Preview Newsletter

ACC PM

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) 4 Surprising Chemical Stocks to Buy Now
Sep 24, 2015 | Zacks

After bearing the brunt of the global economic crisis, the highly cyclical $5 trillion global chemical industry is on the slow road to recovery amid a still-fragile macro environment.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Reform or an Irreversible Rollback?
Sep 24, 2015 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Linda Reinstein

Almost 40 years after the revolutionary Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976 was signed into law, our world has changed in countless ways through technological, social, and legislative advancements.
(ACC Mentioend) Three Hundred CEOs in China Sign Responsible Care Charter
Sep 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Charlotte Niemiec

Companies in China are showing an increased commitment to chemical risk management, as 300 CEOs have signed the Responsible Care charter this month, according to the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA).
(ACC Mentioned) Doubt Over Number of Substances Colors Reform Debate
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sam Pearson

Speaking at a chemical industry conference in Baltimore earlier this year, Terry Medley, global director of corporate regulatory affairs at DuPont, said his daughter once asked him to Google how many chemicals are used in the United States.
Advocates Claim EPA Position In PCB Case Contradicts Agency Guidance
Sep 24, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Amanda Palleschi

Environmentalists pushing for a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) cleanup plan for the Spokane River argue a 2011 EPA guidance document on how to develop total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for PCBs contradicts the agency's answer to a district court ruling requiring EPA and Washington state to address PCB pollution in the river.

Chemical Security News

Clinton Calls for Sweeping Power Grid Upgrades
Sep 24, 2015 | The Hill - Cybersecurity
By Katie Bo Williams

Hillary Clinton is calling for power grid upgrades to increase cybersecurity, the Democratic presidential front-runner revealed in a sweeping energy infrastructure policy statement released Wednesday.
Utilities' Cyberdefense Lags Behind Retail, Government -- Report
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Blake Sobczak

Electric utilities haven't kept up with the cyberdefenses of many industry peers and could face damaging attacks, according to a report by security ratings firm BitSight Technologies.

Energy and Environment News

Southwest Power Pool Reaches Out to State Air Regulators
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Rod Kuckro

The Southwest Power Pool on Tuesday hosted what amounted to an online mixer for the air regulators from the 14 states in which SPP ensures electric system reliability and operates electricity markets.
Mo. Regulators Get New Mandate as They Start to Weigh Options
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Energywire
By Jeffrey Tomich

Like state environmental regulators across the country, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources has spent the past six weeks digging into technical details of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan as they begin to plot the state's compliance strategy.
Mont. Grudgingly Prepares Options for Tough Clean Power Plan Emissions Cuts
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire
By Elizabeth Harball and Emily Holden

No matter how heavy its lift may be, Montana won't be joining "just say no" states like Oklahoma in flat-out refusing to plan for U.S. EPA's rule to slash greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
The Clean Power Plan is Also Good Economics. Here's Why.
Sep 24, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Dan Upham

Believe the hype: The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan is as much a plan to bolster the economy as it’s a move to protect the health of people and our planet.
Federal District Court Ruling Suggests Limits On Title V Air Permit Liability
Sep 24, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker

A federal district court judge's recent ruling rejecting an EPA Clean Air Act enforcement case against an electric utility primarily over alleged new source review (NSR) permit violations highlights the potential limits on the liability that companies face for deficiencies in their Title V air law operating permits, sources say.
Obama to Overhaul Process for Offsetting Environmental Harm
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Corbin Hiar

The White House is preparing a presidential memorandum that seeks to streamline how the government offsets damage to public lands, waters and wildlife, according to several sources.
Obama: I Should Have Acted Sooner on Climate Change
Sep 24, 2015 | The Hill
By Jordan Fabian

President Obama says he should have "moved faster to a nonlegislative strategy" to address climate change after Congress killed cap-and-trade legislation in 2009.
The Pope Asked Congress to Do One Specific Thing: Address Climate Change. It Won’t.
Sep 24, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Philip Bump

It was not Pope Francis's way to be explicit in his calls to action when addressing Congress on Thursday. He touched briefly on a number of topics that roil within American politics.
Partisan Applause as Pope Francis Urges the US to Fight Climate Change
Sep 24, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama

Pope Francis on Thursday urged lawmakers to help fight climate change, citing his historic June encyclical that focused on protecting the Earth.
GOP Unswayed by Pope's Climate Prodding
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Geof Koss, Daniel Bush and Hannah Northey

Lawmakers from both parties today praised Pope Francis' historic speech to Congress, but the pontiff's climate message doesn't appear to have caused any major shifts in thinking among Republicans on the need to curb emissions.
Call for 'Courageous Actions' Unlikely to Spur Split Congress
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Robin Bravender and Jean Chemnick

Pope Francis prodded a deeply divided Congress to take "courageous" steps to combat environmental damage, but his calls aren't likely to spur the entrenched foes of the Obama administration's green agenda.
Faith in Clean Energy
Sep 24, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Tom Steyer and Sister Simone Campbell

Faith and politics share a common burden. In our best moments, being a member of a faith community or political movement requires us to act in the interests of our fellow humans—an appeal that places responsibility squarely on our shoulders and demands that we take action.

Transportation News

(ACC Mentioned) Safety Deadline Miss Threatens Water Supplies -- Groups
Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire
By Sean Reilly

The safety of public drinking water supplies will be imperiled if Congress fails to extend a Dec. 31 deadline for implementation of the automated rail safety system known as positive train control, five organizations representing utilities and water companies said in a newly released letter to lawmakers.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) 4 Surprising Chemical Stocks to Buy Now

Sep 24, 2015 | Zacks

After bearing the brunt of the global economic crisis, the highly cyclical $5 trillion global chemical industry is on the slow road to recovery amid a still-fragile macro environment. Although, the chemical industry fared reasonably well in the second quarter of 2015 helped by strength across automotive and residential construction markets, it remains challenged by soft agriculture market fundamentals, depressed demand in energy markets, sluggishness in China and a stronger greenback.

Economic cooling in China, which is a major market for chemicals, remains a deterrent over the near term. China’s GDP rose 7% in second-quarter 2015, representing the weakest pace in the last 6 years. The country’s economy is expected to slow even further this year in comparison with the prior year as the official GDP growth target for 2015 has been pegged at 7%.

The preliminary Caixin China manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) for September fell to a six-and-a-half-year low of 47.0. This compares with a final reading of 47.3 in August. A reading of less than 50 indicates contraction in manufacturing activity. This recent spate of disappointing data has raised concerns around the health of China's economy, which in turn has cast a dark shadow over the chemical industry.

Outlook for Europe also remains cloudy. The eurozone economy is stuttering, with meager growth of 0.3% in the second quarter of 2015. Chemical makers in the European Union remain affected by lower prices and sluggish demand. Chemical prices, which fell 1.8% in the European Union last year, remain under pressure.

Lower oil prices are hurting demand for chemicals in the energy space, an important end-market. Depressed crude oil prices will continue to keep chemical prices under check as they essentially move in tandem with oil prices.

These headwinds apart, the chemical industry will improve on the back of a gradually improving U.S economy. According to the American Chemistry Council (ACC), an industry trade group, U.S. chemical production will expand both this year and next, and the American chemical industry will eventually transcend the nation’s overall economic growth and emerge as a long-term growth engine as improvements in key end-use industries and emerging markets take hold.

The shale revolution has incentivized a number of chemical companies to invest billions of dollars to ramp up capacity in the country. The automotive sector is witnessing significant momentum and is reaping the benefits of low gasoline prices. Chemical makers are expected to gain from higher demand from this important end-market.

Recovery across housing and commercial construction, another major chemical end-market, has been one more supporting factor for the chemical industry’s recovery. The US Architecture Billings Index (ABI), an economic indicator that provides approximately nine-to-twelve-month glimpse into the future of non-residential construction spending activity, remained over 50 for most of the recent months. Any score above 50 indicates an increase in billings.

Moreover, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) expects non-residential construction spending to go up nearly 8.9% in 2015 and 8.2% in 2016. This bodes well for chemical demand in the construction markets.

Within the Zacks Industry classification, the chemical industry falls under the broader Basic Materials sector (one of 16 Zacks sectors). We rank all of the more than 257 industries in the 16 Zacks sectors based on the earnings outlook for the constituent companies in each industry. This ranking is available on the Zacks Industry Rank page.

The way to align the ranking and outlook from the complete list of Zacks Industry Rank for the 257+ companies is that the outlook for the top one-third of the list (Zacks Industry Rank of #86 and lower) is positive, the middle one-third (Zacks Industry Rank between #87 and #173) is neutral, while the outlook for the bottom one-third (Zacks Industry Rank #174 and higher) is negative.

We have three chemicals related industries: Chemical Diversified, Chemical Plastics, Chemical Specialty all of which are languishing in the bottom tier with respective Zacks Rank of #207, #219 and #237. Looking at the exact location of these industries, one could say that the general outlook for the chemical industry is ‘Negative’ at the moment.

While the negative outlook on the chemical sector might seem to suggest that this is an area to steer clear from at the moment, we have picked few stocks in the space which are presently enjoying a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or #2 (Buy). Going by the Zacks model, companies sporting a Zacks Rank #1 or Rank #2 have strong chances of outperforming the broader market in the near term. What’s supporting the bull cause of these particular stocks, let’s find out.

Koppers Holdings Inc. (KOP - Snapshot Report)

Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, Koppers Holdings Inc. provides carbon compounds, and chemicals and treated wood products and services in the United States and internationally. The company serves the aluminum, railroad, specialty chemical, utility, rubber, concrete, steel, residential lumber, and agricultural industries. It has a market capitalization of $429.4 million.

Positive trends in home repair and remodeling bodes well for the company as it tends to drive demand for its products. The company remains focused on generating cash to de-lever its balance sheet, de-emphasize its Carbon Materials and Chemicals (CMC) growth strategy in the low-margin emerging markets and restructure the overall CMC operating footprint.

This Zacks Rank #1 stock has an expected earnings growth of 10%. The company delivered positive earnings surprises in the past two quarters.

Trinseo SA (TSE - Snapshot Report)

Headquartered in Berwyn, PA, Trinseo S.A., manufactures and markets various emulsion polymers and plastics. Its products are used in tires and other products for automotive applications, carpet and artificial turf backing, coated paper and packaging board, food service packaging, appliances, medical devices, consumer electronics and construction applications, and others. It has a market capitalization of $2.5 billion.

