Preview Newsletter
ACC AM Dec 8
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(ACC Mentioned) Several New Members Join Fermilab Board Of Directors
Dec 8, 2015 | UChicago News
The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory, the leading institution for particle physics research in the United States and one of the leading such institutions in the world. For decades, work at Fermilab has led to fundamental discoveries about the elementary building blocks of the universe and likewise... -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Flame Retardant Plans Inadequate, Advocates Say
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Environmental Protection Agency's proposed approach to assess the risks of three groups of flame retardants would omit chemicals, exposure routes and health issues and therefore fail to reach conclusions protecting public health, environmental health organizations have told the agency. -
(ACC Mentioned) House Passes Microbead Ban Bill on Voice Vote
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Legislation banning the manufacture, sale and distribution of plastic microbeads that are “intentionally added” to toothpastes, face washes and other cosmetics is now headed to the Senate after the House approved it on a voice vote Dec. 7. The Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 (H.R. 1321) would ban, beginning July 1, 2017, the manufacture... -
(ACC Mentioned) House Passes Bill To Ban Microbeads
Dec 8, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Sam Pearson
The House easily approved a bill yesterday that would phase out microbeads in cosmetic products in less than two years. Lawmakers approved H.R. 1321, the "Microbead-Free Waters Act," by voice vote under suspension of the rules. Though issues of harmful chemicals in consumer products can be divisive, lawmakers came together... -
(ACC Mentioned) Overnight Regulation: Bill Banning Microbeads In Soap Sails Through House
Dec 7, 2015 | The Hill - Overnight Regulation
By Lydia Wheeler
Welcome to Overnight Regulation, your daily rundown of news from Capitol Hill and beyond. It’s Monday evening here in Washington and it’s gearing up to be a busy week with only a few days for lawmakers to avoid a government shutdown. http://bit.ly/1locQaL. Here’s the latest. -
(ACC Mentioned) Is U.S. (Finally) On The Verge Of Chemical Safety Reform?
Dec 8, 2015 | Industrial Safety and Hygene News
Chemical safety advocates are cautiously optimistic about 2016 finally being in the year when Congress takes action to reform the nation’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – 40 years after it was adopted. “Rare political circumstances have opened a narrow window to pass meaningful reform that protects... -
House Votes To Ban Microbeads In Soap
Dec 7, 2015 | The Hill - Floor Action
By Lydia Wheeler and Cristina Marcos
House lawmakers voted Monday to ban plastic microbeads from bath products such as soaps and body washes. The bill, introduced by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) earlier this year in an effort to protect the nation's lakes and streams from getting clogged with the little pieces of plastic, passed by voice vote. -
Biotech Industry, Advocates Spar Over EPA Algae Policy Guidance Update
Dec 7, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
Biotechnology industry and advocacy groups are sparring over EPA's plan to update its 1997 guidance on how it regulates biotech and to craft a new document focusing on genetically engineered algae, with some industry groups wary that EPA might be trying to boost oversight of biotech products as requested by environmentalists. -
House To Weigh Expanded Reach For Regulatory Board
Dec 7, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Ariel Wittenberg
The House is set to take up a bill this week that would reauthorize the Surface Transportation Board, expanding the small regulatory agency's jurisdiction. Sponsored by Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.), S. 808 would increase the number of board sets to five from three, require the agency... -
Gas Leak Has Released Quarter of California's Emissions
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Mark Chediak and Harry R. Weber
Call it the invisible spill. You can't see it, but it's there—a steady stream of natural gas seeping out of the pipe casing in a well in Southern California that may spew as much greenhouse gas into the air as a half-million cars do in a year. Pipeline operator Sempra Energy says it may take three to four months to plug. -
BLM Postpones Another Lease Sale In Face Of Climate Protests
Dec 7, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Phil Taylor
The Bureau of Land Management for the second time in less than a month has postponed an oil and gas lease sale in the face of planned protests by the Keep It in the Ground movement. The agency's Eastern States office in Washington, D.C., said its Thursday sale of nine parcels totaling less than 600 acres in Arkansas and Michigan... -
Sanders Targets N.H. Gas Project For Post-Keystone XL Fight
Dec 8, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Hannah Northey
A large, contentious gas project slated to intersect 17 towns in New Hampshire is turning into a new front in election-year energy politics. Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign is touting the Vermont independent's public opposition to Kinder Morgan Inc.'s proposed Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline following President Obama's... -
New Study Finds Oil & Gas Methane Emissions in the Barnett Shale Almost Twice What Official Estimates Suggest
Dec 7, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Steven Hamburg
A new scientific study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, coordinated by EDF, reports findings from the most comprehensive examination of regional methane emissions completed to date. Focused on Texas’ Barnett Shale – one of the nation’s major oil-and-gas-producing regions – the study uses a new... -
Concern Raised Over New Social Cost of Methane Figure
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers and Anthony Adragna
The Environmental Protection Agency's newly created social cost of methane figure has not been adequately reviewed and should not be used to justify regulating methane emissions from new oil and gas operations, industry groups said. That figure, meant to capture the monetary impacts of methane emissions, has not undergone scientific review... -
GOP Bill Would Stop EPA Plan Unless Other Nations Act
Dec 8, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Sean Reilly
The Obama administration could not crack down on power plant carbon emissions unless other developed nations follow suit under newly introduced legislation by Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-Pa.) and 10 GOP colleagues. H.R. 4169, dubbed the "Fighting Against Imbalanced Regulatory Burdens Act" (FAIR Burdens Act), would bar U.S. EPA... -
Kerry Says He's Looking To The Private Sector To Solve Climate Change
Dec 7, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Secretary of State John Kerry downplayed the importance Monday of a climate change agreement with legally binding emissions reduction targets. Speaking at an event coinciding with the Paris climate talks, Kerry said that an accord without binding reductions, like what many world leaders want out of Paris, would be enough... -
Scientists Ask Presidential Candidates: What Will You Do About Climate Change?
Dec 7, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
Dozens of scientists and others with expertise in climate change today called for U.S. presidential candidates to spell out how they intend to make the U.S. the world leader in clean energy. “The global transformation of our energy system away from fossil fuels is both a moral imperative, grounded... -
N.Y. Proposes Emissions Limits for Backup Power Units
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By John Herzfeld
Emissions limits would be set for nitrogen oxides and particulate matter from diesel generators, gas-fired engines and other backup power sources under a proposed New York Department of Environmental Conservation rule. The proposed rule (6 NYCRR Part 222), announced Dec. 7 by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), is intended to help the state... -
House Energy Bill Would Repeal EPA Wood Stove Standards
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
Energy legislation passed by the House includes language that would roll back the Environmental Protection Agency's updated emissions standards for new wood-burning heaters. Under this language, added as an amendment to the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act (H.R. 8), the EPA's revised standards would have no legal... -
Boosting Pledges, McCarthy Says Utility Support Ensures ESPS Will 'Stick'
Dec 8, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lee Logan
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is highlighting the power sector's view that it can comply with the agency's landmark greenhouse gas rules for existing power plants as proof that the rule will “stick,” while also seeking to reassure other countries at United Nations climate talks here that GOP attempts to block the rule ultimately will fail. -
State Oversight of Cleanup Met CERCLA Requirement
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
An Indiana environmental agency's substantial involvement in a private party's hazardous waste cleanup satisfies the “public participation” requirement of the National Contingency Plan in a Superfund response action, a federal court ruled (Valbruna Slater Steel Corp. v. Joslyn Mfg. Co., 2015 BL 398835, N.D. Ind., No. 10-cv-00044, 12/4/15). -
EPA Developing 'Roadmap' To Guide Voluntary Food Waste Reductions
Dec 7, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
EPA next year expects to release a plan for lowering the United States' food waste as part of the Obama administration's increased focus on lowering methane emissions from landfills and reducing waste, which includes a goal of cutting the country's food waste in half by 2030.
Industry and Association News
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(ACC Mentioned) Several New Members Join Fermilab Board Of Directors
Dec 8, 2015 | UChicago News
The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is a U.S. Department of Energy laboratory, the leading institution for particle physics research in the United States and one of the leading such institutions in the world. For decades, work at Fermilab has led to fundamental discoveries about the elementary building blocks of the universe and likewise about the evolution of the universe. Planning is now underway for Fermilab to build a major facility for the study of neutrinos, one of the most mysterious particles in the universe, enabling it to launch the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment.
Since the start of 2015, Fermi Research Alliance LLC, a partnership between the University of Chicago and Universities Research Association, has appointed several distinguished new members to its board of directors. Members of the board serve as ambassadors and advisers in support of Fermilab’s ambitious research agenda and play a leading role in the advancement of scientific objectives.
“We are very pleased to welcome these distinguished leaders to the board of directors,” said President Robert J. Zimmer, who chairs the Fermilab board. “Their collective expertise and accomplishments will help to facilitate the lab’s work as a leader in fundamental scientific discovery.”
The newest members of the board are: Sam Pitroda, former adviser to the prime minister of India on public information, infrastructure and innovation Steven M. Ritz, professor of physics and director of the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz Maxine Savitz, vice-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology F. Quinn Stepan, chairman of Stepan Company John Womersley, chief executive officer of the Science and Technology Facilities Council
Members that will join in January 2016 are: Kate Gregory, (rear admiral of the U.S. Navy, ret.), former commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Command and chief of civil engineers Rolf-Dieter Heuer, president-elect of the German Physical Society and director-general of CERN, 2009-15
“It is a privilege to be working for such an esteemed group,” said Fermilab Director Nigel Lockyer. “Their engagement reflects well on our laboratory's past achievements and bodes well for our future successes.”
Fermi Research Alliance LLC, the operator of Fermilab for the U.S. Department of Energy, announced in August 2014 that it would restructure its board to better support the laboratory and advance Fermilab’s position as a global leader in high-energy physics—neutrino science in particular. These new members will serve three-year terms as members of the board of directors, which will eventually include up to 15 global business, academic and public leaders.
“This is an exciting time for particle physics in the United States and abroad. Fermilab has all the right ingredients to continue to make important discoveries about our world, train the next generation of scientists and develop cutting-edge technologies that drive innovation and grow the economy. The new board will help us in this endeavor,” said Lou Anna K. Simon, vice chair of the Fermi Research Alliance and president of Michigan State University.
