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ACC AM Oct 15
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(ACC Mentioned) Director Sniffs Out Chem Industry In
Oct 15, 2015 | The Berkeley Beacon
By Benjamin Frohman
Smell is often an overlooked sense, but to Jon Whelan, director of the documentary, “Stink!”, it’s the most powerful one. The movie, which screened at the Bright Family Screening Room for the Bright Lights series last Thursday to a crowd of almost 50 people, begins with a pair of smelly pajamas. After noticing an overwhelming odor... -
(ACC Mentioned) More Phthalate Studies, More Confusion
Oct 14, 2015 | Plastics News
By Gayle S. Putrich
The uphill battle to educate consumers on phthalates continues, with recent studies bringing attention — and misinformation — about plastics into the spotlight. Two studies out of New York University have researchers linking exposure to phthalates used as replacements for DEHP to both high blood pressure and insulin resistance... -
TSCA Reform: Past As Prologue Or Object Lesson From Which Legislators Have Learned?
Oct 14, 2015 | BNA Energy & Environment Blog
By Pat Rizzuto
The Environmental Protection Agency faces a daunting task if Congress succeeds in its efforts to modernize the Toxic Substances Control Act, the founder of an environmental health coalition recently told Bloomberg BNA. Senators left Washington to work in their states during the week of Oct. 12 without voting on legislation... -
Rhode Island Senator Wants To Strengthen Toxic Chemicals Law
Oct 14, 2015 | AP (in the Washington Times)
By Jennifer McDermott
The current law that seeks to protect consumers from toxic chemicals in everyday products is disastrously ineffectual, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said Wednesday. The Rhode Island Democrat said that in its 40 years, the Toxic Substances Control Act has restricted just five chemicals of the more than 80,000 that are in commerce... -
Tests of EPA Chemical Reporting Software Start Nov. 2
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical manufacturers and importers are invited to test in November software the Environmental Protection Agency is developing for the 2016 Chemical Data Reporting rule submission period. The industry preview of the software, which companies will be required to use to submit information in 2016... -
Ohio River Basin Panel Drops Efforts To Enforce Mercury Water Limits
Oct 14, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Amanda Palleschi
A multi-state body that coordinates water quality standards for the Ohio River is shifting to states enforcement of a ban on so-called mixing zones for mercury discharges permitted before 2003 after postponing for several years a complete implementation of the ban, a decision that environmentalists charge will increase mercury discharges. -
Marc, Vre, And Amtrak Service Might Stop On January 1st
Oct 14, 2015 | Greater Greater Washington
By Matt Johnson
On January 1st, trains that carry millions of commuters might stop running. That's because in 2008, Congress set a deadline for trains to have a certain type of safety feature by the end of this year, and a lot of train operators won't be able to meet it. The law Congress passed requires that any railroad line hosting regular inter-city or commuter rail... -
Rep. Huelskamp Tours Landoll, Discusses Policy Priorities
Oct 14, 2015 | Railway Track & Structures
By Mischa Wanek-Libma
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS-1) joined representatives from Landoll Corporation and the Railway Engineering-Maintenance and Suppliers Association (REMSA) on Oct. 13 for a tour of Landoll's Marysville facility and to discuss policy priorities for the Kansas business. -
(ACC Mentioned) Canadian Smelter Has Superfund Liability, DOJ Argues
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
The owner of a Canadian smelter is liable an as “arranger” for airborne pollutants it deposited on the Upper Columbia River Superfund Site in Washington, according to a Department of Justice brief filed in a closely-watched Ninth Circuit appeal (Pakootas v. Teck Cominco Metals Ltd., 9th Cir., No. 15-35228, amicus brief submitted, 10/13/15). -
LA accused of ignoring oil drilling problems
Oct 14, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Los Angeles officials are being accused of failing at their duties to protect neighborhoods from the effects of nearly oil drilling. The city is mandated to ensure that drilling operations at a site in South Los Angeles are “strictly controlled to eliminate any possible odor, noise” and other problems, the Los Angeles Times... -
Michigan, Enbridge Still Talking on Straits Pipeline
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nora Macaluso
The state of Michigan is in the process of obtaining requested information from Enbridge Inc. about its pipeline running under the Straits of Mackinac, as an advisory board charged with keeping tabs on oil and gas pipelines in Michigan prepares to hold its first meeting, according to an attorney for the state and a company spokesman. -
Mass-Based Plan Pushed at Pa. Clean Power Hearings
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
Natural gas companies and policy watchers in Pennsylvania are pushing the state to adopt a mass-based credit system that facilitates emissions trading and are also calling for new generation to be included in the state's Clean Power Plan compliance, state regulators say. -
Study Explores Health Risks in Fracking Chemicals
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
A new study calls attention to the presence of chemicals in hydraulic fracturing fluids that can be classified as endocrine disruptors. The report, released Oct. 14 after publication in the journal Endocrinology, describes tests of the chemicals fed to mice to detect endocrine influences. -
Health Groups Press States, Admin Over Research On Risks
Oct 14, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Ben Panko
Two groups of medical professionals today released an updated compilation of research claiming health and climate change risks of fracking, and the groups called on the governors of New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland to enact or continue moratoriums on the practice. -
States, Advocates Fault EPA For Lack Of Detail In Draft Equity Framework
Oct 14, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lara Beaven
States and dozens of environmental, public health and community groups are criticizing EPA's draft framework on boosting the role of environmental justice (EJ) in agency decisionmaking, faulting its lack of detail on how to achieve the framework's major goals -- such as not issuing guidance for states on how to address EJ in permits. -
Democrats Proactively Inject Climate Change Into Debate
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Four of the five contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination actively created opportunities to discuss their plans to tackle climate change during their party's first presidential debate Oct. 13, naming the issue in their opening statements and discussing it repeatedly before they were formally asked about it. -
Energy Efficiency Making Gains Despite Obstacles
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Increasing energy efficiency has been the primary contributor to a flattening and then declining of energy consumption in developed countries over the last 25 years, according to “Energy Efficiency Market Report 2015,” a report released Oct. 14 by the International Energy Agency (IEA). -
Energy, Mining Companies Begin to Back Climate Talks
Oct 14, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By William Mauldin
A major international agreement to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions is starting to draw in major energy and mining companies. Some global companies, especially those that face heavy environmental regulation, say they are supportive of nearly ...
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(ACC Mentioned) Director Sniffs Out Chem Industry In
Oct 15, 2015 | The Berkeley Beacon
By Benjamin Frohman
Smell is often an overlooked sense, but to Jon Whelan, director of the documentary, “Stink!”, it’s the most powerful one.
The movie, which screened at the Bright Family Screening Room for the Bright Lights series last Thursday to a crowd of almost 50 people, begins with a pair of smelly pajamas. After noticing an overwhelming odor on his daughter’s new Justice-branded bed attire, Whelan calls the company and discovers that they aren’t able to reveal which substances are put in the merchandise to make a certain scent. He then sends the clothing to a laboratory and finds out that they have a banned carcinogen on them. The incident ignited the creation of the documentary to show the darker side of the manufacturing industry.
“One of the things I learned through making the film was that I was a little aware of some of the issues with products, but less aware of the systemic issues,” Whelan said in a Q&A session after the screening.
When his wife, Heather Whelan, was pregnant, she threw out household commodities that could have had a harmful effect on the baby and herself. The film shows pictures and home movies of family moments, bringing an emotional and personal narrative to the story. After Mrs. Whelan passes away from breast cancer, Whelan becomes a single parent to his two girls and more conscientious of what chemicals are put in goods.
“‘Stink!’ became to me a double entendre,” Whelan said. “The product literally had a stink, but what I really found out was that the system stinks.”
