Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 2/8/16
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(ACC Blog) Catalysis Helps Society do More with Less…R&D Can Accelerate the Benefits!
Feb 5, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By Michelle Orfei
What do cold water detergents, catalytic converters, and fertilizer have in common? They all rely on a powerful technology called catalysis. Catalysts are added substances that increase the rate of a chemical reaction. As a result, less energy is used per unit of product. -
(ACC Mentioned) Study: WRAP Program Boosts At-Store Plastic Film, Bag Collection by 125%
Feb 8, 2016 | Waste Dive
By Arlene Karidis
A study conducted by Vancouver, WA on a Wrap Recycling Action Program (WRAP) campaign — which promoted recycling of polyethylene (PE) through consumer education — found that during the campaign, there was a 125% increase of plastic film wrap retrieved through at-store collection/recycling programs; contamination at a local MRFs dropped 75%; 500% more consumer product packaging of other types was returned; and there was less than a 2% increase in contamination at stores. -
DC Considers Banning Two Flame Retardants
Feb 8, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The Council of the District of Columbia is considering a bill that would ban two chlorinated flame retardants above de minimis thresholds in almost all products. -
EPA Risk Assessment Forum Releases Exposure Guidelines For Review
Feb 8, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's Risk Assessment Forum (RAF) -- created to develop agency-wide consensus on major risk assessment issues -- has released long-awaited draft exposure guidelines for public review, the first document the RAF has unveiled in nearly a year and marking the second year that the forum has failed to finalize any guidance. -
EPA Flags Chemicals in Colo. Taps
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
Two persistent and possibly harmful chemicals once used in manufacturing nonstick cookware coatings and other materials are present in drinking water in a Colorado city, U.S. EPA said. -
(ACC Mentioned) Light at End of Amtrak’s Tunnel: MoDOT Signals 'Dramatic' Decrease in Cost for Rail Safety System
Feb 8, 2016 | Daily Star Journal
By Jack "Miles" Ventimiglia
Railroad and Missouri Department of Transportation officials reached an agreement that should keep Amtrak running through Warrensburg, between Kansas City and St. Louis. -
Shifting Energy Markets End Crude by Rail's Reign
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Crude by rail is no longer king in the Bakken Shale play. For nearly four years, oil shippers favored train tracks over pipelines when shipping light, sweet Bakken Shale crude from North Dakota to coastal refiners or oil transfer hubs. -
Opponents Strike Back at EPA in Supreme Court Briefs
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Opponents of the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan doubled down last week on efforts to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the carbon emissions rule in its tracks. -
Focus Turns to State Agency Coordination on Carbon Rule
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Interactive
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
The first 2016 meeting of the "3N" members occurs Thursday and Friday in Washington, D.C., at the conclusion of the National Association of State Energy Officials' three-day Energy Policy Outlook Conference. -
Utah Joins List of Suing States Plotting GHG Reductions
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Elizabeth Harball
Utah leaders have begun to brainstorm how the state might reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, even though it is one of the 27 states legally challenging the new federal regulation requiring it to do so. -
Environmental, Renewables Groups Clash Over ESPS Incentive Program
Feb 8, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Abby Smith
Environmentalists and renewable groups are clashing over how the extension of wind and solar tax credits will impact EPA's early incentive program for its existing power plant greenhouse gas (GHG) rule, with environmentalists detailing arguments that the agency's incentives will not spur additional renewable growth beyond business as usual, ultimately weakening the rule. -
White House Details Massive Clean-Tech Spending Plan
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Christa Marshall
The White House outlined a sweeping plan this weekend to double clean energy research spending over five years as part of a global effort to fight climate change. -
CASAC Doubts EPA 'Framework' Strengthening Data On Air Pollution Harm
Feb 8, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Members of EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) are rejecting draft EPA findings that claim stronger evidence for adverse health effects from sulfur dioxide (SO2) air pollution, calling into question the agency's broader "framework" for classifying the strength of such data in its reviews of ambient air standards. -
EPA Rule Streamlines Burning Wood, Railroad Ties for Power
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
A new move by U.S. EPA could make it simpler for companies to burn certain waste material at incinerators and power plants.
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Energy and Environment News
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(ACC Blog) Catalysis Helps Society do More with Less…R&D Can Accelerate the Benefits!
Feb 5, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By Michelle Orfei
What do cold water detergents, catalytic converters, and fertilizer have in common? They all rely on a powerful technology called catalysis. Catalysts are added substances that increase the rate of a chemical reaction. As a result, less energy is used per unit of product.
In many ways, catalytic processes and technologies make modern living possible. Reduced emissions inmodern cars, pharmaceutical breakthroughs that improve health, increased yield in food production and energy-saving laundry detergents are all made possible by chemical reactions that use catalysis.
The “Haber-Bosch” process revolutionized agriculture in the early 1900s:
The chemical industry has been a pioneer in the development of catalytic technologies. Today, about 90% of all chemical processes employ catalysis in production, and there is enormous potential for additional energy savings. Advancements are possible in the areas of feedstock, fuels and production of some high-volume chemicals.
The “shale revolution” is already revitalizing the U.S. chemical industry, and future innovations in catalytic processes can help uncover more efficient ways to convert shale-derived feedstocks into value-added products for chemistry and dependent sectors. Economic benefits could include productivity growth as well as jobs for practitioners in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Sustainability benefits could include smarter energy use, lower greenhouse gas emissions and less waste.
R&D needed to capitalize on opportunities
In 2015, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) organized a working group made up of scientists and engineers to study how fundamental hurdles in catalytic technologies and processes have been overcome in the past in order to bring about advancements and societal benefits. Could such breakthroughs be replicated today?
The working group identified a number of research hurdles and opportunities, which are highlighted in thisfact sheet, “Chemistry Innovation in Action: Advanced Catalytic Processes to Achieve Energy and Sustainability Goals.”
The key takeaway is that “game-changing” advances in catalytic processes and technologies can be achieved, but doing so will require a sustained and coordinated effort among industry, academia and government:
Developing ‘next generation’ catalysis processes will require a dedicated effort over many years. As a first step, support is needed for a multidisciplinary research partnership. – Mike Walls, American Chemistry Council
Catalysis workshop to be held next month
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will hold a workshop on March 7-9, 2016, “The Changing Landscape of Feedstocks for Chemical Production: Implications for Catalysis.” It will be a great opportunity to explore the areas that R&D efforts should focus on. The workshop is co-sponsored by ACC.
