Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 11/19/15
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Specialty Chemicals Market Update
Nov 19, 2015 | Powder Bulk Solids
The Specialty Chemicals Market Volume Index, a tool created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), entered the fourth quarter on a tepid note, slipping back 0.1 percent on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis in October after a 0.3 percent gain in September and a weak first half of the year. -
(ACC Mentioned) Key US House Committee Approves Microbeads Phase-Out Bill
Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The House Energy and Commerce Committee has unanimously approved a bill that would ban the sale or distribution of rinse-off cosmetic products that contain plastic microbeads. -
Computational Exposure Science is the Future, Says US EPA
Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Computational exposure science is “ushering in a new era of risk assessment”, according to scientists from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). -
Echa Round-Up
Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Sweden has withdrawn its SVHC intention for the substance,dicyclohexyl phthalate. It plans to resubmit a dossier in 2016. -
Scientific Consensus on EDCs in Sight, Says Toxicology Expert
Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Philip Lightowlers
Scientific consensus on how to tackle endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) is in sight, some scientists believe. -
IG to Check Board's Use of Purchase Cards
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
U.S. EPA's inspector general will take a new look at the U.S. Chemical Safety Board's use of purchase cards, a program that has been deemed at high risk of abuse in the past. -
NERC: Electric Grid Cyberattacks Unlikely
Nov 19, 2015 | Politico Pro - Whiteboards
By David Perera
Cyberattacks against the electric grid are highly unlikely, a top U.S. energy sector official said this morning. -
Grid-Hardening Initiative Debuts as Federal Standards Loom
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Power technology and manufacturing giant ABB is courting business from U.S. electric utilities as they face new physical security standards from the North American Electric Reliability Corp. -
U.S. Warns Railroads on New Safety System Deadline
Nov 19, 2015 | Chicago Tribune
By Richard Wronski
The federal government is warning the nation's railroads, including Chicago's Metra, that it intends to "aggressively enforce" a new deadline for installation of a high-tech safety system. -
Oil, Gas Lobby Groups to Merge
Nov 19, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Washington, D.C.’s major oil industry lobbying group is taking over the association representing natural gas drillers, the organizations announced on Wednesday. -
Top Coal Exec Slams 'Destroyer' Obama, Power Plant Rules
Nov 19, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A top coal executive and frequent critic of Obama administration environmental regulations will slam the president Thursday as a “destroyer” of the coal industry and hit his key climate rule as “blatantly illegal.” -
Actors Goldblum, Begley Star in Enviro Video Promoting EPA Plan
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Environmentalists have recruited actors Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley Jr. to sell the Clean Power Plan in a new online video. -
Dominion Airs Hopes for Va. State Compliance Plan
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Virginia's biggest electricity provider -- Dominion Virginia Power -- is asking the state to develop a rate-based plan for curbing carbon emissions under U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, rather than capping the total emissons of carbon dioxide allowed from power plants. -
GOP Targets New Ozone Standard with CRA Resolution
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
More than half the Senate's 54 Republicans have quickly signed on to legislation by Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) to void U.S EPA's new ground-level ozone standard. -
Ex-Lawmaker Sees Rough Road for Climate, WOTUS Riders
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
A veteran House Democrat who spent years fending off Republican efforts to tack on contentious policy riders to U.S. EPA and the Interior Department's annual spending bill before retiring predicted yesterday that Republicans will fall short in attacking the Clean Power Plan (CPP) and the Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule in the omnibus appropriations measure under development. -
3 Signs We're Entering a Golden Age for Carbon Markets
Nov 19, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Fred Krupp
There was a time when market-based approaches seemed to fall off the radar in discussions of climate policy, but carbon markets are back.
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Energy and Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. Specialty Chemicals Market Update
Nov 19, 2015 | Powder Bulk Solids
The Specialty Chemicals Market Volume Index, a tool created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), entered the fourth quarter on a tepid note, slipping back 0.1 percent on a three-month moving average (3MMA) basis in October after a 0.3 percent gain in September and a weak first half of the year.
Weakness in 2015 continues to be centered in oilfield chemicals and a few other segments that combined weighed on overall volumes. Of the twenty-eight specialty chemical segments we monitor, sixteen expanded in October, one was flat, and eleven declined. Although there was weakness beyond oil chemicals during October, market volumes excluding oilfield chemicals were essentially flat, suggesting some stabilization of overall U.S. industrial activity.
The overall specialty chemicals volume index was off 1.4 percent year-over-year (Y/Y) also on a 3MMA basis. Year-earlier comparisons were generally in the 4 to 6.8 percent range during 2012-2014 but since February of this year they have fallen below that range as the downturn in the oil and gas sectors affected headline volumes. In addition, the strong U.S. dollar has adversely affected a number of export-oriented customer industries. Still, on a Y/Y basis, gains are fairly widespread among most market and functional specialty chemical segments, and, in some cases, they are improving. Compared to last year, October volumes were up in 19 segments and down in 10 segments. That said the year-earlier comparisons have been moderating.
