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Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Vadxx joins Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance
Oct 6, 2015 | Rercycling Today

The Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance (PFPA) of the American Chemistry Council, Washington, has announced Vadxx Energy will become its newest member.
Details Awaited on TPP Environment Provisions
Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nora Macaluso

While the Obama administration and some environmental groups hailed the newly signed Trans-Pacific Partnership as a boon for the environment and endangered species around the globe, others said the agreement—the full text of which has yet to be made public—is likely to contain some worrisome provisions.
Landmark Trans-Pacific Deal to Get 'Intense Scrutiny' on Hill
Oct 7, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss, Hannah Northey, Daniel Bush

The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement announced by the Obama administration this week is fueling debate on and off Capitol Hill over the possible effects easing trade restrictions will have on the energy sector as well as on environmental standards.
One of EPA's Toughest Critics is Running for Speaker
Oct 7, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Kevin Bogardus

Jason Chaffetz vows that he wouldn't let his daughters work at U.S. EPA.

Chemical Management News

Conservation Fund Continues to Snarl Chemical Reform
Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna

Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) are digging in their heels and refusing to allow a vote on a revamp (S. 697) to the nation's primary chemical law unless Senate leadership guarantees them a vote to reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Udall Seeks Deal With Burr Over Amendment Seen Hindering TSCA Reform
Oct 7, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad

Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), a chief sponsor of a bill to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), is trying to reach a deal with Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) for Burr to drop his planned TSCA bill rider to reauthorize a land and water fund that is seen as hindering the bill, in exchange for Udall backing a stand-alone measure to revive the fund.
Responding to Joe Nocera’s Column
Oct 6, 2015 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Andy Igrejas

It looks as though the Senate is likely to vote on TSCA reform this week and the propaganda machine is in full swing. Yesterday, I took a call from New York Times columnist Joe Nocera, thinking he was writing about the legislation and what the issues were.
Advocacy Group Hits EDF Over N.Y. Times Column on Bill
Oct 6, 2015 | E&E PM
By Sam Pearson

An advocacy group opposed to a bill by Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and David Vitter (R-La.) to overhaul how the federal government manages toxic chemicals is pushing back after a New York Timescolumn earlier today focused on rifts between the group and other environmental organizations.
EPA Denies Bid to Expand Collection of Mercury Data
Oct 7, 2015 | E&E PM
By Sam Pearson

U.S. EPA has rejected a petition from the Natural Resources Defense Council and state agencies for using the Toxic Substances Control Act to learn more about mercury use in the United States.
EPA Publishes Denial of Carbon Dioxide TSCA Petition
Oct 7, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

The Environmental Protection Agency will publish in the Federal Register Oct. 7 its denial of an environmental group's petition to regulate carbon dioxide under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Hoeven Lifts His Hold on TSCA Amid Talks on Oil Export Ban
Oct 7, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darren Goode

Sen. John Hoeven said he isn’t holding up Senate debate on the Toxic Substances Control Act because prospects are improving for a vote later this year on lifting the crude oil export ban.
Overnight Energy: Conservation Fund Ties Up Chemical Reform Bill
Oct 6, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama and Devin Henry

Senators hoping to pass a chemical safety reform bill say a group of lawmakers looking to attach a conservation measure to the package need to look elsewhere.
Congress Considering Dangerously Expanding EPA’s Power
Oct 6, 2015 | Daily Caller
By Erik Telford

In the coming days, the Senate is expected to take up legislation that would grant the EPA new powers to regulate — and potentially ban — thousands of useful chemicals.
Lautenberg's Widow Praised for Efforts on Compromise Chemical Safety Bill
Oct 7, 2015 | NorthJersey.com
By Herb Jackson

Some of nation’s most liberal and most conservative senators on Tuesday praised a compromise chemical safety bill named after the late Frank Lautenberg and said it might not have happened without the continued lobbying efforts of Lautenberg’s widow.
Durbin Supports Bill to Boost Regulation of Flame-Retardant Chemicals
Oct 6, 2015 | Dupage Policy Journal

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Ed Markey (D-MA) have announced their support for the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.

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

Energy and Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) Oklahoma Expected to Meet New Ozone Limits
Oct 6, 2015 | Ledger Gazette
By Frank Ramirez

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in a video that it is strengthening the standard of air quality for ground-level ozone, or smog.
(ACC Mentioned) Slow EPA Ozone Permitting Could Delay Up to $10 Billion of Manufacturing Investment
Oct 6, 2015 | American Energy News
By Markham Hislop

The American Chemistry Council says as much as $10 billion of business investment may be sidelined waiting for the EPA’s sluggish process – which sometimes takes years – to issue ozone permits.
Foes of New Ozone Limit Push Legislation to Halt It
Oct 7, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Amanda Reilly

On the heels of the Obama administration's update to the national ozone standard, congressional and industry foes of U.S. EPA are pushing for legislation that would stop the agency from enforcing the new limit.
For EPA's Ozone Standard, No Cost is Too High, No Risk Too Low
Oct 7, 2015 | The Hill - Pundits Blog
By Kathleen Hartnett White

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) expanding regulatory dominion apparently knows no bounds. The science behind the EPA's current crusade, however, is a statistical house of cards.
Democrats Expected to Block Energy Spending Bill
Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) teed up a $35.4 billion energy and water spending bill Oct. 6, but Democrats are expected to block consideration of the measure amid a broader fight over spending levels.
McConnell Tees Up Energy Spending Bill
Oct 6, 2015 | The Hill - Floor Action Blog
By Jordain Carney

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell teed up an energy appropriations bill on Tuesday.
Momentum Waning for Bipartisan Energy Action
Oct 6, 2015 | CQ Roll Call
By Ed Felker

Republicans in the House and Senate have succeeded in pushing bills to overhaul the nation’s energy laws through two committees, setting up potential floor votes in their drive to revamp energy policy for the first time since 2007.
EPA Staffer to Lead Obama's Public Push on Climate
Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrea Vittorio

The Environmental Protection Agency's top public affairs officer is moving to the White House to help craft President Barack Obama's ever-louder message on climate change.
EPA Communications Chief to become White House Message Man
Oct 6, 2015 | E&E PM
By Jean Chemnick

U.S. EPA's communications chief is going to the White House to fill a new position devoted to climate messaging.
Talks Under Way in Nascent Oil Export Deal
Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter

It may be a long shot, but Senate Democrats are seeking a long-term extension of wind and solar energy tax incentives in talks with Republicans about gaining their support to lift the 40-year-old ban on most crude oil exports.
Moniz: Petroleum Reserve Needed for Energy Security
Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz joined members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in warning against selling off portions of the nation's emergency crude oil stockpile.
Moniz Stands His Ground Against Crude Exports
Oct 7, 2015 | E&E PM
By Geof Koss

Congressional support for repealing the ban on crude oil exports may be growing, but Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz remains a skeptic.
Push for Oil Exports Faces Numerous Hurdles Despite Expected House Approval
Oct 7, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Elana Schor

House Republicans plan to end this week by embracing the familiar unifying causeof promoting the U.S. oil industry, but their rally around crude exports will do little to open the door for international sales in the near future.
Key Democrat to Vote Against House Crude Export Bill
Oct 7, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Northey

Democratic Rep. Gene Green of Texas last night said he would vote against a House bill to lift the country's crude oil export ban, a decision that took the legislation's Republican author, also from Texas, by surprise.
McCabe Girds to Defend Rule Today in House Hearing
Oct 7, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Jean Chemnick

U.S. EPA's acting air chief is ready today to sing the Clean Power Plan's praises to an Energy and Commerce subcommittee that's already voted several times to kill it.
Senators Spar Over Impact of Air Rules on Minorities
Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven

Republicans at a Senate subcommittee hearing took aim Oct. 6 at the number and burden of federal regulations, saying that environmental and other rules kill minority jobs and businesses.
Group Asks EPA to Reconsider High Priority Violations
Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers

An update to the Environmental Protection Agency's “high priority violations” enforcement policy could exclude short-term bursts of air pollution that exceed industrial facilities' permitted limits but don't persist for seven days, an environmental group said.
Groups Seek Faster Phaseout of Hydrofluorocarbons
Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers

Two environmental groups petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the use of several refrigerants and other alternatives to ozone-depleting substances that have significant global warming potentials in favor of less damaging options.
EPA Urged To Classify Short-Term Emissions As HPVs
Oct 6, 2015 | InsideEPA

Environmentalists are urging EPA to modify its Clean Air Act enforcement program to include short-term spikes of air pollution lasting fewer than seven days in its definition of high priority violations (HPV) that warrant increased scrutiny from the agency, citing several brief releases of harmful pollutants from industrial facilities.
EPA Defends Ozone NAAQS Satisfying Air Law 'Margin Of Safety' Mandate
Oct 6, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker

EPA is defending its decision to tighten its ozone air standard from 75 parts per billion (ppb) down to 70 ppb as satisfying a Clean Air Act mandate to set the standard at a level requisite to protect the public health with an "adequate margin of safety," rejecting environmentalists' claims that only a stricter 60 ppb limit would meet that mandate.
Judge Backs Broader CWA Order Pre-Enforcement Review
Oct 6, 2015 | InsideEPA

A federal district court judge is backing a farm owner's claim that the Due Process Clause of the Constitution requires EPA to offer pre-enforcement review of compliance orders based on regulators' determinations that particular waterbodies are jurisdictional under the Clean Water Act (CWA) and therefore require permits.

Transportation News

Amtrak Warns of Partial Shutdown Unless Congress Extends Deadline for Installation of Safety Device
Oct 6, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Ashley Halsey III

After a deadly train wreck in Philadelphia in May, Amtrak President Joseph Boardman promised that a life-saving safety device would be installed on the passenger line’s Northeast Corridor by Dec. 31.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Vadxx joins Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance

Oct 6, 2015 | Rercycling Today

The Plastics-to-Fuel and Petrochemistry Alliance (PFPA) of the American Chemistry Council, Washington, has announced Vadxx Energy will become its newest member. Cleveland-based Vadxx—which plans to start up its first commercial facility in Akron, Ohio, in the coming months—joins Agilyx, Cynar Plc, and RES Polyflow as the alliance’s core member technology providers.

“Vadxx is excited to join the Alliance in its work to educate policymakers, communities and others about the important benefits of these new technologies,” says Vadxx CEO Jim Garrett. “In addition to creating valuable fuels and chemical feedstocks, plastics-to-fuel technologies can help divert non-recycled plastics from landfills and lower greenhouse gas emissions.”

Formerly, the Plastics-to-Oil Technologies Alliance, the PFPA recently modified its name to reflect the wide range of versatile technologies and products offered by its membership. These include liquid fuels such as diesel and naphtha, crude oil for conversion to fuels or chemicals, and waxes, lubes and other valuable products.
Since forming in 2014, the group also has been joined by three associate members, Sealed Air, Americas Styrenics, and Tetra Tech.

“More businesses, governments and communities are looking to value creation as a new paradigm for managing post-use materials,” says Michael Dungan, chairman of the PFPA and director of sales and marketing for RES Polyflow. “The diverse and expanding group of technologies available to convert non-recycled plastics into fuels and other valuable products provides a range of solutions to help communities sustainably manage more of their post-use resources.”

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Details Awaited on TPP Environment Provisions

Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Nora Macaluso

While the Obama administration and some environmental groups hailed the newly signed Trans-Pacific Partnership as a boon for the environment and endangered species around the globe, others said the agreement—the full text of which has yet to be made public—is likely to contain some worrisome provisions.
“The legal text is a critical piece to determine whether or not some of these things in the agreement are meaningful and enforceable,” said Jake Schmidt, director of the Natural Resource Defense Council's international program. The section, or “chapter,” on the environment, which aims to curtail practices including over-fishing, wildlife trafficking and illegal logging, is “a small part of what we're looking for,” he told Bloomberg BNA Oct. 5.
Of greater concern is the agreement's investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provision, a mechanism Schmidt and others said could allow companies to challenge U.S. environmental laws outside the U.S. legal system. “There's a long history of investors and corporations using those provisions to challenge climate and energy policy” and winning, Ilana Solomon, director of the Sierra Club's responsible trade program, told Bloomberg BNA.
‘Robust, Enforceable Commitments.'
The U.S. Trade Representative's Office said the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement—reached Oct. 5 among the U.S. and Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam—“includes the most robust, enforceable commitments of any trade agreement in history.”
On a website dedicated to the TPP, the USTR said, “TPP requires countries to play by fair environmental rules if they want to send their goods to the United States, and upgrades NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement] by putting fully enforceable environment obligations at the core of the agreement.”
The USTR said the agreement preserves the environment by “requiring” countries to, among other conditions, fulfill their obligations under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna & Flora (CITES) to protect “iconic species” like rhinos and elephants; prohibit “harmful fisheries subsidies” and “work to restrain new subsidy programs or enhancements to existing subsidy programs;” and combat wildlife trafficking and illegal logging and fishing “through enhanced national and regional actions.”
President Barack Obama said the agreement includes “the highest environmental standards in history,” and are “actually enforceable,” unlike those in past agreements. “If countries aren't abiding by them, then they don't get the benefits of selling to the United States under the terms of this agreement,” he said after discussing the deal with agriculture and business leaders Oct. 6.
The World Wildlife Fund said it worked with the U.S. government on the environmental provisions and will continue to do so. “No major trade agreement before this one has gone so far to address the growing pressures on natural resources like over-exploited fish, wildlife and forests,” Carter Roberts, president and chief executive of the group, said in an Oct. 5 statement. “Now that the negotiations have closed, we expect to see a strong environment chapter that promotes and enforces both legal and sustainable trade.”
Binding Conservation Objectives
“We are anticipating conservation objectives that are binding,” Vanessa Dick, WWF deputy director of U.S. government relations, told Bloomberg BNA Oct. 6. Ensuring that those obligations are subject to the same enforcement measures as provisions in other areas, such as intellectual property, will be key, she said.
“We really feel that in order to make these conservation observations meaningful, you need strong implementation, strong enforcement and strong compliance measures,” and the WWF will work to get those, she said.
“We'll have a better idea on what needs to be implemented in each country once we see those specific objectives in the text,” Dick said. All 12 countries, she said, “could be doing more” to combat illegal trade and ensure that all trade is sustainable.
“It will be great to understand the final obligations, as well as what is the plan for implementing and enforcing them,” WWF's Dick said. “Their effectiveness will hinge on their implementation and enforcement.”
One thing the TPP doesn't address is climate change specifically. Institute for Agriculture & Trade Policy Climate Director Ben Lilliston called that a “major setback.” In an Oct. 5 statement the Sierra Club released quoting representatives of Greenpeace and other environmental groups, Lilliston described the TPP as “more of the same—an outdated, climate-damaging trade deal.”
NRDC's Schmidt said, “We're reserving judgment until we actually see the legal text. If we have good agreements that are never enforced, that doesn't change the dynamics on the ground.”
Obama said Congress—which has final say over whether the agreement is approved—and the public will have “months” to review it. “People are going to have plenty of time to go over it,” he said.
The full text of the TPP will be made available in coming weeks as government bodies, including the U.S. Congress, review it.

