Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 3/15
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(ACC Mentioned) What's in that Black Box Inside the Senate TSCA Bill? Loopholes for the Chemical Industry
Mar 14, 2016 | NDRC Switchboard
By Daniel Rosenberg
The House and Senate are in the midst of working to reconcile their two bills to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). There are some provisions that are only in the Senate bill or the House bill, with no equivalent on the other side. -
Updating the Toxic Substances Control Act to Protect Human Health
Mar 14, 2016 | JAMA
By Leonardo Trasande
Increasing evidence from laboratory and human studies shows that synthetic chemicals contribute to disease and dysfunction across the life course. -
(ACC Mentioned) Energy Efficiency: A Fast, Cheap Way to a Cleaner, Healthier Ohio. A Job Creator, Too.
Mar 14, 2016 | NDRC Switchboard
By Samantha Williams
Energy efficiency is the fastest and cheapest way to protect our health, environment and economy from the dangerous effects of climate change. -
$4.2 Million Fracking Verdict Likely to Spark More Suits
Mar 15, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
A recent jury verdict and $4.2 million award in favor of two Pennsylvania families who alleged fracking operations contaminated their wellwater is likely to trigger the filing of more, similar suits, sources told Bloomberg BNA. -
Many Shale Companies Are Unable to Ramp Up Oil Output
Mar 14, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Alison Sider, Chester Dawson, and Erin Ailworth
The U.S. was supposed to be the world’s new swing oil producer, able to nimbly open and close the taps in response to market forces, thanks to its bounty of shale fields. -
OPEC Sees More Uncertainty Around Its Forecast of U.S. Oil-Production Decline
Mar 14, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By Collin Eaton
With costs to produce U.S. oil still dropping and domestic drillers increasingly hedging their output, OPEC said it is less certain of its forecast that oil production among its outside will fall by 700,000 barrels a day this year. -
Senate Action Seen on GMO, Energy Bills Before Break
Mar 15, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nancy Ognanovich
Senate Republican leaders are working to pass a half-dozen or more items before lawmakers leave for a two-week break March 17, including a long-delayed comprehensive energy bill and a fix for Michigan's drinking water crisis. -
House Passes Two FERC Bills, One Energy Efficiency Bill
Mar 15, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
The House passed three energy bills by voice vote March 14, including the Fair RATES Act (H.R. 2984), which would amend the Federal Power Act so that proposed rate changes would go into effect after 60 days if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission fails to take action when a four-person commission is deadlocked. -
House to Defy Veto Threat on Bill to Ease Rules
Mar 15, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
Once again defying a White House veto threat, the House will vote today on a bill to relax air pollution standards for the handful of power plants that burn coal refuse. -
Advocates Urge Michigan To End Utility MACT Opposition
Mar 14, 2016 | InsideEPA
Midwestern environmentalists are calling on Michigan to end its litigation against EPA's power plant air toxics rule in order to protect against harmful emissions, citing the crisis over the contamination of drinking water in Flint, MI, with the neurotoxin lead as a reason to take steps to protect public health such as supporting the air rule. -
Obama’s Atlantic Oil Drilling Plan Takes Friendly Fire — From the Pentagon
Mar 15, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Darryl Fears
The Obama administration is reworking its plan to open the southern Atlantic Coast to offshore oil exploration because of strong opposition from the Pentagon, which says the activity could hurt military maneuvers and interfere with missile tests the Navy relies on to protect the coast. -
Industry Fears 5-Year Plan Will Shrink Leasing Area
Mar 15, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Emily Yehle
The Interior Department will soon release an updated draft of its oil and gas leasing plan, potentially shrinking the area that will be available for drilling in the Atlantic Ocean. -
CSB to Be Audited Under New Cybersecurity Law
Mar 14, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
The U.S. EPA inspector general will audit the Chemical Safety Board's compliance with a new cybersecurity law, the agency watchdog said in a notice today. -
Will Doubling the Number of Engineers Make Trains Safer?
Mar 14, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Ashley Halsey III
In a move that might have spared those involved in a deadly Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia last year, federal regulators Monday said they want a minimum of two engineers aboard most of the nation’s trains. -
Benicia Should Block Oil Trains
Mar 14, 2016 | The Sacramento Bee
By Tom Steyer and Steve Young
If approved, proposed new oil train terminals at refineries in California would turn our railways into crude oil superhighways. Mile-long oil trains would haul millions of gallons of toxic, explosive crude through downtown Sacramento and dozens of other California cities and towns. -
House Committee Issues New Pipeline Safety Draft
Mar 14, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Andrew Restuccia
A new House Energy and Commerce Committee draft of pipeline safety legislation set for a vote this week would give the Transportation Department new authority to impose widespread emergency restrictions on the country's pipelines. -
IG Will Study Toxics Data for Unregulated Discharges
Mar 14, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
U.S. EPA's inspector general will try to use data on toxic emissions to flag facilities that may be avoiding regulation, the office said in a notification released today. -
Environmental Factors Like Pollution Cause a Quarter of Deaths, W.H.O. Says
Mar 15, 2016 | The New York Times
By Sabrina Tavernise
About a quarter of all deaths globally are attributable to preventable environmental factors, such as air and water pollution, according to a new report by the World Health Organization. -
How Cleaner Air Could Actually Make Global Warming Worse
Mar 14, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Chelsea Harvey
A significant amount of the climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions in the past century has been hidden from us, scientists say — by another type of pollution that actually cools the climate and temporarily cancels out some of the warming.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
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Environment News
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Mar 14, 2016 | NDRC Switchboard
By Daniel Rosenberg
The House and Senate are in the midst of working to reconcile their two bills to amend the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). There are some provisions that are only in the Senate bill or the House bill, with no equivalent on the other side. One of those is a section of the Senate bill that is titled "nomenclature," but which more broadly pertains to defining whether or not a chemical is already listed on the TSCA Inventory.
The issue is complicated but it comes down to something basic and critically important - whether changes in chemical formulas will trigger EPA reviews.
Whether a chemical is on the Inventory is a fundamental issue under TSCA. The Inventory determines how a chemical is treated under the law. Companies cannot manufacture, import, or process a chemical substance that is not on the Inventory unless EPA reviews the chemical (assuming it is covered by TSCA and is not otherwise exempt). For chemicals not on the Inventory, companies must submit a "premanufacturing notice" (PMN) to EPA, and the agency then can review the safety of the chemical and impose testing requirements and other limits on the chemicals' manufacture, processing, use and disposal.
Although the chemical industry frequently praises the new chemicals program as one of the elements of existing TSCA that works, companies have often maneuvered to avoid having to submit chemical substances to PMN review by claiming that they are already on the TSCA Inventory. Congress created the TSCA Inventory to begin with because it wanted to be sure chemicals were precisely defined. The statute is explicit that a chemical is to be defined by its exact molecular structure to assure that any changes in molecular structure - even if seemingly small - triggered a review as a new chemical. Over the past 30 years, EPA has insisted on defining inventory listings as precisely and narrowly as possible, so that changes in chemical composition that could have risk implications don't fall through the safety net of a new chemical review.
