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ACC AM Jan 4
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(ACC Mentioned) Obama Signs Microbeads Ban Into Law
Jan 4, 2016 | Chemical Watch
President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill banning the sale or distribution of cosmetic products containing plastic microbeads. The bipartisan HR 1321 mandates the phase out to begin on 1 July 2017. The House (CW 8 December 2015) and the Senate (CW 21 December 2015) passed the Microbead-Free Waters Act unanimously. -
(ACC Mentioned) Tackling Environmental Challenges
Jan 1, 2016 | Chemical Engineering
By Dorothy Lozowski
Last month marked the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21). World leaders gathered in Paris, France with the goal of working out an international agreement aimed at minimizing global warming and thereby avoiding potentially catastrophic climate-related events. -
(ACC Mentioned) Ban On Microbeads Quietly Becomes Law
Jan 3, 2016 | The Blade
By Tom Henry
Despite Washington being in a notorious era of gridlock — marked by impasses and skirmishes between President Obama and a Republican-controlled Congress on just about any issue — a significant bill for the Great Lakes region sailed through smoothly while America was caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays. -
Congress Moves On Chemical Safety Reform
Jan 4, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
Members of the U.S. Congress hope to send legislation that would modernize the federal law that controls commercial chemicals to President Barack Obama early this year. In an unanticipated vote, the Senate passed S. 697, which would reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), just... -
The Agenda: Obama Pushing Thousands Of New Regulations In Year 8
Jan 3, 2016 | PoliticoPro
By Timothy Noah
Nearly 4,000 regulations are squirming their way through the federal bureaucracy in the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency — many costing industry more than $100 million — in a mad dash by the White House to push through government actions affecting everything from furnaces to gun sales to Guantanamo. -
Obama's Offshore Drilling Moves Could Tie Hands Of Successor
Jan 2, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
President Obama has a chance to significantly tie the hands of his successor and his or her energy policy with the upcoming five-year plan for offshore drilling leases. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), part of the Interior Department, is likely in January or February to move forward on setting a schedule for lease sales for... -
Suit Faults Mass. Record In Cutting Emissions
Jan 4, 2016 | The Boston Globe
By David Abel
At a Beacon Hill hearing in November, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton was asked whether the state, if it continues current policies without taking new action, would meet its legal obligation to make substantial cuts to its carbon emissions by the end of the decade.
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(ACC Mentioned) Obama Signs Microbeads Ban Into Law
Jan 4, 2016 | Chemical Watch
President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill banning the sale or distribution of cosmetic products containing plastic microbeads.
The bipartisan HR 1321 mandates the phase out to begin on 1 July 2017.
The House (CW 8 December 2015) and the Senate (CW 21 December 2015) passed the Microbead-Free Waters Act unanimously.
The measure – introduced by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton and Ranking Member Frank Pallone – also bans the use of biodegradable plastics as an alternative ingredient. Mr Pallone said this was a “loophole that has been discovered in a number of existing state laws."
The Act also preempts state laws that ban or phase out microbeads. Several states and counties, including California, have already passed bans (CW 12 October 2015).
Microbeads are tiny bits of plastic, often used as exfoliants in personal care products like face wash and toothpaste. They can slip through water treatment systems when washed down the drain and make their way through water filtration systems. As a result, they often end up in streams, rivers and larger bodies of water.
“We now have a bipartisan law on the books to cleanse dirty microbeads from all our nation’s waters,” said Mr Upton. “Microbeads may be tiny plastic, but they are wreaking big time havoc in our waters.”
Mr Pallone called the Act “a commonsense solution to the serious problem of harmful plastic microbeads seeping into US waterways and threatening the environment and, ultimately, public health.”
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) said the law is an “important step to ensure there is one sensible, national standard to phase out solid-plastic microbeads from rinse-off personal care products across America."
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(ACC Mentioned) Tackling Environmental Challenges
Jan 1, 2016 | Chemical Engineering
By Dorothy Lozowski
Last month marked the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21). World leaders gathered in Paris, France with the goal of working out an international agreement aimed at minimizing global warming and thereby avoiding potentially catastrophic climate-related events. The negotiations resulted in a landmark agreement, with 195 countries committing to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in order to limit the rise in global temperatures to less than 2C above pre-industrial temperatures.
The historic global accord reached in Paris has wide-reaching implications for economics, government policies and the scientific community. The ongoing efforts by scientists and engineers to reduce GHG emissions will undoubtedly get a boost. Our Newsfront in this issue, Progress to Limit Climate Change (pp. 16–19), highlights some of the technological advances that have been made in this area to date.
