Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 1/18/16
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Watchdog Group Cites Higher Risk to Minorities and Poor
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
Minorities and the poor are far more likely to live near the highest-risk chemical plants, a chemical safety watchdog group said in a new report. -
Explosion at Texas Plant Kills 1 Worker, Injures 3 Others
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
An explosion at a Texas chemical plant on Saturday killed one worker and injured three others. -
Pets Suffer Nosebleeds Near Calif. Methane Leak
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
Pet owners living in the area near the massive natural gas leak in Southern California are linking animals' nosebleeds and other unexplained illnesses to the ongoing leak, but veterinary experts have reserved judgment for now. -
EPA Defends Flint Water Crisis Response
Jan 18, 2016 | The New York Times
By David Shepardson
The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday defended the Obama administration's handling of a crisis in Flint, Michigan with lead-contaminated drinking water. -
Water Woes Batter Struggling City -- With No End in Sight
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Tiffany Stecker and Sam Pearson
A long-simmering environmental crisis in a struggling Midwestern city was kicked to the national stage last week and moved to the White House on Saturday, when President Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint, Mich., due to lead-contaminated water. -
Worker Dies in Fort McMurray Blast
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
Nexen Energy on Saturday closed its Long Lake oil sands facility in Canada after an explosion killed one employee and left another seriously injured. -
Funding Set for Burbank High-Speed Rail Station Planning
Jan 18, 2016 | LA Times
By Chad Garland
A funding agreement between the California High-Speed Rail Authority and the city of Burbank will pay for much of a $1.2-million planning process for what high-speed rail officials are calling a “world-class multimodal transportation hub,” including a proposed bullet train station adjacent to Bob Hope Airport. -
Diverse Cast Ready for Post-Paris Policy Clashes
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
After ending 2015 with a historic international climate change agreement in Paris, the Obama administration plans to focus this year on shoring up its domestic climate agenda. -
Bush Reg Chief Slams EPA Mercury Rule Benefits Analysis
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA's use of "co-benefits" to help justify its new power plant mercury rule is again under fire -- this time from Susan Dudley, who served as federal regulatory chief during part of President George W. Bush's tenure. -
Burning Excess Methane at Leak Could Cause Blast -- Regulators
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
California utility regulators have asked Southern California Gas Co. to provide evidence that its efforts to burn off natural gas at the site is safe and that the ground around its leaking well is stable. -
Oil Prices Edge Lower as Iran Prepares to Ramp Up Production
Jan 18, 2016 | The New York Times
By Stanley Reed
Oil edged even further below $30 a barrel on Monday as the potential impact of additional oil from a post-sanctions Iran weighed on an already oversupplied market. -
Sandbags, Levees and Clean Energy
Jan 18, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)
As the Mississippi waters crest and fall, there are certain images that you can’t forget. The mud-soaked kitchen floors, the submerged cars, neighbors wading or even boating from house to house--these pictures of our communities seem both heartbreakingly extraordinary and sadly familiar.
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Watchdog Group Cites Higher Risk to Minorities and Poor
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
Minorities and the poor are far more likely to live near the highest-risk chemical plants, a chemical safety watchdog group said in a new report.
The Center for Effective Government analyzed the demographics of people who live within a mile of the 12,545 facilities included in U.S. EPA's chemical risk management program.
The agency requires the sites to file contingency plans because they handle high quantities of the most hazardous chemicals. The plants under scrutiny generally report safety incidents at twice the rate of facilities in predominantly white neighborhoods.
The group released the report over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend to draw attention to the siting of chemical plants as an underappreciated social justice issue.
"Our nation's chemical policies are failing to protect our most vulnerable populations," Ronald White, director of regulatory policy at the Center for Effective Government, said in a statement. "These include children and the elderly, who are the most susceptible to chemical hazards and among the least able to evacuate should a disastrous release occur."
The group found that minorities and people living in poverty are far more likely to live near high-hazard sites compared with whites or people who earn incomes that put them above the poverty line.
More than a quarter of children who live near these sites are younger than 5, putting them at higher risk of harm from an accidental chemical release, the report found.
The latest document expands on previous findings from crunching EPA data and other demographic records. The group has previously found that millions of children go to school near higher-risk facilities (Greenwire, Sept. 30, 2014).
The group, pointing to its research, said EPA must require chemical facilities to use safer ingredients and processes whenever possible.
It also demanded that the agency pay more attention to environmental justice issues by requiring new reviews and mitigation plans tied to how chemical facilities affect surrounding neighborhoods.
Governments could also put zoning laws in place to prevent new or expanded high-risk chemical facilities near homes and schools, and keep new homes and schools away from areas where facilities are already present, the group said.
Regulators should also conduct continuous monitoring of emissions at the sites and subject them to enhanced workplace safety and environmental laws, the report said.
