Preview Newsletter
ACC AM Dec 22
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(ACC Mentioned) Profits, Demand Strong For PP Market
Dec 21, 2015 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
After a few years of scraping by, North American polypropylene makers are seeing good demand and solid profits. And they’re hoping that both of those trends continue in 2016. Through October, North American PP sales were up 5.1 percent vs. the same period in 2014, according to the American Chemistry Council in Washington. -
(ACC Mentioned) Congress Poised To Finalize New Chemical Safety Law
Dec 21, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
After the U.S. Senate last week passed S. 697 to modernize the federal law that controls commercial chemicals, Congress launched negotiations to resolve differences between that bill and a similar measure approved by the House of Representatives. -
Absent TSCA Reform, Pacific States Advance 'Green Chemistry' Initiatives
Dec 21, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Three Pacific Northwestern states are working with EPA on advancing “green chemistry” efforts to reduce use of hazardous substances absent enactment of a pending Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) bill that could boost green chemistry programs, though the states also say that any TSCA law should fund efforts to develop safer... -
Top Problems With the Two TSCA Bills
Dec 21, 2015 | Environmental Working Group
By Melanie Benesh and Scott Faber
Consumers rightly expect that the chemicals used in everyday products are safe. Under current law, however, few are ever reviewed for safety. Now that Congress has passed two bills seeking to update the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, it’s important to recall the problems with the House and Senate bills. -
Congress Bans Plastic Microbeads, Bill Heads to President Obama’s Desk
Dec 21, 2015 | EcoWatch
On Friday, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bill phasing out the manufacture of beauty products with plastic microbeads by July 1, 2017, and the sale of such products by July 1, 2018. The Microbead Free Waters Act (H.R. 1321) bans all plastic microbeads in beauty products, including those made from so-called “biodegradable plastics”... -
OSHA Revives Controversial Safety Rules
Dec 21, 2015 | The Hill - Regulation
By Tim Devaney
The Obama administration is moving forward with long-delayed rules intended to protect workers from exposure to harmful silica dust. The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) confirmed Monday that it has sent the rules to the White House for final approval, a step that comes after years of delays. -
TransCanada Files Pipeline Routing Changes
Dec 22, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
TransCanada Corp. has filed an amended application and cost estimate with Canada's National Energy Board for its Energy East project to move oil from the Alberta oil sands to the country's Atlantic Coast citing concerns about environmentally sensitive areas. President and Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling said in a Dec. 17 ... -
How Obama Let Big Oil Drill in the Pristine Alaska Wilderness
Dec 21, 2015 | Politico Magazine
By Alec MacGillis
From his seat in the small plane flying over the largest remaining swath of American wilderness, Bruce Babbitt thought he could envision the legacy of one of his proudest achievements as Interior secretary in the Clinton administration. -
Bad News: Scientists Say We Could Be Underestimating Arctic Methane Emissions
Dec 21, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Chelsea Harvey
Arctic permafrost has become a recent star in the climate change conversation, capturing the attention of scientists, activists and policymakers alike because of its ability to emit large quantities of carbon dioxide as well as methane — a particularly potent though relatively short-lived greenhouse gas — when it thaws. -
Local Leaders Want BLM To Protect Thompson Divide From Drilling
Dec 21, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Scott Streater
A bipartisan delegation of local Colorado government leaders say they support a Bureau of Land Management draft plan that could cancel a number of hotly contested oil and natural gas leases inside the state's pristine Thompson Divide. The local leaders in and around White River National Forest submitted a letter Friday to BLM Colorado... -
Wyoming Releases Draft Groundwater Fracking Report
Dec 21, 2015 | InsideEPA
Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has released its draft report outlining findings from its investigation of alleged groundwater contamination that an EPA study initially linked to hydraulic fracturing activities near Pavillion, WY, with DEQ saying it is “unlikely” that the contamination is due to fracking wells. -
Lawsuits Key After Obama Vetoes Power Plant Resolutions
Dec 22, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency is opposed to expedited judicial review of its Clean Power Plan as bids to block the agency's carbon dioxide rules return to the courts following President Barack Obama's veto of congressional resolutions meant to scuttle the rules. -
EPA Urges Court Not To Split Carbon Rule Challenges
Dec 21, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillén
The Obama administration today urged a federal court not to split the different types of challenges against EPA’s Clean Power Plan, arguing that doing so is unnecessary and gratuitous at this time. A number of groups and states opposed to EPA's rule asked the court earlier this month to split off the fundamental... -
So It's Come To This -- a Clean Power Plan Haiku
Dec 21, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
In Minneapolis last Thursday, the Center for Energy and Environment offered cocktails and haiku readings by Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Assistant Commissioner David Thornton as primer to a discussion about the role of early-action credits and efficiency programs in meeting the requirements of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan. -
Obama Vetoes Resolutions Designed To Kill ESPS, NSPS
Dec 21, 2015 | InsideEPA
President Obama has followed through on his threat to veto two resolutions designed to disallow EPA rules on reducing new and existing power plants' greenhouse gas emissions. "The carbon pollution standards will ensure that, when we make major investments in power generation infrastructure, we also deploy available technologies to ... -
GOP Chairman Intensifies Fight With White House Environmental Panel
Dec 21, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Monday that he still hasn’t received information he requested last month from a White House environmental advisory panel. Inhofe, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has questioned whether the White House's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is allowed to continue operating... since -
Industries Warn Of Costs From Proposed EPA Air Testing Method Changes
Dec 21, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
Groups representing a host of industries are warning that EPA's proposed changes to numerous testing regulations, methods and performance specifications for air pollution will be too expensive to implement, and are asking the agency to instead retain some existing requirements such as those for detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
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(ACC Mentioned) Profits, Demand Strong For PP Market
Dec 21, 2015 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
After a few years of scraping by, North American polypropylene makers are seeing good demand and solid profits. And they’re hoping that both of those trends continue in 2016.
Through October, North American PP sales were up 5.1 percent vs. the same period in 2014, according to the American Chemistry Council in Washington. Domestic sales were up almost 6 percent, but the overall growth rate was dampened by a 14 percent drop in export sales.
“We’re pleased with the growth, but we’re not surprised,” said Mark Nikolich, commercial and supply vice president at North American PP leader Braskem America of Philadelphia. “We think demand growth will continue at 2-5 percent for the next several years. We believe in the competitiveness of North American feedstocks and [natural gas liquids] and we believe in the competitiveness of propylene [monomer] going forward.”
Nikolich added that he expects the North American market to benefit from more supplies of propylene coming from “on-purpose” PDH technology, which he said will make regional propylene “competitive with the rest of the world.”
PP reshoring work coming back to the U.S. also is showing “a fundamental belief in the polymer, according to Nikolich. “This market feels really retro, like it’s going back to the way it was 12 or 14 years ago,” he said. “The value and use of polypropylene is extremely high.”