The "nomenclature" section is probably the most arcane and least carefully examined aspect of the Senate TSCA bill. It has remained unexplained, and unchanged, since it first appeared as part of the original bill introduced by Senators Vitter and Lautenberg in May 2013. The section has attracted very little public discussion, even in the trade press. My colleague Andy Igrejas, the Director of the Safer Chemicals Healthy Families coalition, has described the nomenclature section as a "black box" - practically impenetrable to many of even those most interested in TSCA policy. What would the nomenclature section do? What do its provisions actually say? What do they require EPA to do, and what will they prohibit EPA from doing in the future? Will they lead to fewer PMNs and will this weaken the effectiveness of the PMN program? Why is this rollback necessary? And where did it come from? Who wrote it, and whom does it benefit?
The nomenclature section of the bill appears to actually be several separate and to some extent un-related provisions that have been stuck together under the heading of "nomenclature." Each of those provisions, whether by design or otherwise is difficult to parse, but they clearly point to broader and more encompassing Inventory listings, which would lead to fewer PMNs. This will mean a weakening of EPA's current authority to require PMN review of new chemicals because molecular changes that could increase risks to human health and the environment would be exempt from EPA scrutiny. EPA is grappling with a host of new chemical substances that are being developed and brought to market. Some may help us in our daily lives and be safe and beneficial. Others may pose risks that need to be minimized or prevented. The new chemicals program is the primary method of ensuring that the public is protected but if the scope of the program is narrowed, this goal would not be achieved.
There are a number of recent instances where EPA and the chemical industry have disagreed over whether a chemical (or class of chemicals) is already on the Inventory. It's a reasonable assumption that the intent of the Nomenclature section of the bill is to settle these disputes in the chemical industry's favor - which is a bad result for the public, which will ultimately face more exposure to chemicals that have not been reviewed by EPA for their safety to health and the environment.
Here are some of the areas where the chemical industry is seeking to avoid more reporting and review of new chemicals:
Statutory Mixtures
One element of the nomenclature section appears to be industry's attempt to codify its interpretation of how EPA should deal with "statutory mixtures" - a set of chemicals that are generally combined together to make a particular product, such as cement, glass, or ceramics. The policy idea here (as I understand it) is that the industry would not have to submit each version of a mixture that will create cement, glass etc. to EPA for review, assuming that each of the individual components that comprise the mixture already exist on the TSCA inventory. However, in recent years a dispute has arisen between EPA and the industry over whether chemicals that are created as part of the manufacturing of a "statutory mixture" are themselves "new chemicals" that must undergo PMN review by EPA. There has been some lengthy correspondence between EPA and the industry (primarily the American Chemistry Council and the 3M Company) over this question. I believe the statutory mixture part of the nomenclature section in the bill is intended to resolve this dispute in industry's favor - by saying that EPA shall "treat all components of categories that are considered to be statutory mixtures" as being on the inventory, and thereby including those chemical substances created during the manufacture of those products. In addition, by codifying the categories of statutory mixtures that EPA has used as guidance until now, the bill could also limit EPA's ability to revisit and either drop or refine those existing categories and their definitions.
"Fractions"
A second (and greater) concern with the nomenclature provision is that it attempts to "solve" the so-called "fractions" issue to industry's benefit. The best illustration of the fractions issue is the recent history over EPA's actions on short, medium and long-chain chlorinated paraffins (which are persistent, bioaccumulative toxins or PBTs). In 2012, EPA took enforcement action against two companies, Dover Chemical and INEOS, one for domestically manufacturing and one for importing various types of chlorinated paraffins, including short-chain chlorinated parrafins, which EPA alleged were not on the TSCA inventory. According to the EPA complaints against Dover and INEOS, "the TSCA Inventory currently includes some chlorinated paraffin combinations (such as C6-C18 chloroalkanes, CAS Registry Number 68920-70-7) but it does not include other combinations (such as C10-C13 chloroalkanes, CAS Registry Number 85535-84-8)." EPA has long-standing guidance that substances should be reported "as precisely descriptive as possible for the commercial chemical substance." The short-chain paraffins being domestically manufactured or imported were essentially "slices" or "fractions" of longer carbon chains that were not already listed on the inventory and which, according to EPA, should have been reported with greater specificity and submitted for review as "new chemicals."
Both companies settled with EPA, paid a fine, and stopped producing (or importing) short-chain chlorinated paraffins. In addition, both companies agreed to submit PMNs for the medium and long-chain chlorinated paraffins they are producing/importing for review, but they are allowed to keep making/importing them while they undergo an extended PMN process. One problem with allowing various individual substances - such as chemicals of differing carbon chain lengths - is that potentially important differences among the substances are lost. The evidence for concern is most extensive for the short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs), which were identified as a substance of very high concern under Europe's REACH regulation in 2008, with the use of SCCPs in most articles prohibited since 2012. There are also concerns about the environmental and health impacts of medium- and long-chain chlorinated paraffins. EPA has been gathering information on existing uses of medium- and long-chain chlorinated paraffins as part of its assessment of the MCCPs and LCCPs under PMN review. Other paraffins of combinations may not be PBTs, or may not be toxic. Simply treating all of these substances that have individual characteristics - some problematic and some benign - as the same chemical defeats the point of the inventory.
The chemical industry was alarmed by the enforcement actions against Dover and INEOS and the industry is motivated to prevent EPA's possible further restrictions on the use of MCCPs and LCCPs. In addition, industry sees EPA's enforcement of PMN requirements for "fractions" in this case as potentially the tip of the iceberg of enforcement actions and restrictions on a host of other chemicals whose "fractions" have not been properly reported as new chemicals. (See a newsletter from Bergeson and Campbell on the topichere)
More generally, there have been several write ups of the "fractions" issue by a few of the DC law firms that have TSCA business. My sense is that Bergeson and Campbell is the legal shop most deeply engaged and invested in these issues. As one example see this press release that announces Bergeson and Campbell forming the Alliance for Chemical Nomenclature, an industry coalition to advocate against enforcement over "fractions."
Note that the short-chain chlorinated paraffins were some of the first substances identified by EPA in the early Lisa Jackson/Steve Owens era as "Action Plan" chemicals that needed attention. Other such efforts to use TSCA's existing authorities to make progress included (1) use of the Chemicals of Concern list under existing TSCA 5(b)(4) - EPA's proposal was blocked from publication by OMB, and EPA's authority under 5(b)(4) was deleted in the original Lautenberg/Vitter bill and all subsequent bills; (2) use of SNUR authority to address chemicals of concern, (including in articles for some of them) -- EPA has already either finalized SNURs for several action plan chemicals including benzidine dyes and HBCD and proposed others including PBDEs and TDIs. Now industry is trying to make it more difficult, if not impossible, for EPA to issue SNURS for chemicals in articles in another provision of the Senate bill that I previously blogged about here.