New policies have been top priorities of chemical safety groups for years but have received little traction among EPA leaders. The chemical industry opposes them as overly burdensome.
Safety advocates say EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told them last year that the agency would not pursue a proposal to require plants to use safer chemicals and processes, citing the complexity of such rulemaking (E&ENews PM, Nov. 6, 2015). EPA later declined to confirm the comments because the meeting was private.
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Explosion at Texas Plant Kills 1 Worker, Injures 3 Others
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
An explosion at a Texas chemical plant on Saturday killed one worker and injured three others.
The blast at the PeroxyChem Bayport Plant in Pasadena, Texas, occurred when workers were performing a routine cleaning operation and a contractor's equipment exploded, the company said.
The contractor died at the scene, while two PeroxyChem employees and another contractor were taken to an area hospital.
One worker was being treated for a broken arm, while the other two were receiving medical aid for exposure to toxic chemicals, local officials said.
The explosion involved about 1,000 gallons of an oil-based cleaning solution that was not immediately identified, said Vance Mitchell, a spokesman for the Pasadena Police Department.
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Pets Suffer Nosebleeds Near Calif. Methane Leak
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
Pet owners living in the area near the massive natural gas leak in Southern California are linking animals' nosebleeds and other unexplained illnesses to the ongoing leak, but veterinary experts have reserved judgment for now.
Southern California Gas Co. spokeswoman Anne Silva said about 40 percent of the 2,479 households relocated due to the methane leak from the underground storage facility have pets, but the company is not tracking how many fall ill or die.
While the foul-smelling odorants added to odorless natural gas can cause human health problems, their effect on animals is unclear.
"The problem is, if you're talking about dogs or cats or cattle or horses, there's very little information of toxicity specific to the species," said Robert Poppenga, a professor of veterinary toxicology at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine.
State and local officials have not yet received reports of pets or wild animals sickened or dying from the leak, but the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health still warned residents to keep pets inside, and the department's veterinary team plans to conduct testing of dead birds in the area.
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EPA Defends Flint Water Crisis Response
Jan 18, 2016 | The New York Times
By David Shepardson
The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday defended the Obama administration's handling of a crisis in Flint, Michigan with lead-contaminated drinking water.
Speaking to reporters after an event at a Washington soup kitchen, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy defended the federal government's response.
"EPA did its job but clearly the outcome was not what anyone would have wanted. So we're going to work with the state, we're going to work with Flint. We're going to take care of the problem," McCarthy told reporters. "We know Flint is a situation that never should have happened."
She said EPA has established a task force of experts and is conducting an audit of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's water program "to make sure whatever improvements need to be made get made and get done quickly."
Flint, about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Detroit, returned to using Detroit's water in October after tests found elevated levels of lead in the water and in the blood of some children. Lead contamination can cause brain damage and other health problems.
On Sunday, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton criticized Michigan Governor Rick Snyder's handling of the crisis. She suggested that if the problem had occurred in a wealthy, predominantly white suburb of Detroit "there would have been action."
"We’ve had a city in the United States of America where the population, which is poor in many ways and majority African-American, has been drinking and bathing in lead-contaminated water. And the governor of that state acted as though he didn’t really care," she said at a televised debate.
Snyder has apologized for the state's handling of the crisis as calls for him to resign have grown over the last week, including from Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
On Saturday, President Obama declared a federal emergency over the Flint water crisis. But he denied an additional request for a major disaster declaration sought by Snyder.
Obama ordered federal aid for state and local efforts in Genesee County, where Flint, a city of just under 100,000 residents, is located.
The financially-strapped city was under control of a state-appointed emergency manager when it switched its source of tap water from Detroit's system to the nearby Flint River in April 2014 in a cost-cutting move.
The more corrosive water from the Flint River leached lead from city pipes more than Detroit water did, leading to the current problems.
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Water Woes Batter Struggling City -- With No End in Sight
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Tiffany Stecker and Sam Pearson
A long-simmering environmental crisis in a struggling Midwestern city was kicked to the national stage last week and moved to the White House on Saturday, when President Obama declared a state of emergency in Flint, Mich., due to lead-contaminated water.
Few Americans had heard of the Flint water crisis last year, when the city's 100,000 residents slowly learned that their water supply from the Flint River was corroding lead pipes in the city's infrastructure and in older homes.
The city switched to using Detroit's water last October. But the fight is far from over. Up to $55 million is needed in the near term to repair damaged lead service lines, and as much as $41 million is necessary for testing, water filters and cartridges, according to the Detroit Free Press.
Obama's announcement Saturday offers $5 million, but he stopped short of making a disaster declaration, which is reserved for tornadoes, floods, wildfires and other natural phenomena.
