Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 3/3/16
-
(ACC Mentioned) What Goes Around
Mar 3, 2016 | The Dunn County News
By Amanda Haffele
Farewell — what a great sentiment. The dictionary defines it as “an expression of good wishes at parting” and “a parting given to a person who is about to embark on a long journey, retire, leave an organization, etc.” -
A Good Chemical Safety Law Depends on Us
Mar 3, 2016 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Celia Wexler
It has been three years since the Senate first considered a bipartisan effort to reform the very flawed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Last year, both the House and Senate approved bills to improve TSCA. Neither bill was satisfactory. Both bills, as we pointed out in a recent op-ed, had significant flaws. -
EPA Under the TSCA-N Sun
Mar 3, 2016 | Politico Pro - Tipsheets
By Eric Wolff
EPA appears to largely prefer a Senate version of a major revision to chemical safety law, according to a letter from Administrator Gina McCarthy to congressional negotiators obtained by Pro's Darren Goode. -
Republican House Members Added Paragraph to Chemical Safety Bill that Could Shield Monsanto from Toxic Chemical Liability
Mar 3, 2016 | All Gov
By Eric Lipton
Facing hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits, the giant biotechnology company Monsanto last year received a legislative gift from the House of Representatives, a one-paragraph addition to a sweeping chemical safety bill that could help shield it from legal liability for a toxic chemical only it made. -
Is Toxic Teflon Chemical In Your Drinking Water?
Mar 3, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Bill Walker
The bad news about a toxic chemical used to make Teflon keeps getting worse. -
US FDA Sunscreen Ingredient Guidance ‘Falls Short’
Mar 3, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US FDA draft guidance on the safety and effectiveness data for over-the-counter sunscreen fails to reflect the current science on ingredient safety assessment, according to industry and NGOs. -
US Institute to Develop Non-Animal Test for Respiratory Sensitisation
Mar 3, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The US-based Research Institute for Fragrance Materials (RIFM) has given a grant of an undisclosed amount to the US Institute for In Vitro Sciences (IIVS) to develop non-animal test methods for the evaluation of fragrance materials. -
Experts Call for Read-Across to Move Beyond Chemical Similarity
Mar 3, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Regulatory read-across needs to move beyond structural similarity, according to experts attending a read-across workshop, last week in Brussels. -
Echa Working on Feasibility of EU Substance Regulation Database
Mar 3, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Echa will assess the feasibility of developing a “central EU navigator” that provides information on how individual substances are affected by EU laws. -
Fiery Va. Oil Train Derailment was Preventable -- Safety Agency
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
An oil train derailment and explosion that caused $1.2 million in damage and leaked crude into a Virginia river two years ago could have been averted had operator CSX Corp. followed best practices at the time, investigators have found. -
Maine Reverses Course, Discloses Oil Train Data
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Environmental officials in Maine are once again sharing data on oil train shipments -- or a lack thereof. -
Va. Governor Rejects Bill with Obstacles for EPA Regs
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Emily Holden
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) has vetoed a bill that would require state lawmakers to sign off on any plan to meet federal climate regulations for power plants. -
Nev.'s AG Endorses Lawsuit Against EPA Rule
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Energywire
While not joining, Nevada's attorney general is endorsing the multi-state lawsuit against the carbon emissions-cutting Clean Power Plan. -
Roberts' Denial Of Bid For Utility MACT Stay Prompts Call To End Litigation
Mar 3, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has denied a request by 20 states to immediately stay implementation of EPA's power plant maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air toxics rule, prompting environmentalists to call on the states to end their long-running legal challenges to the rule as an April 16 compliance deadline looms. -
Chief Justice Rejects Effort to Block E.P.A. Limit on Power Plants
Mar 3, 2016 | The New York Times
By Adam Liptak
In a significant victory for the Obama administration, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Thursday refused to block an Environmental Protection Agency regulation limiting emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants. -
Pipeline Safety Bill Could Clear Senate as Soon as Today
Mar 3, 2016 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Andrew Restuccia and Elana Schor
Bipartisan pipeline safety legislation could clear the Senate as soon as today, sources told POLITICO. -
Methane Tracking Tools Get Federal Research Support
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
Five years ago, the energy world was just starting to wake up to the climate implications that come with methane leaking from oil and gas drilling equipment and pipelines. -
House OKs Bill to Block EPA's Brick-Making Regs
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
A bill that would give brick and ceramic manufacturers an indefinite reprieve on compliance with new air pollution standards easily passed the House this morning on a mostly party-line vote as Republicans argued it would save jobs and Democrats countered that it would undercut environmental protections.
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation News
Energy and Environment News
-
(ACC Mentioned) What Goes Around
Mar 3, 2016 | The Dunn County News
By Amanda Haffele
Farewell — what a great sentiment. The dictionary defines it as “an expression of good wishes at parting” and “a parting given to a person who is about to embark on a long journey, retire, leave an organization, etc.”
It was hard for the previous solid waste director, George Hayducsko, to leave after 18 years of service to Dunn County Solid Waste ... but Hawaii was calling. He retired at the beginning of February and leaves a legacy of great accomplishments and a wonderful staff behind.
Let’s take a road trip down memory lane and look back at some of his accomplishments here in Dunn County. When George moved to Dunn County in 1997 from St. Croix County where he was the solid waste coordinator for five years, he had a rough road ahead.
Nineteen years ago, the county board was thinking about dissolving Dunn County Solid Waste due to a great financial deficit. Not only was the program stale, but municipalities had a hard time trusting the division.
George took on the hardship with open arms. He worked hard to gain the municipalities and the county board’s trust back. One way he did this was to implement an audit — outside of the county’s normal audit — to be performed by a third party each year. This way municipalities and the county could rest assured that funds weren’t being squandered.
He met with each solid waste board member to gain perspective on what was happening with the program and where they’d like to see it go. Once he gained their trust, he was able to set his sights on improving and offering more services to residents of Dunn County.Positive partnershipsAdvertisement
George partnered with many organizations over the years to add new recycling options to the Area Collection Stations. A few of those include the Menomonie Lions Club (sharps and eyeglasses), the Mayo Clinic Red Cedar Medical Center (sharps), the American Chemistry Council (plastic film and bags), Call2Recycle (rechargeable batteries), the Town of New Haven (seventh Area Collection Station in Connorsville), Northwest Regional Planning Commission (household hazardous waste collections) and many more.
George established many educational programs including the Recycler newsletter, school presentations and a self-guided maze at the Transfer Station for Earth Day in the early 2000s.
I think one of his more risky and interesting initiatives was the “Once in a Millennium Cleanup” held near Earth Day in 2000. This highly successful cleanup, collected approximately 56,000 tires, 590 refrigerators/freezers, 1,640 other appliances such as washers, dryers, dishwashers, hot water heaters, stoves, dehumidifiers, and microwaves, 90 air conditioners, 660 televisions, 840 chairs and couches, 540 mattresses and over 300 households disposed of carpeting — all for free.