During 2015, North American PP makers were able to add at least 10 cents in profit margin by not moving resin prices in tandem with propylene monomer as they had done in previous years. As a result, the region’s PP makers “are swimming in money — and it’s going to get deeper,” industry consultant Robert Bauman said. Bauman is owner of Polyolefins Consulting International in Spring, Texas.
At Resin Technology Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas, PP market analyst Scott Newell said that 2015 “definitely looks like the beginning of a new era.” North American PP demand “is having a breakout year,” he said, but that growth might be hard to repeat in 2016 because of tight PP supplies.
“All that growth is pushing operating rates above 92 percent,” Newell explained. “The asset base hasn’t proven it can go beyond that.” But he agreed that new propylene capacity — as lower oil prices allowed propylene-rich heavier feedstocks to be used — have given North American PP makers “a lot of pricing power,” allowing them to “expand margins significantly.”
PP suppliers “are not letting a good opportunity go to waste,” said Phil Karig, managing director at the Mathelin Bay Associates LLC consulting firm in St. Louis. “After years of suffering from reduced supplies of propylene monomer … falling crude oil prices finally gave PP producers the opportunity to get their costs back in line and to pick up incremental demand from some competing polyethylene applications.”
He added that “it took a long time for the PP industry to get to its current seller’s market state — and that won’t change in 2016.
“Any meaningful PP expansions are years away, so PP should continue to remain tight and supplier margins will definitely continue to expand,” Karig said. “As a result, security of supply as well as finding innovative ways to reduce costs — rather than prices — will be the key challenge for PP buyers in 2016.”
Braskem, for one, is considering building a new world-scale PP unit either in the Gulf Coast area or at its existing production site in Marcus Hook, Pa., Nikolich said. “Our business outlook is approaching reinvestment and is continuing to accelerate,” he added. “A new line fits with our strategy.”
The only new PP capacity project that’s been formally announced is a 1 billion pound capacity line from Formosa Plastics Corp. USA at a location in Texas. But Formosa officials have not confirmed a timeline for that initiative.
Bauman agreed that the industry is at reinvestment economics and added that he expects at least two other PP makers to announce major expansion projects. RTi’s Newell also anticipates that more capacity will be added. “There are a lot of conversations going on behind closed doors,” he said.
In the short term, however, North American PP supply tightness will open the door for material to be imported into the region. Braskem has acknowledged this situation, Nikolich said, and already is working to bring in material from Brazilian plants operated by its parent firm, Braskem SA of São Paulo.
“North America hasn’t grown [PP] capacity in 10 years, and assets have been rationalized, so our ability to respond to demand is challenged,” he explained. “The only way to solve it is imports from a lot of different parts of the world. Imports will solve the problem until there’s enough local capacity to displace them. It’s more cost-effective to produce locally.”
At a recent industry conference, PP market analyst Joel Morales, who is with IHS Chemical in Houston, said that by 2016 North America should be importing more PP than it’s exporting.
PP imports in 2016 are expected to be more than 600 million pounds — more than triple their rate from a decade ago. As a result, Morales said, PP buyers in the region may have to deal with payment terms, lead times and other import-related issues.
Some market watchers have suggested that excessive tightness for North American PP could create an opportunity for competing resins such as polystyrene or high density polyethylene — but Nikolich doesn’t see this happening.
“Supply tightness could hinder some growth, but we’re still going to grow,” he said. “We’ve had peak prices for propylene and PP and we’ve lost very little share to other resins. If something like that was going happen, it would have happened between 2008 and 2012.”
Among individual end markets, domestic sales of PP into injection molded housewares were up 15 percent through October, while sales of the material into sheet were up more than 8 percent and into film were up almost 5 percent.
“Automotive has been very strong, and packaging and sheet have been healthy in applications like heavy containers,” Nikolich said. “Caps and closures also have been steady.”
The market has seen “good demand” from automotive and packaging, with domestic processors picking up business from global competitors, according to David Barry, a market analyst with PetroChem Wire LLC in Houston. Barry also expects regional PP margins to remain high in 2016 and on into 2017 as well.
Newell at RTi said that industrial end markets for PP “are doing well,” as are PP consumer products, housewares and rigid packaging.
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(ACC Mentioned) Congress Poised To Finalize New Chemical Safety Law
Dec 21, 2015 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
After the U.S. Senate last week passed S. 697 to modernize the federal law that controls commercial chemicals, Congress launched negotiations to resolve differences between that bill and a similar measure approved by the House of Representatives.
The House cleared its slimmer version of the legislation (H.R. 2576) to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in June.
Lawmakers hope to have a bill ready for a vote by both chambers early in 2016. But getting S. 697 to the Senate floor on Dec. 17 was chock-full of obstacles, and a few bumps remain before it is ready for the president’s signature. The legislation has widespread support from the chemical industry and some environmental and public health organizations, but other activist groups oppose it.
The American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical manufacturers, hailed the Senate vote. S. 697 “will protect human health and the environment, build confidence in the U.S. chemical regulatory system, and address the commercial and competitive needs of the U.S. chemical industry and the national economy,” says Cal Dooley, ACC’s president and CEO.
Some scientists and scientific organizations are also welcoming the legislation, particularly a provision that aims to boost research and development in sustainable chemistry. The American Chemical Society, which publishes C&EN, “supports a sustainable vision for chemistry, and the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemicals Safety Act”—the official name of S. 697—“is an important step in that direction,” says Glenn S. Ruskin, director of the ACS Office of Public Affairs.
Lautenberg was a Democratic senator from New Jersey who championed chemical safety legislation for decades. He was a pivotal in the legislative process that led to this year’s action on TSCA reform, introducing a breakthrough bipartisan bill just weeks before death in 2013.
The newly passed Senate legislation represents several years of negotiations, and many environmental groups say it is vastly improved compared to previous versions. Nonetheless, it “still has major problems,” says Andy Igrejas, Director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, a coalition of environmental and public health groups dedicated to TSCA reform. “For example, it weakens EPA’s ability to intercept imported products, like most of the toys under your Christmas tree, when they contain a known toxic chemical.”
S. 697 would also block states from taking action on a chemical because of toxicity concerns while the federal Environmental Protection Agency is reviewing the substance, Igrejas points out. Concerns about the legislation overriding state chemical laws were raised by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), but most of those provisions were modified earlier this year.
Even so, Boxer still has a few remaining concerns and nearly prevented the bill from getting to the Senate floor for a vote last week. Other senators assured her that she would be a part of the negotiations with House lawmakers to hammer out common legislative language on TSCA reform, so she agreed to allow the chamber’s vote to proceed.
“The voices of those who have been most deeply affected, including nurses, breast cancer survivors, asbestos victims, and children, will be heard” as Senate and House lawmakers negotiate on the final bill, Boxer said.
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Absent TSCA Reform, Pacific States Advance 'Green Chemistry' Initiatives
Dec 21, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Three Pacific Northwestern states are working with EPA on advancing “green chemistry” efforts to reduce use of hazardous substances absent enactment of a pending Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) bill that could boost green chemistry programs, though the states also say that any TSCA law should fund efforts to develop safer chemicals.
Language in the just-approved Senate TSCA reform legislation would promote some green chemistry programs and would generally align with a recent memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by California, Washington and Oregon. However, the bill would not provide an adequate source of research & development (R&D) funding, one state source says.
The bill, S. 697, introduced by Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and David Vitter (R-LA), would add a new Section 23 to TSCA, called the Development and Evaluation of Test Methods and Sustainable Chemistry. The section would create a new, interagency sustainable chemistry program to "promote and coordinate Federal sustainable chemistry research, development, demonstration, technology transfer, commercialization, education, and training activities."
The bill, which next year lawmakers will try to reconcile with a House-passed measure, calls for the program to study ways in which the federal government can incentivize sustainable chemistry processes and products, expand collegiate chemistry training to include sustainable chemistry, and support "economic, legal and other appropriate social science research to identify barriers to commercialization and methods to advance commercialization of sustainable chemistry."
Additionally, the Senate bill calls for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to create an interagency working group on the subject, co-led by EPA's research chief and the director of the National Science Foundation. Other representatives to the group should come from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Agriculture, Defense and Energy departments and the National Institutes of Health.
The group would be responsible for coordinating federal sustainable chemistry activities and spending, and providing a report to Congress two years after its inception on its progress.
S. 697 adopts a large portion of another bill, known as the Sustainable Chemistry Act, or S. 1447, introduced in May by Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Susan Collins (R-ME), but does not adopt the funding provisions, the state source says. The source says that California, Washington and Oregon will push ahead with their green chemistry programs regardless of the final compromise TSCA bill's fate, though they say the bill should help fund R&D efforts if it became law.
“Our efforts complement the green chemistry elements in S. 697, but Congress should fund the basic R&D funding needed and called for in the Sustainable Chemistry research and Development Act introduced in 2015,” that source says. “S. 697 contains some of the provisions, but no resources,” the source adds.
S. 1447 bill would “provide sustained support for sustainable chemistry research, development, demonstration, technology transfer, commercialization, education, and training through” merit-based competitive grants, grants to fund collaborative research and development partnerships among universities, industry and nonprofit organizations, and grants, loans and loan guarantees to aid in the technology transfer and commercialization of sustainable chemicals.
States' MOU
In October, Washington State Department of Ecology, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and California Department of Toxic Substances Control signed an MOU aimed at facilitating tools and training, data exchanges on chemicals and products, engagement on toxics in products and packaging, green procurement and testing protocols, funding opportunities and collaboration with EPA.
The states are planning to meet in early 2016 to identify and prioritize collaborative projects, the state source says.
The MOU, which is in force for the next three years, outlines a set of objectives, including advancing the science of alternatives assessments, developing product testing protocols and chemical information, and advancing initiatives to facilitate government procurement of safer products.
Projects undertaken jointly under the MOU are expected to be subject to available funding within each agency, though each agency may contribute in-kind resources depending on the project.
EPA Region 10 Administrator Dennis McLerran during Nov. 19 remarks to a Lower Columbia River Science to Policy summit touted the MOU as a key partnership between environmental agencies, saying it would “support collaboration between the states on green chemistry and safer products initiatives, including government purchasing.”
The state source says the MOU should advance efforts to mainstream green chemistry innovation “even without TSCA reform,” given that lawmakers must now hold talks on how to reconcile the differences between S. 697 and the House-approved measure and craft a compromise bill that Congress would then vote on approving.
Toxics Regulation
One environmentalist source says the MOU showcases the need for states to continue to play an active role in toxics regulation, even in the event that TSCA reform legislation wins Congress' approval.
“And if TSCA reform is adopted, the frameworks that are being considered by this Congress will not solve all the problems,” that source says. “For example, the pace of chemical evaluation means that it will take a long time to create actual protections.”
That source is referring to an ongoing split between environmentalists and some Democrats on whether the Senate legislation is adequate, given that it contains grandfathering provisions to preserve existing states laws, but would preempt any new chemical rules and laws starting from when EPA launches a review of a chemical.
That contrasts with the House TSCA reform bill that cleared the lower chamber earlier this year, which would trigger preemption once EPA finalizes a TSCA restriction.
Critics of the Senate bill claim the preemption would begin too early in the chemical review process, leaving a regulatory gap in which there could be no state or federal restrictions for a chemical. Lawmakers in October announced new amendments are aimed at clarifying the process under which a state could seek a waiver form preemption and for states to serve as “co-enforcers” of federal regulations, which were successful in winning support from key Democratic Sens. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Richard Durbin (D-I
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Top Problems With the Two TSCA Bills
Dec 21, 2015 | Environmental Working Group
By Melanie Benesh and Scott Faber
Consumers rightly expect that the chemicals used in everyday products are safe. Under current law, however, few are ever reviewed for safety.
Now that Congress has passed two bills seeking to update the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, it’s important to recall the problems with the House and Senate bills.
-Chemicals Still Not Safe – Toxic chemicals that wind up in people’s bodies should be at least as safe as pesticides. But as a group of legal experts recently noted, neither bill includes the tough “reasonable certainty of no harm” safety standard that Congress applied to pesticides. Instead, both bills merely modify the current “unreasonable risk” standard that is so weak the Environmental Protection Agency was unable to ban asbestos.
-Limits State Regulators – The Senate bill would place new hurdles in the path of state regulators who have taken steps to restrict scores of dangerous chemicals and driven market innovation. In particular, the Senate bill would “pause” new state regulations for up to two and a half years once the EPA begins to review a high-priority chemical – unless the agency grants a waiver. The House bill could block states from regulating new chemicals, even before EPA has completed a full safety assessment.
-New Chemicals- Under current law, the EPA cannot ask for more information about a new chemical that is going to be manufactured or imported unless it can show the chemical poses an “unreasonable risk”—a determination that is difficult to make without additional information. While the Senate bill removes this catch-22, the House bill does not.
-Slow Pace of Review – Neither bill requires enough reviews to get the most dangerous chemicals out of commerce. Under both, it would take more than a century to review the thousand most dangerous chemicals.
-Inadequate Funding – Neither bill provides sufficient resources to quickly review the most dangerous chemicals. While the Senate bill requires industry to pay some fees, under the House bill reviews of the most dangerous chemicals would be at the mercy of Congressional appropriators. Both bills allow industry to pay to fast-track reviews of their favorite chemicals.