Recycling gains momentum
In addition to reducing GHG emissions, much more is needed for environmental sustainability. Another area that has been gaining momentum is recycling. A recent report*, released jointly by the Association of Plastic Recyclers (APR) and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) states that for the twenty-fifth year in a row since surveying began in 1990, the number of pounds of plastic bottles collected for recycling in the U.S. has increased. In 2014, the increase was 97 million pounds over 2013, for a total surpassing 3 billion pounds of plastic bottles collected.
Plastic bottle resins are identified by their corresponding numbers: 1) polyethylene terephthalate (PET); 2) high-density polyethylene (HDPE); 3) polyvinyl chloride (PVC); 4) low-density polyethylene (LDPE); 5) polypropylene (PP); and 6) polystyrene (PS). According to the report, the bulk of the U.S. plastic bottle market is made up of PET and HDPE, which together comprise around 97% of that market. Recycled HDPE resin is used primarily in non-food-application bottles as well as pipe and lawn products. Recycled PET resin is used mainly for fiber and food bottles. More information about recycling can be found in the report for interested parties. Also, see PET Recycling on p. 7 of this issue. Recycling of much more than plastic is, of course, also needed. See, for example, our report on New Frontiers in Metals Recycling in the April 2015 issue.
In this issue
Our Cover Story on distillation takes an in-depth look at flooded condenser control (pp. 37–49). The Feature Report on pressure-swing adsorption shows that this versatile technology can be used for more than just hydrogen purification (pp. 50–53). Our Newsfront on modular construction points out the pros and cons to this widely growing trend (pp. 20–24). Important information about bulk solids handling is in this month’s Solids Processing article (pp. 58–63), and there is much more in this issue. We hope you enjoy it. -
(ACC Mentioned) Ban On Microbeads Quietly Becomes Law
Jan 3, 2016 | The Blade
By Tom Henry
Despite Washington being in a notorious era of gridlock — marked by impasses and skirmishes between President Obama and a Republican-controlled Congress on just about any issue — a significant bill for the Great Lakes region sailed through smoothly while America was caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holidays.
The Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015 was passed by the U.S. Senate on Dec. 18 and signed into law by Mr. Obama on Dec. 28. The House of Representatives approved it earlier in the month.
Introduced in both chambers last spring, the act requires the manufacturing of products containing tiny bits of plastic known as microbeads to end by July 1, 2017, and the sale of them to cease by July 1, 2018.
Microbeads are mostly in health and beauty products such as facial scrubs, soap, and toothpaste.
The Senate version was co-authored by U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio).
EnlargeHis office said the new law will create “a level playing field by establishing a definition of microbeads and setting uniform dates for the prohibition of manufacture and sale of products.”
“Plastic microbeads are devastating to wildlife and human health, and I’m pleased our bill will now be law so we can phase them out in a way that’s fair to Ohio companies and keeps them on a level playing field with their competitors,” Mr. Portman said.
Some consider the ban low-hanging fruit because several manufacturers had already begun making plans to phase out microbeads or replace them with natural alternatives, such as crushed almonds, oatmeal, and pumice.
The Personal Care Products Council, the American Chemistry Council, Revlon, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Consumer Healthcare Products Associations, and the Plastics Industry Trade Association supported the legislation, Mr. Portman’s office said in its news release.
“Many companies have already voluntarily committed to replacing solid microbeads with viable alternatives,” according to a statement from the Independent Cosmetic Manufacturers and Distributors trade group, which has represented cosmetic companies globally since 1974.
Molly Flanagan, vice president for policy for Chicago-based Alliance for the Great Lakes, said the federal bill was in response to public demand and mounting regional pressure, as well as early leadership by manufacturers “who voluntarily pledged to switch from microbeads to natural abrasives.”
“It’s not often that solutions to environmental problems are so straightforward, with clear-cut alternatives so readily available,” she said.
States such as Illinois and California already passed bans. Others, including Ohio and Michigan, had bills under consideration.
But many people agree the act is useful and necessary because it draws more attention to the long-standing issue of plastic pollution in general.
While large plastic containers are seen as more of a problem in the oceans than the lakes, just about any form of plastic can become microbead-sized after it rips, tears, and breaks down in the water.
Barely large enough to be seen by the human eye, microbeads are by definition no bigger than 5 millimeters in diameter. But they’re usually 2 millimeters or less, many of them a fraction of 1 millimeter — small enough that dozens could occupy a human fingertip or cover a penny.
