Preview Newsletter
ACC AM Dec 30
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(ACC Mentioned) Microbeads To Be Phased Out In US Starting In 2017
Dec 29, 2015 | Plastics News
By Gayle S. Putrich
President Barack Obama’s signature has made the phase-in of federal ban on plastic microbeads official starting in 2017. The new law bans the U.S. manufacture of personal-care products such soaps, body washes, toothpaste and similar products from containing microbeads, which are usually made of polyethylene... -
(ACC Mentioned) Ban On Microbeads Signed By President Obama
Dec 29, 2015 | Press Telegraph
By Emely Stone
Legislation prohibiting the sale of personal care products containing plastic microbeads has been signed into law by President Barack Obama. Directly on the heels of Obama's signing of the bill, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) signaled its support of the new... -
(ACC Mentioned) U.S. to Ban Microbeads Starting in 2017
Dec 29, 2015 | Canadian Plastics
President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill that phases out the production and sale of plastic microbeads in the U.S. The new “Microbead-Free Waters Act” – which was approved earlier this month by the House of Representatives – will come into effect on July 1, 2017, and bans the U.S. manufacture of such personal care... -
EPA Health Benefits Project Sees Renewed Interest From Political Leaders
Dec 30, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
A recent memo of support from top EPA officials is rejuvenating a project between EPA scientists and economists to harmonize cancer and non-cancer risk analysis methods and assign monetary values to non-cancer risk estimates for use in benefit-cost analysis to better support EPA regulatory proposals, agency sources say. -
Markey Urges Revamp of EPA's Used Oil Recycling Policy
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has urged the Environmental Protection Agency to update its policies on disposing of used oil products to better protect human health and the environment. Current policies, developed more than two decades ago, allow for “counterproductive disposal practices,” such as the... -
Court Refuses Review of Spill Response Decision
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
An appeals court has rejected further action on an effort by environmental groups to overturn federal approval of an oil spill response plan (Alaska Wilderness League v. Jewell, 9th Cir., No. 13-35866, 12/29/15). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused rehearing and refused en banc hearing Dec. 29 on a decision of a three-judge... -
Massive Methane Leak Displaces Thousands in Southern California
Dec 29, 2015 | CNBC
By Matthew DeLuca
Utility officials in Southern California say they have determined the underground location of a pipe leak that has spewed natural gas into the air since late October — but it could be months before they are able to fix the rupture that has driven up the state's methane emissions and chased thousands of families from their homes. -
PHMSA to Rescind Wetlines Proposal
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The nation's hazardous materials transportation regulator will publish Dec. 30 its withdrawal of its wetlines proposed rule, as Congress mandated under its recent multiyear highway law. The rule, which was proposed in 2011, would have limited the transportation of flammable liquids in wetlines, or unprotected external product piping, to cargo trucks... -
EPA Seeks Information from Sempra in Gas-Leak Probe
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Wingfield
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is asking Sempra Energy for information as it investigates a natural-gas leak that has seeped for more than two months from a Los Angeles-area storage facility operated by a unit of the company. The EPA has also been in contact with other federal and state agencies including the U.S. Pipeline... -
A Billowing Wake-Up Call From L.A. On Greenhouse Gas
Dec 30, 2015 | The Sacramento Bee
California is viewed as a national model in regulating greenhouse gas pollution, the one state that is actually moving the needle on climate change. That’s true to a point. But there are some gaping vulnerabilities in enforcement, and the massive natural gas leak in suburban Los Angeles underscores how far we have to go on oversight. -
Comment Extended on Unusual Air Event Proposal
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Interested parties now have until Feb. 3 to comment on a proposed overhaul of the Environmental Protection Agency's exceptional events rules, which allow for the exclusion of data influenced by uncontrollable air pollution events for the purposes of determining regulatory compliance. -
DOE Proposes Electronic Filing of Efficiency Certificates
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rossella Brevetti
Importers of products or equipment subject to an applicable energy conservation standard would have to provide the Department of Energy with an electronic certification of admissibility before the product may be imported into the U.S. under a proposal published Dec. 29. -
Texas, Industry Groups File Suits Over Ozone NAAQS
Dec 29, 2015 | InsideEPA
Texas and groups representing several major industries are joining environmentalists, other states and coal sector interests in suing EPA over the agency’s tougher national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for ozone, which the agency in an Oct. 1 rule tightened to 70 parts per billion (ppb) from the 2008 limit of 75 ppb. -
Posh New York City Hotels Pledge to Go Green
Dec 29, 2015 | Reuters
By Sebastien Malo
Some of New York's most iconic hotels, comprising more than 11,000 guest rooms, promised to cut their carbon footprints on Tuesday and join a city effort to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. The famed Waldorf Astoria, The Peninsula New York and The Pierre are among 16 well-known, high-end hotels that ... -
South Carolina Utility's Suit Tests Boundaries Of CWA Section 208 Plans
Dec 29, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Amanda Palleschi
A privately owned water utility in South Carolina is asking a federal judge to declare invalid an EPA-approved plan to reduce water pollution, seeking in a rare test of Clean Water Act (CWA) section 208 areawide plans to end a dispute with a neighboring municipality over whether the municipality must treat the utility's wastewater. -
House Bill Seeks To Prompt Food Recovery, Lower Waste
Dec 29, 2015 | InsideEPA
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) is pushing legislation that aims to cut the amount of food wasted in the United States each year, a measure that in part would trigger the establishment of guidelines by EPA on food waste recycling when the waste passes through anaerobic digesters.
