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The U.S. Just Banned Microbeads, Those Tiny Plastic Environmental Disasters in Your Face Wash
Dec 31, 2015 | Newsweek
By Zoë Schlanger
After plenty of damning scientific research and years of reminders from environmentalists that microbeads are a terrible, no-good, disastrous idea, President Barack Obama signed a bill into law this week banning them for good. Microbeads are the tiny plastic spheres used as exfoliants in face wash, toothpaste... -
Enviromentalists Applaud New Law Banning Microbeads
Dec 31, 2015 | CBS News
Environmental activists are applauding a new law signed by President Obama this week outlawing microbeads that are used in personal care products. The bill is known as the Microbead-Free Waters Act, and it passed Congress with bipartisan support, reports CBS News correspondent DeMarco Morgan. -
States, Industry Claim EPA Oil & Gas 'Aggregation' Policy Options Unlawful
Dec 31, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Several states and oil and gas industry groups claim that both of EPA's proposed options for how to "aggregate", or combine, energy sector emissions for Clean Air Act permitting purposes are unlawful, and some groups are urging the agency to withdraw and overhaul the proposal rather than finalizing either of the two proposed options. -
What Lurks Beneath The Great Lakes? An Oil Pipeline That Couldn't Get Built Today
Dec 31, 2015 | The Chicago Tribune
By Steve Friess
Until a few years ago, Chris Shepler saw only beauty when he gazed out his office windows at the picturesque pier and the famed, majestic Mackinac Bridge looming in the distance. The Shepler name has adorned ferry boats crisscrossing those waters since 1945, and he was born perhaps 30 miles from this quay, so he figured he knew just... -
Five Unforgettable Moments In Environmental News This Year
Dec 31, 2015 | BNA Energy & Environment Blog
By Anthony Adragna
As the world prepares to collectively turn the calendar to 2016, it’s worth remembering some of the biggest moments in environmental news from this year. Here are five the world won’t soon forget: 1. Nearly 200 Nations Reach Global Agreement on Climate Change: It seemed all but impossible just a few short years ... -
Clean Power Plan Means Opportunities for Power Plants
Jan 1, 2016 | Power Magazine
By Kerry Shea and Rachel Block
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the final version of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) on Oct. 23, 2015, and within hours more than two dozen challenges were filed, asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to invalidate the rule. While the clock ticks on the window for challenges, and during...
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The U.S. Just Banned Microbeads, Those Tiny Plastic Environmental Disasters in Your Face Wash
Dec 31, 2015 | Newsweek
By Zoë Schlanger
After plenty of damning scientific research and years of reminders from environmentalists that microbeads are a terrible, no-good, disastrous idea, President Barack Obama signed a bill into law this week banning them for good.
Microbeads are the tiny plastic spheres used as exfoliants in face wash, toothpaste, deodorant and just about any other beauty products on the shelves. For a while in the early aughts, you could be forgiven for thinking that the presence of “exfoliating beads” in your face wash made it a better product. Everyone likes to exfoliate. But manufacturing plastic at such a tiny scale and then disseminating them by the tens of thousands into nearly every American home turned out to be a really, really bad idea. Our wastewater treatment plants are not designed to handle the microbeads, which means they mostly wind up back in the environment. They also don’t biodegrade, so they stay in the ground and waterways virtually forever. A large volume of microbeads are winding up in all the wrong places.
In a paper published earlier this year, researchers at the University of California Davis and Oregon State University found that roughly 8 trillion microbeads are currently finding their way into streams and oceans in the U.S. every single day. That’s enough tiny plastic balls to cover more than 300 tennis courts. And that’s only 1 percent of the total microbeads discharged each day.
