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Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) The Fed and Economy Are on a Collision Course
Sep 23, 2015 | The Street
By Roger Arnold

In yesterday's column I discussed the steadily growing dichotomy this year between the FOMC's statements and FOMC members' commentary.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) States Eye Options To Soften EPA Cancer Risk Estimate Of 1,4-Dioxane
Sep 23, 2015 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad

Five states with concerns about EPA's 2013 risk assessment of 1,4-dioxane have asked a group of risk analysis associations to weigh newly available data about the chemical's carcinogenicity and consider how best to elevate the information to the agency, which is conducting a new assessment focused on potential harms for workers exposed to the chemical.
(ACC Mentioned) The Back Story of the Foam-Container Ban's Defeat
Sep 24, 2015 | Crain's New York Business
By Erik Engquist

The plastic-foam industry has more than a state Supreme Court judge to thank for the defeat of a citywide ban on its disposable cups and food containers this week.
Boxer, Californians Fight Parochial Tag in Reform Fight
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Sam Pearson

With a key Senate hearing on a bipartisan bill to update federal chemicals policy less than two weeks away, aides to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) had a problem.
New Use Rule for Flame Retardant Published
Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

A final rule requiring chemical manufacturers and processors that make, sell or import hexabromocyclododecane (CAS No. 25637-99-4) and 1,2,5,6,9,10-hexabromocyclododecane (CAS No. 3194-55-6) for use in consumer textiles to have the Environmental Protection Agency review that intended use before proceeding was published in the Sept. 23 Federal Register (80 Fed. Reg. 57,293).
Male Breast Cancer Linked to TCE, PCE
Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

Male breast cancer may be associated with high levels of trichloroethylene (TCE) and certain other hazardous chemicals in drinking water, according to recent research.
Robert Kavlock: Use of Technology has Revolutionized Evaluation of Chemicals
Sep 23, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Robert Kavlock

A little over a decade ago, the Environmental Protection Agency was able to evaluate only a small number of the 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States to determine whether they posed a threat to human health and the environment.
EU Court Rejects Request to Disclose Company REACH Data
Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner

An attempt by two environmental advocacy groups to require the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to disclose data about companies and the hazardous substances they produce failed Sept. 23, with a European Union General Court judgment rejecting the case.
Nonanimal Test Methods Must Be Considered for REACH
Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

Chemical manufacturers must show the European Chemicals Agency they have considered alternative toxicity testing methods before proposing to obtain required toxicity data through animal tests, said ECHA's ombudsman in a decision announced Sept. 23.

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

Energy and Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) French Energy Company Plans $2 Billion Ethane Unit in Port Arthur
Sep 23, 2015 | Houston Chronicle
By Jordan Blum

French energy giant Total plans to build a $2 billion steam cracker in Port Arthur to produce up to 2.2 million pounds of ethylene a year.
House Postpones Vote on Oil Exports
Sep 23, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Elana Schor

The House no longer plans to consider legislation ending the crude oil export ban next week, according to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's office.
House Could Vote Next Week on Bill to End Export Ban
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Northey and Geof Koss

Legislation that would lift the country's ban on exporting crude could be up for a vote in the House as early as next week, despite grumbling among some Democrats that the measure ignores the environment, consumers and refineries.
As Clinton Leans Green, the Oil Industry Frets
Sep 24, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Elana Schor

Leaders of the oil and gas industry had long hoped that Hillary Clinton could be an easier president to work with than Barack Obama — but now they have reason to worry.
Clinton Outlines Energy Infrastructure Plan
Sep 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton detailed a plan Wednesday to upgrade the United States’ energy infrastructure, which she said would help the economy and encourage clean energy.
Clinton: Improve Energy Infrastructure Safety, Funding
Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven

Hillary Clinton Sept. 23 released her proposal to improve energy infrastructure safety, security and funding, maintaining that resolving these issues also would address climate change.
Clinton Calls for Climate Compact, Energy Upgrades
Sep 23, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jennifer Yachnin

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton today pivoted from her rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline yesterday to unveil a comprehensive proposal to address the nation's aging energy infrastructure.
Going Beyond Opposition to Keystone XL, Clinton Outlines Broader Energy Agenda
Sep 23, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney

On Tuesday, in yet another move — like her opposition to Arctic drilling — that rallied the environmental base, Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. Speaking in Des Moines, the leading Democratic presidential candidate said Keystone XL had become “a distraction from the important work we have to do to combat climate change” and “interferes with our ability to move forward.”
Senators Reintroduce Bipartisan 'Super Pollutants' Bill
Sep 23, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Jean Chemnick

Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) reintroduced legislation today to curb non-carbon greenhouse gases, offering a rare example of bipartisanship on climate change.
Senators Unveil Climate Bill Ahead of Pope's Speech
Sep 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Harper Neidig

Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) unveiled the upper chamber's first bipartisan climate bill of the year on Wednesday, ahead of the pope's address to Congress.
Fracking Firms That Drove Oil Boom Struggle to Survive
Sep 24, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By Alison Sider

A wave of bankruptcies and closures is sweeping across the oil patch, with dozens of hydraulic-fracturing companies at risk, industry experts say.
Colorado Called Model for EPA Oil, Gas Methane Rule
Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz

The Environmental Protection Agency should look to Colorado's 2014 rules as it develops regulations to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, speakers said at a public hearing in Denver.
University of Michigan Report Lists Fracking Options
Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nora Macaluso

A University of Michigan report summarizing three years of research on hydraulic fracturing in Michigan provides policy makers with analysis of the process and incorporates rules released earlier this year imposing new regulations on well operators.
OTC Proposes Voluntary Plan To Reduce VOCs From Consumer Products
Sep 23, 2015 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker

The Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states is proposing a voluntary program for manufacturers of consumer products and architectural coatings to reduce ozone-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the products, in lieu of stricter state or federal regulations to mandate cuts in VOCs.
Obama Optimistic on Paris Talks, Climate Solutions
Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna

President Barack Obama said he is “cautiously optimistic” the world will forge an international accord to address climate change later this year in Paris and ultimately will come together to solve the problem, according to an interviewwith Rolling Stone posted Sept. 23.
Pope Francis Says Climate Change Action Can't Wait
Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna

It is not too late to save the planet from the damage of climate change, but the world faces a “critical moment” to address the problem, Pope Francis said Sept. 23 at the White House.
Pope Faces Tough Crowd with Climate Plea
Sep 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama

Pope Francis is expected to bring his climate change message Thursday to one of its toughest audiences: congressional Republicans.
Lawmakers Await Pope and Wonder if Warming is Part of the Message
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Jean Chemnick and Geof Koss

As they prepared to receive Pope Francis' message this week, Democratic lawmakers hoped the pontiff would reinforce their own views on the need to curb carbon emissions while Republicans searched for common ground with the popular pope.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back on Carbon Emissions
Sep 24, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Brent Erickson

In August this year, President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon pollution from power plants by millions of tons annually over the next 15 years.
Ozone Rule Misses the Mark
Sep 23, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By J. Winston Porter

Sound environmental regulations have to be built upon a foundation of science. When science and expert opinion are pushed aside in favor of politics the result is often unachievable goals and real economic pain. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's proposed ozone rule checks all the wrong boxes.
Wal-Mart, Other Major Brands Join Renewables Pledge
Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrea Vittorio

The number of companies seeking to obtain 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources has nearly tripled in the last year as brands such as Wal-Mart, Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble have pledged to pursue cleaner power sources.

Transportation News

NTSB Begins Virginia Pipeline Spill Investigation
Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

The National Transportation Safety Board Sept. 23 began an investigation into a 2,000 gallon gasoline release from a Virginia pipeline. The gasoline, which was released from a pipeline on Sept. 21 in Centreville, Va., built up in a stormwater retention pond near where the pipeline was installed, a safety board news release said.

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Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) The Fed and Economy Are on a Collision Course

Sep 23, 2015 | The Street

By Roger Arnold

In yesterday's column I discussed the steadily growing dichotomy this year between the FOMC's statements and FOMC members' commentary.
While the statements have shown decreasing confidence regarding imminent inflationary pressures, rhetoric offered by FOMC members outside of the meetings has indicated the opposite.
It is probable that the members have voiced these concerns because they are convinced inflationary pressures are imminent, as reflected in the declining unemployment rate, and that in this economic cycle the evidence of inflation is simply taking a bit longer than they anticipated.
Putting aside issues concerning employment, unemployment and the labor participation rate, however, there are other measures of economic activity that are more important and that the Fed members must also be aware of.
The weekly release of the Johnson Redbook Index indicated year-over-year growth in same-store retail sales decelerated to 0.9%. Further, the decline in domestic retail sales growth, which has been steady all year, has now resulted in the average three-month and six-month year-over-year rates of growth decelerating to about 1.2%, the slowest rate since the beginning of the 2008 recession.
The decline in end consumer demand is also evident in the drop in Industrial Production(IP), both for manufacturing broadly and for final products. These, too, are on a recessionary trajectory.
Those declines are further validated by the Chemical Activity Barometer. In the American Chemistry Council's news release on the barometer, it stated the pattern shows a marked deceleration, even reversal, over second-quarter activity.
Meanwhile, the Cass Freight Index for August also displayed a marked deceleration in shipping activity over the past few months and year over year. Year-over-year shipments and expenditures were down 4.6% and 8.0% respectively, and the month-to-month change was a respective -1.2% and -2.0%.
The bottom line is that there has been a clear deceleration in consumer spending in the U.S. this year that is also being evidenced on the production side of the economy. Most importantly, in the immediate term and for monetary policy, it is getting worse, not better.
The members of the Fed must be aware that this is occurring and that it can no longer be waved off as being transitory. As such, I think it is likely that the Fed right now is concentrating its efforts on figuring out what the monetary policy response will be if the trend continues.
That policy response will have to be stimulative but I don't know what form it will take.
Since Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer has communicated his belief that quantitative easing is no longer an effective transmission mechanism, it seems likely that something else will be pursued.
At this juncture the only advice I can offer investors is to be vigilant for indications from Fed members that they are preparing to revert to a mode of monetary accommodation.

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) States Eye Options To Soften EPA Cancer Risk Estimate Of 1,4-Dioxane

Sep 23, 2015 | Inside EPA

By Maria Hegstad

Five states with concerns about EPA's 2013 risk assessment of 1,4-dioxane have asked a group of risk analysis associations to weigh newly available data about the chemical's carcinogenicity and consider how best to elevate the information to the agency, which is conducting a new assessment focused on potential harms for workers exposed to the chemical.
"The reason five states have signed on to the project is because they have to deal with the downfall," of a stricter cancer risk estimate, says a source with Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (TERA), a non-profit toxicology consulting group affiliated with the Alliance for Risk Assessment (ARA). "In this case, it's a significant change."
EPA in its 2013 Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of 1,4-dioxane set cancer risk estimates of 1x10^-1 per milligram per kilogram bodyweight per day (per mg/kg-day) for ingestion effects and 5x10^-6 per microgram per cubic meter of air (per ug/m^3).
The agency used strict linear cancer modeling analyses, which assume there is no safe level of exposure to the chemical. A linear approach is used if a chemical's mode of action (MOA), or how it can cause cancer, is unknown.
But the TERA source says a Japanese study fills an important gap in understanding 1,4-dioxane's MOA, which could allow EPA to use less stringent modeling in setting a cancer risk estimate.
The five states and TERA requested from the Japanese government the data from the cancer bioassay, and TERA then hired experts to translate the study into English.
The five states, which the TERA source declined to name, met with TERA staff in early September to decide how to best advance the new information, with an eye toward altering EPA's risk analyses. The states requested that ARA consider the Japanese information, how else to advance understanding of 1,4-dioxane's carcinogenicity and MOA and how to encourage regulatory use of this information.
Should ARA's steering committee undertake the project, it will follow an ARA project on EPA's IRIS assessment of trichloroethylene. The document produced a range of risk estimates including EPA's strict number but also including less stringent numbers, which the group suggested could be used in various regulatory scenarios.
Pending Assessment
The push for EPA consideration of the Japanese data -- as well as TERA's re-evaluation of a 1978 National Toxicology Program cancer bioassay in mice that was not published until 2014 after EPA had completed the IRIS assessment -- comes as the agency's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) is developing an assessment of 1,4-dioxane.
OPPT's efforts are part of a program introduced by the Obama EPA in 2012 as a way to more strictly enforce the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in light of unsuccessful legislative efforts to reform what many stakeholders consider a broken law.
In addition to the states' concerns, industry groups have also criticized OPPT's reliance on the IRIS assessment, arguing in recent comments that the agency's inhalation cancer risk estimate is six times more stringent than the cancer inhalation risk estimate calculated for the same chemical by Canadian agencies, which did not use linear modeling.
The industry comments protest that OPPT in its screening assessment fails to consider new literature, such as the 2014 TERA study, and fails to note that the critical studies relied upon in the 2013 IRIS assessment were released in 1974 and 2009. "Considering all the evidence, EPA has not justified the need for further evaluation," the groups say. The comments are supported by the American Chemistry Council, the American Cleaning Institute, the Consumer Specialty Products Association and Waste Management, among others.
TERA undertook the re-analysis of the NTP data because "the incidence and severity of non-neoplastic lesions . . . was one of the key uncertainties that EPA cited as support for use of linear cancer risk approach in the IRIS assessment," according to June 29 comments that the industry coalition sent OPPT.
The groups argue that TERA's 2014 paper "strengthened the evidence of hepatocellular toxicity followed by regenerative hyperplasia as the leading key events for non-linear or threshold MOA for 1,4-dioxane-induced liver tumor formation."

