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ACC AM Nov 17
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(ACC Mentioned) Bottle Recycling Report Nothing To PP, Er, Pooh-Pooh
Nov 16, 2015 | Plastics News
By Jim Johnson
Did you know that 7 percent of all the high density polyethylene bottles recycled last year in the United States ended up as film and sheet? Or that 60 percent of all recycled post-consumer bottles were made from PET? Or that a recent report backed by the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council and the Association of... -
(ACC Mentioned) Investment In Plastics Processing Plants Has Tripled Since 2010
Nov 16, 2015 | Plastics News
By Clare Goldsberry
Shale-advantaged resins are affecting job growth in the plastics industry in a big way, according to Martha Moore, Senior Director, Policy Analysis and Economics, for the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, DC). There is currently a "huge build-out" of capacity in the United States for plastics processing. "Since June 2012, plastics... -
(ACC Mentioned) Plastic Bottle Recycling
Nov 16, 2015 | Plasteurope
Plastic bottle recycling in the USA rose by 3.3% to more than 1.4m t in 2014, helped by increased single-stream collection of household recyclables, according to figures released jointly by the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR, Washington DC / USA; www.plasticsrecycling.org) and the American Chemistry Council... -
(ACC Mentioned) Why The United States Leaves Deadly Chemicals On The Market
Nov 16, 2015 | Truth-Out
By Valerie Brown and Elizabeth Grossman
Scientists are trained to express themselves rationally. They avoid personal attacks when they disagree. But some scientific arguments become so polarized that tempers fray. There may even be shouting. Such is the current state of affairs between two camps of scientists: health effects researchers and regulatory... -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Reform and Reporting: What’s Next?
Nov 17, 2015 | Environmental Leader
Using safer chemicals and improving chemical reporting has become a top priority for companies as the federal government moves closer to chemical reform legislation and consumers increasingly demand safer products and product transparency. The last few years has seen retailers and manufactures including Target, Walmart... -
Chemical Safety Board Might Postpone New Investigations
Nov 16, 2015 | Chem.Info
By Meagan Parrish
It’s been a tough year for the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, the federal agency charged with investigating accidents at chemical plants. In March, CSB chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso resigned amid criticisms of declining agency performance, low employee morale, retaliation against whistleblowers and overall poor management. -
EPA Plans To Expand Air Toxics Enforcement To Olefins, Storage Tanks
Nov 16, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's air enforcement program is reexamining its priorities, shifting its focus toward air toxics violations, notably from olefins production, storage tanks, and also toward the growth areas of oil and gas drilling and mobile sources, according to the agency's top air enforcement official. -
(ACC Mentioned) Court Rejects Bid to Change Boiler MACT Panel
Nov 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
Arguments over federal emissions standards for boilers and incinerators will be heard as scheduled Dec. 3 after a federal appeals court rejected a request by environmental groups to change the three-judge panel that will hear the lawsuits (U.S. Sugar Corp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 11-1108, order issued 11/16/15; Am. Forest & Paper... -
Businesses From Across The Country Oppose Oil Drilling Off East Coast
Nov 16, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Charles Robbins
Across the South and Mid-Atlantic, more than $40 billion is generated annually from ocean-related tourism, recreation, and fishing. The seafood industry alone supports more than 244,000 jobs in the region, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. Yet right now, our massive coastal economy is threatened. -
Oil Group: Regulators Are Ignoring Impact Of Natural Gas On Emissions
Nov 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The oil and gas lobby says the Obama administration is ignoring the role of natural gas in reducing carbon emissions around the country. In a report issued Monday, the American Petroleum Institute (API) noted that the United States has done more to reduce its carbon emissions than other developed nations and attributed that decrease... -
Jerry Brown Pressured To Ban Fracking In California
Nov 16, 2015 | The Huffington Post
By Mollie Reilly
Ahead of the upcoming United Nations climate talks in Paris, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) is facing pressure from environmental activists to take a stand against hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, in the Golden State. Brown, who is one of the nation's leading environmental advocates, has faced criticism for years for not opposing ... -
Schumer: NOAA Must Update Hudson River Maps Or Risk Oil Spill
Nov 16, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Scott Waldman
Sen. Charles Schumer said the tremendous amount of crude oil now being transported on the Hudson River means the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration must update its 115-year nautical maps. In a letter he sent to NOAA on Monday, Schumer said the agency's maps are outdated and could lead to an oil ... -
Senate Urged to Beat Back EPA Carbon Rule Attacks
Nov 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna and Andrew Childers
More than 110 environmental advocacy groups Nov. 16 urged the Senate not to support two resolutions that would nullify the centerpieces of President Barack Obama's efforts to combat climate change. “We strongly urge you to oppose these resolutions that put the health of our children and families at risk, threaten the quality of our air... -
Clean Power Plan Witnesses Discuss Flexibility, Incentives
Nov 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
While environmentalists and citizens said the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan gives states flexibility to meet emissions targets from fossil fuel-fired power plants, a coal industry representative told the EPA that flexibility was “an illusion.” The proposed federal plan to implement... -
Greens Push Senators To Oppose Power Plant Resolutions
Nov 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Environmental groups and climate change activists are urging senators to oppose Republican efforts to dismantle key Obama climate regulations. Ahead of a potential vote on resolutions against two Obama rules limiting carbon emissions from power plants, a slate of green groups sent a letter to senators on Monday asking them to preserve... -
Greens Wage Letter-Writing Campaign With Senate Vote Imminent
Nov 17, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Amanda Reilly
Two resolutions that would scuttle the Obama administration's carbon rules for power plants are on the Senate schedule and could see a vote as early as this week, the sponsors of the measures said yesterday evening. The resolutions would kill U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan aimed at reducing CO2 emissions from existing power plants ... -
Senate Tees Up Votes Against Obama’s Climate Rules
Nov 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
The Senate will vote as early as this week to block President Obama’s climate change rules for power plants. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Monday that the resolutions, one of which he sponsors, were placed on the Senate floor calendar, lining up a vote soon.The resolutions are written under the Congressional... -
D.C. Circuit Denies Advocates' Bid To Reassign Combustion Air Rule Panel
Nov 16, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has rejected advocates' call to reassign a three-judge panel overseeing suits challenging the agency's suite of combustion emissions rules, keeping the three GOP appointees in place rather than the panel of one GOP appointee and two Democratic appointees... -
EPA Sends Proposed NPDES Program Update Rule For White House Review
Nov 16, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Amanda Palleschi
EPA has sent to the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) a proposed rule that would streamline application forms and other documentation for Clean Water Act (CWA) discharge permits. The proposal, received by OMB Nov. 13, would update some elements of the National Pollutant Discharge...
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(ACC Mentioned) Bottle Recycling Report Nothing To PP, Er, Pooh-Pooh
Nov 16, 2015 | Plastics News
By Jim Johnson
Did you know that 7 percent of all the high density polyethylene bottles recycled last year in the United States ended up as film and sheet?
Or that 60 percent of all recycled post-consumer bottles were made from PET?
Or that a recent report backed by the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council and the Association of Plastic Recyclers puts the estimated value of purchased bales of PET and HDPE post-consumer bottles at $730 million last year?
That makes a lot of regrind.
The report made a splash a couple of weeks ago and was jammed full of all sorts of information — too much to report in an initial story.
So let's go back and highlight some more details.
The big news of report is that plastic bottle recycling in the United States exceeded 3 billion pounds for the first time ever in 2014.
But the 25th annual edition of the United States National Postconsumer Plastics Bottle Recycling Report also showed that the five-year compounded annual growth rate for plastic bottle recycling was 4.1 percent.
Plastics News previously reported the total weight of recycled bottles increased by 97 million pounds year over year. Let's dive a little deeper into the numbers. PET bottle collection increased by 14 million pounds, but the recycling collection rate for PET dipped from 31.2 percent in 2013 to 31.0 percent in 2014.
On the HDPE side, collection increased by 62 million pounds, and the collection rate increased to 33.6 percent.
The overall collection rate for post-consumer plastic bottle recycling, btw, increased by 1 percent to 31.8 percent.
Total resin sales for bottles in 2014 was 9.436 billion pounds, up from 9.417 billion pounds in 2013. Total plastic recycled was 3.003 billion pounds, up from 2.906 billion pounds in 2013.
Polypropylene recycling, while small in comparison to PET and HDPE, is rapidly increasing. PP posted a 44.9-percent recycling rate last year, up from 31.8 percent in 2013. The actual weight of recycled PP bottles jumped to 79.5 million pounds in 2014 from 62 million pounds in 2013.
Post-consumer plastic bottle recycling has increased every year since 1990, the first year of the report.
And while plastic bottle recycling increases each year, there is certainly plenty of room to grow. The category has a recycling rate much lower than other recyclable materials such as metal and paper.
Here's what the report has to say about that: “one barrier to plastic bottle recycling is that too many consumers continue to be unaware of the significant usefulness, demand, and value of recycled plastic including HDPE and PET and PP. Data and experience show that plastic bottle recycling can be increased through sustained local education campaigns.”
Municipalities, the report continued, also “need to understand that they also can benefit from the sale of bales of bottles.”
Another barrier is the “lack of sufficient convenient access to recycling collection opportunities for products used away from home.”
If you haven't had the chance yet, take a deeper look at the report. There's lots of interesting stuff.
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(ACC Mentioned) Investment In Plastics Processing Plants Has Tripled Since 2010
Nov 16, 2015 | Plastics News
By Clare Goldsberry
Shale-advantaged resins are affecting job growth in the plastics industry in a big way, according to Martha Moore, Senior Director, Policy Analysis and Economics, for the American Chemistry Council (ACC; Washington, DC). There is currently a "huge build-out" of capacity in the United States for plastics processing. "Since June 2012, plastics processing projects have been announced by over 400 companies in over 40 states, with additional projects in Canada and Mexico," Moore stated. "Sixty-three percent of those [are] with a foreign partner," said Moore, adding that ACC is tracking more than 500 plastics processor projects. Moore made these comments at the recent Global Plastics Summit produced by SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association and IHS in Chicago.
"Increased resin capacity equals increased processing capacity," Moore said, adding that of the 500 projects that the ACC is tracking, there are 246 individual projects valued at $153 billion. Thirty percent are greenfield projects and 70% are capacity expansions. Since 2010, investment in the construction of plastics processing plants has tripled, with some 30,000 jobs created. "It really is a U.S. story," she said. "It's happening in almost every state."
