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(ACC Mentioned) Baltimore Professor's Book Reveals Hidden Health Risks in Household Items
Mar 9, 2016 | The Baltimore Sun
By Laura Barnhardt Cech
When McKay Jenkins complained of nagging soreness in his hip and thigh 10 years ago, he expected doctors to attribute the pain to exercise and middle age. -
(ACC Mentioned) GOP Bill Would Prohibit Bans on Plastic Bags
Mar 10, 2016 | WisBusiness
By Polo Rocha
Republican lawmakers are trying to prevent municipal bans on plastic grocery bags with a bill that could get final approval this month. -
Letters: A Bill on Toxic Chemicals and Cleanup of PCBs
Mar 9, 2016 | The New York Times
Re “A Shield for Monsanto” (Business Day, March 1): Monsanto as well as The Times’s own contacts in the Senate and House all confirmed that the company had nothing to do with proposing the legislation in question -
House, Senate Panel Leaders' Talks Could Avoid TSCA Reform Conference
Mar 9, 2016 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
Top lawmakers on the House and Senate panels that crafted competing versions of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bills are holding talks this week aimed at developing a compromise final TSCA bill, possibly avoiding a formal legislative conference that might risk difficult negotiations that scuttled past reform attempts. -
Overhaul State Chemical Rules to Ensure Citizens' Health
Mar 9, 2016 | Albany TImes Union
By Peter Iwanowicz
We'll just say it: Environmental Advocates has not always seen eye to eye with Sen. Kathy Marchione. In 2014, we successfully organized against her plan to roll back thousands of public health protections. -
House Oversight Panel Republicans Seek IRIS Update
Mar 9, 2016 | InsideEPA
Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are asking EPA to update the panel on the agency's progress in reforming the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) chemical assessment program after the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a critical 2011 review of the program's draft assessment of formaldehyde. -
California Proposes New Cancer Risk Factor for PCE Emissions
Mar 10, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has proposed to tighten the toxicity value that air quality regulators use to calculate cancer risk from exposure to perchloroethylene emissions. -
Town to Get Filtration for PFOA-Tainted Water
Mar 10, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
A plastics company has agreed to install a carbon filtration system for the drinking water supply in Petersburgh, N.Y., to address contamination with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), state agencies announced March 9 -
Republicans Hone in on EPA’s “Uncooperative” Relationship With States
Mar 9, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By James Osborne
Republican senators condemned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday, saying it is overstepping its authority and pushing onerous pollution regulations on states. -
GOP Senators Let States Lead the Attack Against Agency Rules
Mar 10, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Amanda Reilly
Senate Republicans yesterday raised another point of attack against U.S. EPA, arguing that the agency has broadly impinged on states' rights and eroded relationships with state regulators. -
U.S. to Target Existing Oil, Gas Wells in Effort to Cut Methane Emissions
Mar 10, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Amy Harder
The Obama administration is expected to announce its first step toward regulating methane emissions from hundreds of thousands of oil and natural gas wells across the U.S., a move likely to face pushback from an industry battered by cheap oil and to be cheered by environmentalists. -
Long-Simmering Revenue Fight Flares Up
Mar 10, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
When Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) found himself with President Obama in New Orleans last year to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, he decided to use the opportunity to bend the president's ear about an administration proposal that irked him. -
Sanders, Clinton Vow Further Executive Action on Climate
Mar 10, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
While former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders sparred last night over who boasts better environmental credentials, both presidential candidates acknowledged that should Democrats retain the White House, climate change policy must continue to be carried out through executive action to circumvent partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill.
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(ACC Mentioned) Baltimore Professor's Book Reveals Hidden Health Risks in Household Items
Mar 9, 2016 | The Baltimore Sun
By Laura Barnhardt Cech
When McKay Jenkins complained of nagging soreness in his hip and thigh 10 years ago, he expected doctors to attribute the pain to exercise and middle age. But an MRI revealed a tumor was growing — a shocking discovery for the health-conscious professor of English, journalism and environmental humanities living in suburban Baltimore.
When he was questioned by researchers about exposure to toxic chemicals, Jenkins began wondering if there was a correlation.
"It's not like I had been a worker in a factory," Jenkins said. "But they were talking about consumer products: paints, cleaners, stuff you'd find anywhere in your house."
Although Jenkins' tumor turned out to be benign, the scare prompted him to start extensive research that became material for "ContamiNation: My Quest to Survive in a Toxic World" ($16), published in paperback by Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House, earlier this year.Baltimore-based author and professor McKay Jenkins recently released the book "ContamiNation: My Quest to Survive in a Toxic World" in paperback through Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House. - Original Credit: (Handout / HANDOUT)
Described by Richard Preston, author of "The Hot Zone," as the "Silent Spring" for the human body, the book questions the safety of many products used by Americans — bleach, lawn fertilizer, flame retardants, plastic packaging and more — and suggests lifestyle changes to limit exposure to the potentially harmful chemicals they contain. Though research supporting direct links between these substances and health problems remains limited, the lack of information is reason for concern, according to Jenkins and the lawmakers, government regulators, scientists and test subjects he spoke with for the book.
As Jenkins writes in "ContamiNation," a UC Berkeley researcher found that America's consumption of synthetic chemicals increased 8,200 percent in the last 25 years, while little is known about the health risks they pose.
"With so little information, it's easy to see why we have become so complacent," Jenkins writes.
"Smoking a single cigarette never killed anyone either. The trouble with exposure to toxic chemicals, as with exposure to tobacco, is that the impact is cumulative, long-lasting, and, frequently, slow to reveal itself."
Jenkins, 53, who lives with his wife and two children in the Armagh Village neighborhood near Rogers Forge, hired a toxicologist and environmental health engineer to look at his house. He was startled to learn how many potential dangers were lurking, from old paint cans to plastic blinds.
Many of the recommendations were to eliminate. "You don't need to use Teflon pans. Use a little olive oil," Jenkins said. "You don't need lawn chemicals."
Jenkins went to a big box store, reading labels and noting potential hazards in every aisle.
"The cosmetics aisle is like the Wild West of chemicals," Jenkins said, noting the number of chemicals — like formaldehyde, toluene and paradioxine — that consumers apply to their skin daily.
Many products are laced with perfumes that contain phthalates, which some scientists suspect are endocrine disruptors and a potential promoter of cancers.
But some health experts believe that people more substantially increase their cancer risk with more obvious lifestyle choices— smoking, abusing alcohol, obesity, lack of exercise and sun exposure. Genetics also plays a role, as do HPV and Hepatitis B and C, according to Kenneth Portier, vice president of the Statistics and Evaluation Center of the American Cancer Society.
No one is saying it's not wise to limit exposure to chemicals, Portier said, "but then there's the question: Why worry about phthalates if you're already dosing yourself with chemicals from smoking?'" he said. "The best prevention of cancer remains maintaining a lean body weight, eating lots of fruits and vegetables, and getting some exercise."
Industry associations also question claims about the relative dangers of chemicals. Regarding phthalates, the Personal Care Products Council, a national trade association for the cosmetics and personal care products industries, points to the range of chemicals in the group on its website: "The safety profiles of different phthalates are not all the same, with some possessing undesirable properties while others do not (much in the same way, mushrooms as a family includes both edible nutritious mushrooms and poisonous toadstools)."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates cosmetics, "does not have the authority to require cosmetic manufacturers to submit their safety data to FDA, and the burden is on FDA to prove that a particular product or ingredient is harmful when used as intended," according to its website. It is, however, against the law to use any ingredient that makes a cosmetic harmful when used as intended, and it has regulations that prohibit or restrict use of certain ingredients.
Meanwhile, the American Chemistry Council said in a statement released this week that "the mere presence of a chemical in a product is not an indication that there is any cause for concern," and cited a desire to work "with [government] agencies to support smart and scientifically sound regulation of chemicals used in commercial products."
Health experts are particularly concerned about exposing children to chemicals, Portier said: "They're a special class because they're growing; their cells are active."
Compared to adults, children also eat, breathe and drink more relative to their body weight, says Lesliam Quirós-Alcalá, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health.
"Children are not little adults, so exposures may result in a much greater effect," she said, adding that young children may increase their exposure because they often put things into their mouths as part of their normal behavioral development.
It's not one particular chemical that's necessarily more harmful, Quirós-Alcalá said: "We're exposed to a soup of chemicals every day."
"There's a misconception that if it's on the market, it's safe," she said, adding that sometimes when a chemical is taken out of a product, it's replaced with another chemical that could also have negative health effects, a practiceknown in scientific circles as "regrettable substitutions."
"For example, BPA is being replaced with similar compounds — BPS, BPF — for which the long-term health effects in humans remain unknown," she said.
And just because a product is labeled "natural" doesn't mean it's without risk, said Portier. "Asbestos is a natural product that is also a known carcinogen."
Even without a direct causation — exposure to chemical A will cause cancer B — there's reason to limit risks, according to Jenkins: "The volume of chemicals we're talking about is enormous."
A professor at the University of Delaware for 20 years, Jenkins has published seven nonfiction books, including one he co-authored with a former EPA scientist called, "Poison Spring: The Secret History of Pollution and the EPA." Just last week, Jenkins finished a manuscript of a book about GMOs.
"ContamiNation" was first released as a hardcover five years ago under the title, "What's Gotten Into Us: Staying Healthy in a Toxic World." It was published this year as a paperback in "an effort to get the book into more hands," said Jenkins.
The re-release didn't require much updating, he said, adding: "It's frustrating, actually, that almost nothing has changed."
Federal oversight, including monitoring of everything from children's toys to bottled water, remains lax, Jenkins said. The federal Toxic Substances Control Act hasn't been updated in 40 years, for example.
"Chemical regulation, in other words, has become a Catch-22: The EPA lacks the power to request data on chemicals in order to determine if they can cause harm, and it can't make a risk assessment without these data," Jenkins writes. "So no data are provided, no risk assessments are made, and chemicals keep flooding the market."
There has been some progress by state legislators in places such as Maine, Jenkins writes. He and other health advocates hope that as more states adopt stricter regulations, the movement will become a major shift impossible to ignore nationally.
For now, lifestyle changes can help, but sometimes, there isn't a perfect choice, Jenkins said. Bottled water may contain synthetic organic chemicals and bacteria, according to some studies. But tap water may also contain chemicals and pharmaceuticals that can't be filtered by water treatment facilities, not to mention contamination from lead pipes. (Of the two, scientists generally agree tap water is the better choice.)
Jenkins said people tend "to either freak out or throw their hands up and say, 'What's the point?'
"You could say, 'Everyone's going to get cancer anyway.' … But there are real problems with that kind of fatalism," he said.
It's not unlike accepting racism as a given, he said.
"Given the world we currently inhabit, it's easy to feel overwhelmed," Jenkins writes. "Changing brands of toothpaste or throwing out the roach spray is easy. Learning how to paint our houses — and our faces — with products that won't harm our health is a bit harder."
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(ACC Mentioned) GOP Bill Would Prohibit Bans on Plastic Bags
Mar 10, 2016 | WisBusiness
By Polo Rocha
Republican lawmakers are trying to prevent municipal bans on plastic grocery bags with a bill that could get final approval this month.
But municipalities and environmental groups are opposed.
Similar fights have played out in several states, from a potential statewide ban on plastic bags in California to a new one that took effect in Chicago last year. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott has called Austin's plastic bag ordinance a "ridiculous, unnecessary" regulation.
Though no such bans exist in Wisconsin, they would become illegal under a bill that passed the Assembly and this week cleared a Senate committee. The legislation also would make illegal local regulations on any other single-use or reusable "auxiliary containers," such as take-out boxes, retailers and restaurants use.
The full Senate is due to meet March 15, and if it approves the Assembly version, the bill would go to Gov. Scott Walker for his signature.
Under the bill, local governments also wouldn't be able to implement fees on the use of such containers.
"Patchwork ordinances on widespread items make it difficult for all parties to navigate and comply with these regulations," Sen. Roger Roth, R-Appleton, said in a co-sponsorship memo.
The bill has the backing of several business lobbying groups, including retailers, restaurants, papermakers and the beverage association. Also registering in favor of the bill are national interest groups, such as the American Progressive Bag Alliance and the American Chemistry Council, that have fought the battle elsewhere.
But opposing it is the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, which says lawmakers shouldn't "pre-empt our ability to regulate." The league was able to insert an amendment that clarifies the bill won't affect local recycling programs.
Also against the bill is the Wisconsin chapter of the Sierra Club, whose program manager, Elizabeth Ward, said plastic bags are "extremely wasteful" and aren't biodegradable.
"It's pretty heavy-handed and goes against the direction we should be moving toward in general," Ward said.
The sides disagree on the environmental effects of the bans, although a recent study in Austin showed mixed results from the city's efforts. The city didn't ban plastic bags, but it required businesses provide thicker reusable plastic bags, instead of the flimsier single-use ones.
That study found the city dramatically reduced the amount of single-use plastic bags. But it also found many people weren't bringing their renewable bags back to stores. Instead, many of those bags ended up in landfills and take even longer to break down than the thinner bags.
"From the perspective of judging whether the ordinance was successful in its task, the answer is a resounding 'yes,'" the author of the report wrote. "However, if all other aspects of this issue are considered, the answer becomes less clear. Simply reducing the usage of a product does not guarantee a positive environmental or economic impact."
Business groups, meanwhile, say their members want to avoid the patchwork of local ordinances. Some cities across the country, for example, are banning styrofoam containers at restaurants, making it difficult for those with multiple locations, said Peter Hanson, the vice president of public affairs at the Wisconsin Restaurant Association.