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(ACC Mentioned) Study: WRAP Program Boosts At-Store Plastic Film, Bag Collection by 125%
Feb 8, 2016 | Waste Dive
By Arlene Karidis
Dive Brief:
A study conducted by Vancouver, WA on a Wrap Recycling Action Program (WRAP) campaign — which promoted recycling of polyethylene (PE) through consumer education — found that during the campaign, there was a 125% increase of plastic film wrap retrieved through at-store collection/recycling programs; contamination at a local MRFs dropped 75%; 500% more consumer product packaging of other types was returned; and there was less than a 2% increase in contamination at stores.
The program was a joint effort of the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Flexible Film Recycling Group (FFRG), the city of Vancouver, Clark County, Safeway, and Trex Co. to increase consumer awareness and recycling of polyethylene packaging in select Vancouver Safeway stores while decreasing plastic bags/film in curbside carts.
Currently more than 90% of Americans can tap into local programs that collect PE wraps and bags, with more than 18,000 major grocery and retail stores participating.
Dive Insight:
Plastic film is one of the fastest growing recyclable commodities in the U.S. with an 80% increase in recycling since 2005, according to the 2014 National Postconsumer Plastic Bag and Film Recycling Report.
Some municipalities have played a key role in bumping those numbers up by investing in education — including Milwaukee, which also generated significantly higher at-store collections. North Carolina plans to implement a WRAP program this year, and other states will likely soon announce plans to do so, according to ACC. The return-to-store WRAP program will provide a tested protocol for them.
"This was really a model campaign," said Shari Jackson, director of ACC’s Flexible Film Recycling Group. "It goes to show how effective WRAP can be when we all work together. We showed we could get the word out to increase wraps, bag, and film collection at retail stores with negligible contamination."
"Importantly, these efforts have raised awareness of the ease and opportunity to recycle a variety of plastic film beyond the bag," said Tanya Gray, a solid waste supervisor for the city of Vancouver.
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DC Considers Banning Two Flame Retardants
Feb 8, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The Council of the District of Columbia is considering a bill that would ban two chlorinated flame retardants above de minimis thresholds in almost all products.
The bill (B21-143) would prohibit the manufacture, sale or distribution of products containing TDCPP and TCEP:
in children's products and residential upholstered furniture at concentrations above 0.1% by mass by 1 January 2018; and
in “any product containing more than 0.1% by mass in any product component”, with some exceptions, by 1 January 2019.
Products exempt from the ban would include:
motor vehicles and their replacement parts;
commercial or residential building insulation or wiring; and
some electronics, including computers, telephones, cables and audio visual equipment.
The original proposal has included a third chlorinated flame retardant, TCPP. But it was removed during committee review “because it is less clear based on current information that this chemical is likely to be carcinogenic”.
However, the council has maintained a provision that would block manufacturers from replacing a prohibited flame retardant chemical with any substance that is:
classified as a known or reasonably anticipated human carcinogen by the National Toxicology Program (NTP);
categorised as carcinogenic, or likely to be carcinogenic, to humans by the EPA; or
identified by the EPA as causing birth defects, hormone disruption, neurotoxicity, or reproductive or developmental toxicity.
The council unanimously approved the bill's first reading. If it votes to approve the bill at its second reading, the measure will head to the mayor's desk. Here it can be signed, allowed to become effective without a signature, or vetoed.
Unique to DC, the measure would then need to go before the US Congress for 30-day consideration before becoming law.
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EPA Risk Assessment Forum Releases Exposure Guidelines For Review
Feb 8, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's Risk Assessment Forum (RAF) -- created to develop agency-wide consensus on major risk assessment issues -- has released long-awaited draft exposure guidelines for public review, the first document the RAF has unveiled in nearly a year and marking the second year that the forum has failed to finalize any guidance.
The agency announced the release of the new document, "Guidelines for Human Exposure Assessment," in a Jan. 7 Federal Register notice, indicating that the guidelines will be peer reviewed by a contractor managed panel of outside experts. The agency says it is taking public comment on the document through Feb. 22.
The document largely compiles existing EPA guidance and policies on performing exposure analyses in risk reviews, while including new elements such as sections on environmental justice and childrens health, an agency source says.
The draft updates 1992 guidelines that reflected "the state-of-the-science in the 1970s and 1980s," the notice says.
The Register notice adds that "the field of exposure science has undergone significant transformation in methods and approaches. . . . This draft document builds on topics covered in the 1992 exposure guidelines including planning and scoping for an assessment, data acquisition and use, modeling, and considerations of uncertainty in exposure assessment. It also includes new material on planning and conducting an observational human exposure measurement study and considerations of lifestages and sensitive populations in exposure assessments."
The document explains that its focus is on exposure assessment as currently practiced at the agency. "This document does not include detailed information on high-throughput exposure assessment, the implications ofin vitro risk assessments on the field of exposure assessment or the ongoing ExpoCast program. As these emerging topics mature, the Risk Assessment Forum will update this document," it says.
The draft also references other agency policy documents, such as the "Scientific and Ethical Approaches for Observational Exposure Studies," published in 2008 after the agency pulled a second planned observational study of children and their exposures in their homes following pressure from Congress. The document was intended to set strict ethical guidelines for agency scientists undertaking such work, but the agency has yet to take up such studies.
The draft is the first guidance document that the RAF has released since the fall of 2014, when it published three. The RAF was created in the mid-1980s with the goal of having a body to craft agency-wide consensus guidance on challenging risk assessment issues. It comprises a standing body of senior agency scientists, nominated by their individual laboratories, offices and regions, who serve as volunteers in four-year terms in addition to their regular duties.
The RAF has struggled in recent years, particularly under the direction of the last agency science advisor, Glenn Paulson, who sources blamed for RAF not publishing any new documents in 2013 -- the first time RAF did not publish since 1990.
RAF released three documents after Paulson left EPA for George Washington University's public health school in the spring of 2014, when Gina McCarthy became administrator.
RAF most recently published "Cumulative Risk Assessment Lessons Learned: A Review of Case Studies and Issue Papers," its sole publication of 2015. The document, also published in the journal Chemosphere, is not a guidance document. Rather, it was intended to generate comment and further information to support RAF's ongoing project to update the agency's cumulative risk assessment guidance document.
Since then, Science Advisor Tom Burke has sought to make the RAF more efficient and productive. Sources indicated last summer that he was reviewing the body, with an eye to determining how to increase the output of the group, whose publications often take years to be publicly released.
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EPA Flags Chemicals in Colo. Taps
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
Two persistent and possibly harmful chemicals once used in manufacturing nonstick cookware coatings and other materials are present in drinking water in a Colorado city, U.S. EPA said.
The chemicals perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) turned up in water systems serving about 69,000 people in Fountain, Colo., and the unincorporated area of Security-Widefield, according to the agency.
By the time the chemicals reached residents' faucets, they would be present at levels well below EPA advisory limits, the agency said. State officials said no health problems in the state have been traced to the chemicals.