The other 99 percent wind up in sludge from sewage plants, because the designers of sewage plants did not anticipate the need to sift out minuscule bits of plastic from the rest of the waste the plants handle. It gets worse: Sewage sludge is often used as fertilizer on farms. That means plastic microbeads are being sprayed all over rows of crops, where, again, they do not biodegrade. The microbeads then run off the land with rainwater, winding up in—you guessed it—streams and oceans. Then they end up in aquatic animals’ stomachs, where they may be toxic.
“We've demonstrated in previous studies that microplastic of the same type, size and shape as many microbeads can transfer contaminants to animals and cause toxic effects,” Chelsea Rochman, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California Davis and the lead author on the analysis, said in a statement.
The new bill, called the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, requires manufacturers to eliminate microbeads from their products by 2017.
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Enviromentalists Applaud New Law Banning Microbeads
Dec 31, 2015 | CBS News
Environmental activists are applauding a new law signed by President Obama this week outlawing microbeads that are used in personal care products. The bill is known as the Microbead-Free Waters Act, and it passed Congress with bipartisan support, reports CBS News correspondent DeMarco Morgan.
Microbeads are tiny pieces of plastic found in many health and beauty products including soap, body scrub and toothpaste. They are generally used to exfoliate or add polish. No bigger than a grain of salt, these microplastics are a big concern for environmental scientists. They say the tiny particles are a harmful source of ocean and lake pollution.
"We now know the fish we harvest from our Great Lakes are eating these microbeads. Ends up on your dinner plate. It's going from your face, right back into your body," said scientist Marcus Eriksen of the 5 Gyres Institute.
Eriksen and his team study plastic pollution in waters around the world. He's found microbeads in the San Francisco Bay and in high concentrations in the Great Lakes. Not all water treatment plants are able to filter them out.
"They're absorbing industrial chemicals, pesticides from farms," Eriksen said. "Even oil drops from cars will stick to these microplastics and microbeads. At that point they can enter the food chain."
A single cosmetic product can contain up to 300,000 non-biodegradable microbeads. In September, California banned sales of products containing microbeads. Assembly member Richard Bloom authored the legislation and is thrilled Congress is following California's lead.
"It's very significant because you're going to have 50 states doing the same thing, I have no doubt that it's going to spread now to other countries and the longer we have these pollutants in the environment the harder it is to take action to effectively clean up after them," Bloom said.
The law passed surprisingly quickly, but it's not immediate. The new federal law prohibits the manufacture of products containing microbeads as of July 1, 2017.
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States, Industry Claim EPA Oil & Gas 'Aggregation' Policy Options Unlawful
Dec 31, 2015 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Several states and oil and gas industry groups claim that both of EPA's proposed options for how to "aggregate", or combine, energy sector emissions for Clean Air Act permitting purposes are unlawful, and some groups are urging the agency to withdraw and overhaul the proposal rather than finalizing either of the two proposed options.
Environmentalists, however, are offering support for the "functional interrelatedness" test in the agency's proposal, under which emissions would be aggregated if they are separated by a quarter mile or more and if they share exclusive operational dependence. Whether emissions from oil and gas operations are combined is an important issue for industry, because aggregating releases from disparate sources could push their total emissions over the threshold for requiring a stricter "major" source air permit.
EPA also floated an alternative option -- which the agency says is its preferred option -- that would determine aggregation based solely on "physical proximity" that would in Clean Air Act permits combine emissions from "adjacent" sources, which are defined in terms of proximity as sources separated by a distance of one quarter mile or less. This would likely lead to less aggregation and allow some operations to win less-strict "minor" permits, observers have said.
But industry groups and several states say neither approach in the Aug. 18 proposed source determination rule is lawful. "This proposed rule exceeds the EPA's statutory authority under the Clean Air Act and does not comport with relevant case law," the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality says in its comments on the proposal.
The state says the proposal would block many of Wyoming's oil and gas facilities from utilizing DEQ's "minor" source permitting program, overburden the state's permitting program and conflicts with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's 1980 decision in Alabama Power. v. Costle. The court in Alabama Power defined parameters for how to determine major sources, and DEQ says EPA's rule exceeds those limits.