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(ACC Mentioned) Microbeads To Be Phased Out In US Starting In 2017
Dec 29, 2015 | Plastics News
By Gayle S. Putrich
President Barack Obama’s signature has made the phase-in of federal ban on plastic microbeads official starting in 2017.
The new law bans the U.S. manufacture of personal-care products such soaps, body washes, toothpaste and similar products from containing microbeads, which are usually made of polyethylene, as of July 1, 2017, and the sale of products containing microbeads, imported or domestic, as of July 1, 2019.
It also defines “microbead” as “any solid plastic particle that is less than 5 millimeters in size.”
Though nine states have already passed their own microbead bans, the federal law preempts them and is stricter than the existing state and county laws, with an earlier effective date. It also leaves no loophole for biodegradable plastics.
The tiny plastic particles have only become popular as gentle, allergen-free exfoliators in the last decade or so — though it turns out the PE pieces are small enough to slip through municipal water treatment facilities. The rush to get microbeads out of personal care products began in 2013, when a study by California-based environmental group 5 Gyres reported finding 600,000 microbeads per square kilometer (0.39 square mile) in Lake Erie water samples.
Soon after, personal care product makers began pledging to remove them, with Unilever, along with Body Shop, removing them from products as of Jan. 1, 2015. Johnson & Johnson has said the company will be free of microbeads by the end of 2015 and grocery store chain Wegman’s will have products containing them off the shelves nationwide by the end of February. Procter & Gamble expects its PE phaseout to take until 2017. However, none of the pledges are legally binding.
The plastics industry supported the bipartisan bill, penned by Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), as it made its way through Congress to the president’s desk.
“ACC and its members applaud President Obama and the U.S. Congress for taking this important step to ensure there is one sensible, national standard to phase out solid-plastic microbeads from rinse-off personal care products across America,” said the American Chemistry Council in a Dec. 28 statement. “This new law reflects national product stewardship efforts by the personal care industry to phase out the use of solid plastic microbeads used in personal care exfoliating products.
“ACC and our global partners have launched more than 185 projects under our Declaration of the Global Plastics Associations for Solutions on Marine Litter since 2011. Support for microbead legislation is one such project.”
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(ACC Mentioned) Ban On Microbeads Signed By President Obama
Dec 29, 2015 | Press Telegraph
By Emely Stone
Legislation prohibiting the sale of personal care products containing plastic microbeads has been signed into law by President Barack Obama.
Directly on the heels of Obama's signing of the bill, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) signaled its support of the new Act. Kirsten Gillibrand, was approved by the House of Representatives on December 7. "These tiny pieces of plastic have the potential to cause serious ecological damage, hurt our fishing and tourism industries and they have already polluted our drinking water supply".
Some of your favorite skin care products, cosmetics, toothpastes and liquid soaps may be affected by a new federal law banning synthetic plastic microbeads from personal care products.
Some New York state retailers and municipalities are not waiting for the federal law to take effect in 2017: Wegmans announced last week that it will stop carrying products containing microbeads at all 88 of its stores early next year. But the particles are so small that they get washed down the drain and end up in waterways. The beads are rinsed off and are not filtered out by wastewater treatment plants, leading to them ending up in lakes and rivers.
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(ACC Mentioned) U.S. to Ban Microbeads Starting in 2017
Dec 29, 2015 | Canadian Plastics
President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill that phases out the production and sale of plastic microbeads in the U.S.
The new “Microbead-Free Waters Act” – which was approved earlier this month by the House of Representatives – will come into effect on July 1, 2017, and bans the U.S. manufacture of such personal care products as soap, toothpaste, and other similar items from containing microbeads; it also bans the sale of products containing microbeads, imported or domestic, effective July 1, 2019.
The new law also defines a “microbead” as any solid plastic particle that is less than 5 millimeters in size.
The little pieces of plastic – generally made of polyethylene – are often used as abrasive exfoliants in toothpastes and facial cleansers, and can end up in waterways after they rinse down the drain and flow through the filtration systems at wastewater treatment plants.
At least nine U.S. states and numerous local jurisdictions already have bans on microbeads in personal care products.