More pressing still is who, ultimately, is to blame. Presidential candidates at last night's Democratic debate pointed to the Wolverine State's Republican administration as the cause of the long-running problem.
"We've had a city in the United States of America where the population, which is poor in many ways and majority African-American, has been drinking and bathing in lead-contaminated water," said former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "And the governor acted as though he didn't really care; he had requests for help that he basically stonewalled."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) should leave his office in the wake of the crisis, reiterating comments he made in a statement Saturday.
"A man who acts that irresponsibly should not stay in power," Sanders said.
At a rally in Flint on Saturday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said there should be "tape around the city because Flint is a crime scene," according to The Detroit News. "The people of Flint have been betrayed."
U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy this morning said the agency would audit the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's entire water program.
"We know Flint is a situation that never should have happened," said McCarthy, adding that the federal agency has put together a task force to provide recommendations to the state entity. "EPA did its job, but clearly the outcome was not what anyone would have wanted, so we're going to work with the state, we're going to work with Flint, we're going to take care of the problem."
A slow-developing crisis
The Flint water crisis unfolded over the last four years around a revolving cast of state-appointed emergency managers. A 2012 law championed by Snyder created a process by which the state could appoint an emergency manager to assume some local government functions if a financial review determined the city was in a "financial emergency." Flint has had four emergency managers during Snyder's administration. A version of the emergency manager law had been in place since 1988.
Nearly three years ago, the Flint City Council -- under the control of Emergency Manager Ed Kurtz -- voted to stop buying water from nearby Detroit as a cost-cutting measure. Instead, Flint would join the Karegnondi Water Authority, which was building a pipeline to a source from Lake Huron.
The problem: The KWA pipeline would not be complete until 2016, and the city of Detroit would stop delivering water in April 2014. Kurtz resigned, and another emergency manager, Michael Brown, stayed for only two months.
A month before the shutoff, Flint officials -- under the oversight of the new emergency manager, Darnell Earley -- picked the Flint River as the source of the city's water. The city made its switch on April 25, 2014, a move that would save $5 million in less than two years, according to media reports.
Almost immediately, residents began complaining of fishy-smelling water. Several boil-water advisories were issued in the summer of 2014 after the utility found strains of Escherichia coli. The city added chlorine to the water as a disinfectant, which caused the formation of toxic and carcinogenic trihalomethanes.
By January 2015, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department agreed to reconnect Flint to its system. Earley refused, saying he would hire experts to improve Flint's drinking water despite findings of elevated lead levels in the water. Earley left shortly afterward, and a new emergency manager -- Jerry Ambrose -- stepped in. A leaked memo from a EPA Region 5 official reported high levels of lead in the water.
Last fall, the crisis intensified. Pediatricians at the University of Michigan found elevated levels of lead in the blood of Flint children. Genesee County declared a state of emergency. For the first time, Snyder admitted that mistakes had been made in the switch to Flint River water.
The Flint River's water is more corrosive than Lake Huron, where Detroit gets its water. There are ways to mitigate this by using corrosion controls like phosphate, which coats service lines and prevents lead from leaching into the water. Flint was using lime, which isn't enough to prevent the leaching.
"We still don't have a really good sense of that whole chain of communication or knowledge," said Nick Schroeck, director of the Transnational Environmental Law Clinic at Wayne State University in Detroit.
The Justice Department launched an investigation two weeks ago to look into the reasons why multiple state-appointed emergency managers, city staff, state environmental executives and U.S. EPA failed to prevent toxic levels of lead in the drinking water.
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups filed a notice of intent to sue Snyder, current Flint Mayor Karen Weaver, MDEQ Director Dan Wyant and other officials in November.
Lead pipes hard to find
In Flint, like many former industrial cities across the country, lead service lines are common. EPA tried to get a handle on the problem when it issued the 1991 Lead and Copper Rule under the Safe Drinking Water Act to avoid the contamination of metals via pipes and fittings. The rule requires utilities to regularly monitor drinking water at customers' taps.
But in many cities, it's not easy to find those pipes. Schroeck said he once filed a Freedom of Information Act request to find a list of the lead service mains in Detroit. The city came up empty.
"That led you to believe the Lead and Copper Rule isn't being followed," said Schroeck, and EPA is unable to enforce it. "They probably have that information somewhere, like a shoebox in a basement, but they don't have it readily available.
"I'm not convinced EPA doesn't have some level of responsibility here," he added.
Snyder, a venture capitalist with little political experience before his election as governor in 2010, built his reputation on metrics, said Barry Rabe, a political science professor at the University of Michigan. Snyder's goal of transforming state and local government in Michigan reached a pinnacle when he signed the emergency manager law in 2012.
"I have a feeling we're just at the beginning of a lot of fingerpointing and efforts to lay blame in this debacle," Rabe said.
