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I Was Poisoned by Toxic Water—Enough Is Enough
Mar 7, 2016 | TIME
By Crystal Yost
The Democratic debate Sunday and the presidential primaries on Tuesday are shining a much needed light on Flint, Mich., where thousands of families were exposed to lead in their water and where officials ignored the problem for more than a year. -
EPA Issues Draft Risk Assessment for Chemical Used in Spray Adhesives, Degreasing
Mar 7, 2016 | Environmental Leader
By Jessica Lyons Hardcastle
The EPA has released a draft risk assessment for 1-Bromopropane (1-BP), a chemical used in spray adhesives, dry cleaning (including spot cleaners) applications, and degreasing uses. -
EU Calls for Comments on Coherence of Chemicals Laws
Mar 8, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Commission is calling for input through May 27 into a review of the European Union's legislative framework for identifying environmental and health hazards of chemicals and managing their risks. -
Bill Would Require EPA to Update Lead Hazard Standard
Mar 8, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Legislation introduced in the House and Senate would require the Environmental Protection Agency to update a 15-year-old standard used by property owners to know when the amount of lead in dust or soil poses a health hazard. -
EPA Asks Court to Pause Refinery Litigation Until July
Mar 8, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Environmental Protection Agency asked a federal appeals court to halt litigation over the 2015 revised hazardous air pollution standards for refineries until July 8 (Am. Fuel & Petrochemical Mfrs. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1033, motion filed 3/4/16). -
EPA Wins Halt To Refinery Air Toxics Rule Suit As Industry, Advocates Spar
Mar 7, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA has won a federal appeals court's backing to halt industry and environmentalists' lawsuits challenging its air toxics rules for oil refineries pending the agency's reconsideration of certain aspects of the regulation, while the groups suing over the rule are outlining their opposing positions on regulatory exemptions included in the rule. -
The Noxious Legacy of Fracking King of Aubrey McClendon
Mar 7, 2016 | The Intercept
By Alleen Brown
When fracking billionaire Aubrey McClendon died after crashing his Chevy Tahoe into a bridge last week, the federal investigation into his alleged bid-rigging came to an end. -
Clinton Doubles Down Against Fracking in Debate
| BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
Hillary Clinton's promise during a debate March 6 to aggressively regulate fracking deepens the divide between Republican and Democratic presidential candidates on oil and gas development and signifies her continued shift to the left on environmental issues. -
Admin Teams Up with Regulators for Safety Push
Mar 7, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Christa Marshall
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the Department of Energy are teaming up to accelerate deployment of technologies that could improve natural gas pipeline safety and infrastructure. -
States Hint At Appeal Of District Court CWA Rule Suit
Mar 7, 2016 | InsideEPA
Ohio and two other states challenging EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio Eastern Division are hinting that they will quickly file an appeal if the district court dismisses the suit following an appellate court's ruling that it has authority to hear challenges to the regulation.
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I Was Poisoned by Toxic Water—Enough Is Enough
Mar 7, 2016 | TIME
By Crystal Yost
The Democratic debate Sunday and the presidential primaries on Tuesday are shining a much needed light on Flint, Mich., where thousands of families were exposed to lead in their water and where officials ignored the problem for more than a year. But I know from personal experience that Flint is just the latest chapter in a history of water contamination in the U.S. We need better regulations to protect my children, and all Americans, from toxic exposures.
I grew up in a small town in Ohio, near the banks of the Ohio River, where I spent my childhood and early adulthood drinking water that had beencontaminated for several generations with C8, a chemical made by DuPont chemical company.
C8 was used in the production of Teflon until 2014, when DuPont stopped producing it as part of an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency. Hundreds of thousands of people rely on the Ohio River for their drinking water; C8, also known as PFOA, is found in those waters as well as in food packaging, cookware and other consumer products.And it’s found in me. My health records and those of others in my community helped establish the links between C8 exposure and kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, pre-eclampsia, certain birth defects and other diseases.
That’s why I was relieved to learn that in late December, the Senate voted to pass the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, a long overdue update of the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act. The Lautenberg Act gives the EPA new powers to study and regulate C8 and other harmful chemicals such as asbestos, which kills about 10,000 Americans every year.