Directly on the heels of Obama’s signing of the bill, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) signaled its support of the new Act. “ACC and its members applaud President Obama and the U.S. Congress for taking this important step to ensure there is one sensible, national standard to phase out solid-plastic microbeads from rinse-off personal care products across America,” the association said in a December 28 statement. “This new law reflects national product stewardship efforts by the personal care industry to phase out the use of solid plastic microbeads used in personal care exfoliating products. ACC and our global partners have launched more than 185 projects under our Declaration of the Global Plastics Associations for Solutions on Marine Litter since 2011. Support for microbead legislation is one such project.”
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EPA Health Benefits Project Sees Renewed Interest From Political Leaders
Dec 30, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
A recent memo of support from top EPA officials is rejuvenating a project between EPA scientists and economists to harmonize cancer and non-cancer risk analysis methods and assign monetary values to non-cancer risk estimates for use in benefit-cost analysis to better support EPA regulatory proposals, agency sources say.
Executive Order 12866 and certain statutes require the use of benefit-cost analysis to evaluate environmental policies, but "[f]or most contaminants, there are few tools with which to evaluate the non-cancer human health benefits of exposure reductions," explains a poster on the research project presented Dec. 7 at the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA) annual meeting in Arlington, VA.
The project "brings together economists, epidemiologists, statisticians and toxicologists from across [EPA] for the purpose of quantifying health risks and their associated economic valuations," the poster says.
Risk estimates for health effects other than cancer have long been headaches for agency economists and policy makers because the limited information they provide does not lend itself to cost-benefit analysis.
EPA staff began working a few years ago on ways to tackle the problem partly in response to recommendations in the 2009 report from the National Academy of Sciences, "Science and Decisions: Advancing Risk Assessment." The report suggested numerous improvements to EPA risk assessment practice including unifying how assessments of cancer and non-cancer risks are conducted.
But the project sputtered early in 2015 after Weishueh Chiu, one of the effort's leads, left the agency for academia, an agency source told Inside EPA last spring.
Now the group of scientists and economists has been revived, multiple agency sources say, following an October memo from Joel Beauvais, then the associate administrator for the Office of Policy, and Thomas Burke, the agency's science advisor and nominee to be head of its research office. Burke, before assuming his roles as science advisor and deputy assistant administrator for EPA's research office, had been an associate dean of public health at Johns Hopkins University. He was also the chairman of the NAS committee that wrote the "Science and Decisions" report.
An EPA spokeswoman said the memo "discusses how benefit-cost analysis is important for informing and supporting EPA policy decisions. The memo invites EPA programs to work collaboratively to improve our ability to quantify and value health benefits." She declined to provide the document, describing it as "an internal memo among senior leadership at EPA."
The research project will help "figure out what we need to do to get there," a second agency source says, adding there is "no reason why we can't" monetize the benefits of non-cancer health effects.
Risk Estimates
At the 2013 SRA meeting in Baltimore, Chiu explained the need for the project, saying that risk analyses result in non-cancer risk estimates like reference doses (RfDs), acceptable daily intakes, or hazard quotients, "there's really no way to monetize the benefits of either going down to RfD or above or below the RfD, what the benefits of those different types of decisions might be."
An RfD is the amount of a chemical or environmental contaminant EPA anticipates can be consumed daily over a lifetime without resulting in adverse effects. It is a single point estimate, often viewed as a level of exposure not to be exceeded by decision makers. Similar risk estimates, called reference concentrations (RfCs), are calculated to protect against inhaled exposures.
By contrast, EPA's cancer risk assessments result in potency estimates that can be set at various risk levels, often 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 1 million excess cases of cancer. These numbers can be monetized, in part because it is possible to weigh the costs of a standard set at 1 in 10,000 excess cases of cancer with a standard set to protect against 1 in 1 million excess cancer cases.
Additionally, there is economic research into the costs of cancer treatment and individuals' willingness to pay to avoid developing cancer, research that is not available for many other effects seen in toxicology studies that are often the basis for non-cancer assessments.
Harmonizing cancer and non-cancer dose-response methodology and risk assessment approaches are among the methods described in the research team's poster presentation.
Over the next two years, the poster indicates that the team's anticipated products include "assess EPA's needs for benefits analysis"; "evaluate [Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS)] database for dose-response functions" and conduct "case studies of dose-response methods."
IRIS Assessments
The influential IRIS program, where Chiu worked and some current members of the research team work, maintains a database of several hundred chemicals its staff have assessed. IRIS assessments are detailed human health risk analyses often used as the basis for agency rulemakings. They contain dose-response information and quantitative risk estimates for cancer and non-cancer endpoints such as cancer potency estimates, RfDs and RfCs.
The team will "go back to the IRIS database and detail which non-cancer endpoints come up the most frequently; then the economists can seek prices to those," the second agency source explains, adding that environmental economists are used to valuations between people that have cancer or don't, or have asthma or don't. "But what do we do about [an effect such as] decreased pulmonary function?"
