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(ACC Mentioned) How Plastics-to-Fuel Can Become the Next Green Machine (Op-Ed)
Sep 21, 2015 | LiveScience
By Doug Woodring and Steve Russell
We all know plastics deliver many benefits that make modern life possible. -
EPA Finalizes SNUR On Pair Of Flame Retardants In Consumer Textiles
Sep 22, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA has finalized a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) on a pair of flame retardant chemicals jointly known as HBCD, including their use in consumer textile products, though the breadth of the rule is restricted from major ongoing uses in building insulation foam and motor vehicles. -
Industry Concerns Raised by Vermont Chemical Reporting Proposal
Sep 22, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A coalition of twenty-five industry trade groups has expressed concern with Vermont's proposed final rule, implementing the state's chemical disclosure programme for children's products (Act 188). -
Building Transparency
Sep 22, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US Green Building Council (USGBC) reports that the global green construction industry reached $260bn in 2013, representing 20% of all new commercial construction in the US. -
Green Chemistry: a Way Out of the Economic Crisis?
Sep 22, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Tatiana Santos
The current global financial crisis that started in 2008 is feeding the debate in Europe on the burden legislations, in particular the REACH Regulation, place on companies manufacturing and using chemicals. -
Calling for Increased Nano Transparency
Sep 22, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Lone Mikkelsen
Nanotechnology has provided materials with new characteristics, which are often to the benefit of either industry, consumers, or both. -
Bayer to Pay $5.6M Over Deadly 2008 W.Va. Explosion
Sep 22, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
Bayer CropScience LP will pay more than $5 million in penalties and required safety improvements at four chemical facilities, including one in Institute, W.Va., where two workers were killed in 2008, the Department of Justice said yesterday. -
Senate Democrats to Unveil Climate Change Bill
Sep 22, 2015 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport
Senate Democratic leaders on Tuesday plan to unveil a measure intended to signal their support ofPresident Obama’s aggressiveclimate change agenda to 2016 voters and to the rest of the world. -
Senate Dems Offer Energy Wishlist
Sep 22, 2015 | Politico (Morning Energy)
By Eric Wolff
Senate Democrats will outline their energy policy wish list today, as bipartisan energy legislation seems stalled on both sides of the Capitol. -
Senate Democrats Unveil Sweeping Energy Bill
Sep 22, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
Senate Democrats today rolled out a 437-page proposal that would overhaul an array of federal energy programs, from reforming the Energy Department's loan guarantee program to imposing a fee on under-producing oil and gas wells. -
Senate Democrats to Unveil Energy Tax Plan
Sep 22, 2015 | Politico (Morning Energy)
By Brian Faler
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, deputy leader Chuck Schumer and Finance’s ranking Democrat, Ron Wyden, will unveil plans today to overhaul some 44 tax provisions subsidizing energy production. -
Senate Dems Outline Sweeping Package Promoting Clean Energy
Sep 22, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss and Hannah Northey
Senate Democrats today laid out a comprehensive package of clean energy provisions that will serve as their caucus' starting point in negotiations with Republicans on a range of issues in the coming months. -
Mayors Urge Obama to Set Lower Ozone Limit
Sep 22, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Amanda Reilly
Seventy mayors from 24 states yesterday called on President Obama to set a more stringent ozone standard as U.S. EPA nears a deadline to choose a final new limit. -
Colo. High Court to Take Up Fracking Ban Cases
Sep 22, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Colorado's long-running battle over local control of hydraulic fracturing is finally headed for the state's highest court. -
Advocates Seek To Force EPA Response On Bid For State Nutrient Limits
Sep 22, 2015 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
Environmentalists are asking a federal district court to rule that EPA failed to justify its lack of a substantive response to their petition for strict Clean Water Act (CWA) nutrient controls in the Mississippi River Basin, arguing that the agency's rationale cannot pass even the deferential test set out by a recent appellate ruling in the same case. -
Pope’s Visit Reveals Flaws in U.S. Climate Policy
Sep 22, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Marie Clarke
This week Pope Francis will arrive in the U.S. with climate change and global poverty high on his agenda. -
Pope Francis and the Climate Collision Ahead
Sep 22, 2015 | Politico
By Paul Bledsoe
When Pope Francis becomes the first pontiff to address a joint session of Congress this week, much focus will be on how Republicans will respond to the pope’s position on the climate. -
Pope Likely to Cause Bipartisan Squirming on Hill
Sep 22, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jean Chemnick
Pope Francis famously said, "A good Catholic meddles in politics."
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(ACC Mentioned) How Plastics-to-Fuel Can Become the Next Green Machine (Op-Ed)
Sep 21, 2015 | LiveScience
By Doug Woodring and Steve Russell
Doug Woodring is director and co-founder of the Ocean Recovery Alliance, a nonprofit that brings together innovative solutions, technology, collaborations and policy to benefit ocean health. Steve Russell is vice president of the American Chemistry Council's Plastics Division, which leads efforts to "reduce, reuse, recycle and recover" more plastics through outreach, education and access to advances in technology. The authors contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
We all know plastics deliver many benefits that make modern life possible. They help keep our foods fresher longer, reduce the weight of our cars so we use less fuel, insulate our homes so we use less energy, and keep countless medical supplies safe and sterile. While some plastics are recycled, far too many are not — and end up buried in landfills or littered where they can enter delicate marine ecosystems.
But new technologies that can harness the fuel content in non-recycled plastics could help remedy this. These technologies work as part of an integrated approach to managing waste geared toward creating value from trash — an approach dubbed sustainable materials management.
Cash from trash
One of the biggest benefits to this approach is that it helps everyone — from businesses to consumers to government — start to value materials that used to be "waste." And when people realize materials have value, everyone starts to think about how this value can be captured and put to work for communities. Not discarded. Not buried. And certainly not littered.
So why do plastics have an intrinsic value as a fuel source? Plastics are created primarily from energy feedstocks, typically natural gas or oil (mostly natural gas in the United States). The hydrocarbons that make up plastics are embodied in the material itself, essentially making plastics a form of stored energy, which can be turned into a liquid fuel source.
It makes sense that people are asking how to keep more of this valuable fuel in play, even after plastics are used, and how to keep it out of landfills.
One way, of course, is to recycle plastics whenever one can. Today, recycling technologies reprocess many common types of plastics: bottles, containers, cups, caps, lids and so on. Even many flexible plastics, such as bags and wraps, can be recycled at major grocery stores across the United States.
But what about the plastics that can't be economically recycled? They still contain embodied energy and largely untapped value as a new potential fuel source.
Getting fuel from used plastics
A new set of emerging technologies is helping to convert non-recycled plastics into an array of fuels, crude oil and industrial feedstocks. Processes vary, but these technologies, known as "plastics-to-fuel," involve similar steps.Plastics are collected and sorted for recycling. Then the non-recycled plastics (or residuals) are shipped to a plastics-to-fuel facility, where they are heated in an oxygen-free environment, melted and vaporized into gases. The gases are then cooled and condensed into a variety of useful products. Plastics-to-fuel technologies do not involve combustion.Depending on the specific technology, products can include synthetic crude or refined fuels for home heating; ingredients for diesel, gasoline or kerosene; or fuel for industrial combined heat and power. Companies sell the petroleum products to manufacturers and industrial users, while fuels can help power cars, buses, ships and planes.
Economics will likely drive adoption of this technology. For example, by tapping the potential of non-recycled plastics, the U.S. could support up to 600 plastics-to-fuel facilities and generate nearly 39,000 jobs, resulting in nearly $9 billion in economic output from plastics-to-fuel operations. And that doesn't even include the $18 billion of economic output during the build-out phase.
Plastics-to-fuel technologies are increasingly scalable and can be customized to meet the needs of various economies and geographies, so they do not require huge machines. [Plant Plastics Seed New Tech, from Miatas to Tea Bags]
The promise of plastics-to-fuel is particularly exciting as an option to recover materials that today may be buried, or in some regions, illegally dumped or burned in open pits due to inadequate waste management infrastructure. The new facilities could create local revenue for communities in parts of the world where trash has become a hazard and a large source of marine litter.
A cleaner fuel
Another potential environmental benefit of plastics-derived fuels is that they can deliver a cleaner-burning fuel, due to the low sulfur content of plastics. Many developing economies currently use diesel with relatively high sulfur content.
The main product of fuel from plastic, when refined properly, is a diesel with greatly reduced sulfur content. Using this lower sulfur content fuel for boats, machinery, generators and vehicles can help decrease sulfur-related impacts while reducing non-recycled materials along the way.
Plastics-to-fuel technologies are expected to be particularly helpful in island nations where fuel prices are high and landfill options are limited. Communities now have the potential to create some of their own fuel locally, providing economic and environmental benefits, while removing a portion of the waste stream that potentially causes harm to their waterways, reefs, and tourism.
These are just some of the reasons our two organizations — one representing America's plastics makers, the other a nonprofit dedicated to a trash-free ocean — teamed up to create two new tools aimed at helping communities around the globe evaluate their potential to adopt plastics-to-fuel technologies.
The "2015 Plastics-to-Fuel Developers Guide" and the "Cost Estimating Tool for Prospective Project Developers" were designed to help potential investors, developers and community leaders determine whether this rapidly growing family of technologies could be a good fit for meeting local waste management needs and local demand for the relevant commodities.
Available at no cost, these tools provide, for the first time, an exploration of available commercial technologies, operational facilities and things to consider when developing a business plan.
