Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 2/18/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Launches Website for Construction Industry
Feb 18, 2016 | Plastics News
By Catherine Kavanaugh
The American Chemistry Council launched a new website aiming to help building and construction professionals learn more about the science involved in producing everything from extruded polystyrene... -
EPA FY17 Budget Boosts Research, CompTox Funds, Cuts EDSP Resources
Feb 18, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's proposed fiscal year 2017 budget includes budget increases to speed the pace of its risk assessments of existing industrial chemicals and to further advance its nascent computational toxicology (CompTox)... -
Other Worries in Addition to Lead in the Water
Feb 18, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Paloma Beamer
We know very little to nothing about the thousands of other chemicals our children are exposed to every day. Lead poisoning in the water in Flint, Michigan is just the beginning. -
US Osha Consults on Weight of Evidence Guidance
Feb 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) has released for consultation draft guidance on how to apply a weight of evidence approach when classifying substances under the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS). -
US Database Needs Permission to Access Data, Claims Echa
Feb 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Johns Hopkins University does not yet have permission to use all of the data in a widely publicised new chemical database, says Echa. -
SC Johnson Discloses All Fragrance Ingredients in New Product Line
Feb 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
US household cleaning products firm SC Johnson has introduced a product line that discloses all of its fragrance ingredients, down to the substance level. -
Niosh Calls Meeting on 1-BP, Extends Silver Nanomaterials Consultation
Feb 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh) is running a meeting on the potential health risks of 1-bromopropane (1-BP). -
Echa Round-Up
Feb 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
Echa has launched public consultations on the harmonised classification and labelling proposals for three substances... -
California’s Gas Gusher is Stanched, But Where are Tougher U.S. Rules on Leaks?
Feb 18, 2016 | New York Times
By Andrew C. Revkin
What does it take to jog federal and state leaders to toughen rules curbing industrial pollution? When the industry is energy and the pollutant, methane, is invisible to the naked eye, it seems to take an awful lot. -
Federal Grants Address Energy Transport Safety
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Ariel Wittenberg
In a bid to make transporting oil by rail safer, the Federal Railroad Administration has awarded almost $10 million in grants to nine projects that would upgrade railroad crossings in eight states. -
Feds Blame Pipeline Corrosion for Santa Barbara Oil Spill
Feb 18, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
External corrosion on an oil pipeline near Santa Barbara, Calif., was the main cause of last year’s oil spill on California’s coast, federal investigators said. -
MISO Forges Ahead with Modeling for EPA Rule
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Jeffrey Tomich
The Midwest grid operator is pressing on with analysis of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan despite the Supreme Court stay issued last week and the fact that there are some states where the grid operator have ceased efforts to comply. -
New Patchwork Forms in Southeast After Supreme Court Action
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Kristi E. Swartz
The Southeast looked like a patchwork when it came to compliance strategies for U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan. -
States Criticize Costs Of EPA Regulations As EPW GOP Analyzes 'Burdens'
Feb 18, 2016 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
Several states are criticizing the ever-increasing costs of implementing and enforcing EPA waste, water, air and climate rules in the first wave of responses to a request from Senate Environment & Public Works Committee... -
Crowell & Moring's Lorenzen Says Rule Will Not Survive Legal Challenges
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E TV
As states consider next steps following the Supreme Court's stay of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, what is the legal future of the rule? During today's OnPoint, Thomas Lorenzen, a partner at Crowell & Moring and a former assistant chief... -
With CPP on Hold, What’s Next?
Feb 18, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Catrina Rorke
A fortuitous 5-4 judgment by the Supreme Court puts on hold the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s greenhouse-gas-reduction program until the court has a chance to review the rule. -
Rule Freezes 'Part of the Landscape' at EPA
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
U.S. EPA is exploring new territory when it comes to the Supreme Court's decision to freeze the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of the Obama'a administration's climate agenda, several former agency officials said this week. -
It's 'Foolish' for Calif. to Heed High Court Stay
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
As U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan weathers legal turmoil, at least one state is proceeding full steam ahead. -
Inside the Uphill Battle Against Carbon Trading
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Jihan Gearon grew up loving the outdoors, taking walks with her mother and grandmother and playing in the woods in rural Fort Defiance, on the Navajo Nation near the Arizona and New Mexico border. -
How To Filter Lead From Your Tap Water
Feb 18, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Megan Boyle and Sonya Lunder
Throughout most of the 20th Century, American cities and homeowners installed lead pipes and solder in their tap water delivery systems – creating a toxic legacy for all of us. And the problem isn’t likely to change soon.
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Energy and Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC Launches Website for Construction Industry
Feb 18, 2016 | Plastics News
By Catherine Kavanaugh
The American Chemistry Council launched a new website aiming to help building and construction professionals learn more about the science involved in producing everything from extruded polystyrene below foundation slabs to the polycarbonate skylights on the roof.
The Washington, D.C.-based group’s website — www.BuildingWithChemistry.org — has tools and information about material selection, green building codes and standards, where plastic are used in buildings and lists of the chemicals that comprise the products, and links to videos and other resources.
Chemistry is the cornerstone of developing efficient, comfortable, sustainable buildings, according to Richard Skorpenske, chairman of the ACC’s building and construction subcommittee and the director of advocacy and sustainability at Covestro.
“Many of the materials and products used to build the homes, schools and office buildings where we live and work every day rely on the safety, energy savings, durability and other sustainability and performance benefits that the products of chemistry provide,” Skorpenske said in a news release. “We created this new website to contribute to thoughtful, informed decisions about the materials in today’s innovative, modern and sustainable building applications.”
The information is geared toward architects, material specifiers, interior designers and other industry professionals. In addition to pointing out the chemical ingredients of building materials and the purposes they serve, the website highlights the different approaches to green building and factors to consider when selecting materials and products for construction.
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EPA FY17 Budget Boosts Research, CompTox Funds, Cuts EDSP Resources
Feb 18, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA's proposed fiscal year 2017 budget includes budget increases to speed the pace of its risk assessments of existing industrial chemicals and to further advance its nascent computational toxicology (CompTox) research efforts, while reducing funds to the original Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program (EDSP) due to the lower expected costs of computational methods.
But the agency acknowledges the reduction in EDSP funds "limits the agency's ability to fully validate high throughput and computational alternatives for endocrine screening and testing, particularly for [the] thyroid pathway," an admission that may concern those critical of CompTox and its adoption by EDSP.
The Obama administration proposed Feb. 9 an FY17 budget that seeks to increase EPA's overall budget to $8.27 billion from the enacted FY16 funding of $8.14 billion. Similarly, proposed funds towards EPA's goal of "ensuring the safety of chemicals and preventing pollution" is $679 million, up $56 million from the FY16 enacted funding of $623 million.
But while the FY17 proposal is an increase to the agency's actual enacted funding, it is $320 million less than Obama's FY16 proposal to fund EPA at $8.59 billion. Congress never approved that request, instead setting EPA's current funding in a recent omnibus law.
Among the proposed boosts is a $5.6 million increase to EPA's chemical safety and sustainability research budget, intended to further advance EPA's CompTox and other 21st century toxicology approaches -- both methods development as well as advancing their regulatory use. The proposed boost is not surprising given EPA toxics office's efforts to expand this type of cellular, high-throughput testing in both its toxics and pesticides arenas, and the enthusiastic support of such approaches from Jim Jones, EPA's toxics chief.
"These increased resources will 1) incorporate advancements in computational chemistry to allow use of information from chemical structures with known bioactivity to other structures with less data (i.e. read-across) in concert with growing international efforts, 2) use the high-throughput hazard and exposure information to begin to evaluate cumulative risk of chemical exposures, 3) expand and extrapolate to novel assays that have relevance to ecological impacts, and 4) demonstrate how the ToxCast/Tox21 data can be used to develop high-throughput risk assessments, in particular for data-poor chemicals," EPA's justification document for Congress' appropriations committees states.
ToxCast is the high-throuput cellular toxicity screening program EPA is using for some of its EDSP testing while Tox21, or Toxicology Testing in the 21st Century, is a federal collaboration among EPA, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration of related cellular screening approaches.
Elsewhere, the document suggests that EPA "will work to customize and adapt emerging technologies for specific application to EPA chemical testing and evaluation systems," and gives the example of model organs such as the heart or liver being developed by other federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
An agency spokeswoman says, "The EPA is committed to enhancing the agency's ability to identify endocrine disrupting chemicals. The agency has been pioneering work in the area of computational toxicology and continues to make investments ($4.3M increase in the FY 2017 President's Budget) to accelerate high throughput chemical screening. However, as with any work, reduced funding for EDSP could slow progress to validate high throughput alternative methods from ToxCast and Tox21 for screening for estrogen, androgen and thyroid bioactivity relevant to risk of endocrine disruption."
EDSP Reduction
By contrast, EPA is proposing to cut $3 million from EDSP, the agency's first regulatory program to embrace the cellular toxicology approaches for use. Last June, the program announced that it will in the future accept the results of 18 cellular assays in EPA's ToxCast program instead of three of the animal-based assays EDSP had originally relied on to screen chemicals for their potential to interfere with estrogen hormones. Jones announced last November at the Future Tox III conference that agency researchers are working to expand this approach to androgen hormones that EDSP is also charged with screening.
EPA's justification document says that high-throughput testing uses robots "capable of executing the toxicity testing of chemicals at astonishing speeds, dramatically increasing performance through higher efficiency, which translates to decreased costs per chemical screened for both the EPA and stakeholders. These new technologies will save 90 percent of the costs to test each chemical, 75 percent in time to develop the data (including the EPA's time and resources to review the data), and reduce the use of animals for testing for these particular effects to nearly zero."
However, a group of endocrinology researchers at the University of California recently published a paper in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives questioning ToxCast's ability to identify a class of endocrine disruptors known as obesogens, chemicals that act on hormones to cause fat gain. While EDSP is not designed to test for obesogens, an article published in the journal Birth Defects Research last year by California regulatory scientists also found some discrepancies between ToxCast's findings and more traditional toxicity testing methods in some pesticide examples.
EPA's chemical safety research program is also proposed to lose $1.46 million in reduced efforts to "engage academic partners in critical forward-looking research on human and ecological impacts of exposures to endocrine disrupting compounds through the grants program and develop and incorporate [endocrine-disrupting chemical]-relevant data and models for use by agency partners and external stakeholders."
The administration is also proposing to increase its budget for chemical risk review and reduction, with an $8.4 million boost to ramp up EPA's production of risk assessments of industrial chemicals through its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) work plan and increase staffing to handle risk management of industrial chemicals in EPA's regional offices. The increase will "expand the role of regional offices in the implementation of TSCA," the justification says, seeking to add 10 full-time employee equivalents to the effort, bringing the total to 13.
"This expansion will start to close a critical gap in the agency's Chemical Safety Program implementation framework as regional offices are uniquely situated to increase stakeholder involvement to ensure that its risk management actions are effective and efficient, and to leverage the efforts of states, tribes, localities and others to help reach the most vulnerable populations that chemical safety rules are intended to protect," the justification says. Elsewhere, it indicates that the new staff will help "address formaldehyde in pressed wood products and address public concerns associated with the presence of [polychlorinated biphenyls] in building materials in schools and elsewhere."
The funding increase is also intended to speed the output of the TSCA work plan risk assessments, the Obama EPA's effort to address existing chemicals -- those already on the market when TSCA was enacted in 1976 and largely grandfathered -- in the absence of congressional action on reforming TSCA. The increase "reflects a significant investment to accelerate initiation and completion of assessments for TSCA Work Plan Chemicals, allowing the EPA to make greater progress towards the ambitious FY 2018 Strategic Target to assess all of the[] originally identified TSCA Work Plan chemicals."
The document adds that with the boosted funding level, EPA intends to complete the 21 TSCA work plan assessments that it initiated in FY15, largely of flame retardant chemicals, while also initiating assessments of 18 more chemicals on the work plan list.
Risk Assessment
EPA also proposes a $1.65 million boost to its human health risk assessment research program, which includes its influential Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment program and the assessments that underlie the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, among other efforts.
The justification document indicates that in FY17, EPA intends to "implement and update as necessary the IRIS Handbook of Operating Procedures," a project undertaken several years ago after National Academy of Sciences criticism.
The document also says that IRIS will implement a process to update "the existing IRIS database for prioritized chemicals to maintain its currency" in the face of many dated assessments. Ken Olden, director of EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment, which oversees IRIS and many other human health risk assessment research activities, proposed such a plan at the December 2014 Society for Risk Analysis annual meeting in Denver.
There, Olden said he hoped to create a "SWAT team" of new staff to prioritize assessments and evaluate whether and how to bring them up to date.
An agency source says the justification document refers to Olden's plan, and that while no new hiring is described in the justification document, NCEA is understaffed as a result of attrition during the agency's hiring freeze. The IRIS program is hiring, the source says, following the lifting of that hiring freeze.
NCEA will also see a $557,000 drop to its budget for state-of-the-science issues on risk assessment topics, a priority for Olden in recent years. Olden had hoped to host three or four such workshops each year, but the drop is expected to reduce the number of workshops, the agency source says. The reduced funding will not affect EPA's ability to host the bimonthly stakeholders meetings about the progress of various individual IRIS assessments, the source adds.
The justification document does not indicate how many or which IRIS assessments the beleaguered program is expected to release in draft or final form in FY17. The agency has failed to meet its "annual milestone progress score" for completing draft and final IRIS assessments since initiating the metric in FY12, even after lowering its goal in FY14.
A proposed increase to EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB), which is responsible for peer-reviewing most draft IRIS assessments, suggests that more assessments may be anticipated. SAB would get a $1 million increase "to conduct peer reviews, host meetings to assess additional IRIS chemicals, support the advisory activities of the new SAB Agricultural Science Committee, and implement business process improvements."
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Other Worries in Addition to Lead in the Water
Feb 18, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Paloma Beamer
We know very little to nothing about the thousands of other chemicals our children are exposed to every day. Lead poisoning in the water in Flint, Michigan is just the beginning.
Our government enacted the Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) in 1976, which requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate existing chemicals and the introduction of new chemicals.
So why 40 years after TSCA, do we know so little?
At the time TSCA was enacted all 62,000 chemicals currently on the market in the United States were “grandfathered” in and allowed to remain on the market without having their toxic impacts assessed. Since then, another 22,000 chemicals have been added to the TSCA chemical inventory and permitted for use in the U.S. The EPA has only required testing of 200 chemicals.
The fact is we have toxicity data on less than 1 percent of all the chemicals permitted for use in consumer products in the United States.
And there is room for gaming the system.
Take bisphenol A (BPA) a chemical commonly used in plastics, like our water bottles. This chemical is thought to mimic hormones in our body and disrupt the normal functioning of our endocrine system, which could result in effects on children’s development.
After these findings were publicized we saw the aisles of stores filled with BPA-free water bottles and other products for our children. Yet BPA could have been removed and then replaced with one of the other chemicals on the current TSCA list that has not been evaluated for human safety and may actually be more toxic.
Unfortunately, there is a long history of regrettable rather than informed chemical substitutions in consumer products.
In the case of BPA, it was commonly replaced with bisphenol S or F, which are as hormonally active as BPA, and have the same endocrine-disrupting effects.
There could be change soon.
In December, the Senate approved legislation to amend the TSCA reform bill approved by the House of Representatives back in June.
The proposed law requires EPA to evaluate chemicals for their safety at a “reasonable pace,” which has been proposed as 10 chemicals per year. At this rate it would only take us 20 years to double the number of chemicals that we have safety evaluations on, and over 8,000 years to complete the current TSCA list.
Recognizing this problem, some of the most progressive laws that protect our children from hazardous chemicals occur at the state level. States like Maine, California, and Washington have proactively and successfully passed laws that limit the use of certain flame retardants and chemicals like BPA in children’s products.
These laws have impacted all of us by making companies come up with safer alternatives for children in all states. However, the current TSCA reform bill based by the Senate would prohibit states from passing legislation concerning chemicals on EPA’s priority list while they undergo federal EPA review. These reviews could take years, and greatly limit the ability of states to continue to take a more precautionary approach.
For example, there are efforts currently underway in California to reduce the use of methylene chloride, a known human carcinogen, which the EPA has been evaluating for toxicity and health risks for over 30 years. The current draft of the law would prohibit California from passing any legislation until EPA finished that review.
Given the enormity of the problem, researchers at EPA and elsewhere are developing cutting-edge methods to rapidly screen chemicals for their toxicity and prioritize future assessments. Once they are better developed and vetted, these methods have great potential to increase the “reasonable pace” beyond 10 chemicals per year.
However, until the laws are reformed and we increase our technological capacity to obtain toxicity data on these thousands of chemicals, the burden is going to fall on us, the consumer, to change things. We, collectively, have the most power in pushing companies towards safer chemical alternatives.
Here is what you can do:
Become more informed about the safety and evaluation of products you use in your home. Here are some of my favorite databases: Greener Choices, Skin Deep, and EPA’s Safer Choice.. Watch out for those labeled “non-toxic.” This label has no legal definition and can be used on any product that has not been proven to be toxic, even if it that is because it has never been evaluated.
Buy products and support companies and suppliers that are committed to reducing our exposure to known toxins. For example, buy from furniture companies that do not use toxic flame retardants. Look beyond coffee and chocolate for fair trade products that are pesticide free, such as flowers or cotton clothes. Keep up to date on retailers that are committed to making change.
Just because we are exposed to a chemical does not mean that it is necessarily bad for our health. Paracelsus, the father of toxicology, explained this as: “All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison.”
In essence, everything has a dose which if exceeded can adversely affect your health. For example, medicines and vitamins are examples of chemicals that at a low dose can improve our health, yet at high dose can harm our health.
Not everyone has enough disposable income to make these choices. Those who can afford to make these changes need to use our collective power to help all of our families and demand safer products.
Beamer is a mother and an associate professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Chemical & Environmental Engineering at the University of Arizona. She is a Tucson Public Voices fellow withThe OpEd Project.
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US Osha Consults on Weight of Evidence Guidance
Feb 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) has released for consultation draft guidance on how to apply a weight of evidence approach when classifying substances under the Hazard Communication Standard (HCS).
In 2012, Osha updated the HCS to bring it line with the UN's Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of chemicals classification and labelling. Included in the GHS's set of criteria for evaluating the health hazards of a substance is the “weight of evidence” (WoE) approach.
The draft guidance presents "a systematic application of the WoE approach”, and sets out the information to be considered when classifying substance hazards under the HCS.
According to Osha's head, assistant labour secretary David Michaels, the guidance will "help educate chemical manufacturers and importers about Osha's expectations on how to prepare accurate safety data sheets and labels".
The guidance notes that its approach may differ from those offered in similar guidance documents. It says the HCS "is intended to be conservative in nature to ensure that employers are informed about the potential hazards of the products they use and that workers are alerted to and protected against these potential hazards".
"It is vitally important that workers and employers be given complete and accurate information about the hazards associated with exposure to the chemicals with which they work,” said Dr Michaels.
To support this aim, the guidance gives:considerations to be evaluated under a WoE approach;examples demonstrating the use of WoE to determine hazard classifications; andbackground on changes made to the HCS to bring it into alignment with the GHS.
It says it focuses on carcinogens, germ cell mutagens and reproductive toxicants because “these are more complex endpoints and generally need a higher degree of expert judgement to interpret the studies.”
The guidance is intended to serve as a companion document to the administration's recently published guidance on hazard classification. This gives a comprehensive approach for classifying an array of health and physical hazards, and includes additional resources for manufacturers and importers of chemicals.
Comments on the draft WoE guidance are accepted until 31 March.
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US Database Needs Permission to Access Data, Claims Echa
Feb 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Johns Hopkins University does not yet have permission to use all of the data in a widely publicised new chemical database, says Echa.
The agency has been in touch with researchers at the university to make them aware of its concerns and “to try to find a way forward”.
The team is holding off making the database public until it has “explicit permission to do so,” says project leader professor Thomas Hartung, who also directs the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT) at Hopkins.
The team from the university's Bloomberg School of Public Health used linguistic search engines to extract relevant Echa safety data on 10,000 chemicals before putting it into a machine-readable database. The researchers hope that the database will improve read-across, and make it accessible to non-experts.
Echa has welcomed the initiative “in the sense that it aims to use data to make chemical use safer and to avoid animal testing”.
However the agency told Chemical Watch “there is a formal issue with what they have done – Johns Hopkins have not asked to use and copy the entire data set, something which they should have done”.
“In particular, they are using detailed data on studies for which they do not have permission. This need for permission is outlined in the legal notice that you have to accept when searching for information on substances on Echa’s website,” it added.
“This is not a parochial or bureaucratic requirement – it simply reflects that whilst the database belongs to Echa, the data does not."
Professor Hartung has since submitted a formal request for permission to analyse public information on the Echa website. He has also apologised for “misinterpreting” public availability of the data for academic research and the precedent set with Cefic's AMBIT tool.
Echa has already given access to registration data for Cefic's tool. “We cooperated with Cefic and gave them access only to carefully-selected parts of the non-confidential registration data, to protect the rights of the data owners,” said the agency.
It is currently working on how to make data more readily available to a wider audience “in a way that respects the ownership of companies”.
“We fully intend to find a prompt solution to this so that Johns Hopkins and any other organisation can make the fullest possible use of the data that has been generated to help us all to use chemicals more safely. It is simply the case that this needs to be done in accordance with the law,” the agency said.
“I think we agree on the value of the approach and look to find a solution,” professor Hartung says. “The spirit of REACH is to make these data public and to do anything to limit the necessary animal testing.”
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SC Johnson Discloses All Fragrance Ingredients in New Product Line
Feb 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
US household cleaning products firm SC Johnson has introduced a product line that discloses all of its fragrance ingredients, down to the substance level. The company says that it is the first major player in the industry to do so.
Kelly Semrau, vice president of global corporate affairs, communication and sustainability, says achieving this level of transparency was “no easy feat”, as fragrance formulations are considered intellectual property.
“We have been negotiating and making progress with our fragrance and non-fragrance ingredient suppliers for years, and will continue to do so towards our goal of 100% transparency for all our products.”
Last year, the company increased fragrance disclosure in its Glade products. It published higher-concentration fragrance ingredients, on a product-specific basis, on its WhatsInsideSCJohnson.com site. Now its newly launched Glade Fresh Citrus Blossoms collection – which includes scented spray, wax melts, and scented oil – will disclose on the site all fragrance ingredients, including essential oils.
Ms Semrau says the industry standard is to disclose essential oils as a single ingredient, such as "rose oil", or "lemongrass". But, she says, these essential oils, while touted as "natural", can contain hundreds of chemicals.
Myrcene, for example, is listed on California's Proposition 65 as a carcinogen, but essential oils that contain the substance – like grapefruit, lemon, and rosemary – "get a free pass" with regard to their disclosure.
"We just want consumers to be aware of this information so that they can make the best choice for themselves and their families" Ms Semrau says. In the case of the scented oil product, the resulting fragrance ingredient list includes more than 60 individual chemical components.
Mixed response from NGOs
The Environmental Working Group, an NGO that campaigns for increased ingredient disclosure in consumer goods, says the company’s action would “go a long way to build consumer confidence in product safety”. Many fragrance components are allergens, it says, but federal law lets manufacturers list many ingredients in their products under the name "fragrance".
But Women's Voices for the Earth (WVE) question why the commitment extends only to one product line.“This is the level of disclosure SCJ should be providing for all its products”, says Erin Switalski, WVE’s executive director. “What’s more, this announcement proves that this level of transparency is possible.”
WVE also highlight SCJ's opposition to the recently defeated California bill (AB 708). This would have required full ingredient disclosure in cleaning products.
Ms Semrau says a federal standard for product ingredient disclosure would be a preferable approach: "It simply doesn't make sense for different states to have differing ingredient disclosure requirements."
But WVE's Ms Switalski says “inconsistencies between [SCJ’s] actions and rhetoric have us questioning: is this announcement a distraction to push a new product, or an honest example of their commitment to transparency?”
The 2015 "Deep Clean" report from WVE ranked SCJ as a top-performing cleaning products company from the four major firms it reviewed for their ingredient disclosure and management programmes. SCJ's “B minus” score placed it on par with Clorox, and above major competitors RB (formerly Reckitt Benckiser) and Procter & Gamble. They scored a "C" and "F", respectively.
Clorox says it has maintained an ingredient disclosure policy since 2009, and is “always looking for ways we can provide meaningful information to our consumers.” RB and P&G could not be reached for comment by the story's deadline.
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Niosh Calls Meeting on 1-BP, Extends Silver Nanomaterials Consultation
Feb 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh) is running a meeting on the potential health risks of 1-bromopropane (1-BP).
The meeting, in Cincinnati, Ohio, on 30 March, will discuss the institute's draft Criteria for a Recommended Standard: Occupational Exposure to 1-Bromopropane (1-BP).
The document contains an assessment of toxicological data, and makes recommendations for the safe handling of materials containing the substance.
The institute is seeking comments on it and has made a copy available online.
Niosh is also extending its consultation on silver nanomaterials to 22 April. Comments on itsDraft Current Intelligence Bulletin: Health Effects of Occupational Exposure to Silver Nanomaterials had originally been required by 21 March.
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Feb 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
Harmonised classification and labelling
Echa has launched public consultations on the harmonised classification and labelling proposals for three substances:
1-vinylimidazole, an industrial monomer intended for the production of polymers used in different professional and consumer products. Comments are sought on the proposed classification as a category 1B substance toxic for reproduction.
potassium permanganate. This is mainly used as a laboratory reagent, as a chemical intermediate and in water treatment in agriculture, forestry and fishing industries. The proposal to is add a clasification as a category 1B substance toxic to reproduction.
pentasodium (carboxylatomethyl)iminobis (ethylenenitrilo), used in industrial, professional and consumer products, including pulp and paper industries, washing and cleaning products and textiles. Comments are sought on the hazard classes acute toxicity, reproductive toxicity and specific target organ toxicity-repeated exposure.
All comments should be submitted by 4 April 2016.
Submitted CLH proposals
Six harmonised classification and labelling (CLH) dossiers have been submitted by member states and industry for:2-methylimidazole;nickel (II) sulfide, nickel sulfide, millerite;ethylene oxide, oxirane;trinickel disulfide; nickel subsulfide; [1] heazlewoodite [2]; andnickel bis(sulfamidate)|nickel sulfamate.
Screening definition document
The agency has released its screening definition document. It describes the 2016 priorities for identifying and selecting substances of potential concern for manual screening.
IR&CSA updates
Echa has published two sections of its draft update to the Guidance on information requirements and chemical safety assessment (IR&CSA).
An update to chapter R7b – section addressing sediment organisms' toxicity – takes into account the outcome of the topical scientific workshop on risk assessment for the sediment compartment held in 2013.
Echa says it also aims to reflect the latest scientific consensus and clarify a number of important elements.
Meanwhile the agency has revised the structure of chapter R16 (environmental exposure assessment) to "present in a more readable way the standard approach to environmental exposure assessment".
The section on release estimation has also been. Echa says most of the changes aim to "improve clarity and consistency, remove redundancies and further elaborate existing concepts".
Website maintenance
Echa has announced that several websites and tools will be unavailable on 23 February due to maintenance.
Those unavailable from 8:00 to 18:00 will be: Echa website;Chesar; Iuclid 6; Qsar Toolbox; eCHEM portal; and dissemination.
However, the agency says REACH-IT, ePIC, Iuclid 5, R4BP 3 and the SPC editor can be reached by going directly to them.
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California’s Gas Gusher is Stanched, But Where are Tougher U.S. Rules on Leaks?
Feb 18, 2016 | New York Times
By Andrew C. Revkin
What does it take to jog federal and state leaders to toughen rules curbing industrial pollution? When the industry is energy and the pollutant, methane, is invisible to the naked eye, it seems to take an awful lot.
Will the natural gas gusher that blossomed for nearly 100 days over the hills outside Los Angeles before it was stanched on Feb. 11 make a difference? We’ll see.
A visit to the area on Tuesday by President Obama’s energy secretary,Ernest Moniz, offered, at best, hints of a shift, when it could have provided the administration with a fresh starting line for a push on a new approach to prodding a reluctant industry to invest in a cleaner future. You can read his relevant remarks below.
Over all, the White House has yet to make a convincing case that Obama’s “all of the above” energy strategy includes the necessary oversight.
For many years, the Environmental Protection Agency andenvironmental scientists and campaigners have pointed to the value— to the environment, climate and economy — in curbing leaks and stray emissions of natural gas from wells, pipelines, compressors, storage systems and other infrastructure. Natural gas is the best fossil fuel there is if it stays in a pipeline, but the methane it contains is a potent contributor to climate change if it escapes.
We did what we could here at The Times in 2009 when I was still on the news side. I found promising examples of industry workers relentlessly pursuing leak reductions. (Can someone clone Gene Desaulniers of BP?) But I kept hearing that it was easier in the gas and oil industry to get the green light from top executives for drilling new wells than fixing old ones, and industry lobbyists in Washington have relentlessly fought stricter oversight.
Here’s the close-focus picture. The massive leak near Los Angeles, at a site called Aliso Canyon, forced thousands of people to evacuate homes in the prosperous Porter Ranch suburb for nearly four months and spewed nearly 100,000 tons of methane into the air. (Go here to see what that means in lost dollars and climate impact).
You can watch the erupting gas at its peak in aerial infrared videoand watch the flow abruptly stopped on Feb. 11.
The use of infrared imagery by Earthworks and the Environmental Defense Fund clearly helped draw national attention to the problem. (Infrared imagery is an invaluable tool for any community concerned about gas leaks, and it can be a great boon forencouraging energy conservation, as well.)
Southern California Gas Company, which owns the huge subterranean gas storage system and the half-century-old converted oil well that failed, faces billions of dollars in lawsuits and criminal penalties. (A batch of prominent law firms quickly set up aporterranchlawsuit.com website.)
The nationwide issue is the vulnerability to leaks — both subtle and, occasionally, dramatic — of vast amounts of aging, poorly monitored and inadequately inspected gas and oil infrastructure.
A January story by Nichola Groom of Reuters laid out the scope of the infrastructure problem, from California across the nation:
The leaking well’s owner, Southern California Gas Co., warned state utility regulators in 2014 of “major failures” without a rate hike to pay for comprehensive inspections of 229 storage wells.
Twenty-six of its wells were “high risk” and should be abandoned – even though they complied with state regulations, the utility wrote in a rate filing.
The previous year, Pacific Gas & Electric pointed to an absence of safety standards for storage wells as reason to launch its own monitoring program that went beyond state rules, according to an internal document obtained by Reuters.
The industry’s rising concern underscores the scant oversight of 400 underground natural gas storage facilities in 30 U.S. states. Most storage fields are regulated by states, but national industry groups have pushed for federal oversight – unusual in an industry better known for fighting regulation.
Please read the article in full to get the national picture.
The administration’s slow-motion response on rule-making is hard to understand, given that the benefits to both the environment and companies’ bottom lines has been clear for years. Actions so far along these lines have nearly all been limited to new or planned wells and other facilities.
The brunt of the problem is at existing facilities. Another issue is that new or proposed rules so far are focused on wells and other infrastructure producing gas. The Aliso Canyon storage facility is part of the country’s huge distribution system, as Jonathan Banks of the Clean Air Task Force recently pointed out.
To its credit, California has moved swiftly to update rules. The federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration has said it will be sending an advisory bulletin to owners and operators of underground natural gas storage facilities with recommendations to protect the public and workers and the environment and plans to release a natural gas transmission rule for existing pipelines.
InsideClimate News has a valuable close look at what’s in the works.
In his remarks at a news conference in the San Fernando Valley on Tuesday, Moniz focused primarily on the local issue and the more than 400 gas storage facilities like the one that leaked. He pivoted promisingly to the nationwide issue but, as has too often been the case, there was no bottom line:
[T]he Department of Energy has had a particular focus over the last couple of years on energy infrastructure and, regrettably, there’s a broader theme than Aliso Canyon. We have a lot of very old infrastructure in energy, and we have to address the 21st century and do so in a way that makes for a better infrastructure – a smarter one, a more resilient one….
Frankly, gas storage facilities need a fresh look in terms of some of the regulatory requirements – that was clearly brought home here. That’s being done, and so the ideas are emerging. A need for stronger monitoring here and elsewhere emerged.
And finally, I want to say, in a terms of broader picture, particularly in the climate context but also the safety context, we really have to push on what the President put into his Climate Action Plan in 2013 [link]– looking at and reducing dramatically methane leaks across the entire system from production to distribution, particularly in our cities.
My question is, who is the “we”? Who has to push?
Particularly given how Supreme Court machinations now potentially imperil the president’s Clean Power Plan cutting power plant carbon dioxide emissions, it’s more important than ever for the administration to “push on what the President put his his Climate Action Plan in 2013.”
Or it can dally and wait for more infrared imagery like this:
The Environmental Defense Fund (here) and Natural Resources Defense Council (here) have both laid out convincing arguments that can provide a blueprint for prompt action.
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Federal Grants Address Energy Transport Safety
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Ariel Wittenberg
In a bid to make transporting oil by rail safer, the Federal Railroad Administration has awarded almost $10 million in grants to nine projects that would upgrade railroad crossings in eight states.
The Railroad Safety Grants for the Safe Transportation of Energy Products by Rail Program gave funding to state departments of transportation in Arkansas, California, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin.
The grants are part of an FRA effort launched last year to address a recent increase in fatalities at railroad crossings along routes where energy sources are being transported.
"Today's grants will upgrade the warning systems at critical crossings and close others where crude oil and other energy products are transported," Administrator Sarah Feinberg said.
Many of the grants awarded will install flashing lights and crossing gates at intersections that do not currently have them. Projects in California, Illinois and Washington would eliminate crossings by building multimodal bridges over the rail lines.
Collisions between trains and motor vehicles at railroad crossings are the leading cause of all railroad-related deaths, according to the Department of Transportation. More than 260 people died in 2014 during those collisions, including at some of the crossings being upgraded under the grant program.
In Wisconsin, a plan to improve 10 crossings and create a pedestrian crossing along Canadian Pacific's mainline would address a stretch of rail where there have been four collisions resulting in one injury and two fatalities since 2005, according to DOT.
In Louisiana, a plan to install flashing lights and gates along 6 miles of track addresses an area where 11 accidents occurred since 2000. In 2014, Louisiana had 13 fatalities at railroad crossings, making it among the top five states in the nation for deaths at crossings, according to DOT.
"These grants will reduce accidents and fatalities at railroad crossings and help modernize our nation's rail system," Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement. "Through a combination of these grants, education and enforcement, we can -- and will -- achieve our goal of preventing accidents and deaths at railroad crossings."
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Feds Blame Pipeline Corrosion for Santa Barbara Oil Spill
Feb 18, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
External corrosion on an oil pipeline near Santa Barbara, Calif., was the main cause of last year’s oil spill on California’s coast, federal investigators said.
The finding came in a preliminary report released Wednesday by the Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
Investigators found that Plains All American Pipeline did not find the extreme corrosion on the pipeline near the beach in Santa Barbara County on previous inspections.
Shortly before the May 19, 2015, spill, pumping in the line was shut down, the report said. When it was turned back on, the oil surged, breaching the corroded metal in a 2-foot section of the line.
The PHMSA’s inspection of the line found numerous other worrisome corroded sections, including two in which the metal was 80 percent corroded.
The spill dumped 140,000 gallons of oil onto the beach and into the ocean, near the site of a major 1969 oil spill disaster off the coast.
Oil and tarballs washed up on beaches up to 100 miles away, including in Los Angeles.
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MISO Forges Ahead with Modeling for EPA Rule
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Jeffrey Tomich
The Midwest grid operator is pressing on with analysis of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan despite the Supreme Court stay issued last week and the fact that there are some states where the grid operator have ceased efforts to comply.
The Carmel, Ind.-based Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) yesterday briefed representatives from utilities and transmission owners, regulators, and other parties involved with helping develop state compliance plans.
MISO's presentation focused on another round of complex economic modeling. But much of the discussion centered on what was referred to as "the elephant in the room" -- the court decision staying implementation of the Obama administration's central policy to curb carbon emissions (ClimateWire, Feb. 10).
Jordan Bakke, a MISO engineer, said the grid operator is used to uncertainty and considers a wide range of policy scenarios as part of its planning efforts. The Clean Power Plan fits within the broad parameters of that work.
"It's important to continue analyzing the Clean Power Plan and understand its impact," he said.
A key decision facing states in their planning is the choice of a mass-based approach that caps a state's power plant carbon emissions, or a rate-based plan that limits emissions per megawatt-hour of electricity generated.
A mass-based compliance approach gained favor with some state regulators because it is simpler and they are familiar with how similar caps work for other pollutants (EnergyWire, Oct. 20, 2015). That's especially true in coal-dependent states where the retirements of aging, less-efficient units would count toward compliance.
Much of MISO's recent work has been focused on the advantages and disadvantages of mass- and rate-based compliance approaches.
Among key conclusions in its latest analysis:
Electric transmission expansion under the Clean Power Plan would be similar under rate- and mass-based plans. According to MISO, that's because new generation and coal plant retirements would occur at similar locations under each approach;
Mass-based plans will produce a more "balanced mix" of emissions allowances for buyers and sellers. Under rate-based plans, there would be more disparity among states buying and selling emissions credits;
Most of the 15 states within MISO would benefit more under mass-based plans unless there's heavy penetration of renewable energy and energy efficiency in the region;
Under current generation capacity trends -- which includes assumed coal plant retirements and already planned generation expansion -- all states within MISO have an advantage under mass-based compliance plans.
While MISO's analysis seems to point to a clear advantage for states choosing mass-based compliance approaches under most scenarios, the grid operator made clear that it is not making recommendations.
The analysis also comes with key caveats, including that it doesn't include costs related to new electric transmission or natural gas pipelines that might be required.
Possible transmission requirements will be studied as part of MISO's next round of transmission planning. The grid operator is also beginning a new round of analysis that will wrap up in June and include a closer look at projected coal plant retirements.
A final round of long-range planning, which has yet to be fully defined, is scheduled to last until November 2018.
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New Patchwork Forms in Southeast After Supreme Court Action
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Kristi E. Swartz
The Southeast looked like a patchwork when it came to compliance strategies for U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.
The states have just as many varied responses after the Supreme Court issued a surprising stay last week.
All of the states in the region sued to stop the rule, which required each one to cut carbon emissions by a certain rate from 2012 levels by 2030. While some decided a legal challenge would be enough, others took a more aggressive approach and began hashing out options on how to comply.
Now Georgia, which has held several stakeholder meetings to discuss how it would slash its power-sector carbon emissions rate 34 percent, has suspended all work on such a plan, according to the state's Environmental Protection Division.
Meanwhile, Mississippi, one of several states that once planned to adopt a "just say no" strategy, will still hold a public meeting next Tuesday and incorporate what the stay means, environmental agency officials confirmed. Mississippi's Department of Environmental Quality and the state's Public Service Commission will review the plan and discuss what the agencies have been doing until now.
And South Carolina says it's too early to tell what impact the high court's decision will have. The state's Health and Environmental Control Department will review the next steps with electric companies and other stakeholders that have been working together since the draft rule was released, an agency spokesman said.
Likewise, Tennessee said it is "assessing," a state official said.
The 5-4 ruling freezes the Obama administration's signature rule while it is under review at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
This also means the rule is now tied up in a prolonged legal battle that could delay early decisions by states around how to meet federal emissions targets. States had until September to submit initial plans to EPA, but they also could ask for two-year extensions, which Georgia and others said they would do.
Those deadlines are off the table now that the rule is frozen.
For a state like Alabama, which was holding out hope that the courts would rule in its favor, nothing has changed, essentially. State Air Division Chief Ron Gore said the state would not take any serious efforts to work on a plan until the lower court ruled.
When that court declined to issue a stay, Gore said Alabama would move forward with stakeholder meetings that initially would include the electric and gas companies but later would expand to involve other groups.
Alabama now has canceled two meetings with regulated electric and gas companies, Gore said.
"We are on hold," he told EnergyWire. "We plan to do minimal work on it until it is reactivated by the Supreme Court."
In Georgia, the EPD's outreach focused mostly on educating stakeholders about the Clean Power Plan and about the timeline, said Mary Walker, EPD's assistant director. The state had not started developing recommendations on any new regulations or a compliance plan, she said.
But good things came out of the efforts, she said.
"The CPP prompted a more substantive level of dialogue between us as environmental regulators and the state's Public Service Commission and other entities with involvement in the state's energy policy," Walker said in a statement emailed to EnergyWire. "These relationships have been valuable as our individual activities impact each other."
What's more, the discussion over the last two years has improved EPD's understanding of how the energy planning process works and the impact of environmental regulations on customers, she said.
Reporter Elizabeth Harball contributed.
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States Criticize Costs Of EPA Regulations As EPW GOP Analyzes 'Burdens'
Feb 18, 2016 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
Several states are criticizing the ever-increasing costs of implementing and enforcing EPA waste, water, air and climate rules in the first wave of responses to a request from Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) Republicans for states to detail the "burdens" they face complying with the agency's regulatory agenda.
"Our agency has made earnest efforts to maintain and improve the public services we offer to the state of Idaho, but a continuation of EPA's continuing tendency demanding that states do 'more with less' will eventually make this impossible," writes Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Director John H. Tippets wrote in a Feb. 11 letter to EPW.
"We have reached a point where the number and extent of requirements being passed down must decrease or federal funding levels must increase," says the letter recently provided to Inside EPA.
That statement echoes remarks that some members of the Environment Council of the States -- representing many state environmental agencies -- have raised in recent years about increasing mandates from EPA but dwindling federal funding assistance for states.
The letters from states to EPW could -- depending on what other states say -- provide fodder for the committee's GOP majority as it examines financial and personnel burdens regulators must shoulder to comply with EPA rules. That scrutiny in turn could bolster arguments for regulatory reform legislation.
EPW Chairman Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) said in his letters to 20 states seeking comments that he hopes to examine the resources and time they dedicate to complying with EPA rules, and "whether the current regulatory framework between EPA and the states upholds the principle of cooperative federalism."
Inhofe sought responses by Feb. 9, but many of the 20 states contacted by Inside EPA said they are still crafting their replies. Nevertheless, Idaho and at least one other state have replied with their concerns.
A Feb. 4 letter from Oklahoma DEQ Executive Director Scott Thompson to EPW focuses largely on federalism concerns, arguing that EPA's administration of waste disposal and cleanup laws in particular has infringed on state authority in the Superfund, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and Brownfields programs.
During Superfund cleanups, Thompson's letter says "EPA frequently does not afford DEQ an opportunity to take an active role in cleanup decisions in the state or in the cost recovery process," including refusing to respond to state comments on proposed actions under the program.
Rulemaking Process
He goes on to criticize EPA for "suddenly" deeming illegal under RCRA the practice of temporarily staging treated hazardous waste in "put-piles" while studying whether it can be safely disposed -- which Thompson argues had been standard procedure for 30 years before a 2014 agency memo announced that it is unlawful. "DEQ believes this issue should have gone through EPA's formal rulemaking process," the letter says.
For the agency's Brownfields program, Thompson claims that EPA has a record of conducting site assessments without notifying or involving the state.
Tippets' letter to EPW focuses exclusively on the costs of enforcing federal environment rules, and specifically notes difficulties implementing the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for particulate matter and ozone, especially after they were tightened in 2012 and 2015 respectively.
More-stringent NAAQS goals require more complex state implementation plans (SIPs) covering more areas, but the tighter rules are not accompanied by extra SIP funding, Tippets says.
He adds that federal grants for cleaning up pollution related to underground storage tanks (UST) have declined while "UST work has increased," especially under a July 2015 revision to the UST training, testing and inspection requirements.
Similarly, he says, burdens for implementing EPA's greenhouse gas standards for power plants, known as the Clean Power Plan, are expected to "strain already stretched resources" -- though the rule was later stayed by the Supreme Court.
Thompson's letter also notes the cost of implementing tighter NAAQS limits while also highlighting the Clean Water Act (CWA) electronic reporting rule for discharge permits that the agency finalized Sept. 24, and which he argues will involve significant costs to set up databases compliant with the new program. "While the rule is not without its benefits, implementation is expected to be a costly and time-intensive challenge," Thompson writes.
He also points to a 2014 rule modifying CWA testing methods and expected drinking water rules for perchlorate, hexavalent chromium, arsenic and strontium as demanding new agency resources with no expectation of a funding boost.
'Positive' Relationship
Despite the criticisms, Thompson in his letter adds that the state's overall relationship with EPA has been "reasonably positive," and has improved under agency Administrator Gina McCarthy.
"While it is true that there have been certain situations over the past few years in which DEQ would have preferred a stronger partnership and sense of cooperation with EPA, DEQ does have a reasonably positive relationship with EPA Region 6. Beyond that, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has improved relations with states since she has been in office and seems to have a greater interest in listening to the issues states may have with EPA regulatory actions," Thompson writes.
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Crowell & Moring's Lorenzen Says Rule Will Not Survive Legal Challenges
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E TV
As states consider next steps following the Supreme Court's stay of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, what is the legal future of the rule? During today's OnPoint, Thomas Lorenzen, a partner at Crowell & Moring and a former assistant chief in the Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division, discusses how parties involved in the pending litigation may be adjusting their strategies as a result of the stay. He also gives his perspective on how recent events could impact President Obama's climate legacy.
Monica Trauzzi: Hello and welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. With me today is Thomas Lorenzen, a partner at Crowell & Moring. Tom previously served as assistant chief in the Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division. Tom, it's good to have you back on the show.
Thomas Lorenzen: Great to be here as always.
Monica Trauzzi: So, Tom, a surprising and unprecedented move by the Supreme Court, granting a stay on the Clean Power Plan. Just in terms of legal history, how significant is this step?
Thomas Lorenzen: It's huge. It really is unprecedented. We have uncovered no instance of this happening before. The solicitor general in the United States' brief to the Supreme Court said they weren't aware of anything like this either. But this is an extraordinary rule.
Monica Trauzzi: What was your reaction when you heard the news?
Thomas Lorenzen: A bit of surprise, not as much as maybe some had thought. I think if you look at the Supreme Court critically you could count four votes for ... just from the UR case. And the critical question was going to be how did Justice Kennedy react? We now know. There are five justices on the Supreme Court that have what I would characterize as grave doubts about the legality of this rule.
Monica Trauzzi: And how much of a question mark now is Justice Kennedy moving forward, considering Mass. v. EPA versus this decision?
Thomas Lorenzen: Well, we don't know. I mean, obviously there is considerable concern on the Supreme Court. Massachusetts v. EPA establishes a general principle that EPA can regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. What had not been answered and what is slowly being answered through the cases is what are the specific tools that EPA has to do that. In the American Electric Power case the court pointed to Section 111 as a tool that EPA could use, but the scope of that tool, the strength of that tool had not been defined. Now we're getting to that question.
Monica Trauzzi: How does the stay decision impact the D.C. Circuit's proceedings? And what do you think it signals to the D.C. Circuit panel?
Thomas Lorenzen: Well, it signals to the D.C. Circuit panel that this case has the attention of the Supreme Court and that here are five justices that are leaning against the rule. So they are going to be thinking critically -- as they would have already -- but critically about what their decision or opinions -- because there may be multiple opinions -- say, because those will be directed to that audience of justices. So this could -- it's not going to slow down the litigation. Briefing is going to continue apace. Oral argument will be held June 2nd and probably June 3rd as well. But the court is going to take that summertime to really think this through as they issue their opinion.
Monica Trauzzi: And the panel, when it was first announced, was initially thought to be potentially more favorable to EPA, just based on the makeup. How does that weigh against what the Supreme Court has done now? Does that kind of not matter anymore?
Thomas Lorenzen: You know, the judges on the D.C. Circuit are among the very best in the country, and their politics don't predict their judicial outcomes. We know that Judge Rogers has typically been deferential to EPA on this sort of rulemaking. We do know that Judge Henderson expressed some doubt about this rulemaking when this case was before the court in the context of the Murray Energy and West Virginia cases. Judge Srinivasan is the big question. He's a recent appointee. He's an Obama appointee. But he's also a very thoughtful jurist. I worked with him when he was at the SG's office, and he is going to be looking at this -- as will all the judges -- with the questions in mind: Does EPA have this authority? Can you from these minimal terms best system of emission reduction get to this broad program that really fundamentally transforms the electric sector?
Monica Trauzzi: As someone who has managed the legal defense of EPA's rules, what's happening right now behind the scenes with the parties who will be arguing before the D.C. Circuit? And do you think EPA's having any conversations about shifting strategies?
Thomas Lorenzen: I think that they're proceeding ahead as they were. They are going to defend this rule to the utmost; that is their job right now. Nothing has changed there. So for Justice they are full speed ahead. At EPA they have to be thinking about what comes next if this rule doesn't survive, and that's going to depend a lot on what the nature of the court's opinion is. If this case goes down on the Section 111-112 argument, that EPA can't do a rule for power plants when it's regulating them at the same time under Section 112 for hazardous air pollutants, that's one thing. But if the court says, "You can't do a best system of emission reduction that essentially goes beyond the fence line," EPA has got to be thinking about what could we do next and what other statutory authorities do we have.
Monica Trauzzi: There are so many questions right now for all of the parties involved: states, utilities. Many states have already starting working on compliance mechanisms. What should they be doing now, and how many do you anticipate will just stop what they've been doing?
Thomas Lorenzen: We're hearing different things from differing states. The states that are the petitioners in the challenges to EPA I expect are probably going to put down their pens. They're going to wait to see what comes of this rule. They were the ones that said, "We don't want to prepare plans right now while the legality of the rule is in question." Other states -- California, some of the RGGI states -- are likely to continue to work because they have their own state programs designed to deal with greenhouse gases. So they may try to prepare for the future or just go off on their own.
Monica Trauzzi: What do you believe the fate of the power plan is?
Thomas Lorenzen: My personal opinion is the power plan is not going to survive. I think that EPA overreached in its attempt to use Section 111(d) to achieve reductions from things other than the sort of technological and operational measures that have traditionally been understood to be the tools you can use for individual plants. Trying to transform the energy sector, trying to go beyond the fence line and say that a plant can do what its owners or operators can do -- invest in renewables, transfer generation from higher-emitting to lower-emitting sources, training programs -- does not appear to be what Congress contemplated in Section 111(d). So I think EPA's got some hard times ahead of it on this one.
Monica Trauzzi: What's the impact of all this on President Obama's legacy on climate change?
Thomas Lorenzen: Well, his legacy on climate change goes well beyond this rule. This is an element of what he's attempting to do. Under the Paris accord he is going to try to proceed as quickly as he can to do as much as he can. But it is now a matter for the next president almost certainly. This will not get through the courts before the next president is in office.
Monica Trauzzi: All right, Tom, we'll end it there. Thank you for your perspective, as always.
Thomas Lorenzen: My pleasure.
Monica Trauzzi: And thanks for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
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With CPP on Hold, What’s Next?
Feb 18, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Catrina Rorke
A fortuitous 5-4 judgment by the Supreme Court puts on hold the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s greenhouse-gas-reduction program until the court has a chance to review the rule. This doesn’t preclude the plan eventually taking effect, but it does stop the clock on implementation and buy time to address climate change more meaningfully, at lower cost and without expanding government.
For the Supreme Court to issue a stay before the lawsuit is heard by a federal appellate circuit is extremely unusual, if nonetheless fortunate. The decision suggests the court finds there would be significant and irreparable harm if the rule went into effect while the legal challenges play out. This likely reflects their decision in Michigan v. EPA last term, in which the Supremes found the Environmental Protection Agency had been unreasonable in its decision to limit mercury from power plants. By the time the court issued its decision, the compliance window had closed and power plants had already paid the costs of compliance. In this decision, it appears that the court is unwilling to let the EPA operate unchecked once again.
And with good reason. Under the Clean Power Plan, the EPA charges states with reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants to 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. This would remake the power system entirely and present a material challenge to a low-cost, reliable electric supply.
The immediate backlash was unsurprising. Some states find their targets to be excessively ambitious and costly, burdening low-income consumers with high electricity rates. Utilities and coal interests fear it’s a death knell for the country's most abundant and historically reliable fuel source. Small government interests caution that it’s an excessive power grab, moving far beyond the bounds of the EPA's authority. The result is a massive lawsuit calling for the rule to be struck down, which has been joined by 29 states and state agencies, utilities, mining companies and allies of all of the above.
Though the ruling undoubtedly marks a victory, there's no guarantee that we’re out from under the threat of EPA regulation. Challenges to the CPP will now move through the courts, where the rule may survive or be struck down in whole or in part. No matter the resolution, we must be ready.
If the rule is upheld, the clock starts on compliance. States will have to design their own plans to reduce emissions or will face the prospect of the EPA stepping in to impose its own reduction scheme. R Street has identified the opportunity for states to comply with the CPP and lower existing tax burdens through a direct price on carbon. That opportunity will stand.
If the rule is overturned, the agency will try again. The court's 2005 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA found the agency is required by law to regulate emissions that endanger public health or welfare. Standing precedent dictates the EPA is bound under the Clean Air Act to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. The CPP was just the agency's first attempt to comply with that ruling. There are still a number of other authorities the agency could exercise, and none is as flexible or as deferential to state authority. Subsequent regulatory attempts may well be far more restrictive.
No matter how the courts ultimately decide, this stay buys us time. Let’s use that time wisely. Congress must intercede to restrict the EPA's authority and mitigate the future threat of damaging regulations. This is not to say we should ignore the material threat of climate change, but we should rethink the tools used to achieve that end. A direct price on carbon emissions would be far more effective than clumsy regulations. Better yet, dedicating that revenue stream to reduce or eliminate growth-slowing taxes would ensure that limiting emissions won’t due excess harm to the economy or expand the size of government.
The EPA is a helpful political boogeyman, but it’s time for serious consideration of our alternatives. Agency regulation is not the only or the best way to reduce emissions. Let’s build a cleaner environment and a smaller, more effective government.
Rorke is director of Energy Policy for the R Street Institute, a free-market think tank.
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Rule Freezes 'Part of the Landscape' at EPA
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
U.S. EPA is exploring new territory when it comes to the Supreme Court's decision to freeze the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of the Obama'a administration's climate agenda, several former agency officials said this week.
"Stays are quite unusual," said Robert Sussman, who held positions in EPA during both the Obama and Clinton administrations. "I don't think there are clear guideposts."
What is clear is that EPA can't legally enforce the Clean Power Plan with the high court's stay in place. It can't, for example, approve state plans or punish states that delay their planning processes.
But even with the stay in place, former EPA officials agree the agency has leeway to continue at least some implementation activities.
"A judicial stay that prevents the rule from going into effect should be seen as different from, for example, an appropriations rider, which would effectively serve to prevent the agency from using its resources to work on such a thing," said Scott Fulton, former EPA general counsel in the Obama administration, who is now president of the Environmental Law Institute.
Still, EPA needs to be "very careful, very thoughtful about what they do" during the stay, said Sussman, who is now a consultant on environmental and energy issues. Opponents, he said, will likely look "very closely to see whether EPA is adhering to the stay."
"EPA can and should remain very active on climate change and certainly should be working within the community of stakeholders. But the things that they do have to be within their legal authority," Sussman said. "I think if they start doing things that are outside their authority, then people on Capitol Hill are going to be very upset with them."
In a 5-4 decision Feb. 9, the Supreme Court froze the Clean Power Plan, a rule requiring states to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, pending litigation. The weekend death of Justice Antonin Scalia, who had long been leader of the court's conservative wing, has made the measure's fate even murkier.
States had been facing a September deadline to submit initial rule compliance plans or to demonstrate progress toward completing those plans. That deadline, and others in the next few years, may be pushed back even if the courts end up upholding the program.
EPA's top officials say they will respect the high court's stay and potential implementation delays. At the same time, they are pledging to continue working with states that voluntarily want to move forward.
"I wouldn't advise anybody to be thinking about doing anything differently than you've already been thinking about doing," EPA acting air chief Janet McCabe told state regulators last week.
Even though many states have said they intend to halt planning activities, a handful of states have already committed to continuing the planning process.
'Nothing has changed'
Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said he was cheered by EPA officials' comments. A state that continues the planning process will be ahead if the Supreme Court eventually upholds the Clean Power Plan, Becker said.
"EPA should continue having calls, provide training where necessary, have webinars, conduct workshops, possibly provide guidance on [evaluation, measurement and verification] and energy efficiency. They attend our meetings if we ask them, respond to questions," Becker said. "Nothing has changed -- so long as the states are voluntarily requesting this information."
Bob Perciasepe, former deputy administrator at EPA during the Obama administration, said it's important for EPA to recognize that many states, regardless of the Clean Power Plan, are moving toward putting a price on carbon.
Perciasepe, who is now president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), urged EPA to do whatever it could to continue that trend.
"If I'm at EPA," he said, "I certainly want to be looking at companies that have made significant commitments, I want to look at cities that are taking leadership action and work with as many states who are desiring to continue to prepare for a time when they're going to have to deal with greenhouse gases."
William Reilly, who served as EPA administrator during the George H.W. Bush administration, described himself as "astonished" by the high court's action and encouraged EPA to cement partnerships with utilities during the stay.
He suggested that the agency should seek to establish phaseout schedules for older coal-fired power plants under other Clean Air Act programs to reduce nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide.
"The optimal approach for the utilities industry is work out a schedule with EPA with respect to specific plants," he said.
During the stay, Fulton suggested, EPA may also want to take a look at remaining petitions asking the agency to reconsider the rule. Those petitions could allow for some fine-tuning, he said.
"If the agency looked at those petitions for reconsideration," he said, "and thought, 'Gee, if we addressed this point or that point, it might also add to the defensibility or the workability of the rule,' then the agency might well make that kind of adjustment."
'Perception issue'
EPA must still walk somewhat of a line to make sure it's not going too far during the stay, observers have said.
Michael Goo, a former senior policy adviser at EPA during the Obama administration, said it is important for EPA, if it wants the Supreme Court to eventually uphold the Clean Power Plan, to not do anything that could be seen as an affront.
"To the extent that states want information and to plan on their own and have specific questions for EPA, I think that EPA could, as part of its responsibility, go ahead and answer those questions," said Goo, a partner at the consulting firm AJW Inc. "There's a question of how proactive EPA should be. I expect EPA would err on the side of caution."
EPA would do well to downplay the newness of the Clean Power Plan in public statements over the next several months, said Robert Verchick, who helped shape EPA's climate strategy as deputy associate administrator for policy at EPA in 2009 and 2010, and who has defended EPA regulations in Congress.
Verchick said he believes conservative Supreme Court justices may have gotten "a little scared" about the ambitious nature of the Clean Power Plan.
"If I'm at EPA, I would want to make sure how I describe and discuss the Clean Power Plan regulations would be in a way that suggests or emphasizes the normalcy of what it is," Verchick said, "rather than emphasizing or suggesting that this is a blockbuster regulation that's going to change the course of the global economy or the course of climate change globally."
EPA would also do well to emphasize that the agency is not forcing states to take any specific actions, said Verchick, now president of the Center for Progressive Reform.
The agency has to also worry about saying or doing something that could be used against it in further legal proceedings, cautioned Jeff Holmstead, who served as EPA air chief during the George W. Bush administration. Holmstead is currently a partner at Bracewell LLP representing challengers to the rule.
To that end, Holmstead said, EPA should be wary of finalizing its proposed model trading rules, which are meant to guide states in setting up a carbon trading system. It would look "a little bit like you're thumbing your nose at the Supreme Court," he said.
But James Rubin, an attorney at Dorsey & Whitney LLP, said nothing in the stay prevents EPA from continuing to work on the model rules, a proposed federal plan for states that don't comply, and an incentive program for states that move early.
"There's always a perception issue," Rubin said. "I imagine EPA doesn't want to be seen as taking action that would be seen as unauthorized, but that's less a concern for the court as politically."
Becker, who spoke with EPA officials Tuesday, said the agency has still not decided whether to move forward with finalizing those other parts of the Clean Power Plan.
'It all got resolved'
EPA has experienced legal stays of major air rules a few times in its history. In her remarks to state air regulators last week, McCabe cited two examples.
In the late 1990s, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit froze what's known as the agency's "NOx SIP Call." Under the rule, EPA rejected nitrogen oxide reduction plans by 22 states and Washington, D.C. The court lifted the stay in 2000.
The courts also stayed the agency's cross-state air pollution rule (CSAPR), a regulatory regime for Northeast states to prevent air pollution from harming downwind areas. The D.C. Circuit lifted its stay in 2014 following a favorable Supreme Court ruling.
"Time went by, and people had questions, and it all got resolved," McCabe said of the two previous stays. She added, "I think history shows that those things get worked out."
Former EPA officials say it's difficult to draw parallels between those prior stays and the Clean Power Plan because the new action is so unprecedented and the rule itself is different from anything the agency has done in the past.
In the case of CSAPR, for example, EPA was still able to enforce and implement a different Bush-era program while legal action played out on the new standards.
But there are still a few lessons EPA can glean from the past freezes of its rules, some observers said. Becker said states should look toward the CSAPR case as evidence for continuing Clean Power Plan planning efforts.
"The CSAPR rule was reaffirmed, and it demonstrated that states should continue the momentum that they had gained in the past," Becker said, "especially since the kinds of regulatory approaches that were being contemplated were sensible ones that should have been pursued anyway."
Holmstead says EPA may not be able to immediately reinstate the Clean Power Plan even if the Supreme Court upholds it. In the case of CSAPR, the high court remanded the rule back to the D.C. Circuit for further proceedings, and EPA had to tweak deadlines and make other adjustments.
"Even if the Supreme Court ultimately upholds the rule, there will be another round of EPA rulemaking to figure out exactly what the compliance obligations are," he said.
'Severe' impact on employees
Former EPA officials said agency staffers understand the political environment in which they work, but predicted the unprecedented stay and uncertainty would likely affect morale within the agency.
"I've been at the agency when things like this happened. The immediate impact on the employees can be very severe," Sussman said. "People can wake up one morning and say, 'Well, I've been devoting the last three years of my life to the Clean Power Plan, and now it's gone. What do I do now?'"
Sussman compared it to the feeling when President Obama decided in 2011, in the midst of an election season, to put the kibosh on a proposal to tighten the national ambient air quality standard for ozone pollution.
"That was a big shock to everybody," he said.
Reilly, the EPA administrator under President George H.W. Bush, said EPA is already struggling with low morale because of critics in Congress and comments made by Republican presidential candidates targeting the agency's actions.
"I don't think that morale, frankly, is very high," Reilly said. "There are a lot of critics and not many defenders."
Goo, the former senior EPA policy adviser, predicted that career staff at the agency would pick themselves up.
"All of [EPA's] rules are litigated. The agency has had adverse opinions that were later reversed. It's had stays. It's fought its way through various reconsideration petitions," Goo said. "People expect this as part of the landscape of what you're dealing with when you work at EPA."
"Sure," he added, "there's a moment when people say, 'Oh, that wasn't good.' Then they go back and roll up their sleeves and continue work."
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It's 'Foolish' for Calif. to Heed High Court Stay
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Debra Kahn
As U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan weathers legal turmoil, at least one state is proceeding full steam ahead.
California's Air Resources Board released a white paper yesterday exploring ways to mesh the state's existing climate change regulations with those envisioned under the federal rule for existing power plants.
California officials said they were dismayed by last week's 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court to freeze the Obama administration's landmark climate program while legal challenges move forward in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. But they still plan to stick to their original timeline for complying with the rule while it's in legal limbo.
"There's no reason for us to delay," ARB Chairwoman Mary Nichols told E&ETV's OnPoint earlier this week. "Obviously, we were surprised and disappointed -- as were many other people -- by the decision, but as we look at where we are and what we need to do, first of all, we still believe very strongly that EPA will prevail, that the Clean Power Plan will be upheld at the end of the day, so it would be foolish to slack off in our efforts to develop approvable plans right now.
"One of our objectives was to get our plan in on time, if not early, as a way of showing other states that this is something that could be done and further inviting them to join with us in this effort, and so that effort will continue regardless," she said.
The state is in good shape to meet its emissions target of a 13.2 percent rate reduction by 2030 and has said it plans to use its economywide cap-and-trade system -- which held its 14th auction of allowances yesterday -- as its primary "state measure" in its submission to EPA.
As the only state with an economywide carbon cap, California is already on track to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and is writing regulations to reach 40 percent below that by 2030. Even in a high-emissions scenario, which could come about through higher-than-expected electricity demand or a drought that limits hydropower production, the state expects to be at least several million tons below EPA's 2030 target.
The white paper lays out potential ways to adjust the state's cap-and-trade program -- which currently covers about 400 industrial facilities that emit more than 25,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year -- to make it meet EPA's requirements. Most of the changes are relatively straightforward.
One tweak that the state is considering is changing the dates by which power plant operators are required to turn in carbon allowances in order to align the schedule with EPA's. The schedule would also have to be changed in any jurisdiction that's linked to California's program. So far, that has been limited to the Canadian province of Quebec.
To provide a "backstop" enforcement method in case power plant emissions are higher than expected, the state envisions creating an extra pool of 10 million allowances, which all power plants would be required to purchase from in the event of an overage.
ARB envisions that no changes are needed to insulate the program against leakage, or the prospect of shuffling emissions from one generating unit to another that might not be covered. Agency staff also think that the existing program complies with EPA's prohibition against "borrowing" emissions from future years.
The paper notes the possibility of linking to other CPP markets and the need to adjust emissions figures to account for trades between states but says that the state's plan does not need to account for linkages because none are yet on the table.
"As state plans mature, such linkages may become a possibility," it says.
ARB will hold a workshop Wednesday to discuss the paper. Public comments on the paper are due by March 11.
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Inside the Uphill Battle Against Carbon Trading
Feb 18, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Jihan Gearon grew up loving the outdoors, taking walks with her mother and grandmother and playing in the woods in rural Fort Defiance, on the Navajo Nation near the Arizona and New Mexico border.
But when she left home to study environmental science at Stanford University in California in 1999, she felt as if she never fit in. Having lived in one of the poorest areas in the country where about a third of homes don't have electricity and her family still does not have wireless Internet access, Gearon couldn't relate to what she saw as "superficial" environmentalism.
"A lot of people in my class would be barefoot, not showered, not shaved. And say things like, 'I can't believe you eat meat,' and have that really kind of judgmental [attitude]," Gearon said. "But then they're driving a BMW."
Those experiences in school and in the first few years of her career drove Gearon toward the environmental justice movement and her position as executive director of the Black Mesa Water Coalition, which advocates for native water rights and against fossil fuel development on Navajo land. That's part of why she is now working with a national coalition of groups that oppose using carbon trading to cut greenhouse gas emissions under U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.
Organizations united under the Climate Justice Alliance say carbon markets will keep coal plants online in poor communities and near people of color, allowing the facilities to churn out plant-warming emissions and co-pollutants blamed for health problems including asthma and heart attacks. Last month, the alliance staged quiet demonstrations at regional EPA offices around the country to warn staffers who will review state carbon plans of trading's risks to certain populations.
But big national environmental groups, like the Natural Resources Defense Council and Sierra Club, are working on the other side, pushing market-based state plans as the cheapest, most effective way to cut carbon emissions from power plants. They argue the Clean Power Plan would be weaker without its trading-focused approach that allows generators to take credit for switching to lower-carbon natural-gas-fired and renewable electricity.
"If you had a plan which was limited to what the coal plants themselves can do, with efficiency in the plant, you would end up with pretty minimal standards -- pretty minimal protections for the communities," said NRDC attorney David Doniger.
Environmental justice advocates don't see it that way.
"That's the difference between a lot of big enviros and community-based organizations," Gearon said. "Big enviros think on this policy level of parts per million. Us down here, we live in the reality of the impacts of what's decided on a bigger level, and that does make a difference."
Environmental justice advocates are a vocal minority in state discussions about how to comply with the Clean Power Plan. They oppose carbon trading despite its growing support from other environmental activists and power companies that are driving the dialogue about how to reach EPA's goals. They argue trading will allow pollution "hot spots" in vulnerable communities, and they say EPA hasn't done enough to make sure their concerns will be registered.
Some states have suspended planning since the Supreme Court halted implementation of the rule last week. But Michael Leon Guerrero, national coordinator for the Climate Justice Alliance's Our Power Campaign, says that may just "take away incentives and urgency for states to act now," giving advocates more time to "open the debate about trading as a mechanism within the CPP."
When 'Kumbaya' doesn't cut it
Gearon said the fight over the Clean Power Plan is representative of a broader divide that has long existed within the environmental movement.
Environmental groups have been working to diversify for the better part of five decades, but ethnic minorities represent only 16 percent of boards and general staff in mainstream nongovernmental organizations, foundations and government agencies, according to a Green 2.0 working group study published in July 2014.
The environmental advocacy world has welcomed more women in recent years but is still dominated by white men, according to the research, which was paid for by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Arcus Foundation, Sierra Club and Earthjustice.
Gearon worked in environmental activism for a few years and said she got pushback for broaching subjects like "white privilege," or societal benefits white people experience in Western culture.
"They would be like, 'Those things don't relate to environmentalism. Why are you bringing that up? Let's just get along and be strategic,'" she said. It felt like "beating your head against the wall."
Now Gearon is seeing that clash again.
Trading allows electricity generators to pay to take credit for renewable energy and other carbon-slashing efforts that can be achieved more cost effectively by other companies or in other regions.
For all its benefits, EPA acknowledges trading could lead some plants in at-risk communities to stay online. Carbon emissions from the power sector would fall 32 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 under the Clean Power Plan, but coal plants will still generate about 27 percent of America's electricity, according to financial analysts at Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC.
The Clean Power Plan notes that while overall emissions decrease under the rule, some facilities, particularly carbon-emitting natural gas plants, may operate more frequently. However, "EPA believes that all communities will benefit from this final rulemaking because this action directly addresses the impacts of climate change by limiting [greenhouse gas] emissions," the rule adds.
Low-income and living near coal
Doniger argues EPA has set up multiple backstops to look out for vulnerable communities.
"I don't think it is, per se, a problem of trading," Doniger said. If there are problems, he added, "you can design programs against that."
Mark Kresowik, with the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign, said his group is "focused on making sure states actually do the analysis so we can identify, are there any substantive concerns?" He said that "getting ahead of that analysis may create more concern than is warranted."
Environmental justice advocates say trading backers can't prove that existing cap-and-trade programs in California and the Northeast don't cause hot spots. They argue the broader environmental movement is supporting carbon trading mainly because it is the most "politically realistic" way to make greenhouse gas cuts, regardless of the impacts on certain communities.
About 1 in 10 Americans live within 3 miles of a fossil-fuel power plant that will be regulated under the Clean Power Plan, according to EPA's numbers. More than half of them, 52 percent, are people of color. In the entire country, by comparison, people of color represent 36 percent of the population.
"There's a 44 percent increase from the national average to those that live within 3 miles of a power plant," said Brent Newell, legal director for the California-based Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment. "That's a major racial difference."
On top of that, 39 percent of residents within that radius are considered low-income.
In some states, the figures rise dramatically. In Illinois, Texas and Mississippi, more than two-thirds of residents living that close to a regulated coal or natural gas plant are recorded by EPA as minorities, and at least half of them fall into low-income brackets.
EPA says local concerns are a priority
Despite hearing plenty from critics of carbon trading during the comment period on the draft rule, EPA made it much more accessible in the final version. It provided model trading rules and allowed states to submit "trade-ready" plans to opt into markets without picking their trading partners ahead of time. EPA's proposed federal plan for states that don't write their own blueprints also relies on trading.
EPA points out that it does ask states to communicate with affected communities, include advocates in planning groups, and retroactively evaluate whether their plans cause localized pollution problems.
Mustafa Ali, the environmental justice adviser to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, said in an interview earlier this year that EPA's final rule put a "much greater emphasis" on ensuring environmental justice.
"Our expectations are [for states to] specifically engage with communities to provide opportunity to explore their concerns," he said.
Kevin Culligan, an associate division director with EPA's Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, said the agency could also use other Clean Air Act regulations to address any pollution hot spots as states implement the Clean Power Plan.
Any emissions increases at individual plants would likely come from cleaner natural gas units that have "minimal or no emissions of SO2 [sulfur dioxide] and hazardous air pollutants, lower emissions for particulate matter and much lower emissions of NOx [nitrogen oxides], compared to coal-fired steam units," he noted.
Culligan, who helped write the rule, said the agency's analysis does not show "a lot of uncontrolled coal plants emitting more," although EPA can't guarantee how state-written plans might play out.
"Whatever option they take is going to have benefits," he said. "The only real question is, are there any localities that aren't going to get [all of] those benefits?"
He noted there is inherent uncertainty because the decisions are up to states and because the Clean Power Plan has a long horizon, during which other air regulations will also be implemented.
EPA also proposed a Clean Energy Incentive Program to encourage energy efficiency programs in low-income communities, as well as early development of renewable power, but the CEIP's reception has been lukewarm at best (ClimateWire, Feb. 1).
Newell said EPA "didn't do anything to protect communities from localized pollution." He argues the analysis EPA conducted of populations near coal plants was incomplete and the outreach is mostly for optics.
"It's really a participatory requirement. It's not a substantive requirement," Newell said. "Having a seat at the table when you're still on the menu doesn't help at all."
If you can't beat 'em ... still fight
While some advocates are fighting carbon markets tooth and nail, others are resigned to the reality that many power industry interests and green groups are successfully pushing for trading.
Jalonne White-Newsome is one of them. Until recently a federal policy analyst for WE ACT for Environmental Justice and the lone environmental justice representative involved in the planning process in Virginia, White-Newsome witnessed state and industry leaders move quickly past the question of whether to use trading into a debate over what kind of system to employ (ClimateWire, Dec. 16, 2015).
Just days after the Supreme Court stay last week, Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality on Friday continued to lead meetings about how trading might work.
"What I'm really pushing for, and what I hope will come out of this group, is that everybody really sits back and takes a look at the big picture," White-Newsome said.
At an earlier meeting, in December, White-Newsome reminded members of the task force working on recommendations for the governor that they should list public health, in addition to cost and efficiency, as a key consideration in their report.
"If there are states where it's possible to opt out of cap-and-trade or carbon trading schemes, then yes, we'd want to see that," Guerrero said. "But if not, then we want to make sure that states and the EPA are committed to making sure those communities are still protected."
Synapse Energy Economics released guidance that shows certain justice-focused provisions could make plans "considerably more complicated" but could result in a "drastically better" state plan, according to Patrick Knight, an associate with Synapse.
Knight said in an interview that trading does not inherently cause hot spots and states can take steps to mitigate them, including auctioning carbon allowances and directing the money to affected communities, or requiring plants to cut emissions a certain amount before they can use trading to comply.
Guerrero said limiting allowances available to generators might work. While the resulting trading system would be a more restricted market, he said, "completely allowing markets to determine this leaves us at risk."
But he doubts money from trading programs would ever make its way to the right people.
"We expect this is going to be an uphill climb," he said.
Revisiting the debate in Calif.
Acceptance of carbon trading has grown in recent years, according to a summary of an event hosted by the Environmental Law Institute in October. The group concluded that while critics argue buying and selling pollution rights allows "the rich to buy their way out of [the] pollution reduction regime," others "have come to see market-based mechanisms as a potent, cost-effective, and morally and legally defensible way to achieve pollution reduction goals."
In California, the debate over cap and trade flared up years ago and was dampened for a time with the influx of auction revenues. A 2012 law gave at least 25 percent of the proceeds to disadvantaged communities, as calculated by exposure to pollution, poverty levels, unemployment and other socio-economic characteristics (ClimateWire, Sept. 8, 2014).
Now, however, California advocates are again pushing the state to consider alternatives to using cap and trade as they consider how to comply with the Clean Power Plan. Environmental justice groups maintain there isn't enough evidence yet to show whether markets in California or among nine Northeastern states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative have caused localized pollution that hurts low-income communities and people of color.
"This strategic plan is going to shape climate policy for the next 15 years," said Katie Valenzuela Garcia, manager of the health advocacy program at Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails and a member of the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee, which gives feedback to state officials on the implementation of its 2006 climate law, A.B. 32.
"I really want to see what the numbers are telling us. Are these reductions real in environmental justice communities? That is my first and only concern," she said.
Guerrero said there hasn't been "a real thorough and necessary assessment that demonstrates cap and trade works."
"It all comes down to who pays and who benefits and whether or not we're looking at the question of environmental regulation through an equity and justice lens or strictly through a carbon-reduction lens," he added.
Reporters Debra Kahn and Elizabeth Harball contributed.
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How To Filter Lead From Your Tap Water
Feb 18, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Megan Boyle and Sonya Lunder
Throughout most of the 20th Century, American cities and homeowners installed lead pipes and solder in their tap water delivery systems – creating a toxic legacy for all of us. And the problem isn’t likely to change soon.
No matter where you live, you can use simple techniques to discover whether your tap water is polluted with lead. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requires most water utilities to test drinking water and take action to reduce this contamination if the lead level exceeds 15 parts per billion (ppb) in more than 10 percent of the homes they sample.
In extreme cases of lead pollution, such as Flint, Michigan, local utilities must advise residents how to avoid drinking lead-tainted water while the utility looks for the source of the contamination.
In less extreme situations, water utilities are slowly replacing old lead-based water lines and urging residents to remove lead pipes and fixtures in their homes. But this is an attenuated and expensive process. Replacing water lines may make lead levels spike for a period after new lines are installed.
In the meantime we can filter our water to reduce our families’ exposure to lead.
You can find effective and affordable water filters specifically designed to remove lead. In general, carbon-based faucet-mount filters are good bets. Some cost as little as $70 per year. Many pitcher filters are not certified to remove lead and do not work as well for this purpose.
Visit EWG’s Water Filter Buying Guide to find a filter that meets your needs and budget, and choose a model certified for lead removal by NSF International, theCalifornia Environmental Protection Agency or Water Quality Association. Look for a product that removes more than 99 percent of lead from tap water. Check model numbers before purchasing, because product specifications may change.
To limit your family’s exposure to lead, use filtered water for both drinking and cooking. Change filters regularly to keep the device functioning properly.
Cold water generally contains less lead than warm or hot tap water. Boiling water does not remove lead.
Take extra care to filter lead out of your tap water if you have children under age six at home or if you or someone else in your household is pregnant, breastfeeding or planning to get pregnant. Mix infant formula with filtered or bottled water.
Lead harms practically every organ system in the human body, especially the brain. It can cause many health problems including permanent brain damage, lowered IQ, miscarriage and premature birth. Some studies link lead exposure during childhood to an increase in criminal behavior.
Children become less vulnerable to lead around age seven, when their bodies are better equipped to block lead from entering their brains.
Originally published on Healthy Child, Healthy World by Megan Boyle and Sonya Lunder.
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