Yet as far as Republican administrations go, Snyder's government has been relatively moderate on environmental policies, said Rabe. For example, the governor has not opposed EPA's Clean Power Plan, which places the first-ever regulations on existing coal-fired power plants. Though Michigan's Republican attorney general has joined the multistate legal challenges against the rule, Snyder himself has stayed out of the fight.
Snyder is scheduled to deliver his annual State of the State address at the Capitol in Lansing tomorrow night -- and it could prove to be the biggest stage of his governorship. But his administration may not be able to answer the long-term questions of how to fix the water crisis in Flint by then, Rabe said, and Snyder's speech may have to be very different from his previous addresses, which have tended toward wonky policy discussions.
Weaver, Flint's mayor, said last week it may cost as much as $1.5 billion to fully repair the city's water distribution system, according to the Detroit Free Press, and it's not clear where the money will come from.
Politically, Rabe said, it will be a tough sell for the state to shell out big bucks "to repair damaged water infrastructure in one city that is not the biggest city in the state, does not have a strong political constituency in the government right now and is not the only city in Michigan with water infrastructure issues."
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Worker Dies in Fort McMurray Blast
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
Nexen Energy on Saturday closed its Long Lake oil sands facility in Canada after an explosion killed one employee and left another seriously injured.
The explosion occurred on Friday afternoon at the location south of Fort McMurray, Alberta.
Ron Bailey, Nexen's senior vice president of Canadian operations, said that after the event occurred, the facility was promptly shut down. The company also stopped its upgrader and its steam-assisted gravity drainage operation, which resulted in a complete production halt. The facility will remain closed indefinitely.
The injured worker was transported to the burn unit of a hospital in Edmonton.
The company is cooperating with regulators and has launched its own investigation regarding the matter (Jeffrey Hodgson, Reuters/Toronto Globe and Mail, Jan. 16).
A spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it is believed the explosion occurred in the hydrocracker unit of the plant while workers were changing out valves on a compressor.
There is no time frame for resuming production at the site.
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Funding Set for Burbank High-Speed Rail Station Planning
Jan 18, 2016 | LA Times
By Chad Garland
A funding agreement between the California High-Speed Rail Authority and the city of Burbank will pay for much of a $1.2-million planning process for what high-speed rail officials are calling a “world-class multimodal transportation hub,” including a proposed bullet train station adjacent to Bob Hope Airport.
The rail authority this week announced it would provide $800,000 for the planning effort. The airport area already includes a recently completed transportation center with rental car businesses, as well as Amtrak and Metrolink stations, bus services, taxis and ride-share services.
High-speed rail officials have proposed three potential station locations on the former Lockheed “B6” property, also called the “Opportunity Site,” which the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority agreed in November to sell to Gardena-based Overton Moore Properties for $72.5 million.
Overton Moore representatives have said they are willing to work with the rail authority. In an interview this week, Mayor Bob Frutos said the developer has discussed with him plans for flexible office space and a hotel on the site.
The Burbank City Council voted to accept the state grant, which is largely made up of 2009 federal stimulus money and includes $200,000 from California’s cap-and-trade program, at the end of September. The money will also be used to explore opportunities for related economic development and sustainability in the airport area.
Burbank will provide a matching $400,000, mostly from a Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority grant. The effort is expected to take 18 to 24 months and will involve public outreach to develop conceptual designs for the station area as part of its Golden State Specific Plan and environmental review in the airport area.
The cities of Merced, Fresno, Bakersfield, Gilroy and Palmdale have entered into similar agreements with the bullet-train authority.
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Diverse Cast Ready for Post-Paris Policy Clashes
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
After ending 2015 with a historic international climate change agreement in Paris, the Obama administration plans to focus this year on shoring up its domestic climate agenda.
The administration is poised to issue a few remaining U.S. EPA rules before leaving office next January, including regulations over emissions of methane from the oil and gas industry and new fuel efficiency standards for trucks.
States will be key players this year in implementing the administration's Clean Power Plan for curbing emissions from the utility sector while many state and industry challengers attempt to overthrow the rule in court.
In the wake of the Paris climate accord, the United States is also poised to be a leader in upcoming international negotiations under the Montreal Protocol to phase out hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The Paris climate agreement will also be opened for signature on Earth Day on April 22.
Meanwhile, congressional foes, led in large part by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), will continue to hammer away at the administration's climate agenda, though they are running out of options for halting the effort before the president's term ends.
Expect environmentalists to become more vocal in their push to halt drilling for fossil fuels on federal land after notching an early-year victory with the Obama administration's moratorium on new leases to companies for coal mining on federal lands. After years of behind-the-scenes action, the "Keep It in the Ground" movement took off last fall within mainstream environmental organizations.
The private sector played a role in marshaling support for the Paris deal, but there are questions about the role of business in the coming year in influencing debates.