The poster describes key goals for the program as "develop standardized weight-of-evidence conclusions for all non-cancer health hazards to communicate clearly and provide improved support for benefits analysis; explore how to include effects with a 'suggestive' or 'possible' weight-of-evidence conclusion in economic benefits analysis, and how to incorporate weigh-of-evidence uncertainty into the benefits analysis; estimate risk at a given dose by applying dose-response modeling techniques and incorporating uncertainty and variability, which will directly support economic analysis and provide additional information for decision makers; establish linkages of upstream and early biomarkers of effects to health outcomes that are amenable to economic valuation."
The team will be "talking to directors about what they need," the source says, such as "What chemicals are they concerned about for rulemakings? How can we help?" Chemicals prioritized from such discussions may be selected for the case studies the team will develop to show proof of concept, the source adds. Anticipated products in fiscal years 2018-19 include analytic methods to characterize dose-specific risks" and "analytic methods to characterize uncertainty," according to the poster.
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Markey Urges Revamp of EPA's Used Oil Recycling Policy
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has urged the Environmental Protection Agency to update its policies on disposing of used oil products to better protect human health and the environment.
Current policies, developed more than two decades ago, allow for “counterproductive disposal practices,” such as the unrestricted burning of used oil products in small space heaters, Markey wrote in a July 13 letter obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
“I urge the EPA to update the decades-old policies on used oil practices to reflect current knowledge of human and environmental health risks from the emissions of heavy metals and greenhouse gases caused by unrestricted burning of used oil in space heaters,” Markey wrote to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy.
The agency does not appear to have responded to Markey's letter to date.
According to EPA guidance, used oil is “any oil refined from crude oil or any synthetic oil that has been used and as a result of such use is contaminated by physical or chemical impurities.”
Congress passed the Used Oil Recycling Act (Pub. L. No. 96-463) to “further encourage the use of recycled oil,” stating “it is in the national interest to recycle used oil in a manner which does not constitute a threat to public health and the environment and which conserves energy and materials.”
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Court Refuses Review of Spill Response Decision
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
An appeals court has rejected further action on an effort by environmental groups to overturn federal approval of an oil spill response plan (Alaska Wilderness League v. Jewell, 9th Cir., No. 13-35866, 12/29/15). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused rehearing and refused en banc hearing Dec. 29 on a decision of a three-judge panel that upheld the approval granted by the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement to a spill response plan. The plan was for drilling in Arctic waters by subsidiaries of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Left intact is a ruling that the Clean Water Act does not require Endangered Species Act consultations or National Environmental Policy Act analyses for oil spill response plans (114 DEN A-2, 6/15/15). The refusals include a lengthy dissent and are available at http://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/Alaska_Wilderness_League_et_al_v_Sally_Jewell_et_al_Docket_No_133/1.
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Massive Methane Leak Displaces Thousands in Southern California
Dec 29, 2015 | CNBC
By Matthew DeLuca
Utility officials in Southern California say they have determined the underground location of a pipe leak that has spewed natural gas into the air since late October — but it could be months before they are able to fix the rupture that has driven up the state's methane emissions and chased thousands of families from their homes.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has called the leak an "environmental disaster," and the Los Angeles Unified School District shuttered two area schools for the rest of the year.
Politicians and environmentalists in California are particularly sensitive to the toll the leak may take on the environment, especially after Gov. Jerry Brown doubled down earlier this year on the state's efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
The massive underground leak at a storage facility north of Los Angeles was reported by the Southern California Gas Co. on Oct. 23, and since then has emitted more than 72,000 metric tons of methane, according to the Environmental Defense Fund, which released an aerial video in conjunction with the nonprofit Earthworks that used an infrared camera to make the gas visible.
"Methane is in a category of greenhouse gases known as short-lived climate pollutants," California's Air Resources Board says on its website. "These types of gases remain in the atmosphere for a much shorter period of time than longer-lived climate pollutants, such as carbon dioxide (CO2); but when measured in terms of how they heat the atmosphere, their impacts can be tens, hundreds, or even thousands of times greater than that of carbon dioxide."
The ARB said in a November estimate that the leak may have added as much as a quarter to California's methane emissions between Oct. 23 and Nov. 20. As of 2013, methane emissions made up 9 percent of California's overall greenhouse gas output.
"SoCal Gas recognizes the impact this incident is having on the environment," company chief executive Dennis Arriola said in a letter to the governor earlier this month. "I want to assure the public that we intend to mitigate environmental impacts from the actual natural gas released from the leak and will work with state officials to develop a framework that will help us achieve this goal."
Thousands of residents of the nearby Porter Ranch community have been voluntarily relocated after many complained of nausea and other illnesses, and the company is paying to move those who say they have been made sick by the gas.
Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer asked for a temporary restraining order on Dec. 22 that would force the company to speed relocation of affected residents and allow him to take depositions from SoCal Gas employees about the leak. How cleaner cow burps can save the planet
The company has said it is doing everything it can to plug the well that extends more than 8,000 feet underground, and help people who have reported illnesses. State and local agencies have been monitoring the air quality for weeks around the leak site in Aliso Canyon and in surrounding areas. While the levels of methane measured in the surrounding air aren't currently considered a serious health risk, according to the LA County Department of Public Health, substances called mercaptans that give the otherwise-odorless methane a pungent, "rotten egg" smell can cause irritation, dizziness and some breathing issues.