Brandon Scholz, the president & CEO of the Wisconsin Grocers Association, echoed those concerns.
"If you are a chain store, you now have to have different standards for your stores even though it's the same company," Scholz said.
But John Bahr, who's leading efforts to reduce the use of plastic bags in Wauwatosa, calls the bill a "really bad idea." Bahr owned a health care software design company before retiring, and he's since been advocating for a fee on plastic bags in Wauwatosa because, he said, he realizes bans are unpopular.
Businesses, he said, need to join that effort.
"Sometimes there's cost for doing the right thing," he said. "The right thing is not to put plastic bags into our environment." -
Letters: A Bill on Toxic Chemicals and Cleanup of PCBs
Mar 9, 2016 | The New York Times
To the Editor:
Re “A Shield for Monsanto” (Business Day, March 1): Monsanto as well as The Times’s own contacts in the Senate and House all confirmed that the company had nothing to do with proposing the legislation in question. Still, your article only serves to promote the legal cases of attorneys suing Monsanto, and imply an involvement by Monsanto that is not true.
The legislation being proposed in Congress would replace the Toxic Substances Control Act, which for four decades has provided a framework within which to operate when it comes to polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. The proposed legislation in the House does not change the law as it has been for decades in regard to PCBs.
Safety is our No. 1 priority, and we want to make sure that we know and abide by all requirements and restrictions in this area. We are hopeful that chemical manufacturers and consumers alike will be able to continue to rely upon the Toxic Substances Control Act’s regulatory structure.
PHILIP MILLER
St. Louis
The writer is vice president of global government affairs for Monsanto.
To the Editor:
You reported a scheme by Congressional Republicans to include in legislation to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act a provision that could immunize Monsanto from damages caused by polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. Monsanto was the exclusive American manufacturer of PCBs, which are potent endocrine disrupters and carcinogens.
Thousands of American schools built between 1950 and 1979 contain hazardous concentrations of PCBs in their window caulking and lighting fixtures, endangering millions of children. Internal company documents show that Monsanto aggressively marketed this product to schoolsknowing that it was extremely toxic and would ultimately be prohibited by law. The mitigation costs could run from approximately $1 million to $3 million per building. Congress now seeks to shift these costs to school districts and to abolish Monsanto’s liability for more than 80,000 miles of PCB-contaminated streams and rivers.
Congress should be fighting for the health and environmental interest of Americans and their children instead of safeguarding the ill-gotten profits of one multinational corporation.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY Jr.
President, Waterkeeper Alliance
New York
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House, Senate Panel Leaders' Talks Could Avoid TSCA Reform Conference
Mar 9, 2016 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
Top lawmakers on the House and Senate panels that crafted competing versions of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform bills are holding talks this week aimed at developing a compromise final TSCA bill, possibly avoiding a formal legislative conference that might risk difficult negotiations that scuttled past reform attempts.
Speaking to Inside EPA following a March 9 Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) hearing, EPW ranking member Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said “the leaders of the committees” are meeting regularly to work out a compromise TSCA reform package, rather than proceeding with a conference committee.
And a staffer for EPW Chairman Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) also told Inside EPA that legislators are hoping to advance a consensus bill without using the formal conference process to craft legislation.
“We're having bicameral, bipartisan discussions throughout this week, and as long as it's necessary to reach a compromise. It seems like that's the best approach,” the staffer said.
The Senate's TSCA reform bill, S. 697, was crafted by EPW members, but must be reconciled with with H.R. 2576, a much narrower House bill that went through the chamber's energy panel. Both chambers approved their bills last year, but lawmakers must reconcile the differences between the measures and craft a final compromise bill.
Inhofe's staffer said, “The two bills passed either chamber near-unanimously, so rather than go through the trouble of appointing a conference now . . . the members have more of an interest in reaching a deal reaching a reconciliation of the two bills, and moving forward from that in whatever would be the best procedural way.”
In addition to Inhofe and Boxer, the TSCA talks taking place this week also including House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and ranking member Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ).
TSCA reform supporters previously seemed to eye informal discussions on reconciling the House and Senate bills in order to streamline conference negotiations that would produce a final bill, but legislators had not yet confirmed that such negotiations were taking place, or that they might bypass the committee process entirely.
Competing Legislation
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a January letter to lawmakers said she largely supports the Senate bill over the House version. She singled out one section of the House bill as markedly superior -- specifically, its requirements for EPA to implement the agency's new responsibilities created by reform of the toxics law.
If the House and Senate panel leaders manage to produce a consensus bill for both chambers to consider, then the four lawmakers could end up as the only legislators with major input on the final bill. That could swing negotiations toward the House language since Boxer has been a strident opponent of some aspects of the Senate measure.
Neither bill was authored by its committee's leaders; S. 697 was co-sponsored by Sens. Tom Udall (D-NM) and David Vitter (R-LA), while H.R. 2576 was originally sponsored by Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL).
Boxer even threatened a filibuster over the Senate bill's approach to preemption of state chemicals programs -- a contentious issue that has doomed past TSCA reform bills.
Democratic senators worked with their GOP colleagues on revising the preemption language in S. 697 prior to passing the bill by voice vote in December, and the changes were seen as paring back preemption to a level where the Democrats signed on to support the bill.
But Boxer later signaled that she still has concerns the compromise language could be too limiting on state programs.
EPA's McCarthy in her Jan. 20 letter to lawmakers said the agency is taking no position on which approach Congress should take on the contentious preemption issue, though she suggested refinements to each bill's language on the topic.
TSCA Reform
Both TSCA reform bills would overhaul the 1976 chemical safety act in order to give EPA new authority to address risks from existing chemicals in the marketplace, and would eliminate legal hurdles in current law that have hindered the agency's ability to restrict dangerous chemicals, such as its 1991 failure to ban asbestos.
But the bills take divergent approaches to preemption, which has led many observers to label that issue as the biggest obstacle to crafting a consensus bill.
S. 697 would “grandfather,” or preserve, states' existing chemicals laws, but new chemical rules and laws would be preempted as soon as EPA defines and publishes the scope of a safety assessment and safety determination under its TSCA section 6 authority to review existing chemicals' risks.
By contrast, the House bill grandfathers state chemical safety laws that took effect before Aug. 1 as well as preserving state toxic tort claims even after EPA takes final action on regulating a chemical, unless they "actually conflict" with the new federal mandates. New state chemical laws, however, would be preempted when EPA uses its TSCA authority to restrict the same substance, without the need to show the policies “actually conflict.”
States have urged the legislators to craft a final bill with narrow preemption language, including a Jan. 19 letter to the EPW and House energy panel leaders from 12 state attorneys general (AGs). That letter labeled limited preemption as one of seven “principles” on the state-federal relationship that the AGs said legislators should consider as they work toward a final bill.