Finally, it's unclear yet how climate change might play in the presidential and congressional elections, but expect big names like billionaire California environmentalist Tom Steyer and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to play continued roles.
Here are some people to watch this year in U.S. climate debates:
Brian Deese, senior adviser to the president
As President Obama's top climate adviser, Deese will remain important as the administration attempts to tackle remaining items on its climate agenda.
Deese moved into the position of Obama's senior adviser on climate and helped roll out the Clean Power Plan and played a pivotal role in the international negotiations that led to the Paris climate deal.
Originally from Massachusetts, Deese has previously served as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget and as deputy director of the National Economic Council. Deese was also a member of the Obama-Biden transition team and served as economic policy director for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.
"I'm sure that Brian will be in the thick of the president's climate agenda right up until Jan. 20 of next year," said Paul Bledsoe, a former climate official in the Clinton administration.
In a recent appearance in Washington, D.C., Deese expressed some frustration at the difficulty in bumping up climate change to a top public priority.
"The full effects will be seen by our kids and grandkids," he said, "and that's always a challenge that goes to the intensity issue -- some of these other issues are going to be more intense."
Doug Scott, Great Plains Institute
States are facing a September deadline under the Clean Power Plan either to submit plans laying out how they will achieve emissions reduction targets for the power sector or to demonstrate progress.
Scott, executive vice president of strategic initiatives at the Great Plains Institute, is helping coordinate Clean Power Plan compliance among roughly 20 states, including those challenging the rule in court.
The states are organized in two groups according to their grid managers -- MISO Energy and PJM Interconnection LLC. Great Plains has also convened a stakeholder group in the Midwest to try to figure out how states should approach the rule.
Scott is uniquely positioned to coordinate compliance among states: He's both served as chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission -- which regulates the state's utilities -- and been director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency from 2005 to 2011. The Clean Power Plan has led to new coordination between the energy and environmental agencies in states.
"It was great to have done both jobs and to get an understanding of how each -- utilities and environmental regulators -- look at these kinds of rules and what's important to them," Scott said. "It's allowed me to have, both on the environmental side and utility regulator side, to have both a lot of really good contacts and friendships."
Scott also served as mayor of Rockford, Ill., from 2001 to 2005 and in the Illinois General Assembly between 1995 and 2001.
Utility input is key to the Clean Power Plan process, Scott says. One of his major challenges is helping states sort through models predicting the rule's outcomes and costs.
Durwood Zaelke, Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development
Although it was far less publicized than the Paris negotiations, nations agreed in Dubai last November to amend the Montreal Protocol in 2016 to phase out HFCs, factory-made gases used in air conditioning and refrigeration.
Limiting HFC use worldwide has the potential to prevent up to 200 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent from being released into the atmosphere by 2050 and could avoid up to 0.5 degree Celsius of warming by 2100, according to the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development.
Zaelke, the institute's president and founder, is poised to play a key role in the shaping of the upcoming Montreal Protocol amendment. His group seeks to explain the science on HFCs, make a business case for nations to seek alternatives, navigate the industries that make and use the gases, answer questions from nations and help support champions.
Prior to establishing the institute, Zaelke founded the Center for International Environmental Law in Washington, D.C., and in the late 1980s started what is now the international program at Earthjustice. He worked for a short time at the environmental division of the Justice Department. Zaelke, who also wrote the leading international environmental law textbook, currently teaches environmental law at the University of California, Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and American University's law school.
Zaelke argues that reducing short-lived climate pollutants like HFCs will be key to putting the Paris agreement in play. This year, he'll be advocating for the amendment, its fast implementation and increased energy efficiency incentives.
The Montreal Protocol is "the most important piece of near-term mitigation this year," he said during a meeting in D.C. last month. "The door is open."
Other names to watch at the White House this year on HFCs: Rick Duke, deputy director for climate policy and a former assistant secretary for climate policy at the Department of Energy, and Rohan Patel, deputy director of intergovernmental affairs and former associate director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.2 key lawmakers
Some Capitol Hill observers say they're watching two key Republicans as Congress enters the election year: House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.
Ryan, who's critical of Obama's climate agenda, has been quiet on the issue since taking the speaker's gavel last month.
"If he doesn't pay attention to this, that's a statement: We're not going to deal with this. That'll be for the next Congress," said Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions and the Obama EPA's former No. 2 official. "That will show that the tone is changing."
In the Senate, Alexander was one of four Republicans to form a working group on clean energy, climate change and environmental issues last year -- a move that some observers said signaled that the politics on the environment in Congress is shifting.
While Alexander has opposed the Clean Power Plan, the moderate Republican says he supports actions to clean the air and conserve land. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he wields significant power in determining funding for advanced energy technology. He's also an important figure in Congress when it comes to nuclear policy.