More on the board’s new members:
Katherine L. Gregory was the first female flag officer in the United States Navy Civil Engineer Corps. She served as commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Command and chief of civil engineers, the highest-ranking civil engineer in the Navy, until November 2015. Prior assignments included duty as the Pacific Fleet Engineer and commander of NAVFAC Pacific, supporting the U.S. military's refocusing on the Pacific area, and also as the chief of staff for the First Naval Construction Division during the realignment of military troops from Iraq to Afghanistan. Gregory graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1982 and has served in roles of increasing responsibility in the United States Navy since 1978 until her retirement at the beginning of November 2015. Gregory will join the board in January 2016.
Rolf-Dieter Heuer is president-elect of the German Physical Society and member of the European Commission’s high-level scientific advisory group. He currently serves as the director-general of CERN, a position he has held since 2009 and from which he will step down in December 2015. For much of his career, he has been involved with the construction and operation of large particle detector systems for studying electron-positron collisions. Prior to 2009, Heuer served as research director for particle and astroparticle physics at the German research laboratory DESY, as a professor at the University of Hamburg, and a staff member at CERN working on the OPAL collaboration at the Large Electron Positron collider. Heuer will join the board in January 2016.
Sam Pitroda, an internationally respected telecom inventor, entrepreneur, development thinker and policymaker, has spent 49 years in information and communications technology and related global and national developments. Credited with having laid the foundation for India’s telecommunications and technology revolution of the 1980s, Pitroda has helped lead the campaign to help bridge the global digital divide. Recently, Pitroda served as adviser to the prime minister of India on public information, infrastructure and innovation, with the rank of a cabinet minister. He has served as the chairman of the Smart Grid Task Force, as well as the committees to reform public broadcasting, modernize railways and deliver e-governance and other developmental activities.
Steven M. Ritz is a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and director of the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics. He has conducted accelerator-based experiments at most of the world's leading laboratories. His current interests include dark energy studies using weak lensing and searches for signatures of dark matter. Ritz is involved in several aspects of science policy, including serving as chair of the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel. Since 1996, he has been very active in the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, which has made significant discoveries in a wide variety of topics, ranging from cosmic particle accelerators to searches for signals of dark matter and tests of fundamental physics. He is now the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Camera Project Scientist. Ritz is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a recipient of the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal.
Maxine Savitz serves as vice-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. She is the former deputy assistant secretary for conservation in the U.S. Department of Energy. She received the Outstanding Service Medal from the DOE in 1981. Prior to her DOE service, she was program manager for Research Applied to National Needs at the National Science Foundation. Following her government service, Savitz served in executive positions in the private sector, including president of Lighting Research Institute, assistant to the vice president for engineering at The Garrett Corporation and general manager of Allied Signal Ceramic Components. She retired from the position of general manager for technology partnerships at Honeywell. She served as vice president of the National Academy of Engineering from 2006-2014.
F. Quinn Stepan, chairman of Stepan Company, has worked for the company founded by his father, Alfred C. Stepan Jr., since 1961. During this time he held various executive leadership roles, including chief executive officer, president and chief operating officer, and director of the company. During his leadership, the company has grown in size and stature to a $1.5 billion enterprise, with 2,100 employees and 19 manufacturing facilities around the world. Stepan Company, based in Northfield, Ill., is one of the largest global manufacturers of surfactants and polyester polyols. Stepan is a former chairman of the Soap and Detergent Association’s board of directors and served on the board for seven years. In addition to SDA, he took active roles in a number of industry organizations, including the American Chemistry Council, the Chemical Industry Council of Illinois and the Illinois Business Roundtable.
John Womersley is chief executive officer of the Science and Technology Facilities Council, the United Kingdom’s funding agency for Big Science. A graduate of Cambridge and Oxford universities, he has played a leading role in particle physics both in Europe and the United States. He worked at Florida State University and Fermilab and was a scientific adviser to the U.S. Department of Energy. Womersley's scientific achievements include his time as spokesperson for Fermilab's D-Zero experiment, when he coordinated analysis and publications, including placing the first experimental particle physics paper in Nature for more than 70 years. He was the lead author of numerous scientific papers analyzing the properties of high-energy particle collisions and searching for the Higgs boson and other new physics phenomena. He has more than 600 articles published in refereed journals, including the co-discovery of the top quark in 1995. - See more at: http://news.uchicago.edu/article/2015/12/07/several-new-members-join-fermilab-board-directors#sthash.YOOYCyiR.dpuf
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Flame Retardant Plans Inadequate, Advocates Say
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Environmental Protection Agency's proposed approach to assess the risks of three groups of flame retardants would omit chemicals, exposure routes and health issues and therefore fail to reach conclusions protecting public health, environmental health organizations have told the agency.
At the same time, automobile manufacturers said the agency is planning to analyze and perhaps restrict flame retardants, which were substitutes for previous ones that were phased out of the market due to health and environmental concerns. The result could eliminate chemicals they need to meet vehicular safety standards, they said.
Both groups were commenting on approaches the agency proposed to use to assess the risks of 10 flame retardants clustered into three groups of chemicals: chlorinated phosphate esters, cyclic aliphatic bromides and tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA) and related chemicals.
The EPA Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics released its plans in August through “problem-formulation” documents that offered interested parties details about the ways it would evaluate the flame retardants' risks and issues it planned to omit from its analysis (157 DEN A-1, 8/14/15)
Comments were due Nov. 18.
The flame retardants are among about 90 “work plan” chemicals the EPA announced in 2012 it would assess to determine whether some type of regulations or risk management was needed.
Environmental Groups File Most Comments
Many more environmental than industry groups commented on the agency's plans to assess the 10 flame retardants.
The groups, including the Center for Environmental Health, Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Washington Toxics Coalition and a coalition of 28 organizations and private individuals, delivered a core message to the EPA.
The assessments that would result from the agency's plans would underestimate risks, they said.
“This underestimation is of great concern because such a flawed assessment will lead to misleading and erroneous conclusions about the true risks that these chemicals present,” wrote Earthjustice, the NRDC and the Washington Toxics Coalition in a joint comment.
They presented detailed rationales for their conclusions, summarized by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF).
“EPA intends to conduct narrowly focused risk assessments—excluding major uses, pathways and routes of exposure, potentially relevant health effects and certain potentially highly exposed populations,” EDF said in a Dec. 1 blog recapping its more extensive comments.
The EPA would not evaluate health risks that could result from touching upholstered fabrics or other products treated with the flame retardants, which tend to flake out of the materials containing them and it would not look at inhalation exposure, meaning inhaled dust containing the chemicals would be omitted, the EDF said.
Workers Ignored
Exposures that manufacturing, processing and non-industrial workers or communities could experience are not being considered for the chlorinated phosphate ester cluster, wrote Earthjustice, the NRDC and Washington Toxics.
Yet EU monitoring data show these may be some of the most highly exposed populations, they said.
Workers and community exposures that could occur as products treated with flame retardants are disposed or recycled also will be ignored, Earthjustice and its fellow commenters said.
Yet disposal and recycling of flame retardant building insulation and other products can be a significant source of exposure, they said.
The EDF urged the agency to proceed to issue a draft and then final risk assessment where it has sufficient data to do so, and to take regulatory action as warranted.
All the while, it said, the agency should acknowledge the limitations of those assessments, seek additional information and expand their scope as new data make that possible.
EarthJustice, the NRDC and the Washington Toxics Coalition urged the agency to start over and take a systematic approach to reviewing and evaluating the scientific evidence concerning chemicals.
The draft risk assessments the agency should prepare must consider the full range of known exposures, address data gaps and consider cumulative exposures and risks, they said.
Car Companies to EPA: ID Safe Alternatives
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and the Association of Global Automakers said the list of flame retardants the EPA is examining includes compounds that help their vehicles meet safety requirements.
Some of these flame retardants, such as TBBPA, are substitutes for previous flame retardants targeted by the agency as posing higher health hazards, it said.
“Rather than taking a one-by-one approach for assessing flame retardants, we would recommend employing a holistic approach that employs a risk-based strategy for phasing out high-risk flame retardants and identifying substitutes that EPA determines to be safer,” Global Automakers said.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Department of Defense and other key parties could be involved to avoid the unintended consequence of phasing out critical uses for which there are no substitutes, it said.
The American Chemistry Council focused on the cyclic aliphatic bromides cluster document and said it is not a problem formulation document at all.
Rather, the agency seems to have provided a list of activities it intends to undertake to decide whether it needs to do a risk assessment.
“It is quite difficult, if not impossible, to comment, on a plan that is as vague as the one released,” the ACC said.
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(ACC Mentioned) House Passes Microbead Ban Bill on Voice Vote
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Legislation banning the manufacture, sale and distribution of plastic microbeads that are “intentionally added” to toothpastes, face washes and other cosmetics is now headed to the Senate after the House approved it on a voice vote Dec. 7.The Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 (H.R. 1321) would ban, beginning July 1, 2017, the manufacture of these tiny round plastic beads used as exfoliants. A year later, the ban would apply to the manufacture of over-the-counter drugs as well as sale of rinse-off cosmetics containing microbeads. The bill also would ban the sale of over-the-counter drugs containing microbeads, starting July 1, 2019.
The ban also would prohibit the use of all alternatives and would apply to any “intentionally added” plastic microbeads defined in the bill as “any solid plastic particle that is less than five millimeters in size and is intended to be used to exfoliate or cleanse the human body or any part thereof.”
Sponsored by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the bill's author, H.R. 1321 was sent to the House floor on Nov. 18 (224 DEN A-4, 11/20/15).
The House bill has 35 other co-sponsors that include 31 Democrats and four Republicans.
H.R. 1321 has a counterpart (S. 1424) in the Senate that was introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), but it seeks to ban sale and distribution of microbeads only and not their manufacture.
Prior to H.R. 1321's passage, Pallone called on his colleagues to vote in favor, saying “we must put a stop to this unnecessary and avoidable pollution” from plastic microbeads that wash into drains, escaping capture by wastewater treatment and end up in the nation's waterways.
Likewise, Upton also urged passage, saying the bill has the support of the lawmakers in both chambers that represent the Great Lakes region. “There is huge interest in getting this bill to the President.”
Upton noted that this bill would make a difference because “we have told the manufacturers to stop making them.”
Pallone lauded the industry for its cooperation in voluntarily agreeing to phase out the exfoliants and other rinse-off products that contain microbeads.
Bill Removes Patchwork of Laws
The Personal Care Products Council that represents Johnson & Johnson, lauded the efforts made by Pallone and Upton to engage the industry in writing the bill and avoiding a patchwork of laws.