Still, the news has some residents considering purchasing bottled water or filtration systems.
"I don't know what the short-term effects are or the long-term effects," said Chris Pandolfi, who lives in Security-Widefield.
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Feb 8, 2016 | Daily Star Journal
By Jack "Miles" Ventimiglia
Railroad and Missouri Department of Transportation officials reached an agreement that should keep Amtrak running through Warrensburg, between Kansas City and St. Louis.
“We’ve reached a working agreement that’s fair to all parties,” MoDOT Railroads Administrator Eric Curtitsaid.
Some University of Central Missouri students use Amtrak to reach Warrensburg.
To keep Amtrak operating in the Kansas City area alone carries a $32 million price tag, with the money being used to install Positive Train Control. PTC is a safety system required federally.
The MoDOT’s estimated share of the cost last year to provide PTC came to about $18 million. Amtrak officials expressed doubt that they could pay their share of the money and talked about shutting down in Missouri.
But the amount has changed, Sen. David Pearce, an Amtrak advocate, said while waiting in his office to begin a Senate transportation meeting Thursday.
“MoDOT has come up with an agreement that has reduced that amount,” Pearce said, “and they’re going to be able to stretch those payments over multiple years.”
In the hallway outside the transportation hearing, Curtit said all trains that carry passengers or hazardous materials must have PTC. The system can slow, automatically, speeding trains. PTC likely would have slowed a Philadelphia Amtrak train traveling at more than 100 miles per hour in a 50 mph zone, but instead the train wrecked, claiming eight lives and injuring more than 200 people in May.
Union Pacific and other railroads bear most of the cost to put PTC in place in Missouri because those railroads carry hazardous materials on most of the track, Curtit said.
MoDOT research found most of the Kansas City area rail line also is used by freight trains carrying haz-mat material. For that reason, they are picking up more of the PTC cost that had targeted MoDOT and Amtrak, Curtit said.
“We argued that we should not have to bear the full (cost) given the amount of hazardous material moving through the area,” he said.
The combined $32 million PTC price tag for Amtrak and MoDOT dropped to $7 million, with each agreeing to pay half.
“It’s been a dramatic reduction,” Curtit said.
The PTC cost for Amtrak and MoDOT in St. Louis area will be less than in Kansas City, Curtit said, but the total is not yet known.
“They’re not as far along as Kansas City,” he said.
Outside of the state’s two major metro areas, freight railroads alone will provide PTC.
“There’s a huge cost between Kansas City and St. Louis,” Curtit said.
The total cost for PTC installation statewide is estimated at $62 million, he said.
The federal government required passenger railroads and freight railroads that carry hazardous material to have PTC installed by 2015. When several railroads said they could not meet the deadline, the Warrensburg Chamber of Commerce and other business groups last year urged Congress to address the issue.
The chamber and other groups took the position that they did not want to risk having railroads shut down due to the potential for a national economic decline. A total rail service shutdown would have reduced the nation’s work force by about 700,000 jobs and cost $30 billion in the first quarter of 2016, an American Chemistry Council study released in October month suggested.
Congress granted an extension to 2018.
Last week, The Associated Press reported, leaders at some railroads said they would not be able to meet the 2018 deadline.
Union Pacific is among railroads that reported they would meet the deadline.
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Shifting Energy Markets End Crude by Rail's Reign
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Crude by rail is no longer king in the Bakken Shale play.
For nearly four years, oil shippers favored train tracks over pipelines when shipping light, sweet Bakken Shale crude from North Dakota to coastal refiners or oil transfer hubs. Railroads such as BNSF Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. pumped billions of dollars into their networks, while refiners snapped up thousands of tank cars and fuel logistics firms signed lucrative crude contracts.
But railroads' dominance in the oil business may be coming to a close. Thousands of miles of new pipelines, evaporating price advantages for buying inland crude, and continued protests over rail tank car safety have all taken their toll on the North American crude-by-rail industry.
Meanwhile, the global crash in crude prices has slowly but surely spread from oil majors' balance sheets to their actual production forecasts, which could cause rail volumes to fall further in 2016 (EnergyWire, Feb. 5).
Roughly five years ago, "when crude by rail really expanded in North Dakota, it came on as a way to move out the oil as quickly as possible," said Bridget Hunsucker, publications director at energy research firm Genscape Inc. "A lot of terminals came up quickly, and they were highly utilized at that time, but I'm not sure what the long-term plan really was."
Genscape, which tracks crude-by-rail movements throughout the country, has seen volumes moving out of the Bakken drop as low as 330,000 barrels per day in recent weeks, Hunsucker said.
In November, railroads moved 41 percent of oil produced in North Dakota, or about 480,000 barrels per day, based on the most recent data available from state officials. By contrast, pipelines took the lion's share of crude oil transport that month -- 52 percent -- eclipsing rail volumes in North Dakota for the first time since June 2012.
"It's flipped now," Hunsucker said. "That's just how the economics work. If you can get on a pipeline, you would want to."
Indeed, more Bakken oil producers have jumped the tracks as other options have come online, such as Kinder Morgan's 84,000-barrel-per-day Double H pipeline, which started pumping in 2015. An Energy Transfer Partners subsidiary is on track to finish the 450,000-barrel-per-day Dakota Access line in 2016, further displacing rail's share (EnergyWire, Jan. 22).
No guest of honor
Rising crude-by-rail shipments have defied challenges from pipelines, market swings and regulatory scrutiny following a string of oil train derailments and explosions.
Many analysts expected railbound oil to be a short-lived fad as tank car traffic crept up in 2010. But railroads, spearheaded by BNSF, had other plans, assembling mile-long strings of tank cars into "virtual pipelines" that offered oil companies more speed and flexibility than fixed steel (EnergyWire, Jan. 22, 2013). Last year, BNSF allocated nearly half-a-billion dollars for sprucing up its track network in North Dakota and even flirted with buying its own fleet of 5,000 tank cars, although it later abandoned that idea.
Railroads "really ramped up [spending] in the last several years, partially in response to added pressures by crude-by-rail," said Anthony Hatch, principal of New York-based freight transportation and research firm ABH Consulting. "They had to go in and debottleneck, add double tracks and add sidings so you can run longer trains, and all these kinds of things."
Then energy markets took a tumble, bringing down not just crude volumes but also demand for frac sand, steel pipes and other products typically moved by rail.
"It's like a guest who doesn't show up at a party," Hatch said.
Still, he pointed out that much of the crude-by-rail market falls outside railroads' purview, from the loading and unloading terminals to ownership of the tank cars that actually carry the oil. Even at their peak, crude volumes accounted for a small fraction of railroads' overall carloads, which are dominated by coal and container shipments. The infrastructure investments from railroads such as BNSF don't just apply to oil and will pay dividends for years, he said. "It's a long, long game they play."
Rail industry representatives have seized on that point amid lagging earnings and generally lower traffic, suggesting that when the time comes, they'll be ready to bounce back.
"By all accounts, rail service right now is excellent, but volume just isn't there," John Gray, senior vice president of policy and economics at the Association of American Railroads, said in an industry update describing a nearly 20 percent year-over-year drop in petroleum-related traffic last month. "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."
'Severe headwinds'
In the meantime, railroads, refineries and everyone in between have scaled back crude-by-rail operations.
Railroad CSX Corp. cited challenges from the "energy market transition" in a tepid earnings forecast for 2016. Global Partners LP, which runs a major crude-by-rail hub in Albany, N.Y., announced recently that it was trimming its workforce by 70 people, or about 8 percent, and would convert a crude-by-rail transfer facility in Oregon to handle ethanol instead.
Global Partners President and CEO Eric Slifka cited "severe headwinds in the crude oil market" as reasons for the shakeups at his company.
"We continue to be negatively impacted by fixed costs associated with our crude oil business, including railcar leases," he said in a Jan. 28 press release.
Even refining firms, nominally expected to benefit from lower crude prices, have started to shy away from rail. Alon USA Energy Inc., which won hard-fought regulatory approval to bring crude-by-rail to its refinery in Bakersfield, Calif., hasn't yet gotten around to building the terminal.
Based on crude price differences, "that project is not justified -- but that's not to say that it will never be justified," said Alon CEO Paul Eisman in a conference call last November. A spokesman confirmed that the company's position hasn't changed.
The market is so bad, some oil-by-rail shippers are having to pay $30 every day just to park their unused tank cars, as Sandy Fielden, director of energy analytics at consultancy RBN Energy, pointed out in a blog post last week.
He noted that rail shipments are "down across all regions" and that railroads have posted "sharply lower revenues" from the oil side of their businesses.
"The economics of moving crude by rail rarely make sense any more," Fielden said.
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Opponents Strike Back at EPA in Supreme Court Briefs
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Opponents of the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan doubled down last week on efforts to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the carbon emissions rule in its tracks.
Utilities, coal producers and more than two dozen states Friday told Chief Justice John Roberts that U.S. EPA's landmark climate rule is causing severe consequences even before compliance deadlines kick in, effectively setting state policy priorities and requiring officials to expend valuable resources in anticipation of the rule.
"For example, officials of States challenging the Plan are currently undertaking substantial efforts to mitigate the Plan's impacts through planning new electric generation, transmission, and infrastructure capacity, as well as undertaking related regulatory actions and proceedings," state lawyers said in a Supreme Court filing Friday. "They are doing these things because they have to, not because they comport with state policy choices and priorities."
Electric utilities, meanwhile, lamented the rule's impact on current operations, saying it requires them to plan resource and infrastructure changes years in advance of compliance deadlines.
"Long lead times, often more than five years and in many instances as many as seventeen, are required to design, plan, permit, and site the needed renewable projects, as well as the associated infrastructure needed to transmit energy from those projects and (in the case of new gas-fired units) to get gas to those units," a coalition of utilities said in a filing, adding that EPA misled the court by suggesting that no industry action is needed now.
The arguments, which also included briefs from coal producers and business groups, come after a flurry of legal filings landed Clean Power Plan litigation in the Supreme Court two weeks ago. Many states, utilities, coal producers and business groups believe the EPA rule is illegal and are challenging it in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The appeals court in January declined their request to freeze the rule, so the opponents took the unusual move of asking the chief justice to step in. Typically, the high court gets involved only after a lower court has considered the full merits of a case.
EPA and its allies seized on the unusual nature of the request in their own briefs to the Supreme Court last Thursday. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli warned about the "danger of premature intervention," noting the scarce precedent for such action (EnergyWire, Feb. 5).
"Applicants seek a stay before any court has expressed a view about, let alone rendered a final decision concerning, the merits of their legal claims," he wrote. "This Court is ordinarily 'a court of final review and not first view,' and its traditional reluctance to address novel legal arguments in the first instance -- without the benefit of any sustained analysis by a lower court -- weighs strongly against intervention at this time."
Clean Power Plan opponents say the Obama administration's reasoning is flawed. A Supreme Court stay at this stage in the litigation would be no more extraordinary than the impacts of the rule, they argued Friday.
"EPA described our appeal to the court as 'extraordinary and unprecedented,'" National Rural Electric Cooperative Association spokeswoman Debbie Wing said in a statement. "What's truly extraordinary and unprecedented here is the Clean Power Plan itself as well as the agency's mischaracterizations in an attempt to downplay the immense and irreparable harm co-ops face absent a stay."
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R), who is leading the state opposition to the rule, agreed, again noting the vast resources required to begin planning for the rule.
"Today's filing underscores why many thousands of hours will be wasted and millions of dollars needlessly spent by the states without a stay," he said in a statement. "We believe such spending, as well as the loss of jobs, would be unnecessary as we remain confident that EPA has exceeded its legal authority by attempting to transform itself from an environmental regulator into a central energy authority."
The chief justice, who has jurisdiction over emergency stay applications that arise from the D.C. Circuit, must weigh certain criteria while considering the request, including whether the court would likely agree to review the merits of the case and whether the petitioners would face irreparable harm without a stay. Roberts may rule solo or confer with the other justices. A decision is expected soon.
In a call with reporters last week, Morrisey vowed to continue taking every possible legal approach to block the Clean Power Plan.
"We're not going to stop until all avenues of the legal challenge are exhausted," he said. "So I believe this fight has just begun."
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Focus Turns to State Agency Coordination on Carbon Rule
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Interactive
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
The first 2016 meeting of the "3N" members occurs Thursday and Friday in Washington, D.C., at the conclusion of the National Association of State Energy Officials' three-day Energy Policy Outlook Conference.
NASEO is hosting the workshop on how state agencies are working together on the U.S. EPA Clean Power Plan, including members of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and National Association of Clean Air Agencies. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy will deliver a keynote address on Thursday afternoon. E&E reporters will be there.
Each Monday, Power Plays previews upcoming moves on the way to Clean Power Plan compliance and recaps the week's developments.
Today, Minnesota regulators will host a webinar on "leakage" under mass-based compliance strategies for the Clean Power Plan. The state has not determined whether it will use a mass- or rate-based compliance strategy, but officials say the topic is ripe for discussion. Presenters include Chris Van Atten of M.J. Bradley & Associates, Anthony Paul of Resources for the Future, and Michael Schnitzer from NorthBridge Group.
Minnesota also begins its series of community listening sessions on the Clean Power Plan in St. Cloud tomorrow. Additional meetings are scheduled later this month for Marshall, Bemidji and Duluth. ClimateWire reporter Daniel Cusick will be following these and other events from the Twin Cities.
On Wednesday, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality will hold in Phoenix its 13thstakeholder meeting on the Clean Power Plan. The discussion will include the evaluation of potential compliance options based on 10 principles.
On Thursday, the Electric Power Research Institute and Resources for the Future plan a seminar in Washington, D.C., on modeling compliance pathways for states. ClimateWire's Elizabeth Harball will be reporting.
On Friday in Richmond, Va., the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality will convene another meeting of its Clean Power Plan to look at elements that could be included in the state compliance plan. ClimateWire's Emily Holden will be reporting.
In case you missed it:
Georgia is the latest state to weigh an interstate power compact to insulate itself from U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan (EnergyWire, Feb. 5).
In Missouri, utilities and other parties unanimously favor a "mass-based" plan to cap power plant carbon dioxide emissions and trading of emissions allowances. But there is far less agreement about other key decisions facing state air regulators (EnergyWire, Feb 5).
EPA tells the Supreme Court that halting the Clean Power Plan would delay critical greenhouse gas reductions and undermine a global effort to address climate change (EnergyWire, Feb. 5).
Despite the heavy litigation surrounding the Clean Power Plan, state regulators and industries are hustling to comply, a top U.S. EPA air attorney said (Greenwire, Feb. 4).
Idaho is inclined to submit to 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 (EnergyWire, Feb. 4).
The nine-state Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative is continuing to weigh linking its cap-and-trade system with other states that will use carbon markets to comply with federal climate change regulations.
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Utah Joins List of Suing States Plotting GHG Reductions
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Elizabeth Harball
Utah leaders have begun to brainstorm how the state might reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, even though it is one of the 27 states legally challenging the new federal regulation requiring it to do so.
And although Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes (R) blasted U.S. EPA for "bypassing Congress, violating the Clean Air Act [and] ignoring meaningful input by the States" when the final Clean Power Plan was released, the state's largest power company is taking a softer line.
"We truly do think if states allowed to develop their own plans and EPA allows some flexibility, we will meet the goals by 2030," Rocky Mountain Power spokesman Paul Murphy said this week.
Under the Clean Power Plan, Utah must reduce its carbon emissions rate 34.1 percent from 2012 levels by 2030. Six coal plants and five natural gas plants in Utah will have to comply with the regulation, according to the state Division of Air Quality.
Glade Sowards, the Utah Division of Air Quality's Clean Power Plan coordinator, said because the state's electricity generation relies heavily on coal, the final rule "poses certain challenges for us."
Nevertheless, Sowards said, it is important that the state develop an emissions reduction strategy to submit to EPA.
"The idea is that we want to have a plan prepared in the event that the legal challenges are unsuccessful," Sowards said. "We want to develop a plan that works best for Utah, should we need it."
The state aims to put in an initial submittal of its compliance plan to EPA in September and then craft a full compliance plan by the 2018 deadline.
'We want to get it right'
Sowards said EPA's proposed federal plan, which would be implemented in Utah if the state did not turn in its own plan, does not offer enough flexibility.
A slide show presented at a stakeholder meeting last Tuesday on the Clean Power Plan outlines the state's specific concerns about EPA's federal plan. For example, the state would like more control over how carbon allowances are distributed to power plant operators than the federal plan permits.
Utah is in talks with other Western states about potentially working together to meet EPA's emission reduction targets through a Colorado-based group called the Center for the New Energy Economy.
Asked if the state might adopt a "trading-ready" strategy or formally collaborate with other states, Sowards said all options are on the table.
"There are potential benefits from trading," Sowards said, but he added that the state hasn't yet made any big decisions on how it would like to comply with the Clean Power Plan.
"We think we need to bring everyone to a common level of understanding about the regulation before we delve into the issues," Sowards said.
"As to whether we will have narrowed the field much by the time an initial submittal is due remains to be seen," he added. "We want to get it right versus rush into it."
Murphy of Rocky Mountain Power said his company is well-positioned to meet EPA's carbon reduction requirements because it plans to significantly ramp up its use of energy efficiency in the coming years.
Additionally, Murphy pointed to the company's long-range plan put out in July 2015, before the final Clean Power Plan was released. It states that Rocky Mountain Power plans on retiring 10 coal units by 2029 and is already ramping up investments in renewable energy.
"It was the direction we were going in the first place," Murphy said.
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Environmental, Renewables Groups Clash Over ESPS Incentive Program
Feb 8, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Abby Smith
Environmentalists and renewable groups are clashing over how the extension of wind and solar tax credits will impact EPA's early incentive program for its existing power plant greenhouse gas (GHG) rule, with environmentalists detailing arguments that the agency's incentives will not spur additional renewable growth beyond business as usual, ultimately weakening the rule.
“Importantly, in order for the [incentive program] to deliver cumulative emissions reductions, the program must spur new investments, beyond what would occur absent the program,” the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) writes in Jan. 21 comments on EPA's proposed federal plan for its power plant existing source performance standards (ESPS).
The group adds: “It is thus important that EPA implement safeguards to prevent business as usual (BAU) projects from undermining the incentives for additional (beyond BAU) renewables and low-income energy efficiency.”
But renewable groups are pushing back, arguing that the concern is misplaced and that there is even a risk that credits allocated under the Clean Energy Incentive Program (CEIP) will be underutilized, even after factoring in recent five-year extensions to wind and solar tax credits that were included in a year-end omnibus spending bill.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) in its Jan. 21 comments on the federal plan proposal argues that 70 gigawatts (GW) of renewable capacity would need to qualify for the CEIP to fully use EPA's proposed credits for renewables.
“For comparison, this is more than the total installed wind capacity of the United States, or about three times the total installed solar capacity. Even factoring in the extension of the [wind tax credit], it therefore seems highly unlikely that the current CEIP timeline will approach full utilization (instead, matching allowances for renewables will go unused and be retired at the start of 2022) and, in turn, achieve its goals,” AWEA writes.
The group adds that it is “highly unlikely” that wind projects will receive both the full value of the federal tax credits in addition to EPA's CEIP credits, given that projects would have to start construction this year to receive the full tax credit, but could only be eligible for CEIP credits after states submit final ESPS compliance plans.
For wind projects that receive reduced tax breaks in 2017 and beyond, the CEIP “could very likely increase the likelihood that such projects will move forward,” the group argues.
The debate is aimed at shaping EPA's planned update to the CEIP proposal, which it has said it will release in the coming months. The agency plans to take public comment on that update before finalizing the program.
As the agency revises the incentive program, NRDC and other environmentalists are urging that it limit any CEIP credit for projects that receive a federal tax boost, given the significant boost to early deployment of renewables that the credits are projected to deliver.
Advocates note that the incentive program was similarly designed to drive early deployment of wind and solar, in addition to low-income energy efficiency projects, before the ESPS' 2022 start to compliance.
The tax credit extensions, NRDC argues, “heighten the potential for the CEIP to reward renewables projects that would have occurred anyway without the CEIP in place. As noted, if the CEIP simply rewards compliance value to business-as-usual projects, it will increase cumulative emissions over the 2020-2030 time period.”
'Run The Table'
Recent analysis from the Rhodium Group could bolster environmentalists' argument, with the group finding that the tax extensions are expected to drive significant renewable energy deployment before the ESPS takes effect in 2022, leading renewables to dominate the compliance landscape. According to Rhodium's Jan. 27 report, the combined effect of the tax extensions and the CEIP could lead to annual renewable energy capacity additions “topping out at 30 GW per year in 2021.”
Absent the tax extenders, the report says, ESPS compliance would rely heavily on retiring coal generation and ramping up natural gas power, followed by increased renewable deployment during the last years of the rule's compliance period.
“With the tax extenders, the game is completely changed,” said Rhodium's John Larsen at a Jan. 27 event hosted by the Center for Strategic & International Studies. “Gas barely plays a role” in compliance, while utility-scale wind and solar “run the table.” They are the “technology option of choice . . . through the entire compliance period.”
Congress approved a long-term phaseout of both a production tax credit (PTC) for wind energy and an elevated solar power investment tax credit (ITC) in a year-end omnibus spending and tax agreement for the remainder of fiscal year 2016.
The measure reinstates an already-expired PTC for 2015 and 2016, gradually reducing the credit before it expires at the start of 2020. The credit would be worth 80 percent of the current amount for facilities that begin construction in 2017, 60 percent for similar projects in 2018 and 40 percent for similar projects in 2019.
The spending deal also retains a 30 percent ITC for projects that begin construction by 2019, a 26 percent credit for projects that begin construction in 2020 and a 22 percent credit for those starting in 2021. Afterward, solar projects would receive a 10 percent credit.
The proposed CEIP would take effect in 2020. Projects that commence construction or operation after a state submits its final compliance plan to EPA -- or after Sept. 6, 2018, for states subject to a federal plan -- could generate compliance credits during 2020 and 2021, before the rule's compliance period begins in 2022.
Under the program, wind and solar projects would receive one credit for each megawatt hour (MWh) of generation, and low-income efficiency projects would receive two credits for each MWh of energy savings. Half of all credits would come from the state and half from a matching federal pool capped at 300 short tons of carbon dioxide. The federal credits would be divided into two separate pools for renewable and efficiency projects.
CEIP Adjustments
Both environmentalists and the renewable sector ask EPA to take comment on the interaction between the tax extensions and the CEIP, but environmentalists offer much sharper concern about the issue.
The CEIP “was designed at a point before we knew that those renewable tax credits would be extended,” said NRDC's Ben Longstreth at a Jan. 27 forum hosted by Resources for the Future. If the program rewards projects that would occur anyway, that “just has the effect of diluting or weakening the stringency of the program. We hope that EPA will look at that again,” he added.
In its comments, NRDC says EPA should seek comment on a plan to make the amount of CEIP credit “inversely proportional” to the size of the tax credit a project receives, “such that a project receiving the full value of the tax credits would be awarded fewer CEIP credits than a project only receiving a phased-down fraction of the tax credits.”
The group also suggests that EPA craft different approaches to distributing credit from the federal pool of allowances -- currently distributed to states on a pro-rata basis as related to the stringency of their final ESPS targets -- “in order to maximize the additional (beyond BAU) [renewable energy] projects and minimize the risk that the CEIP results in weakening the emission outcome.” The group does not outline any preferred new distribution strategies.
In addition, NRDC urges EPA to maintain the proposed CEIP timeline in the face of calls from the renewable industry to extend the periods during which projects would be eligible and able to generate credits, with industry groups arguing the current timeline could stunt the growth of renewables.
AWEA also suggests the possibility that CEIP credits could be inversely proportional to the magnitude of the tax credit received -- but only if EPA agrees with its call to move the eligibility dates “earlier in time.”
The wind group also suggests a package of other revisions to the CEIP, arguing it would “help ensure the CEIP achieves its goals.”
Other major renewable groups, including the Solar Energy Industries Association, generally underscore past recommendations on the CEIP, though they do not include discussion of the potential interaction between the incentive program and the federal tax incentives.
NRDC also warns EPA against granting a key request of states -- that unused credits could “roll over” from a pool set aside for renewables to efficiency projects, and vice versa. States seek such a change to ensure that all CEIP credits are used, but NRDC says it could lead to BAU wind and solar projects crowding out efficiency measures.
If roll overs are allowed, “regardless of the size of each pool, NRDC strongly recommends that EPA provide a sufficient period of time (at least until 2020) for low-income energy efficiency programs to take advantage of their share of the matching pool, and for states with historically low development of renewables to take advantage of the incentives, or consider not re-allocating those allowances if there is a risk those allowances will go to primarily BAU projects,” the group writes.
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White House Details Massive Clean-Tech Spending Plan
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Christa Marshall
The White House outlined a sweeping plan this weekend to double clean energy research spending over five years as part of a global effort to fight climate change.
The massive proposal -- which involves 12 federal agencies and envisions a 20 percent increase in energy research and development in the president's coming budget -- is meant to be the meat on the bones of the "Mission Innovation" initiative launched at last year's climate talks in Paris.
There, 20 countries pledged to double their clean energy R&D in five years to help ensure long-term carbon emission cuts. The plan has ties to a coalition of billionaire entrepreneurs like Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who pledged investments to move transformational energy technologies from lab to market.
The idea is to help bridge the "valley of death" witnessed by many promising clean energy technologies that never reach the commercial stage but could help slash greenhouse gas emissions.
The current international policy framework "is not enough by itself to hit the targets that we've set globally on climate change ... whether we can meet those targets depends on other things, including principally on the pace of technology innovation," a senior administration official said on a conference call Friday.
The administration will propose an R&D funding jump from approximately $6.4 billion in fiscal 2016 to $12.8 billion in 2021, via annual increases of approximately 15 percent. The budget request would boost clean energy research spending about 20 percent over last year's level to about $7.7 billion.
The plan focuses heavily on the Department of Energy via proposed spending increases for the national labs and new and existing programs covering everything from electric vehicles to advanced nuclear fuels.