Carbon capture and storage is also poised to become a more significant policy item this year in Congress and receive GOP support with the Kemper County carbon capture and storage project operated by Mississippi Power scheduled to come online this spring.
Jeremy Nichols, WildEarth Guardians
After Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline last year, climate advocates found a new cause: "Keep It in the Ground," a movement to halt oil, gas and coal leasing activities on federal lands.
President Obama's State of the Union speech calling for changes to the way the nation manages coal and oil sources, and the subsequent announcement halting coal leasing activities while environmental impacts are studied, has bolstered the movement early in the year.
Industry interests have called the movement extreme, but activists have vowed to step up their efforts this year through more protests at Bureau of Land Management leasing sales for oil and companies. They've been successful so far in postponing three lease sales.
Mainstream environmental groups took up the movement this fall, but Nichols, director of the climate and energy program at WildEarth Guardians, has been working behind the scenes for several years to lay the administrative and legal groundwork.
Nichols, who joined the group in 2008, says he first became interested in land issues in the summer of 2001, when he was hired to inventory remote roadless public lands in Wyoming. He founded the Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action nonprofit in 2008 to focus on clean air laws in the West.
Nichols, who is based in Colorado, and WildEarth Guardians have scored a handful of court victories in the past few years, including a 2014 ruling in Colorado that admonished the Obama administration for failing to account for carbon costs.
"Our organization in particular has stepped up to confront this through legal and administrative channels," Nichols said in an interview. "But I don't think it quite sunk in until this past fall, when a huge coalition of groups came together to send a letter to the president calling on him to stop leasing coal, oil and gas that's publicly owned."
Nichols says he was surprised at the turnout so far at protests: "These oil and gas lease sales -- they're not going to be quiet affairs anymore," Nichols vowed.
Mindy Lubber, Ceres
The Paris climate talks saw many large publicly traded companies and financial firms come together in support of climate change action. And now, advocates of climate action are looking to the business sector in 2016 to play a big role in implementing the agreement and to shift politics in the domestic debate.
Lubber, president and founding board member of sustainable business nonprofit Ceres, will likely play a key role in gathering business community support post-Paris.
Lubber, who works out of Ceres' headquarters in Boston, spends her days traveling to raise money and meet with the 65 companies within the Ceres network. She says she spends a lot of time with owners of large institutional investors -- Ceres works with more than 100 -- to make the case that climate is a financial risk. Ceres also operates a small policy team in D.C. and San Francisco.
Prior to joining Ceres, Lubber was a senior policy adviser at U.S. EPA from 1995 to 2000 and served as Region 1 (New England) administrator under President Clinton.
Before joining EPA, Lubber served as president and CEO of Green Century Capital Management Inc. and president of the National Environmental Law Center. She has a Master of Business Administration from the State University of New York, Buffalo, and a law degree from Suffolk University.
In an interview, Lubber said her post-Paris priorities are working with companies to reduce their carbon footprints, invest in clean energy and support policies leading to a low-carbon future, such as EPA's Clean Power Plan.
"Coming out of Paris, much will depend on the private sector," Lubber said. "They are a very big part of making that happen. Insurance companies are a major player in pricing risk and investing in clean future. The private sector, companies and investors -- we need all of those players to stand publicly and talk about the need for policy."
Under Lubber's direction, Ceres was also instrumental in bringing about a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission requirement that companies disclose climate risk, although Lubber is critical of the way the commission has enforced the mandate. The issue will likely continue to play high this year following the investigations into oil giant Exxon Mobil Corp.'s climate disclosures.
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Bush Reg Chief Slams EPA Mercury Rule Benefits Analysis
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA's use of "co-benefits" to help justify its new power plant mercury rule is again under fire -- this time from Susan Dudley, who served as federal regulatory chief during part of President George W. Bush's tenure.
Co-benefits are potential positive outcomes stemming from the measure that can't be directly attributed to a drop in emissions of mercury and other hazardous pollutants.
While EPA "grudgingly" presented evidence of the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards' benefits in a new so-called supplemental finding, "this calculation is dominated by co-benefits that are not subject to its authority ... and that EPA could address more effectively with direct regulation," Dudley wrote last week in a seven-page "public interest comment" on the measure.
Moreover, she said, the standards will do little to lessen people's exposure to the toxic emissions EPA is statutorily required to address, but all Americans will bear the projected $9.6 billion in annual costs. Dudley said people "will pay more for electricity and anything that uses it."
EPA had released the draft finding in late November in response to a Supreme Court ruling last year saying the agency should have taken more consideration of costs when deeming it "necessary and appropriate" to curb a list of hazardous emissions from oil- and coal-fired plants.