Nanomaterials
A third area of concern regarding the nomenclature section is what, if anything, it will do to EPA's ability to require PMN review for nanomaterials. This has been a huge issue for EPA, with enormous pressure from industry to prevent EPA from imposing restrictions on the (already rampant) uses of nanotechnology in all kinds of products. EPA spent the past five years (!) finally getting a proposed one-time information collection rule out of OMB and it is still not final. EPA had previously sent OMB a proposed Significant New Use Rule (SNUR) for nanomaterials at the same time as the data-reporting rule, but OMB sat on it for four years. EPA ultimately withdrew the proposed SNUR from OMB, and re-submitted a revised version of the proposed Section 8(a) rule which was finally published a year later, (EPA guesstimates that it will finalize the rule in October 2016). EPA has already narrowed its own scope of what it might consider to be a "new" nano substance - only considering a nano substance "new" if it has a new chemical structure - but not if it has different physical or reactive characteristics (including its size) than an existing substance on the inventory. (See Richard Denison's blogs on the long history of industry opposition to EPA learning more about the safety of nanomaterials here.) I may be wrong, but I am concerned that this could be another area where the nomenclature provisions of the Senate bill will further constrain EPA's authority to require review of nanomaterials.
Several of these areas of dispute between EPA and the chemical industry may be "resolved" in industry's favor by one particular subsection of the "Nomenclature" section of the bill. This provision should probably win some sort of prize for its deliberate opacity. The subsection would require EPA to establish "equivalence" between EPA's nomenclature conventions for chemicals on the inventory and any other nomenclature convention "if an existing guidance allows for multiple conventions." The bill does not specify that it is referring to "an existing guidance" from EPA - as written, it could be a guidance from another federal agency, a foreign government, a chemical company or industry trade association.
The idea here seems to be that, if the "existing guidance" allows for multiple nomenclature conventions to describe a class of chemicals and perhaps allows multiple variations in chemistry to be covered by a single broad descriptor, then all the chemicals in the class should be considered "equivalent" and listed on the TSCA Inventory. This could, for example, solve the industry's "problem" of EPA requiring companies to report chemicals with carbon ranges (like the chlorinated paraffins) with greater specificity, and taking enforcement action when companies fail to do so.
How likely is it that there isn't an existing guidance somewhere that "allows for multiple conventions" since it would trigger a requirement for EPA to treat the convention(s) as equivalent with those relied upon by the agency - which would provide industry relief from reporting their chemicals with greater specificity and greater oversight?
Biotech issues -- "Renewable fuels" and enzymes and proteins
There is also a provision in the nomenclature section that codifies EPA's current practice of treating certain types of fats and oils as existing substances on the inventory. The necessity, and advisability, of locking in the existing practice and codifying particular nomenclature documents that are decades-old has not been sufficiently explored. It does seem odd that legislation being billed as "for the 21st Century" should lock in place EPA's reliance on documents from the early 1970s. Meanwhile, at least one biotechnology trade association ("BIO") is shopping language on the Hill trying to get the current provision expanded to cover other non-petroleum-based substances that they argue are "equivalent" to those captured by the 1970s guidance. This past October, a related industry group that was created by Bergeson and Campbell, the "Biobased and Renewable Products Advocacy Group" (BRAG), petitioned EPA to "establish a process to amend the list of natural sources of oil and fat in the 'Soap and Detergent Association' (SDA) nomenclature system by considering the chemical equivalency of additional natural sources." EPA denied BRAG's petition in December, and suggested in its denial letter that asking EPA to undertake a rulemaking pursuant to Section 5(h)(4) of TSCA would be more appropriate.
BIO is also seeing a "fix" to the current nomenclature language that will ensure enzymes and proteins do not have to go through PMN review - or at least not any more than they do now. I believe that language is in response to another instance of an uncompleted EPA activity - the agency issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) in 2004 floating the idea of requiring consideration of four factors (rather than the existing one) to determine if an enzyme needed to go through PMN review. The idea seemed to get vaporized in the wake of industry's hostile response, though there may still be agency activity planned or underway. I am not commenting here on the substance of these areas - "equivalent fuels" or "enzymes and proteins" - other than to say that everyone (including Congress) should be very careful about adopting policies - knowingly or otherwise - that could narrow or remove EPA's ability to require PMN review of a host of GMOs and other substances.
Other possible issues implicated
There are a host of other inventory-related issues that have arisen in recent years along the lines of those outlined above, including: isotopes (subject of an EPA enforcement case around 1994 and then a clarification of policy in June 2013), phosphors (EPA policyclarified by rule February 2010), free-radical initiators (EPA policy issued in 1989), and nonylphenols and nonylphenolethyoxolates (NPs and NPEs) - one of the original "Action Plan" chemicals (Action Plan released August 2010) and subject of a currently proposedSNUR.
Many aspects of the Senate TSCA have changed since the original version, with many improvements (and a few important additional steps backward). However, not a comma has been changed on the "nomenclature" section since it was first introduced, and there's been alarmingly little discussion or even explanation of its purpose and impact on the TSCA new chemical program even though it is clearly designed, at least in part, to make it easier for chemical companies to avoid having to submit their new chemicals to EPA for a review of their safety. That is simply unacceptable in legislation that is ostensibly intended to "reform" or "modernize" TSCA and ensure "consumer confidence" in the safety of chemicals in products used in our homes.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/drosenberg/whats_in_that_black_box_inside.html
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Updating the Toxic Substances Control Act to Protect Human Health
Mar 14, 2016 | JAMA
By Leonardo Trasande
Increasing evidence from laboratory and human studies shows that synthetic chemicals contribute to disease and dysfunction across the life course. Of particular emerging concern is the disruption of the hormonal process that has been found to be associated with increasing rates of obesity, diabetes, neurodevelopmental disabilities, infertility, and breast and prostate cancers.1 Given the magnitude of human and economic burden associated with these conditions, it might be expected that the passage of bipartisan legislation in both houses of Congress to update the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for the first time in 40 years would meet with widespread approval by the public health and medical community.
This Viewpoint endeavors to explain flaws in both bills that have dampened enthusiasm by medical and public health organizations and explore how and whether legislative reconciliation (ie, the process by which the House and Senate negotiate to arrive at a final bill for passage) could reduce chemical hazards and help to prevent disease and disability.
Although it was a landmark piece of legislation at the time, a number of limitations of the TSCA have long been noted, such as the grandfathering-in of the roughly 60 000 chemicals that were already in use at the time of the act’s passage. Going forward, the TSCA gave the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) little power to require proof of safety for newly manufactured chemicals as part of the review process. Approximately 85 000 or more synthetic chemicals are now approved for widespread use in the United States, with more than 600 new chemicals approved by the EPA each year.2
However, passage of legislation currently under consideration to modernize the TSCA could undermine recent efforts by states to protect human health. Over the past 10 years, states have increasingly leveraged their federalist powers to restrict the use of chemicals for which the greatest evidence of causation in disease has emerged. For example, Washington State has banned flame-retardant chemicals that have been shown to disrupt the thyroid hormone and affect cognitive function in multiple longitudinal birth cohort studies.