A huge winner under the proposal would be the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), which would see its annual budget more than triple to $1 billion in five years. DOE officials predicted last month that the agency would be a focus of Mission Innovation (Greenwire, Jan. 25).
Modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA-E provides funding to cutting-edge energy technologies that are not ready for private-sector investment. At an event last week, agency Director Ellen Williams said about 20 percent of ARPA-E's completed projects go on to attract private-sector investment.
ARPA-E is also an agency that enjoys significant GOP support. Last week, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) called it "really pioneering" during a speech on advanced nuclear technologies, for example.
The administration is proposing $350 million for ARPA-E for fiscal 2017, up from $291 million in appropriations under the omnibus deal signed into law at the end of 2015. Additionally, it will propose $150 million in mandatory funding for the program in fiscal 2017, aiming to spend $1.85 billion in such mandatory funding over five years.
The Mission Innovation plan has a heavy regional focus, too. "There is no single energy source that is necessarily going to be a winner," a senior administration official told reporters Friday.
In that regard, the White House will propose more than $110 million for new regional partnerships that would target R&D solutions to the "unique characteristics of each region." It also will push for new partnerships between the national labs and communities.
Existing programs at DOE -- for both renewable power and fossil fuel research -- would get a boost in the budget request. For example, the White House will call for more than $880 million on sustainable transportation technologies, about $150 million more than last year's budget deal. It also would increase amounts spent on solar, wind and geothermal energy.
Research on carbon capture and storage technologies to control emissions from fossil fuels would receive $564 million, more than last year's budget deal. There also would be increased support for advanced nuclear research.
Reception in Congress
The administration's blueprint raises the obvious question of how much a Republican-controlled Congress will support it. One Republican analyst said it would gain little traction, as the administration is "dead men waiting to be buried."
Republican energy strategist Mike McKenna predicted the proposal wouldn't go far on Capitol Hill. "There is no way any of this happens," said McKenna, who used the "dead men waiting to be buried" analogy. "The administration is last Tuesday."
Another analyst questioned privately whether some relatively new programs at DOE "that are still being assessed" should receive large funding increases.
White House aides, however, are quick to note that many clean energy programs got a boost in last year's budget with bipartisan support.
"While Republicans in Congress are still considering their position on climate change, many of them realize that clean energy is an incredible source of good-paying jobs for their constituents. That's why we were able to boost clean energy research and development in last year's budget agreement," President Obama said in his weekly address Saturday.
Paul Bledsoe, a former Clinton White House energy and climate aide, said "this is not dead on arrival," as there is growing bipartisan support for targeted spending on energy R&D.
He noted recent Senate passage of a bipartisan amendment to increase funding for DOE's Office of Science, for example. The Senate also voted last month to boost funding for ARPA-E (E&ENews PM, Jan. 28).
"If the president is willing to work with Republicans ... and give them some of their priorities and find some offsets ... I think it is not inconceivable that they could get a really big chunk of the doubling," said Bledsoe, who is also a senior adviser to the American Energy Innovation Council, whose members include Gates and CEOs of major energy companies.
The administration will need GOP lawmakers like Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn), who toldE&E Daily this month that he supported Mission Innovation in theory but wanted to pay for it with an idea not likely to be popular with some Democrats -- ending wind subsidies.
Bledsoe said Congress should recognize that if they increase R&D, other countries might follow suit. "Some members of Congress have objected to the U.S. carrying this entire weight on its back. Now is an opportunity to galvanize other nations to double their funding," he said.
Since its launch in Paris, Mission Innovation has stirred debate about whether it is the most effective approach to investing in low-carbon technology.
In a recent interview, Joe Romm, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said money from the federal government and billionaires like Gates would be better spent on deploying existing technologies like solar in countries like India, where key energy decisions are under consideration (ClimateWire, Dec. 4, 2015).
However, Gates and others have said the energy sector spends much less on research and development in terms of a percentage of its overall revenue than other sectors like health care.
The White House has said that, despite falling costs for technologies like solar and electric vehicles, the pace of innovation is falling short of what is needed to hold temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius by century's end.
The new plan is "much more in line with the scale of investment we need to be making ... to really fully leverage the strength of the national innovation ecosystem, especially given the scale both of the challenge of climate change and the market opportunity that many of these technologies are going to present," said Brad Townsend, associate director for energy innovation for the Bipartisan Policy Center's Energy Project.
More details
Eighty percent of the plan involves funding at DOE, including a call in fiscal 2017 for:
$350 million in discretionary funding for ARPA-E, $59 million above last year's level. Additionally, the administration is proposing $150 million in mandatory funds that would allow the agency budget to grow to $1 billion by fiscal 2021.
More than $880 million for sustainable transportation technologies, $177 million for grid modernization and $261 million for advanced clean energy manufacturing R&D projects. There would at least $500 million for renewable power, up by more than $20 million from last year's level. That includes $213 million for DOE's SunShot Initiative, which has a stated goal of making solar cost-competitive with other power sources by decade's end.
At least $804 million for programs and infrastructure that support the advancement of nuclear energy technologies and about $564 million for research focused on carbon capture and sequestration technologies.
New initiatives include $110 million for partnerships targeting technologies for specific regions, and $105 million for new "innovation initiatives" to speed up technology development, partly through partnerships with the national labs.
The budget request also will include:
$512 million for research at the National Science Foundation in "a wide array" of energy technology areas.
$348 million for clean energy research at NASA.
$106 million for programs at USDA to support "bio-based" energy sources, such as increased biofuel production.
A $10 million effort at the Department of Housing and Urban Development to improve energy efficiency, including by creating an advisory group to develop studies on facilitating "long-term behavior" change in the housing sector.
A U.S. Agency for International Development plan to establish a new R&D clean energy effort to assist a range of technologies in developing nations.
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CASAC Doubts EPA 'Framework' Strengthening Data On Air Pollution Harm
Feb 8, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Members of EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) are rejecting draft EPA findings that claim stronger evidence for adverse health effects from sulfur dioxide (SO2) air pollution, calling into question the agency's broader "framework" for classifying the strength of such data in its reviews of ambient air standards.
"There is this tendency to emphasize positive associations a little stronger than the literature really suggests," said panelist John Balmes, of the University of California, San Francisco, during a Jan. 27-28 CASAC call to discuss EPA's latest draft Integrated Science Assessment (ISA) on the potential health efforts of SO2. The ISA is part of the process of the agency's ongoing review of its SO2 national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS).
Balmes and other panelists pushed back on the ISA's apparent upgrade in the "causal" relationship between SO2 and various adverse health effects, similar to upgrades EPA made on the strength of causal relationships between nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure and certain health outcomes, which might justify a stricter NAAQS.
Panelist Aaron Cohen, of the Health Effects Institute -- funded jointly by EPA and the auto industry -- said he disagreed with the upgraded causality findings for short-term SO2 exposure and cardiovascular effects, reproductive and developmental effects, long-term exposure and total mortality, and long-term exposure and cancer.
Cohen said he felt that the agency had made incorrect assumptions about measurement error in the SO2 ISA, which could at times produce "false positives," and that the agency has been overly confident in its assumption that relationships between exposure and effects are linear, especially at very low exposure levels.
The panelists' concerns will likely inform a letter that CASAC will write to EPA offering its advice on the draft ISA, which is expected to call on the agency to craft a second draft. Questions the panel might raise include whether the situation has changed on the strength of the evidence about SO2's impacts, panelists said. They might also ask EPA to more carefully review the limits of epidemiological evidence, and address other issues.
For example, CASAC might call on EPA to better analyze the role of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions in "confounding" the data on SO2. Emissions of SO2 and other components of sulfur oxides contribute to the formation of secondary PM2.5 in the atmosphere. Sulfur-based PM2.5 is thought to be responsible for adverse health effects, but EPA addresses these through the separate PM2.5 NAAQS, agency staff confirmed.
The CASAC panelists' misgivings about the causality framework mirror those of consultant Julie Goodman, of the Gradient consultancy, who spoke behalf of the American Petroleum Institute during a public comment part of the call. Is the evidence "really enough to drive it up to suggestive?" she asked, referring to EPA's findings that evidence for several health effects is now "suggestive," rather than "inadequate."
Scientific Evidence
EPA staff use ISAs to gather and synthesize the available scientific evidence on a pollutant's health effects to support EPA's ultimate decision to either alter the NAAQS or leave it unchanged. A crucial part of the ISA methodology is the "causality framework" EPA uses to define the strength of evidence for various adverse health effects.
Since the last SO2 ISA that the agency finalized in support of its 2010 NAAQS for the pollutant, EPA has revised the causal framework to give more weight to scientific studies that are less than conclusive in establishing a causal relationship between exposure to a pollutant and health effects attributed to that pollutant, EPA staff said on the conference call. This is partly responsible for EPA's decision to upgrade the strength of the perceived relationship between SO2 and health effects other than short-term respiratory problems.
Agency staff on the call said that there is no change from the previous ISA in the firm finding that SO2 causes short-term respiratory problems, including asthma attacks, and that "the standard is based on this."
EPA in 2010 introduced a new short-term form of the SO2 NAAQS, set at 75 parts per billion (ppb) averaged over one hour, in place of the prior standard, set in 1971, of 140 ppb over 24 hours or 30 ppb annually.
However, for other health outcomes, EPA has upgraded the strength of the scientific evidence from "inadequate to infer the presence or absence of a causal relationship" to "suggestive but not sufficient to infer a causal relationship." This is the case for respiratory effects from long-term exposure, cardiovascular effects from short-term exposure, reproductive and developmental effects, total mortality from long-term exposure, and cancer from long-term exposure.
CASAC panelists on the call, however, concurred with the apparent upgrade in the strength of the evidence only for some of these exposures and outcomes. For example, Balmes said "I'm not entirely sure that I agree with" the changes from the 2008 ISA's statements on causality for health outcomes other than respiratory problems.
Panelist George Allen, of the Northeast States For Coordinated Air Use Management, asked EPA staff whether the upgrade to "suggestive" might result in a "cumulative" effect that might lead to an even stronger statement of causality in a future NAAQS review -- but an EPA official said no such automatic escalation is implied.
Inhofe's Concerns
Meanwhile, Senate Environment & Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK) in a Feb. 2 letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy faults the agency's methods for choosing CASAC's members.
The full CASAC itself has seven members, and by law one of them must be a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), yet none of the present committee members are NAS members, Inhofe notes. The chartered CASAC then creates subject-specific panels to conduct NAAQS reviews, such as those for SO2 and NO2, which have a broader membership.
Inhofe criticizes what he calls EPA's "incessant lack of transparency and impartiality in its process for selecting" CASAC members. "I have observed EPA, under the Obama Administration, cherry-picking the same allies to serve on this advisory committee and its subcommittees at the expense of having an open and robust process for selecting external advisors," Inhofe writes.
He also says EPA is failing to rotate the membership of the CASAC as agency guidelines require it to do, and that some of the panelists have received millions in research grants from the agency, leading to the appearance of possible financial conflicts of interest.
He says the process for selecting CASAC members since publication of an April 2 Federal Register notice soliciting candidates has "essentially occurred in a black box," with public notices and comment procedures "hidden" on EPA's website and not using the "open" docket method provided by the regulations.gov website.
Inhofe further identifies a lack of geographic diversity among CASAC members, who are overwhelmingly from the Northeast or West Coast, he says.
Inhofe asks McCarthy to answer a series of questions by Feb. 23, asking for more information on how EPA conducted its search for candidates for CASAC, and on why none of the CASAC members is also an NAS member.
An EPA spokeswoman told Inside EPA only that, "We plan to review the letter."
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EPA Rule Streamlines Burning Wood, Railroad Ties for Power
Feb 8, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
A new move by U.S. EPA could make it simpler for companies to burn certain waste material at incinerators and power plants.
In a rule released today, EPA added several types of solid waste to a list of so-called categorical non-waste fuels, meaning that the agency considers them fuels and not solid wastes under specified conditions.
The agency added certain wood from construction and demolition debris, paper recycling residuals, some paperboard and corrugated containers, and railroad ties treated with creosote.
Companies must process and burn the materials at biomass units designed for that purpose, at large pulp and paper mills, or at certain kinds of power plants.
EPA previously developed a rule setting standards for how the agency can determine whether non-hazardous secondary materials are considered solid wastes when companies use them as fuels or ingredients in combustion units under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, or RCRA.
The change clarifies that companies burning the materials do not need to evaluate them under the kind of standards and procedures that would otherwise be necessary to comply with RCRA.
In public comments filed with EPA in 2014, industry groups supported the change.
"The conclusion that these materials are legitimate alternative fuels and not wastes is supported" by RCRA, wrote Susan Bodine, then a partner at law firm Barnes & Thornburg LLP and now the chief counsel for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Bodine, who was writing on behalf of several trade groups, said, "Further, listing these materials as non-wastes will allow the continued and increased use of these valuable fuel products."
Several state regulators also weighed in on the issue.
Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality "agrees with the inclusion of processed construction and demolition wood, paper recycling residuals, and creosote treated rail road ties (CTRTs) as a categorical non-waste fuel," wrote Steven Sliver, the chief of the solid waste section in the Office of Waste Management and Radiological Protection. "In fact, approximately 50,000 tons of CTRTs were combusted in Michigan in 2013."
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