All these educational initiatives lead to partnering with four other counties to create and hire a recycling assistant position in 2007-08. Today that position is shared between Dunn and Eau Claire Counties and is filled by a very thankful Recycling Specialist — me!
George left a wonderful program behind and has passed the reins to our new solid waste director, Steve Isaacson who comes to us most recently from UW-Stout where he was an instructor in the Operations and Management Department.
According to Steve, “I’ve been fortunate to have had the opportunity to work in a wide range of business and industrial settings throughout my career and in a variety of technical and managerial roles. My background includes positions in manufacturing operations and facilities management, employee training and development, industrial safety, and environmental program management. I’m looking forward to getting to know the dedicated staff at Dunn County and contributing to the solid waste and recycling efforts.”
-
A Good Chemical Safety Law Depends on Us
Mar 3, 2016 | Union of Concerned Scientists
By Celia Wexler
It has been three years since the Senate first considered a bipartisan effort to reform the very flawed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Last year, both the House and Senate approved bills to improve TSCA. Neither bill was satisfactory. Both bills, as we pointed out in a recent op-ed, had significant flaws.
But we also saw a glimmer of hope. It remains possible for the House and Senate to agree on a final bill that contains the best elements of both bills. If that happens, the American public will benefit from a modestly improved chemical safety law that will help the Environmental Protection Agency do a better job protecting us from toxic chemicals.
TSCA was passed in 1976. Since then only a handful of chemicals have been regulated and roughly 200 evaluated, even though tens of thousands of chemicals are sold in the U.S., and hundreds of new chemicals come on line each year. Chemicals pose a risk to many communities—but the danger is biggest for poor neighborhoods and communities of color. After 40 years of inaction, it is crucial that Congress does something to strengthen TSCA—and crucial that we get it right.
Our UCS members and supporters have been with us on this journey, letting their members of Congress know their concerns about the outdated and flawed current TSCA, and urging them to enact a strong reform bill. We have added our voices to the hundreds of thousands of activists who participate in the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families Coalition.
Our Center also enriched the debate through its examination of the considerable power of the chemical industry, and how it attempts to influence policy through its political spending and lobbying. We know some major players in chemical industry are pushing against reform, seeking a final law that produces the weakest possible result, and which will also block states from protecting their own citizens from harmful chemicals.
That influence often is measured in just a few words inserted at the last minute. The New York Times reports that a provision inserted in the House version of the bill would make it far more difficult for victims, states and local governments to sue big chemical companies, in particular, Monsanto, for the damage from chemicals that have been banned or tightly regulated by the EPA. This could interfere with pending or future lawsuits over PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, which had been banned by the EPA but were made by Monsanto. Other lawsuits concerning hexavalent chromium, asbestos, and PBDE, the flame retardant, also could be affected by this new and concerning language.
That is why citizen activism is so crucial. It is our best avenue for ensuring that ultimately, Congress listens to the people and legislates for safety.
The House and Senate must approve a final bill that gives the EPA both the authority and the resources to assess toxic chemicals and to regulate them. It must permit states to regulate these chemicals, until and unless the EPA acts. It must protect the rights of citizens and state and local governments to hold companies accountable for the damage their products caused. A final bill must also ensure that science-informed regulation is not hampered by unnecessary procedural hurdles that will slow down this important work.For this reason, we continue our engagement on this important issue. More than 20,000 of our members and supporters have signed a petition urging members of the House and Senate who are negotiating a final bill to listen to the public, and not to the chemical industry. We will be delivering our petition to the House and Senate this week.
At a time when partisan gridlock is endemic in Congress, it is good news that Democrats and Republicans have worked together to strengthen our current chemical safety law. But bipartisan agreement only is valuable when it produces, in the end, a law that actually improves our environment and protects public health and safety.
-
Mar 3, 2016 | Politico Pro - Tipsheets
By Eric Wolff
EPA appears to largely prefer a Senate version of a major revision to chemical safety law, according to a letter from Administrator Gina McCarthy to congressional negotiators obtained by Pro's Darren Goode. Both houses of Congress passed updates to the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, but the two chambers have been slow to get together to negotiate a bill they could send to the president. The EPA letter, sent on Jan. 20 but previously unreported, says the Senate bill’s handling of several major issues, like setting deadlines for EPA to review and regulate dangerous chemicals, are preferable to the House bill. But the letter largely avoids taking on the dicey topic of preempting state law and is silent on contentious Senate language that would "pause" state regulations on some chemicals while the agency determines how to act. EPA "would not be strengthening their hand in other parts of the bill ... if they got crosswise with" either side in that fight, said David Goldston, government affairs director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
-
Mar 3, 2016 | All Gov
By Eric Lipton
Facing hundreds of millions of dollars in lawsuits, the giant biotechnology company Monsanto last year received a legislative gift from the House of Representatives, a one-paragraph addition to a sweeping chemical safety bill that could help shield it from legal liability for a toxic chemical only it made.
Monsanto insists it did not ask for the addition. House aides deny it is a gift at all. But the provision would benefit the only manufacturer in the United States of now-banned polychlorinated biphenyls, chemicals known as PCBs, a mainstay of Monsanto sales for decades. The PCB provision is one of several sticking points that negotiators must finesse before Congress can pass a law to revamp the way thousands of chemicals are regulated in the United States.
“Call me a dreamer, but I wish for a Congress that would help cities with their homeless crises instead of protecting multinational corporations that poison our environment,” said Pete Holmes, the city attorney for Seattle, one of six cities suing Monsanto to help cover the costs of reducing PCB discharge from their sewers.
The House and the Senate last year both passed versions of legislation to replace the 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act (pdf), a law that the Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged had become so unworkable that as many as 1,000 hazardous chemicals still on sale today needed to be evaluated to see if they should be banned or restricted.
Democrats and Republicans — along with the chemical industry and even some environmentalists — agree that the pending legislation would be a major improvement over existing law. But from legal liability shields to state-based regulatory authority, the House and Senate versions have major differences to resolve. The remaining disputes revolve around the basics of pre-emption: Who gets to sue? And who gets to regulate the chemical industry?
Already, attorneys general and top environmental regulators from 15 states have written to leaders in Congress demanding changes.
“Our future work depends on striking the right balance to strengthen the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s abilities and funding, without limiting state powers in creating and enforcing needed protections,” said a letter, obtained by The New York Times, sent by the top environmental regulators in California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia.
Some of the most vociferous objections relate to the so-called Monsanto Clause. The provision does not mention the company by name, but between the early 1930s and 1977, Monsanto manufactured almost all of the 1.25 billion pounds of PCBs sold in the United States.
The chemicals were initially admired for their ability to prevent fires and explosions in electrical transformers and other equipment. But as the use of PCBs skyrocketed nationwide in products as varied as paints, pesticides and even carbonless copy paper, evidence mounted that they were contaminating the environment and potentially causing health problems including cancer and immune-system complications. The EPA banned their production in 1979.
PCB litigation has surged in the last year as cities and school systems struggle to comply with directives from federal and state regulators to reduce PCB levels in sewer discharge and in caulk once used to construct schools. Separately, a group of individuals who received diagnoses of a form of cancer known as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma sued Monsanto last year, claiming the company should pay damages.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, in a June report accompanying its version of the legislation, asserted that neither existing toxic chemical law nor any revisions pending in Congress should be seen as a way to “pre-empt, displace or supplant” the right to sue for damages in lawsuits like the ones filed against Monsanto.
The House also voted to preserve the right to sue if individuals or local governments believe they have been harmed by a chemical, regardless of future federal regulations of the substance. But a critical paragraph added to the House bill in late May made sure past regulatory requirements by the EPA would continue to disqualify legal claims, and it specifically referred to the section of the 1976 toxic chemical law governing PCBs, giving Monsanto clearer authority in the future to ask judges to dismiss lawsuits filed against it.
Congressional aides involved in the drafting said the language was inserted at the request of Republican staff members at the House Energy and Commerce Committee. One Republican committee aide disputed any suggestion that this was a gift to Monsanto, but he said he was not allowed to discuss the issue on the record.
And Charla Lord, a Monsanto spokeswoman, said the company did not ask for the change.
But by November, Monsanto was clearly aware of the provision. Arguing before a federal court in Texas, a lawyer representing Monsanto cited the House language to say that certain of the legal claims against the company’s past PCB business should be dismissed.
“The House bill specifically exempts PCBs,” ensuring that protection from lawsuits would continue “after the passage of the new law,” the lawyer argued, even though the provision remained locked in negotiation.
The House provision is now drawing protests from local officials suing Monsanto to try to recover costs associated with PCB cleanups, and from lawyers who are trying to collect damages for individuals with health problems linked to PCB exposure, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
“Taxpayers and public entities would be left holding the bag to pay hundreds of millions of dollars if not billions of dollars cleaning up Monsanto’s PCBs,” said John Fiske, one of the lawyers representing the six cities suing to collect money from the company to help cover cleanup costs. Monsanto has not yet argued that the cities are barred from suing, but Fiske says he is certain that if the legislation passes, the company will make that argument.
Lord says Monsanto bears no responsibility for cleanup costs in cities like Seattle, San Jose and San Diego.
“PCBs served an important fire-protection and safety purpose,” she said in a written statement. “If these products were improperly disposed of, Monsanto is not responsible.”
And A. Elizabeth Blackwell, the lawyer representing Monsanto who cited the House language in the Texas lawsuit, says the provision is not a gift to the company, since it would merely preserve the protection the company believes it already has against claims brought under state law.
Monsanto registered to lobby on the chemical safety legislation last July, just after the House passed its version.
The Democratic state attorneys general from California, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington are mainly concerned with the power that states will retain to regulate chemicals once the revised law passes.
They argue that the Senate version would block states from taking action on potentially hazardous chemicals for as long as four years while the EPA reviewed them for possible regulation. That, the attorneys general say, could create roadblocks for state reviews already underway on products such as flame retardants in furniture cushions and methylene chloride, a chemical used in paint strippers.
“It could really slow down the pace of progress in the states,” said Ken Zarker, a manager at the Washington state Department of Ecology, which has its own chemical testing and regulation program.
The House bill presents a different issue: It would prevent a state from regulating a chemical if the health risk the state agency was targeting was different from the risk the EPA had already acted on, the attorneys general say. For example, an EPA regulation targeting a cancer threat from a cleaning product could block state officials from regulating the same product to protect consumers from respiratory illnesses.
Despite such concerns, Democrats and Republicans — as well as environmentalists and state officials — want legislation passed this year to replace the current law, which was rendered all but unenforceable by a 1991 court ruling.
That ruling left chemical regulation a patchwork of inconsistent state rules and national efforts by retailers like Target and Wal-Mart to curb the sale of some products under pressure from environmental groups.
That hodgepodge has left few satisfied with the status quo.
Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and one of the lead House negotiators on the legislation, said, “We need to give security to consumers, so they know that dangerous chemicals will be regulated, and certainty to the industry, so it knows how chemicals it sells will be treated.”
-
Is Toxic Teflon Chemical In Your Drinking Water?
Mar 3, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Bill Walker
The bad news about a toxic chemical used to make Teflon keeps getting worse.
Perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, was used for decades by DuPont and other companies to make non-stick, waterproof and stain-resistant products. PFOA and related chemicals, which studies show can cause cancer and reproductive disorders, pollute virtually all Americans' blood and pass from mother to child in the womb. Last summer scientists at Harvard and the University of Massachusetts found that PFOA is hazardous at the tiniest doses – hundreds of times smaller than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says is safe.
How could it get worse? Consider:
Long known to severely contaminate drinking water near a DuPont plant in Parkersburg, W. Va., PFOA was recently found at high levels in the water supplies of Hoosick Falls, N.Y., and nearby North Bennington, Vt. Health officials say residents should not use contaminated water for drinking, cooking or brushing teeth.
In Hoosick Falls, EPA warned residents not to drink water with more 100 parts per trillion of PFOA – four times lower than the agency's current non-enforceable health advisory level. But because EPA did not consider the most recent science, the new level is still 100 times higher than what the Harvard-UMass study said is safe.
California state scientists just listed PFOA and its chemical cousin, PFOS, as high priority for review and potential addition to the state's official registry of chemicals known to cause reproductive disorders. PFOA contaminates 14 California water systems serving more than 1.4 million people – more than any other state – and adding it to the registry under the state's Safe Drinking Water Act could require expensive treatment of those systems to reduce the pollution.
EPA-mandated testing continues to find PFOA in more public water supplies nationwide.
Last August EWG reported that EPA's sampling program found PFOA in 94 water systems serving more than 6.5 million people in 27 states. Since then, reports to EPA by by local utilities have upped the number to 103 water supplies serving nearly 7 million people. (Contamination was not reported from any additional states.)
Last summer's testing results reported no water systems contaminated with PFOA above the EPA's previous advisory level, eight systems have had test results at or above the lower level EPA recommended in Hoosick Falls.
Keep in mind that the new level from EPA is still much higher than the safe level in the Harvard-UMass study. With evidence mounting that EPA's advisory level is too weak, states are taking action. Besides California's nomination of PFOA to its list of reproductive toxins, the Vermont Department of Public Health considered recent science and set a much more conservative drinking water advisory level: 20 parts per trillion, a standard by which every PFOA-contaminated water supply reported to EPA's is unsafe.