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Landmark Trans-Pacific Deal to Get 'Intense Scrutiny' on Hill

Oct 7, 2015 | E&E Daily

By Geof Koss, Hannah Northey, Daniel Bush

The Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement announced by the Obama administration this week is fueling debate on and off Capitol Hill over the possible effects easing trade restrictions will have on the energy sector as well as on environmental standards.
The details of the agreement remain a closely guarded secret, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) pledged "intense scrutiny" of the deal when President Obama submits it to Congress for review in the coming weeks.
"The Trans-Pacific Partnership is potentially one of the most significant trade deals in history and could shape our engagement and commerce with these nations for decades," he said Monday. "We are committed to opening trade in a way that benefits American manufacturers, farmers and innovators. But serious concerns have been raised on a number of key issues."
Under fast-track trade authority legislation Congress approved earlier this year, lawmakers will have roughly 90 days to review the agreement, with the public allowed 60 days to provide comment. Once that is completed, the U.S. International Trade Commission will conduct an economic review of the agreement. After that, lawmakers will have 90 days to pass implementing legislation on an up-or-down vote.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking member of the Finance Committee, which oversees trade matters, said yesterday that the transparency provisions he pressed for in the trade promotion authority push would allow lawmakers and the general public plenty of time to debate the agreement's implications.
"People who have been against these trade agreements have long said 'way too much secrecy; the public's in the dark,'" Wyden told E&E Daily. "That's changing now."
For now, though, lawmakers remain in the dark about exactly what was agreed to.Natural gas exports
One expected ramification of TPP is that applications to export natural gas to the 11 other nations subject to the deal will be deemed to meet the "public interest" test prescribed under federal law.
While the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission conducts environmental reviews of LNG export terminals, the Department of Energy is tasked with determining whether the exports are in the public's best interest. U.S. trade partners automatically meet the public interest test.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told E&E Dailyyesterday that she "assumes" liquefied natural gas exports to TPP nations will automatically meet the public interest test, but said she's awaiting more details.
Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of gas-hungry Massachusetts, who had not seen the final agreement, quickly reiterated his concerns about price spikes and threats to national security should the United States allow unfettered exports of LNG to trade partners.
"This trade agreement ... has the potential to massively increase the amount of America's natural gas that can be exported with automatic approvals, which could drive up U.S. prices and hurt American consumers, businesses and our national security," Markey said in a statement.
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz declined to discuss specifics of the TPP to reporters after testifying before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but downplayed the effects that would occur from additional exports when asked if the TPP party nations would qualify as free-trade agreement (FTA) partners in the department's natural gas export process.
"Yeah, but we've already licensed 35 [billion cubic feet] per day for free-trade agreement countries, so that's there," he told E&E Daily. "Right now, we have not impeded, we have no applications to work on right now in terms of non-FTA countries. So I say, it's the market structure is really the big issue."
Proponents of fast-tracking exports said the TPP's ability to ease trade barriers would benefit the U.S. economy and boost manufacturing -- and the effects may not be felt for years.
Erica Bowman, chief economist for America's Natural Gas Alliance, said DOE has approved so many facilities to export domestic gas -- more than 10.5 billion cubic feet per day to countries that don't have free-trade agreements with the United States -- that the trade deal wouldn't have any immediate effects on exports in the short term.
In years to come, however, TPP would have a direct effect when a second round of export terminals are built. At that time, countries that don't have an FTA with the United States could automatically import American gas without first obtaining a green light from DOE.
"The TPP itself is a 12-country free-trade agreement; it's increasing the number of FTA parties to the United States," Bowman said. "The agreement itself is reducing a lot of trade barriers."
Bowman said Japan is currently the country with the biggest appetite for domestic gas that doesn't have a free-trade agreement with the United States, but other countries could emerge in the future as major customers depending on how their economies evolve, she said.
She also said the broader importance of the TPP is that by reducing tariffs between countries and allowing for more cost-effective trade, the United States will be more competitive from a manufacturing standpoint. "It's not just about LNG exports; it's really about this broader economic manufacturing revitalization," she said.
Murkowski, who has spent years courting Japan as a destination for her state's natural gas reserves, said she plans to have her staff examine the agreement through the "energy lens."
"I'm kind of looking for the Alaska pieces because of our relationship with Japan," she told E&E Daily, adding that it was unclear if the agreement would do anything to facilitate crude exports. "That's one of the things I want them to look at."
Other senators signaled concerns over the TPP's effects on energy sources on their home states.
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia said during an interview that he hadn't seen the final deal but already had concerns about effects on coal exports.
"Bottom line, the rest of the world has a demand for coal; if it wasn't for exports of coal, we'd hardly have any coal consumption," Manchin said. "Right now, in coal production, the United States isn't dependent upon it, but the rest of the world is going to get it somewhere."Environmental concerns
Environmental organizations also slammed the deal, claiming that provisions in the final agreement announced over the weekend would encourage oil and gas development and increase carbon pollution.
Green groups have long warned that TPP would give corporations greater leeway to challenge environmental regulations in court, leading to fewer protections for threatened wildlife habitats and species.
Jeff Tittel, director of New Jersey's Sierra Club chapter, said the trade agreement will likely make it more difficult for green groups to fight LNG exports. By automating DOE's public interest findings, the deal is poised to encourage more domestic gas production and the use of hydraulic fracturing, as well as spreading a web of gas pipelines.
Speaking after meeting with farming and business interests at the Department of Agriculture, Obama acknowledged concern over the deal's environmental ramifications.
"It includes the highest environmental standards in history and prevents overfishing and makes sure that wildlife trafficking isn't decimating wildlife that are a world treasure," Obama said.
Nonetheless, environmentalists remain wary. Jake Schmidt, the Natural Resources Defense Council's international program director, said the group is still waiting to read the agreement before making a final assessment, but he warned that the deal "could have grave impacts on our bedrock environmental laws and public health protections."
Other environmental leaders were more blunt.
"The TPP as a whole is a frontal assault on environmental and climate safeguards," Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica said in a statement after the deal was announced.
Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune,> a vocal opponent of the trade deal, cited TPP's potential impact on climate change, as well. But Brune also criticized the agreement's enforcement measures, arguing that the deal doesn't have enough teeth to protect the environment.
"History gives us no reason to believe that TPP rules on conservation challenges such as the illegal timber or wildlife trade will ever be enforced," Brune said.GOP concerns
While Republicans are generally pro-trade, GOP senators yesterday signaled their own unease with TPP.
A "carve-out" that prevents tobacco companies from using trade rules to circumvent anti-smoking efforts in other nations is already drawing complaints from Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.).
"The agricultural carve-out for tobacco is an awful precedent to set for trade negotiations in the future," Burr told reporters yesterday, adding that he could vote against the deal "in a heartbeat."
Because Congress can't amend the deal, Burr suggested "maybe we need to go back to the table and renegotiate."
"They probably should have counted votes before they did this," Burr added. "I say they're going to come up woefully short."
Trade proponent and Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) echoed the sentiment.
"I've decided to give it every shot I can, and I'll look at it and see what happens," he told reporters. "But I'm very disappointed."
In a sign of the rough road ahead for the deal in Congress, Hatch described GOP concern over TPP as "very high. Very high."
Reporter Manuel Quiñones contributed.

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One of EPA's Toughest Critics is Running for Speaker

Oct 7, 2015 | E&E Daily

By Kevin Bogardus

Jason Chaffetz vows that he wouldn't let his daughters work at U.S. EPA.
That's not what an agency wants to hear from a lawmaker who could become speaker of the House. But since taking the reins of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee earlier this year, the Utah Republican has become one of EPA's fiercest critics.
The four-term House member, who's mounted a long-shot bid for speaker, has exposed the agency for failing to respond quickly to rampant sexual harassment and employees caught watching pornography on the job. So frustrated by agency managers' inaction, Chaffetz has said EPA isn't a model employer.
"I've got two young daughters, too, and I would never send them to the EPA. It's the most toxic place to work I've ever heard of," Chaffetz told EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy at one of his hearings this year that dug into workplace misbehavior at the agency (Greenwire, July 29).
As speaker, Chaffetz would have even more power to expose and embarrass EPA, bringing legislation to the House floor that could cut the agency's budget, limit its rulemaking authority and keep its management on a tighter leash.
He has already pushed for such congressional action against the agency.
In an op-ed published in The Hill last month, Chaffetz advocated for civil service reforms to better protect workers and called for the Justice Department to investigate the harassment allegations at the agency (E&ENews PM, Sept. 8).
The chairman has also implored EPA to terminate employees who were watching porn while at work, including one worker who was caught by a child viewing explicit images during its "Bring Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day."
"If you're sitting watching hours of porn on your government computer, fire 'em! Fire 'em!" Chaffetz shouted at a hearing last April (Greenwire, April 30).
He and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the Oversight panel's ranking member, have asked the EPA inspector general to investigate complaints about management in the agency's Chicago office after the panel delved into sexual harassment allegations reported there (Greenwire, Sept. 2).
Moreover, Chaffetz has pestered EPA on several other issues, including its development of the Waters of the U.S. rule and its response to the Gold King mine disaster in Colorado.
Union representatives at EPA said the Oversight chairman has been harsh, but his anger has been warranted at times.
"Mr. Chaffetz has indeed been tough on agency management, and for good cause. Quite frankly, the senior executives within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have collected big salaries and bonuses, but have not always been held accountable for their failures to properly manage the agency," said John O'Grady, president of the American Federation of Government Employees chapter representing EPA workers in the Chicago region.
O'Grady noted how managers were deceived by John Beale, who impersonated a CIA spy while working at EPA and is now in prison for fraud, and allowed sexual harassment to go on for so long in the agency's Chicago office.
"Those are outrageous situations that the agency has not been willing to deal with," said Karen Kellen, president of AFGE's national chapter that represents EPA workers. "There's still an unwillingness to hold their fellow managers accountable."
Kellen testified at the Oversight committee's July hearing that looked into EPA management, noting that Chaffetz "was very nice to me. Not so nice to the administrator."
After the allegations surfaced, EPA responded to the concerns about sexual harassment and mismanagement at the agency.
McCarthy authored an anti-harassment memo last year. In addition, the agency has planned to provide anti-harassment training for EPA supervisors this year (Greenwire, Sept. 3).
Further, many of the misbehaving EPA employees in question have been forced out of the agency after management took action.
"Harassment of any kind in EPA workplaces is intolerable," the EPA administrator told lawmakers in July.
While Chaffetz has gone after EPA with abandon, Kellen said the congressman is more complex than the caricature of a government-hating GOP lawmaker.
"He has expressed an understanding of the federal workforce. He hasn't jumped on the bandwagon of bashing the ordinary federal worker, but instead he has gone after the administration," she said. "I definitely have mixed feelings about him. I know there are some issues that we are diametrically opposed on."
Chaffetz has tried to garner the support of federal employees in the past. In a speech at the National Treasury Employees Union's annual legislative conference earlier this year, the chairman said he needed the union's "help to figure out a way to root out the bad apples."
"When you have somebody within your organization who isn't playing by the rules, who may be breaking policy, who may be breaking the law, you can't just put them on paid administrative leave for a year and not have a consequence," Chaffetz said (Greenwire, Feb. 4).
Kellen is concerned that Chaffetz as speaker would bring tough legislation to the floor that would hamper the federal workforce.
"That's a real possibility. They [Congress] seem to think that making more rules will make us more effective, when it's just the opposite. More rules make us less efficient and effective," Kellen said.
What also worries EPA union leaders is that Chaffetz might be more willing to shut the federal government down as speaker. That would send thousands of government workers home without pay until agencies opened up again.
"That is disturbing because that shouldn't even be an option," Kellen said. "A government shutdown is definitely anti-worker."
Cummings, however, predicted Chaffetz as speaker would have little effect on the House's overall handling of EPA and federal workforce policy. The Maryland Democrat foresees a bigger impact on issues related to Utah and land rights.
"I know that's a big deal for him," Cummings said. "I think he would push hard on that -- very hard."
GOP lawmakers in the House will pick their candidate tomorrow for the next speaker. Chaffetz is facing off against House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), considered the front-runner in the race (E&ENews PM, Oct. 5).
Whether McCarthy or Chaffetz wins, EPA workers can expect a GOP-controlled House to be tough on their agency and on federal employees in general.
"There's not a whole lot of Republicans that love EPA," O'Grady said. "Either one [McCarthy and Chaffetz] is going to be hard on federal workers. It's not really about the two of them but the extreme elements in their party."
Reporter Sean Reilly contributed.

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Chemical Management News

Conservation Fund Continues to Snarl Chemical Reform

Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Anthony Adragna

Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) are digging in their heels and refusing to allow a vote on a revamp (S. 697) to the nation's primary chemical law unless Senate leadership guarantees them a vote to reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Proponents continue “constant negotiations” with the senators, according to bill sponsor Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), and remain optimistic they will eventually be able to reach agreement. Meetings continued Oct. 6 in hopes of reaching an agreement, Udall said on the Senate floor.
But Burr told reporters earlier in the day that he will insist on a stand-alone vote for the fund, which uses oil and gas royalties for recreation and conservation projects and expired at the end of September, or an amendment vote on the bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act. He said he would not wait for the chamber to act on a transportation bill or budget later this year, which TSCA reform bill backers said would be a better vehicle.
“I would like to work with Sen. Burr to make sure he gets the vote that he wants,” Udall, who also supports reauthorizing the fund, told reporters. “I don't know what that's going to be—at what particular stage it's going to be—but I think he's entitled to a vote.”
Little Appetite for Amendment
The problem is other senators are reluctant to allow a stand-alone vote on the Land and Water Conservation Fund so that leaves Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) with limited options for how to proceed. Allowing an amendment to TSCA would complicate the bill's path in the House and potentially open the floodgates for other senators to seek amendment votes.
“As soon as you open it up to one amendment, then you've opened it up to a hundred amendments,” Udall said. “As soon as you get to that point, then you don't get a bill.”
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697) has the backing of 60 senators from 38 states, including Burr and Ayotte (192 DEN A-1, 10/5/15).
Several Senate aides said bill proponents considered offering a unanimous consent request on the Senate floor during a colloquy Oct. 6, but ultimately decided against doing so.
Irks Fellow Republicans
Fellow Republicans have begun to openly criticize Burr and Ayotte's push for the amendment vote, urging them to pursue different legislative vehicles to reauthorize the fund.
“It's not a germane amendment,” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, told reporters. “I think they need to find somewhere else for their amendment, and I think they will.”
Burr, for his part, told reporters Oct. 6 a stand-alone vote on the measure would be the “easiest and cleanest way” to address his concerns, adding that he was using tactics many of his fellow Republicans had tried before. Ayotte told Bloomberg BNA she would continue to push for a vote on the Land and Water Conservation Fund using TSCA reform as a vehicle.
Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.) said it was up to McConnell to keep his caucus under control and allow the popular bill to proceed on to Senate floor consideration.
“Every senator has a bill that they would love to force a vote on, but if everybody tries to do that then you end up with nothing passing,” Whitehouse told Bloomberg BNA. “[Republicans] just need to get out of their own way.”
Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), the bill's other co-sponsor, also expressed frustration on the Senate floor at Burr and Ayotte's “desire to have a vote on a completely unrelated piece of legislation.” He noted there was an agreement to process the legislation in just two hours, assuming the chamber could begin considering the bill.
At Odds With State Party
In addition to going against the wishes of his Republican Senate colleagues, Burr's position puts him at direct odds with the North Carolina Republican Party, which in June approved a resolution that “actively opposes further funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund.” That resolution also called the fund “a threat to private property ownership in the United States and North Carolina.”
Burr's office declined to comment on the resolution.
The Republican duo's pursuit of a clean reauthorization of the program also puts them at odds with several dozen conservation organizations, which opposed a clean reauthorization of fund without significant changes in an Oct. 1 letter to the Republican and Democratic heads of the House Natural Resources Committee.
“As your Committee considers legislation to reauthorize LWCF, we request that you and your colleagues consider changes that will ultimately strengthen the fund by broadening its appeal to stakeholders, affected communities and other Members of Congress,” groups including Ducks Unlimited, the Sportsmen's Alliance and the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies said in theletter.
‘Not the Right Way.'
Even some of the most ardent supports of the Land and Water Conservation Fund urged Burr not to block the chemical reform measure.
“I commend Sen. Burr's efforts to renew the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a critical wildlife protection that Congress should never have been allowed to expire, but attaching it to Toxic Substances Control Act reform is not the right way to achieve LWCF renewal,” Collin O'Mara, president and chief executive officer of the National Wildlife Federation, said in an Oct. 6 statement.
Udall, who spoke on the Senate floor of the need to reauthorize the fund the week of Sept. 28, said he had spoken with Burr Oct. 5 and would continue to work with Senate leadership to ensure that the Land and Water Conservation Fund renewal ultimately gets a vote.
But the next best opportunity for the Senate to consider TSCA reform could be Oct. 8, Udall said.
“That's the next window as I see it,” Udall told reporters after a rally urging action on the bill.