Similarly, the National Governors' Association, National Conference of State Legislatures, Environmental Council of the States, and Association of State and Territorial Health Officials wrote to lawmakers last month calling on a final TSCA bill to preserve states' chemicals programs.
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Overhaul State Chemical Rules to Ensure Citizens' Health
Mar 9, 2016 | Albany TImes Union
By Peter Iwanowicz
We'll just say it: Environmental Advocates has not always seen eye to eye with Sen. Kathy Marchione. In 2014, we successfully organized against her plan to roll back thousands of public health protections. About 50 organizations like the Healthy Schools Network and Long Term Care Community Coalition noted, "Many of the standards are critical to keeping our air breathable, our water drinkable, and our workplaces safe."
The water contamination crisis in Hoosick Falls appears to have clarified her position. In a recent Capitol Pressroom interview, Marchione committed to protecting public health regulations and cited the need to go much further on chemical oversight: "Those (chemicals) that are affecting our health, that are proven that we have issues with ... they need to get 'em on a list and we need to do something about it."
This year should be the year to turn those words into action, particularly now that Deputy Majority Leader John DeFrancisco has opened the door to Senate hearings. Legislators can identify breakdowns concerning Hoosick Falls, as well as how to update and ensure oversight of chemical regulation policies, to prevent similar occurrences elsewhere.
Residents of Hoosick Falls may be getting sick because of a man-made chemical — perfluorooctanoic acid — in their drinking water. The focus first must be on making the water safe and ensuring access to immediate and long-term health services.
Public hearings can also address the root causes behind such contamination: America's broken chemical policy of calling things safe until someone gets sick, and the lack of strong regulations and enough cops on the beat to keep people safe.
Pharmaceuticals undergo intensive testing to determine health impacts before receiving approval from the Food and Drug Administration, yet industrial chemicals may go right to market.
According to the American Cancer Society, "Studies in humans have found that people with workplace exposure to PFOA have higher risks of bladder and kidney cancers."
In response to Hoosick Falls, the state could regulate PFOA for certain uses — such action would ignore that this crisis is not limited to Hoosick Falls; nor is it limited to PFOA. We have been down that road before: Once BPA, for instance, was regulated, chemical manufacturers changed some molecules and created different but potentially equally dangerous alternatives like BPS and BPF.
PFOA is one of 80,000-plus potentially hazardous unregulated chemicals on the market.
Public officials must reject a piecemeal approach.
In response to a question from Pressroom host Susan Arbetter on whether she believed regulations should be reviewed based on whether they are good for business, Marchione stated, "I don't think you can put a price on someone's health. I don't think you can do a cost-benefit as to whether your children are healthy. I think that when you have chemicals that are out there ... that's where we should put our time and effort, because those are things that affect the health and welfare of our people."
There are immediate and long-term opportunities to act. While Hoosick Falls hearings are expected following passage of the budget, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislators can take steps now to protect public health.
First, they can fully implement the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act of 2006. Nationwide, 15,000 people die prematurely every year due to particulate matter, which includes soot from diesel vehicles.
Second, they should pass the Child Safe Products Act (S.5995) to regulate toys, bedding, etc., which are, shockingly, still made with arsenic, mercury, lead and other hazardous materials.
Third, they need to increase funding for regulatory agency staffing.
Prioritizing public health means experts continually learning more about the chemicals we are exposed to, and enforcement of our laws.
The fear that residents of Hoosick Falls have is deplorable. It will remain for years to come. As legislators proceed in finding out who knew what, and when, they cannot lose sight of preventing future events. We believe that Cuomo, DeFrancisco and Marchione, and all state legislators are committed to ensuring no one else endures a similar fate. They should act this year to overhaul New York's chemical regulations and score one for public health by enforcing current and new regulations that will ensure healthy drinking water and keep all New Yorkers safe from industry greed.
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House Oversight Panel Republicans Seek IRIS Update
Mar 9, 2016 | InsideEPA
Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are asking EPA to update the panel on the agency's progress in reforming the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) chemical assessment program after the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a critical 2011 review of the program's draft assessment of formaldehyde.
Arguing that “progress has been slow in adopting the NAS recommendations,” House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), chairwoman of the interior subcommittee, ask EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in a March 8 letter to provide by March 22 documentation of a number of NAS-recommended changes.
As examples of the agency's delay in making the reforms, the letter notes that EPA has yet to release the pending handbook outlining how IRIS assessments are to be developed, and says the latest update to the IRIS agenda, released last December, provides only “limited details on timeframes for completing chemical assessments and is unclear regarding whether the NAS recommendations will be fully implemented for substances currently under assessment.”
The letter asks McCarthy to provide documentation for all NAS recommendations that have been completed, time lines for completed responses to outstanding recommendations, and documents relating to the time line for completion of the IRIS handbook and whether it will be peer reviewed.
Additionally, Chaffetz and Lummis ask McCarthy to provide “[d]ocuments referring or relating to the peer review process for guidance documents or other reference materials developed to guide EPA staff in the implementation of the NAS recommendations” and “[d]ocuments referring or relating to EPA's process for the initial nomination of substances for review by IRIS and/or the process for reevaluation of substances that have completed an IRIS assessment review.”
NAS' 2011 report critiqued EPA's draft IRIS assessment of formaldehyde, which concluded for the first time that the chemical was a leukemogen, questioning the quality and transparency of its analysis. The report also included a rare chapter exceeding its charge, in which committee members outlined what they considered broader issues with the IRIS process.
The report led to a series of efforts by EPA research office leadership to overhaul the program, such as bringing in a new manager, Ken Olden, and creating a new standing advisory committee to peer review IRIS assessments. IRIS management also began to craft the handbook detailing the IRIS development process. Despite promises last June that it would be out by year's end, it has yet to be completed and it is unclear when it will.
EPA also sought a review from NAS on how it was responding to the recommendations in the 2011 report, and the resulting 2014 report was favorable of the agency's progress but urged the agency to develop and adopt further elements of an analytical approach known as systematic review.
But some have begun to question whether the reform efforts have further bogged down an already lengthy and cumbersome assessment process. The agency has not published a final IRIS assessment since it released its assessment of Libby amphibole asbestos in December 2014.
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California Proposes New Cancer Risk Factor for PCE Emissions
Mar 10, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has proposed to tighten the toxicity value that air quality regulators use to calculate cancer risk from exposure to perchloroethylene emissions.
Newly available scientific information and a better modeling tool are the basis for updating the inhalation unit risk factor, OEHHA toxicologist Kenneth Kloc said at a workshop near Los Angeles March 8.
Perchloroethylene or tetrachloroethylene (CAS No. 127-18-4), sometimes called PCE or PERC, is used in dry cleaning, textile processing, metal cleaning operations and to produce other chemicals.
OEHHA's unit risk factor for perchloroethylene is the excess cancer risk associated with a lifetime exposure to a concentration of 1 microgram per cubic meter. The risk factors are used to assess health risks from air emissions and hot spots.
Identified as Carcinogen
The California Air Resources Board added the chemical to its list of toxic air contaminants in 1991 and identified it as carcinogen in 1988. Perchloroethylene, which the Environmental Protection Agency has identified as a likely human carcinogen, also is on the list of federal hazardous air pollutants.
OEHHA published a notice last month seeking comments on the draft document through April 1, on supporting an updated cancer potency value for the chemical. A second workshop is set for March 11 at California Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Sacramento.
After OEHHA reviews the comments and makes any needed changes, the draft document will be presented to the state's air toxics scientific review panel at its June 24 meeting.
The document proposes revising the excess cancer risk for perchloroethylene hot spots from 5.9 in 1 million to 6.1 in 1 million, which is “approximately 23-fold greater than” the U.S. EPA's corresponding cancer unit risk factor for inhalation of perchloroethylene, OEHHA Senior Toxicologist John Budroe told Bloomberg BNA in a March 9 e-mail.
Different Calculations
The EPA's Integrated Risk Information System unit risk factor for cancer, however, is calculated using the oxidative pathway of metabolism of the chemical, while OEHHA's potency factor considers total metabolism, Kloc said.,
OEHHA's draft revised cancer potency factor is based the elevated incidence of several tumor types observed in male mice and rats from a Japanese study, “in relation to PCE-metabolized doses” calculated with an adapted version of a refined physiologically based pharmacokinetic model published in 2011. The EPA's Benchmark Dose Software and multistage cancer model also were used to derive the revised risk value, the agency said.
Several epidemiologic studies have linked exposure to perchloroethylene to bladder cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma in humans, according to OEHHA.
Regulations the California Air Resources Board adopted in 2007 require dry cleaners to stop using the chemical by the end of 2023. South Coast Air Quality Management District rules call for a faster phaseout, by 2020, at dry cleaning facilities in the Los Angeles air basin.
Perchoroethylene also has been detected at hazardous waste sites, in groundwater and soil.
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Town to Get Filtration for PFOA-Tainted Water
Mar 10, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
A plastics company has agreed to install a carbon filtration system for the drinking water supply in Petersburgh, N.Y., to address contamination with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), state agencies announced March 9. The finding of contamination in the upstate New York town was announced in February as an outgrowth of investigations into drinking water tainted by PFOA in Hoosick Falls, N.Y. (40 DEN A-5, 3/1/16). Taconic Plastics Inc. has agreed to pay for the planning, installation and maintenance of the filtration system, the state Health and Environmental Conservation departments said. PFOA levels have been detected in the Petersburgh drinking water supply just above Environmental Protection Agency guidance levels, the state agencies said. Further tests are continuing, along with planning for future steps to address the contamination, they said.
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Republicans Hone in on EPA’s “Uncooperative” Relationship With States
Mar 9, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By James Osborne
Republican senators condemned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Wednesday, saying it is overstepping its authority and pushing onerous pollution regulations on states.
The comments, during a hearing in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, come as the Obama administration continues its roll out of rules designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, largely from the energy sector.
“We have observed a flood of new regulations breaking down this system, in what seems to be uncooperative federalism,” said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., chairman of the senate environment committee. “Many of these actions are driven from EPA headquarters to fulfill a political agenda that often results in years of litigation and inefficiencies that cost citizens more taxpayer dollars and reap little to no environment benefit.”
The White House now has in the works rules to force oil and gas drillers to reign in methane leaks and power companies to shift away from carbon-intensive fuels like coal. The latter has been stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court pending a final ruling.
And the EPA is considering a rule change that could vastly expand its oversight over pollution from oil and gas production across the country.
With the president’s commitment in Paris last year to work with world leaders to try and keep the planet’s temperature from rising no more than 2 degrees Celsius, more regulation is expected before Obama leaves office next year.
At the same time, the White House if facing a Republican-led Congress eager to stop him from moving ahead.
“What has happened is we’re seeing an effort to undermine [environmental] laws through the backdoor,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D- California. “When I look at what happened in Michigan, what happened in Flint, for us to be holding a hearing saying the EPA is doing too much, it makes no sense.”
Environmental officials from Delaware, Vermont, Arkansas, West Virginia and South Dakota testified at the hearing Wednesday, offering conflicting accounts of EPA’s relationship with state officials.
For some it was an agency that ran amok over industry; for others a necessary barricade in protecting the health of air and waterways.
“EPA has given us many important protections and Vermonters have come to rely on them,” said Deborah Markowitz, secretary of Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.
But in some regions, the shift to regulating greenhouse gas emissions over the more noticeable problems of the 1970s and 80s – like smog and sewage-filled rivers – is causing a back lash.
“When [the Clean Air Act and other rules] were put in place this country was really suffering. But tremendous progress has been made,” said Steven Pirner, secretary of South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources. “Now we’re getting to such low levels, we’re gong to spend a lot of time and money and in the end what’s going to be the benefit?”
There was general consensus that funding cuts at EPA had left states picking up more and more of the tab in enforcing federal pollution rules.
Ali Mirzakhalili, air quality director at the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said his state was now paying 75 percent of the cost of enforcing the Clean Air Act there.
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GOP Senators Let States Lead the Attack Against Agency Rules
Mar 10, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Amanda Reilly
Senate Republicans yesterday raised another point of attack against U.S. EPA, arguing that the agency has broadly impinged on states' rights and eroded relationships with state regulators.
At a hearing, Republicans and their state regulator witnesses said that EPA has issued a host of burdensome requirements in recent years. They charged that EPA has acted in violation of the principle of cooperative federalism that backs the nation's seminal environmental laws.
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) yesterday also released letters from 17 state environmental agencies in response to his January request that states provide information about regulations and their dealings with EPA. The letters show that "there are many areas where states report that EPA is not upholding the principle of cooperative federalism," according to Inhofe.
"Under the Obama administration, we have observed a flood of new regulations breaking down this system, in what seems to be uncooperative federalism," Inhofe said.
But both the hearing and an E&E Daily review of the letters show that states have a nuanced relationship with EPA.
In the letters, many states described having good working relationships with EPA staff whom they deal with most often in regional offices but that those good feelings can break down when it comes to the national level. States generally feel that they have to deal with more regulations even as their financial resources dwindle.
While Inhofe slammed the agency on Capitol Hill, the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality described in a Feb. 4 letter that overall, it has a positive relationship with the federal agency.
"While it is true that there have been certain situations over the past few years in which DEQ would have preferred a stronger relationship and sense of cooperation with EPA, DEQ does have a reasonably positive relationship with EPA Region 6," Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality Director Scott Thompson wrote. "Beyond that, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has improved relations with states since she has been in office and seems to have a greater interest in listening to issues that states may have with EPA regulatory actions."
The state highlighted several areas, including tribal jurisdiction and hazardous materials cleanup, where it felt EPA operated in a spirit that "might be characterized as a lack of cooperative federalism."
The stated purpose of both yesterday's hearing and the letter-writing exercise was to examine the cooperative federalism that is inherent in the nation's environmental laws. Under cooperative federalism, EPA sets standards and processes and then gives states leeway to come up with ways to meet them. States can choose to set more stringent standards within their borders.
Blue states, including California, Delaware, Vermont, Oregon and Massachusetts, as well as Democrats' witnesses at the hearing, defended EPA's relationship with states, praising the agency's communication with regulators and its flexibility in addressing specific state needs.
"We have found EPA willing to listen to our concerns and work with us to find a solution," said Deb Markowitz, secretary of Vermont's Agency of Natural Resources, at the hearing.
In their responses to Inhofe, though, many other states said that recent regulatory requirements by EPA headquarters have stressed relations with the agency.
"While Nebraska has a good working relationship with EPA Region VII, recent EPA headquarters regulatory actions have snowballed," Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality Director Jim Macy wrote in an undated letter. "EPA's compulsive tinkering with standards and limits, often before states have had a reasonable chance to comply, makes it difficult to reconcile these often competing priorities."
Wyoming also described itself as having an "effective working relationship" with EPA staff but said the agency's recently announced national enforcement initiatives for 2017 to 2019 added "unnecessary complexity to this relationship." The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality said in a Feb. 9 letter that EPA's initiatives were driven by national policy that didn't reflect priorities within state borders.
The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation also said that EPA generally neglected to recognize the specific and unique needs of the northern state.
"Often the EPA's proposals are developed in a centralized, national manner that are not well-suited to Alaska's unique situation," Commissioner Larry Hartig wrote in a Feb. 9 letter. "ADEC staff spend significant time analyzing proposals and providing comments to the EPA, typically raising concerns or requesting flexibility to address specific Alaska circumstances."
Some states described the relationship as completely broken.
In an extended metaphor at yesterday's hearing, Becky Keogh, director of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, told senators that EPA and the state used to have a "relatively balanced seat at the table" but that under the Obama administration, "this once treasured family-style dining with our federal partners is a thing of the past."
"States have recognized an unprecedented level of federal actions," Keogh said. "To borrow a saying in the South, 'We have more on our plate than we can say grace over.'"
In a Feb. 8 letter to Inhofe, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality blamed the agency's carbon program for power plants for its souring relationship with EPA.
"Our experience with EPA during the development of the [Clean Power Plan] was that they treated the states, who are ostensibly co-implementers of the Clean Air Act with EPA, no different from any other party who commented on the rule," MDEQ Executive Director Gary Rikard wrote. "When they conducted conference calls and other 'collaborative' meetings with state regulators, such 'collaboration' was perfunctory, with EPA failing, or refusing, to provide the most basic of information needed by the states to understand the proposed rule. Often EPA and the states are co-regulators in name only."
At the hearing, Randy Huffman, secretary of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, also said that the Clean Power Plan was demonstrative of a breakdown in the cooperative federalism system. EPA has gone too far in specifying "every minute detail" of state compliance planning in the program, he said.
Huffman also criticized EPA's use of guidance documents and its attempts to encourage states to use its environmental justice tools, among other agency actions.
"EPA and other federal agencies seem to have been on a mission to totally remake the American regulatory landscape," Huffman said. "They have undertaken this effort with a marked indifference to the impacts of their continual parade of new regulatory demands."'Cuyahoga River doesn't catch on fire anymore'
Democrats defended EPA yesterday, arguing that a strong federal agency is still necessary even as the nation's air and water continue to get cleaner.
"The Cuyahoga River doesn't catch on fire anymore, but we still can't eat our fish, and we can do better," said Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), in reference to the 1969 fire that helped spur a number of key water quality regulations.
EPW Committee ranking member Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) charged that the hearing was part of a long-running GOP campaign to undermine the nation's seminal environmental laws through backdoor channels.
She said that the hearing's topic was especially concerning given the ongoing lead contamination crisis in Flint, Mich., in which a state-appointed emergency manager switched the city's water source and did not require anti-corrosive treatment.
Like Carper, Boxer said that the federal government needs to continue playing a key role in environmental protection.
"To just say the states should do it all, there shouldn't be minimum standards, we shouldn't really triple-check these water systems -- I just don't buy it," Boxer said.
States, including those supportive and critical of EPA, agreed that they had to do "more with less," saying that the increased regulatory requirements at the agency came at a time of decreased federal and state funding.
Many states highlighted the Clean Power Plan, which the Supreme Court recently froze pending litigation, and standards for traditional air pollutants as areas where they were forced to expend significant resources. Nebraska, for example, said it had to devote three full-time staff members to work on the Clean Power Plan.
"We have reached a point where the number and extent of requirements being passed down must decrease or federal funding levels must increase," Idaho Department of Environmental Quality Director John Tippets said bluntly in a Feb. 11 letter.
The contributions from the federal government to state environment agency budgets vary.
Federal grant commitments make up about 15 percent of the total budget at Massachusetts DEP, while 34 percent of the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources' budget is reliant on federal funds.
Steven Pirner, secretary of the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said in both a Feb. 5 letter and in hearing testimony that performance partnership grants from EPA peaked in 2012 and have trended down since.
He told senators that the nation's air and water have gotten cleaner since the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act were passed and that the Obama administration has reached a point where it has been issuing new standards that have increased the burden on cash-strapped states with little benefit.
"We're getting to such low levels that we're going to spend a lot of time, we're going to spend a lot of resources," he said, "and in the end, what's going to be the benefit?"
At the hearing, Delaware and Vermont officials pleaded with Congress for more money and argued that a strong EPA is necessary to address air pollution drifting within their borders from some of the states arguing hardest against new EPA regulations.
Taking their side, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said it is unlikely that states critical of EPA would independently address pollution that is contributing to air quality problems in downwind states without strict national regulation. He applauded EPA for cracking down on air pollution outside states responsible for air pollution in Rhode Island.
"The states that seem to be more in the [pollution] export business are more the ones that have a problem with EPA," Whitehouse said, "and the ones that are more in the getting-clobbered business are the ones that appreciate EPA."
Congress is responsible for appropriating money to EPA. Inhofe, however, blamed EPA for requesting less funding to help states carry out regulations.
"The Obama EPA has embarked on an unprecedented regulatory agenda that simply runs over states," the EPW chairman said at the hearing, "by imposing an increasing number of federal regulatory actions on states while requesting even less funds to help states carry out these actions."
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U.S. to Target Existing Oil, Gas Wells in Effort to Cut Methane Emissions
Mar 10, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Amy Harder
The Obama administration is expected to announce its first step toward regulating methane emissions from hundreds of thousands of oil and natural gas wells across the U.S., a move likely to face pushback from an industry battered by cheap oil and to be cheered by environmentalists.
The administration is planning to make the announcement Thursday alongside similar actions by Canada, whose new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, will be visiting the White House for the first time in office, according to people familiar with the plan. The two countries will commit to cut oil and gas methane emissions by 40% to 45% below 2012 levels by 2025, a commitment the Obama administration has previously made.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, already working on rules cutting methane emissions from oil and gas wells not yet drilled, will begin devising regulations for existing wells and aims to release in April draft requirements for companies to provide information about equipment, emissions and control technologies from a broad range of oil and gas activities, including production, transmission, processing and storage.
The step, being taken under the Clean Air Act, indicates the agency is preparing to write a regulation that is likely to affect hundreds of thousands of existing wells across the U.S.
The Canadian government’s environmental regulator also intends to regulate methane emissions from new and existing oil and natural gas sources, publishing initial proposed rules by early 2017, according to people familiar with the plan.
Canada, under previous Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, never introduced rules limiting emissions from the energy sector, earning rebukes from environmental groups. In contrast, the Liberal government under Mr. Trudeau has pivoted on climate-change policy, setting out aggressive goals to reduce carbon emissions.
“Our countries are stepping up to the challenge of methane emissions, and driving forward the regulatory measures necessary to curb methane emissions from existing oil and gas sources,” said Brian Deese, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama.
The EPA is unlikely to complete a regulation before Mr. Obama leaves office at the end of 2016. Any proposal the EPA issues would likely stay on track if a Democrat wins the White House, while a Republican administration would likely withdraw it.
Thursday’s announcement is the latest step in a broader effort to clamp down on domestic greenhouse-gas emissions and show the U.S. is moving to address a global deal on climate change that roughly 200 nations agreed to late last year.
The EPA is planning to issue its final rule affecting future oil and gas wells in the coming months. In January, the Interior Department also proposed rules to cut methane emissions from existing oil and natural gas operations on federal lands, which account for a small portion of domestic drilling.
Over the last year, the Obama administration has focused on methane emissions, which the EPA says has a warming impact on the planet at least 25 times that of carbon dioxide. Methane is the primary component of natural gas.
The EPA says the oil and gas sector’s methane emissions account for almost 30% of all U.S. methane emissions, second to agricultural sources, which account for roughly 36%.
Methane emissions from the energy sector have dropped roughly 15% from 2005 through 2012, according to administration data, despite an increase in the production of oil and natural gas. The U.S. government estimates these emissions will rise 25% over the next decade if steps aren’t taken to reduce them.
With the onset of the energy boom over the past decade, some companies have practiced flaring, the burning of excess gas as carbon dioxide, or venting, the emission of methane straight into the atmosphere, if pipelines or other infrastructure aren’t immediately available to transport and process it.
Environmentalists and some Democratic lawmakers have been urging the administration to regulate existing oil and gas wells across the U.S., on federal, private and state lands alike, and will likely support the EPA’s latest move in that direction.
The oil and natural gas industry has grown critical of the Obama administration over the past two years as government agencies have rolled out emissions-reduction proposals.
Arguing that the federal government is overreaching its executive authority across a range of energy issues, industry executives say new methane rules are unnecessary because companies are cutting emissions voluntarily.
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Long-Simmering Revenue Fight Flares Up
Mar 10, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
When Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) found himself with President Obama in New Orleans last year to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, he decided to use the opportunity to bend the president's ear about an administration proposal that irked him.
Buried deep in the fiscal 2016 Interior Department budget request was a proposal to change the distribution system for federal offshore drilling revenues.
A 2006 law earmarks some of the money for Gulf Coast states depending on the amount of fuel that companies extract in federal waters off their coasts. The administration's proposal would have made it available to projects around the country.
The funding and the long-standing debate surrounding it are of paramount importance to Louisiana, which has seen rapid coastal erosion for much of the past century because of levees built on the Mississippi River and the effects of oil and gas drilling.
Cassidy and other Gulf lawmakers are looking to not only protect the revenue source but also increase it amid concerns about fossil fuel production and skepticism from many Democrats. The fight may return to the Senate floor in the coming days.
Cassidy recounted his time with the president in an interview last week. "We were at the Katrina 10 ceremony in the Lower 9th [Ward]," he said. "We're there to celebrate recovery from devastation -- the devastation worsened by the lack of wetlands to protect" the coast.
After informing Obama of a Louisiana Constitution requirement that offshore drilling revenues be spent on restoring the battered coast, Cassidy said the president "was very sympathetic."
"And he looked at [White House Chief of Staff Denis] McDonough and said, 'We cut this?'" Cassidy said. "I did not expect him to know that level of detail."
Cassidy went on describing the scene with Obama: "He looks to McDonough and he said, 'Oh well, you know [White House budget director Shaun Donovan] said we didn't know Louisiana was going to spend it right,' that sort of thing. And the president said, 'No, we need to make sure this happens.'"
Despite the president's gesture, Cassidy said he was "very disappointed" to see the redistribution proposal included once again in the fiscal 2017 budget request last month. And he expressed his displeasure to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell during a budget hearing last month.
"Now they are going to say we redistribute it, but the reality is that instead of Louisiana having money, which they can essentially bond to jump-start multiyear projects to restore, now we got to hope that we are able to get some money if it's held together by some future administrations," he said.
The group Restore the Mississippi River Delta Coalition, which includes businesses and environmental organizations, echoed Cassidy's position in a letter to the president this week.Following Landrieu's path
The Republican majority in Congress means the administration's proposal "is not going anywhere," as Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told Jewell at the outset of last month's hearing.
But with a glut of domestic oil stalling new production, including offshore, Cassidy said it is crucial to continue funding coastal restoration efforts.
"Obviously, there's been a lot of concern about Flint, those children," he said, referring to the lead contamination in the Michigan city's water supply. "But there's children in the Lower 9th Ward now who are going to be subject to another devastating storm unless we rebuild that coastline -- a coastline, by the way, which is in large part eroded because of federal decisions to levee the Mississippi River in such a way for the benefit of inland commerce. And ever since, from the year that was done, our coastlines have begun to melt away."
In doing so, Cassidy is carrying on the fight waged by his predecessor, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), whom he unseated in 2014. Working with then-Senate Energy Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and the George W. Bush administration, Landrieu helped push the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act (GOMESA) into law in 2006.
But to stave off the need for costly offsets for the loss of federal revenue that accompanied the change, the law capped the annual amount of the state payments at $500 million. Efforts to raise that cap for the Gulf states, as well as to expand the 37.5 percent sharing formula nationwide, have faltered since 2006.
An amendment to the Senate energy bill, S. 2012, proposed by Cassidy and fellow Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, Murkowski, and Virginia Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, would raise that cap to $999 million from 2027 to 2031, which Cassidy's office says would raise an additional $1.87 billion for Gulf states.
Significantly, it would also expand revenue sharing beyond the Gulf Coast to Alaska, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.Nelson balks
The proposed change is of concern to Senate Democrats from Maryland and points north, and Florida's Sen. Bill Nelson (D), who for years has fought to keep oil rigs as far away from his state's coastlines as possible.
GOMESA also put a swath of the eastern Gulf of Mexico off-limits to drilling -- a nod to the Florida delegation -- and Cassidy's amendment does not touch that moratorium. Still, asked about the prospects of Cassidy getting 60 votes for his amendment, Nelson this week said he doesn't plan to find out.
"I'm not going to take a chance," he said in an interview. "I've fought this for 40 years, and my answer is no. I'm not going to let Cassidy proceed."
Both Cassidy's amendment and a competing proposal by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) that would repeal GOMESA are among the list of three dozen amendments that may receive votes in the event the energy bill returns to the floor.
During a brief interview, Markey last week said his amendment repealing GOMESA was under discussion.
"We're looking at what's the best way of framing this issue of how many of the federal tax dollars should be sent out of the Treasury and what the implications are," he said. "So we're looking at the best ways of shaping the argument."
In a statement yesterday, the Sierra Club slammed Republicans for blocking progress on the energy bill and aid to Flint, Mich., by pressing for revenue-sharing changes.Enviros attack
"It's pathetic that Senator Cassidy and Senate Republicans are blocking an effort to help the families of Flint just to push the agenda of Big Oil companies," said Athan Manuel, the Sierra Club's director of lands protection.
But support for revenue sharing is not only among the GOP. In an interview last week, Kaine said his backing for drilling off his state's coast has always hinged on the addition of revenue sharing.
The Interior Department is currently weighing whether to allow leasing off the Atlantic Coast. Kaine noted that the Cassidy amendment was silent on that issue.
"The worst situation for Virginia would be for the moratorium to go away and we to get nothing," he said. "So the White House is going to figure that out, and we're going to figure it out with them -- on the moratorium."
Kaine went on: "But we do not want a situation where this president or any president could go down the path of allowing lease sales or drilling and there be no revenue. So we need to clarify that."
Murkowski told reporters yesterday she thought lawmakers could negotiate with Nelson over his objections. But she urged him against stalling. "It's the last thing out there" holding up an agreement to set up votes on the energy bill and Flint, she said.
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Sanders, Clinton Vow Further Executive Action on Climate
Mar 10, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
While former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders sparred last night over who boasts better environmental credentials, both presidential candidates acknowledged that should Democrats retain the White House, climate change policy must continue to be carried out through executive action to circumvent partisan gridlock on Capitol Hill.
In a spirted two-hour debate in Miami, sponsored by Univision and The Washington Post and broadcast on CNN, Clinton and Sanders faced off on issues including immigration, border security and the financial industry, as well as climate change policy.
Moderators, responding to a request from the mayors of more than 20 Florida cities to discuss sea-level rise, a concern in the state's coastal communities, prompted candidates to address how they would pursue climate change policies when many Republicans lawmakers remain skeptical of climate science (Greenwire, March 7).
Both Sanders and Clinton have endorsed expanding renewable energy production in the country but split on other remedies, including whether to ban hydraulic fracturing and the creation of a carbon tax.
Sanders, who claims support from Friends of Earth Action and is generally seen as the more aggressive candidate on climate change, used the opportunity to blast Republican front-runner Donald Trump as well as lawmakers who receive campaign contributions from the extractive industries.
"When you have Republican candidates for president and in Congress telling you that climate change is a hoax -- which is Donald Trump and other candidates' position -- what they are really saying is, 'We don't have the guts to take on the fossil fuel industry,'" Sanders said.
He later added: "You know what happens to that Republican who listens to the scientists? On that day, that Republican loses his campaign funding from the Koch brothers and the fossil fuel industry."
When pressed for details on how he would work with Republicans in Congress, however, Sanders conceded that "no president ... can do it all" and insisted that a "political revolution" is needed to move ahead with climate change legislation.
"When millions of people stand up and tell the fossil fuel industry that their profits -- their short-term profits -- are less significant than the long-term health of this planet, we will win. That is the way change always takes place," Sanders said.
Echoing statements she has made in recent weeks on ending fossil fuel extraction on public lands, Clinton asserted that she would follow in President Obama's footsteps and use executive authority to pursue her climate agenda (E&ENews PM, Feb. 5).
"There are certain things that the president has done through executive action that I will absolutely support. All the Republicans say they will, if they're elected, heaven forbid, repeal all of those executive actions. I will maintain them and act on them," Clinton said, pointing to U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, although its implementation has been stayed by the Supreme Court.
Clinton went on to accuse Sanders of stating he would "delay implementing" the effort to reduce carbon pollution, referring to an interview Sanders gave to the online magazine Grist last month.
In that interview, Sanders said he would like to see the Clean Power Plan modified to include methane emissions and asserted that the existing proposal does too much to encourage power plants to switch to natural gas rather than renewable resources like wind and solar.
"We need to implement all of the president's executive actions and quickly move to make a bridge from coal to natural gas to clean energy," Clinton added. "That is the way we will keep the lights on while we are transitioning to a clean energy future. And when I talk about resilience, I think that is an area we can get Republican support on."
Sanders, who appeared surprised at Clinton's suggestion that he would delay the Clean Power Plan, objected to her assessment of his hypothetical plans.
"Let's be clear. You're looking at the senator who introduced the most comprehensive climate change legislation in the history of the United States Senate," Sanders said.
He went on to challenge Clinton to endorse a carbon tax that would be used to fund investments in renewable energy and sustainability programs. He also called on Clinton to join him in vowing to outlaw fracking in the United States. Clinton has vowed to heavily curb the practice but has said the government could not stop it outright (E&E Daily, March 7).
But moderators moved to another topic at that point, and Clinton did not publicly respond to Sanders' proposal.
Earlier in the debate, as the candidates addressed campaign finance reform, Sanders attacked Clinton for accepting funds tied to the fossil fuel industry. But Clinton responded by pointing to a campaign ad launched yesterday by the political network funded by billionaire GOP donors David and Charles Koch.
"I just think it's worth pointing out that the leaders of the fossil fuel industry, the Koch brothers, have just paid to put up an ad praising Senator Sanders. There are a lot of different powerful interests in Washington. I've taken them on," Clinton said.
She was referring to a 30-second ad produced by Freedom Partners that praised Sanders for recent remarks he made criticizing the Export-Import Bank of the United States as "corporate welfare."
Sanders objected to the odd-couple pairing -- Freedom Partners opposes the Ex-Im Bank in its efforts to reduce government, but the conservative group has little else in common with the self-declared democratic socialist. He added: "There is nobody in the United States Congress who has taken on the Koch brothers -- who want to destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and virtually every federal program passed since the 1930s -- more that Bernie Sanders."
Sanders scored an upset victory in the latest round of primary contests Tuesday when he won a narrow victory in Michigan, but Clinton claims twice as many delegates to date.
The next primary contests are in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio on March 15.
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