The film, which will be theatrically released next month, recently gained much attention through screenings and won Best Documentary at the 2015 Memphis International Film & Music Festival.
"The mainstream audience sees this and they are shocked, because they assume some girl or guy is testing each of these products,” Whelan said. “That’s what’s surprising. Once you know, you can’t unknow.”
Throughout the movie, Whelan tries to find out why the contents of goods are not fully revealed. He discovers that companies do not have to reveal what chemicals make up the scent. He goes to countless hearings and confronts congressmen about their opinions on the disclosure of chemicals.
In one interview, Whelan asks the president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, Cal Dooley, if Americans have a right to know which commodities contain carcinogens. He asks four times—the former congressman doesn’t even acknowledge his question.
Cecile Camerlynck, an attendee of the Bright Lights screening who has no Emerson affiliation, said that while she enjoyed the movie, she wished Whelan offered a solution for the “unfixable” problem.
“I thought it was very interesting,” Camerlynck said. “It made me more aware of the products that have fragrance on them, and I will always read the label from now on.”
The movie discusses the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, which legalized the use of harmful substances in everyday products and doesn’t require companies to publish the carcinogens on labels.
Whelan said that he seriously questions the credibility of the manufacturing industry’s labels.
“Although it’s hard to establish specific causation, because there are so many chemicals and products, there has to be some correlation,” Whelan said. “The fact that the industry’s reaction is to not disclose, makes you want to know even more of what’s going on.”
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(ACC Mentioned) More Phthalate Studies, More Confusion
Oct 14, 2015 | Plastics News
By Gayle S. Putrich
The uphill battle to educate consumers on phthalates continues, with recent studies bringing attention — and misinformation — about plastics into the spotlight.
Two studies out of New York University have researchers linking exposure to phthalates used as replacements for DEHP to both high blood pressure and insulin resistance in children and teenagers.
In the first study, published in the journal Hypertension, authors Teresa Attina and Leonardo Trasande, conclude that every 10-fold increase in phthalate exposure results in a 1.1 mm of mercury increase in blood pressure. The other study, published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, says one in three adolescents with the highest DINP levels had the highest insulin resistance, putting them at risk for developing Type 2 diabetes.
A third study out this month, by a team of researchers at the University of California-Riverside and published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, warns phthalates are being absorbed from the soil by plants. In cultivation experiments with lettuce, strawberries and carrots, researchers found DBP and DEHP and their primary metabolites in the plants. However, they also concluded that there was little movement of the phthalates from roots to leaves and that the phthalates were readily converted in the plant tissue to their monoesters.
In spite of ultimate conclusions or small sample populations, these studies and others like them bring out the worst and sometimes even the strangest types of “plastics panic.” Trasande, the NYU professor who studied phthalates, blood pressure and insulin, apparently offered his own “safe and simple steps” to avoid phthalates, including keeping plastic containers out of the microwave and dishwasher, discarding scratched plastic containers as their “protective coating” could be breached and expose users to phthalates and generally avoiding containers with 3, 6 or 7 resin ID codes. The “tips” were quickly picked up across the internet and on television, making appearances on NBC’s Today show and the CBS Morning News.
That the vinyl and polystyrene “visual aids” on TV weren’t actually items made with phthalates or anything someone would put in the microwave in the first place was hardly surprising to the American Chemistry Council’s Steve Russell.
“As the plastics industry already knows, there is quite a bit of confusion among consumers about the resin identification codes, codes that were established to assist with and improve recycling so that plastics could be sorted more easily. That resin ID code has been frequently and widely misreported as being as a means to a way to identify what materials are in the plastics,” said Russell, ACC’s vice president of plastics. “That’s why ACC and [the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc.] and [the Association of Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers] and other organizations are working to develop better guidance on recycling by the type of container rather than the resin ID code. And hopefully cut down on some of the misreporting.”
Phthalates frequently get presented to those outside the industry as something new, said Eileen Conneely, high phthalates panel manager at ACC, even though they have been in use, and safe, for 50 years.
“The average consumer doesn’t know about phthalates,” she said.
All these journal articles pretty much have the same caveats from their authors, that further studies are needed, Conneely said, even though phthalates have been thoroughly tested and found safe for commercial and consumer use.
“Phthalates are used as a softener for PVC plastics. Generally you’re not going to find them in any microwavable containers,” she said. Phthalates are more commonly found in building and construction materials - wire and cable, roofing membranes - than food-contact plastics.
ACC has website, www.phthalates.org, to help better educate everyone, inside and outside the plastics industry, on how the plasticizers work, why they are used and their 50-year safety record. Conneely and Russell both acknowledge getting the right information out about phthalates and plastics in general is an uphill battle.
“Unfortunately, misreporting of the facts about plastics and their safety is something that happens a lot,” Russell said. -
TSCA Reform: Past As Prologue Or Object Lesson From Which Legislators Have Learned?
Oct 14, 2015 | BNA Energy & Environment Blog
By Pat Rizzuto
The Environmental Protection Agency faces a daunting task if Congress succeeds in its efforts to modernize the Toxic Substances Control Act, the founder of an environmental health coalition recently told Bloomberg BNA.
Senators left Washington to work in their states during the week of Oct. 12 without voting on legislation, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, S. 697, to overhaul TSCA. Senators said, however, they plan to take up the bill when they return the week of Oct. 19.
Congress should modernize TSCA, said Andy Igrejas, founder of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a coalition of about 450 health, environmental and labor organizations.
But, the backlog of thousands of unexamined chemicals that has resulted from TSCA’s shortcomings and the challenges that backlog poses to the EPA should be a reality check on expectations about what the agency could accomplish under a new law, he said.
Igrejas compared the challenge facing the EPA to being asked to drain a flood using a teaspoon.
Igrejas spoke with Bloomberg BNA about a New York Times article published Oct. 13, 1976, two days after TSCA was signed into law.
The concerns of environmental organizations in that article have proven true, he said.
For example, Jacqueline Warren, an attorney for Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), was quoted in the 1976 article as saying the law established a “long, slow, cumbersome process” for the EPA to manage chemicals.
And Sidney Wolfe, head of Public Citizens Health Research Group was quoted in it as saying: “It has been brought to light that a flood of chemicals causing cancer and possible mutations has been poured into the environment. This law is a very weak gate against that flood.”
Those types of concerns resonate with Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families and the unease it has about the Senate’s Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, Igrejas said.
The Senate bill would set so many obligations in place and use as-yet-undefined legislative language to describe those obligations that it might unintentionally cause problems, he said.
The legislators who supported TSCA did not mean for the EPA’s chemicals management efforts to be thwarted, Igrejas said. They thought the law would work, but they turned out to be wrong, he said.
The new findings the EPA would have to make to manage chemicals under S. 697 and the obligations it would have to fulfill may not sound problematic, “but the lesson of TSCA is those little things could become a big deal,” he said.
The House’s TSCA Modernization Act, H.R. 2576, is less ambitious and makes far fewer changes and therefore may provide the specific changes that will help address TSCA’s problems, Igrejas said.
Richard Denison, a senior EDF scientist who shares Igrejas’ commitment to modernizing TSCA, said the Republicans, Democrats, chemical industry, environmental, health and other participants that have helped develop S. 697 over several years have included provisions in the bill to prevent it from causing obstacles as TSCA did. The bill’s provisions, he told Bloomberg BNA, include: allowing the EPA to obtain chemical data by ordering it; (Under TSCA the agency must issue a rule to obtain data or obtain it through negotiations with chemical manufacturers.) a mandate to conduct safety reviews on all chemicals in use; (TSCA has no mandate to review chemicals in commerce.) criteria the EPA would be required to use to prioritize and regulate chemicals; (TSCA has “broad authority and vague priorities,” Charles Auer, who managed chemicals at EPA for years told a House subcommittee.) judicially enforceable deadlines by which each step in the required reviews and regulatory processes must be completed; (TSCA has no process and no deadlines to review chemicals in commerce.)minimum number of chemicals EPA must move through the pipeline;an express requirement for protection of vulnerable populations; (TSCA is silent on such populations.)a safety standard that explicitly precludes consideration of costs.