“The House bill is aimed at the proliferation of conflicting state and local restrictions that create unnecessary disruption and confusion for both consumers and companies,” said Lezlee Westine, the council's president in a Dec. 7 e-mailed statement. She reiterated that research by independent scientists and nongovernmental organizations shows that cosmetics microbeads make up a tiny fraction of the plastic microbeads found in all types of industrial uses that contribute to marine plastic debris. “At the same time, our member companies take very seriously their role as environmental stewards. As a result, companies have voluntarily committed to replace solid plastic microbeads,” Westine said.
The American Chemistry Council termed H.R. 1321 “a sensible national standard” for phasing out plastic microbeads. “H.R. 1321 is an important step to ensure we have one sensible, national standard for phasing out the use of solid plastic microbeads in personal care products across America. We look forward to working with members of the U.S. Senate in hopes that this legislation will quickly become law,” the chemistry council said in a Dec. 7 statement following the bill's passage.
It is backed by environmental groups such as 5 Gyres, Riverkeeper and the Alliance for Great Lakes. The National Association of Clean Water Agencies, which represents the publicly owned wastewater sector, applauded House passage of the bill saying it is “an important step towards increased collaboration among key stakeholder groups to improve our nation's water quality.”
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(ACC Mentioned) House Passes Bill To Ban Microbeads
Dec 8, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Sam Pearson
The House easily approved a bill yesterday that would phase out microbeads in cosmetic products in less than two years.
Lawmakers approved H.R. 1321, the "Microbead-Free Waters Act," by voice vote under suspension of the rules.
Though issues of harmful chemicals in consumer products can be divisive, lawmakers came together around the need to mitigate the environmental impacts of synthetic microbeads, which have been found in the Great Lakes and other bodies of water. Studies have found that the tiny beads can pass through wastewater treatment systems, where they can bind with other pollutants and harm aquatic life (Greenwire, April 20).
In this case, lawmakers largely agreed that the microbead problem couldn't be managed, so they moved for a ban.
The bill would halt manufacturing of plastic microbeads by July 1, 2017, and ban the delivery of new cosmetic products containing microbeads by July 1, 2018. It also would prevent states from setting their own timelines for faster phaseouts.
With the support of industry groups like the Personal Care Products Council, the American Chemistry Council and others, there was little standing in the way of the legislation.
The measure "creates a planned and pragmatic national phase-out process in the interest of both consumers and the personal care products and cosmetics industry," Lezlee Westine, the president and CEO of the Personal Care Products Council, said in a statement.
The industry will be "proud" to stop using microbeads, Westine added.
The bill "is an important step to ensure we have one sensible, national standard for phasing out the use of solid plastic microbeads in personal care products across America," the American Chemistry Council said in a statement. "We look forward to working with members of the U.S. Senate in hopes that this legislation will quickly become law."
This kind of industry cooperation "happens quite a bit, though people don't realize it," Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said on the House floor.
Lawmakers would continue to push to send the bill to President Obama as soon as possible, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said.
Though House lawmakers have moved quickly, there is less indication that Senate action is imminent.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has taken no action on a companion measure, S. 1424, which also has bipartisan co-sponsors.
The Senate bill was introduced in May with Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters of Michigan as co-sponsors with Republican Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Mark Kirk of Illinois. Since then, the bill has won the support of Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
Upton said these lawmakers -- many of whom, like Upton, hail from Great Lakes states -- had "huge interest" in sending the bill to President Obama as soon as possible.
Aides to Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who leads the Health Committee, didn't respond to a request for comment yesterday on whether he supports the bill or intends to hold a hearing on the plan.
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(ACC Mentioned) Overnight Regulation: Bill Banning Microbeads In Soap Sails Through House
Dec 7, 2015 | The Hill - Overnight Regulation
By Lydia Wheeler
Welcome to Overnight Regulation, your daily rundown of news from Capitol Hill and beyond. It’s Monday evening here in Washington and it’s gearing up to be a busy week with only a few days for lawmakers to avoid a government shutdown. http://bit.ly/1locQaL
Here’s the latest.
THE BIG STORY
House lawmakers voted Monday to ban plastic microbeads from bath products like soaps and body washes.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) earlier this year in an effort to protect the nation's lakes and streams from piling up with the little pieces of plastic, passed by a voice vote.Because the beads, which are often used to exfoliate the skin, are less than five millimeters in size, they escape water filtration systems and end up in bodies of water where they are mistaken as food by fish and wildlife.
“Simply put, microbeads are causing mega-problems,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.). "Once they’re flushed down the drain, that’s when the problem really begins."
"We must put a stop to this unnecessary and avoidable pollution," added Pallone, the ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
The bill would preempt states from issuing their own laws to regulate microbeads. Last month, Pallone said the provision was added because the federal law would phase out products faster than any state law now in place.
The legislation applies to any non-prescription rinse-off cosmetics, including toothpaste.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) praised the House for passing the legislation Monday.
“Plastics play a vital role in our economy—from helping build and maintain homes to advancing new technologies,” the industry group said. "H.R. 1321 is an important step to ensure we have one sensible, national standard for phasing out the use of solid plastic microbeads in personal care products across America."
Cristina Marcos contributed to this report.
ON TAP FOR TUESDAY
The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights will hold a hearing to examine the AB InBev/SABMiller merger and the state of competition in the beer industry. http://1.usa.gov/1XGcbSM
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing to examine opioid abuse in America. http://1.usa.gov/1NvkoCR
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing to examine the stream protection rule. http://1.usa.gov/1IAzy9q
The House Science, Space and Technology’s Subcommittee on Research and Technology will hold a hearing to discuss the future of biotechnology. http://1.usa.gov/1QZDOlC
TOMORROW’S REGS TODAY
The Obama administration will publish 132 new regulations, proposed rules, notices and other administrative actions in Tuesday’s edition of the Federal Register.
--The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) will issue a final rule to remove the Modoc sucker from the federal list of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife. This rare species of fish, which is usually less than 6 inches in length, is native to northern California and southern Oregon.
--The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will propose a rule to allow recipients of Community Forest Program grants to allow local governments, tribal governments and qualified nonprofit organizations to acquire land for resource conservation and open space preservation.
NEWS RIGHT NOW
US rebuffed on meat labeling rule http://bit.ly/1TwBDE4
Supreme Court won’t hear assault weapons case http://bit.ly/1Qbb0Xf
Clinton: I will be tough on Wall Street http://bit.ly/1YUSNib
Homeland Security plans new level to terror advisory system - The Washington Post http://wapo.st/1NFOEXn
Study sees possible dip in world carbon dioxide emissions - The AP http://apne.ws/1SK0Ri5
Justice Department probes Chicago Police for Civil Rights violations - Huffington Post http://huff.to/1HQtpWN
BY THE NUMBERS
$1 billion: The amount in tariffs Canada and Mexico are threatening to impose on the U.S. to retaliate against the Agriculture Department’s meat labeling rule.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“This is an opportunity for us to protect our children and our communities from potential mass violence and grief,” said Nancy Rodkin Rotering, mayor of Highland Park, Ill. Rotering on Monday hailed the Supreme Court's decision not to take up a challenge to her city's law banning assault weapons.
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(ACC Mentioned) Is U.S. (Finally) On The Verge Of Chemical Safety Reform?
Dec 8, 2015 | Industrial Safety and Hygene News
Chemical safety advocates are cautiously optimistic about 2016 finally being in the year when Congress takes action to reform the nation’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – 40 years after it was adopted.
“Rare political circumstances have opened a narrow window to pass meaningful reform that protects the health of American families,” according to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which is among those backing the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. What the bill would change
Built on a bill introduced by the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Sen. David Vitter in 2013, the newer version would: mandate safety reviews for all chemicals in active commerce; requires a safety finding for new chemicals before they can enter the market; replaces TSCA’s cost-benefit safety standard—which prevented EPA from banning asbestos—with a pure, health-based safety standard and require protection of vulnerable populations like children and pregnant women. It would also strengthen the EPA’s authority to require testing of both new and existing chemicals and sets aggressive, judicially enforceable deadlines for EPA decisions.
The Lautenberg Act was introduced in March of last year by Senators Tom Udall (D-NM) and David Vitter (R-LA). An additional seven Democrats and eight Republicans are also original cosponsors of the bill. Chemical industry is on board
American Chemistry Council President and CEO Cal Dooley said the bill “is the best and only opportunity to achieve a pragmatic, bipartisan solution to reform chemical regulation. Importantly, this legislation will offer the kind of predictability, consistency and certainty that manufacturers and the national marketplace need, while also strengthening oversight and providing consumers with more confidence in the safety of chemicals.”
Unlike every other major environmental law, the TSCA statute has never been significantly amended since it was adopted, in 1976.
“The problem requires a federal solution,” says the EDF. “With tens of thousands of chemicals in use today, the problem is much too big for individual consumers, product companies, retailers or states to handle on their own. We need a robust national program, rather than the current piecemeal approach that leaves many without any protections whatsoever.”
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House Votes To Ban Microbeads In Soap
Dec 7, 2015 | The Hill - Floor Action
By Lydia Wheeler and Cristina Marcos
House lawmakers voted Monday to ban plastic microbeads from bath products such as soaps and body washes.
The bill, introduced by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) earlier this year in an effort to protect the nation's lakes and streams from getting clogged with the little pieces of plastic, passed by voice vote.
Because the beads, which are often used to exfoliate the skin, are less than five millimeters in size, they escape water filtration systems and end up in bodies of water where they are mistaken as food by fish and wildlife.
“Simply put, microbeads are causing mega-problems,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.). "Once they’re flushed down the drain, that’s when the problem really begins."
"We must put a stop to this unnecessary and avoidable pollution," said Pallone, the ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
The bill would pre-empt states from issuing their own their own laws to regulate microbeads. Last month, Pallone said the provision was added because the federal law would phase out products faster than any state law now in place.
The legislation applies to any non-prescription rinse-off cosmetics, including toothpaste.
A companion bill has also been introduced in the Senate by Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who are concerned about protecting the nation’s Great Lakes.
A report earlier this year by the State University of New York in Fredonia found anywhere from 1,500 to 1.1 million microbeads per square mile in the world's largest source of freshwater.