As of Monday, the company had placed 2,258 families in temporary housing, a spokeswoman told the Associated Press.
"For those experiencing health symptoms due to the odorant, we are continuing to offer home solutions that will help to reduce the smell indoors," Arriola, the SoCal Gas CEO, wrote to Brown on Dec. 23. "Our highest and most urgent priority is to stop the leak. We have hundreds of our employees, expert consultants and suppliers working around the clock to resolve this issue."
After attempting other methods to stop the leak, the company has begun drilling relief wells that would allow it to seal off the gas by pumping cement underground. SoCal Gas has said that the work to plug the well may not be complete until late March. On Sunday, the company said that it has drilled about 3,800 feet toward the target well, and that it is beginning work to drill a second, backup relief well.
"We are working as quickly and safely as possibly to complete this operation," Arriola wrote in his letter.
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PHMSA to Rescind Wetlines Proposal
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The nation's hazardous materials transportation regulator will publish Dec. 30 its withdrawal of its wetlines proposed rule, as Congress mandated under its recent multiyear highway law. The rule, which was proposed in 2011, would have limited the transportation of flammable liquids in wetlines, or unprotected external product piping, to cargo trucks that have bottom protection devices. It was strongly opposed by the trucking industry and others in part because of how costly it was. Congress mandated in its December FAST Act (Pub. L. 114-94) that the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration rescind this proposed rule (RIN 2137-AE53). In its announcement and notice earlier this month, PHMSA said the agency would likely carry out further safety efforts through nonregulatory initiatives (247 DEN A-12, 12/28/15). The notice is available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2015-32681.pdf.
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EPA Seeks Information from Sempra in Gas-Leak Probe
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Wingfield
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is asking Sempra Energy for information as it investigates a natural-gas leak that has seeped for more than two months from a Los Angeles-area storage facility operated by a unit of the company.
The EPA has also been in contact with other federal and state agencies including the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and the California Public Utilities Commission, EPA Southwest Region officials said in a Dec. 24 letter to Rep, Brad Sherman (D-Calif.).
“We stand ready to help in any way if our assistance is requested pending the results of our investigation,” EPA said in the letter, which was obtained by Bloomberg Dec. 29.
California regulators are taking the lead in monitoring the leak, which was first detected in late October at the Aliso Canyon facility operated by Sempra unit Southern California Gas Co. A well more than 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) deep at the facility leaked about 800,000 metric tons of gases during the incident's first month. San Diego-based Sempra has said the leak may take until February or March to plug, Bloomberg BNA reported Dec. 28.
The EPA on Dec. 18 issued an information request to Southern California Gas Chief Executive Officer Dennis Arriola seeking by Dec. 31 a description of the storage facility, procedures for detecting leaks and steps taken to mitigate the seepage. California regulators have also sought information from the company about the incident.
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A Billowing Wake-Up Call From L.A. On Greenhouse Gas
Dec 30, 2015 | The Sacramento Bee
California is viewed as a national model in regulating greenhouse gas pollution, the one state that is actually moving the needle on climate change.
That’s true to a point. But there are some gaping vulnerabilities in enforcement, and the massive natural gas leak in suburban Los Angeles underscores how far we have to go on oversight.
Southern California Gas Co. officials said last weekend that they finally – finally – are close to locating the source of the methane cloud that has been billowing since October over an underground natural gas reservoir near the affluent community of Porter Ranch in the San Fernando Valley.
The reserves, stored naturally inside a repurposed oil field, heat homes in the winter and fuel electrical plants in the summer. The leak appears to be in a narrow pipe used to inject surplus gas thousands of feet deep into rock formations that once served as oil wells.
Because pinpointing the leak and pinching it off is complex and risky, the gas company won’t be able to stop the spewing until the spring. Meanwhile, though it isn’t despoiling beaches or killing wildlife, the disaster is being decried as the worst environmentally since the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Infrared images of the catastrophe show its smelly but invisible plume rising like an industrial smokestack. Thousands of families living downwind of its rotten egg smell have had to be relocated. The methane is nontoxic but heat absorbent; the Environmental Defense Fund estimates the leakage will have the same 20-year climate impact as driving 7 million cars a day.
And the fact that a leak of this magnitude happened at all raises all sorts of regulatory questions, starting with why natural gas was even being stored near a planned community of 31,000 people. Nearby homeowners want the site closed, which makes sense in the long term.
But until wind and solar power are sufficiently ramped up, shutting down one of the largest natural gas storage areas in the nation is hardly a pragmatic proposition.
The battle against climate change isn’t only about global conferences in Paris. It’s about mundane acts at the local level, such as stopping giant methane leaks.