Specialty chemicals are materials manufactured on the basis of the unique performance or function and provide a wide variety of effects on which many other sectors and end-use products rely. They can be individual molecules or mixtures of molecules, known as formulations. The physical and chemical characteristics of the single molecule or mixtures along with the composition of the mixtures influence the performance end product. Individual market sectors that rely on such products include automobile, aerospace, agriculture, cosmetics and food, among others.
Specialty chemicals differ from commodity chemicals. They may only have one or two uses, while commodities may have multiple or different applications for each chemical. Commodity chemicals make up most of the production volume in the global marketplace, while specialty chemicals make up most of the diversity in commerce at any given time, and are relatively high value with greater market growth rates. Some areas where specialty chemicals are used include adhesives, cleaning materials, cosmetic additives, construction materials, food additives, fragrances and detergents
This data is the only timely source of market trends for twenty-eight market and functional specialty chemical segments. Chemistry directly touches over ninety-six percent of all manufactured goods, and trends in these specialty chemical segments provide a detailed view of trends in manufacturing. The data also sheds light on how various consumer end-use markets are performing compared to others in the marketplace. -
(ACC Mentioned) Key US House Committee Approves Microbeads Phase-Out Bill
Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
The House Energy and Commerce Committee has unanimously approved a bill that would ban the sale or distribution of rinse-off cosmetic products that contain plastic microbeads.
The Health Committee had passed the legislation, the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, in May (CW 18 May 2015).
Since then, the bill (HR 1321) has undergone changes and was introduced on Wednesday for mark up by its co-author Fred Upton (R-Michigan), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Besides advancing the phase-out timeline to July 2017, the amendment also preempts state laws relating to regulation of cosmetics containing microbeads.
Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-New Jersey), who jointly authored the bill with Mr Upton, noted, at the mark up, that the bill now “sets up a strong federal policy banning microbeads in personal care products.” It also “sets up an aggressive timeline for phase out of these products beginning in 2017, which is earlier than any of the currently enacted state laws.”
Mr Pallone said the measure explicitly bans the use of biodegradable plastics as an alternative ingredient, which he noted was a “loophole that has been discovered in a number of existing state laws.” And while he usually does not support preemption, he added, “the strong federal standard we have developed here is more effective and on a faster timeline than any state law.”
The American Chemistry Council applauded the vote, saying the measure sets a “strong, consistent national standard to phase out solid plastic microbeads from rinse-off personal care products.”
Microbeads are tiny pieces of plastic, often used as exfoliants in personal care products like face wash, soap and toothpaste. They can slip through water treatment systems after they are washed down the drain. As a result, these microbeads often end up contaminating local streams, rivers and larger bodies of water, according to authors of the bill.
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Computational Exposure Science is the Future, Says US EPA
Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Computational exposure science is “ushering in a new era of risk assessment”, according to scientists from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The “new discipline” uses techniques and data from toxicology but also pulls in information on consumer products and their use, for example using social media. Its aim is to forecast "real-world" exposure to chemicals in the environment and to link exposures to health outcomes, explains a team from the EPA's Office of Research and Development.
There is a “societal obligation” to deepen understanding of exposures, given the rise in prevalent diseases such as asthma and the widespread human exposure to industrial chemicals, suggest the researchers. The rise of computational exposure science also accompanies growing interest in the exposome, which looks at all of an indvidual's environmental exposures, from conception onwards, they add (CW 7 September 2015).
The EPA intends to use computational exposure science to predict population exposure and intake dose rates for existing or new chemicals, sometimes based solely on structure. It is working on identifying chemical ingredients in consumer products to gain an idea of consumer exposure, based on exposure scenarios and use patterns.
Its researchers are also developing models, similar to Qsars, for determining the relationship between a chemical's predicted properties, based on structure, and its possible functional role in products.
The field still needs vast quantities of data, as well as ways to extrapolate model input parameters from data-rich to data-limited chemicals, and to integrate multiple data streams, say the researchers.
Then there is the challenge of “identifying and integrating" data streams. For example, commercial market research data and internet search analytics are “largely unexploited” for understanding consumer behaviours and differences by region and demographic, writes the EPA team, led by Peter Egeghy.
Such analysis will also require novel analytical tools, they say.
The EPA already has a consumer product chemical profiles database (CPCPdb), containing information on 1,800 chemicals in 353 product categories. It also has a database of various levels of chemical use information for more than 40,000 chemicals (CPCat).
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Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
Withdrawn SVHC intention
Sweden has withdrawn its SVHC intention for the substance,dicyclohexyl phthalate. It plans to resubmit a dossier in 2016.
Two CLH proposals
The agency has received two harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) proposals for:disodium 4-amino-6-((4-((4-(2,4-diaminophenyl)azo)phenylsulfamoyl)phenyl)azo)-5-hydroxy-3-((4-nitrophenyl)azo)naphthalene-2,7-disulfonate. It was submitted by Italy, proposing no classification; and4,4'-sulfonylbisphenol, polymer with ammonium chloride (NH4Cl), pentachlorophosphorane and phenol. Submitted by Germany, it proposes no classification.