Under the new act, the EPA would be required to regulate chemicals on the basis of health impacts, instead of on the costs to industry. The act would replace the Toxic Substances Control Act, a regulation so weak that the EPA has been powerless to restrict everyday chemicals linked to cancer, infertility, diabetes, thyroid disease, high blood pressure and many other illnesses.
I know something about how powerless the old act is. Even after my community was studied for 10 years—even after our health records linked C8 to several cancers, other serious diseases and birth defects—the EPA’s hands were tied. The agency was not able to do anything more than recommend that DuPont voluntarily phase out C8.
When I was pregnant with my twin daughters, I had preeclampsia. Was it related to my exposure to C8? I will never know. I do know that C8 cancross the placenta, and that my daughters therefore may have been exposed to the toxic chemical in utero. C8 very likely was just one of dozens of industrial chemicals they were exposed to. American babies are born with an average of more than 200 chemicals in their bodies, according to one study. Most of these chemicals have never been tested for toxicity in adults.
As the bipartisan Senate bill gets conferenced with a similar, but less comprehensive, bill in the House, I have a message to my lawmakers: We are counting on you to give us a law that protects our families from toxic exposures. Strengthening this dangerously outdated and inadequate law will save lives.
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EPA Issues Draft Risk Assessment for Chemical Used in Spray Adhesives, Degreasing
Mar 7, 2016 | Environmental Leader
By Jessica Lyons Hardcastle
The EPA has released a draft risk assessment for 1-Bromopropane (1-BP), a chemical used in spray adhesives, dry cleaning (including spot cleaners) applications, and degreasing uses.
The assessment, which provides information about risks to workers and consumers that come into contact with 1-BP, also known as n-propyl bromide, is now open to public comment and peer review.
The chemical showed acute risks to women of childbearing age from adverse developmental effects, the EPA says. Other non-cancer and cancer health risks were identified for workers with repeated and chronic exposures, including neurotoxicity, kidney, liver, and reproductive toxicity, and lung cancer.
The draft assessment of 1-BP was conducted as part of the EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act Chemical Work Plan assessment effort.
In addition to EPA’s assessment, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health has issued a draft criteria document for worker exposure to 1-BP, and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry examined the hazards of 1-BP associated with different exposure durations.
While each agency’s review has a distinct focus based on their mandates, they draw similar conclusions about the health hazards of 1-BP. The agencies say they will continue to coordinate in addressing concerns associated with this chemical.
The EPA is seeking public comment of this draft assessment for 60 days. The document is available at: www.regulations.gov docket number: EPA-HQ-OPPT-2015-0084 and will be peer reviewed by the EPA’s Chemical Safety Advisory Committee in the spring of 2016.
Last week the EPA proposed changes to its chemical safety rules that will require companies in three industries — paper manufacturing, petroleum and coal products, and chemical manufacturing — to assess whether safer technologies and chemicals are feasible.
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EU Calls for Comments on Coherence of Chemicals Laws
Mar 8, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Commission is calling for input through May 27 into a review of the European Union's legislative framework for identifying environmental and health hazards of chemicals and managing their risks.
The review does not cover the bloc's REACH regulation, apart from provisions in REACH on criteria for the identification of persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals, but does cover a range of other laws on the classification and labeling of substances, pesticides, biocides, and the use and handling of chemicals in areas such as in workplaces.
A background paper published with the consultation March 4 said the aim of the review would be to examine EU laws on chemical hazard identification and subsequent specification of risk management processes, and to identify their “overall effectiveness, efficiency, relevance, coherence and EU added value.”
For example, the review would look at classes of substances, such as PBT chemicals, and see if they are defined and treated in a consistent way by different laws, the background paper said.
The review would identify if EU chemicals legislation could be simplified; if compliance costs could be reduced; and if there were “excessive burdens, overlaps, gaps, inconsistencies and/or obsolete measures,” the background paper added.
Some of the main EU laws that would be covered by the review include the CLP Regulation (Regulation (EC) No. 1272/2008 on the classification, labeling and packaging of substances), Regulation 1107/2009 on plant protection products, the Biocidal Products Regulation ((EU) No 528/2012) and the Prior Informed Consent Regulation (PIC Regulation, (EU) No 649/2012), which sets out rules for exports of hazardous substances.