Multiple states have banned bisphenol A (BPA) from baby bottles and sippy cups because exposure to the synthetic estrogen has been associated with risk of obesity, certain cancers, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Connecticut also has banned BPA from thermal paper receipts. California, Vermont, and Washington State have all disallowed the introduction of certain phthalates (ie, chemicals used to soften plastics and add scent) in children’s products. In all, 28 states are considering or have passed legislation to limit synthetic chemicals in consumer products.3
Perhaps out of a concern that these state actions might be more restrictive than actions that could emerge from revised federal regulations, chemical manufacturer representatives have worked with some environmental advocates as well as members of Congress to update the TSCA. Both versions empower the EPA with long-overdue authority to intervene and limit production of chemical hazards and to protect vulnerable populations (including children and older adults) who are currently not given special consideration in assessing risks. Previously, the EPA examined onerous cost-benefit analyses before considering regulation. Now, the costs to industry can no longer be used in safety determinations.
The bills also allow the EPA to reexamine previously approved chemicals for their potential risks. Both houses of Congress agreed that the EPA needs stronger authority and funding to require testing, and businesses can no longer keep information about chemical hazards secret from health care professionals who could use the information to manage patient care. So-called confidential business information claims have most recently been used regarding a widely used brominated flame retardant to withhold findings of “liver and kidney toxicity; potential persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic characteristics; and potential carcinogenicity.”4
The House version of the current legislation maintains the current and much-criticized approach that presumes new chemicals have no health risks until evidence emerges that they do. It also requires substantial evidence of potential harm prior to requiring review of the safety of an existing chemical. The Senate version of the bill is not perfect either. Although it requires that all chemicals be reviewed, with high-priority chemicals proceeding to immediate review, substantial ambiguity in the criteria for designating low-priority chemicals could limit the pace of reviews.
In exchange for enhancements in federal authority to limit chemical hazards, the House and Senate bills also insist on limiting state authorities that arguably precipitated action at the federal legislative level. The Constitution explicitly requires that state laws yield to congressional action, and the House version, which passed before the Senate version was approved, is much more generally pervasive in its preemption of state action. After prolonged negotiations, the Senate bill required that states be allowed to err on the side of caution and limit chemical hazards during the long review process, which can take many years.5
Both bills have an important flaw that could undermine the touted victories on behalf of disease prevention: they require testing of only 5 chemicals per year by the EPA. The testing would be funded by a combination of industry fees and taxpayer dollars. Even if there are only 500 potentially hazardous substances among the thousands of chemicals already in use that lack toxicity testing data, it would take 100 years to complete their review.
Although the question still remains why taxpayer dollars are supporting needed testing of potential chemical hazards, the limited funding, which reduces the number of chemical hazards that can be tested, also pales in comparison with the disease costs that can be traced to synthetic chemicals. If diseases due to hormone-disrupting chemicals cost $209 billion per year in the United States, as they do in Europe,6 then $25 million of funding per year for chemical testing seems inadequate and potentially dangerous.
Larger industry funding through a user-fee mechanism could support needed improvements in EPA toxicological testing methods (for which flaws have recently been exposed in detecting synthetic chemical obesogens),7 disease surveillance efforts by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and epidemiological studies by the National Institutes of Health.
As members of the Senate and House move to resolve differences in the bills and proceed to revise the 40-year-old TSCA, how well will human health be protected? Many have suggested that this pair of bipartisan legislative efforts represents a unique opportunity for action and argued that another 40 years could pass before another opportunity emerges.
Given that state actions may well have precipitated negotiations in the first place, however, failure to gain consensus about improvements to the TSCA could actually add pressure to chemical manufacturers to accept further protections against hazards, lest states continue to take a more proactive approach to regulation. Passage of TSCA modernization into law could also preclude additional congressional action to prevent diseases that are increasingly attributed to chemical exposures.
The late Senator Frank Lautenberg was a champion on behalf of protecting human health and the environment, and it is appropriate that the Senate bill was named for him. To honor that legacy, few concessions should be made to the House in negotiations, and further improvements beyond the Senate version are needed, especially a more rigorous effort to test chemicals.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2503509
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Mar 14, 2016 | NDRC Switchboard
By Samantha Williams
Energy efficiency is the fastest and cheapest way to protect our health, environment and economy from the dangerous effects of climate change.
That's why NRDC recently joined businesses, trade associations and non-profits in a letterasking Ohio Governor John Kasich and other state leaders to aggressively act to promote smarter energy use.
It has become even more urgent now that the U.S. Supreme Court has held up the federal Clean Power Plan limits on carbon pollution from power plants, the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. While we are confident that the plan will overcome legal challenges, opportunities abound for carbon-intensive Ohio to build on the significant progress it has already made in cutting carbon pollution while saving consumers money and creating jobs.
According to our letter, a few common efficiency policies, such as updating building energy codes and increasing the use of combined heat and power, would save Ohioans nearly $7.5 billion in electricity costs, avoid 22.4 million tons of carbon pollution and reduce thousands of tons of other harmful emissions.
Signing the letter was a diverse group that ranged from Ohio companies like Dow Chemical, Owens Corning and Schneider Electric, national groups like the American Chemistry Council, National Association of Energy Service Companies, and National Electrical Contractors Association, to the nonpartisan business group Environmental Entrepreneurs.
Similar letters were sent to 33 other governors to highlight the strong support for smarter energy use, especially from the business community, and underscore the opportunities for states to use efficiency to reduce harmful pollution and grow their economies at the same time.
Ohio already has made big strides in saving consumers money through efficiency programs such as insulating homes and offering rebates for purchase of more energy-efficient appliances. But the state--whose reliance on coal makes its power plants among the largest emitters of carbon pollution of all state generation fleets--can do much more.
Among the actions Ohio leaders should take: opt into the EPA's Clean Energy Incentive Program, which will reward states for early investments in energy efficiency and clean energy measures; and increase the use of combined heat and power, where electricity and heat are generated from a single source.The state also should step up efforts to reduce energy use inside homes and commercial buildings, including upgrading energy building codes, offering property tax exemptions for energy-efficient projects, and encouraging the use of energy savings performance contracts to upgrade large buildings.
Implementing these measures will put Ohio far down the road to meeting its 2030 carbon-reduction targets under the Clean Power Plan. And strong state action now will reduce the cost of reducing carbon emissions when they eventually come due after the plan is upheld in the courts.
While Ohio's energy efficiency programs have saved consumers more than $1.5 billion, a huge untapped potential remains to further cut electricity costs while reducing pollution and generating jobs. An NRDC analysis showed that ramping up efficiency in Ohio would create 8,600 efficiency jobs alone and save businesses and residents $903 million on energy bills in 2020.
In spite of its proven benefits, energy efficiency and clean energy have faced resistance in Ohio.
In 2014, the Ohio legislature passed and Kasich signed legislation freezing for two years its energy efficiency and renewable energy standards, even though it was delivering significant benefits to Ohioans.
But late last year, the governor called a continued freeze ``unacceptable.'' More recently, he's declared: ``We need to drive efficiency in this country.''
It's time to for the state to step up its efforts.The longer we wait, the harder it will be for Ohioans to fully realize the benefits that energy efficiency offers to their pocketbooks, their health, their environment and the state's economy.