Trinseo will benefit from its incessant efforts to control costs and recent price increases. The company is particularly focused on its Performance Materials segment as it expects to sustain the solid performance and generate good returns in 2016. The drivers of this growth include continued positive mix shift and higher volumes in rubber, new volume from China expansion as well as price increases and cost initiatives in latex, as well as modest volume growth in Performance Plastics.

This Zacks Rank #1 stock has an expected earnings growth of 6.25%. The company delivered positive earnings surprises in the past two quarters.

Air Products & Chemicals Inc. (APD - Analyst Report)

Pennsylvania-based Air Products and Chemicals makes industrial gases as well as a variety of polymer and performance chemicals. It also supplies processing equipment. The company serves technology, energy, industrial and health care customers globally. It has a market capitalization of $28.05 billion.

Air Products benefits from a diverse customer base, sustained pricing power and cost-reduction measures. It also stands to profit from incremental opportunities in the liquefied natural gas market. Moreover, new business deals and strategic investments are expected to support results in fiscal 2015.

This Zacks Rank #2 stock has an expected earnings growth of 13.3%. The company delivered positive earnings surprises in the last four quarters, with an average of 2.90%.

Eastman Chemical Co. (EMN - Analyst Report)

Headquartered in Kingsport, TN, Eastman Chemical Company, a specialty chemical company, manufactures and sells materials, chemicals and fibers in the U.S. and internationally. It has a market capitalization of $10.08 billion.

Eastman Chemical will benefit from its business restructuring initiatives that have reduced cyclicality by 40%. As part of the restructuring, the company sold unprofitable units and closed businesses that could not be sold. Eastman Chemical’s diversified chemical portfolio, along with its integrated and diverse downstream businesses, remains its strength. It will also benefit from strategic acquisitions, cost-cutting measures and capacity additions.

This Zacks Rank #2 stock has an expected earnings growth of 9.07%. The company delivered earnings surprises in the last four quarters, with an average of 9.36%. - See more at: http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/191268/4-surprising-chemical-stocks-to-buy-now#sthash.v7eF49Wp.dpuf

Return to headline | Return to top

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Reform or an Irreversible Rollback?

Sep 24, 2015 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families

By Linda Reinstein

Almost 40 years after the revolutionary Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976 was signed into law, our world has changed in countless ways through technological, social, and legislative advancements. However, TSCA has been untouched and unchanged – until now. While an updated TSCA could yield incredibly beneficial health and safety advantages, the proposed legislation as written is actually an irreversible rollback – not reform.
The Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) proudly stands with Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families (SCHF) and hundreds of public health, environmental, and business groups who have come together to push Congress and retailers for strong action on toxic chemicals.
September is an important month. Our children returned to school, we raised awareness about the hazardous chemicals that workers are exposed to; we recognized the brave 9/11 heroes and survivors exposed to high levels of toxins, and we will honor and remember our loved ones on September 26th for Mesothelioma Awareness Day.
It was in 2003 when my family heard the dreaded word – mes·o·the·li·o·ma – when my husband Alan was diagnosed. Alan fought a courageous three-year battle and died in 2006 with our then 13-year old daughter and me by his side. Alan paid the ultimate price for his job — his life.
The question I hear every day is “How can asbestos still be legal in the USA today?”
Decades ago, the EPA recognized that asbestos, a known human carcinogen, is hazardous to public health and the environmental.
As the EPA states, “In 1989, the EPA issued a final rule under Section 6 of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) banning most asbestos-containing products. However, in 1991, this rule was vacated and remanded by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. As a result, most of the original ban on the manufacture, importation, processing, or distribution in commerce for the majority of the asbestos-containing products originally covered in the 1989 final rule was overturned.”
Asbestos is mistakenly believed to be one of the five chemicals banned under the 1976 TSCA, yet the EPA was only able to ban the manufacture, importation, processing and distribution in commerce of these five products:Corrugated paperRollboardCommercial paperSpecialty paperFlooring felt
The process of shaping public policy often feels glacially slow. As Jim Jones, Assistant Administrator of the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention has stated, “More than three and a half decades since the passage of TSCA, the EPA has only been able to require testing on just a little more than 200 of the 84,000 chemicals listed on the TSCA inventory and has regulated or banned only five of these chemicals.”
National Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families campaign director Andy Igrejas and I have repeatedly testified at congressional hearings in support of real TSCA reform. SCHF and ADAO were excited to watch the introduction of the “Alan Reinstein and Trevor Schaefer Toxic Chemical Protection Act” (S.725)proposed by Senators Boxer and Markey this year, but our hopes and dreams did not come to fruition.
To many, it seems as though progress is near through legislation such as the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697), a move to reauthorize and modernize TSCA by imposing stricter regulations on toxic chemicals, including asbestos.
Yet, as written, S. 697 weakens the failed 1976 TSCA and doesn’t mention expedited action to ban asbestos or other Persistent Bioaccumulative and Toxic (PBT) chemicals. A robust testing plan is urgently needed. It would take the EPA more than a 100 years to test the most hazardous 1,000 chemicals that have been grandfathered into commerce. Americans demand and deserve legislation written by the people for the people – not by special interests such as the American Chemistry Council (ACC).Asbestos is still the biggest workplace killer in the world.
For more than 100 years, we have known that asbestos exposure leads to horrific diseases, yet it remains legal and lethal today and imports continue. Every day, 40 Americans die from preventable asbestos-caused diseases. Most Americans can’t identify asbestos or manage the risk. When you combine a lack of asbestos awareness with a lack of appropriate government regulation, something horrifying happens: Americans unknowingly use products that contain asbestos.
On September 11, 2001, we watched in horror as two planes crashed into the World Trade Center (WTC). As buildings smoldered, firefighters, first responders, and volunteers who rushed to save lives, they were blanketed by tons of pulverized WTC debris that was laced with toxic substances such as asbestos, ground glass, lead, gypsum, and calcite.
But it is not just workers who become exposed and poisoned by asbestos – it’s their spouses and children as well. Unknowingly, workers can carry home asbestos on their clothes and in their hair, thus resulting in secondary exposure. Studies have proven that spouses and children who inhale asbestos from workers’ clothes can also develop and be diagnosed with mesothelioma or other asbestos-caused diseases.
More than 31 million metric tons of asbestos have been used in buildings and consumer products, and can also be found in our homes, schools, workplaces, and even the toys our children play with. In fact, asbestos recently has been found in crayons.
As Acting U.S. Surgeon General Boris Lushniak stated: “The asbestos issue is not a thing of the past. It continues to this day.”
Congress must work together—on behalf of those silenced by asbestos and other toxins—to pass a TSCA bill that will ensure the EPA can expeditiously manage the risk of asbestos exposure. As a mesothelioma widow, I remind Congress that for every life lost from asbestos, a shattered family is left behind.
As the Chinese Proverb says, “Out of the hottest fire comes the strongest steel.” I am certain our coalition is galvanized for the fight.
Linda Reinstein became a public heath advocate after her husband, Alan, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2003. One year later, she co-founded the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) to reach out to those who have been affected by asbestos-related diseases. During the past 11 years, ADAO has become the largest independent 501(c)(3) non-profit in the U.S. dedicated to preventing asbestos exposure, eliminating asbestos-caused diseases, and protecting asbestos victims’ civil rights through education, advocacy, and community initiatives.

Return to headline | Return to top
(ACC Mentioend) Three Hundred CEOs in China Sign Responsible Care Charter

Sep 24, 2015 | Chemical Watch

By Charlotte Niemiec

Companies in China are showing an increased commitment to chemical risk management, as 300 CEOs have signed the Responsible Care charter this month, according to the International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA).
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) said the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation (CPCIF) has been collecting signatures over the past few months.
While an ACC spokesperson did not attribute last month’s explosion at Tianjin as the cause for the boost in recruitment, she said chemical incidents provide an opportunity for industry to learn about and apply the principles of Responsible Care.
“The tragic events at Tianjin underscore many of the Responsible Care founding principles of comprehensive risk management systems, community awareness and outreach, and emergency planning and preparedness,” she said.
She added that the ICCA has been actively working to establish Responsible Care in the region for more than ten years, in partnership with the Association of International Chemical Manufacturers (AICM), CPCIF and the Taiwan Responsible Care Association.
The ACC said the company that has been named in media reports as responsible for the explosion, Ruihai Logistics, was not one of the signatories to the charter.
Earlier this month, foreign companies operating in China urged domestic enterprises to join Responsible Care, following the explosion at Tianjin (AsiaHub 10 September 2015).
The list of signatures will be made public at the ICCM4 event, next week.

Return to headline | Return to top
(ACC Mentioned) Doubt Over Number of Substances Colors Reform Debate