A tube of facial cleanser may have about 330,000 of them.
Sherri “Sam” Mason, a State University of New York-Fredonia chemistry professor who is one of the Great Lakes region’s most active microbead researchers, said the federal ban is “relatively strong” but agreed the discussion can’t stop there.
“My hope is that microbeads have made people more aware of plastic pollution in general and their relationship to it,” she told The Blade. “People can make personal changes now — immediately — but I do hope to see further legislation related to other sources of plastic pollution, whether that be banning plastic beverage bottles, eliminating plastic grocery bags, or forcing changes in industrial practices that lead to microplastic pollution.
“This is the first step in the mountain of plastic pollution we have to climb.”
Kris Patterson, executive director of the Perrysburg-based Partners for Clean Streams, said Toledo-area residents can help by using fewer single-use plastic bags and disposable water bottles. Her group leads a regional stream cleanup each fall, as part of International Coastal Cleanup Day, which removes about 10,000 pounds of trash from area waterways each year — much of it plastic.
She encouraged people to download an Internet app, “Beat the Microbead,” at get.beatthemicrobead.org to see which products contain microbeads.
“Plastic pollution in our rivers, Great Lakes, and oceans takes on many forms and comes in myriad shapes and sizes, but banning plastic microbeads is one definitive step toward eliminating a tiny, but potentially hazardous part of that plastic pollution,” Ms. Patterson said.
While Ms. Mason said future battles “are likely to be much more difficult,” she was encouraged by how consumers rallied around the issue after learning how beads were in their household products.
In a report issued earlier this year by the New York State Attorney General’s Office, Ms. Mason and Jennifer Nalbone, an environmental scientist in that office, found 25 of 34 upstate New York sewage-treatment plants had microbeads in the finished effluent discharged to Lake Ontario and Lake Erie tributaries. All of them had some form of plastic.
The beads are too small to be removed from the waste stream.
They are believed to absorb PCBs and other toxics. Predator fish can confuse them for eggs and fill up on plastic.
Lake Ontario and Lake Erie are believed to be the two worst places in the Great Lakes region for them, in part because of their population densities and because of how tiny particles are believed to migrate down from the upper lakes.
The Ann Arbor-based Great Lakes Fishery Commission recognizes microplastics as a growing issue.
But Marc Gaden, the fishery commission’s spokesman and legislative liaison, agreed the ban on microbeads is only a first step.
“Larger bits of plastic in the marine environment — in broader, more general terms — remains a global problem, particularly in the oceans,” he said, adding that the focus shouldn’t be limited to plastic pollution.
Another growing issue for the Great Lakes is “ghost gear,” he said, referring to lost, dumped, or abandoned items that get in the water and get caught up in equipment such as boat motors, while also adding to the trash that can harm fish and wildlife.
The National Academy of Sciences claims more than 90 percent of sea birds have pieces of plastic in their guts, some of it microbeads and some of it larger plastic.
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Congress Moves On Chemical Safety Reform
Jan 4, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
Members of the U.S. Congress hope to send legislation that would modernize the federal law that controls commercial chemicals to President Barack Obama early this year.
In an unanticipated vote, the Senate passed S. 697, which would reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), just hours before it adjourned for the holidays last month. Congress then quickly launched negotiations to resolve differences between that bill and a similar measure approved by the House of Representatives. The House cleared its slimmer version, H.R. 2576, in June.
Lawmakers say they hope to have a new version of the legislation ready for a vote by both chambers early this year. But the process of getting S. 697 to the Senate floor was chock-full of obstacles, and a few bumps remain before the legislation is ready for the President’s signature.
The Senate bill has widespread support from the chemical industry and some environmental and public health organizations. Other activist groups oppose it.
The American Chemistry Council, which represents many 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, the group’s president and CEO.
Some 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 for the 21st Century 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 pivotal in the legislative process that led to last year’s action on TSCA reform, introducing a breakthrough bipartisan bill just weeks before his death in 2013.
The newly passed Senate legislation represents several years of negotiations, and many environmental groups say it is vastly improved compared with 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 … when they contain a known toxic chemical.”
S. 697 would also block states from taking action on a chemical because of toxicity concerns if the federal EPA is reviewing the substance, Igrejas points out. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) raised concerns about the legislation overriding state chemical laws, but senators eventually agreed to modifications that would preserve some state-level authority.
Even so, Boxer still has a few remaining concerns and nearly prevented the bill from getting to the Senate floor for a vote. 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 says.