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Udall Seeks Deal With Burr Over Amendment Seen Hindering TSCA Reform

Oct 7, 2015 | InsideEPA

By Maria Hegstad

Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM), a chief sponsor of a bill to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), is trying to reach a deal with Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) for Burr to drop his planned TSCA bill rider to reauthorize a land and water fund that is seen as hindering the bill, in exchange for Udall backing a stand-alone measure to revive the fund.
At an Oct. 6 press conference in Washington, D.C, to push for a Senate floor vote on the TSCA bill, S. 697, Udall acknowledged the potential “major amendment” from Burr to force reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Politico reported that the amendment could face opposition from a handful of senators including Republicans Ted Cruz (TX) and Mike Lee (UT), leading to neither the rider nor the bill getting a vote.
Udall at the press conference suggested that instead of Burr offering the LWCF reauthorization as a rider to S. 697, he would be willing to help the senator push a stand-alone bill to reauthorize the fund.
The fund, which helps acquire and maintain park lands and is funded by companies drilling offshore for oil and gas, expired Sept. 30. “That's been in place for 50 years and it expired. That's not a good thing,” Udall said at the event. “I want to see that reauthorized, I want to see it reauthorized as soon as we can. I've signed on to Sen. Burr's bill for a 60-day extension so that we can work through and get a long-term extension in place.”
Udall said he supports a five-year, permanent extension of the fund “but we're going to have to work through all those issues. I'm willing to work with Sen. Burr to get that accomplished.”
He added, “I've spoken with him, my staff has visited with him, and we're working with him as diplomatically and as carefully and as diligently as we can to see that that happens. He's also a co-sponsor of this [TSCA] bill, so I believe he also wants to see this piece of legislation happen.” The TSCA bill has broad bipartisan backing, with at least 60 senators vowing their support -- ensuring the bill would survive a filibuster threat.
Burr's spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment by press time, but senators supportive of S. 697 used speeches on the Senate floor Oct. 6 to urge Burr and Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) to allow a vote on the TSCA bill. Ayotte is, along with Burr, a major proponent of reauthorization of the LWCF.
“We have a little bit of jousting going on, with Senator Burr and Senator Ayotte, and I sympathize, I think theirs is a bill we're all supportive of too,” said Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). But he urged the two senators to seek another avenue for their efforts. “It should be done in a different format. This is such an important piece of legislation, and this is bipartisan, there are not very many pieces of legislation around here that are.”
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who originally introduced S. 697 with Udall, said on the floor, “I urge all of us to come together, now, and get this done. In the Senate these opportunities don't come a dime a dozen. . . .The only issue is Senator Burr and Senator Ayotte, and their desire to have a vote on a completely different piece of legislation. But we have an agreement to move forward in two hours and we need to do that.”
Vitter's spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on the agreement by press time, and it was unclear when -- or whether -- the TSCA reform bill might get a floor vote this week.
'Procedural Blockages'
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), one of the bill's co-sponsors, criticized Republicans for what he saw as steps to impede the bill's progress to a vote in the Senate. “We first have to figure out the procedural blockages. The majority party ought to be supporting” measures that the majority leadership supports, he said, adding that it is usually the role of the minority party, not the majority party, to prevent legislation progressing.
Whitehouse also cautioned that going forward, “this is a fairly delicate compromise here … It's really important that the record on this reflect there's not a whole lot of room for mischief on this bill. There's not a huge incentive for mischief, but we do have to be on our guard” that the bill moves forward as is.
His remarks highlight the difficult conference committee that faces lawmakers if the Senate approves S. 697. It would then head to a conference panel to resolve differences with a much narrower TSCA reform bill, H.R. 2576, which cleared the House in a 398-1 vote in June, and the fate of those talks is uncertain at best.
Asked about a conference committee at the Oct. 6 press conference, Udall described the Senate bill as much more comprehensive than the House bill, and touted his and Vitter's efforts to work with House leaders. “We have a much more comprehensive bill when it comes to looking at all the parts to how you reform TSCA. We deal with confidential business information, how do you bring in revenue from the chemical industry to support the toxics bureau within EPA. We're very prideful. We're in a position on a much more comprehensive bill to deal with the House and see what they've given us and then work through the issues. I think this can be done. We have a great team.”
The bill's supporters also stressed their efforts to achieve compromise over the longstanding issue of the extent to which TSCA reform should preempt states' abilities to pass their own laws regulating chemicals.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), ranking member on the Environment & Public Works Committee, opposes S. 697 over what she says are the sweeping preemption provisions which would hinder states such as her California that have developed a host of strict chemicals regulations. She has urged senators to reject S. 697 and instead consider taking up H.R. 2576, though Senate TSCA reform proponents are focused on approving S. 697.
Although Boxer opposes the bill, other Democrats are signing on as supporters due to revisions made in recent weeks following lengthy discussions. For example, Democratic Sens. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) announced their support last week, taking the bill to at least 60 total declared supporters.
During the Oct. 6 press conference with Udall, Markey said that he “looks forward in conference committee to protecting what we have here and improving it further.”
Another co-sponsor, Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE), described the compromise as a perfect one. “The big compromise here is one that gives states a role in making sure that if EPA doesn't pass a law, the states may do so. This may not be a perfect bill, but that's a perfect compromise.”

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Responding to Joe Nocera’s Column

Oct 6, 2015 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families

By Andy Igrejas

It looks as though the Senate is likely to vote on TSCA reform this week and the propaganda machine is in full swing. Yesterday, I took a call from New York Times columnist Joe Nocera, thinking he was writing about the legislation and what the issues were. I didn’t realize he was actually writing a column about us, instigated, as he admits, by his “old friend” at the Environmental Defense Fund’s affiliate. The column is flat wrong, but it also provides an opportunity to talk about where we are and what’s at stake.
First, why now?
Last week, word leaked out in the trade press that Senators McConnell, Inhofe and Boxer had reached an agreement to bring TSCA reform to the floor. (We’ve been opposed to this bill, as most of you know, though we have lauded progress when its been made.) Under the agreement, Senator Boxer would drop her threat to filibuster, a right she planned to exercise, in exchange for changes to the bill (though she would not be voting for the bill). Senator Boxer’s improvements have not been made public, but they are expected to be in the area of preserving some state authority on chemicals.
Separately, Senators Markey (D-MA) and Durbin (D-IL) announced on Friday that they had also negotiated a number of changes to the legislation in exchange for their support of the bill. Again, because a new version of the bill has not been made public, we can’t yet judge the details. The changes, as described by the Senators, all sound positive.
Assuming the reports are accurate, the Senate bill will likely have been improved in key ways, including more money for EPA and less preemption of states. That’s the good news.
But according to the reports, there will also be bad news. The legislation will likely continue to contain a number of problematic provisions, including preempting states in the absence of federal action, making it harder for EPA to regulate chemicals in imported products, and numerous other special interest doo-dads and distractions that take away from the purpose of reform.
Our message to the Senate, and to our supporters to bring to the Senate, is to keep these problems on the table as problems that must be solved in the next round, which would normally be a conference committee with the House. The House bill avoids the problems of the Udall-Vitter bill (though it has some of its own). Senators who have signed on to the Senate bill already, we hope, can support strengthening it in conference. Senators who do not support the bill can express their opposition, but also their hope that these issues will be addressed in conference, producing a final package that they would then be able to support.
This is hardly an unreasonable, wildly obstructionist stance, especially by Washington standards. We’re pointing out deficits in a piece of legislation and calling for them to be fixed as part of the official process, which isn’t over. Outrageous!
So back to that Nocera column, given the stance I outlined above, why the need for an attack piece on us and the rest of the health and environmental community, at this moment? The bill has the votes. The next steps in the process are pretty clear. The reason is that EDF sees the Senate bill as “theirs” and they are marketing themselves and trying to differentiate their brand. The House legislation, which in many ways is a more real compromise, disrupts that marketing. Nocera didn’t even know about the House bill until I pointed it out to him, and it gets a mere parenthetical, dutiful comment. But it is the version of TSCA reform that already passed the House in June by a vote of 398 to 1. If the article was actually about the value of compromise, you’d think Nocera would have noticed this bill, or made it the feature of the story. Why was that bill less controversial than the Senate bill has been?
The answer is that it represented the kind of rational process of compromise and legislation that Nocera says he supports. Chairman John Shimkus of Illinois, a conservative Republican, and Congressman Frank Pallone of New Jersey, an environmental champion, learned from the stalemate that the Vitter-Udall legislation had produced in the previous year. They decided to write a new bill from scratch that focused on the essentials of reform for both sides. Most of the fundamentals of reform from a public health point of view were included. Most of the industry’s fundamentals, including expansion of preemption, were also included. Most of the over-reaching special interest provisions in the Senate bill were excluded, something which took real political will and even courage on the part of both legislators. (The bill does have shortcomings too, whichwe have said should be addressed.)
Each of the things we’re highlighting as problems in the Senate bill, which so angers Nocera, is not in this broad, bipartisan House bill. For example, it does not roll back EPA’s ability to intercept toxic chemicals in imported products. Most people would think chemical reform should make it easier for EPA to do that, right? The House bill provides for preemption, in fact, but only when EPA has actually acted on a chemical or declared it safe. The Senate bill, in contrast, preempts states before EPA has acted, potentially delaying needed policy interventions. The Senate bill has a potential loophole for “low priority” chemicals that get set aside without a full safety review. It’s not in the House bill. Finally, the Senate bill, as exhaustively detailed by our colleague Bob Sussman, who held senior positions at EPA, makes EPA do a ton of new work that would distract from the business of testing and regulating chemicals. It makes EPA rewrite policies and guidance through costly rule makings, for example, in areas where it already has plenty of policy and guidance. Some in the chemical industry want this extra bite at the apple. The House bill does not give it to them. The bill is also widely viewed to be more clearly drafted and less prone to litigation.
I pointed out this substantive contrast with the House bill to Nocera, but apparently he wasn’t interested in the substance. He had already decided on his one-sided approach and just needed a quote. But the substance is exactly the point. Will people be protected? In an age of limited government, shouldn’t we focus as much of EPA’s limited resources as possible on the core tasks of protecting people?But the substance is exactly the point. Will people be protected? In an age of limited government, shouldn’t we focus as much of EPA’s limited resources as possible on the core tasks of protecting people?
And this gets to my last point where Nocera is flatly wrong. EDF supposedly “rolled up their sleeves” on the bill, making it better, while the rest of us just opposed. In fact, EDF merely lost their shirt requiring a very broad coalition to roll up our sleeves. The bill EDF negotiated and endorsed did not contain any of the fundamentals of reform. It did not establish a health-based standard. It did not protect vulnerable populations. It rolled back EPA’s authority over new chemicals. It blocked states not just from enacting their own rules, but even from co-enforcing federal chemical rules. The list goes on and on. It did not reflect any of the principles EDF itself had enunciated for years. And yet, EDF was very proud of the bill, even insisting that the initial criticism raised by others could jeopardize their carefully crafted compromise. Once the smoke cleared and the broader public interest community reviewed the bill, experts and organizations quickly rallied to put the substance of the debate front and center and we’ve been doing so every since.
The good news, therefore, is that this is, in most ways, no longer “EDF’s bill.” It has improved in spite of the cover that EDF provided for the bill, and precisely because of constructive, substantive opposition. The broader constellation of health and environmental experts can take some credit for getting the bill closer to a shape where it could really help people. But there is still critical work to do. The process isn’t over.
Finally, we have never criticized EDF publicly until now, and would not, but for Nocera’s column, because it is widely understood that EDF agreed to the original bill in error. That’s an open secret in Washington and it can happen to anyone.
There is no political imperative for Fred Krupp (EDF’s director) and Dominique Browning to launch this attack through Nocera, as they apparently did. That means they did it to grab credit, differentiate their “brand,” and rewrite history in the process, all at the expense of further improving the legislation to better protect public health and the environment. That lacks integrity.
Tomorrow or the next day, whenever the new version of the legislation is made public, we will go back to our usual program of focusing on what is actually in the legislation and how to make it better. I hope you’ll join us.

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Advocacy Group Hits EDF Over N.Y. Times Column on Bill

Oct 6, 2015 | E&E PM

By Sam Pearson

An advocacy group opposed to a bill by Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and David Vitter (R-La.) to overhaul how the federal government manages toxic chemicals is pushing back after a New York Timescolumn earlier today focused on rifts between the group and other environmental organizations.
Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Director Andy Igrejas, in a blog post on the organization's website, laid out a series of grievances against an op-ed by Times columnist Joe Nocera published today and with the Environmental Defense Fund, in a rare public airing of disputes between advocacy groups.
The acrimony comes as the bill appears near consideration on the Senate floor.
Vitter said on the Senate floor today that an agreement was in place for the bill to be considered in two hours. Earlier today, Udall said Thursday was seen as the "window" where the bill could be taken up (Greenwire, Oct. 6).
In the column, Nocera argued that S. 697, the "Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act," is a reasonable compromise and ridiculed groups -- especially Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families -- that have declined to endorse the bill. Nocera wrote that S. 697 improved because pragmatic environmental and public health groups like EDF "were willing to roll up their sleeves and make common cause with conservative senators like Vitter and chemical industry lobbyists."
Nocera's column is "flat wrong," Igrejas wrote.
Rather, Igrejas wrote that EDF made a mistake when it first supported the reform effort without holding out for more changes. But because of pressure from other groups and lawmakers, it's become more protective over time.
"It is widely understood that EDF agreed to the original bill in error," Igrejas wrote. "That's an open secret in Washington and it can happen to anyone."
The column showed that "EDF sees the Senate bill as 'theirs' and they are marketing themselves and trying to differentiate their brand," Igrejas wrote.
The columnist "didn't even know about" H.R. 2576, the "TSCA Modernization Act," a more limited piece of legislation that House lawmakers approved by a vote of 398-1 in June, when they spoke by phone yesterday, Igrejas wrote.
Igrejas wrote that Nocera's column was "instigated, as he admits, by his 'old friend' at the Environmental Defense Fund's affiliate" -- Dominique Browning, the co-founder of Moms Clean Air Force, which was asked to leave the Safer Chemicals coalition in March over its support for the Udall-Vitter bill.
Moms Clean Air Force was asked to leave the coalition because it was "supporting a Senate bill everyone else opposed," Igrejas said, according to Nocera. "You couldn't do that and stay in the coalition. ... At every point along the way, [EDF President] Fred [Krupp] would say, 'You can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Blah, blah, blah.'"
Igrejas declined to elaborate on the post.
At a news conference outside the Capitol earlier today, Udall credited Krupp for playing "an absolutely crucial role" in the Toxic Substances Control Act effort.
"This is the way legislation is supposed to happen," Krupp said.
The departure of Moms Clean Air Force was the second forced exit, after EDF left the coalition in 2013 under similar circumstances over its support of an earlier bill, the "Chemical Safety Improvement Act" (E&E Daily, Nov. 21, 2013).
In his blog post, Igrejas wrote that not enough was known about how the latest change to S. 697 would impact states and consumers. While the changes "sound positive," Igrejas wrote, he said he was concerned the bill did too much to curtail state authority in the absence of federal action and could make it difficult for U.S. EPA to address imports of harmful chemicals.
Safer Chemicals is hopeful these issues can be resolved in a conference committee with the House, Igrejas wrote.
"We strongly believe there's an important role for everyone to play and a variety of approaches needed to pass strong TSCA reform," said Richard Denison, a senior scientist at EDF. "We think the recent announcement [in favor of the bill] by [Sens.] Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) makes clear the value of having everyone at the table."
Though several Democratic senators -- including Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Markey and Durbin -- have signed on to the bill after opposing it, their actions have yet to significantly change the positions of certain advocacy groups that have spent years working on the issue.
Because of the changes to the legislation in recent days, the vote of 15-5 on the Environment and Public Works Committee "actually understates its support," Whitehouse said on the Senate floor this afternoon.
Speaking with Udall, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and other lawmakers, who took to the floor to urge support for the bill, Whitehouse said Republicans should take responsibility as the majority party to remove procedural roadblocks to the bill. Udall said earlier today that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-Ky.) staff has held several meetings to plot a way to bring the bill to the floor.
Some of those roadblocks include a dispute involving Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), who have pledged to object to taking up the bill without an agreement to allow a vote on an amendment to reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Unless lawmakers are vigilant, "we're back to where we started with everybody back in their seats again," Whitehouse said.

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EPA Denies Bid to Expand Collection of Mercury Data

Oct 7, 2015 | E&E PM

By Sam Pearson

U.S. EPA has rejected a petition from the Natural Resources Defense Council and state agencies for using the Toxic Substances Control Act to learn more about mercury use in the United States.
NRDC and the Northeast Waste Management Officials' Association had asked the agency to use its authority under TSCA to propose a rule requiring companies to submit information on their use of mercury, mercury compounds and products containing mercury (E&ENews PM, June 25).
Section 8 of TSCA authorizes the agency to require chemical manufacturers, importers and processors to disclose data to assist regulators.
The action would have enabled the United States to comply with the Minamata Convention on Mercury, a 2013 treaty forcing reductions in mercury use, the groups said (Greenwire, Oct. 18, 2013).
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy later visited Japan and pledged with Japanese Environment Minister Yoshio Mochizuki to work together to improve mercury monitoring (Greenwire, Aug. 24).
Though NRDC maintained that "virtually all" federal and state agencies that attempt to track or regulate mercury in the United States believe the government collects insufficient information on the neurotoxin, EPA said its existing system does enough to address the challenge.
EPA shares the groups' goal of reducing mercury use but a rulemaking under Section 8 of TSCA was not the way to accomplish it, the agency said.
Jim Jones, EPA's assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention, wrote in a document scheduled to be published in the Federal Register tomorrow that it was rejecting the petition because its existing strategy to manage mercury pollution "is sufficient" for carrying out its legal obligations.
This process "is a faster, more efficient pathway towards achieving our shared goals," the agency wrote, and is "a more targeted approach ... [that is] flexible and adaptive to observed trends in the use of mercury."
An NRDC spokesman couldn't be reached for comment this afternoon.