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(ACC Mentioned) The Back Story of the Foam-Container Ban's Defeat

Sep 24, 2015 | Crain's New York Business

By Erik Engquist

The plastic-foam industry has more than a state Supreme Court judge to thank for the defeat of a citywide ban on its disposable cups and food containers this week.
The seeds of the industry’s victory were planted two years ago, when it recruited then-City Councilman Robert Jackson to its cause and paid for a laudatory mailing as he ran for higher office.
Mr. Jackson was unable to defeat the bill, but he raised enough hackles to win a concession from its sponsor: a clause requiring the sanitation commissioner to explore whether a recycling program would be viable and cost-effective.
It was a last-ditch effort, for sure. The Bloomberg administration’s proposed ban on plastic-foam food containers had enough support in the council to pass as it came to a head in late 2013. But city legislators prefer to pass legislation by overwhelming margins, and the foam ban was facing opposition from Mr. Jackson and objections from other members of the council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus. So the out-clause was added.
Supporters did not think the amendment would come to anything, but in a decision released Tuesday, Judge Margaret Chan ruled that the de Blasio administration’s sanitation commissioner erred when she concluded that the city could not effectively recycle plastic-foam food containers. A spokesman for the mayor said the city still aims to implement the ban and is considering its options.
Lew Fidler, who carried the legislation as a Brooklyn councilman, said Tuesday that he did not regret adding the clause that opened the door for the judge to block the ban.
“I respectfully disagree with the conclusion that the court reached, which I think ignores the practical reality of the question posed to the commissioner,” Mr. Fidler said via email, adding that the city should appeal the ruling and the council should amend the law if needed to enact it.
The minority caucus had been targeted in 2013 by the plastic-foam industry because they offered a sympathetic ear and there was a racial and ethnic angle to be played. Low-cost food establishments run by immigrants in minority districts often use plastic-foam cups and clamshell containers because they are cheaper and more insulating than more environmentally-friendly alternatives. The controversial material—known in the industry as expanded polystyrene, or EPS—may also be more readily accepted by their customers than by those in wealthier neighborhoods.
Industry representatives, led by Michigan-based Dart Container Corp., met for 30 minutes with the council’s minority caucus including Mr. Jackson, who was prevented by term limits from seeking re-election to the council that year but was running in the Democratic primary for Manhattan borough president. They argued that foam containers could be washed and recycled along with rigid plastic into pellets and used to make picture frames and other products. Moreover, Dart said it would supply the washing equipment and buy the used foam for the first few years of the program.
“The bottom line for me is, we can recycle it,” Mr. Jackson told Crain’s afterward. “Here’s a company saying, ‘We will recycle it, we will pay you $160 a ton.’ It will get it out of the waste stream and the city will earn several million dollars. Hello! That sounds like a great win to me for the city of New York.”
But there was another upside to Mr. Jackson. To fight the ban, the industry had formed an organization in Albany called the Restaurant Action Alliance, through which it funded a glossy, full-color mailer praising the councilman.
The piece featured two head shots of a smiling Mr. Jackson and nine photos of small business people of various stripes. “Thank you, Robert Jackson,” it said in big letters, “for protecting local jobs in Harlem and Upper Manhattan.”
It urged recipients to tell Mr. Jackson to “keep fighting the City Hall bureaucracy by opposing Intro. No. 1060 so that our neighborhood businesses can succeed.”
The reverse side of the piece had more of the same, but nowhere did it mention foam containers or anything else about the pending bill, other than that it “would have a negative impact on neighborhood businesses that we all depend on.”
The $12,948 spent on the mailer paled in comparison to what Mr. Jackson spent on his unsuccessful campaign, but was the kind of thing that does not go unnoticed by candidates.
The Restaurant Action Alliance received three contributions totaling $824,500 during the 2013 election cycle, all from the American Chemistry Council, a major lobbying organization that attempted to kill the Bloomberg administration’s foam-container ban and other measures like it across the country. It is not clear how much of that money was spent, but the fledgling restaurant group was among the plaintiffs, along with Dart Container, who sued the city this April to block Local Law 142. The ban was to be enforced beginning in 2016.
The saga is almost certainly not over.
“I hope that the de Blasio administration appeals this ruling,” Mr. Fidler added in his message, “and, if necessary, [that] the council amends the law to ensure that any future decision of a sanitation commissioner under the still-standing Local Law is neither dependent on a single company’s limited-time offer or can ignore the practical realities of trying to get New Yorkers to recycle these containers in a way that the Department of Sanitation can actually collect and use.”

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Boxer, Californians Fight Parochial Tag in Reform Fight

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E Daily

By Sam Pearson

With a key Senate hearing on a bipartisan bill to update federal chemicals policy less than two weeks away, aides to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) had a problem.
Boxer's office had first wanted to summon the California attorney general's office, led by Kamala Harris -- a Democrat running to succeed Boxer in the Senate when she retires at the end of her term -- to weigh in on S. 697, or the "Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act," before the Environment and Public Works Committee.
Boxer's aides had hoped Harris or a deputy could argue that the bill would weaken California's ability to regulate chemicals -- but then had second thoughts about inviting them, recordsreleased to E&E Daily under the California Public Records Act show.
"We only get two witnesses," wrote Bettina Poirier, the Democratic staff director and chief counsel at the EPW committee and a top aide to Boxer since 2005, in a message to California officials in March. "My boss thinks we are likely to need written testimony from [California], but need a witness from another state so this doesn't look parochial to us."
As it happened, Harris herself wasn't available to testify at the hearing, explained Brian Nelson, who was then general counsel at the attorney general's office, so a lower-ranking official would be needed. As an alternative, California Secretary for Environmental Protection Matthew Rodriquez could testify instead.
With Boxer as their leading champion and the Golden State's attorneys providing legal support, chemical safety advocates have worked to show they are a broad coalition, not a regional one, and that their opposition to the Senate legislation is based on the national interest -- not just California's. But some proponents of the pending chemicals bill -- states with fewer regulations, industry groups, some environmental organizations and other lawmakers -- have argued that Boxer and California leaders see little need to compromise on Toxic Substances Control Act reform because the large state can spend hefty sums forging ahead on its own policies, while other states' citizens remain vulnerable.
Long able to effectively block unfavorable action because of Boxer's post as chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, California has seen its influence diminish in the TSCA debate with the election of a Republican-controlled Congress -- enabling lawmakers from other states to forge ahead with the legislation. Despite that, Boxer and others have won concessions during the ongoing negotiations over TSCA reform, grandfathering in existing state chemical restrictions and letting one program, the voter-approved Proposition 65 labeling rules, continue over industry opposition.
However, to state leaders' alarm, California under the current Senate bill stands to lose its ability to set other kinds of tighter chemical restrictions in the future if they would conflict with a final agency action by U.S. EPA -- something bill proponents say shouldn't be a problem if EPA has the resources to do its job. But Boxer has signaled she is open to some form of pre-emption through her recent comments that a competing House bill, H.R. 2576, or the "TSCA Modernization Act," could be acceptable as a basis for reform.
"I have spent my life fighting for women, children and families, and I know the horrific consequences of unregulated poisons and toxins," Boxer said in a statement provided to E&E Daily this week. "My goal is to make sure the federal bill does not stop states from protecting families from cancer, heart disease, lung disease and other health problems. I want to make sure that while we give power to the federal government to act, it does not have the unintended consequence of destroying lives because states, which have been the leaders, are unable to act if they see danger to their people under the new law. I am very hopeful a balanced bill will be negotiated, but my bottom line is to protect families from tragic health consequences. I will use every tool at my disposal in this effort."
California's priorities aside, many other lawmakers are arguing that TSCA reform is necessary because their states do not have the resources to regulate chemicals.
"The driving thing for me is that my state is not protected," Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), the bill's chief sponsor, said in an interview earlier this year. "We don't have a state chemical law that deals with the kinds of testing that the EPA does. And so this is a big problem for my state -- this is true for small states and large states -- Virginia and Ohio don't have them. ... When you have an ineffective EPA on this, on these important issues, this is a big problem."Legacy of Calif. laws
Some advocates dispute Udall's claim that only California is protected under current law.
Rather, California laws have prompted changes to consumer products that extend across state borders, they contend. Other state laws have helped, too, like restrictions on bisphenol-A (BPA) in baby bottles, which led to federal action. In all, 35 states have approved at least 173bills addressing chemical regulations since 2003, according to the advocacy group Safer States. Actions include Maine's disclosure of BPA in toys, which prompted Hasbro to reformulate its products, and a 2008 Washington state law phasing out the flame retardants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs, that produced an agreement brokered by U.S. EPA to stop sales of some PBDEs at the federal level.
"Nationwide, all children benefit when one state acts," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said at a hearing earlier this year.
Over decades, California has built up toxic chemical regulations that take more novel approaches than other states, and officials for years have beaten back attempts to weaken them, even though the programs' supporters admit they haven't always been implemented as planned.
Controversial since the start, Proposition 65, or the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, approved by voters in 1986, was a bid to attack "the source" of pollution, not just its consequences, Carl Pope, then the Sierra Club's political director and an author of the initiative, told the Los Angeles Times in the final weeks before its passage.
The bill would be successful by ending "a great game of find-a-loophole," in which companies have many avenues to fight regulation of chemicals by presenting procedural obstacles, said Pope, who later became the group's chairman and executive director.
Though most widely known for its mandated chemical warning signs, "the law's major success in ensuring safer products has been mostly invisible," because companies are prodded to reformulate their products, the Center for Environmental Health wrote in a 2013 report. CEH settled 62 lawsuits under the statute in 2013, according to the state attorney general's office.
Companies are pushed to make these changes because they fear the stigma of a Proposition 65 warning label, CEH and other groups contend. That's why PepsiCo. Inc., in their telling, removed the chemical 4-methylimidazole, or 4-MEI, from its soda after using it for decades. California was required to list 4-MEI under the program because the National Toxicology Program, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, found it caused cancer in laboratory animals. But companies were not required to issue labels unless they used 4-MEI at levels exceeding the "safe harbor level" established by state regulators.
Business interests disagree. To voters, the promise of Proposition 65 "had great appeal," said Anthony Caso, a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and a critic of the program. "We're talking about getting warnings anytime something might cause cancer. On the face of it, that sounds great, but if you see the label on absolutely everything everywhere, it's meaningless."
Some opponents also note that the BPA restrictions in baby bottles fell under the authority of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and thus wouldn't have been affected by changes to TSCA.
This kind of "quiet compliance" is not often visible to consumers, but still benefits them, Claudia Polsky, a former deputy state attorney general who is now the director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a recent interview.
These kind of programs are beneficial because states inevitably move faster than the federal government, Polsky said at an Environmental Law Institute forum earlier this year.
Failing to allow states to take faster action only harms consumers and companies, which must manage harmful products that have improperly entered the marketplace, Polsky said.
Restricting states in this way "was like building a hospital without an emergency room," Polsky said (E&E Daily, Jan. 28).
Still, even as California officials have repeatedly beaten back attempts by outsiders to alter state regulations, changes to Proposition 65 are not off the table within the state, though they have yet to succeed. The state's Green Chemistry Initiative, launched under a 2008 law, has also faced criticism for playing a limited role so far in the marketplace (Greenwire, Sept. 27, 2013).
Proposition 65, too, has not lived up to all expectations, Polsky said. For example, she said, its prohibitions on discharges to water have proved difficult to enforce.
Business groups' arguments against Proposition 65 have found some sympathy from Gov. Jerry Brown (D).
Brown, launching a push in 2013 to limit what he called the most egregious applications of Proposition 65, praised the law as a well-intentioned policy, but warned that it was "being abused by unscrupulous lawyers."
Brown's proposal would have allowed businesses to avoid liability if they correct the problem within 14 days, pay a $500 fine and notify whoever sued them that they fixed the problem. The exemption would have applied only to exposure to vehicle exhaust in parking garages, alcohol, secondhand smoke and naturally occurring chemicals caused when food is cooked, which many experts considered the most frivolous uses of the law.
Four months later, the plan was scrapped because of stakeholder disagreement and a dwindling legislative calendar.Can't 'convey in any way this is better than current law'
To hold the line against threats to California law, Boxer and her allies agreed, it was key not to adopt opponents' arguments that existing federal law was so bad that almost anything would be an improvement, Poirier wrote in comments on draft testimony being prepared for Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D). At the time, Boxer was stating that the bill "is actually worse than current law" (E&ENews PM, March 10).
The idea was to avoid rhetoric that "feeds into the idea" that federal law was so bad that "action must happen -- thus any bill worth doing," Poirier wrote.
It's "important not to convey in any way this is better than current law," Poirier wrote. "It is a package and it does not work. Saying that it is incrementally better will open flood gates of problems."
Frosh's testimony before the EPW Committee came as staff and California officials were working to rally opposition to the bill from Udall and Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). The office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) reached out to states around the country, even to Udall's home state of New Mexico ("no response," a staffer wrote), seeking to enlist attorneys general to the cause.
Attorneys general play a unique role as the frontline litigators who must actually enforce these statutes and are accountable to voters, said Andy Igrejas, director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, which opposes the Senate bill. Though "some states care about this more than others," Igrejas conceded.
Numerous letters of support and opposition have since been circulated to the public and members of the media as legislative action on the bill has stalled, even as the bill's proponents continue to add co-sponsors -- 54, at last count -- and seek floor time from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
"Sent AG letter to Darren goode with politico because he called about these issues," Poirier wrote. "Keep in mind he is not a friendly reporter."
The delay should not be blamed solely on Boxer, Igrejas said. It is also due to the fact that the legislation is flawed, he said, in particular the "early and bizarrely crafted" way pre-emption is handled.
Unlike in the House bill, states in the Senate legislation would have to seek a waiver from EPA if they want to restrict the use of a chemical before EPA has made a final regulatory decision, and EPA's denial of a waiver could be challenged in court. Supporters of the bill have defended the waiver as the product of compromise that would protect the interests of states.
California's negotiators may need to remain vigilant as the bill progresses, Boxer's office warned last March, as floor time could bring an opening for last-minute changes that could harm the state.
"Remember, there is a long road ahead and this is just the first step," Poirier wrote. "Many will try to push for more rollbacks in the next round on the floor. If there is no worthwhile deal here, negotiations will continue, and the opponents will be under additional pressure as well."