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Biotech Industry, Advocates Spar Over EPA Algae Policy Guidance Update
Dec 7, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
Biotechnology industry and advocacy groups are sparring over EPA's plan to update its 1997 guidance on how it regulates biotech and to craft a new document focusing on genetically engineered algae, with some industry groups wary that EPA might be trying to boost oversight of biotech products as requested by environmentalists.
For example, the Biotechnology Industries Organization (BIO), argues in recently filed comments that EPA's questions to the public on its plan -- intended to assist the agency in its re-write of the guidance -- are tipping the agency's hand about EPA's intent to increase the stringency of its biotech overviews.
But groups like Food and Water Watch (FWW) say that EPA needs to tighten overly lax oversight, and are also questioning the environmental benefits of biochemicals practices. Several of the groups in comments are pressing EPA to perform lifecycle analyses of biotech's benefits to include in their risk-benefit calculations of biotech production facilities.
EPA last revised its policy guide in 1997, and is updating the document "to accommodate the development of new information relevant to risk assessment of biotechnology products regulated" under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). The existing document tackles a broad range of relevant risk issues.
EPA says it intends to produce a companion document specific to the synthetic biology (synbio) algae industry. The agency is grappling with a growing number of synbio project applications and some observers' doubts about EPA's ability to adequately assess them. The agency took comment on the plan through Oct. 31.
BIO in its Oct. 30 comments urges against including stricter oversight in the update to the 1997 plan, known as the "Points to Consider in the Preparation of TSCA Biotechnology Submissions for Microorganisms."
On its website, EPA says its guide assists companies that under TSCA must submit to EPA pre-manufacture notices of their new technologies as though they were introducing new traditional chemicals. The notices are called microbial commercial activity notices (MCANs) or TSCA experimental release applications (TERA).
The group in its comments cites overarching federal cooperative guidance that covers biotechnology regulations, under review at White House request by a working group of EPA, Food and Drug Administration and Agriculture Department staff. The 1992 document is based on the premise that "the process of modification is independent of the safety of the organism, and it is the characteristics of the organism, the environment and the application or use that determine the risk of introduction, not the technique used to produce the organism," the comments say.
BIO argues that this logic should remain the same, stating that "Organisms with new phenotypic traits, which confer no greater risk to the target environment than the parental organisms, should not be subject to greater oversight or regulatory requirements than the unmodified parent organism."
Potential Hazards
But, BIO adds that it "is concerned that EPA may be wavering in this approach. . . . The phrasing of Charge Question 3. . . . 'What potential hazards do different containment systems pose and should be considered and evaluated during a risk assessment?' could be read to suggest that harm is more likely to result from the use of genetic engineering. . . . We respectfully recommend that EPA reframe their charge questions in a more neutral manner, and in this example, to specifically ask whether such limitations are necessary and if so, under what circumstances and using what rationale prior to moving onto suggested actions or data requirements."
EPA should "provide an overview of the current Points to Consider and where they feel there may be gaps, so the logic of their questions can be understood and better contextualized when providing answers," BIO says.
BIO notes that EPA generally regulates biotechnologies under TSCA, saying the law's aim is to prevent "unreasonable risk," but BIO argues that "As TSCA is currently administered, greater regulatory requirements and restrictions can be placed on new products and technologies, yet older and sometimes more hazardous substances have been grandfathered without the requirement for similar oversight. Such disparate treatment can encourage the continued use of older incumbents' products and technologies, while discouraging innovation, potential risk reduction, and environmental benefits made possible by newer technologies. There are heavy costs involved if society fails to set environmental priorities based on risk."
Other industry groups raise similar points about the difference in TSCA's approach to existing and new chemicals, which they argue places greater burden on their chemicals -- though they also argue that biochemicals present greater benefits to the environment, particularly in terms of climate benefits.
For example, the biotech company Algenol Biotech LLC noted in its Oct. 30 comments that "EPA recently acknowledged these benefits in its final Clean Power Plan by specifically including qualifying algae technologies as a legitimate strategy for reducing [carbon dioxide] emissions at power generating facilities."
Biotech Oversight
However, environmental groups are arguing that EPA needs to tighten its overly lax biotech oversight, and are also questioning the environmental benefits of biochemicals practices.
FWW also references the federal Cooperative Agreement on biotechnology that is under White House review -- though unlike BIO, the group argues that the approach is a flawed one that allows industry too much sway and provides inadequate oversight, charges that it also aims at EPA's use of TSCA to regulate biotechnologies.
FWW writes in its Oct. 31 comments that "it is odd and troubling that the EPA, faced with the White House directive and opportunity to revise the coordinated framework, is choosing to pursue such an extremely narrow scope, namely how to best apply the [TSCA], an outmoded, ineffective regulatory tool that is not capable of -- and was not designed for -- assessing the novel risks associated with new biotechnologies."
FWW argues, "The failures of TSCA and the current coordinated framework are evident in the discrepancies and inconsistencies in how the federal government assesses the safety of biotechnology products, which appears to be according to the marketing decisions of private companies being regulated, not the risks associated with a given product, the method of production, or the scientific expertise of different federal regulatory agencies."
The group calls on agencies to "jettison its dangerous, industry-friendly regulatory approach to genetically engineered organisms under TSCA. Genetically engineered organisms, including algae, require new regulations designed to address the unique and specific risks associated with this very new technology . . . EPA should be collaborating with other federal agencies to comprehensively develop an entirely new framework that follows the precautionary principle and offers holistic, systematic review of all of the relevant risk dimensions associated with new biotechnology products."
FWW also questions EPA's approach to new chemicals or new organisms as it regulates biotechnology under TSCA, arguing that EPA's approach is "arbitrary … [un]clear [and in]adequate."
The group explains that the agency's explanation for "what qualifies as a 'new' organism is based on taxonomy, with the relatedness of organisms whose genes have been recombined serving as the basis for whether or not an organism is 'new' . . . EPA fails to recognize that the process of recombining genes through genetic engineering also presents great uncertainty about safety."
FWW and Friends of the Earth also press the agency to perform lifecycle analyses of new products or chemicals that staff is asked to review, arguing that the chemicals are not as green as they are marketed to be.
FWW notes that many of the algae strains, particularly those in fermentation models, grow on sugar produced from sugarcane or corn, and argues that "EPA must also consider the impacts that shifting more arable land toward sugar production to fulfill the needs of the synbio economy. The production of sugarcane can lead to deforestation or carbon emissions."
'Understaffed' Situation
Meanwhile, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in Oct. 31 comments notes the "greatly understaffed and under-resourced" situation in the EPA office where biotechnology products are reviewed and argues that EPA should "immediately extend" its existing review periods of MCANs and TERAs to 180 days, and reject those that do not provide sufficient information.
Anticipating industry protests to its proposals, the group argues that if so, companies and trade groups should lobby Congress for "increasing the EPA's budget and other resources commensurate with ensuring the protection of public and environmental health. Otherwise, they will have to accept slower regulatory reviews as a cost of business in the current anti-regulatory Congressional environment."
Echoing comments from environmental groups, the International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA) in its comments also argues that EPA's TSCA oversight of biotechnologies is inadequate, as is its resources to do so, given the increasing numbers of products agency staff has been asked to review in recent years. ICTA notes that none of the TSCA reform bills that Congress has considered to date have "specific language" related to biotechnologies, but the group offers some ideas that it believes "would help EPA with synbio organisms," such as raising the burden of proof required on developers of new biotechnology products, requiring post-market reporting requirements and prohibiting trade secrecy claims on any environmental or human health risk data.
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House To Weigh Expanded Reach For Regulatory Board
Dec 7, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Ariel Wittenberg
The House is set to take up a bill this week that would reauthorize the Surface Transportation Board, expanding the small regulatory agency's jurisdiction.
Sponsored by Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.), S. 808 would increase the number of board sets to five from three, require the agency to report to Congress every three months on "unfinished regulatory proceedings," and encourage freight railroads and shippers to use voluntary arbitration to solve disputes more swiftly.
The measure would also let the board initiate some investigations into the freight-rail industry. The agency is currently allowed to investigate an issue if a formal complaint has been filed.
The Senate passed the reauthorization in June. Industrial and agricultural shippers are eager for the House to take up the legislation (E&E Daily, June 19).
Last week, more than 100 trade groups calling themselves the Rail Customer Coalition (RCC) sent a letter to the House urging it to take up the legislation.
"The RCC strongly urges Congress to take advantage of the unprecedented agreement between rail shippers and the freight rail industry to enact S. 808 as soon as possible in order to provide the STB [Surface Transportation Board] with the tools it needs to oversee today's modern freight rail industry," the letter said.
The House is also expected to vote on S. 614, the "Federal Improper Payments Coordination Act."
That legislation aims to curb waste, fraud and abuse by improving procedures to stop ineligible payments by government agencies. The bill would enhance data sharing among federal agencies and states in order to facilitate blocking inappropriate payments (E&E Daily, March 3).
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Gas Leak Has Released Quarter of California's Emissions
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Mark Chediak and Harry R. Weber
Call it the invisible spill. You can't see it, but it's there—a steady stream of natural gas seeping out of the pipe casing in a well in Southern California that may spew as much greenhouse gas into the air as a half-million cars do in a year.
Pipeline operator Sempra Energy says it may take three to four months to plug.
Using the same tactic that eventually ended the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the company is boring a well that will intercept the damaged one to stop the seepage. Meanwhile, Sempra is moving hundreds of people into temporary housing and faces as much as $900 million in costs. The 8,700-foot-deep (2,650-meter) well has leaked 800,000 metric tons of gases contributing to global warming, about a quarter of California emissions by state estimates.
“You have this huge volcano of methane pollution and except for the fact that a lot of people are getting sick, it hasn't engendered a lot of attention,” said Tim O'Connor, California oil and gas director for the advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund. “When you think about an oil spill, you have birds and fish that are damaged. Here you have future generations, children and people across the world that are feeling the effects.”
Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer filed a lawsuit against Southern California Gas Co. over the spill on Dec. 7. In addition to unspecified civil penalties, the suit asked the state Superior Court to to put in force steps to ensure the leak is repaired as quickly as possible; determine the cause of the leak and reasons for delays in fixing it and put in place a plan to prevent it from happening again; make sure that any other problems with natural gas infrastructure in the region are addressed; and mitigate for the large release of greenhouse gases.