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EPA Publishes Denial of Carbon Dioxide TSCA Petition

Oct 7, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

The Environmental Protection Agency will publish in the Federal Register Oct. 7 its denial of an environmental group's petition to regulate carbon dioxide under the Toxic Substances Control Act. The Center for Biological Diversity had petitioned the EPA to conclude carbon dioxide poses an unreasonable risk and therefore should be banned or restricted using authorities provided by Section 6 of TSCA. Alternately, the group had asked the agency to issue a test rule under Section 4 of the act that would have required manufacturers and processors that generate the air pollutant to conduct tests to determine carbon dioxide's toxicity, persistence and other characteristics. The EPA had released its denial informally Sept. 29 (189 DEN A-8, 9/30/15). The Federal Register notice is available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2015-25164.pdf.

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Hoeven Lifts His Hold on TSCA Amid Talks on Oil Export Ban

Oct 7, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Darren Goode

Sen. John Hoeven said he isn’t holding up Senate debate on the Toxic Substances Control Act because prospects are improving for a vote later this year on lifting the crude oil export ban.
“As long as leadership is working with us to get it passed within a reasonable time frame, like between now and year end, that’s what I’m after,” the North Dakota Republican told POLITICO today. “It doesn’t have to be [on] TSCA. And right now leadership is working with us.”
Hoeven did initially have a hold on the TSCA bill to force a vote on lifting the oil export ban, and he still calling for Senate leaders to allow a vote on it as an amendment.
But the last real impasse preventing Senate debate and approval of the TSCA bill, which has filibuster-proof support, are objections by at least two Republican cosponsors, Richard Burr and Kelly Ayotte, to bringing it up without a promise to take up the now-expired Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Bipartisan backers of the TSCA bill are expected to discuss the bill on the Senate floor this afternoon, and may try to bring it up then by unanimous consent. But Burr said Monday night that there was still a “stalemate.”
Another Republican who has helped lead the effort to extend or reauthorize the LWCF, Sen. Susan Collins, said she does not object to bringing up the TSCA bill.

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Overnight Energy: Conservation Fund Ties Up Chemical Reform Bill

Oct 6, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Timothy Cama and Devin Henry

ACRONYM ACRIMONY: Senators hoping to pass a chemical safety reform bill say a group of lawmakers looking to attach a conservation measure to the package need to look elsewhere.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) hopes to use the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bill as a legislative vehicle for a measure reauthorizing the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which expired last week.
But senators pushing TSCA said Tuesday that a conservation fund amendment wouldn't make sense attached to the chemical bill, and that they'd rather move the two issues separately.
"They need to find something else for their amendment and I think they will," Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said.
Both TSCA and the LWCF are relatively popular proposals: LWCF traditionally garners bipartisan support, though its authorization lapsed last week, and the chemicals bill has enough support to overcome a filibuster in the Senate.
But Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), a lead sponsor of the TSCA bill, said trying to combine the two would be a mistake.
"The thing that happens: As soon as you open up one amendment, then you've opened it up to 100 amendments," he said.
"You've seen that happen many times around here, where as soon as you get to that point, you don't get a bill. And I think all of us want to see a bill."
Read more here.
ON TAP WEDNESDAY I: The House Energy and Commerce Committee's energy and power subcommittee will host a hearing on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) carbon dioxide limits for power plants that were made final in August. Janet McCabe, head of the EPA's air pollution office, will be the sole witness.
ON TAP WEDNESDAY II: The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will bring together all five members of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for an oversight hearing on the agency.
Rest of Wednesday's agenda ...
A subpanel of the House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing to discuss plutonium disposal and the Energy Department's ongoing construction of a mixed-oxide fuel manufacturing plant in South Carolina.
NEWS BITES:
Reynolds to White House ... Tom Reynolds, head of the EPA's communications efforts, is moving to the White House for a new strategy and communications job for President Obama's climate and energy agenda.
A White House official said Reynolds' main responsibilities will center around communications strategy for the power plant climate rules and Obama's efforts on the Paris climate talks in December.
Reynolds has a long history with Obama, going back to a leadership role in Ohio for the 2008 campaign. He has been associate administrator for public affairs at the EPA since May 2013.
"It's an exciting opportunity to pitch in on a key legacy issue for the president, something he has described as one of the defining challenges of our time," Reynolds told reporters Tuesday.
He starts at the White House Wednesday.
New IPCC head ... Hoesung Lee of South Korea was tapped Tuesday to lead the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Lee is a professor of economics and specializes in the economics of climate change and development, BBC News reports.
He replaces Rajendra Pachauri, who resigned earlier this year amid sexual assault allegations.
The IPCC is responsible for various comprehensive reports on the current state of climate change science.
AROUND THE WEB:
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) is lowering his natural gas severance tax proposal in an effort to end the state's budget impasse, the Associated Press reports.
The United Kingdom is considering closing its coal-fired power plants by 2023 to combat global warming, Bloomberg Business reports.
A federal court ruling mandating stronger ballast water rules for ships will have an impact on Great Lakes shipping operations, Minnesota Public Radio News reports.

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Congress Considering Dangerously Expanding EPA’s Power

Oct 6, 2015 | Daily Caller

By Erik Telford

In the coming days, the Senate is expected to take up legislation that would grant the EPA new powers to regulate — and potentially ban — thousands of useful chemicals. Introduced by Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.) and David Vitter (R-La.), the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976, giving the EPA greater authority to determine which chemicals are safe enough for manufacturers to include in products sold in the United States.
The bill requires the EPA to review and approve 1,000 or so new chemicals that come on the market each year and do safety reviews for the more than 80,000 chemicals in active commerce. The EPA would also be granted the authority to determine whether to allow a chemical to be sold or manufactured based on the agency’s assessment of the health and environmental risks the chemical carries.
Without a doubt, programs like this are well intended; as one trade association president noted, “Having a stronger federal chemicals management program will not only improve the public’s confidence on the safety of chemicals, but will also provide businesses with much-needed certainty and consistency in the marketplace.” However, before transferring such a significant amount of authority to a government agency with a somewhat dubious track record when it comes to public safety, it may be instructive to look at a similarly themed state-level chemical regulation program that has been hijacked by activists – and which now discourages small businesses from operating within their borders.
In California, Prop 65 was a voter initiative that was intended to protect drinking water sources from toxic substances, and to reduce or eliminate exposures to those chemicals generally by requiring product label warnings. The law has become a windfall for trial lawyers, and has introduced label fatigue to the very citizens it was meant to protect. The now nearly ubiquitous “danger” label has become so commonplace as to be instantly overlooked by consumers. FROM AROUND THE WEBSponsored Links by
In May, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) – which is the agency that administers Prop 65 – added Bisphenol A (BPA) to its list of chemicals known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity. This move completely ignored the fact that theFDA and its regulatory counterparts around the world, including in Canada, Japan, Germany, and the European Union, all agree that BPA is safe at current exposure levels.
California, however, is far from the only state pursuing politics over sound science; as the National Law Journal notes, Vermont Washington, Maine, Minnesota, and Oregon have all adopted so-called “green chemistry” laws as well.
TSCA modernization is likely to pass; the U.S. House passed H.R. 2576 at the end of June by a 398–1 vote, while its Senate counterpart passed out of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and now awaits a floor vote. Accordingly, watchdogs should keep an eye out for abuse when the bill passes.
First, it’s worth monitoring whether the EPA begins to waste millions in taxpayer dollars studying chemicals that have already been deemed safe by other well-respected federal agencies like the FDA. Despite this conclusive finding, data from the National Institutes of Health show that since 2000, nearly $170 million in grants has been doled out to fund research on BPA. Hopefully the EPA will show greater respect for the public purse than the NIH has.
In addition, it’s possible that the agency could become overzealous with its potential new authority; after all, there’s a reason that the EPA has become activists’ favorite cabinet department when agency-shopping for a bureaucracy to do their bidding. If the EPA is granted these new powers over chemical regulations, the agency should be mindful and careful not to over-regulate to the point where the alternative environment is more dangerous than the status quo.
Far too often bad information leads health activists, medical paternalists, and anti-technology nannies to call on regulators to ban substances falsely deemed as dangerous. Despite the fact that a chemical like BPA increases the shelf life of food and prevents the formation of deadly bacteria, it has been in the crosshairs of regulators for a long time. Now, with one central authority likely to be responsible for its fate, vigilant citizens must ensure the EPA doesn’t abuse its new powers to go after the cause célèbre of anti-chemical activists.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/10/06/congress-considering-dangerously-expanding-epas-power/#ixzz3nsqdK9Ij

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Lautenberg's Widow Praised for Efforts on Compromise Chemical Safety Bill

Oct 7, 2015 | NorthJersey.com

By Herb Jackson

Some of nation’s most liberal and most conservative senators on Tuesday praised a compromise chemical safety bill named after the late Frank Lautenberg and said it might not have happened without the continued lobbying efforts of Lautenberg’s widow.
A bill to overhaul the nearly 40-year-old law Toxic Substances Control Act, which both environmental and industry advocates say is ineffective at regulating chemicals in consumer products, was one of the final pieces of legislation Lautenberg was working on when he died in 2013.
A compromise measure negotiated after his death could be approved in the Senate this week if one unrelated issue can be resolved.
“Of course this bill is important to me personally to see Frank’s legacy move forward, a final achievement of an almost 30-year Senate career,” Bonnie Englebardt Lautenberg said at a news conference outside the Capitol. “But more importantly, it’s necessary because our country desperately needed to improve this old TSCA act.”
She said after the news conference that Frank Lautenberg worked for seven years to overhaul the old law, which in more than 39 years had resulted in only five chemicals being banned because of the difficult steps the Environmental Protection Agency is required to take. The weak law “disturbed him greatly,” she said.
“There’s so much cancer, so much disease” she said. “There were no regulations on these chemicals, these horrible chemicals that were in our lives.”
Senators at the news conference talked about worrying about grandchildren coming in contact with cancer-causing chemicals used in flame retardants applied to carpeting, bedding, clothing and furniture. Several also joked about how unlikely it was that a compromise would have been reached, with Delaware Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat, saying he saw a flock of pigs flying over the Capitol.
Sen. Cory Booker, the Newark Democrat who took Lautenberg’s seat, said he initially did not support a version of the bill sponsored by Democratic New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall and Republican Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, but eventually signed on after he and two colleagues negotiated changes.
“Some people might also say that Bonnie Lautenberg was the 101st senator working on this issue, just about every day, burning up my cellphone, coming to hearings,” Booker said.
She “truly made me clearly understand that if I am to do honor to Frank Lautenberg, I need to roll up my sleeves, get involved with this bill, do what I needed to do to try to make it better.”
The bill still has some opposition. The Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition of of health care, consumer, environmental and labor groups is arguing that a bad compromise is worse than no bill at all and is seeking changes to the measure that would allow states to impose tougher regulations than the federal government.
But Sen. James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma who often battled with Frank Lautenberg over issues before the Environment and Public Works Committee but also became close friends with the liberal Democrat, said on the
Senate floor Tuesday afternoon that the bill would boost economic growth by providing one set of rules for all 50 states.
“Facilities that were packing up and moving back to China will come rushing back,” Inhofe said.
In an interview, he recalled first being lobbied by Lautenberg’s widow when he paid a condolence call.
“She was immediately on this thing, she knew all the details and she said, ‘We want to make sure that you guys get this thing passed,’” Inhofe said.
If the Senate approves the bill, it would go to a conference committee to work out differences with a House version that passed with bipartisan support earlier this year and takes a different approach to overhauling regulation.
Bonnie Lautenberg said she had already spoken to House sponsors, who include Rep. Frank Pallone, a Long Branch Democrat, and was hopeful an agreement the two chambers would work together to pass a final bill. Mrs. Lautenberg had endorsed Pallone, incidentally, when he ran in the 2013 Democratic primary against Booker for the late senator’s seat.
Inhofe said he was hopeful a final bill could be passed into law by Thanksgiving.

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Durbin Supports Bill to Boost Regulation of Flame-Retardant Chemicals

Oct 6, 2015 | Dupage Policy Journal

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Ed Markey (D-MA) have announced their support for the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.

“Following a Chicago Tribune series in 2012 that revealed that flame-retardant chemicals added to furniture and other household goods are useless and toxic for American families, I began calling for reform of the antiquated law regulating toxic chemicals,” Durbin said. “Today’s agreement reflects a bipartisan effort to give the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) additional resources and authority to more effectively regulate chemicals and ensure timely compliance with new laws. Further delay in reforming this broken system risks exposing more families to toxic substances and leaves the EPA with little recourse against the aggressive chemical companies that have been exploiting the lack of oversight.”

The bill was introduced by U.S. Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and David Vitter (R-LA).

Udall thanked Durbin and Markey for their support of the bill. Udall emphasized the necessity of making necessary changes to the law.

"The law has been broken for far too long, and as we prepare to begin debate on the Senate floor, I encourage all lawmakers to act to protect families, young children and pregnant women from dangerous chemicals and support this bill," Udall said.

To date, 60 senators have co-sponsored the bill.

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Energy and Environment News

(ACC Mentioned) Oklahoma Expected to Meet New Ozone Limits

Oct 6, 2015 | Ledger Gazette

By Frank Ramirez

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in a video that it is strengthening the standard of air quality for ground-level ozone, or smog.
The new standard sets the maximum amount of ozone at 70 parts per billion, down from 75 parts per billion, the standard established in 2008. Environmental and public health groups said the new standard was a step in the right direction but did not go far enough. Proponents say it will reduce exposure to risky pollutants linked to asthma and respiratory illness, preventing thousands of emergency room visits and hundreds of premature deaths each year.
By that year, the benefits of meeting the standard will be worth between $2.9 billion and $5.9 billion per year, EPA says.
However, industry groups are not enthused.
However, a few industry groups said the new limits were too strict, and would stifle growth and job creation.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) said the agency’s action puts $10 billion in chemical industry investment at risk.
When ozone standards are lowered, the ACC said they take effect immediately and so manufacturers who want to build or expand must apply for permits showing that their project will comply. Setting the level at 70 parts per billion “will essentially eliminate exposures to the levels that clinical studies clearly show are harmful”, McCarthy said.
Department of Natural Resources Secretary Cathy Stepp told the EPA in a March 17 letter on her letterhead, and signed by an aide, that if ozone levels are reduced significantly, it would harm the state’s manufacturing economy and that “half of all counties in Wisconsin” could be designated as in violation of the law. The National Association of Manufacturers and other groups had lobbied the White House in recent months and spent millions on a TV ad campaign decrying the pending ozone rule as an overreach and a job killer.
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, called the new standards “yet another example of the Obama administration’s enthusiasm for needless regulation”. Since 1980, ozone-forming emissions have been cut by half, and the trend would have continued without setting a new standard, he added.
Doug O’Malley, director of Environment New Jersey, said one way to reduce tailpipe pollution from cars is to encourage low-emission vehicles as neighboring states are already doing. Gretchen Goldman from the Union of Concerned Scientists in Massachusetts, US, said the EPA’s new rule is relatively weak.
“Put just simply – ozone infection implies that it painful to respire for anyone most succeptible: our children, our getting on and people affected by cardiovascular and repiratory tract ailments”, sections of the countryEnvironmental protection agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, within the you simply push launch.

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(ACC Mentioned) Slow EPA Ozone Permitting Could Delay Up to $10 Billion of Manufacturing Investment

Oct 6, 2015 | American Energy News

By Markham Hislop

The American Chemistry Council says as much as $10 billion of business investment may be sidelined waiting for the EPA’s sluggish process – which sometimes takes years – to issue ozone permits.
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest.
The Obama administration on Thursday established stricter limits on the smog-causing pollution linked to asthma and respiratory illness, drawing swift condemnation from business leaders who warned of damage to the economy.
The Environmental Protection Agency said the new standard of 70 parts per billion will reduce exposure to dangerous ozone pollution and prevent thousands of asthma attacks and emergency room visits and hundreds of premature deaths each year.
Environmental and health groups argued that the rules fall short. The new standard is below the current standard of 75 parts per billion but at the high end of a range announced by the EPA last fall.
The move fulfills a long-delayed campaign promise by President Barack Obama as he works to cement a legacy on climate change and other environmental policies before leaving office in January 2017. After pledging during his first presidential campaign to tighten ozonelimits, Obama backtracked in 2011 by yanking the EPA’s proposed ozone limits amid intense pressure from industry and the GOP.
EPA administrator Gina McCarthy.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday the new ozone rule fits into Obama’s strategy to cut pollution while promoting economic growth.
Business groups said a new ozone standard is unnecessary and could jeopardize jobs. The National Association of Manufacturers and other groups had lobbied the White House in recent months and spent millions on a TV ad campaign decrying the pending ozone rule as an overreach and a job killer.
“We know that this regulation could have been worse, but it still feels like a punch in the gut,” said Tom Riordan, president and CEO of the Wisconsin-based Neenah Enterprises Inc. and task force leader for the manufacturers group.
Riordan said the EPA rule put “politics above job creation” and said manufacturers across the country, especially smaller ones, “will be forced to choose between navigating this rule and hiring new workers, between complying with Washington’s mandates and giving raises to their employees.”
The American Chemistry Council cited the EPA’s ponderous permitting process as a significant challenge for American manufacturers. It claims the new rule puts $10 billion in chemical industry investment at risk and says it members are very concerned that some projects—new facilities, plant expansions and factory restarts—will remain in limbo until the EPA explains how to obtain a permit under the new standards.
“When ozone standards are lowered, they take effect immediately. Manufacturers who want to build or expand must apply for permits showing that their project will comply. It’s up to EPA to provide the rules and guidance, but it has often taken years for the Agency to do so. For example, EPA finished the requirements for the 2008 ozone standards just this past March,” the Council said in a statement.
The Council says it has discussed the permitting paradox with the EPA, and hopes that guidance for the new standards will be provided soon, adding that before facilities can even apply for a permit, they need some degree of certainty about the process.
“We are also troubled by EPA’s lack of transparency with the underlying scientific data, and that the methodology the Agency used to assess impacts ignored indirect societal and economic costs. These and other systemic issues underscore the need for broader regulatory reform,” the Council added.
The rule issued Thursday meets a court-ordered deadline set after public health groups sued in the wake of the administration’s 2011 withdrawal of ozone rules.
At least one environmental group vowed to challenge the new standard in court, and business groups said they also were considering a legal challenge.
Cutting ozone emissions to 70 parts per billion would cost industry about $1.4 billion in 2025, the EPA said, far below benefits estimated at $2.9 billion to $5.9 billion annually.
Aiming to smooth the transition, the EPA plans to give states that have the most ozone up to 2037 to come into compliance. But McCarthy said most of the U.S. won’t have to take any action, thanks to existing pollution programs and previous EPA limits on pollutants such as mercury and carbon dioxide that have the side benefit of reducing ozone.
The EPA said only 14 U.S. counties would likely fail to meet a standard of 70 parts per billion in 2025, a figure challenged by business groups and Republicans.
The new rules could affect job growth in nearly one-third of the nation’s 3,000 counties, said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s top lobbying group. That’s up from 217 counties affected at the current ozone standard, he said.

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Foes of New Ozone Limit Push Legislation to Halt It

Oct 7, 2015 | E&E Daily

By Amanda Reilly

On the heels of the Obama administration's update to the national ozone standard, congressional and industry foes of U.S. EPA are pushing for legislation that would stop the agency from enforcing the new limit.
The favored approach is a bill introduced earlier this year in the House and Senate that aimed to stop EPA from updating the ozone standard until 85 percent of counties achieve the 75 parts per billion limit set in 2008 during the George W. Bush administration.
The bill would also inject consideration of feasibility and cost into EPA's future decisions about where to set the ozone standard.
A spokesperson for Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas) -- the lead House sponsor of the measure -- yesterday said the sponsors were considering tweaking the language to halt EPA from implementing a new standard under 75 ppb.
"With bipartisan legislation like the CASE Act [or the "Clean Air, Strong Economies" Act], I believe we can keep America on the path to cleaner air without strangling economic growth," Olson said in a statement.
EPA last week finalized a new national ambient air quality standard at 70 ppb, or the upper end of the range it proposed last November. EPA said it determined after a science review that the 75 ppb limit for ozone, a key component of smog, was no longer adequate to protect public health (Greenwire, Oct. 1).
Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) introduced the CASE Act in the Senate in March, while Olson and Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) offered the bill in the lower chamber. The Senate version, S. 751, has 27 co-sponsors; the House version, H.R. 1388, has 66 co-sponsors.
A version of the legislation was added as an amendment to the House's fiscal 2016 spending bill for the Interior Department and EPA earlier this year; that bill stalled after a fight over amendments targeting the Confederate flag. It's also in the Senate's spending bill for the two agencies.
Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, said the Thune-Olson legislation remains the group's top choice for addressing the ozone standard in Congress. NAM was among the most vocal critics of EPA's bid to lower the ozone standard.
"That's a reasonable piece of legislation that would allow the time and flexibility to continue making improvements on ozone levels," he said, "and put us in a better position economically to be able to handle the impact of the economic consequences of the new regulation."
In a brief interview yesterday, Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said his panel plans to take up the bill in some form.
"I can't tell you just where that is on the schedule, but the answer is yes, we do," he said.
Committee Republicans last week grilled EPA acting air chief Janet McCabe on the ozone standard, arguing that it could be the most expensive regulation ever (E&E Daily, Sept. 30).
Thune said he could see the legislation moving either as a freestanding bill or as a policy rider on an appropriations bill or a larger measure. It's unlikely that President Obama, however, would sign the bill into law.
"It's a great, common-sense practical way to deal with this issue," he said. "All we're saying is until 85 percent of the counties that are currently out of compliance with the existing standard get into compliance, that we shouldn't be lowering the standard any further."
Manchin yesterday predicted the Senate would "probably" vote on the measure.
He remains the only Democrat to have co-sponsored the bill in the upper chamber.
"It's just common sense, that's all," he said. "I want to clean up the environment, but you have to be reasonable. If you haven't even met the 75 threshold, why would you want to take it down?"
In the House, Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas and Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona are the only Democrats co-sponsoring the bill, though four additional Democrats voted to retain a similar provision in the Interior-EPA spending bill earlier this summer (E&ENews PM, July 8).
Manchin yesterday did not answer a question about whether more Democrats would back the measure. But Thune said he believed that "there ought to be other Democrats for it," given the widespread concerns about a tighter ozone standard.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) last month, for example, said he was concerned about how many counties in Colorado would be in violation of a tighter ozone limit, but he did not say whether he would support the CASE Act (Greenwire, Aug. 27).
Thune said a floor vote would be the only means of testing just how many Democrats are opposed to the tighter limit.
"When it comes to a vote on the floor, we'll see," he said. "Because there are going to be a lot of states impacted by this that are represented by Democratic senators."
While they've expressed disappointment in EPA for setting what they believe is a weak standard, green groups have vowed to defend the Clean Air Act in Congress. They've said that the CASE Act would fundamentally change the law by injecting cost considerations into decisions about national ambient air quality standards.
Under the Clean Air Act and affirmed by the Supreme Court, EPA is allowed only to consider public health when setting a new standard.
"We will fend off political attacks that threaten the Clean Air Act's guarantee of safe air based on medical science alone," John Walke, senior attorney and clean air director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said last week (E&ENews PM, Oct. 1).

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For EPA's Ozone Standard, No Cost is Too High, No Risk Too Low

Oct 7, 2015 | The Hill - Pundits Blog

By Kathleen Hartnett White

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) expanding regulatory dominion apparently knows no bounds. The science behind the EPA's current crusade, however, is a statistical house of cards. Although less stringent than anticipated, the new national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for ozone, set at 70 parts per billion (ppb), may be the straw that breaks the back of our struggling economy.
The newly adopted standard, which has been pending since 2011 when the White House yanked back the rule at a cost of $90 billion annually, joins at least 20 other EPA rules of unprecedented scope, stringency and cost promulgated under the Obama administration. Long considered the most burdensome of the EPA's air quality programs, the new ozone standard will substantially add to the burgeoning costs already imposed by the EPA's torrent of rules. The need, however, for a tougher ozone standard is highly questionable.
The impact the agency has on the economy is no longer confined to pricey yet marginal costs of production. In previous administrations, the EPA's big rules carried costs in the several millions — now, it is in the tens of billions. The result of the agency's infeasible demands are business closures and job losses. No longer a meddler but a force, look to the EPA to understand why the economy has stalled at 2 percent growth and labor force participation rate approaches a record low not seen since 1977.
Perhaps worse than increasing the costs of doing business, the rising stack of EPA rules cumulatively smothers the fundamental dynamics of profitable enterprise. The EPA's regulatory regime makes businesses operate more like bureaucracies rather than efficient, creative and productive enterprises. Only massive bureaucracies like the EPA could design such labyrinthine, inefficient systems. Under the EPA's chain mail, business activity must defer to the compliance process. This typically requires spending as much or more time on paperwork than actual compliance with the rule.
The EPA's new ozone standard and the other new dictates come at an odd time in the history of environmental regulation. Although rarely acknowledged, air quality in the U.S. has dramatically improved over the last 30 years while the economy grew by 200 percent. Tailpipe emissions — a major source of ozone precursors — have been reduced by more than 95 percent from 1980 to 2013 while vehicles' miles traveled have increased by 178 percent. Pollutants have fallen across the board. A few of the many examples: Ambient levels of sulfur dioxide declined by 82 percent between 1980 and 2010. Emissions of lead have fallen by 96 percent. Benzene — a well-known carcinogen — has declined by 88 percent.
After air quality improvements of this magnitude, on what basis does the EPA justify the need for all these aggressive rules to protect us from "early death"? The EPA maintains the it reviewed 1,000 scientific studies in determining the ozone NAAQS. Yet the ozone standard ultimately relied on two weak, outdated epidemiological studies and an implausible methodology that imputes health risks at pollutant levels below natural background levels to zero! By use of this methodology, known as "no-safe-threshold" statistical analysis, the EPA extrapolated health risks four times higher than previously established.
Such no-safe-threshold methodology is also a way to mask the EPA's primary agenda to "end the era of fossil fuels." If the costs of the new ozone standard outweigh the estimated health benefits, the EPA simply conjures some coincidental benefits from reducing other pollutants that might occur while reducing ozone. Such "co-benefits" account for approximately 70 percent of the health benefits that the EPA claims for the new ozone standard.
The EPA maintains that the new ozone NAAQS will reduce the rising incidence of asthma, a widely accepted claim. Yet, even at face value, the EPA's claims about asthma are dubious. Over the last 30 years, while ozone and other pollutants were declining, incidence of asthma has risen 100 percent. So how will further reduction of ozone reduce asthma? Data from Texas hospitals show that asthma-related admissions are much higher in winter than in summer, when ozone levels are the highest. Consider exposure. Ozone levels decline by roughly 90 percent when indoors but the EPA assumes people are exposed to the highest monitored ozone level 24 hours per day — an implausible worst-case scenario.
Our country has demonstrated that robust economic growth and environmental quality are not only compatible, but interdependent. The prosperity achieved in this country has made possible a successful investment in improved air quality under the highly protective terms of the Clean Air Act. The EPA's manipulation of science, however, denies policymakers and the public the information needed to weigh the many trade-offs involved in societal decisions about unacceptable environmental risks.
Protection of air quality is an essential and ongoing responsibility, but the impacts of this EPA's expanding universe have become a substantial but unjustified drag on our economy. EPA action is now killing jobs. Economic impact does matter and it matters to health. Income and employment strongly correlate with human well-being and lifespan.
Several years ago, a National Academy of Sciences review of the EPA's risk assessments concluded that the EPA's science "was on the rocks." Sound science and objective scientists abound. If the EPA was required to utilize more rigorous science, air quality would continue to improve, but at a far lower cost.
White is a distinguished senior fellow-in-residence and director of the Armstrong Center for Energy & the Environment at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She is a former chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).

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Democrats Expected to Block Energy Spending Bill

Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Ari Natter

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) teed up a $35.4 billion energy and water spending bill Oct. 6, but Democrats are expected to block consideration of the measure amid a broader fight over spending levels.
A vote to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed to the fiscal 2016 spending bill (H.R. 2028), scheduled to occur on Oct. 8, is expected to fail, Don Stewart, a McConnell spokesman told Bloomberg BNA.
“The Democrats are making a terrible mistake by blocking appropriations bills,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Energy and Water Development, told Bloomberg BNA. “There is no reason in the world for the Senate not to send it to the President.”
The legislation, which would appropriate $29.4 billion for the Department of Energy, was easily approved by the Appropriations Committee on a 26-4 vote in May, but it has become mired in a larger fight because it reflects spending allocation levels implemented under the Budget Control Act opposed by President Barack Obama (99 DEN A-18, 5/22/15).
Opposition Vowed
A spokesman for Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The President will veto bills at this allocation, and Democrats will vote against motions to proceed to these bills on the Senate floor,” Mikulski said earlier this year.
The bill also contains a number of policy riders opposed by Democrats, leading the White House to issue a veto threat for the bill.
Among them is language that would ban the Energy Department from using social cost of carbon estimates in rulemakings. Other policy provisions in the bill include a measure that would bar the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from redefining mining “fill material,” a move supported by organizations representing mining companies such as Peabody Energy Corp. and Alpha Natural Resources Inc.

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McConnell Tees Up Energy Spending Bill

Oct 6, 2015 | The Hill - Floor Action Blog

By Jordain Carney

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell teed up an energy appropriations bill on Tuesday.
The Kentucky Republican filed cloture on proceeding to the spending bill. Under Senate rules, that sets up a first procedural vote as early as Thursday. No vote has been scheduled though, and the Senate is still working on an annual defense bill.
The House passed the legislation, which would fund the Department of Energy and water development projects, largely along party lines earlier this year.
The administration, however, has threatened to veto the legislation, arguing that it "drastically underfunds" energy programs.
The measure provides $1.2 billion more than the current spending level but is $633 million less than what the Obama administration requested.

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Momentum Waning for Bipartisan Energy Action

Oct 6, 2015 | CQ Roll Call

By Ed Felker

Republicans in the House and Senate have succeeded in pushing bills to overhaul the nation’s energy laws through two committees, setting up potential floor votes in their drive to revamp energy policy for the first time since 2007.
Yet serious divides have appeared among the bipartisan group of lawmakers who came together to draft the House bill, lowering the odds that the Republican-led 114th Congress will craft legislation that President Barack Obama would be willing to sign into law.
Such an outcome would extend the partisan standoff that pits fossil fuel advocates in the GOP, who want to spur more oil and gas production, against Democrats who agree with the president that any major legislation must address climate change.
Complicating the landscape is the Republican push to lift the ban on oil exports over objections by the administration and Democrats in both chambers.
The House was to vote by the end of this week on an export ban repeal bill ( HR 702) by Rep.Joe L. Barton, R-Texas, that has the support of the Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. He is seen as the leading candidate to replace departing Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio.
Two measures in the Senate to lift the ban have also failed to win much Democratic support. A repeal bill, with offshore drilling and state royalty revenue provisions (S 2011) was reported out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in July, but no Democrats on the panel voted for it.
Another repeal bill (S 1372) by Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., was reported out of the Banking, Housing and Urban Development Committee last week. She was the only Democrat to vote for it, however.
Republicans added language to the bill to stop the international agreement with Iran over its nuclear program until that nation pays victims who have won court judgments over terrorism attacks.
Demise Predicted
That led Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., to predict the bill would not advance any further, and that any oil export legislation would have to be attached to appropriations language in December, when the current stopgap authority runs out.
A White House spokesman said last week the administration sees no need for repeal legislation, and would not support passage of the Heitkamp bill — a statement that threw a shadow over prospects to repeal the ban legislatively while Obama is in office.
The drama over oil exports come as Republicans in the House last week made clear they will push ahead with their pro-fossil fuels energy agenda, even if that means passing their policy bill on the floor with little Democratic backing.
The Energy and Commerce Committee reported out its policy measure, the Architecture of Abundance bill (HR 8), with just three Democrats voting in favor. They withdrew their support after last-minute changes drove a wedge between them and Republicans.
“It’s a bad sign for energy legislation writ large, it’s a bad sign for crude oil exports,” said Kevin Book, managing partner of analysis firm CleanView Energy Partners, of the vote in the committee.
Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., and ranking Democrat Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey wrote a draft of the bill over the summer under an agreement to bring a measure to the committee that would win support from both sides of the aisle.
The draft bill focused primarily on energy efficiency, pipelines and coordination with Canada and Mexico, with changes to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund.
It was approved by the committee’s energy panel by voice vote, though Democrats cautioned more compromises were needed to get their support.
That halting support evaporated over Republican insistence that the bill brought to the full committee include language to repeal a 2030 deadline for federal buildings to use non-fossil fuel energy.
They also objected to requirements that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission prepare electricity reliability impact studies on major Environmental Protection Agency regulations, which they contend would undermine Obama’s climate agenda.
Coal Support
Another controversial GOP addition would require FERC to analyze regional energy capacity markets, which ensure adequate reserves during high-demand periods, and make recommendations to ensure financial support for plants that can run full time, which are also known as baseload power sources.
Democrats said the language is intended to prop up coal and nuclear power over renewables.
Upton said he was optimistic the bill could be revised via amendments on the House floor and in talks with the Senate to yield legislation the president could sign. Pallone, however, scoffed at that stance, arguing the bill was changed in ways Obama would not accept.
That vote came barely a week after Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Harry Reidof Nevada, unveiled an energy bill (S 2089) they intend to push on the Senate floor — one that sharply clashes with Republican priorities.
The bill touches key Democratic political must-haves: it would seek to curb U.S. greenhouse gas emissions though extensions of tax breaks for renewable energy, while repealing billions of dollars in annual tax incentives for the oil industry.
Ending those tax breaks is something Obama has sought unsuccessfully in his annual budget proposals.
The Democratic bill contrasts with the more modest energy legislation (S 2012) reported out of Senate Energy in July on an 18-4 vote, with eight Democrats voting for it.
That bill permanently reauthorized the Land and Water Conservation Fund and focused on provisions to advance energy efficiency and streamline Energy Department consideration of liquefied natural gas export applications. It also contained a provision to repeal the zero-carbon requirement for federal buildings by 2030.
Ranking committee member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said the broader Democratic energy bill represents the agenda for her side when the committee bill hits the floor, but also for the next Congress.
She and Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, are waiting for the chance to get their bill brought up for votes by the full Senate, but there appears to be a wait ahead. The Senate is expected to take up other bills first, while working toward a final fiscal 2016 spending deal by Dec. 11, when the current stopgap continuing resolution law expires.
The lack of strong Democratic backing for the House Energy and Commerce bill appears to complicate the outlook for energy legislation getting to Obama, Cantwell said, but her first objective is to get her committee’s bipartisan bill brought up on the floor.
“We’d love to see the Senate move to some floor time on energy, because we’ve got a bipartisan package out. To me that would be a good start, so we don’t really even have to worry about them for the moment,” Cantwell said of the House.
Yet Book downplayed the chances any bill — either the bipartisan policy bill or an oil exports bill — will get to Obama, given the partisan amendments energy legislation typically draws on the Senate floor, and the 2016 elections.
“If you can get it out of the Senate, assuming you could get through the Senate floor with the partisan contention yet to come, you still have to fight your way through the House and all that’s there,” he said of the Senate bipartisan bill.
“I wouldn’t give zero percent chance of bipartisan legislation, but a comprehensive bill with all that it attracts, is going to be difficult,” Book added. “And a bill that opens crude exports, which is becoming increasingly a Republican cause celebre, is also going to be difficult, because for Democrats who are trying to win back the Senate, they have very little incentive to do anything before the election.”