The exclusion of cost considerations in S. 697 has been essential in gaining the support of some Democratic senators due to TSCA’s legacy. In 1991, the U.S. Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit issued a ruling regarding the EPA’s asbestos ban that found: “Upon an initial showing of product danger, the proper course for the EPA to follow is to consider each regulatory option, beginning with the least burdensome, and the costs and benefits of regulation under each option.”
“EPA can’t even regulate asbestos, a known carcinogen, since losing [that] court battle in 1991,” Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M), said on the Senate floor Oct. 6. Nor has the agency restricted, banned or otherwise regulated any chemical in commerce since 1991, he said during another event the same day. “There’s really no cop on the beat taking a look at chemical safety.”
“We have a choice. We can continue with law that has failed. We can continue to leave the American people unprotected. Or we can actually make a difference. I believe the choice is obvious,” Udall said on the Senate floor.
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Rhode Island Senator Wants To Strengthen Toxic Chemicals Law
Oct 14, 2015 | AP (in the Washington Times)
By Jennifer McDermott
The current law that seeks to protect consumers from toxic chemicals in everyday products is disastrously ineffectual, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said Wednesday.
The Rhode Island Democrat said that in its 40 years, the Toxic Substances Control Act has restricted just five chemicals of the more than 80,000 that are in commerce, and even failed to ban asbestos.
“That’s not a record of success for the American public,” said Whitehouse, who is pushing for a new bill to update and strengthen the act.
That bill would require safety reviews for all chemicals in commerce, require the Environmental Protection Agency to ensure any new chemicals are safe before they can enter into commerce and set federal standards to provide regulatory certainty for the industry, among other changes.
It has garnered strong support in the Senate. Whitehouse expects it to pass soon.
Several states have tried to regulate these chemicals on their own. The chemical industry wants a national standard rather than state-by-state regulations, which has helped convince Republicans to support changing the law, Whitehouse said.
Rhode Island toy maker Hasbro, Inc., which has called for improvements to the law, hosted an event Wednesday with Whitehouse to celebrate the progress made so far.
Hasbro President and CEO Brian Goldner said the different sets of regulations make it challenging for businesses to sell products nationwide. He said there needs to be a uniform national approach to ensure that products are safe for families in every state.
When the bill passes, Goldner said, “we’ll have made significant strides in protecting families and creating one national standard for safety.”
Richard Denison, the lead senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, said Americans are exposed to thousands of chemicals daily and only a small fraction have been tested for safety. The EPA has been powerless to restrict even chemicals that clearly pose health risks, he added.
The bill gives the EPA the authority to restrict chemicals and a mandate to review them, fixing the problems with the current law and bringing it into the 21st century, Denison said.
“We’re on the verge of a historic accomplishment,” he said.
Whitehouse said there will be money for chemicals testing, which there’s little funding for today.
The House has passed a bill to strengthen the act, but it would regulate chemicals after they’re on the market and not before, Whitehouse said.
The differences between the House and Senate versions would have to be worked out in conference.
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Tests of EPA Chemical Reporting Software Start Nov. 2
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical manufacturers and importers are invited to test in November software the Environmental Protection Agency is developing for the 2016 Chemical Data Reporting rule submission period.
The industry preview of the software, which companies will be required to use to submit information in 2016, runs from Nov. 2 to Nov. 20, EPA staff said during an Oct. 14 webinar on the software.
The webinar, the first in a series the agency plans to hold, focused exclusively on the software U.S. chemical manufacturers and importers will use. Future webinars will address questions about the information that must be submitted, EPA staff said.
Chemical manufacturers and importers will be required to submit production volume and other information from June 1 to Sept. 30, 2016.
The Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule affects hundreds of companies. A total of 1,626 companies submitted CDR information in 2012, the most recent year for which it was required.
The number of companies that must report is expected to increase in 2016 due to regulatory changes the agency announced in 2011 (149 DEN A-3, 8/3/11).
Companies that want to test the software should e-mail the agency at eTSCAReporting@epa.gov, EPA staff said.
To help the agency fix problems, it would like companies to report the following information:
• what browser they used, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox or Google Chrome;
• when the error occurred; and
• what error occurred.
An e-mailed screenshot of error messages companies receive also would be helpful, agency staff said.
Slides the EPA presented during the webinar will be posted on its CDR website, where it also will be releasing updated information in coming months, agency staff said.
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Ohio River Basin Panel Drops Efforts To Enforce Mercury Water Limits
Oct 14, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Amanda Palleschi
A multi-state body that coordinates water quality standards for the Ohio River is shifting to states enforcement of a ban on so-called mixing zones for mercury discharges permitted before 2003 after postponing for several years a complete implementation of the ban, a decision that environmentalists charge will increase mercury discharges.
The Ohio River Valley Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) -- which coordinates water-regulation activities and generally influences enforcement decisions of eight states in the Ohio River Basin -- voted Oct. 8 to eliminate its phased ban on the use of mixing zones for mercury and other bio-accumulative chemicals of concern (BCCs) and shift enforcement responsibility to state agencies, which can decide whether to allow dischargers to apply for a variance to the ban.
The decision heeds industry calls to soften mercury pollution water control standards and rejects environmentalists' calls to enforce a strict implementation date for the ban. Mixing zones allow dischargers to exceed effluent limits for chemicals at the point of discharge, as long as dilution within the zone allows water quality standards to remain intact outside of it.
Under water pollution control standards ORSANCO adopted in 2010, a moratorium on the use of mixing zones for discharges permitted after 2003 went into effect in 2013. For dischargers permitted before 2003, the ban was to become effective Oct. 16, although the standards allowed ORSANCO to grant variances to dischargers.
But at an Oct. 8 meeting, ORSANCO voted to eliminate the Oct. 16 effective date for pre-2003 dischargers to meet the mixing zone ban and instead allow state regulators when issuing discharge permits to determine whether a mixing zone provision should be allowed.
ORSANCO says it still has the goal of eliminating mixing zones “as soon as is practicable,” but the justification for any mixing zone will now be subject to review during each permit renewal or reissuance and will be “subject to more formal opportunities for public comment and administrative and judicial review of the permitting decision,” than it would under the ORSANCO process.
ORSANCO Executive Director Richard Harrison said in an Oct. 8 statement the commission believes the decision will effectively create “a more robust and transparent way than under the former standard, which allowed variances on the basis of a less rigorous test.”
“Strengthening the demonstration by the discharger of the actions that they have and will take to reduce and eliminate the use of mixing zones, will lower mercury loading into the Ohio River,” Harrison said.
Environmentalists' Concerns
But a coalition of 20 environmental groups say shifting enforcement to states will allow companies to exceed discharge limits. The groups say they fear states will not strictly enforce the ban.
“States will now have more leeway to decide whether to grant variances to individual coal plants, factories and other industries along the Ohio River that seek exceptions to comply with the ban,” the Environmental Law & Policy Center, one of the coalition's members, said in an Oct. 8 press release. “ORSANCO is abandoning its own mission to set one standard for the entire river, which is intended to reduce overall pollution and create a level playing field for industries along the length of the river.”
The groups had previously suggested to ORSANCO that in addition to their request to eliminate the mixing zone phased ban proposal, the panel should set a total maximum daily load for mercury; add the consideration of mussels to new ammonia criteria, and have ORSANCO set new standards for hydraulic fracturing in the river basin.