Video for downstream users
Echa has released a video on how REACH and CLP affect downstream users. It complements an earlier video on who downstream users are under the legislation.
The video will be translated into 22 languages.
REACH 2018 webinar presentations available
Presentations from Echa's REACH 2018 webinar: Find your co-registrants and prepare to work together, are now available. The video recording will be released shortly.
Corrigendum to guidance on the compilation of safety data sheets
Echa has published a correction to its Guidance on the compilation of safety data sheets. It includes some changes to legal text and some highlighting.
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Scientific Consensus on EDCs in Sight, Says Toxicology Expert
Nov 19, 2015 | Chemical Watch
By Philip Lightowlers
Scientific consensus on how to tackle endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) is in sight, some scientists believe.
Speaking at an international conference at the Fresenius Academy in Cologne on 10-11 November, Dr John Doe, a consultant and former head of product safety at Syngenta, said endocrine disruption was now entering the “third phase” of scientific understanding.
His presentation compared the issue with two other parallel health concerns: genotoxic carcinogenesis and developmental neurotoxicity.
The first phase is when the issue emerges and one or more chemicals are implicated, Dr Doe said. This usually includes a scientific breakthrough, an epidemiological finding and laboratory studies. There are also “dread factors” involved which increase public concern, such as children being affected and a long delay between exposure and effects.
The second phase is exploration. Dr Doe said this involves the emergence of specialists, doubts over existing test methods with health and commercial disasters being predicted. But it also involves a growth in scientific understanding and the discovery of indicators of adverse effects.
The third phase of Dr Doe’s analysis is where specific scientific indicators evolve, test methods are identified and boundaries of the definition are contested. There is not necessarily complete agreement on both sides of the debate but overall consensus emerges. “The world [then] adapts to the new reality,” he concluded.
“Endocrine disruption is now an early stage-three issue,” Dr Doe told the conference. While getting closer, he said “it is likely to be another ten years before consensus" is reached. He pointed to the fact that EDC mechanisms were now generally recognised because of activity at receptors or through biosynthesis pathways. Definitions, he added, were still being contested and so was the role of potency.
But no new chemical groups with endocrine disrupting potential had emerged since the early 1990s.
Contributing to this view of approaching consensus was a paper from professor Leon Earl Gray, from the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA). Titled “Non-monotonic dose-response curves and EDCs: Fact or folderol?”, this detailed a review of over 200 in vivo studies related to the disruption of androgen and oestrogen signalling pathways.
He examined studies with at least six or more dose levels and was most interested in whether there were no-threshold responses and robust non-monotonic (bell or U-shaped) dose response curves (NMDRCs).
Stressing that these were his own views and not those of the EPA, professor Gray concluded:Some EDCs appear to induce no-threshold effects;NMDRCs occur frequently in vitro but they are “typically not relevant to in vivo effects and do not occur at low concentrations”. Some reported NMDRCs he found were “confounded”, due to doses below background levels, “imaginary” because there were no significant differences from controls or “oblivious” to the fact that the doses were so high as to cause overt toxicity; and“I found no clear case in which a NMDRC would alter the existing risk estimation for oestrogens or androgens.”
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IG to Check Board's Use of Purchase Cards
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
U.S. EPA's inspector general will take a new look at the U.S. Chemical Safety Board's use of purchase cards, a program that has been deemed at high risk of abuse in the past.
The inspector general, which has oversight over the CSB, an independent agency, said in a notification issued today that it would begin an audit of the program's use during fiscal 2015.
A previous review found that the program, which lets CSB employees use agency charge cards, posed a high risk for illegal, improper or erroneous purchases and payments (Greenwire, June 30).
That report found that the CSB was not in compliance with the Government Charge Card Abuse Prevention Act, a 2012 law that requires agencies to take steps to prevent abuse.
The CSB said earlier this year that it had implemented written policies and procedures to address the use of the charge cards after the previous findings.
Then-board member Mark Griffon said in the agency's response to the earlier report that the document was "misleading because it does not recognize CSB efforts that have successfully mitigated the risks."
No instances of CSB staff abusing the cards were identified, Griffon noted.
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NERC: Electric Grid Cyberattacks Unlikely
Nov 19, 2015 | Politico Pro - Whiteboards
By David Perera
Cyberattacks against the electric grid are highly unlikely, a top U.S. energy sector official said this morning.
“At a very high level that capability exists,” said Gerry Cauley, CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corp., a non-profit regulatory body that develops mandatory standards for the bulk electricity sector.
But, “it would be very rare, and very difficult,” he said, citing the contrived cyberattack against a diesel generator run by the Department of Homeland Security in 2007 known as Project Aurora.
White House officials and representatives from more than 300 organizations are involved in a two-day simulation of a massive attack against the U.S. electric grid, which concludes today.