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EPA Staffer to Lead Obama's Public Push on Climate

Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Andrea Vittorio

The Environmental Protection Agency's top public affairs officer is moving to the White House to help craft President Barack Obama's ever-louder message on climate change.
Thomas Reynolds, EPA associate administrator for public affairs, will be tasked with talking up the president's climate and energy policies, including landmark carbon pollution controls for the nation's power plants, as the U.S. and nearly 200 other countries pursue a potentially historic agreement to fight global warming.
The international accord, which could be finalized at a year-end United Nations meeting in Paris, would for the first time commit both developed and developing nations to ratchet down their heat-trapping emissions. A successful agreement would seal Obama's legacy on climate change—an issue he has increasingly championed during his final years in office (185 DEN A-1, 9/24/15).
“It's an exciting opportunity to pitch in on a key legacy issue for the President, something he has described as one of the defining challenges of our time,” Reynolds said in an Oct. 6 email announcing his move.
Defended EPA Policies
The administration's climate agenda has been welcomed by environmental and public health advocates but has met fierce opposition from many Republicans and industry groups who cite concerns over costs and potential job losses that may result from regulations. Over the past two years, Reynolds has defended EPA policies against such attacks (103 DEN A-1, 5/29/14).
“We're pleased that Tom will continue working on these important priorities for President Obama, but sad to see him go,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in an Oct. 5 note to staff. “Tom has been one of my key advisors, helping to manage successful Clean Power Plan announcements, Clean Water Rule communications and many other important communications priorities for the agency.”
“I want to thank Tom for all of his hard work and wish him the best in his next challenge,” she added.
Reynolds previously worked as a staffer on Obama's campaign for president.
EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia will take over as EPA acting associate administrator for public affairs.

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EPA Communications Chief to become White House Message Man

Oct 6, 2015 | E&E PM

By Jean Chemnick

U.S. EPA's communications chief is going to the White House to fill a new position devoted to climate messaging.
Tom Reynolds has led the EPA communications shop for two years, during which time it has grown into a much more aggressive operation, especially in defense of marquee environmental rules frequently under attack on Capitol Hill.
Reynolds, who has a campaign background, has directed the agency's defense of the Clean Power Plan, the Waters of the U.S. rule and other controversial regulations that Republican lawmakers have targeted. The office's strategy under Reynolds has included greater use of social media, including the agency's blog, and more strenuous pushback against news reports that are unfavorable to the agency and its actions. They are tactics Reynolds also used when serving on the Energy Department's communications team during the political firestorm over failed solar company Solyndra, which had received DOE loan guarantees under the administration's stimulus program (Greenwire, Aug. 7, 2014).
Now, with the Clean Water Act and power plant carbon rules final, Reynolds joins the White House tomorrow at a time when President Obama is looking to cement his climate legacy. The Clean Power Plan is the backbone of Obama's emissions reduction pledge, which administration negotiators will carry with them to Paris at the end of this year for a high-stakes round of U.N. negotiations. Obama placed a personal stake in helping to secure an international emissions deal, and GOP leaders have their sights set on scuttling not only the Clean Power Plan but U.S. participation in a Paris agreement.
In an email to EPA staff yesterday afternoon, Administrator Gina McCarthy called Reynolds "one of my key advisors."
"We're pleased that Tom will continue working on these important priorities for President Obama, but sad to see him go," she said.
The White House said that Reynolds would work with both the communications and climate team "on planning and strategy around a number of energy and climate related priorities ahead -- including the Paris talks and implementing the Clean Power Plan."
The White House did not say why it is creating this new position now, at the end of Obama's second term. Climate communications have been coordinated by the White House throughout Obama's presidency, but senior climate advisers, including John Podesta, have usually set the tone.
EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia will become acting associate administrator for public relations following Reynolds' departure.

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Talks Under Way in Nascent Oil Export Deal

Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Ari Natter

It may be a long shot, but Senate Democrats are seeking a long-term extension of wind and solar energy tax incentives in talks with Republicans about gaining their support to lift the 40-year-old ban on most crude oil exports.
“There are a number of pieces that I think are in play,” Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) told Bloomberg BNA. “We are having those conversations with folks to figure out if we can't get to some sort of balanced, bipartisan energy package that makes sense for both sides of the aisle and frankly for the country.”
It remains to be seen what, if anything, Republicans will agree to in exchange for minority support to end the oil export restrictions. Also unclear is whether the White House would go along with a deal.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest has said that the Obama administration wouldn't support House legislation (H.R. 702) or Senate bill (S. 1372) to lift the ban.
In an interview, Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said a policy rider ending the oil export ban “could very possibly end up” in a broader year-end budget deal to fund the government. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and other congressional leaders are discussing how to negotiate a two-year budget deal.
“There are a lot of things being talked about, but I think this is something that could be a consideration as a part of the spending bill,” Corker told Bloomberg BNA.
Joseph P. McMonigle, a senior energy analyst at Potomac Research Group, called Earnest's remarks a carefully crafted statement aimed at gaining “leverage for a potential deal.”
Chance for Compromise
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), the author of a Senate bill (S. 1372) that would lift the ban, said she sees a chance for compromise.
“There is still an opportunity to build a good coalition in the middle,” she said at a forum held by National Journal in September.
Unlike the House, where a simple majority is needed to approve legislation, 60 votes are effectively needed to advance a bill in the Senate.
With Republicans holding 54 seats, at least six Democrats would need to vote in favor of legislation to remove the trade restrictions, which were put in place in 1975 in the wake of the Arab oil embargo.
A number of Senate Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), have indicated reversing the ban on crude oil exports could win their broader support if it is part of a larger deal that could include a multibillion-dollar extension of the production tax credit for wind and other renewable sources or an extension of the solar investment tax credit.
Reid cracked open the door for a deal in August, when he said lifting the trade prohibition is “something we need to talk about.”
Reid ‘Interested.'
“Let's see if we can come up with something that would be good for the country,” Reid said during a news conference at his annual Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, according to a transcript. “I'm interested in this to see if there's something that can be done to help both parties.”
A Reid spokesman later downplayed his remarks, warning not to read too much into them.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), speaking at an energy forum earlier during the summer, said winning enough Democrats' support to end the ban would “require some kind of a trade.”
“To get the export ban lifted, you are going to have to make some kind of more comprehensive approach,” Warner said. “Whether it's tied back to infrastructure or sequestration, there is some kind of opportunity.”
“I do think that if there's a realistic opportunity to get something like this passed it's going to require a more comprehensive approach,” Warner said earlier this month. “I think that there are both environmental issues to be dealt with, there are job issues, and honestly there are revenue issues as well that could be part of the mix.”
Proponents of lifting the ban, which applies to most domestic crude oil exports, argue it is an outdated relic of the past and should be changed now that U.S. oil production is booming thanks to advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. U.S. crude oil production has increased from around 5 million barrels a day in 2008 to a projected 9.2 million barrels a day in 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Oil Producers v. Refiners
Changing the law is supported by more than a dozen oil companies such as ConocoPhillips Co. and Hess Corp., but it is opposed by Valero Energy Corp. and other refiners who stand to lose profits of $22 billion a year in 2025 if the law is changed, according to the EIA (170 DEN A-3, 9/2/15).
Both Heinrich and Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) hinted they could be persuaded to support Senate legislation that would end the trade prohibition—prior to voting against it during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee markup in July.
The bill (S. 2011) by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was approved on a party-line vote of 12-10 and includes other policy changes, such as an expansion of offshore drilling and revenue sharing, but isn't expected to see floor action any time soon (147 DEN A-5, 7/31/15)(147 DEN A-5, 7/31/15).
“I think before we make such a monumental shift in U.S. policy, I hope we can agree to extend our existing policy incentives for carbon-free energy sources vis-a-vis the solar [Investment Tax Credit] and the wind [Production Tax Credit],” Heinrich said.
Renewables Required
King said the Senate bill, formally known as the Offshore Production and Energizing National Security Act, instead should be called the No Fossil Fuel Left Behind Act, but added he could be persuaded to vote for it.
“I might be prepared to support it, but only if there is a more balanced package of changes in the bill, for example,” he said. It should include incentives such as extension of the investment tax credit for the solar industry and the production tax credit for wind and other renewables sources, he said.
“So that's where I just want to suggest that there may be further discussions before the bill comes to the floor,” King said.
A two-year extension of the 2.3 cents-per-kilowatt-hour credit, estimated to cost nearly $10.5 billion over 10 years, was included in legislation approved by the Senate Finance Committee in July, but its passage is far from a done deal, especially in the House where it has faced stauncher resistance (140 DEN A-2, 7/22/15).
Hard Pill to Swallow
Likewise, an extension and modification of a solar investment tax credit, sought by companies such as SolarCity Corp., also would carry a multibillion-dollar price tag and would be a hard pill for some Republicans to swallow.
The 30 percent tax credit automatically drops to 10 percent for commercial projects and expires for residential solar projects at the end of 2016. Solar advocates have sought its extension as well as a tweak so that projects that begin construction, rather than begin operation, by Dec. 31, 2016, would be able to qualify for the full credit (139 DEN A-3, 7/21/15).
Extending the solar investment tax credit could cost between $20 billion to $40 billion over a 10-year period, according to ClearView Energy Partners LLC, a Washington-based consulting firm.
“I think it would be awfully hard for all the Republicans who railed against the green subsidies to go back and support them in the name of free markets,” Kevin Book, ClearView's managing director of research, told Bloomberg BNA. “I'm not sure [Democrats] can get anything.”
Still Republicans such as Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who serves as majority whip, are leaving the door to a deal open.
“We obviously need to get some Democrat votes,” Cornyn told Bloomberg BNA. “My view is that export ban is the right policy on its independent merits on a stand-alone basis, but obviously we need to have a serious conversation about what's possible.”
Added Murkowski in an interview with Bloomberg BNA: “I do have other colleagues that are very interested in finding out if there could be something else that is in the mix and I know those conversations are going on.”
Book, whose firm puts the odds of action before the 2016 election at 15 percent, said Republicans are unlikely to make a deal before 2017, when a new president takes office.
Presidential Race a Factor
“It still isn't clear to us that Republicans are ready to come to the table to bargain for crude exports when they may have a shot at winning the White House and ending the ban free and clear,” ClearView said in a research note. “Arguably, the time to make a trade for green energy subsidies might be after Republicans lose, upon the inauguration of another Democrat.”
Earnest said the White House opposes House legislation to lift the ban because “this is a policy decision that is made over at the Commerce Department,” but he stopped short of saying President Barack Obama would veto the bill.
“We wouldn't support legislation like the one that's been put forward by Republicans,” Earnest said, repeating the White House's ongoing request to repeal billions of dollars worth of preferential tax treatment received by the oil and gas industry, and instead use that money to boost renewables (179 DEN A-12, 9/16/15).
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), author of House legislation (H.R. 702) to lift the export ban that is scheduled to be brought to the House floor the week of Oct. 5, said Earnest's remarks were intended to give the president negotiating room.
White House Deal Possible?
“I took it as: I ask a girl for a date and she wants to know what we are going to do on that date. She didn't say ‘no,' ” Barton told reporters. “What the White House said was not ‘No way.' It was: ‘We'd rather do it a different way' than my bill does.”
Barton's bill was approved Sept. 17 by the Energy and Commerce Committee on a 31-19 vote, with three Democrats voting in favor of the measure (181 DEN A-1, 9/18/15)(181 DEN A-1, 9/18/15).
George Baker, executive director of a Producers for American Crude Oil Exports, a coalition made up of Marathon Oil Corp., ConocoPhillips Co. and other companies that support removing the trade prohibition, said talk of a deal in the Senate is too early.
“I don't see those issues yet coming together until after the period we have this off the House floor,” Baker told Bloomberg BNA. “I'm not in a position to have a view on that whole package of discussions. I don't think it's mature enough.”
McConnell threw his support behind ending the 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports for the first time Sept. 16, calling the trade prohibition “a relic of the 70s,” but he did not answer a reporter's question about when and if he would schedule floor time for a bill that would end the ban.
“I support eliminating the oil export ban and apparently the deal with Iran is going to go into effect, the Iranians are going to be able to export their oil and we're not?” McConnell said. “I do support lifting the oil export ban, and that will be among other items that we discuss with the administration and we look forward to resolving.”

The ban, which doesn't apply to refined products such as gasoline and jet fuel, prohibits the export of U.S. crude oil, with exceptions for crude from Alaska and California and crude destined for Canada.

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Moniz: Petroleum Reserve Needed for Energy Security

Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Ari Natter

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz joined members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in warning against selling off portions of the nation's emergency crude oil stockpile.
“It's our nation's most central federal energy security asset, and it should be treated as such,” Moniz testified before the committee during a hearing on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. “I believe the SPR is an extremely powerful and valuable energy security tool.”
Lawmakers have proposed using sales from the nearly 700 million-barrel reserve to fund bills relating to a wide range of programs from transportation to drugs and medical devices.
“I believe looking at the reserve as nothing more than an ATM is wrong and irresponsible,” said committee chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in remarks that were echoed by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and others on the committee.
The SPR—established in the aftermath of the 1970s Arab oil embargo—is made available in case a disruption in commercial oil supplies threatens the U.S. economy, but as much as $2 billion in maintenance is needed to extend its life and for modernization, Moniz testified.
An Energy Department study on the size, composition and use of the reserve is expected to be completed by May, Moniz said.