One environmentalist source says ORSANCO's belief that the decision will not result in increases in mercury discharges is false. “All this does is slow down the pace at which the sort of grandfathered-in sources in the heaviest mixing zones have to get off that train,” the source says. “There is nothing that keeps them from discharging more mercury than they have historically. In fact, that's been a trend.”
Mercury discharges from coal-fired power plants have increased in recent years due to increased use of “scrubbers” to reduce mercury air emissions in order to comply with Clean Air Act standards. While EPA recently finalized stringent new Clean Water Act effluent limitation guidelines for power plants, the source says it is unclear whether that will address the problem.
“You are still getting too much mercury in the Ohio River and that remains, as it ever was, a states' permitting issue,” the source says.
The source acknowledges that shifting enforcement to the states will make legal challenges easier than if the variance decision remained with ORSANCO because the commission is a decision-making body that is in “a legal gray area.” But keeping track of state permitting decision is resource-intensive, the source says. “We will keep an eye on this and if there are sources where it's clearly not appropriate for them to have a mixing zone, then yes, we can challenge that and pursue that, but it's just much harder, and from my perspective shouldn't be necessary when you know that mixing zones are not a science-based approach to this.”
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Marc, Vre, And Amtrak Service Might Stop On January 1st
Oct 14, 2015 | Greater Greater Washington
By Matt Johnson
On January 1st, trains that carry millions of commuters might stop running. That's because in 2008, Congress set a deadline for trains to have a certain type of safety feature by the end of this year, and a lot of train operators won't be able to meet it.
The law Congress passed requires that any railroad line hosting regular inter-city or commuter rail service, along with freight lines that carry certain types of hazardous materials, be outfitted with "Positive Train Control" (PTC) by December 31, 2015. For much of the nation, that isn't going to happen, and that means those lines will stop operating on January 1st.
Realistically, the only way that freight and passenger service in the United States can avoid being crippled on January 1st is if Congress extends the PTC deadline. If it doesn't, commuters in many cities, including Washington and Baltimore, could see train service disappear.
Here's how PTC works
Positive Train Control is a system of controls built into the track, locomotives, and radio antennas that will stop train crashes in a variety of circumstances. Had PTC been in place at Frankford Junction earlier this year, it would have almost certainly prevented the Amtrak crash in Philadelphia this May.
PTC will automatically stop a train before it runs a red signal, takes a curve too fast, or enters a work zone at an unsafe speed. In order for it to work, the track has to be outfitted with equipment that can tell the train where it is at any given time, radios that will communicate data to the train, and equipment in the cab that interprets those signals and slows or stops the train as necessary.
Congress decided to mandate PTC in the wake of a deadly head-on crash between a Metrolink train and a freight train in Los Angeles. But this was an unfunded mandate. Following it is costing public agencies like MARC and VRE and railroads like CSX and Amtrak billions of dollars.
The fact that the deadline is approaching and PTC is not yet in place across much of the network is not for lack of trying.
Six years may seem like a long time, but to design, install, test, and activate this complex system over thousands of miles of track was and is a herculean task. And it was made more difficult by miscues, especially from the Federal Communications Commission, which dragged its feet allocating the radio frequencies necessary for the system to work.
Some of our region's rail providers will meet the deadline, but others won't
With the deadline to have PTC operational just three months away, railroads are scrambling to figure out what is going to happen. Most of the big freight railroads say they won't meet the deadline. They're all actively working on PTC, but there's just not enough time to complete the work before December 31.
On the other hand, some railroads are ready, or will be. In Los Angeles, Metrolink, the regional commuter rail network, already activated PTC on the tracks it owns, but sections controlled by other railroads remain unfinished. Amtrak says most of its Northeast Corridor will also be ready by December 31. But Amtrak trains on other lines won't be so lucky.
That's because on much of Amtrak's network, the passenger trains run on tracks owned by other railroads, who haven't gotten their equipment in place. Amtrak has been able to get the equipment in place because it owns most of the Northeast Corridor.
Unfortunately, the New York MTA actually owns the corridor between New Rochelle and New Haven, so PTC won't be in place on its section by the end of the year. But between New York and Washington, trains should still be able to operate.
That's some good news. It means that MARC service on the Penn Line shouldn't be disrupted.
On MARC's other lines and on VRE, the story isn't the same. In their cases, CSX and Norfolk Southern don't have their networks ready and won't by the deadline.
Chicago's Metra, one of the largest commuter rail operators in the country, has already begun alerting their riders that unless the deadline is extended, service will stop after December 31.
The shutdown of commuter and inter-city passenger service, along with many freight shipments, could have a huge impact on many regions and the nation as a whole. In the Washington region, thousands of commuters ride in to the city on commuter trains. That number is much higher in other cities.
Without commuter trains, these riders will have little choice but to travel other ways, which will likely increase congestion, pollution, and motor vehicle crashes. And for businesses waiting on shipments stopped because PTC hasn't been turned on, jobs and productivity will be at risk.
At this point, only Congress can keep trains running
Only Congress can fix this. So far, it hasn't shown much inclination to get this (or anything else) done.
House Republicans introduced a bill to extend the deadline three years. However, in the Senate, some Democrats are trying to use it as leverage.
California Senator Barbara Boxer says that unless House Republicans pass a transportation reauthorization, the Senate won't pass the PTC extension bill.
PTC installation won't be complete on most of the tracks that are required to have it by December 31. Without Congressional action, much of the nation's rail network will shut down as 2016 dawns.
That's an unacceptable outcome, but it doesn't mean a polarized and gridlocked Congress will actually manage to stave off the crisis.36 comments
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Rep. Huelskamp Tours Landoll, Discusses Policy Priorities
Oct 14, 2015 | Railway Track & Structures
By Mischa Wanek-Libma
Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS-1) joined representatives from Landoll Corporation and the Railway Engineering-Maintenance and Suppliers Association (REMSA) on Oct. 13 for a tour of Landoll's Marysville facility and to discuss policy priorities for the Kansas business.
Landoll was founded in 1963 and manufactures rail, farm and OEM equipment and also employees 850 people throughout the region.
Don Landoll, chief executive officer of Landoll Corporation, led the tour to the Union Pacific terminal in Marysville, through Landoll's manufacturing facility and to Landoll Lanes for lunch and a presentation.
"Landoll is a committed corporate citizen, sharing its success with the local community. Currently, the company is working to help a local parish with a renovation and construction project and also recently completed the local reading garden at the public library in Marysville," a release from REMSA describing the event stated.
"It was a pleasure to learn the important work that Landoll Corporation is doing in the Marysville community and how [its] products represent Kansas in a global marketplace. Landoll is a true American success story, filling a vital role in manufacturing equipment to support our Kansas railways, " said Rep. Huelskamp. "During my visit, I heard how Washington's regulations are hurting business, particularly relating to Positive Train Control (PTC), and I highlighted my small business record of supporting the shortline railroad tax credit. For local family businesses like Landoll to thrive and compete around the world, we need less regulations and more certainty from Washington."
The group discussed the private nature of America's freight railroad network, the looming December 2015 PTC implementation deadline and possible extensions, as well as the importance of supporting shortline railroads, which help connect Kansas' agricultural, food and bioenergy suppliers to the mainline.
"At GoRail, we are pleased to be a part of showcasing the great work being done at Landoll to Congressman Huelskamp" said Ryan Nonnemaker, state director, GoRail. "As Congress considers surface transportation legislation and works to avoid a rail shutdown by extending the deadline for implementation of positive train control, it is critically important that members of the House and Senate know how investments by freight railroads impact companies and communities across the nation."