Dubbed GridEx III, the simulation involves private- and public-sector organizations responding to a near-simultaneous barrage of cyberattacks, downed communications systems, and physical attacks against equipment and personnel.
Previous GridEx exercises highlighted authorities' need to better communicate, officials on the call said. The current test includes participants from the telecom, gas and oil industries.
GridEx III is “not meant to be an easy win or victory, but really to evaluate” how the electricity and other sectors should prepare for extreme events, Cauley said.
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Grid-Hardening Initiative Debuts as Federal Standards Loom
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Power technology and manufacturing giant ABB is courting business from U.S. electric utilities as they face new physical security standards from the North American Electric Reliability Corp.
ABB announced yesterday it is rolling out a five-tiered "Substation Physical Security and Resiliency Initiative" for the grid, according to a statement from the multinational's U.S. headquarters outside Raleigh, N.C.
Emily Heitman, ABB's vice president and general manager of commercial operations for power transformers in North America, cited "valid concerns" about physical security from both the Department of Energy and NERC. Bulk electric power companies in the United States will have to meet new infrastructure protection requirements by August 2016. Heitman said the initiative can "further support these utilities" as they map out critical substations and toughen their equipment.
Several utilities have sought to shore up their assets following a methodical April 2013 attack on a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. substation in California. The assault on PG&E's Metcalf facility didn't knock out power, but heavy-duty automatic weapons were used to target key transformer parts. While an investigation into the case is ongoing, at least one official has hinted the attack may have been the work of an insider (EnergyWire, Oct. 15).
"We now have to look at where there may be a more nefarious and coordinated attack -- not just the local, bored hunter out there at the remote substation, [but] where people are actually trying to take out a substation and cause loss of power," said Richard Bocim, ABB's vice president of commercial operations for the transformer business unit. "If who we call 'the bad guys' really coordinate an attack, and they know what to go after, they could cause a lot of damage. ... I think the utility has to keep that in mind."
ABB's five-step initiative centers on equipment hardening, such as adding bulletproof shields on hard-to-replace transformers or installing backup cooling systems. But the new business program also includes steps for security assessments, monitoring, repairs and rapid replacement of severely damaged transformers, hewing closely to federal guidelines through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. ABB has also promoted smaller, more mobile alternatives to large power transformers (EnergyWire, June 12).
ABB's announcement coincided with a biennial grid security exercise run through NERC, in which operators of the bulk electric power system face a barrage of physical and cyber threats to test their defenses (EnergyWire, Nov. 16). The latest GridEx III "war games" exercise is scheduled to conclude today.
"We've been looking at this [initiative] for about the last year and trying to figure out how we, as ABB, can put together solutions to assist the utility industry," Bocim said. "We've come up with a five-point program that addresses the individual issues that utilities would want to take into consideration as they improve the resiliency of their transformer" equipment.
The approach is mostly geared toward the high-voltage transformers that comprise a tiny fraction of overall units but carry the bulk of U.S. electricity transmission. Bocim said the five-step system can scale down to smaller utilities that don't have to comply with NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection standards.
Updated CIP rules are likely to be a major driver for security spending. Planning for CIP security compliance "is starting now, and I think it's going to gain momentum through next year," Bocim said.
"We're maybe in a bit of a different mindset than we have been previously" when it comes to security, he added.
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U.S. Warns Railroads on New Safety System Deadline
Nov 19, 2015 | Chicago Tribune
By Richard Wronski
The federal government is warning the nation's railroads, including Chicago's Metra, that it intends to "aggressively enforce" a new deadline for installation of a high-tech safety system.
In a letter Thursday to freight and commuter railroads, Federal Railroad Administration leader Sarah Feinberg said her agency will issue fines and take other action if railroads fail to meet the timetables and requirements called for by legislation Congress passed Oct. 28.
The safety system, known as Positive Train Control, was supposed to be in place by the end of this year. It is intended to prevent crashes such as the Amtrak derailment in May that killed eight people in Philadelphia.
But with railroads behind schedule and complaining that they would have to shut down if the Dec. 31 deadline was not extended, Congress gave them three more years, with extensions possible until 2020.
In her letter, which the Tribune obtained, Feinberg said railroads must submit revised PTC implementation plans by Jan. 27. Those plans must spell out detailed schedules for activating their PTC systems by Dec. 31, 2018.
If a railroad fails to file a plan as required, the law allows the FRA to assess penalties of at least $5,000 per day.
Feinberg, who was confirmed as FRA administrator last month, is expected to reiterate the warning at a railroad industry conference Thursday in New York City. Her comments are seen as an effort to head off a behind-the-scenes push by some railroads to delay PTC implementation until 2020.
"Over the last year, I am sure you have observed that FRA is in a much more aggressive posture on PTC," Feinberg told a rail industry safety committee Nov. 5 in Washington, D.C. "Everyone should expect for that posture to continue."
The Amtrak accident in Philadelphia is a "stark reminder of both what can happen without PTC, and the sense of urgency required to prevent a similar accident in the future," she said.