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The Agenda: Obama Pushing Thousands Of New Regulations In Year 8
Jan 3, 2016 | PoliticoPro
By Timothy Noah
Nearly 4,000 regulations are squirming their way through the federal bureaucracy in the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency — many costing industry more than $100 million — in a mad dash by the White House to push through government actions affecting everything from furnaces to gun sales to Guantanamo.
That means a full court press at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to reduce exposure limits for silica, a chemical used widely in construction and fracking that can cause cancer when inhaled; at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, to require more small-scale gun sellers to perform background checks; and at the Food and Drug Administration, to make food manufacturers disclose on product labels how much sugar they add to cranberry juice.
Much of this work will be carried out in the coming months by career bureaucrats working in the bowels of federal agencies, but the cumulative effect adds up to something larger: A final-year sprint by a president intent on using executive power to improve the lives of American workers and consumers — in many instances over loud objections from the businesses that will have to pay for it.
The work must be done swiftly in most cases because any regulation finalized after May 17 or thereabouts risks being blocked by Congress.
That leaves plenty of time for the rule on silica, but not for one on beryllium, even though both chemicals pose grave health risks.
There’s likely sufficient time to regulate small-scale gun sellers, but not if the threshold is some specific number of guns sold.
The list could go on for thousands of regulations, and while Obama’s executive agencies are intent on pushing through the president’s priorities without congressional interference, industry lawsuits and congressional hearings will surely slow the Obama regulation freight train.“The regulatory state has grown under this administration seemingly without regard to the costs, practicality, or even legality, of rules pushed through by federal agencies," Chamber of Commerce President Thomas J. Donohue complained in an email. "The president’s hurry-up approach of executive orders and rushed rulemakings is no way to govern a representative democracy."
But Obama, facing a Congress that will likely be in a less bipartisan mood than in 2015, is undeterred. "I plan on doing everything I can," he said Dec. 18, "with every minute of every day that I have left as president to deliver on behalf of the American people."
The mid-May deadline isn’t statutory or in any way official, but neither is it arbitrary. It arises from the Congressional Review Act, a 1996 law that gives Congress 60 legislative days to veto, by a special swift procedure, any regulation it dislikes before the rule takes effect.
The president may veto Congress’s veto, as Obama did the one time he faced this situation. But if the 60-day period extends past the inauguration of a new president, and if that president is of the opposing party — a President Donald Trump, say, or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio — any resolution of disapproval against his predecessor will surely go unchallenged.
That worry isn’t theoretical. Early in 2001, incoming President George W. Bush let stand a resolution of disapproval against an ergonomics rule that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was foolish enough to issue two months before Bill Clinton vacated the West Wing. The regulation vanished into thin air.
But don’t 60 days after mid-May take you to mid-July rather than late January 2016? No, because these are legislative days, which typically come only three per week, in weeks numbering far fewer than 52. The partisan gridlock of recent years has shortened the legislative calendar even further.
It was Sam Batkins, director of regulatory policy at the conservative American Action Forum, who examined preliminary House and Senate calendars for 2016, drawing on what he modestly calls his “shoddy math skills,” and decreed that any regulation issued on May 18 or later would be vulnerable to a congressional resolution of disapproval fielded by Obama’s successor.
That deadline is a soft one, because Congress might push the May deadline back by adding, for instance, a lame-duck session after the 2016 election. But Ronald White, who is director of regulatory policy at the liberal Center for Effective Government — and doesn’t agree with Batkins about much — endorses his mid-May deadline as the most plausible and prudent one to eliminate any possibility of congressional reversal.
Here’s a rundown of Obama’s better bets:
Gun control: In the aftermath of mass shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., Colorado Springs, Colo., and Charleston, S.C., the Obama administration has been “scrubbing” the books for possible executive actions, given Congress’ reluctance to enact any form of gun control. Next week it's expected to tweak an existing BATFE rule to require more gun sellers to get a license — and therefore do background checks on customers no matter where they sell. The “engaged in the business rule” requires sellers to get a license if gun sales is their “livelihood,” but the rule is comically vague about what “livelihood” might mean in this context (“the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms”).
Obama may clarify the definition to include any guns sold in their original packaging or resold shortly after they're acquired. Alternatively, he may have it turn on how many guns are put up for sale, or on whether more than 25 guns are sold in a given year. A numerical limit, though, might require drafting a regulation, which would likely stretch beyond the soft May deadline. (A regulation traveling through the bureaucracy at breakneck pace can be finalized in perhaps a year.) The likeliest possibility is that Obama will offer a so-called factor test that will lay out a variety of criteria to indicate whether a seller is likely to need a license.