-Deadlines for Action – The House bill does not set deadlines for companies to comply with new EPA rules. The agency could take up to seven years to consider how to regulate many high priority chemicals – and potentially give companies decades to actually restrict how they are used. By contrast, the Senate bill would require compliance with new regulations within four to five years.
-Secret Chemicals – Although both bills allow limited disclosure of confidential business information to states and health professionals, the public could remain in the dark on the true nature of these chemicals for decades, as confidential designations remain in place for at least 10 years (or more, if renewed). Only the Senate bill allows EPA to require companies to resubstantiate their claims of confidentiality, including claims that predate the Act. The Senate bill also makes resubstantiation mandatory if EPA determines that a substance doesn’t meet the safety standard. The House bill, however, doesn’t give EPA the authority to review information once it’s deemed confidential.
Real reform would ensure that chemicals are safe, ensure that the most dangerous chemicals are quickly reviewed and regulated and preserve a role for state regulators.
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Congress Bans Plastic Microbeads, Bill Heads to President Obama’s Desk
Dec 21, 2015 | EcoWatch
On Friday, the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bill phasing out the manufacture of beauty products with plastic microbeads by July 1, 2017, and the sale of such products by July 1, 2018. The Microbead Free Waters Act (H.R. 1321) bans all plastic microbeads in beauty products, including those made from so-called “biodegradable plastics,” the majority of which do not biodegrade in marine environments.
“Our oceans have been choking on these tiny plastic microbeads for way too long,” Miyoko Sakashita, oceans program director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said. “This is a huge and important step toward protecting fish, birds and other ocean wildlife hurt by plastic pollution. I applaud the Senate for following California’s lead and voting to eliminate this pointless and harmful source of plastic pollution.”
The Microbead Free Waters Act, introduced by Reps. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Fred Upton (R-Mich.), will prevent 1.4 trillion plastic microbeads from entering U.S. waterways each year. Plastic microbeads—designed to be washed down the drain and too small to be reliably captured by wastewater treatment facilities—pollute lakes, rivers and oceans.
Once in the environment, plastic microbeads concentrate toxins such as pesticides and flame retardants on their surface, which may then transfer to the tissue of fish that mistake microbeads for food. A recent study found that one quarter of fish found at California fish markets had ingested plastic. One tube of exfoliating facewash can contain more than 350,000 microbeads.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved H.R. 1321 earlier this month. The bill now heads to President Obama’s desk for his approval.
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OSHA Revives Controversial Safety Rules
Dec 21, 2015 | The Hill - Regulation
By Tim Devaney
The Obama administration is moving forward with long-delayed rules intended to protect workers from exposure to harmful silica dust.
The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) confirmed Monday that it has sent the rules to the White House for final approval, a step that comes after years of delays.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget will have 90 days to review the silica rules.
Labor groups, which have vocally criticized the administration over the years for inaction on the standards, called for a speedy review.
"In the nearly 20 years since the fight began to win a new silica standard to protect workers, thousands have become disabled or died from exposure to silica dust,” said AFL-CIO spokeswoman Carolyn Bobb in a statement. "But now the finish line is finally in sight."
The silica rule is intended to protect construction and manufacturing workers from exposure to silica dust, which has been linked to serious health problems, including cancer.
The contents of the final rule have not yet been made public, but the proposed rules from August 2013 aimed to cut silica exposure in half to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air.
Labor groups say the stronger silica protections of long overdue, with the debate over the standards dating back to the 1970s
Business groups say the rules are unnecessary and could increase the regulatory costs for industry.
The move by the Labor Department to finish the standards comes as President Obama enters the last year of his tenure, with the White House eyeing the use of executive power to burnish his legacy.
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TransCanada Files Pipeline Routing Changes
Dec 22, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
TransCanada Corp. has filed an amended application and cost estimate with Canada's National Energy Board for its Energy East project to move oil from the Alberta oil sands to the country's Atlantic Coast citing concerns about environmentally sensitive areas. President and Chief Executive Officer Russ Girling said in a Dec. 17 news release that TransCanada had listened to environmental and landowner concerns in making 700 routing changes. “Canadians also want assurances this project does not come at the expense of safety and the environment, and this application shows we can do that,” he said. “We are listening and acting on what we have heard.” The Keystone XL proponent had estimated the Energy East cost at C$12 billion ($8.6 billion). It has increased that to $15.7 billion ($11.27 billion) (217 DEN A-5, 11/10/15). The company said in November that it was prepared to make changes to the proposal, when it confirmed there would be no export terminal built in Quebec due to opposition to the environmental risks. The Energy East filings are available at http://bit.ly/104z46h.
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How Obama Let Big Oil Drill in the Pristine Alaska Wilderness
Dec 21, 2015 | Politico Magazine
By Alec MacGillis
From his seat in the small plane flying over the largest remaining swath of American wilderness, Bruce Babbitt thought he could envision the legacy of one of his proudest achievements as Interior secretary in the Clinton administration.
Babbitt was returning in the summer of 2013 from four sunlit nights in Alaska’s western Arctic, where at one point his camp was nearly overrun by a herd of caribou that split around the tents at the last minute. Now, below him, Babbitt saw an oil field—one carefully built and operated to avoid permanent roads and other scars on the vast expanse of tundra and lakes.
Under the deal he’d negotiated just before leaving Interior in 2000, that would be the only kind of drilling he thought would be allowed in the 23 million acres of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska, which, despite its name, is a pristine region home to one of the world’s largest caribou herds and giant flocks of migratory birds. The compromise was fair and, he hoped, enduring—clear-eyed about the need for more domestic oil but resolute in defense of the wilderness.
The deal lasted barely 15 years.
In February, the Obama administration granted the ConocoPhillips oil company the right to drill in the reserve. The Greater Mooses Tooth project, as it is known, upended the protections that Babbitt had engineered, saving the oil company tens of millions of dollars and setting what conservationists see as a foreboding precedent.
How ConocoPhillips overcame years of resistance from courts, native Alaskans, environmental groups and several federal agencies is the story of how Washington really works. It is a story that surprised even a veteran of the political machine like Babbitt.
As environmentalists, energy companies and politicians brawled over big symbols like the Keystone XL pipeline and offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean, the more immediate battles over climate change and fossil fuels were being waged over projects like Greater Mooses Tooth—out of the public eye, away from the cable-news shoutfests and White House protests.
The fight was unfolding in the real Washington—where influence accrues across election cycles almost without regard to who’s in power. In this Washington, companies bend decisions of major import in their direction by overwhelming a bureaucracy that, after years of budget cuts, outsourcing and inattention, lacks the resources and morale to hold its own. Increasingly, industry spins the revolving door. It brings in people who learn there’s serious money to be made after leaving government jobs by sticking around the capital and making it their career.
