Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 3/9
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(ACC Mentioned) US District of Columbia Approves TDCPP, TCEP Ban for Most Products
Mar 9, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The Council of the District of Columbia has voted unanimously to approve a bill that would ban two chlorinated flame retardants above de minimislevels, in most consumer products. -
(ACC Mentioned) House Oversight Committee Investigates IRIS Program
Mar 9, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform launched an investigation March 8 into the Environmental Protection Agency's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program which houses chemical toxicity values, and what the committee describes as the program's slow adoption of recommended reforms. -
(ACC Mentioned) Washington State Passes Amended Flame Retardant Bill
Mar 9, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The Washington state Senate has passed an amended version of a bill (HB 2545) that would ban the use of five flame retardants in children’s products and residential upholstered furniture. -
Industry Groups, EPA Weigh in on TSCA Reconciliation
Mar 9, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
A coalition of industry trade groups has urged congressional leaders to take a comprehensive approach to negotiating the “extremely complicated statute” of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
What You Need to Know About TSCA Reform
Mar 9, 2016 | Chem.Info
By Meagan Parrish
The Congressional effort to reform the decades-old Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) has managed to produce two competing bill from the House and Senate that are now being negotiated. -
Washington State Poised to Ban Five Flame Retardants
Mar 9, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky
Washington state is poised to enact legislationto ban five flame retardants and establish an agency rulemaking process that could lead to further bans after consultation with the Legislature. -
Monsanto Could Get a Sweet Deal on the Duwamish River
Mar 9, 2016 | The Seattle Times
By Seattle Times Editorial Board
As the city of Seattle awaits its opportunity to hold Monsanto accountable in a court of law for its role in PCB pollution of the Duwamish River, there is much more to the story. -
Another Upstate NY Town to Get Filtration for Chemical PFOA
Mar 8, 2016 | AP (in The Wall Street Journal
Another community in upstate New York is getting a new filtration system to remove the suspected cancer-causing chemical PFOA from its water supply. -
(ACC Mentioned) Light At The End Of The Natural Gas Price Tunnel
Mar 8, 2016 | Seeking Alpha
By James Hanshaw
Natural gas prices have been in bear price territory for some time exacerbated recently by the current US winter shaping up to be one of the mildest on record. -
Mr. Sanders’s Fractured Reasoning on Fracking
Mar 8, 2016 | The Washington Post
By The Editorial Board
There is perhaps no neater example of the differences between Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) than their disagreement on fracking, which emerged in Sunday night’sDemocratic presidential debate. -
What the Clinton-Sanders Divide on Fracking Says About Our Energy Future
Mar 8, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
When Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders debated Sunday night in Flint, Mich., their similarities often seemed larger than the differences. Both are outraged by the Flint water crisis. -
Is Natural Gas a Fossil Fuel Substitute, Or Does It Just Crowd Out Renewables?
Mar 8, 2016 | The Hill - Pundits Blog
By Daniel Cohen
Natural gas is consumed more flexibly than any other fossil fuel. Whereas coal is deployedprimarily for electricity generation and oil for transportation, natural gas straddles the energy economy with uses spanning electricity, industry, residential and commercial heating, and transportation. -
Clean Energy Rising
Mar 8, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Rep. John K. Delaney (D-Md.)
Significant increases in clean energy investment are occurring and this is an incredibly positive trend for addressing climate change and growing the U.S. economy. -
Republican Entrepreneur Launches Clean Energy Push
Mar 9, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A Republican entrepreneur is hoping to push his party toward more aggressively embracing clean energy. -
House Lawmakers Introduce Latest Flurry of Bills
Mar 9, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Christa Marshall
Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) has introduced the latest in a series of bills meant to boost carbon capture and sequestration technology.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) US District of Columbia Approves TDCPP, TCEP Ban for Most Products
Mar 9, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The Council of the District of Columbia has voted unanimously to approve a bill that would ban two chlorinated flame retardants above de minimislevels, in most consumer products.
The flame retardants are sometimes used in polyurethane foam.
The bill (B21-143), entitled the Carcinogenic Flame Retardant Prohibition Amendment Act, would prohibit the manufacture, sale or distribution of products containing TDCPP and TCEP:in children's products and residential upholstered furniture, at concentrations above 0.1% by mass, by 1 January 2018; andin “any product containing more than 0.1% by mass in any product component”, with some exceptions, by 1 January 2019.
A provision would also bar a manufacturer from replacing TDCPP or TCEP with a substance that meets certain hazard criteria.
There are several exemptions to the ban, including motor vehicles and some electronics.
The measure will now head to the mayor’s desk for her consideration. A spokesperson said that the bill “doesn’t appear to require a veto”. Should the mayor sign the bill, it will be subject to a 30-day congressional review before it can become law.
If enacted, DC would join states such as Minnesota, New York and Maryland in restricting the use of TDCPP and TCEP in children’s products or residential upholstered furniture. California is expected to make children's foam-padded sleeping products containing them its first priority product under the state's Safer Consumer Products Regulations.
But, the District’s measure would extend to a larger class of consumer products than those targeted by such measures.
The federal EPA is conducting a risk assessment of the substances and a third chlorinated phosphate ester flame retardant, TCPP. It published a "problem formulation and initial assessment" document, last year, setting out its rationale and scope.
Companies in the EU have been banned from manufacturing or using TCEP, since August last year, under the REACH authorisation process on the grounds that it is classified in the EU as a category 1 substance toxic for reproduction. The authorisation processs allows sanctioned uses to continue past a substance's sunset date, but in the case of TCEP, no applications were submitted.
Canada passed a law in 2014 banning the manufacture, import or sale of products, intended for a child under three years, made, in whole or in part, of polyurethane foam that contains TCEP.
Like TCEP, TDCPP is classified in the EU as a category 2 carcinogen (suspected of causing cancer) and is listed under California's Prop 65 law.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) North American Flame Retardant Alliance (Nafra) said, in a statement, that it would encourage states to "remember that flame retardants are a critical component to fire safety, and, like all chemicals, are subject to review by the US Environmental Protection Agency and other regulatory bodies around the world.”
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(ACC Mentioned) House Oversight Committee Investigates IRIS Program
Mar 9, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform launched an investigation March 8 into the Environmental Protection Agency's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program which houses chemical toxicity values, and what the committee describes as the program's slow adoption of recommended reforms.
In a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, the committee demands the EPA provide by March 22 documents sufficient to show the agency has implemented “all recommendations” the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine made in reports issued in 2011 and 2014 and that EPA staff brief the committee as soon as possible.
“ EPA has received and will review and respond to the letter appropriately,” the agency said in a March 8, e-mailed statement provided to Bloomberg BNA.