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Moniz Stands His Ground Against Crude Exports

Oct 7, 2015 | E&E PM

By Geof Koss

Congressional support for repealing the ban on crude oil exports may be growing, but Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz remains a skeptic.
In an appearance before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee today, Moniz was pressed by Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) on why the administration is "dithering" on crude exports when it has taken steps to approve natural gas exports.
Moniz drew a distinction between the two commodities.
"In natural gas, we are of course -- I mean, we with some Canadian imports, although those have gone down, too -- we are essentially self-sufficient, and our export, we'll very shortly start the exports with [liquefied natural gas] out of the Lower 48," he said. "With oil, it's still very different where we are a 7-million-barrel-a-day importer of crude oil, a much greater exporter now of oil products, of course."
Asked by Barrasso whether zero crude imports is the administration's litmus test for supporting exports, Moniz said no, but noted that the United States is already exporting about 4 million barrels of refined product a day to South America and Europe.
"So they are getting the benefit of our increased production," Moniz said, addressing a key argument of export backers -- that shipping U.S. energy supplies abroad boosts the energy security of allies.
Moniz also took on another argument of export supporters by casting doubt that U.S. production is being constrained by export restrictions.
"The fact is that, and when you look at spreads, Brent, WTI, Louisiana light, it's hard to argue that there's been a lot of production being hemmed in by current rules," he said, referencing the global benchmark Brent crude, and West Texas Intermediate, the light sweet crude flowing from the domestic energy boom.
But Barrasso countered that hemmed-in production "means jobs lost in the United States in the oil industry for people that are actually out there working, trying to, you know, make a living, put food on the table. So it is -- it is a consideration for our economy."
Citing his own U.S. Energy Information Administration data, Moniz responded that U.S. production would have to be "substantially greater" to have an impact. "But right now, the evidence does not suggest a major impact," he said.
While the hearing ostensibly was about modernizing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, committee members came back to crude exports time and time again.
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) pressed Moniz on the need for keeping a policy enacted nearly four decades ago, noting that Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) wasn't even born when the ban was signed.
"I was in seventh grade, but it was a response to an acute crisis that we had, certainly," Daines said.
Moniz reiterated that the Commerce Department, not the Department of Energy, has authority over crude exports but again cited EIA projections that lifting the ban would have little practical impact.
"I go back to the fact that the EIA analysis certainly shows, certainly in anything like today's and projected markets, rather small impact of whether that's in place or not," he said.
After several exchanges with Daines on why the United States has such a ban, Moniz finally pointed out the obvious. "Well, it's the law," he said.
Daines in turn noted that Congress "is the body that makes laws and can change the law, and I hope we can get the White House to work with us here to remove that ban."
Moniz's testimony before the Senate Energy panel comes ahead of a House vote later this week on legislation (H.R. 702) to repeal the ban, which is expected to pass the lower chamber but faces uncertain prospects on the other side of the Capitol.

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Push for Oil Exports Faces Numerous Hurdles Despite Expected House Approval

Oct 7, 2015 | PoliticoPro

By Elana Schor

House Republicans plan to end this week by embracing the familiar unifying causeof promoting the U.S. oil industry, but their rally around crude exports will do little to open the door for international sales in the near future.
Friday's vote may bring together House Republicans otherwise riven by tumultuous leadership elections, but expected passage of legislation to end the export ban will train an already fierce lobbying campaign on the Senate, where some industry supporters hope it could be included in a year-end deal to keep the government funded and raise the debt limit. One GOP lawmaker also suggested making an end to the export ban a prerequisite for Republicans to approve President Barack Obama's recently completed trade agreement with Pacific-Rim nations.
Any such deal remains a longshot as the export push faces resistance from the left and right, and some analysts warn that quick action to lift the ban could backfire politically or economically. Senate Democrats have outlined a lengthy wish list of priorities they would be willing to trade for oil exports, and the Obama administration’s buy-in for domestic oil exports is far from assured, as Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz reiterated his view that exports are unnecessary.
"The current global market is one that ... does not seem to be, in reality, looking for that oil. That's just a fact," Moniz said during an Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing. Citing data from the Energy Information Administration, he said U.S. production would need to rise nearly 3 million barrels per day before the export ban could be blamed for shutting in production.
Moniz's remarks heartened supporters of the oil-sales status quo.
"I think Secretary Moniz is essentially asking the question ‘why now’ as much as we are,” Jay Hauck, chief of the CRUDE Coalition funded by four independent refiners that’s pushing to preserve the ban. “When we're still importing 7 million barrels of oil a day, voters don't understand why we would export crude, either."
Industry lobbyists have an answer: The once-mighty U.S. oil boom is hemorrhaging thousands of jobs a month, they say, and allowing exports amounts to a checkered flag for new investment in the industry.
“It’s tough for companies to envision how they're going to get from here to 2017,” said George Baker, executive director for Producers for American Crude Oil Exports, a coalition advocating an end to the ban.
But the push from oil companies and their GOP allies could backfire if exports become part of a deal that includes big Democratic priorities on climate change or other issues, warned Republican energy lobbyist Michael McKenna, who has urged fellow conservatives to avoid giving up too much.
"There is no difference between November 2015 and February 2017 for these guys,” McKenna said, referring to the financial health of the oil industry as it awaits the winner of a presidential election that — if the GOP prevails — could eliminate the ban without the need for congressional action. “If you're not going to make it, the repeal of the export ban isn't going to save you. So taking a deal is crazy."
Ending the ban also could lead to unintended economic consequences, one expert said. Citigroup's global head of energy strategy, Seth Kleinman, warned openly on Tuesday during a DOE-backed energy conference that ending the export ban risks driving down oil prices even further, given the recent narrowing in the price difference between the global and U.S. crude benchmarks. Proponents of ending the ban "should be careful what they wish for," Kleinman said in remarks firstreported by The Fuse.
Despite near-daily exchanges of rhetorical fire between PACE and CRUDE, in addition to a well-funded advertising push from the American Petroleum Institute and others, few of the ban's fundamental political dynamics have shifted since last month, when Senate Democratic leaders signaled that any compromise on crude exports would require more than an extension of green-energy tax credits which already count bipartisan support.
Perhaps the biggest shift that may tilt in favor of ban opponents is President Barack Obama's completion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact, which requires his advisers to count heads on the Hill for another close vote in the coming months. Like his Iran nuclear pact, the TPP also gives Republicans an opening to call for global free-trade fairness and a go-ahead for overseas oil sales.
"At a time when we’re going to lift restrictions on Iran" and move forward on TPP, "there is no question that U.S. oil producers should not be sitting idle," said API's top lobbyist, Louis Finkel.
Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), an Energy and Commerce Committee member, said Tuesday that he would consider making his TPP vote contingent on White House support for crude exports but added that he had yet to reach out to fellow Republicans on the idea.
Still, another Tuesday plot twist in the exports drama promised to stir up trouble for its supporters on the right. Heritage Action for America slammed the addition of an estimated $500 million in additional maritime security payments to the House exports bill. The funding appeared designed to corral Democratic votes, but Heritage spokesman Dan Holler slammed it as "corporate welfare" in a post on the group's website.
Should the added funding be "truly a matter of national security, there is every reason to expect it would have been included in the defense bill that the Senate is expected to clear later this week," Holler wrote. "Instead, reminiscent of the earmarking days, taxpayer money is being used to literally buy votes."
The addition also puzzled a Hill veteran now lobbying against the House bill.
"This 11th-hour, 'plug in a bunch of money to get votes from Democrats' thing, it's pretty amazing that they're doing this in 2015," the lobbyist said of the added maritime cash and its potential to jeopardize conservative support. "The sad irony is, they had the votes to pass this."
As Moniz reminded senators Tuesday, the Commerce Department — which has jurisdiction over existing exemptions to the ban — has opened up the domestic crude taps to a significant extent. Monthly exports of domestic crude oil topped 500,000 barrels in November, according to EIA, and have not fallen below 400,000 barrels during any month since then.
The only previous month that had seen more than 400,000 barrels of exported crude was in 1957, before the passage of the current set of laws that restrict overseas oil sales.
EIA also projected Tuesday that U.S. production is expected to fall from its April high of 9.6 million bpd to 8.6 million bpd in mid-2016, before rebounding somewhat in the ensuing months.

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Key Democrat to Vote Against House Crude Export Bill

Oct 7, 2015 | E&E Daily

By Hannah Northey

Democratic Rep. Gene Green of Texas last night said he would vote against a House bill to lift the country's crude oil export ban, a decision that took the legislation's Republican author, also from Texas, by surprise.
Green said during an interview that Republican Rep. Joe Barton rejected his amendments toH.R. 702, legislation lifting the decades-old ban on exporting domestic oil. The bill has drawn the support of more than 130 co-sponsors, including a number of Democrats.
Green said he recently offered two amendments ahead of today's Rules Committee markup and Friday's floor vote, but he quickly added that Barton wouldn't budge.
"Unless something changes, what I heard today, I'll probably vote against it and speak against it Friday," Green said.
Barton in a subsequent interview said he wasn't aware of Green's position. Barton also noted that Green was one of only three Democrats to support the bill when it passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee last month on a 31-19 vote (Greenwire, Sept. 17).
"He voted for it in committee," Barton said. "I'm disappointed; I didn't know that. It's his right."
Green's first amendment to Barton's bill would have allowed the president to impose requirements or restrictions on exports for up to one year in the case of a national emergency or for national security reasons. The president could also implement curbs on exports if they were to cause shortages or sustained prices far above world market levels or if those levels affected employment.
The second amendment would require oil exporters to receive a permit from Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security.
But Barton said the proposals would work against the overall effort of opening up the markets to U.S. crude oil.
"His permit amendment would gut the bill," Barton said. "The whole point is to create a free market, willing buyers, willing sellers."
Barton's bill last night also ran into rare opposition from the conservative Heritage Foundation, which for months has been pushing to lift the export ban. The group released a statement, arguing that "a last minute addition to the bill has entangled good policy in corporate welfare and a $500 million labor union buyoff."
House leaders added provisions extending the authorized spending levels for private vessels that aid the U.S. military under the federal Maritime Security Program.
But the Heritage Foundation said that language, which attracted the support of maritime organizations, amounted to unnecessary bidding to entice the industry.
"The payoff is even more incredible considering that a new president -- who will take office in about 15 months -- has the authority to lift the ban," the group wrote. "There is no reason lawmakers should cede to the cronyist demands of longshore unions and a handful of massive, international shipping companies."
Reporter Geof Koss contributed.

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McCabe Girds to Defend Rule Today in House Hearing

Oct 7, 2015 | E&E Daily

By Jean Chemnick

U.S. EPA's acting air chief is ready today to sing the Clean Power Plan's praises to an Energy and Commerce subcommittee that's already voted several times to kill it.
In prepared testimony posted on the Energy and Power Subcommittee website last night, Janet McCabe describes the existing power plant rule for carbon as "historic," "fair" and "flexible."
The rule was "shaped by a process of unprecedented outreach and public engagement that is still ongoing," she says in written testimony.
The rule would cut power-sector carbon emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Today will be McCabe's third congressional hearing on the Clean Power Plan since it was made final in August.
McCabe argues in her testimony that the rule follows trends that are already emerging in the power markets -- especially the broader use of natural gas and the shuttering of old coal-fired units.
And she points to EPA's decision to move the rule's compliance period back two years in the rule's final version to allow more time for state compliance.
"These features of the final rule, along with tools like interstate trading and emissions averaging, mean states and power plants can achieve the standards while [maintaining] an ample and reliable electricity supply and keeping power affordable," McCabe's testimony says.
McCabe's words seem calculated to head off the objections of subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) and other members who will use the hearing to protest that the rule will be an economic poison pill and a threat to electric reliability.
Whitfield has shepherded two bills through committee aimed at killing the rule. The retiring chairman has promised continued "guerilla warfare" this autumn as EPA turns to implementation.
One aspect of the rule that is not yet final is the federal implementation plan (FIP), which McCabe casts as the agency's offering to states to help guide their own compliance strategies.
"States don't have to use our plan -- they can cut carbon pollution in whatever way makes the most sense to them, including developing their own interstate trading program," she says.
But the proposed model is also a cudgel for states pursuing a "just say no" strategy, as urged by Whitfield and fellow Kentucky Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
So far, only a handful of states have aligned themselves with that strategy, and even some fossil fuel-heavy states like North Dakota and Wyoming have said that while they plan to sue to stop the rule, they will also plan ways to comply.
North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R) met with McCabe last week in Washington, D.C., during a meeting coordinated by North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven's office.
In an interview last week with E&ETV, he said the state was planning to comply with the rule at the urging of its utilities, who are concerned that an FIP would be more onerous.
Whitfield's most recent bill, H.R. 2042, which cleared the House in May, would bar the agency from imposing an FIP in a state that opted not to comply.
The subcommittee's ranking member, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), previewed his defense of the rule in prepared remarks circulated last night.
"Let us not heed the absurd arguments on behalf of companies that profit from the status quo," the remarks state. EPA's critics and those disputing climate science "are more than welcome to ignore the facts and reject any reasonable plan to address climate change, but history will not treat them kindly."

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Senators Spar Over Impact of Air Rules on Minorities

Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Rachel Leven

Republicans at a Senate subcommittee hearing took aim Oct. 6 at the number and burden of federal regulations, saying that environmental and other rules kill minority jobs and businesses.
Democrats disagreed at the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts hearing, instead pointing to regulations' role in ensuring equity in civil rights and protecting minorities against what they said were unbalanced environmental burdens.
“There is no greater obstacle to growth, to opportunity and prosperity than an invasive and intrusive government,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said. “Overregulation harms everyone, but it especially harms those who don't have the resources … to get a favor from the government.”
The debate sought to ferret out whether federal rules are harming or helping minority communities, a question that has been peppered throughout the release and implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan (189 DEN A-13, 9/30/15).
Environmental Rules Focus
Environmental regulations took a leading role in the hearing. Groups such as the Sierra Club stated the need for these environmental standards to protect minorities, while others, such as the National Black Chamber of Commerce, said these regulations are economically harming those same groups.
One interaction between Aaron Mair, president of the Sierra Club, and Harry Alford, president of the chamber, focused on the Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33), which both sides said proved their own points. The Clean Power Plan is a rule aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector.
More minority individuals live near power plants than non-minorities and therefore the air pollution improvements will affect them the most, helping to reduce the number of asthma attacks and other negative health outcomes, Mair said. Alford said that it would increase energy costs for minorities, cost them jobs and force their households to choose between paying for food, housing or energy, citing a study by his organization on the issue (114 DEN A-14, 6/15/15).
Cruz questioned the credibility of Mair's predictions that the Clean Power Plan wouldn't cost jobs or raise energy prices. He also later chided Mair for his stance that global warming is occurring and is no longer up for debate, which Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said was off the topic of the hearing.
Coons cited a number of studies and letters from groups that support the Clean Power Plan, noting those studies and letters find positive job and health implications for minority populations coming out of the rule.
Following the hearing, Cruz, who is also a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, reiterated his stance that global warming is a political ploy. Cruz added that the Obama administration's environmental rules “have nothing to do with clean air and clean water.”
“They have to do with a massive federal government power grab,” Cruz said.

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Group Asks EPA to Reconsider High Priority Violations

Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Andrew Childers

An update to the Environmental Protection Agency's “high priority violations” enforcement policy could exclude short-term bursts of air pollution that exceed industrial facilities' permitted limits but don't persist for seven days, an environmental group said.
The Environmental Integrity Project is asking the EPA to reconsider updates to its high priority violations policy issued in 2014 that prioritizes emissions violations that occur intermittently or regularly for at least seven days.
“This issue is particularly important to communities downwind from refineries, chemical plants and oil and gas drilling and processing sites,” the group said in its Oct. 6 letter to Cynthia Giles, the EPA's assistant administrator for enforcement.
“These and other industrial operations frequently release large quantities of benzene, butadiene, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, particulates, and other noxious pollutants in short but intense bursts, rather than in steady and predictable amounts over longer periods of time,” the Environmental Integrity Project said.
High priority violations, which can include emissions limits exceedances, failure to obtain necessary permits or other violations that interfere with enforcement actions, are subject to additional scrutiny and oversight by the EPA.
The Environmental Integrity Project in its letter highlighted 11 incidents where petroleum refineries and chemical manufacturers released large amounts of toxic pollutants over short periods of time that would not be covered by the EPA's revised high priority violations policy.
“We understand that EPA and states retain the discretion to classify any of the emission events described above as high priority violations,” the group said. “That does not address our concerns. The policy is clearly intended to create a presumption that violations that do not persist for at least seven days (either continuously or intermittently) are less serious because they are unlikely to pose a significant risk to public health or the environment. We respectfully disagree with these assumptions.”
The EPA revised its criteria for high priority violations in an Aug. 25, 2014, memorandum that reduced the number of categories of violations from 10 to six and updated criteria for pursuing those violations.

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Groups Seek Faster Phaseout of Hydrofluorocarbons

Oct 6, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Andrew Childers

Two environmental groups petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the use of several refrigerants and other alternatives to ozone-depleting substances that have significant global warming potentials in favor of less damaging options.
Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), in particular, should be phased out because they are short-lived greenhouse gases with significant global warming potential, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development said in their Oct. 6 petition, which seeks to have them listed as unacceptable for use under Section 612 of the Clean Air Act.
The EPA has already taken steps (RIN 2060-AS18) under the Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) Program to phase out the use of some HFCs previously permitted for use by chemical and equipment manufacturers in aerosols, foam blowing, motor vehicle air conditioning, retail food refrigeration and vending machines (80 Fed. Reg. 42,870; 128 DEN A-4, 7/6/15).
“EPA's recent SNAP delisting rule was an important step forward in employing this comparative analysis to revise and update the SNAP list, and it is imperative that the agency continue this successful approach with respect to more end-uses and chemicals.
The environmental groups argue the EPA needs to more aggressively phase out uses of refrigerants and other substances with high global warming potentials where viable alternatives are already available.
The groups in their petition are seeking to phase out various uses of R-404A, R-407A, R-407C, R-407F, R-410A, R-507A, HFC-23, HCFC-22 blends, HCFC-124, HFC-134a, HFC-245fa, HFC-365mfc, HFC-227ea, sulfur hexafluoride, perfluorinated compounds and trifluoroiodomethane.
While HFCs currently account for only 1.5 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, the environmental groups said emissions are expected to triple by 2030 unless the EPA takes further action.
“The relatively short-lived nature of these pollutants offers a unique opportunity to reverse and avoid some of the effects of climate change,” the groups said in their petition. “EPA has the opportunity, through its SNAP program, to rapidly protect the global climate by removing the most harmful and unnecessary chemicals from the list of approved alternatives.”

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EPA Urged To Classify Short-Term Emissions As HPVs

Oct 6, 2015 | InsideEPA

Environmentalists are urging EPA to modify its Clean Air Act enforcement program to include short-term spikes of air pollution lasting fewer than seven days in its definition of high priority violations (HPV) that warrant increased scrutiny from the agency, citing several brief releases of harmful pollutants from industrial facilities.
EPA last updated its policy on its enforcement response to air law HPVs in August 2014, narrowing its 1998 policy defining which facility air violations are high priority events triggering federal reporting requirements to help reduce what states have called an onerous record-keeping burden associated with the agency's new Integrated Compliance Information System-Air reporting database launched last year.
But environmentalists claim the revision -- which excluded pollution episodes lasting fewer than seven days from HPVs -- means that some serious air law violations are not getting the attention they deserve under the HPV program, which seeks to focus EPA and state resources on the most serious air act violations.
Citing their concerns, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club, among others, sent an Oct. 6 letter to EPA Office of Enforcement & Compliance Assurance Assistant Administrator Cynthia Giles asking the agency to modify the policy again in order to include shorter-term pollution releases in the HPV definition.
“Under the revised version, illegal emissions of hazardous chemicals and other pollutants will no longer be considered a 'high priority' unless the violations persist for at least seven days. We are writing to respectfully request that the policy be amended to include short term violations that, due to the amount or toxicity of the specific pollutants released, deserve equal attention from federal and state enforcement programs,” the groups write.
“This issue is particularly important to communities downwind from refineries, chemical plants, and oil and gas drilling and processing sites. These and other industrial operations frequently release large quantities of benzene, butadiene, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, particulates, and other noxious pollutants in short but intense bursts, rather than in steady and predictable amounts over longer periods of time,” they say.
As an alternative to the present policy, the groups suggest instead that EPA define HPVs to include short-term events that release an unusually large volume of criteria pollutants such as sulfur dioxide or particulates, or small but significant amounts of acrylonitrile, benzene, butadiene, ethylene oxide, hydrogen fluoride, and other toxins that are hazardous in minute concentrations, or events that occur frequently enough to cause emissions to exceed annual limits or (where applicable) major source permit thresholds. Major sources of air toxics are those emitting 10 tons per year (tpy) of one hazardous air pollutant (HAP) or 25 tpy of a combination of HAPs.
The groups cite examples of harmful short bursts of pollution, including an Aug. 9 event at Shell Chemical's Deer Park petrochemical plant, which is adjacent to the large Shell Oil refinery in Houston, TX. According to figures published by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the event released more than 300,000 pounds of 1,3-butadiene, a carcinogen, when relief valves opened on a spherical tank.
Meanwhile, EPA on Sept. 24 partially granted and partially denied two petitions by EIP, Sierra Club and Air Alliance Houston to object to the Title V air permits of the Shell Deer Park chemical plant and refinery.
EPA grants the petition with respect to what it says are inadequate monitoring provisions at the plants, but denies the groups' objection to the permits incorporating other air permits by reference, a practice environmentalists say obscures the true permit obligations of facilities but EPA in the petition response says is acceptable.

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EPA Defends Ozone NAAQS Satisfying Air Law 'Margin Of Safety' Mandate

Oct 6, 2015 | InsideEPA

By Stuart Parker

EPA is defending its decision to tighten its ozone air standard from 75 parts per billion (ppb) down to 70 ppb as satisfying a Clean Air Act mandate to set the standard at a level requisite to protect the public health with an "adequate margin of safety," rejecting environmentalists' claims that only a stricter 60 ppb limit would meet that mandate.
Advocates have threatened to sue EPA over the 70 ppb limit, and the expected litigation could set new appellate court precedent on when the agency can lawfully differ from its scientific advisers' recommendations.
On an Oct. 1 call with reporters, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said that the agency concluded a standard of 72 ppb would have protected healthy, exercising adults from harm caused by ozone. As a result, the revised 70 ppb standard EPA issued that day provides the adequate safety margin as required by the air law, she said.
EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) recommended setting the NAAQS at a limit in the range of 60 to 70 pp, while environmentalists say a 60 ppb limit is vital to protect public health. The agency in November proposed a standard within the 65 ppb-70 ppb range, and then finalized a 70 ppb standard.
While EPA pays close attention to CASAC's advice, "in the end it is my judgment what that margin of safety should be," McCarthy said on the call. She referred to the agency's policy assessment -- a document crafted during the ozone NAAQS review that outlined options for revising the standard -- that showed a 72 ppb standard would be protective of healthy adults, saying it was based on "very definitive" evidence from human exposure tests.
On a separate Oct. 1 call with stakeholder groups, acting EPA air chief Janet McCabe rejected claims from a representative of the Respiratory Health Association that the agency ignored CASAC's advice by not setting the standard at a level stricter than 70 ppb. "I respectfully have to disagree that CASAC is being ignored," McCabe said. She underscored that setting the margin of safety is a policy decision for the administrator.
The Clean Air Act requires that EPA establish NAAQS for criteria pollutants such as ozone and particulate matter that, "allowing an adequate margin of safety, are requisite to protect the public health."
Environmentalists have sued the agency over its NAAQS-setting decisions in the past, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit case State of Mississippi v. EPA, et al. that consolidated a slew of suits over the agency's 2008 decision to tighten the ozone limit from 80 ppb -- expressed as 84 ppb due to a statistical convention - down to 75 ppb. In that case, environmentalists claimed that EPA should have heeded CASAC's advice to set a limit in the 60 ppb-70 ppb range.
But the court in a July 23, 2013, per curiam ruling deferred to EPA, saying, "Our case law has left EPA with a wide berth when it comes to deciding how best to account for an adequate margin of safety. . . . In light of this deferential standard, we have only rarely found that the agency failed to build in a margin of safety."
Scientific Conclusions
The court's deference to EPA's scientific conclusions is seen as setting a high hurdle for challengers to the NAAQS. However, the D.C. Circuit left open the possibility that a suit could successfully claim the agency diverged from CASAC's recommendations if the agency fails to fully justify such a decision.
"Although EPA is not bound by CASAC's recommendations, it must fully explain its reasons for any departure from them" and explain any "important" changes," the ruling says. For the 2008 ozone NAAQS rulemaking, the court found that CASAC had failed to specify whether the 70 ppb limit it recommended as a maximum limit "rested on a scientific conclusion about the existence of adverse health effects at that level."
As a result, EPA said there was scientific uncertainty about the benefits of setting a standard lower than 75 ppb, and the court said that this statement -- combined with "more general public health policy considerations" -- satisfied the agency's "obligations under the statute" for how it should set the level of the NAAQS.
However, for the new NAAQS review CASAC expressed reservations about whether a 70 ppb standard -- the top end of its recommended range -- would satisfy the adequate margin of safety mandate.
Environmentalists opposed to the 70 ppb limit as too weak could cite CASAC's concerns about setting the standard at that upper limit of the committee's recommended range in litigation over the NAAQS.
On a Sept. 28 press call ahead of the NAAQS' release, Natural Resources Defense Council attorney John Walke noted that "CASAC in its final letter to EPA" on the standard "raised serious doubts" about the adequacy of a 70 ppb limit. Walke called it "bewildering" that EPA would set the NAAQS at the very top of the range recommended by CASAC.
Attorney David Baron of environmental law firm Earthjustice on the same call said a 70 ppb standard would be "blatantly unlawful," and said advocates will likely sue over "a betrayal of the Clean Air Act's promise of healthy air."
The ruling in the Mississippi case notes that "Congress intended that CASAC's expert scientific analysis aid not only EPA in promulgating NAAQS but also the courts in reviewing EPA's decisions"
In a June 26, 2014, letter to McCarthy the panel said that "based on the scientific evidence, a level of 70 ppb provides little margin of safety for the protection of public health, particularly for sensitive subpopulations. . . . At 70 ppb there is substantial scientific evidence of adverse effects as detailed in the charge question responses, including decrease in lung function, increase in respiratory symptoms, and increase in airway inflammation.
"Although a level of 70 ppb is more protective of public health than the current standard, it may not meet the statutory requirement to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety. In this regard, the CASAC deliberated at length regarding advice on other levels that might be considered to be protective of public health with an adequate margin of safety. For example, the recommended lower bound of 60 ppb would certainly offer more public health protection than levels of 70 ppb or 65 ppb and would provide an adequate margin of safety.
"Thus, our policy advice is to set the level of the standard lower than 70 ppb within a range down to 60 ppb, taking into account your judgment regarding the desired margin of safety to protect public health, and taking into account that lower levels will provide incrementally greater margins of safety."
Critics' Concerns
Critics of the agency are echoing some of those concerns, saying the agency has ignored epidemiological studies showing harm to human health at levels far below 72 ppb. Environmentalists point to various studies showing reduced lung function, greater incidence of asthma attacks, and other ill effects at levels as low as 60 ppb.
Earthjustice's Baron on the Oct. 1 call with McCabe said "you are pretty much disregarding the epi[demiological] studies." Baron asked McCabe if the final rule underwent changes while under pre-publication review by the White House Office of Management and Budget. As Inside EPA reported, staff within the White House Council on Environmental Quality were said to be pushing for a 68 ppb NAAQS.
"I can't speak to the specifics of the interagency review," McCabe said in response to Baron's questions, "but I can assure you that this decision was the administrator's decision."
McCabe defended the new NAAQS, saying it would will protect 99.5 percent of children from even a single exposure to ozone at 70 ppb. Overall, "I am confident that air quality will continue to improve," McCabe said, easing attainment of the standards by states and further reducing harmful exposures to the public.
A representative of the American Thoracic Society on the call then cited the agency's own estimates that a standard of 65 ppb would prevent hundreds of thousands of additional asthma attacks.
In response, McCabe said, "it really comes down to the science, and particularly the certainty of the science." Evidence of adverse health effects is less certain at levels of exposure below 72 ppb, she said.
EPA staff in other venues have also stressed the availability of epidemiological studies showing evidence of harm to human health from exposure to ozone. For example, speaking at a Sept. 30 event in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences, EPA senior staffer John Vandenberg of the agency's Office of Research and Development noted a wealth of epidemiological evidence on ozone's effects.
"I would draw your attention to the large number of studies," he said. "What you see is a tendency, but a very strong tendency for the tended -- population with an increase in ozone exposure to have increase in hospital admissions. There is a picture of the big picture which is lots of studies and very strong tendency for the studies to point to increases in very important public health outcomes. Across multiple studies and multiple locations."
EPA Deference
In an Oct. 2 blog post, attorney Seth Jaffe of Foley Hoag says the expected environmentalists' suit over the ozone NAAQS "will be a fascinating extension of the recent cases exploring the role of the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee in supporting EPA rules, and how much the deference given to EPA by the courts in such a technical area is affected by the courts' conclusions regarding whether EPA has truly followed CASAC's advice."
Jaffe also notes that, "There's a fair bit of evidence of health impacts below 70 ppb, so how can the rule be said to provide the requisite 'adequate margin of safety'?"
But "[o]n balance, I suspect that the rule will survive the environmental challenges as well. EPA has clearly read the recent cases about CASAC's role and the rule positions EPA so that a court will find that EPA adequately considered CASAC's advice. After all, CASAC may have found impacts as low as 60 ppb, but it did not recommend that the NAAQS be set at 60 ppb or even 65 ppb. Instead, it merely suggested a range from 60 ppb to 70 ppb," he writes.
Industry groups might sue over the rule by claiming that EPA acted unlawfully in setting a standard that is close to naturally-occurring, uncontrollable "background" ozone levels -- but Jaffe expects those challenges to fail.
"The industry challenges will be based largely on arguments that, with a standard of 70 ppb, EPA is at risk of requiring certain states to meet a level that is below background. These arguments seemed doomed to me. The rule more than adequately addresses the background issue," he concludes.

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Judge Backs Broader CWA Order Pre-Enforcement Review

Oct 6, 2015 | InsideEPA

A federal district court judge is backing a farm owner's claim that the Due Process Clause of the Constitution requires EPA to offer pre-enforcement review of compliance orders based on regulators' determinations that particular waterbodies are jurisdictional under the Clean Water Act (CWA) and therefore require permits.
In a Sept. 30 order, Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia partially rejects EPA's motion to dismiss Foster, et al. v. EPA, et al, in which the farm owner is contesting a CWA order. The new decision allows the plaintiffs to proceed with their challenge against a 2014 agency CWA order commanding them to reverse an unpermitted fill of waters on their property that EPA says are jurisdictional.
While the plaintiffs still must prove that their particular circumstances qualify for relief, Copenhaver's order backs the general legal argument that forcing the recipient of a CWA order to choose between expensive compliance measures or disobeying the order and challenging it in court -- potentially facing tens of thousands of dollars per day in fines if the challenge fails -- is unconstitutional.
“When the penalties from disobeying a law are ruinous, but compliance undermines judicial review, the effect is a deprivation of due process because judicial review becomes unavailable as a practical matter,” Copenhaver says in his order.
Copenhaver rejects arguments from the Department of Justice (DOJ) on EPA's behalf that the plaintiffs failed to show they have been deprived of a “liberty or property interest” that would trigger their rights to due process. Instead, he says, the plaintiffs have made a valid claim that the CWA order effectively blocks them from selling their land, which is a property right protected by the Constitution.
A ruling for the plaintiffs on the merits could broaden the scope of pre-enforcement review available to recipients of CWA orders following the Supreme Court's landmark 2012 ruling in Sackett v. EPA, which said courts can hear challenges to many environmental law compliance orders.
Despite backing the plaintiffs' main due-process claim, the judge's order rejects their argument that EPA separately committed a “substantive due process” violation, which would involve a discriminatory decision by the government based on animus against the property owners. None of the alleged behavior by the agency rises to that level, Copenhaver says.
“Even after fully crediting the plaintiffs’ assertions that the EPA’s decision to issue the order was predicated on 'irrational animus and improper retaliatory motivation,' the complaint contains no allegations of conduct of a sufficient egregiousness that rises to the level of a substantive due process violation,” the order says.
The order could bolster a related challenge pending before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Duarte Nursery Inc. v. Army Corps of Engineers, et al., which has raised similar due-process claims and has also survived a government motion for dismissal.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is weighing petitions for review in two cases where property owners are challenging CWA jurisdictional determinations (JDs) before enforcement, although in those cases no agency has issued a compliance order based on the JDs, meaning a ruling on one issue may not be decisive for the other.

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Transportation News

Amtrak Warns of Partial Shutdown Unless Congress Extends Deadline for Installation of Safety Device

Oct 6, 2015 | The Washington Post

By Ashley Halsey III

After a deadly train wreck in Philadelphia in May, Amtrak President Joseph Boardman promised that a life-saving safety device would be installed on the passenger line’s Northeast Corridor by Dec. 31. On Tuesday, however, he asked Congress to extend the deadline for installation of the device on tens of thousands of rail lines on which Amtrak operates but does not own.
Unless Congress acts to extend the deadline, Boardman said in an Oct. 5 letter, Amtrak will be forced to suspend service on those rail lines. The safety feature, known as positive train control (PTC),would override an engineer’s control of a train under certain threatening conditions, such as speeding.
Both the House and Senate are moving toward extension of the deadline, most likely until 2018. Freight railroads have lobbied hard for an extension, since none of them are prepared to meet the deadline.
“A vast majority of our network would be inoperable without an extension,” Boardman said in the letter.
He wrote that Amtrak would continue to serve the Northeast Corridor, where it owns much of the rail lines it operates on, but that some sections of track owned by a commuter rail line between New York and New Haven, Conn., would not be ready to implement PTC.

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