Approximately one-third of the new projects are for consumer and institutional products with medical and healthcare a large subset of that; another third is for transportation markets; one-fifth is for packaging; and the rest is in the building and construction market. Not only is there new capacity in plastics processing, but new capacity is being added in resin compounding, as well.
"Once those plants are built, we anticipate 127,000 direct jobs, with a half-million jobs supported by plastics processors," Moore said.
In spite of all this good news, there are risks to this capacity expansion, such as unpredictable energy dynamics, workforce development issues and equipment shortages, which lead to capital cost escalation, she said. There are also infrastructure bottlenecks, market accessibility issues and trade exposure, more stringent environmental issues and other regulatory restrictions that could hamper processor growth.
Automotive driving investment in plastics processing
All of that capacity expansion should bode well for machinery makers, and Paul Caprio, President of KraussMaffei, painted a successful picture for the company in 2015. KraussMaffei had $1.4 billion in orders in 2015 and is "seeing an increased revival in investment in the plastics processing industry since the downturn, with automotive leading the way," said Caprio.
Caprio noted that contributing to the company's success was the loss "of some competition, which left the door open for the company," and demand for new injection and extrusion equipment. "All machinery builders are at capacity," he stated. "Additionally, production utilization of our customers is at capacity, as well, as we're seeing the transfer of production from Asia to the United States. Demand from the building and construction market is helping our extrusion business," said Caprio.
Some of the mega-trends Caprio cited include high-gloss, paint-like molding that eliminates the painting process; clear-coat molding; skin-form molding; color-form molding; and Dynamic Mold Heating, which means that mold technology is in big demand, as well. "We look to moldmakers and others to help us bring new technology to the automotive industry in areas such as lightweighting, MuCell and renewable raw materials," Caprio said. "We're trying to do more in the molding machine cell without having to touch the part."
That brings up the trend of automation and taking people out of the equation in order to be the "low-cost provider," Caprio added.
With respect to compression molding, Caprio said it is "dependent on moldmakers to help us get cycle times down on these thick parts."
Co-injection (sandwich molding) is also becoming big, with recycled material being used for the middle layer to reduce the amount of virgin resin. Also trending for processors is energy savings and the awareness of those costs. "Our power [in the United States] is very competitive, but servo controllers and other machine controls are helping that even more," Caprio said.
Processors are also trending toward optimizing utilization of assets, such as the time it takes to change a mold. "Saving time is saving money," he noted.
This is plastics processing industry 4.0. "We call it Plastics 4.0," Caprio said. "Processors need to be more intelligent on the production floor with integrated production, integrated services and intelligent machines."
The challenges to that include availability of a technical workforce. "We can't find people; our customers can't find people," he said, urging the United States to benchmark the European method of training skilled workers. Another challenge, he noted ,is the "image of plastics—a huge issue," Caprio stated.
In spite of the challenges, Caprio concluded that the future of the plastics processing industry looks bright. "The reshoring we're seeing driven by the ultimate customer to make products in the USA is driving more capacity," he states. "That trend has resulted in at least 15 new customers coming from Europe to set up plants in the United States to serve the auto industry."
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(ACC Mentioned) Plastic Bottle Recycling
Nov 16, 2015 | Plasteurope
Plastic bottle recycling in the USA rose by 3.3% to more than 1.4m t in 2014, helped by increased single-stream collection of household recyclables, according to figures released jointly by the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR, Washington DC / USA; www.plasticsrecycling.org) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC, Washington DC / USA; www.americanchemistry.com). Recycling rates have also been lifted thanks to the continued lightweighting of bottles and an increased use of concentrates with smaller, lighter bottles – which have offset the expansion in the use of plastic bottles in packaging applications.
The recycling collection rate for plastic bottles climbed by 1.0 percentage point to 31.8%, the trade bodies said in the “2014 United States national postconsumer plastics bottle recycling report”. The report is based on a survey of reclaimers conducted by Moore Recycling Associates (Sonoma, California / USA; www.moorerecycling.com). Recycling rates increased for HDPE and PP bottle resins but declined for PET bottle resins.
PET bottles collected for recycling climbed by 0.8% to about 821,000 t, but recycling collection rate dipped slightly from 31.2% in 2013 to 31.0% in 2014. HDPE bottles collected rose by 5.9% to about 503,000 t and the HDPE bottle recycling collection rate rose to 33.6% from 31.6%. PP bottle recycling collection surged by 28% to about 36,000 t, with 57% of the total processed domestically as deliberate PP material, as opposed to mixed material flake combined with HDPE. The collection rate for PP bottles rose to 44.9% in 2014 from 31.8% in 2013. PET and HDPE bottles continue to make up nearly 97% of the US market for plastic bottles, with PP accounting for 1.9%, LDPE 0.8% and PVC 0.4%.
Exports of all postconsumer plastic bottle bales rose slightly in 2014 compared with 2013 but fell to the lowest percentage of total exports in six years, 21.9%, as the amount collected increased faster than exports. HDPE exports rose substantially in 2014, while PET exports continued to fall in terms of both tonnage and percentage of material collected. Exports of recycled PP bottles rose in 2014 to 25% of that collected, even as more material was processed domestically.
Looking at end use markets for recycled bottles, natural HDPE postconsumer recycled resin continued to mainly be used for non-food application bottles such as for detergent, motor oil and household cleaners, as well as for film. Pigmented HDPE recycled resins were used mainly for pipe, lawn products and non-food application bottles. PET postconsumer resin retained its traditional markets for fibre, film and sheet as well as food bottles.
Barriers to growth in bottle recycling include the fact that too many consumers are unaware of the usefulness and value of recycled plastics and a lack of sufficient convenient access to recycling collection opportunities for products used away from the home. The report also notes that the rise in single stream collection of household recyclables has created additional challenges caused by contaminated bales of bottles, with bale yields as low as in recent years.
“The message to American consumers is that plastic bottles are valuable resources even after they’ve been used,” said Steve Alexander, executive director of APR. “Americans generated an estimated USD 730m (EUR 680m) in recycled plastic bottles in 2014. The simple act of recycling helps generate local revenue, supports recycling jobs, and enables us to continue to benefit from these useful resources.” -
(ACC Mentioned) Why The United States Leaves Deadly Chemicals On The Market
Nov 16, 2015 | Truth-Out
By Valerie Brown and Elizabeth Grossman
Scientists are trained to express themselves rationally. They avoid personal attacks when they disagree. But some scientific arguments become so polarized that tempers fray. There may even be shouting.
Such is the current state of affairs between two camps of scientists: health effects researchers and regulatory toxicologists. Both groups study the effects of chemical exposures in humans. Both groups have publicly used terms like "irrelevant," "arbitrary," "unfounded" and "contrary to all accumulated physiological understanding" to describe the other's work. Privately, the language becomes even harsher, with phrases such as "a pseudoscience," "a religion" and "rigged."
The rift centers around the best way to measure the health effects of chemical exposures. The regulatory toxicologists typically rely on computer simulations called "physiologically based pharmacokinetic" (PBPK) modeling. The health effects researchers - endocrinologists, developmental biologists and epidemiologists, among others - draw their conclusions from direct observations of how chemicals actually affect living things.
The debate may sound arcane, but the outcome could directly affect your health. It will shape how government agencies regulate chemicals for decades to come: how toxic waste sites are cleaned up, how pesticides are regulated, how workers are protected from toxic exposure and what chemicals are permitted in household items. Those decisions will profoundly affect public health: the rates at which we suffer cancer, diabetes, obesity, infertility, and neurological problems like attention disorders and lowered IQ.
The link from certain chemicals to these health effects is real. In a paper published earlier this year, a group of leading endocrinologists concluded with 99 percent certainty that environmental exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals causes health problems. They estimate that this costs the European Union healthcare system about $175 billion a year.
Closer to home, Americans are routinely sickened by toxic chemicals whose health effects have been long known. To cite one infamous example, people exposed to the known carcinogen formaldehyde in FEMA trailers after Hurricane Katrina suffered headaches, nosebleeds and difficulty breathing. Dozens of cancer cases were later reported. Then there are workplace exposures, which federal government estimates link to as many as 20,000 cancer deaths a year and hundreds of thousands of illnesses.
"We are drowning our world in untested and unsafe chemicals, and the price we are paying in terms of our reproductive health is of serious concern," wrote the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics in a statement released on October 1.
Yet chemical regulation in the United States has proceeded at a glacial pace. And corporate profit is at the heart of the story.
That the chemical industry exerts political influence is well documented. What our investigation reveals is that, 30 years ago, corporate interests began to control not just the political process but the science itself. Industry not only funds research to cast doubt on known environmental health hazards; it has also shaped an entire field of science - regulatory toxicology - to downplay the risk of toxic chemicals.
Our investigation traces this web of influence to a group of scientists working for the Department of Defense (DOD) in the 1970s and 1980s - the pioneers of PBPK modeling. It quickly became clear that this type of modeling could be manipulated to minimize the appearance of chemical risk. PBPK methodology has subsequently been advanced by at least two generations of researchers - including many from the original DOD group - who move between industry, government agencies and industry-backed research groups, often with little or no transparency.
The result is that chemicals known to be harmful to human health remain largely unregulated in the United States - often with deadly results. For chemicals whose hazards are just now being recognized, such as the common plastics ingredient bisphenol A (BPA) and other endocrine disruptors, this lack of regulation is likely to continue unless the federal chemical review process becomes more transparent and relies less heavily on PBPK modeling.
Here we lay out the players, the dueling paradigms and the high-stakes health consequences of getting it wrong.
The Dawn of PBPK Simulation
The 1970s and 1980s saw a blizzard of environmental regulation. The Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and Toxic Substances Control Act, along with the laws that established Superfund and Community Right-to-Know Programs, for the first time required companies - and military bases - using and producing chemicals to account for their environmental and health impacts. This meant greater demand for chemical risk assessments as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began to establish safety standards for workplace exposures and environmental cleanups.
In the 1980s, the now-defunct Toxic Hazards Research Unit at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, was investigating the toxicity and health effects of chemicals used by the military. Of particular concern to the DOD were the many compounds used by the military to build, service and maintain aircraft, vehicles and other machinery: fuels and fuel additives, solvents, coatings and adhesives. The military is responsible for about 900 of the approximately 1,300 currently listed Superfund sites, many of which have been contaminated by these chemicals for decades.
In the mid-1980s, scientists at the Wright-Patterson Toxic Hazards Research Unit began using PBPK simulations to track how chemicals move through the body. Known as in silico (in computers) models, these are an alternative to testing chemicals in vivo (in live animals) or in vitro (in a test tube). They allow scientists to estimate what concentrations of a chemical (or its breakdown products) end up in a particular organ or type of tissue, and how long they take to exit the body. The information can then be correlated with experimental data to set exposure limits - or not.
PBPK simulations made testing faster and cheaper, something attractive to both industry and regulators. But the PBPK model has drawbacks. "It tells you nothing about effects," says Linda Birnbaum, director of both the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) and National Toxicology Program (NTP). Observational studies and laboratory experiments, on the other hand, are designed to discover how a chemical affects biological processes.
Even regulatory toxicologists who support PBPK acknowledge its limitations: "[PBPK models] are always going to be limited by the quality of the data that go into them," says toxicologist James Lamb, who worked for the NTP and EPA in the 1980s and is now principal scientist at the consulting firm Exponent.
The late health effects researcher Louis Guillette, a professor at the Medical University of South Carolina famous for studies on DDT's hormonedisrupting effects in Florida alligators, put it more bluntly: "PBPK? My immediate response: Junk in, junk out. The take-home is that most of the models [are] only as good as your understanding of the complexity of the system."
Many biologists say PBPK-based risk assessments begin with assumptions that are too narrow, and thus often fail to fully capture how a chemical exposure can affect health. For example, a series of PBPK studies and reviews by toxicologist Justin Teeguarden of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., and his colleagues suggested that BPA breaks down into less harmful compounds and exits the body so rapidly that it is essentially harmless. Their research began with certain assumptions: that BPA only mimics estrogen weakly, that it affects only the body's estrogen system, and that 90 percent of BPA exposure is through digestion of food and beverages. However, health effects research has shown that BPA mimics estrogen closely, can affect the body's androgen and thyroid hormone systems, and can enter the body via pathways like the skin and the tissues of the mouth. When PBPK models fail to include this evidence, they tend to underestimate risk.
Because of its reliance on whatever data are included, PBPK modeling can be deliberately manipulated to produce desired outcomes. Or, as University of Notre Dame biologist Kristin Shrader-Frechette, who specializes in human health risk assessment, says: "Models can offer a means of avoiding the conclusions derived from actual experiments." In other words, PBPK models can be customized to provide results that work to industry's advantage.
That's not to say PBPK itself is to blame. "Let's not throw the baby out completely with the bathwater," says New York University associate professor of environmental medicine and health policy Leo Trasande. "However, when you have biology telling you there are basic flaws in the model, that's a compelling reason that it's time for a paradigm shift."
A Handy Tool for Industry
That PBPK studies could be used to make chemicals appear safer was as clear in the 1980s as it is now. In a 1988 paper touting the new technique, Wright-Patterson scientists explained how their modeling had prompted the EPA to stop its regulation process for a chemical of great concern to the military: methylene chloride.
Methylene chloride is widely used as a solvent and as an ingredient in making plastics, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other industrial products. By the 1990s, the US military would be the country's second greatest user. Methylene chloride was - and remains - regulated under the Clean Air Act as a hazardous air pollutant because of its carcinogenic and neurotoxic effects.
Between 1985 and 1986, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health estimated that about 1 million workers a year were exposed to methylene chloride, and the EPA classified the compound as a "probable human carcinogen." A number of unions, including United Auto Workers and United Steelworkers, also petitioned OSHA to limit on-the-job exposure to methylene chloride.
In 1986, OSHA began the process of setting occupational exposure limits. Stakeholders were invited to submit public comments.
Among the materials submitted was a PBPK study by Melvin Andersen, Harvey Clewell - both then working at Wright-Patterson - and several other scientists, including two employed by methylene chloride product manufacturer Dow Chemical. Published in 1987, this study concluded, "Conventional risk analyses greatly overestimate the risk in humans exposed to low concentrations [of methylene chloride]."
Later that year, the EPA revised its previous health assessment of methylene chloride, citing the Wright-Patterson study to conclude that the chemical was nine times less risky than previously estimated. The EPA "has halted its rulemaking on methylene chloride [based on our studies]," wrote Wright-Patterson scientists in 1988.
OSHA, too, considered the Wright-Patterson study in its methylene chloride assessment - and its rulemaking dragged on another 10 years before the agency finally limited exposure to the chemical.
The usefulness of PBPK modeling to industry did not escape the Wright-Patterson researchers. "The potential impact," wrote Andersen, Clewell and their colleagues in 1988, "is far reaching and not limited to methylene chloride." Using PBPK models to set exposure limits could help avoid setting "excessively conservative" - i.e., protective - limits that could lead to "unnecessary expensive controls" and place "constraints on important industrial processes." In other words, PBPK models could be used to set less-stringent environmental and health standards, and save industry money.
So far, they've been proven right. The work done at Wright-Patterson set the stage for the next 30-plus years. Results obtained using PBPK modeling - especially in industry-funded research, often conducted by former Wright-Patterson scientists - have downplayed the risk and delayed the regulation of numerous widely used and commercially lucrative chemicals. These include formaldehyde, styrene, tricholorethylene, BPA and the pesticide chlorpyrifos. For many such chemicals, PBPK studies contradict what actual biological experiments conclude. Regulators often defer to the PBPK studies anyway.
A Web of Influence
At the time that PBPK modelling was being developed, the chemical industry was struggling with its public image. The Bhopal, India, disaster - the methyl isocyanate release that killed and injured thousands - happened in 1984. The following year, a toxic gas release at a West Virginia Union Carbide plant sent about 135 people to hospitals.
In response to these incidents, new federal regulations required companies to account for the storage, use and release of hazardous chemicals. The minutes from a May 1988 Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) meeting show industry was feeling the pressure. Noting the federal scrutiny and the growing testing requirements, the CMA recommended that industry help "develop exposure data" and "explore innovative ways to limit required testing to that which is needed."
Industry had already begun to do this by founding a number of research institutes such as the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology (CIIT), a nonprofit toxicology research institute (renamed the Hamner Institutes in an act of linguistic detoxification in 2007). This period also saw the rise of for-profit consulting firms like Environ (1982), Gradient (1985), ChemRisk (1985) and K.S. Crump and Company (1986), with which industry would collaborate advantageously in the following decades.
"Our goal was to do the science that would help the EPA and other regulatory bodies make the policies," explained William Greenlee, Hamner president and CEO, in an interview for a business website. Indeed, over the past 30 years, Hamner and these consultancies have produced hundreds of PBPK studies, often with the support of chemical companies or trade groups. Overwhelmingly, these studies downplay or cast doubt on chemicals' health effects - and delay regulation.
"I have seen how scientists from the Hamner Institutes can present information in a way that carefully shapes or controls a narrative," says Laura Vandenberg, an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst. She explains that Hamner scientists often use narrow time windows or present data in a limited context, rejecting information that does not conform to their models. "These are the kinds of tactics used to manufacture doubt," she says.
A close look at the authors of studies produced by these industry-linked research groups reveals a web of influence traceable to Wright-Patterson (see chart on following page). At least 10 researchers employed at or contracted by Wright-Patterson in the 1980s went on to careers in toxicology at CIIT/Hamner, for-profit consulting firms or the EPA. About half have held senior positions at Hamner, including the co-authors of many of the early Wright-Patterson PBPK studies: Melvin Anderson, now a chief scientific officer at Hamner, and Harvey Clewell, now a senior investigator at Hamner and principal scientist at the consulting firm ENVIRON. "I'm probably given credit as the person who brought PBPK into toxicology and risk assessment," Andersen told In These Times.
A revolving door between these industry-affiliated groups and federal regulators was also set in motion. More than a dozen researchers have moved from the EPA to these for-profit consultancies; a similar number have gone in the other direction, ending up at the EPA or other federal agencies.
Further blurring the public-private line, CIIT/Hamner has received millions of dollars in both industry and taxpayer money. The group stated on its website in 2007 that $18 million of its $21.5 million annual operating budget came from the "chemical and pharmaceutical industry." Information about its corporate funders is no longer detailed there, but Hamner has previously listed as clients and supporters the American Chemistry Council (formerly the CMA, and one of the most powerful lobbyists against chemical regulation), American Petroleum Institute, BASF, Bayer CropScience, Dow, ExxonMobil, Chevron and the Formaldehyde Council. At the same time, over the past 30 years, CIIT/Hamner has received nearly $160 million in grants and contracts from the EPA, DOD and Department of Health and Human Services. In sum, since the 1980s, these federal agencies have awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to industry-affiliated research institutes like Hamner.
But the federal reliance on industry-linked researchers extends further. Since 2000, the EPA has signed a number of cooperative research agreements with the ACC and CIIT/ Hamner. All involve chemical toxicity research that includes PBPK modeling. And in 2014, Hamner outlined additional research it will be conducting for the EPA's next generation of chemical testing - the ToxCast and Tox21 programs. Over the past five years, Hamner has received funding for this same research from the ACC and Dow.
Meanwhile, the EPA regularly contracts with for-profit consultancies to perform risk assessments, assemble peer review panels and select the scientific literature used in chemical evaluations. This gives these private organizations considerable sway in the decision-making process, often with little transparency about ties to chemical manufacturers. The upshot: Experts selected to oversee chemical regulation often overrepresent the industry perspective.
These cozy relationships have not gone unnoticed; the EPA has been called to task by both its own Office of Inspector General and by the US Government Accountability Office. "These arrangements have raised concerns that ACC or its members could potentially influence, or appear to influence, the scientific results that may be used to make future regulatory decisions," wrote the GAO in a 2005 report.
Asked for comment by In These Times, the EPA said these arrangements do not present conflicts of interest.
Decades of Deadly Delay
PBPK studies have stalled the regulation of numerous chemicals. In each case, narrowly focused models developed by industry-supported research concluded that risks were lower than previously estimated or were not of concern at likely exposure levels.
Take, for example, methylene chloride, the subject of the 1987 paper Wright-Patterson scientists bragged had halted the EPA's regulatory process. Despite the chemical being identified as "probably carcinogenic to humans" by the U.N. International Agency for Research on Cancer, a "reasonably anticipated" human carcinogen by the US National Toxicology Program, and an "occupational carcinogen" by OSHA, the EPA has yet to limit its use. EPA researchers noted this year that the 1987 PBPK model by the Wright-Patterson scientists remains the basis for the agency's risk assessment.
Today, methylene chloride remains in use - to produce electronics, pesticides, plastics and synthetic fabrics, and in paint and varnish strippers. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, OSHA and NIOSH have issued health warnings, and the FDA bars methylene chloride from cosmetics - but no US agency has totally banned the chemical. The EPA estimates that some 230,000 workers are exposed directly each year. According to OSHA, between 2000 and 2012, at least 14 people died in the United States of asphyxiation or heart failure after using methylene chloride-containing products to refinish bathtubs. The Center for Public Integrity reports that methylene chloride exposure prompted more than 2,700 calls to US poison control centers between 2008 and 2013.
Another telling example of industry-funded PBPK studies' influence is formaldehyde. This chemical remains largely unrestricted in the United States, despite being a well-recognized respiratory and neurological toxicant linked to nasal cancer and leukemia, as well as to allergic reactions and skin irritation. The EPA's toxicological review of formaldehyde, begun in 1990, remains incomplete, in no small part because of delays prompted by the introduction of studies - including PBPK models conducted by CIIT/Hamner - questioning its link to leukemia.
If that link is considered weak or uncertain, that means formaldehyde - or the companies that employ the sickened workers - won't be held responsible for the disease. The chemical industry is well aware that "more people have leukemia … than have nasal tumors," says recently retired NIEHS toxicologist James Huff.
Some of this CIIT/Hamner research was conducted between 2000 and 2005 with funding from an $18,750,000 EPA grant. In 2010, Hamner received $5 million from Dow, a formaldehydeproduct manufacturer, for toxicity testing, including PBPK modeling. The ACC, which opposes formaldehyde restriction, also supported this research.
Consequently, apart from a few state regulations and a pending EPA proposal to limit formaldehyde emissions from composite wood products like plywood, companies can still use the chemical - as in the FEMA trailers.
Cosmetics and personal-care products can also be sources of formaldehyde exposure. This made headlines in 2011 after hair salon workers using a smoothing product called Brazilian Blowout reported nausea, sore throats, rashes, chronic sinus infections, asthma-like symptoms, bloody noses, dizziness and other neurological effects. "You can't see it … but you feel it in your eyes and it gives you a high," salon owner and hair stylist Cortney Tanner tells In These Times. "They don't teach this stuff in beauty school," she says, and no one warns stylists about these products or even suggests using a ventilator.
OSHA has issued a hazard alert for these products and the FDA has issued multiple warnings, most recently in September, but regulations prevent federal agencies from pulling the products from store shelves. So, for formaldehyde, as in the case of the paint strippers containing methylene chloride, exposures continue.
BPA Rings Alarm Bells
The chemical currently at the center of the most heated debates about consumer exposure is BPA. The building block of polycarbonate plastics, BPA is used in countless products, including the resins that line food cans and coat the thermal receipt paper at cash registers and ATMs. While scientific evidence of adverse health effects from environmentally typical levels of BPA mounts, and many manufacturers and retailers have responded to public concern by changing their products, federal regulatory authorities still resist restricting the chemical's use.
BPA does not produce immediate, acute effects, like those experienced by salon workers exposed to formaldehyde or machinists working with methylene chloride. But in laboratory tests on animals, BPA is a known endocrine disruptor. Structurally similar to natural hormones, endocrine disruptors can interfere with normal cellular processes and trigger abnormal biochemical responses. These can prompt numerous health problems, including cancer, infertility, and metabolic and neurological disorders. BPA has also been linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity.
To promote the idea that BPA is safe, the chemical industry routinely lobbies policymakers and "educates" consumers. What has not been widely discussed, however, is how industry has backed PBPK studies that marginalized research showing risks from environmentally typical levels of BPA. Many of these doubt-inducing studies have been conducted by researchers whose careers can be linked to the PBPK work done at Wright-Patterson. In published critiques, health effects researchers - among them Gail Prins and Wade Welshons - have detailed the many ways in which these PBPK models fail to accurately reflect BPA exposure.
PBPK and Endocrine Disruption
Over the past several decades, our evolving understanding of our bodies' responses to chemicals has challenged previous toxicological assumptions - including those that are fed into PBPK models. This is particularly true of endocrine disruptors.
Cause-and-effect relationships between endocrine disruptors and health problems can be hard to pinpoint. We now know that early - even prenatal - exposure to endocrine disruptors can set the stage for adult disease. In addition, a pregnant woman's exposures may affect not only her children but also her grandchildren. These transgenerational effects have been documented in animal experiments. The classic human evidence came from victims of DES, a drug prescribed in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s to prevent miscarriages. Daughters of women who took the endocrine disruptor developed reproductive cancers, and preliminary research suggests their daughters may be at greater risk for cancer and other reproductive problems.
"The transgenerational work raises an incredible specter," says Andrea Gore, who holds the Vacek Chair in Pharmacology at the University of Texas at Austin and edits the influential journal Endocrinology. "It's not just what you're exposed to now, it's what your ancestors were exposed to."
Complicating PBPK modeling further, hormone-mimicking chemicals, just like hormones, can have biological effects at concentrations as low as parts per trillion. In addition, environmental exposures most often occur as mixtures, rather than in isolation. And each individual may respond differently.
"PBPK doesn't come close" to capturing the reality of endocrine disruption, the late developmental biologist Louis Guillette told In These Times, in part because modelers are "still asking questions about one chemical exposure with one route of exposure." Even for health effects researchers, understanding of mixtures' effects is in its infancy.
The debate over how endocrine disruption can be represented in PBPK models has intensified the unease between regulatory toxicologists and health effects researchers. That tension is particularly well-illustrated by a recent series of events that also reveal how some journal editors privilege the industry's point of view.
A Life-and-Death Debate
In February 2012 the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) published a report intended to inform regulation worldwide. The authors were an international group of health effects researchers with long experience studying endocrine disruption.
"There is an increasing burden of disease across the globe in which [endocrine disruptors] are likely playing an important role, and future generations may also be affected," said the report. These diseases, it continued, are being seen in humans and wildlife, and include male and female reproductive disorders, changes in the numbers of male and female babies born, thyroid and adrenal gland disorders, hormone-related cancers and neurodevelopmental diseases.
The backlash from toxicologists was immediate. Over the next few months - as the EU prepared to begin its regulatory decision-making on endocrine disruptors - the editors of 14 toxicology journals each published an identical commentary harshly criticizing the WHO/UNEP conclusions.
The commentary included a letter from more than 70 toxicologists urging the EU not to adopt the endocrinedisruption framework. The letter said that the WHO/UNEP report could not be allowed to inform policy because its science is "contrary to all accumulated physiological understanding."
This commentary was followed by further attacks. One critique, published in the journal Critical Reviews in Toxicology, was funded and vetted by the ACC.
These commentaries infuriated health effects researchers. Twenty endocrine journal editors, 28 associate editors and 56 other scientists - including several WHO/UNEP report authors - signed a statement in Endocrinology, saying in part:
The dismissive approach to endocrine disruption science put forth … is unfounded, as it is [not] based on the fundamental principles of how the endocrine system works and how chemicals can interfere with its normal function.
Endocrinology editor Andrea Gore tells In These Times that she and other health effects researchers don't think the scientifically demonstrated dangers of endocrine disruptors are subject to debate. "There are fundamental differences between regulatory toxicologists and what I refer to as 'people who understand the endocrine science.' "
The outcome of this debate and the structure of future regulatory toxicity testing in the United States and Europe is not yet clear. The EPA appears to be attempting to incorporate endocrine disruption into PBPK models, but many scientists are skeptical the process will produce reliable results, given the models' limitations and the complexity of endocrine effects.
From Science to Activism
Although couched in complex language, these arguments are not academic, but have profound implications for public health. Disorders and diseases, increasingly linked to exposure to endocrine disruptors - including metabolic, reproductive, developmental and neurological problems - are widespread and increasing. About 20 percent of US adults show at least three of the five indicators of metabolic syndrome: obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease. Neurological problems, including behavioral and learning disabilities in children as well as Parkinson's disease, are increasing rapidly. Fertility rates in both men and women are declining. Globally, the average sperm count has dropped 50 percent in the last 50 years.
Scientists typically shy away from activism, but many now believe it's what's needed to punch through the machinations and inertia regarding chemical regulation. Shanna Swan, Mount Sinai professor of preventive medicine, obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive medicine, notes that some of the biggest reductions in chemical exposures have happened in response to consumer pressure on both industry and policymakers. Or, as the University of California's Bruce Blumberg says, "I think we need to take the fight to the people."
The Endocrine Society stressed the urgency of addressing these public health impacts in a statement released September 28. Not surprisingly, industry disagreed, calling this science "unsupported" and "still-unproven."
Meanwhile, PBPK studies continue to succeed in sowing doubt about adverse health effects of endocrine disorders. Their extremely narrow focus leads to narrow conclusions that often result in calls for more research before regulation. In regulatory decisions, "the assumption is that if we don't know something, it won't hurt us," says University of Massachusetts, Amherst professor of biology R. Thomas Zoeller. In other words, the burden of proof remains on health effects researchers to prove harm, not on industry to prove safety - and proving harm is difficult, especially when other scientists are seeding doubt.
But the clock is ticking. As Washington State University geneticist Pat Hunt told In These Times, "If we wait [to make regulatory decisions] for 'proof' in the form of compelling human data, it may be too late for us as a species."
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Reform and Reporting: What’s Next?
Nov 17, 2015 | Environmental Leader
Using safer chemicals and improving chemical reporting has become a top priority for companies as the federal government moves closer to chemical reform legislation and consumers increasingly demand safer products and product transparency.
The last few years has seen retailers and manufactures including Target, Walmart and SC Johnson take steps to phase out hazardous chemicals in their products while the Retail Industry Leaders Association has rolled out an initiative designed to streamline the required safety data sheet process used by suppliers and retailers to exchange chemical and product information.
These companies are on the right track. Chemical reform and stricter reporting guidelines are well underway — and industry should prepare itself, say business and advocacy groups. Here’s what to expect in the upcoming months.
Toxic Substances Control Act Reform
This is the big one, years in the making. The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) — the US’ primary chemical regulation — hasn’t been updated in almost 40 years. This has led to uncertainty and varying restrictions at the state level and in the private sector, creating a chaotic marketplace for business, says Jack Pratt, the Environmental Defense Fund’s chemicals campaign director.
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, currently in the US Senate, aims to fix this system. It’s got major bipartisan support — 60 Senators from 38 states as cosponsors — and support from dozens of industry associations, as well as environmental and public health groups. Both the American Chemistry Council and EDF support this proposal.
“This legislation would bring TSCA into the 21st Century and importantly create the kind of predictability, consistency and certainty that manufacturers and the national marketplace need, while also strengthening oversight and providing consumers with more confidence in the safety of chemicals,” says ACC spokesperson Scott Openshaw. “We are optimistic a bill can be delivered to the President’s desk this year.”
Businesses and consumers alike will benefit from TSCA reform, Pratt says. Earlier this year EDF published a blueprint for safer chemicals in the marketplace that it developed in working with Walmart and other businesses. The blueprint lists five things companies can do to ensure safer products.
“Today, consumers can’t assume the safety of the chemicals in the products they buy,” Pratt says. “Business should have a lot to gain from a credible, federal safety system that works and restores consumer confidence in the safety of chemicals used in consumer products and materials.”
Toxics Release Inventory Expansion
In October, the EPA said it will propose new regulations requiring natural gas processing plants to file Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reports. The expanded chemicals reporting rules are in response to a lawsuit by environmental and open government organizations.
TRI data is submitted annually to the EPA, states and tribes by facilities in industry sectors such as manufacturing, metal mining, electric utilities and commercial hazardous waste.
Producers can expect to incur costs from monitoring emissions data and submitting annual reports to EPA, says Keith Matthews, former director of the Biopesticides and Pollution Prevention Division in the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, and now counsel at Sidley Austin LLP.
“All told, these are likely to amount to thousands of dollars per producer,” Matthews says. “Early estimates of the actual costs of the rule to industry have not been discovered. EPA will, however, have to develop estimated costs of the regulation as part of the rulemaking to add the gas processing industry to the list of industries required to report under TRI.”
Other Chemical Rules in the Works
While they may not be as far reaching as TSCA reform and TRI expansion, businesses should pay attention to other chemical rules expected to be finalized in the next few months, Pratt says.
“EPA is expected to finalize in the next few months its regulation restricting the use of formaldehyde in plywood and other pressed wood products, used in furniture, cabinets, etc.,” he says. “EPA is also expected to proposed new rules to restrict the use of trichloroethylene (TCE) in spot removers and spray adhesives, and the use of two highly toxic chemicals, methylene dichloride and N-methylpyrrolidone, in paint strippers.”
Whether driven by the market or by new chemical regulations, change is coming. Leading companies are already moving towards safer chemicals and more transparent reporting practices. And ultimately, industry experts say this will likely help businesses through increased consumer confidence as well as safer products and workplaces.
Read more: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2015/11/17/chemical-reform-and-reporting-whats-next/#ixzz3rkl5u2xr -
Chemical Safety Board Might Postpone New Investigations
Nov 16, 2015 | Chem.Info
By Meagan Parrish
It’s been a tough year for the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, the federal agency charged with investigating accidents at chemical plants.
In March, CSB chairman Rafael Moure-Eraso resigned amid criticisms of declining agency performance, low employee morale, retaliation against whistleblowers and overall poor management.
Months later, the CSB was still facing turmoil as two of its top officials were placed on administrative leave as part of an effort to purge the agency and improve its reportedly “toxic work environment.”
Now the CSB’s new leader, Vanessa Allen Sutherland, has said that the agency may have to halt new investigations to effectively overhaul its operations.
In a report in Chemical & Engineering News, Sutherland said the CSB is currently focused on wrapping up six delayed investigations by the end of the year. But in order to achieve this, she said it may require that they delay taking on new investigations until 2016.
The agency has 40 employees and just an $11 million budget, and has a reputation for taking years to complete its reports and recommendations on chemical industry accidents.
In addition to catching up on its backlog of investigations, Sutherland said she hopes to regain the respect of the agency by improving transparency and its public tone.
The CSB’s most recently released report concerns a massive explosion and fire at a Puerto Rican petroleum terminal facility in 2009.
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EPA Plans To Expand Air Toxics Enforcement To Olefins, Storage Tanks
Nov 16, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's air enforcement program is reexamining its priorities, shifting its focus toward air toxics violations, notably from olefins production, storage tanks, and also toward the growth areas of oil and gas drilling and mobile sources, according to the agency's top air enforcement official.
Speaking at a conference hosted by the American Law Institute-Continuing Legal Education (ALI-CLE) in Washington, D.C., Oct. 23, Phillip Brooks, director of the air enforcement division at EPA's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA), said that after years of focus on new source review (NSR) permitting violations at power plants, EPA is pivoting toward new challenges.
EPA's long campaign has resulted in 31 settlements covering some 104 power plants and netting $21 billion in injunction relief, Brooks said.
To the extent that EPA is still looking at NSR violations by major pollution sources, those sources may no longer be power plants and might just as well cover facilities producing, for example, carbon black, used mainly in the production of tires, plate glass, or acid for industrial purposes, Brooks said.
Now, EPA is reevaluating its enforcement priorities as part of an internal agency review of its National Enforcement Initiatives (NEI) for fiscal years 2017-2019. EPA is proposing to expand its enforcement priorities to focus on air toxics and refining, a plan that has already drawn opposition in public comments from oil sector groups and the chemical industry. EPA took comment on its NEIs through Oct. 15.
Brooks said that "we are really ramping up in the area of air toxics." He noted the success of EPA's recent enforcement focus on flares, which are used to dispose of harmful waste gases at oil refineries and other industrial facilities. EPA has found flares often do not destroy air toxics because of inefficient flare operation, usually the result of over-steaming in the steam-assisted flares that use steam to limit visible smoke.
EPA's enforcement initiative in this area has produced a series of major settlements with refiners including BP and Marathon Petroleum, and Brooks credited the groundbreaking work on flares included in these settlements for the inclusion of measures to boost flares' performance in EPA's Sept. 29 final refinery air rules.
The rules update air toxics standards for multiple pieces of equipment, and also new source performance standards (NSPS) for flares.
Olefins Production
EPA will now look beyond refineries to related petrochemical facilities to evaluate flare performance, and this will likely involve olefins production plants, where EPA also believes flares are not operating efficiently, Brooks said.
Brooks also expressed enthusiasm for new technologies such as infrared cameras for detecting Clean Air Act toxics violations at facilities where previously pollutant leaks would have been hard to detect. The use of such technology is a driver behind EPA's proposed expansion of the existing air toxics NEIs to include the new area of organic liquid storage tanks, which EPA proposes to add to the NEIs possibly in addition to air emissions from hazardous waste.
"This is a part of enforcement that is going to grow," as new technology becomes available at cheaper prices, Brooks said. Infrared cameras allow EPA inspectors to see emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) escaping form large storage tanks, and also to better quantify emission rates of "fugitive" emissions, which are important to establish the magnitude of an air law violation. The new technology "moves us way down the pike in having that conversation," Brooks said. VOCs are ozone precursors, and some are also classified as air toxics.
In its Sept. 15 Federal Register notice asking for comment on the proposed NEI changes, EPA says "large storage tanks can be significant sources of excess air emissions at many sites, including terminals, refineries, and chemical plants. Using advanced monitoring, including optical remote sensing techniques, such as differential absorption light detection and ranging technology and optical gas imaging cameras, EPA has observed that [VOC] and hazardous air pollutant (HAP) emissions from storage tanks can greatly exceed the permitted and/or estimated emissions. In many instances, EPA has observed that emissions are the result of violations, including inadequate maintenance of the tanks and associated emissions controls, design flaws, and expansion of production volumes without corresponding increases in emissions control."
The American Petroleum Institute in Oct. 7 comments faulted EPA for these claims, saying, "EPA also provides no information about the types of tanks or industries that this NEI would target, let alone why the emissions generate significant health or environmental effects warranting elevated enforcement attention."
Brooks also noted that the infrared cameras are already proving useful in enforcement actions aimed at air emissions from oil and gas production and related facilities, an existing NEI priority that is growing in importance with boom in hydraulic fracturing of oil and gas wells.
Energy Settlement
He cited as an example the agency's settlement announced in April with Noble Energy, in which resolves Noble's alleged violations of the air law and Colorado state air regulations due to the company's failure to adequately design, size, operate and maintain vapor control systems on its controlled condensate storage tanks mandated in Colorado's state implementation plan, which led to high VOC emissions.
Turning to mobile sources, Brooks noted that the agency's efforts to enforce against excessive vehicle emissions are ramping up. This process has already begun with respect to cars because of the need to enforce EPA greenhouse gas emissions and Tier 3 fuels and conventional vehicle emissions standards. Brooks said that the recent scandal involving use of illegal "defeat devices" on diesel models by Volkswagen has drawn the agency's work in this area into sharp focus.
On the fuels side, EPA's air office is also charged with enforcement of the renewable fuels standard (RFS). Under the RFS, producers of biofuels may earn and then trade renewable identification numbers (RINs) to refiners in order to comply with the program's mandates to blend biofuels into the nation's fuel supply, but fraud involving falsified RINs remains on the agency's radar following several instances of malfeasance in this area that EPA has enforced against, Brooks said.
Brooks also noted large marine engines as a likely growth area for EPA's mobile source enforcement. The United States has introduced fuel sulfur limits and also nitrogen oxides emissions limits for vessels steaming within an emissions control area extending 200 nautical miles off much of its coast, under an international agreement brokered by the International Maritime Organization. This means that OECA is now responsible for enforcement actions to support the ECA on shore, while the Coast Guard handles enforcement at sea. Large marine engines are huge sources of air pollution, and ensuring they are adequately controlled is key to ensuring good air quality, Brooks said.
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(ACC Mentioned) Court Rejects Bid to Change Boiler MACT Panel
Nov 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
Arguments over federal emissions standards for boilers and incinerators will be heard as scheduled Dec. 3 after a federal appeals court rejected a request by environmental groups to change the three-judge panel that will hear the lawsuits (U.S. Sugar Corp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 11-1108, order issued 11/16/15; Am. Forest & Paper Ass'n v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 11-1125, order issued 11/16/15; Am. Chemistry Council v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 11-1141, order issued 11/16/15).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Nov. 16 issued an order denying a request from the Sierra Club and other environmental groups that the panel assignment be corrected to comply with a 2013 consolidation order. The order means that the three lawsuits, challenging the Environmental Protection Agency's national hazardous air pollution standards for major source boilers (RIN 2060-AQ25; RIN 2060-AR13), area source boilers (RIN 2060-AM44; RIN 2060-AR14) and commercial and solid waste incinerators (RIN 2060-AO12; RIN 2060-AR15), will be heard by Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson, Janice Rogers Brown and Thomas Griffith.
Compliance Deadline Approaching
Robert Bessette, president of the Council of Industrial Boiler Owners, told Bloomberg BNA that he was happy with the court's decision to retain the Dec. 3 argument date.
“We can't afford any more delays,” Bessette said, citing the Jan. 31, 2016, deadline for major source boilers to comply with maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards.