In its new justification proposal, EPA found the expected benefits were large enough to warrant the price tag of new technology and other steps to curb power plant pollution.
Dudley's comments were among 40 submissions on the draft finding by Friday's deadline from groups and individuals, according to the website Regulations.gov, an online clearinghouse for federal rulemaking. The bulk of that feedback was not immediately available on the site, which is down today for scheduled maintenance.
Of the comments filed before Friday, some voiced support for the standards. Not only has EPA addressed the Supreme Court's concerns, but the agency has considered "all relevant factors" and should continue with implementation, Bruce Pendery wrote on behalf of the Wyoming Outdoor Council, which bills itself as the state's oldest independent conservation organization.
EPA unveiled the standards -- which are also intended to cut releases of arsenic, lead and other toxic substances -- in late 2011. While they rank among the costliest ever issued by the agency, EPA officials predict they will yield between $37 billion and $90 billion worth of annual health gains when fully in place.
Critics, however, have seized on EPA's use of co-benefits. Last month, Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, predicted a coming legal fight over the issue (Greenwire, Dec. 7, 2015).
In her comments, Dudley argued that EPA derived 99 percent of MATS' expected benefits by "assigning high-dollar values" to reductions of "non-hazardous" releases of fine particles, technically known as PM2.5.
"This is particularly troubling because other section of the [Clean Air Act] provide EPA direct authority to regulate PM 2.5 and because direct regulation of a substance is not only more transparent, but likely a more cost-effective, way to achieve any risk reduction benefits," she wrote.
Dudley, now director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center, served as head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the White House budget office from 2007 to early 2009. A longtime critic of EPA's justification for MATS, she has also derided the agency's handling of a recently adopted ambient air quality standard for ozone (E&ENews PM, Oct. 28, 2015).
EPA has agreed to fully address the Supreme Court's concerns on MATS by April 15. In a ruling last month, the D.C. appellate court sided with the agency against state and industry challengers in agreeing to leave the standards in place.
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Burning Excess Methane at Leak Could Cause Blast -- Regulators
Jan 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
California utility regulators have asked Southern California Gas Co. to provide evidence that its efforts to burn off natural gas at the site is safe and that the ground around its leaking well is stable.
The Public Utility Commission's request for additional information depicts the agency's concern over the well site in Aliso Canyon, which could be vulnerable to a blowout, an explosion or both.
The commission has given the company until tomorrow to address its plans to capture the gas with a 3-foot-wide pipe, burn off those emissions and screen the remainder of methane to reduce the stench. The agency said the proposed system "is NOT fully designed and needs further work and analysis."
A three-page letter from the PUC suggests, among other things, that electronic motors using the system's blowers could let off a spark and ignite the mixture of methane and oxygen in highly flammable proportions.
Utility officials say they are working to manage that risk.
But some are skeptical of the company's efforts after it has struggled to plug the well after the leak was discovered on Oct. 23, 2015.
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Oil Prices Edge Lower as Iran Prepares to Ramp Up Production
Jan 18, 2016 | The New York Times
By Stanley Reed
Oil edged even further below $30 a barrel on Monday as the potential impact of additional oil from a post-sanctions Iran weighed on an already oversupplied market.
But a report from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Monday indicated that the group expects low global prices — which have fallen by 70 percent since 2014 — to force its rival producers, like the United States, to curb production enough to eventually reduce the glut of supplies that has driven prices down.
OPEC predicted in its monthly oil report that 2016 would be “the year when the rebalancing process starts.”
Brent crude, the international benchmark, was just below $29 in early afternoon trading in Europe.
OPEC forecast that the United States would see the world’s largest output decline this year as capital spending continues to fall, reducing the number of rigs drilling wells. Overall production, including biofuels, in the United States will fall by an average of 380,000 barrels a day this year, to an average of about 13.5 million barrels a day, according to OPEC, whose 13 members include the Arab oil states, and Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela.
And yet, after many Western sanctions against Iran were lifted over the weekend, Iranian oil officials said they would quickly be ramping up exports by 500,000 barrels a day. Iranian production has been about 2.9 million barrels a day, with much of that oil sold to customers in Asia. Iran also consumes a lot of its crude domestically.
Many forecasting organizations agree with OPEC that production growth outside the organization will fall as companies defer or cancel projects. On Monday, for instance, Royal Dutch Shell said it was pulling out of an estimated $11 billion effort to extract difficult-to-recover natural gas in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates because “the project does not fit with the company’s strategy, particularly in the economic climate prevailing in the energy industry.”
Oil prices could remain under pressure for some time, analysts say. Many agree that growth of production outside OPEC is slowing. But inventories, which are already high, are likely to continue to build, although more slowly, through at least the first half of this year. Hedge funds and other financial buyers are betting heavily on prices falling further.