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire

By Sam Pearson

Speaking at a chemical industry conference in Baltimore earlier this year, Terry Medley, global director of corporate regulatory affairs at DuPont, said his daughter once asked him to Google how many chemicals are used in the United States. When audience members turned to their smartphones for the answer, one found an often-cited figure on the website of an environmental group.
"NRDC [the Natural Resources Defense Council] says 83,000," the audience member called out, jokingly.
The chemical industry doesn't think that figure is accurate, and many other advocates agree. A provision that would update U.S. EPA's official tally in a bipartisan bill to reform the nation's decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act was previously supported by both sides. Now, that provision faces new questions from opponents of the Senate bill S. 697.
Opponents -- including Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families; the Environmental Working Group; NRDC; and others, along with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and a small group of Democratic senators -- have pushed unsuccessfully, so far, for a more limited House bill (H.R. 2576) to be adopted as the basis for reforming chemical policy.
Updating the TSCA inventory is one of at least 15 required rules, guidances and procedures EPA is required to issue under S. 697, all of which could distract from its primary mission -- reviewing chemicals for safety, said Robert Sussman, a senior policy adviser to former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.
These requirements risk burdening EPA with activities of minimal value, Sussman said, and even though some have statutory deadlines, there's no guarantee EPA will meet them.
"I know how things work inside the agency and inside the executive branch," Sussman said, "and my main concern here is that we not tie EPA up in knots doing unproductive activities."
What to do about 'myth'
The chemical industry views the idea that more than 80,000 chemicals are used in commerce today as harmful to its businesses. The higher figure is surely exaggerated and only fuels public doubt about popular products, the industry says.
At the same time, EPA has tested only about 200 chemicals since TSCA became law in the 1970s, and the agency has said about 1,000 chemicals currently in use need to be evaluated for safety.
That doesn't stop the higher figure from being cited, but with some qualifications.
When Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), who introduced S. 697 with Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), took to the Senate floor in May to drum up support for the bill, he used a big figure -- 84,000 "known chemicals" and hundreds more entering the market each year.
"The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 -- or TSCA -- is supposed to protect American families. It doesn't," Udall said. "There are over 84,000 known chemicals and hundreds of new ones every year. And how many have been regulated by EPA? Less than a half-dozen."
The outdated count is a product of what many experts consider a broken EPA system established under the 1976 law, industry groups and others contend.
Under TSCA, chemicals that were already in use prior to the law's passage were not required to undergo safety tests. To this day, EPA faces a steep burden to prove that these substances pose an "unreasonable risk" to consumers and that its regulations are the least burdensome option for companies.
Both new and existing chemicals under TSCA are considered part of the TSCA inventory, or EPA's universe of chemicals believed to be in use in the United States. But over the years, EPA's tally of chemicals has grown woefully out of date, many agree, because EPA has not taken action to remove from the list chemicals that are no longer used by companies.
The inventory is really just a list of all chemicals that have been in use at some point since 1976, Richard Denison, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund and a supporter of the Senate bill, wrote in a blog post.
EPA proposed updating the list in 2008, but the idea failed to gain traction, as industry opposed the move as overly burdensome, Denison said. Now industry groups support the provision as a package with the rest of the bill.
Under the Udall-Vitter bill, EPA would be required to check the list to, over time, determine if the chemicals are still used in products.
The proposal "is an essential element of a more credible chemical management program," American Chemistry Council spokeswoman Anne Kolton said in an email. "In essence, how can EPA accurately review and prioritize chemicals that require a risk assessment if the agency does not have a more accurate picture of which chemicals are actually being used in commerce?"
Checking for outdated confidential business information claims would also serve as "a key component of efforts to enhance transparency," Kolton said.
The process will also give the agency a chance to examine whether companies' past claims that the chemicals were confidential business information, preventing disclosure of proprietary information, are still valid, Denison said.
"The notion that this is an industry provision simply doesn't hold water," Denison said.
Though the section was present in previous TSCA reform bills -- like the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg's (D-N.J.) "Safe Chemicals Act" -- and in a more recent bill by Boxer and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), S. 725, or the "Alan Reinstein and Trevor Schaefer Toxic Chemical Protection Act," that doesn't mean it was good policy, Sussman said.
Boxer's recent proposal "was working within the confines of the legislation as developed by Udall and Vitter," Sussman said, "and I think she was trying to improve it, but not throw it out and start all over again and not make major changes, so this was something she did not address."
With the House bill now on the table, Sussman said, lawmakers have more options.
"As I look at these requirements, I don't see a lot of value added in terms of health or environmental protection," he said.

Return to headline | Return to top
Advocates Claim EPA Position In PCB Case Contradicts Agency Guidance

Sep 24, 2015 | InsideEPA

By Amanda Palleschi

Environmentalists pushing for a polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) cleanup plan for the Spokane River argue a 2011 EPA guidance document on how to develop total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for PCBs contradicts the agency's answer to a district court ruling requiring EPA and Washington state to address PCB pollution in the river.
The U.S. District for the Western District of Washington ruled in March that Washington state had sufficient reasons for not completing a PCB TMDL, but that EPA violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it approved a regional task force in lieu of a TMDL.
EPA then said in a July response to the court that it has "inadequate information" to create a TMDL but pledged to create such a plan if the state fails to initiate its own TMDL process by July 15, 2028, and finalize it no later than July 1, 2030.
But an environmentalist source claims this stance contradicts the agency's own guidance provided in the 2011 "PCB TMDL Handbook," which provides EPA water division directors and state officials with detailed options for crafting TMDLs for PCBs. Environmental groups plan to ask the court next month for additional relief in Sierra Club, et al. v Dennis McLarren, et al., including tightening the compliance deadlines and enforcement mechanisms in EPA's cleanup plan.
"You read the guidance document and it gives options for how to do TMDLs . . there are different approaches for modeling and what kind of information you need, and what is implied by the plan they have submitted is that none of that is adequate here," the source says. "They basically prepared this plan [for the court] as if this PCB handbook didn't exist."
A Dec. 20, 2011, EPA memo summarizing the handbook says the guidance provides background "on what PCBs are and some factors to consider in the early stages of TMDL development (e.g., scale, modeling approaches). Next, the handbook identifies the key elements of a TMDL . . . and discusses how those elements can be addressed in PCB TMDLs," EPA writes. "The handbook also summarizes and provides Web resources for related tools, including databases for PCB sources, references for analytical methods, and regional air monitoring initiatives."
PCB TMDLs
Among the factors EPA in the guidance urges utilities and states to consider in crafting PCB TMDLs are consent decrees, stakeholder interest, risk to human health and environment such as Superfund sites that may be "hot spots" for PCBs viewed as high priorities, and the scale of PCB contamination throughout a watershed.
The guidance lays out some modeling approaches to deal with such uncertainty and gives examples of existing TMDLs that use such approaches, something the environmentalist says "could be appropriately used" for the Spokane River.
"EPA says it doesn't make sense for us to do a PCB TMDL in Spokane now because we don't have enough information, we don't know more than half of where the PCBs come from, the situation is changing," the source says. And while it is a good thing that PCB concentrations are already on the decline, EPA's insistence on doing more work to assess the situation is at odds with the 2011 guidance, the source says.
EPA in its July filing with the court says reductions of PCBs in the river are expected from individually permitted dischargers' installation of advanced treatment technologies, and that combined with "uncertain but likely advances in analytical technologies to measure PCBs" will result in a "more scientifically and technically defensible" TMDL if one is developed according to EPA's schedule rather than one developed in the interim.
Environmentalists' motion for additional relief is due Oct. 2.
Meanwhile, Washington state, Spokane County and Kaiser Aluminum Washington have appeals of the March ruling pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. EPA withdrew its own appeal in that court, opting instead to comply with the judge's order in its plan.

Return to headline | Return to top

Chemical Security News

Clinton Calls for Sweeping Power Grid Upgrades

Sep 24, 2015 | The Hill - Cybersecurity

By Katie Bo Williams

Hillary Clinton is calling for power grid upgrades to increase cybersecurity, the Democratic presidential front-runner revealed in a sweeping energy infrastructure policy statement released Wednesday.
“Our electrical grid needs upgrading to harness new technology that reduces energy costs and increases consumer choice, and to address the growing threat of cyberattack,” Clinton said.
Her plan calls for the creation of a new presidential team that would coordinate threat assessment and response efforts between federal agencies and the power industry.
Clinton's plan also calls for boosting the digital defenses of “clean energy” technologies, part of an overall strategy of grid modernization, as well as providing resources to local communities to improve grid resilience.
Clinton’s plan comes amid growing concerns of power grid vulnerability.
Earlier this month, federal documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that hackers infiltrated the Department of Energy's (DOE) computer system more than 150 times between 2010 and 2014.
As the department overseeing the country's power grid and nuclear weapons stockpile, the DOE is an attractive target for overseas cyber spies seeking to uncover vulnerabilities.
A 2013 oversight report noted “unclear lines of responsibility” for cybersecurity within the DOE, as well as a “lack of awareness by responsible officials.”
Experts say critical infrastructure sites are increasingly at risk as electric grids get “smarter.”
National Security Agency Director Michael Rogers told lawmakers last fall that China and “one or two” other countries would be able to shut down portions of critical U.S. infrastructure with a cyberattack. Researchers suspect Iran to be on that list.
The U.S. and China are reportedly working on an agreement under which neither country will be the first to launch cyberattacks on the other’s critical infrastructure, such as power grids or cellphone networks, during peacetime.
In November, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned that “numerous” critical industries might have been compromised by hackers from Russia, though officials said they did not see any attempts to “damage, modify, or otherwise disrupt” any networks. Researchers say the country is testing U.S. networks for vulnerabilities.
Senate Democrats have been campaigning for more funding to protect the electrical grid from hackers, part of an Energy and Water Development Appropriations Bill that has divided lawmakers on partisan lines.
“The reality is that this is a system that is not as well protected as it should be,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) told reporters in a July conference call. “This is a grid that evolved over 100 years and much of it is based on fairly simple technology.”
DHS has also moved to shore up grid defenses, in August announcing the creation of a new committee tasked with identifying how well the department’s “lifeline sectors” are prepared to meet threats and recover from a “significant cyber event.”
“There is a great deal that has been done and is being done now to secure our networks,” DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson told the House Judiciary Committee in July. “There is more to do."

Return to headline | Return to top
Utilities' Cyberdefense Lags Behind Retail, Government -- Report

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Energywire

By Blake Sobczak

Electric utilities haven't kept up with the cyberdefenses of many industry peers and could face damaging attacks, according to a report by security ratings firm BitSight Technologies.
The Massachusetts-based company surveyed online practices in businesses across the U.S. economy, including the health care, education and energy sectors. BitSight ranked utilities behind retail, governmental and financial organizations in terms of cybersecurity.
"The energy and utilities [sector] is right around the middle, and that's not really the best place," said Jay Jacobs, senior data scientist at BitSight, in an interview. "Health care, right next to it, is definitely seeing its share of problems now, and above it you've got retail, which has made several headlines recently."
Jacobs likened his firm's signature rating scale, which ranges from 250 to a perfect 900, to a FICO credit score for cybersecurity. He said insurance companies often use the data when determining policies.
The energy industry's score as of August was 652 -- down one point from the previous year and well behind the finance sector's 716. The scores rely on aggregate data reflecting the security of email configurations, malicious servers communicating with company websites, and exposure to known computer vulnerabilities with names like Heartbleed, FREAK and POODLE.
For example, the report found that roughly 5 percent of the 1,600 energy firms considered were still susceptible to the Heartbleed flaw in security software, a critical vulnerability that came to light in April of last year (EnergyWire, April 11, 2014).
"While some of these may seem small to perhaps people who aren't technically savvy, these are all indications, and if we see a company that can do [secure socket layer] well, then we're also probably going to see them doing well in other things," Jacobs said.
He acknowledged that it's tricky to assess the severity of problems identified in the high-level analysis. For instance, a computer with an Internet protocol address tied to an electric utility could be found to suffer from the Heartbleed bug. But BitSight couldn't say whether that computer sat in a critical control room or in a cafeteria.
Still, Jacobs said the report offers a good benchmark for good and bad behavior in cyberspace and shows what utilities may want to consider in the near future.
"Energy and utilities, for what they're facing -- which is mainly the state-affiliated type of actor -- I think that [threat] detection and response are going to be a very key focus area," he said.