In addition, BATFE may soon finalize an August 2014 rule requiring all licensed dealers and manufacturers to report as missing to federal authorities any guns that are stolen in transit to a buyer. (Stealing unregistered guns is easier than stealing registered ones because they're harder to trace.)
Nutritional labeling: In March 2014, Michelle Obama held a ceremony in the East Wing to introduce a design overhaul of food nutrition labels. These were so confusing, she said, that “unless you had a thesaurus, a calculator, a microscope or a degree in nutrition, you were out of luck.” The most controversial proposed change was a new requirement that the labels disclose how much sugar food makers added to their products.
Much of the food industry opposes the plan, arguing that it will confuse consumers. The American Sugar Association has all but threatened to sue over the change. But two food behemoths – Nestlé and Mars — support the change, saying more transparency is good, and that added sugar is a problem in the American diet.
The rule would also update serving sizes for some products to bring them closer to the amounts people actually consume. The serving size for ice cream, as an example, would go from half a cup to a full cup, doubling the number of calories per serving. And speaking of calories, the FDA has proposed enlarging their font size on food labels.
The final nutrition reg is expected in March, at an estimated one-time cost to the industry, the FDA says, of $2.3 billion (and a benefit estimated at $21.1 billion to $31.4 billion over 20 years).
E-cigarettes: The FDA also has in the works a rule extending its jurisdiction to e-cigarettes, which have become wildly popular with teenagers. (Last spring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that e-cigarette use by high school students tripled in 2014 to 13.4 percent.) The rule, which may ban the use of e-cigarettes by anyone under the age of 18, was first proposed 20 months ago, and a final version has been awaiting clearance from the Office of Management and Budget since October. “They’re being marketed to youth," says the Center for Effective Government's White. "It’s a huge problem.” Depending on the final composition of the rule, which may regulate other new tobacco products as well, its cost over 20 years could be anywhere from $20 million to $810 million, which might well put e-cigarettes out of business.
Retirement advice: By the end of March, the Labor Department is expected to publish a regulation requiring brokers who offer advice about retirement investments to do something that many assume (incorrectly) they have to do already: namely, consider only the best interests of the investor. In fact, the brokers often take into account fees and commissions to steer customers into one investment or another. The White House Council of Economic Advisers calculates that such conflicts of interest fleece consumers of about $17 billion annually. The Labor Department calculates that complying with the rule will cost industry $2.4 billion to $5.7 billion over 10 years.
The financial industry, congressional Republicans, and even some Democrats oppose the “fiduciary rule” on the grounds that it will make it more difficult for investors to acquire investment advice at a cost they can afford. “I will continue this fight until the rule is delayed, dismantled and defeated,” Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo) said in December. Wagner authored a bill to halt the rule that cleared the House in October.
Supporters expect the final rule to be softened for businesses. Changes that expand exemptions for small businesses, simplify disclosure, and broaden the definition of what’s financial “education” and not “advice” are top fixes that the Chamber of Commerce seeks that won’t likely trouble the rule’s advocates. “Firms’ ability to market their services without triggering investment advice, they’ll fix that,” said Barbara Roper, an official with the Consumer Federation of America, a liberal-leaning advocacy group. “That does not undermine protections for investors,” she said.
But the threat of a lawsuit to hangs over even a modified rule. “Our sense is that the effort to combat the DOL’s fiduciary standard rule will move to the courts following its final release" in the first quarter of 2016, Isaac Boltansky, an analyst with Compass Point LLC, said in a Dec. 16 research note.
Energy efficiency: The Energy Department is working on dozens of new or updated efficiency standards for computers, gas furnaces, dishwashers, pool heaters, air conditioners, walk-in coolers and freezers, vending machines, ceiling fans, fluorescent lamp ballast, boilers, ovens, and hearths. The efficiency measures don't typically generate much attention because they’re, well, just a little bit boring, even to POLITICO Pro’s intrepid policy jocks. But they’re expected to save consumers a lot of money, and also — along with already-completed rules on ice makers, industrial lamps, electric motors, and other products — to generate roughly half the carbon emissions cuts that the Obama administration pledged to deliver before the Paris climate talks.
The energy standards can also be rather expensive, a fact that’s caught the eye of the American Action Forum. The furnace rule’s cost will vary according to region and furnace type, but AAC’s Dan Batkins puts it at $741 million annually, making this — to industry, anyway — the most costly regulation in the pre-May 18 batch.