The EU's REACH law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals) will be subject to a separate review that will start later in 2016. The REACH regulation requires a review of the implementation of the law and identification of any proposals for amendments to be completed by June 1, 2017.
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Bill Would Require EPA to Update Lead Hazard Standard
Mar 8, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Legislation introduced in the House and Senate would require the Environmental Protection Agency to update a 15-year-old standard used by property owners to know when the amount of lead in dust or soil poses a health hazard.
The Lead-Safe Housing for Kids Act of 2016 (S. 2631 and H.R. 4694) would require the EPA to update a rule that established standards determining when the concentrations of lead in dust or soil posed a health hazard. It also would require the Department of Housing and Urban Development to update the lead standards and regulations for housing provided with federal funds.
Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) announced the bills March 7.
The goal is to fold the identical bills into a package of legislation (S. 2579) designed to help Flint, Mich., and other communities address and prevent lead poisoning, an aide for Menendez told Bloomberg BNA March 7.
Lead-poisoning from public housing has long concerned Menendez, who serves as ranking member of the Senate's Housing, Transportation and Community Development Subcommittee, part of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, the aide said.
Flint Increases Awareness
Congressional attention has focused on lead poisoning of children because of the Flint, Mich., lead-tainted drinking water crisis and recent reports that found lead-based paint in public housing in some New Jersey cities.
The “Flint-rescue package” bill would provide funds for states and water utilities to upgrade their water infrastructure and additional funds for programs designed to reduce children's lead exposure. The bill could move on its own or as an amendment to the Senate's major energy bill (S. 2012).
The Flint measure hit a roadblock earlier this month when Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) put a hold on it (44 DEN A-9, 3/7/16).
EPA's Advisers Urged Standards Update in 2012
The proposed law on changes to the EPA's standard for lead in dust or soil echoes an earlier recommendation by the agency's Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee. The committee, writing in a letter in 2012, urged the agency to update it.
EPA responded by saying it was considering a possible revision of the residential lead dust hazard standards as well as the development of lead dust hazard standards for public and commercial buildings. To date the standards have not been changed.
The agency's standards say that “lead is considered a hazard when equal to or exceeding 40 micrograms of lead in dust per square foot on floors, 250 micrograms of lead in dust per square foot on interior window sills, and 400 parts per million (ppm) of lead in bare soil in children's play areas or 1200 ppm average for bare soil in the rest of the yard. In addition, paint in deteriorating condition, on a friction or impact surface, or on certain chewable surfaces is also defined as a hazard.”
While this EPA regulation does not require action when lead concentrations reach these levels, HUD and other regulations may require property owners, agencies operating low-income housing and other organizations to reduce lead exposure.
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EPA Asks Court to Pause Refinery Litigation Until July
Mar 8, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Environmental Protection Agency asked a federal appeals court to halt litigation over the 2015 revised hazardous air pollution standards for refineries until July 8 (Am. Fuel & Petrochemical Mfrs. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1033, motion filed 3/4/16).
Holding the case in abeyance until July would give the agency enough time to decide whether to grant administrative reconsideration requests filed by industry and environmental organizations that want aspects of the regulation to be changed, the EPA said in a March 4 motion filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The motion is not opposed by any of the petitioners challenging the refinery standards, which include the American Petroleum Institute, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, Air Alliance Houston and the Sierra Club.
The refinery rule (RIN 2060-AQ75), signed in September, established new emissions limits for previously unregulated equipment, new flaring requirements intended to improve operating efficiency and a requirement that refineries install a monitoring network to measure fenceline concentrations of benzene (189 DEN A-23, 9/30/15).
A coalition of environmental and public health groups that sued the EPA said in a March 4 statement of issues that they intend to ask the court to consider the legality of several malfunction exemptions included in the refinery rule. Adrian Shelley, executive director of Air Alliance Houston, told Bloomberg BNA in February the EPA's decision to set a hard limit of three events in three years for malfunctions of pressure relief devices and flares—rather than a blanket prohibition of such events—essentially gives refineries a “free pass” for excess emissions events from those devices.