Return to headline | Return to top

Energy and Environment News

Southwest Power Pool Reaches Out to State Air Regulators

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Energywire

By Rod Kuckro

The Southwest Power Pool on Tuesday hosted what amounted to an online mixer for the air regulators from the 14 states in which SPP ensures electric system reliability and operates electricity markets.
The webinar was more than an occasion toget acquainted for the regional transmission organization and the group of regulators that will be drawing up state plans to comply with the U.S. EPA Clean Power Plan.
It was the start of a consultative process SPP hopes to engage in with states as they prepare their plans to comply even as some political leaders pursue litigation or a "just say no" response.
It was also the first instance of an RTO openly meeting with air regulators about the EPA plan.
"Our No. 1 responsibility is to help our members work together to keep the lights on, not only today but in the future. In fact, that's our mission statement," said Lanny Nickell, SPP's vice president of engineering. He led the webinar, which included state air agency officials, utility commissioners and SPP utility members.
"We have the skill set and expertise to best assess and determine whether or not the state plans that are being developed in compliance with the Clean Power Plan can in fact accomplish that mission," Nickell said in an interview.
Nickell gave the regulators an overview of SPP's basic functions of ensuring reliability and dispatching its 825 power plants to provide electricity to 18 million people over a service territory spanning 575,000 miles.
And he filled them in on the results of studies SPP has conducted over the past year on aspects of the EPA rule to curb carbon emissions from power plants.SPP will revisit regional compliance costs
Earlier this year, before the final rule was issued, SPP produced a study on the potential for regional compliance but found the cost would be an estimated $2.9 billion a year (EnergyWire, April 9).
SPP "absolutely" will revisit the cost of compliance now that EPA has extended the compliance deadline and allowed states or regions greater flexibility in their compliance plans, Nickell said.
"You should be able to take away from those studies that it's about 40 percent more expensive to go it alone than be involved in a regional approach," he said.
Among the studies' findings were that state-by-state compliance required 114 percent more generation retirements, increased generation at risk for retirement by 9 percent, and required 185 percent more new natural gas generation and roughly the same amount of new renewables.
Not only is state-by-state compliance more expensive, but it is "more disruptive than a regional approach to the reliability and economic benefit provided by SPP's markets," the RTO presentation said.
More new generation and transmission infrastructure would likely be "needed for state-by-state than for regional compliance," SPP found.How long will it take?
Nickell warned states that there could be "overlapping impacts" from the fact that 12 of SPP's 14 states also have their electricity overseen by one or more RTOs, planning authority or reliability coordinator.
States should try "to implement and plan for an approach that really is interoperable with other states. For example, decide to establish a carbon trading market with all of the other states. To me, that kind of an approach would carry with it a lot less risk or concern than something that is more generator specific," Nickell said.
"It's going to necessitate a higher degree of coordination to fully understand where those overlapping impacts might reside."
That's where assessing state plans comes in. One question states had Tuesday is how long it might take SPP to perform an assessment.
"I still don't have an answer for them," Nickell said.
"We've not assessed anything like this before. We don't yet have a real good idea of how long it's going to take to do an assessment.
"We don't know to what extent you're going to put a lot of detail into your state plan; we don't if it's going to be more general as opposed to specific. So until we start getting a better feel for what each state is thinking, it's hard for me to tell you with any accuracy how long it would take us," he said.
The political battle over the EPA rule is something that "we'll certainly have to deal with as best we can," Nickell said. But "that's not something we want to get involved in."
"We respect the fact that some of the states will litigate; that's their right to do so. We just hope and encourage them to be working a parallel path so that in whatever event occurs, that they're ready to implement something that will be reliable and cost-effective."

Return to headline | Return to top
Mo. Regulators Get New Mandate as They Start to Weigh Options

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Energywire

By Jeffrey Tomich

Like state environmental regulators across the country, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources has spent the past six weeks digging into technical details of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan as they begin to plot the state's compliance strategy.
And for the Missouri DNR, an additional mandate arrived last week -- legislation that requires the agency to submit the state's compliance plan for legislative review.
The Missouri Legislature last week voted to override the veto of Gov. Jay Nixon (D) on S.B. 142, which requires state environmental regulators to prepare a cost-benefit analysis of a compliance plan before submitting it to EPA.
Republican-controlled Missouri is not among the states to file a legal challenge to the Clean Power Plan, but it joins several others in giving lawmakers a chance to review the state's compliance plan. It's a step deemed necessary by EPA's critics and one that others say is unnecessary and a waste of state resources (EnergyWire, March 13).
The General Assembly initially passed S.B. 142 in May. But Nixon vetoed the bill two months later, citing "drafting errors that take an already complex area of state and federal law and confuses it further."
Specifically, Nixon said in a veto letter, the bill cited incorrect or nonexistent sections of the Clean Air Act. Those mistakes were corrected, and the Legislature voted just last week to override Nixon's veto.
State Sen. Gary Romine, the Republican sponsor of the bill, said the measure was intended as a check on "EPA's overregulation" that has adversely affected the state. "It's time we take control of this bloated bureaucracy and their relentless pursuit of power, stifling policies and intrusive regulations," he said in a statement last week.
DNR staff and attorneys said they are reviewing the statute to determine exactly the level of analysis it requires, Leanne Tippett Mosby, director of the department's Division of Environmental Quality, said during a stakeholder meeting yesterday in Jefferson City.
"We're still analyzing the final bill, since it was just overridden in the last week," she said. But, she added: "We will comply."More options, more meetings
The two-hour meeting conducted by staff from the DNR and Region 7 EPA office was largely a Clean Power Plan 101 session to explain changes in the final rule issued Aug. 3 and begin to break down the menu of compliance options available for Missouri, which still gets 80 percent of its electricity from coal.
The meeting drew about 100 people, including utility executives, environmental groups, renewable energy and energy efficiency advocates and representatives of big industrial energy users.
The DNR said it would host additional meetings in the coming months as it continues to evaluate options. A likely topic for one of the sessions is EPA's incentive program for early action to cut CO2 emissions through early deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency -- a topic that drew a number of questions yesterday.
The final version of the Clean Power Plan requires Missouri to slash the rate of carbon dioxide emissions from 21 fossil-fueled plants by 37 percent by 2030, with initial reductions beginning in 2022.
DNR officials stressed that they are in a listening mode for now and have been holding meetings with various parties to discuss specific aspects of the rule. The department has not begun making decisions about how to comply, but department staff said they will necessarily involve reducing coal use.
Tippett Mosby did acknowledge that factors such as cost of compliance and ease of implementation will weigh in the department's ultimate decision and that the state's experience with mass-based emissions programs for other pollutants means it's a more familiar approach than the alternative rate-based approach, where CO2 emissions are measured in pounds per megawatt-hour.
"Mass-based is what we know, what we're more familiar with," she said. "But there are many, many more factors that have to be evaluated."State law shouldn't affect EPA deadline
Only after a full analysis of all of the options and considering stakeholder input will decisions be made, officials said.
"We want to make sure the plan that is drafted for Missouri works for Missouri," said Kyra Moore, director of DNR's Air Pollution Control Program. "At this point, we're taking any and all input for what makes sense. It's very important to us, especially on this [Section] 111(d) program, to get as much feedback as possible."
Moore said the September 2018 deadline for the state to submit a compliance plan to EPA -- if it's given a two-year extension from the September 2016 initial plan deadline -- is "aggressive" given the amount of work to be done.
But officials said they don't expect the additional requirement of S.B. 142 to affect the ability to meet that deadline.
As initially proposed, S.B. 142 would have required the Missouri Legislature to approve the compliance plan before it was sent to EPA. But Tippett Mosby said lawmakers ultimately amended it to remove the "more onerous provisions."
As approved last week, it requires DNR to prepare an impact report in collaboration with other state agencies, including the Public Service Commission. The report must be submitted to the governor, a legislative committee, and House and Senate leadership 45 calendar days before it's sent to EPA.
Among the requirements, the report must include a study of the economic impact on business and citizens and job gains or losses; the cost efficiency of any technology that may be needed to achieve the carbon-reduction goals and whether the reductions are achievable in the given time frame; and the remaining life of any affected power plant.
The analysis required by S.B. 142 is similar to a regulatory impact report, which DNR is required to produce for any new environmental rulemaking.
But, Tippett Mosby noted, "the added elements are far more comprehensive and far-reaching."
Another consideration is development of a Clean Power Plan compliance plan will mesh with efforts to develop a comprehensive state energy plan.
Nixon ordered the energy plan more than a year ago and only recently provided the Missouri Division of Energy an extra four months to deliver it to him. The plan is due by Oct. 15.