Metra Executive Director/CEO Don Orseno has said Metra "will do everything we can" to meet the 2018 deadline. The agency says PTC will cost $350 million.
Federal safety officials said PTC would have prevented two derailments in 2003 and 2005 on Metra's Rock Island tracks on Chicago's South Side. Two passengers were killed in the 2005 crash.
Positive Train Control uses GPS, radios and computers to monitor a train's position and automatically slow or stop trains that are speeding or in danger of colliding or derailing.
Congress originally mandated PTC in 2008, after a collision between a Metrolinkcommuter train and a Union Pacific freight train in Chatsworth, Calif., that killed 25 people. But railroads said they didn't have enough time to install the complicated and expensive system.
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Oil, Gas Lobby Groups to Merge
Nov 19, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Washington, D.C.’s major oil industry lobbying group is taking over the association representing natural gas drillers, the organizations announced on Wednesday.
Taking over the younger America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA) will make the American Petroleum Institute (API), one of the top lobbying associations in Washington, an even greater powerhouse.
The groups have become aligned on most major policy debates in recent years, owing largely to the extensive natural gas production by oil companies and the need to defend fossil fuels writ large. Despite the competition between the two fuels in markets like transportation, the lobby groups have rarely disagreed publicly.
“There is a natural synergy between our organizations,” API head Jack Gerard said in a Wednesday 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.”
Marty Durbin, ANGA’s chief and a former API official, will head a new division at the oil group dedicated to market development.
The merger had been rumored for months and first reported by Politico, though the groups declined to speak publicly about the negotiations until Wednesday.
API has firmly placed oil exports as its top policy priority, trying to undo the 40-year-old near ban on shipping crude outside the United States.
ANGA’s policy fights usually revolve around drilling regulations, including fighting against hydraulic fracturing limitations and rules like the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposed standards to limit methane leaks from oil and gas drilling.
API spent $9.09 million lobbying Congress last year, the most of any trade group in the energy sphere. ANGA spent only $1.37 million.
The gas group was founded only in 2009 as the shale gas revolution took hold through advanced drilling techniques like fracking and horizontal drilling.
The merger will become effective Jan. 1, the associations said.
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Top Coal Exec Slams 'Destroyer' Obama, Power Plant Rules
Nov 19, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A top coal executive and frequent critic of Obama administration environmental regulations will slam the president Thursday as a “destroyer” of the coal industry and hit his key climate rule as “blatantly illegal.”
“There is no doubt that the administration of President Obama is the greatest destroyer and enemy of available, reliable, affordable electricity that the United States has every seen,” Robert Murray, the president and CEO of Murray Energy Corp., will say in a Thursday speech, according to an advanced copy provided to The Hill.
“I call what is occurring a ‘political power grab of America’s power grid.’”
In the speech, Murray will blame Obama and environmentalists for closing hundreds of coal-fired power plants around the country at “no environmental benefit whatsoever.”
The Clean Power Plan — an Environmental Protection Agency rule designed to slash power sector emissions 32 percent by 2030 and predicted to hit coal especially hard — is “blatantly illegal,” Murray will say, vowing to defeat it in federal court.
“We will overturn the illegal Clean Power Plan, the entire foundation for the Obama administration’s global warming legacy and its appeal at the forthcoming United Nations Climate Convention in Paris,” he'll say, referring to a climate change conference scheduled to conclude next month.
Murray is one of the loudest, most bombastic Obama critics in the coal industry. His company — the largest closely held coal producer in the country — has sued the administration over a string of its environmental regulations.
Six of those suits, Murray says, are related to the Clean Power Plan. The climate rule is the cornerstone of Obama’s climate agenda, and the administration has defended both its legality and effectiveness in reducing carbon emissions while giving states leeway to craft energy plans that work for them.
But Murray says the rule amounts to executive overreach and said he’s confident it will fail when it goes before the courts.
“Obama and his supporters are using a contrived environmental crisis as an excuse to seize federal control over traditional state functions,” he’ll tell a Texas Public Policy Foundation summit.
“I am obviously not giving up. Nor should you. We have the law, science, economics, cold hard energy facts, and the Constitution on our side."
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Actors Goldblum, Begley Star in Enviro Video Promoting EPA Plan
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Environmentalists have recruited actors Jeff Goldblum and Ed Begley Jr. to sell the Clean Power Plan in a new online video.
Released today by the League of Conservation Voters and Funny or Die, the three-minutevideo stars Goldblum as "The Fixer," a mysterious man who is called in by big industry to clean up messes, and Begley as the head of the "Big Polluters," the name given to the coal-fired power sector.
Meeting with the board of the "Big Polluters" at a shadowy secret headquarters, Begley announces that he is going to call in The Fixer to deal with U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.
"Our backs are against the wall," Begley says. "People are convinced that our coal-fired power plants are killing people and the planet. I mean, solar is cool."
Goldblum, donned in black and wearing black-rimmed glasses, appears and describes the Clean Power Plan, which EPA finalized in August to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants.
To the audible dismay of the board, Goldblum announces that he's "looked through this entire issue, and I have a very simple fix: Do it."
"What I'm saying is that it makes sense," he says. "And the fact that you're objecting to these very simple and reasonable asks feels to me like you might be some of the worst, most execrable, selfish, reptilian nincompoops with whom I've ever had the distinct displeasure of working."
The video comes as EPA faces backlash against the plan in both the courts and in Congress. Twenty-seven states and industry groups have sued the agency over the rule, while the Senate this week passed joint resolutions that would block both the Clean Power Plan and EPA's carbon rule for new plants from going into effect.
Opponents say the rule asks too much of states and the power sector with little environmental benefit.
"LCV is releasing this video on the heels of the cynical and purely symbolic Senate votes this week to try to block the Clean Power Plan," LCV President Gene Karpinski said in a statement. "It calls attention to how ridiculous the arguments against the Clean Power Plan really are."
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Dominion Airs Hopes for Va. State Compliance Plan
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Virginia's biggest electricity provider -- Dominion Virginia Power -- is asking the state to develop a rate-based plan for curbing carbon emissions under U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, rather than capping the total emissons of carbon dioxide allowed from power plants.
The decision could affect how much additional power the state's utilities can generate in the coming years, how many total tons of carbon they emit and what interstate trading options might be available to them.
"They're our biggest utility. They have, by far, the most generation in the state," Michael Dowd, director of the air division for the Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality, toldClimateWire. "Their opinion obviously matters."
Virginia, however, has not made any decisions about what pathway to pursue, he said. The state had its first meeting last week with 14 stakeholders -- including affected facilities, environmental advocates and community leaders. It will hold four more five- or six-hour meetings once a month through March, Dowd said during a webinar hosted by the American Bar Association.
"We just scratched the service ... but we did start to peel back the onion a little bit at our first meeting," Dowd said after the webinar.
So far, Dowd said other state utilities have not weighed in on their preferences for Virginia's plan, but the Natural Resources Defense Council said at the meeting last week that it would prefer a mass-based plan that encompasses new sources of power. Environmental justice advocates in the state said they might be opposed to any sort of carbon trading if it could result in pollution hot spots, Dowd said. They would need assurances that any state plan wouldn't result in more pollution from existing plants.Leaning toward rate-based standard
Dominion is the second major investor-owned utility to suggest it might prefer a rate-based standard, although many states are leaning toward mass-based plans, in part for the sake of creating a large carbon-trading market. A representative from the Southeastern utility Southern Co. last week suggested its states might also prefer a rate-based standard (ClimateWire, Nov. 16).
Spokesman Dan Genest confirmed yesterday that Dominion thinks a rate-based plan -- to require power generators to achieve an average rate of emissions -- would allow for future demand growth, while a mass-based plan would be more restrictive.
"The rate-based plan also allows us to maintain our fuel flexibility," Genest said. "We believe having the options of various fuels -- including coal, nuclear, natural gas, renewables and energy efficiency programs -- is the best step forward for our customers and that it allows for more efficiency and more reliability."
Dominion could keep fossil fuel plants online as long as it utilized enough lower-carbon nuclear and renewable power to bring the average rate down to EPA's standard.
Dominion also could generate credits from shifting to natural-gas-fired power plants and from building a new nuclear unit down the road, Dowd said. Dominion has considered adding a unit at its North Anna plant but is not committed to the project, Genest said.
It's unclear which other states would pursue a rate-based plan and which utilities would be in a position to purchase credits from Dominion or Southern. Under EPA's rules, rate-based states can only trade with other rate-based states.Talks with 3 groups on trading
Dowd said Virginia has been discussing carbon trading as part of regional talks with three groups -- the North Carolina-based Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, the Midwest's Great Plains Institute and the Georgetown Climate Center in Washington, D.C.
He said other states are weighing rate-based plans but declined to identify which ones.
"The whole rate-based system is particularly complex to understand. ... As utilities and states are learning and digging into it, it appears that some people are looking at rate, and it appears that rate may be more advantageous than some folks originally thought," Dowd said. "That doesn't mean it's going to be administratively easy. But the administrative hassles may be outweighed by the efficiencies involved."
Dowd originally thought a mass-based standard could be best for Virginia because it would be easiest to implement (ClimateWire, Oct. 21).
Virginia plans to request a two-year extension to submit its plan to EPA. But the state may file early, before the end of 2017 to make sure its proposal is on the record while Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe is still in office, Dowd said.
The Virginia General Assembly is reviewing a bill that would require lawmakers to sign off on the state's plan.
"We'll be having an interesting legislative session coming up," Dowd said. "Another challenge is how do we devise the least-cost plan. Least-cost to whom? I think it's going to be impossible to come up with a plan that is least-cost to everyone."
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GOP Targets New Ozone Standard with CRA Resolution
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
More than half the Senate's 54 Republicans have quickly signed on to legislation by Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) to void U.S EPA's new ground-level ozone standard.