In Kansas, 13 freight railroads operate and maintain more than 4,800 miles of track and support more than 5,000 jobs. Farm and food products accounted for approximately 58 percent of all rail traffic originated in Kansas, followed by chemicals and intermodal.
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(ACC Mentioned) Canadian Smelter Has Superfund Liability, DOJ Argues
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
The owner of a Canadian smelter is liable an as “arranger” for airborne pollutants it deposited on the Upper Columbia River Superfund Site in Washington, according to a Department of Justice brief filed in a closely-watched Ninth Circuit appeal (Pakootas v. Teck Cominco Metals Ltd., 9th Cir., No. 15-35228, amicus brief submitted, 10/13/15).
The Oct. 13 amicus curiae brief disputes arguments made by Teck Cominco Metals Ltd., the owner of the smelter, that a “disposal” under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act extends only to emissions deposited directly on land or water.
CERCLA has a far greater reach, according to the government's brief in support of plaintiffs Joseph Pakootas and Donald Michel.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington got it right when it ruled last year that Teck was an arranger under 42 U.S.C. §9607(a)(3), the government said.
DOJ discounts Teck's argument that an intervening Ninth Circuit decision giving a narrower construction of “disposal” under a related statute also dictated the term's meaning under CERCLA.
The brief also dismisses as irrelevant a 1935 treaty with Canada over pollution from the smelter in Trail, British Columbia. That nonbinding agreement—raised for the first time in an amicus brief filed by the government of Canada—is inappropriate for appellate review, the government said (191 DEN A-19, 10/2/15).
California Supports District Court Finding
Another amicus brief, filed Oct. 13 by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, also supports the district court judgment. The state said that a reversal of the trial court ruling would give polluters a loophole to avoid CERCLA liability.
The amici submissions counterbalance briefs filed by the National Mining Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the previous hitAmerican Chemistry Councilnext hit in September. Those briefs support Teck, and contend the district court ruling will expose “air emitting” industries to significant and unpredictable liability.
Teck's appeal relies in part on a 2014 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that limits a “disposal” under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (42 U.S.C. §6903(3)) to solid waste discharged on land or into water (Ctr. for Cmty. Action and Envtl. Justice, 764 F.3d 1019 (9th Cir. 2014).
Teck claimted the same definition applies to CERCLA because it cross-references RCRA's definition of disposal
DOJ Disagrees
DOJ disputes that interpretation. “Teck cites no statutory language or CERCLA case law to support this requirement that waste immediately and directly hit land or water,” the government said. “Hundreds of smelter sites alone are contaminated by the aerial deposition of hazardous substances that are being or have been cleaned up under CERCLA.”
The company's “extreme” interpretation would place many such existing hazardous waste sites beyond CERCLA's reach, including the Omaha Lead Site, where a Nebraska smelter emitted lead from several smoke stacks for more than a century, according to the brief.
The government contends the district court was correct in holding that once the pollutants reached a “facility” (here the Superfund site), CERCLA makes no distinction between waste discharged from the smelter into the water or the air.
Canadian Conflict?
DOJ also took issue with Canada's argument that a treaty governed that dispute—not the federal courts. As an amicus party, Canada has no authority to raise an entirely new issue not raised by any party in the district court or on appeal, according to the government.
“At most, Canada has pointed to a binding arbitration that resolved a narrow set of questions, and a wholly discretionary process, based on the mutual consent of the Governments, that the United States potentially could use to raise additional damage claims arising from the Trail Smelter,” the brief said.
Even if the agreement were enforceable, DOJ said that CERCLA supersedes any inconsistent treaty provisions as a later-in-time federal law.
California Chimes In
The California Department of Toxic Substances Control hit a similar note in its amicus brief.
The state said that Teck's definition of “disposal” would run roughshod over both CERCLA and its state counterpart, the California Hazardous Substances Account Act (Cal. Health & Safety Code §25301(a)).
“For instance, a company could pulverize its hazardous waste, release it into the air, and escape liability for the resulting soil and water contamination under CERCLA and HSAA simply because that waste went up into the air first before eventually falling onto land or water,” according to the brief.
The U.S. Department of Justice submitted the amicus brief on behalf of the federal government.
The California Attorney General's Office submitted the amicus brief for California.
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LA accused of ignoring oil drilling problems
Oct 14, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Los Angeles officials are being accused of failing at their duties to protect neighborhoods from the effects of nearly oil drilling.
The city is mandated to ensure that drilling operations at a site in South Los Angeles are “strictly controlled to eliminate any possible odor, noise” and other problems, the Los Angeles Times reports.But when neighbors complained about foul smells that caused illnesses at a AllenCo Energy Inc. well at the site, the city did little to crack down on it, the Times said.
Environmentalists say the AllenCo well’s problems are not unique, and they point to a larger issue in the city’s inability to properly protect residents from the effects of oil and natural gas drilling throughout Los Angeles.
“Our city has fallen asleep at the wheel,” Daniela Simunovic of the Liberty Hill Foundation told the Times.
AllenCo eventually stopped producing at the well amid widespread public outcry, but it has signaled a desire to eventually resume oil drilling there.
Los Angeles’s planning department, which has primary authority over the well, told the Times it did not get involved in the problem, because residents complained to the local air quality agency instead.
The company defended its practices, saying that it has spent more than $1 million on fines and improvements to reduce the affects of drilling.
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Michigan, Enbridge Still Talking on Straits Pipeline
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nora Macaluso
The state of Michigan is in the process of obtaining requested information from Enbridge Inc. about its pipeline running under the Straits of Mackinac, as an advisory board charged with keeping tabs on oil and gas pipelines in Michigan prepares to hold its first meeting, according to an attorney for the state and a company spokesman.
Getting more information from Enbridge was among recommendations of a yearlong task force that wrapped up its work in July (135 DEN A-12, 7/15/15).
While the company—which also operates the pipeline that in 2010 was responsible for the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history, near Kalamazoo, Mich.—has provided the state with details about its operations and safety practices, some of the information “was not really provided in usable form” or wasn't easily accessible by members of the public, Bob Reichel, assistant attorney general, said on an Oct. 14 webinar on the issue sponsored by the State Bar of Michigan's environmental law section.
Among the information being sought are details on annual inspections, such as what technology is used to determine the integrity of the pipe, he said.
Enbridge has yet to provide the state with documentation that it has adequate insurance to cover damage from a potential spill in the Straits, Reichel said.
Reichel said his office, in conjunction with the Department of Environmental Quality and Department of Natural Resources, is “developing scopes of work” for comprehensive analysis of risks posed by the Straits pipeline and alternatives to its continued operation. Those analyses also were among the task force's recommendations.
Company, State Working ‘Hand in Hand.'
Since the task force released its report, Enbridge has been working with the state to comply with the requests associated with the recommendations, company spokesman Michael Barnes told Bloomberg BNA Oct. 14.
“Our folks have been working with the state pretty much hand in hand,” he said. “We want folks to have trust and confidence in what we're doing, and the only way we can do it is to share this information.”
Enbridge is in the process of summarizing the requested information and plans to make it available on its website, Barnes said. The company also is working with the state on the planned review of alternatives to the Straits line, he said.
The advisory board is scheduled to hold its first meeting Oct. 28, Reichel said.
Group Sees ‘Imminent Harm.'
The location of the 60-year-old pipeline—near the Mackinac Bridge linking Michigan's two peninsulas—and the risks to its structural integrity posed by accumulated zebra and quagga mussels create a situation of “imminent harm” to the straits, Jim Olson, founder of For the Love of Water (FLOW), a Traverse City, Mich.-based advocacy group, said on the webinar.