In its Dec. 4 comments, the American Petroleum Institute (API) also faults the proposal for being at odds with the Alabama Power ruling, saying the fundamental interrelatedness test "is contrary to law and should not be adopted." API echoes EPA in saying that its preferred option is the physical proximity test.
But the National Environmental Development Association's Clean Air Project (NEDA/CAP) says in Dec. 4 comments that its "position is that the rulemaking should be withdrawn" entirely. The group argues that both of EPA's proposed approaches to aggregation exceed EPA's authority under the air law.
Pending Regulations
EPA's proposed rule is one of several oil and gas sector regulations that the agency took comment on through Dec. 4. Other draft policies include revised new source performance standards to set first-time limits on oil and gas sector methane emissions, and guidelines to cut methane from existing drilling operations.
The aggregation policy, with its two options for determining how to combine emissions for permitting purposes, is the result of lengthy litigation over agency headquarters and regional office policies on aggregation. The 6th Circuit in a ruling issued in 2012 in Summit Petroleum v. EPA rejected the agency's approach at the time of using the "functional interrelatedness" test because it was based on a policy memo and not codified in a rule.
EPA then issued a memo that sought to narrow the scope of the Summit ruling to only the states within the 6th Circuit, but NEDA/CAP sued over that memo. In a 2014 ruling, the D.C. Circuit vacated the memo, saying it was at odds with EPA's regional consistency policy as it would have led to differing permit requirements among all 50 states. EPA has since proposed to revise the consistency policy to allow such differing approaches.
Separate from the proposal to update the consistency policy, EPA is hopeful that one of its two draft options for determining oil and gas sector aggregation will help to resolve uncertainty on that issue.
In a fact sheet issued alongside the proposal, EPA said the first option, "which the agency prefers," would determine aggregation based on proximity. "Under this definition, equipment or activities would be considered adjacent if they are located on the same site or are on sites that are within a short distance (1/4 mile) of each other. EPA believes this straightforward definition will clarify permitting, compliance and enforcement for state, local and tribal air agencies, source operators and other interested parties," according to the fact sheet.
The second option would define adjacency by assessing either proximity or function, EPA says. "This definition would consider equipment or activities adjacent if they are near each other or if they are related by function -- such as being connected by a pipeline, for example," the agency explains.
Lawyers with K&L Gates in a Sept. 18 analysis said the second option would codify EPA's policy prior to the Summit ruling "of aggregating emissions based on the somewhat amorphous notion of 'functional interrelatedness'."
K&L Gates says this "would not only be more burdensome for the regulated community, but it is also arguably inconsistent with the controlling language of the Clean Air Act," as interpreted by the D.C. Circuit's Alabama Power ruling, "because it would cause facilities to be treated together as a single source even though they do not fit within the ordinary meaning of a single 'building, structure, facility, or installation.'"
In contrast, the first option -- basing aggregation solely on physical proximity -- "would bring much needed clarity and consistency to an area of the law that has for too long been subject to the whims of changing EPA administrations and permit writers," write attorneys Anthony Holtzman, Tad Macfarlan and Brigid Landy.
API echoes the reference to the Alabama Power decision in its comments on the proposal, saying the ruling means "EPA is not writing on a clean slate" as the court already set the parameters for defining major sources.
The ruling addressed EPA's 1978 Clean Air Act prevention of significant deterioration air permitting rules, finding that EPA cannot treat contiguous and commonly owned units as a single source for a permit unless they fit within four permissible statutory terms: "building, structure, facility, or installation" and which EPA defined as akin to a "commonsense" notion of a plant.
API's Concerns
API says the functional interrelatedness approach is unlawful under Alabama Power because it would "require remote and disparate operations to be aggregated into a single sprawling 'stationary source'" that would violate the holding that stationary sources must fit within one of the four statutory terms.
