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ET ACC PM 10/30/15
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(ACC Mentioned) Fiberglass Finally Formaldehyde Free
Oct 30, 2015 | Tree Hugger
By Lloyd Alter
The use of fiberglass insulation has long been controversial among green builders, with one of the main objections being the formaldehyde based binder that held it all together in batts. -
GPS Vulnerabilities Could Open Grid to Hacks -- DHS Report
Oct 30, 2015 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr and Blake Sobczak
A newly disclosed government report warns that the power grid may become more vulnerable to hacking attacks on the Global Positioning System as grid operators expand the use of advanced monitors that depend on GPS signals. -
Nuclear Plant Cybersecurity Reporting Rule Coming Monday
Oct 30, 2015 | Politico Pro - Whiteboards
By Darius Dixon
Next spring, nuclear plants will be required to notify safety regulators of cyberattacks on their systems within eight hours, according to a regulation being published Monday. -
McCarthy Brimming with Optimism on Power Plan, WOTUS
Oct 30, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Josh Kurtz
U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy gave a gathering of 300 Maryland environmentalists and their supporters an upbeat guided tour of her agency's top priorities last night, expressing optimism that even the most controversial among the efforts would clear all legal and political hurdles. -
Senate Foes of Obama Rule Deploying 2-Pronged Attack Next Week
Oct 30, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Annie Snider and Geof Koss
Senate opponents of the Obama administration's major water rule are preparing to launch a pair of legislative attacks beginning next week. -
McConnell Sets Up Senate Fight on Obama Water Oversight Rule
Oct 30, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Jordain Carney
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is prepping the Senate for a fight over a controversial water regulation from the Obama administration. -
UN: Climate Pledges Won’t Meet Key Goal
Oct 30, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The United Nations is warning world leaders that the pledges they have submitted to fight climate change will not amount to the goal they had previously agreed to.
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(ACC Mentioned) Fiberglass Finally Formaldehyde Free
Oct 30, 2015 | Tree Hugger
By Lloyd Alter
The use of fiberglass insulation has long been controversial among green builders, with one of the main objections being the formaldehyde based binder that held it all together in batts. Of course the industry and the American Chemistry Council will tell you that it is all perfectly natural, that it doesn't get through the drywall and the finishes and even that it "contributes to a sustainable future for wood products" by gluing wood chips together into particleboard. But in fact, it is a toxicant and a carcinogen, and the green builders have been pushing back for years.
Now, according to Jim Vallette of Healthy Building News, "As of October 2015, every fiberglass insulation company in the United States and Canada has phased out the use of formaldehyde-based binders in lightweight residential products."
This is great news for a number of reasons. First and most importantly, it means we will have healthier houses. I have written that as houses get tighter, it becomes more important that everything in them be healthy and safe. "The fact of the matter is, this stuff shouldn't be in your house. It is a carcinogen at higher doses, and the housing industry is building boxes that seem to be designed to concentrate it. "
But the other great thing is that it shows that the green building industry has the power to effect change. Jim Vallette describes the history:
The signal from the green building community grew brighter. The Living Building Challenge's Red List, introduced in 2007, banned the use of products with added formaldehyde, and was gaining traction. Our Pharos Project database launched in 2009, and disclosed the binders used in most insulation on the market. A month later, Perkins + Will, a national leader in green building design, introduced its own precautionary list, including formaldehyde.
The market received the signals and changed. In late 2008, Knauf Insulation released its EcoBatt fiberglass insulation. CertainTeed began producing its formaldehyde-free Sustainable Insulation in 2010 for both residential and commercial/industrial applications. And in 2011, Owens Corning launched its formaldehyde-free EcoTouch brand.
He notes that "A well-informed marketplace, not federal or state environmental regulation, drove this change." That, and groups like the Healthy Building Network that informed that marketplace. They should be proud.
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GPS Vulnerabilities Could Open Grid to Hacks -- DHS Report
Oct 30, 2015 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr and Blake Sobczak
A newly disclosed government report warns that the power grid may become more vulnerable to hacking attacks on the Global Positioning System as grid operators expand the use of advanced monitors that depend on GPS signals.
The report by the Department of Homeland Security noted that timing signals transmitted from GPS system satellites are crucial inputs to synchrophasor systems that track operating conditions on the grid in millisecond intervals. Nearly 2,000 of the systems were installed on the North American grid as of the end of last year. Most of the rollout was funded by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The GPS signals used by the grid, the aircraft industry, financial markets and other civilian sectors, are vulnerable to attack, according to the DHS report, written in November 2012. The report was released under the Freedom of Information Act and published by the noncommercial Governmentattic.org website.
Successful attacks could including jamming to interrupt transmissions between satellites and ground receivers and "spoofing," which delivers bogus data to ground receivers.
Attacks could disable or render useless the advanced grid-monitoring systems called phasor measurement units (PMUs). The time signals from atomic clocks in GPS satellites allow grid operators to assemble operating data from many PMUs to get a wide-angle view of grid conditions. Interfering with sychrophasor data could deny grid operators the most accurate data on voltages, frequencies and generator alignments, all of which must be closely controlled at all times.
"The Energy Sector depends on GPS for providing electrical power system reliability and grid efficiency, synchronizing services among power networks, and finding malfunctions within transmission networks," according to the report, "National Risk Assessment -- Risks to U.S. Critical Infrastructure from Global Positioning System Disturbances."
"The electricity subsector currently has sufficient redundancies in place to withstand most GPS disruptions, although spoofing attacks against multiple targets could cause significant service outages. However, as the electricity subsector becomes increasingly reliant on phasor measurement units (PMUs) as part of the smart grid evolution, vulnerability to GPS disruption could increase," the DHS report said.
The GPS system is vulnerable, "but there is not vulnerability of the grid as yet," said Alison Silverstein, project manager of the North American SynchroPhasor Initiative, a technology collaboration among the power industry, the North American Electric Reliability Corp., academics and the Department of Energy.
Utilities have multiple ways to collect the time signals that PMUs require, Silverstein said. "Secondly, and more immediately," she said, "no grid operating entity is as yet [solely] using synchrophasor technology for mission-critical operations." If PMU data were cut off because of a hacking attack, operators would still have older data analysis and estimating systems to represent real-time grid conditions, she added.
The GPS issue "is not going to bring down the grid anytime soon," she said.
Synchrophasor technology collects and reports grid data 100 times faster than older technologies, officials say. "Had synchrophasor data been available 10 years ago, the massive Aug. 14, 2003, Northeast blackout probably could have been averted," Silverstein said in a 2013 interview. "They could have seen problems growing on the Ohio grid at least an hour or more before the blackout occurred," she said. "A whole lot of pain could be averted." She was one of three staff directors of the U.S.-Canada task force that investigated the outage.
If jamming causes a PMU to deliver erroneous measurements, such as power frequency reading, power flow calculations based on the PMU would also be in error. "This could cause overheating to some elements of the grid in the affected area, such as overloaded lines or overloaded transformers. If the device is used for adaptive protection, in the case of a fault, coordination of the protection system could be disrupted and backup protection might operate to isolate the fault before the local protection device operates," the DHS report said.North Korean attack
DHS noted that from 2010 through 2012, "North Korea jammed GPS signals in South Korea numerous times for periods that lasted between 4 and 16 days, disrupting GPS receivers in many cell towers in addition to over one thousand aircraft and hundreds of ships.
"It is difficult to assess fully the nature, intent, and source of threats to the GPS signal -- particularly disruptions affecting critical infrastructure -- partly because the United States does not have a nationally integrated capability to detect, identify, and locate GPS service interruptions. However, most user-reported interference events are not malicious. Government testing, equipment malfunctions, software updates, and other issues have the potential to increase the severity or duration of an event. ...
"Natural phenomena like geomagnetic storms can also create wide-scale degradations depending on their severity. Producing wide-scale degradation through jamming may require nation-state capabilities, but the power needed to broaden such jamming impacts would also expose the jamming source to identification and interdiction more quickly," DHS said.
Industry experts who reviewed the issue with DHS officials agreed that outages are unlikely because of the redundancy in the grid.
The experts were divided on the effects of an attack with multiple, intermittent jammers, which would be difficult to identify, locate and disable, "thus enabling effects to persist for up to or more than 30 days." Most experts (who were not identified in the report) thought the impact on power delivery would be isolated, although some thought there could be "widespread degradation" of service, resulting in isolated outages.
A 2012 report by researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Coherent Navigation, a San Mateo, Calif., firm, concluded that "GPS and GPS-dependent systems are significantly more vulnerable than previously thought." The team ran intrusion tests on common GPS equipment, concluding, "The overall landscape of GPS vulnerabilities is startling." The report also proposed advanced defensive strategies to protect GPS systems.
"Low-end" GPS receivers rely on simple software, the researchers said. But high-end systems, including Internet-linked servers, are significantly more complex. "We show the software stack [in such servers] can be compromised, in some cases remotely," the team said. "Since GPS receivers are typically treated as devices, not computers, such vulnerabilities are likely to go unpatched, and represent a serious vulnerability in critical applications."
They added, "Higher-level software and systems routinely treat GPS navigation solutions as trusted inputs." That can permit GPS attacks to flow up to dependent software on systems that rely on GPS signals. The researchers said they showed that the date function of PMUs used in the "smart grid" can be permanently desynchronized.
Jane's Intelligence Review reported in March that while military-grade GPS systems are "generally far more resilient than the unencrypted devices used by civilians," terrorist groups and criminal organizations are seeking to gain technological capabilities to expand attack capabilities.
Silverstein said the threats to the grid are recognized. "We are recommending that no system use GPS alone" as a source of critical data "because of the vulnerabilities," she said. Grid operators should have redundant sources of time signals in case the GPS signal is lost or corrupted, she added. "More and more designers of systems are building in alternative timing methods," she said.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's regulations on cybersecurity do not deal specifically with protections of synchrophasors from attacks on GPS systems.
Some members of Congress have been pressing federal agencies to develop a backup system for the GPS network. Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) said at a hearing in July that the need for backup has been recognized since 2001.
"This is a very significant national security issue," said Garamendi, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, "and cannot be delayed any longer."
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Nuclear Plant Cybersecurity Reporting Rule Coming Monday
Oct 30, 2015 | Politico Pro - Whiteboards
By Darius Dixon
Next spring, nuclear plants will be required to notify safety regulators of cyberattacks on their systems within eight hours, according to a regulation being published Monday.
Nuclear plants already have to maintain cybersecurity programs for their safety-related computer and communications systems. But the current system of reporting a cyberintrusion with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is voluntary.
The new final rule requires one-, four- and eight-hour reporting, depending on the severity of the security breach. If a safety-, security- or emergency preparedness-related system has been “adversely impacted” at a plant, operators will need to tell the NRC. A breach that “could have” had impacted important systems will need to be flagged within four hours while an intelligence gathering infiltration will have to be registered in eight hours.
Regulators considered sticking to the voluntary system, which helped the NRC identify certain cybersecurity-related events that might have had a negative impact on its licensees, such as software updates containing malware. But along with other voluntary aspects of the current process, there was no requirement for timely reporting of an incident, an aspect the agency says can be “instrumental in the NRC’s ability to respond to cybersecurity-related events.”
The NRC is requiring only those cybersecurity events associated with actual or potential adverse impacts to be reported.
Compliance with the rule is set for 180 days from publication, April 30, 2016.
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McCarthy Brimming with Optimism on Power Plan, WOTUS
Oct 30, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Josh Kurtz
U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy gave a gathering of 300 Maryland environmentalists and their supporters an upbeat guided tour of her agency's top priorities last night, expressing optimism that even the most controversial among the efforts would clear all legal and political hurdles.
In a quick and quick-witted speech to a fundraising dinner of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, McCarthy repeatedly expressed pride in the rules and regulations her agency has devised in recent months to combat air and water pollution and climate change. She exhorted the audience of environmental activists, state and local lawmakers and conservation donors to serve as EPA's partners and advocates.
"I want you to leave here positive about the world and what we're trying to build here," McCarthy said.
From the Clean Power Plan to the Waters of the U.S. rule to everything in between, McCarthy gave a point-by-point update of EPA's work in just 15 minutes. She briefly discussed the challenges her agency is facing in a GOP-controlled Congress, noting that five of the six governors she worked for before joining the Obama administration were Republicans who, in contrast to many Republicans in Washington, D.C., favored environmental action.