Return to headline | Return to top
Mont. Grudgingly Prepares Options for Tough Clean Power Plan Emissions Cuts

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Climatewire

By Elizabeth Harball and Emily Holden

No matter how heavy its lift may be, Montana won't be joining "just say no" states like Oklahoma in flat-out refusing to plan for U.S. EPA's rule to slash greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
EPA is requiring Montana to reduce its fleetwide carbon emissions rate by 47 percent, after initially proposing a cut of 21 percent in the draft Clean Power Plan. The state faces one of the steepest greenhouse gas reduction requirements in the nation, prompting Gov. Steve Bullock (D) to bristle that EPA "moved the goal post on us" when the federal agency released the rule on Aug. 3.
When the final rule came out in August, at first, even Montana's environmentalists were taken aback.
"Everybody had sticker shock, including me," said Anne Hedges, deputy director of the Montana Environmental Information Center.
To meet U.S. EPA rules, Montana may have to shut down a coal plant. The mammoth Colstrip Generating Station east of Billings is one candidate.Photo by Matt Brown, courtesy of AP Images.
But while Montana's Attorney General Tim Fox (R) could still join a lawsuit challenging the regulation, the state is still rolling up its sleeves to figure out what it might take to meet the new federal standards.
According to the governor's office, Montana is starting to develop its own implementation plan to avoid deferring to EPA's yet-to-be-finalized federal version.
"The rules that were released earlier this year are significantly different than the proposed rules that were floated last year," Dave Parker, a spokesman for the governor's office, said in an email. "That being said, Governor Bullock believes that developing a made-in-Montana plan to meet these goals is better than having the federal government dictate our energy future."
Travis Kavulla, a member of the state's Public Service Commission, said Montana went from "large but potentially manageable reductions" that could have kept coal power online to a scenario where it would be "naive" to imagine there won't be at least some closures.
"Montana has one of the largest reduction responsibilities in the nation. ... It's going to be very hard to achieve that without some combination of three things: the closure of coal facilities, the build-out of renewables, energy efficiency and transmission upgrades, and the close cooperation, probably buying credits, from neighboring states that have them to offer," Kavulla said.A state 'in the crosshairs' of action
The Montana Legislature is not in session until January but formed an interim subcommittee to discuss the Clean Power Plan. Representatives from the Department of Environmental Quality told that subcommittee this month that despite legal and political uncertainty surrounding the rule, the state would be wise to begin gathering information and analyzing compliance options.
"It's one of those situations where, what are you going to do? But we have to do something," Dave Klemp of Montana's Air Resources Management Bureau said with a shrug.
Montana wouldn't be the only state to sue and strategize for compliance simultaneously.
Bullock's language about eschewing federal oversight of Montana's "energy future" is similar in tone to Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder's (R) explanation of why his state will write a plan for the rule, even while it plans to sue EPA.
"We need to seize the opportunity to make Michigan's energy decisions in Lansing, not leave them in the hands of bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.," Snyder said earlier this month (Greenwire, Sept. 2).
Montana's attorney general seems to be under pressure to challenge EPA in court, too, although a spokesman said Fox had not yet decided whether to sue, and the state did not join earlier legal challenges to the rule.
Todd O'Hair -- the senior government affairs manager for Cloud Peak Energy Inc., which owns the largest coal mine in the state -- said lawsuits may come too late.
"Utilities are in the process of understanding how this is going to affect them, and they're going to be making investment strategies today," O'Hair told the legislative subcommittee. "By the time the Supreme Court makes a ruling on this thing, it's going to be baked in the cake."
Montana's economic fate is tied to coal production that might suffer if other states shut down plants, O'Hair argued.
"We are going to be consuming less coal in this country, it's not going to go away, it's just going to matter where it's going to come from," O'Hair said. "And Montana is going to be right in the crosshairs of that."
At a meeting of the Legislature's Energy and Telecommunications Interim Committee the following day, Sept. 11, lawmakers cited revenue losses the state might experience if Cloud Peak shut down its Spring Creek mine in Decker.
Duane Ankney, a Republican state senator, said Montana uses about 10.5 million tons of the coal it produces and ships an additional 30 million tons to other states, including Minnesota.
"What other states do with their carbon emissions is going to affect Montana, as well as what Montana does with this rule," explained committee Chairman Keith Regier (R).Shutting down part of a coal plant?
Montana's decisions could also impact other states.
Discussions of any plan for Montana will likely be dominated by the gargantuan 2,094-megawatt Colstrip Generating Station east of Billings.
Colstrip is one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters in the western United States and supplies power beyond Montana's borders, including to Washington's Puget Sound Energy and Oregon's Portland General Electric.
An analysis prepared for the 111(d) subcommittee meeting earlier this month demonstrates that shutting down units at Colstrip would go a long way toward achieving Montana's goal. The authors of that analysis emphasized their scenarios were "illustrative, intended to characterize the magnitude of Montana's compliance challenge, not to suggest a compliance strategy." Pennsylvania-based Talen Energy, which operates the plant, currently has no plans to retire or modify operations at any of Colstrip's four units.
"We are in a position of having to regulate those units but not having ... the customer base here," Hedges said. "It creates complexity."
Montana's governor has already been discussing the Clean Power Plan with other Western states as part of an initiative organized by the Colorado-based Center for the New Energy Economy. Kavulla said nearby Washington and Oregon are in a position to over-comply with the rule and have credits to sell to Montana, and state officials should be considering that option.
Some Montana lawmakers charged that the Clean Power Plan was inequitable for allowing some states to increase total emissions by 2030. But Sen. Robyn Driscoll (D) noted those states have been "very proactive in their approach to carbon emissions" in the past (ClimateWire, Sept. 21).
The Clean Power Plan also comes at an interesting time politically in Montana.
States must submit plans or extension requests by Sept. 6, 2016, and Bullock is eligible to run for a second term next year.
"To me, I'm sitting here, and you keep talking September -- frankly, you're creating the biggest political nightmare for everybody to come up with this rule in the middle of an election year. I mean, has anybody talked about that?" asked Montana state senator and 111(d) subcommittee Chairman Jim Keane (D).
"This is going to be an interesting year for us, chairman," Klemp acknowledged.
Lawmakers and other state officials will likely feel the heat from constituents with jobs tied to the coal industry.
One of them is Jess LaBuff, the business manager of the Boilermakers Local 11 Union in East Helena. LaBuff penned an op-ed in a local paper this week saying that Bullock should be "applauded for standing up to the extremist actions of the EPA on its Clean Power Plan efforts."
LaBuff said in an interview that although he opposes the rule, he supports the governor's plan to write a compliance blueprint rather than cede decisionmaking authority to the federal government.
The Colstrip plant employs 200 to 300 boilermakers for six to 12 weeks per year, he said.
"When you start shutting down power plants, you start losing jobs -- good-paying jobs with benefits," LaBuff said. "And there ain't nothing right now that's replacing them."
Lawmakers noted at the full committee hearing that DEQ will likely need the Republican-controlled Legislature to approve policy changes, like tweaks to the state's renewable portfolio standard, and to appropriate funds for carbon-cutting programs.
"Though our governor may create the plan and submit it, if it involves appropriations or money, it has to be vetted through the Legislature in order for the governor to have the funding and appropriations necessary," said Sen. Cliff Larsen (D). "So whether it's by default that we get to be involved or not ... I think the Legislature has a very important role to play in this. Every citizen in Montana (and across our region) has an investment in this."

Return to headline | Return to top
The Clean Power Plan is Also Good Economics. Here's Why.

Sep 24, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund

By Dan Upham

Believe the hype: The Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan is as much a plan to bolster the economy as it’s a move to protect the health of people and our planet.
More and better jobs, lower electric bills and increased energy innovation are just a few ways this new law would at long last limit pollution from power plants while capitalizing on an unprecedented economic opportunity. We’re already starting to seize the moment.
Just this week, The Huffington Post reportedthat three times as many companies are putting a price on their own carbon emissions this year compared with last.
“Contrary to conventional belief, companies would welcome regulatory certainty and are planning for mandatory emissions limits in the future,” noted a representative of environmental data nonprofit CDP, which conducted the research.
The Clean Power Plan will thus propel further investment, incentives and mechanisms that decarbonize our economy and usher in a new generation of industries. Just follow the money. Billions in investments boosting jobs, growth
Wind energy is on a roll in the U.S. with 8.3 billion invested in 2014. In many states, wind development is the lowest cost compliance option, Morgan Stanley reports. The investment firm also predicts that financing of utility-scale renewables will ramp up considerably once the Clean Power Plan is implemented.
What’s more, investments in the clean energy sector enjoy a better-than-average payoff. One dollar invested today creates three times as many jobs as a dollar invested in fossil fuels.
In California, where the state’s carbon pollution reduction law AB 32 has now been in effect since 2012, clean tech jobs have grown ten times faster than any other sector over the last decade.
As AB 32 brought jobs (and billions in venture capital investment) to California, so too will the Clean Power Plan bring gains to the rest of the country.
The juicy factoids above come by way of my colleague Jim Marston. His recent post on EDF’s Energy Exchange blog is ripe with additional evidence previewing the financial success we can expect with the Clean Power Plan.
Here’s another one: The new law could result in $155 billion in electricity savings between 2020 and 2030. This will help American families save on average $85 a year on power bills – money they can pump right back into our economy.

Return to headline | Return to top
Federal District Court Ruling Suggests Limits On Title V Air Permit Liability