We first announced the tools at the fourth annual Plasticity Forum held in Cascais, Portugal, in early June. Each year, the Plasticity Forum draws hundreds of global thought leaders in the areas of policy, design, innovation, waste management, retail/brand management and more. And earlier this month, we introduced the tools at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation's "Building Better Cities" Forum in Cebu, Philippines. Today, banks and investors are reviewing the online tools to evaluate investment opportunities.
Plastics — even used plastics — are valuable materials that can be used to create new products or fuels and energy. But not if we bury them in landfills or dump them in our waterways. Plastics-to-fuel is one of several technologies that can play a role in converting non-recycled plastics into valuable energy (gasification and refuse-derived fuel are two others). Because no two communities are the same, it is important for individual regions or municipalities to understand which technology is likely to work best for them.
Hopefully, these new tools will make that decision a little easier.
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EPA Finalizes SNUR On Pair Of Flame Retardants In Consumer Textiles
Sep 22, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA has finalized a Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) on a pair of flame retardant chemicals jointly known as HBCD, including their use in consumer textile products, though the breadth of the rule is restricted from major ongoing uses in building insulation foam and motor vehicles.
The SNUR, which EPA announced Sept. 17, requires any manufacturer, producer or importer to notify EPA at least 90 days in advance of making or bringing into the country hexabromocyclododecane or 1,2,5,6,9,10-hexabromocyclododecane for use in consumer products or products containing either of the chemicals known as HBCD.
The finalized SNUR, issued under EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 5(a)(2) authority, excludes most uses of HBCD. This is because under TSCA, EPA has limited abilities to regulate chemicals whose manufacture and sale pre-dated TSCA, passed into law in 1976. With a SNUR, EPA cannot regulate ongoing uses of a chemical, only those uses that have ended or do not yet exist. EPA then has authority to review a new use before it begins, similar to its approach for reviewing new chemicals before they enter the market.
“This final rule designates use of HBCD in consumer textiles (other than for use in motor vehicles) as a significant new use,” according to a pre-publication copy of the Federal Register notice announcing the new final rule. “EPA has concluded that the only current use of HBCD for consumer textiles is in motor vehicles. That use and other current uses of HBCD (e.g., in nonconsumer 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.’”
The notice explains that when EPA proposed the SNUR in 2012, the draft rule applied to any use of HBCD in all articles. The final rule was narrowed in response to public comments and other information the agency gathered regarding uses of HBCD as a flame retardant in insulation and vehicles.
“The major use of HBCD is in polystyrene foam insulation boards used in construction,” EPA’s notice states. “EPA also received information from a group of textile formulators that the end uses of HBCD-containing textiles are for military, institutional, and aviation uses only . . . EPA found that a small amount of HBCD is used in motor vehicles sold in the United States, including in floor mats, headliners, and possibly other interior fabrics. EPA received a public comment stating that although automakers are working towards ultimately phasing out the use of HBCD in consumer textiles in motor vehicles, there is concern about whether viable substitutes will be available. Thus, after considering the available information, EPA concludes that HBCD is not used in consumer textiles other than for use in motor vehicles.”
EPA Response
In its summarized response to public comments, EPA explains that it narrowed the rule’s approach to finished products containing HBCD, or articles, as they are referenced in TSCA, in response to public comments. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers raised concerns in March 2012 comments that EPA’s phrase “consumer textiles” could include automobile textiles.
EPA explains, “Although the Agency has the authority to lift the [usual TSCA articles] exemption for importers and processors of HBCD as part of all articles, such a broad application is not necessary or desirable for this rule. This is because there are ongoing uses of HBCD as part of articles that are unlikely to be diverted to the significant new use.”
EPA also sought to clarify its definition of “consumer textile,” following concern from another commenter who called EPA’s original proposed definition “rather nuanced.”
The agency is concerned about HBCD because of its developmental, reproductive and thyroid effects in laboratory animals, as well as its toxicity to algae and fish embryos in the environment, according to the pending notice. The chemical also persists in the environment, bioaccumulates up the food chain and presents the opportunity for long-range transport in the environment, according to the notice.
EPA is continuing to assess the chemical as part of its work plan risk assessment program, an effort the Obama administration developed to try to more strictly advance its existing TSCA authority in light of continued inaction in Congress on legislative reform of the thirty-nine year-old law. Some of the assessments have led EPA to indicate that it is considering TSCA Section 6 action -- banning the chemical.
EPA’s toxics office last month released a preliminary screening analysis of its work on three groups of flame retardants, including HBCD. In an Aug. 18 Federal Register notice, EPA announced that it intends to continue its review of Cyclic Aliphatic Bromides/HBCD as used in polystyrene foams and products. The notice said problem formulation and initial assessment helped the agency determine the feasibility of future assessments by reviewing published studies of hazard and exposure as well as prior assessments by EPA and other organizations. Based on those reviews, EPA intends to assess HBCD’s potential risks to workers, the general population and consumers, as well as of environmental exposures using existing data and methods.
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Industry Concerns Raised by Vermont Chemical Reporting Proposal
Sep 22, 2015 | Chemical Watch
A coalition of twenty-five industry trade groups has expressed concern with Vermont's proposed final rule, implementing the state's chemical disclosure programme for children's products (Act 188).
It says that the rule, as drafted, is arbitrary and fails to meet criteria for legislative intent and economic impact, and has requested the state revise it.
A chief concern to industry groups is that Vermont's proposed rule – unlike those implemented in Washington, Maine, and other states – would require manufacturers to provide specific product-level data, rather than “brick code” reporting of broader product types.
“As drafted, [the rule] represents the most significant data development requirement for children's products anywhere in the world,” said written testimony, provided by the Toy Industry Association. This “specifically runs contrary to very clear legislative intent for not creating such a burdensome approach, when other states have not acted in a similar fashion addressing the same issue,” it added.
The trade group has said that millions of individual product reports could be submitted under the scheme, as “companies are likely to end up over-reporting vast swaths... of products... to avoid being out of compliance with the reporting mandate.”
Act 188, passed last year, requires that manufacturers of qualifying children's products report the presence of 66 state-designated chemicals of high concern by 1 July 2016 (CW 12 June 2014). A proposed rule to implement the Act was put forward by the Vermont Department of Health (VDH) earlier this year, and is now being considered for final approval by the state's Legislative Council of Administrative Rules (LCAR).
At the 10 September LCAR meeting, several council members defended the product-level reporting, saying that the intent of the state's Act was to provide information to allow consumers to avoid specific chemicals, which is only possible through this.
Coalition members, with objections to the proposed rule, ranged from consumer product organisations to raw materials industry groups to the chemicals industry.
Further concerns raised by industry groups include:the proposed rule fails to harmonise with other state rules, which Act 188 expressly calls for;a lack of phased-in reporting is unduly burdensome, particularly to small manufacturers; andthe establishment of a working group of stakeholders, to steer the implementation of the Act, was detailed in the legislation, and has not been convened.
The LCAR has postponed action on the rule to 24 September. Under Vermont law, the body must reach a determination by 9 October, unless they pursue an extension of the 45-day review.
Should the LCAR object to the rule, it can be sent back to the VDH to “cure” the objection, or to move forward with the rulemaking despite the objection.
Michael O'Grady, legal deputy director for the state's legislative council office, says that the LCAR may only object to the rule on the grounds that:it conflicts with statutory or legislative authority;it is arbitrary or capricious; orit does not meet public participation requirements.
Substantive changes to rules, according to Mr O'Grady, happen “rarely”, due to the time and cost associated with re-initiating the rulemaking process.
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Sep 22, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US Green Building Council (USGBC) reports that the global green construction industry reached $260bn in 2013, representing 20% of all new commercial construction in the US. Where much of the initial focus has been on energy efficiency, recyclability, and reducing a building’s carbon footprint, the growing green movement has also brought an increased focus on the chemical ingredients of building components and the health hazards they may present.
The USGBC’s most recent iteration of its Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (Leed) – v4 – includes a new credit for material transparency. The standard’s “Building product disclosure and optimisation – material ingredients” credit is intended, among other things, “to reward project teams for selecting products for which the chemical ingredients in the product are inventoried, using an accepted methodology, and for selecting products verified to minimise the use and generation of harmful substances.”
Similarly, the WELL Building Standard, launched by the International WELL Being Institute in October 2014, lays out a standard that focuses on the health and wellness of building occupants. “Strategies to enhance human health and wellbeing have played a relatively small role in the evolution of building standards,” says the programme’s Standard. “We believe the time has come to elevate human health and comfort to the forefront of building practices.” Toxic material reduction, enhanced material safety, and biocide management are all included in the building standard.
The International Living Future Institute’s (IFLI) Living Building Challenge also incorporates material health into its twenty requirements for achieving certification. Projects being built under the scheme cannot use materials that contain any Red List chemicals, such as perfluorinated compounds (PFCs), halogenated flame retardants, or phthalates.
Increased consumer awareness of potential chemical hazards, together with a growth of transparency initiatives in green construction standards, has led to the development of a variety of tools to assist in inventorying, assessing and disclosing chemical ingredients and hazards. These programmes offer building material manufacturers a structure for disclosing the materials present in their products, provide building designers and specifiers with more information on potential hazards in products, streamline the process for achieving compliance with building standards, and help satisfy consumers’ desires to know more about what’s in the floors and walls around them.
Reaching consensus on what constitutes “green” “transparent” and “hazard” however, has proven a complicated process. Consequently, the building and construction industry faces a number of possible compliance pathways for an array of green construction structures, which can make navigating the process daunting.
Transparency initiatives
Consistent among material hazard initiatives is a focus on chemical inventory and product transparency. Additionally, some programmes have established criteria for achieving certain levels of certification for a completed product, whereas others provide hazard classifications of chemical ingredients or the ingredients within a product.
The hazard screens used by each programme have plenty of overlap – scanning REACH substances of very high concern (SVHCs), chemicals with a priority work plan, those listed on California’s Proposition 65, and on the Canadian Domestic Substances List (DSL), and dozens of similar lists for a variety of hazard endpoints.
In addition, the systems draw on one another. GreenScreen (GS) and Cradle to Cradle (C2C) both have established full hazard assessments, which allow them to assign a hazard rating to a particular substance. The GS hazard screening process and resulting benchmarking of substances has, in turn, been incorporated into other certification programmes, including Health Product Declarations (HPD) and Declare. The Pharos Project incorporates GS ratings into its catalogue of material hazards, along with the results of 22 additional hazard screening lists. Declare incorporated C2C’s list of banned substances into its own Red List of chemicals.
Designers shift market toward transparency
In 2012/13, more than two dozen firms distributed letters to materials suppliers, requesting their participation in transparency programmes. Some letters encouraged manufacturers to pursue HPD or C2C certification, to list their products under the Pharos project, or to get Declared. Other firms cautioned that products that had not achieved the firm’s preferred certifications would not be considered for use in projects, after a certain date.
“As our knowledge of how products can impact human and environmental health expands, coupled with our clients’ demands and industry advances, we endorse the need for great product content transparency, optimised chemical profiles, greener chemistry, and supporting companies committed to continuous improvement in these areas,” said the letter submitted by HDR Architecture, Inc.
The firm noted that the chemical disclosure content considerations in LEED v4 would require its staff to have access to material data to complete the credit. It also voiced its intent to “use the power of the specification to inform and direct the marketplace through our selections and preferences for safer alternatives – adding these criteria to more traditional ones such as performance, aesthetics, lifecycle, maintenance, availability and cost”.
“We are looking for increased transparency,” said the letter from ZGF Architects LLP. “Some of our clients require that their buildings be free of various chemicals, regardless of the rating system used on the project.”
Cannon Design advised in their letter that after 1 January 2015, only products with content transparency will be included in the firm’s materials library and considered for projects.
HKS, one of the earliest firms to request increased transparency, said in the two years since design firms issued these letters, “the building transparency landscape has changed significantly.”
Earlier this year, HKS introduced a Mindful Materials programme to help keep pace with the growing volume of data. “A major challenge for both the design industry and manufacturers is the exchange of the growing amount of transparency information that is available,” they said in a letter announcing it.
Under the scheme, the firm offers a spreadsheet for manufacturers to complete that shows which of their products have achieved certifications, and where design firms can locate those certificates. It also introduced a labelling initiative, requesting that manufacturers affix a Mindful Materials label to product samples, detailing which certifications the product has achieved, for ease of reference in resource libraries.
HKS encouraged other design firms to make use of the Mindful Materials system, and provides free access to the tools.
Corporate responsibility initiatives driving change
Not only are architectural firms leading the demand for increased transparency, but so too are individual companies. Google, for example, has developed a proprietary Healthy Materials programme for use in company building projects, based on the HPD, GreenScreen and C2C certifications. The company’s scoring system awards points to products with higher levels of transparency and material health.
Earlier this year, the tech giant launched Portico, an online tool that allows manufacturers to submit their products for consideration in Google projects. According to the company, manufacturers have the ability to determine the level of transparency they wish to achieve. Project managers and the company’s architects and designers, in turn, have access to a digital library of materials that have been shown to meet Google’s criteria.
Manufacturers respond to transparency requests
Many manufacturers have heeded the marketplace’s demands and have begun to pursue material health certifications. The C2C Certified Products registry has more building supply & materials products listed than in any other product category, while the Pharos Project claims to have evaluated more than 1,600 building products from close to 300 manufacturers. More than a hundred products appear in the Declare products database.
Manufacturers, however, are faced with a delicate balancing act when it comes to determining which certifications to pursue for which products. Safeguarding against the disclosure of proprietary information, achieving certification while avoiding specific banned substances, weighing which transparency certificates have been requested by certain design firms, and determining which programmes can be used toward green building credit are all considerations that manufacturers must weigh up.
“We don’t choose what programmes our customers are engaging in,” said Gale Tedhams, director of sustainability at Owens Corning. “We need to know all of the programmes and how we can help our customers meet the criteria.”
Owens Corning, an international company, manufacturers an array of building materials products, and has pursued C2C accreditation for several of them. According to Ms Tedhams, the company selected the programme because it took product risk exposure pathways into consideration, whereas others assess ingredient hazard regardless of exposure. In addition to intellectual property concerns, she said the company didn’t think that level of detail “was in the best interest of anyone looking at it, because it didn’t reflect the final product’s risk and what its exposure would be.”
Further complicating the material health process, building materials must be able to meet mandatory construction codes. Only a limited number of flame retardants, for example, can be used to meet existing flammability standards for certain products.
When redeveloping products, “the first thing we look at, in any product, is that it needs to do its job,” said Ms Tedhams. The company uses a product development scorecard when modifying an existing product or developing a new one, which is maintained throughout its review process. Greenhouse gas emissions, water use in manufacturing, presence of materials of concern, whether the material makes use of recycled content, and how it will be processed at its end of life, are all taken into consideration.
“We are working on a concept of net positive,” said Ms Tedhams, which involves not only reducing a material’s footprint, but also improving its “handprint” – the positive attributes it may bring to a building – such as creating better insulation that holds in more heat and decreases a building’s energy use.
The road ahead
Since 2010, the USGBC has convened a “Material Health Harmonisation Task Group” to try to introduce increased harmonisation between disclosures and optimisation programmes. “Defining the measuring stick by which products are evaluated is just [as] critical as harmonising the health and environment endpoints investigated,” said Sara Cederberg, technical director at the company.
The task group released its first report in 2013. The group determined first that a shared platform for product content inventory and chemical hazard analysis “can be developed to create a comprehensive single portal of entry for manufacturers and a single repository for hazard classification data,” and also that harmonisation beyond such a platform would not be necessary, as the different programmes satisfy different needs in the marketplace.
In May, the group issued its second phase report, and outlined efforts to develop “universally applicable taxonomy for the purpose of product content inventory” and “development of shared systems for data entry and assessment”. The group feels that the system will streamline efforts throughout the supply chain and reduce “redundant work”.
Chemical implications
Bringing new building products to the marketplace can be a lengthy process. Not only must products meet the desired performance that a building owner requires, but they must be able to meet certain codified requirements for mandatory construction codes, which vary between localities. R&D, sourcing of necessary materials, product testing, certification to building standards, and bringing the finished product to market can be a process that takes years.
Dozens of international hazard screens feed into the various material safety certifications that are competing in the building sector marketplace. A change in listing status for certain chemicals on just one of those lists, in turn, can affect the ability of a product to qualify for a green building code, to meet a design firm’s guidelines, or to be compatible with a corporation’s building specifications.
Even those manufacturers who have gained certification for certain products will need to continue their efforts, monitoring chemical statuses on REACH to Proposition 65 to Canada’s DSL, and look internally to find safer chemical alternatives that still allow the product to perform to code and to meet customer demands.
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Green Chemistry: a Way Out of the Economic Crisis?
Sep 22, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Tatiana Santos
The current global financial crisis that started in 2008 is feeding the debate in Europe on the burden legislations, in particular the REACH Regulation, place on companies manufacturing and using chemicals. Nevertheless, there is not much attention given to the burden caused by the manufacture and use of chemicals – some known to be toxic, but most poorly studied – not only for the environment and society but also for the economy.
Toxics can have a remarkable impact on firms’ competitiveness and their capacity to innovate. Sooner or later, since the substances of most concern will be regulated and/or phased out, companies using obsolete and hazardous chemistry risk being shut down. Meanwhile, those that have invested in sustainable innovation will be rewarded. The billions of euros that chemical exposure is estimated to cost the EU, in terms of damage to health and the environment, should also be carefully considered. Here are a few examples:8.3% of all deaths and 5.7% of the total burden of disease worldwide are due to chemical exposure;exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals probably costs the European Union €157bn ($209bn) a year in actual health care expenses and lost earning potential. These costs may actually be as high as €270bn ($359bn), or 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) (CW 9 March 2015);20m tons of plastic marine litter enter the ocean each year. Plastic debris causes substantial economic impacts to coastal economies because of the high costs of removal and disposal to prevent flooding, navigational hazards, detriment to the tourism industry, and ecological destruction. In 2008, marine debris was estimated to have directly cost the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) member economies approximately $1.265bn; andthe use of toxic chemicals is also highly burdensome to companies that spend huge amounts of economic resources in risk management measures, waste management, payment of sanctions, and overall legislative compliance; the more toxic a chemical is, the stricter the legal requirements. For instance, the costs related to the applications for authorisation to continue using substances of very high concern in the EU range between €5,000 and 55,000. In addition, the industry costs of lobbying competent authorities not to regulate their chemicals is estimated at millions of euros per year. Cefic alone is reported to have spent €6m on lobbying in 2012 and the American Chemistry Council lobbying expenditure, last year, was over $11m.
If chemicals were designed not to be toxic, or so they did not persist or bioaccumulate in the environment, all these costs would be avoided. But why is applying green chemistry principles, when designing chemicals, not the rule, but the exemption?
There are several barriers to the implementation of green chemistry rules as common practice. A few examples are:lack of education and experience on green chemistry among chemists and researchers. Chemicals are designed to meet a specific function, not to be safe and sustainable;natural human resistance to change together with reluctance to experiment with the unknown and fear of regrettable alternatives;technical and administrative restraints;lack of regulatory/supply chain pressure and enforcement;complex communication along the supply chain relating to the chemicals used and their properties;only direct costs are usually considered and these are not seen as an investment;research and development costs involved; andcompany policy/mindset and financial restraints (normally related to the size of the company).
Green chemistry is closely linked to the green economy as it helps to safeguard the production sites of the chemical industry and its user industries in the long term, and promotes the creation of jobs and high standards of occupational health and safety, as well as environmental and consumer protection. Furthermore, it stimulates innovative solutions and new market opportunities.
The chemical industry could make an important contribution to sustainable development and make a tidy profit at the same time. Leading chemical companies agree that producing safer chemicals is good for business. A new report by a US-based business advocacy group, evaluating the business and economic value of safer chemistry, demonstrates that safer chemicals are the future for health, safety and business.
Green chemistry can, therefore, lead to improved health and environmental outcomes, but might also point towards an economically and financially viable way out of the economic crisis. However, there are some important aspects needed, such as:a supporting legal framework that identifies the unwanted properties of chemical substances;information on substances used in processes and products;technical assistance to identify, assess and utilise new chemicals, based on green chemistry principles;awareness, information, training and education; andeconomic/financial support and incentives.
Tatiana Santos, senior chemicals and nanotechnology policy officer, EEB
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Calling for Increased Nano Transparency
Sep 22, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Lone Mikkelsen
Nanotechnology has provided materials with new characteristics, which are often to the benefit of either industry, consumers, or both. However, in many cases, there is insufficient knowledge about the hazardous properties of nanomaterials. Still, some scientific results indicate that nano is associated with health risks.
In February 2014, Danish scientists showed that nano silver can harm human cells and increase the concentration of free radicals, which is linked to cancer development. More recent studies, showing effects on the environment, have also been summarised in an article, where it is concluded that with the knowledge and equipment that we have today, it will be impossible to predict the potential toxicity and evaluate the risks associated with nanoparticles in soil.
The current EU definition of nanomaterials is inadequate for regulatory purposes, as it does not cover all of those in commerce. Moreover, it goes against the recommendations of the Commission’s own scientific experts (CW 13 July 2010). REACH is targeted at “bulk” substances, so most nanomaterials slip under the Regulation’s tonnage band-based registration requirements; for those that do not, the information requirements do not provide relevant information to assess characteristics and hazards that are specific to nanomaterials.
It should be acknowledged that nanomaterials cannot be identified solely by chemical composition. Thus, additional identifiers, such as shape, specific surface area and surface treatment, are needed in order to clarify that their properties and behaviour differ fundamentally from each other and from the bulk material.
However, in order to ensure safety for humans and the environment in all aspects of exposure, coherent legislation is needed, like the EU’s Directive on the restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS2) in electrical and electronic equipment, cosmetics Regulation and toy safety Directive.
Because of these regulatory gaps and the lack of knowledge on the characteristics and hazard properties of nanomaterials, it is urgent to find out where these substances are on the market, in which quantities and in which products.
Today, companies that make or sell products, containing nanomaterials, have no obligation to declare their use, with the exception of cosmetics, which have to identify nano ingredients on the label. This lack of transparency is worrying for consumers.
In 2012, the European Commission published its second regulatory review of nanomaterials (CW 3 October 2012). This described how to improve EU law regarding the substances, including its application to ensure safe use. It also identified means to increase transparency.
However, amendments to the REACH annexes, to ensure information on nanomaterials is relevant for risk assessment, is still being discussed, along with whether a nano registry will be established and how. The formal Commission decision on any action to increase transparency of nanomaterials on the EU market was expected in mid-2015, following the completion of an impact assessment, scheduled for April. Still, the Commission has taken no further action.
European NGOs have accused the Commission of procrastinating and being biased towards industry’s economic interests.
In June 2014, the Danish government launched a national nano-products registry. The registry requires manufacturers and importers to report mixtures and products, containing nanomaterials, annually. The intention was that the registry should contain information about the type of nanoproducts on the market, their uses and the quantities, as well as risk of exposure and effects on consumers and environment.
Furthermore, companies reporting had to deliver safe use guidance to consumers. However, the requirements for the Danish registry have been weakened and many exceptions have been incorporated. As a result less information on use and quantity of nanomaterials on the market will be reported – these are the important parts for consumers. Moreover, submitting information on physico-chemical properties is optional for industry.
Worse still, the register will not be publicly accessible, which means that neither scientists nor consumers will benefit from the information collected.
One tool that helps consumers find out what nanos are on the market, and enables them to make informed choices about chemicals in consumer products, is The Nanodatabase. This lists almost 1,500 products that contain, or at least indicate, for example, by the name, that they contain, nanomaterials.
The Nanodatabase was launched in 2012 by the Danish Ecological Council, Danish Technical University and the Danish Consumer Council and is financed by the Villum Foundation. In addition to consumers, scientists use the database in their research, as well as the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which has used it as background for mapping surveys on nano.
All products in the database are readily available to Danish consumers either in stores or via internet shops, but have relevance to consumers all over the world. Each product is categorised with a colour code, consisting of five dots which refer to exposure risk and possible hazards for human health and the environment. With this database, consumers are able to make informed choices whether to buy a particular product containing nanomaterials, or rather find an alternative.
Elsewhere in Europe, France and Belgium have national nano registries. However, these only cover pure nanomaterials, and not the consumer products containing them.
If you compare the situation for substances of very high concern (SVHCs), consumers are in a stronger position as they have rights under REACH Article 33, which enables them to ask companies if the products they sell contain substances listed on the candidate list.
In spring 2014, the Danish EPA and the Danish Consumer Council launched a free mobile app called “check the chemistry” which covers the Danish market only but enables Danish consumers to scan most consumer products (all articles regulated by REACH) for SVHCs. A request asking if any SVHCs are present over a certain threshold is sent directly to the manufacturer or supplier, which has to reply to the consumer within 45 days. Furthermore, they have to provide information about how to use the product safely. Unfortunately, this information is not reaching consumers as smoothly as hoped for, and many requests are not being answered.
Industry feels the burden of this obligation and often faces challenges when trying to find answers further back in the product chain.
The Commission has acknowledged in several reports that to properly protect human health and the environment, more specific requirements for certain chemicals, such as endocrine disruptors and nanomaterials, are necessary, but so far, it has failed to provide this.
Lone Mikkelsen, PhD, The Danish Ecological Council
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Bayer to Pay $5.6M Over Deadly 2008 W.Va. Explosion
Sep 22, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
Bayer CropScience LP will pay more than $5 million in penalties and required safety improvements at four chemical facilities, including one in Institute, W.Va., where two workers were killed in 2008, the Department of Justice said yesterday.
Two workers were killed and eight were injured Aug. 28, 2008, when the plant's pesticide manufacturing unit exploded. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board later found "multiple deficiencies" at the site, including a long startup process, poor worker training and other problems that created a chemical reaction that led to the explosion.
Had the exploding equipment traveled in a different direction, it may have caused a release of toxic methyl isocyanate, or MIC, the CSB found (Greenwire, Jan. 21, 2011). MIC killed thousands of people when it was released from a chemical plant in Bhopal, India, in 1984, and about 11,400 people live within 2 miles of the Institute facility. Bayer compounded the problem by failing to grant timely access to emergency response workers during the incident, the settlement said.
Bayer later ended production of MIC at the plant (Greenwire, March 21, 2011).
Under the settlement with federal prosecutors, the company will pay $4.23 million to boost emergency preparedness at the West Virginia facility. The company will also pay a $975,000 penalty and spend $452,000 to implement safety improvements at other chemical facilities in Texas, Missouri and Michigan.
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The incident showed that failing to comply with safety and prevention requirements "can have catastrophic consequences," said John Cruden, the assistant attorney general for the DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division, in a statement.
The spending in West Virginia will be used to fix mobile communications for emergency responders, train local police and firefighters, and install new equipment to prevent the discharge of chemicals into the Kanawha River, among other things, the DOJ said.
The agreement "reinforces for us our determination to ensure that the safety of our employees and neighbors is the first priority for Bayer," said Jim Covington, the head of the Bayer CropScience operations at the Institute, W.Va., Industrial Park, in a statement.
The consent decree is subject to a 30-day public comment period and approval by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
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Senate Democrats to Unveil Climate Change Bill
Sep 22, 2015 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport
Senate Democratic leaders on Tuesday plan to unveil a measure intended to signal their support ofPresident Obama’s aggressiveclimate change agenda to 2016 voters and to the rest of the world.
The Democrats hope that the bill, sponsored by Senator Maria Cantwell, of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy Committee, will demonstrate a new unity for the party on energy and climate change, and define Democrats’ approach to global warming policy in the coming years.
The measure would establish as United States policy a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2 percent each year through 2025 — a cut even larger than the target set by the Obama administration.
The bill has no chance of passage in the Republican-controlled Congress, but Democrats say they believe that forcefully pushing for climate change policies could help them win control of the Senate in 2016. And if they regain the majority, they will move to enactclimate legislation along the lines of the Cantwell bill.
“This is the kind of thing I’d embrace,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, who is expected to become the Senate Democratic leader after the current leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, retires next year. “A plan that looks something like this is going to be high on the next Congress’s agenda.”
Senate Democrats timed the release of the bill to coincide with a push this week at the United Nations General Assembly toward reaching a sweeping climate accord this fall at a summit meeting in Paris. They hope to indicate to world leaders that despite Republican opposition to the plan, they stand ready to back Mr. Obama’s policies.
The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, has opened an all-fronts campaign to block the president’s climate initiatives. Mr. McConnell has sought to undercut Mr. Obama’s efforts to enact tough new regulations on greenhouse gas pollution and his bid to forge the global climate change pact in Paris.
“Our international partners should proceed with caution before entering into a binding, unattainable deal,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement.
Pope Francis, in speeches to the United Nations and to Congress this week, is expected to urge both bodies to push forward on efforts to reach a deal in Paris that would require every country to commit to policies to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. On Thursday and Friday, Mr. Obama will meet with President Xi Jinping of China at the White House, and they are expected to discuss their joint efforts to cut emissions.
Mr. Schumer said Senate Democrats wanted “to make it clear that McConnell’s view is not the view of large numbers of the Congress,” adding: “Our message is that you can have clean energy and create jobs in a responsible way, and it’s going to unite our caucus. It’s not going to be unanimous, but it’s going to be close.”
But the Democratic measure lacks the one policy that most experts say is essential for addressing planet-warming pollution: a price, or tax, on carbon. The idea is to make it more expensive to burn fossil fuels and to drive the market toward energy such as wind and solar.
That policy, however, has proved to be politically toxic in states that depend heavily on manufacturing and the fossil fuel industry. In his first term, Mr. Obama tried to push through a bill with a “cap and trade” program, but it died in the Senate because of a lack of support from Midwestern Democrats.
Mr. Obama later used his executive authority to enact Environmental Protection Agency regulations requiring electric utilities to slash their carbon pollution, a move that could shut down hundreds of coal-fired power plants. The president has pledged to the United Nations that the United States will cut its emissions up to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.
The Cantwell bill would direct the United States to use its leadership to secure commitments from other countries to cut emissions. The measure would require electric utilities to increase energy efficiency by 20 percent from current levels by 2030. It would also extend tax credits for electric utilities that use wind and solar power, increase spending on research into energy-efficient trucks and factories, and enact policies that would make it cheaper for consumers to invest in their own solar power.
At least two Democrats from states dependent on fossil fuels — Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota — will not sign on to the bill, their offices said.
“This is about what we can get done here, now,” Ms. Cantwell said. “There is more coalescence around this, for sure. This is about getting people from Middle America to support some of these concepts.”
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Senate Dems Offer Energy Wishlist
Sep 22, 2015 | Politico (Morning Energy)
By Eric Wolff
SENATE DEMS OFFER ENERGY WISHLIST: Senate Democrats will outline their energy policy wish list today, as bipartisan energy legislation seems stalled on both sides of the Capitol. Minority Leader Harry Reid, his likely successor Charles Schumer and other Democrats will unveil a bill this morning that they say will create jobs and promote clean energy. The bill includes items that Democrats could not get into a bipartisan bill that emerged from the Energy and Natural Resources Committee this summer. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the energy committee, is the bill’s lead author, and it includes a tax title from Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden.
Sources who have seen a draft of the bill tell ME it would including longstanding Democratic proposals to end many oil and gas tax breaks and that it would expand tax credits for technologies that reduce carbon emissions. That would likely include extending the expired production tax credit as well as the investment tax credit, which is set to lapse after next year. The bill also includes a previous proposal from Sen. Bernie Sanders to offer low-income solar assistance. Taken together, the source said, the bill would drive a 34 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2025 from 2005 levels. A Cantwell spokeswoman declined to confirm the details.
Energy Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski this summer offered her own messaging bill that would the crude oil export ban and expand offshore oil and gas drilling revenue sharing. Her panel gave that bill party-line backing July 30, the same day it approved the bipartisan bill 18-4. “We think it strikes a really good contrast specifically with Murkowski’s drill anywhere OPENS Act,” said Zach Drennen, a legislative associate at the League for Conservation Voters.
The Democratic plan also comes as bipartisan efforts in both the House and Senate are clearly on the ropes, amid possible infighting [http://politico.pro/1YhD0uD] among House lawmakers that led them to punt a planned markup last week. Time is dwindling to get the bill back on track amid a budgetary impasse that may lead to a government shutdown as soon as next week.
Keep in mind, Reid and other Democrats have floated the possibility of combining crude exports with some of their priorities. Tomorrow's bill could flesh out some details on the types of trades they would be willing to make.
'CLIMATE MIGRATION' ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE: The developed world has been struggling in recent weeks to figure out how to manage millions of migrants flooding out of Syria. But the problem is only going to become larger. Pro's Andrew Restuccia reports: "The problem of mass migration driven by desertification, drought or rising seas levels will be one of the most vexing issues on the table at the Paris climate change negotiations later this year — and it is already causing a rift between rich, industrialized nations and the poor countries most at risk from the effects of a warming planet...The forecasts are ominous: the United Nations has warned this month that desertification and land degradation alone could contribute to the displacement of as many as 50 million people over the next 10 years....A group of more than 100 developing nations, including China, is pressing to establish a formal process on 'loss and damage' in the final Paris agreement in hopes of giving the issue additional stature. They also want to establish a 'climate change displacement coordination facility,' a loosely defined concept to deal with the massive influx of climate migrants in the coming decades. " http://politico.pro/1Fqk1aK
How to avoid an impasse at Paris: Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House official, believes the disagreement between rich and poor countries over who is responsible for climate change and its effects could create a real log jam at the Paris Climate talks. He suggests how to break up the log jam in The Agenda: http://politi.co/1iK7aqf
LEK, TOTALLY A BIG DAY FOR THE BIRDS: Interior Secretary Sally Jewell today plans to join the governors of Colorado, Montana, Nevada and Wyoming for an announcement on the endangered status of the sage grouse, the spiky-tailed bird whose future must be determined by the Fish and Wildlife Service by Sept. 30. The announcement comes despite a rider attached to last year's government funding bill that sought to block any new decision on protections for the species. The defense authorization bill for fiscal 2016 that remains stalled in conference talks contains restrictions of its own on new federal help for the grouse, whose 11-state habitat encompasses land hotly sought for oil and gas development. "We're anticipating a not warranted decision," Kathleen Sgamma of the industry-backed group Western Energy Alliance told ME by email, but she also called for so-called "records of decision" on management of the grouse to give maximum deference to states. That means that the devil may be in the details for green activists and drillers alike as they dig into the details later today.
If you go: Jewell's big reveal with state-level partners will take place a 12 p.m. EDT, 10 a.m. CDT, at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center in Commerce City, Colo.
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Senate Democrats Unveil Sweeping Energy Bill
Sep 22, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor
Senate Democrats today rolled out a 437-page proposal that would overhaul an array of federal energy programs, from reforming the Energy Department's loan guarantee program to imposing a fee on under-producing oil and gas wells.
Check out a summary of the bill and the full text.
The bill also sets out a national "carbon savings goal" of at least a 2-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions annually between now and 2025 -- though that ambitious policy target is largely symbolic.
Minority Leader Harry Reid and his heir apparent in leadership, Sen. Chuck Schumer, joined top energy committee Democrat Sen. Maria Cantwell in releasing the bill this morning. It has a near-zero chance of becoming law during this Congress but represents a valuable marker for where the bulk of the party stands on major energy issues as Reid prepares for retirement at the end of next year.
Notably, the bill would repeal oil and gas industry tax benefits that Democrats have long lambasted as unnecessary subsidies. It also would extend the production and investment tax credits for wind and solar until the end of 2017, and create a new objective for DOE's fossil energy office to achieve more in carbon capture and storage.
Green groups offered early praise, with Oceana vice president Jacqueline Savitz calling the Democratic measure "a good plan for a clean energy future."
A spokesman for West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin says he will not be signing onto the bill, denying it unanimous support among Democrats.
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Senate Democrats to Unveil Energy Tax Plan
Sep 22, 2015 | Politico (Morning Energy)
By Brian Faler
SENATE DEMOCRATS TO ROLL OUT ENERGY TAX REFORM PLAN: Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, deputy leader Chuck Schumer and Finance’s ranking Democrat, Ron Wyden, will unveil plans today to overhaul some 44 tax provisions subsidizing energy production. They want to replace that hodgepodge of breaks for the oil industry, solar energy and others with a small number of technology-neutral breaks. The proposal, which will be wrapped into a larger Democratic energy plan, is unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon. But it will amount to Senate Democrats’ new opening bid when it comes to rewriting that section of the code. “I think it’s possible to get more clean, renewable energy for substantially less money,” Wyden told Bloomberg reporters and editors. Democrats say they’ll unveil the proposal today at a news conference at the Capitol.
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Senate Dems Outline Sweeping Package Promoting Clean Energy
Sep 22, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss and Hannah Northey
Senate Democrats today laid out a comprehensive package of clean energy provisions that will serve as their caucus' starting point in negotiations with Republicans on a range of issues in the coming months.
The "American Energy Innovation Act" is intended to send "a clear signal that a top priority for Senate Democrats is to invest in our clean energy future," Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said during a news conference this morning.
The bill, assembled by Senate Energy ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) with the help of Democrats on the Finance and Environment and Public Works committees, contains a smorgasbord of provisions to curb carbon emissions and boost clean energy sources.
The measure sets U.S. climate policy as reducing carbon emissions by 2 percent annually through 2025, while simultaneously pressing major foreign emitters to cut their own carbon emissions.
In a nod to current political realities, the bill does not establish a price on carbon but is intended to set complementary policies for achieving the goals. "Our approach is to set concrete targets" that will be met through innovation, Cantwell said.
Pressed on the omission of a carbon price, Cantwell noted that the bill would be different if Democrats were in the majority but said she's focused on making incremental progress on curbing emissions where possible in the meantime.
The 437-page bill contains provisions from across the caucus, with a major emphasis on overhauling the tax code.
It would create a "performance-based incentive that would be neutral and flexible between clean electricity technologies," according to a summary. Finance ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a former Energy Committee chairman, has long called for such an incentive, which would allow developers to choose between a production tax credit and an investment tax credit scaled to the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per kilowatt-hour.
"Power plants that emit at least 25 percent less carbon than the current nationwide average begin qualifying for a small incentive, which increases for power plants that are progressively cleaner," states the summary. "Zero emission facilities qualify for the maximum credits -- a 2.3 cents per KWh hour PTC or a 30 percent ITC. The PTC is available for the 10 years after a facility is placed in service."
The bill would also allow power plants operating before Jan. 1, 2018, to claim the full 30 percent of the ITC for adding energy storage or carbon capture technology. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) said the tax treatment for energy storage in the bill could support widespread change on the U.S. electric grid, allowing for a more distributed system that supports consumer choice.
"I think we're going to see what happened with silicon-based photovoltaics in terms of precipitous drops in cost, we're going to see those same incremental but significant changes in both the energy density of storage and the costs of storage," he said. "When that happens, that's a game changer for how you manage the grid as a whole."
Heinrich is part of a larger group of senators on the left who included language in the bill to support the research and deployment of energy storage, increase energy efficiency, remove barriers for distributed generation, and increase federal authority to protect the grid from cyberthreats.
The Senate Democratic measure, for example, includes a proposal Heinrich floated to allow residents tapping into communal solar projects to offset power from traditional power plants and more easily connect to the grid. That language never made it into the bipartisan bill that passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Another focus is a proposal from Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to create a federal standard for energy efficiency, which authors of the legislation touted as a way to save consumers $150 billion during the next 15 years. That provision would require utilities to achieve 20 percent energy savings by 2030, at which point the Department of Energy would revise the standard.
The bill also includes language Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) floated to boost support for solar projects in low-income communities. Sanders, who is running for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, wants the government to provide $200 million in Energy Department loans and grants to help low-income families pay for rooftop solar projects (Greenwire, July 7).
Other sections mirror the interests of New York Sen. Charles Schumer, the incoming Democratic Senate leader after Reid retires, to probe the link between electricity prices and capacity markets in regional electricity markets in the Midwest, Northeast, Texas and California. Schumer has for years complained about the effects of market constructs on the East Coast and threatened to tie regulators' hands (E&E Daily, Nov. 13, 2014).
The measure additionally would provide "transition relief" by extending the renewable PTC and ITC through 2017, with the Section 48C advanced energy manufacturing credit reauthorized with a $5 billion allocation.
The bill also would create a similar technology-neutral, 10-year incentive for renewable transportation fuels that is based on the life-cycle carbon emissions of a fuel.
But at least one Democrat -- Sen. Joe Manchin from coal-heavy West Virginia -- is opposed to the legislation, and Heinrich acknowledged the bill faces tough odds in a Republican-controlled Congress.
"While [the bill] is going to have a tough row to hoe with this leadership, the American people are waking up to what kind of energy future they want to see," Heinrich said. "And ideas that are currently tough to get a majority for are going to gain traction."
The legislation also would cancel a host of tax breaks for the largest oil and gas companies, while allowing the incentives to continue "based on the size and level of integration of oil and gas companies."
That's a political nonstarter in a GOP Congress but provides Democrats with ammunition to bludgeon Republicans in an election year. "This is going to be a huge issue in the election," said Schumer, noting concern among younger voters about climate change.
The bill contains other provisions that Republicans will strongly oppose, including the repeal of offshore drilling royalty relief, "use it or lose it" provisions for offshore lease holders, and the cancellation of state offshore royalty sharing authorized under a 2006 law.
The Democrats' bill, in the works for months, comes as Republicans have set their sights on repealing the long-standing federal ban on crude oil exports. It also follows the Senate Energy Committee's July passage of a bipartisan energy package negotiated by Cantwell and Energy Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
Key lawmakers from both parties, including Reid, have said they're willing to discuss a deal to allow crude exports if help for cleaner sources is part of the mix (E&E Daily, Sept. 18).
Cantwell sidestepped a question about such a deal but signaled that Democrats will be looking for opportunities to advance their energy preferences in the days ahead.
"We passed a bipartisan bill out of the committee, and we always expected when that bill came to the Senate floor there would be a whole lot of other ideas on both sides of the aisle that would be considered," she said. "So these are our ideas. We'd love to get them implemented, and if we don't get them implemented now, we'll look to the future. But clearly that will be part of the discussion."
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Mayors Urge Obama to Set Lower Ozone Limit
Sep 22, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Amanda Reilly
Seventy mayors from 24 states yesterday called on President Obama to set a more stringent ozone standard as U.S. EPA nears a deadline to choose a final new limit.
In a letter led by Grand Rapids, Mich., Mayor George Heartwell and Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker, the officials said a tighter national limit is needed to protect people from adverse health effects tied to ozone pollution.
Ground-level ozone is a key component of smog that's formed when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds react in the presence of sunlight.
Last November, EPA proposed to lower the current limit of 75 parts per billion to between 65 and 70 ppb. But the agency faces intense pressure from industry, GOP critics and several other local officials to retain the existing standard (Greenwire, Sept. 1).
EPA is under a court-ordered deadline of Oct. 1 to set a final limit. The White House Office of Management and Budget is reviewing the agency's decision and is in the midst of stakeholder meetings.
In their letter, the 70 mayors argued that a limit at the lower end of EPA's proposed range would be most protective for the public. They cited studies done by public health organizations, including the American Lung Association.
"As mayors, we are on the front lines of protecting the safety and well-being of our constituents and this long-overdue update will reap tremendous benefits for our communities," the letter said.
In contrast to industry contentions that a new standard would be too burdensome, the mayors also said EPA's analysis showed that a new standard would save money in the form of lower health care costs.
"It's simple -- strong smog pollution protections will save lives and prevent asthma attacks so we stand united in calling for action," Heartwell said in a statement.
Obama last week told a business group that while there were "legitimate" cost issues with a new standard, the benefits to public health would outweigh those costs. He also said the administration was constrained by the language in the Clean Air Act, which dictates that EPA set a standard that adequately protects the public (E&ENews PM, Sept. 18).
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Colo. High Court to Take Up Fracking Ban Cases
Sep 22, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Colorado's long-running battle over local control of hydraulic fracturing is finally headed for the state's highest court.
The Colorado Supreme Court yesterday accepted appeals from Longmont and Fort Collins, cities that attempted to restrict fracking through bans or moratoriums as industry activity crept closer and closer to where people live.
The court has narrowed the question at issue in the cases it will consider, focusing on whether state law pre-empts cities like Longmont and Fort Collins from crafting their own restrictions on industry activity.
Longmont residents passed a fracking ban in 2012, relying on its authority as a "home rule" municipality to regulate local issues in Colorado. Fort Collins passed a moratorium in 2013, despite Prospect Energy LLC's plans to drill there.
The Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA) initiated lawsuits against both cities, and the state joined the suit against Longmont. District courts in Boulder and Larimer counties ruled for industry and the state. The courts found that local governments may not regulate fracking because the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission already does.
Food and Water Watch; the Sierra Club; Earthworks; and Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont have joined in Longmont's appeal, which the state appellate court referred to the Supreme Court last month.
COGA celebrated the Supreme Court's decision to take the cases and said it looked forward to reaffirmation that state regulation is preferable to a patchwork of local rules.
"We look forward to once again having the Supreme Court put further clarification that the ban implemented in Longmont and that the Fort Collins moratorium are preempted by current law and are thus illegal," spokesman Doug Flanders said in an email. "However, just like before, we will continue to do the difficult and unsexy work of finding reasonable and workable solutions for our friends and neighbors throughout the state."
A state task force of industry representatives, environmentalists, community leaders and state officials is expected to release draft rules soon for local control of fracking -- with an emphasis on community rules for setbacks and well siting.
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Advocates Seek To Force EPA Response On Bid For State Nutrient Limits
Sep 22, 2015 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
Environmentalists are asking a federal district court to rule that EPA failed to justify its lack of a substantive response to their petition for strict Clean Water Act (CWA) nutrient controls in the Mississippi River Basin, arguing that the agency's rationale cannot pass even the deferential test set out by a recent appellate ruling in the same case.
In their Sept. 21 motion for summary judgment in Gulf Restoration Network (GRN), et al. v. EPA, GRN and its allies say the agency's reasons for refusing to investigate whether federal nutrient standards are necessary to protect water quality in the Mississippi basin are based almost entirely on its policy preferences and bear little connection to the water law.
The advocates say EPA's denial of their petition is similar to the George W. Bush administration's reasons for denying states' petition for federal climate regulations, which the Supreme Court overturned in the landmark 2007 case Massachusetts v. EPA on the basis that the agency had not grounded its rationale in the Clean Air Act.
“EPA’s Petition Denial articulates a 'laundry list of reasons not to regulate' that is strikingly similar to the reasons rejected by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts, and outside the bounds of the statute in the same manner. . . . this Court should reject those same reasons as having nothing to do with whether federally promulgated standards are necessary to meet the requirements of the CWA,” the brief says.
The environmentalists' petition sought an EPA finding that strict standards for nutrients are necessary to protect environmental health in basin states. Such a finding would trigger a mandatory duty under the water law for the agency to craft those standards itself if state governments did not move quickly to tighten their nutrient regulations.
But EPA in its 2012 response said that even if water rules in the Mississippi basin are inadequate, federal requirements would be an inefficient way to fix the problem, as they would be difficult to implement and lead to years of litigation.
GRN sued EPA in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, and while the district court initially ruled in 2013 that the agency must provide a more substantive response, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in a unanimous April 7 ruling remanded the case for new proceedings under a more favorable test for EPA.
Senior Judge Patrick E. Higginbotham, writing the opinion on behalf of fellow panel Judges Edith Brown Clement and Stephen A. Higginson, said in the 5th Circuit ruling that the lower court should use a test that is heavily deferential to EPA's decisionmaking on responding to CWA petitions -- as long as EPA can justify its answer based on the text of the statute.
Based on the Massachusetts ruling, EPA's decision is subject to a “highly deferential standard of review” provided the agency can show that its reason for declining to respond is “grounded in the statute,” Higginbotham said in his decision.
“As applied to refusals to initiate rulemakings, this standard is ‘at the high end of the range’ of deference, and 'such review is “extremely limited” and “highly deferential”' . . . the agency's burden is slight,” Higginbotham wrote.
If the district court again rules for the advocates, the agency could be forced to impose federal nutrient limits in as many as 31 states whose waters drain into the Mississippi, after its most recent such effort, in Florida, took more than six years to resolve.
The agency, environmentalists, state officials and industry fought a continual court battle over the 2009 determination that Florida's nutrient criteria were inadequate until the 11th Circuit ruled on July 7, 2015, to uphold new state-crafted rules despite advocates's claims that they were too weak and improperly approved by EPA. Federal officials noted in the petition denial that litigation over a similar determination for the entire Mississippi basin could last decades.
Advocates' Claims
In their new brief, GRN and its allies say EPA failed to satisfy even the 5th Circuit's deferential test because the petition denial was based on the agency's preference for working with states to develop stronger nutrient policies through guidance rather than an examination of whether their existing rules are inadequate.
“EPA’s approach throughout the Denial Letter was to simply cite to the existence of 'cooperative' efforts to assist the states and express a preference for these methods, without any mention of whether these efforts are actually working, much any less data or analysis of whether they are working . . . This approach is not only 'divorced from the statutory text,' but directly antithetical to it,” the brief says.
The environmentalists continue that the EPA denial letter “barely mentions the law at all,” and gives little weight to its requirements for state water quality standards.
“This omission is fatal. . . . Simply put, it is not possible to make a determination (or decline to make a determination) whether such requirements have been met, and whether federal action is necessary to ensure that they are met, without ever identifying in the first instance what those requirements are,” the brief says.
The brief also seeks to downplay the deference district court must give to EPA's denial, noting that the 5th Circuit's test is based on the one the Supreme Court applied in Massachusetts -- which the agency failed.
“Both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals made clear that EPA may only meet this standard by providing a response that is 'grounded in the statute.' EPA has failed to do so, and this Court should therefore remand the petition response with a requirement that EPA respond in a manner that complies with law,” the brief says.
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Pope’s Visit Reveals Flaws in U.S. Climate Policy
Sep 22, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Marie Clarke
This week Pope Francis will arrive in the U.S. with climate change and global poverty high on his agenda. The Catholic Church is not known for taking many progressive social or political positions, so Pope Francis’ commitment to speak the truth to global powers on behalf of people and the planet comes as a surprise to many. The question is, can the power of the pope help save the planet?
The pope circulated a letter – an “encyclical”, articulating his thoughts on climate change based on Catholic doctrine – earlier in the year, which came as a source of hope to the millions of people fighting to protect our environment for future generations. His statement that ‘the climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all’, brought the issue back onto the public agenda. This was especially timely ahead of the international climate change summit in Paris, later this year, where a climate deal is set to be agreed. Whether the deal will be a good one remains to be seen.
While the pope’s East Coast visit looks set to provide a boost to his flagging approval ratings among U.S. Catholics, President Obama’s visit to Alaska earlier this month failed to reignite his administration’s climate policy. Many of us hoped that the current administration would deliver positive changes to U.S. climate policy, but the result is full of contradictions. While the president has heavily promoted his Clean Power Plan, a pledge of much-needed funding to the Green Climate Fund – money that would help poor communities around the world adapt to changes in the climate that they’re already experiencing – remains stuck in Congress, and permits for oil drilling in the Arctic have been approved, at great risk to the climate and environment.
But while our national climate policy continues to contradict, the frequency and intensity of climate disasters is increasing. Here in the U.S. storm seasons are shifting, and California is in the midst of a record-breaking drought, with wildfires forcing 13,000 people to leave their homes.
This is all happening at home, but climate change is having the greatest impact on poor communities around the world. Earlier this year, I met Shah Alam, a boat repairman from the south of Bangladesh who was forced to leave his home to find work to support his family when soil erosion caused their home to collapse into a river. Now working in the capital Dhaka, he is still repairing boats, but having left a pristine river, his office is now a mound of trash on the edge of one of Bangladesh’s heavily polluted rivers.
But he is only one of the millions of people affected by climate change. The pope is also expected to use his visit to talk about the migrant crisis, where climate change has also played a major role. Between 2006 and 2011 more than half of Syria suffered the worst drought on record. Nearly 85 percent of livestock died in a drought that lasted longer, and was more intense, than any natural variations in weather. With little or no support from the Syrian government, farmers were forced to leave their land and started arriving in the country’s major cities. The protests by these farmers of government inaction were a trigger for the crisis that we see today on and around Europe’s borders.
The extent of the problem is huge and while it’s refreshing to see the leader of the world’s Catholics bringing greater attention to issues like poverty and injustice, and climate change, real action is needed by global leaders, including from the U.S. administration working together with Congress. Wealthy countries have contributed the most to climate change, but it is the people who did the least to cause the crisis that are worst hit. Climate justice is what Shah Alam needs – resources from wealthy nations so that he can adapt to climate change, build a resilient livelihood and be compensated for his losses. Climate change is one of the greatest threats to people living in poverty around the world today. The U.S. government can, and must, play a leading role in solving it.
Clarke is executive director of ActionAid USA.
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Pope Francis and the Climate Collision Ahead
Sep 22, 2015 | Politico
By Paul Bledsoe
When Pope Francis becomes the first pontiff to address a joint session of Congress this week, much focus will be on how Republicans will respond to the pope’s position on the climate. If Francis presses his case that the world must take urgent action to combat climate change, you can expect cameras to find Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose office recently indicated it is doubling down on efforts to fight President Barack Obama’s new greenhouse-gas reductions.
But this domestic political drama, absorbing in its own right, may obscure a more important, even radical, shift in the global politics of climate change that Francis has helped to advance. In his June encyclical addressing the issue, he emphasized the fundamental environmental rights of the world’s impoverished, and suggested the rich who have benefited from fossil fuels have a moral obligation to help the poor who may suffer most from climate change. “The poor and the Earth are shouting,” the pope wrote.
This emphasis on the fate of the poor seems like an understandable moral position in keeping with Francis’ broader emphasis on poverty and inequality. But it also draws attention to one of the biggest practical hurdles currently standing in the way of the U.N. climate agreement being negotiated later this year in Paris.
Within those negotiations, the world’s least developed countries have become increasingly aggressive in pressing for some method of dealing with, and paying for, what they contend are growing climate change impacts affecting their coastlines, agriculture, fresh water supplies and more. In the language of climate talks, these are called “loss and damage” provisions—in which richer nations more directly compensate poorer ones for climate costs. These provisions have been proposed by developing nations in the U.N. negotiations for several years, but the major greenhouse gas emitters, including the U.S., the EU and China, have banded together to water them down.
Protests erupted over this issue at a recent U.N. climate meeting in Bonn, Germany, as they did in Lima, Peru, last December, and a group of 77 nations comprised largely of the least developed countries and small island states have indicated they are working on more ambitious loss and damage proposals. The money at stake is significant: A recent U.N.-supported report projected that climate adaptation costs just for Africa will rise to $50 billion a year by 2050. Small islands could face huge costs involved in moving vulnerable coastal populations.
Ahead of the Paris negotiations, U.N. officials are imploring richer countries for additional funding of a Green Climate Fund, which seeks to establish $100 billion a year by 2020 in funding for poorer countries on a wide variety of climate change purposes, especially climate change adaptation and resilience. Currently, that fund has only about $10 billion in pledges, and Republicans in Congress are fighting efforts by the U.S. to deliver $3 billion Obama has promised for the fund. As the wealthier nations drag their heels, new science appears to be making a clearer link between damaging extreme weather events and climate change. Many peer-reviewed studies from leading research institutions in the last two years have found direct correlations between recent heat waves—in the Western U.S., Europe, Australia and elsewhere—and the underlying shifts in climate.
Given the emerging science, many nations affected, the moral case pushed by the pope and the resistance of developed countries, there is strong reason to believe the grievance over funding for protection from climate impacts presents the most profound threat to a successful climate agreement. Developed nations are going to have to address this head-on, or they risk losing a hard-fought deal over an intractable problem of global politics. A number of specific actions could help nations navigate through the impasse:
Clarifying what counts as a climate impact. As matters stand now, some less developed countries simply assert climate impacts that are scientifically unsubstantiated, while other richer and major emitting nations contend few or no impacts can be proven, despite recent studies. While tremendously challenging both politically and scientifically, it is hard to see how developed nations will be compelled to contribute far larger amounts of cash for long periods of time without clearer ways to address this question. One crucial advance would be establishing more research and better mechanisms to determine what can be scientifically found to constitute a climate change-related impact, especially regarding individual weather events. This key topic has been almost entirely neglected in the negotiations.
Phasing down “super greenhouse” HFCs. The class of chemicals called hydrofluorocarbons, used in refrigeration, have a greenhouse potency more than 1,000 times greater than carbon dioxide per molecule—but dissipate quickly in the atmosphere once emitted, so reducing them now can help avoid near-term climate impacts more effectively. Before the Paris negotiations, gaining agreement for both developed and developing countries (over a longer period, and with financial incentives) to substitute less harmful alternatives would go a long way toward proving developed nations are serious about the problem of climate change impacts.
Building climate protection into poverty alleviation and development plans. Climate adaptation and resilience measures along coastlines and elsewhere can help better protect the most vulnerable populations, especially in developing nations, from extreme weather events. While the World Bank and other the development leaders have long recognized this imperative, U.N. climate officials have been slow to work more directly with the development community to integrate these ideas into their strategies, for apparent fear of distracting from the central goal of emissions reductions. There’s another upcoming venue that would be ideal for working on this issue: the annual U.N. Sustainable Development Summit beginning Sept. 25 in New York.
Deploying clean energy in the developing world. Studies show that providing electricity is a main element in poverty alleviation, but many rapidly developing nations are highly dependent on coal and other high-emitting and dirty sources like kerosene or diesel generators. Current plans in India to greatly expand centralized coal-powered electricity, for instance, would lock in decades of high emissions. All countries must work to expand newly cheap solar and other clean energy sources to the 1.5 billion people around the world who lack electricity, and billions more for whom access is unreliable.
None of these issues will be sorted out easily, or fully resolved, at the Paris meetings. But wealthier nations must try harder, or they may find their hopes for an effective international climate agreement threatened. And, over the long term, as Francis has made clear, they risk their long-term moral and diplomatic standing, as the least developed nations begin to ask what exactly they are getting out of existing global economic and environmental arrangements.
Paul Bledsoe is president of Bledsoe & Associates, a Washington-based energy and climate policy consultancy. He was communications director of the White House Climate Change Task Force under President Clinton.
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Pope Likely to Cause Bipartisan Squirming on Hill
Sep 22, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Jean Chemnick
Pope Francis famously said, "A good Catholic meddles in politics."
During his visit to the United States this week, he's going to practice what he preaches.
The pontiff is scheduled to arrive at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C., this afternoon to start five days of discussing issues in ways that will likely make both Republicans and Democrats squirm.
"My sense is that everyone is excited that he's coming, but everyone will have moments of affirmation and discomfort," said John Carr, director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University.
While Democrats greet Francis as an ally on social justice, immigration and climate change -- issues the pontiff has identified himself with personally -- Republicans are moving to align themselves with long-established church stances on abortion and homosexuality.
President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden are expected to greet the 78-year-old pope, who's flying from a visit to Cuba. Francis' role in U.S. moves to normalize relations with Cuba will be on the agenda during a White House visit tomorrow that should also touch on global warming and refugee issues and immigration, among other issues.
Before the pontiff wraps up his U.S. stay with a celebration of traditional families in Philadelphia, he plans to celebrate a Spanish-language Mass, visit a food bank and prison, and urge world leaders at a United Nations' summit to act boldly at December's climate negotiations in Paris.
It is not clear how heavily Francis will tout his encyclical on climate change and environmental justice, which he released in June with much fanfare from environmentalists and congressional Democrats (Greenwire, June 18).
The 183-page papal letter not only affirms the human cause of climate change but condemns unregulated capitalism as "the dung of the devil" and demands that wealthy countries take ambitious steps to mitigate the risk of warming, especially to protect the world's poor.
Environmentalists hope the pope will use Thursday's first-ever address by the head of the Roman Catholic Church to a joint session of Congress to drive home the need for urgent action on warming. But doing so would likely offend Republicans as much as it delights Democrats.
Most GOP lawmakers still dispute that human emissions are contributing to warming, and even those who acknowledge man-made climate change stop short of calling for drastic action. A group of 11 Republicans made headlines last week by appearing to endorse the science behind man-made warming, but their resolution specified that any policies to address the problem should be "economically viable." They called for "private and public solutions" that do not require economic sacrifice.
Francis' encyclical, by contrast, is laced with passionate calls for self-sacrifice. He even pans solutions to warming like cap and trade because he says they perpetuate a culture of commoditization of resources.
"The idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology ... is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth's goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry at every limit," he writes.Political scramble
At least one Republican Catholic has said he will not attend the pope's address because of what Francis may say. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) in a post on the conservative Townhall.com website last week derided the pope for using his position as head of the church to "guilt people into leftist policies" (Greenwire, Sept. 18).
"But when the Pope chooses to act and talk like a leftist politician, then he can expect to be treated like one," Gosar wrote. Gosar says he expects some other Republicans to boycott but has not said which ones.
The Arizona Republican proposed that Francis confine his remarks to "standard Christian theology" and to defending Christians around the world, including those under threat from Islamic extremists in the Middle East.
And Republican leaders moved to align themselves with the pope on social issues by scheduling votes on a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The Senate this morning voted 54-42 to proceed with the bill, falling short of the 60 votes needed for its advance.
Francis is expected to address abortion during his visit to the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia on Sunday, and his encyclical censures the procedure as part of the "throw-away culture" that also leads to environmental degradation and the waste of resources.
But most of the issues the pope will raise during his remarks to Congress and other appearances skew left. Immigration reform is likely to be a topic when Francis addresses Congress, and again when the former Argentinian bishop says Mass in Spanish tomorrow afternoon at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to canonize Junípero Serra, a controversial early missionary to California.
Iraq and Syria will be topics throughout his visit to D.C., but he is also expected to talk prison reform, racism and income inequality. Those messages will be underlined by visits to Philadelphia's largest correctional facility and a New York food bank later in the week. And Francis' anti-capitalist views make it unlikely he'll propose the kinds of free-enterprise solutions to those problems preferred by Republicans.
The constituency that seems to be celebrating Francis' visit the most, however, are environmentalists.
The League of Conservation Voters ran ads ahead of his visit touting the pope's climate encyclical. And Thursday morning, as many as 250,000 people are expected to go to the National Mall to watch a telecast of the pope's address and to be entertained by Moby and other performers who are planning a green theme.
That event by faith group Moral Action on Climate could draw a quarter of the people who visit the nation's capital over the next three days, an organizer said. It competes for a few minutes of the pope's post-address time with another event on the Capitol's West Lawn that will be hosted by House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) for the ticketed guests of members of Congress. Organizers of the climate rally hope Francis will say a few words from the Capitol steps about the need for aggressive action to address warming -- a message they also expect him to take to the United Nations on Friday.
The pope's visit also provided the backdrop for the University of Notre Dame's pledge yesterday stop supporting coal-fired generation.
Gosar aside, most members of Congress say they are happy to welcome Francis to the Capitol. But while Democrats say they're excited to hear the pope's environmental and social justice message, Republicans emphasize that the pope's authority is moral and not political.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a Catholic, told CNN this week: "We'll thank him for what he brings to the table, and, at the same time, we'll glean from him what we think will be helpful."
Boehner, who has campaigned for two decades to bring a pope to the Capitol, would not comment on what this one might say. His office said Boehner's Catholic faith was a factor in his choice to run for Congress and still informs his decisions as speaker.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), meanwhile, devoted his weekly climate address last night to the pope's encyclical, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the visit "thrilling." Pelosi has often been criticized for holding pro-abortion-rights positions that are at odds with the abortion teachings of her Catholic faith.But is climate change a fundamental church teaching?
Rick Hinshaw, director of communications for the conservative Catholic League, said his group was more concerned that media coverage would misconstrue the pope's teachings than whether the pontiff would say anything that would anger conservative Catholics.
"In a political society, those are always subject to exploitation or co-opting by people with a political agenda," he said. "It's just something that we'll be watching for."
The pope's "charitable" statements toward people who have "same-sex" attraction have been taken out of context, Hinshaw said, and do not reflect a relaxing of church teachings.
And he said that while stewardship of the Earth is a fundamental and long-established tenet of the Catholic Church, that does not mean a Catholic is obligated to agree with the pope when it comes to climate change.
"It is possible to agree with that and to disagree perhaps with the pope's specific prescriptions for how we address that," he said.
Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social action lobby group, said she didn't expect the pope to mention specific policies in his remarks. But she said she expected him to raise climate change as a moral issue that Congress should respond to.
She called it "ironic" that conservative Catholics would try to pre-empt the message by casting it as political.
"I have been highly criticized by the political right for not being faithful to the teachings of the Holy Father when Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul II had a greater focus on the issue of abortion and of gay marriage," said Campbell, who started her "Nuns on the Bus" campaign in 2012 against the federal budget proposal put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
"When the message is inconvenient to them, they forget what they have been saying," she continued. "And the fact is that it's a complex message, because if we respect the dignity of all of creation, then the pope's message about economic justice, environmental justice and that personal justice -- it's all one continuous stream."
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