And state and local regulatory bodies should have seen this coming. In testimony before the California Public Utilities Commission last year, the gas company’s own storage director raised concerns that the site’s infrastructure was aging. The report warned of problems to come “without a robust program to inspect underground storage wells,” some of which date to the 1940s.
Moreover, environmental advocates have warned for years that methane must be watched because it traps far more heat than carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Yet state records show it has been more than a year since the pipe with the suspected leak was tested. The leak was found by a gas company employee, not state inspectors. And the California Air Resources Board only recently has begun to home in on methane and other short-lived climate pollutants in addition to carbon dioxide.
Clearly, more robust oversight is needed. The Porter Ranch leak alone has upped California’s greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent per month.
At the very least, state lawmakers should mandate remote sensing and imaging technology on oil and gas operations to more efficiently detect leakage, and state and regional regulators should inspect wells more often.
The situation in L.A. isn’t the only one to reveal room for improvement. The Volkswagen diesel scandal showed what a difference the Air Resources Board can make when it heightens standards for routine testing. A recent disclosure that the Port of Los Angeles was lagging on an action plan to cut air pollution also underscored the importance of tougher South Coast Air Quality Management District enforcement.
The battle against climate change isn’t some lofty thing that happens at global conferences. It’s about countless mundane acts at the local level: getting people out of gas guzzlers, cleaning port pollution, stopping giant methane leaks before they happen.
If we don’t start sweating that far-from-trivial small stuff, California’s model reputation might as well be just talk.
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Comment Extended on Unusual Air Event Proposal
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Interested parties now have until Feb. 3 to comment on a proposed overhaul of the Environmental Protection Agency's exceptional events rules, which allow for the exclusion of data influenced by uncontrollable air pollution events for the purposes of determining regulatory compliance. The EPA, in a notice scheduled for publication Dec. 30, announced it was extending the comment period by two weeks after receiving several requests for an extension. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and the National Association of Clean Air Agencies both raised concern that the initial 60-day comment period would not provide enough time to digest and develop comments on the lengthy proposed rule. The proposal (RIN 2060-AS02), signed Nov. 12, would make a number of changes to the exceptional events policy to address state concerns, including the removal of the criterion that states must show a regulatory violation wouldn't have occurred “but for” the event in order to qualify for an exception (219 DEN A-4, 11/13/15). More states are expected to turn to the exceptional events rule to ensure that pollution from wildfires and other uncontrollable sources aren't considered in the designations process under the 2015 ozone standards of 70 parts per billion. Comments can be filed at http://src.bna.com/bK3.
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DOE Proposes Electronic Filing of Efficiency Certificates
Dec 30, 2015 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rossella Brevetti
Importers of products or equipment subject to an applicable energy conservation standard would have to provide the Department of Energy with an electronic certification of admissibility before the product may be imported into the U.S. under a proposal published Dec. 29.
The DOE's proposed rule would require certification to be submitted via the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), which is an electronic import/export trade processing system (80 Fed. Reg. 81,199; RIN 1990-AA44).
The proposal would apply to products or equipment subject to energy conservation standards under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which contains a prohibition on importing covered products and equipment that don't conform to applicable energy conservation standards. Currently, persons importing affected products must submit annual certifications to the Energy Department that the goods they plan to import comply with all applicable energy conservation standards.
Covered consumer products include battery chargers, central air conditioners and heat pumps, clothes dryers and washers, kitchen ranges and ovens, and pool heaters. Affected industrial products include automatic commercial ice makers and compressors.
“Because this proposed rule entails only an electronic reporting requirement through ACE, DOE does not anticipate any significant incremental investment in product or capital conversion costs to comply,” the notice said.
Currently, importers of affected products must submit a certification report to the Energy Department, providing specific information for each basic model, including the product or equipment type, brand name and basic model number, as well as specific energy use information. Importers currently must submit certifications on product-specific templates to the Energy Department's Compliance and Certification Management System (CCMS), which assigns each submission a unique attachment identification number.
Comments Due Feb. 12
If an importer has already submitted its required certification report, the importer would be required to provide a certification of admissibility with only the information necessary to tie the shipment back to its most recent CCMS submission. Importers currently are required to submit certifications of compliance annually through CCMS.
The information to be submitted in a certification of admissibility prior to each importation would need to be obtained and keyed in only once a year for the first shipment of the covered product or equipment following the annual CCMS filing.
The certification requirement would apply to all covered products and equipment contained in a shipment, either as a final product or a component of a final product. For example, an importer would have to submit an electronic record for all covered electric motors whether or not the motor will be imported as a stand-alone product or as a component of another product, such as a treadmill. An importer of a laptop computer bundled with an external power supply would have to submit a certification of admissibility for the external power supply, according to the notice.