What's more, EPA's testing program only covers water system serving more than 10,000 people, which is why the contamination in Hoosick Falls and North Bennington was not detected. EWG again calls on DuPont and all other former makers of PFOA to immediately disclose all locations where the chemical was produced, used or dumped, and for local, state and federal officials to make sure the water in each place is tested.
-
US FDA Sunscreen Ingredient Guidance ‘Falls Short’
Mar 3, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US FDA draft guidance on the safety and effectiveness data for over-the-counter sunscreen fails to reflect the current science on ingredient safety assessment, according to industry and NGOs.
The draft guidance, "Over-the-counter sunscreens: safety and effectiveness data", was issued for public comment in November. Once finalised, it will reflect the FDA’s “current thinking” on the data needed to determine if an active ingredient for use in nonprescription sunscreen is “generally recognised as safe and effective (Grase)”.
The Public Access to SunScreens (PASS) coalition – a stakeholder group that includes health NGOs, chemical and sunscreen manufacturers, and dermatologists – says that the approach outlined in the guidance “falls short”.
Specific issues raised include that:
the FDA relies on the maximal usage trial (MUsT) as part of its assessment, despite there being no “established protocol” for its use on sunscreen ingredients;
the evidence of dermal absorption safety threshold, referenced in the guidance, “applies a new and arbitrary scientific standard regarding carcinogenicity and toxicity tests”; and
several of the agency’s assumptions - including those regarding body surface coverage area, its required number of test subjects and the number of formulations to be tested - should all be revised.
PASS says: “By calling for manufacturers to complete new tests prior to marketing – including tests never before used on sunscreen ingredients, tests required by no other countries and for which there is no agreed-upon protocol – the FDA’s proposal may simply continue to deny Americans access to the latest skin cancer prevention products available throughout the rest of the world.”
It adds that a risk-benefit analysis that weighs the risk of skin cancer against ingredient safety risk is “crucial”.
Gradient Corporation, a toxicology consultancy, says in comments that several test methods were absent from the guidance, including:
adverse outcome pathway (AOP) paradigm;
structure-activity relationships and read-across approaches; and
high throughput in vitro and in silico screening tools.
In a joint release from the Personal Care Products Council (PCPC) and the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA), the trade groups say: “With few exceptions, FDA’s thinking is not reflective of the current state-of-the-art ingredient safety assessment framework, recognised and used by the majority of health authorities worldwide.”
They have called on the agency to convene hearings or workshops “to allow further discussion to attempt to reconcile these differences”, and for it to “[revise] its position to reflect the current science of ingredient safety assessments”.
The draft’s issuances come under the implementation of the 2014 Sunscreen Innovation Act (SIA). This was intended to streamline the FDA’s approval process for sunscreen ingredients in over-the-counter (OTC) products.
The FDA last approved a new sunscreen ingredient in the 1990s, and has a backlog of eight substance applications that date to as early as 2002.
The agency did not respond to a request for comment.
-
US Institute to Develop Non-Animal Test for Respiratory Sensitisation
Mar 3, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The US-based Research Institute for Fragrance Materials (RIFM) has given a grant of an undisclosed amount to the US Institute for In Vitro Sciences (IIVS) to develop non-animal test methods for the evaluation of fragrance materials.
The principal concerns are potential respiratory irritation and sensitisation.
RIFM is an international scientific authority on the safe use of fragrance materials. It generates, evaluates and distributes scientific data on their risk assessment in personal and household care products.
IIVS is a non-profit organisation, dedicated to the promotion of rapid and innovative non-animal test methods. It is a leading provider of in vitro testing in support of toxicological safety evaluations.
The proposal, "The use of a novel non-animal platform to characterise respiratory effects of fragrance materials", will include computational approaches as well as chemical techniques. It will aim to generate a testing plan in harmony with the OECD Adverse Outcome Pathway programme.
The grant was secured in collaboration with Liverpool John Moores University and the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
“This project is expected to deliver far-reaching benefits to the scientific community for evaluating respiratory irritation and sensitisation," said Dr Holger Behrsing, principal scientist at IIVS and primary investigator on the project.
-
Experts Call for Read-Across to Move Beyond Chemical Similarity
Mar 3, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Davies
Regulatory read-across needs to move beyond structural similarity, according to experts attending a read-across workshop, last week in Brussels.
Organised by the Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing (CAAT-Europe), EU-ToxRisk and Cefic-LRI, the workshop discussed Echa's Read-across assessment framework (RAAF), published in 2015, which currently requires chemicals to be structurally similar for read-across as specified in REACH.
Nicholas Ball from Dow Chemical Company praised the agency's RAAF for laying out a “structured approach”. However, he said that “we have to move away from just using structural similarity.”
He called for “creative” ways to demonstrate similarity “beyond simply what a compound looks like”.
Later this year, the RAAF will be supplemented with information on mixtures and substances of unknown or variable composition (UVCBs), said Norbert Fedtke from Echa. “It will not be an extension of the RAAF,” he cautioned. “We have to find a different way to approach this and we are still struggling.”
At the workshop, Mr Ball, Thomas Hartung from CAAT and Mark Cronin from Liverpool John Moore University talked through the recent report, Toward good read-across practice (GRAP) guidance, published in Altex.
Although structural similarity is a “prudent starting point” from a biological point of view, it is “not necessarily a prerequisite to perform a valid read-across”, states the GRAP publication.
All three speakers touched on the concept of using biological read-across. In particular, the guidance outlines how chemically dissimilar structures activating a particular AOP could “provide a basis” for read-across. Molecular initiating events could possibly be used to help group chemicals, said professor Cronin.
“One conclusion from the report is that some [read-across] uncertainty is acceptable, depending on the context,” said professor Cronin. “It will be very difficult to get the level of uncertainty to be very low in large numbers of read-across scenarios. It's an area where further effort is required.”
Many have an “ultimate goal” to quantify read-across, he added. To do this would require significant amounts of new data, particularly on toxicokinetics. Although animal tests are not designed to give sufficient toxicokinetics information to help support read-across, in vitro and in silico studies are promising data sources, he added.
-
Echa Working on Feasibility of EU Substance Regulation Database
Mar 3, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Echa will assess the feasibility of developing a “central EU navigator” that provides information on how individual substances are affected by EU laws.
The agency says that, following a discussion towards the end of last year with the European Commission and industry associations, it will carry out a study to work out the scope of the legislation to be covered, technical feasibility and the resources needed to develop the system.
It did not give a date of when the work would begin but it did say the study will also be steered by the Commission directorates, DG Grow and DG Environment, and other stakeholders.
The German chemicals industry (VCI) and the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic) asked the Commission to develop the database, after coming up with the proposal in 2014.
Cefic’s REACH and chemicals policy director, Erwin Annys, told Chemical Watch that the study is a positive step. The navigator will provide “a good overview of the restrictions and regulatory activities in other legislations, as well as REACH”, says Mr Annys.
This, he adds, will help smaller companies meet their legal obligations.
The Commission did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publishing.
Last year, the automotive sector announced that it is developing a global monitoring system that collects information on regulatory action being considered, for the substances it uses. This differs from the EU navigator, which focuses on European legislation already in place.
-
Fiery Va. Oil Train Derailment was Preventable -- Safety Agency
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
An oil train derailment and explosion that caused $1.2 million in damage and leaked crude into a Virginia river two years ago could have been averted had operator CSX Corp. followed best practices at the time, investigators have found.
The April 30, 2014, accident in Lynchburg, Va., was probably caused by a broken rail, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a report released yesterday. During the incident, more than a dozen tank cars filled with crude oil from North Dakota jumped the tracks in the center of town, forcing about 350 people to evacuate (EnergyWire, May 2, 2014). Three smoldering tank cars had to be fished out of the nearby James River.
The derailment occurred just two weeks after a group of federal regulators and rail industry representatives adopted recommendations for addressing the kind of wear and tear that led to the broken rail in Lynchburg, according to the NTSB. (The recommendations were voluntary.)
"Before the guidelines were implemented by CSX, the Lynchburg accident occurred; if they had been implemented, this accident would likely have been prevented," the NTSB said.
CSX spokeswoman Melanie Cost said in a statement that safety is the railroad's "highest priority," and she noted the company was grateful for the response from the NTSB and the Lynchburg community. She said CSX is evaluating the NTSB's conclusions for "lessons learned."
"Though CSX's rail replacement protocols exceeded federal regulations at the time of the Lynchburg derailment, we have since implemented further enhancements to reduce the time limit for replacing rail on key crude oil routes following the detection of a defect, to within 24 hours," she said. Cost added that CSX is collaborating with the Federal Railroad Administration to explore new techniques to find track defects.
In the aftermath of the Lynchburg crash, suspicion fell on recent rainy weather as a possible cause. After all, the tracks had been inspected the day before the derailment took place.
It later emerged that the routine inspection by a CSX contractor turned up several defects -- notably, a partial fracture in the same rail that ended up failing. The NTSB pointed out that the problem wasn't serious enough to merit immediate attention under federal rules. The fracture would have had to be four times as large to require action based on current Federal Railroad Administration regulations, the NTSB said. Still, CSX had planned to replace the rail in question on May 1, the day after the derailment.
The accident played into a larger debate about rail safety amid a surge in hazardous materials traffic nationwide. Mile-long oil trains became a regular sight across the United States in 2014 as oil production picked up in North Dakota's Bakken Shale play, where pipeline access was limited. Crude-by-rail traffic has since declined.
The uptick in oil trains brought more derailments, however, with headline-grabbing crashes rattling Lynchburg; Casselton, N.D.; and most recently Mount Carbon, W.Va. A July 2013 oil train explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killed 47 people.
The series of incidents has fueled a debate on how best to protect the public from the risk of a hazmat disaster. The rail industry quickly aligned itself with stronger tank car requirements, while the oil and refining industries have favored efforts to prevent trains from falling off the tracks in the first place.
"The NTSB's findings confirm our position that track integrity is typically the root cause of these derailments, which is why we have long called for a greater emphasis on keeping the trains on the tracks," said Chet Thompson, president of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a refining industry group.
While the NTSB found the cause of the Lynchburg accident to be rail-related, the report also questioned the quality of many tank cars still used to haul crude.
The Lynchburg case "demonstrates that the thicker shell material used in tank cars designed to the requirements of [a 2011 industry standard] remain vulnerable to breaches even in low-speed accidents," the NTSB said.
-
Maine Reverses Course, Discloses Oil Train Data
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Environmental officials in Maine are once again sharing data on oil train shipments -- or a lack thereof.
No trains hauling more than 1 million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota's Bakken Shale play have passed through the state in recent months, based on the response to a records request from the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting. A spokesman for the Maine Department of Environmental Protection was not available for comment yesterday.
A controversial measure enacted by Maine lawmakers late last year had cast doubt on whether "high-hazard" flammable train movements would continue to be reported to the public. Other states have grappled with similar debates (EnergyWire, June 9, 2014): Should oil train routing and volume data be made available under freedom of information laws or should it be guarded as security-sensitive information?
Meaghan LaSala, who has been active in environmentalist campaigns to stop rail shipments of Bakken crude oil through Maine, welcomed the return to transparency.
"Most folks -- they're not going to know what is rolling through their backyards," she said. "It's only through people seeking that information out -- and that information truly being available to the public -- that we're able to take meaningful action for the safety of our communities."
She pointed out that while not much crude is heading through Maine at the moment, shifting market conditions could bring more milelong oil trains through the state in the future. A series of oil train derailments and explosions -- including a deadly 2013 blast that occurred a few miles from the Maine border in Quebec -- have brought heightened scrutiny on hazardous liquid shipments throughout North America in recent years. Just yesterday, a train carrying ethanol and propane crashed and prompted evacuations in New York. No fires were reported, and no one was hurt (EnergyWire, March 2).
A May 2014 emergency order from the U.S. Department of Transportation took aim at crude-by-rail traffic in particular, requiring railroads to update state emergency responders with the whereabouts of any trains carrying a million or more gallons of explosive Bakken crude.
The rail industry complied, but not without requesting that state officials shield the information from the public on security and competitive grounds. Several states, including Maryland, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and now Maine, have released the information anyway.
-
Va. Governor Rejects Bill with Obstacles for EPA Regs
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Emily Holden
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) has vetoed a bill that would require state lawmakers to sign off on any plan to meet federal climate regulations for power plants.
McAuliffe, who supports U.S. EPA's rule, said yesterday on Twitter that the bill would "hamper his ability to implement the Clean Power Plan in a way that works for [Virginia]."
The measure comes in the wake of uncertainty surrounding the Clean Power Plan since the Supreme Court issued a stay of the rule last month.
Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality is meeting monthly with power companies and advocates to sketch out a path forward despite pushback from critics who say planning while the rule is on hold is a waste of resources.
DEQ's Air Division director, Michael Dowd, has said the bill would have tied the agency's hands and also required an impractical study on potential outcomes of the rule (ClimateWire, Feb. 22).
The legislation, S.B. 21, originated in the Senate, but a House version, H.B. 2, is now under consideration by the Senate and could also make its way to McAuliffe's desk.
In a veto statement released yesterday, McAuliffe called the requirement "an impermissible breach of Virginia's constitutional separation of powers," explaining that federal law tasks the governor with plans to comply with regulations under the Clean Air Act.
"This process rests squarely in the executive branch of state government," he added.
The legislative approval bill is not the only Clean Power Plan pushback in the works.
'Another salvo ... in the war on coal'
Last week, House lawmakers also backed, 63-34, an amendment to Virginia's biennial budget bill that would prevent DEQ from spending money on planning for the rule while the stay is in effect.
A source familiar with DEQ's funding noted that it's unclear whether the amendment would prevent officials from continuing meetings of concerned parties and whether it would prohibit the agency from spending money it collects from permits or receives through federal grants.
A recent version of the budget the Legislature is considering included $350,000 for DEQ to contract out the study in the bill McAuliffe has vetoed.
The House and Senate are in the process of reconciling different versions of the budget before the current session concludes at the end of next week.
Delegate Israel O'Quinn (R), who sponsored both the budget amendment and H.B. 2, called the veto "another salvo in the Obama-Clinton-McAuliffe war on coal," arguing that the Clean Power Plan threatens to raise utility costs, close power plants prematurely and make the energy grid less reliable, according to the Hampton Roads Daily Press.
"This issue impacts far too many Virginians to be left to un-elected bureaucrats, who, by their own admission, do not have the expertise to do the job," O'Quinn said in a statement cited by the newspaper.
Since the Supreme Court stay on the rule, state government officials have been working out how to proceed, and at least 18 states have stalled their planning work. Leaders of red states that advocate continuing conversations on the rule have faced opposition.
Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead (R) wants his state to forge ahead, in case the rule survives, but the state's Legislature disagrees.
Lawmakers this week approved a bill similar to Virginia's to prevent spending on the rule. But their version would allow officials to stay involved in Clean Power Plan discussions (ClimateWire, March 2).
The conservative political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity has said it will push state legislatures to resist complying with the rule (ClimateWire, Feb. 5).
-
Nev.'s AG Endorses Lawsuit Against EPA Rule
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Energywire
While not joining, Nevada's attorney general is endorsing the multi-state lawsuit against the carbon emissions-cutting Clean Power Plan.
Attorney General Adam Laxalt (R) filed a friend-of-the-court document Tuesday to argue for states' right to choose their own emission standards, opposing what he calls an overreach from the Obama administration and U.S. EPA.
Aides for Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval said the governor didn't ask for the filing, but Laxalt was "simply offering his legal opinion."
Environmental activists called the move bad for health, communities and the climate. Robert Buntjer, chairman of the Nevada Conservation League, asked for Laxalt to "back off his position ... and send a message to the rest of the country that Nevada is ready to lead."
Previously, Sandoval signed the Governors' Accord for a New Energy Future, which includes 16 other governors and promotes growth in clean energy.
Monica Moazez, spokeswoman for Laxalt, said Nevada didn't join the full lawsuit because it didn't have as much at stake.
"Nevada apparently wouldn't see any consumer rate increases [under the Clean Power Plan]," Moazez said.
Laxalt's brief said the state could still be harmed by the CPP through higher rates elsewhere, causing national economic troubles and taking money from those who could have spent their savings visiting Nevada.
-
Roberts' Denial Of Bid For Utility MACT Stay Prompts Call To End Litigation
Mar 3, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has denied a request by 20 states to immediately stay implementation of EPA's power plant maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air toxics rule, prompting environmentalists to call on the states to end their long-running legal challenges to the rule as an April 16 compliance deadline looms.
Roberts made the decision March 3 without a written order or explanation, sources say, avoiding the need to consult with the other seven justices on the court that could have split 4-4 on whether to issue a stay.
Following news of the decision, Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) General Counsel Vickie Patton in a statement called on the state attorneys general challenging the rule, also known as the mercury and air toxic standards (MATS), to end their litigation. She said the MATS -- which EDF has intervened on EPA's behalf to defend -- “are safeguarding millions of American children from poisons such as mercury, arsenic and acid gases.”
EPA in a separate statement said it is “very pleased” at the Supreme Court's denial of the stay request and touted the emissions reductions and health benefits of the rule's controls on utility air toxic emissions. “All told, for every dollar spent to make these cuts, the public is receiving up to $9 in health benefits,” the agency said.
The costs and benefits of the rule were central to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit litigation over the MATS, White Stallion Energy Center LLC v. EPA, that resulted in a 2-1 ruling in April 2014 broadly upholding the rule. States, power sector groups and other opponents of the rule then appealed that case to the Supreme Court, which focused on whether the agency erred in how it first decided to develop the rule.
The justices in Michigan v. EPA weighed whether EPA erred by not considering costs in its initial finding that the rule was “appropriate and necessary” under the Clean Air Act. In a 5-4 ruling issued in June written by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the court said costs should have been considered as part of the initial rulemaking determination. The justices remanded litigation over the rule to the D.C. Circuit but did not stay its implementation.
On remand, the appellate court then sought briefing from all sides on how to respond to the Michigan decision. Critics of the rule said that the justices' ruling undermined the entire basis for the MATS because the agency only considered costs when it set the rule's emissions limits, and not the start of the process.
EPA countered that it was working on a supplemental assessment of the rule's costs that would satisfy the Supreme Court's ruling, and urged against vacating the rule while it crafted a final cost review.
The D.C. Circuit ultimately sided with the agency and remanded the utility rule to the agency while it processes the cost finding. EPA on Nov. 20 proposed the cost consideration as part of the appropriate and necessary finding, which was a more limited assessment of the rule's implementation costs rather than a more sweeping new cost-benefit review. The agency took comment until Jan. 15 on the review, and is now crafting the final version.
Stay Request
Even while that work is ongoing, states opposed to the rule were urging the Supreme Court to halt implementation of the MATS pending what they said would be a fresh call for the justices to review the rule.
“Unless this Court stays or enjoins further operation of the Mercury and Air Toxics Rule, this Court's recent decision in Michigan v. EPA will be thwarted,” the states had argued.
The high court in Michigan “held that the Clean Air Act requires EPA to consider costs before it may regulate power plants -- that is, before it may impose any rule, including the Mercury Rule. Yet the Rule remains in effect, even though EPA has never fulfilled this precondition and so has never acquired the authority to regulate.”
The states cited the Supreme Court's unusual decision in West Virginia v. EPA that halted implementation of the agency's Clean Power Plan greenhouse gas rule for existing utilities while suits over that rule proceed.
“Just two weeks ago this Court correctly granted a stay of an EPA rule [the CPP] before the rule had undergone judicial review, presumably because this Court recognized that there was a strong likelihood that the rule was likely to be held to be unlawful and in excess of the agency's authority,” the states said. “A stay is even more warranted here, after this Court has reviewed EPA's finding authorizing the Mercury Rule” and found it unlawful.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on EPA's behalf countered in a March 2 filing that the Supreme Court in itsMichigan ruling had the opportunity to issue a stay but opted against it. DOJ also said the D.C. Circuit followed correct past precedent in remanding the rule to the agency while it works on the cost review.
“The D.C. Circuit reasonably exercised its discretion not to vacate the Rule under its settled circuit precedent approving remand without vacatur in appropriate circumstances. That circuit precedent is consistent with this Court’s teachings and with the established practice of other courts of appeals. Applicants do not assert any legally cognizable irreparable harm to their own interests, and their proposed stay would undermine the Rule’s significant contributions to protecting public health and the environment,” according to DOJ's filing.
DOJ said there are no grounds to grant a stay because EPA will issue a revised appropriate and necessary finding with consideration of costs, which will be subject to judicial review, in around six weeks. Nor are the states opposing the MACT likely to succeed in the merits of any subsequent challenge to the MACT, DOJ says.
Once EPA issues is final supplemental cost review, however, there will be a fresh opportunity for MACT opponents to sue over that finding, and such litigation is expected.
-
Chief Justice Rejects Effort to Block E.P.A. Limit on Power Plants
Mar 3, 2016 | The New York Times
By Adam Liptak
In a significant victory for the Obama administration, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Thursday refused to block an Environmental Protection Agency regulation limiting emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants from coal-fired power plants.
Chief Justice Roberts rejected an application from 20 states that said a federal appeals court in Washington had effectively thwarted their victory in the Supreme Court in June, when the high court ruled that the E.P.A. had failed to take into account the punishing costs its mercury regulation would impose. In that 5-to-4 decision, Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency, the Supreme Court ruled that the agency had run afoul of the Clean Air Act by deciding to regulate the emissions without first undertaking a cost-benefit analysis to show the regulation to be “appropriate and necessary.”
“It is not rational, never mind ‘appropriate,’ to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits,” Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last month, wrote in June. “Statutory context supports this reading.”
The decision did not strike down the regulation, but it did require the E.P.A. to take costs into consideration. The question before the Supreme Court now was what should happen in the meantime.
In December, a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit allowed the regulation to stay in place while the agency completed its review, noting that the agency “is on track to issue a final finding” by April 15.
In their Supreme Court brief, the states noted that the justices recently blocked a different regulation, and the administration’s effort to combatglobal warming by regulating carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants, before any court had ruled on its legality. They said a stay in the mercury regulation “is even more warranted” since the Supreme Court has already decided that the agency had exceeded its authority.
The mercury regulation, the states said, “has imposed literally billions of dollars of compliance costs on utilities (and by extension on all members of the public who use electricity), and even if a similar rule is lawfully imposed at some time in the future, the quite substantial time-value of that money has already been lost and is irrecoverable.”
The Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 on the climate change stay, issued Feb. 9. Justice Scalia was in the majority, and his vote in that case was one of the last he cast before he died.
The action by Chief Justice Roberts is an indication that Justice Scalia’s death has altered the balance of power on the Supreme Court.
-
Pipeline Safety Bill Could Clear Senate as Soon as Today
Mar 3, 2016 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Andrew Restuccia and Elana Schor
Bipartisan pipeline safety legislation could clear the Senate as soon as today, sources told POLITICO.
The bill, which had been expected to sail through the chamber, ran into unexpected trouble over language inserted by Sen. Ed Markey during a Senate Commerce Committee markup late last year that would allow lawmakers to view the industry's unredacted emergency response plans.
Industry groups and several lawmakers, including Sen. James Lankford, had raised concerns about the provision, arguing that the unredacted versions of the plans could leak into the public domain and possibly aid terrorists in attacks on pipeline infrastructure. Sources said at least two Republican senators had placed holds on the bill over the language.
But the disputes holding up speedy passage of the bill are nearly resolved, a Senate aide told POLITICO, and the bill is set to move ahead as soon as today — barring any last-minute objections.
Staffers spent several days trying to reach a compromise on the language, with Republicans proposing a tweak that would prohibit lawmakers from disclosing information in the plans. One source said lawmakers finally agreed to drop their objections in hopes of further addressing the issue in conference. The House is working on its on version of the bill.
The Senate legislation would reauthorize the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration through fiscal year 2019 and put pressure on the agency to complete a series of long-delayed congressional pipeline safety mandates.
-
Methane Tracking Tools Get Federal Research Support
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
Five years ago, the energy world was just starting to wake up to the climate implications that come with methane leaking from oil and gas drilling equipment and pipelines.
"In the 1980s and '90s, industry focused on NOx," said Bryan Willson, a program director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), referring to the nitrogen oxides that contribute to airborne smog and acid rain. The mid-1990s saw a focus on hazardous air pollutants, he added. "Methane was not really recognized as a meaningful environmental issue in and of itself."
But five or six years ago, according to Willson, people started to focus on the climate implications of methane, a greenhouse gas that has 84 times the impact of carbon dioxide emissions. As analysts looked more closely, estimates came in putting the rate of methane leakage "from wellhead to burner tip" at anywhere from 1 to 10 percent of the total produced.
A slew of academic studies aimed to narrow that range, leading to new scrutiny of where in the production and delivery system natural gas was escaping.
Part of the solution, everyone agrees, will lie in collecting accurate data on methane leakage from oil and gas infrastructure and monitoring equipment to allow for prompt repairs.
For industry, leaked methane is leaked revenue. But with natural gas prices pushed to long-term lows by the glut brought on by shale gas boom, that financial incentive is limited.
"If you're trying to justify advanced monitoring systems only on the value of the product being saved, that's a hard argument to make," Willson explained this week on the ARPA-E showroom floor. "The natural gas industry is not working on developing the technology," he said, though a number of companies are sharing data and other resources to help accelerate solutions.
Willson, who directs Colorado State University's Energy Institute but is on loan to ARPA-E as head of the Methane Observation Networks with Innovative Technology to Obtain Reductions (MONITOR) program, said the work leans on one of ARPA-E's strengths -- the ability to respond quickly to emerging research needs.
Now approaching the end of its first year of agency funding, the program has committed about $30 million to 11 projects that aim to make methane leak monitoring technically and financially accessible.
The program's targets include detecting and locating methane leaks as small as 1 ton per year on a small well pad and wirelessly transmitting the results to a receiver in a time frame that supports reducing total leakage by 90 percent, while reducing yearly monitoring costs from the current range of $25,000 per year or more to just $3,000 a year.
The projects vary in technology approach and in the types of data their solutions produce, which could lead to industry applications beyond the wellhead. Several target monitoring mid-stream equipment like pipelines and compressor stations, and even downstream users like refineries. The projects also range in viability, from the team that is already shipping product to one that "will need to pull some rabbits from hats," as Willson put it.
Physical Sciences Inc.
Physical Sciences Inc. came to the game with an advantage, as team member Heath Consultants Inc. was already an industry leader in natural gas leak surveying. Heath already has some 3,000 remote methane leak detector (RMLD) systems out in the field, and PSI has a track record working on small drones.
The MONITOR project team, which also includes Princeton University, the University of Houston, and Thorlabs Quantum Electronics Inc., aims to miniaturize Heath's device and mount it on a drone programmed for leak detection missions. The drone will be configurable for continuous monitoring and will conduct periodic site surveys. While not in the air, it will monitor the well pad perimeter and, when it detects a methane plume, launch and circle over the cloud to zero in on its concentration and source.
Continuous monitoring, rather than just checking in on drilling equipment from time to time, is an important added value from PSI's project, explained team member Mickey Frish. "Leaks come and go -- sometimes big leaks come, last for an hour or so and then disappear," he said. "You can walk along a city street today and detect a large leak, go back tomorrow and find a totally different set of leaks," as pipeline joints and valves open or close with weather changes. Catching and addressing those problems relies on continuing data sets.
The team expects to have a working prototype by mid-summer and hopes to have product for sale a year for now. In addition to the well pad monitoring that ARPA-E is targeting, the team is also eyeing uses in pipeline inspections, where drones hold enormous promise to ease access and lower costs.
LI-COR Biosciences
The LI-COR Biosciences team also aims to improve on an existing system, building from a technology that was deployed in the recent Aliso Canyon leak in Southern California that saw more than 97,000 tons of methane emitted over the course of four months (ClimateWire, Feb. 26).
LI-COR, working with Colorado State University and Gener8, has to date targeted research markets for its monitoring products, which can record emissions from man-made sources like agricultural sites and landfills, as well as such naturally occurring methane sources as tundra and wetlands.
Like the PSI project, LI-COR is simplifying and shrinking its laser spectroscopic tool, among other changes. The team is targeting continuous monitoring, though its technology can also be mounted on a vehicle for surveying use.
One point where the team aims to distinguish itself is in creating an extremely low-maintenance solution. "Calibration is a huge, huge issue in spectrometry," environmental marketing manager Michael Gaura explained. The LI-COR solution would be calibration-free, so simple that it can be shipped to the end user for setup on-site, and would require minimal maintenance. Together, those changes add up to lower cost and greater accessibility.
PARC
Palo Alto Research Center Inc. is taking a completely different approach to methane detection, working on a system to "print" carbon nanotubes onto a membrane that will detect gases as a sort of "electronic nose."
The goal is to be able to detect a number of gases and have the sensitivity to distinguish between agricultural methane emissions and those stemming from oil and gas operations. That distinction is important in the many regions where drilling sites are dispersed across cattle ranges or near feedlots, where accidental methane leaks that require attention can be masked by the sometimes overwhelming gas plumes emitted by the livestock.
PARC is a project of Xerox Corp., which has a long history in computer printing, and Clinton Smith, a research engineer on the project, said using a printing process to deposit the sensing nanotubes holds the potential to bring costs far, far below those of approaches that rely on advanced optical devices. The team's target is that a sensor array will cost about $15, with total system costs for a site for a year coming in at $350.
To interpret the sensor data, the team leans on expertise from partners BP PLC and NASA's Ames Research Center. Machine-learning algorithms are being developed to sort out the inputs from the highly sensitive carbon nanotube sensors, with the goal of allowing a system to identify and pinpoint a methane cloud much as the human nose and brain work together to find -- and avoid -- a plume in real life.
-
House OKs Bill to Block EPA's Brick-Making Regs
Mar 3, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
A bill that would give brick and ceramic manufacturers an indefinite reprieve on compliance with new air pollution standards easily passed the House this morning on a mostly party-line vote as Republicans argued it would save jobs and Democrats countered that it would undercut environmental protections.
The measure, H.R. 4557 -- the "Blocking Regulatory Interference From Closing Kilns" or "BRICK Act" -- would effectively freeze compliance with the new regulations until all court challenges are settled. After passing today by a 238-163 margin, it now goes to the Senate. Seven Democrats voted for the bill; no Republicans were opposed.
U.S. EPA published the new rules in October 2015, predicting they would cut emissions of mercury, chlorine and other toxics by 375 tons per year. Critics charge that compliance would cost millions of dollars and hurt companies still struggling to recover from the homebuilding slump.
"We must make sure our laws and regulations preserve this industry, not destroy it," the bill's lead sponsor, Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), said this morning. But Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) called the legislation unnecessary, adding that it would set "a terrible precedent." The Obama administration yesterday threatened a veto, saying it would act as an incentive to drag out lawsuits "in order to delay air pollution protections."
The bill's approach is similar to that proposed in H.R. 2042 by Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) that would allow states to wait until all judicial review of the Clean Power Plan is complete before submitting implementation plans. After passing the House last June, that bill has since languished in the Senate.
This morning, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) predicted the "BRICK Act" would meet the same fate.
Instead of focusing on issues that the public cares about, Polis said before a procedural vote, "we're spending an entire day doing nothing, talking about brick kilns, fiddling while Rome burns." If lawmakers don't want EPA to carry out the responsibilities delegated in the Clean Air Act, Polis said, they should change the law.
Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) responded that Americans "are sick and tired of a federal government that is out of control ... and the EPA is one of the most out-of-control agencies."
The new regulations are already the target of competing lawsuits filed both by industry and environmental groups with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Last week, brick industry lawyers asked the court to put a hold on all litigation until EPA officials decide whether to grant administrative petitions to reconsider the regulations. Environmentalists want the court to let their suit proceed on its own (Greenwire, Feb. 29).
Under the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, the new emissions limits were originally due in 2000, but the appellate court struck down EPA's first try in 2007 on the grounds that it fell short of the act's requirements. By that point, however, the industry had already spent millions of dollars on new pollution controls, Johnson said in arguing it should not have to do more while the new regulations' survival remains in doubt. Co-sponsoring his bill are Democratic Reps. Sanford Bishop of Georgia and Terri Sewell of Alabama, both of whom expressed concern today about the regulations' potential impact on plants in their districts.
The bill has the backing of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which reiterated its support in a letter to House members this morning. "It is important that American industries are not unfairly penalized when they are compelled to comply with costly rules that are later overturned by the courts," Bruce Josten, the business lobby's executive vice president for government affairs, wrote in the letter.
The U.S. Chamber, which blasted the regulations in a report last month, may include the vote on its annual scorecard, Josten said.
In 2014, the brick industry encompassed 70 plants with 217 kilns that employed about 7,000 people, according to the report. EPA has said the new regulations could put two to four brick and structural clay manufacturing facilities at "significant" risk of closure.
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation News
Energy and Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested