Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 2/4/16
-
World Cancer Day: Washington Watching D.C. Modernization of Toxics Law
Feb 4, 2016 | Public News Service
By Eric Tegethoff
Today is World Cancer Day, and if you look around, you might find household items contaminated with potentially cancer-causing toxins. Some states, including Washington, have done their duty to ban chemicals linked to cancer like bisphenol-A, found in baby bottles and canned food liners, and a new bill passed by Congress could help federal agencies do the same. -
US EPA Consults on Guidelines for Human Exposure Assessment
Feb 4, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA is consulting on its draft Guidelines for human exposure assessment, with a public comment period of 45 days. The consultation will conclude on 22 February, it has announced in the Federal Register. -
Tox21 Computer Models Predict Human Toxicity Best
Feb 4, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Computer models, based on in vitro assay data, appear to be better at predicting human than animal toxicity, according to a recently completed high-throughput screening study of 10,000 Tox21 substances, known as the Tox21 10K collection. -
Michelin Appeals Against Echa Decision on Tyre Substance
Feb 4, 2016 | Chemical Watch
French tyre manufacturer, Michelin, has asked Echa's Board of Appeal (BoA) to overturn the agency's Decision, requiring registrants of a substance used in tyres to provide information to assist with its evaluation. -
Syngenta-ChemChina Deal Could Raise U.S. Security Issues
Feb 4, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Shayndi Raice
Syngenta AG’s ownership of U.S. chemical facilities that are potential terror targets could raise red flags with the government body that monitors foreign acquisitions of American businesses, after the company agreed to sell itself to the government-owned China National Chemical Corp. -
Cities Seek Multidistrict Litigation For Novel PCB Suits Against Monsanto
Feb 4, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Several West Coast cities are asking a federal court to consolidate their novel tort claims against chemical company Monsanto for damages due to water and sediment contamination from polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), after Seattle became the sixth city to file suit alleging the company knew PCBs were toxic and could not be contained in their original application. -
Enviros, N.Y. County Sue Over Crude-by-Rail Facility Emissions
Feb 4, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A major crude-by-rail facility in Albany, N.Y., is operating outside the bounds of the Clean Air Act, a coalition of environmental groups and county officials told a federal court this week. -
Weak Commodity Prices Spark Defaults, Crimp Railroads
Feb 4, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
Knock-on effects of slumping commodity markets are filtering through to the railroad industry and contributing to the highest corporate default rate since the aftermath of the financial crisis. -
Idaho Looks to Submit Carbon Strategy and Seek Extension
Feb 4, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
The state of Idaho is inclined to submit to U.S. EPA in September a compliance plan for the agency's controversial carbon rule and ask for a two-year extension to work out the details of coordinating compliance with adjoining states, according to state officials. -
One Statistic Shows Just How Dramatically Our Energy System is Changing
Feb 4, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
In mid-2015, when the Environmental Protection Agency released its Clean Power Plan, it made a prediction of sorts. Under the new policy to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector, the EPA said, coal use would decline and the use of natural gas and renewables would increase. -
Flint Fight Could Sink Senate Bill -- Mich. Senator
Feb 4, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Geof Koss
Complications over an amendment to help the community of Flint, Mich., deal with its ongoing drinking water crisis have emerged as serious threats to the Senate's bipartisan energy package, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said today. -
Flint Fight Blocks Energy Bill
Feb 4, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked ending debate on a broad, bipartisan rewrite of federal energy policy because lawmakers couldn’t come to an agreement on aid for the Flint, Mich., water crisis. -
RGGI Faces Broad Calls To Set High Bar For Future ESPS Trading Market
Feb 4, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Abby Smith
Power generators and environmentalists are urging officials for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) -- the nine-state cap-and-trade program in the Northeast -- to allow trading with other states under EPA's existing power plant GHG rule and leverage its program to set a high bar for other states to join its trading market.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Energy and Environment News
-
World Cancer Day: Washington Watching D.C. Modernization of Toxics Law
Feb 4, 2016 | Public News Service
By Eric Tegethoff
Today is World Cancer Day, and if you look around, you might find household items contaminated with potentially cancer-causing toxins. Some states, including Washington, have done their duty to ban chemicals linked to cancer like bisphenol-A, found in baby bottles and canned food liners, and a new bill passed by Congress could help federal agencies do the same.
The House and Senate versions of the bill allowing federal agencies to control toxic substances more effectively are now being reconciled. Washington state Representative Joe Fitzgibbon (D-Seattle) hopes lawmakers don't weaken state standards.
"State level regulations in particular have spurred manufacturers to remove harmful chemicals across the country," says Fitzgibbon.
He adds, Washington state has led the way in regulating hazardous chemicals like PBDE's, found in flame retardants used on mattresses.
While it may not be groundbreaking, Andy Ingrejas, director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, says the bill that comes out of the process should be an improvement over current legislation that has left the Environmental Protection Agency unable to act even on known carcinogens, for decades.
"Steadily, the chemicals that are causing chronic disease and environmental degradation right now would be identified and intercepted and reduced," says Ingrejas. "And that would be good."
Representative Fitzgibbon, who is chair of the House Environment Committee, wants Olympia to continue leading the way when it comes to regulating hazardous chemicals in consumer products. But he says bills introduced to evaluate and look for alternatives to other toxic substances have stalled in the state legislature.
"If individuals in our community want these chemicals to be removed from their products, then they need to be more organized and louder than the chemical companies are," Fitzgibbon says. -
US EPA Consults on Guidelines for Human Exposure Assessment
Feb 4, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The US EPA is consulting on its draft Guidelines for human exposure assessment, with a public comment period of 45 days. The consultation will conclude on 22 February, it has announced in the Federal Register.
Comments submitted will be considered by the agency’s peer review panel.
The guidelines are intended for exposure and risk assessors in the US EPA, and consultants, contractors and scientists who perform this type of work under agency sponsorship, policies or procedures.
The draft will update and expand on a previous version, published in 1992, and incorporate advances in exposure assessment, reflecting best practice in the agency. It focuses primarily on non-occupational exposures.
The US EPA is seeking public comment, prior to an external peer review, which will be organised and conducted by an independent contractor.
-
Tox21 Computer Models Predict Human Toxicity Best
Feb 4, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Computer models, based on in vitro assay data, appear to be better at predicting human than animal toxicity, according to a recently completed high-throughput screening study of 10,000 Tox21 substances, known as the Tox21 10K collection.
Researchers at the US National Institutes of Health's National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) tested the chemicals, using a set of nuclear receptor and stress response pathway assays, to give more than 50m data points.
They used the results to build predictive models for 72 in vivo toxicity endpoints. Comparing results with animal data showed a “reasonable but not ideal” predictive performance, with structural data appearing to be more predictive than assay activity profiles. However, combining structural and activity data gave more predictive models than using structure or activity alone.
All of the assays use human cell lines with specific cellular targets and pathways, which probably explains why the models perform better for human toxicity, said lead author Ruili Huang from NCATS.
The team plans to test human toxicity predictions, using existing human clinical toxicity data on pharmaceutical compounds in the Tox21 10K.
Collecting and sorting the data is taking a long time because most of it is scattered around in company databases or literature, said Dr Huang. “Eventually we will get a nice collection of human toxicity data so that we can really test how effective our models are,” she said.
The researchers have placed all of the Tox21 10,000 chemicals into clusters, based on structures or assay activity, as well as assigning those with similar structures and activity to “consensus clusters”. Clustering in this way highlights possible similar modes of action, explained Dr Huang.
For example, Tox21's oestrogenic compounds, including oestradiol and bisphenol A and its analogues, form a neat cluster. Other compounds entering the cluster are likely to have a similar mode of action, she added.
So far, the models have been somewhat limited by the narrow focus of the assays. “Now we are moving towards developmental biology assays as well as expanding to assays to look at epigenetic modifications,” explained co-author Menghang Xia. They will also use "more physiologically relevant models", including cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, she said.
The team is using these assays on all of the Tox21 10K substances and hopes to finish such screening in the next few years. “Once we have more data, we can re-run the models to see if they achieve better predictions,” said Dr Huang.
The NCATS team stresses the importance of data quality for good models. It recently published the results from a public Tox21 challenge to build predictive models for the nuclear receptor and stress response assays, using only chemical structure.
“The winning models performed very well, which shows that our data must be very robust and highly reproducible,” said Dr Huang.
Winning models from nearly 400 submissions achieved over 80% accuracy for predictions, with several exceeding 90% accuracy. They will be made publicly available so that they can be applied to other chemical sets, with no experimental data, and used to prioritise chemicals for more in-depth evaluation.
The winning teams all used multiple chemical descriptor types and a range of modelling algorithms. The NCATS researchers will now compare the methods to see if they can pick out specific techniques that enabled the winning models to outperform others.
Tox 21 is a collaboration between the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)/National Toxicology Program (NTP), the EPA's National Centre for Computational Toxicology (NCCT), the NIH's NCATS, and the FDA.
The Tox21 10K study is published in Nature Communications, while the Tox21 challenge results are reported in Frontiers in Environmental Science.
-
Michelin Appeals Against Echa Decision on Tyre Substance
Feb 4, 2016 | Chemical Watch
French tyre manufacturer, Michelin, has asked Echa's Board of Appeal (BoA) to overturn the agency's Decision, requiring registrants of a substance used in tyres to provide information to assist with its evaluation.
The case is unusual because the company lodging the appeal is not an addressee of the contested Decision, but rather a downstream user of the substance – in this case, n,n-dicyclohexylbenzothiazole-2-sulphenamide.
Echa asked for information on the environmental exposure, generated by the substance's use in the production and use of tyres and general rubber products, and the environmental releases from tyres.
Michelin claims the agency did not take into account information provided by the registrants, showing that the substance is almost exclusively used in the inner parts of tyres and entirely consumed, during the vulcanisation process.
Thus, claims Michelin, the agency was wrong to conclude that the substance could potentially be released into the environment, through abrasion.
Michelin also claims Echa should have conducted a compliance check, before the substance evaluation was carried out by the German authorities.
The substance evaluation Decision said there was concern that it is highly persistent in soil and sediment and seems to be very bioaccumulative. If found to be very persistent, it would qualify for SVHC status as very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB).
Meanwhile, five companies have appealed against an agency Decision in relation to tert-butyl perbenzoate. The firms say they should not be required to conduct the requested prenatal developmental toxicity study or in vivo alkaline single-cell gel electrophoresis assay for DNA strand breaks (Comet assay). If the BoA decides the tests must be conducted, they want 24 months instead of 15 to submit the information.
The companies are: AkzoNobel Chemicals, Arkema, Pergan, Reach Compliance Services (trading as REACH24H Consulting Group) and United Initiators.
-
Syngenta-ChemChina Deal Could Raise U.S. Security Issues
Feb 4, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Shayndi Raice
Syngenta AG’s ownership of U.S. chemical facilities that are potential terror targets could raise red flags with the government body that monitors foreign acquisitions of American businesses, after the company agreed to sell itself to the government-owned China National Chemical Corp.
Syngenta’s St. Gabriel manufacturing facility outside of Baton Rouge, La., and a facility in Houston, Texas, are registered with the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program, which through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security regulates high-risk chemical facilities. The CFATS program was authorized by Congress in 2007 and updated in 2014 to protect hazardous chemical facilities from terrorist infiltration.
The St. Gabriel site is a “major crop protection manufacturing facility for Syngenta,” according its website. A recent job posting on several employment websites describes the facility as “a large highly hazardous chemical manufacturing facility.”
State-owned ChemChina said Wednesday it offered to buy the Swiss pesticide and seed company for $43 billion in cash. There is little business overlap between ChemChina and Syngenta, meaning the antitrust risk for the deal appears to be relatively low.
If regulators require remediation, ChemChina will sell certain assets, said a person familiar with the matter. Syngenta will remain intact, the person added.
But the deal could still face stiff obstacles if the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS, determines that Chinese ownership of sensitive chemical facilities would pose a national security risk.
The interagency body, which comprises representatives from 16 U.S. agencies including Treasury, Homeland Security and Defense, is tasked with ensuring that foreign acquirers gaining control of U.S. assets don’t pose a risk to national security. If CFIUS determines there is a threat, the president could quash the deal.
The number of Chinese deals CFIUS has reviewed has increased since 2012. Experts note the pattern reflects growing concern among U.S. national security experts about Chinese acquisition of sensitive U.S. technologies or facilities.
A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, which chairs CFIUS, declined to comment.
Lawyers who represent clients before CFIUS said Syngenta’s ownership of CFATS facilities means CFIUS is likely to review the ChemChina deal, but they added that it didn’t necessarily preclude approval of the agreement. “We are very convinced there is no security issue,” said Syngenta ChairmanMichel Demare. He said Syngenta plans to proactively seek CFIUS approval.
While CFIUS review technically is a voluntary process, it is incumbent upon companies engaging in what is termed a “covered transaction” to submit to CFIUS for review. The panel monitors deal activity and may request that a company file for review if it doesn’t do so on its own.
Other issues could arise that might cause CFIUS concern, said the lawyers who represent clients and companies before CFIUS. In the case of sensitive chemicals, CFIUS could raise concerns if Syngenta has partnered on research with the U.S. government, said one lawyer not involved in the case. Another noted that CFIUS can become suspicious if they believe a state-owned actor isn’t generally honest in its dealings.
The definition of national security is kept purposely vague, say CFIUS lawyers, and the connection to national security isn’t always clear.
Sometimes CFIUS can deny a transaction based on an expanded view of control. In some cases, experts say a Chinese board member for a company with a U.S. subsidiary could trigger CFIUS concern.
Proximity to a U.S. military base also could hurt a deal’s chances of receiving approval. When the China National Offshore Oil Corporation bought Canadian oil and gas company Nexen Inc., in 2013 CFIUS required a change in the control of U.S. drilling leases because it would have given the Chinese company control of assets in the Gulf of Mexico.
One person familiar with the Syngenta deal expects CFIUS to review it, and says the company already is working on mapping out all its facilities in the U.S. to ensure they aren’t close to U.S. military bases. The types of chemicals produced at the CFATS facilities and the high level of security at the site could assuage any national security concerns, the person added.
In Europe, CFIUS has most recently killed the sale of Philips NV’s lighting business to Chinese investment group Go Scale Capital for $2.8 billion. The Philips business has a large U.S. patent portfolio and sizable manufacturing and research-and-development facilities in the U.S.
Syngenta has a research-and-development facility in North Carolina.
-
Cities Seek Multidistrict Litigation For Novel PCB Suits Against Monsanto
Feb 4, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Several West Coast cities are asking a federal court to consolidate their novel tort claims against chemical company Monsanto for damages due to water and sediment contamination from polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), after Seattle became the sixth city to file suit alleging the company knew PCBs were toxic and could not be contained in their original application.
One environmental attorney, commenting on Seattle's recent filing, says the litigation, which mirrors the five other cities' suits, could set precedent on the liability that chemical manufacturers may face under tort claims, noting that the litigation attempts to make an end-run around requirements under the Superfund law needed to prove liability.
The attorney, who is not involved in the suits, was speaking of Seattle's filing Jan. 25 of a suit making public nuisance and other tort claims against Monsanto, the sole manufacturer of PCBs for commercial use from the 1930s to the 1970s.
The cities -- Seattle and Spokane in Washington and San Diego, San Jose, Berkeley and Oakland in California -- in a Jan. 26 brief asked the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) to consolidate their cases against Monsanto in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
They say all six actions allege the same wrongful conduct against the same defendants: Monsanto and companies it spun off, Solutia, Inc. and Pharmacia, Inc. In their MDL brief seeking to consolidate the litigation, they say they are filing an MDL petition "to promote judicial efficiency, economy, and consistency." They want to "avoid duplicative judicial work in several courts with the potential for incongruent rulings."
The cities are suggesting that the Northern District of California court preside over the litigation because "(1) it has the most cases, (2) it has the largest water body and the most affected cities, (3) it is centrally located between Washington and southern California, (4) it is furthest along in its cases . . . and (5) Judge [Edward] Davila has already consolidated three cases in his court."
The cities have also filed identical motions to temporarily stay proceedings in their individual cases until the MDL panel makes a decision on the petition.
They say the company has produced over one billion pounds of PCBs, and more than 6,000 U.S. water bodies are contaminated with the chemical.
Cities' Allegation
The cities allege that the company produced, promoted and sold PCBs, knowing that they were toxic and could not be contained in their original application, and that the chemicals would persist, San Diego says in its Jan. 27 brief seeking a temporary stay, pending the MDL request.
"The Cities allege Monsanto continued to manufacture, promote, campaign for, distribute, and sell its PCB chemicals despite knowing PCBs were a 'global contaminant,' polluting America's waterways, sediment, and wildlife, such as the stormwater and water bodies at issue in these cases," the brief says.
In the most recent suit, City of Seattle v. Monsanto Company, the city says it is incurring costs to lower PCBs entering its drainage systems, as required by state regulators, and is paying for investigative and treatment costs related to contamination at two Superfund sites -- the Lower Duwamish River site and the East Waterway site. In the Lower Duwamish, under a consent decree issued by EPA and state regulators, the city must construct a stormwater treatment plant to remove PCBs from stormwater.
Further, the city is paying a substantial portion of costs to investigate contamination into the East Waterway, with a current draft study finding remedial options will costs between $267 million and $443 million.
The Seattle suit alleges several claims against Monsanto, including public nuisance, as it knew or should have known the type of contamination that the manufacture and sale of PCBs would cause in the Duwamish River, product liability -- defective design and failure to warn claims -- negligence and equitable indemnity.
The attorney following the suit says if successful, the litigation could set precedent for other chemical manufacturers' exposure to liability under tort claims if they fit the same basic facts as here, such as manufacturing a chemical it knows is toxic and results in being widespread in the environment.
The attorney says the litigation is artful in that it avoids two large pitfalls for parties seeking to impose Superfund liability on Monsanto, making an end-run around the useful product exemption from liability under Superfund law, as well as requirements to show a party is an "arranger" under the law and therefore liable. Parties generally have to prove an intent to dispose to show arranger liability.
The source notes that the fact that Monsanto is the only producer of PCBs makes it easier than if the chemical was produced by multiple companies.
The source also points out that since Seattle is not asking for remedial action costs, but rather is seeking costs related to source control, Monsanto would not be allowed to turn around and sue other potentially responsible parties to recover costs it might have to pay under this litigation.
-
Enviros, N.Y. County Sue Over Crude-by-Rail Facility Emissions
Feb 4, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A major crude-by-rail facility in Albany, N.Y., is operating outside the bounds of the Clean Air Act, a coalition of environmental groups and county officials told a federal court this week.
Albany County, a local tenants association and a coalition of environmental groups filed suit yesterday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, arguing that a crude-by-rail terminal operated by Global Cos. LLC, a subsidiary of Global Partners LP, does not have proper permits under the Clean Air Act and is causing a dramatic increase in air pollution in Albany's low-income South End neighborhood.
"Global tried to sneak more highly polluting crude oil into this community by hoping a major expansion of its facility would fly under the radar," Natural Resources Defense Council attorney Dan Raichel said in a statement. "Today's suit will hold these polluters accountable. The oil industry cannot get away with reckless disregard for the laws that protect clean air and residents' health."
The plaintiffs are seeking an injunction prohibiting the facility from handling crude from the Bakken Shale until it applies for an updated Clean Air Act permit, plus civil penalties of $37,500 per day of Clean Air Act violation -- going back to 2012.
At issue in the lawsuit is Global's 2011 request to modify a Clean Air Act operating permit to allow a major increase of crude oil shipments. Rail facilities across the country have beefed up capacity over the past five years to accommodate shipments of oil from the Bakken and other areas. Though crude-by-rail operations have slowed as the industry reacts to tumbling commodity prices, legal battles over facility expansions are ongoing.
According to yesterday's lawsuit, Global did not seek an additional Clean Air Act permit to account for the increase in volatile organic compounds that would accompany the increased handling of volatile Bakken crude. VOCs contribute to ground-level ozone, and the Albany area already exceeds U.S. EPA standards for ozone.
"Global claimed in its application that they would handle conventional crude oil during marine loading operations, and a permit was issued based upon that information," Roger Downs, conservation director for the Sierra Club's Atlantic Chapter, said in a statement. "But instead, Global has imported large quantities of Bakken crude oil, which is extremely volatile and emits significantly more VOCs than conventional crude oil. This continuing violation of air quality laws has to stop."
Plus, Earthjustice attorney Christopher Amato told EnergyWire, the expansion plans did not include adequate community involvement, especially for a neighborhood designated by state regulators as an "environmental justice area."
"It just sort of took them by surprise," he said. "And that's not supposed to happen. The community was blindsided by this."
Global Partners disputed the claims in a statement yesterday, maintaining that its Albany facility is safe and in full compliance with environmental laws.
"With respect to the lawsuit alleging violations of the Clean Air Act at its Albany facility, Global Partners is and has been in compliance with regulatory and permitting requirements at that facility, including requirements under the Clean Air Act," the company said. "We remain fully committed to operating all of our facilities in a safe, legal and environmentally responsible manner, and we will vigorously defend ourselves against any claims to the contrary."
Other plaintiffs in the case are the Ezra Prentice Homes Tenants Association, the Center for Biological Diversity, Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson and Catskill Mountainkeeper.
-
Weak Commodity Prices Spark Defaults, Crimp Railroads
Feb 4, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
Knock-on effects of slumping commodity markets are filtering through to the railroad industry and contributing to the highest corporate default rate since the aftermath of the financial crisis.
Oil and gas companies pushed the pace at which companies defaulted in 2015, excluding the financial industry, to their highest rate since 2009, according to a note that Moody's Investors Service published Friday.
"We expect oil and gas, along with other commodity sectors, to continue to push the default rate higher in 2016," John Puchalla, a Moody's analyst and one of the report's authors, said in a statement.
Nine of the 15 corporate defaults between October and December of last year were oil and gas companies, and the sector was responsible for 25 of the 56 defaults last year, though defaults outside of the commodity business "were up only slightly" in 2015, Moody's found.
"Commodity companies are getting hit," Puchalla said.
"The price of credit for everyone has increased," he said, speaking broadly of many sectors, adding that lending to companies with riskier credit ratings has "dropped off in the last couple of months."
Standard & Poor's cut the ratings of 10 U.S. oil and gas extraction companies, citing tumbling oil prices, including Chevron Corp., which said in late January it would lay off 4,000 workers this year.
"The bottom has dropped out of the coal market," an unnamed contact told the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, according to an economic survey the Federal Reserve published Jan. 13.
Railroads like Kansas City Southern Railway Co. feel the drop.
"What we're going through right now reminds me a lot of what we were going through back in 2009," Kansas City Southern CEO Dave Starling said on a conference call in January. "KCS, like everybody else, is confronted with some challenging economic issues impacting some of our commodities. These issues will be with us for a while."
Lower demand for coal from electric utilities, due in part to low natural gas prices, helped drive the railroad's revenue in 2015 down 23 percent in its energy division and 6 percent overall.
Asked about vulnerable facets for the KCS, Pat Ottensmeyer, president of the company, said: "Where we're getting the pressure point is more on those businesses that are really suffering, like coal," he told analysts, according to a transcript. "And that one, it is still a wild card. I mean, we're at the new normal on coal. Are we? I don't know."
Kansas City Southern's peer, Union Pacific Railroad, saw revenue drop 8 percent in 2015, compared to 2014, weighed down by a 22 percent decline in coal revenue.
Volume for five out of Union Pacific's commodity groups declined, and BNSF Railway Co., a railroad operator Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. owns, said last Tuesday it would cut its spending in 2016 -- the first time it will cut expenditures in six years.
CSX Corp., KCS and Union Pacific each plan to cut spending this year, triggered in part by slumping coal.
Forty percent of all freight shipped between U.S. cities goes by rail, according to the Association of American Railroads.
"By all accounts, rail service right now is excellent, but volume just isn't there," John Gray, senior vice president of policy and economics for AAR, said in a statement. "At some point, the problems currently plaguing the energy and manufacturing sectors -- low oil prices, a strong dollar, uncertainties in emerging markets -- will sort themselves out."
Coal shipped on trains fell 33 percent in January, compared with the same period in 2015, and petroleum and petroleum products finished the month down 19 percent, according to AAR.
There is, however, a bright spot for the railroad industry that emerged from these recent figures: cars.
CSX CEO Michael Ward said automobiles, buoyed by low interest rates and gasoline prices, were one of the few positive segments for the business. And the only division that made more money for Union Pacific in 2015 than it lost was the automotive unit.
-
Idaho Looks to Submit Carbon Strategy and Seek Extension
Feb 4, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Rod Kuckro
The state of Idaho is inclined to submit to U.S. EPA in September a compliance plan for the agency's controversial carbon rule and ask for a two-year extension to work out the details of coordinating compliance with adjoining states, according to state officials.
That the deeply red state is taking such a position likely reflects the fact that the final EPA rule issued in August 2015 significantly eased the carbon emissions reductions Idaho will need to achieve by 2030. The final rule calls for an emissions rate reduction of 7.6 percent compared with 2012, versus the 32.7 percent reduction proposed in the draft rule.
That initial EPA goal was "inappropriately high," said John Tippets, director of the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality. It did not recognize the value of the state's extensive hydroelectric resources, he said.
The substantial easing of the goal is chiefly why Gov. Butch Otter (R) chose not to join other states in suing EPA, Tippets said.
"So we're moving forward with putting together a plan, and plan to meet that deadline unless something changes and somebody tells us we don't need to do that," he said.
Idaho already has a low-carbon generation profile, with 88 percent of its power coming chiefly from hydroelectric plants and other renewables. And the Clean Power Plan would affect only two natural-gas-fired plants -- Idaho Power Co.'s 300-megawatt Langley Gulch plant and Rathdrum Power LLC's 268-MW Lancaster plant.
Because of that, Otter has argued that Idaho's "emission profile is much more like Vermont's profile than that of the other states covered by the proposal," and therefore the state should be exempt, as in Vermont.
Also, Idaho counts on imports of electric power from coal-fired power plants in Wyoming and Nevada for roughly half of its electricity.
"There may be an opportunity to coordinate with other states and help them out somewhat with [emissions] credits," Tippets said.
John Chatburn, administrator of the governor's Office of Energy Resources, is coordinating the state's strategy on the Clean Power Plan along with the DEQ and the state Public Utilities Commission.
He is also conferring with utilities; conservation groups; industry; and regional bodies such as the Western Interstate Energy Board, Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance and Center for the New Energy Economy.
Beginning this week, Chatburn said he would begin briefing state lawmakers on the final EPA rule and the options facing Idaho.
By September, "the state has to make a decision. We either submit a plan and request an extension or we don't. And if we don't, EPA has been very forthright saying that anyone who doesn't submit a state plan, they're going to develop a federal plan for them."
"In light of that, I'm expecting our legislators are going to probably think that doing the initial submission and getting the extension is probably a good way to go. That gives us two more years to figure out exactly how we might want to do something here in Idaho and how that would coordinate with our neighbors," he said, noting that the initial submission in September is "not binding."
Beginning in May, his agency will hold a series of public listening sessions around the state to "walk through the rule's timeline" for the general public, Chatburn said.
"I'm very pleasantly surprised about how our state agencies are wrestling with this complex rule," said Ben Otto, the Idaho Conservation League's lead staffer on the Clean Power Plan.
Ready for trade
"The most important thing for Idaho -- since we import up to half of our electricity sometimes depending on water flows -- is to create a plan that allows us to trade with our neighbors. If you unlock market forces, you'll get to compliance and probably beyond compliance," he said.
Unlocking those market forces is also a priority for Idaho Power, which serves more than 500,000 customers.
Noting that Idaho is a new importer of electricity, "we're trying to work with both the Wyoming agencies and the Idaho agencies so we can come up with a system where this doesn't negatively impact our customers," said Julia Hilton, corporate counsel for Idaho Power.
"Our big concern is how the states play together because there is no way to trade between rate- and mass-based state plans as the rule is currently written. We would have some significant problems if Wyoming and Idaho don't end up on the same system just because we have generation that we import from Wyoming into Idaho," Hilton said.
For now, the utility has no preference on whether the state should choose a rate- or mass-based trading regime. "A lot of it depends on what the other states do," she said.
A modeling tool developed for the Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University may help. It "allows us to toggle back and forth between rate-based and mass plans. So hopefully that will help inform the decisions for the states," Hilton said.
No matter what the state decides to do, Idaho has a unique system that allows the Legislature to "reject in whole or part any state agency rule," Chatburn said.
"If the state agencies came up with rules to implement the CPP that the Legislature didn't like, they could just reject them," he said.
"So when the Legislature has that ability to affect your rules that way, it makes you be very conscious of getting out and explaining what you're doing to the people."
-
One Statistic Shows Just How Dramatically Our Energy System is Changing
Feb 4, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
In mid-2015, when the Environmental Protection Agency released its Clean Power Plan, it made a prediction of sorts. Under the new policy to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector, the EPA said, coal use would decline and the use of natural gas and renewables would increase. The result, by the year 2030, would be a country in which coal, once the leading source of U.S. power, would only provide “about 27 percent of the projected generation,” with “natural gas providing about 33 percent.”
Well. According to new data just released in the 2016 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook — a project of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, produced for the Business Council for Sustainable Energy — the shift may be happening a lot faster than the EPA thought less than a year ago.
In detailing just how transformative the year 2015 was for the U.S. electricity system, the report notes that coal only accounted for 34 percent of U.S. electricity last year — versus 39 percent just a year earlier, in 2014, and 50 percent in 2005. That’s a steep decline indeed.
In contrast, the burning of natural gas — buoyed by cheap prices brought on by the shale gas boom — produced nearly as much of our electricity. “Natural gas is now within striking distance of being the largest source of US power, producing just over 32% of US generation in 2015,” notes the report.
Maybe we won’t have to wait until 2030 after all to see this transition.
“We saw natural gas and coal each provide about one third of U.S. electricity, and this was the smallest contribution we’ve seen from coal within the modern era,” said Colleen Regan, senior analyst for North American power at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. And it wasn’t just cheap gas, she notes — 2015 also saw 14 gigawatts’ worth of coal plant retirements, or 5 percent of U.S. coal capacity overall.
Because natural gas only emits about half as much carbon dioxide when burned in comparison to coal, a shift like this has major implications for the U.S.’s overall pollution profile. Sure enough, the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook also finds that 2015’s greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector were the lowest since 1995, at 1,985 million metric tons. That number was also an impressive 4.3 percent lower than levels just a year earlier, in 2014.
The natural gas surge isn’t going to suddenly stop, either, suggests Regan. “We think that there’s great potential for these levels to continue, for the U.S. to continue producing huge amounts of natural gas, which should keep prices relatively low,” she said.
2015 was also a major year for renewable energy installations, featuring 8.5 gigawatts of new wind capacity and 7.3 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics (the latter being a record high for one year). The result, says Regan, is that while “non-hydro renewables were about 2.2 percent of the U.S. electricity mix in 2005, and in 2015, they were 7 ½ percent.”
In a separate report released earlier this week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also underscored the strength of this transition. It noted that for new installed electricity generating capacity in 2015, only 3 megawatts’ worth of coal was added, versus 5,942 megawatts (5.94 gigawatts) of natural gas and 7,977 megawatts (7.97 gigawatts) of wind, the latter representing slightly less than Bloomberg’s number, which the Factbook calls an “estimate.”
And even as this transition occurs — more natural gas and renewables, less coal — the United States seems to be neither using much more electricity nor paying more for it. “Since 2007, electricity demand has been flat, compared to a compounded annual growth rate of 2.4% from 1990 to 2000,” notes the Factbook. This has been helped along by greater energy efficiency, among other factors. Meanwhile, “in most regions of the U.S., retail power prices on average are almost 6 percent below the peak we saw in 2008,” says Regan.
The Clean Power Plan hasn’t even kicked in yet, and yet U.S. electricity is already undergoing a transition that will take the country a significant amount of the way toward achieving its goals. And at least so far, fears that this transition is going to be costly or difficult don’t seem like they’re being realized.
-
Flint Fight Could Sink Senate Bill -- Mich. Senator
Feb 4, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Geof Koss
Complications over an amendment to help the community of Flint, Mich., deal with its ongoing drinking water crisis have emerged as serious threats to the Senate's bipartisan energy package, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said today.
Stabenow, who for days has been optimistic about negotiations between the parties on Flint, took to the Senate floor this morning to decry the latest snag, which occurred after a Congressional Budget Office review of the compromise under discussion triggered the need for a pay-for that both parties were hoping to avoid.E&E RESOURCE
E&E's Amendment Tracker follows major pieces of legislation as they move through the amendment process. Click here to review the Senate energy reform legislation amendments being considered.
"We want to get something done for the people of Flint," Stabenow said. "We understand that money doesn't grow on trees, and Sen. [Gary] Peters [D-Mich.] and I were willing in fact to support a proposal that was less than half of what we had originally requested in order to be able to immediately get some help to the families of Flint. And now we can't even get agreement on that because we're hearing procedural excuses, procedural excuses that are overcome every single day on this Senate floor when we want to."
Speaking to reporters afterward, a flustered Stabenow said that because the amendment addresses revenue, Democrats have been told it runs afoul of a constitutional requirement that revenue measures originate in the House -- which can reject such measures sent over from the Senate with a "blue slip."
She disputed that a blue-slip issue even exists but said that even so it's fixable by simply substituting a House-passed bill -- such as H.R. 8, the companion to the Senate measure S. 2012, on the floor now.
"If they end up using the House energy bill, it doesn't even matter," Stabenow said. "I mean, there's a hundred ways to fix this."
She declined to outline the compromise proposal but said it included funds for fixing lead-contaminated pipes and was fully paid for.
Stabenow vowed to use "other measures" to pressure Republicans on Flint, including blocking additional amendments, while also hinting that Democrats may oppose ending debate tomorrow when a cloture vote is expected.
"What this is is that if they want an energy bill, they need to help us," she said, adding later, "If they don't work with us, I think it's a big question of whether they get cloture."
Informed of Stabenow's comments, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) called Flint a "legitimate" need but not one that should sink a bipartisan energy bill he called eight years in the making.
"I think it's important that we pass an energy bill," he told Greenwire. "It's bipartisan, it came out of committee 18-4. There are lots of things that are important for our economy as part of this bill, and I think it's disgraceful for Democrats to say they're going to tank a bill that's been so long in the works over a new issue."
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) today toldGreenwire the two sides are still discussing a fix to help Flint in the energy bill.
"We're still working to resolve it, and that's the message I want to convey to folks," she said. "We are not done trying to figure out how we deal with the pay-for issue. Is it hard? Yeah. Is it something that we're trying to work and actually find something that works? Yes, it is."
She said that the compromise under discussion "ran into difficulties" at the Congressional Budget Office, raising a "potential blue-slip issue" that she doesn't want to complicate the underlying package.
"We put a lot of work into this bill," Murkowski said. "I don't want to see it die because of a blue-slip problem or a CBO problem. Again, we projected very clearly from the outset if we want to work with Sen. Stabenow and the people of Michigan and make sure that we have an end product on this bill, we've got to be working together on it."
Pressed on Stabenow's statement that a blue-slip issue is easily resolvable, Murkowski responded, "Then let's work through that.
"So we're not saying that we are not working to get there, but right now, right here, at this moment, we are not there yet," she said, adding that her focus is on "trying to figure out how you can allow for a fix and do so in a way that will not jeopardize the bill."
Peters acknowledged the hurdles but said he was encouraged that discussions continue.
"We are still working on it," he told Greenwire. "It's a work in progress. As any kind of deal, there's always twists and turns, and we're in one of those twists-and-turns periods right now. But there's still a lot of willingness to work together, so that is very positive."
-
Flint Fight Blocks Energy Bill
Feb 4, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Senate Democrats on Thursday blocked ending debate on a broad, bipartisan rewrite of federal energy policy because lawmakers couldn’t come to an agreement on aid for the Flint, Mich., water crisis.
Lawmakers had hoped the energy bill — crafted by Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and cleared by their energy panel on an 18-4 vote — would sail through the Senate like other bipartisan policy bills did last year.
Instead, it failed on a 46-50 vote on Thursday, falling short of the 60 votes needed for cloture.
Michigan Sens. Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters had hoped to attach an amendment to the bill providing $600 million in federal funding for infrastructure improvements in Flint, where corroded water pipes have produced high lead levels in the drinking water.
The pair, joined by a host of Democrats, introduced their amendment last week and said they would hold up the energy bill if it wasn’t attached.
That threat resonated with Democrats, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, who endorsed the filibuster threat on Wednesday and reiterated early Thursday that lawmakers need to do more to help residents of the city.
“Sens. Stabenow and Peters have worked hard to negotiate with Republicans but almost having an agreement in place isn't an agreement,” Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday. Democrats “need Republicans to work with us to reach an agreement,” he added.
Lawmakers had hoped they were close to coming to an agreement on Flint aid earlier this week, with Stabenow saying she was willing to accept less than half the funding she had originally called for.
But those discussions broke down on Wednesday — “I'm not sure exactly what happened,” Stabenow said in a Thursday floor speech — and a deal hadn’t emerged before Thursday morning’s vote to end debate on the energy bill.
Stabenow said she and negotiators just need a little more time to come to a deal on Flint aid, suggesting a vote on the energy bill next week would be appropriate. Peters, too, said members should block the bill’s path forward until a deal is done.
“While I sincerely hope that we’re able to advance this bill out of the Senate, it is simply too soon to cut off debate and invoke cloture,” he said.
Murkowski said Thursday that members had made progress on an aid package for Flint, but that blocking further debate on the underlying energy bill would amount to “effectively giving up” on the legislation as a whole.
She proposed Thursday an amendment to provide $550 million for Flint, funding she said was offset and allowed under congressional rules. The proposal would provide $50 million directly to the besieged city, and another $500 million to make additional loans available to the city and others with similar drinking water emergencies.
The GOP had not settled on a way to pay for a Flint package, however. On Wednesday, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) proposed paying for it by taking funds from a vehicle manufacturing loan program that is a Michigan priority, something the state’s delegation saw as an insult.
“Our problem is not about whether we should offset the cost of this assistance, it’s about how we do so in a manner that does not destroy the underlying energy bill and does violate the Constitution and the rules we have here in the Senate,” Murkowski said.
Stabenow, who said “we want to get this solved, not just have votes that go down,” objected to a vote on Murkowski’s measure.
While Thursday's failed vote throws the future of the energy bill into limbo, both sides pledged to keep working on the legislation and a Flint package.
“Obviously we want to keep working to get these things resolved,” Cantwell told reporters.
Murkowski told The Hill before the vote that she’s “hopeful we're going to see progress today” on the Flint issue, and Stabenow said she thinks a deal can get done with only a few more days of negotiations.
“Let us get this done together,” Stabenow said. “If we vote next week, next Tuesday, we’ll be OK. ... We can take a couple extra days to do something that will dramatically change the opportunity for a future in a city that’s important.”
-
RGGI Faces Broad Calls To Set High Bar For Future ESPS Trading Market
Feb 4, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Abby Smith
Power generators and environmentalists are urging officials for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) -- the nine-state cap-and-trade program in the Northeast -- to allow trading with other states under EPA's existing power plant GHG rule and leverage its program to set a high bar for other states to join its trading market.
Speaking to state officials at a Feb. 2 RGGI program review meeting, several environmentalists and clean utility representatives called on program officials to allow trading with non-RGGI states under EPA's power plant existing source performance standards (ESPS), so long as they set a "burden of proof" for state plans to link with the regional program.
While program officials are cautiously assessing whether they will allow trading with other states, many stakeholders urged RGGI officials to begin outlining this "burden of proof," identifying the elements states must include in their plans to be eligible to trade with RGGI.
Environmentalists, for example, urged officials to require that any state trading with RGGI as an ESPS compliance mechanism regulate new sources, auction allowances, reinvest proceeds in energy efficiency programs and set an allowance price floor.
They added that with RGGI's significant influence as an existing multi-state cap-and-trade program, and because many states are likely to want to trade with RGGI, such elements could begin to form an overall criteria that would drive any developing ESPS trading system.
"When there's a large market like RGGI that is seen . . . [as an] example, to the extent you set those metrics, that can be a strong influence for other states to meet a metric similar to RGGI," said Andre Templeman, executive director of the Carbon Market Compliance Association.
He added: "If you just close your doors [to trading], then the influence RGGI can have on other states is very limited."
Templeman and others are encouraging RGGI officials to move quickly to make decisions about any trading criteria in order to influence other states as they narrow compliance options and begin to make decisions ahead of the Sept. 6 deadline to submit initial ESPS compliance plans to EPA.
For example, Pennsylvania, a neighboring state that is also a RGGI observer, is working to be one of the first to file a final plan this September, as state officials hope to shape trading markets that other states may join as they seek to comply with the rule.
"There are incentives for states to really take out a leadership position, and clearly, because of Pennsylvania's footprint in the energy world, being the nation's No. 1 energy-exporting state, we certainly have some influence," Pennsylvania's Environment Secretary John Quigley said recently. "There's an opportunity on multiple levels for us to lead and ultimately, I think, to demonstrate sustainability to the nation."
Highlighting Pennsylvania's plans, Franz Litz, a former New York environment regulator who is leading a coalition of environmental groups and clean energy utilities called the "Collaborative for RGGI Progress," said any decisions RGGI officials make about trading could be adopted in the plans of Pennsylvania and other states.
"While we don't want to rush you, on the other hand we think you should be thinking about making some calls on these things," Litz told RGGI state regulators at the meeting.
RGGI Update
Officials from the nine RGGI states -- Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire, Delaware and Maryland -- are slated to review and update the program in 2016, an effort that will focus in part on whether or how to extend the program's current emissions cap, which runs through 2020, so it is aligned with EPA's ESPS, which runs through 2030.
If the RGGI states decide to adopt post-2020 targets that are significantly stricter than EPA's, it could limit the number of credits available to other states, reducing both their compliance options and the RGGI states' revenue. But if the states decide to set targets consistent with EPA's, it may signal limits on the RGGI states' future GHG reduction efforts, a prospect that is already drawing opposition from environmentalists.
RGGI officials have generally been hesitant to immediately endorse trading as an ESPS compliance tool, though officials seemed to indicate in comments to EPA's proposed federal plan a slightly more favorable attitude toward a broader trading market.
However, officials said during a presentation at the Feb. 2 meeting that they will not pursue any scenarios including non-RGGI trading linkages in the next round of ESPS modeling, reflecting their prior suggestions that they are considering a phased trading approach.
Under such an approach, officials would name the program's current members as initial trading partners but include a pathway to a "trading ready" plan to eventually allow linkage to the larger mass-based ESPS trading market.
But at the Feb. 2 meeting, they faced strong calls to develop a trading program that could set a bar for other non-RGGI states seeking trading to comply with EPA's rule.
Litz's collaborative -- which includes environmental groups Acadia Center and Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as utilities Calpine Corporation, Exelon Corporation, NextEra Energy and National Grid -- distributed at the meeting a list of "guiding principles" for RGGI's 2016 program review, urging among other things that RGGI "allow trading with other states that adopt consistent trading programs."
The group, Litz says, is "interested in working with the [RGGI] states and figuring out what that means." He also encouraged program officials to "be thinking about whether you are making yourself attractive to other states for trading."
Other stakeholders are also offering suggestions for the criteria state plans should meet in order to be eligible to trade with RGGI states.
Mass-Based Cap
A coalition of 26 environmental groups in Dec. 4 comments on RGGI's program review urged officials to limit trading to only states that also include new sources under their mass-based cap -- an approach called the "new source complement" that is intended to limit leakage to lesser-regulated new sources.
"This inclusion of new sources should be an explicit precondition for any state that wishes to trade with RGGI," the environmentalists wrote, warning that allowing RGGI states to trade credit with states that include only existing plants under their cap would cause emission "leakage" to new plants in those states.
Environmental stakeholders reiterated this point at the Feb. 2 meeting. Peter Shattuck of the Acadia Center called the inclusion of new sources "priority No. 1" in any requirements related to trading.
While RGGI officials are planning to model scenarios for their next set of ESPS modeling that assume that other states adopt a mass-based target including new sources, officials at the Feb. 2 meeting did not say whether they would include the approach in any trading criteria that may develop.
Other potential criteria Shattuck identified is the auctioning of allowances and a focus on reinvestment of proceeds in energy efficiency measures -- both elements that are already established in the RGGI program.
Stakeholders during the meeting also discussed whether an allowance price floor should be included as part of criteria RGGI officials would look for in state plans when potentially allowing non-RGGI trading. Shattuck and others worry that if RGGI were to trade with other states or regions with much lower allowance prices, it would diminish RGGI revenues.
An allowance price floor, however, would provide "long-term price certainty," Templeman said, thus mitigating the risk that RGGI would lose revenue to states with much cheaper allowance prices.
Although RGGI officials will not model broader trading scenarios in its upcoming modeling efforts, they will test various approaches to alter or remove the program's flexibility measures in order to meet ESPS requirements.
Language in the final ESPS rule suggests that to adopt its preferred ESPS plan type -- the "emissions standards" approach -- RGGI must eliminate flexibility mechanisms that "functionally expand the emission budget," namely its offsets and its cost containment reserve. Environmentalists have suggested, however, that the RGGI program could maintain its cost containment reserve, which releases additional allowances into the market once a certain price is triggered, if the mechanism pulled allowances from under the region's ESPS cap.
To reflect this suggestion, RGGI officials will run a modeling scenario in which the cost containment reserve and offset mechanisms are maintained, but "can only be used up to the [ESPS] targets."
In the second modeling scenario, officials will eliminate the flexibility mechanisms, as well as implement a more stringent RGGI cap, responding to environmentalists' calls for a program-wide cap more stringent than the region's overall ESPS cap. Under the scenario, the RGGI cap would be reduced annually after 2020 by 2.5 percent.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Energy and Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested