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ACC AM Nov 19
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(ACC Mentioned) Three Awarded For Innovation In Plastics Recycling
Nov 18, 2015 | Greener Package
By Anne Marie Mohan
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has selected Demilec Inc., Publix, and The Recycling PartnershipTM to receive Innovation in Plastics Recycling Awards for 2015. The awards recognize companies and nonprofits that successfully bring new technologies, products, and initiatives to communities and the marketplace that ... -
(ACC Mentioned) Compounders Take Stock As A Solid 2015 Moves Toward A Bright 2016
Nov 18, 2015 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
Business results for North American compounders and concentrate makers have been mostly positive so far in 2015 — and executives see good things ahead for 2016 as well. Through September, U.S./Canadian sales of most commodity resins to compounders were up, according to the American Chemistry Council in Washington. -
(ACC Mentioned) Low-Cost Gas Leads To $153 Billion In Chemical Industry Investment
Nov 18, 2015 | Kallanish Energy
Announced chemical industry investment in the U.S. as a direct result of low-cost, available, shale gas and natural gas liquids totals $153 billion – up a mind-boggling 112.5% in just the last 30 months. Projects associated with that huge projected expenditure likewise has leaped, Kallanish Energy reports. -
(ACC Mentioned) Don't Get Left Behind In The Sustainability Game
Nov 18, 2015 | Plastics Today
By Kari Embree
PlasticsToday caught up with Dr. Han Zhang, Sustainability and Advocacy Manager for Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics (P&SP) North America, for an exclusive interview on where the future of packaging sustainability is headed. Zhang will also be speaking on the same subject at SouthPack, which is co-located with PLASTEC South... -
(ACC Mentioned) California Alternatives Analysis Guidance Lacks Clarity, Says Industry
Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Adhering to guidance put out by California on alternatives analysis (AA) may not ensure compliance with the state's Safer Consumer Products (SCP) programme (CW 25 September 2015). This is a concern expressed by a coalition of industry groups in comments to the Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) on its Draft Stage ... -
(ACC Mentioned) Industry Says EPA's Nano Proposal Is Unclear, Susceptible To Litigation
Nov 18, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Dave Reynolds
An industry official says EPA would likely face a legal challenge should it finalize its proposed data collection rule for nanoscale materials without further consulting with industry, arguing the agency's public record supporting the plan lacks information to address criticism raised in comments, though an environmentalist says further ... -
(ACC Mentioned) American Chemistry Council Says Calif. Ag's Proposed Prop 65 Reform Not Enough
Nov 18, 2015 | Legal Newsline
By Anna Aguillard
California Attorney General Kamala Harris has proposed a number of amendments to the state’s Proposition 65 regulations that will attempt to reform the way that Prop 65 claims brought by private parties are enforced in the state. However, these proposed rule changes may not bring the substantial reform needed to fix the controversial ... -
Can Cleaning Chemicals Damage Your Reproductive Potential?
Nov 18, 2015 | Environmental Working Group
By Samara Geller
Two chemicals frequently used as disinfectants in cleaning products and antibacterial wipes, as anti-static agents in fabric softeners and dryer sheets, and as preservatives in personal care products undermined fertility in both male and female mice, according to a pivotal new study by researchers from Virginia Tech University and the Edward Via... -
Plastic by the Numbers in the Atlantic Ocean
Nov 19, 2015 | National Geographic
By Gregg Treinish
In late 2014, Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation partnered with the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, a fleet of sailboats that makes an annual crossing of the Atlantic. In total, 93 of the 251 boats gathered water samples for our Global Microplastics Initiative, contributing 521 samples to ASC’s dataset and covering an estimated... -
Guest column – Unitar's Fabrice Clavien
Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Fabrice Clavien
When work on the Globally Harmonized System of classification and labelling of chemicals (GHS) began, many countries already had existing regulatory systems for chemical hazards classification and communication. These systems were similar in content and approach, but their differences were significant enough to require... -
How To Make Chemistry Classroom Demonstrations And Experiments Safer
Nov 18, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jyllian Kemsley
“One of these days, someone is going to die” from injuries sustained in a chemistry classroom fire, Calais Weber Biery says. “I almost did.” In 2006, when Biery was 15, her chemistry teacher set up a “rainbow” flame test demonstration of several metal salts that the teacher dissolved in methanol then set alight. -
Report: Plant Safety Hasn’t Improved Since Deadly Chemical Leak
Nov 18, 2015 | Chem.Info
By Andy Szal
A recent report suggests that chemical plant safety has not improved in the year since a gas leak killed four workers at a DuPont plant near Houston. The analysis by the Washington-based Center for Effective Government said incidents at U.S. chemical plants still occur at a rate of about one in every two days since a deadly explosion... -
Highway Bill Conference Begins, Mentions Crude-by-Rail
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
Sixty-five House and Senate conferees held their first public conference meeting on a multi-year highway bill Nov. 18 where several members identified key priorities, including crude-by-rail and environmental issues. “We do have some environmental issues here that are relatively small in my opinion. -
(ACC Mentioned) API And ANGA To Merge
Nov 18, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey
The American Petroleum Institute, the nation's top lobbying group for the oil industry, announced plans today to take over America's Natural Gas Alliance, ending months of speculation that an agreement was in the works. API is slated to become an even larger and more powerful voice for the oil and gas industry under the merger... -
(ACC Mentioned) ANGA, API to Become One in January
Nov 18, 2015 | NGI's Shale Daily
By Jamison Cocklin
The long-discussed possibility of a merger between the American Petroleum Institute (API) and America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) is now a reality, with the organizations announcing Wednesday that they would combine into a single trade association effective Jan. 1. As anticipated, ANGA would fold into API but would... -
API-ANGA Merger Comes Amid Angst Over Energy Prices, Regs
Nov 19, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Darren Goode
The American Petroleum Institute and America’s Natural Gas Alliance announced Wednesday they would merge, a move that comes amid weak energy prices and an industry push to open up foreign markets for exports of U.S. shale oil and gas. The two trade associations said they would join forces under API’s name starting in January... -
Drilling Approval on California Hiking Trail Sparks Lawsuit
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
Environmental groups want a California court to block the drilling of new oil wells along a popular Ventura County hiking trail and order a new environmental analysis for the project (Los Padres ForestWatch v. Ventura Cnty., Cal. Super. Ct., not yet available, petition for writ of mandate filed 11/17/15). -
BLM Releases Plan for Drilling on Roan Plateau
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
The Bureau of Land Management has released its draft plan to allow oil and gas drilling near Colorado's Roan Plateau consistent with a 2014 landmark settlement agreement for the ecologically sensitive area. Neil Kornze, BLM director, said in a Nov. 17 statement the bureau's draft supplemental environmental... -
Definition of Large Facilities Debated in Colorado
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Witnesses at a two-day public hearing before the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission presented very different ideas about how the state should define “large-scale” drilling operations. And as the hearing wrapped up Nov. 17, COGCC Director Matt Lepore advised members of the commission to set aside all of their Dec. 7... -
IEA Says Natural Gas to Play Key Role in Climate Talks
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rick Mitchell
Natural gas, the “least carbon-intensive fossil fuel,” could play a key role in reaching global climate goals, an issue at the center of upcoming talks in Paris, said the head of the International Energy Agency. Fatih Birol, the agency's new executive director, noted that energy production and use account for two-thirds of global... -
Keystone XL Developer Withdraws Nebraska Route Application
Nov 18, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
TransCanada has withdrawn its request with the Nebraska government to build its Keystone XL pipeline through the state. The company had asked the Nebraska Public Service Commission in October to approve that portion of the 1,200-mile pipeline’s route. But President Obama’s rejection of the project two weeks ago nixed the plan... -
House To Vote On EPA Resolutions Week Of Nov. 30
Nov 18, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darren Goode
The House will vote to block EPA carbon rules for power plants the week of Nov. 30, just as negotiators are gathering for international climate talks in Paris, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced today. “As the UN climate conference begins later this month the House will be clear it opposes the central tenet... -
The Senate Just Voted To Block The Clean Power Plan. Here's The Good News.
Nov 18, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jeremy Symons
It can be hard to interpret political maneuvering inside the Washington Beltway, and yesterday’s Senate votes on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan are no exception. So take it from someone who keeps a close eye on these votes in Congress: It was a good day for the plan to cut pollution from power plants, for United States... -
Biomass Power Opposed at Clean Power Plan Hearing
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
Environmental advocates called on the Environmental Protection Agency to eliminate incentives for burning biomass in its proposed federal plan to implement the Clean Power Plan at a public hearing Nov. 18. States should “beware the lure of biomass fuels” as a lower-carbon alternative to burning coal, Gary Ewart... -
RGGI Fine-Tuning Program to Meet Clean Power Plan
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
The nine states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative have known for some time that their cap-and-trade program was a good fit with the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan but that it would need some tinkering and adjustments to ensure compliance. Those adjustments are now coming into sharper focus... -
Road to COP21 Climate Talks: US, UK, Green Building, Climate Change Tool
Nov 18, 2015 | Environmental Leader
As governments and businesses gear up for the COP21 global climate talks in a few weeks, countries and industry alike are setting ambitious goals to help achieve a low-carbon economy. Or not: the US Senate voted yesterday to block the Clean Power Plan. US Senate aside, here are some highlights leading up to the Paris climate deal. -
House Panel Passes Measures to Kill EPA Climate Rules
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced what will almost surely be futile efforts to take down centerpieces of the Obama administration's efforts to address climate change Nov. 18 on two party-line votes. Two resolutions of disapproval (H.J. Res. 71; H.J. Res. 72), introduced by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.)... -
Senators Revive Financing Tactic From ’70s for Carbon Emissions
Nov 19, 2015 | The New York Times
For years, power companies, manufacturers and entrepreneurs have tried to make capturing and storing carbon emissions from industrial operations like burning coal into a business, to little avail. Despite decades of promising research, demonstration projects and government investment, large-scale developments have often proved... -
Senators Warn Obama on Binding Climate Accord
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
President Barack Obama must submit to Congress for review any international agreement reached at a December UN climate summit that includes binding emissions targets or timetables, the Senate Environment Committee chairman said in a letter to the White House released Nov. 18. -
New Air Monitoring Methods Approved by EPA
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Environmental Protection Agency has approved a pair of air monitoring methods for use by state and local air regulators tasked with collecting data that are used to determine compliance with national ambient air quality standards. The agency, in a notice scheduled for publication Nov. 19, said it approved a new reference ... -
House, Senate Bills Target EPA's Stricter Ozone NAAQS
Nov 18, 2015 | InsideEPA
House and Senate lawmakers are pushing new bills targeting EPA's decision to tighten its ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 70 ppb, with a Senate measure seeking to undo the rule entirely and a new House bill aiming to “harmonize” deadlines for states' compliance plans for the new standard.
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(ACC Mentioned) Three Awarded For Innovation In Plastics Recycling
Nov 18, 2015 | Greener Package
By Anne Marie Mohan
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has selected Demilec Inc., Publix, and The Recycling PartnershipTM to receive Innovation in Plastics Recycling Awards for 2015.
The awards recognize companies and nonprofits that successfully bring new technologies, products, and initiatives to communities and the marketplace that demonstrate significant advancements in plastics recycling.
“We are thrilled to recognize this year’s award recipients,” says Steve Russell, Vice President of Plastics for the ACC. “Each of these organizations is a leader in recycling innovation, and their contributions will likely inspire ongoing contributions to the rapidly growing field of plastics recycling.”
• Demilec Inc. converts PET scrap into polyols, which can be used in its spray foam insulation products. The company has recycled more than 300 million plastic bottles into spray foam insulation products in recent years and expects to recycle more than 35 million plastic bottles into high-performing spray foam insulation in 2015. In addition to the environmental benefits of plastics recycling, spray foam insulation helps to dramatically increase energy efficiency in homes and buildings.
• Publix-Super Markets has established itself as a leader in recycling rigid plastic packaging, such as commercial-sized high-density polyethylene and polypropylene containers. With more than 1,100 stores and nine distribution centers, Publix optimized its back-of-store recycling stream through the use of a vertical and a horizontal baler that produce large, dense bales of clean plastic material for recycling. The result? Tons of high-quality plastics are separated, baled, and made available to recyclers each week.
• The Recycling Partnership facilitates public-private partnerships to significantly boost curbside recycling programs. Over the last 15 months, TRP has provided 115,000 large recycling carts and improved public education in four cities: Florence, AL; Columbia, SC; Richmond, VA; and East Lansing, MI. Thanks to TRP’s efforts, 18,000 additional households now have access to a recycling program that collects wide-mouth plastic containers in addition to bottles. Cumulatively these efforts are expected to recover an additional 22 million pounds of plastics over the next 10 years.
ACC’s Innovations in Plastics Recycling Awards contest is open to all U.S. companies, nonprofits, individuals, and government bodies (including schools) that collect or process plastics for recycling, promote plastics recycling through education and infrastructure, manufacture equipment used to collect or process plastics for recycling, or manufacture a new product made in whole or part from recycled plastic.
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(ACC Mentioned) Compounders Take Stock As A Solid 2015 Moves Toward A Bright 2016
Nov 18, 2015 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
Business results for North American compounders and concentrate makers have been mostly positive so far in 2015 — and executives see good things ahead for 2016 as well.
Through September, U.S./Canadian sales of most commodity resins to compounders were up, according to the American Chemistry Council in Washington. In major-volume compounding resins, polypropylene sales to compounders grew 2 percent to 1.63 billion pounds and PVC sales to compounders grew almost 5 percent to 1.03 billion pounds in the nine-month period.
The picture was more mixed for resins compounded in lower volumes. Sales of high density polyethylene and solid polystyrene to compounders each grew 2 percent in the nine months, with HDPE sales topping 91 million pounds and PS sales almost reaching 42 million pounds. But compounding-related sales of low density PE fell 11 percent (to just over 58 million pounds) and linear LDPE fell 13 percent (to less than 210 million pounds).
Lower selling prices and a stronger U.S. dollar affected the results of U.S.-based compounders A. Schulman Inc. and PolyOne Corp. in 2015. This was evident in Schulman’s masterbatch concentrate sales for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31. The unit’s global sales fell more than 3 percent, even as sales volume in pounds grew almost 9 percent.
Fairlawn, Ohio-based Schulman’s custom performance colors and engineered plastics units managed global sales gains of 1-5 percent for the fiscal year. For Avon Lake, Ohio-based PolyOne, global sales at its three compound/concentrate units fell 5-15 percent in the first nine months of 2015.
“We can’t change exchange rates,” Schulman CEO Bernard Rzepka said. “The U.S. and Canada are doing well and we’re making good progress in Latin America. But there are still significant challenges in Brazil and Argentina.”
Rzepka added that without the currency changes, Schulman “would have blown through our [earnings per share] targets with organic growth.”
Indies rock
Several independent compounders and concentrate makers reported solid results for 2015.
“It’s been a remarkable year for us — ahead of the last two years,” said Ryan Howley, president of Techmer PM in Clinton, Tenn. “Our growth has been in high single digits. We’ve had a lot of good results and got a lot of good publicity from the 3-D printed car and from the visit of the president and vice president.”
Asahi Kasei Plastics North America — a major polypropylene compounder in Fowlerville, Mich. — is having “a very good year,” according to President John Moyer. “We were up 10 percent at one point and are still up 6-8 percent.”
“The market, in general, has been good,” said William Murray, president of Teknor Apex Co. in Pawtucket, R.I. “I’d say we’re up high single-digits overall — single digits in PVC and higher in TPEs.”
Penn Color Co. — a concentrates maker in Doylestown, Pa. — is having “a really good, solid year” with mid-to-high single-digit growth,” according to market development director Robert Kaminski. “Construction has come back little by little and packaging is steady,” he said.
2015 has been “another very solid year,” for concentrates maker Americhem Inc. in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. “We’ve seen good growth in automotive and building and construction,” President John Deignan said. “And residential housing has been strong in Asia.”
Auto still on the go
Compounding and concentrates officials were lined up to sing the praises of the automotive market. The U.S. market should exceed 17 million builds of cars and light trucks this year, surpassing its pre-recession totals. Lighter-weight parts are using more plastic, increasing material demand.
“Automotive and heavy truck have been the strongest markets for us,” said Michael Garratt, president of PolyOne’s Performance Products & Solutions unit. “Along with many material suppliers, we’re seeing strong demand for formulated polypropylene products both with the domestic [automakers] and ‘new domestics,’ particularly in Mexico.”
Garratt cited interior trim such as instrument panels and A and B pillars as specific auto applications where PolyOne has seen growth.
At Asahi Kasei — which gets a great majority of its sales from automotive — sales vice president Iichiro Kitsuda said that North American build numbers “have exceeded expectations — we hope it can be sustained.”
“Automotive has had a strong year, and we’ve targeted specific applications,” said Matt Miklos, Americas commercial vice president for Americhem. The firm this year worked on a pickup truck program that needed color harmony on all of its plastic interiors, which used a variety of materials.
At Teknor Apex, Murray said he thinks the auto field has rebounded because “people feel better about the economy.” Pent-up demand for new vehicles also has played a role, he added.
Schulman’s Rzepka said that automotive growth “has created more jobs and a lot of opportunities — not just sheer volume growth, but high-quality opportunities.”
VW impact
Most automotive compounders interviewed for this story have programs with Volkswagen AG. But executives with those firms didn’t expect to see much immediate impact from the recent scandal in which VW admitted to falsifying carbon emissions on many of their diesel vehicles.
“The question is how this will play out in consumer minds and how it might affect other European carmakers,” said Murray at Teknor Apex. “Consumers have short memories.”
Schulman “has a good program” with VW, according to Rzepka. “Like Toyota did, VW now has quality issues,” he said. “They have to handle it professionally.”
Although Asahi Kasei doesn’t do much work with VW, Kitsuda said VW’s struggles “could create an opportunity for the Big Three” U.S. automakers.
Packaging leading other markets
“Flexible packaging was one of our stronger performers this year,” said Robert Fielding, North American senior vice president at concentrates leader Ampacet Corp. in Tarrytown, N.Y. “We continue to innovate with special effect products for both the rigid and flexible packaging markets.”
“Packaging is really strong,” added Howley at Techmer. “It’s a changing business. We’re seeing success with products like detergent pods, which may have an impact on the bottle side.”
For Penn Color, Kaminski said that packaging “has come through” with recycled PET in sheet and other bottles. The firm has seen “good growth” in its custom-formulated Aqua Bright-brand recycled PET.
Health care, automotive and packaging “have been particularly strong for us over the past several years and continue that strength this year,” said John Van Hulle, president of PolyOne’s Color, Additives and Inks unit. “Customers in these markets have high expectations for innovation from their suppliers.”
Van Hulle’s unit is focused on helping customers improve profitability, he added, by optimizing color usage, increasing sustainability by using greater amounts of recycled materials and expanding shelf life and product safety with improved barrier technologies.
Somewhat surprisingly, Deignan said that in 2015 Americhem has had “a record year” in building and construction. That market has been slow to recover in the U.S. in the years since the recession of 2007-2009. Pre-recession housing starts peaked at 2 million per year in the United States, but are on pace to be just over 1 million in 2015.
Americhem’s growth there has not so much come from new construction, but from home improvement markets such as siding, cladding, decking, fencing and windows. “We’ve seen some share shift with new products to enhance weathering and products in darker colors,” Deignan said.
PolyOne’s Specialty Engineered Materials unit has seen growth from a wide array of markets in 2015, according to President Craig Nikrant. “Hunting and shooting sports has been a very big focus for us,” he said. “We’ve innovated some really exciting applications and solutions, using our engineered materials and Glasforms composites.”
Nikrant also cited solar wire and cable applications, as well as communication and data cables, as growth spots. “We’ve been able to solve many long-standing challenges our customers have had in wire and cable,” he said.
The vitality index for Nikrant’s unit is 39 percent, meaning that 39 percent of its sales come from solutions that were invented in the last five years. “I think that [percent] really underscores our ability to develop new products and specialty solutions,” he said.
PolyOne’s Performance Products & Solutions unit — including Geon-brand PVC compounds — is continuing to develop applications for outdoor high performance, Garratt said, and also is moving forward on developing new injection molding applications for non-phthalate materials.
Asahi Kasei has commercialized PP compounds using microsphere technology from 3M to offer improved performance in auto exterior body panels, commercial operations vice president Ramesh Iyer said. Ampacet’s Fielding added that although flexible packaging has been strong for his firm, the pipe market has been challenging, as low oil and gas prices have affected demand in that sector.
And a very specialized market has led to extra attention for Techmer. The firm supplies the UV-resistant carbon black concentrates used in high density polyethylene shade balls that are being used in California reservoirs to prevent water from evaporating in the drought-stricken region. 96 million of the spheres now are in use. “We’ve had numerous requests to buy the product used in the shade balls,” Howley said.
No low resin
Although commodity and engineering resin prices have come down quite a bit since mid-2014 — as global oil markets fell — compounding/concentrate officials said they haven’t seen much impact at their firms, since most of those moves have been passed along to their customers.
“If you don’t move fast enough [as a resin buyer], you can be hit badly,” said Rezepka at Schulman. “But we don’t necessarily have a cost advantage from lower resins prices. Lower prices don’t necessarily mean that your earnings will improve.”
“Prices are raw material driven, and we’re all in the same arena competing, so there’s not a huge impact,” added Murray at Teknor Apex. “It’s a level playing field.”
Concentrate makers in particular are less affected because their products are highly loaded with colors and /or additives and use less resin.
“When you consider that our solutions are being used at rates from 4 percent to less than 1 percent of our customers’ finished products and are highly loaded with pigments, dies, and performance additives, the impact of resin cost becomes very diluted,” said Van Hulle at PolyOne.
“Resin is a smaller percentage of our total offering,” added Americhem global supply chain director Rod Manfull. “Polypropylene supplies have been a little tight, but other than that, nothing significant.”
Deals challenged but improving Moyer
The pace of compounding-related acquisitions slowed in the first half of 2015, but seems to be picking up in the second half of the year.
The exception to the slow first-half pace was Schulman’s blockbuster $800 million deal for Citadel Plastics Holdings Inc. That deal nearly doubled Schulman’s U.S. compounding sales and gave the firm a solid presence in thermoset compounds.
Citadel posted sales of $550 million in 2014, employing 1,200 at 21 plants. West Chicago, Ill.-based Citadel had earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $75 million in 2014. That means the sale price has a healthy earnings multiple of 10.7.
For Schulman, the deal was its 11th acquisition or joint venture in less than six years, but is by far the largest. The firm spent less than $600 million combined on the previous 10 deals, with the largest being its 2010 acquisition of ICO Inc. for almost $200 million.
“Acquiring Citadel makes us a big player in the U.S.,” CEO Rzepka said. “For quality, you have to look long-term.”
But at the same time, he acknowledged that the materials M&A market is changing. “Multiples are up, so you have to have deep pockets,” Rzepka explained.
RTP Co. of Winona, Minn., recently snagged Polymer Partners, a compounder and concentrate maker in Henderson, Ky. A destructive fire at its U.K. plant led Teknor Apex to sell related brands, assets and customer lists to local compounder Petlon Polymers. Compounder/recycler Chemical Resources Inc. of Princeton, N.J., expanded its focus by bidding $3.7 for the assets of bankrupt resin distributor Thornton & Co., although that sale has not been finalized.
A pair of cross-border deals also was completed. Israeli compounder/concentrates maker Tosaf Group bought color concentrate producer Adtec Colorant Corp. of Arlington, Texas, for an undisclosed price. Adtec specializes in color concentrates and liquid and additive masterbatches for injection molding, blow molding, film and extrusion markets.
The other international deal involved global polyolefins leader LyondellBasell Industries, which bought PP compounder SJS Plastiblends Pvt. Ltd. of Aurangabad, India. Houston-based LyondellBasell said the acquisition will enhance its position in India’s growing automotive market.
The LyondellBasell-SJS deal is scheduled to close in late 2015. SJS employs almost 60 with annual production capacity of about 25 million pounds.
The most unusual compounding-related deal of 2015 so far may have taken place in Indiana, where startup color concentrates maker Precision Colors of Fort Wayne was acquired less than a year after opening its doors. The firm was acquired by Fort Wayne-based investment firm Ellis Co., which also owns Jasper Plastic Solutions, a maker of high density urethane foam products in Syracuse, Ind.
Precision employs four and is on track to post sales of $1 million in its first year of operation, making color concentrates based on polyethylene and ABS for construction, consumer and medical markets.
Many compounding and concentrate execs say their firms remain interested in making deals if they can find the right fit. Ampacet might look to Asia to make a deal or build a new facility, Fielding said. Murray added that Teknor might consider making a move in Europe.
But Techmer’s Howley admitted that the M&A field is tougher now than it was just a few years ago. “There are fewer attractive opportunities out there, and multiples are at record highs,” he said.
Expansions keep pace
Several expansion projects also are proceeding across the North American compounding/concentrates sector. Penn Color hopes to break ground by the end of the year or in early 2016 on a massive 100,000 square-foot expansion of its manufacturing site in Hatfield, Pa. The $20 million project will create several new jobs, Kaminski said.
Asahi Kasei in early 2016 will open a new PP compounding plant in Athens, Ala. The exterior of the building is almost complete, track and road structures are in place and eight of 10 storage silos have been installed, according to Moyer.
In New Castle, Del., Techmer is renovating an existing building to serve as a new compounding plant. A January opening is expected, with full operations set to begin in the second quarter of 2016. The plant will replace a production site in Aston, Pa. — 20 miles north of New Castle — that Techmer acquired when it bought specialty compounder TP Composites Inc. in 2013.
Production at the Aston site was spread over several buildings, while New Castle will be all under one roof, Howley said. The new plant also will have 50 percent more production capacity than the previous location.
Teknor Apex by mid-2016 will add a new nylon compounding line at its plant in Brownsville, Tenn. The new twin-screw line will be Teknor’s fourth in Manchester and will have annual production capacity of 20 million pounds. Murray said the line is needed for automotive market growth.
Sweet ‘16?
The coming year is looking a little brighter for compounders and concentrate makers as it approaches, with economic growth slowly building.
“The mood among our customers seems to be very upbeat,” said Van Hulle at PolyOne. “New projects are continuously entering our pipeline. These run the gamut from color refresh to groundbreaking new ideas.”
“When I look across this business and see the resources being committed to these projects by our customers, it demonstrates to me they are very optimistic about both the near and long term future.”
As for 2016, Van Hulle added that “like most years, I’m sure there will be surprises along the way.”
Next year “is a presidential election year in the United States and the ebb and flow of that process will likely dominate the news cycle and impact perceptions of the economic climate,” he said. “But in the long term, those surprises and ebbs and flows will be forgotten by what I see as continued growth and opportunity across all our geographic regions.”
PolyOne’s Garratt said that cautious optimism “seems to be the predominant mood” at his unit’s customers. “There doesn’t seem to be a question about whether their markets will grow,” he explained. “Concerns are more squarely focused on the rate of growth.”
For 2016, PolyOne’s Performance Products & Solutions unit “is looking for moderate growth in North America and continued strength in building and construction and automotive,” Garrat said.
“For Asia, the level of demand will likely fluctuate in line with recent economic changes, but we still see tremendous upside for our business,” he added.
“We have really good momentum going into 2016, and I expect that to continue,” added Nikrant at PolyOne’s Specialty Engineered Materials unit. “Certainly Asia and Europe will still present challenges, but we have a strong and vibrant solutions portfolio, new applications we’re working on and we’ve made a lot of progress in regions we’ve targeted for growth.”
At Asahi Kasei, Moyer is taking his direction for 2016 from his customers.
“The question for 2016 is how will global issues affect America,” he said. “But I was at a customer event not too long ago, and a lot of people there were bullish about the industry.”
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(ACC Mentioned) Low-Cost Gas Leads To $153 Billion In Chemical Industry Investment
Nov 18, 2015 | Kallanish Energy
Announced chemical industry investment in the U.S. as a direct result of low-cost, available, shale gas and natural gas liquids totals $153 billion – up a mind-boggling 112.5% in just the last 30 months.
Projects associated with that huge projected expenditure likewise has leaped, Kallanish Energy reports. Between May 2013 and Sept 2015, the number of projects grew to 246 from 97 – a 153.6% jump, according to data from the trade group American Chemistry Council.
“Chemical companies from around the world have begun or are planning new projects to build and expand their shale-advantage capacity in the U.S.,” according to the council. “Much of the investment is geared toward export markets for chemical and plastics products … .”
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) adds that more than 60% of the announced investment is by companies based outside the U.S.
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(ACC Mentioned) Don't Get Left Behind In The Sustainability Game
Nov 18, 2015 | Plastics Today
By Kari Embree
PlasticsToday caught up with Dr. Han Zhang, Sustainability and Advocacy Manager for Dow Packaging & Specialty Plastics (P&SP) North America, for an exclusive interview on where the future of packaging sustainability is headed. Zhang will also be speaking on the same subject at SouthPack, which is co-located with PLASTEC South, on Thursday, November 19, 2015.
Zhang is responsible for the implementation of the Energy Bag Program 2.0 and driving the 2025 Sustainability Goals for P&SP, informing the P&SP business of sustainability threats and opportunities and developing strategies to grow business value by leveraging Dow’s sustainability expertise. He is also responsible for advocacy efforts with key trade associations to grow recycling and align their efforts to Dow’s vision. In 2016, Zhang will expand the integration of sustainability into non-packaging sectors of the P&SP portfolio and partner with Marketing and R&D to drive sustainable product innovation.
What are some sustainable material options on the market and in development right now?
Zhang: At Dow, we believe that what is good for the planet and society is also good for business. To that end, we recently launched our 2025 sustainability goals, our third set of decade-long goals—available here. We are committed to applying science expertise to create sustainable solutions to help advance the well-being of humanity.
Many Dow innovations currently on the market help enable more sustainable packaging. The recently launched Innate Precision Packaging Resins offer unprecedented stiffness—toughness balance which can help converters lightweight packages or down-gauge film so less material is used in the package. Beyond the resin, Dow also collaborated with others in the value chain to develop the Recycle Ready Pouch, which is a mono-material Polyethylene (PE) Stand Up Pouch that can be recycled in communities with existing PE film recycling streams such as the grocery store drop-off. The Polyethylene Stand Up Pouch offers up to 88% less total material weight, consumes 54% less total energy, and allows for up to 90% less post-consumer solid waste when compared to a bag-in-box cake mix format with equivalent contents.
How can we increase community engagement for recycling? What types of programs are out there?
Zhang: Recycling programs have certainly been expanding; both in terms of communities served and what types of items can be recycled. Despite progress, approaches to integrated waste management have only begun to evolve. Dow is committed to helping facilitate the world’s transition to a circular economy and is highly active in educating and promoting the advantages of plastic packaging by advocating for increased recycling, for packaging’s role in food security and food preservation, and for the adoption of energy recovery technologies to reduce landfill use.
Dow is leading sustainability efforts to increase recycling by supporting programs of associations like GreenBlue’s Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) How2Recycle Label program that is a standardized labeling system that clearly communicates recycling instructions to the consumer as well as actively supporting the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Flexible Film Recycling group which has laid the groundwork for national public awareness to increase polyethylene (PE) film recovery at store drop-off locations.
As a leading supplier of PE resins and adhesives to the packaging industry, we saw a need to explore new end-of-life options for the growing segment of multi-material flexible plastic packaging. We recognized the untapped value of these non-recycled plastics. The Energy Bag Pilot Program demonstrated that resource recovery of non-recycled plastics is a viable municipal process which can lead to positive long-term environmental advantages.
What are some things to consider when developing a sustainability strategy?
Zhang: The key is to drive lifecycle thinking and science-based decision making. The product lifecycle involves many steps and many concerned parties. This can impact how a business addresses sustainability across a product’s lifecycle. Sustainability strategies can generally be considered from both a reduction in the utilization of resources such as materials, water and energy, as well as an optimization of the package performance. For example, if we want to minimize the amount of food waste incurred during long distribution times, the package should provide better barrier protection as well as strong seals to protect the contents against the environment.
How can companies stay competitive in the sustainability game?
Zhang: Companies that are committed to providing solutions that benefit the world from an economic, social, and environmental standpoint are positioned to succeed as sustainability becomes increasingly important. Companies should make sure they work with value-chain partners to achieve the balance of value and sustainability that the marketplace demands and consumers need. By continuously seeking to improve solutions, manufacturing methods, and relationships within the value chain, it is possible to stay ahead of the competition. In the end, those that are poised to overcome challenges while remaining dedicated to producing a quality result will succeed in the quest for sustainable innovation.
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(ACC Mentioned) California Alternatives Analysis Guidance Lacks Clarity, Says Industry
Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Adhering to guidance put out by California on alternatives analysis (AA) may not ensure compliance with the state's Safer Consumer Products (SCP) programme (CW 25 September 2015).
This is a concern expressed by a coalition of industry groups in comments to the Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) on its Draft Stage 1 Alternatives Analysis Guide.
The Green Chemistry Alliance says the guide is "robust on the factors to be considered, but deftly lacking clarity regarding its most basic process for evaluating decisions made by a responsible entity.”
The alliance represents more than 20 state and national trade groups. These include: the American Chemistry Council, the Personal Care Products Council and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.
As the SCP programme is the first to legally require private entities to conduct AAs, the alliance wants greater clarification on which elements of the guide are a “core legal requirement”, and which are “non-binding suggestions and recommendations”.
It says in its comments that there is a “tension between the need for and value of flexibility, compared with a more definitive approach that provides clarity and certainty for compliance”. It urges the DTSC to provide insight into how it will determine the acceptability of submitted AAs.
Other alliance comments include: a request for consideration of the “significant cost” to execute an AA, particularly for SMEs;concern that references to the AA being an “iterative process” may lead to “an open-ended process that can reconsider judgements at any time”; anda recommendation that the guidance allow for alternatives to be eliminated in early scoping stages for such attributes as failure to perform a necessary product function, or cost prohibitiveness.
The Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance agreed that ensuring that an alternative can provide adequate performance must be the first factor considered when performing an AA. “It makes little sense to investigate a lower hazard alternative if it cannot perform the required function in the product”, it said.
But the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC) said that that the ultimate goal of an AA is to find safer replacements. It calls on the DTSC to ensure that the guidance is more “specific that reduction of adverse impacts must be prioritised.”
The NRDC points out that they supported the DTSC's approach to the guide, and believes that it "provides useful advice and guidance on resources, approaches, methods, tools, and examples to help meet the regulatory and statutory requirements for AAs.”
The Washington State Department of Ecology said in its comments that “industry and advertising may create consumer demand for products that are harmful to human health or unnecessary”. It advises that "consumer acceptance" as a justification for not pursuing an assessment of an alternative “has to be very narrowly defined and controlled”.
The document is the first of two AA guidance documents the agency will be releasing. It has announced tentative plans to release a draft of the Stage 2 guidance together with a revised version of the Stage 1 guidance. It anticipates that the full AA guidance document will be available by spring 2016.
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(ACC Mentioned) Industry Says EPA's Nano Proposal Is Unclear, Susceptible To Litigation
Nov 18, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Dave Reynolds
An industry official says EPA would likely face a legal challenge should it finalize its proposed data collection rule for nanoscale materials without further consulting with industry, arguing the agency's public record supporting the plan lacks information to address criticism raised in comments, though an environmentalist says further delay is unnecessary.
"What the agency really needs is additional input and additional content" to clarify its proposal and improve the rule, the industry source says, adding that companies should have a chance to comment on possible solutions before they appear in a final rule.
If EPA were to finalize its proposal without further dialogue with industry, "in all likelihood it would be challenged," the source says.
The call for EPA to seek further input on its proposed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) section 8(a) nano reporting rule, comes after agency officials recently declined industry's call to withdraw and re-propose the entire plan, but advocates are calling for EPA to finalize the long-stalled rule and begin collecting data.
EPA's April 6 proposal came after years of wrangling with the nano industry and White House officials over the scope of the rule. The agency says data collected under the rule will guide its future policies on nanomaterials, including potential regulation of some substances found to pose risks to human health or the environment.
Soon after EPA issued the proposal, the industry coalition American Chemistry Council (ACC) in a June public meeting urged the agency to withdraw and re-propose the plan, arguing it lacks clarity and scientific backing (Inside EPA, June 19).
EPA officials told the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) during an Oct. 6 meeting at the group's Washington, D.C., office that the agency would not withdraw and re-propose the rule.
But in a recap of the meeting on its website, SOCMA says, "[T]he agency is working to refine it and make it clearer," and that "EPA also seemed receptive to SOCMA's concerns."
SOCMA argued in comments last summer that EPA should base reporting requirements on a substance's potential hazard rather than on physical factors and clarify terms, such as "trace" amounts by setting a mass-based threshold, among other recommendations.
The U.S. Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy also has urged EPA to reconsider major aspects of the proposal, faulting its economic analysis and urging the agency to broaden a proposed small business exemption, as well as calling for guidance to clarify aspects of the rule (Inside EPA, Aug. 14).
Although EPA has said in the Unified Agenda it intends to finalize the data collection rule in June, both the industry source and an environmentalist say they intend to seek meetings with the agency on its proposal. Advocates also say the rule would face further delays if not issued before President Obama leaves office.
EPA's April 6 proposal would require a one-time data submission to EPA six months after issuance of the final rule, and the agency is also proposing that companies that intend to manufacture reportable substances after the rule takes effect would have to report to EPA at least 135 days before commencing manufacturing.
EPA and other federal agencies have long struggled with how to assess and regulate nanomaterials since their unique, technology-advancing properties may also present health and safety risks.
Agency staff told a June 11 public meeting that the proposed collection effort focuses on nanoscale materials derived from existing substances already on the TSCA inventory, as agency officials believe EPA review processes for new chemicals are effective at ensuring substances do not pose health and safety risks.
The industry source tells Inside EPA that while EPA appears likely to decline to re-propose the entire plan, the agency should consult with industry, possibly by seeking comment on a narrower set of issues, to clarify aspects of the plan for which the agency's public docket lacks adequate information to address criticism raised in comments.
"EPA has set out a starting place for what it thought might be the right criteria, but the comments EPA has received are that the [reporting] criteria are not well defined," the source says. "Having put out this initial proposal, the overall rule would benefit from a re-opening of the dialogue on some of these topics."
Issues that EPA needs further information to address in a final rule include clarifying requirements for identifying substances for reporting, defining the criteria that the substance have "unique and novel" characteristics or properties as a result of their size, and providing the criteria the agency used to exclude certain substances from reporting under its proposal.
Since EPA did not clarify the exclusion criteria in its proposal, the source says, companies did not have adequate opportunity to argue in comments that materials they use might also merit exclusion. Another issue, the source says, is that EPA has not provided adequate justification for why the 135-day notification period is necessary.
EPA could address those problems by seeking additional public comment, possibly through a supplemental notice.
A source with the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA), which supports public disclosure of all health and safety data before products are put on the market, said environmentalists also intend to seek meetings with EPA on the proposal.
The ICTA source says the call for a supplemental proposal is the latest in long-standing industry effort to delay the rule, possibly until after the end of the Obama administration, when it would face further reviews under a new administration. Even if not perfect, EPA should promptly finalize the rule and begin collecting data, the source says.
Noting industry's argument that the proposal's "unique and novel" criteria is unclear, the ICTA source says companies regularly describe their products' unique or novel properties when seeking patents. "They go to their investors and say, 'It's unique and novel,' and then they go to EPA and say, 'No, it's not,'" the source says. "The industry basically doesn't want any new reporting requirements."
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(ACC Mentioned) American Chemistry Council Says Calif. Ag's Proposed Prop 65 Reform Not Enough
Nov 18, 2015 | Legal Newsline
By Anna Aguillard
California Attorney General Kamala Harris has proposed a number of amendments to the state’s Proposition 65 regulations that will attempt to reform the way that Prop 65 claims brought by private parties are enforced in the state.
However, these proposed rule changes may not bring the substantial reform needed to fix the controversial proposition, feels Karyn Schmidt, a senior director at the American Chemistry Council.
“Whether or not this proposal is anything more than incremental, and whether it will have any sort of substantial or long-lasting effect to decrease the number and size of bounty hunter suits, is unknown,” Schmidt told Legal Newsline.
“Clearly, what is needed is substantial, fundamental change to this program, not the kind of little incremental change that the regulatory proposal is likely to deliver.”
Prop 65 regulations, approved by voters in 1986, were originally created in response to growing concerns over their exposure to toxic chemicals. Under Prop 65, the state publishes a list of potentially harmful chemicals once a year.Business are prohibited from discharging listed chemicals into drinking water, and are required to provide a “clear and reasonable” warning before exposing anyone to significant levels of any listed chemical.
Additionally, the regulations were intended to protect citizens from harmful exposure by providing a way for private plaintiffs to file civil suits against businesses they believed posed health threats, rather than relying solely on public enforcement.If, after a person has given a notice of alleged violation of Prop 65, no public prosecutor has begun investigation, private attorneys may prosecute.
However, according to Schmidt, allowing private plaintiffs to begin investigation has created a “big problem” – it creates financial incentives for frivolous claims, encouraging what is commonly referred to as “bounty hunter lawsuits” that harm both businesses and consumers.
“Businesses in California don’t have really any certainty with the system,” Schmidt said.“Some businesses get sued repeatedly for different constituents and their products over time. It is really a bit of a revolving door in terms of litigation, and these costs, of course, ultimately wind up hurting consumers, hurting real people, so that’s a problem as well.”
The regulations were supposed to direct the majority – 75 percent – of civil penalties back to the state’s Office of Environmental Health and Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) to be spent on scientific support activities.However, the attorney general’s analysis revealed that the majority of these payments are actually going back to attorneys as “payments in lieu of civil penalties."
“Certainly, bounty hunters or private attorneys have been using Prop 65 to their benefit, and fines have not been accruing to the state of California as the state expects,” Schmidt said.
According to paperwork from Harris’s office, the proposed amendments would act to ensure that OEHHA receives the civil penalty funds specified by Prop 65, limit the ability of private plaintiffs attorneys to divert awarded fees to themselves and their clients, increase the transparency of Prop 65 settlements, and reduce the financial incentives for plaintiffs attorneys to raise cases that do not benefit the public.
“Prop 65 hasn’t improved over time, the number of bounty hunters hasn’t diminished, and worst of all, the Prop 65 system really isn’t delivering better or safer consumer products for anyone. It’s delivering richer pocket books for bounty hunters,” Schmidt said. -
Can Cleaning Chemicals Damage Your Reproductive Potential?
Nov 18, 2015 | Environmental Working Group
By Samara Geller
Two chemicals frequently used as disinfectants in cleaning products and antibacterial wipes, as anti-static agents in fabric softeners and dryer sheets, and as preservatives in personal care products undermined fertility in both male and female mice, according to a pivotal new study by researchers from Virginia Tech University and the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine.
The study, published last week in the journal Reproductive Toxicology, highlighted the potential dangers posed by a family of chemicals known as quaternary ammonium compounds – quats for short – that are ingredients in a staggering array of household products. Though the experiment did not definitively demonstrate that quats damage human fertility, their effects on mice add to the body of evidence that these chemicals may pose risks to people as well as to lab animals.
For their study, the researchers exposed mice to a mixture of two common quats – alkyl dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride (ADBAC) and didecyl dimethyl ammonium chloride (DDAC).
After five weeks of daily exposure to the quat mix, female mice spent significantly less time in heat, and after eight weeks of exposure, ovulated less frequently and produced fewer viable embryos than female mice in the control group, the scientists reported.
Quats appeared to impair the reproductive systems of male mice even more dramatically. The scientists fed small amounts of the quat mix to one group of male mice for eight days. A second group of males wasn’t dosed deliberately but for seven weeks was housed in a facility where lab staffers conducted routine cleaning with the disinfectants. Dr. Terry Hrubec, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology and a researcher who led the Virginia Tech team, told the online news site Environmental Health News that the quats were used to clean cages and floors. In both situations, the male mice showed lower sperm concentrations and fewer swimming sperm than a control group of mice that was not exposed to the two quat chemicals under investigation.
People are exposed to quats because of widespread use of these chemicals in homes, offices, stores, schools, medical facilities and elsewhere. EWG’s research on school cleaning supplies revealed quat-containing cleaners used in multiple school districts in California. EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning lists more than 250 cleaning products that contain quats.
Researchers are striving to determine whether quats harm human health, and if so, to what extent. Quats are well-documented allergens and can cause otherwise healthy individuals to develop asthma, according to the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics.
The new study of quats follows up on a study published last December by Reproductive Toxicology. The earlier study, by research teams from Virginia Tech and Washington State University, found that female mice exposed to the quat combination took longer to achieve pregnancy, developed fewer pregnancies and gave birth to smaller litters.
The December 2014 study was the product of a collaboration between two scientists who had separately experienced lab accidents in which quat exposures appeared to cause diminished fertility in mice. According to the Virginia Tech News, Hrubec noticed that the mice in her lab were reproducing less frequently. Her search for answers caused her to suspect her lab assistants’ habit of wetting their hands with quat-laced disinfectant before handling the mice. She found an article in the journal Nature about Patricia Hunt, a prominent geneticist at Washington State, who had made similar observations in her own lab in 2005. Hunt also suspected that exposure to quats was damaging her lab animals’ reproductive systems. (Hunt was famed for another lab accident, back in 1998, that led her to discover that the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A was leaching from her lab animals’ plastic water bottles into their bodies. She told EWG in 2008 that BPA exposure scrambled the chromosomes in the animals’ eggs, rendering them infertile.)
The two scientists united and ran a joint experiment that confirmed their suspicions. Then Hrubec launched the second study, this time with the team from Via College, located on the Virginia Tech campus.
Scientists are just beginning to understand how quats may affect fertility. More studies are underway to confirm and expand on the initial findings by Hrubec and Hunt.
In the meantime, it’s prudent to avoid cleaning products and disinfectants with quats. Here’s how. Use EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning to find brands without these compounds. When in stores, read product labels closely, and don’t buy any product that says it contains ADBAC, DDAC, benzalkonium chloride or any compound ending in “-monium chloride” or “-ammonium methyl sulfate”.
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Plastic by the Numbers in the Atlantic Ocean
Nov 19, 2015 | National Geographic
By Gregg Treinish
In late 2014, Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation partnered with the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, a fleet of sailboats that makes an annual crossing of the Atlantic. In total, 93 of the 251 boats gathered water samples for our Global Microplastics Initiative, contributing 521 samples to ASC’s dataset and covering an estimated 602,000-square-nautical-mile area.
The sources of microplastics pollution include microbeads manufactured for many face washes and toothpastes, particles weathered from larger debris like bottles and bags, and microfibers shed down the drain when synthetic clothing is washed.
In addition to the ARC sailors, volunteer sea kayakers, surfers, rowers divers and hikers have collected samples from places including Scandinavia, the Antarctic Peninsula, the Falkland Islands, South Georgia Island, and West Africa. They have contributed more than 1,200 samples to the ASC dataset, which is likely the largest of its kind.
Once we have enough data, we plan to use this information to leverage change, working with legislative, corporate and public partners to stop the influx of microplastics.
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Guest column – Unitar's Fabrice Clavien
Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Fabrice Clavien
When work on the Globally Harmonized System of classification and labelling of chemicals (GHS) began, many countries already had existing regulatory systems for chemical hazards classification and communication.
These systems were similar in content and approach, but their differences were significant enough to require multiple classifications, labels and safety datasheets for the same product when marketed in different countries, or even in the same country when different stages of the product lifecycle were covered by different regulatory authorities. This led to inconsistent protection for those potentially exposed to the chemicals, as well as creating extensive regulatory burdens on companies producing chemicals.
For this reason, a series of initiatives took place at the global level to try to harmonise the different systems. Such efforts can be traced back to 1953, when the UN Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc) created the Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (UNCETDG) within the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (Unece). In 1956, the first international classification and labelling system for the transport of dangerous goods (TDG) was created. Work on the harmonisation in other sectors, on the other hand, was initiated by the International Labor Organization (ILO), first through a Resolution in 1989 on harmonisation of classification and labelling systems for hazardous chemicals at work, then through Convention 170 and Recommendation 177, in 1992.
Mandate
The international mandate that provided the impetus for completing this work was adopted in the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (Unced), as reflected in Agenda 21 (para. 19.27), with the target to have the system available by the year 2000. It was reinforced in 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), which set the target of a global implementation of the GHS by 2008.
No international organisation covers all aspects of chemical classification and labelling. A broad scope and extensive expertise and resources were required to develop a system. In order to proceed, several questions were considered: (a) what systems would be considered “major” and thus the basis for harmonisation, and (b) how could the work be divided to get the best expertise for different aspects. Four existing systems were deemed to be major (UNTDG, US, European Union and Canada) and the primary basis for the GHS. While not considered major, requirements of other systems were examined as appropriate, and taken into account as proposals were developed.
Consensus basis
A Coordinating Group for the Harmonization of Chemical Classification Systems (CG/HCCS) was created in 1992 and was tasked with coordinating and managing development of the system, within the framework of the Inter-organization Programme for the Sound Management of Chemicals (IOMC). The GC/HCCS worked on a consensus basis, with representatives from major stakeholders, including national governments, industry and workers. The group created a set of guiding principles. The scope and guiding principles created a common framework for the organisations that were charged with developing the different elements of the system. The technical focal points for completing the work were: ILO for hazard communication; the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for the classification of health and environmental hazards; and the UNCETDG and ILO for physical hazards.
In October 1999, Ecosoc decided (Resolution 1999/65) to enlarge the mandate of the UNCETDG by reconfiguring it into the Committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods and on the Globally Harmonized System of classification and labelling of chemicals (UNCETDG/GHS), which includes a new Sub-Committee of Experts on the GHS (UNSCEGHS). When the IOMC completedthe GHS, the system was presented to the UNSCEGHS, which formally adopted it at its first session in December 2002. The GHS document that was generated is referred to as “the Purple Book”. The UN Economic and Social Council endorsed the GHS in July 2003. The Purple Book is revised every two years by the UNSCEGHS with the sixth revision (Rev.6) just recently published, in July.
Building blocks
Implementation of the GHS is harmonising requirements in countries with existing systems, as well as establishing an internationally agreed approach that can be adopted by countries that have no such regulatory systems. The GHS has been designed as a collection of building blocks that countries can select and adapt, according to their specific situation and needs.
However, when a regulatory scheme covers something that is in the GHS, and implements it, that coverage should be consistent. Once a hazard class and related hazard categories are selected for inclusion in the national approach, as needed, the GHS classification criteria for the hazard class and categories within that class, assigned label elements and SDS provisions should be followed as specified in the GHS.
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How To Make Chemistry Classroom Demonstrations And Experiments Safer
Nov 18, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jyllian Kemsley
“One of these days, someone is going to die” from injuries sustained in a chemistry classroom fire, Calais Weber Biery says. “I almost did.”
In 2006, when Biery was 15, her chemistry teacher set up a “rainbow” flame test demonstration of several metal salts that the teacher dissolved in methanol then set alight. One of the flames appeared to die down, so the teacher grabbed the stock bottle of methanol to add more. The classroom erupted with fire.
Biery suffered third- and fourth-degree burns over 48% of her body. “I had the rest of my childhood taken away,” she says. She spent two-and-a-half months in the hospital. After returning to school, she spent every break undergoing medical treatments. By her junior year of college, she decided that she’d had enough. Her remaining scars prompt stares or questions from strangers when she wears shorts or a bathing suit, she says.
Less obvious than the scars on Biery’s skin is her posttraumatic stress disorder. Although her symptoms have eased with time, the smell of something burning or the sound of people screaming still triggers anxiety, and she has what she calls “fire dreams” every few months.
What disturbs Biery just as often is that she’s not alone: Similar alcohol-fueled fires from educational demos occur with alarming frequency, injuring at least 72 people since 2011, according to 18 incidents tracked by C&EN, the U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board, and the blog Chemjobber. Most recently, five students and a teacher were injured in an alcohol-fueled flame demo gone awry at W.T. Woodson High School in Virginia on Oct. 30, according to local media reports.
Despite her experience and concern for others, Biery agrees with safety and teaching experts that demonstrations and hands-on experiments by students are essential for science education. Biery herself returned to school to take Advanced Placement biology, followed by general and organic chemistry in college. But she thinks that chemistry teachers must take a step back to assess what they’re doing and how, and that states and school districts should provide teachers with training and equipment to do hands-on science safely.
Biery is not alone. “Kids need to experience phenomena if they’re going to be engaged and develop understanding,” says Joseph S. Krajcik, a former high school chemistry teacher who is now a science education professor at Michigan State University. “But I don’t think instruction should be driven by ‘splashiness,’ either,” Krajcik adds. Instead, teachers must stay focused on their educational goals and be clear about how a particular demo or experiment will meet those aims, then determine the safest way to achieve the objectives.
To help with finding the safest way, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) updated its standard 45 on “Fire Protection for Laboratories Using Chemicals” this year to add a chapter on educational and instructional laboratory operations, including specific guidance for conducting demonstrations. NFPA 45 also covers topics such as laboratory design, fire protection, fume hoods, personal protective equipment (PPE), and chemical storage and handling.
When an NFPA committee convened to update the standard, “it was really clear to us in light of the number of student injuries from demos with flammable materials that we needed to include requirements to protect students,” says committee member Barbara Foster, who is director of laboratory safety for the chemistry department at West Virginia University.
The committee wasn’t just concerned about flame demos, adds committee chair Andrew Minister, who is chief fire protection engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “Whoosh bottle” demos in which alcohol vapor is ignited also frequently go wrong, as do demos involving oxidizing sugar with potassium chlorate or potassium nitrate.
NFPA has no legal authority itself, but some jurisdictions adopt its standards as regulatory or legal requirements. West Virginia incorporated the updated NFPA 45 into its fire code in June. New York City—where a “rainbow” demo gone wrong injured two students in January 2014—is doing similarly, with fire code updates to take effect in January 2016. But even where NFPA 45 isn’t adopted, it still represents good professional practice.
For educational and instructional laboratories, NFPA says that instructors “shall be trained and knowledgeable in fire safety procedures, emergency plans, the hazards present in the lab, the appropriate use of PPE, and how to properly conduct a hazard risk assessment.” For instructor-led demonstrations or experiments done by students, instructors must review hazards, assess risks, provide safety briefings to students, and use or provide appropriate PPE.
NFPA also says that bulk quantities of chemicals must be locked in a separate room or cabinet. Before students arrive, instructors should dispense only the minimum amounts necessary for the activity. Demos involving open flames or flammable, reactive, toxic, or corrosive chemicals should be done in a fume hood if possible. If a fume hood is not available, instructors should place an impact-resistant barrier between the experiment and students, or ensure that students are more than 10 feet (~3 meters) away.
The NFPA guidance largely echoes recommendations issued last year by the Chemical Safety Board in a safety bulletin, “Key Lessons for Preventing Incidents from Flammable Chemicals in Educational Demonstrations.”
Beyond the NFPA guidance, teachers need to practice demos or experiments ahead of time, recommends Donald J. DeCoste, a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and adviser to the school’s master’s degree in the teaching of chemistry program. Even if an activity is something that an instructor has done before, “if you think it needs to be bigger, or you change some variable, then you need to think about that and practice it on your own before doing it in front of students, because you’re just not sure how it’s going to go,” he says.
And as schools embrace more inquiry-based learning in which students may construct their own experiments, teachers need to stay closely involved. “You don’t just send students into the storeroom and say, ‘Go,’ ” DeCoste says. If students are mixing various solutions, for example, then teachers need to be certain in advance that all combinations are safe. If there are safety concerns, then students can plan out their procedures, but the teacher must check the procedures before experiments begin.
But to accomplish all of this, teachers need better lab safety training and resources. The training needs to start before they’re in a classroom on their own, says Ken Roy, director of environmental health and safety for Glastonbury Public Schools in Connecticut and chief science safety compliance adviser to the National Science Teachers Association. “With some exceptions, universities and colleges don’t seem to be preparing teachers to do what they need to do safety-wise,” Roy says. Then, once teachers are in the classroom, they also need ongoing in-service training, and states and school districts need to allocate the resources for that—as well as for equipment such as eyewashes, fume hoods, impact-resistant barriers, and PPE.
“There are a lot of chemistry teachers who are very safety conscious and very careful,” comments Deanna M. Cullen, a chemistry teacher at Whitehall High School in Michigan and an associate editor of the Journal of Chemical Education. “At the same time, I’ve been teaching for more than 20 years, and nobody’s really ever checked on my safety. Early on, following my mentors, I did things that I didn’t realize weren’t okay. I feel like I’m lucky that something bad didn’t happen in my classroom.” ◾
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Report: Plant Safety Hasn’t Improved Since Deadly Chemical Leak
Nov 18, 2015 | Chem.Info
By Andy Szal
A recent report suggests that chemical plant safety has not improved in the year since a gas leak killed four workers at a DuPont plant near Houston.
The analysis by the Washington-based Center for Effective Government said incidents at U.S. chemical plants still occur at a rate of about one in every two days since a deadly explosion in West, Texas in 2013.
Following that explosion, which killed 15 and leveled neighboring buildings, a White House executive order called for safety overhauls at the nation's chemical plants.
CEG, however, noted that the Environmental Protection Agency was behind schedule in proposing a chemical safety rule and said that a final rule likely would not be completed by the time President Obama leaves office.
The group also said that current financial penalties are an insufficient deterrent for large chemicals companies, which took in at least $20 billion in profits but paid just $25 million in penalties for hundreds of safety violations.
DuPont was hit with $273,000 in fines earlier this year for violations stemming from the leak of toxic methyl mercaptan at the La Porte plant in November of 2014. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration also placed the chemical giant in its Severe Violator Enforcement Program.
The Center for Effective Government called for increased financial and criminal penalties and heightened transparency requirements.
In addition, the group said that chemical companies should be required to use safer materials and that routine inspections of their facilities should increase.
"Chemical plant workers and all Americans living near potentially dangerous facilities deserve better," wrote CEG policy analyst Brian Gumm.
A report released this spring said that the vast majority of U.S. chemical plants had not conformed to new Department of Homeland Security standards and remained vulnerable to terrorist attacks. -
Highway Bill Conference Begins, Mentions Crude-by-Rail
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
Sixty-five House and Senate conferees held their first public conference meeting on a multi-year highway bill Nov. 18 where several members identified key priorities, including crude-by-rail and environmental issues.
“We do have some environmental issues here that are relatively small in my opinion. I think they can be worked out and they will be worked out,” Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee's Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials, said at the meeting. “But nonetheless, they're still on the table.”
The bill, which is expected to be finalized by Dec. 4, would reauthorize several surface transportation programs, including hazardous materials transportation programs. The House and Senate bills also include separate versions of environmental review streamlining provisions, which several environmental groups are still hoping to see nixed (216 DEN A-4, 11/9/15).
House leadership continued to add as late as the morning of the conference several conferees to the Senate and House highway conference committee.
Out of the 24 newest conferees, Reps. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Tom Marino (R-Pa.) stand out as conferees-to-watch for their roles in environmental issues within the six-year highway bill (H.R. 22). Grijalva offered and withdrew an amendment when the House bill was on the floor essentially aimed at eliminating an environmental review streamlining section. Marino offered and had adopted an amendment to make certain streamlining requirements more stringent (222 DEN B-1, 11/18/15).
T-HUD Appropriations
The Senate also began debating Nov. 18 the appropriations bill for transportation programs, including a substitute amendment.
The substitute amendment to the Transportation, Housing & Urban Development Appropriations Act (H.R. 2577) would leave hazmat transport funding for fiscal year 2016 at $49 million, pipeline safety programs at $147 million and emergency preparedness programs at $28 million, to comply with the Balanced Budget Act of 2015 (PL.114-74).
It also would require that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration assess the use of an “alternative risk-based compliance regime for the siting of small-scale liquefaction facilities that generate and package liquefied natural gas for use as a fuel or delivery to consumers” not through pipelines.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Bloomberg BNA the Senate hopes to finish with the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act by the end of this week.
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(ACC Mentioned) API And ANGA To Merge
Nov 18, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey
The American Petroleum Institute, the nation's top lobbying group for the oil industry, announced plans today to take over America's Natural Gas Alliance, ending months of speculation that an agreement was in the works.
API is slated to become an even larger and more powerful voice for the oil and gas industry under the merger, which will take effect Jan. 1.
"There is a natural synergy between our organizations," API Chief Executive Jack Gerard said in a statement. "As a single organization, the combined skills and capabilities bring an enhanced advocacy strength to natural gas market development -- ANGA's primary mission -- and the combined association's expanded membership will provide additional lift to API's ongoing efforts on important public policy issues."
Consultants and industry sources have for months said that the merger was underway, and that it made sense in light of ANGA's accomplishments under CEO Marty Durbin's leadership (E&E Daily, Sept. 9).
Durbin in 2013 went to ANGA from API, where he served as executive vice president of government affairs. He had also worked at the American Chemistry Council, which represents the interests of U.S. chemical and petrochemical makers.
Under the umbrella of API, Durbin will continue to represent the gas industry's objectives -- expanded use of gas and liquefied natural gas exports -- as executive director for market development. In addition, ANGA members who are not already members of API will become full members, according to the release.
"Marty will be essential to our continued, and now combined, efforts to advance natural gas market development, and I am pleased to welcome him back to API in this new role," Gerard said.
In another move that signaled a merger was on the horizon, ANGA's spokesman for the past five years, Dan Whitten, was tapped this month to serve as vice president of communications at the Solar Energy Industries Association (Greenwire, Nov. 3).
Some industry sources have questioned whether financial incentives may have fueled the merger.
One industry source in September said the drop in oil and gas prices had left ANGA's members with little funding to spare on lobbying efforts. Of the 14 companies listed on its website that report earnings independently, only two made a profit in the second quarter. The other 12 lost money during the quarter, including well-known names such as Chesapeake Energy Corp., Range Resources Corp. and Devon Energy Corp.
Another industry source expressed concern that joining the two groups could dilute the "pure gas voice" if ANGA is folded into API. But the source said the potential merger wouldn't affect the call for export of domestic gas, which has already received a warm welcome on Capitol Hill.
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(ACC Mentioned) ANGA, API to Become One in January
Nov 18, 2015 | NGI's Shale Daily
By Jamison Cocklin
The long-discussed possibility of a merger between the American Petroleum Institute (API) and America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) is now a reality, with the organizations announcing Wednesday that they would combine into a single trade association effective Jan. 1.
As anticipated, ANGA would fold into API but would continue to represent and promote the nation's independent natural gas producers. Under the agreement, approved by both organizations' boards, ANGA's mission would be handled by a new market development group at API led by current ANGA President Marty Durbin. ANGA members who are not already a part of API would become full members.
"There is a natural synergy between our organizations," said API CEO Jack Gerard. "As a single organization, the combined skills and capabilities bring an enhanced advocacy strength to natural gas market development -- ANGA's primary mission -- and the combined association's expanded membership will provide additional lift to API's ongoing efforts on important public policy issues."
Rumors of an ANGA-API merger emerged in September (see Shale Daily, Sept. 10). Another source that works closely with ANGA told NGI’s Shale Daily at the time that merger rumors had swirled for years. However, a plunge in oil prices in 2014 and a more sustained decline in natural gas prices, which began around the time ANGA was formed in 2009, made the merger a necessity, sources had said.
The merger comes at a time of industry retrenchment as producers have been slashing budgets, cutting their workforces and searching for ways to stretch cash and credit, pinching discretionary spending for things like public advocacy. At one point, ANGA had more than 20 members, but that number has since fallen to 17.
Durbin, who became ANGA CEO in 2013, previously worked as API's executive vice president for a short time under Gerard. Gerard also previously served as CEO of the American Chemistry Council at a time when Durbin was that organization's vice president of federal relations.
"Marty will be essential to our continued, and now combined, efforts to advance natural gas market development," Gerard said.
The merger also allows ANGA and its members an opportunity to access an older and more established organization with a network that extends throughout the country to nearly all corners of the oil and gas industry. API, which has more than 625 members at large integrated companies that include producers, refiners, marketers, midstreamers and supply firms, was founded in 1919 and wields significant power on Capitol Hill and through its affiliates in states across the country.
Since its inception, ANGA has focused heavily on liquefied natural gas exports, transportation, power generation and supply reliability, a mission that crosses with some of API's focus. The organizations said they've long collaborated on environmental, economic, energy and consumer issues.
"ANGA was founded in 2009 at the beginning of the shale energy revolution, and its members were visionary regarding the benefits natural gas would bring to our energy supply and our economy," Durbin said. "Combining these two associations continues that vision by recognizing how best to organize for maximum effect."
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API-ANGA Merger Comes Amid Angst Over Energy Prices, Regs
Nov 19, 2015 | PoliticoPro
By Darren Goode
The American Petroleum Institute and America’s Natural Gas Alliance announced Wednesday they would merge, a move that comes amid weak energy prices and an industry push to open up foreign markets for exports of U.S. shale oil and gas.
The two trade associations said they would join forces under API’s name starting in January, combining two of the biggest voices of the oil and natural gas industries and cementing API CEO Jack Gerard as one of the most influential Washington insiders.
In announcing the merger, Gerard noted “a natural synergy” between the two organizations. The positions and priorities for API and ANGA have grown more closely aligned in recent years, particularly in lobbying for greater latitude in exporting natural gas and oil to support the surge in production from shale fields in states like Pennsylvania, North Dakota and Texas.
The linkup may allow the combined group to reach further into a cross-section of debates, including in promoting natural gas as a a more climate-friendly fuel than coal. They may also gain a stronger foothold to push back against the Obama administration's regulations overseeing greenhouse gas emissions and the use of hydraulic fracturing.
API and ANGA also have ties at their highest levels. ANGA's Marty Durbin was executive vice president at API and worked as Gerard’s No. 2 for nearly three-and-half years before becoming the gas group's president and CEO in May 2013. After the merger, Durbin will head a new Market Development Group at API “to promote natural gas as a clean, affordable solution to America’s energy and environmental needs,” according to the press release.
“ANGA was founded in 2009 at the beginning of the shale energy revolution, and its members were visionary regarding the benefits natural gas would bring to our energy supply and our economy,” Durbin said in a statement. “Combining these two associations continues that vision by recognizing how best to organize for maximum effect.”
API, whose membership already included several natural gas producers, has pitched natural gas as a solution to reducing greenhouse gases, including in a report released Monday that argued the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan is stunting the free-market growth of natural gas production.
But the merger is also the result of low oil and natural gas prices, which have hurt the financial health of members of both groups.
“The low commodity price of natural gas has forced companies to really sharpen their pencils on expenditures,” veteran oil industry lobbyist Scott Segal of Bracewell & Giuliani said. “That said, there is a substantial and ongoing need to defend natural gas production methods and to develop new markets for the product. I suspect there will still be plenty of work for natural gas advocates wherever their offices may be.”
With oil prices hovering near their lowest levels in more than six years and natural gas prices at a fraction of the levels seen in the last decade, some companies represented by both organizations have complained about having to pay dues to both, and they have argued they would be better served if the two consolidated.
API has more than 625 members, including the major integrated companies. ANGA, meanwhile, saw its membership drop in half, from 34 in 2010 down to 17 now. Several of ANGA’s members are already members of API, including top U.S. producers like Apache Corp., BHP Billiton, Chesapeake Energy, and XTO, whose parent company ExxonMobil is a member of the larger group.
Green groups took the opportunity to poke the energy group. “Now the Senate GOP only needs to go to 1 place to get its marching orders. Saves on gas!” said one of a series of snarky tweets from Sierra Club. “There haven’t been this many climate deniers in a room together since the last #GOPDebate.”
POLITICO first reported in early September the two organizations were in merger talks, and speculation was further fueled when ANGA in October listed office space at the top of the tony eight-story Portrait Building near the Chinatown section of Washington as being “immediately” available for leasing.
Gerard, who was paid $13.3 million by API in 2013 according to federal financial disclosure forms, had long ago cemented his role as one of the most influential national energy policy players, especially among Republicans. He was widely rumored to be a leading candidate for a top energy position by Mitt Romney if the Republican nominee had won the White House in 2012.
Durbin made more than $803,000 from the gas association and related entities in for the eight months he worked there 2013, as well earning more than $250,000 from API that year, according to tax filings from that year, the most recent available.
API had a 2013 revenue of more than $225 million, nearly four times the $57 million ANGA took in that year, according to the tax filings.
API has spent at least $3.4 million and ANGA at least $750,000 on lobbying expenditures so far this year through July, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. API spent more than $9 million in lobbying last year, while ANGA spent $1.4 million, according to CRP.
API has also revived and expanded its Vote4Energy voter education campaign this year, an initiative aimed at increasing support for federal and state candidates who favor lifting the 40-year-old U.S. oil export ban, ending the ethanol blending requirement, expanding offshore drilling and other pro-oil causes. The campaign doesn’t endorse or donate to candidates.
API has a separate PAC that has donated $43,500 so far to federal candidates this year, with 90 percent going to Republicans. ANGA’s PAC has contributed $16,500 so far to federal candidates this cycle, with about 60 percent going to Republicans, according to CRP.
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Drilling Approval on California Hiking Trail Sparks Lawsuit
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
Environmental groups want a California court to block the drilling of new oil wells along a popular Ventura County hiking trail and order a new environmental analysis for the project (Los Padres ForestWatch v. Ventura Cnty., Cal. Super. Ct., not yet available, petition for writ of mandate filed 11/17/15).
Filed Nov. 17, the lawsuit targets a decision by the Ventura County Board of Supervisors to modify a permit for an existing oil and gas facility.
The county's 3-2 vote Oct. 20 allowed the California Resources Corp., a new spinoff of Occidental Petroleum, to continue operating the 17 wells at the facility and authorized the drilling of another 19 wells.
Plaintiffs the Los Padres ForestWatch, Center for Biological Diversity and Citizens for Responsible Oil & Gas said the county's decision was based on an outdated environmental impact report.
Allegations in the complaint accuse the county of violating the California Environmental Quality Act and a county zoning ordinance. CEQA required a new evaluation of the facility's environmental risks, plaintiffs said. The local ordinance barred the county from approving the application to modify the existing permit because of ongoing violations at the facility, plaintiffs said.
Oil Spill Risks
Plaintiffs said the county failed to adequately weigh the impacts of doubling the number of wells at the facility.
Ventura County's counsel, Leroy Smith, didn't respond to Bloomberg BNA's request for comment on the filing.
The oil and gas operations are located along the Santa Paula Canyon Trail, which the groups said leads to waterfalls, swimming holes, backcountry campsites and endangered species habitat in the Los Padres National Forest.
“Santa Paula Canyon is one of the crown jewels of Ventura County,” Jeff Kuyper, Los Padres ForestWatch executive director, said in a written statement. “More drilling here will ruin the outdoor recreation experience while reducing local tourism dollars and harming local businesses.”
Thousands of residents and visitors enjoy the trail each year, Kuyper said.
County officials failed to evaluate and reduce the significant noise, visual and public-safety impacts of the drilling on hikers, the groups said in a written statement. The groups also faulted the county for not considering the risks of oil spills from a pipeline that runs above steelhead habitat in Santa Paula Creek.
Plaintiffs' attorneys are Chatten-Brown and Carstens LLP in Hermosa Beach, Calif.
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BLM Releases Plan for Drilling on Roan Plateau
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
The Bureau of Land Management has released its draft plan to allow oil and gas drilling near Colorado's Roan Plateau consistent with a 2014 landmark settlement agreement for the ecologically sensitive area.
Neil Kornze, BLM director, said in a Nov. 17 statement the bureau's draft supplemental environmental impact statement for the Roan Plateau Resource Management Plan Amendment “is an important step in the implementation of the settlement agreement” to protect environmentally sensitive areas atop the plateau (Colo. Conservation Educ. Fund v. Jewell, 10th Cir., 12-1322, 121-1339, settlement signed, 11/19/14; 226 DEN A-13, 11/24/14).
The November 2014 agreement, which settled a case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, was signed by the Interior Department, Colorado, and several conservation groups and energy companies. It resulted in the cancellation of 17 natural gas parcels leased to Bill Barrett Corp. by the BLM in exchange for a refund to the company of $47.6 million.
Preferred Alternative Outlined
In the draft EIS, the BLM's preferred alternative would close the area atop the plateau where the leases were canceled as part of the settlement, while two leases on top and 12 below the rim of the plateau would be retained.
It also calls for more robust air quality analyses and an analysis of the “Community Alternative,” which would require the natural gas under the top of the plateau to be accessed from private land or areas below the plateau through directional drilling. Consideration of the “Community Alternative” was required by a 2012 decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado (Colorado Conservation Educ. Fund v. Jewell, D. Colo., No. 1:08-cv-01460-MSK-KLM , 6/22/12).
“We are fortunate that a visionary group of local, state and industry leaders, as well as sportsmen and conservationists, came together to create a new path for the future of the Roan Plateau,” Kornze said. “This draft document moves that vision forward and protects some of the state's most important fish and wildlife habitat while also allowing for oil and gas development in places where it makes sense.”
Plateau Called Popular Vacation Destination
The Roan Plateau, considered one of Colorado's most ecologically diverse landscapes, is a popular destination for hunting, fishing, and back country recreation. The dramatic topography of the plateau hosts an array of game and sensitive species.
“The base of the Roan includes important winter range for the region's mule deer herd—we remain concerned about the impact of oil and gas development on these areas,” Kate Zimmerman, public lands policy director for the National Wildlife Federation, said in a Nov. 17 statement. “NWF welcomes the release of the new DEIS and hopes the final outcome is better conservation of these vital big game habitats and the migration corridors connecting these habitats with wildlands on the top of the plateau.”
The BLM intends to host two public open house meetings to answer questions and accept written comments on the draft supplemental impact statement. The meetings are tentatively planned for January 2016.
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Definition of Large Facilities Debated in Colorado
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Tripp Baltz
Witnesses at a two-day public hearing before the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission presented very different ideas about how the state should define “large-scale” drilling operations.
And as the hearing wrapped up Nov. 17, COGCC Director Matt Lepore advised members of the commission to set aside all of their Dec. 7 meeting and another day yet to be determined to consider two proposed rules (Recommendations 17 & 20) governing the amount of control local governments have over oil and gas operations within their jurisdictions.
“We are not moving rapidly through this,” Lepore remarked about the two proposals, initially recommended in February by a special Task Force on Oil and Gas convened by Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) to resolve tension between state and local regulation of drilling and other oil and gas activities.
Several local governments in Colorado have attempted to ban the use of hydraulic fracturing, the high-pressure injection of water, sand and chemicals into tight shale formations deep underground to release trapped oil and natural gas.
In particular, the question of how to quantify larger facilities near urban areas, the core focus of Recommendation 17, remains a sharply contested argument among representatives of the oil and gas industry, environmentalists and members of community organizations.
Wellbore, Barrels or Wells?
Commission staff crafted a draft version of the recommendation defining large-scale operations as those with 90,000 feet of wellbore or 4,000 barrels of liquid hydrocarbon storage. A cost-benefit analysis of the commission version showed that less than 1 percent of existing facilities in the state meet that definition.
Industry representatives presented an alternative that would define large facilities as those with 16 or more vertical or directional wells or 12 or more horizontal wells. “Well count is much easier to measure,” Eric Jacobsen, director of production for the Denver-Julesburg Business Unit of Noble Energy Inc., told the commission.
The well-count threshold would cover less than half of the facilities that would be regulated under the commission proposal, environmentalists complained.
Discussions on Recommendation 20, which encourages oil and gas operators to consider community planning in proposing future development, were as contentious as the debate over large facilities.
Would ‘Usurp Our Authority.'
Barbara Kirkmeyer, chair of the Board of County Commissioners in Weld County, challenged the need for such a rule, especially in areas of the state where robust planning already takes place. “We feel these rules are an attempt to usurp our authority,” she said.
Sara Barwinski, a member of the governor's task force, told Bloomberg BNA Nov. 17 the proposed rules don't give local governments the “tools they need” to have some planning control over siting of large-scale facilities within their jurisdictions.
Barwinski said she recently moved from Weld County to Estes Park, Colo. to get away from a large oil and gas facility that was near her home. “I shouldn't have had to do that,” she said. “People are understandably upset because they feel their local government has been stripped of its authority to protect them.”
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IEA Says Natural Gas to Play Key Role in Climate Talks
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rick Mitchell
Natural gas, the “least carbon-intensive fossil fuel,” could play a key role in reaching global climate goals, an issue at the center of upcoming talks in Paris, said the head of the International Energy Agency.
Fatih Birol, the agency's new executive director, noted that energy production and use account for two-thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions, so energy policies will be key at the Paris talks starting Nov. 30, which have the aim of achieving a global deal to fight climate change, largely through commitments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
Speaking at the agency's Nov. 17–18 ministerial meeting, which brought together energy ministers from the Paris-based agency's 29 members, including the world's advanced economies and many of its biggest energy users and carbon dioxide emitters, Birol said IEA ministers approved his three-pillar plan for modernizing the agency's strategy to face today's “transformed” global energy landscape.
That starts with doing more to bring emerging economies into the IEA's work, Birol said.
IEA's members now account for less than 50 percent of global energy consumption, but including non-IEA emerging economies, that rises to over 75 percent, according to Birol.
The meeting included representatives from the biggest emerging economies: Brazil, China, Indonesia, India, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa and Thailand, with Mexico and Chile announcing plans to join the agency. Some 30 leaders from business and the energy industry also attended.
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who chaired the meeting, said natural gas will play an important part in shorter term U.S. efforts to cut power sector greenhouse gas emissions, but special technologies could be needed to “really squeeze down” on emissions from gas in the very long term.
‘Central Bank of Energy Efficiency.'
The IEA was created in the 1970s to advise wealthy countries on energy security and other energy matters in the wake of the Arab oil embargo of 1973. But with liquid natural gas flows growing worldwide, it now has a mandate to broaden its security work beyond oil, to include coordinating “global” security of flows of natural gas, Birol said.
IEA is known for its expertise on “traditional” fuels and technologies, but Birol said he intends to make the agency an “international hub” for clean energy technologies, especially energy efficiency.
“We want to be the international voice of energy efficiency, providing data, advice, best practices, and exchange them between countries. In other words, we want to be the central bank of energy efficiency at the international level,” he said.
IEA ministers released a statement calling for success at the 221st Conference of the Parties at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris, and setting out “five key opportunities” aimed at reducing energy sector greenhouse gas emissions.These include increasing energy efficiency in the industry, buildings and transportation sectors; phaseout of inefficient coal-fired power plants; boosting investment in renewable energy technologies; gradually phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies and reducing methane emissions from oil and gas production.
The UN has said that one goal of the Paris agreement is to hold global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with pre-industrial levels.
Asked if natural gas can contribute to that goal, Birol said it could, if it replaces fuels that have higher carbon content. “In many countries, by replacing coal, gas did reduce the CO2 emissions, and as a result is definitely part of the 2 degree trajectory,” he said.
The IEA said even under a 2 degree scenario, about 60 percent of energy would still come from fossil fuels, but natural gas would be the only fossil fuel to increase its market share. “To push for renewables, to push for energy efficiency with technologies doesn't mean that we abandon gas and other fuels,” Birol said.
Market Driven
Moniz said the U.S. is a “good example” of gas substitution for coal. Coal has gone from 50 percent of U.S. electricity generation to roughly a third within a decade, and this year for the first time, natural gas exceeded coal in electricity generation. That process, driven by the market, not policy, has accounted for a substantial part of U.S. carbon dioxide emission reductions in the past 10 years, he said.
Moniz said the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan aims to reduce power sector carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent by 2030. And “gas will undoubtedly play an important role in that, along with renewables and efficiency,” he said.
“I would say that if you go to the very long term, and exactly how many decades that is I won't speculate, when we have to really squeeze down on CO2 very dramatically, well then, at that point in the power sector, [gas] will have to be used with carbon capture and sequestration,” Moniz said.
He said another major U.S. initiative is to squeeze down on methane emissions, another key greenhouse gas. “Natural gas methane that is escaping is a powerful greenhouse gas. We are looking at that all the way from production, through transmission to end use,” Moniz said.
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Keystone XL Developer Withdraws Nebraska Route Application
Nov 18, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
TransCanada has withdrawn its request with the Nebraska government to build its Keystone XL pipeline through the state.
The company had asked the Nebraska Public Service Commission in October to approve that portion of the 1,200-mile pipeline’s route. But President Obama’s rejection of the project two weeks ago nixed the plan, at least for now, and “as we carefully consider our options with regards to the project, we have withdrawn our application to the PSC," TransCanada spokesman Mark Cooper said on Wednesday.
“We believe it is inappropriate to ask the Commission to continue to move forward on a process that has legally set time lines, while we continue to consider our next course of action,” he said.
After Obama rejected the project on Nov. 6, TransCanada officials said they were considering the future of the project, and could try to win presidential approval of it again in the future if a Republican takes the office.
Environmentalists have aggressively opposed Keystone and certainly would so again if the company revived its request after Obama’s presidency. TransCanada also faces legal hurdles in Nebraska, where homeowners have sued over its right to build the project there.
But the developer said Wednesday that it’s committing to finishing the project.
“Although we are withdrawing the application at this time, we are reserving the right to reapply to the PSC at a later date and remain committed to completing the final leg of the Keystone Pipeline system, that has already safely delivered over a billion barrels of Canadian and US crude oil to the Midwest and Gulf Coast,” Cooper said.
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House To Vote On EPA Resolutions Week Of Nov. 30
Nov 18, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darren Goode
The House will vote to block EPA carbon rules for power plants the week of Nov. 30, just as negotiators are gathering for international climate talks in Paris, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy announced today.
“As the UN climate conference begins later this month the House will be clear it opposes the central tenet of the President’s plan while also offering a path to economic growth and continued environmental progress,” McCarthy said in a statement.
The Congressional Review Act disapproval resolutions passed out of the Energy and Commerce Committee today and will come to the floor the first week Congress returns from its Thanksgiving recess. The Senate yesterday passed its own disapproval resolutions to block the EPA climate rules, but President Barack Obama has promised to veto them and Republicans do not have enough votes to override him.
Obama is planning to travel to Paris along with other world leaders for the opening of the United Nations negotiations, which are scheduled to run Nov. 30 to Dec. 11.
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The Senate Just Voted To Block The Clean Power Plan. Here's The Good News.
Nov 18, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jeremy Symons
It can be hard to interpret political maneuvering inside the Washington Beltway, and yesterday’s Senate votes on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan are no exception.
So take it from someone who keeps a close eye on these votes in Congress: It was a good day for the plan to cut pollution from power plants, for United States climate leadership, and for a clean energy future.
Why?
Because yesterday’s votes showed that the Clean Power Plan has gained support in the Senate since a test vote earlier this year.
More importantly, the votes demonstrated that the Senate is well short of what is needed if Senators truly want to stop the plan from taking effect.
The measures that were passed narrowly (52 to 46) are going nowhere. President Obama will veto these efforts to undo the Clean Power Plan, and there are more than enough supporters of the plan in Congress to sustain the veto.