Investigation Needed, ACC Says
Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the American Chemistry Council , which often criticizes the IRIS program, provided Bloomberg BNA a statement about the investigation.
“The IRIS program continues to lack transparency and accountability. It is essential that all EPA IRIS assessments are highly-credible and able to stand up to the full breadth of scientific scrutiny and critique,” Bowman said.
The council hopes the oversight committee's investigation will help answer how the academies' recommendations are being applied to ongoing IRIS assessments, and provide more transparency and accountability into the IRIS process, she said.
IRIS assessments provide risk assessors key information needed to evaluate risks. The assessments identify:
• the human health hazards of a chemical or group of chemicals;
• the doses at which diverse health effects could occur or would not be expected to occur;
• the potency of carcinogenic effects.
EPA's air, water and other regulatory offices, state regulators and environmental consultants combine IRIS information with exposure data to estimate the risks people face from environmental contaminants.
Academies' 2011 Critique
At issue is a critique the National Academies issued in 2011 that faulted many aspects of IRIS assessments including their failure to consistently, clearly describe the strengths and weaknesses of scientific studies used to reach conclusions about the health hazards of chemicals. Also key is the documents' shortcomings in explaining the agency's rationale for reaching such conclusions.
The criticism of IRIS's chemical assessments generally was part of a specific evaluation of the agency's draft assessment of formaldehyde (69 DEN A-1, 4/11/11)
Recommendations the academies made in Chapter 7 of its 2011 critique of EPA's draft formaldehyde assessment included:
• reducing the volume of redundant, inconsistent text;
• describing search strategies used to identify scientific studies for the assessment;
• clearly explaining the criteria used to incorporate a study's findings into or exclude its findings from the assessment;
• developing and evaluating all studies using standardized approaches;
• generating tables summarizing the evidence for all health effects examined; and
• providing stronger, “more integrative and more transparent” discussions of the weight of evidence concerning each chemical.
Congress bolstered the academies' recommendations by ordering the EPA—in the fiscal year 2012 omnibus appropriations bill—to adopt the recommendations (243 DEN A-8, 12/19/11)(243 DEN A-5, 12/19/11).
Progress Since 2011
In a 2014 report, the academies praised the EPA's progress in implementing its recommendations (88 DEN A-16, 5/7/14)
In a Feb. 29 interview with Bloomberg BNA, Kenneth Olden, director of the EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment which runs the IRIS program, said IRIS staff spent much of their time last year developing infrastructure that will enable them to complete IRIS assessments more quickly while providing the clear, systematic analyses the academies requested.
The new IRIS infrastructure includes:
• a handbook offering detailed guidance on how to conduct IRIS assessments;
• new metrics by which to measure the program's progress;
• strategies to systematically review different types of scientific studies the IRIS program examines; and
• approval to hire new staff so there are sufficient scientists to work on each of the chemicals the IRIS program mentioned in the multiyear agenda it released in December 2015 .
The agency will release a draft version of the handbook for public comment by the end of the 2016, IRIS Director Vincent Cogliano told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 29.
The House Oversight Committee is requesting all documents related to the IRIS handbook and any other efforts designed to implement the academies' recommendations.
It also requested documents concerning the agency's initial nominations of chemicals the IRIS program will review and the process it plans to use to reevaluate substances previously examined by the program.
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(ACC Mentioned) Washington State Passes Amended Flame Retardant Bill
Mar 9, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The Washington state Senate has passed an amended version of a bill (HB 2545) that would ban the use of five flame retardants in children’s products and residential upholstered furniture.
The measure would take effect from 1 July 2017 and ban covered products, containing more than 1,000ppm of:TDCPP (tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate);TCEP (tris(2-chloroethyl)phosphate);decaBDE (decabromodiphenyl ether);HBCD (hexabromocyclododecane); andadditive TBBPA (tetrabromobisphenol A).
Washington Toxics Coalition’s executive director, Laurie Valeriano, said the Senate’s bill is “a good step for protecting kids and firefighters from harmful toxic flame retardants”.
According to the NGO, Washington's would become the first ban placed on TBBPA by a state. It is unaware of any use restrictions in children’s products or home furniture elsewhere in the world.
A separate provision in the bill would require the Department of Ecology [the agency that oversees the state’s Children’s Safe Products Act] to consider listing, as chemicals of high concern to children:IPTPP (isopropylated triphenyl phosphate);TBB ([2-ethylhexyl]-2,3,4,5- tetrabromobenzoate);TBPH (bis [2-ethylhexyl]-2,3,4,5- tetrabromophthalate);TCPP (tris [1-chloro-2-propyl] phosphate);TPP (triphenyl phosphate); andV6 (bis[chloromethyl] propane-1,3-diyltetrakis [2-chloroethyl] bisphosphate).
If a substance is classed as a chemical of high concern, manufacturers of children's products sold in Washington must report to the state if any of their products contain it.
The bill would also direct the Department of Health to work with stakeholders to make recommendations regarding the use of these substances, should the department decide to list them.
The measure now returns to the House - where a different version of the bill was passed in February.
The Washington Toxics Coalition says that it believes the House will concur in the Senate version of the bill, and that the governor will sign the measure.
Industry perspectives
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) opposes the bill. A spokesperson for its North American Flame Retardant Alliance (Nafra) told Chemical Watch that the measure "would restrict substances, which have been determined to not present a risk by regulatory bodies around the world".
"We have urged the legislature in Washington State to recognise and leverage comprehensive flame retardant assessments already completed by government agencies and the evaluation efforts currently underway by the US Environmental Protection Agency," he added.
According to Jennifer Gibbons, senior director of state government affairs with the Toy Industry Association (TIA), the Senate’s version of the bill “addresses several stakeholder concerns”. For example, it adds “strong scientific criteria and transparency to future chemical evaluations”.
But the trade group has expressed concerns with Washington’s state-level approach. It would prefer regulation be addressed at the federal level.
This includes determination on the US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) consideration of apetition to ban organohalogenated flame retardants from several product categories.
TBBPA
Several states restrict the use of TCEP, TDCPP, decaBDE and/or HBCD in children’s products and residential furniture.
TBBPA, however, has not been included in these measures.
The substance has to be reported under Washington’s Children’s Safe Products Act. Since this began in 2012, 62 reports have declared the presence of TBBPA in products, such as in car seat textiles and children’s clothing.
In Europe, it is classified as an aquatic toxin, and the Danish EPA is conducting a substance evaluation under REACH. Echa’s endocrine disruptor group is currently evaluating it.
TBBPA has been nominated to the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) Report on Carcinogens (RoC). It is also the subject of an initial risk assessment by the US EPA.
The Washington bill defines “additive TBBPA” as: “tetrabromobisphenol A ... in a form that has not undergone a reactive process and is not covalently bonded to a polymer in a product or product component.”
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Industry Groups, EPA Weigh in on TSCA Reconciliation
Mar 9, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
A coalition of industry trade groups has urged congressional leaders to take a comprehensive approach to negotiating the “extremely complicated statute” of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
The request comes amid ongoing discussion on approaches for reconciling bills, passed by the House (HR 2576) and the Senate (S 697), to update the nation’s decades-old chemical regulation.
“In many cases, sections of each bill have been drafted to work in sync with other sections,” says the industry, in a letter submitted to House and Senate leaders. “Simply cutting and pasting sections of one bill into another, without considering effects on the remaining pieces of the final product, could be confusing and problematic.”
The letter was submitted by the American Alliance for Innovation, comprised of more than 150 trade associations, which represent multiple industries and levels of the supply chain.
The alliance says that it has supported the passage of both the House and Senate bills. But, it hopes that components of each make it to the final negotiated document.
In its letter, the coalition emphasises several outcomes it seeks in the conference process. These include:strong preemption of state activities;implementation of risk-based prioritisation that focuses agency resources on high priority substances;transparent, risk-based assessments of substances, with a focus on integration of hazard and exposure information and elimination of a list-based approach to PBTs;clear protections for confidential business information; anda framework that ensures a smooth “reset” of the TSCA inventory.
It did not specify where the House or Senate bill better met these objectives. Instead, it requested that the legislature “considers [its priorities] as a whole”.
But in a separate letter to congressional leaders, EPA administrator Gina McCarthy provided a more specific perspective on how the bills stack up in meeting the the administration's priorities.
According to Ms McCarthy’s letter, the administration largely favours the Senate bill’s approach on several key issues. Areas, where this is the case, include: deadlines for EPA action;elimination of the “least burdensome” requirement, which led to the famous overturning of the agency’s asbestos rulemaking;processes for determining chemical review prioritisation;funding sources, as it explicitly outlines new fee collection authorities;regulatory flexibility, to include “catch all” regulatory authorities; andthe safety of chemicals being affirmed, before entering the market.
The letter also notes several areas where the House bill better meets the administration’s principles, or where a blended approach would be supported.
Both the EPA’s and the industry’s letter strongly supported the timely passage of comprehensive TSCA reform.
Co-author of the Senate measure, Senator Tom Udall, continues to express confidence that the bill will pass this year.
Further analysis of the House and Senate TSCA bills can be found in this month’s Global Business Briefing, in a feature by the Environmental Defence Fund’s lead senior scientist, Richard Denison.
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What You Need to Know About TSCA Reform
Mar 9, 2016 | Chem.Info
By Meagan Parrish
The Congressional effort to reform the decades-old Toxic Substance Control Act (TSCA) has managed to produce two competing bill from the House and Senate that are now being negotiated. Last year, it looked as if passage would be imminent by the start of 2016. Then the expected date kept getting pushed down the road again and again.
The death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia caused some to speculate that a battle over the vacant seat could thwart a host of bipartisan efforts — including TSCA reform — and effectively shut down Congress. But just days ago, Sen. Tom Udall (D-New Mexico), who co-authored the Senate version of the reform bill, said he is confident Congress would pass chemical regulation reform at some point this year.
Most importantly: What will reform mean for chemical manufacturers?
Right now, the general difference between the competing bills is that the Senate version is more comprehensive and gives the Environmental Protection Agency more authority to regulate. The House version is a little more permissive in its language, often stating that the EPA “may” take certain measures, instead of mandating that they must.
Because compromises are still being made about this issue, along with other discrepancies, it’s impossible to know exactly what the final rules will look like. Nevertheless, there’s enough certainty with some aspects of the reform that it’s worth knowing what kind of changes lie ahead.
“There are certain areas where the bills seem pretty aligned, or the differences aren’t that significant, where you could see a pretty clear pathway to how it gets resolved,” says Brandon Neuschafer, an environmental lawyer who works in the chemical and food industries to help companies stay compliant with regulations.Which innovative new product has been a game-changer this year? Tell us & win! Learn More
Neuschafer has been monitoring the bill closely so he can help clients gear up for the new rules. Here’s a look at what he says manufacturers can likely expect.
Laws Like Prop 65 Aren’t Going Anywhere: Several states have voiced concerns that regulations like Prop 65, California’s law that requires companies to list chemical ingredients that could cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive issues, could be undermined by new federal laws. But Neuschafer says that’s not likely.
“States are going to have a greater ability to regulate chemicals in ways that they see fit,” Neuschafer says. “When you look at the preemption language in the reform bills, they currently do.”
Both bills allow states to co-enforce federal regulations through identical state laws, while preserving laws like Prop 65 from preemption. They also protect state laws regarding waste disposal, and water and air quality.
But Neuschafer admits that if regulations are contested, it’ll ultimately be up to the courts to decide how much preemption there really is.
“I could stand corrected [about state laws] five years from now,” he says.
It Could Take Longer to Get New Chemicals Approved: Under the House version, the EPA review process for new chemicals is similar to the process in place now: Manufacturers provide information about a new chemical and the EPA could take no action at all, and after a certain period of time, you are allowed to import or manufacture that chemical.
But under the Senate version, if you want to manufacture a new chemical, it will require affirmative evidence that the chemical is safe, and there will be a mandatory review by the EPA.
The Way Chemicals Are Assessed Will Change: Currently, the EPA has to consider the cost to manufacturers of mitigating the use of a chemical before it can impose restrictions. Under both versions of the reform bill, costs will no longer factor into the EPA’s assessments and it will instead focus on health and safety.
Companies Can’t Hide Behind CBI: Right now, Neuschafer says that if the EPA requests information about chemical ingredients, a company can claim that it’s Confidential Business Information (CBI) and that could be the end of it. This will likely change.
“The theory is that you need these protections so that you don’t blow your R&D budget on another company stealing your formulations,” Neuschafer says. “But just because something is confidential, that doesn’t mean you can’t provide it to the EPA. And the EPA is going to require more justification of CBI.”
Compliance Costs Could go Up: Increased regulations could definitely add costs to operations in a number of ways. First, there’s the increased potential for EPA fees. Although, Neuschafer says that probably won’t be where companies see costs go up. Instead, companies can expect to spend more time and money generating reports on chemical safety.
“If you have to take 12 to 18 months to develop a study and submit reports, that may delay you getting your product to market,” Neuschafer says. “These delays or barriers may not have been there before.”
There is an Upside: On a more positive note, the new regulations could streamline the rules and make the compliance process more efficient.
“Even if it means in the grand scheme that there’s more cost, or the potential for additional restrictions...industry really likes certainty and predictability,” Neuschafer says. “It makes it a lot easier to plan when you know what’s it going to take to bring a new product to market.”
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Washington State Poised to Ban Five Flame Retardants
Mar 9, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky
Washington state is poised to enact legislationto ban five flame retardants and establish an agency rulemaking process that could lead to further bans after consultation with the Legislature.
The measure (ESHB 2545) provides that beginning July 1, 2017, the following chemicals are banned in Washington for use in children's products or residential upholstered furniture at levels greater than one thousand parts per million:
• TDCPP,
• TCEP,
• decabromodophenyl ether,
• HBCD, and
• the additive TBBPA.
Different versions of bill passed the House and Senate, with the Republican-controlled Senate amending a provision in the original bill that would have given state agencies the power to ban by rulemaking without legislative approval any flame retardant used in children's products that meets the criteria of a high-priority chemical of high concern to children under the provisions of RCW 70.240.030(1).
The Senate version restricts additional rulemaking to IPTPP, TBB, TBPH, TCPP, TPP and V6 and requires the agencies to first report on the rule to the Legislature.
The Senate version of the bill is awaiting concurrence in the Democrat-controlled House, which is just a matter of time, according a member of the House leadership.
Governor ‘Will Sign This Bill.'
“It's going to pass the Legislature, we are going to concur, and then the bill will go from here to the governor's desk,” the bill's prime sponsor, House Majority Whip Kevin Van De Wege (D), told Bloomberg BNA in a March 8 telephone interview. Asked if the governor, a Democrat, will sign it, Van De Wege said, “Yes, I would fully expect that he will sign this bill.”
Van De Wege said Washington is “the first state to ban TBBPA and no other state has banned all five” chemicals on the list. Minnesota has banned the first four on the list, he said.
Van De Wege said he expects that the six chemicals identified in the bill that will have to go through a rulemaking process and eventually will be banned after what “we suspect will be a multi-year process.”
“Historically, this [type of] legislation has only looked at children's products and upholstered furniture,” Van De Wege said. “The six are going to go through the rulemaking by [the state departments of] Ecology and Health; they are also going to look at other uses for these chemicals, which I think is a good thing.” He said the chemicals are used in electronics, insulation and automobiles.
Stopping ‘Whack-a-Mole.'
Laurie Valeriano, executive director of the Washington Toxics Coalition, helped draft Van De Wege's bill. She told Bloomberg BNA in a March 8 telephone interview that banning the chemicals and adding TBBPA to the list “is important because we shouldn't have cancer-causing chemical in children's products, particularly when they are not needed for fire safety” because there are safer alternatives.
Valeriano said she hoped the original House version would have passed because it would have prevented companies from simply switching from a newly banned flame retardant to another dangerous one.
“We are trying to get a head of the curve and address that sort of whack-a-mole where companies are going to these other chemicals and they shouldn't be,” she said. “They should be using safer alternatives and making sure these chemicals don't wind up in our homes.”
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Monsanto Could Get a Sweet Deal on the Duwamish River
Mar 9, 2016 | The Seattle Times
By Seattle Times Editorial Board
As the city of Seattle awaits its opportunity to hold Monsanto accountable in a court of law for its role in PCB pollution of the Duwamish River, there is much more to the story.
The New York Times reported recently that pending legislation in Congress to update the 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) would pre-empt states and localities from suing over polychlorinated biphenyls, or passing their own laws and regulations.
The point of the three dozen words deep in the U.S. House bill is to say this topic is entirely the legal turf of the federal government. Everyone else stay away.
House and Senate versions of the TSCA retooling await a conference committee to reconcile differences, but Seattle Assistant City Attorney Laura Wishik notes the House language has already been referenced in a PCB pollution case in Texas. Wishik is section director for environmental protection in the Seattle City Attorney’s Office.
Seattle and five other large cities in the West have filed suit against Monsanto to help pay for PCB cleanup costs. They are awaiting a court panel review to determine if the cases can be consolidated.
Meanwhile, state attorneys general are concerned about how the federal revisions to TSCA might impact the power of states to regulate chemicals.
A Monsanto spokesperson told The New York Times the company did not request the change. Maybe it just appeared via a kind of spontaneous legislative generation.
Tailored language that fits the legal needs of the original manufacturer of PCBs is the latest development. Expect more coincidences and pre-empts. There is much more to this story.Editorial board members are editorial page editor Kate Riley, Frank A. Blethen, Ryan Blethen, Brier Dudley, Mark Higgins, Jonathan Martin, Thanh Tan, William K. Blethen (emeritus) and Robert C. Blethen (emeritus).
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Another Upstate NY Town to Get Filtration for Chemical PFOA
Mar 8, 2016 | AP (in The Wall Street Journal
Another community in upstate New York is getting a new filtration system to remove the suspected cancer-causing chemical PFOA from its water supply.
Acting state environmental commissioner Basil Seggos says Tuesday that Taconic Plastics has agreed to pay for a carbon filtration system for the Rensselaer County town of Petersburgh. The action comes after tests found perfluorooctanoic acid in the town water supply at a level just above EPA guidelines.
A filtration system was installed recently in nearby Hoosick Falls after the discovery of elevated levels of PFOA, which was used in making Teflon and other nonstick or stainproof products before it was phased out in 2015.
Just across the border in North Bennington, Vermont, Gov. Peter Shumlin met Tuesday with residents whose private wells tested positive for PFOA.
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(ACC Mentioned) Light At The End Of The Natural Gas Price Tunnel
Mar 8, 2016 | Seeking Alpha
By James Hanshaw
SummaryNatural gas prices have been in bear price territory for some time exacerbated recently by the current US winter shaping up to be one of the mildest on record.
The US shale gas revolution has compounded that price weakness and drilling is being drastically curtailed to reduce supply.
Perversely but, in this case, positively that myopic focus on weather is hiding another revolution - massive investments to take advantage of low priced US shale gas.
Those investments will add enormous new sources of demand and gas prices will increase in the months ahead taking the stock prices of many companies up with it.
In February SA published my article and almost instantly WTI oil prices started to move up from around $27/barrel then, to over $38 as I write this, an increase of nearly 40% in around 3 weeks! Seemingly oil producing country's ministers around the globe read it and thereafter saw the light themselves - an indicator of the influence SA and certain article contributors have in the world?!
I did not attempt then to guess what price oil will go up to and nor will I here for natural gas - gas hereafter for short - but I strongly believe that gas prices will move up and stay up. Interestingly not all of the reasons are the same but the end result on prices is.
For US shale producers, because of price advantages, enormous demand opportunities have opened up. These include the following.
More heavy trucks are entering US highways fuelled by CNG or LNG. I have invested in Clean Energy Fuels (NASDAQ:CLNE) a company that is building CNG/LNG refueling stations around the US. This has been a slow growth company, so far, but I believe the upward trend will continue and with it CLNE's share price.
US LNG exports have just started with Cheniere Energy (NYSEMKT:LNG) being the first company to do so. Cheniere is the best investment I have ever made as I bought in at $3.42 and sold some at $80, a price I expect it to go back to with the shares I still hold. Its first LNG shipment left for Brazil recently, a country I thought had plenty of gas of its own. Shipments follow soon to other countries around the world including to Singapore and Indonesia. The latter are on the doorstep of Australia, a major LNG exporting nation, indicating the price competitiveness of gas from the US. This competitiveness will increase further when the Panama Canal extension opens this year thus reducing shipping times and costs to more Asian countries. There is a lot of interesting information on LNG's contracts on the company website. LNG export terminals are also curently being constructed by others. This will benefit gas producers and pipeline companies some of whom I will mention in my points on chemical plants. LNG shipping companies will also flourish and I have Golar LNG (NASDAQ:GLNG) to share in this.
New demand for natural gas liquids, NGLs, for domestic use and export, is expected and I have Targa Resources (NYSE:TRGP) to process some of this.
Power generating plants are converting from filthy coal to cleaner gas. I have not seen specific reports recently on actual power plant demand for gas but the weakness of coal producers suggests it is increasing and is hurting them. As with coal there is a potentially nasty byproduct from using gas in power plants. There was talk of carbon capture and storage for that byproduct of coal but the investment required was massive so that technology has made little progress. With gas the byproduct is ethane but that, hopefully, will be captured and used in chemical manufacturing plants
That brings me to those plants because they may prove to the most significant drivers of new demand for gas. In July 2015, the American Chemical Council reported that 238 new chemical manufacturing plants would be built in the US to take advantage of low gas prices, a capital investment of $145 billion. In February this year this enormous investment had increased to $164 billion and the number of new plants to 266. Some 462,000 new jobs will be created in the industry in the next decade and exports of chemical products are said to double by 2030. Add those exports to LNG and NGL exports and the US trade balance will look very different in a few years time from today.
In addition to those mentioned above investments that I am hoping will benefit nicely from this include several US companies such as Cabot Oil&Gas (NYSE:COG). Cabot has around 200,000 net acres of dry gas in the Marcellus shale, one of the largest gas fields in North America. I also like Cabot because it has oil reserves in the prolific Eagle Ford region that will benefit if my views - link above - on oil prices prove correct. Kinder Morgan(NYSE:KMI) is the largest energy infrastructure company in North America with some 84,000 miles of pipelines and approximately 180 terminals that will handle the gas, other fuels too. Burkhardt Compression(BUCN) is a Swiss company that I own on the Swiss exchange. It may not be very well known in the US yet but it has many customers there and is a world market leader in reciprocating compressors that are used in upstream oil and gas, chemical plants, marine vessels, gas transport and storage, refineries and industrial gases. It is the only company in the world to offer such a complete range of reciprocating compressor technologies.
I also like and "own" Chart Industries (NASDAQ:GTLS), Chicago Bridge & Iron(NYSE:CBI), EQT Corp (NYSE:EQT), Oneok Inc (NYSE:OKE), Williams Companies (NYSE:WMB), plus Canadian company Peyto Exploration (NYSEARCA:PEY). Peyto is one of the lowest cost gas producers in North America and might not benefit directly from the new US demand sources but it will from the price increases they will cause.
There are many other companies that will benefit also and readers will have their own favourites that I hope they will share information on in comments on this article. I would also welcome views negative or otherwise on my own favourites.
Conclusion
Too much in gas pricing has been based on a myopic focus on US weather conditions with the mild winter causing the price of gas futures to fall recently to a 17 year low of $1.656 per million BTUs. Low prices have caused a large curtailment of drilling to reduce supply and will ensure an increase in prices when demand balances with or exceeds supply as I expect it to in coming months and for several years thereafter.
I have seen recent forecasts of $3 per mBTU in 2017 but I suspect it will be higher. I shall not attempt a specific price forecast myself and will simply conclude that new demand from the above sources should ensure there is light at the end of the natural gas price tunnel
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Mr. Sanders’s Fractured Reasoning on Fracking
Mar 8, 2016 | The Washington Post
By The Editorial Board
There is perhaps no neater example of the differences between Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) than their disagreement on fracking, which emerged in Sunday night’sDemocratic presidential debate. Ms. Clinton aimed for the liberal end of the middle ground that exists on the issue. Mr. Sanders ran as far and as fast as he could from that middle ground. Mr. Sanders’s position would be more understandable if he had the better point on the policy. But, as is often the case, his statements were more firmly grounded in ideology than reality.
“Right now, there are places where fracking is going on that are not sufficiently regulated,” Ms. Clinton said. “So first, we’ve got to regulate everything that is currently underway, and we have to have a system in place that prevents further fracking unless conditions like the ones that I just mentioned are met.” Those conditions include regulations to prevent water contamination, to slash air pollution and to require drillers to fully disclose the chemicals they use in their fracking operations. Ms. Clinton indicated that she would shut down a lot of the fracking that is going on across the country, which goes beyond the Obama administration’s calmer position on the matter — and beyond what would be politically sustainable or environmentally wise. But at least Ms. Clinton admitted that fracking’s risks can be managed without shutting down the industry, rightly putting the focus on how to regulate it.
It’s important to understand the environmental value of burning carefully fracked natural gas instead of coal. “If leaks of natural gas can be minimized, the [greenhouse gas] benefits of this transformation would be substantial, particularly as a bridge to a renewables-based future,” noted an evenhanded 2014 fracking assessment published in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources. There are also serious ambient air pollution benefits, including a reduction in harmful ozone, mercury and particulate pollution. Burning natural gas does not produce nasty coal ash.
Despite all this, when it came time for Mr. Sanders to address the issue Sunday, he said, “My answer is a lot shorter. No, I do not support fracking. . . . I talk to scientists who tell me that fracking is doing terrible things to water systems all over this country.” As The Post’s Fact Checker put it, “Sanders is apparently not talking to the scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency. A draft assessment by the EPA released in 2015 said it found no evidence of ‘widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.’ ” True, the EPA’s sweeping conclusion has been the subject of heated debate. But Mr. Sanders is making an even more sweeping claim without sufficient evidence — that fracking is so intrinsically dangerous that the government must ban it rather than regulate it.