The disapproval resolution S.J. Res. 25, introduced Tuesday, would block EPA from keeping the standard, which lowers the ambient air quality threshold for ozone from 75 parts per billion to 70 ppb. As of last night, the all-GOP list of co-sponsors had reached 30, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
"It's time to bring EPA down to earth, starting with the elimination of this egregious rule and its $25 billion price tag," Flake said in a news release yesterday. That cost figure, however, dates back to an outdated regulatory impact analysis. In the latest version accompanying the new standard unveiled last month, EPA pegged the expense of compliance at $1.4 billion in 2025 and said the projected health care savings that year would amount to $5.9 billion.
The analysis excludes California, which is expected to take longer to fully comply. EPA officials have attributed the huge drop in the projected cost to other air regulations put in place since 2010. A Flake spokeswoman declined to comment for the record yesterday evening on why he cited the older number.
Flake's resolution is the latest GOP attempt to thwart Obama administration environmental regulations via the Congressional Review Act, a 1996 law intended to make it easier for lawmakers to overturn executive branch rules. Earlier this week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved two similar resolutions targeting the administration's carbon rules for power plants (Greenwire, Nov. 18). The White House promptly threatened to veto both measures should they pass Congress; Flake's resolution will likely face the same fate if it advances through both chambers. The legislation has been referred to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, whose chairman, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), is a co-sponsor.
Ozone is a key component of smog. The 70 ppb standard is higher than many environmental groups wanted. In a news release yesterday, the head of EDF Action, an advocacy organization, said Flake's resolution "would "lock us into a future of more smog."
"I hope that senators who care about clean air will stand up and oppose this attempt to block these critical health protections," EDF Action's Elizabeth Thompson said in the release.
But Flake and other Western lawmakers have voiced worry that the 70 ppb benchmark is low enough that background ozone unrelated to local human activity could push some areas out of compliance. Last week, he applauded EPA for proposing changes to its regulations that could make it easier for states to get a pass for air quality violations stemming from wildfires and other "exceptional events." The agency has said the rule could be a means of addressing background ozone; a public hearing on the proposed changes will be held next month in Phoenix.
"I'm pleased Arizona stakeholders will have their say in devising what I hope will be a commonsense exceptional events rule that takes into account the natural climate and terrain of our state," Flake said in a statement. Earlier this week, Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) introducedH.R. 4000, which would block EPA officials from enforcing the new standard until 2025.
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Ex-Lawmaker Sees Rough Road for Climate, WOTUS Riders
Nov 19, 2015 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
A veteran House Democrat who spent years fending off Republican efforts to tack on contentious policy riders to U.S. EPA and the Interior Department's annual spending bill before retiring predicted yesterday that Republicans will fall short in attacking the Clean Power Plan (CPP) and the Waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) rule in the omnibus appropriations measure under development.
Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.), who represented his Northern Virginia district for 12 terms before retiring at the end of the last Congress, said GOP efforts to halt the EPA climate rule through riders are a non-starter for the Obama administration.
"They're not going to budge," Moran told E&E Daily in an impromptu interview in the Rayburn House Office Building basement.
Moran's comments reflect the conventional wisdom in Washington -- that President Obama won't negotiate on big-ticket policies such as the climate rules for power plants, which are central to his environmental legacy (E&E Daily, Nov.16).
Yet they're noteworthy given Moran's role as the past chairman and ranking member on the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, which gave him a seat at the table in the heated policy fights surrounding that bill since Republicans regained control of the House in 2011.
E&E Daily's encounter with the outspoken Moran came coincidentally after top House appropriators, including Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) and Interior-Environment Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), had just wrapped up a "listening session" with members on the $30.17 billion spending bill (H.R. 2822) that funds Interior and EPA (E&ENews PM, Nov. 18).
During that session, members stated their cases for what should be included in the measure, which was pulled from the floor in July after amendments were adopted barring the sale of Confederate flags on some public lands.
While both the House and Senate Interior-Environment bills are loaded with riders, including provisions blocking CPP and WOTUS, Moran said Republicans are well aware of the White House's position on both.
"They know that some of those riders are problematic to getting it signed into law, and the White House has weighed in on that," he said. "And so they know which riders cannot become law; the president just isn't going to give on it. And I doubt that the Senate is even going to go along with a lot of them."
While there's opposition even among some Democrats to WOTUS, Moran said the past fights over WOTUS are an indication that Obama will go to the mat on protecting the rule.
"It's one we fought every year, we did not give up on," he said. "We prevailed so far. And my guess is that's also a red line for the White House, that if you try to cross it, they're going to veto the whole bill. I don't think it's something they can give on, not when they insisted on not altering it for several years and have prevailed. I don't think they're going to change course."
Ultimately, decisions on riders will be made by leadership, he noted.