The task force report, while helpful, didn't include a timeline or a list of specific actions the state should take to respond to the threat, he said. “We still, as of this date, do not have a timeline of these recommendations, and we still have not addressed the imminent hazard that is present at this time,” he said.
The state, Olson said, has authority to take action against the company under the public trust doctrine, the Michigan Environmental Protection Act and an easement authorized in the 1953 agreement between the state and Enbridge's predecessor company when the pipeline was first built. The company, he said, isn't complying with the easement's requirements that it protect public and private property and provide structural support to the pipeline, he said.
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Mass-Based Plan Pushed at Pa. Clean Power Hearings
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
Natural gas companies and policy watchers in Pennsylvania are pushing the state to adopt a mass-based credit system that facilitates emissions trading and are also calling for new generation to be included in the state's Clean Power Plan compliance, state regulators say.
The feedback from the first eight of 14 “listening sessions” being held across the state to get public input about Pennsylvania's compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33) reveal three key themes, according to Patrick McDonnell, policy director with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
“It's been predominately mass over rate, it's been predominately ‘include new generation,' ” and, somewhat less frequently, “there seems to be a sentiment that we should be involved in a trading scheme of some sort, that we should view beyond our borders in some way in terms of trading of those allowances.”
McDonnell made the remarks Oct. 13 during a panel discussion about the Clean Power Plan at the Pennsylvania Environmental Council's second annual policy conference in Harrisburg.
In a keynote speech earlier that day, DEP Secretary John Quigley reiterated that regulators are “in full listening mode” about specifics about how the state plans to approach compliance and have not determined whether the state will join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative as part of the state's Clean Power Plan implementation plan.
“The economic argument for some type of trading platform is pretty compelling, but we're not sure what that looks like yet,” Quigley said. “We have not decided anything at this point.”
Pennsylvania is holding the series of 14 public meetings and taking public comments through Nov. 12 to help formulate the state's approach. Quigley said the agency is committed to submitting a final plan to the Environmental Protection Agency by Sept. 6, 2016.
Developing Compliance Plans
McDonnell said the state wants to take advantage of its diverse energy mix—which includes coal, gas, nuclear, wind and solar—while maintaining the state's position as a net exporter of energy. Pennsylvania is now the nation's top energy exporter and ranks second in energy generation, he said.
“Those exports—every one of those electrons going over state lines—represents jobs,” said McDonnell. “Part of the solution is not reducing the amount of electricity we're producing as a state but making sure we're retaining those jobs within the state.”
States may use either a rate-based or a mass-based system when developing their compliance plans, said conference panelist Reid Harvey, director of the EPA's Clean Air Markets Division.
The two systems can create different incentives for existing power plants, he said. A rate-based credit system might actually encourage a unit to generate more, since a rate is expressed as pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour. A mass-based system might have the opposite effect, since the Clean Air Act standards for new units are different than standards for existing ones. So under a mass-based system, “if you build new units with a different standard, there's an incentive to run existing units less,” he said.
Kathleen Robertson, environmental fuels and policy manager of Exelon Corp., said during the conference that her company “strongly” favors the mass-based plan and encourages the inclusion of new units. There is a market impact for not including new units in the plan, she said. If a state adopts a mass-based plan and only puts a cap on existing units, then the compliance costs are mostly on the existing coal and gas units, while new units would only be subject to standards under Section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act, which are “very easy” to meet, she said.
The result would be a new gas unit “with no effective compliance obligation competing in the market with an existing natural gas unit with a compliance cost,” she said.
‘Reverse Incentive.'
To the extent that these have relatively similar performances, the new unit would be able to underbid the existing unit, which would cause “a reverse incentive in this rush to the new gas to no environmental benefit.”
Unless the leakage provisions are solid, “that's going to look like an emissions reduction to the cap, but it's not to the atmosphere,” she said.
“Leakage” in this context refers to the difference between existing-only mass-based plans and existing-plus-new mass-based plans, wherein there's a price signal on one and not the other, she said. When this imbalance occurs, generation shifts or “leaks” out to the uncovered units.
“This is what you see, frankly, from RGGI states to Pennsylvania,” she added. Because there's a carbon-price signal in the RGGI states and not in the adjoining states, the generation shifts over to the neighboring state. “It goes where the generation has the least cost,” said Robertson, “which right now is Pennsylvania.”
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Study Explores Health Risks in Fracking Chemicals
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
A new study calls attention to the presence of chemicals in hydraulic fracturing fluids that can be classified as endocrine disruptors. The report, released Oct. 14 after publication in the journal Endocrinology, describes tests of the chemicals fed to mice to detect endocrine influences. The tested chemicals included benzene, toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene, ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, styrene and 16 other chemicals that can be found in fracking fluids. The chemicals also are common in fuels, solvents, paints, personal care products and other products, and several of them are considered health hazards if ingested. The study was led by Christopher Kassotis of Duke University. It is available at http://src.bna.com/zN.
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Health Groups Press States, Admin Over Research On Risks
Oct 14, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Ben Panko
Two groups of medical professionals today released an updated compilation of research claiming health and climate change risks of fracking, and the groups called on the governors of New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland to enact or continue moratoriums on the practice.
Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and Concerned Health Professionals of New York (CHPNY) also requested a meeting with President Obama and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy "to discuss the science and many cases of contamination and health problems with which we are familiar, and how we can work together to protect the American people."
The 151-page compendium is the third compilation of anti-fracking research released by CHPNY, and it "offers a unique bird's-eye view of the growing body of evidence showing the harms and risks of fracking to the environment and to public health," according to Sandra Steingraber, a professor at Ithaca College and member of CHPNY. It comprises summaries of more than 500 peer-reviewed studies, Steingraber said, as well as government reports and findings by investigative journalists.
"Importantly, we found no evidence that fracking can operate without risk to public health or to the climate," Steingraber said.
The groups are sending the compendium to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) and Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) with requests to ban fracking in their states. Maryland passed a two-year moratorium on fracking this year while it writes regulations for the practice (EnergyWire, June 1). Pennsylvania, meanwhile, enacted a law last week making it easier for natural gas companies to use mining wastewater for fracking (Greenwire, Oct. 13).
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) banned fracking indefinitely in the state last year (Greenwire, Dec. 17, 2014). However, the groups expressed concern about proposals to expand natural gas infrastructure in the state, including transmission lines and compressor stations.
"All of those ancillary activities have potential contamination problems and potential health impacts," said Kathleen Nolan, a member of CHPNY.
The groups are also planning to send a letter to California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) in the near future, especially to express concerns about farmers considering using fracking wastewater for crop irrigation (EnergyWire, July 10).
"There's just no justification for exposing people to these risks," Nolan said.
But a Marcellus Shale Coalition spokesman noted that U.S. EPA had earlier this year found no "widespread" impact on drinking water safety from fracking (Greenwire, June 4). He also cited quotes from Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and former Energy Secretary Steven Chu asserting that fracking could be conducted safely, and a Robert Morris University poll that found 55.9 percent of Americans supported the use of fracking.
"Pennsylvania's and the nation's air quality is sharply improving as more natural gas is safely produced and leveraged to power our economy," the spokesman said. "At the same time, families, small businesses and manufacturers are realizing huge cost savings as our abundant, clean-burning natural gas resources -- which are safely produced, according to EPA's exhaustive hydraulic fracturing report along with countless other independent studies -- are delivered to market."
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States, Advocates Fault EPA For Lack Of Detail In Draft Equity Framework
Oct 14, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lara Beaven
States and dozens of environmental, public health and community groups are criticizing EPA's draft framework on boosting the role of environmental justice (EJ) in agency decisionmaking, faulting its lack of detail on how to achieve the framework's major goals -- such as not issuing guidance for states on how to address EJ in permits.