According to the notice, the Energy Department assumes that importers will have complied with their obligation to certify through CCMS, all basic models of products or equipment subject to energy conservation standards, so that the importer only would need to identify in its certification of admissibility the most recent CCMS ticket number, attachment number and line number for the basic model of the covered product or equipment contained in the shipment. Such information would allow the Energy Department to identify shipments containing covered products or equipment that have been found to be noncompliant prior to arrival at a U.S. port of entry and take appropriate action, including providing notice to Customs. If any covered product or equipment contained in the shipment has not been certified to the Energy Department through CCMS, the importer would have to include in its certification of admissibility: (1) the type of product or equipment; (2) the brand name; (3) the individual model number; (4) the original equipment manufacturer; and (5) a contact name and e-mail address for the importer of record.
Comments on the notice of proposed rulemaking are due Feb. 12, 2016. Comments may be filed via regulations.gov citing Docket No. EERE-2015-BT-CE-0019.
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Texas, Industry Groups File Suits Over Ozone NAAQS
Dec 29, 2015 | InsideEPA
Texas and groups representing several major industries are joining environmentalists, other states and coal sector interests in suing EPA over the agency’s tougher national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) for ozone, which the agency in an Oct. 1 rule tightened to 70 parts per billion (ppb) from the 2008 limit of 75 ppb.
Coal mining company Murray Energy, eight other states and environmental and public health groups have already sued over the rule. Industry groups argue that EPA lacks any scientific basis to tighten the 2008 limit, while advocates counter that the 70 ppb is weaker than the Clean Air Act requires.
In a Dec. 23 filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a coalition of groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute, Utility Air Regulatory Group, National Association of Manufacturers and others asks the court to review the NAAQS rule.
The filing does not raise issues to be argued in the case, but these groups in earlier comments have contested the need for a tougher standard, doubted the ability of areas with high “background” ozone levels to achieve the limit, and warned of huge costs to the economy. Background ozone arises from natural or foreign sources and cannot be controlled by local air regulators.
Texas also filed suit Dec. 23, with the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in a statement Dec. 28 saying, “EPA’s new ozone rule is not supported by scientific data,” adding, “Areas of the country that fail to comply with these impossible standards will be subject to costly new regulations that will harm our economy and kill jobs. Texas has proven that we can reduce ambient ozone concentrations without stifling growth, and my office will continue to defend our state from the EPA’s harmful and overreaching regulations.”
Paxton said that eight other states -- Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Utah and Wisconsin -- have now filed suit over the ozone NAAQS. Five of those states, Arizona, Arkansas, New Mexico, North Dakota and Oklahoma, filed suit together Oct. 27.
In a Nov. 30 statement of issues to be raised in the litigation, Arizona and allied states prominently raised the question of background ozone. Echoing a statement of issues from Murray Energy, these states question whether the 70 ppb standard is attainable in areas that experience high background ozone levels.
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Posh New York City Hotels Pledge to Go Green
Dec 29, 2015 | Reuters
By Sebastien Malo
Some of New York's most iconic hotels, comprising more than 11,000 guest rooms, promised to cut their carbon footprints on Tuesday and join a city effort to improve the energy efficiency of buildings.
The famed Waldorf Astoria, The Peninsula New York and The Pierre are among 16 well-known, high-end hotels that committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 30 percent in the next ten years, according to the Office of Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Officials said they hope the move by the ritzy hotels, whose reputations are global, will inspire others to follow suit.
"If some of New York's most iconic hotels can significantly reduce their carbon footprint, anyone can," said de Blasio in a statement.
The efforts to go green could include retrofitting buildings with updated, efficient equipment for heating and cooling, replacing boilers, improving lighting and adding insulation.
Meeting the pledge at the glitzy Waldorf Astoria means updating a building that is 84 years old. It has hosted Marilyn Monroe, Fidel Castro and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev as well as U.S. presidents who stay in a special suite designed to evoke the White House.
Cutting emissions follows the hotel's motto of "the difficult immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer," the Waldorf Astoria management said in a statement.
"We pride ourselves in the ability to embrace a challenge," said Michael Hoffmann, the hotel's managing director, in the statement.
The 16 hotels, totaling more than 11,000 rooms, should cut greenhouse gas emissions by 32,000 metric tons to live up to their pledge, according to city projections.
The hotels' pledge is part of a wider municipal initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.
Buildings make up nearly three-quarters of citywide emissions, authorities said.
At current rates, the pledges citywide to curb greenhouse gas emissions could yield results that compare to removing more than 100,000 cars, according to authorities.
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South Carolina Utility's Suit Tests Boundaries Of CWA Section 208 Plans
Dec 29, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Amanda Palleschi
A privately owned water utility in South Carolina is asking a federal judge to declare invalid an EPA-approved plan to reduce water pollution, seeking in a rare test of Clean Water Act (CWA) section 208 areawide plans to end a dispute with a neighboring municipality over whether the municipality must treat the utility's wastewater.
In Carolina Water Service (CWS) v. Regina McCarthy, et al., the water company is challenging both EPA's approval of the section 208 plan, developed by the Central Midlands Council of Governments (CMCOG) and certified by the state, and the town of Lexington's refusal to allow CWS to connect one of its wastewater treatment plants to a municipally owned treatment facility. The suit was filed Dec. 11 in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina's Columbia division.
Under section 208 of the CWA, states identify areas with water quality control problems and designate a single representative, including elected officials from local governments, to develop a plan to reduce pollution.
The plan at issue in the case states that small wastewater treatment facilities should be connected to a regional wastewater system and designates that wastewater from one of CWS' plants, the I-20 System, be pumped to the city of Cayce's regional treatment facility, in order to reduce wastewater discharges into the Lower Saluda River.
CWS says in its brief that it "has proactively sought to address the discharge elimination requirement on five separate occasions and through varying means. Each of those attempts have been rejected and interconnection remains unavailable to CWS."
This means, CWS argues, that EPA has accepted the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC)'s annual certification of the state 208 plan "as compliant with the CWA even when it is not."
The regional treatment facility is operated under an agreement between the cities of Lexington and Cayce, under which Cayce financed the cost of construction through the issuance of tax-exempt bonds that expressly limit the amount of wastewater that is allowed to be treated by the facility that is derived from private business use, according to the brief. Under the definition of "private business use" contained in the agreement, wastewater from the I-20 system is considered private business use, the brief says.
Additionally, Lexington's investment in the regional facility was financed through tax-exempt bonds that contain additional covenants prohibiting the town's use of any part of its purchased allocated capacity in the facility to treat wastewater generated by a private wastewater utility, the brief says.
EPA, CWS says, is complicit in Lexington's lack of compliance with the plan because it continues to accept state certifications for the 208 plan despite CWS' inability to comply with the terms of the plan.
EPA's approval of DHEC's certifications "constitute a failure to comply with the agency's and administrator's obligations under the CWA and have directly resulted in CWS incurring significant costs and expenses and have rendered uncertain CWS' own statutory and regulatory obligations as a public utility to its customers," the brief says. CWS notes that it is facing a CWA citizen suit from the environmental group Congaree Riverkeeper, which alleges CWS is in violation of its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NDPES) permit due to its failure to connect the I-20 System with the town's facilities, and that DHEC has issued a notice of intent to deny CWS' application for renewal of its NPDES permit.
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House Bill Seeks To Prompt Food Recovery, Lower Waste
Dec 29, 2015 | InsideEPA
Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) is pushing legislation that aims to cut the amount of food wasted in the United States each year, a measure that in part would trigger the establishment of guidelines by EPA on food waste recycling when the waste passes through anaerobic digesters.
The bill, H.R. 4184, was introduced by Pingree Dec. 7 and calls for actions largely outside of EPA's jurisdiction, but would task the agency with developing guidelines for anaerobic digesters obtained by farms or small businesses through new loan or grant mechanisms, with EPA ensuring the disposal of material resulting from the digesters does not create an environmental hazard.
Anaerobic digestion involves the use of microorganisms to break down biodegradable material, which results in "biogas" that can be combusted for an energy use, according to the American Biogas Council.
Farms or small businesses that receive the loans or grants would have to have a written end-product recycling plan that complies with EPA's guidelines, the bill says.
EPA has begun tackling food recovery as part of an effort to lower greenhouse gas emissions from landfills. For instance, Administrator Gina McCarthy and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in September announced a first-ever food waste reduction goal for the country of 50 percent by the year 2030.
The bill "takes a comprehensive approach to reducing the amount of food that ends up in landfills and at the same time reducing the number of Americans who have a hard time putting food on the table," Pingree said in a Dec. 7 press release on the bill's introduction. The bill currently has six co-sponsors, all Democrats.
Emily Broad Lieb, director of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic, calls the legislation "groundbreaking," saying it would provide assistance to farmers and retailers, support food recovery organizations and aid consumers "by clarifying the senseless date labels that appear on foods."
Specifically, the legislation would lower food waste being sent to landfills by encouraging composting as a conservation measure eligible for support under the Agriculture Department's (USDA) conservation programs, and back food waste-to-energy projects, such as anaerobic digesters, at farms and at municipal and county levels, while ensuring edible food is not diverted from human consumption in order to fuel energy production, according to a summary of the bill.
The bill would also trigger the creation of an infrastructure fund to support the construction of large composting and food waste-to-energy facilities in states that bar food waste from being sent to landfills, the summary says.
The bill would address wasted food at the consumer level by clarifying the "sell-by" dates manufacturers place on food packages are merely manufacturers' quality suggestions, and sponsor a national campaign to raise awareness on the impacts of food waste and strategies to lower it in households, according to the summary.
To address the issue in relation to farms, grocery stores and restaurants, the bill would extend and expand tax deductions for farms, retailers and restaurants that donate high-quality food to hunger-serving organizations, strengthen liability protection to businesses donating food, invest in storage and distribution programs for food banks and study barriers to donations of surplus food, the summary says.
The legislation also includes measures to lower wasted food in schools and the federal government. And it would direct USDA to create new technologies to increase food shelf life, the summary says.
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