"The riders on Interior, you know they're problematic, and Ken Calvert knows that," Moran said. "And Ken is a pro. He's going to do as much as he possibly can. I don't think that the problem lies within the Appropriations Committee; it's not with Rogers or any of the subcommittee chairs. The problem is who has gone to the leadership with what demands and the extent to which the leadership is able or willing to alter what comes out of the full Appropriations Committee."
However, both newly minted House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are signaling they're willing to push the rider fight in the omnibus.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Ryan said riders addressing regulations will be necessary to get Republican support for the omnibus.
And McConnell personally took credit for the inclusion of multiple riders in the Senate's Interior-Environment spending bill earlier this year (Greenwire, July 8).
However, Moran drew a distinction between the big-ticket riders and some that Democrats and the White House have accepted in the past, citing a 2011 rider that removed Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in Montana and Idaho, as well as a perennial rider that bars EPA from regulating methane from livestock.
"The wolves are an important issue, but it was felt it wasn't important enough to kill the bill, and I went along with that," he said. "And cows let off a lot of methane, but we're not going to kill the bill over cow farts. There are some issues where you have to give, you have to be willing to give, and those are issues we thought we could budge on, and there are others, as well, that the administration is willing to swallow on."
"But Waters of the U.S., the Clean Power Plan, I just think they're fundamental to clean air and water, and there is authorization that backs them up pretty strongly, and I doubt that the administration will be willing to accept those riders. I think those are poison pills."
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3 Signs We're Entering a Golden Age for Carbon Markets
Nov 19, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Fred Krupp
There was a time when market-based approaches seemed to fall off the radar in discussions of climate policy, but carbon markets are back.
Well-designed emission trading systems offer the combination of flexibility, incentives and guaranteed results that help polluters meet their targets – while leaving it up to the market to figure out the best way to meet them, driving costs down.
This is why so many companies are staunch supporters of emissions trading, and why national and international efforts are taking off.
Here are three indications we may be entering a golden age for carbon markets and what it means for COP21, the international climate talks that begin in Paris later this month.
1. Carbon markets are going global
Climate progress in the United States and China is changing the global dynamic.
Gone are the days when the two largest emitters blame each other for inaction, and their bilateral progress is inspiring commitments around the world. All told, cap-and-trade programs are in place in more than 50 jurisdictions worldwide that are home to nearly a billion people.
Quebec and California have linked their carbon markets, creating North America’s largest cap-and-trade system, becoming the first example of subnational jurisdictions in different countries launching a joint market. And more programs are in the works.
Ontario, Canada’s most populous province and home to a significant manufacturing base, is developing a cap-and-trade program to launch by 2017 and link to California and Quebec’s market by 2018. Having the largest U.S. state and Canadian province in a formal, linked carbon market will help lay the foundation for further carbon market collaboration in North America and beyond.
China, meanwhile, is set to open a national carbon market in 2017, the world’s largest.
2. Next: International aviation and tropical forests
One of the most exciting opportunities is in international aviation.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is developing a market-based mechanism for consideration at its next Triennial Assembly in 2016 to help the sector meet its stated commitments to carbon-neutral growth from 2020 and a 50-percent cut by 2050.
That would cap emissions from a global sector that accounts for roughly 2 percent of carbon emissions, and growing fast, and would set a powerful precedent for international cooperation on climate change.
Another opening is in the forest sector.
Tropical forests are not only crucial to stabilizing the climate – they are critical to sustainable economic development for the communities and nations that rely on them. Carbon markets can play a key role in driving a new model of green growth in the tropics.
By allowing jurisdictional REDD+ credits (short for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation) into their compliance markets, California – and, perhaps soon, the ICAO – have the opportunity to create positive economic incentives for forest protection at a landscape scale.
3. Existing markets are thriving
Since 2006, when California’s climate change program was signed into law, the state has received more clean tech venture capital investment than all other states combined. Bloomberg News recently ranked the Golden State the best place in the U.S. to do business, citing the state’s visionary leadership on climate change as one of the markers of its success.
A good illustration of how market-based policies can promote greater ambition is the landmark U.S. cap-and-trade program for sulphur dioxide. This program reduced national average concentrations of the pollutant by 76 percent since 1990 – taking an enormous step toward solving the problem of acid rain ahead of schedule and well below the estimated cost while creating hundreds of billions of dollars in annual benefits.
And despite well-publicized ups and downs – attributable in large part to the worst recession since the 1930s – the European Union’s emissions trading system is now performing well. It has over-achieved its goals, leading to more reductions at lower cost than expected.To COP21 in Paris…and beyond
How can we capitalize on this political moment and build on the momentum we are seeing, to keep carbon markets growing around the globe?
A durable climate regime established by the Paris agreement will be one that harnesses market forces in the hunt for solutions, mobilizes private sector energies, enhances national self-interest and, through rigorous and transparent reporting, allows countries to demonstrate to each other that they are meeting their commitment.
A United Nations agreement is only one of many tools available to address climate change. It will take continuing strong action by leading emitters and leading carbon market jurisdictions to spur the technological, political and institutional transformations that will support more ambitious action in the years to come.
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