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New Use Rule for Flame Retardant Published

Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

A final rule requiring chemical manufacturers and processors that make, sell or import hexabromocyclododecane (CAS No. 25637-99-4) and 1,2,5,6,9,10-hexabromocyclododecane (CAS No. 3194-55-6) for use in consumer textiles to have the Environmental Protection Agency review that intended use before proceeding was published in the Sept. 23 Federal Register (80 Fed. Reg. 57,293). The significant new use rule, or SNUR, also requires the EPA's oversight of certain imported manufactured goods such as textiles and upholstered furniture if they are treated with the two structurally related flame retardants. EPA released the final rule online Sept. 17 (181 DEN A-9, 9/18/15). The rule goes into effect Nov. 23. The agency has issued at least three final SNURs since 2013 that affect imported goods, a trend agency officials have said is intended to hold U.S. and foreign manufacturers to a common standard.

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Male Breast Cancer Linked to TCE, PCE

Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

Male breast cancer may be associated with high levels of trichloroethylene (TCE) and certain other hazardous chemicals in drinking water, according to recent research. The study in “Environmental Health” looked at Marines stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., between the 1950s and 1985 who were exposed to the chemicals TCE, tetrachloroethylene (PCE), t-1,2 dichloroethylene and vinyl chloride. Actual contamination levels of the drinking water during most of the study period are unknown, the research said. The study included 71 male breast cancer cases and 373 controls identified from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The research is available athttp://www.ehjournal.net/content/14/1/74.

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Robert Kavlock: Use of Technology has Revolutionized Evaluation of Chemicals

Sep 23, 2015 | The Washington Post

By Robert Kavlock

A little over a decade ago, the Environmental Protection Agency was able to evaluate only a small number of the 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States to determine whether they posed a threat to human health and the environment.
That changed dramatically after longtime EPA scientist Robert Kavlock was assigned the task of addressing the problem. In 2005, Kavlock established the National Center for Computational Toxicology and shaped it as a major biotech enterprise that uses cutting-edge science and technology to quickly screen large numbers of industrial and household chemicals for hazardous effects.
“Bob Kavlock has been a leader in transforming the way we assess the risk of chemical substances that are present in the human environment,” said Daniel Krewski, a professor at the University of Ottawa and an expert on chemical safety and environmental hazards. “With this new approach based on the computational methods that Bob’s group has pioneered, we now for the first time have the prospect of being able to evaluate every chemical that may pose a risk. This is a huge advance.”
Collectively known as ToxCast, the center Kavlock created uses new tools to integrate advances in biology, biotechnology, chemistry and computer science, and reduce the need for animal-based toxicity tests in laboratories. The new process exposes living cells or isolated proteins to chemicals and screens them for changes in biological activity that may suggest potential toxic effects. The traditional process exposes animals to high doses of a chemical to see if they develop tumors or nervous system problems, or if their offspring have birth defects.
Using the animal-testing methods, the EPA has evaluated only about 70 chemicals for hormonal activity in the past 15 years, at a cost of about $1 million per chemical. The ToxCast system, in contrast, screened more than 2,000 chemicals between 2009 and 2013, at a cost of approximately $30,000 per chemical and, as of 2015, had compiled screening data on nearly 10,000 chemicals. The tests have provided data on the potential of these chemicals to cause adverse health effects.
Paul Anastas, director of the Center for Green Chemistry and Green Engineering at Yale University, described Kavlock as “perhaps the best scientist in the federal government today.”
“He has built something in the Computational Toxicology Center that is tremendously powerful and rigorous. He has taken environmental protection to the next level,” Anastas said.
Lek Kadeli, the acting EPA assistant administrator for research and development, said Kavlock’s work starting the center and developing the risk-assessment process for chemicals has been “transformative.”
“People were not expecting EPA to accomplish this for another 20 years. There is a sense of astonishment from people who are experts in the field over what the EPA has done,” Kadeli said.
Kadeli pointed out that Kavlock, a scientist at the EPA for more than three decades, forged partnerships with the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and industry partners, and opened the doors for collaboration and data exchange across the public and private sectors. He said this has permitted an unobstructed flow of knowledge, discovery and information.
“Any scientist, when they do work, likes to hold on to the information and only make it available as they publish so they can get the recognition,” said Kadeli. “As soon as we have good information, we’re going to make it public and that helps others build on our work and speed the process of this incredible research. This was driven by Bob and the culture he created.”
The EPA has more than 150 research agreements with a wide range of partners, including L’oreal, Dow Chemical, Health Canada, the European Chemicals Agency, Harvard University, the California Environmental Protection Agency, and pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Merck.
In 2012, after seven years at the helm, Kavlock gave up day-to-day leadership of the toxicology center and was named the deputy assistant administrator for science in the EPA’s Office of Research and Development. In this role, he leads research teams and is shaping the agency’s science agenda. Kavlock also is working with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to harmonize guidelines so that member countries test and regulate chemicals in the same way.
Kavlock said it was highly rewarding to “start with an idea that many people thought would never be successful and create an organization that is now recognized around the world as a leading innovator in toxicology and risk assessment.”
“We have positioned the EPA to do a much better job of looking at the safety of large numbers of chemicals,” said Kavlock.
This article was jointly prepared by the Partnership for Public Service, a group seeking to enhance the performance of the federal government, and washingtonpost.com. Go to the Fed Page of The Washington Post to read about other federal workers who are making a difference. To recommend a Federal Player of the Week, contact us at fedplayers@ourpublicservice.org.

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EU Court Rejects Request to Disclose Company REACH Data

Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Stephen Gardner

An attempt by two environmental advocacy groups to require the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to disclose data about companies and the hazardous substances they produce failed Sept. 23, with a European Union General Court judgment rejecting the case.
The International Chemical Secretariat (ChemSec) and environmental lawyers ClientEarth filed a case in 2011 with the general court, the EU's lower court, arguing that ECHA should publish data on the volumes of dangerous chemicals produced by companies registered under the EU's REACH law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals).
ECHA agreed in May 2011 to publish the names of companies that produce hazardous substances, but declined to disclose information on each company's production volume, arguing that the information was commercially confidential (92 DEN A-5, 5/12/11).
At the prodding of some nongovernmental organizations ECHA started to publish names of producers of hazardous substances in late 2012 (229 DEN A-10, 11/29/12).
The two environmental groups argued that it was in the public interest and in line with rules on the access to environmental information for ECHA to also disclose data on the volumes of hazardous chemicals supplied by each producer.
But the general court Sept. 23 disagreed with ChemSec's and ClientEarth's arguments.
The court said information on precise production volumes of hazardous substances could be considered confidential and therefore does not have to be disclosed on request.
The court added, however, that in specific cases where there was justification for publishing the data, its disclosure might be required.
Clarifying Applicable Rules
In a statement to Bloomberg BNA Sept. 23, ECHA said the judgment “clarifies the applicable rules governing the access to documents ECHA holds and their dissemination,” and would contribute to “legal certainty.”
ECHA said it considered the judgment to be “very helpful and will analyze it more fully to decide how best to adapt its policy, if considered necessary.”
ChemSec director Anne-Sofie Andersson said ECHA already discloses the names of companies that produce hazardous substances, and the total volumes of those substances manufactured in, and imported into, the EU also were known. Therefore, disclosure of specific information on volumes produced per company would have been “a logical step forward.”
“Knowing who is producing dangerous substances, and what volumes, is vital not only to safeguard the public, but also to raise the level of transparency in the whole industry,” Andersson said.
Vito Buonsante, a lawyer with ClientEarth, said “the judges failed to recognize” that information on each company's production of toxic substances would help to “hold industry to account, to push safer alternatives, and to better protect people from dangerous chemicals.”
The two groups had sought the production data for about 350 substances that have been included on the so-called SIN (Substitute It Now!) list of dangerous chemicals that the groups argue should be phased out under REACH. ChemSec draws up the SIN list and last updated it in October 2014 (196 DEN A-2, 10/9/14).

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Nonanimal Test Methods Must Be Considered for REACH

Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

Chemical manufacturers must show the European Chemicals Agency they have considered alternative toxicity testing methods before proposing to obtain required toxicity data through animal tests, said ECHA's ombudsman in a decision announced Sept. 23.
ECHA has agreed to two proposals suggested by the ombudsman, which is therefore closing a complaint nongovernmental organizations filed against the chemicals agency in November 2013, the chemicals agency said (Case No. 1606/2013/AN).
The NGOs, which the ombudsman said requested anonymity, alleged the chemicals agency has failed to fully implement the EU's registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals, or REACH, regulation ((EC) 1907/2006), because the agency does not reject animal testing proposals when data could be generated by an alternative method that would replace, reduce or refine the use of animals.
Ombudsman's Proposals Accepted
“The ombudsman's inquiry concluded that ECHA's interpretation of its role was too strict and did not take into account the fact that the avoidance of animal testing was, together with the protection of human health and the environment, one of the guiding principles of the regulation,” the ombudsman wrote in a Sept. 11 decision.
The ombudsman therefore proposed to ECHA that it should:
• require all chemical registrants to show they have considered alternative test methods that could generate toxicity and other data required under REACH and found those methods could not reasonably do so; and
• provide registrants with information about the existence of alternative tests methods that may be able to generate required data and require registrants to explain to ECHA's satisfaction why those methods would not work.
ECHA agreed to the first proposal and said it already did the second.
The ombudsman said that reply meant the agency accepted its proposals.
Report From ECHA Due in Six Months
It directed the agency to report to the ombudsman in six months about progress it has made in carrying out those tasks.
“It's a pity that a complaint from an NGO was necessary to get ECHA to accept its responsibility to require all registrants to demonstrate they have tried to avoid testing on animals and provide registrants with all information at its disposal which could help them to avoid testing on animals,” Gilly Stoddart, associate director of PETA's International Science Consortium, told Bloomberg BNA by e-mail. PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, established the consortium to help its scientists support the development, validation and global use of alternative tests.
“It's too late for the animals who have already been killed in chemical tests that could have been avoided but we hope that the ombudsman's decision will result in potentially thousands of animals being saved in the coming years,” Stoddart said.
U.S. Workshop
In a separate but related development, U.S. regulators that require the submission of acute toxicity data will meet with federal, chemical industry, academic and NGO scientists Sept. 24-25 at aworkshop called Alternative Approaches for Identifying Acute Systemic Toxicity: Moving from Research to Regulatory Testing.

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Energy and Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) French Energy Company Plans $2 Billion Ethane Unit in Port Arthur

Sep 23, 2015 | Houston Chronicle

By Jordan Blum

French energy giant Total plans to build a $2 billion steam cracker in Port Arthur to produce up to 2.2 million pounds of ethylene a year.
Total contracted with CB&I, based in The Woodlands, to do front-end engineering and design for a second cracking unit at Total's existing Port Arthur campus. A final decision on the project is expected next year and it would be completed in 2019, Paris-based Total said Wednesday.
Ethylene is the primary building block of most plastics. Petrochemical projects are surging along the Texas Gulf Coast, thanks to an influx of cheap natural gas from U.S. shale. Natural gas is both feedstock and fuel for petrochemical and plastics manufacturing.
The American Chemistry Council counts 243 announced U.S. projects with a cumulative investment of $147 billion from 2010 to 2023. More than 60 percent of that investment is from overseas.
Total Refining and Chemicals President Philippe Sauquet said plentiful natural gas has prompted the company to strengthen its global petrochemicals and refining presence.
"In the United States, we want to capitalize on the shale gas revolution during which gas prices have plunged 66 percent," Sauquet said in a prepared statement. "In such an environment, the advantage to investing in petrochemical activities is access to a plentiful, inexpensive feedstock and to low-cost energy for our plants."
The Port Arthur complex is one of Total's six major integrated platforms worldwide. Total owns a refinery there, while the petrochemical plant is a joint venture of BASF and Total, with BASF owning a majority 60 percent stake. In 2013, BASF and Total revamped the existing Port Arthur steam cracker to process primarily ethane and butane, which come from natural gas, instead of the more expensive naphtha, which is derived from oil production.
Total said it is in talks with potential partners for the planned second cracker.

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House Postpones Vote on Oil Exports

Sep 23, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Elana Schor

The House no longer plans to consider legislation ending the crude oil export ban next week, according to Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's office.
“This issue deserves the full attention of the House and we will plan to consider it the first full week in October," a McCarthy aide said.

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House Could Vote Next Week on Bill to End Export Ban

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E Daily

By Hannah Northey and Geof Koss

Legislation that would lift the country's ban on exporting crude could be up for a vote in the House as early as next week, despite grumbling among some Democrats that the measure ignores the environment, consumers and refineries.
House Republicans yesterday revealed that Texas Republican Rep. Joe Barton's bill, H.R. 702, to lift the export ban has been scheduled for possible consideration.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee last week approved the measure on a 31-19 vote with Reps. Gene Green of Texas, Kurt Schrader of Oregon and Tony Cárdenas of California, the only Democratic backers (Greenwire, Sept. 17).
Multiple Democrats suggested they're not philosophically opposed to the legislation if additional provisions are included, and Schrader suggested to his Democratic colleagues that provisions to help renewables and fight climate change may be forthcoming in the Senate (E&E Daily, Sept. 18).
Key senators are keeping a close watch on what happens in the House as conversations continue in the upper chamber about the best way to bring more Democrats on board.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said last week that senators have not had formal discussions.
Murkowski's bill to lift the ban, the "Offshore Production and Energizing National Security Act of 2015," or the "OPENS Act," cleared the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee earlier this month on a 12-10 vote (Greenwire, Sept. 1).
Meanwhile, environmentalists will file suit against the federal government today in California seeking to force the disclosure of information related to the limited export of some crude oil.
The complaint, to be filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by the Center for Biological Diversity and ForestEthics, seeks to compel the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security to hand over "records concerning the processing of applications and issuance of licenses, permits and other authorizations for the export of crude oil from the United States to foreign nations."
The suit, filed under the Freedom of Information Act, follows the department's denial of the groups' request for the information earlier this year, the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement.
The plaintiffs are concerned that the Obama administration's recent actions to allow the export of lightly processed crude known as condensate, as well as last month's swap of light, sweet crude with Mexico, "have apparently been done without any environmental review."
"President Obama's secretive approval of crude oil exports hurts our climate and exposes more people and wildlife to fracking pollution," said CBD attorney Jean Su. "Hiding these actions under a shroud of secrecy is not just bad policy, but unlawful. Selling U.S. crude abroad undercuts the president's own goal of cutting greenhouse gas pollution and encourages more dangerous drilling and fracking that spoils our landscapes, threatens our water and harms our communities."

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As Clinton Leans Green, the Oil Industry Frets

Sep 24, 2015 | PoliticoPro

By Elana Schor

Leaders of the oil and gas industry had long hoped that Hillary Clinton could be an easier president to work with than Barack Obama — but now they have reason to worry.
In the past three weeks, Clinton has leaped to the left on three of Big Oil’s most prized goals: Arctic offshore drilling, the GOP’s plan to allow U.S. oil exports and the Keystone XL pipeline. And fossil-fuel supporters are starting to ask whether the Democrat who once struggled to connect with her party’s green base will prove to be a bigger problem for the industry than they had expected.
Oil and gas players are well aware that Clinton, reckoning with an unexpectedly close primary challenge from Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa and New Hampshire, has reasons to build her appeal among activists who oppose any new fossil-fuel production. But they wonder if this will herald a permanent policy shift for Clinton, who had rankled greens as secretary of state by overseeing a series of pro-Keystone environmental studies and creating a program to promote fracking overseas.
“In the industry, there’s starting to be a real disconnect here” when it comes to Clinton, said Marty Durbin, president of America’s Natural Gas Alliance and a former Democratic aide. “I don’t know how you put the pieces back together to say, ‘This could be a president that really recognizes the opportunity we have here to meet all of our goals.’”
Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a close ally of his home state’s oil and gas drillers, said he had sensed from them that they “hope that she’d be a more pragmatic liberal than the current occupant of the White House.” But now, amid Clinton’s new appeals to the environmental movement, Cramer offered the industry some advice: “Don’t panic.”
“Everything has to be put in the context of the situation, and clearly she’s trying to stop the slip of polling in her own primary,” he said.
Yet Clinton’s camp sought to portray her Keystone opposition as anything but a recent move to bolster her standing against Sanders. Labor union officials knew in advance about her stance, an aide said Tuesday, and the campaign worked with the White House on the timing of the announcement.
Clinton followed her Keystone comments on Tuesday with a longer statement on Wednesday that called for a stronger global focus on climate change and an infrastructure plan that emphasized securing the nation’s existing energy systemsrather than new construction.
“I’m concerned when she says these things that it gives license to those who say ‘She’s with us, we can stop any project that’s out there,’” said ANGA's Durbin. “We’re not going to get to her vision of what we need for this country without getting the necessary infrastructure to make it happen."
Tom Pyle, president of the conservative group American Energy Alliance, urged the oil and gas industry to see Clinton's approach to energy as closer to Obama — whom Cramer called a “true believer” — than her husband.
“At the end of the day, they’re not going to get Bill Clinton, that’s for sure,” he said.
Earlier this year, however, leaders of the American Petroleum Institute sent more positive signals about Clinton than they had offered Obama during his second term.
Regardless of who wins the White House in 2016, “it’s going to be better than what we have now,” American Petroleum Institute director Erik Milito told an audience at April’s Conservative Political Action Conference.
Milito praised former President Bill Clinton for having “actually signed a piece of positive energy legislation” while in office, the industry-friendly Deepwater Royalty Relief Act. But he warned dryly that Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, is known as far from “supportive of policies that would help the oil and gas industry.”
API President Jack Gerard, a close friend of Mitt Romney, told TheStreet.com in April that “if there’s anybody that understands the need for lifting the crude export ban, it’s Hillary Clinton.”
Clinton’s time as secretary of state shows that “she knows those European nations are clamoring to have our energy,” Gerard added. API declined to comment further for this story.
Clinton formed the Global Shale Gas Initiative in 2010, marshaling U.S. expertise and technology to help foreign nations develop their expertise in tapping the type of rock that has been behind the domestic oil and gas boom. She acknowledged in a speech that year that touting natural gas “in some places is controversial,” a nod to green groups’ resistance to the fossil fuel with a lower carbon footprint than coal or oil.
“But natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel available for power generation today,” Clinton added then.
David Goldwyn, who worked alongside Clinton on shaping that program as her special envoy for international energy, said oil and gas has nothing to fear from her potential administration — so long as the industry agrees to “stop blocking” any plans to tackle climate change.
“She is somebody they can deal with who is less ideological than the current administration but no less committed to climate,” Goldwyn said, predicting that if she is elected, “both the industry and environmental movement will see more concrete action in the next four years than the last.”
But first Clinton has to dispatch Sanders and Gov. Martin O’Malley in the primary. Both of her Democratic rivals tout their long-standing opposition to Keystone and Arctic drilling as proof that the national front-runner is late to climate activists’ party.
And some of those environmentalists, while elated by Clinton’s recent moves, want to see her go still further left. May Boeve, executive director of 350 Action, said her green group is “still looking for the rest of Hillary Clinton’s plan — to stand up to fossil fuel companies by committing to keep vast majorities of known carbon reserves underground.”
Despite her opposition to Keystone and Arctic drilling, the oil and gas industry still has reasons to see Clinton as a possible partner.
Her comments on oil exports left room for an eventual deal on the issue, so long as any measure to end the 1970s-era ban on overseas crude sales "strikes the right balance." When a New Hampshire activist pressed her on greens' campaign to ban drilling on public lands, her positive but vague response mentioned only the possibility of "cutting back over time."
Goldwyn said her approach to national security "understands the importance of a robust production base" for fuel even as "she demands we have serious action on climate at the same time."
Still, as congressional Republicans lambaste Clinton for calling Obama's EPA emissions regulations "the floor, not the ceiling," the industry is likely to face its own choice between reaching out to Clinton or criticizing her more directly.
Oil interests are “still treating her like they expect her to win and somehow be their friends when she does,” GOP energy lobbyist Michael McKenna said. “They are wrong on both counts."

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Clinton Outlines Energy Infrastructure Plan

Sep 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Timothy Cama

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton detailed a plan Wednesday to upgrade the United States’ energy infrastructure, which she said would help the economy and encourage clean energy.
The vision came a day after Clinton announced her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline, a major infrastructure project that supporters say would have created thousands of construction jobs.
The infrastructure plan, Clinton argued, is a better way to create lasting jobs, which avoiding the exclusive fossil fuel focus of Keystone.
“For too long, the Keystone XL pipeline has been a distraction from the real challenges facing our energy sector — and the job-creating investments that we should be making to meet them,” Clintonwrote in a post on the blogging platform Medium.
“Building a clean, secure, and affordable North American energy future is bigger than Keystone XL or any other single project,” she said.
Clinton’s plan focuses on a few key areas: improving the safety of oil, natural gas and propane pipelines, making oil transport by rail safer, upgrading the electric grid to better accommodate renewable energy and working with Canada and Mexico toward greenhouse gas emissions cuts.
Many of the proposals either have been generally considered by the Obama administration or are direct improvements on Obama policies, like the administration’s efforts to crack down on major disasters involving oil train explosions.
The administration called for billions of dollars of energy infrastructure improvements earlier this year in the Quadrennial Energy Review, which identified major problems with the current pipeline network and electric grid.
“American energy policy is about more than a single pipeline to transport Canada’s dirtiest fuel across our country,” Clinton wrote. “It’s about building our future — a future where the United States will once again lead the world by constructing state-of-the-art infrastructure, creating new jobs and new markets, accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy, and improving the health, safety, and security of all Americans.”

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Clinton: Improve Energy Infrastructure Safety, Funding

Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Rachel Leven

Hillary Clinton Sept. 23 released her proposal to improve energy infrastructure safety, security and funding, maintaining that resolving these issues also would address climate change.
The positions within the Democratic presidential candidate's plan largely align with or build on those of the Obama administration. For example, some of the pipeline safety proposals in Clinton's plan are being assessed through Transportation Department proposals now, while Clinton's proposal to include existing sources of methane among those regulated for the emissions would go beyond the Obama administration's proposal to regulate only new methane sources.
“American energy policy is about more than a single pipeline to transport Canada's dirtiest fuel across our country,” Clinton said in a Medium postfurther explaining her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline.
“It's about building our future—a future where the United States will once again lead the world by constructing state-of-the-art infrastructure, creating new jobs and new markets, accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy, and improving the health, safety, and security of all Americans,” Clinton said.
This is one of several policy proposals Clinton plans to release, laying out her stances on issues from coal to climate (144 DEN A-6, 7/28/15).
Infrastructure Needs
Clinton called for repairing and replacing old pipelines, improving hazardous materials-by-rail safety and strengthening grid security. Some of these efforts are already under way in the Obama administration.
For example, Clinton proposed to improve pipeline regulations by implementing leak detection requirements, requirements that have been considered under a Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration proposed rule for onshore hazardous liquid pipelines (RIN 2137-AE66) that is soon to be sent to the Federal Register (182 DEN A-19, 9/21/15).
Clinton also focused on improving tank car safety, emergency responders' notification and track maintenance related to shipping oil and hazardous materials by rail, and on improving federal coordination with other federal agencies, states and localities to make the electricity grid more secure.
Infrastructure Funding
Additionally, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination's plan proposed several funding options to help states and localities upgrade, repair and build new infrastructure, including establishing a national infrastructure bank and a “pipeline partnership.” The partnership would involve engaging the federal government, pipeline companies, local utilities and technology and research organizations in identifying and fixing pipeline leaks, which would reduce related methane emissions.
Finally, Clinton said the North American continent should form a North American Climate Compact to boost clean energy use, lower energy costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, target infrastructure investment and improve clean energy vehicle markets' transportation solutions.
Notably, Clinton's plan proposes to set continent-wide methane emissions reductions targets and strategies for new and existing sources. That would be an expansion from what the EPA has proposed (RIN 2060-AS30), because the agency's proposed new source performance standards for the oil and gas sector would only regulate new wells, not existing ones (see related story).
Raising Pipeline Prominence
Some industry groups declined to comment directly on Clinton's proposal; however, some noted that the implications of the plan remain unclear because it is so broad.
However, Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, did applaud the move by Clinton to raise pipeline-centered issues as a part of the campaign.
“We are glad to see that Ms. Clinton agrees with our policy efforts, and we hope other candidates follow suit and provide their views on these pipeline safety issues, and how some of them relate to climate change,” Weimer told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail.
Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, also lauded Clinton for her “bold energy plan” and said his group agrees that clean energy should be a top priority.
“From updating our energy grid for renewable capacity to getting dangerous, unsafe crude oil trains off the rails, the initiatives she lays out will go a long way toward keeping our air and water clean and our families safe,” Brune told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mailed statement.
“While we know that getting off of dangerous fuel sources like oil, gas, coal, and nuclear must be our goal, this plan is a great step forward that will create jobs and help tackle the climate crisis,” Brune said.

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Clinton Calls for Climate Compact, Energy Upgrades

Sep 23, 2015 | E&E News PM

By Jennifer Yachnin

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton today pivoted from her rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline yesterday to unveil a comprehensive proposal to address the nation's aging energy infrastructure.
The former secretary of State, writing in an essay on the website Medium and in a post to her campaign website, called for new regulations aimed at curbing spills from oil pipelines and rail accidents, as well as establishing an executive task force to assess cybersecurity threats to the electrical grid and crafting a "climate compact" among the United States, Canada and Mexico.
"American energy policy is about more than a single pipeline to transport Canada's dirtiest fuel across our country," Clinton wrote on Medium. "It's about building our future -- a future where the United States will once again lead the world by constructing state-of-the-art infrastructure, creating new jobs and new markets, accelerating the transition to a clean energy economy, and improving the health, safety, and security of all Americans."
Among her infrastructure proposals, Clinton said she would create a "Presidential Threat Assessment and Response Team" aimed at coordinating federal agencies, local jurisdictions and the energy industry to better assess cybersecurity threats.
Clinton also backed National Transportation Safety Board recommendations for automatic or remote-controlled shutoff valves for oil and gas pipelines, and vowed to replace "thousands of miles" of older pipelines within a four-year period.
Clinton also pointed to the shipment of oil via rail, asserting that older tanker cars should be phased out at a faster pace, while also calling on rail companies to more quickly repair track defects.
"Our policies and infrastructure have not kept pace with recent changes to the American energy system," Clinton's website said.
She also vowed to begin climate negotiations with Mexico and Canada to create a "North American Climate Compact" to coordinate energy policies among the three nations, including goals for greenhouse gas emissions and "continent-wide methane emissions reduction targets."
"The United States isn't in this alone. The entire North American continent must accelerate the clean energy transition and develop more comprehensive approaches to cutting carbon pollution," Clinton's website said.
The Democrat also proposed a series of funding mechanisms aimed at overhauling infrastructure via federal grants, public-private partnerships and a new National Infrastructure Bank, an idea Clinton has previously said would use bonds to shore up bridges, roads, railways, airports, ports and broadband networks.
"Even as states and the Obama administration have worked to accelerate clean energy deployment, we need to do more," Clinton wrote.
Earlier this year, Clinton similarly vowed an aggressive commitment to renewable energy by expanding the nation's solar capacity by 2020 and ensuring that renewable energy sources contribute to at least a third of the nation's energy generation (Greenwire, July 27).

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Going Beyond Opposition to Keystone XL, Clinton Outlines Broader Energy Agenda

Sep 23, 2015 | The Washington Post

By Chris Mooney

On Tuesday, in yet another move — like her opposition to Arctic drilling — that rallied the environmental base, Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. Speaking in Des Moines, the leading Democratic presidential candidate said Keystone XL had become “a distraction from the important work we have to do to combat climate change” and “interferes with our ability to move forward.”
“Therefore, I oppose it,” Clinton said.
The announcement naturally did not go without criticism — a case in point:
But opposing Keystone XL is not an energy policy, and Clinton went fartherWednesday by outlining what she believes needs to be done to address the United States’ aging and ailing energy infrastructure — including pipelines, transmission systems, and ports that receive and ship out large volumes of fossil fuels. The candidate’s views were announced in a post at Medium and, more extensively, on her campaign Web site.
The flaws and vulnerabilities of the U.S. energy infrastructure were recently highlighted in the Obama administration’s first Quadrennial Energy Review, which found that an array of new challenges are emerging because of climate change, the increasing penetration of clean energy into the grid, and risks related to terrorism and cyber-attacks. The simple aging of the grid doesn’t help, either. There has been a “lack of timely investment in refurbishing, replacing, and modernizing components of [energy] infrastructure that are simply old or obsolete,” noted the Quadrennial Energy Review.
The vast document thus underscored that while the subject of U.S. energy infrastructure may seem wonky and un-glamorous, it is nonetheless a pressing problem.
Addressing it, Clinton wrote at Medium, “is bigger than Keystone XL or any other single project.” So Clinton said that she would seek to address a slew of energy infrastructure problems, many of which were also identified in the Quadrennial Energy Review: too many accidents through the transport of oil by rail; an aging natural gas pipeline infrastructure; a grid that faces reliability concerns and the risk of cyber-attacks.
To that end, Clinton proposes not only a major partnership with Mexico and Canada to in effect green the vast energy trade and transportation system that connects the three countries, but also the forging of an Infrastructure Bank to invest in ailing grid and pipeline networks. “The United States trades as much energy with Canada and Mexico each year as with all other countries combined, through a deeply integrated pipeline network, rail system, and electrical grid,” Clinton wrote at Medium.
The candidate also promised tighter regulations of pipeline siting and oil-by-rail transport. “I will strengthen national pipeline safety regulations and partner with pipeline operators, local regulators, and technology providers in repairing and replacing thousands of miles of the country’s oldest pipes,” Clinton wrote.
At least one environmental organization quickly hailed Clinton’s plans Wednesday. “From updating our energy grid for renewable capacity to getting dangerous, unsafe crude oil trains off the rails, the initiatives she lays out will go a long way toward keeping our air and water clean and our families safe,” said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune in a statement.
But some reactions were a bit more critical. “Clinton’s emphasis on modernizing energy infrastructure is welcome and long overdue, as investment has languished in Congress which hasn’t kept infrastructure investment and gasoline taxes equal with inflation for a quarter century,” said Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House climate staff member, in reacting to the plan by email. “But the most dynamic energy innovation will come about as part of tax reform eliminating fossil fuel subsidies and providing clear incentives for deployment of low emissions energy resources, including efforts on carbon capture. That level of detail will be needed to advance these issues seriously.”
Notably, while her opposition to Arctic drilling certainly takes a step in this direction, Clinton did not directly address the production of fossil fuels on U.S. public lands in the new announcements. This is a growing concern for many “supply side” environmental activists, who have targeted fossil fuel infrastructure projects that they believe push the world towards busting its remaining carbon budget and have recently called for a cessation of all new federal fossil fuel leases, their strongest stance yet.
Clinton’s remarks about pairing with Canada and Mexico to weigh energy infrastructure projects based on their climate change implications, however, could imply possible steps down this road. If Keystone XL wouldn’t pass her test, it stands to reason that other potential projects might not, as well. And Clinton’s focus on problems with pipelines and oil trains also plays to recurrent concerns expressed by green activists about the dangers of drilling for and transporting fossil fuels.
Combined with her views on Arctic drilling, then, it all suggests that a Clinton presidency might tack more to the environmental left than Obama’s has.

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Senators Reintroduce Bipartisan 'Super Pollutants' Bill

Sep 23, 2015 | E&E News PM

By Jean Chemnick

Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) reintroduced legislation today to curb non-carbon greenhouse gases, offering a rare example of bipartisanship on climate change.
The Murphy-Collins measure, which was first introduced last September, targets climate change "super pollutants" -- non-carbon-dioxide emissions that stay in the atmosphere for only a short time but can be many times more climate-forcing than CO2.
The pair released their bill ahead of Pope Francis' address tomorrow to a joint session of Congress. They noted that the pope's encyclical on the environment in June "called on the world's leaders and policymakers to take meaningful action to curb climate change."
Collins, a Catholic and one of the few GOP lawmakers to acknowledge man-made climate change, cast the bill as a means of helping government to cooperate with the private sector on emissions control.
"Enabling federal agencies to work with the business and nonprofit communities will speed up the adoption of super pollutant-reducing technologies and policies, all while supporting American-led innovation," she said in a statement.
The measure received a hearing last year in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee before Democrats relinquished control of the chamber (E&E Daily, Dec. 1, 2014). But its prospects in a Senate now led by Republicans are uncertain.
The Murphy-Collins measure does not give U.S. EPA new regulatory powers or set up a market-based mechanism to curb emissions. Instead, it seeks to coordinate efforts that are already underway within the Obama administration to reduce hydrofluorocarbons, methane, black carbon from diesel engines and cookstoves, and other emissions.
It would direct the administration to create a new interagency task force to oversee its short-lived climate pollutant mitigation activities and would target resources toward them.
It would endorse an amendment to the Montreal Protocol, long sought by the administration, that would phase down the use of heat-trapping HFCs in refrigeration and air conditioning.

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Senators Unveil Climate Bill Ahead of Pope's Speech

Sep 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Harper Neidig

Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) unveiled the upper chamber's first bipartisan climate bill of the year on Wednesday, ahead of the pope's address to Congress.
The Super Pollutants Act of 2015 comes a day before Pope Francis is expected to discuss climate change in his historic speech to a joint session.
The bill is intended to encourage federal agencies to work with businesses and nonprofits to adopt new technologies to limit the presence of so-called "super pollutants" in the atmosphere.
The legislation targets non-carbon dioxide greenhouse contaminants, which include refrigerants from refrigerators, soot from diesel engines and methane leaked by landfills.
"Establishing national standards to reduce short-lived climate pollutants is a critical step forward in the fight against climate change. SLCPs are doing some of the worst damage to the atmosphere but are a problem too few people are talking about," said Murphy in a statement.
He said the bill would also "drive economic growth here in the United States by making smarter use of the tools already at our disposal.”
The bill also comes a day after Senate Democrats unveiled a legislative proposal that would reduce greenhouse emissions, provide incentives for developing clean energy and overhaul a tax code that they believe favors fossil fuels.
Advocates for addressing climate change are using the pontiff's visit to Washington, which began on Tuesday, to draw attention to their cause. Francis has been a strong advocate for tackling climate change, and brought it up in his statements at the White House on Wednesday.
“I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution. Accepting the urgency, it seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future generation,” he said, offering support for President Obama's climate rules.

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Fracking Firms That Drove Oil Boom Struggle to Survive

Sep 24, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal

By Alison Sider

A wave of bankruptcies and closures is sweeping across the oil patch, with dozens of hydraulic-fracturing companies at risk, industry experts say.
Most of the companies that help oil-and-gas explorers drill and frack wells are small, privately owned and just a few years old. They are part of a flood of new entrants in the energy business—one that is drying up as oil prices languish below $50 a barrel.
One of the latest casualties is Pro-Stim Services. Launched in 2011 with backing from Turnbridge Capital LLC, a private-equity firm, the company did work for oil-and-gas producers eager to coax more fuel out of the ground in places like Texas and Louisiana.
“The Haynesville Shale was blowing and going at that time,” said Bubba Brooks, who founded the company in Longview, Texas, after working in the oil industry for close to 20 years.
Pro-Stim survived its early years despite stiff competition. Even though a new competitor seemed to enter the market every week, the price of oil was strong—and rising—and demand for fracking services was high.
But U.S. crude prices plunged by 50% between last summer and the start of 2015, and Pro-Stim shut down earlier this year.
Several other companies are in a similar fix. At least five frackers have filed for bankruptcy, stopped fracking, or shut their doors altogether, according to consulting firm IHS Energy. Other analysts say that number may be higher, and they expect many more companies to follow suit or consolidate in a merger frenzy.
Energy analysts at Wells Fargo & Co. say as much as half of the available fracking capacity in the U.S. is sitting idle.
Traditionally, oil-field service companies that helped drill and complete wells were massive conglomerates—such as Schlumberger Ltd. and Halliburton Co.—with operations all over the world.
Schlumberger has dual headquarters in Paris and Houston, and Halliburton is based in both Houston and Dubai.
They, too, are struggling with low oil prices and, along with their peers, have laid off 55,000 people around the globe so far during the current downturn. To cope, big service companies are also slashing their prices, in some cases so low that it is driving out smaller players, analysts and industry experts say.
Small startups began to challenge the Schlumbergers and Halliburtons of the world in 2008, as American wildcatters embraced fracking, the process of blasting a slurry of water, sand and chemicals down a well to break apart densely packed rock, unlocking trapped oil and natural gas. The high-intensity technique has helped push U.S. oil production to its highest level in nearly half a century.
The drilling boom, which began in the wake of the global economic recession and later picked up steam, offered the dozens of new outfits plenty of fracking work from Texas to North Dakota.
“There was that first initial overbuild; everybody kind of went crazy. Mom-and-pop shops were popping up,” said Caldwell Bailey, a consultant at IHS. There are nearly 50 firms in North America that frack wells, he said.
Even when oil prices peaked at more than $100 a barrel last summer, the keen competition among small fracking companies meant many of them were battling to protect their profit margins.
The market has gone from cutthroat to nearly nonexistent in some oil-and-gas fields. So far this year, the amount of fracking work has fallen about 40% from a year earlier, and the price of a frack job has fallen 35%, according to Spears & Associates, a consulting firm for oil-service companies.
Several small publicly traded oil-field service companies—including Key Energy ServicesInc. and Basic Energy Services—have debt trading at distressed levels, data from FactSet show. Debt issued by Seventy Seven Energy Inc. is trading at similarly steep discounts. Each of those companies’ shares have fallen more than 75% in the last year.
Analysts at Evercore ISI predict that in certain niches of oil-field services, as many as a third of companies will be gone by the end of next year.
“In addition to the already bankrupt companies it appears to us that many others are currently insolvent or close to it,” said James West, an Evercore analyst. “Some may not know it yet. Many are clinging to hopes of a quicker rebound or just to make it to the upturn.”
Colin Raymond formed Compass Well Services five years ago to frack wells. At the time there wasn’t enough pumping equipment to complete all the new wells companies wanted to drill. The company, based in Fort Worth, flourished. Today, Compass is still doing other work oil-field work, but all its fracking equipment is idled in an industrial yard in South Texas.
Mr. Raymond, whose father is Lee Raymond, the former head of Exxon Mobil Corp., said he saw the writing on the wall earlier this year as the rig count dropped steeply week after week. Getting out of the market as oil prices plunged was the right call, Mr. Raymond said.
“We’ll run in the future when pricing gets better,” he said. “We’re not going to lose money and tear up our equipment.”
Not everyone is willing to wait for a rebound in oil prices. Unused fracking equipment is available for purchase at steep discounts. Mr. Brooks, Pro-Stim’s founder, is one of the buyers. He is starting over with newly formed Premier Pressure Pumping, and is focused on completing wells in more conventional, easier-to-tap locations than have most shale operators.
“There’s still demand for the work we do,” he said.

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Colorado Called Model for EPA Oil, Gas Methane Rule

Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Tripp Baltz

The Environmental Protection Agency should look to Colorado's 2014 rules as it develops regulations to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, speakers said at a public hearing in Denver.
“Colorado is a case study on how strong methane protections can coexist with a strong economy,” said Christine Berg, mayor of Lafayette, Colo., speaking Sept. 23 at a hearing at EPA's Region 8 office in Denver on the agency's proposed rules to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas methane and smog-forming volatile organic compounds from the oil and gas industry.
“Our economy expanded faster than expected last year—after the increased protections were finalized,” she said.
Colorado is at the forefront of implementing programs addressing air quality from drilling operations, becoming in February 2014 the first state to directly regulate methane emission from oil and gas. Several speakers said the EPA proposal is not as strong as Colorado's rules, in particular with respect to leak detection and repair requirements and for not covering existing oil and gas facilities as does the Colorado rule.
But industry speakers told the EPA the rules were not necessary, and they urged a more measured approach.
“EPA's proposal could significantly affect the ability of operators to successfully develop oil and natural gas operations” by imposing “significant new costs at a time that energy companies are already suffering from a difficult commodity market,” Stan Dempsey, president of the Colorado Petroleum Association, told the panel of EPA officials at the hearing.
The association challenged many facets of Colorado's rules (Regulations No. 3, 6 and 7), given that it had significant concerns about its costs and benefits “as we have concerns about EPA's Subpart OOOOa proposal,” Dempsey said.
Implementation of the state rule “has not been without significant hiccups,” he added. “EPA must learn from those hiccups and efforts in Colorado or else similar difficulties will arise on a national scale,” he said.
The EPA in August proposed the first-ever methane emissions standards (RIN 2060-AS30) for new oil and natural gas wells, which would update the new source performance standards for the industry to require new and modified oil wells to capture methane and volatile organic compounds using reduced emissions completion techniques, known as green completions (160 DEN A-1, 8/19/15).
‘Higher Compliance Costs.'
Other industry speakers urged the EPA to adopt a rule with elements similar to Colorado's.
“The Colorado rules are tough and were designed to achieve additional environmental benefits that are technically and economically feasible,” said Kate Fay, manager of Environmental and Regulatory Policy for Noble Energy Inc. in Denver.
Noble, Anadarko Petroleum Corp., the Environmental Defense Fund and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) formulated the state's direct methane rules in early 2014. “EPA should follow Colorado's lead and support state-led regulatory approaches,” Fay said.
Fay said additional requirements contained in the EPA proposal “would result in significantly higher compliance costs for, among other things, personnel, technology, inspections, record keeping and auditing without additional value or benefit to the environment.”
“EPA's one-size-fits-all proposed methane regulations would significantly increase costs and, more importantly, curb further emissions reductions and investment by discouraging voluntary, collaborative and state-based solutions that have proven successful in driving innovation and improving our industry's environmental performance,” Korby Bracken, director of Health, Safety and Environment for Anadarko Rockies Division in Denver, told the EPA panel.
Since Colorado's rules will achieve all the necessary air quality goals and requirements of the EPA proposal, the state's program should “stand in lieu of” a federal rule, Dempsey said.
And, because the 2014 changes to Colorado's Regulation 7 are not in the Colorado state implementation plan, the state is not able to take credit for emission reductions it has claimed, he said.
Increased Drilling
But environmental groups urged the EPA to act, especially in light of increased drilling activity in Colorado and other states in the region.
“The venting, flaring and fugitive leaks of methane associated with this extensive development have resulted in significant and costly waste of natural gas, impairment of human health and increased greenhouse gas emissions,” said Pam Eaton, senior director for climate emissions reductions for the Wilderness Society.
Recent studies have indicated that oil and gas companies are losing enough natural gas each year through leaks and intentional flaring and venting to equal nearly $330 million at current market prices, she said. “This is enough natural gas to meet the heating and cooking needs of 1.6 million homes,” she said. More than 1 million tons of methane were emitted from oil and gas operations on federal and tribal lands in 2013, the equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 5.6 million cars, she said.
Several speakers urged the EPA to adopt leak and detection repair requirements at least as stringent as the rules in Colorado, which require quarterly or more frequent inspections for leaks at most operations. They also said the EPA rules need to cover emissions from existing wells and facilities, which they called significant sources of methane.
Earthworks has been measuring the emissions from facilities at oil and gas fields in Colorado, New Mexico and other states, said Bruce Baizel, director of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project and the Energy Program for the organization. “Generally, we are finding that older, existing facilities seem to be leaking more methane emissions than new facilities,” he said.
A hearing on the EPA proposed rules was held simultaneously in Dallas.

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University of Michigan Report Lists Fracking Options

Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Nora Macaluso

A University of Michigan report summarizing three years of research on hydraulic fracturing in Michigan provides policy makers with analysis of the process and incorporates rules released earlier this year imposing new regulations on well operators.
The final report, released Sept. 23, doesn't make specific recommendations but lays out options.
The Department of Environmental Quality, in issuing its new rules (51 DEN A-2, 3/17/15), took into account the report's initial findings (51 DEN A-2, 3/17/15).
The final report cites the rules, which include reporting requirements for chemical additives, pressures and volumes, as well as preparatory work and monitoring of water levels for high-volume projects, as policies, rather than policy options. Written by University of Michigan faculty with support from students and staffers at the university's Graham Sustainability Institute, it focuses on Michigan-specific options for rules and policies for high-volume hydraulic fracturing. The state defines high-volume fracking as activity intended to use more than 100,000 gallons of fluid.
Though Michigan isn't currently the focus of much fracturing activity, the researchers wanted to analyze various policies and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses for potential future regulation.
Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant called the report “a comprehensive, thoughtful look at issues around oil and gas production in Michigan.”
“This report offers some useful information and options for state regulators to consider in the months and years ahead,” Wyant said in a Sept. 23 statement.

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OTC Proposes Voluntary Plan To Reduce VOCs From Consumer Products

Sep 23, 2015 | Inside EPA

By Stuart Parker

The Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) of Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states is proposing a voluntary program for manufacturers of consumer products and architectural coatings to reduce ozone-forming volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the products, in lieu of stricter state or federal regulations to mandate cuts in VOCs.
Several states in the OTC region have struggled with finding ways to reduce ozone levels and attain the agency's existing 2008 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) of 75 parts per billion (ppb). EPA is poised to decide by Oct. 1 whether to tighten the standard to a limit within the range of 65 to 70 ppb, and if it issues a stricter standard then states such as those in the OTC will have to find additional ozone reduction options.
Existing and pending federal rules -- such as the agency's proposed revised air rules for new drilling -- are expected to help cut ozone, and OTC has developed model air rules it says states or EPA could adopt.
OTC officials at a Sept. 10 meeting of the group in Washington, D.C., said they have crafted model rules to reduce VOCs from consumer products and architectural and industrial maintenance coatings (AIM). The rules are based in part on California's regulations for limiting VOCs in order to address that state's high ozone levels.
If states decline to formally adopt the VOC reduction measures through regulation and if EPA also opts against tightening its rules for consumer products or AIM, OTC is also suggesting voluntary measures.
In a July 23 draft proposal outlining the voluntary plan, OTC's stationary and area sources committee says that its existing model rules, "completed in 2013 and 2015 respectively, have been transmitted to the EPA with a request to the agency for adoption of these model rules as national measures. EPA's current standards for [consumer products] and AIM are nearly twenty years old. National implementation of OTC's model rules will result in annual VOC reductions of 200,000 tons per year from [consumer products] and approximately 290,000 tons per year from AIM."
Despite OTC's approaches, "EPA has not scheduled any rule updates; yet prompting individual state agencies to move ahead with separate rule adoption efforts. This will ultimately create a patchwork of standards which provides uncertainty for the regulated community and is inefficient to implement for the state governments."
Therefore, a voluntary approach that would involve collaboration between states and industry would provide a faster way to ensure VOC cuts across the broadest possible area, the proposal says.
OTC says that states should be able to win credit from EPA toward meeting federal air standards under their state implementation plans (SIPs), which outline the pollution control measures states will use to attain a NAAQS.
The group proposes to develop a mechanism or mechanisms that will enable implementation of standards contained in the model rules "over a region extending beyond the [OTC region] without a need for individual [states'] rule adoption while providing jurisdictions with SIP credits," according to the voluntary plan.
The OTC panel urges that states and industry consider bringing their VOC rules up to California standards, "or develop a framework to continually update these rules to keep pace" with California rules.
Voluntary Plan
At the recent OTC meeting, industry representatives expressed some interest in the voluntary plan but said they need to hear more specifics.
OTC officials said they hope to have a more detailed plan to discuss at the organization's fall meeting in Baltimore Nov. 5, with a view to finalizing a plan at the OTC's annual meeting in June.
One OTC region state regulator says the response from industry to the voluntary proposal so far has been "tepid," but hopes that the initiative could help further reduce ozone levels.
The extent to which states need to further reduce ozone levels is a point of contention and uncertainty, as OTC staff outlined at their September meeting.
Ozone levels have fallen significantly across the OTC region, driven by falling emissions of ozone precursors nitrogen oxides and also favorable weather, presenters at the meeting said. This bodes well for states' efforts to meet the existing ozone NAAQS of 75 ppb, they said.
However, EPA is only days away from issuing a likely tougher ozone NAAQS, due by a court-mandated Oct. 1 deadline. A standard tightened to 70 ppb will once again create more widespread nonattainment problems in the OTC area and beyond, even as some parts of the OTC area are still struggling to attain the existing NAAQS.
Over the past couple of years, the region has seen a northward shift in ozone patterns, with nonattainment problems now most pronounced in the New York City and Connecticut area, with lower levels being seen in more southerly areas of the region including Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
However, the state regulator warns that unusual weather patterns may have created a false sense of security in this regard, pointing to recent high ozone readings at monitors in at least one Mid-Atlantic state. To be reading over 80 ppb ozone in September is unusual, and such events may factor into an eventual EPA decision to extend the official summertime "ozone season," which normally includes June, July and August, the regulator says.
Some are taking too much comfort from "the 2013 and 2014 meteorology which is driving the illusion of attainment," the source says.

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Obama Optimistic on Paris Talks, Climate Solutions

Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Anthony Adragna

President Barack Obama said he is “cautiously optimistic” the world will forge an international accord to address climate change later this year in Paris and ultimately will come together to solve the problem, according to an interviewwith Rolling Stone posted Sept. 23.
Acknowledging “modest progress” but “nowhere near what we need to do” on climate change, Obama said the U.S. democracy requires him to build consensus on need for action to address the problem and gain support for proposed solutions. Immediately shutting off fossil fuels and nuclear energy—like some environmentalists have asked—simply won't work, the president said.
Failure to work with people of varied views means we “will be demagogued and we will find ourselves in a place where we actually have slower progress rather than faster progress,” Obama said. “You wish that the political system could process an issue like this just based on obscure data and science, but, unfortunately, our system doesn't process things that way. People have to see it and feel it and breathe it.”
In the interview, the president also defended hydraulic fracturing—“the science tells us that if done properly, fracking risks can be minimized”—and his decision to allow Shell to drill in the Arctic—“a transition [from fossil fuels] is not going to happen overnight.”
Obama granted the interview during an August trip to Alaska where he sought to emphasize the need for urgent action to adequately tackle the problem, warning countries “there is such a thing as being too late” on climate change (170 DEN A-6, 9/2/15).
Outline of Success in Paris
In the interview, Obama said the nations of the world were “going to fall short of what the science requires” in their emissions reduction pledges but said the negotiations would be a success if the world establishes “the basic architecture” to increase ambition in the coming years.
“Once we get to that point, then we can turn the dials,” Obama said. “But there will be a momentum that is built, and I'm confident that we will then be in a position to listen more carefully to the science—partly because people, I think, will be not as fearful of the consequences or as cynical about what can be achieved. Hope builds on itself. Success breeds success.”
Key to the success of the negotiations—scheduled for Nov. 30–Dec. 11 in Paris—will be the commitment of major developing nations like China, India and Brazil, but Obama said he feels confident with the progress the U.S. has made with them.
“We've been able to lead by example in a way that allowed me to leverage China and President Xi to make their own commitments for the first time, to have a conversation with somebody like Prime Minister Modi of India or President Rousseff of Brazil, so that they put forward plans,” Obama said. “We're now in a position for the first time to have all countries recognize their responsibilities to tackle the problem.”
Some Missteps Domestically
Obama acknowledged domestic efforts to pass broad legislation addressing climate change in 2009 failed because the administration “hadn't built enough of the consensus that was required” but also faulted Republicans for obstructing his efforts.
“I think the biggest problem we had was folks like [Sen.] John McCain [R-Ariz.], who had come out in favor of a cap-and-trade system, getting caught up in a feverish opposition to anything I proposed and reversing themselves,” Obama said.
The House passed a broad cap and trade bill in 2009 that would have placed mandatory caps on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, but the Senate never took up the legislation.
Those failures in Congress to address climate change has led the president to lean more heavily on his existing statutory authorities, Obama said. That push has resulted in sweeping Environmental Protection Agency regulations meant to cap air pollution under the Clean Air Act and a host of other executive actions.
“I am optimistic about us being able to solve this problem,” Obama said. “But it is going to require that our politics catches up with the facts. And right now, in this country, our politics is going through a particularly broken period—Congress has trouble passing a transportation bill, much less solving big problems like this. That's part of the reason why we're having to do so much action, administratively.”
The president said he's “mindful” of the limits to his office and that he cannot implement much of what he would like to do “without Congress.” While fuel efficiency improvements and carbon pollution rules are good strides, they are not enough to solve the problem, Obama said.
“The American people have to feel the same urgency that I do,” the president said. “And it's understandable that they don't, because the science right now feels abstract to people. It will feel less abstract with each successive year.”

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Pope Francis Says Climate Change Action Can't Wait

Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Anthony Adragna

It is not too late to save the planet from the damage of climate change, but the world faces a “critical moment” to address the problem, Pope Francis said Sept. 23 at the White House.
Speaking to a crowd of more than 11,000 on the South Lawn, Francis praised recent efforts from President Barack Obama to curb air pollution as “encouraging” but said more needs to be done.
“Climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future generation,” Francis said. “When it comes to the care of our common home, we are living at a critical moment of history. We still have time to make the change needed to bring about a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change.”
Francis, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, did not name the specific initiative from Obama he was praising but was likely referring to the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan and other air pollution rules, which aim to slash emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants across the nation.
Devoting more of his speech to climate change than any other issue, Francis said the world's citizens should “commit ourselves to the conscious and responsible care of our common home.”
“To use a telling phrase of the Reverend Martin Luther King, we can say that we have defaulted on a promissory note, and now is the time to honor it,” the pope said in English.
The pontiff delivered his remarks from the White House a day before the first-ever papal address to a joint session of Congress. Observers expect Francis will deliver a forceful call to action on climate change during that speech (184 DEN A-9, 9/23/15).
Obama Praises Pope's Call
Facing stiff domestic opposition to his regulatory efforts to combat climate change, Obama thanked Francis for reminding the world that “we have a sacred obligation to protect our planet, God's magnificent gift to us.”
“We support your call to all world leaders to support the communities most vulnerable to changing climate, and to come together to preserve our precious world for future generations,” the president said.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest later declined to predict what impact the pope's call to action might have on climate change policy in the U.S.
“We certainly are hopeful that Republicans will work constructively with Democrats on some of these issues,” Earnest told reporters during a press briefing. “That remains to be seen.”
The Obama administration also released a fact sheet naming climate change action as a shared value and listing a number of areas where the president has attempted to address environmental justice concerns.
“President Obama is committed to meeting this challenge by finding viable and just solutions to address the erosion of our planet's ecology, in particular climate change, in ways that also protect poor and vulnerable populations,” the fact sheet states.
Praise for Remarks
Francis's call for immediate action to address climate change drew swift praise from Democrats in Congress.
“With this visit to Washington, D.C. he is telling us all—individual Americans and political leaders alike—that it us up to us to respond to the personal and planetary challenge of climate change,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a leading climate advocate, said in a statement. “It is a signal to the world that the United States will lead the effort on climate change, a global crisis that is disproportionately impacting the world's poorest and most vulnerable.”

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Pope Faces Tough Crowd with Climate Plea

Sep 23, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Timothy Cama

Pope Francis is expected to bring his climate change message Thursday to one of its toughest audiences: congressional Republicans.

Francis will appear before a Congress led by the Republican Party, which has been steadfast in its opposition to policies that cut greenhouse gas emissions, with some lawmakers questioning the evidence that it’s happening and is caused by man.

And while environmentalists and liberals are hopeful that somebody with the moral authority and popularity of Francis could sway the GOP toward action on climate change, the odds are not in their favor.

“Everyone is going to ride the pope now. Isn’t that wonderful,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said at a recent conference hosted by the Heartland Institute. “The pope ought to stay with his job, and we’ll stay with ours.”

Inhofe, who famously threw a snowball on the Senate floor earlier this year to mock President Obama’s focus on climate, may be one of the most outspoken lawmakers doubting that human activity causes climate change, a position that 97 percent of scientists hold.

But his stance is not that far off from the rest of the GOP, which generally is highly respectful and deferential to the Catholic Church’s leader, but have no plans to take his climate message to heart.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) declined to get into the weeds on climate change, but said he looks “forward to hearing the pope’s point of view on a number of matters.”

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) took his adversarial view of Francis a step further, announcing on Friday that he would not attend the speech because of the expected talk about climate change.

“When the Pope chooses to act and talk like a leftist politician, then he can expect to be treated like one,” Gosar, a Catholic, wrote on Townhall.com.

He expects at least one other lawmaker to join him, but that lawmaker has not come forward, and Gosar’s colleagues have criticized his decision.
“I don’t understand why anyone would do that,” said Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), who led 10 of GOP his colleagues last week in sponsoring a resolution saying that climate change is real and something should be done about it.

Apart from climate change, Francis is expected to at least touch on other hot-button issues in United States politics, like immigration and income inequality.

It’s an historic occasion in many ways, and comes at a pivotal moment, three months before world leaders come together in Paris under the United Nations to agree on an international pact to fight climate change.

Although top church leaders and experts predicted that Francis would avoid political discussions, he nonetheless spoke of some touchy issues, including climate change, at a Wednesday speech at the White House.

“Mr. President, I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution,” Francis said, referring to Obama’s Clean Power Plan, setting limits on carbon emissions from power plants.

“Accepting the urgency, it seems clear to me also that climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to our future generations.”

Francis’ main goal, his top advisers have said, is to move world leaders toward a strong international pact.

Earlier this year he published an encyclical urging all people of faith to come to the table and do their parts to protect the climate.

It comes at a time when the Republican Party is as skeptical as it’s ever been about climate change and most of the solutions that have been proposed.

“They’re all over the place, but the distribution leans to the right, still,” said Mike McKenna, a Republican consultant who works for energy companies. “From a historical perspective, it’s a lot stronger than it was, it’s a lot closer to the Inhofe point on the spectrum than it was.”

He sees little chance that Francis will change any minds in the GOP.

“The bottom line is that members of Congress tend to represent their constituencies pretty well. So the only way they’re going to change their minds is if their constituencies change their minds,” McKenna said. “He’s got a pretty tall order on his hands.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who gives weekly Senate floor speeches on climate change, said he had hope that Francis would give cover to some Republicans who want to take action to fight global warming, but feel that they cannot.

“To them, this might be good news,” he said. “This might begin to show them a way to make their political escape from fossil fuel industry captivity, and to where both their hearts and their politics tell them they should be.”

For others in the GOP, it could be “chance to take a second look at whether they should just follow the party line, or they should delve a little bit deeper into the science and into their hearts,” Whitehouse said.

But however the GOP responds, experts are expecting Francis to give a biting speech to them.

“He will probably have some characteristically succinct, terse and evocative words of critique for people who are deniers of contemporary science,” said Christiana Peppard, a Fordham University theology professor who studies the Catholic Church’s relationship to various environmental causes.

Peppard expects Francis to say that major nations like the United States have a moral obligation to help poorer countries.

“That is going to be a really interesting message, and hard for people to hear,” she said.

Christopher Hale, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, reinforced that no matter how forceful Francis is, he is not a politician, and will speak about climate change only from a place of religious authority.

“He’s not coming with a political message or policy proposals to Congress. He’s going to speak as a moral messenger, a religious messenger,” he said. “I think that changes things.”

Among other factors, the pope’s place in the Catholic church changes the calculus for speaking out against him, Hale said.

“If Pope Francis is upsetting you, it isn’t Francis who’s upsetting you, it’s Jesus.”

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Lawmakers Await Pope and Wonder if Warming is Part of the Message

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E Daily

By Jean Chemnick and Geof Koss

As they prepared to receive Pope Francis' message this week, Democratic lawmakers hoped the pontiff would reinforce their own views on the need to curb carbon emissions while Republicans searched for common ground with the popular pope.
While it is unclear if global warming will be part of the pope's speech, Democrats in both chambers said they hoped Francis' words to Congress this morning would finally persuade Republicans that denying man-made climate science isn't a solution -- or a sustainable political position.
"I would love to hear him talk about climate change," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) told E&E Daily this week. "He has such an important voice. And he is so respected. Very often the words are one thing, but the person delivering the words are another thing."
Arizona Democrats Reps. Raúl Grijalva and Ruben Gallego said on a call earlier this week sponsored by NextGen Climate, an advocacy organization linked to climate activist and billionaire Tom Steyer, that by endorsing climate action in the Capitol, the world's first Latin American pope would demonstrate the risk Republicans run in alienating Latino voters on climate change. The two Catholics noted that Latinos are growing in importance as a voting bloc in the United States even as they gain clout within the Catholic Church.
Some polls already show that Latinos care more about environmental issues than other voting blocs -- a poll released in August by Earthjustice and GreenLatinos showed Latino voters ranked their concern about air quality on a par with their worries about immigration.
And Francis is a very popular figure, both as a religious leader and personally.
"The pope coming to speak to Congress about climate change will be a connecting point in terms of the minds of Latino voters when it comes to climate change legislation," said Gallego. "And I think that's why it is a big game changer."
He said that while proponents of climate action need to be realistic about how quickly public opinion would swing their way, the pope would remain an ally.
Grijalva, a co-chairman of the House Progressive Caucus, said the group was preparing a resolution on climate change to be unveiled following the pope's visit to drive home the need for action. He saw anecdotal evidence that Latinos are becoming more concerned about warming because of the pope. He said his office raffled off the tickets it received to allow guests to hear the pope's speech from the West Lawn of the Capitol. One of the winners -- an elderly Latina -- asked if the pope's visit meant Congress would act on "cambio climático."
Grijalva said he saw that as proof of the pope's impact on "people who in the past didn't see it as a moral issue they should be concerned about."
Some Catholic Democrats were brief in their early assessments of what the pope might say.
"We're going to have a great opportunity to hear whatever he wants to talk about," said Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), the senior Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and sponsor of a new energy bill that emphasizes renewables and clean technology (Greenwire, Sept. 22).
"I think the pope should talk about climate change," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. "He's written a beautiful encyclical about it, and I look forward to hearing his edifying words."
One of the Senate's most vocal climate advocates, Rhode Island Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse, was less than optimistic that a climate lecture from the pontiff would cause a shift in the congressional debate.
"I do think that the history of Christianity is one that holds out hope for epiphanies," said Whitehouse, who is Protestant, in an interview this week. "So even though he's coming to the least likely place, there's always the possibility, there's always hope. And I do think that he's got a special moment here."
The pope's message is likely to include statements that could offend either party -- his remarks yesterday during an appearance with President Obama at the White House included a brief reference to abortion and gay marriage, on which his views differ from those of Obama and many Democrats. But congressional leaders of both parties have taken steps to ensure their colleagues respond politely.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who is Catholic, said lawmakers should make an effort not to interrupt Francis with applause as though he were a politician come to score partisan points.
"I'm going to applaud when he comes in and when he leaves, but I'm probably not going to be otherwise applauding," he said. "It's a different kind of a speech than we have, and we should treat it differently."'It's very meaningful'
At least one House Republican Catholic -- Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona -- planned to register his own disapproval of Francis' climate views by skipping the speech. But most Republicans -- regardless of their faith -- took pains this week to minimize their policy differences with the pope.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D), a Catholic, said he was looking forward to the address.
"It's very meaningful not only for Catholics but for all of us," he said.
Hoeven noted that he offered an amendment of his own last January that put 15 of his GOP colleagues on the record that human-caused emissions contribute to climate change (E&E Daily, Jan. 28). He voted against his own amendment for strategic reasons and did not answer whether he personally agreed that human emissions are driving warming.
But Hoeven acknowledged that he does not agree with the pope's call for drastic carbon cuts.
"I have an approach out there in terms of how I think we should address it," he said, though he declined to give specifics except to say that what "we want to do is empower investment in the new technologies that enable us to produce more energy and do it with better environmental stewardship."
The Senate's most vocal critic of President Obama's climate agenda, Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.), said he had no intention of skipping the pope's speech just because they disagree on the issue.
"I certainly wouldn't do that," Inhofe told E&E Daily this week. "There are a lot of political issues that the pope has been involved in that I don't agree with. That's not why he's here, I don't think, to promote that. I respect the pope and respect the position he's in and disagree with some of his political positions."
The Oklahoman, who wrote a book calling climate change "the greatest hoax," suggested there's common ground to be found with the pope.
"I know he's concerned about compassion," Inhofe said. "Maybe we disagree about how we get to compassion."
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), who also questions climate science, said he would be unfazed if the pope chose to highlight the issue to lawmakers.
"He has a right to speak about that, but I think according to Catholic doctrine, he doesn't speak with the same authority that he does when he speaks on matters of faith, so he's free to speak about that," he said in an interview this week.
Francis' papal letter in June carries as much doctrinal heft as any teaching that originates with a pope -- including on more established issues like abortion or marriage. It is not canon law.
But Sessions suggested that the pontiff's words are unlikely to change any minds on an issue where members' positions have been hardened by years of acrimonious political debate.
"Global warming has been an active issue for a number of years," he said. "It will be interesting to see what the pope adds to it."
However, in a reference to the pope's focus on poverty, Sessions said that policies that curb emissions may harm the poor by raising energy costs.
"And I would say that in places where electricity is readily available, as opposed to places it's not, the life span in places where there's electricity is approximately twice the places it's not," he said. "So there's a human dimension here ... and if you raise the costs of electricity, it doesn't bother the rich, because electricity is only a small part of the life, the cost, but for a poor person, it's a very real thing."
In a statement last night to E&E Daily, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, also cited climate change and its impact on the world's poorest people. But he took a considerably different view than Sessions.
"Climate change is one such threat with far-reaching environmental, social, and economic consequences that disproportionately impact the poorest populations," Pallone said. The pope's "message on this, though, is no different than his teachings on immigration, income inequality or human rights. He urges us -- all-Catholics and non-Catholics, Democrats and Republicans alike -- to recognize all of these as moral issues that, ultimately, affect the most vulnerable members of society most severely."
It is unclear to what extent Francis will address climate change today, or whether he will weigh in on specific policy issues. Yesterday's White House address made oblique references in support of both U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan and U.S. contributions to international climate aid. But the pontiff is also expected to address income inequality and the plight of refugees and immigrants in a speech that is expected to run half an hour.
Dan Misleh of the Catholic Climate Covenant said his words could give Catholic members of Congress cover to come out in support of climate action "without feeling like they're giving in."
But John Carr, director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University, said Francis wouldn't make a great political foil even for the party that tends to agree with him on climate change.
"My own view is that people who try to use the pope for political reasons will be disappointed, and people who try to dismiss the pope for political reasons run a risk, as well," he said.
While Democrats have tended to tailor their messaging on economic policy and environmental policy to "the middle class," he said, Francis' concern is primarily for the world's poor. And it has led him to shun some preferred Democratic solutions to warming -- including a market-based mechanism to contain emissions.

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One Step Forward, Two Steps Back on Carbon Emissions

Sep 24, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog

By Brent Erickson

In August this year, President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon pollution from power plants by millions of tons annually over the next 15 years. It represents a key element in the administration’s effort to take a leading role in addressing climate change, especially as countries prepare for the United Nations COP21 events in Paris this coming December. Curiously, the announcement of the Clean Power Plan came just one week after the EPA closed comments on a proposed rule for the Renewable Fuel Standard that would forego millions of tons of achievable carbon emission reductions from the transportation sector. It is ironic and troubling that the administration’s wavering on the RFS is in direct odds with its ambition to lead the world in addressing climate change.
The president’s Clean Power Plan predicts that by 2030 renewable energy generation will grow 30 percent and energy efficient measures will save enough energy to power 30 million homes. The plan also predicts that millions of tons of carbon will be saved each year as power plants switch from coal to cheaper natural gas, since using natural gas emits half the carbon that burning coal does. Overall, the administration expects that carbon emissions from the power sector will be 32 percent lower by 2030, reducing emissions by 870 million tons annually or the equivalent of permanently removing 166 million cars from the road. And the administration correctly touts these goals as part of a major commitment to lead the world in mitigating climate change, cleaning the air, and improving people’s health.
But there are troubling inconsistencies over at EPA. EPA acknowledges that Congress in 2007 set aggressive standards for renewable fuel use in order to displace oil and thereby reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. And the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) has estimated that over its 10-year lifespan, the RFS has displaced nearly 1.9 billion barrels of foreign oil and reduced U.S. transportation-related carbon emissions by 589.33 million metric tons, equivalent to removing more than 124 million cars from the road over the decade. Nevertheless, the agency is proposing to allow oil refiners to hold biofuel use below 10 percent of the transportation fuel mix for the foreseeable future and to completely rewrite the volumes set by Congress. The plan would forego achievable carbon emission reductions through 2022 from the second largest source of carbon emissions in the U.S. economy. The transportation sector is the source of 28 percent of U.S. carbon emissions, only slightly behind the power generation sector’s 32 percent share and nearly equal to the emissions from both industry (20 percent) and agriculture (10 percent) put together.
BIO further estimates that EPA’s failure to uphold congressionally set statutory volumes for the RFS in 2014 resulted in an increase of 17.4 million metric tons of carbon, which is the equivalent of putting an additional 3.6 million cars back on the road during the year. For 2015, gasoline and diesel consumption are both projected to increase compared to 2014, so EPA’s failure to uphold the statutory RFS volumes for biofuel use would result in an increase of 34.9 million metric tons of carbon above achievable levels, the equivalent of putting 7.3 million additional cars back on the road for 2015. Although gasoline use is projected to decline slightly in 2016, diesel use is expected to continue to increase. EPA’s failure to keep the RFS volumes on course will result in an increase of 56.2 million tons of CO2e in 2016 compared to achievable levels under the statute. This is equivalent to putting an additional 11.7 million cars on the road in 2016, compared to 2015.
The University of Illinois at Chicago’s Energy Resources Center conducted a separate analysis of the carbon emission impact of EPA’s proposal. The principal researcher Steffen Mueller presents evidence that the lifecycle carbon balance of biofuel production continues to improve. He reviewed recent studies showing that biofuel and agricultural feedstock production are becoming more energy and fossil resource efficient, improving the lifecycle carbon score for biofuels. He also notes that observed land use change prompted by biofuels is less than predicted by studies from the past decade. Mueller’s results show that EPA’s proposal to decrease ethanol use by 1.6 billion gallons in 2015 will increase carbon emissions by 4,520,000 metric tons CO2e for that year, equivalent to putting nearly 1 million (951,600) additional passenger vehicles on the road.
The emissions compound over time and the overall effect is to allow carbon emissions from the transportation sector to erode the planned carbon savings from the power sector. It makes no sense to count carbon savings from the Clean Power Plan while undercutting the Renewable Fuel Standard. Setting such a course is a dubious strategy for demonstrating U.S. leadership at the upcoming UN Framework on Climate Change Conference of the Parties in Paris this December. It could prove embarrassing for the administration when other nations figure out EPA is increasing emissions in the transportation sector.
Erickson is executive vice president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).

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Ozone Rule Misses the Mark

Sep 23, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog

By J. Winston Porter

Sound environmental regulations have to be built upon a foundation of science. When science and expert opinion are pushed aside in favor of politics the result is often unachievable goals and real economic pain. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's proposed ozone rule checks all the wrong boxes.
EPA is proposing to lower the national ozone standard from its current level of 75 parts per billion (ppb) to a range of 65 to 70 ppb. While that drop might sound innocuous, it will be incredibly difficult and costly to achieve, and the purported benefits are questionable at best.
Driving EPA's ozone push is the promise of improved health with lower ozone levels. That reasoning rests on shaky ground. At higher levels, ozone can cause health problems - think of the air pollution on a bad day in Beijing for example. However, EPA must justify its regulations, and what so far has not been done, is prove that lowering ozone levels from 75 ppb to 65 or 70 ppb will actually improve health. Ozone levels in the U.S. are already vastly improved and it is unclear if further lowering of ozone - particularly manmade contributions - will provide measurable health benefits.
According to analysis of the EPA's own models by experts at the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the new rule would actually increase mortality in some cities, including Houston and Los Angeles. As the TCEQ experts explained, either lowering the ozone standard misses its purpose or EPA is having trouble interpreting its own data. By either measure, the scientific case for lowering ozone concentrations doesn't hold up.
While EPA will tell you that it can't consider economic impacts when building regulations, it's curiously trying to justify its ozone rule by citing potential economic benefits from improved health. The larger body of evidence on the cost and plausibility of these rules contradicts EPA's claims. One study from the National Association of Manufacturers projects that the U.S. economy would lose $140 billion and 1.4 million jobs per year if EPA gets its way.
These brutally high costs -- some are calling this regulation the most costly of all time - are because ozone is such a tricky form of pollution to address. While part of ozone concentrations come from manmade sources, considerable amounts of ozone - as high as 80 percent in some areas - occur naturally. That's why under EPA's proposed rule, some national parks would actually be out of compliance.
Furthermore, a significant amount of the manmade ozone pollution we are dealing with isn't actually produced here. Pollutants from China, for example, contribute to U.S. concentrations of ozone. EPA's proposal is so problematic and costly because meeting the target requires us to make a 14 percent cut in ozone concentrations while only focusing on a fraction of the actual causes. Attaining these goals won't just require the adoption of new, pollution-control technology on power plants or factories, but will often mean that for one plant to expand, another will have to close.
At the heart of the issue is what precisely is driving EPA's proposal. Current law doesn't actually require EPA to lower the ozone standard. In addition, the foundational justification for the rule - potential health benefits - is full of holes. Unfortunately, EPA's proposal smacks of a preference to make fossil fuels more costly while boosting the nation's renewable energy sector. Sound regulation must rest on science, not politics. EPA's ozone proposal wildly misses this mark.
Porter is an energy and environmental consultant, based in Savannah, Georgia, and a former assistant administrator of the EPA.

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Wal-Mart, Other Major Brands Join Renewables Pledge

Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Andrea Vittorio

The number of companies seeking to obtain 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources has nearly tripled in the last year as brands such as Wal-Mart, Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble have pledged to pursue cleaner power sources.
Now three dozen companies have taken the 100 percent renewable electricity pledge since the groupRE100 launched the initiative during Climate Week in New York in 2014 (184 DEN A-2, 9/23/14).
It is one of many campaigns trying to show support within the private sector—which accounts for more than half of the world's electricity consumption—for a global climate deal being negotiated by nearly 200 nations.
“Climate change is a global issue that requires global solutions,” Eric Sprunk, chief operating officer at Nike, another signatory to the pledge, said in a statement Sept. 23. “We believe that collaboration is important to accelerate and scale sustainable innovations that have potential to change the world, and Nike is proud to join the leading global brands in RE100 with our commitment to reach 100 percent renewable energy.”
The companies’ goals vary in their deadlines, from 2020 for Goldman Sachs to 2050 for Johnson & Johnson.
The announcement comes one day after another group of companies—some of which overlap, like Unilever—pledged to zero out greenhouse gas emissions from their operations by 2050 (184 DEN A-1, 9/23/15).

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Transportation News

NTSB Begins Virginia Pipeline Spill Investigation

Sep 24, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

The National Transportation Safety Board Sept. 23 began an investigation into a 2,000 gallon gasoline release from a Virginia pipeline. The gasoline, which was released from a pipeline on Sept. 21 in Centreville, Va., built up in a stormwater retention pond near where the pipeline was installed, a safety board news release said. A spokesman for the board wasn't immediately available to provide additional details on the spill, such as who the owner of the pipeline was. The investigation will be run by Ravi Chhatre, alongside investigators who understand pipeline operations, hazardous materials, and pipeline metallurgy, the news release said.

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