In response to the concerns, EPA says that it agrees the plan needs to include specific details on its “action agenda” but does not elaborate on how the agency intends to achieve the framework's overall goals.
EPA released earlier this year a draft version of its EJ 2020 Action Agenda Framework, which outlines what the agency calls “ambitious goals” for its EJ efforts in the wake of its Plan EJ2014. That earlier plan detailed a series of guidance documents and other tools intended to integrate EJ considerations more fully into agency actions.
"We think of plan EJ2014 as building the basic guidance and tools to build EJ into EPA" policy, and "we need to define a new set of ambitious goals for EJ in the coming years," Charles Lee, EPA's deputy associate assistant administrator for EJ, said during a May 7 webinar on the draft plan.
The draft framework calls for the agency to emphasize three goals over the next five years that focus on "making a visible difference in overburdened communities."
The goals are to: "deepen environmental justice practice within EPA programs to improve the health and environment of overburdened communities; collaborate with partners to expand our impact within overburdened communities; and demonstrate progress on outcomes that matter to overburdened communities."
Elevating the role of EJ in EPA decisionmaking such as in crafting regulations and permits was a top priority for former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and current Administrator Gina McCarthy has vowed to continue that push.
EPA took comment on the draft plan through July 14 and recently released the comments on its website with additional clarification about the intent of the draft framework.
In an introduction to the compiled comments, the agency agrees it needs to do much more work to focus attention and assure the agency can be held accountable for progress, explaining that the draft framework is comparable to a table of contents and that details and specifics of the topics discussed will be developed in the coming months.
“Several commenters noted that the action agenda itself will need to include details and specifics; we agree,” the agency says.
EPA also notes that the EJ 2020 Action Agenda “will set priorities and focus high level attention on a limited number of important work areas that are vital to the communities we serve.”
'Action Steps'
Among those seeking more detail in the equity framework is the Tennessee Department of Environmental Conservation (TDEC), which recommends in July 14 comments “that EPA clarify what it aims to achieve through its EJ work. This is not clear to the reader in the draft framework.”
TDEC acknowledges that the framework is a high-level summary of strategic goals and approaches for EPA's EJ efforts, but the state “recommends that EPA include an additional layer of detail within all objective areas that outline specific action steps EPA will take and deadlines within which action steps will be completed in order to accomplish all stated goals or objectives.”
Additionally, the state recommends EPA annually publish case studies and success stories for incorporating EJ practices into state and community-level programs, regulatory actions, decision-making, etc.
Duke University Law School and Nicholas School of the Environment say in June 15 comments, “Measurable results in overburdened communities should be the unifying goal of EJ 2020. We recommend that EPA use EJ 2020 as an opportunity to focus on implementation and results, rather than future planning, evaluation or tools development.”
Earthjustice, in July 14 comments on behalf of 53 other environmental and community groups, says, “To demonstrate that EPA is achieving progress, EPA must make commitments and take substantive action to reduce environmental health disparities, not merely create more commitments on process as its prior guidance documents have done.”
Permitting Guidance
Several commenters urged EPA to provide clear guidance to states on how to incorporate EJ into permitting decisions. For example, the Maryland Commission on Environmental Justice & Sustainable Communities (CEJSC) noted in July 6 comments that that state “has long attempted to incorporate EJ into permitting, without success. Federal guidance may help in these efforts.”
The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) in June 12 comments says “the consideration of EJ in the permitting context needs to include detailed guidelines to be considered by the states to ensure compliance and accountability and to track progress over time in each state. We envision that this could be the most important but most challenging task ahead, and would require experienced and dedicated staff as well as resources.”
The Duke University schools say EPA's focus on considering environment justice in EPA permitting decisions is well-placed but note that most permits are issued by state agencies or tribal governments.
“Many of these permitting staffs issued the very permits that created current Environmental Justice hotspots,” the schools say. “It is not realistic to expect to correct problems at the same level of thinking that created the problems EPA now seeks to solve. Environmental Justice will not be considered in most environmental permitting decisions unless EPA strongly supports -- or even compels -- states to do so.”
Earthjustice recommends EPA exercise its oversight authority to set specific, standardized permitting and enforcement criteria that must be followed by state agencies issuing and/or enforcing environmental permits.
“EPA should prioritize state and local oversight to lift up the best practices in some states and local areas in permitting, rulemaking, and enforcement, and to end the worst practices in areas where communities feel completely alone in handling serious environmental and health concerns,” Earthjustice says. “EPA must use its full authority, including disapproving state programs or withdrawing delegation whenever necessary to ensure that communities do not lose the basic protections federal environmental laws are supposed to provide.”
Cumulative Impacts
Commenters also called on EPA to better address cumulative impacts facing overburdened communities, with OEHHA referencing California's CalEnviroScreen, “a science-based method for evaluating and quantifying relative cumulative impacts that takes into consideration multiple pollution levels and sources in a community while accounting for the community's underlying health and socioeconomic status.”
EPA has launched its EJSCREEN GIS mapping tool to identify where EJ communities are likely to be found and therefore prioritize permitting and enforcement efforts, and OEHHA says the data used in EJSCREEN could be incorporated into a more detailed cumulative impacts assessment.
CEJSC calls on EPA to finalize its Framework for Cumulative Risk Assessment, which has been in draft format since 2003.
“Further until there are concrete methods, EPA should issue guidance on how to consider cumulative impact in decision-making,” CEJSC says. “We know that real world exposure happens through many pathways and many chemicals at once, and throughout a lifetime. While the EPA has done a fine job explaining why it is important to consider cumulative impacts, it has not issued guidance on how.”
Earthjustice says EPA must follow through on its commitment from Plan EJ2014 to address cumulative impacts, including cumulative risk.
“EPA's approach to assessing environmental health threats and impacts is woefully outdated and behind the science,” the group says. “This problem comes to a head in clear air, toxics, pesticides, civil rights enforcement, and other actions where EPA is required to assess health risks and impacts. But failing to follow the current science also harms the agency's effort to account for and address vulnerabilities and environmental justice concerns across a broader range of its actions as well. EPA must take action to update its guidance.” While EJSCREEN is helpful, it “is no substitute for the policies and protocols that EPA must use in actually deciding what action to take at the program level,” Earthjustice says.
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Democrats Proactively Inject Climate Change Into Debate
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Four of the five contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination actively created opportunities to discuss their plans to tackle climate change during their party's first presidential debate Oct. 13, naming the issue in their opening statements and discussing it repeatedly before they were formally asked about it.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont called climate change the nation's greatest national security threat, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley touted his plan for 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended her efforts at the “forefront of fighting climate change.”
“The scientific community is telling us: If we do not address the global crisis of climate change, transform our energy system away from fossil fuels to sustainable energy, the planet that we're going to be leaving our kids and our grandchildren may well not be habitable,” Sanders said as to why climate change is the greatest national security risk. “That is a major crisis.”
In sharp contrast to the two previous Republican debates, where candidates avoided all talk of climate change unless directly asked, four of the five candidates spoke of the need to address the problem in their opening statements at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas. Former Virginia senator Jim Webb, running a centrist campaign, was the lone exception(181 DEN A-8, 9/18/15).
Clinton Defends Climate Record
In response to a jab from O'Malley that she had shifted her position on the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline, Clinton defended her record on climate change.
“I never took a position on Keystone until I took a position on Keystone,” Clinton said. “But I have been on the forefront of dealing with climate change, starting in 2009, when President [Barack] Obama and I crashed a meeting with the Chinese and got them to sign up to the first international agreement to combat climate change that they'd ever joined.”
Clinton went on to praise Obama's recent “significant” bilateral climate announcements with Chinese President Xi Jinping, while conceding efforts from the world's two largest greenhouse gas emitters to curb their emissions must “go further.”
“There will be an international meeting at the end of this year, and we must get verifiable commitments to fight climate change from every country gathered there,” Clinton said, referring to negotiations slated for December in Paris.
The former secretary of state, New York senator and First Lady has been hit by some environmental advocates and fellow Democrats as insufficiently aggressive on climate change, though they applauded her eventual decision in September to oppose the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (151 DEN S-7, 8/6/15).
Sanders Cites ‘Moral' Issue
Sanders, one of Clinton's critics for her slow articulation of various environmental positions, said the U.S. has a “moral responsibility” to address climate change and touted his efforts pushing for a carbon tax.
“Climate change is real, it is caused by human activity, and we have a moral responsibility to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel to energy efficiency and sustainable energy and leave this planet a habitable planet for our children and our grandchildren,” Sanders said.
The Vermont Independent specifically highlighted his legislative push in February 2013 with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to require several thousand coal, oil and gas producers to pay a $20 per-ton carbon fee. That bill, the Climate Protection Act, never received a hearing in committee.
But sufficiently strong action to tackle climate change wouldn't happen without the cooperation of China, India and Russia, Sanders said, adding the U.S. would have to address the role of money in politics.
“Nothing is going to happen unless we are prepared to deal with campaign finance reform, because the fossil fuel industry is funding the Republican Party, which denies the reality of climate change and certainly is not prepared to go forward aggressively,” Sanders said.
O'Malley Touts Clean Energy Plan
O'Malley, who has released the most detailed plan to date for addressing climate change, said his first action as president would be an executive order dedicating the U.S. to pursuing a 100 percent clean energy electric grid by 2050.
“We did not land a man on the moon with an all-of-the-above strategy,” O'Malley said, referring to the Obama administration's frequently used line to describe its energy approach. “We can get there as a nation, but it's going to require presidential leadership.”
Echoing tenets of his energy plan, O'Malley vowed to extend tax incentives for solar and wind energy deployment. He also said climate change exacerbates national security challenges.
O'Malley drew strong praise from environmental advocates for his June plan, which called for additional Environmental Protection Agency rules to curb greenhouse gas emissions and strong retrofitting measures to increase energy efficiency (119 DEN A-2, 6/22/15).
Chafee, Webb Participate, Too
Also participating in the debate was former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee, who called climate change “a real threat to our planet” and named the coal industry his greatest political enemy.
The lone Democratic voice of dissent from the evening came from Webb, who urged greater deployment of nuclear energy and continued emphasis on the “all-of-the-above” approach to energy. Echoing a Republican talking point, Webb said nothing could be done to address climate change by the U.S. alone.
“The so-called agreements that we have had with China are illusory in terms of the immediate requirements of the Chinese government itself,” Webb said. “So let's solve this problem in an international way, and then we really will have a way to address climate change.”
Environmental advocates were quick to praise the debate's discussion of climate change but urged more focused questions from moderators and greater allocation of time to the subject.
“It was refreshing to see how high the issue sits on candidates’ agendas,” Brant Olson, campaign director at ClimateTruth.org, which seeks to share information on climate change, said in a statement. “However, the candidates must continue to expand on their positions by providing a comprehensive plan for reducing carbon emissions.”
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Energy Efficiency Making Gains Despite Obstacles
Oct 15, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Increasing energy efficiency has been the primary contributor to a flattening and then declining of energy consumption in developed countries over the last 25 years, according to “Energy Efficiency Market Report 2015,” a report released Oct. 14 by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In 2014, the nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) saw another 2.3 percent improvement in energy intensity, the measure of energy needed per unit of economic activity, according to the report.
In developing countries, energy consumption still tends to increase along with economic growth, said Philippe Benoit, head of the IEA Energy Efficiency and Environment Division. He spoke Oct. 14 at an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
One of the big obstacles to more energy efficiency, Benoit said, is the difficulty in selling efficiency as a positive benefit rather than an “anti-growth” factor. The problem of incentivizing efficiency becomes especially acute with state-owned power generators in nations like China, where a profit motive isn't a factor, he said.
Globally, about 50 percent of electric power assets are state-owned enterprises, Benoit said. He noted in passing that Electricite de France S.A., the primary electric utility in France, also is state-owned, a reminder that the issue isn't just found in developing countries.
Consumption Patterns Differ
IEA reports tend to focus on OECD nations because of the availability of reliable and up-to-date data. The “Energy Efficiency Market Report 2015” is no exception.
In the U.S., primary energy consumption peaked in 2007 and has declined since, and a similar pattern can be seen in the European Union and Japan, Benoit said.
Low oil prices may have contributed to a recent flatlining of efficiency gains for vehicles, but government policies will drive more gains in vehicle energy efficiency, Benoit said.
Much more efficiency is needed in the developing world if limits on greenhouse gases are to be achieved, Benoit said. He explained that the IEA's projections are for 90 percent of growth in energy demand to occur in developing countries.
The task, in his view, is to accept and encourage economic growth while finding ways to accomplish that growth more efficiently.
“The issue should be improving standards of living,” Benoit said.
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Energy, Mining Companies Begin to Back Climate Talks
Oct 14, 2015 | The Wall Street Journal
By William Mauldin
A major international agreement to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions is starting to draw in major energy and mining companies.
Some global companies, especially those that face heavy environmental regulation, say they are supportive of nearly 200 countries’ efforts to reach an accord in Paris in December at negotiations sponsored by the United Nations.
On Wednesday, a dozen companies, including oil giant BP PLC and global mining giant BHP Billiton Ltd. released a statement touting the Paris climate talks as a “critical opportunity to strengthen efforts globally addressing the causes and consequences of climate change.”
Many of the companies, based in highly developed economies, are eager to see poorer countries and the loosely regulated national champions in those nations operate under a similar set of rules as those the richer nations have already embraced domestically.
Large companies are looking for predictability and global standards to help shape their long-term strategies, including plans for natural gas and other lower-carbon fuels.
“These companies need to navigate their way through the low-carbon transition and are looking for clearer, more consistent guidance from governments, which is why they see benefits in a Paris agreement,” said Elliot Diringer, executive vice president at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a nonpartisan think tank that organized statement.
While the Paris talks aren’t likely to result in a global price on carbon, individual countries are submitting their own plans that could lead to market opportunities for major players.
“ Calpine believes that this flexible, market-based solution will reward companies that invest and have invested in cleaner generation,” said Calpine Corp. spokesman Brett Kerr. Power company Calpine is the U.S. leader in natural-gas generation, avoids coal—a target of new regulations from the Obama administration—and operates a major geothermal energy project.
A system of carbon pricing generally taxes polluters, which then pass costs onto consumers and can lower demand. Another system is a so-called cap-and-trade plan that would set some limits on what polluters could emit.
The chief executive of another company on the list, Ben van Beurden of oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC, this month told a major gathering of industry executives in London that Shell will promote a carbon-pricing plan that encourages investment in renewable energy and cleaner-burning natural gas rather than coal.
Some of the companies have previously embraced efforts to reduce emissions linked to climate change. But for many, Wednesday’s statement was the first embrace of the UN-led talks, a major policy focus for President Barack Obama and other world leaders.
Other major energy and commodity firms on the list are San Francisco-based utility PG&E Corp. , Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto PLC and cement giant LafargeHolcim Ltd.
Absent from the list were leading U.S. coal companies, which along with allies in Congress have criticized the Paris talks and the Obama administration for a launching a war on coal.
Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. also didn’t endorse Wednesday’s statement and were also absent from a June endorsement by European energy companies of global carbon pricing.
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