NEDA/CAP faults both options, saying that the agency's preferred physical proximity test is also inconsistent with Alabama Power. The group says, "Even if a measure of proximity was consistent with the Clean Air Act, NEDA/CAP submits that the proposed bright line test of a quarter mile fails to meet a common sense definition of a plant, and that EPA should instead adopt a shorter bright line distance and only use it to exclude from the single source definition emitting units outside that distance."
Similarly, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) says in comments filed Dec. 8 that EPA should withdraw the rulemaking and retain the existing definition and interpretation of adjacency.
"This approach would be consistent with the plain meaning of the term and common sense notion of a plant reaching back to the Alabama Power opinion and take into account the physical, operational, and regulatory realities of oil and gas operations across the country," according to TCEQ.
Environmentalists however are supporting EPA's "functional interrelatedness" test, saying the agency should drop the quarter mile bright line approach and instead adopt the second option for determining adjacency. Aggregating based on both physical proximity and functional interrelatedness is "consistent with how EPA has defined oil and gas sources for years" and how EPA considers sources in other industry sectors, Earthjustice says in Dec. 4 comments.
FIP Proposal
Industry groups are also faulting EPA's proposed federal implementation plan (FIP) for managing air emissions from new minor sources in oil and gas production for tribal lands, which the agency also took comment on through Dec. 4. Industry says it falls short of streamlined permitting objectives outlined in state programs.
For example, API says the proposal lacks any streamlined mechanism to obtain voluntary restrictions to limit potential to emit and obtain synthetic minor status for Clean Air Act Title V, major new source review, or hazardous air pollutants. The group in its Nov. 4 comments also says the proposal lacks a transition policy for regions in tribal lands to streamline permitting when transitioning from EPA ambient air standard attainment to nonattainment status.
A coalition of environmental groups, including Earthjustice, Clean Air Task Force, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Environmental Defense Fund and others, in Nov. 4 comments calls for EPA to expand the FIP proposal to also address existing sources. "EPA should at least regulate existing sources within Indian Country located within the boundary of a state that already regulates existing sources, in order to create a level playing field and ensure that environmental harms are not concentrated within Indian Country or in areas impacted by emission sources within Indian country," the comments say.
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What Lurks Beneath The Great Lakes? An Oil Pipeline That Couldn't Get Built Today
Dec 31, 2015 | The Chicago Tribune
By Steve Friess
Until a few years ago, Chris Shepler saw only beauty when he gazed out his office windows at the picturesque pier and the famed, majestic Mackinac Bridge looming in the distance. The Shepler name has adorned ferry boats crisscrossing those waters since 1945, and he was born perhaps 30 miles from this quay, so he figured he knew just about everything important there was to know about the Straits of Mackinac.
Now, though, it's hard to look without imagining what, until 2011, he didn't know what lurked below: Two 62-year-old oil pipelines running parallel to the bridge for 4.5 miles across the Straits of Mackinac, the aquatic, turbulent seam where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet. Each day, some 540,000 barrels of light crude oil and natural gas liquids roar through en route from the shale oil wells of Alberta to refineries in Detroit and Sarnia, Ontario.
The pipes, known as Line 5, are 20 inches in diameter, with one-inch-thick walls. On that line, they have never had a spill, a rupture or, to hear its Calgary, Alberta-based owner Enbridge tell it, even a repair. It also wasn't a secret: The state of Michigan granted the underwater easement in 1953, and a few old-timers here even remember helping build and install it.
Nonetheless, Line 5's existence was all but forgotten until another Enbridge pipe, Line 6B, burst open in July 2010 and over 18 hours spewed as much as 1.1 million gallons of heavy crude oil into the Kalamazoo River near the central Michigan town of Marshall. In the wake of that -- the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history -- and with the fight raging over TransCanada's proposal to build the Keystone XL pipeline across the Great Plains, environmentalists looked around to see where else Enbridge was moving oil in the Wolverine State. To the surprise of many, they realized that it operated a major line through one of the world's most sensitive freshwater areas.
"I don't know why it wasn't an issue before, but I didn't know about it," said Shepler, 53, whose company runs more than 50 routes a day during the summer when thousands of tourists swarm the region to visit Mackinac Island and its environs. "But now, knowing that that pipe is there, it is a concern of businesses and people who live on the water and in the state. Not for one minute do I think that pipeline should stay in there. I mean it's 62 years old, so what's the contingency plan? I'm not an engineer, but things don't last forever."
A yacht participating in the Chicago-to-Mackinac race passes beneath the Mackinac Bridge en route to the finish line on Mackinac Island on July 21, 2008. (Rich Adams, Associated Press)
In fact, in perhaps the most damning moment in the controversy so far, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, a conservative seen as a GOP front-runner for governor in 2018, seemed to condemn Line 5 in comments when he released a report in July from the Michigan Petroleum Pipeline Task Force he chairs.
"You wouldn't site, and you wouldn't build and construct pipelines underneath the Straits today," Schuette said. "And so, if you wouldn't do it today, how many more tomorrows will the pipelines be operational?"
Still, Enbridge has received a reprieve because Schuette has declined to order an immediate shutdown, as he could under the terms of the state's agreement with Enbridge regarding the easement. Instead, he established a Pipeline Safety Advisory Board to study all of the state's spaghetti tangle of pipelines and make recommendations as to what to do. That committee, which has met twice, is ordering up a comprehensive report on how Enbridge would transport the oil and gas in Line 5 to refineries if it could no longer pump it through the Straits.
The company itself already has an answer: It would be expensive, dirty and, ultimately, riskier to the environment than continuing to use, monitor and maintain Line 5. They'd need to send the petroleum via truck, train and perhaps tanker ship across the Great Lakes, all modes of transport that have much bleaker safety records than pipelines, Enbridge publicist Jason Manshum said.
The company transports an average of 2.2 million barrels a day — including more than half of all U.S.-bound Canadian production, or 15 percent of all U.S. crude imports — through 16,892 miles of pipelines across North America. Sometimes those pipelines leak. The Transportation Department's Pipeline and Hazardous Material Safety Administration says that over the past decade a series of Enbridge pipeline leaks in the United States spilled 44,475 barrels, causing property damage valued at $928 million.
Nonetheless, after Keystone XL's rejection, Enbridge is working to expand existing pipelines, which would draw less attention and would not be subjected to the same permitting burdens. The company said it wants to spend $7 billion to double Line 3 capacity into Wisconsin.
"If you go back to look at why Line 5 was built in the first place, it was designed to keep crude oil off the Great Lakes," Manshum said in an interview in a room filled with packed boxes the second day after the company opened an office in Michigan's capital, Lansing. "Prior to 1953, the way crude oil got to refineries in the lower part of Michigan? It went on tankers across Lake Superior, down Huron to Detroit. This was to be the safer and more efficient mechanism to move crude oil."
And, indeed, it operated without any public concern or even awareness until Enbridge's Line 6B disaster. Mechanical failure — a six-foot pipe break — was compounded by human error as operatives in Enbridge's Edmonton offices ignored alarms. Rather than immediately shut down the line, Michigan-based engineers increased the oil flow thinking that they could push through a pipe blockage. Instead, they created a 35-mile oil slick that required neighborhood evacuations and took more than four years to clean up. Enbridge spent nearly $1 billion on the cleanup and was fined $3.7 million by the Transportation Department for some two-dozen safety violations.
The Line 6B spill "was truly one of the most humbling and sobering experiences of our company's history, without a doubt," Manshum said. "We pride ourselves on our safety record and had a very good safety record in our industry. The Marshall, Michigan, incident impacted our company to the very core. We thought we were good, but clearly we need to do better."
By most accounts, the company has made some strides on Line 5. A new system is in place that would shut and evacuate the pipes in the event of any alarm until a full manual inspection could take place. The company now regularly uses "pipeline inspection gadgets," a.k.a. PIGs, to troll through the interior of the lines to look for dents, cracks and corrosion, and they have means of measuring the pipe's wall thickness "down to the tenth or 100th of a millimeter," Manshum said. "We will notice any amount of change over time. Our data indicates Line 5 is in as good a shape as it was in 1953." (Pipeline companies are required by federal law to use PIGs for surveillance.)
Shepler and others say that even if they took Enbridge at their word, the risk is too severe given that 40 million people rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water. Also, the currents in the Straits are unusually complex, with water at the surface often moving in a different direction than that down below — and both at speeds that rival that of water going over Niagara Falls, according to Eric Anderson, a physical scientist with the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. Distribution models show any oil spill from Line 5 would spread at shocking speed throughout the lakes even if cleanup were as prompt and thorough as Enbridge says it would be.
"As far as how bad things could be, you have an area that can disperse something very rapidly in multiple directions, making it very hard to not only respond but also predict exactly how that's going to play out," said Anderson, who would advise the Coast Guard in the event of a spill.
The Coast Guard, Enbridge and others have run major cleanup drills in recent years, and the company has impressed Coast Guard incident management adviser Jerry Popiel. "They've done a lot of work on the preparedness side, they're not the same company they were in 2010," said Popiel, who oversees response for an eight-state Midwest region but listed Line 5 as his top concern. "They bring their A game. They hire excellent contractors who know what they're doing. They're writing plans to identify environmentally sensitive areas. In response mode, they've shown us they've gotten a lot better at this."
Yet "response" implies a spill has occurred, and many stakeholders don't want to allow for the chance of that. The National Wildlife Federation in October filed suit against the Transportation Department for not forcing Enbridge to halt oil movement, saying the government is not enforcing a law passed after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill requiring "worst-case" disaster plans to be on file. Manshum said Enbridge, which is not a party in the suit, has disaster plans that it has provided to government agencies.
"If it's a high risk, you have to look at worst-case scenario, not best-case scenario," said Jim Olson, co-founder of For Love of Water, or FLOW, one of the northern Michigan groups battling Line 5. "You have to assume that the shutting-down system does not work, what does it look like, what is the response? There's human error, there's inadequacy of the design of the equipment to begin with, malfunctions under certain conditions like there was in the Santa Barbara spill last year. Enbridge's position is that it's safe and don't worry about it. We can't take those chances."
The question has united an unlikely set of allies, from a myriad of national and local environmental groups to conservative Republicans such as Shepler to the region's many Native American tribes. Over Labor Day weekend, when 40,000 people come north for the annual Mackinac Bridge Walk, dozens of protesters paddled in kayaks and canoes to either side of the span with signs urging Enbridge, Michigan or the federal government to shut down Line 5. Rather than be irked by the tourist-unfriendly demonstration, Shepler seemed appreciative. "I don't think these were protests per se, but awareness activities they've done," he said of various similar events. "It's a huge concern right now for the citizens of northern Michigan."
Shepler, who is on the 15-person Pipeline Safety Advisory Board along with Popiel, Schuette and an executive from Enbridge, is unimpressed by the company thus far in part because he was never contacted in advance of last summer's oil-spill response drill. "We have boats everywhere," he said. "No one called us. Have they really thought this through, or is this pomp and circumstance?"
Another skeptic is Rich Bergmann, owner of the Lake Charlevoix Brewing Co., which in November hosted a standing-room-only showing of "Oil and Water," a 17-minute film by documentarian Spencer Chumbley about the dangers of Line 5. Much of Enbridge's actions, such as opening its lobbying office in Lansing and airing "lavish TV ads telling about what a great company they are" is deceptive or besides the point, Bergmann said.