As is also often the case, Mr. Sanders’s position is utterly unrealistic. “Given the economic value of the oil and gas resources made available by hydraulic fracturing and related technologies around the world, society is virtually certain to extract more of these unconventional resources,” the 2014 fracking assessment found. “The key issue, then, is how to produce them in a way that reduces environmental impacts to the greatest extent possible.” The country should get on with it.
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What the Clinton-Sanders Divide on Fracking Says About Our Energy Future
Mar 8, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
When Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders debated Sunday night in Flint, Mich., their similarities often seemed larger than the differences. Both are outraged by the Flint water crisis. Both agree that climate change is one of the biggest threats that we, as a global society, face.
However, a significant difference persists between the two Democratic candidates on the issue of fracking — the practice of pumping huge volumes of water, containing some chemicals, deep underground at high pressures to crack open shale layers and release oil and natural gas.
Fracking is currently responsible for one of the biggest transformations that we’ve seen in the energy space in some time. By unleashing vast reserves of so-called “unconventional” gas, for instance, it’s a key factor behind a run of starkly low natural gas prices, which recently touched just $ 1.61 per million BTUs, or British thermal units.
Sanders, nevertheless, wants a ban on fracking. Or as he put it in Michigan, “I do not support fracking.” He added, “I talk to scientists who tell me that fracking is doing terrible things to water systems all over this country. We have gotta be bold now. We gotta transform our energy system to energy efficiency and sustainable energy.”
Clinton’s view was more nuanced, though some observers find the overall tone harder on fracking than she has been in the past. On Sunday, she said she doesn’t support fracking where it is causing environmental damage, is opposed by states themselves (such as in Clinton’s own New York), or where the chemicals used aren’t disclosed. But she came far short of opposing it outright, later adding, “I’ve already said we are taking away the subsidies for oil and gas, but it is important that people understand that a president can’t go ordering folks around. Our system doesn’t permit that.”
On her campaign website, Clinton says that “Domestically produced natural gas can play an important role in the transition to a clean energy economy,” striking a tone that seems very consistent with President Obama’s “all of the above” energy approach, and with the widely publicized notion that natural gas can serve as a “bridge fuel” enabling a shift to completely renewable energy, since it releases much less carbon dioxide than coal when burned.
“You have some folks in the U.S. who want to see an outright ban on fracking, and then you have other people who want to see more substantial regulation of the practice, and I would say that as between the two of them, that represents the majority of Americans on the topic,” says Mark Brownstein, who heads the Environmental Defense Fund’s work on natural gas and methane emissions from the sector.
In other words, at a time when the next president will likely oversee sweeping and consequential changes in how we get energy, the difference between Clinton and Sanders on natural gas — one of the key upstarts in the space of late — is very real.
So let’s look more closely at some of the key issues at stake here:
Water contamination. When it comes to charges about fracking’s contamination of water supplies, few deny that at least some problems have occurred in specific places. But the extent of the issue, and whether it is systemic or merely occasional, remains very much contested.
A draft assessment on the topic, completed by the EPA last year, failed to find “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.” Rather, it found that while there were some water contamination problems, “the number of identified cases, however, was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured wells.”
Granted, the new report also estimates that some 25,000-30,000 new wells “were drilled and hydraulically fractured annually” in the U.S. over the period from 2011 to 2014. So, even a small failure rate could lead to numerous impacts.
Some environmental groups have heavily critiqued this report. The passage above also triggered criticism from the EPA’s Science Advisory Board. In its latest review draft of the EPA’s report, the board singled out this much-cited passage and said that it requires “clarification and additional explanation,” and that the EPA should “discuss the significant data limitations and uncertainties” in relation to this and other major findings.
“I think there’s a mismatch between the details of the EPA report and their headline message,” says Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth science at Stanford. “Their own work has documented hundreds of cases of water contamination and water issues. On the other hand, it depends on how you define ‘widespread.’”
Other environmental consequences of fracking got less attention at the debate, but are also worth weighing. For instance, there areconcerns about air pollution near fracking operations.
Methane emissions. Most significant from a climate perspective, there are also worries that fracking and the broader unconventional gas revolution are leading to more accidental releases of methane, a potent but short-lived greenhouse gas.
“Because of the methane issue, and because it’s really the only way to slow climatic warming on the timescale of the next few decades, I think shale gas is probably worse overall than coal,” said Robert Howarth, a researcher at Cornell University who published one of the first estimates of fugitive methane emissions believed to be coming from shale gas drilling.
The EPA recently revised upward its estimates of how much methane is being emitted by U.S. oil and gas operations, notes Environmental Defense’s Brownstein. And he expects that the number is still underestimated.
“Current methods of reporting don’t take into account emissions from sporadic, but significant emissions events that come from equipment failures, equipment malfunctions, leaks that occur over time. Aliso Canyon is a dramatic example of that kind of event,” Brownstein said.
The Obama administration has proposed new rules to limit fugitive methane emissions from oil and gas operations, but as Jackson notes, these only cover operations on public lands. “I think the challenge with Hillary’s position is, she’s not in a position to regulate the industry strongly except on federal lands,” he said.
Methane versus carbon dioxide. Without denying the significance or the scale of this problem, it must also be said that methane is not the same as the most worrisome greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide. Indeed, the two gases are so different that, despite many pat statements suggesting that methane is “more powerful,” the truth is that they are extremely difficult and complex to even compare.
Once emitted, some proportion of carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years. In contrast, methane has a much stronger immediate warming effect, but it only lasts in the atmosphere for a little more than 10 years.
This means both that reducing methane has a more immediate impact on warming, but also that when it comes to the long-term, geological fate of the planet, today’s methane emissions are of considerably less consequence than carbon dioxide emissions, because they lack the staying power.
However, Howarth argues, in the shorter term methane really matters. “The climate simply responds too slowly to change in carbon dioxide emissions,” he said. “We’re going to sail right through the Paris target if we concentrate just on carbon dioxide.”
Gas versus coal. But weighing the issue fairly, it’s also quite clear that fracking is having at least one environmental benefit, from a climate change perspective.
Namely, fracking, by enabling the unconventional natural gas revolution in the U.S., has greatly increased overall natural gas supply and, therefore, driven down cost. “Affordable and abundant natural gas has ushered in an era of substantially lower prices than they otherwise would have been without the unconventional revolution,” noted a 2014 report by IHS.
Cheap natural gas, in turn, is displacing carbon-intensive coal in the electricity sector. While the burning of coal provided 39 percent of U.S. electricity in 2014, that dropped to 34 percent in 2015 — and U.S. greenhouse gas emissions declined accordingly, according to an analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. And so far in 2016, prices have plunged even lower than they did in 2015.
Just how good this news is, though, depends on a consideration of all the long term consequences of cheap gas – not all of which are immediately clear to us. “An energy policy that takes coal offline, especially old coal plants, is a winning energy policy,” said Stanford’s Rob Jackson. “What we don’t know is how much natural gas will displace renewables, compared to complement renewables. That’s what we need to know.”
In sum, the environmental issues around fracking remain real, yet also contested and complex. This is not an easy or simple issue and it is not one where you can really give a black and white answer. And maybe that’s not so surprising, in that this is a relatively new phenomenon that is sweeping the U.S. energy arena, in many cases faster than science can keep up with it.
More will, undoubtedly, come into focus in the coming years — under the next president.
In light of all this, the difference between Clinton and Sanders is one that voters should definitely be aware of. Clinton is more of a pragmatist who is closer to President Obama, whose “all of the above” energy policy is just as critiqued by some environmentalists as his climate change actions are praised. Sanders wants a much faster transition to renewable energy, rather than using a “bridge fuel” like natural gas (or, for that matter, nuclear power) in the interim.
That’s a debate that will continue to play itself out constantly from the center out toward the environmental left — and it may ultimately be one of the most important ones there is for the U.S.’s energy future.
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Is Natural Gas a Fossil Fuel Substitute, Or Does It Just Crowd Out Renewables?
Mar 8, 2016 | The Hill - Pundits Blog
By Daniel Cohen
Natural gas is consumed more flexibly than any other fossil fuel. Whereas coal is deployedprimarily for electricity generation and oil for transportation, natural gas straddles the energy economy with uses spanning electricity, industry, residential and commercial heating, and transportation. Emerging technologies opening more abundant supplies of natural gas have heightened its importance, while world leaders increasingly seek solutions to climate change.
The flexibility of natural gas means that its substitutions for other fossil fuels can impact climate warming emissions upward (via methane leaks and carbon dioxide exhaust) or downward (via reduced use of coal and oil). That's why Shayak Sengupta and I worked in 2012 and 2013 to compare the net greenhouse gas impacts of various substitutions of U.S. natural gas for other fossil fuels.
Using the best available data and tools such as Argonne National Laboratory's GREET(Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in Transportation) model, we compared the net impacts of substituting natural gas for fossil fuels in five ways: replacing coal in electricity generation; replacing heating oil for home heating; replacing gasoline in light-duty cars or diesel in transit buses; or liquefaction to liquefied natural gas (LNG) for export to Japan. However, in the over two years our paper languished in a bottlenecked peer review and publication process before being published late last month, energy markets have evolved so fast that even our questions can be called into question.
Our assumption that natural gas would be substituted for other fossil fuels seemed reasonable. After all, fossil fuels have provided over 80 percent of U.S. energy since 1900. In 2012, solar power was still too expensive to compete with natural gas at utility scales without generous subsidies, and interest in the electricity sector focused on replacing coal with gas. Meanwhile, T. Boone Pickens and some in Congress were promoting plans for millions of vehicles fueled with domestic natural gas, replacing imports of foreign oil.
Using the best available estimates and uncertainty ranges for methane leak rates, our results demonstrated stark differences between the climate impacts of the substitution scenarios. Substituting natural gas for coal-fired electricity yielded the most improvements. Changing out old heating oil furnaces for new natural gas ones, as some utilities incentivize, also fared well. However, contrary to industry boosterism about "clean" vehicles, our analysis showed compressed natural gas (CNG) in cars and buses yields no significant benefits.
One may quibble with our baseline methane leak rates, as scientists tally record emissionsfrom the Aliso Canyon blowout and use satellite data to infer far more methane leaks from U.S. oil and gas operations than Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) inventories would suggest. However, we recognized that scientific understanding is in flux regarding methane fluxes, and provide means for adjusting our baseline results and uncertainty ranges to alternative assumptions.
The bigger question, though, is whether we got our question right. Can we still assume that additions of natural gas substitute for fossil fuels, rather than crowd out deployment of renewables like wind and solar? Is natural gas serving as a rapid off-ramp from coal and oil, bridging toward the renewables-led future that climate scientists deem necessary to avert catastrophic climate change? Or has natural gas become a barrier, competing with renewables as replacements for coal and oil?
Energy markets have transformed while our paper languished in peer review and publishing delays. In 2012, coal provided a relatively low-cost and profitable means of electricity generation. Now, even with Wyoming Powder River Basin coal selling for less than a half penny per pound, coal power plants nationwide are losing money, unable to compete with natural gas and renewables. Transporting fossil rocks and cleaning up the gaseous, liquid and solid byproducts of their use simply costs more than piped-in natural gas or directly delivered sunshine and breeze. Prices for natural gas, wind and solar fell faster than Energy Information Administrationestimated to be possible.
As mining companies declare bankruptcy and unprofitable coal power plants shutter even before Clean Power Plan litigation is resolved, the question is not whether coal will be replaced, but with what. A dynamic battleground has emerged between natural gas, which supplied 31 percent of new capacity in 2015, and renewables, which dominate nearly all capacity additions in recent months. The five-year extension of the production and investment tax credits, passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in December, tilts the battleground further toward renewables.
Meanwhile, traditional gasoline and diesel vehicles no longer represent the only benchmark for compressed natural gas (CNG). Emerging technologies will soon make electric vehicles cost-competitive, and even widely available hybrid engines slash emissions relative to CNG.
As coal fades and renewables storm onto an energy battlefield long dominated by fossils, framing natural gas deployment as a battle of fossils seems like fighting the last war. I'll be my own first critic to say that my not-so-hot-off-the-presses paper hasn't stood the test of time. After this Pyrrhic publication, I'll be peering beyond peer review to share Air Climate Energy (ACE) research and analysis with the timeliness they require. Stay tuned as I explore new ways to cover emerging ACE conditions.
Cohan is associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University.
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Mar 8, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Rep. John K. Delaney (D-Md.)
Significant increases in clean energy investment are occurring and this is an incredibly positive trend for addressing climate change and growing the U.S. economy. Last year was a record year for clean energy development worldwide, with $329 billion of global investment in clean energy technology projects and projections are pointing to even greater investments in 2016.
Maryland’s solar energy industry is a perfect example of the job growth potential in clean energy. According to industry sources, in September 2015, Maryland had 177 solar energy companies that employed about 3,000 people. Six months later, Maryland is home to 182 solar energy companies, employing more than 4,300 people.
It is now high time for Congress to act to better align U.S. energy policy with the actual direction of the private sector. A good place to start is for Congress to acknowledge the urgent demand for clean energy in the U.S. and encourage the goal of generating more than 50 percent of our electricity from clean and carbon-free sources by 2030.
We have introduced “50x30” resolutions in the House and Senate to set this goal. Based on current technologies and our current energy trajectory, this goal is completely reasonable and should be central to our domestic policy agenda. Importantly, setting a clearly defined goal will encourage greater private sector investment, lead to more innovation and secure U.S. leadership in advanced energy technology, flattening the climate change curve. The benefits will be enormous for public health, national security and our economy.
Pollution from fossil fuel combustion causes respiratory problems, neurological damage and cancer. These costs are estimated to be somewhere between $361 billion and $887 billion each year. Currently, air pollution from fossil fuel power plants is estimated to cause more than 5 million missed workdays a year and has made asthma the leading cause of absenteeism from school.
Rising temperatures are increasing the range of disease-spreading insects to new parts of the globe. A warming global climate raises serious concerns about the likelihood that an outbreak of a major mosquito borne illness, like the Zika virus, could likely occur in the United States. A 2015 study found that climate change was already contributing to increased salmonellosis in Maryland.
Our military and national security advisors consider climate change a “threat multiplier” that could severely strain our military capabilities. Economic instability breeds political instability, which puts Americans at risk.
Rising sea levels will displace tens of millions of people around the globe, potentially creating a refugee crisis much larger in magnitude than the tragedy we are currently witnessing in Syria. In Bangladesh alone, tens of millions live in coastal regions that are extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. By 2040, it is estimated that there will be twice as many refugees displaced in Bangladesh as in Syria. Closer to home, the Chesapeake Bay communities of Smith Island and Tangier Island could be two of the first U.S. communities displaced by the effects of climate change.
Economically, the number of manufacturing, construction, maintenance and other related clean energy jobs will greatly outpace those of fossil fuels, providing demand in the labor market for years to come. With amazing advances in technology, American scientists and engineers are making clean energy cost-competitive with fossil fuels. According to a 2015 report from theGlobal Green Growth Institute and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the cost of wind power dropped 61 percent over the past six years, while the cost for solar dropped by 82 percent. Costs will keep falling and soon clean energy will be cheaper across-the-board.
With the right goal in place and strong demand from the private sector for investment and solutions, Congress can craft public policy solutions to create the proper incentives. A good first step was the renewal and extension of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind energy and the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for solar energy, which provides near-term certainty and incentives for renewable energy development. But there is more to be done. Democrats have put forward proposals to increase clean energy investment and production, price carbon, improve energy efficiency, fund federal research in clean energy innovation, and improve the regulatory landscape. There is bipartisan support for many of the concepts and policies.
The bottom line is that if we don’t address climate change now, the cost to our country will be enormous. If we do address climate change by investing in clean energy, we will reap huge benefits. Passing our resolution would put Congress on record supporting the production of more than 50 percent clean and carbon-free electricity by 2030 and prioritizing the achievement of this incredible opportunity to protect our country improve our health, grow our economy, and lower energy costs for American households.
Cardin is Maryland’s junior senator, serving since 2007. He sits on the Environment and Public Works; the Finance; the Foreign Relations; and the Small Business and Entrepreneurship committees. Delaney has represented Maryland’s 6th Congressional District since 2013. He sits on the Financial Services Committee.
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Republican Entrepreneur Launches Clean Energy Push
Mar 9, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
A Republican entrepreneur is hoping to push his party toward more aggressively embracing clean energy.
Jay Faison’s ClearPath Foundation is launching a $1 million digital ad campaign to promote his clean energy message and opening a Washington office in order to play a more active role in promoting the industry among Republicans, Faison announced on Tuesday.
“Our mission is to make conservative clean energy a priority for the GOP,” he said at a National Press Club event. “I think we can do it. It might take some time, but I think we can do it.”
Faison said his group is designed to push back against the message from Democrats and environmentalists that Republicans can't be trusted on clean energy, and to make the case to the GOP that it can be the source of clean energy policy that is attractive to voters around the country.
“For a long time it's been a very divided debate,” he said. “On the one side we’ve had windmills and sunshine from the left and drill, baby, drill on the right, and I thought there was a vacuum in the middle around a conservative clean energy agenda.”
Faison’s group has launched a super-PAC and raised $2 million with a goal of $5 million for the election cycle. He acknowledged that his group isn’t likely to be a big player in the presidential race.
“I don’t think I’m a big enough dog in that fight to have that kind of an outcome," Faison said. ClearPath hasn’t spent on the GOP primary but plans to work to influence voters in House races this fall.
The group will support Republicans who support Faison's clean energy goals. He sees a few lawmakers already he could support, those who supported a GOP resolution noting the importance of tackling climate change, for instance.
ClearPath’s policy agenda centers on more traditional energy sources and opposes the Environmental Protection Agency's new pollution rules for power plants. And Faison said he is skeptical about the long-term costs of solar and wind power.
The group’s “four planks” include using cleaner-burning coal and natural gas, as well as expanding nuclear and hydroelectric power.
Faison voiced support Tuesday for a handful of bills he said further those goals: the stalled energy reform bill in the Senate, legislation to invest in carbon capture technology and another expanding nuclear power research.
The key, he said, is to convince voters that Republicans can do more to advance clean energy, but he said Republicans themselves need to get to that point first.
“We are in a situation where we do have two different parties with different ideas,” he said. “I’m a pragmatist in that there has to be compromise. But you can’t have one side with all the other ideas and the other side not coming into the debate.”
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House Lawmakers Introduce Latest Flurry of Bills
Mar 9, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Christa Marshall
Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) has introduced the latest in a series of bills meant to boost carbon capture and sequestration technology.
McKinley's H.R. 4704 aims to increase "accountability" at the Department of Energy by calling for an evaluation and recommendations related to every administration-funded CCS project. The bill's goal is to help projects meet milestones and avoid paper backlogs, among other issues.
The bill would also require DOE to report to Congress on the evaluations and progress made on CCS generally. Lawmakers added some of its language to H.R. 8, the House's energy reform bill.
The measure -- co-sponsored with Rep. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) -- is one of several introduced in the past year to help CCS, which envisions capturing and storing CO2 from coal plants and other industrial emitters.
In February, for example, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation to make an existing tax credit for the technology permanent (E&E Daily, Feb. 26).
"There is definitely a qualitative change that illustrates the growing political support for CCS," said Brad Crabtree, vice president of the Great Plains Institute, regarding the flurry of proposals.
True or not, advocates are making a push for some sort of legislative remedy for ongoing financial challenges associated with the technology, seen as key to keeping coal viable in a world concerned about climate change.
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