One big uncertainty is how demand for oil will fare. Slowing growth in China has been a factor in falling demand. And the recent turmoil in the financial markets that began in China but that has spread globally has raised questions about whether underlying economic weakness around the world could become worse — with even growth in the United States beginning to slow.
On Monday, Asian stocks were flat or down somewhat, and European markets were marginally down. Stock markets in the United States were closed for Martin Luther King’s Birthday.
Iran, in principle, will now be able to sell oil to its former customers in Europe and elsewhere. But in practice, Tehran may face obstacles in the form of continued restrictions on use of the dollar because of some American sanctions that remain in effect. The dollar is widely used for oil trading.
In addition, Iran may face competition in Europe from Saudi Arabia and other producers. “The Saudis have been increasing their presence in Europe in anticipation of an Iranian return,” said Richard Mallinson, an analyst at Energy Aspects, a market research firm based in London.
Although Saudi Arabia and Iran are both OPEC members, their geopolitical differences have long made them oil rivals. And those differences have grown only more acute as low prices have split OPEC and as tensions have grown more heated between the Saudis and the Iranians over sectarian conflicts in places such as Yemen and Syria.
The impact of Western sanctions caused Iranian production to drop by about one million barrels a day in recent years, and blocked the country from importing the latest Western oil-field technology and equipment. So while some of Iran’s production could be brought back relatively quickly, larger increases may take considerable time until facilities can be upgraded. That is why analysts are forecasting an increase of around 400,000 barrels a day in the coming months from Iran.
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Sandbags, Levees and Clean Energy
Jan 18, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.)
As the Mississippi waters crest and fall, there are certain images that you can’t forget. The mud-soaked kitchen floors, the submerged cars, neighbors wading or even boating from house to house--these pictures of our communities seem both heartbreakingly extraordinary and sadly familiar.
Though we can hope this is the last time we face a flood of this magnitude, the sad truth is that it won’t be. In 2010, Tennessee struggled through massive floods, and we’re likely to see similar disasters more frequently in the future, as it seems the so-called “1,000-year” floods are now happening much more often than that. But there’s a way to lower the chances that floods will again upend our lives. On behalf of those who have lost so much, and the responders who put their lives on the line for ours, we must do all we can.
One might take that to mean we should store more sandbags to use next time or build higher levees. It would be easy—and worthwhile— to take measures to support first responders and emergency preparedness. But many of us know that those efforts aren’t permanent solutions; they’re temporary coping mechanisms. What would be best is to ensure that we work now to keep these floods from getting even worse.
We can begin this daunting task of holding back the waters by reducing our fossil fuel emissions. The scientific basis is simple. Carbon dioxide is released when we burn coal and gas, which warms the atmosphere. Warm air holds more water, allowing clouds to soak up extra moisture before releasing it as rain. This leads to the types of intense storms we saw last month, which increase the likelihood of devastating flooding.
So a string of unusually hot days can make the difference between a rainstorm that pushes boundaries and one that breaks them, as we saw in 2010.
This year though, the flooding came in winter. If those upriver saw normal temperatures instead of record-breaking December warmth, the waters that soaked us would have stayed frozen up north. It would have fallen as snow and melted gradually in the spring thaw, keeping water levels downstream at manageable and predictable levels. Instead, it poured down as rain and made its way over riverbanks and into our communities.
Yes, there were floods before SUVs, and there will always be a chance of one happening even without human-caused climate change, but this flood was likely no coincidence. It came on the tail of an exceptionally hot December, which likely capped off the hottest year on record globally. That would make 2015 the second year in a row to be the hottest in the modern age which continues a decades-long warming trend that 97 percent of climate scientists see as the result of human activity—namely, the burning of fossil fuels.
In this new year, we face an old choice. We can continue to depend on fossil fuels like we have in the past, endure more flooding and other extreme weather, put more lives in danger, and get more money in the pockets of coal and oil executives, or we can face the facts and redouble efforts to grow our low-carbon economy.
At the same time we’re preparing for the next flood, we should be cutting our chances of needing to live through one in the first place. We need to move forward with fuel efficiency programs for our cars now, and switch to electric cars soon. Sure, we might need bigger levees, but we will definitely need bigger budgets for retraining coal workers for the clean energy economy.
Fortunately, we won’t be alone in our efforts to reduce emissions, because last December in Paris, almost every nation on Earth—including major emitters like India, China, and Saudi Arabia—agreed to work towards a low-carbon future. We can either help lead the way and reap the economic benefits, or sit idle and watch others prosper.
So let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work. Sandbags, levees, clean energy—we need it all. Anything less will invite the next flood, instead of fighting it.
Cohen has represented Tennessee's 9th Congressional District since 2007. He sits on the Judiciary and the Transportation committees, and is a member of the House Sustainable Energy & Environment Coalition.
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