The industry petitioners, in their own March 4 statement of issues, said they intend to question whether some of the EPA's deadlines included in the regulation are arbitrary and capricious and whether the EPA's decision to set a 2 pounds per square inch gage standard for decoking delayed coking units is illegal.
EPA Expects Decision Soon
The deadlines challenged by the petroleum industry are among the issues that would be addressed under a February proposal (RIN 2016-AS83) issued by the EPA, promulgated in response to a January reconsideration petition filed by the industry. The agency proposed to provide industry with an additional 18 months to meet requirements for controlling emissions from fluidized catalytic cracking units and sulfur recovery units during periods of startup and shutdown (26 DEN A-5, 2/9/16).
The EPA said it is reviewing additional reconsideration requests and anticipates reaching a decision on whether to grant reconsideration on additional issues by June 3.
“Holding these cases in abeyance may preserve the resources of the parties and the court as EPA completes the reconsideration process on the issues addressed in the February 9 proposal and if EPA elects to reconsider additional issues concerning the regulations challenged in these consolidated cases.”
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EPA Wins Halt To Refinery Air Toxics Rule Suit As Industry, Advocates Spar
Mar 7, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA has won a federal appeals court's backing to halt industry and environmentalists' lawsuits challenging its air toxics rules for oil refineries pending the agency's reconsideration of certain aspects of the regulation, while the groups suing over the rule are outlining their opposing positions on regulatory exemptions included in the rule.
In its March 4 unopposed motion filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit inAmerican Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), et al. v. EPA, the agency says it plans to reconsider its Dec. 1 rule setting maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air toxics limits for refineries in response to industry and environmentalists' requests.
The agency has already proposed Feb. 9 to reconsider aspects of the rule, by extending a deadline for compliance with startup, shutdown and standby provisions from Feb. 1 to Aug. 1, 2017, in response to oil and refining sector requests. EPA says it will make decisions on further possible reconsideration by June 3, and asks the court to hold the cases in abeyance until July 8.
The court granted the motion March 7.
EPA's complex MACT rule sets air toxics limits for various pieces of equipment found in refineries. It imposes tougher conditions on flares, requiring greater destruction efficiency, and sets first-time limits on delayed cokers, used to process residual oil from refining into oil and petroleum coke. It limits emissions from some smaller storage tanks for the first time, and tightens requirements for some larger ones.
The rule also establishes first-time fenceline monitoring requirements for refineries, establishes continuous emissions monitoring of pressure relief devices (PRDs) and sets a limit of three release episodes in three years from such devices.
The final rule, however, pared back more-stringent proposed requirements banning PRD releases, after industry warned that refineries would have to build hundreds of new flares to dispose of gas in the event of a malfunction. EPA is seeking generally to minimize flaring and to boost the efficiency of flares to ensure toxics are properly combusted. Reducing the number of flares required has also dramatically reduced the expected implementation costs of the rule.
Regulatory Exemptions
However, in a March 4 statement of issues to be raised in the case, environmental groups led by Air Alliance Houston say they intend to challenge EPA's regulatory exemptions from emissions limits for PRDs, and also for malfunctioning flares. They say that the exemptions run counter to the Clean Air Act requirement that emissions standards apply continuously.
The groups further say that EPA has failed to set emissions limits sufficiently tough to fully account for the risks of cancer and other serious illness. They challenge EPA's decision to allow refineries to escape the fenceline monitoring requirements after a certain number of readings of benzene -- the surrogate substance used to measure toxics from refineries -- below 0.9 micrograms per cubic meter for a set period of time.
Meanwhile, AFPM and the American Petroleum Institute in their March 4 statement of issues say they intend to raise in litigation the startup and shutdown issues that EPA has proposed to reconsider.
These issues include whether “EPA’s deadlines for complying with alternate standards governing periods of startup, shutdown or hot standby . . . for Fluid Catalytic Cracking Units or Sulfur Reduction Units and deadlines for complying with the work practice requirements for minimizing emissions from equipment maintenance activities are arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise contrary to law.” Hot standby refers to the practice of keeping a piece of equipment warmed up, but not running, as a reserve unit.
Also, the groups say they will raise the legality of EPA's 2 pounds per square inch gauge (psig) pressure standard for decoking of delayed coking units.
EPA in the final rule requires that “each coke drum be depressured to a closed blowdown system until the coke drum pressure is 2 psig.” Blowdown refers to the purging of water and contaminants from a boiler, where a closed system creates less air pollution than a system venting directly to the atmosphere.
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The Noxious Legacy of Fracking King of Aubrey McClendon
Mar 7, 2016 | The Intercept
By Alleen Brown
When fracking billionaire Aubrey McClendon died after crashing his Chevy Tahoe into a bridge last week, the federal investigation into his alleged bid-rigging came to an end. At his memorial in Oklahoma City today, his friends and family will remember him as a “swashbuckling innovator” and a loyal friend, but his most enduring legacy may be his role in convincing policymakers and the public that natural gas could be an environmental boon and a solution to global warming. More than any other individual, McClendon personified the excesses of the fracking boom, gobbling up land so quickly and spinning the boom’s story so effectively that regulators, environmentalists, and even Wall Street struggled to keep pace.
McClendon was not only the founder of Chesapeake Energy, the most important fracking company in the technique’s history, but he also co-founded one of the gas industry’s most important lobbying arms, America’s Natural Gas Alliance. In creating both, McClendon became an architect of the energy market’s reorientation around a product whose climate-warming emissions rival those of coal.
“His desire for ‘more’ … was the driving force in the rapid development of U.S. shale resources,” Wall Street Journal reporter Russell Gold wrote in his book, The Boom. “McClendon wasn’t a mere participant in the great shale land grab. He created it.”
McClendon and a friend launched Chesapeake in 1989, and their competitive edge always lay in the company’s ability to buy up acreage quickly and cheaply. In 2011, Chesapeake deployed 4,500 land scouts across the U.S. and at one point controlled the leases on 15 million acres, an area the size of West Virginia. Mutilated landscapes in Oklahoma, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania will long bear his fingerprints.
In order to get the most favorable deals possible and to earn an edge over coal in energy production, McClendon eventually began buying politicians and manipulating public opinion. In 2007, he funded an organization called the Clean Sky Coalition, running ads that railed against dirty coal in Texas and — under the name Know Your Power — against coal projects in Oklahoma and Kansas. A year later, he launched another industry front group, the Clean Skies Foundation, “to be a kind of Heritage Foundation for energy and the environment,” in the words of the foundation’s first CEO, Denise Bode.
McClendon also co-founded America’s Natural Gas Alliance, a lobby group that represents natural gas producers and has helped push some of the last decade’s most important fracking-friendly regulations. In 2009, according to the Dallas Morning News, the organization launched an $80 million campaign to oppose oil and gas taxes and a bill to regulate fracking. More recently, ANGA spent $230,000 in the last quarter of 2015 lobbying for the inclusion of natural gas interests in the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Clean Power Plan, and the EPA’s controversial study on the impact of fracking on drinking water, among other issues.Fracking’s No. 1 Pitchman
“I am not ashamed whatsoever to be the No. 1 pitchman for my product,” McClendon told ClimateWire in 2008. “I believe in it with my heart and soul.”
Convincing the Sierra Club to believe in it, too, was one of his greatest public relations coups. Between 2007 and 2010, the organization collected$26 million dollars from the gas industry, most of it reportedly from McClendon. He and Sierra Club director Carl Pope at times traveled side by side to promote natural gas’s disputed environmental benefits. The Sierra Club later broke ties with the gas industry and now runs a campaign called “Beyond Natural Gas,” which argues that “total greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas are nearly identical to coal.”
McClendon largely succeeded in his war on coal, but his campaign generated blowback as well. Coal plants have closed all across the United States, cracking open new markets for natural gas, but fracking has become synonymous with environmental crime: earthquakes, bad air, andfouled water.
Recent studies indicate that the Environmental Protection Agency has massively underestimated the volume of methane that billows invisibly from gas facilities. In December, a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, carried out by the Environmental Defense Fund, showed that methane emissions in Texas’ Barnett Shale are likely double what the EPA thought. Although methane doesn’t stay in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, over 20 years it has 84 times the climate warming potential.
Meanwhile, a gas supply glut has led to a dramatic drop in prices, forcing many producers into bankruptcy. Chesapeake itself has staggered under the weight of its debts.
McClendon, of course, had already left the company when he died, forced out by the revelations of an important Reuters investigation published in 2012. His financial improprieties extended far beyond the Justice Department’s charges. McClendon spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of Chesapeake money to fly his friends and family to exotic locales on thecompany plane. He borrowed $1.1 billion from the company, using his stake in production as collateral. He operated a hedge fund that traded the same type of commodities that Chesapeake sold, raising conflict of interest questions. And, Reuters reported, he appeared to have engaged in bid-rigging by colluding with another gas company over leasing offers to avoid the higher prices that come with competition.
In response to the indictment, McClendon said, “I have been singled out as the only person in the oil and gas industry in over 110 years since the Sherman Act became law to have been accused of this crime in relation to joint bidding on leasehold,” adding, “I am proud of my track record in this industry, and I will fight to prove my innocence and to clear my name.” The charges were dropped two days after his death, but a wider investigation into bid-rigging in the oil and gas industry continues.
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Clinton Doubles Down Against Fracking in Debate
| BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer A. Dlouhy
Hillary Clinton's promise during a debate March 6 to aggressively regulate fracking deepens the divide between Republican and Democratic presidential candidates on oil and gas development and signifies her continued shift to the left on environmental issues.
In the Democratic presidential debate in Flint, Mich., against Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Clinton said she wouldn't support fracking in states or local communities that don't want it, if it causes pollution, or if the chemicals used aren't disclosed.
“By the time we get through all of my conditions, I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place,” Clinton said.
The comments marked a shift for Clinton, who, like President Barack Obama, has generally supported fracking, while insisting methane leaks must be plugged and steps taken to ensure the practice doesn't contaminate water. She even highlighted natural gas in a campaign fact sheet last month as lowering energy costs, reducing air pollution and putting people to work.
Practical Impact
But translating Clinton's debate-stage profession into actual regulation clamping down on the technique would be difficult, if not impossible. There are limits to what a president—any president—can do to limit the hydraulic fracturing process now being used to free gas and oil from dense rock formations nationwide.
Although state and local governments regulate the practice—and some ban it altogether—the federal government doesn't have much authority to directly regulate fracking on private lands. The biggest openings are through laws allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate air and water pollution tied to fracking, said Kevin Book, an analyst with ClearView Energy Partners LLC. “But these controls are both limited and litigable.”
Further, most U.S. oil and gas wells today are stimulated into production using hydraulic fracturing. Shut down fracking, and you shut down the oil and gas boom along with it, said Katie Brown, a spokesman for Energy In Depth, a research program funded by the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
Environmental Credentials
Clinton has worked to burnish her environmental credentials on the campaign trail, pressed by activists who have embraced Sanders and his clean energy agenda. Unlike Clinton's nuanced stance, Sanders's response to the issue March 6 was direct: “No, I do not support fracking.”
Industry officials viewed Clinton's fracking answer “as a political response to the guy standing to the left of her on the stage,” said Neal Kirby, a spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
“She is continually being driven to the left by Senator Sanders,” said Mike McKenna, a Virginia-based lobbyist and Republican strategist. Now, “she wants to kill the American energy boom, which is something not even the Obama crew could imagine.”
But Clinton's comments are not enough for some deep-green environmentalists who want an all-out ban on fracking, not just regulation making it more difficult and more expensive.
Environmental Response
“Clinton will continue to struggle to convince climate advocates that she is serious about addressing the crisis until she comes out for a full ban on fracking,” Yong Jung Cho, a campaign coordinator with the environmental activist group 350 Action said in a statement. “Clinton has moved from supporting fracking to insisting on regulations that would make it impossible to frack in most places. It's high time to come out against it all together.”
Sanders has pushed for an end to all oil, gas and coal development on federal lands.
By contrast, Republican presidential candidates have been uniformly supportive of domestic oil and gas development. Donald Trump, the GOP front-runner, says his support of fracking can win votes in New York, where the activity is banned.
“Shutting down U.S. production would make the United States less competitive, more reliant on foreign sources of energy and disrupt the geopolitical advantages that hydraulic fracturing delivers to our allies abroad,” said Louis Finkel, executive vice president of the American Petroleum Institute, in an e-mailed statement. “The false choice offered on the campaign trail is a political stunt by those who are spouting populist rhetoric for political points; they are not being honest with American voters.”
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Admin Teams Up with Regulators for Safety Push
Mar 7, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Christa Marshall
The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners and the Department of Energy are teaming up to accelerate deployment of technologies that could improve natural gas pipeline safety and infrastructure.
The three-year partnership is designed to educate NARUC's commissioners about "emerging technologies" on everything from methane leaks to natural gas pipeline chemistry.
The federally funded initiative may support tours of DOE's national labs, "technical workshops," meetings and forums. NARUC said it would work with relevant federal agencies and an ad hoc technical group to "bring together relevant stakeholders" on the issue.
"Creating and maintaining a safe natural gas pipeline infrastructure is a national imperative and is of uppermost concern to our state commissions and to NARUC," said group President Travis Kavulla in a statement.
The American Gas Association noted that NARUC prioritized the issue by passing a 2013 resolution calling on regulatory commissions to consider alternative rate mechanisms to modernize the nation's gas pipeline system.
The association's push led to replacing cast iron pipes and bare steel in pipes, said AGA Vice President of Government Relations Kyle Rogers in a statement.
Diane Burman, a member of New York's Public Service Commission, will chair the effort. Other NARUC members include Stan Wise, chairman of the group's gas committee; Paul Roberti, chairman of the subcommittee on pipeline safety; Carolene Mays-Medley, chairwoman of the committee on critical infrastructure; Kara Brighton, member of the Wyoming PSC; Swain Whitfield, member of the South Carolina PSC; Julie Fedorchak, member of the North Dakota PSC; and Pam Witmer, member of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.
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States Hint At Appeal Of District Court CWA Rule Suit
Mar 7, 2016 | InsideEPA
Ohio and two other states challenging EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio Eastern Division are hinting that they will quickly file an appeal if the district court dismisses the suit following an appellate court's ruling that it has authority to hear challenges to the regulation.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit's divided ruling giving it power to hear consolidate suits over the rule has created more legal uncertainty than before the ruling. EPA is starting to ask for district courts to dismiss the myriad suits over the rule in deference to the 6th Circuit challenge, while opponents of the CWA rule are pushing for en banc rehearing of the appellate decision by the full court.
Most recently, Ohio, Michigan, and Tennessee filed a March 4 notice with the Ohio district court saying, “The States therefore recognize that this Court may conclude that it lacks jurisdiction here in light of the Sixth Circuit ruling, and may therefore dismiss this action (without prejudice and on jurisdictional grounds only).
“In order to protect their rights on the appeal that the States promptly would seek from such a jurisdictional ruling, the States respectfully object to any such dismissal even while understanding that this Court must act in accordance with its view of the law as guided by controlling Sixth Circuit precedent.”
The states' notice acknowledges that the court is likely to opt to dismiss the lawsuit given the Feb. 22 ruling by the divided three-judge panel on the 6th Circuit concluding it has authority to hear the case in Murray Energy, et al., v. EPA, et al. Judge David McKeague, writing the lead opinion, said that although the water law is unclear on where suits over the rule should start, the 6th Circuit has jurisdiction.
McKeague relied in part on the 6th Circuit's 2009 ruling in National Cotton Council of America v. EPA that said CWA section 509(b)(1)(f) authorizes direct circuit court review beyond agency actions issuing or denying particular permits. National Cotton also said the 6th Circuit has power to review regulations governing the issuance of permits under the CWA's section 402 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit program.
Judge Richard Allen Griffin only supported the decision to take the case because it is in line with precedent established by National Cotton, but added that he believes the 2009 case was wrongly decided. Dissenting Senior Judge Damon J. Keith said National Cotton should not apply, and the industry groups critical of the rule have cited his and Griffin's statements in calling for en banc review.
“The States incorporate here all the arguments advanced in their briefing of the jurisdictional questions before the Sixth Circuit, as well as the points made by Judge Keith and Judge Griffin (apart from his view of the applicability of National Cotton),” says the states' filing in the Ohio district court case.
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