“No community should have to endure what Porter Ranch residents have suffered from the Gas Company's failure to stop the Aliso Canyon gas leak,” Feuer said in a press release. “It's not only the odor–-it's the potential health issues from long-term exposure to chemicals including benzene; the impact on the daily lives of thousands of families; and the enormous greenhouse gas emissions that remain unmitigated. We're suing to require everything necessary to stop the leak, assure this never happens again, counteract the consequences of dangerous emissions and hold the gas company accountable for the harm it's caused.”
Workers for Southern California Gas discovered the leak on Oct. 23 at a well in the mountainous Aliso Canyon storage field, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles. Efforts to stop the flow of gas by pumping fluids straight into the well have failed. The utility planned to start drilling the intercepting well last week.
Southern California Gas CEO Dennis Arriola has apologized and said in a letter to Porter Ranch residents that the gas utility is doing everything it can to fix the leak. The county health department said those exposed to it may experience short-term symptoms including nausea, coughing and headaches.
Spill Costs
The $900 million cost estimate is based on a worst-case scenario that assumes maximum injuries and includes relocation, response, litigation and the loss of natural gas expenses, according to the analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Brandon Barnes and data from state officials. It doesn't include potential fines and penalties.
Javier Mendoza, a spokesman for Sempra's Southern California Gas Co. utility, said the company has “no idea how an estimate of that amount could be reached.”
“It is much too early to speculate on any financial implications from the situation at the Aliso Canyon facility,” he said by e-mail. “We will not be speculating on ‘what if’ scenarios.” The company has insurance for its storage business, he said.
Much like the crude spill in the Gulf of Mexico from BP Plc's Macondo well five years ago, regulators have struggled to get a handle on the magnitude of the leak blowing gas into the Porter Ranch neighborhood. Sempra won't be able to tell how much gas has escaped until the flow has been stopped, Mendoza said.
“The only environmental effect is the additional greenhouse gas,” said George Hirasaki, a Rice University engineering professor and former Shell Oil Co. official who was involved in the response to an oil spill off Louisiana's coast in the early 1970s. “But it is not going to dirty the environment the way an oil spill would.”
60,000 Kilograms
As much as 60,000 kilograms of natural gas an hour have been leaking, according to David Clegern, a spokesman for the California Air Resources Board, a state agency that regulates emissions. That translates to about 800,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas that has already seeped out of the well, he said.
A handful of state agencies are coordinating a joint response to the leak, said Don Drysdale, a spokesman for California's Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources. There will probably be a third-party investigation once it's plugged, he said.
“Right now,” Drysdale said, “the emphasis is on getting this thing fixed.”
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BLM Postpones Another Lease Sale In Face Of Climate Protests
Dec 7, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Phil Taylor
The Bureau of Land Management for the second time in less than a month has postponed an oil and gas lease sale in the face of planned protests by the Keep It in the Ground movement.
The agency's Eastern States office in Washington, D.C., said its Thursday sale of nine parcels totaling less than 600 acres in Arkansas and Michigan would be delayed until its next quarterly lease sale March 17.
BLM's media release offered no explanation for the postponement, and calls to the state and national offices were unreturned.
Members of the Keep It in the Ground movement, which seeks to end the leasing of federally owned fossil fuels to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, claimed another victory.
Groups including 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians and Friends of the Earth were organizing a rally and news conference Thursday at the auction location at 20 M St. SE.
The event's Facebook page also invited those who were interested in a "separate, higher risk action" to email a member of 350.org.
Marissa Knodel, a climate campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said there were plans to potentially block some of the entrances to the building using civil disobedience.
"They're starting to feel the pressure from citizen activists," Knodel said today. The groups plan to also protest BLM's March 17 oil and gas auction, she said.
The Department of Homeland Security had contacted the groups regarding the protest, said Taylor McKinnon, public lands campaigner at CBD. He and Knodel said organizers expected 100 protesters to attend.
"The administration didn't want to face the optics of a protest over a fossil fuel lease while negotiating a climate deal in Paris," he said. The planned protests had garnered headlines in Time and Mashable, among other publications.
At 587 acres, the lease sale was small by BLM standards and unlikely to make a substantial impact on climate change.
But the Keep It in the Ground movement is calling to end fossil fuel leasing whole cloth, arguing that there's already enough land under lease that can still be drilled. Organizers claim the movement is gaining momentum, backed by lawmakers including presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who has co-sponsored legislation to end future lease sales.
Today's announcement follows a decision by BLM on Nov. 17 to postpone a larger oil and gas lease sale in Salt Lake City to sell up to 37,580 acres that was also the target of climate protests.
While BLM has yet to cite climate change as a reason for postponing sales -- the Utah postponement was to secure a larger venue to accommodate observers, it said -- President Obama recently borrowed a line from the movement in his speech announcing the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline.
"If we're going to prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we're going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous pollution into the sky," he said.
A report commissioned by the Center for American Progress and the Wilderness Society earlier this year found that the burning of oil, gas and coal from public lands and waters accounts for more than one-fifth of domestic greenhouse gas emissions.
In addition, research published earlier this year in the journal Nature found that globally, one-third of oil reserves and half of gas reserves should be left undeveloped through 2050 to keep temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius.
Yet Interior Secretary Sally Jewell has warned that oil and gas development cannot be discontinued overnight. BLM lease sales that were protested in Colorado, Wyoming and Alaska in recent months went forward as planned.
The pro-fossil-fuel Institute for Energy Research tonight will issue an updated report noting the economic benefits of opening more federal lands and waters to drilling.
"These policies have consequences, real consequences," IER President Thomas Pyle said of Keep It in the Ground. Those include lost jobs, gross domestic product and billions of dollars in federal tax revenue, the forthcoming study finds.
Industry officials and some former high-ranking BLM officials contend that Interior lacks the authority to discontinue its leasing program. The Mineral Leasing Act specifies that BLM must offer quarterly lease sales in states where there are lands eligible for oil and gas development.
Attorneys for environmental groups and former Interior Solicitor John Leshy, who served under the Clinton administration, contend that federal statutes give BLM total discretion over whether to lease at all.
Janice Schneider, Interior assistant secretary who oversees BLM policy, told E&ENews PM last Friday that the agency's legal obligations regarding mineral leasing are "something we're sorting through."
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Sanders Targets N.H. Gas Project For Post-Keystone XL Fight
Dec 8, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Hannah Northey
A large, contentious gas project slated to intersect 17 towns in New Hampshire is turning into a new front in election-year energy politics.
Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign is touting the Vermont independent's public opposition to Kinder Morgan Inc.'s proposed Northeast Energy Direct (NED) pipeline following President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline, while calling out contenders like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for failing to take a stand.
While Sanders has helped lead the fight against Keystone XL since "day one," others were "hedging and equivocating," said Karthik Ganapathy, a New Hampshire campaign spokesman for the senator. Clinton for months withheld her opinion on the Alberta-to-Texas conduit before officially rejecting the pipeline in September (Greenwire, Sept. 22).
Sanders, Ganapathy continued, is now taking the same leadership role in disavowing the NED pipeline.
"Whether it's opposing Keystone XL from day one or voting against the Iraq War, Bernie Sanders has always spoken his mind and told the truth on issues that matter," he said. "No one should be surprised he's once again demonstrating leadership as the first presidential candidate to oppose Kinder Morgan's NED pipeline.
On one hand, Kinder Morgan's subsidiary, Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC, has said the project is critical for meeting demand throughout the Northeast, but landowners and activists are questioning what effects the project may have on the surrounding land, air quality, the rate of hydraulic fracturing to produce natural gas and emissions.
While political jousting around the NED pipeline is heating up, Clinton and Sanders have aligned in calling on federal regulators responsible for reviewing the project to take a closer look at climate change and public input.
When asked about the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission -- the agency that reviews the proposal under the National Environmental Policy Act -- Ganapathy said Sanders wants the agency to consider climate change.
"We're urging federal regulators to consider the generations of tomorrow in their review, and to reject the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline," he said.
Clinton has made similar statements while campaigning in New Hampshire.
Speaking at a town hall meeting at New Hampshire's Keene State College in October, Clinton said FERC hasn't done enough to consider local opposition, safety issues and, most notably, climate change (Greenwire, Oct. 21).
"Right now, [FERC's] mandate seems to be only about delivery of energy anywhere, any time, and I don't think that's adequate in today's world," Clinton said. "If we're going to have a national commitment to do something about climate change, FERC needs to be part of that national commitment, and that's my view on how we have to alter a lot of parts of the federal government."
The pipeline is also triggering political opposition in the Granite State, where Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte and Democratic Rep. Ann McLane Kuster have announced that they will oppose the project without more information (E&E Daily, Dec. 3).
The lawmakers, specifically, have called on FERC and the Energy Department's inspector general to answer questions about the need for the project, safety concerns or potential interaction with other projects. FERC has said it does not comment on cases pending before the agency.
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Dec 7, 2015 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Steven Hamburg
A new scientific study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, coordinated by EDF, reports findings from the most comprehensive examination of regional methane emissions completed to date. Focused on Texas’ Barnett Shale – one of the nation’s major oil-and-gas-producing regions – the study uses a new, more accurate way to determine the total amount of methane escaping into the atmosphere from the region’s oil and gas production, processing and transportation.The result is that methane emissions in the Barnett Shale are 90 percent higher than EPA’s inventory data would suggest.
This is just one of several recent studies showing a pattern of underestimating methane emissions in locations across the country. One big reason is that conventional inventories typically fail to accurately account for very large, unpredictable emissions from leaks, malfunctions or other problems. In the Barnett study, these were the source of a large share of total emissions.
Why Methane Matters
The higher emissions rate and the agreement among measurement methods represent an important step forward in our understanding of what it will take to mitigate those emissions. Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas, and a highly potent greenhouse gas, with over 80 times the 20-year warming power of carbon dioxide.
When methane leaks, the climate impact of using natural gas increases. In the case of Barnett Shale gas, based on emissions identified in the study, the climate impact is 50 percent higher over 20 years as compared to the use of natural gas in the absence of any emissions.
Getting the Full Picture
The study analyzes data from 12 papers that were published earlier this year as part of an extensive, coordinated effort among more than 10 research teams to quantify oil and gas methane emissions at a regional scale. It affirms the importance of earlier findings that the biggest emissions come from a relatively small number of unpredictable sources that are inherently difficult to anticipate.
For example, in the instance of production sites, 30 percent of those in the Barnett Shale region leak more than 1 percent of the natural gas they produce, which in turn accounts for 70 percent of overall production site emissions. This suggests that frequent and thorough inspection and repair efforts are necessary to find and eliminate methane leaks as they arise.