"They're spending a lot on PR and advertising, talking about how necessary pipelines are and how important they are to the strength of America, and I don't disagree with any of those points," said Bergmann, whose company, like the others in the booming microbrew region, relies on Great Lakes water. "But the point is, they make billions. They need to reroute this because they cannot prove to us they can continue to safely pump oil through this area."
For their part, Enbridge seems poised to fight for Line 5 as if the company's survival depends upon it. "It's not good business to have release and rupture from cost perspective but also from a reputation perspective," Manshum said. "Every day we're out repairing pipelines and shutting down due to release, we're not moving product. It's in our interest as a pipeline company to keep it in the pipe."
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Five Unforgettable Moments In Environmental News This Year
Dec 31, 2015 | BNA Energy & Environment Blog
By Anthony Adragna
As the world prepares to collectively turn the calendar to 2016, it’s worth remembering some of the biggest moments in environmental news from this year. Here are five the world won’t soon forget:
1. Nearly 200 Nations Reach Global Agreement on Climate Change: It seemed all but impossible just a few short years ago, but in December nearly all of the world gathered in Paris and reached an international agreement to combat climate change. Building on years of bilateral work between the U.S. and major developing countries like India and China, observers said the agreement was not strong enough by itself to ward off the worst consequences of climate change, but did establish a framework that would allow the world to ratchet up its efforts to combat the problem. “The Paris Agreement is a monumental triumph for people and our planet,” Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Secretary General, said.
2. Obama Administration Finalizes the Clean Power Plan: From the moment President Obama announced his administration’s plan for tackling climate change in 2013, getting at carbon pollution from the nation’s fleet of power plants was key. Those efforts culminated this summer with the release of the final Clean Power Plan, which aims to curb carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. “This is the right thing to do,” Obama said in August. More than half the states are now challenging the rule in federal appeals court with litigation expected to last multiple years.
3. Chemical Overhaul Nears the Finish Line: The U.S. neared the first major overhaul of an environmental statute in nearly 25 years with a revamp of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the nation’s primary chemical statute. The Senate passed a broad bill, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (S. 697), by unanimous consent in December, while the House advanced narrower legislation in June by a 398-1 vote. Both chambers must resolve differences between their versions in 2016, but observers are optimistic the bill will make it across the finish line.
4. Keystone XL Pipeline Rejected: Capping a seven-year review process, President Obama rejected the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline in November. “America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change, and frankly, approving this project would have undercut that leadership,” the president said. The project became a key test for many in the environmental community for Obama’s commitment to climate change, while proponents of the project now say they’ll wait for the next president to revisit the pipeline.
5. Battle Over the Clean Water Act’s Jurisdiction: In addition to its efforts on power plants, the EPA also finalized a major regulation attempting to clarify the scope and jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act. Known first as the waters of the United States and then subsequently as the Clean Water Rule, the regulation immediately drew controversy. Well over half the states challenged the rule in federal court, the Senate passed a resolution nullifying it, and the EPA was found to have violated the law in promoting it through social media. A federal court put the rule on hold nationwide in October, so its future remains cloudy heading into the new year.
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Clean Power Plan Means Opportunities for Power Plants
Jan 1, 2016 | Power Magazine
By Kerry Shea and Rachel Block
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the final version of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) on Oct. 23, 2015, and within hours more than two dozen challenges were filed, asking the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to invalidate the rule. While the clock ticks on the window for challenges, and during the coming litigation, power plants may want to take the opportunity to shape their respective State Implementation Plan (SIP) and any regional plans.
Under the CPP, the administration seeks to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from existing sources by 32% below 2005 levels by 2030. The EPA determined that the best system for emission reduction (BSER) would result from some combination of these building blocks: (1) improving efficiency on site, (2) switching to lower-emitting power sources, and (3) using more zero-emitting power sources. The EPA set individual state-specific goals, which it has stated in two different ways: rate-based (a statewide average of pounds of CO2/MWh) and mass-based (total statewide emissions of CO2). However, the EPA also gave each state flexibility in determining how to achieve those goals.
In setting these statewide goals, the EPA took the unusual step of regulating the regional power delivery “system” as a whole, unlike its typical approach of setting individualized requirements for particular “sources.” Here, the EPA is treating the regional grids as the systems and seeking to reduce GHG emissions on a regional or statewide basis, depending on each state’s mix of generation assets. By taking a big picture approach, and allowing states flexibility in creating their plans, the EPA has created an opportunity for plants to provide input to environmental agencies on inside-the-fence improvements and outside-the-budget non-starters. SIPs and FIPs
The next step involves the states. The rule, issued under Clean Air Act section 111(d), directs states to create SIPs to administer statewide or regional programs to reduce emissions from existing power plants. SIPs establish “standards of performance” that reflect EPA-set goals. In creating a SIP, a state can choose whether to aim for the rate-based or mass-based goal. Further, the state can choose any combination of the three building blocks to achieve that goal.
Alternatively, provided the state is targeting the mass-based goal, it can choose an entirely different approach of “state measures” to reduce emissions from a broader range of sources—not just power plants—such as residential or industrial energy efficiency. In this way, the Federal Implementation Plan (FIP) is not a “floor” or minimum requirement; it is an example. If a state does not create a SIP, the federal government will impose a FIP. SIPs are due September 2016, but a state may ask for an extension until September 2018.
With the publication of the final rule, EPA also published a draft FIP that will be finalized in Summer 2016. Understanding the draft FIP is important to understanding whether (and if so, how) to structure a SIP. The draft FIP, however, comes in two flavors—rate-based and mass-based. The rate-based plan requires that each affected plant meet an individualized emission standard (in CO2 lbs/MWh) derived from the statewide target average rate. If a plant emits at a higher rate, it must purchase emissions credits either from other plants that reduce their emissions more than required or from approved zero- or low-emitting producers supplying the grid.
The mass-based plan requires that affected plants in the state produce total emissions within a statewide budget. Each plant is allocated its own budget, based on historical generation, but plants can modify that budget by trading with other plants, participating in a Clean Energy Incentive Program, or investing in renewable energy. The EPA has also provided model trading rules to facilitate the exchange of emissions reduction credits and allowances in both the rate- and mass-based plans.
The EPA has stated that ultimately there will be only one FIP, and it has hinted it prefers a mass-based approach for ease of implementation. As noted, that approach would also allow states to shift some of the burden of emissions reductions away from power plants and onto customers through efficiency-based measures. However, a state with growing demand for power from existing plants may prefer a rate-based goal, which unlike a mass-based goal would give a state credit for existing plants squeezing more megawatt-hours out of a given amount of coal or natural gas. Power Plant Input
The flexibility of the CPP means states have many choices to make, creating several opportunities for stakeholder input: (1) FIP or SIP; (2) if SIP, single or multistate; (3) if SIP, rate-based or mass-based; and (4) if mass-based, just BSER building blocks or also state measures? Plants having a strong view about whether a rate-based or mass-based plan is best should advocate for the adoption of a SIP, rather than expecting that the EPA will select a similar FIP. Plants may also have helpful input about the contents of the SIP, namely, how the state should mix tools to meet its environmental and other policy objectives.
Plants may consider providing input to their environmental protection agencies to establish realistic expectations for changes to their physical plants, but the real opportunity to help shape the SIP may be found in the accounting department. States must consider costs when determining a standard of performance achievable for the system. Thus, if a certain technology exists but is prohibitively expensive, a plant or industry group can work with the state to employ alternatives such as emissions-trading programs, participation in a regional market or plan, or customer-side efficiency measures. Practical economic information, which the regulated plants themselves are best positioned to provide, will be crucial in shaping the SIP.
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