Teacher prep: The Education Department is set to publish as early as this month a long-delayed and contentious final rule overhauling how teachers are prepared for the classroom. The rule would cut off federal funding for any teacher prep programs that prepared their graduates poorly.
The Education Department said last year that implementing the rule would cost states and providers $42 million over 10 years (possibly less “due to technology and other efficiencies”). But advocacy groups, states and teacher education programs complain that it will cost far more; for example, the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing said it could cost the state $485 million just in the first year.
Workplace hazards: The Occupational Health and Safety Administration has been working quite literally for decades on a regulation that would lower drastically the permissible exposure limit to crystalline silica. The construction industry has fought the rule tooth and nail, citing its high cost; health advocates have fought just as hard in favor, citing the severe health consequences of a high exposure limit, which include lung cancer. In September 2013, OSHA proposed a rule that would reduce the permissible exposure limit to 50 micrograms per cubic meter. OSHA estimates the rule will save more than 600 lives and prevent more than 1,500 new cases of silicosis each year. The construction industry, the foundry industry and other businesses oppose the rule, saying OSHA has vastly underestimated (at $637-$658 million) its implementation costs.
Guantanamo: On his first day in office Obama ordered that the terrorist prison at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, be shuttered. The prison, established by President George W. Bush early in 2002 to hold Al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners for trial by military tribunal, had drawn condemnation from the international community and human rights groups. But the closure didn’t happen, because Congress moved immediately to bar any Gitmo inmates from being transferred to the U.S., or any new prison facilities built to house them. Eventually it was worked out that the Obama administration would furnish Congress with a plan for closing the prison. But the White House earlier this month rejected as too expensive a draft road map to transfer Guantanamo’s remaining inmates to one of several federal prisons or military facilities in Kansas, Colorado or South Carolina, and sent it back to the Pentagon for revisions.
Many of the remaining 107 detainees are slated to be sent to other countries, and some face military prosecutions. But at least several dozen are likely to remain in custody because the U.S. government deems them too dangerous to release or lacks sufficient evidence (or will) to prosecute them.
The big question for next year is whether Obama will try to go around Congress in a last-ditch attempt to close the prison by invoking his executive authority as commander-in-chief. Last month, Cliff Sloan, who served as special envoy for Guantanamo closure from 2013 to 2014, and Gregory Craig, Obama’s White House counsel in the first term, wrote in an op-ed that “Under Article II of the Constitution, the president has exclusive authority to determine the facilities in which military detainees are held. Obama has the authority to move forward. He should use it.”
At a Dec. 18 press conference, Obama indicated that he’ll send proposed legislation to Capitol Hill first, then ponder his unilateral options should that gambit fail. If he proceeds, Obama’s most valuable Gitmo ally — his 2008 adversary John McCain, who shares Obama's desire to close the prison — may then become his chief obstacle. That’s because McCain has threatened to sue if Obama bypasses Congress. Should that occur, we’ll see a rematch of Obama vs. McCain — though possibly with neither man in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Brian Bender, Paul Demko, Caitlin Emma, Alex Guillén, Jason Huffman, Marianne LeVine, Brett Norman, Patrick Temple-West and Sarah Wheaton contributed to this report.
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Obama's Offshore Drilling Moves Could Tie Hands Of Successor
Jan 2, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
President Obama has a chance to significantly tie the hands of his successor and his or her energy policy with the upcoming five-year plan for offshore drilling leases.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), part of the Interior Department, is likely in January or February to move forward on setting a schedule for lease sales for offshore oil and natural gas drilling rights, and to put the finishing touches on it later in the year.
The program will cover 2017 to 2022, and only lease sales scheduled in the plan can take place.
The most contentious provisions of the plan, whose first draft was released in early 2015, are the proposals to allow offshore drilling in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time ever and to sell more drilling rights in the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska.
Given the significant resource potential and the possible environmental and climate impacts of drilling, along with the long time period the plan covers, Obama’s under great pressure from greens and industry to get the program right.
“We’re looking at the upcoming five-year program as a really great opportunity for President Obama to deliver on his pledge to make climate change part of his legacy,” said Marissa Knodel, a climate campaigner with Friends of the Earth.
“Coming out of the Paris climate negotiations with these emissions targets that we now have to meet, it’s clear that he’s done a lot in terms of energy efficiency and reducing emissions from coal plants, but that’s not going to be enough to meet those targets.”
Friends of the Earth and its environmental allies are tying BOEM’s leasing plan into their “keep it in the ground” initiative, which advocates for a significant reduction in the production of fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal.