In this study, scientists compiled an updated, comprehensive inventory of emissions sources from across the oil and gas supply chain, and multiple research teams deployed a diversity of measurement techniques to reconcile the differences between emission rates estimated using airborne (top-down) and ground-based (bottom-up) methodologies that have previously been observed. That means scientists, policymakers and companies can now have greater certainty about methane emission rates not only in the Barnett, but also have proven methodologies that can be used to get a clear picture of emissions elsewhere.
Live case in point in California
A real-life example of just how important high-emitting sources can be is taking place in California right now at the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility owned by Southern California Gas. For over a month, a massive leak has been pumping out about 50,000 kilograms of methane an hour – more than a quarter of the state’s estimated daily total methane emissions.
Circumstances at the aging gas storage facility – where the company pumps natural gas back underground into an old oil deposit for times when it is needed – are unique. But while extreme, it is an example of the kind of large, unpredictable leaks that occur daily throughout the oil and gas supply chain.
Based on the new research just reported as well as other studies that have taken account of super emitters, EPA’s already large national estimate of 7.3 million tons of yearly methane emissions from the oil and gas industry could be much higher (and that doesn’t even include emissions from major malfunctions like the one in California).
Addressing the Problem
Policymakers increasingly recognize the importance of better oversight of oil and gas methane emissions. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed the first-ever national standards for this pollutant from new and modified oil and gas sources. Findings from this new research characterizing methane emissions in the Barnett region can help inform EPA’s rulemaking – for example, the research indicates that strong leak detection and repair requirements are critical to quickly finding high emitting sources and getting them repaired.
But most importantly, the research shows the increasing confidence we now have in dealing with a methane problem bigger than previously recognized, and that means EPA’s work is not yet over. Once a strong set of rules is created for mitigating methane emissions from new and modified sources, EPA needs to address emissions from existing sources that will still be contributing the overwhelming majority of emissions in the coming years. And, as seen in the Barnett Shale region of Texas, where the true scale of the existing problem is now well defined, that will be a significant amount.
As the measurement methods that were validated in the the Barnett research are applied in other regions across the U.S. – and the world – they will provide a much clearer picture of the state of oil and gas methane emissions, and how to best address them.
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Concern Raised Over New Social Cost of Methane Figure
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers and Anthony Adragna
The Environmental Protection Agency's newly created social cost of methane figure has not been adequately reviewed and should not be used to justify regulating methane emissions from new oil and gas operations, industry groups said.
That figure, meant to capture the monetary impacts of methane emissions, has not undergone scientific review and scrutiny, the groups and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said. The concerns about the social cost of methane come as they warn the proposed methane rules should be withdrawn for additional industry input.
“Clearly, this metric is yet another attempt by the Obama Administration to advance an unpopular climate agenda—by inventing a dollar amount for the price of a ton of methane to justify onerous regulations,” Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wrote in a Dec. 4 letter. “It is critical the EPA immediately halt the use of the [social cost of methane] in regulations.”
The EPA announced a package of proposals, including new source performance standards (80 Fed. Reg. 56,593; RIN 2060-AS30), in August under Section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act to reduce methane emissions from future oil and gas operations. Public comments on the proposed methane rules, which update the performance standards for oil and gas systems at 40 C.F.R. Part 60 Subpart OOOO, were due Dec. 4.
Environmental and health advocates have praised the proposals as a necessary first step to curb emissions of the highly potent greenhouse gas but have urged the Obama administration to extend regulatory efforts to existing oil and gas infrastructure. Industry groups say they have already reduced emissions through voluntary actions and call the new efforts unnecessary (160 DEN A-1, 8/19/15).
As part of the rule, the EPA proposed using a social cost of methane in a range between $580 per metric ton and $3,500 per ton for the year 2020 as calculated in 2012 dollars depending on the discount value used as way to determine the performance standards' benefits. The figures for 2025 would be between $700 per metric ton and $4,000 per ton. The figures are based on a 2014 analysis by members of the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics that was subsequently peer reviewed by the agency.
Methane is between 28 and 36 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide when measured over a 100-year period, according to the EPA. The social cost of methane figure is intended to account for those significant climate impacts, the agency said.
The EPA estimates its proposal will cost the oil and natural gas industry between $170 million and $180 million in 2020 while providing up to $120 million in public health and environmental benefits. The agency estimates the industry costs will grow to between $280 million and $330 million in 2025 with between $460 million and $550 million in benefits provided.
Industry: Figure Inadequately Reviewed
But industry groups argued the EPA should have proposed its social cost of methane figure separately, so it could be subject to its own public notice and comment period.
“Otherwise, EPA can arbitrarily use one value of [the social cost of methane] to justify controls on methane emissions from one industrial sector source and then turn around later and use some other arbitrary value for another industrial sector source, all presumably justified by taking comment on the arbitrary value already used to justify the proposed regulations,” the Independent Petroleum Association of America and American Exploration & Production Council said in joint comments.
The EPA's development of a social cost of methane builds on prior efforts to account for the social cost of carbon dioxide pollution. A federal interagency working group has set the social cost of carbon at $36 per ton. That figure has come under fire from congressional Republicans due to what they say is the lack of transparency in its development (141 DEN A-1, 7/23/15).
Energy Industry: Estimates ‘Likely Overstated.'
Various groups from the oil and gas industries criticized the EPA for a lack of transparency in developing the new figure and said many estimated benefits stemming from the regulation probably were exaggerated.
“EPA's social cost of methane does not reflect the standards of scientific review and technical maturity that should be required before utilized to· inform major federal rulemakings,” the North Dakota Petroleum Council wrote in comments. “EPA's social cost of methane estimates are likely overstated, resulting in skewed effects.”
NERA Economic Consulting in a Dec. 3 analysis also had argued the EPA had overstated the rule's benefits (234 DEN A-4, 12/7/15).
The American Petroleum Institute said in its comments that the EPA's proposal is unnecessary because methane emissions from hydraulically fractured wells already have declined by nearly 79 percent since 2005, according to the agency's own greenhouse gas emissions inventory. Total methane emissions from the natural gas sector are down 11 percent during the same period.
The industry group also argued that the EPA should refrain from using its social cost of methane figure because it has not disclosed the assumptions and uncertainties that went into it.
“In addition, the EPA has failed to disclose and quantify key uncertainties to inform decision makers and the public about the effects and uncertainties of alternative regulatory actions as required by” the White House Office of Management and Budget, the American Petroleum Institute said.
‘Indispensable' Tool in Climate Fight
Meanwhile, environmental advocates said the new regulations would be an “indispensable” tool for the U.S. to meet President Barack Obama's goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025 from 2005 levels. They also said the rules should be strengthened and expanded.
“Substantial reductions from existing oil and gas infrastructure are achievable by 2020 and can help protect public health, while catalyzing global leadership to address harmful methane pollution,” the groups, including the Clean Air Task Force, Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club, wrote.
Among the potential improvements to the proposed rules, according to the environmental groups, would be increasing the frequency of infrastructure inspections to detect leaks and expanding the scope of the regulations to additional types of equipment responsible for emissions.
More than 125 environmental groups as well as 18 organizations representing the Latino community have written the EPA urging it to set the most protective standards possible (232 DEN A-3, 12/3/15).
Existing Source Rules Feared
Although the EPA has not yet committed to issuing similar standards for existing oil and gas wells under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act, industry groups voiced concerns that the current proposal is only a prelude to additional regulation.
“EPA is silent as to its ‘beliefs' on whether the industry can ‘survive' the cost and burden of regulation of existing sources under Section 111(d),” the Independent Petroleum Association of America and American Exploration & Production Council said. “This silence is notable and troubling. Clearly, since EPA demonstrates that the technologies used to regulate methane emissions are identical to those for [volatile organic compound] emissions, EPA's choice to expand its regulations to directly regulate methane can only be interpreted as opening a potential pathway to Section 111(d) regulations as the anti-fossil energy organizations demanded. And, while EPA fails to even mention Section 111(d), it must certainly know—based on the demand that existing methane sources must be regulated—that it will face efforts to force such regulation.”
The EPA has previously argued that it was required to regulate carbon dioxide from existing power plants under Section 111(d), known as the Clean Power Plan, after it had proposed performance standards for the pollutant under Section 111(b).
“As is plainly evident from the Clean Power Plan, regulation of existing sources under section 111(d) can and likely would have far greater potential impacts than the proposed standard for new sources,” the American Petroleum Institute said. “As a result, the agency should have estimated the costs of regulating existing oil and natural gas sources in the proposed rule given its interpretation of the act. EPA's utter failure to consider this important aspect of the decision to implement a [new source performance standard] renders the decision arbitrary and capricious.”
The final rule is expected in June 2016.
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GOP Bill Would Stop EPA Plan Unless Other Nations Act
Dec 8, 2015 | E&E Daily News
By Sean Reilly
The Obama administration could not crack down on power plant carbon emissions unless other developed nations follow suit under newly introduced legislation by Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-Pa.) and 10 GOP colleagues.
H.R. 4169, dubbed the "Fighting Against Imbalanced Regulatory Burdens Act" (FAIR Burdens Act), would bar U.S. EPA from enforcing the Clean Power Plan until "a sufficient number of countries" have adopted carbon dioxide regulations at least as stringent. For the bill's purpose, "a sufficient number" would be enough to account for 80 percent of global CO2 emissions, not counting those coming from the United States.
"The American people cannot and should not be unfairly burdened with imbalanced and ineffective climate change rules," Rothfus said in a statement that singled out China as responsible for 28 percent of global carbon emissions, or 33 percent of the non-U.S. total. The United States ranks second, followed by the European Union, India, Russia and Japan.
Rothfus introduced the bill Thursday, three days after the start of a global climate summit outside Paris. It marks the latest Republican salvo against the Clean Power Plan, rolled out in August with a goal of cutting carbon emissions from power plants by 32 percent by 2030 in comparison with 2005 thresholds.
President Obama has argued that the United States, whose per-capita carbon emissions are much higher than China's, has a moral obligation to lead on the issue. Yesterday, a slew of administration officials arrived at the summit to carry the message that U.S. carbon emissions reductions are here to stay (Greenwire, Dec. 7).
