA frames its decision to issue its proposed RFS volumes as a balancing act between the statute's goal of boosting renewable fuels in the marketplace and several “real world barriers,” including slower-than-expected growth in gasoline use over the past decade, slower-than-expected cellulosic industry growth, and “constraints supplying certain biofuels to consumers.”
The agency states it proposal drives renewable fuels requirements higher than would otherwise occur in the market -- consistent with congressional intent that challenges like the blend wall not prevent renewable fuels growth. But EPA in its rule text recognizes the blend wall in several parts of the rule, including a reference to real world “constraints on supply to vehicles and engines” of renewable fuels.
The agency also acknowledges that in contrast to prior rulemakings where it focused “primarily” on availability of advanced fuels as a constraint limiting increases in required RFS volumes, the agency is now more concerned about the “infrastructure available for distributing, blending, and dispensing” renewable fuels -- as well as the capability of vehicles in the fleet to consume the fuels.
The agency also references authority under section 211(o) of the Clean Air Act to scale back RFS volumes in case of inadequate domestic supply, but also if not doing so would result in significant harms to the economy or environment.
While EPA has said its RFS proposal would boost required renewable fuels above what would otherwise occur in the marketplace, it proposes volumes lower than originally envisioned in the 2007 energy law.
Distribution Waiver
The renewable fuels industry is arguing in broad terms that the RFS proposal would improperly set the required volumes below both statutory requirements and prior EPA precedents, despite the statutory goal of progressively ramping up use of renewable fuels in the transport sector.
The industry is also advancing the claim that EPA is improperly relying on its authority to waive RFS targets in the event of supply constraints to instead reduce RFS targets due to concerns such as distribution challenges and fuel demand.
“[F]or the first time, EPA is proposing to change the rules in the middle of the game to allow challenges related to the distribution of renewable fuel by oil companies -- i.e. the oil industry's refusal to buy and distribute low carbon, renewable fuel and its willingness to block brand licensed gasoline retailers from selling higher renewable content blends under their branded canopy -- to be cause for waiving the RFS on a year-to-year basis.”
The companies stop just short of explicitly calling the move illegal but say “such a provision would gut the core concept behind the law,” meant to counter to efforts by oil industry to restrict market access by competitors.
The companies at several points also reference the RFS as a contribution to addressing GHGs, including a comparison between the renewable fuel credits in the RFS program and the market-based trading that is the “most likely” route to complying with EPA's GHG rule for existing power plants.
“In essence, the policy rewards actors who do their part to meet the policy's objective, and ensures that no one gets a free pass. . . . But EPA's decision to change its waiver methodology, under pressure from the oil industry, upends the system and sends the market signal that the RFS finds can be lowered if the oil industry simple drags its heels.”
And the renewable fuel companies argue that the Congress in 2005 considered -- and rebuffed -- proposals from Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and “other oil industry champions” for allowing waivers from RFS targets based on distribution-related concerns.
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Minorities Exposed to More Pollution Hazards -- Study
Sep 18, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
African-Americans and Hispanics get more exposure to air pollution and toxic waste and suffer from a lack of green space and other health risks, according to a new study.
The collaborative study from the University of California, Berkeley, and the California EPA used an online tool to map environmental health risks. It was published in the American Journal of Public Health.
"The findings indicate that people of color -- especially African American and Latino Californians -- are much more likely than white Californians to be exposed to both environmental and social stressors that impact health," lead author Lara Cushing, a doctoral student at UC Berkeley, said in a statement. "People can't use this environmental justice screening tool to calculate the probability that they will develop cancer or asthma, but it can and should be used by state regulators and others to focus their efforts to benefit disproportionately impacted communities."
The tool considered 11 risks, from ozone and pesticides to exposure to particle pollution and proximity to toxic waste sites. Combined with socio-economic factors, these risks were turned into a numerical score.
Researchers found that the scores were higher in areas with more African-Americans and Hispanics.
"What's unique about this study is that we are looking at multiple hazards at once and including factors that make populations more vulnerable to the effects of pollution, such as age and disease status," Cushing said. "Still, it is surprising to see such a consistent and stark disparity by race when it comes to the burden of environmental health hazards. It was a bigger factor than income" (Brooks Hays, United Press International, Sept. 17). -- BTP
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Popular Pope Comes with a Climate Change Message that Congress May Not Want to Hear
Sep 18, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Malavika Vyawahare
Pope Francis, the 266th pope and the leader of more than 1 billion Catholics across the world, will begin a six-day visit to the United States on Tuesday, which will include a historic address to Congress, the first time in the history of the country that a pope will address lawmakers.
His visit to the world's most powerful nation is likely to be a time of reckoning. Francis in his papacy has displayed a keenness to engage with the most important issues of the day, from immigration to climate change, and his visit will be closely watched in the United States and around the world.
"The pope is coming as a pastor to the American Catholic Church. He is also coming as a prophet," Thomas Reese, a priest and commentator for National Catholic Reporter, noted at a recent conference. "What a prophet does is comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
While no one, not the leaders of the American Catholic Church nor the White House, is certain exactly what the pope will have to say, his itinerary is testament to his intention of doing exactly that. During his U.S. trip, the pope will have the ears of the powerful -- be they members of Congress at the joint session Wednesday or world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, which he will address Thursday. "He comes to speak truth to power" is how one commentator described Francis' mission. His next stop after the unprecedented Congress joint session: a meeting with the homeless. Also on the agenda of the Argentinian pope, himself a son of migrants, is meeting with migrant families in the United States.
While Catholic leaders are going out of their way to emphasize that the pope is not coming to the United States as a politician, as a world leader he could not have chosen a more opportune time to visit. "The most important thing he is doing here is opening the General Assembly session on Sustainable Development Goals, one of the largest gatherings of world leaders," said Anthony Annett, an climate change and sustainable development adviser at Columbia University's Earth Institute. The pope's U.N. address also comes as countries prepare for a landmark U.N. summit in Paris, where a new climate deal will be negotiated.
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John Gehring, author of "The Francis Effect," pointed to the pope's decision to release an encyclical, one of the most authoritative forms of church teaching, centered on integral ecology and the need for environmental stewardship ahead of the climate negotiations as a sign that he wanted to steer the debate. One of the most notable features of the encyclical for environment activists was the pope's reference to a scientific consensus on the "disturbing warming of the climatic system" and his call for urgent action to combat it.
Experts say that he has already expanded the contours of the debate on climate change by recasting it as a powerful moral concern in the encyclical. While Republicans tried to downplay its impact at the time of its release -- for instance, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush, a Catholic convert, suggested that he did not take advice on economic policy from the church -- even the staunchest climate deniers have seemed unwilling to take on the pope on the issue. It is expected that the pope will double down on this message while speaking in the United States, which is not only the largest economy in the world but also one of the world's biggest carbon emitters.
And it is not just his message but his characteristic way of framing it in simple yet startling terms that has captured the hearts and minds of Catholics globally and even attracted admirers from other denominations. "His humility and simplicity" is an important part of his appeal, Annett said. Featuring the pope on its cover, Time magazine in 2013 described Francis as "The People's Pope." He is especially beloved among Latino Catholics, who are emerging as the face of the Catholic Church in the United States and have growing political clout.Obama wants the visit to have 'lasting value'
"He is the most compelling moral leader in the world, a spiritual troublemaker and a newsmaker," Gehring said, "relentlessly focused on making it a church for the poor." While reaching out to the poor and being a voice for the excluded has been an abiding theme of his papacy, it is his recent stand on climate change and trenchant critique of misguided development and environmental degradation that have drawn much attention in the media.
Politically correct: The manager of a state-owned store in Cuba has posters of Fidel Castro (left) and Che Guevara (middle) and has just added Pope Francis (right) for his arrival there tomorrow.Photo by Ramon Espinosa, courtesy of AP Images.
While politicians would be envious of his approval ratings, the pope is likely to leave many of them in an unenviable position when he addresses Congress next week. Even though almost 30 percent of the members of the current Congress are self-identified Catholics, according to a Pew Research Center survey, most Catholic Republicans would struggle to find common ground with their religious leader about the role of humans in climate change.
While most political observers expect U.S. lawmakers to be on their best behavior Wednesday, not everybody is ruling out some political theater. "When he comes in there and says, 'Welcome the immigrant, care for the poor, protect the environment,' the Democrats are going to go crazy, jumping up and down applauding," Reese said, not without some amusement.
Outside the corridors of power, there are strong indications that the pope enjoys a unique position as a messenger on climate change issues. Conservative Catholics who attend Mass regularly respond more favorably to the pope's message on climate change than to the same message from secular experts, a recent survey by YouGov, a digital market research firm, reported. He is also in the best position to get through to Republican voters, the survey found.
The White House in a press briefing yesterday downplayed the possible impact of the pope's visit on domestic politics, saying that the pope "operates on a different plane." However, they did note that the Obama administration and the Vatican share much "common ground." Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications at the White House, revealed that President Obama in preparation for the pope's visit directed his team to work toward ensuring "that this visit has lasting value."
The visit, some experts believe, will have lasting value for those who are pushing for stronger and faster action on climate change.
"A pope who talks about the economics of inclusion and who insists that climate change is an urgent moral issue has the potential to help recalibrate a Catholic political narrative that in recent years has been narrowly defined," Gehring said.
Climate change in this country has mostly been viewed as a debate over scientific evidence and economic calculations, but very little has been said about the moral aspects of it. "Elected members may easily dismiss secular environmental groups when it comes to climate change," Annett said. "Brushing off the pope is another matter altogether."
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