The groups and their allies in Congress, like presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), think that the best place to start cutting off fossil fuel supplies is on federal land and waters, which are the easiest to control through policy.
“Scientists keep saying that Arctic oil in particular needs to be kept in the ground if we’re going to stay below 2 and even 1.5 degrees Celsius,” Knodel said, referring to international goals for limiting global warming. “We should even be looking into exploring or developing oil in that area.”
Obama gave a small nod to the “keep it in the ground” crowd when he rejected the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
“Ultimately, if we’re going to prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we’re going to have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous pollution into the sky,” he said.
Oceana, a water-focused environmental group, has been working since early 2014 to cut down on future offshore lease sales, with a focus on the Atlantic.
“If the Obama administration and the Department of the Interior are sincere in listening to the public and their constituencies, one would expect that it wouldn’t be in the next plan,” said Claire Douglass, an Oceana campaign director, adding that she’s optimistic that Obama will cut back on the lease plan for the Atlantic, which envisions a single lease sale that could include areas from Virginia to Georgia.
With Oceana’s help, hundreds of coastal residents and businesses have expressed opposition to the plan, with objections related to the possibility of a catastrophic spill, the harm to wildlife and the infrastructure it would require on shore.
They’ve notched some significant wins, with politicians like Sen. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), Virginia Lieutenant Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and South Carolina Lieutenant Gov. Henry McMaster ® coming out against drilling off their shores.
The movement picked up another big supporter in recent days when Hillary Clinton, frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, told a South Carolina radio station that she is “very skeptical” of Atlantic drilling. She’d previously expressed skepticism toward Arctic drilling as well.
But the governors of the states at issue all support drilling, something that Obama administration officials have said weighs heavily on their decisions.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) is optimistic that Obama will keep listening to the governors, as well as the oil industry.
“There’s strong bipartisan support in the coast states,” said Erik Milito, upstream director at API. “From a policymaker and a public support standpoint it makes a lot of sense.”
Beyond that, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act pushes the Interior Department toward opening more waters for drilling and to give a lot of credit to what the states want.
It also concerns Milito that the administration’s actions could restrict drilling through 2022, but he said there’s precedent for a future administration re-writing the drilling plan and opening up more leases.
“Whichever administration gets in there, they should think hard about their statutory obligation to make these offshore areas available and maybe adding areas,” he said.
Michael Livermore, an environmental law professor at the University of Virginia, said changing the drilling plan will be hard for a future president, but far from impossible.
“If there is a leasing area that is not included in the leasing program … then no lease sales can be offered there, even by the next administration,” he said.
“But the administration could decide to initiate a new planning process, and through that planning process, open up new leasing areas.”
President George W. Bush proposed a similar move at one time to increase leases and change the schedule for lease plans to be rewritten, but did not move forward to make it final.
Livermore said all eyes are on the Atlantic Ocean for when Obama puts out the schedule.
“The Atlantic is a huge question. There hasn’t been drilling in the Atlantic. It’s near a huge commercial area, population centers, a very environmentally important region,” said Livermore.
But it’s possible that officials will put Atlantic drilling into the plan with restrictions.
“The administration could have some of the areas potentially subject to leasing, but with additional requirements or additional analysis being undertaken,” he said.
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Suit Faults Mass. Record In Cutting Emissions
Jan 4, 2016 | The Boston Globe
By David Abel
At a Beacon Hill hearing in November, Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Matthew Beaton was asked whether the state, if it continues current policies without taking new action, would meet its legal obligation to make substantial cuts to its carbon emissions by the end of the decade.
“Not a chance,” he told members of the state Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, even as he stressed that the administration supports new steps, such as importing hydroelectric power, to reduce emissions.
That answer, which alarmed some lawmakers, has been cited as evidence in briefs to the Supreme Judicial Court that the state has failed to take sufficient action to comply with the state’s 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act, which requires the state to cut its greenhouse gases 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
This week, lawyers for the Conservation Law Foundation will argue before the state’s top court that the administrations of Governor Charlie Baker and former governor Deval Patrick have violated the law by not enacting policies that would result in the required emissions reductions. The challenge of making those cuts, they note, will be greater with Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station — the state’s largest provider of clean power — set to close as early as next year.
“The delay in implementing the law is egregious,” said Bradley Campbell, president of the foundation. “There have been no efforts to implement the additional policies called for in the state’s clean energy and climate plan.”State officials say they hope to meet the law’s requirements, but they say it will be far easier if lawmakers help out by passing a bill that would compel utilities to sign long-term contracts to buy hydroelectric power from Canada.