Co-sponsors of H.R. 4169 are Reps. David McKinley (R-W.Va.), Andy Barr (R-Ky.), Kristi Noem (R-S.D.), Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.), Robert Pittenger (R-N.C.), Randy Weber (R-Texas) and David Rouzer (R-N.C.). The measure has been referred to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
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Kerry Says He's Looking To The Private Sector To Solve Climate Change
Dec 7, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Secretary of State John Kerry downplayed the importance Monday of a climate change agreement with legally binding emissions reduction targets.
Speaking at an event coinciding with the Paris climate talks, Kerry said that an accord without binding reductions, like what many world leaders want out of Paris, would be enough for the private sector to get the needed reductions.“I don’t frankly look to government to solve this problem over the course of the next few years. It’s not going to happen,” Kerry said. “I look to the private sector.”
The Paris agreement is on track to be the first time that nearly all of the world’s nations agree to take steps to fight climate change.
And while Kerry and other world leaders want the agreement to legally mandate certain reporting and transparency measures for countries to say how they’re meeting their targets, they do not want the emissions targets themselves to be binding.
“Paris’s importance is that even without the fixed number and the legal shell, we are going to see an enormous amount of movement without creating political obstacles that prevent us from being able to send that signal,” Kerry said.
“I have absolute confidence in the ability of capital to move where the signal of the marketplace says ‘go’ after Paris.”
A binding deal would require Senate ratification with a two-thirds vote, something the Obama administration does not believe would be possible.
Kerry was a senator when the United Nations finalized the Kyoto protocol in 1997, but he said he ran into a “buzzsaw of opposition” in trying to get it ratified.
The secretary of State and other foreign ministers came to Paris Monday, halfway through the scheduled talks, to try to wrap up the remaining disagreements and come to a final deal by Friday, something he said he is optimistic will happen.
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Scientists Ask Presidential Candidates: What Will You Do About Climate Change?
Dec 7, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Cheryl Hogue
Dozens of scientists and others with expertise in climate change today called for U.S. presidential candidates to spell out how they intend to make the U.S. the world leader in clean energy.
“The global transformation of our energy system away from fossil fuels is both a moral imperative, grounded in science, and one of the greatest economic opportunities of our time,” says a letter to the presidential candidates. The missive, organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), an advocacy group, is signed by 74 climate experts, including former members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and a former energy secretary.
The letter urges candidates to “meet and exceed” the short-term pledge President Barack Obama has made: that the U.S. will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 26–28% below 2005 levels by 2025. Obama made the promise in the run-up to negotiations now under way in Paris on a new global climate change treaty.
“It’s imperative for the next President to build on the commitments the U.S. is making in Paris,” Peter Frumhoff, director of science and policy at UCS, told reporters at the Paris meeting. The letter, he said, is designed to “build demand among voters to expect all candidates to have clear and convincing answers about their commitments to a clean energy future.”
The issue of climate change has received little attention on the presidential campaign trail thus far. A few Republican candidates, including top-polling Donald Trump, have dismissed the notion of human-caused climate change. Others seeking the Oval Office, including Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, accept the science about global warming, but they differ on whether or how to address it.
Chemists and chemistry students: Follow key developments connected to the Paris climate change meeting here.
“We need a president who will make good decisions and choices based on the available science,” said one of the letter’s signers, Katherine Hayhoe, director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University. “There is certainly plenty of debate over what those solutions could look like, but the debate should not focus on whether there’s a real problem or not.” Clean energy technologies are already advancing “in leaps and bounds,” she said.
Other signers of the letter include former Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Stanford University physics professor; Scott C. Doney, chair of the marine chemistry & geochemistry department at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; and Jerald L. Schnoor, professor of environmental engineering at the University of Iowa.
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N.Y. Proposes Emissions Limits for Backup Power Units
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By John Herzfeld
Emissions limits would be set for nitrogen oxides and particulate matter from diesel generators, gas-fired engines and other backup power sources under a proposed New York Department of Environmental Conservation rule.
The proposed rule (6 NYCRR Part 222), announced Dec. 7 by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), is intended to help the state meet a July 2018 deadline to bring the New York City metropolitan area into attainment with the Environmental Protection Agency's tightened eight-hour national ambient air quality standards for ground-level ozone.
It would apply to distributed generation (DG) sources, which include backup power units at hospitals, office buildings and other large buildings and institutions, but not larger units that qualify as major sources or smaller units typically found in homes and other smaller buildings.
In a statement, Cuomo said the new standards “will reduce pollution, further encourage the development of renewable resources and support this state's efforts to combat climate change.”
The EPA announced the stricter national ozone standards Oct. 1 (191 DEN A-1, 10/2/15).
Although air quality in the New York City metropolitan area has been improving in recent decades, it isn't expected to meet the new ground-level ozone standards (176 DEN A-11, 9/11/15).
State Progress
The DEC said that the state has made “substantial progress” in meeting the national standards with programs to reduce emissions from power plants and other large sources, motor vehicles, paints and other consumer products.
Since 2009, the entire state has met NAAQS for fine particulate matter, and ozone levels have declined over the past decade, the department said.
The New York City metropolitan area, however, doesn't meet the NAAQS for ozone and will not meet the new, more stringent ozone NAAQS without additional limits on emissions, the department said.
DG sources covered under the proposed rule include short-term power units for times of peak electricity demand, the Department of Environmental Conservation said.
Backup power sources producing more than 150 kilowatts in the New York City region—or more than 300 kilowatts in the rest of the state—would be required to meet the new emissions limits unless they are used solely for blackouts and similar emergencies.
Existing DG sources that don't meet the revised standards can install control equipment, the department said.
The comment period opens Dec. 23 with the formal publication of the proposal, with comments due Feb. 18, 2016. Information on public hearings to be held in February will be released later, the DEC said.
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House Energy Bill Would Repeal EPA Wood Stove Standards
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
Energy legislation passed by the House includes language that would roll back the Environmental Protection Agency's updated emissions standards for new wood-burning heaters.
Under this language, added as an amendment to the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act (H.R. 8), the EPA's revised standards would have no legal force or effect.
The EPA rule (RIN 2060-AP93), which served as the first update to federal standards on wood-burning heaters since 1988, set more stringent emissions limits for wood-burning stoves and established new standards for several types of previously unregulated heating devices. The agency projected that the standards, signed in February, would cut emissions of fine particulate matter and volatile organic compounds by about 70 percent (24 DEN A-20, 2/5/15).
But Rep. David Rouzer (R-N.C.), who introduced the amendment, expressed concern during floor debate that the new standards could increase the price of wood heaters by so much that they would be priced out of the marketplace.
“Simply put, the federal government has no business telling private citizens how they should heat their homes,” Rouzer said. “If you want to have the opportunity to buy a wood heater, you ought to have that opportunity.”
Projected $45.7 Million Cost
The EPA projected the new standards would cost $45.7 million per year, a cost that Rouzer said would probably be passed down to consumers.
The Rouzer amendment was passed Dec. 3 on a vote of 247-177. Four Democrats voted in favor of the amendment, while no Republicans voted against it.
While H.R. 8 represented the first broad energy policy overhaul to pass the House in almost a decade, Cheryl Wilson, a Bloomberg Intelligence Government Analyst, told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 3 that it could be challenging for the Senate to pass similar legislation in 2016, a presidential election year (233 DEN A-4, 12/4/15).
In addition to possible legislative action, the EPA's wood heater standards are under review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association and the Pellet Fuels Institute, a pair of industry groups, are both seeking to roll back portions of the EPA rule, including new requirements on the content and composition of fuels used in pellet stoves and more stringent emissions standards for wood-burning heaters that don't go into effect until 2020 (Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Ass'n v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1056, statement of issues filed 6/15/15; 116 DEN A-6, 6/17/15).
Procedural and dispositive motions in the wood heater legislation are due in January.
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Boosting Pledges, McCarthy Says Utility Support Ensures ESPS Will 'Stick'
Dec 8, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Lee Logan
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is highlighting the power sector's view that it can comply with the agency's landmark greenhouse gas rules for existing power plants as proof that the rule will “stick,” while also seeking to reassure other countries at United Nations climate talks here that GOP attempts to block the rule ultimately will fail.
During an interview with InsideEPA/climate on the sidelines of the Paris talks, McCarthy said she is fielding many more questions from other countries' officials about the recent votes in Congress to block the existing source performance standards (ESPS) rule under the Congressional Review Act (CRA), rather than questions about the rule's long-term “durability.”
“Congress took their CRA votes. I think they know that is a signal they sent, but that the president is going to veto [those disapproval resolutions]. He's made that very clear,” she said. “And we know we're going to be solid in the courts, so this is going to be the law.”
Further, the administrator said she is very confident that any spending deal reached for the remainder of fiscal year 2016 – which must be reached before Dec. 11 to avoid a government shutdown – will not include policy riders blocking the ESPS. “The president has made it very clear that the budget is supposed to talk about finances, not to make new policy statements,” she said. “The president has been very clear, and I think it's been heard.”
The timing of the budget talks in Washington could make for a dramatic couple of days in Paris, given that the Dec. 11 expiration of the current stop-gap funding bill is also the self-imposed deadline of the U.N. talks.
The spending bill will control the fate of any ESPS policy riders, as well as the treatment of U.S. climate finance that is a key request from developing countries, meaning the bill will be closely watched in the French capital.
In addition to underscoring the priority that President Obama has placed on the power sector GHG regulations – which form the centerpiece of the United States' climate mitigation pledge made as part of the Paris talks – McCarthy also highlighted recent statements of support from key power sector officials.
In those remarks, made during a separate event in Paris held Dec. 5, utility executives and officials with the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) said that utilities will “exceed” the ESPS' targets, and that they consider the rule an “investment opportunity.”
“Not only will we be able to exceed the target [the rule] set for us by 2030,” but EPA's rule “really truly is an investment opportunity for us, and we plan to take full advantage of that,” said Brian Wolff, EEI's executive vice president for public policy and external affairs.
And Pat Vincent, the CEO of New Mexico-based utility PNM Resources, an EEI member, added at the earlier event that the rule is not only “good for the environment, but it's also good for our industry.”
Asked during the interview whether she has heard similar sentiments from power utilities and rural electric cooperatives – which have been publicly much more critical of the rule – McCarthy said, “What we're hearing universally is that the changes EPA made between proposal and final, and the outreach we have done and continue to do, has made this rule flexible enough that it can be accomplished.”
She added: “The sentiment from EEI seems to be the clear message that I am getting. . . . The utilities are preparing for [the rule to stay in place] and they're acting as if it already is. They know it is, and it's going to stick.”
'Expect to Get Sued'
McCarthy acknowledged that several utilities, including some EEI member companies, have joined litigation challenging the ESPS as exceeding the agency's authority under the Clean Air Act.
“While we expect to get sued – you know as well as I, we get sued on everything – it's not an indication of weakness,” she said. “In fact, it's been a strength. We've been able to solidly defend our rules, and it will be no different here.”
Utility executives, she argued, also understand EPA's track record in defending its regulations. “So, if you're seeing the utilities standing behind their ability to comply with the rule, then you can be certain we got that rule right.
“We've been doing this work for a long time. I've never seen a rule out of the gate be as successful as this one, and having no large utility stand up and say that they can't do this. It is not the same rhetoric as we usually see. It's vastly different,” she told InsideEPA/climate.
As she explains the ESPS outlook to officials from other countries at the Paris talks, McCarthy said she is fielding few questions about the rule's “durability,” and many more on the recent Republican efforts to block the rule. “We had a lot of meetings right after the Clean Power Plan was finalized, with other countries,” she said. “They get the system now, and they're not seeing the same pushback that they were seeing before.”
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State Oversight of Cleanup Met CERCLA Requirement
Dec 8, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Steven M. Sellers
An Indiana environmental agency's substantial involvement in a private party's hazardous waste cleanup satisfies the “public participation” requirement of the National Contingency Plan in a Superfund response action, a federal court ruled (Valbruna Slater Steel Corp. v. Joslyn Mfg. Co., 2015 BL 398835, N.D. Ind., No. 10-cv-00044, 12/4/15).
In a Dec. 4 decision, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana said the Indiana Department of Environmental Management's oversight of the cleanup of a trichloroethylene spill at a steel mill in Fort Wayne was enough to fulfill the NCP's public input element.
Costs incurred by Valbruna Slater Steel Corp. and Fort Wayne Steel Corp. to clean up the spill also were “necessary” under the NCP because at least some of those expenses eliminated the public health threat posed by the TCE spill, the district court said.
A private party's response action must be in “substantial compliance” with the National Contingency Plan for it to recover its remediation costs under CERCLA (42 U.S.C. 9607(a)(4)(B)). The NCP includes a requirement of “public participation” in the selection of the response and a showing that the costs were “necessary” to protect human health or the environment.
Valbruna and Fort Wayne, the current owners of the mill, established the NCP elements and showed that Joslyn Manufacturing Co., a former owner of the site, had Superfund liability, the court said.
The ruling denied motions to dismiss and for summary judgment filed by Joslyn, and granted Valbruna a summary judgment for its past costs and a declaratory judgment for its future expenses.
Seventh Circuit Precedent
Valbruna filed the cost-recovery action against Joslyn in 2010 under Section 107 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (101 DEN A-11, 5/25/11).
Joslyn replied with its own CERCLA contribution counterclaim against Valbruna under CERCLA 113(f), and claimed in its motions that Valbruna wasn't entitled to CERCLA damages because it failed to meet the public input element—and that its costs weren't necessary under the NCP.
The court disagreed.
The Indiana agency's involvement in the cleanup is a sufficient analogue for the public notice and comment envisioned by the public participation requirement of the NCP, the court said, following a federal appeals court decision in 2000, NutraSweet Co. v. X-L Eng'g Co., 227 F.3d 776 (7th Cir. 2000).
In NutraSweet, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said it was “satisfied” that monitoring of a hazardous waste cleanup by Illinois officials met the NCP standard.
“The Seventh Circuit's analysis on this issue, brief as it may be, is the best guidance as to how to proceed,” the district court said.
Necessary Costs?
Joslyn's claim that Valbruna's costs weren't “necessary” under the NCP wasn't supported by the facts, the Indiana district court said.
There was “ample uncontested evidence that Valbruna spent at least some amount of money to eliminate contamination that posed a threat to the public health,” the court said, rejecting Joslyn's assertion that Valbruna's intentions were business-driven and therefore not compensable under CERCLA.
Valbruna also won a declaratory judgment that Joslyn was liable for future costs—offset by any liability Valbruna may have in the contribution counterclaim.
The court also rejected arguments by Joslyn that the case was time-barred.
Judge Jon E. DeGuilio wrote the opinion.
The law offices of Hatchett & Hauck represented Valbruna Slater Steel Corp. and Fort Wayne Steel Corp.
Hawk Haynie Kammeyer & Chickedantz, as well as Steve Davis Law represented Joslyn Manufacturing Co.
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EPA Developing 'Roadmap' To Guide Voluntary Food Waste Reductions
Dec 7, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
EPA next year expects to release a plan for lowering the United States' food waste as part of the Obama administration's increased focus on lowering methane emissions from landfills and reducing waste, which includes a goal of cutting the country's food waste in half by 2030.
The plan will also put into writing priorities outlined at a first-ever national food recovery summit -- which the agency held Nov. 16-18 in Charleston, SC, with the food industry, recycling, disposal and non-profit organizations, and other federal and state agencies.
While the effort is voluntary, industry sources say EPA's plan will be helpful in guiding industry actions.
Following discussions at the EPA-sponsored National Food Recovery Summit, the agency "plans to present a plan of action to serve as a roadmap for tackling wasted food in America in the spring of 2016," an EPA spokeswoman told Inside EPA in a written response to questions.
According to talking points obtained by Inside EPA, EPA waste chief Mathy Stanislaus told the summit the agency planned to capture priorities identified by participants at the meeting to create a path forward. "Out of this summit, we want to 'set the table' for an action path forward," he said. He also said the agency plans to host a series of events on reducing wasted food "that will build on each other and keep the momentum going."
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, along with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, announced in September a first-ever national food waste reduction goal of 50 percent by the year 2030. The goal will be measured on a per capita basis, relying on the year 2010 as the baseline, the spokeswoman says. In 2010, that number was 218.9 pounds per person, while the current level rose above that level by 2 percent, she says. The goal will be to lower that figure to 109.4 pounds per person, she says.
As part of that effort, the federal government plans to lead a partnership with charities, faith-based groups, the private sector and local, state and tribal governments to lower food loss and waste in order to boost food security and conserve natural resources, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) says in a Sept. 16 press release on the goal.
According to EPA, in 2013, 37 million tons of wasted food in the United States were generated, with just 5 percent diverted from landfills and incinerators. EPA has proposed tough new standards for methane emissions from new and existing municipal landfills, regulations that the agency estimates would cause more than 200 existing and modified facilities to install new equipment to control the potent greenhouse gas (GHG) by 2025.
Food Waste
Two industry sources welcome the agencies' work on the food waste issue and the 50 percent reduction goal. The goal is "very significant and a great aspiration," says a food industry source in a written response to questions, adding that the food industry has been working on the issue for more than five years. The source says the USDA-EPA work would be even more effective if the Food & Drug Administration were involved too, in order to reinforce impacts across the entire food supply chain.
In terms of the roadmap, the source "would like to see the agencies focus on the consumer impacts and the social change that is really needed to affect this level of reduction." The source notes that data indicate the trend is clear that the biggest source of wasted food is in the home and at the point of consumption.
"Creating more public awareness and motivation for change will be necessary to hit this goal," the source says, noting that industry is far along and economically motivated. Food companies, many of which have food donation programs, are concerned with the social and economic impacts of wasted foods. On the economic side, "[y]ield losses, damage, unsalables and other sources of waste also result in lost profitability," the source says.
One waste management industry source says in a written response that with regard to the roadmap, EPA "establishes the policy benchmark for states, cities and businesses to look to in establishing their own policies, goals and programs." The agency's roadmap "will help with the development and implementation of programmatic efforts to achieve the 50% reduction goal," the source says.
At the National Food Recovery Summit, Stanislaus stressed the environmental, social and economic needs to act on food waste, according to an agency press release. In his talking points, he noted that food is the largest municipal solid waste stream discarded in the country, amounting to 21 percent of the waste stream.
In addition to EPA, the event was co-hosted by the Southeast Recycling Development Council, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources and BioCycle.
Sustainable Management
According to Stanislaus' talking points, the agency at the summit asked participants to identify opportunities for the sustainable management of U.S. food resources and the barriers to achieving that management. Stanislaus said the agency was looking for organizations or companies that will further commit to food loss reduction.
"We also want to hear about what actions EPA and the Federal Government can take to help our states, communities, businesses, [non-governmental organizations] and charities utilize food in a socially, environmentally, and economically beneficial manner," he said in the talking points.
He cited the economic, social and environmental costs of food waste, noting food loss and waste equates to $161 billion, while 48 million Americans live in food insecure households, and the disposed food is a large contributor to methane, a GHG, from landfills. "Food waste is a main contributor to the roughly 18 percent of total U.S. methane emissions that come from landfills," the EPA spokeswoman says.
The waste management industry source believes the organic waste issue -- in terms of growth -- is at the same point recycling was 15-20 years ago. The source advocates for using the "experience we have," not losing sight of the importance of waste prevention and waste reduction.
The EPA spokeswoman says participants at the summit identified several major areas in need of future action. These needs are: data and measurement, legal issues, implementation processes, scalability, cost and savings, accessibility, collaboration and partnerships, and education and outreach, she said.
Reduction Focus
The waste management industry source says with regard to data and measurement, having good data early on food waste will allow parties to focus on reduction.
Education is also key, the source indicates, noting that it is a challenge to keep food waste "clean" for use as feedstock for compost or anaerobic digestion. Both are affected by contaminants such as plastic packaging, glass and utensils, which are often found in food waste from restaurants and other commercial establishments, the source says in a written response. "The more non-food in the feedstock, the higher the cost to process (cost to remove the contamination) and the more likely of a lower value end product," the source says.
Stanislaus listed a number of tools and efforts the agency has already undertaken to reduce wasted food, including the Waste Reduction Model, which calculates GHGs for wasted food management measures, and the Food Waste Assessment Guidebook, which he said explains how to conduct a food waste assessment.
Other measures include a toolkit for lowering wasted food and packaging and the Food Recovery Challenge, which was launched in 2011 as a key aspect of the agency's Sustainable Materials Management Program. Through the challenge, the agency offers tools, resources and support to aid participants in setting baselines and objectives, tracking progress and meeting waste reduction goals. He noted that as the awardees for the 2014 Food Recovery Challenge demonstrate, "achieving success in reducing wasted food does not require draconian changes."
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