Industry petitioners cited that compliance deadline as a reason to oppose the environmental groups' request to reassign the case to a different panel, which likely would have delayed oral arguments. The standards for major source boilers, commonly referred to as boiler MACT, cover more than 14,000 existing boilers at chemical plants and other industrial facilities and are estimated by the EPA to carry $1.6 billion in annual compliance costs. Bessette said even with the Dec. 3 argument date, the D.C. Circuit is unlikely to issue a decision before the Jan. 31 compliance deadline.
The environmental petitioners had argued that the three boiler and incinerator cases should be heard by Judges David Tatel, Robert Wilkins and David Sentelle, the three judges who decided a related case over the EPA's nonhazardous secondary material rule (RIN 2060–AR15 and 2050–AG44), which affects how combustion units are regulated under the Clean Air Act (Eco Servs. Operations LLC v. EPA, 2015 BL 175759, D.C. Cir., No. 11-1189, 6/3/15; 107 DEN A-5, 6/4/15).
An October 2013 court order said the four related cases would be heard by the same three-judge panel.
James Pew, an Earthjustice attorney representing the environmental groups, told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail that the court's Nov. 16 order did not disagree or agree with any of the points raised. The decision to retain the currently assigned panel “may well just reflect a pragmatic decision to keep the case with the panel that currently has it because this panel may already have invested time in reading the briefs,” Pew said.
Pew added that no further action can be taken to request the panel be corrected to adhere to that October 2013 court order.
The D.C. Circuit's order denying panel reassignment did ask all parties to refile their final briefs in the Eco Services Operations LLC v. EPA litigation to the court by Nov. 20 and identify which portions of those briefs are relevant to the boiler and incinerator cases.
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Businesses From Across The Country Oppose Oil Drilling Off East Coast
Nov 16, 2015 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Charles Robbins
Across the South and Mid-Atlantic, more than $40 billion is generated annually from ocean-related tourism, recreation, and fishing. The seafood industry alone supports more than 244,000 jobs in the region, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Yet right now, our massive coastal economy is threatened. For the first time since 1983, the federal government is considering opening up the East Coast to offshore oil and gas drilling. By announcing a leasing plan for oil drilling from Virginia to Georgia, the U.S. Department of the Interior is putting our pristine shoreline – and our coastal economy – at grave risk. ADVERTISEMENTIt’s no surprise, then, that communities along the Southeastern coast are rising up to oppose drilling off our beaches. More than 80 East Coast governments – many located in some of the most conservative congressional districts in the country – are demanding that the Interior Department permanently end offshore drilling.
But it’s not just coastal mayors, townspeople and city councilmembers who are voicing their opposition. From coast-to-coast and practically everywhere in between, businesses are speaking out, too, claiming that offshore drilling is bad for our environment and bad for our economy.
This month, more than 160 members of the national nonpartisan business group Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) signed a letter to Congress calling upon the federal government to permanently end offshore drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic. The letter cites drilling’s threat to local economies, coastal environments and our climate.
The letter’s signatories are business leaders active in every sector of our nation’s economy, from tourism to tech to manufacturing. They hail from places like the Carolinas, Ohio, and Santa Barbara, Calif., which in May endured its own coastal oil spill when a pipeline burst near a popular state beach, not far from where one of the nation’s worst oil spills occurred 46 years ago. The most recent spill, while relatively small, led to roughly $100 million in clean-up costs.
Imagine the economic and environmental devastation wreaked by a much larger oil spill off of Wilmington or the Outer Banks. When the BP Deepwater Horizon blowout occurred off Louisiana in 2010, tourism-related economic activity along the entire Gulf Coast dried up overnight.
Along with the loss of 11 lives, the estimated loss of tourism dollars was expected to top $22 billion in the first three years following the BP spill. By 2020, more than 20,000 jobs are expected to disappear from the Gulf due to the blowout. And out at sea, as many as 5,000 marine mammals like dolphins and whales likely perished from BP’s spilled oil.
Shockingly, since the BP blowout, not a single law has been changed to make drilling any safer. This remained the case this summer even as Shell actively drilled in the remote, dangerous Arctic Ocean. (Fortunately, this fall the Obama administration canceled the remaining two years of leases in Arctic, granting a much-needed reprieve for a pristine ocean wilderness the oil industry has long hoped to exploit.)
If we truly want to expand our energy sector without putting our beaches and our precious tourism industry at risk, there’s a better way forward: Clean energy.
According to a recent study by the environmental advocacy group Oceana, North Carolina alone is a veritable Saudi Arabia of wind. Wind blowing untapped just off our Carolina coastline is capable of generating almost 32 gigawatts of electricity – the equivalent of 2.5 billion barrels of oil, much more than the amount of recoverable oil and gas under the sea floor.
All this wind would mean more jobs, building a new source of energy that’s off the horizon and out of sight. In the Atlantic, even modest development of clean, renewable offshore wind could create about 91,000 more jobs than offshore drilling, according to Oceana.
The study also found that a move toward offshore wind along the East Coast in the next two decades could produce 143 gigawatts of electricity — enough to supply 115 million homes.
We have a choice. We can gamble with the massive economic costs of an oil spill on our beaches, or we can benefit from the massive economic opportunities that come with developing offshore wind and other sources of clean, renewable energy.
For business leaders and choruses of communities across the country and up and down the Eastern Seaboard, the choice is clear: Clean, beautiful beaches free of oil – and clean, renewable energy from offshore wind.
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Oil Group: Regulators Are Ignoring Impact Of Natural Gas On Emissions
Nov 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The oil and gas lobby says the Obama administration is ignoring the role of natural gas in reducing carbon emissions around the country.
In a report issued Monday, the American Petroleum Institute (API) noted that the United States has done more to reduce its carbon emissions than other developed nations and attributed that decrease to an abundance of American natural gas.The natural gas boom, API President Jack Gerard said, “has helped us achieve substantial and sustained emissions reductions without command-and-control style regulatory intervention.”
The group said natural gas is a good way to produce power with lower emissions than other energy sources, noting that half of the 22 states with below-average emissions use natural gas more than any other fuel.
The industry has long said the U.S. should rely on gas as it transitions to cleaner power, and has pushed back against power plant regulations issued by President Obama.
Emissions reductions didn’t come “through government mandate, it wasn’t through a carbon tax, it wasn’t through any directive, it was done primarily driven by market forces within the context of all of the above,” Gerard said.
Researchers and green groups note that American power sector carbon emissions are shrinking, something environmentalists attribute to the decreased reliance on coal-fired power plants.
The natural gas industry was disappointed when the final Clean Power Plan rule for power plants diminished the potential role of natural gas as a cleaner “bridge” between fossil fuels and renewable energy.
When releasing the rule in August, the Environmental Protection Agency instead noted that the final rule is crafted as a way to allow for a quicker transition from fossil fuel power directly to renewables like wind and solar.
Clean energy advocates and environmentalists say that’s for the best, given that natural gas — while offering lower emissions than coal, for example — still contributes to climate change.
In a statement, the Sierra Club dismissed the group's report.
"In general, it shouldn't surprise anyone that the oil industry wants to sell the profitable idea that fossil fuels like dirty oil and gas will solve the climate crisis," Liz Perera, the group's climate policy director said.
"Locking in fossil fuel infrastructure for the next half century or more won't help our climate, and in fact poses a grave danger. The only way to solve this global problem is 100% clean energy."
But API and others said regulators should still look to natural gas in their long-term transition toward cleaner fuel. The group said that as world leaders meet to craft a climate change deal later this year, they should follow the “U.S. model” of increasing natural gas production.
“Fossil fuels and environmental protection are not and never have been mutually exclusive,” Gerard said. “Energy development has played, and will continue to play, a leading role in making the United States the world leader in emissions reductions.”
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Jerry Brown Pressured To Ban Fracking In California
Nov 16, 2015 | The Huffington Post
By Mollie Reilly
Ahead of the upcoming United Nations climate talks in Paris, California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) is facing pressure from environmental activists to take a stand against hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, in the Golden State.
Brown, who is one of the nation's leading environmental advocates, has faced criticism for years for not opposing fracking, the controversial practice of pumping pressurized water, sand and chemicals into rock to extract oil and natural gas. While the state has adopted the nation's toughest regulations governing fracking, Brown has said a statewide ban on the practice "doesn't make a lot of sense."
"If we reduce our oil drilling on California by a few percent, which a ban on fracking would do, we’ll import more oil by train or by boat, that doesn't make a lot of sense," Brown said on NBC's "Meet the Press" in March. What we need to do is to move to electric cars, more efficient buildings and more renewable energy and in that respect, California is leading the country and some would say even the world and we're going to continue moving down that path."
Anti-fracking activists have continued to press the governor on the issue, voicing concern over the amount of water the practice uses in drought-stricken California. Advocates are also worried about the potential harm fracking could pose to drinking water and wildlife, as well as the risk of fracking-induced earthquakes.
With Brown set to lead a delegation to the upcoming climate talks, a new ad campaign airing throughout California is hoping to change the governor's mind on fracking. The ads, backed by Movement Generation and The Other 98%, feature community activists, artists and comedians calling on the governor to impose a statewide ban on the practice.
Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo is also upping the pressure on the governor, unveiling a new documentary called "Dear Governor Brown." The 20-minute film was directed by Jon Bowermaster, a writer and filmmaker who made a similar documentary geared at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in 2012. (Cuomo went on to ban the oil extraction method in 2014, citing concerns about potential health risks.)
"Our industry generates billions of dollars in revenue for the state of California and for too long Governor Brown has put the fossil fuel industry above all others," Ruffalo told The Hollywood Reporter. "We are standing up to tell Governor Brown that fossil fuels are bad for the state of California and if we want to grow a vibrant economy, we need to keep oil in the ground. Building out all the solar in the world means nothing if California keeps extracting and dumping fossil fuels into the atmosphere."
And in Sacramento, protesters representing Faith Against Fracking gathered last week to urge Brown to reconsider his position.
"We have a governor about to step on the world stage and say he's taking action," said group leader David Braun, according to the Los Angeles Times. "We're calling on him to demonstrate his commitment to climate."
“California is a global leader in the promotion of alternative energy and the reduction of greenhouse gases," the Brown administration said in a statement sent to HuffPost via the state Department of Conservation. "Someday, we won’t be dependent on fossil fuels. Until we get there, shutting down significant oil production in a state with millions of drivers would require us to import more. The Governor signed legislation creating the most comprehensive environmental analysis of hydraulic fracturing to date, and California has the most stringent rules in the nation for the use of hydraulic fracturing, ensuring environmental and public health and safety.”
A poll conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California in July found 56 percent of Californians oppose the increased use of fracking.
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Schumer: NOAA Must Update Hudson River Maps Or Risk Oil Spill
Nov 16, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Scott Waldman
Sen. Charles Schumer said the tremendous amount of crude oil now being transported on the Hudson River means the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration must update its 115-year nautical maps.
In a letter he sent to NOAA on Monday, Schumer said the agency's maps are outdated and could lead to an oil barge crash and spill on the Hudson. About 25 million gallons of crude oil are transported on that river every week, he said.
He called on the agency to use 21st-century technology to develop new map measurements.
“Recreationally, these inaccurate maps can lead to recreational boaters grounding their boats, cause accidents which could result in significant personal injury and property damage while also deterring boaters from visiting certain portions of the River,” Schumer wrote. “Commercially, the outdated maps greatly constrict how large vessels can maneuver around the River, and creates unsafe conditions for the river and large ships alike.”
A NOAA spokesman did not immediately provide comment.
Under Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York has become one of the nation’s primary routes of travel for crude oil from the fracking fields of North Dakota and Montana. Two operators at the Port of Albany have state permits to move about 3 billion gallons of crude oil a year, and hundreds of oil train tanker cars are unloaded in Albany every week and transferred to ship or barge for transportation down the Hudson, bound for refineries along the East Coast.
Schumer said the upper Hudson, between Kingston and Albany, narrows by 400 feet, making it more treacherous for oil-bearing vessels to navigate. He said NOAA has not surveyed the areas outside this federal channel since 1939, and its soundings have not been updated since before 1900. He said some areas are reported as being 14 feet deep, when they are actually twice that deep.
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Senate Urged to Beat Back EPA Carbon Rule Attacks
Nov 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna and Andrew Childers
More than 110 environmental advocacy groups Nov. 16 urged the Senate not to support two resolutions that would nullify the centerpieces of President Barack Obama's efforts to combat climate change.
“We strongly urge you to oppose these resolutions that put the health of our children and families at risk, threaten the quality of our air, and strip the EPA of the tools to address dangerous carbon pollution,” the letter said.
An aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Bloomberg BNA the resolutions would be voted on Nov. 17. Both resolutions (S.J. Res. 23; S.J. Res. 24) were introduced under the provisions of the Congressional Review Act. They would kill off the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan and a separate regulation setting carbon dioxide emissions limits for new and modified power plants.
Signatories include the Union of Concerned Scientists, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, League of Conservation Voters, Center for Biological Diversity, Clean Air Task Force and 350.org.
The resolutions would face a simple majority threshold to clear the Senate, which they are expected to get, but would need the support of two-thirds of both congressional chambers to override a sure veto from the president. Based on past voting patterns, they would fall well short of that level.
Companion efforts (H.J. Res. 71; H.J. Res. 72) in the House also are likely to proceed with the full House Energy and Commerce Committee expected to approve their own resolutions Nov. 18 (220 DEN A-1, 11/16/15).
Both regulations were formally published Oct. 23 (80 Fed. Reg. 64,510; 80 Fed. Reg. 64,662).
The EPA's Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33) sets carbon dioxide emissions limits for the power sector in each state. The standards would be implemented by state regulators. The new source performance standards (RIN 2060-AQ91) set similar carbon dioxide emissions limits for new power plants.
Latest Fight Over Costs, Benefits
While Congress prepared its formal attempts to block the regulations, environmental groups and the petroleum industry sparred over the Clean Power Plan's costs and benefits to consumers in separate reports released Nov. 16.
The American Petroleum institute said in a Nov. 16 analysis that the EPA's Clean Power Plan prioritizes new renewable energy sources while downplaying the natural gas boom and other low-carbon generation options such as nuclear and hydropower that have dramatically reduced greenhouse emissions from the U.S.
“These reductions are the result of market forces. They have nothing to do with government programs and everything to do with the fact that the United States is the world's leading producer of natural gas,” the American Petroleum Institute said. “With such an abundant supply of affordable fuel on hand, power plants already have an incentive to use cleaner burning natural gas without government interference.”
Public Citizen said in its own Nov. 16 analysis, however, that the EPA's rule could lower residential electricity prices in every state covered by the requirements. The analysis found that electricity rates would necessarily increase in 2020 as states and utilities prepare to comply with the Clean Power Plan, which takes effect in 2022. The smallest rate increase would be felt in Kansas at 0.04 percent while New Jersey and Delaware would experience the largest rate increases at 6.3 percent.
But after that initial increase, rates would fall again by 2025 with residents of Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut seeing their rates drop as much as 7.3 percent if states choose to comply with the rule using an emissions rate-based system. Under a mass-based compliance option, New York would see the largest rate decrease with a 6.7 percent drop, according to the report.
New Clean Power Plan Lawsuit Filed
In another development Nov. 16, LG&E and KU Energy LLC became the latest utility to challenge the Clean Power Plan. The company filed its lawsuit Nov. 16 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (LG&E and KU Energy LLC v. EPA, D.C. Cir. , No. 15-1418, 11/16/15).
A majority of states, led by West Virginia, have filed similar lawsuits with 18 coming to the EPA's defense. No new states are expected to join the litigation at this point (West Virginia v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1363, 10/23/15; 218 DEN A-1, 11/12/15).
EPA to Examine Biomass
The EPA also separately announced that it intends to hold a workshop in 2016 on the role biomass can play as a compliance option under the Clean Power Plan.
“We look forward to reviewing plans that incorporate well-developed forestry and other land management programs producing biomass that can qualify under the guidelines laid out in the CPP, and we are confident that the CPP offers sufficient lead time and flexibility for states to develop approvable programs,” Janet McCabe, the EPA's acting assistant administrator for air and radiation, said in a Nov. 16 blog post.
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Clean Power Plan Witnesses Discuss Flexibility, Incentives
Nov 17, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
While environmentalists and citizens said the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan gives states flexibility to meet emissions targets from fossil fuel-fired power plants, a coal industry representative told the EPA that flexibility was “an illusion.”
The proposed federal plan to implement emission guidelines for power plants under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act “touts flexibility to the states, but that flexibility is an illusion,” Dianna Orf, Colorado Mining Association spokeswoman, testified Nov. 16 at a public hearing on the Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33) at the EPA's Region 8 office in Denver.
“What's not an illusion is that the EPA is pushing states towards a large-scale cap-and-trade program, one that has already been defeated by the U.S. Congress,” she said.
The hearing in Denver is one of four the EPA will hold nationwide on the proposed federal plan and model trading rules, which the agency said demonstrate a path forward for Clean Power Plan implementation and options for the states.
Address Climate Change
Several speakers gave their support to the EPA plan, saying it will help drive a shift toward cleaner energy sources, reduce pollution from carbon emissions and address climate change.
“As EPA finalizes the model rule and the federal implementation plan, we strongly encourage you to ensure that these programs encourage investment in clean energy resources, such as wind, solar and energy efficiency—as much as possible,” said Kim Stevens, campaign director with Environment Colorado, a Denver-based environmental group.
“The faster EPA can finalize the model rule, the more certainty states will have as they develop their compliance plans and the quicker they can move forward,” she said. “EPA should apply the federal plan provisions swiftly should a state decline to adequately carry out its responsibilities.”
Pam Eaton, senior director of climate emissions reductions for the Wilderness Society, agreed, saying it was important to have a backstop for states that are unwilling to meet the carbon pollution reduction targets in the plan.”
Eaton said the western U.S. is well positioned to reduce overall carbon emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants.
“In the West, the emergence of an energy imbalance market, the partnership between PacifiCorp and the California Integrated System Operator, planned transmission expansions and renewable energy projects, and other changes in the development and operation of the grid provide opportunities for new, creative approaches,” she said.
Incentive Program Encouraged
Other speakers urged the EPA to incorporate the Clean Energy Incentive Program (CEIP) as a required element of its model trading rules.
Tyler Svitak, director of air quality and transportation at the American Lung Association of Colorado, touted the CEIP as a promising method for promoting development of alternative power sources such as solar and wind, but noted states can “opt out” of the program in the agency's federal implementation plan.
“We recommend that EPA incorporate the CEIP elements fully in the model plan rather than leaving this as an option for states to decide later,” he said.
Other industry representatives expressed concern about whether states would have enough time to develop their own plan.
“States are required to simultaneously evaluate the Clean Power Plan, develop state plans and evaluate the proposed federal plan and trading rules,” said Andy Berger, senior manager of environmental policy for Tri-State Generation & Transmission Authority, in remarks provided to Bloomberg BNA. The EPA is planning to finalize the model rules by summer 2016. “TriState is concerned that states are not in a position to effectively engage stakeholders and complete the necessary analyses within the short timeframe.”
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Greens Push Senators To Oppose Power Plant Resolutions
Nov 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Environmental groups and climate change activists are urging senators to oppose Republican efforts to dismantle key Obama climate regulations.
Ahead of a potential vote on resolutions against two Obama rules limiting carbon emissions from power plants, a slate of green groups sent a letter to senators on Monday asking them to preserve the regulations. Another group launched a radio ad pushing senators on the matter, and the climate rules have become a campaign issue in at least one Senate race.
The push comes as the Senate gears up to vote on Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolutions meant to block Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which limits emissions from existing power plants, and another rule for new power pants.
Greens support the rules, which are the cornerstone of President Obama’s climate change agenda.
The resolutions against the rules “are an extreme assault on public health, the clean energy economy, and modernizing our energy sector,” a coalition of green groups, including the League of Conservation Voters, Sierra Club and 350.org, wrote in a letter to members on Monday.
“The Clean Power Plan puts in place commonsense limits on power plant carbon pollution, developed with the input of thousands of stakeholders, and provides the flexibility states need to develop their own plans to meet pollution reduction targets. Blocking these commonsense safeguards puts polluter profits before the health of our children.”
Republicans and red-state Democrats have warned that the power plant rules will raise electricity prices, pose a threat to the reliability of the electric grid and hurt the coal industry around the country. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is leading the effort against the rules in the Senate.
The CRA resolutions could come up for a vote as soon as this week. President Obama is certain to veto anything undoing the climate rules, making them more a political tool than anything else right now.
On Friday, the Sierra Club put out polling in several states showing high support for the climate regulations, and the group released radio ads in Missouri on Monday telling Sens. Claire McCaskill (D) and Roy Blunt (R) to vote against the resolutions.
"Voters across the partisan spectrum want the EPA to limit dangerous carbon pollution and are ready to support candidates who will act to make that happen,” Grace McRae, Sierra Club’s polling and research director, said in a statement.
Elsewhere, Democrats are looking to make the Clean Power Plan a campaign issue.
In Illinois, Sen. Mark Kirk’s (R) top 2016 challenger, Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D) and advocacy groups held a press conference Monday calling on Kirk to oppose the resolutions.
Kirk, a vulnerable incumbent heading into next fall’s elections, has voiced his support for measures killing the climate rules. His campaign shot back against Duckworth's press conference on Monday.
"Representative Duckworth and her D.C. special interest groups, fueled by dark money and hyper partisan billionaires, have already spent millions of dollars in negative, misleading attack ads against Sen. Kirk," campaign manager Kevin Artl said in a statement.
"But the simple truth is Sen. Kirk continues to achieve results for Illinois families while Rep. Duckworth has been named as one of the least effective members of Congress."
“As parents, we must provide a cleaner, healthier, more prosperous future for our children and Senator Kirk has an opportunity to demonstrate leadership in the United States Senate on this issue,” Duckworth said in a statement.
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Greens Wage Letter-Writing Campaign With Senate Vote Imminent
Nov 17, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Amanda Reilly
Two resolutions that would scuttle the Obama administration's carbon rules for power plants are on the Senate schedule and could see a vote as early as this week, the sponsors of the measures said yesterday evening.
The resolutions would kill U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan aimed at reducing CO2 emissions from existing power plants and the agency's rule for reducing emissions from new or modified plants. Under the Congressional Review Act, they require a simple majority for passage in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) introduced S.J. Res. 23 targeting the new power plant rule, while Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) sponsored S.J. Res. 24 to kill the Clean Power Plan.
"These regulations make it clearer than ever that the president and his administration have gone too far, and that Congress should act to stop this regulatory assault," McConnell said in a joint statement with Capito yesterday evening. "Here's what is lost in this administration's crusade for ideological purity: the livelihoods of our coal miners and their families. Folks who haven't done anything to deserve a 'war' being declared upon them."
More than 100 green groups yesterday called on members of the Senate to reject the two resolutions, warning in a letter to each senator that eliminating the rules would undo health and economic benefits. The resolutions, introduced under the Congressional Review Act, would also prohibit EPA from issuing any similar curbs on carbon dioxide from power plants in the future.
"This means that Americans would continue to be exposed indefinitely to carbon pollution and the impacts of climate change," the organizations wrote.
Opponents of the rules in both the House and Senate are hoping to use the resolutions to send a message to the international community that Congress is not on board with the Obama administration's climate change agenda. Nations will meet in Paris starting Nov. 30 to hash out a new international climate accord.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is preparing to vote tomorrow on its versions of the resolutions; the committee is likely to send the measures to the House floor on party-line votes (E&E Daily, Nov. 16).
In their letter, the 116 environmental organizations called the resolutions an "extreme assault on public health, the clean energy economy and modernizing our energy sector."
"The Clean Power Plan puts in place commonsense limits on power plant carbon pollution, developed with the input of thousands of stakeholders, and provides the flexibility states need to develop their own plans to meet pollution reduction targets," they wrote. "Blocking these commonsense safeguards puts polluter profits before the health of our children."
Among the signatories to the letter were 350.org, Earthjustice, Environment America, the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The Sierra Club yesterday also continued its individual campaign targeting senators on the power rules, launching print and radio ads calling for Missouri Sens. Roy Blunt (R) and Claire McCaskill (D) to oppose the resolutions.
The radio ads will air on local channels in the St. Louis market, while the print ad will run in the African-American newspaper St. Louis American. Both feature the Rev. Rodrick Burton of New Northside Missionary Baptist Church.
Blunt is a co-sponsor of both resolutions.
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Senate Tees Up Votes Against Obama’s Climate Rules
Nov 16, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
The Senate will vote as early as this week to block President Obama’s climate change rules for power plants.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced Monday that the resolutions, one of which he sponsors, were placed on the Senate floor calendar, lining up a vote soon.The resolutions are written under the Congressional Review Act, a rarely-used law that gives Congress a streamlined process for blocking regulations.
The legislation only requires a simple majority vote, which would fulfill one of McConnell’s top priorities and promised to his constituents: to block the rules, which are due to hit the coal industry especially hard.
“These regulations make it clearer than ever that the president and his administration have gone too far, and that Congress should act to stop this regulatory assault,” McConnell said in a statement.
“Here’s what is lost in this administration’s crusade for ideological purity: the livelihoods of our coal miners and their families. Folks who haven’t done anything to deserve a ‘war’ being declared upon them.”
The regulations were made final in August by the Environmental Protection Agency, and are the main pillar of Obama’s second-term push against climate change.
The most contentious rule, the Clean Power Plan, mandates a 32 percent cut in the carbon dioxide output of the existing power plant sector. The second rule, which has a different resolution in the Senate, sets hard limits for the carbon output of new coal- and gas-fired power plants.
‘The administration bypassed Congress entirely when it developed this rule, and these resolutions of disapproval will give senators an opportunity to approve or disapprove of these far-reaching regulations,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who sponsored the resolution for the existing-plant rule, said in a statement.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) is also sponsoring Capito’s legislation, and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is sponsoring McConnell’s.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is planning this week to vote on the House versions of both resolutions.
Obama would need to sign the resolutions for them to take effect, which he has made clear he would not do.
States and energy industry interests have sued the Obama administration in federal court to stop both regulations.
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D.C. Circuit Denies Advocates' Bid To Reassign Combustion Air Rule Panel
Nov 16, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has rejected advocates' call to reassign a three-judge panel overseeing suits challenging the agency's suite of combustion emissions rules, keeping the three GOP appointees in place rather than the panel of one GOP appointee and two Democratic appointees that advocates sought.
In a Nov. 16 per curiam order, the court without explanation denies environmentalists' Nov. 6 motion to reassign the panel overseeing the cases that contest the agency's air toxics maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards for large “major” source boilers, a MACT for smaller “area” source boilers and an emissions rule for commercial and industrial solid waste incinerators (CISWI).
The order says that oral arguments will proceed as planned on Dec. 3 before D.C. Circuit Judges Karen LeCraft Henderson, Janice Rogers Brown and Thomas Griffith -- all appointed by Republican presidents.
Environmental groups had sought to reassign the cases to the panel that heard litigation over an earlier EPA rule that defines non-hazardous secondary materials for the purposes of deciding which materials count as “fuel” under the boiler MACT rules, and which as “waste” for incineration under the tougher CISWI standards.
The panel in that case, Eco Services Operations LLC v. EPA, June 3 rejected challenges by both industry and environmentalists, allowing EPA's rule to stand. The panel consisted of Judges David Tatel and Robert Wilkins, both Democratic appointees, as well as Republican appointee David Sentelle.
Environmentalists claim that a Feb. 26 court order requires that the same panel hear the three cases scheduled for Dec. 3 arguments. This followed an earlier court order that required all four cases be heard by the same panel, environmentalists said in their motion.
The advocates argued that “briefing in all four cases then proceeded on a coordinated basis, with the understanding that all four sets of briefs would be read and considered by the same panel of three judges.”
Industry legal sources say the motion to reassign the panel was extraordinary and a sign of how much environmental groups fear that the three Republican appointees will rule for industry.
Industry groups opposed the move, but EPA took no position on reassigning the panel.
The combustion air rule litigation is wide-ranging, covering such topics as how EPA sets its MACT “floors,” or maximum emissions limits, with environmentalists claiming the floors are too weak, and industry claiming that they are too stringent.
One issue likely to arise is EPA's use of the Upper Prediction Limit, a statistical tool common to several EPA air toxics rules -- including the agency's flagship air toxics rule for power plants currently on remand to the D.C. Circuit -- that environmentalists say allows EPA to set MACT floors at less stringent levels than the law requires. Meanwhile, EPA recently completed a limited reconsideration of the major source boiler MACT rule, publishing a final rule on its website Nov. 5 that largely adopts alternative compliance provisions for startup and shutdown periods outlined in the earlier proposed version of the revised rule. The rule expands the definition of “clean fuels” approved for use during startup to include certain gases and also "clean dry biomas
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EPA Sends Proposed NPDES Program Update Rule For White House Review
Nov 16, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Amanda Palleschi
EPA has sent to the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) a proposed rule that would streamline application forms and other documentation for Clean Water Act (CWA) discharge permits.
The proposal, received by OMB Nov. 13, would update some elements of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program “in order to better harmonize regulations and application forms, improve permit documentation and transparency and provide clarifications to the existing regulations,” according to the rule's description in the spring 2015 Unified Agenda.
The proposal is one of several regulations EPA is considering updating as part of a retrospective regulatory review under Executive Order 13563, which called on agencies to find rules that should be "modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed" in order to reduce regulatory burdens." EPA announced in 2011 a list of 35 rules it is reviewing.
In a July 2015 update of its retrospective review, EPA says it expects to propose modifications to NPDES permit regulations in winter 2016 and finalize the rule in winter 2017.
EPA has been working on the proposal for several years, and in 2012, agency officials told wastewater industry officials that the rule's preamble would include language asking for comment on whether and how the agency should revise its conflict of interest rules for permit writers. Water utility groups also pressed in 2013 for legislation to change the language after EPA's work on the proposal slowed.
The Unified Agenda description says the agency will particularly focus on revising the permit application forms to include the agency's new data standards, “better reflect current program practice” and include new program areas in the forms,” such as CWA section 316(b) permitting requirements for cooling water intake structures, the description says.
The agency says in the rule description that it also plans to address other program elements including permit documentation, EPA state permit objection, and public participation procedures to improve the quality and transparency of permit development.
One example of a possible change to reduce burden and improve transparency and public access to information would be to allow a state to meet public notice requirements by posting notices of draft NPDES permits on state agency websites in lieu of a traditional newspaper posting, EPA says in the rule description.
In the July review update, EPA estimates that public notice of draft permits in newspapers for NPDES major facilities, sewage sludge facilities and general permits currently costs approximately $1.6 million per year, not including the costs of preparing the content of the NPDES public notice, and the costs of the other methods to provide notice besides newspaper publication, such as direct mailing. But any cost savings from the rule allowing states and EPA to use electronic public notice would likely be less than this amount, the agency says, noting that some states would continue to publish at least some notifications in newspapers and that there would be offsetting costs to provide electronic notice. EPA does not currently have estimates of those costs, the update says.
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