Beaton declined to be interviewed.
In a written statement, he said: “Massachusetts remains a nationally recognized leader on combating climate change, but action is needed on existing policies and the administration’s proposal for cost-effective, low-carbon hydroelectric power generation.”
Environmental advocates insist the state has fallen behind and needs a major course correction — not just action on the hydro plan — to meet the law’s requirements. They also note that even if lawmakers pass a hydroelectric bill, the expensive power lines might never get built. They would probably pass through New Hampshire, where the proposal remains highly controversial.
In 2014, before Pilgrim announced it would close, a collaborative effort by local environmental groups called the Global Warming Solutions Project released a report that projected that Massachusetts would cut its emissions by only 20 percent below 1990 levels. A more recent report by the Conservation Law Foundation, which factors in the closure of Pilgrim, estimates that the state, without any significant policy changes, is more likely to cut its emissions between 16 percent and 19 percent.
In their lawsuit against the Department of Environmental Protection, which the justices will hear on Friday, lawyers for the foundation will argue that the state has fallen behind because regulators have failed to mandate annual limits on specific emissions, which they say the law required to be set in 2012.
They also blame the Baker and Patrick administrations for focusing more on extending natural gas pipelines than on promoting offshore wind and solar energy, increasing energy efficiency in buildings, and a range of other policies that don’t require legislation, including pressuring utilities to seal methane leaks more quickly, adding incentives for electric vehicles, and planting more trees.
“Massachusetts passed a landmark law that made us a leader in addressing greenhouse gases, but if we allow significant portions of the law to go unmet, it’s simply an empty gesture,” said Jennifer Rushlow, who will be arguing the foundation’s case. “This is a law that does have teeth, but we’re not using them.”
In its response to the lawsuit, which was dismissed by a Superior Court judge last March but taken up by the SJC on appeal, state officials argue that the Global Warming Solutions Act requires the agency to set targets — not caps — on emissions. They also say that the law gives the agency broad discretion on how to cut emissions.
They also note that the agency has enacted specific policies to reduce greenhouse gases, such as limiting leaks of sulfur hexafluoride, a potent greenhouse gas used in electricity distribution switches, a cap and trade program between states designed to cut emissions, and the adoption of a California program that curbs emissions for certain types of vehicles.
“We’re working hard to meet the goals,” said Martin Suuberg, commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection.
He said the hydropower plan would play a crucial role, reducing the state’s carbon emissions by an estimated 5 percent below 1990 levels. Asked what would happen if the power lines are delayed or rejected by New Hampshire, Suuberg said: “We’re doing a suite of policies to make sure we meet the goal, and this is one element. . . . We’re not putting all of our eggs in one basket.”
He declined to comment on the lawsuit but said: “We’re fully anticipating carrying the day in the SJC decision.”
Ken Kimmell, who served as the department’s commissioner during the Patrick administration, said the law may have set unrealistic requirements. He also blamed the potential shortfall on unexpected developments, such as the failure of Cape Wind to build turbines on Nantucket Sound and the closure of Pilgrim.“Part of the problem is that the goal is ambitious,” he said. “We could have set 20 percent, and we would have been there.”
He urged the Baker administration and lawmakers to invest more in renewable energy, electric vehicles, and new ways to heat buildings that go beyond switching from oil to gas.
“That needs to happen now, because the infrastructure needs to get built to meet the deadline,” he said. “It’s up to all of us to figure out a solution. People would be right to be disappointed if we don’t meet this goal.”
Supporters of the lawsuit said they hope the court prods the state to act soon, noting that 2020 is just four years away.
A dozen environmental groups, in a brief to the court, compared the state’s efforts to climbing a mountain at night “without the benefits of trails or guideposts.”
“With no mandated emissions limits to light the way, the commonwealth is adopting and rejecting energy policies and projects blindly,” they wrote. “The only way that such an approach could result in the commonwealth meeting the 2020 mandate is by pure chance.”
After hearing Beaton testify in November, Senator Marc Pacheco, a Taunton Democrat who chairs the Global Warming and Climate Change Committee, said he was “extremely concerned” that the state wouldn’t meet the requirements.
He blamed both administrations for not doing more, noting the legislation also calls for cutting the state’s emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. He plans to push a bill in the coming months that would require specific emissions cuts for 2030 and 2040.
“We can do this,” he said. “But right now I just don’t see the urgency of getting it done. We need some political will to move us forward.”
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