Sep 24, 2015 | InsideEPA

By Stuart Parker

A federal district court judge's recent ruling rejecting an EPA Clean Air Act enforcement case against an electric utility primarily over alleged new source review (NSR) permit violations highlights the potential limits on the liability that companies face for deficiencies in their Title V air law operating permits, sources say.
Title V permits are umbrella permits, intended to include all applicable permit requirements, but do not themselves impose substantive requirements on permit holders. Judge Ed Kinkeade of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas' Dallas division in a recent opinion said, "Failure to amend a Title V permit or the submission of an incomplete permit application is not actionable in an enforcement suit under the Clean Air Act."
The Aug. 21 ruling in United States v. Luminant Generation Company, LLC and Big Brown Power Company, LLC, suggests some limits on permit holders' liability for alleged failings in their Title V permits.
Kinkeade also rejected most claims of NSR violations brought by EPA against utility Luminant, saying the claims were too old, and hence barred by the general five-year statute of limitations.
EPA claimed in the case that NSR violations are "ongoing" until corrected, and hence immune from the time-bar, an argument that several courts of appeals have now rejected and that Kinkeade also rejected.
The agency in the case also brought two claims that the Title V Clean Air Act operating permits of the Martin Lake and Big Brown plants were deficient, and found Luminant responsible for this. The court rejected this argument, exposing a key difference of view over permit-holders' liability for failings in their Title V permits.
EPA argued that Luminant violated the Clean Air Act by failing to modify its Title V permits to include prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) permits, required under the NSR program for major air pollution sources undergoing modifications. EPA argued that Luminant intentionally evaded NSR/PSD permit review, and is therefore lacking both the necessary PSD permits and updated Title V permits that would include the PSD requirements. The agency said other courts have given it broad authority to enforce against permit holders for deficient Title V permits.
'Collateral Attack'
But Kinkeade said the air law "does not authorize a collateral attack on a facially valid, but allegedly improper, state permit. . . . The plain text of Title V accounts for two ways in which Title V can be violated: (1) operating without a Title V permit and (2) violating the terms of a Title V permit while operating a source. . . . The plaintiff in an enforcement case is limited to challenging whether or not the permit holder complied with the terms of the permit."
Environmentalist and industry sources in Texas say this position is not inherently surprising, as the primary responsibility for ensuring the correct writing of a Title V permit rests with the state permitting authority that writes the permits -- in this case, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
It is EPA's responsibility to object to deficient permits, and should the agency fail to do so others can petition the agency to object, the sources say. If the agency does not reply to a petition to object within the statutory limit period of 60 days, either by objecting to the permit or explaining why it will not do so, the petitioners can sue EPA in district court to force a response.
Finally, EPA's ultimate decision on whether to object to a permit or not is a "final agency action," and hence reviewable by federal appeals courts.
'Important' Permits
However, one environmentalist says that while EPA's claims in the case predictably failed, the agency has correctly identified a history of TCEQ writing inadequate permits.
The permits are "incredibly important," because they centralize a lot of permit information that would otherwise be very difficult to assemble and scrutinize, the environmentalist says.
EPA also has the authority on its own to re-open a permit or if necessary revoke it, and should do so where air permits are flawed, the source says. The state will sometimes change Title V permits without subjecting them to public notice and comment, the source claims. A TCEQ spokesman says, however, that "TCEQ's Title V program and our Title V permits meet all of the federal requirements and also offer opportunity for comment."
An industry source in Texas agrees that EPA's challenge to the permit was flawed, siding with the court's analysis that regulators, not permit holders, are responsible.
The eventual impact of the court's ruling is not yet clear because the case continues with respect to two remaining claims, one involving a newer alleged NSR claim and the other relating to Luminant's response to EPA requests for information.
The court has "administratively closed" the case, but not dismissed it. Once the case is definitively decided, EPA may choose to appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, although this is far from certain, sources say, given the risk of an adverse ruling that would spread the applicability of the district court's order to a much wider area.
Settlement Agreement
In an unrelated development illustrating the ongoing importance of Title V permits to environmentalists' scrutiny of industrial facilities' compliance with the air law, public health groups in Utah reached a settlement agreementSept. 8 with Utah state regulators in a dispute over the Title V permit of the Tesoro Refining and Marketing Company.
In the settlement entered in the state's Third District Court, Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and Friends of Great Salt Lake agree with the Utah Division of Air Quality and state Department of Environmental Quality that the state will issue a long-overdue Title V permit, including coarse particulate matter (PM10) limits in tandem with the state preparing and submitting to EPA a new state implementation plan (SIP) to meet federal PM10 standards.
Under the terms of the settlement, the state must submit the SIP to EPA by Dec. 31, and must follow a prescribed timeline for processing the permit in parallel.

Return to headline | Return to top
Obama to Overhaul Process for Offsetting Environmental Harm

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire

By Corbin Hiar

The White House is preparing a presidential memorandum that seeks to streamline how the government offsets damage to public lands, waters and wildlife, according to several sources.
The memo aims to consolidate separate mitigation policy reform efforts that are already underway at federal agencies and learn from past mistakes, sources said. It would affect everything from energy production on the federal estate to the construction of government buildings.
"It has the potential to create a new, more collaborative relationship between industry and the government that would serve both interests," said an Obama administration official who was not authorized to speak to the press. "Industry would be able to use federal resources in a way that would contribute to sustaining the yield of resources over time and growing them."
That proactive mitigation for timber harvesting and other land uses is necessary, the source said, "because the population is growing and changing. So if you're going to continue to provide those goods and services off that resource base, you need to conserve it or grow it."
But oil and gas industry groups are skeptical about the effort, which sources suggested could promote closer ties between regulators and drillers, because the changes are being crafted behind closed doors.
"It's a great goal, but collaboration doesn't happen by dropping a policy on people that they can't see beforehand," said Kathleen Sgamma, a vice president at the Western Energy Alliance who hadn't heard about the effort until she was contacted by Greenwire. "That's not collaboration."
The White House didn't respond to requests for more information about the forthcoming mitigation memo, but sources said they believe it will draw from agencies' existing plans to deal with the negative environmental impacts of federal actions.
Interior Secretary Sally Jewell unveiled a landscape-level mitigation strategy last year in an attempt to shift her agency's permitting decisions away from narrowly focused project-by-project assessments. The reportprioritized improving assessments of Interior resources, developing regional plans for managing them, creating compensatory mitigation programs for unavoidable impacts, and monitoring and evaluating those mitigation efforts (Greenwire, April 10, 2014).
The Forest Service followed suit in May, when it internally circulateddraft principles for mitigating a broad array of potential effects from its land management decisions.
The service's stated goal for the principles is to "use the best science to implement landscape-scale mitigation planning, banking, in-lieu fee arrangements and other measures; both on-site and off-site."
"At a minimum," the document says, "this framework will require the avoidance, reduction, repair and compensation for unavoidable impacts ... to biological, ecological, cultural, recreational, wilderness, roadless, socioeconomic and aesthetic values."
The presidential memorandum "just calls for consistent processes," the administration official explained. "The idea being that, if you've got a project application that comes in and crosses several federal jurisdictions, the processes by which those federal agencies address mitigation requirements should be similar and understandable and predictable."
The source added that the forthcoming memo "doesn't really specify how to" offset the impact of, say, a concentrated solar power plant on protected species and their desert habitat.
The interagency collaborations that helped to keep the wide-ranging greater sage grouse from being listed under the Endangered Species Act helped to "spur" the shift to landscape-scale mitigation, the administration source said.
White House officials began thinking, the source said, "maybe we should adopt this as an approach that we take across the board."Lessons of wetland banking
Sources on K Street and in the environmental community also indicated the memo would draw on lessons learned from the federal government's early struggles to preserve wetlands.
The George H.W. Bush administration initially set a national goal of no net loss of wetlands in 1989. But over a decade later, the National Academy of Sciences found that more wetlands were still being lost than gained (Greenwire, June 27, 2001).
U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers then moved to encourage developers whose projects destroyed wetlands to buy credits for mitigating damage from companies that conserve or improve large tracts of marshes, swamps and bogs (E&ENews PM, March 31, 2008).
Clear regulations and monitoring of such conservation banks helped to stem the tide of wetland loss and have stoked the Obama administration's interest in fostering the spread of mitigation banking into new markets, such as the recovery of endangered or threatened species.
"The experience of the wetland banking program is that clear standards made the difference between a troubled program and a successful one that integrated real competition and market principles into the delivery of a very important public benefit," said Thomas Jensen, a partner at the law firm Holland & Hart LLP.
Jensen's firm has been paid $20,000 so far this year to lobby on mitigation issues for LPC Conservation LLC, a conservation bank established to permanently protect habitat for the lesser prairie chicken. Until a court ruling overturned the listing earlier this month, the prairie chicken was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (Greenwire, Sept. 2).
With the White House memo, Jensen said his mitigation banking clients hope "new markets become available to them under rules that they can know in advance and follow."
"The prairie chicken experience," he said, "has been very discouraging to them, and they're hoping that whatever happens next moves in the direction of correcting, or at least avoiding, a repeat of the problems that they saw."
LPC Conservation was stunned by a Fish and Wildlife Service decision to extend the compliance period for state wildlife regulators to obtain permanent lesser prairie chicken conservation land. The bank's investors had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars based on that deadline to, among other things, find ranchers whose properties were home to the rare birds and entice the landowners to change their grazing practices (Greenwire, April 7).Unclear scope and timing
It remains to be seen how wide and deep the White House mitigation effort will reach.
"One of the things that will be interesting from the presidential memorandum is whether it sets new and clear standards for identifying the circumstances in which mitigation is appropriate," Jensen said.
For instance, he asked, will the memo affect the size of federal office building windows, which can harm migratory songbirds, or permitting for parking lots, which increase polluted runoff into waterways?
No one knows exactly when the memo will be released, but many sources expect it to surface before President Obama leaves office.
Improving mitigation is "a potential legacy issue for this administration," according to an environmentalist who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "There is a desire to see a lot of these policies get finalized."
The measure of the memo's success, according to the environmentalist, will be "the degree to which there is consistency across agencies on these policies." That would allow "the regulated public to feel like they support efficient decisionmaking," she said, and for greens to see that "environmental outcomes are improved."
But even if the memo yields the broadly shared benefits that its supporters believe it will, for the Western Energy Alliance, the ends don't justify the means.
"The problem is that, when you're looking at these sweeping changes that will affect millions of acres of public lands, the public should have an opportunity to evaluate the policies and provide comment," Sgamma said. "This should not be something that is being done just by agencies in collaboration with certain favored stakeholders."

Return to headline | Return to top
Obama: I Should Have Acted Sooner on Climate Change

Sep 24, 2015 | The Hill

By Jordan Fabian

President Obama says he should have "moved faster to a nonlegislative strategy" to address climate change after Congress killed cap-and-trade legislation in 2009.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Obama criticized "folks like John McCain," who he said once backed cap-and-trade proposals but reversed their position and undermined congressional efforts.
“I think the biggest problem we had was folks like John McCain, 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 — which meant that getting the numbers that we needed was going to be too difficult,” the president said in the interview published Wednesday.
That opposition led Obama to enact a slew of controversial regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The interview was conducted in early September during Obama’s trip to Alaska, which was intended to highlight the effects of global warming.
It was published on the same day Pope Francis visited Obama at the White House, where he praised the president for taking steps to address climate change.
The collapse of the cap-and-trade bill, which would have taxed companies for carbon pollution as an incentive to cut emissions, was one of the biggest legislative failures of Obama’s presidency.
The 2009 cap-and-trade bill passed the House but was never brought to the floor in the Senate, were it ran into opposition from Republicans and some centrist Democrats, who argued it would hurt energy producers.
Environmental groups criticized Obama during his first term for not acting quickly enough on climate change. But Obama defended his push to court Republicans to back the cap-and-trade bill, saying their votes were necessary to pass the legislation.
“We hadn't built enough of the consensus that was required to get that done,” he said.
With just 16 months left in his presidency, Obama is making a major push to take climate action and add to his presidential legacy.
He has enacted a raft of new rules and regulations, including the Environmental Protection Agency’s first ever limits on carbon emissions from power plants. His administration is also seeking a global agreement to curb emissions at a conference in Paris later this year.
Obama said the conference would be a success if it leads to major industrial nations agreeing to “aggressive-enough targets” to lower carbon pollution.
But he said any agreement is likely to fall short of what “science requires” to avoid the most drastic consequences of climate change.
“I’m less concerned about the precise number, because let's stipulate right now, whatever various country targets are, it's still going to fall short of what the science requires,” he said. “A percent here or a percent there coming from various countries is not going to be a deal-breaker.”
“The key for Paris is just to make sure that everybody is locked in, saying, ‘We're going to do this,’ ” he added. “Once we get to that point, then we can turn the dials."