"I never met a Republican before I came to Washington," she joked, adding that it's easy to talk to all Americans, regardless of their party affiliation, about environmental stewardship -- even if their political representatives are reluctant to do so.
"The environment is a core value in the United States of America," McCarthy asserted.
She continued by criticizing policymakers who say they must choose between protecting the environment and stoking the economy.
"We do not balance the environment and the economy in the United States of America," McCarthy said. "The environment is a foundation of a growing economy. ... I don't balance a thing. We don't balance a thing."
McCarthy then spotlighted key EPA initiatives:The new ozone standard, which some environmental groups have criticized as not stringent enough, "will protect our kids," she said. And she insisted that the rule was written "within the law" and will withstand all legal scrutiny. But she seemed to give a nod to the agency's green critics when she said, "Every time we pass a rule, we could do better."On the Waters of the U.S. rule, which increases the number of waterways that are covered by the Clean Water Act, "we will beat back the legal challenges one by one," McCarthy vowed. She also joked to the crowd of Chesapeake Bay defenders: "I know none of you has ever seen water. It's a new concept for you."EPA's new emissions rules for heavy-duty vehicles, which were proposed this year and will be finalized in 2016, "will result in 1 billion metric tons of reduced carbon pollution," she said.The new Worker Protection Standard, designed to protect farmworkers from pesticides and other environmental hazards, is proof, McCarthy said, that EPA is a public health agency as much as it is an environmental agency. McCarthy said she was pleased to "join hands with the farmworkers union" despite criticism from certain agricultural interests. "It is probably one of the proudest moments I've ever had because there were years when I was not allowed to eat grapes," she said.She described EPA's new mercury rule as a key piece of the agency's environmental justice platform and said she was excited to work to strengthen international rules combating hydrofluorocarbons, which she called "perhaps the most successful international treaty ever."McCarthy touted the actions of U.S. negotiators leading up to international climate talks later this year in Paris. "Paris is where it's at, folks," she said. "We're going to make Paris a huge success." A key component of the U.S. commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is EPA's Clean Power Plan, which McCarthy called "the biggest step America has ever taken to fight climate change."And McCarthy said the agency's work is not done, even with just 15 months left in the Obama administration. She promised more action to combat methane emissions and called stormwater protection "the next frontier."
McCarthy said that with such an activist agenda, criticism comes with the territory.
"Rest assured, there are critics, because rest assured, there always will be when you're trying to do a good thing," she said.
But she expressed optimism that the administration's goals were built to last.
"As far as I know," she said, "we are on a roll, folks."
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Senate Foes of Obama Rule Deploying 2-Pronged Attack Next Week
Oct 30, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Annie Snider and Geof Koss
Senate opponents of the Obama administration's major water rule are preparing to launch a pair of legislative attacks beginning next week.
Both are essentially guaranteed to be shot down by Senate Democrats or President Obama, but the maneuvers would force presidential candidates and senators up for re-election to go on record on a politically contentious issue. And if any lawmakers flip positions from previous votes, it could alter the momentum around efforts to block the rule through the end-of-the-year funding bill.
Driving the action is the looming deadline for a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act filed by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa).
The CRA requires only 50 votes to pass a resolution of disapproval, as opposed to the 60 votes normally necessary to move legislation through the upper chamber. But those special procedures are only available for the first 60 days of session after a rule is issued, and 52 days have now passed on the water rule.
Ernst has gotten enough signatures on a petition to bring the resolution directly to the floor, and it is now sitting on the Senate calendar (E&ENews PM, Oct. 28).
But a CRA resolution of disapproval is a blunt tool, allowing lawmakers only an up or down vote on a regulation.
Many critics of the water rule would much rather have a say in how the federal government goes about addressing the confusion around the Clean Water Act's scope that prompted the rule in the first place.
To that end, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) has crafted a measure, S. 1140, that would set new criteria for any future rule defining the scope of the foundational water law.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) early this morning filed cloture on the bill, teeing it up for a key test vote Tuesday afternoon.
"All of us agree that my bill is actually the best way to go with it," Barrasso said in an interview yesterday. "It puts it back on the administration to come up with a rule that fits within what we line out, which protects the main waterways of the United States but also protects prairie potholes and farmers and ranchers and small-business owners."
Barrasso said that the plan is to first try to bring his measure to the floor. But with it unlikely to secure the 60 necessary votes, the chamber could then turn to the CRA resolution.
But either measure is apt to draw a swift veto from Obama, who has repeatedly vowed to squash any legislation that would kill his water rule.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee with jurisdiction over EPA, said that doesn't mean it's not worth the effort.
"I'm one that says, look, we need to keep these issues up front and center because people in my state are talking about them," she said yesterday. "They want to see us engage on them."
Murkowski also noted that opposition to the water rule comes from both sides of the aisle. Sen. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) co-sponsored Barrasso's measure, and Democratic Sens. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia are also signed on.
But with neither bill likely to go into effect, Lowell Rothschild, senior counsel at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, speculated that the maneuvers may primarily be aimed at election politics instead.
Agricultural groups, which hold powerful sway in key early presidential primary states, have been some of the most staunch opponents of the water rule.
"We are almost within a year of the election, and this remains a very polarizing issue, and it's easy campaign fodder," Rothschild said.
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McConnell Sets Up Senate Fight on Obama Water Oversight Rule
Oct 30, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Jordain Carney
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is prepping the Senate for a fight over a controversial water regulation from the Obama administration. The Kentucky Republican scheduled a procedural vote on whether to proceed to legislation from Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) for Tuesday afternoon. The maneuvering came after a late night of votes on a two-year budget agreement. ADVERTISEMENTThe proposal would require the administration to try again on crafting regulations to define the federal government's oversight of streams, wetlands and other waterways. It also provides the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with specific instructions and a deadline for how to write the new rule. The EPA's Waters of the United States rule has gained fierce pushback from Republicans and some Democrats, who argue that it's an overextension that would allow the agency to add ditches and puddles to its jurisdiction. Barrasso's proposal has gained the support of 43 Republican senators, as well as three Democrats — Sens. Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Joe Manchin (W.Va.). However, Barrasso will need 60 votes to overcome Tuesday's procedural hurdle. Introducing the legislation earlier this year, the Wyoming Republican said it would give the EPA direction to help it write "a reasonable rule that will truly protect America's navigable waterways and adjacent wetlands." The Senate could also turn to a separate proposal from Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) that would use the Congressional Review Act — a procedural tactic to streamline blocking regulations — to overturn the EPA regulation. Forty-nine senators, all Republicans, have officially backed the proposal, which would also need to be passed by the House and signed by President Obama.
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UN: Climate Pledges Won’t Meet Key Goal
Oct 30, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The United Nations is warning world leaders that the pledges they have submitted to fight climate change will not amount to the goal they had previously agreed to.
In a Friday report, the U.N.’s framework convention on climate change said that the pledges from just over 150 countries will lead to global warming of 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100 when compared with pre-industrial temperatures.
Previously, leaders had agreed with the scientific consensus that limiting 2 degrees Celsius would prevent the most catastrophic effects of climate change and should be the yardstick by which to measure the global climate pact due to finalization in Paris in December.
The report is, in part, a consequence of the structure of the agreement, in which countries have been asked to submit pledges, or individual nationally determined contributions (INDC), based on their own greenhouse gas-cutting capabilities.
“The INDCs have the capability of limiting the forecast temperature rise to around 2.7 degrees Celsius by 2100, by no means enough but a lot lower than the estimated four, five, or more degrees of warming projected by many prior to the INDCs,” Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N.’s climate agency, said in a statement with the report.
The assessment is not unexpected. The group Climate Action Tracker came to a similar conclusion earlier this year.
Many leaders, including President Obama, have been recently downplaying expectations about the Paris talks, saying that the 2 degree goal is not as important as coming to an agreement that makes real, lasting progress.
Paul Bodnar, the top climate official in the White House’s National Security Council, struck a similar tone in response to Friday report.
“The UN report shows that the pledges submitted so far represent a substantial step up in global action and will significantly bend down the world’s carbon pollution trajectory,” he wrote in a blog post. “The targets are projected to significantly slow the annual growth rate in emissions — including a major decrease in rate compared to the most recent decade.”
Bodnar called for “deepening global ambition” to keep working toward the 2 degree goal.
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