The Clean Power Plan is a Clean Air Act initiative to cut dangerous carbon pollution from power plants and spur growth in clean energy. It is an important part of America’s leadership strategy on climate change, which is helping not only to accelerate the transition to clean energy here at home but also to inspire actions by other nations, including China.
With world leaders set to convene global talks on climate change in the coming weeks, it’s important to put yesterday’s votes in context.
For two years – even as the EPA was developing the Clean Power Plan – Senate Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has been promising to block the rules any way he could. In March, he launched a symbolic attack on the Clean Power Plan that passed the Senate 57-43.
In yesterday’s vote, which was based on an infrequently used procedure called the Congressional Review Act, McConnell’s margin of victory grew smaller. Three Republicans (Senators Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Susan Collins of Maine and Mark Kirk of Illinois) broke from McConnell and supported the Clean Power Plan.
Since the rule’s release this summer, public support for limits on carbon pollution have only increased. According to a public policy poll done this month, 60 percent of voters in Iowa support the Clean Power Plan, while 70 percent of voters in Illinois and 64 percent in Virginia support it.
The Clean Power Plan comes at a time when shifts in technology are opening new pathways to clean energy. Even utility companies recognize that a fundamental shift has taken place. The chief executive officer of one of America’s largest coal burning power companies, AEP, recently said he views the Clean Power Plan as a “catalyst for the transformation that’s already occurring in our industry.”
The Clean Power Plan is also just one element of a bigger turning point in American policy on clean energy and climate in recent years.
The adoption a few years ago of dramatically increased gas mileage standards and greenhouse gas limits for cars is no longer a matter of controversy. States such as California and a consortium of nine northeastern states are demonstrating that market-based climate pollution limits are good for economic growth.
The bottom line is that yesterday’s votes to “overturn” the Clean Power Plan were all about political theater. Everyone involved knows the congressional resolutions will ultimately fail, so it’s a free vote for politicians who want to appeal to a relatively narrow slice of the electorate.
The larger narrative, which is the transformation of the U.S. into a global leader to protect the next generation from climate pollution, is the real story.
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Biomass Power Opposed at Clean Power Plan Hearing
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
Environmental advocates called on the Environmental Protection Agency to eliminate incentives for burning biomass in its proposed federal plan to implement the Clean Power Plan at a public hearing Nov. 18.
States should “beware the lure of biomass fuels” as a lower-carbon alternative to burning coal, Gary Ewart, from the American Thoracic Society, said.
“Many states are not aware of the full health risk portfolio of biomass fuels,” he said.
The American Lung Association, the Allergy and Asthma Network and members of the Sierra Club also argued the rate-based emissions standard the EPA has proposed in its federal plan could encourage states to switch from coal-fired generation to burning biomass, which also emits pollutants such as particulate matter and ozone precursors.
“The American Lung Association opposes burning biomass or waste to create electricity because of the harmful emissions they produce,” Paul Billings, senior vice president for advocacy at the association, said.
The EPA's proposed federal plan (RIN 2060-AS47), which was issued along with final rules setting carbon dioxide emissions limits on power plants, includes both rate-based and mass-based emissions trading programs, though the agency has indicated it may only finalize one option.
The EPA would issue a federal plan for states that chose not to develop their own implementation strategy for the agency's Clean Power Plan, which limits carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired power plants (149 DEN B-4, 8/4/15).
Mass-Based Plans Favored
Environmental groups and some utilities favored the proposed mass-based trading program offered by the EPA. State regulators, who would administer the program, are already familiar with operating mass-based trading programs under other provisions of the Clean Air Act, and a mass-based compliance option would make it easier to integrate renewable energy, energy efficiency and any other sources that may be regulated in the future into the program, they said.
A mass-based program would set a tonnage cap on carbon dioxide emissions from regulated power plants, while a rate-based system sets limits on the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted per kilowatt hour of electricity produced.
Venu Ghanta, director of federal environmental and energy policy for Duke Energy, said the EPA should retain the option of both mass-based and rate-based emissions trading programs in the final federal plan, but if the agency chooses a single option, the utility favors the mass-based program.
“If the EPA decides to finalize only one form of federal plan, we would encourage the EPA to finalize a mass-based plan, particularly since states and utilities have extensive experience implementing mass-based trading programs,” he said.
Justice Advocates Seek Efficiency Benefits
Environmental justice advocates at the public hearing also repeatedly called on the EPA to ensure that poor and overburdened communities will see the benefits of renewable energy and energy efficiency investments utilities will make to comply with the Clean Power Plan.
With the Clean Power Plan, the EPA has said it will develop the Clean Energy Incentive Program to help states transition more quickly to renewables and energy efficiency projects. The incentive program would be a voluntary matching fund to encourage states to invest early in solar and wind power projects and in energy efficiency projects in low-income communities (149 DEN B-2, 8/4/15).
Environmental justice advocates argued that some of the credits generated through that program should be dedicated to low-income communities to ensure they reap the benefits of the required energy efficiency and renewable generation investments.
Effort to Control Renewable Energy
“We want to be able to control the renewable energy in our communities,” Mary Metzmeier, from Communities United for Action, said. “There's no way the people who made us sick and killed us over the years should be in control of selling the wind and the sun back to us.”
Environmental advocates and the coal industry sparred over the flexibility of the federal plan during a public hearing on the proposal Nov. 16 (221 DEN A-1, 11/17/15).
The EPA's public hearings on the proposal resume Nov. 19 with a second day of hearings in Washington, D.C., and additional hearings Nov. 19 and 20 in Atlanta.
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RGGI Fine-Tuning Program to Meet Clean Power Plan
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman
The nine states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative have known for some time that their cap-and-trade program was a good fit with the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan but that it would need some tinkering and adjustments to ensure compliance.
Those adjustments are now coming into sharper focus, as RGGI embarks on a year-long program review that includes gathering input from its stakeholders such as environmentalists, utilities and others.
“We're in very good shape in meeting the requirements of the Clean Power Plan,” Jared Snyder, assistant commissioner of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, told the stakeholders meeting.
“But we're not done,” he said. “We have a number of program elements that may not be a perfect fit in the Clean Power Plan.”
The RGGI states—Connecticut, Delaware, Maine Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont—have agreed on a fundamental framework that covers some key compliance issues. They have also identified several areas in which adjustments to the seven-year-old program may need to be made and have asked stakeholders for recommendations in those areas.
The first stakeholders meeting was held Nov. 17 in New York and RGGI expects to hold at least three more before EPA's September 2016 deadline for states to submit their initial CPP plans(222 DEN 1, 11/18/15) .
RGGI is accepting written comments until Dec. 4.
General Framework for Compliance
RGGI states, according to background documents for its meeting, have generally agreed on the following framework for compliance with the Clean Power Plan:
• The states will use mass-based emissions goals and not rate-based goals.
• The plan will cover existing units and new units.
• The states will use the Clean Power Plan's emission standards approach.
Lois New, acting director of the Office of Climate Change at the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, said RGGI doesn't anticipate any of its nine states leaving the program.
“Every state is, in the end, responsible for submitting its own state plan,” New told the Nov. 17 stakeholders meeting. “Our current expectation right now is that the RGGI states will continue to move forward, considering this path together.”
Adjustment Needed in Emissions Cap
One of the most important adjustments that RGGI will need to make is in its carbon emissions cap. The cap will be 78 million tons in 2020 and beyond, under the current RGGI structure. The Clean Power Plan's mass-based goal for the nine states is 79 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2030 for existing sources and 80 million tons for new and existing sources, according to RGGI.
RGGI has two mechanisms, however, that could raise its emissions above the cap. A cost containment reserve designed to prevent spikes in carbon prices could potentially release an additional 10 million allowances per year, and provisions for carbon offset projects allow electric generating units to meet up to 3.3 percent of their compliance obligations through offset allowances.
The cost containment reserve is the bigger concern because no RGGI state has awarded a single offset allowance to date, but the cost containment reserve was triggered in 2014 and against this year when the price of allowances sold in RGGI's quarterly auctions hit certain prices.
Derek Furstenwerth, senior director of environmental services at Calpine Corp., said he didn't think the offsets and cost containment reserve provisions were significant stumbling blocks. “Those are all things that can be worked through, in terms of having an approvable plan,” he told the stakeholders meeting. Calpine is the U.S.'s largest generator of electricity from natural gas and geothermal resources.
Should Eliminate Cost Containment Reserve
David Gahl, director of strategic engagement at the Pace Energy and Climate Center at Pace Law School, said RGGI should consider completely eliminating the cost containment reserve, as a means of keeping the emissions cap within the Clean Power Plan limits.
He said the need for the cost containment reserve would be lessened if RGGI is expanded beyond the current nine states.
“The kind of market liquidity that the cost containment reserve was supposed to provide could be provided by these other state programs and other trading approaches,” he said.
Jordan Stutt, a policy analyst at the Acadia Center, said the cost containment reserve contains a potential total pool of 65 million additional allowances through 2020. Acadia Center said it promotes clean, competitive, environmentally sustainable economies through data-driven research, innovative policies and market-based solutions.
“That clearly undermines the program's environmental performance,” he told the stakeholders meeting.
Price Trigger for Releasing Reserve
Stutt recommended that, if the cost containment reserve is maintained, the price trigger for releasing the reserve should be raised and the allowances should be taken from within the cap, similar to the California cost containment reserve mechanism.
Cathy Waxman, an environmental manager at National Grid, said the cost containment reserve should be maintained, but the amount of allowances available could be lowered so the RGGI cap still meets the Clean Power Plan cap.
“We appreciate the flexibility that the cost containment reserve provides,” she told the stakeholders meeting. “We don't want to lose either the cost containment reserve or the EPA cap.”
RGGI Expansion Debated
A second adjustment that RGGI is considering involves expanding the program beyond the nine current states. Environmentalists are urging RGGI to move cautiously on expansion, while the electric power industry is encouraging expansion.
Similarly, some stakeholders are recommending that RGGI consider expanding beyond the power sector, particularly as a way for states to meet their ambitious greenhouse gas emission goals for 2030 and 2050.
Some of the more minor adjustments that RGGI is considering include:
• How to address so-called banked allowances, which are carbon allowances that have been sold in auction but haven't been used for compliance. RGGI currently adjusts its cap each year to account for banked allowances.
• Whether to change its three-to-one penalty for power plants that fail to purchase enough allowances to cover their emissions. Power plants of at least 25 megawatts must purchase one allowance for each short ton of carbon dioxide emissions. In rare instances where they have failed to do so, RGGI has imposed a penalty of three allowances for each ton of excess emissions. The penalty under the CPP is two allowances for each ton.
• Whether to adjust RGGI's three-year control periods to align with the Clean Power Plan's compliance schedule, which is at different time intervals.
• Whether to participate in the EPA's Clean Energy Incentive Program.
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Road to COP21 Climate Talks: US, UK, Green Building, Climate Change Tool
Nov 18, 2015 | Environmental Leader
As governments and businesses gear up for the COP21 global climate talks in a few weeks, countries and industry alike are setting ambitious goals to help achieve a low-carbon economy. Or not: the US Senate voted yesterday to block the Clean Power Plan. US Senate aside, here are some highlights leading up to the Paris climate deal.
Following the US Senate’s resolutions to cripple the power plant carbon rule, the White House promptly announced President Obama would veto the resolutions. Today, speaking to some of the world’s biggest companies at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Manila, Obama said a climate deal in Paris will benefit bottom lines by creating new investment opportunities in clean technology, Bloomberg reports. “An ambitious agreement in Paris will prompt investors to invest in clean energy technologies because they will understand that the world is committed” to a clean energy future, Obama said.
Also today, the British government announced plans to close all coal-fired power stations by 2025 and restrict their use by 2023. “It cannot be satisfactory for an advanced economy like the UK to be relying on polluting, carbon intensive 50-year-old coal-fired power stations,” Amber Rudd, the minister for energy and climate change, said in a statement.
With an eye to Paris, the US Green Building Council has joined with other councils around the world to advance the green building sector by 2030 and achieve by 2050 two major goals: net-zero-carbon new building in addition to energy efficiency and deep refurbishment of existing stock. For the first time, COP will feature a Buildings Day to highlight the importance of green buildings as a critical piece of the climate change response. USGBC, in the next five years, commits to scaling up to support certification of a projected over 5 billion square feet of green building with LEED and EDGE.
And Kering today published its 2014 Group Environmental Profit and Loss Account (E P&L) results as well as a tool other firms can use to measure and value the impacts on the environment resulting from the business activities across the entire supply chain and its resulting cost to society. The metrics analyzed include direct operations and supply chains, from raw materials through to manufacturing, and include greenhouse gas emissions, water use, water and air pollution, waste production and land use changes. “Ahead of COP21, it is essential that businesses share solutions that can help reduce our collective impact on the environment and replenish our natural resources,” says François-Henri Pinault, chairman and CEO of Kering.
Read more: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2015/11/18/road-to-cop21-climate-talks-us-uk-green-building-climate-change-tool/#ixzz3rwFTIpgX -
House Panel Passes Measures to Kill EPA Climate Rules
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced what will almost surely be futile efforts to take down centerpieces of the Obama administration's efforts to address climate change Nov. 18 on two party-line votes.
Two resolutions of disapproval (H.J. Res. 71; H.J. Res. 72), introduced by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), passed the committee by 28 to 21 margins. President Barack Obama has already threatened formal vetoes of two companion measures in the Senate.
No Democrats backed the efforts at nullifying the two Environmental Protection Agency power plant regulations for carbon dioxide emissions, and no Republicans opposed them.
“The American people are upset about [these regulations] because of the unprecedented action being taken,” Whitfield said, acknowledging Obama would veto the efforts. “It's an opportunity for us to simply express the concerns that we have.”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told Bloomberg BNA in a statement the full House would vote on the measures the week of Nov. 30.
“As the UN climate conference begins later this month, the House will be clear it opposes the central tenet of the President's plan,” McCarthy said.