Return to headline | Return to top
The Pope Asked Congress to Do One Specific Thing: Address Climate Change. It Won’t.

Sep 24, 2015 | The Washington Post

By Philip Bump

It was not Pope Francis's way to be explicit in his calls to action when addressing Congress on Thursday. He touched briefly on a number of topics that roil within American politics. On abortion, he said that the Golden Rule reminds us of "our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development." On same-sex marriage, that "[f]undamental relationships are being called into question, as is the very basis of marriage and the family." He encouraged Congress to keep the poor in mind, to reject the death penalty and to question the sale of deadly weapons. He suggested that Congress -- and through them, all of us -- remember our immigrant roots and to respond to immigrants "in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal."
Only once, though, did he call Congress to specific action. "I am convinced," Francis said, "that we can make a difference, and I have no doubt that the United States – and this Congress – have an important role to play." The subject: climate change.
"I call for a courageous and responsible effort to 'redirect our steps,'" he said, quoting his encyclical on the subject, "and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity. ... Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a 'culture of care' and 'an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.' ... In this regard, I am confident that America’s outstanding academic and research institutions can make a vital contribution in the years ahead."
On every other topic, the Pope pointed indirectly at the path he'd recommend. On climate change, he called Congress to do something concrete.
But Congress has probably never been less likely to heed that call.
The last time Congress considered major legislation aimed at curtailing the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to the warming climate was in President Obama's first year in office. The proposal was a "cap and trade" bill that would have set limits on how much heavy carbon dioxide producers could emit and created a marketplace on which allowances for excess production could be traded. Your coal plant is producing more CO2 than it's supposed to? Buy credits from a plant that is producing less than it's allowed. The idea would set an overall amount of pollution -- and provide market-based rewards for producing less. It's a system similar to what was implemented to curtail acid rain under the administration of George H. W. Bush.
Thanks to a combination of the faltering economy, bad political choices and Republican opposition, the bill passed the House only to be abandoned in the (then-Democratic) Senate. In short order, the fight on Capitol Hill became about health care, and the topic faded.
That moment was an important one. Climate change had come to national attention following Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," which also galvanized opposition to taking action to combat the problem. Gore's film was released in 2006, right before Gallup polling found Americans were becoming more likely to consider the threat of climate change to be "exaggerated."
At the same time, Americans were more likely to prioritize the health of the economy over environmental protection, in part because the effects of the economic collapse were still rippling across the country. Opponents of the cap-and-trade bill called it "cap-and-tax," implying a heavy cost for normal Americans. That same argument is common today.
Where Americans once favored prioritizing the environment by a 2-to-1 margin, it's now about an even split.
What's more, climate change has been subsumed into America's political polarization. Maps of acceptance of climate change mirror maps of congressional representation. A 2014 study found that climate change was more polarized on partisan lines than abortion or the death penalty. The gap between the parties on climate was 47 points, to 26 points for abortion and 25 on the death penalty. Polling has repeatedly shown that conservative Republicans are the most likely to be skeptical of the need to address climate change.
Republicans, conservative or not, now have more clout than they have had in a long time on Capitol Hill. The House has as big a majority as it's had at any point since the 1930s, and the Senate majority for the party is more than enough to block unwanted legislation. Each of those House members and a good number of the senators faces reelection next year and a primary process before that. Few, it's safe to assume, will be willing to risk their political careers on a risky climate bill. (A group of 11 Republicans did recently sign a resolution that offers a tepid call for climate action. It is not expected to go anywhere.)
In short: No deal, Francis. When the pope first produced his climate encyclical, we offered skepticism that it would make a difference. That skepticism still holds, even after the pope's unprecedented personal appeal in front of the full federal representation of the United States. It was the only topic on which he broke from his preferred style of referring obliquely to the change he wanted to see. But that forcefulness by-Francis-standards isn't likely to make a dent at all.

Return to headline | Return to top
Partisan Applause as Pope Francis Urges the US to Fight Climate Change

Sep 24, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Timothy Cama

Pope Francis on Thursday urged lawmakers to help fight climate change, citing his historic June encyclical that focused on protecting the Earth.
Addressing Congress for the first time, Francis said the United States has a responsibility to take steps to slow global warming.

“In Laudato Si’, I call for a courageous and responsible effort to redirect our steps and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity,” Francis said.

“I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States — and this Congress — have an important role to play.”

Democratic lawmakers gave Francis a long, loud round of applause during his comments about the environment, joined only by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). It was one of the few applause lines that did not get wide, bipartisan participation.

Francis avoided using terminology like climate change and global warming in his congressional speech, instead sounding the alarm bell on the general problems of “environmental deterioration.”

The wording was far softer than his speech at the White House a day earlier, in which he explicitly named climate change as an urgent problem that demands quick action.

Francis was speaking to a mostly-Republican audience, given the GOP majorities in the House and Senate. Many Republicans are skeptical of the science behind climate change, and they have argued the United States should not take steps on global warming that could harm the economy.

At least one Republican lawmaker was said to be boycotting the pope’s address, in large part because of his views on climate change.

Perhaps because of the audience, Francis dedicated just a small portion of his speech to the issue, which likely left environmentalists and Democrats hoping for more.

In the days before the address, they had hoped the pontiff would devote a lot of time to the issue and forcefully call on Congress to take stronger actions to cut greenhouse gas and help poor countries cope with the effects of a warming planet.

Francis did call for people to use technology to protect the environment, and to move toward a “healthier, more human, more social, more integral” system.

“In this regard, I am confident that America’s outstanding academic and research institutions can make a vital contribution in the years ahead,” Francis said.

Francis has been using his moral authority throughout this year to advocate for a strong United Nations agreement on climate change, which world leaders hope to finalize this December in Paris.

The pope spoke at greater length about climate change Wednesday on the White House lawn, specifically praising President Obama’s regulation limiting earth-warming carbon dioxide emissions and seeking assistance for global action on climate.

“Mr. President, I find it encouraging that you are proposing an initiative for reducing air pollution,” he said.

“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.”

Return to headline | Return to top
GOP Unswayed by Pope's Climate Prodding

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire

By Geof Koss, Daniel Bush and Hannah Northey

Lawmakers from both parties today praised Pope Francis' historic speech to Congress, but the pontiff's climate message doesn't appear to have caused any major shifts in thinking among Republicans on the need to curb emissions.
Referencing his recent encyclical calling for action on climate change, the pope cast aside conventional political wisdom by challenging lawmakers to work on the issue.
"I am convinced that we can make a difference, and I have no doubt that the United States -- and this Congress -- have an important role to play," he told House and Senate lawmakers.
But Republicans downplayed the pope's focus on climate change.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) noted it was just one part of a speech laden with a bigger spiritual message.
"You know politics doesn't involve as much nuance as he was giving to all those subjects, so I think people are going to look for things they can glom onto and say, 'Well, this supports what we've been trying to say,'" he told Greenwire after the speech. "But I don't think that was the reason he came. He came here for a broader and more ecumenical message."
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) focused on the pope's literal words on the environment.
"The fact is he didn't say it, he didn't say the words" climate change, said Inhofe, a vocal critic of climate science. "He just said that our responsibility as elected officials has always been to provide for a clean environment."
He added, "I was expecting him to come out with something really strong. [I'm sure] the activist liberals who were sitting in that audience were disappointed."
GOP lawmakers also said the pope's remarks wouldn't sway the party's position on climate change.
"Not a bit," said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.). "We had him here as a head of state representing a few thousand people who work for him. He obviously speaks as the head of the church, but [climate change is] not a church issue."
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) likewise said Republicans' stance on energy and environmental issues won't change.
"We all respect the pope and the office that he holds and so forth, and we welcomed him to this country. But ultimately, we make our own decisions," Shelby said.
Other Republicans weren't sure what to make of the pope's message but warned against raising energy prices.
"Nothing is better for the poor in the world than low-cost energy, and driving up the cost of energy might do more harm for the poor than just about any other thing we could do," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
However, the pope's climate words did make an impression on Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who was one of a handful of GOP lawmakers who stood and applauded.
"He struck a balance between the need to preserve the environment and the need to be concerned for prosperity," Cassidy later toldGreenwire. "But balancing technology, enterprise, four components, with the need to balance those things with someone's prosperity."
Democrats acknowledged that the pope's speech won't have much of an impact on the debate in Congress on climate and energy policy. But some said his focus on the issues has helped spark a broader conversation.
"It transforms the mindset and the culture," said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). "It won't immediately produce new laws or regulations, but it enhances the broader acceptance and expectation that we will do more to save the planet."
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said the pope's remarks underscored how out of step the GOP-controlled Congress is on the issue.
"The general public is more with the pope than the Congress," Cantwell said.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) praised the pope's delicate handling of climate.
"It wasn't a lecture, it was a very compelling, heartfelt expression of what he thought was important," he said after the speech. "I think it changes the tone, I hope, also just adds great legitimacy to the problem. It can't be dismissed now as some sort of contest between scientific papers. It gives it a sense of a huge imperative."
Some Democrats from energy-producing states seized on the pope's speech to call for a balanced approach to tackling climate change.
"The bottom line is that there are very few people [who think] we should do nothing," said Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.). "I think the real challenge is what should we do, how do we address his concern?"
Heitkamp added, "The idea that we can't use all of our resources in ways that present opportunities for affordable, redundant and reliable electricity is wrong."
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) drew a broader message from the pope's remarks, which she said could change the partisan tone of Congress.
"I hope it inspires us to better behavior," she told reporters. "The pope's message was end rancor. End polarization. Engage in conversation and dialogue. If we even started with that, the pope's visit would have been worthwhile."
Cornyn sounded a less optimistic tone when asked whether the pope's address will change the tenor on Capitol Hill on hot-button issues such as climate and immigration.
"We can always hope," he said. "But I think he's operating in a more spiritual realm. We're involved in a day-to-day, back-and-forth, rough-and-tumble world of politics and trying to actually find consensus. But I thought it was very helpful."