Industries like Big Oil play Washington as a long game, exhibiting a persistence too often lacking in the people in charge of safeguarding the public good. And to win the long game, to push ahead on frontiers like Greater Mooses Tooth, you need someone who is a real player.
‘Aggressively Pursuing the Agenda’
In a city known for its status seekers, Andrew Lundquist is one of the legions of people who prefer to recede into the background. He is earnest, wary and remarkably unflappable. Even his appearance discourages notice: average build, short sandy hair and a sober, almost melancholy bearing. He is rarely quoted in the news media and declined to be interviewed for this story.
The National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska boasts populations of wild animals that are some of the largest of their kind in the world, including a 60,000-head caribou herd, tundra swans and 37,000 black brant geese. | Bureau of Land Management/Bob Wick
He grew up in Fairbanks. His father, James, was a surgeon, who came from Minnesota to work at a new clinic in town. The family’s eight kids fished in the Chena River, built rafts and camped out on the river's islands.
There’s a solidarity that comes with living in a place that’s so cold in winter your nose hairs freeze and your tires go a little flat every morning. You get to know just about everyone. For the Lundquists, who leaned Republican, that meant being friends with both a U.S. senator, Ted Stevens, who once moved into a house they had just left, and a future governor and senator, Frank Murkowski, and his family, who lived just up the river.
By the time Lundquist reached college age in the late 1970s, Alaska’s economy had transformed from a sprawling outpost for frontier strivers into an energy powerhouse, driven by vast reserves of oil discovered around Prudhoe Bay and pumped south through an 800-mile pipeline.
Lundquist got a degree in finance at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, but not before taking a couple of brief detours. He headed up north to the North Slope oil fields, where he managed a pipeline welding crew and made a foray into the home-building business with Frank Murkowski’s son. “He wanted to see the oil fields personally—that work helped deepen his understanding,” recalled a classmate, Peter Van Flein.
Once he’d learned how to make a living with his hands, though, Lundquist headed in a much different direction—to Washington. In the waning years of the Reagan administration, Lundquist took a job as a gofer in the Senate office of his family friend, Ted Stevens. “Stevens taught me really how to legislate and in a broader sense how to work in Washington, D.C.,” Lundquist would say later.
In 1995, as Republicans took control of Congress, he switched from one family friend to the other—Frank Murkowski was now a senator, too, and in line to be chairman of the Energy Committee, overseeing Alaska’s dominant industry. Lundquist, now equipped with a law degree, was soon director of the committee’s 40-person staff.
Bruce Babbitt, back left, drives a skiff with Eskimo subsistence fisherman William Itta, in 1997 at a fish camp in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Babbitt was touring the reserve to determine if it can be opened to oil development without endangering fish and game the Eskimos rely on for food.| AP Photo
On the committee, he maintained a cordial working relationship with his Democratic counterparts, holding a Monday meeting with them no matter what was on the docket. Together, the panel worked through federal land exchanges, boundary adjustments, nuclear waste disposal and other difficult issues.
But in one area, Lundquist’s transactional exchanges with Democrats took on a harder edge: Alaskan oil. Over and over, he’d demand to know what it would take for Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the panel, to open more of the North Slope to drilling. When it came to that, Bingaman recalled, Lundquist “was aggressively pursuing the agenda of his employer.”
‘We Had to Look West’
For many in the lower 48, the notion of expanded drilling in the Arctic had been tainted by images of sea otters and harlequin ducks coated in crude oil after the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Prince William Sound in 1989. But for many in Alaska, it had become a question of economic survival.
Since peaking in 1988 at just above 2 million barrels a day, production from the Prudhoe Bay fields had been declining precipitously. Without more supply, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline was at risk of clogs and corrosion—and the state’s coffers were at risk of steep deficits.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/12/alaska-oil-drilling-lobbying-obama-213442#ixzz3v2fWqHRe -
Bad News: Scientists Say We Could Be Underestimating Arctic Methane Emissions
Dec 21, 2015 | The Washington Post
By Chelsea Harvey
Arctic permafrost has become a recent star in the climate change conversation, capturing the attention of scientists, activists and policymakers alike because of its ability to emit large quantities of carbon dioxide as well as methane — a particularly potent though relatively short-lived greenhouse gas — when it thaws. As temperatures rise in the Arctic, scientists are increasingly concerned that permafrost will become a major contributor to the greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming.
Studies of permafrost emissions are important in both estimating current levels of greenhouse gas emissions and making predictions for the future. So far, most studies have focused on the way permafrost behaves in the summer, when Arctic temperatures are at their highest. But a new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says we’ve been overlooking the importance of cold-season emissions of methane gas in particular — and possibly underestimating their impact in the future.
“The cold period in general is the time of the year that is warming the fastest in these Arctic ecosystems,” said the new study’s lead author Donatella Zona, an assistant professor at San Diego State University and research fellow at the University of Sheffield.
Until recently, scientists have known very little about how much methane is released by permafrost during the cold winter months, she said. But she noted, “Really, if we’re thinking about the future of climate change, we need to understand if this time of the year is important.”
Currently, most of the models that scientists use to predict future methane emissions only factor in warm-season methane emissions, assuming that the vast majority of permafrost emissions will occur when temperatures are at their highest. These models are important because they allow scientists to make projections about how severe global warming will be in the future and help policymakers make decisions about how much — and how quickly — global carbon emissions need to be reduced.
So Zona, along with a group of nearly 20 other scientists, decided to investigate whether cold-season methane emissions were really as negligible as the models have assumed. They examined data collected from five different sites in Alaska between June 2013 and January 2015, as well as data collected from aircraft in the same region.
“Donatella and her team are to be commended for making the first year-round measurements of [methane] in the Arctic,” said Stan Wullschleger, an environmental scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in an email to The Post. “…The fact that this was done not just at one site, but multiple sites, is a breakthrough in our ability to quantify [methane] budgets for tundra ecosystems.”
The researchers found that cold-season methane emissions are not only not negligible — they’re pretty significant. While emissions varied somewhat from one site to the next, Zona said that, overall, emissions from September to May accounted for about half of all the methane emitted from those sites throughout the entire year.
This might seem a little baffling when you consider the fact that methane is generally released as Arctic soil thaws — a process that should be most pronounced during the warmest part of the year. Zona said the key to understanding where cold-season emissions come from lies in the way Arctic soil is structured and how it reacts to changes in temperature.
Arctic soil layers are structured kind of like a sandwich in the winter, Zona said. There’s a top layer (the very surface of the soil) and a bottom layer that both freeze as temperatures drop. In between them, there’s a layer of soil — found just below the surface — that can remain unfrozen for months, even as the temperature drops. This period of time is known as the “zero curtain” period, because temperatures in the unfrozen middle layer tend to hover right around zero degrees Celsius. The researchers believe that the majority of methane emissions produced during the winter occur during this zero curtain period, while the middle soil layer is still unfrozen.
The researchers also discovered another characteristic of cold-season methane emissions that isn’t well reflected in current models. According to the authors, most models assume that wetter tundra sites produce more methane than drier sites — but they found that dry sites actually seemed to be producing the most methane.
These are all important points when it comes to predicting how much methane the Arctic will release in the future.
Estimates of current Arctic methane emissions are more or less accurate, Zona said. But she believes the models are likely to underestimate how much methane will be produced in the future, if they don’t take cold-season emissions into account. This is because the zero curtain period will likely exist for longer and longer amounts of time if winter temperatures continue to rise in the Arctic. Future increases in snowfall could also help extend the zero curtain period, since snow tends to insulate the soil and keep it warm.
“The problem with modeling is that there’s not much data available from sites,” said Martin Heimann, director of the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, noting that different areas in the Arctic emit methane at different rates. Expanding the database with more on-the-ground measurements, such as those collected in this study, will be crucial to coming up with the most accurate understanding of the processes going on in the Arctic and the way they will affect Earth’s future climate.
In the meantime, the study identifies some key aspects of Arctic methane emissions that, until now, have been largely overlooked — and suggests that a major updating of climate models may be overdue. The paper encapsulates “fascinating research that is neither captured in previous measurements or in our models,” Wullschleger said. “We still have a lot to learn.”
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Local Leaders Want BLM To Protect Thompson Divide From Drilling
Dec 21, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Scott Streater
A bipartisan delegation of local Colorado government leaders say they support a Bureau of Land Management draft plan that could cancel a number of hotly contested oil and natural gas leases inside the state's pristine Thompson Divide.
The local leaders in and around White River National Forest submitted a letter Friday to BLM Colorado Director Ruth Welch stating they support the agency's "proposed action" unveiled last month canceling 18 of the 25 leases held by two Houston-based companies inside the Thompson Divide. It would also "cancel portions of seven others leases" the two companies hold, according to the draft document.
An additional 40 leases that were analyzed as part of the draft environmental impact statement but are outside the 221,000-acre Thompson Divide section of White River National Forest would be allowed to proceed with some additional mitigation measures, according to the draft document.
The local officials, including Garfield County Commission Chairman John Martin (R) and Pitkin County Commissioner Steve Child (D), write that the proposed action "aims to balance the need for future development of public minerals in the Piceance Basin with the need to conserve certain public lands in the Thompson Divide area."
They added, "We support this balanced approach and urge BLM to move forward without delay."
BLM officials caution the proposed action is not necessarily what the agency will finalize, and the agency wants to hear public feedback before choosing a "preferred alternative." The draft EIS is open for public comment through Jan. 8.
Glenwood Springs Mayor Mike Gamba and Carbondale Mayor Stacey Bernot also signed the letter.
But the signatures of Martin, who chairs the all-Republican Garfield County Commission, and Child, who chairs the all-Democratic Pitkin County Commission, are seen as significant. Pitkin County, home to resort meccas like Aspen, has lobbied BLM not to allow drilling in the pristine region; Garfield County, the largest producer of natural gas in the state, has mostly supported honoring the existing leasing rights of the two companies -- SG Interests and Ursa Resources Group LLC -- that were awarded the 25 leases in 2003.
But Garfield County commissioners have supported a proposal by SG Interests and Ursa Resources Group to swap the 25 leases in the Thompson Divide for leases on other lands managed by the Forest Service and BLM where mineral resources are high but natural resource values, in theory, are lower.
The government leaders' letter says they remain "hopeful" for a legislative solution to the Thompson Divide leasing issue, such as the land swap.
"In lieu of congressional action, however, please know that we see BLM's ongoing EIS process as an important path toward resolving the longstanding issues presented by improperly issued leases in the Thompson Divide," they conclude.
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Wyoming Releases Draft Groundwater Fracking Report
Dec 21, 2015 | InsideEPA
Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has released its draft report outlining findings from its investigation of alleged groundwater contamination that an EPA study initially linked to hydraulic fracturing activities near Pavillion, WY, with DEQ saying it is “unlikely” that the contamination is due to fracking wells.
“Evidence does not indicate that hydraulic fracturing fluids have risen to shallow depths intersected by water supply wells,” says the draft report released last week. “Also, based on an evaluation of hydraulic fracturing history, and methods used in the Pavillion Gas Field, it is unlikely that fracturing has caused any impacts to the water-supply wells.”
But the draft findings indicate that some gas wells have experienced “slow gas seepage” that could have possibly caused changes in water quality, but that the “relative contribution of potential gas seepage along gas wells versus natural upward migration of gas is undefined and would be very difficult to quantify.”
DEQ is taking public comment on the draft report through March 18, 2016. The state-led study follows EPA's December, 2011 draft report documenting its investigation of the alleged groundwater contamination near Pavillion, which represented the agency's first public acknowledgment that reported pollution of an aquifer was "likely" due to fracking operations.
Encana, the company whose drilling operations are closest to the aquifer, and other oil and gas trade groups and Republican lawmakers widely criticized the study, citing a host of concerns including that EPA's sampling methodology could have contributed to the contamination.
The agency in June 2014 announced it would drop its own study and instead support the state's ongoing investigation.
In the draft DEQ report, the state researchers indicate that some inorganic compounds were identified over drinking water limits, including naturally occurring salts, metals and radionuclides, and that industrial activities including oil and gas drilling may use some of the same compounds. For example drilling muds may contain chloride and potassium.
But the draft study says that all of the organic constituents were found at concentrations lower than drinking water standards, and that they “may have originated from a multitude of possible sources, including spills, oil and gas activities, and other residential and industrial uses.”
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Lawsuits Key After Obama Vetoes Power Plant Resolutions
Dec 22, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency is opposed to expedited judicial review of its Clean Power Plan as bids to block the agency's carbon dioxide rules return to the courts following President Barack Obama's veto of congressional resolutions meant to scuttle the rules.
Dec. 22 is the deadline to file challenges to the EPA's Clean Power Plan as well as to the carbon dioxide new source performance standards for new and modified power plants, and the agency told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that it opposes a motion from industry and state petitioners seeking to accelerate judicial review (West Virginia v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1363, response filed 12/21/15).
“There is no sound reason for the court to entertain such a motion at this stage of the case, and the procedure suggested by petitioners would be counterproductive, unworkable, and prejudicial to respondents,” the EPA said in a Dec. 21 response.