Would Nullify EPA Rules
H.J. Res. 72 would immediately nullify the Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33), which regulates carbon dioxide emissions from the nation's fleet of existing power plants. The resolution would bar the executive branch from ever promulgating a “substantially similar rule.” H.J. Res. 71 would kill off a separate regulation limiting carbon dioxide emissions from new and modified power plants (RIN 2060-AQ91).
Both EPA regulations were published in the Oct. 23 Federal Register (80 Fed. Reg. 64,510; 80 Fed. Reg. 64,662).
Republicans on the panel said the EPA regulations would harm local economies, create job losses and cause electricity prices to rise. Those impacts justified sending the message to the Obama administration that many opposed their environmental initiatives, the lawmakers argued.
“The people I represent want us to block these rules,” Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.) said.
The House efforts come after the Senate approved companion efforts Nov. 17 by 52 to 46 votes (222 DEN A-13, 11/18/15).
Democrats Call Actions Unfortunate
Committee Democrats said the resolutions were a waste of time because Obama would veto them. They said it was unfortunate Republicans continued to deny the seriousness of the challenges surrounding climate change.
“I think these two proposals to nullify a Clean Power Plan are not only misguided, I think they stand as one bookend that represents the past and nothing about our collective future,” Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) said. “I think this is really a rather sad moment to have at our committee.”
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Senators Revive Financing Tactic From ’70s for Carbon Emissions
Nov 19, 2015 | The New York Times
For years, power companies, manufacturers and entrepreneurs have tried to make capturing and storing carbon emissions from industrial operations like burning coal into a business, to little avail.
Despite decades of promising research, demonstration projects and government investment, large-scale developments have often proved too difficult and costly to get off the ground.
But now two senators think they have hit on a way to move the industry forward. Under a bill set to be introduced on Thursday, carbon capture projects — considered important tools for fossil fuel power plants and industrial facilities to meet anticipated greenhouse gas restrictions — would qualify for tax-exempt private activity bonds, which helped clean up air pollution in the 1970s and 1980s.
Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, who is a co-sponsor of the bill, said that power plants “used some of these private-activity-type bonds” to install equipment like “scrubbers and so on back in the day.”
His co-sponsor, Senator Michael F. Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, said, “This is the very same idea.”
There are different processes for capturing carbon — some more complex than others — but oil, gas and other industrial producers have been siphoning off carbon dioxide for decades. There is an established market for carbon dioxide in oil fields, where producers inject it underground to help extract petroleum, also storing the carbon dioxide there, in a process known as enhanced oil recovery. But investors have been leery of carbon capture and storage, or C.C.S., projects, seeing them as risky and the technology as unproved, in part because it has not yet been widely applied to power plants, energy executives say.
“It’s less about how to make it work technically these days but more about how to make it work financially,” said Dan Reicher, who helped draft the proposed legislation and is the executive director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford University.
Only 15 large-scale carbon capture and storage projects are in operation around the globe, according to a recent report from the Global CCS Institute, which is based in Australia and seeks to advance adoption of the technology. Those include Shell’s Quest project in the oil sands of Alberta, Canada, and a project at a natural gas processing plant in Hawiyah, Saudi Arabia, that opened this year. Taken together, the 15 are capable of capturing as much as 28 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, but that is a small fraction of the four billion tons the International Energy Agency predicts will be needed by 2040, and the six billion tons by 2050, in order to achieve global climate goals, the report said.
Proponents of allowing the use of tax-exempt private activity bonds for carbon capture say it could go a long way toward helping meet those goals, as well as the emissions reductions required by the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan. Power plants fired by coal, natural gas and biomass, along with operations like oil and chemical refineries as well as ethanol, fertilizer and cement manufacturers, are responsible for more than half of the carbon emissions in the United States, congressional officials say.
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Even though enhanced oil recovery is the main existing commercial use for captured carbon — on its face an impediment to the low- or no-carbon future experts say is needed to arrest global warming — some environmental advocates say C.C.S. is a necessary component to getting there, especially given the abundance of coal and natural gas plants already operating or in the works around the globe.
“It’s an interim way to get a particular technology built at scale to bring costs down,” said Armond Cohen, executive director of the Clean Air Task Force, an advocacy group based in Boston that supports the approach. “The only projects that are actually moving forward right now are the ones that have a revenue stream from enhanced oil recovery.”
The federal tax code permits the use of private activity bonds for projects that handle solid and hazardous waste and sewage at privately owned facilities. From 1968 to 1986, the code contained an allowance for air pollution control that spurred tens of billions of dollars’ worth of installations aimed at ridding emissions of sulfur dioxide and other harmful substances. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, during the last half of that period, $37.2 billion in bonds went toward financing projects whose total cost was roughly double that figure.
That allowance no longer exists, although there are exceptions that have let businesses use the tax exempt bonds for projects that include carbon capture and storage. The proposed change is aimed at bringing the tax code in line with policy and technology developments, proponents say.
For instance, the independent power producer NRG Energy was able to use private activity bonds to finance part of a coal plant in Texas that also includes capture and storage because the plant was built in a zone eligible for disaster relief after Hurricane Ike in 2008. But Summit Power, a developer of energy projects, was unable to take advantage of similar financing for a coal power plant with capture and storage in West Texas, despite the promise of a $450 million grant from the Department of Energy and more than $800 million in investment tax credits.
The project is moving ahead, said Jason Crew, Summit’s chief executive, but much more slowly than anticipated. “If we had access to a greater suite of financing tools, we certainly would be done by now.”
Some experts question the use of tax-exempt bonds for private development in general. Others caution that state limits on bond issues each year could keep some projects from going forward.
“By opening up a broader world for private activity bonds, you squeeze out other projects,” said Gregory F. Jenner, a former federal tax policy official who is now a lawyer at Stoel Rives in Washington.
But supporters argue that in many states the cap on bond issues has gone unmet, and that the carbon projects’ financing would not add that much anyway. Congressional officials estimate that expanding the qualification to include carbon capture and storage would cost taxpayers $29 million over five years and $128 million over 10.
“This is a way, in a relatively inexpensive way, to solve a problem that needs to be solved,” Mr. Portman said.
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Senators Warn Obama on Binding Climate Accord
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
President Barack Obama must submit to Congress for review any international agreement reached at a December UN climate summit that includes binding emissions targets or timetables, the Senate Environment Committee chairman said in a letter to the White House released Nov. 18.
Any agreement “with binding timetables and targets must be brought before Congress for approval,” wrote Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who chairs a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee.
The letter was released at a hearing Inhofe held in his committee to focus on the push by nearly 200 nations to get a United Nations climate agreement at Nov. 30-Dec. 11 talks in Paris. It is the latest salvo by Republicans in Congress who hope to undercut the administration's efforts to get a global climate accord signed at the Paris talks.
The senators, who have been circulating the letter for additional signatures in recent days, also warned the president that U.S. offers of aid to help vulnerable nations adapt to rising sea levels and other climate impacts could essentially be held hostage by the Republican-controlled House and Senate unless the global climate deal is submitted to Congress. (222 DEN A-1, 11/18/15).
Republicans in the House and Senate have long threatened to block such funding but have yet to have much success. The administration announced in November 2014 that it would pledge $3 billion over four years to the Green Climate Fund, which has received more than $10 billion in international pledges, mostly from developed nations (221 DEN A-2, 11/17/14).
Democratic Amendment Approved
In July, for example, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 16-14 for a Democratic amendment to strip out Republican-authored language that would have required Obama to get a specific authorization from Congress to proceed with the aid. Republican Sens. Mark Kirk (Ill.) and Susan Collins (Maine) voted for the amendment, offered to the fiscal year 2016 funding bill for the State Department and related agencies (132 DEN A-4, 7/10/15).
The Obama administration has long sought a Paris agreement that is a mix of legally binding and nonbinding elements, with countries voluntarily putting forth pledges to cut emissions but subjecting those reductions to binding transparency and verification requirements.
Thus, the administration argues, the U.S. can likely agree to the Paris deal under Obama's executive authority without submitting it for Senate ratification.
A Move to Bar Climate Aid
Congress may bar funding “until the forthcoming climate agreement is submitted to the Senate for its constitutional advice and consent,” according to the letter from Inhofe and Barrasso, which Republican aides said would be sent to the president Nov. 19.
The U.S. and other developed nations have pledged $100 billion in annual public and private financing beginning in 2020, a finance offer that is widely seen as crucial to getting developing nations to sign onto the global climate deal in December.
The Nov. 18 Senate committee hearing—held as the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee also met to hone in on the Paris agreement across the Capitol—was the last salvo by Republicans to undercut Obama and U.S. participation in the Paris deal.
They have opened attacks on multiple fronts, including attempts this week to kill carbon pollution limits for U.S. power plants.
Two Senate resolutions passed, but by votes of 52-46, well short of the two-thirds majority the chamber would need to overcome an Obama veto.
In the weeks ahead, Republican senators may offer a “sense of the Senate” resolution that they hope will be a sort of no-confidence vote in Obama's authority to sign on to the Paris deal.
Obama Accused of Bypassing Congress
Neither the Senate Environment Committee nor the House Science panel Nov. 18 were able to procure an Obama administration witness for their respective hearings. At the House hearing, Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) questioned the Obama administration's efforts to link climate change to increasingly severe and frequent storms and other weather events and said the president has pursued a go-it-alone strategy to circumvent Congress.
“There is a reason the president chose to bypass Congress in order to negotiate a climate deal on his own,” the House chairman said. He said Obama's acceptance of any deal in Paris would give away “control of U.S. energy policy to un-elected United Nations officials” and only seeks “to advance a partisan political agenda.”
If agreed to, the Paris deal would be the first to commit industrialized and developing nations alike to curb greenhouse gas emissions linked to rising global temperatures.
The Paris talks are being held just six years after similar negotiations toward a global climate agreement nearly collapsed at a 2009 Copenhagen summit.
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New Air Monitoring Methods Approved by EPA
Nov 19, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Environmental Protection Agency has approved a pair of air monitoring methods for use by state and local air regulators tasked with collecting data that are used to determine compliance with national ambient air quality standards. The agency, in a notice scheduled for publication Nov. 19, said it approved a new reference monitoring method for measuring carbon monoxide and a new equivalent method for ozone. Federal reference methods are considered by the EPA to be the “gold standard” for air monitoring, while equivalent methods are based on different technology but are just as accurate. The new carbon monoxide monitoring method is an infrared absorption spectroscopy technique using technology developed by Environnement S.A., a French company. The new ozone method is an automated method using an analyzer developed by San Diego-based Teledyne Advanced Pollution Instrumentation Inc. The EPA notice is available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2015-29492.pdf.
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House, Senate Bills Target EPA's Stricter Ozone NAAQS
Nov 18, 2015 | InsideEPA
House and Senate lawmakers are pushing new bills targeting EPA's decision to tighten its ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) from 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 70 ppb, with a Senate measure seeking to undo the rule entirely and a new House bill aiming to “harmonize” deadlines for states' compliance plans for the new standard.
EPA's Oct. 1 decision to tighten the 2008 limit of 75 ppb drew criticism from GOP lawmakers and various industry sectors who warned it will place many areas out of attainment with the stricter limit of 70 ppb. Nonattaiment areas must impose controls on industrial sources of ozone-forming emissions, and the agency's critics say this hurts the economy in such areas. Environmentalists meanwhile argue that the 70 pbb limit is not sufficiently stringent.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) is among the critics of the stricter standard who is pushing legislation to undo it. The senator on Nov. 17 introduced S.J. Res. 25, which would use Congressional Review Act (CRA) authority to disapprove the final ozone NAAQS. The bill at press time had 30 co-sponsors, and has been referred to the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW).
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), EPW chairman and frequent EPA critic, has said he will support a CRA push to undo the ozone decision, which follows Senate votes approving CRA resolutions to undo EPA's power plant greenhouse gas rules.
In the House, lawmakers opposed to the stricter ozone standard introduced their resolution, H.J. Res. 70, to reject the new standard. A CRA resolution requires only a simple majority to clear either chamber, but if President Obama were to veto it, supporters would require a two-thirds majority vote of Congress to override it.
Meanwhile, Sens. John Boozman (R-AR) and Joe Donnelly (D-IN) on Nov. 17 signed on as co-sponsors of S. 2072, a bill that would require EPA to create a program to defer the designation of an area not attaining the 8-hour ozone NAAQS if that area achieves and maintains certain standards under a voluntary “early action” air pollution control plan. The legislation, which now stands at three total co-sponsors, has been referred to EPW.
In the House, Rep. Bill Flores (R-TX) is also pushing legislation that targets EPA's ozone NAAQS program, introducing H.R. 4000 on Nov. 16 to harmonize requirements of the 2008 and 2015 ozone standards.
The legislative text notes that states are “just beginning” to implement the 2008 NAAQS, for which EPA in February published requirements for state implementation plans -- air pollution control blueprints for attaining the standard. “With publication of the 2015 ozone standard so early in the implementation of the 2008 ozone standards, States face the prospect of simultaneously implementing two” ozone standards, the bill says.
“If the 2008 and 2015 ozone standards implementation schedules are not harmonized, already strained State resources will be burdened by overlapping implementation schedules, and counties that are projected to achieve necessary air quality improvements will face significant and permanent sanctions,” it adds.
The legislation would set an Oct. 26, 2024, deadline for states to designate whether areas are attaining or out of attainment with the 2015 ozone standard, and require EPA to issue by Oct. 26, 2025, final attainment designations for the standard. States' compliance plans for the standard would then be due Oct. 26, 2026.
The bill would also ensure that the 2015 ozone standards will not apply to the review of a Clean Air Act preconstruction permit -- a major concern of industries who say the new NAAQS creates some permitting uncertainty because it is unclear whether permits must comply with the 2008 or 2015 standard.
Finally, H.R. 4000 would also change an air law mandate that EPA review its ozone and five other NAAQS for criteria pollutants every five years, switching it to a 10-year review cycle. The bill also specifies that the agency's next proposed review of the ozone NAAQS would have to be completed by Oct. 26, 2025.
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