Return to headline | Return to top
Call for 'Courageous Actions' Unlikely to Spur Split Congress

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire

By Robin Bravender and Jean Chemnick

Pope Francis prodded a deeply divided Congress to take "courageous" steps to combat environmental damage, but his calls aren't likely to spur the entrenched foes of the Obama administration's green agenda.
In his historic speech on Capitol Hill -- the first by a pontiff to the U.S. Congress -- Francis doubled down on his recent efforts to prompt bold global action to tackle climate change and other environmental problems, citing them as moral issues.
Francis highlighted his recent encyclical on global warming and reiterated a demand for "a courageous and responsible effort to redirect our steps and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity."
And he urged the U.S. government and Congress to do their part. "I am convinced that we can make a difference. I'm sure," he said, prompting a standing ovation from Obama administration officials including Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.
He went on, "I have no doubt that the United States -- and this Congress -- have an important role to play. Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies, aimed at implementing a culture of care and an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded and at the same time protecting nature."
Today's environmental push came after Francis yesterday endorsed the Obama administration's contentious rule for slashing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants during a visit to the White House (Greenwire, Sept. 23).
Pope Francis addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., today, making history as the first pontiff to do so. Listening behind the pope are Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).Photo by Carolyn Kaster courtesy of AP Images.
Today's environmental mention was relatively brief -- one paragraph in a speech that stretched longer than 40 minutes. And he did not mention "climate change" or "global warming" specifically, just as he used general language about safeguarding life and the family to make his statement opposing abortion. Experts who have observed the pope's style say he uses gentle words to pose difficult questions.
But his call for an end to partisan deadlock on climate change and other issues was unmistakable, and was part of a larger theme calling for cooperation and reconciliation. Elsewhere in the speech, he denounced the tendency to form entrenched camps and "every form of polarization."
The address also touched on social justice, addressing global violence, combating extremism and advancing peace. And Vatican experts who warned that Francis would not fit neatly into the nation's political paradigm were proved correct.
Republicans were brought to their feet when the pontiff referenced the need to "protect and defend human life at every stage of its development," only to see him pivot immediately to a denunciation of the death penalty.
Francis' audience was polite, but some of its divisions were subtly on display.
His reference to his environmental encyclical drew much more applause from the Democrats seated to his left in the House chamber than the Republicans to his right. When he called on lawmakers to "make a difference" on warming, Democrats -- including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, a vocal proponent of climate action dressed in a broad green necktie -- stood and clapped loudly. But the Republican side of the chamber remained largely quiet. A few members -- including Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) -- clapped quietly.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the only GOP contender for the 2016 presidential nomination to consistently affirm the science of man-made climate change, was virtually the only member on his side of the room who stood for an ovation in response to the pope's environmental remarks. The long-shot contender has said that if he were nominated, the debate on climate change in the general election would focus on policy, not science.
Two seats over, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) sat with his hands tightly folded in front of him.
At least one Republican Catholic lawmaker skipped today's appearance. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) announced last week that he would boycott over reports that the pope would reference climate change. And whether or not they intended to make a statement, Supreme Court justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia -- both Catholics -- were also not in attendance. The only four members of the high court present were Chief Justice John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Among those who did attend today's speech was environmentalist and Democratic mega-donor Tom Steyer, who was a guest of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).'Not going to change anybody's mind'
Don't expect droves of GOP lawmakers to rush to co-sponsor climate legislation or lavish praise upon Obama's climate policies.
"The pope is not going to change anybody's mind on climate change," said Republican strategist Mike McKenna. "The pope doesn't vote in United States elections, and members of Congress only respond to votes." He added that the argument that policymakers have a moral obligation to act on the environment is "toxic."
The pontiff's calls for action might put Republicans -- including House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who invited him -- in an awkward position. "Nobody likes to have a disagreement with a guest in their house, right?" McKenna said. "So, yeah, it's awkward."
Boehner, a Catholic who invited the pope to address Congress and met with him prior to his speech today, cried during the address to Congress.
Some GOP lawmakers expressed their environmental disagreements with the pontiff in advance of his speech.
Inhofe, one of the leading critics of Obama's environmental agenda, said before the speech that he respectfully disagrees with the pope's climate stance (E&E Daily, Sept. 24).
The Republican-led Congress has shown more enthusiasm for efforts to stymie administration climate policies than for advancing their own.
The House has voted numerous times to scuttle the Clean Power Plan for existing power plant carbon and other EPA emissions rules, and to defund U.S. participation in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, climate aid funds and other activities. The Senate GOP leadership is expected to use the Congressional Review Act in an effort to veto the power plant rule after it is printed in the Federal Register next month.
Greens today extolled the pope's message on environmental issues.
Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace USA, called the pope's "leadership" on climate change issues "truly inspiring." She added, "No one understands the devastating effects of human appetite for fossil fuels better than the vulnerable communities impacted by pollution from coal, fracking and oil production, or living in the wake of typhoons, droughts and hurricanes."
Dan Weiss, senior vice president for campaigns at the League of Conservation Voters, welcomed the pontiff's message on climate issues. "Those remarks will likely add supporters as well as increase enthusiasm for it," Weiss said. However, he added, "my guess is most Republicans will choose to follow the Koch brothers over following the pope when it comes to climate change."
Weiss said he's hopeful that the pope's stance could offer political "shelter" for "congressional Republicans who want to abandon the climate inaction position of their caucus." It "may not happen tomorrow, but it does provide some space for that to happen down the road," he said.

Return to headline | Return to top
Faith in Clean Energy

Sep 24, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog

By Tom Steyer and Sister Simone Campbell

Faith and politics share a common burden. In our best moments, being a member of a faith community or political movement requires us to act in the interests of our fellow humans—an appeal that places responsibility squarely on our shoulders and demands that we take action. The best leaders—both political and spiritual—channel this responsibility to help us come together and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. They honor the platform they have been given to call for a better world, leading by example in the process.
This week, Pope Francis’ leadership on both counts will be evident when he addresses the United States Congress and renews his call for the global community to confront one of the urgent challenges of our time—climate change.
With his encyclical on climate change, the Pope calls on all of us to end a culture of indifference and embrace concrete solutions. He tells us, “It is no longer enough, then, simply to state that we should be concerned for future generations. We need to see that what is at stake is our own dignity. Leaving an inhabitable planet to future generations is, first and foremost, up to us.”
Amongst the growing chorus calling for action, no voice has been more influential—or more compelling—than Pope Francis. His message has already resonated with millions across our country—and breathed new life into the fight for a healthier and more prosperous planet for all. More and more religious, business and military leaders across the country are answering the Pope’s call to action and joining the fight to build a clean energy future for our children. Now it’s time for Congress to join them.
There is wide agreement in the United States on Pope Francis’ call for action on climate change. A recent poll from Quinnipac University found that nearly two-thirds of American voters agree with the Pope "calling on the world to do more to address climate change,” including 67 percent of independents.
As people of faith—and as members of the American electorate—we have a profound duty to one another, and to our children, to care for our environment and protect the next generation. Pope Francis challenges us to look beyond ourselves and act in the interests of our fellow humans, reminding us of our moral obligation to take action on climate to create a cleaner and more prosperous future for the generations who will follow us. The risks of inaction could not be higher, but our opportunity to create a more prosperous clean energy economy has also never been more real.
The solutions that we need to realize a cleaner future for our children are in hand. Nationally we are seeing clean energy starting to compete head-to-head with fossil fuels—and win. In the first half of 2015, renewables account for more than two-thirds of new electricity generation across the United States. But this is only the beginning.
Our nation and our economy are transforming before our eyes—and America’s leaders must embrace this transformation or risk being left behind. This week, Pope Francis will challenge our Congressional leaders to embrace solutions that combat climate change, protect our common home, strengthen our economy, and secure our children’s future.
We sincerely hope they listen.
Steyer is a California businessperson, philanthropist, clean energy advocate and President of NextGen Climate. Campbell is the executive director of NETWORK, a National Catholic Social Justice Lobby.

Return to headline | Return to top

Transportation News

(ACC Mentioned) Safety Deadline Miss Threatens Water Supplies -- Groups

Sep 24, 2015 | E&E - Greenwire

By Sean Reilly

The safety of public drinking water supplies will be imperiled if Congress fails to extend a Dec. 31 deadline for implementation of the automated rail safety system known as positive train control, five organizations representing utilities and water companies said in a newly released letter to lawmakers.
Most railroads -- including the large Class I freight carriers -- will not meet the existing timetable. Without an extension, some railroads plan to block shipments of chlorine and other "toxic by inhalation" chemicals on their tracks, according to plans recently outlined to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Both chlorine and anhydrous ammonia are critically important to the water disinfection process, with supplies typically shipped by rail from manufacturing plants to distribution centers, the letter says. Although delivery to drinking water utilities may follow on rail cars or trucks, the supply chain will break down either way if rail shipments are halted, the letter continues, adding that "even a temporary interruption of water disinfection chemical deliveries could risk a public health disaster for communities across the country."
Signing the letter, which was released today by the American Chemistry Council, were leaders of the American Water Works Association, the Association of California Water Agencies, the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies, the National Association of Clean Water Agencies and the National Association of Water Companies. Earlier in the week, a half-dozen national business and agricultural trade groups also called for an extension (E&ENews PM, Sept. 22).
The Dec. 31 deadline was set by a 2008 law signed soon after a crash between freight and commuter trains in the Los Angeles area killed 25 people. While a Senate-passed bill, H.R. 22, would push the positive train control implementation deadline back to 2018, the House has yet to take up the bill or offer an alternative. The Obama administration has so far opposed a blanket extension and instead wants the flexibility to work with railroads to phase in positive train control on a case-by-case basis. To raise awareness of the deadline, the Commerce Committee yesterday launched a website dedicated to the issue.

Return to headline | Return to top

Add recipients

Suggested