Opponents of the Clean Power Plan have asked the D.C. Circuit to address the core legal questions about the EPA's fundamental legal authority to even issue the rule, setting aside challenges to implementing the rule for future litigation. The petitioners have asked the court to set an expedited briefing schedule that could see the case argued by May 2016 (237 DEN A-2, 12/10/15).
The EPA argued that expedited review of the Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33), which sets carbon dioxide emissions limits for the power sector in each state that would then be implemented by state regulators, is premature because the D.C. Circuit has not yet addressed motions seeking to have the rule stayed. The Clean Power Plan faces a barrage of legal challenges brought by 27 states and several utility and industry groups.
Divided Review Would Slow Resolution
“Moreover, the inefficient divided briefing format proposed by petitioners would seriously impede the orderly consideration of this case,” the EPA said. “It could substantially delay ultimate resolution (and thus the certainty petitioners claim they are seeking) by requiring two potentially duplicative rounds of briefing and multiple oral arguments in proceedings involving challenges to the same agency rule. It would introduce confusion about which of the overlapping issues are actually before the court during each round of briefing.”
The EPA is also facing challenges to its new source performance standards (RIN 2060-AQ91), which effectively require the partial use of carbon capture and storage technologies to meet emissions limits. Opponents of the rule say they plan to argue the carbon capture systems required have not been adequately demonstrated as required by the Clean Air Act (North Dakota v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1381, statement of issues filed 11/27/15).
Though fewer challenges have been filed to the new source standards than for the Clean Power Plan, attorneys said additional lawsuits are expected before the Dec. 22 deadline.
Additionally, Dec. 22 is the deadline for administrative petitions to the EPA seeking reconsideration of the rules.
“I expect you'll see the bulk of those rolling in today and tomorrow,” Thomas Lorenzen, a partner at Crowell & Moring LLP representing the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 21.
Obama Vetoes Resolutions
The legal challenges to the rule will be the key avenue of attack after Obama on Dec. 18 vetoed two congressional resolutions that would have overturned the Clean Power Plan and the new power plant standards.
“Because it would overturn carbon pollution standards that are critical to protecting against climate change and ensuring the health and well-being of our nation, I cannot support the resolution,” Obama said in a Dec. 18 memorandum of disapproval issued with the veto.
The two resolutions (S.J. Res 23; S.J. Res. 24) passed the House Dec. 1 by large majorities but well short of the two-thirds margin they would need to override Obama's veto (231 DEN A-2, 12/2/15).
While Congress is expected to hold several oversight hearings on the rule, it is unlikely to block the Clean Power Plan legislatively after the Congressional Review Act resolutions failed, attorneys said.
“It's still possible there could be an effort to push back deadlines, give people more time. But that depends on what happens in the next year” with the lawsuits, Jeffrey Holmstead, a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP representing the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity in the litigation, told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 21.
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EPA Urges Court Not To Split Carbon Rule Challenges
Dec 21, 2015 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillén
The Obama administration today urged a federal court not to split the different types of challenges against EPA’s Clean Power Plan, arguing that doing so is unnecessary and gratuitous at this time.
A number of groups and states opposed to EPA's rule asked the court earlier this month to split off the fundamental legal challenges and put those issues on a fast track that aims to hold oral arguments in May. More granular programmatic challenges could be litigated at a later date if the court sides with EPA.
But EPA says splitting up the challenges would prove “inefficient, impractical, and unwarranted.”
Among other arguments, EPA says that splitting up and fast-tracking the challenges would hurt its ability to defend the rule. The challengers have to give EPA an "unreasonably short" 33 days to respond to their arguments, the agency said. EPA also complains that several intervenors on the challengers side are barred by circuit rules from raising new arguments in their briefs, and they must stick to issues already raised by the groups challenging the rule.
EPA also notes that the court has not yet acted on nine pending stay requests, which could affect how the case moves forward. It also points out that the lawsuit filing period will only end on Tuesday, meaning that not all challenges are necessarily filed yet.
Final briefs on the stay requests are due Wednesday; the court will likely hold oral arguments on the matter as early as January.
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So It's Come To This -- a Clean Power Plan Haiku
Dec 21, 2015 | E&E News PM
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
In Minneapolis last Thursday, the Center for Energy and Environment offered cocktails and haiku readings by Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Assistant Commissioner David Thornton as primer to a discussion about the role of early-action credits and efficiency programs in meeting the requirements of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.
Minnesota regulators have said the state should be able to meet its obligations under either a mass- or rate-based regulatory approach, thanks to a diversified generation portfolio and strong state energy efficiency and conservation targets. MPCA is still collecting stakeholder input and refining comments to be submitted to EPA in late January. "We think that it's a fair plan," Thornton said.
Each Monday, Power Plays previews upcoming moves on the way to Clean Power Plan compliance and recaps the week's developments.
E&E reporter Daniel Cusick attended the event. Other participants in the CEE session included national experts Rodney Sobin of the National Association of State Energy Officials; Sara Hayes of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy; and Chris James and Ken Colburn, principals of the Regulatory Assistance Project.
The experts wrapped up a series of meetings with Minnesota regulators, utility officials and other stakeholders Friday. Sobin noted that Minnesota "is pretty well-situated" to regulate power-sector carbon dioxide because its agencies have a history of working with utilities to track emissions and other environmental metrics, Cusick reports.
Here are Thornton's haikus, with writing credit to Anna Henderson of the Minnesota Environmental Quality Board: "Mass or rate-based plan/Want to change and stay the same/Ask the stakeholders." "Fear for the future/Sunk capital investments/Act now or later."
The Michigan Agency for Energy and the state's Department of Environmental Quality will announce Clean Power Plan modeling results tomorrow. The data will show "what Michigan needs to do and by when" to comply with the rule, according to a press release. E&E's Jeffrey Tomich will report on the modeling.
Dec. 31 is the deadline for stakeholders to submit comments to West Virginia's Department of Environmental Protection for a CPP feasibility study it will develop for the state Legislature. That study is due April 20.
The next state meetings aimed at guiding the development of compliance options kick off the first week of January.
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality on Jan. 5 will take comments on the proposed federal implementation plan and review a menu of potential compliance options. The DEQ will also develop a work plan on outreach to "vulnerable communities."
In Georgia on Jan. 7, the Environmental Protection Division will hold a meeting on EPA's program to provide incentives for early adoption of selected renewable energy measures and for energy efficiency measures for the low-income population. One panel will explore wind and solar projects while a second will look at low-income efficiency programs.
For those state agencies that have developed websites devoted to their Clean Power Plan process, we've started adding links to our state profile pages. Look for them in the left-hand column under "State Resources." See a state agency page missing? Please email us at powerplanhub@eenews.net.
In case you missed it: The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission will hold a special hearing in February to vote on its response to EPA's Clean Power Plan, a response that is widely expected to expand the governor's legal challenge to the Obama administration's climate initiative (EnergyWire, Dec. 18). Arkansas hasn't settled on a potential path for complying with the Clean Power Plan, but the state is seeing interest in a mass-based approach both in its jurisdiction and elsewhere in the midcontinent (EnergyWire, Dec. 17). The cost impact of the Clean Power Plan in the Midcontinent Independent System Operator's 15-state footprint ranges from a few billion dollars to more than $100 billion over the next two decades, according to an initial analysis by the grid operator (EnergyWire, Dec. 17). Virginia's second meeting on the Clean Power Plan ended without consensus last week on some of the most basic compliance decisions the state must make (ClimateWire, Dec. 16). The Wyoming Legislature will hold off on considering bills that would affect the state's Clean Power Plan compliance strategy when it convenes in February, clearing the way for the state to submit an initial plan to EPA in September (ClimateWire, Dec. 16). Florida's largest electric utility wants the Sunshine State to comply with the Clean Power Plan by requiring power plants to reach an average rate of emissions (EnergyWire, Dec. 16).
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Obama Vetoes Resolutions Designed To Kill ESPS, NSPS
Dec 21, 2015 | InsideEPA
President Obama has followed through on his threat to veto two resolutions designed to disallow EPA rules on reducing new and existing power plants' greenhouse gas emissions.
"The carbon pollution standards will ensure that, when we make major investments in power generation infrastructure, we also deploy available technologies to make that infrastructure as low-emitting as possible," the president wrote in a Dec. 19 statement on his "pocket" veto of the existing sources rule resolution.
"By blocking these standards from taking effect, S.J. Res. 23 would delay our transition to cleaner electricity generating technologies by enabling continued build-out of outdated, high-polluting infrastructure. Because it would overturn carbon pollution standards that are critical to protecting against climate change and ensuring the health and well-being of our Nation, I cannot support the resolution."
Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy, wasn't pleased. "The business community applauds the House and the Senate for taking action to protect affordable and abundant domestic energy resources that provide economic development and security," she said in a statement.
"It is clear that President Obama is intent on ramming through costly regulations on power plants that have been opposed by a majority in Congress and a majority of states. The president’s veto of legislation that would have halted his EPA’s regulatory overreach ignores reality in favor of politics, and leaves the legal system as the best remaining course for those of us who are seeking to protect consumers and businesses, at least during the remainder of this administration. . . . We look forward to our day in court," she concluded.
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GOP Chairman Intensifies Fight With White House Environmental Panel
Dec 21, 2015 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said Monday that he still hasn’t received information he requested last month from a White House environmental advisory panel.
Inhofe, the chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has questioned whether the White House's Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) is allowed to continue operating since the Senate has not recently confirmed a full-time head for the panel. He made his case to the White House last month, and asked for officials’ replies and documentation related to their actions.
In a letter to Inhofe last week, CEQ Managing Director Christy Goldfuss said the department is complying with administration leadership regulations as laid out in federal environmental laws.
“CEQ has continued to develop and provide guidance, based on longstanding CEQ regulations, to assist agencies in approaching their responsibilities under [the law],” she wrote. “CEQ also has continued to provide guidance to agencies consistent with presidential directives.”
Then-CEQ Chairwoman Nancy Sutley resigned her position in February 2014, and agency Chief of Staff Michael Boots took over as acting chairman.
Boots resigned in March, when Goldfuss took over as managing director. Inhofe contends federal law only allows an acting CEQ director to serve for 210 days — a threshold that has passed for Goldfuss — but the administration said it’s following the laws.
Inhofe questioned that interpretation in a letter sent last week. He said he thinks “actions purportedly taken on behalf of CEQ after this 210-day period expires will have no legal effect" due to the lack of Senate input.
In November, Inhofe requested information on the CEQ’s work on greenhouse gas emissions, internal operations manuals and its role in the lead-up to the Paris climate conference. He repeated his request in his follow-up letter to Goldfuss.
“The Obama administration’s attempt to have CEQ managed and overseen on an indefinite basis by a lower-level official who has not been subject to the advice and consent of the Senate is contrary to CEQ’s legal authorities ... and falls far short of the president’s constitutional duty to ensure the laws of the United States are faithfully executed,” he wrote.
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Industries Warn Of Costs From Proposed EPA Air Testing Method Changes
Dec 21, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
Groups representing a host of industries are warning that EPA's proposed changes to numerous testing regulations, methods and performance specifications for air pollution will be too expensive to implement, and are asking the agency to instead retain some existing requirements such as those for detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Industry groups are in particular concerned about EPA's mandating of a VOC detection method, Method 25A, which some groups say is "flawed," and subject to significant measurement uncertainty, in place of existing methods such as those using Fourier Transform Infrared Technology (FTIR) technology to detect VOCs.
EPA in its Sept. 8 rulemaking proposed that Method 25A replace existing tests for certain mostly natural gas-powered spark-ignition (SI) engines covered by the agency's Clean Air Act "subpart JJJJ" air toxics regulation.
A coalition of the Western Energy Alliance, Independent Petroleum Association of America and the American Exploration and Production Council in their Dec. 9 joint comments on the proposal say, "This EPA proposal will result in no longer allowing stack testing companies to use [FTIR] for VOC determination when performing emissions testing of [Clean Air Act subpart] JJJJ internal combustion (IC) engines commonly used in the oil and gas production industry, including for providing artificial well lift and compression."
They add, "At this point, many of the stack testing companies that oil and gas production operators contract to perform JJJJ testing use FTIR to test for VOCs. The ability to test multiple engines per day will likely be removed because the Method 25A test run will take more time to setup and run. It will raise costs for our stack testing contractors significantly, which will in turn raise costs for oil and gas producers."
The American Petroleum Institute (API) in its Dec. 9 comments echoes this point, saying, "Adequate justification for this major change in Subpart JJJJ performance test method alternatives has not been presented and additional costs have not been assessed. Deleting VOC tests methods from Subpart JJJJ will result in significant costs for some service providers and operators that have invested in FTIR instrumentation."
The Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA) in Dec. 3 comments also faults the proposed testing changes for VOCs. "EMA objects to EPA's proposal to limit the allowed test method for measuring total VOC emissions from stationary SI engines solely to Method 25A, and to delete Methods 18 and 320 and ASTM D 6348-03 as allowed methods. The alternative methods that the Agency seeks to disallow provide important and necessary VOC-testing flexibilities, and so should be retained," the comments say. In Dec. 9 comments, the Interstate National Gas Association of America, which represents the interstate gas pipeline industry, also says that "since Subpart JJJJ was adopted in 2008, many operators and their service providers have conducted numerous Subpart JJJJ VOC tests using methods that EPA proposes to delete from the rule. The companies will incur significant costs if that proposed revision is retained in the final rule."
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