Let's get to work.
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/swilliams/energy_efficiency_a_fast_cheap.html
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$4.2 Million Fracking Verdict Likely to Spark More Suits
Mar 15, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
A recent jury verdict and $4.2 million award in favor of two Pennsylvania families who alleged fracking operations contaminated their wellwater is likely to trigger the filing of more, similar suits, sources told Bloomberg BNA.
A jury on March 10 found that Cabot Oil & Gas acted negligently in drilling fracking wells in Dimock, Pa., which created a private nuisance and significantly harmed the plaintiffs in their use and enjoyment of the property (Ely v. Cabot Oil & Gas Corp, M.D. Pa., No. 09-cv-02284, 3/10/16;49 DEN A-5, 3/14/16)). A number of other families involved in the litigation settled before trial for a total amount less than what was awarded here.
The case is one of the first fracking nuisance verdicts finding for plaintiffs, but it is not unprecedented.
A Texas jury awarded $2.9 million in 2014 to a family who alleged contamination from fracking operations caused them a variety of personal injuries, in Parr v. Aruba Petroleum Inc., Tex. County Ct., No. CC-11-01650-E, 4/22/14(80 DEN A-1, 4/25/14).
In this case, however, no personal injury allegations were put before the jury.
Counsel for the plaintiffs, Leslie Lewis, a solo practitioner in New York, declined to speculate whether the case will have an impact on further litigation.
“I have no idea what the future will bring regarding other cases and future verdicts; this case was a particular fact pattern, with shoddy operations occurring early in the so-called ‘gas boom' years,” Lewis told Bloomberg BNA March 14.
“This case was about gas drilling operations, not necessarily hydraulic fracturing,” Lewis said. “This is maybe the second nuisance verdict in the U.S.; the only other I am aware of is the Parr case, which is under appeal. Presently, I do not know how many other cases are out there and where.”
Plaintiffs ‘Emboldened.'
Defense attorney Brent Allen, with Greenberg Traurig LLP in Washington, said the verdict could spark the filing of more suits.
“Seeing plaintiffs prevail here, even on limited claims and with debatable evidence, suggests that lawyers for plaintiffs will be emboldened to pursue many more cases. Whether those cases translate to more verdicts will depend on the specific facts of each situation,” Allen told Bloomberg BNA March 14.
“Nevertheless, the verdict is significant because it shows how juries tend to react to claims of water contamination, ” Allen said. “Water contamination cases that reach a jury are very dangerous for defendants.”
Allen focuses his practice on the litigation of complex business disputes, and has experience involving refinery operations, gasoline distribution, and natural gas gathering and processing.
Hannah Wiseman, a professor at the Florida State University College of Law, agreed the outcome in this case could encourage landowners to pursue more fracking nuisance claims. It also could encourage plaintiffs to hold out for a verdict rather than settle.
“It shows that plaintiffs can pursue these cases and win,” Wiseman told Bloomberg BNA March 14.
Wiseman declined to speculate on whether the verdict would survive on appeal, but acknowledged it is difficult to challenge a jury verdict.
Despite these predictions, some defense attorneys said the boom in fracking litigation hasn't yet played out like some had predicted (178 DEN B-1, 9/15/15).
They also said the facts of this case may have limited application.
Message Incomplete
“Five years ago, the plaintiffs' bar thought fracking would be the next asbestos. That hasn't been the case. These cases which have been brought seem to be localized and episodic. Or, companies may be resolving appropriate cases after investigation,” defense attorney J. Michael Showalter, with Schiff Hardin in Chicago, told Bloomberg BNA.
Allen of Greenberg Traurig agreed that the facts may not extend far beyond this case.
“Every situation is different, so the jury verdict in this case should not be determinative in other cases involving different facts,” Allen said. “In addition, my understanding is that there were irregularities in how plaintiffs' evidence was introduced, so Cabot is understandably planning to appeal.”
Showalter, who handles environmental litigation for Schiff Hardin, also said it's difficult to draw conclusions from the verdict.
“The message is still incomplete. We don't know how the Third Circuit will evaluate the sufficiency of the plaintiffs’ case. It seems like fingerprinting the gas would have been key in this case. The question is how the appeals court will evaluate that evidence. We're probably a year away from knowing,” he said.
Another defense attorney, Frank Leone, with Hollingsworth LLP in Washington, said the Ely verdict may be an outlier.
Leone specializes in environmental and toxic tort litigation.
“It may be an unusual situation because there were allegations of improper drilling techniques and surface spills, which could have given rise to contamination,” Leone told Bloomberg BNA.
Causation Problem
Going forward, plaintiffs will still face a problem of causation, defense attorney Carl Pernicone with Wilson Elser in White Plains, N.Y. told Bloomberg BNA.
“The jury did not return a finding that the fracking process, itself, resulted in contamination of drinking water supplies. Indeed, from a liability standpoint, the focus of the case wasn't about fracking at all; rather, it was on drilling,” Pernicone said.
“At end of the day, despite all the spin, the Ely verdict simply does not provide the plaintiff's bar with what they've desperately been seeking: A clear, unequivocal jury finding of a nexus between the mechanisms of hydraulic fracturing and contamination of drinking water resources,” he said.
Settlements
The suit originally was filed in 2009 by more than 40 residents as Fiorentino v. Cabot Oil & Gas (226 DEN A-1, 11/27/09).
It was winnowed by settlements and dismissals to four adult plaintiffs—Scott and Monica Ely, and Raymond and Victoria Hubert— and their children.
The Ely family was the subject of “Gasland 2”—a 2013 Oscar-nominated documentary about fracking by Josh Fox.
In December 2010, Cabot settled with 19 Dimock families for a total of $4.1 million.
As part of that agreement, Cabot also paid $500,000 to the state Department of Environmental Protection. That was to offset the agency's investigation into the gas migration problem, following a January 2009 report that a private water well had exploded.
The DEP determined that methane gas from a shallow formation had been disturbed and migrated through poorly constructed wells that Cabot built while drilling the deeper Marcellus Shale formation. Cabot disputes that finding.
In early February, the court barred the plaintiffs and their experts from putting before the jury evidence about alleged personal injuries or the various settlements accepted by some of the original plaintiffs. Also barred was information about consent decrees or notice of violations by government agencies (27 DEN A-6, 2/10/16).
Cabot to Challenge Verdict
Cabot has vowed to challenge the verdict.
“Cabot will be filing motions with the Court to set the verdict aside based upon lack of evidence as well as conduct of plaintiff's counsel calculated to deprive Cabot of a fair trial,” the company said in a statement March 10.
Leslie Lewis, a solo practitioner in New York, represents the Elys and Huberts.
Norton Rose Fulbright US LLP in Canonsburg, Pa., represents Cabot and related defendants.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=84676075&vname=dennotallissues&fn=84676075&jd=84676075
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Many Shale Companies Are Unable to Ramp Up Oil Output
Mar 14, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Alison Sider, Chester Dawson, and Erin Ailworth
The U.S. was supposed to be the world’s new swing oil producer, able to nimbly open and close the taps in response to market forces, thanks to its bounty of shale fields.
But as oil prices show some signs of stabilizing, American producers and oilfield-services companies are warning that they may not be able to jump-start drilling.
The reason: Many independent companies are too financially strapped, have let go too many workers, or have idled too much equipment to immediately ramp up again.
“The balance sheets of these shale-only producers have to be repaired for them to get back to drilling,” said John Hess, the chief executive of Hess Corp. “That’s going to curb any recovery.”
Just as U.S. output fell more slowly than predicted—even as oil plunged from around $100 a barrel in 2014 to $30—it is likely to be slower in recuperating, even if prices rebound to $50 a barrel or more, some oil executives and analysts now say.
More than three dozen U.S. oil and gas producers plan to cut their capital spending for 2016 by nearly half, on average, compared with last year, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of company financial filings.
Some of the largest U.S. oilfield-services firms have laid off 110,000 people in the past year, Evercore ISI analysts estimate, and many of those workers have no plans to return to the industry.
Close to 60% of the fracking equipment in the U.S. has been idled during the downturn, according to IHS Energy, which estimates it would take two months for some of that equipment to return.
It isn’t clear that oil prices will continue their recent rally: Global crude prices fell 2.1% Monday to $39.53 as a tentative agreement by key members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to freeze production ran into obstacles.
Still, even if prices return to levels where shale drillers can make money again, many companies are vowing to be cautious. Some are tempered by what occurred last spring, when producers jumped back into drilling new wells after oil prices briefly hit $60 a barrel, inadvertently worsening a supply glut that ultimately made prices worse.
“At $40, I doubt we’re going to see a lot of acceleration,” said Taylor Reid, president and chief operating officer of Oasis Petroleum Inc., at an energy conference in Denver last week.
One reason output remained robust last year is that drilling and fracking wells got cheaper. Producers leaned on services companies to cut costs, and certain wells were still profitable even at lower prices. But now many companies say they have cut as much as they can.
In the Bakken Shale region, prices will need to be above $60 for benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for at least three months before the area sees a meaningful uptick in drilling activity, said Lynn Helms, Director of North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources.
“If you’ve been on a strict diet for a long period of time, it takes a while to put the weight back on,” he told reporters Friday.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that U.S. oil output in February was down 600,000 barrels a day from last year’s peak of close to 9.7 million barrels a day—a 6% drop—and some of the biggest U.S. shale producers have said they plan to curb production by another 10% this year.
Experts such as IHS’s Daniel Yergin have predicted that U.S. shale drillers would emerge as the world’s new swing producers, stepping into a role traditionally filled by Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations. The research firm said it still expects the U.S. will play that role in global markets, thanks to shale, but said current headwinds could delay a response to higher prices.
U.S. oil producers have built up an inventory of drilled but un-fracked wells, a dormant source of oil that could translate into a quick burst of new supplies. Such wells could churn out 620,000 barrels a day for six months if they were all brought online at once, Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a research note last week.
But companies that want to put rigs back to work right away are likely to be limited by a smaller workforce and depleted equipment, which could make it difficult to coordinate a ramp-up.
A recent survey by Hays PLC found that 72% of laid-off oil and gas workers around the world are looking for jobs in other industries.
Basic Energy Services Inc., a fracking firm that has cut more than 40% of its workforce since the downturn began, has estimated that only one in five laid-off workers will return, taking with them the expertise they developed during the years when companies mastered techniques like drilling and fracking wells that extended thousands of feet horizontally underground.
“We have lost a lot of good people. They won’t be back,” Chief Executive Roe Patterson said at a conference last week.
Among those not planning to return to oil work is supply chain expert Brent Janezic, who worked for Schlumberger Ltd. for nearly five years.
After transferring from Houston to Calgary in 2013 to oversee the Canadian unit’s logistics and purchasing of the sand and nitrogen gas used in fracking, he lost his job last month. Now he is looking at companies in other industries that have large supply chains, where his skills could transfer easily.
“I can’t afford to wait idle on the sidelines for prices to recover,” said Mr. Janezic, 33. “I’ve got to get things rolling.”
Some companies—including Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfield-services firm—are trying to manage their layoffs to head off what some see as a looming brain drain.
Schlumberger has said some 1,700 of its young engineers with two or three years of experience are effectively on extended leave—receiving some elements of salaries and benefits, but not costing the company much until they are needed again.
“Quite a few of those guys have no problem taking a year off, traveling the world,” said Patrick Schorn, Schlumberger’s president of operations, at the Credit Suisse Annual Energy Summit last month. “When there is an upturn, those are the first guys we call back.”
Still, many new workers will have to be hired and trained—a process that could take months, analysts say. And they will be working with rigs and pumps that have deteriorated or sometimes stripped apart to cheaply repair working equipment as it broke down.
“Coming back this time is going to be tough, no question about it,” said Tom Petrie, chairman of Petrie Partners, a boutique investment banking firm. “These cutbacks have been painful.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/many-shale-companies-are-unable-to-ramp-up-oil-output-1458001210
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OPEC Sees More Uncertainty Around Its Forecast of U.S. Oil-Production Decline
Mar 14, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By Collin Eaton
With costs to produce U.S. oil still dropping and domestic drillers increasingly hedging their output, OPEC said it is less certain of its forecast that oil production among its outside will fall by 700,000 barrels a day this year.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries believes the United States’ output of crude and other liquids will fall by 420,000 barrels a day this year, which should help ease the global oil glut more than any other non-OPEC country this year. That’s down by 20,000 barrels from its forecast the previous month.
But some U.S. producers are “choosing to produce with losses rather than stopping production,” OPEC observed in its monthly oil-market report released Monday. That, along with increased hedging and lower U.S. oil production costs, “has caused the non-OPEC supply forecast in 2016 to become more uncertain.”
In recent weeks, oil prices have entered a range that makes it possible for U.S. oil companies to hedge their crude production in the mid-$40 per barrel range, which they could do as protection against another slide in crude prices. Oil companies have said they would hedge if futures contracts for delivery in later months reached those levels, and traders say that activity has picked up somewhat.
OPEC said the increased uncertainty comes even though big oil companies are cutting capital expenditures and the U.S. rig count is falling. So far, the nation’s slowdown in oil production has come from Texas, North Dakota, New Mexico and Colorado, though output in the Gulf of Mexico rose by 112,000 barrels a day at the end of last year, OPEC noted.
Break-even oil-production costs in the United States, OPEC said, “are estimated to be higher than current oil prices in most areas of the US and Canada as well as Mexico, although the upstream industry has seen a remarkable reduction in drilling and completion costs during 2015.”
Within OPEC, crude production fell by 174,800 barrels a day to 32.28 million barrels a day in February. According to secondary sources, Iran’s oil production increased by 187,000 barrels a day last month, OPEC said, as production in Iraq, Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates fell by 406,000 barrels a day.
OPEC’s forecast of worldwide demand for its own crude this year slipped by 100,000 barrels a day to 31.5 million barrels a day, compared to its numbers in February.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/03/14/opec-more-uncertain-in-forecast-of-rivals-oil-production-declines/
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Senate Action Seen on GMO, Energy Bills Before Break
Mar 15, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Nancy Ognanovich
Senate Republican leaders are working to pass a half-dozen or more items before lawmakers leave for a two-week break March 17, including a long-delayed comprehensive energy bill and a fix for Michigan's drinking water crisis.
Aides to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the leader is hopeful that senators will soon announce a plan to help Flint deal with its water crisis and, in doing so, will clear the way for the Senate to pass the energy bill that has been on hold for weeks.
“We'd seek a consent agreement to get eight or so amendments done and have final passage,” said spokesman Don Stewart. “We could get that done in a day if we get a deal.”
Stewart said talks on outstanding issues surrounding the energy bill (S. 2012) will take place at the same time the Senate works to advance a bill (S. 2609) dealing with the labeling of food made with genetically modified organisms. He said McConnell will file cloture on the GMO bill shortly in order to have it completed by mid-week.
McConnell said on the floor that the GMO bill he wants to pass next is similar to what the House already approved.
“With bipartisan support, with cooperation from across the aisle, we can take action on a bipartisan basis here in the Senate as well,” McConnell said.
Stewart said another item that may see action before week's end is a bipartisan bill (S. 337) overhauling the federal government's open records law. But the prospects for McConnell to bring the measure amending Freedom of Information Act law up under a unanimous consent agreement are mixed as the White House and some members of Congress have reservations about the bill, others said. The bill is sponsored by Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=84676081&vname=dennotallissues&fn=84676081&jd=84676081
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House Passes Two FERC Bills, One Energy Efficiency Bill
Mar 15, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rebecca Kern
The House passed three energy bills by voice vote March 14, including the Fair RATES Act (H.R. 2984), which would amend the Federal Power Act so that proposed rate changes would go into effect after 60 days if the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission fails to take action when a four-person commission is deadlocked.
The Fair Ratepayer Accountability, Transparency and Efficiency Standards (RATES) Act would allow consumers to challenge any proposed rate increases from FERC.
“Consumers deserve a right to be heard as their energy rates continue to increase,” Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), a sponsor of the legislation, said in a March 14 statement.
A companion version of the bill (S. 2494), sponsored by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), has been referred to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Markey's staff is in conversations with the committee, with a “strong desire to move quickly on the bill,” an aide to Markey told Bloomberg BNA March 14.
As a stand-alone bill, it is noncontroversial and a simple fix, and tying it into the larger Senate energy bill could complicate its passage, an aide to Kennedy told Bloomberg BNA March 14.
Additionally, the House passed H.R. 4427, which would amend the Federal Power Act to raise the monetary threshold at which FERC has to give prior approval before a merger or sale among public utilities takes place. The legislation would increase it from $50,000 to more than $10 million.
Language from H.R. 4427 also is included in the broad House energy bill (H.R. 8), which passed the House last December. There is no companion bill currently introduced in the Senate.
Energy Efficiency Bill
The House also passed the Energy Efficient Government Technology Act (H.R. 1268), which requires federal agencies to increase the use of energy-efficient data centers to allow for more energy-saving information technologies in the government.
Language from H.R. 1268 is included in the broad Senate energy bill (S. 2012), which has been stalled for the past several weeks due to holds placed by senators related to Flint, Mich., water crisis funding (48 DEN A-17, 3/11/16).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=84676076&vname=dennotallissues&fn=84676076&jd=84676076
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House to Defy Veto Threat on Bill to Ease Rules
Mar 15, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly
Once again defying a White House veto threat, the House will vote today on a bill to relax air pollution standards for the handful of power plants that burn coal refuse.
By a 6-4 party-line vote, the House Rules Committee late yesterday cleared H.R. 3797 for floor action under a rule that will allow votes on five Democratic amendments.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-Pa.), would carve out exemptions for coal refuse facilities from two major U.S. EPA power plant regulations -- the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee had approved the bill late last month, also along party lines. At a Rules Committee hearing yesterday, Rothfus said the plants needed regulatory relief to survive.
Rothfus said the facilities provide an add-on environmental benefit by burning low-grade coal left over from years of mining. Of the 19 coal-refuse-to-energy plants in the country, 14 are in Pennsylvania, according to an Energy and Commerce report accompanying the bill.
But Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the top Energy and Commerce Democrat, said the bill picks "winners and losers" by giving coal refuse operations a larger share of allowances for sulfur dioxide emissions under the second round of CSAPR scheduled to begin next year. Because individual states' overall allowances won't change, that increase would come at the expense of other coal-fired power plants.
The bill would also substitute a less stringent standard for hydrochloric acid releases than that mandated by the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
Acting EPA air chief Janet McCabe has already registered objections to both provisions. Yesterday, the White House warned of a veto, saying the legislation would "undermine" emissions limits on both acid gases and sulfur dioxide.
While the bill is likely to win House approval, the veto threat all but guarantees that it will never pass the Senate.
The five amendments making their way to the floor include one by Pallone to strike the CSAPR portion of the bill and another by Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) to allow governors to opt out of the CSAPR provision.
Other proposed amendments would require the Government Accountability Office to report on the increase in air pollution following the legislation's enactment and have EPA give communities advance notice about the anticipated effect on air quality.
The last, by Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas), would require EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to certify that the legislation would not lead to more emissions harmful to public health before it could take effect.
Early this month, the House brushed off a previous veto threat to pass H.R. 4557, which would delay compliance with new air pollution regulations affecting brick and clay ceramics manufacturers until all court challenges are resolved.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/03/15/stories/1060033992
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Advocates Urge Michigan To End Utility MACT Opposition
Mar 14, 2016 | InsideEPA
Midwestern environmentalists are calling on Michigan to end its litigation against EPA's power plant air toxics rule in order to protect against harmful emissions, citing the crisis over the contamination of drinking water in Flint, MI, with the neurotoxin lead as a reason to take steps to protect public health such as supporting the air rule.
Michigan has led several other states in challenging the utility maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air rule, also known as the mercury and air toxics standards (MATS). The litigation resulted in the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling last June in State of Michigan v. EPA that faulted the agency for not considering costs in its initial finding that the regulation was “appropriate and necessary” under the Clean Air Act.
The high court then remanded litigation over the rule to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which left the rule in place while EPA works on finalizing a cost analysis to satisfy the justices' decision.
But Michigan and other states said that the agency's cost review is flawed and they believe that the decision inMichigan undermines the entire basis for MATS. The states recently asked the Supreme Court to block implementation of the rule until legal challenges over it are resolved, but Chief Justice John Roberts denied that request.
Following Roberts' decision, Environmental Defense Fund General Counsel Vickie Patton in a statement called on the state attorneys general challenging the rule to end their litigation.
Echoing Patton's statement, the Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center, an advocacy group, is now calling on Michigan AG Bill Schuette (R) and Solicitor General Aaron Lindstrom to drop their opposition to MATS.
In a March 8 letter, the group cites among other reasons state officials' heightened awareness of toxic pollution following the discovery of high lead levels in Flint's drinking water supply. “It is time for the litigation challenging these important standards to come to an end,” the group says.
The group writes, “mercury is a known neurotoxin that impairs fetal brain development, reduces children's IQ and their ability to learn, and otherwise harms children's health. Especially in light of the Flint lead poisoning tragedy, you and Michigan's other leading public officials are painfully aware of the importance of appropriate and necessary regulation to protect public health, clean air, safe water and food.”
EPA plans to issue its revised cost finding for the utility air rule in April, and this is then expected to trigger a fresh round of litigation against MATS. Industry groups that originally sued EPA over the rule have recently dropped their demands to scrap or stay it, legal observers note.
The Environmental Law & Policy Center in its letter says, “Michigan's two largest coal plant owners, DTE and Consumer's Energy, are already installing pollution control equipment to comply with [MATS] by April 16. Your continued litigation challenging the EPA's final finding [including costs] would have little or no impact on these coal plants because it would not make sense for the utilities to stop using or uninstall the mercury pollution controls that they have already installed.”
http://insideepa.com/news-briefs/advocates-urge-michigan-end-utility-mact-opposition
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Obama’s Atlantic Oil Drilling Plan Takes Friendly Fire — From the Pentagon
Mar 15, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Darryl Fears
The Obama administration is reworking its plan to open the southern Atlantic Coast to offshore oil exploration because of strong opposition from the Pentagon, which says the activity could hurt military maneuvers and interfere with missile tests the Navy relies on to protect the coast.
Early this week, Interior Department officials from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management expect to release an update of its draft proposal to lease federal waters to oil and gas companies off the coasts of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. That update will reflect the military’s concerns, officials say.
The Pentagon confirmed Sunday that it provided an assessment of Interior’s map for oil exploration on the coastal outer shelf “that identifies locations … areas where the [Defense’s] offshore readiness activities are not compatible, partially compatible or minimally impacted by oil and gas activities,” spokesman Matthew Allen said.
Live training exercises are conducted off the Atlantic Coast, “from unit level training to major joint service and fleet exercises,” Allen said in a statement. “These live training events are fundamental to the ability of our airmen, sailors, and marines to attain and sustain the highest levels of military readiness. Additionally, [the Defense Department] conducts major systems testing activities in the mid-Atlantic region that are also important to military readiness.”
Allen referred questions about how the Pentagon’s concerns might affect the update to Interior. Officials there provided The Washington Post with a map showing Defense proposed to close at least 10 percent of areas available to lease for activities including seismic exploration for oil and gas resources as well as for drilling platforms. The restrictions would cover most of the waters the current plan allots to Virginia.
In the remaining 90 percent of potential lease areas, Defense wants advance notice of activity so it can study potential hazards on a case-by-case basis, the officials said.
Interior confirmed last week that an update was in the works but declined to discuss specifics. Under the draft plan released in January 2015, the department would sell leases in federal waters over five years starting in 2017 to companies hoping to prospect for oil, gas and other minerals. Actual drilling might not start for a decade.
The update could dampen the enthusiasm that oil industry representatives and southern coastal-state governors showed when the draft was released. According to Interior’s estimates, more than 3 billion barrels of oil is recoverable on the outer continental shelf, plus more than 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
[As decision nears, opposition builds to offshore drilling along the Atlantic coast]
But a revised plan could buoy hopes in at least 93 coastal communities from Virginia’s stretch of the Delmarva Peninsula to South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach and Savannah, Ga. They want offshore drilling greatly restricted to lessen any potential threat to beaches that annually draw hundreds of millions of tourist dollars. Many early supporters of Atlantic drilling and the revenue it could generate switched sides after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and then the more recent plunge in oil prices.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) supports leasing, but only in coordination with all sides and in a way that protects state assets such as Naval Station Norfolk, said his spokesman, Brian Coy. He declined to discuss the possibility of Virginia’s lease acreage being pulled “because that has not been shared with us.” He said the governor was aware of the military’s concerns and hopes that issues can be worked out before the draft is finalized in December.
Yet Lt. Gov. Ralph S. Northam (D) opposes oil and gas exploration in the Atlantic. “Over the years, [Northam] has heard about the negative impact offshore drilling could have on Virginia, including our military assets,” said his spokeswoman, Alexsis Rodgers. “Retaining and protecting our military assets is a top priority for him and absolutely one of the reasons he has been opposed to drilling off Virginia’s coast.”
Fire rages on the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. (U.S. Coast Guard via European Pressphoto Agency)Virginia’s proposed acreage is a triangle-shaped boundary off the Delmarva Peninsula and Virginia Beach. The military also wants to restrict large blocks of proposed lease areas in North Carolina and Georgia, plus a smaller space in South Carolina, where Gov. Nikki Haley (R) strongly supports energy exploration.
Haley “believes offshore exploration should be done in a way that protects … our environment, our ports and our tourism industry,” said her spokeswoman, Chaney Adams. But “she’s also been clear: Exploring offshore for energy is critical to our future because it means jobs, energy independence from other countries and security for our state.”
Erik Milito, group director of upstream and industry operations for the American Petroleum Institute, an advocacy organization for the oil and gas industry, said “this is still a very early stage” in the process of allowing companies to lease ocean areas for drilling. Taking any areas off the table “would be premature,” he said.
[Drilling off the Atlantic coast moves a step closer]
Milito said oil and companies operating in the Gulf of Mexico, where drilling is allowed and would be expanded under the draft plan, work with the military to avoid negatively affecting its maneuvers and tests. “The industry has had tremendous success in the Gulf dealing with the Air Force and Navy … and looking at the Atlantic, that’s the approach we should take,” he said.
The map proposed for the Atlantic is an area where companies can only search for oil, Milito said. But the Pentagon has concerns that exploring for oil using seismic surveys could disrupt sonic activity.
The military’s concerns have long been known, and the 2015 draft plan didn’t reflect them, said Glen Besa, director of the Sierra Club’s Virginia chapter. In his opinion, it’s unclear now whether the differences can be worked out.
“The strange thing is, public officials have continued to ignore the Department of Defense,” he said. “They have all lined up in support of drilling, and we think that’s just foolhardy.”
Milito has a different view. It’s a long process, he said, with many details to work out before it’s done. “It’s a five-year program. It can be scaled back,” he said. “You work with the Interior to determine if there are any conflicts.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/14/the-governments-atlantic-drilling-plan-takes-friendly-fire-from-the-pentagon/
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Industry Fears 5-Year Plan Will Shrink Leasing Area
Mar 15, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Emily Yehle
The Interior Department will soon release an updated draft of its oil and gas leasing plan, potentially shrinking the area that will be available for drilling in the Atlantic Ocean.
Interior officials have not said how the new draft will differ from the one released more than one year ago. But the Department of Defense has voiced concerns over whether potential leasing areas off Virginia would affect military training, The Washington Post reported today.
A spokeswoman for Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management confirmed the agency has considered "the compatibility of Department of Defense (DoD) activities with oil and gas resource development on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS)."
Broadly, the plan would open up new federal waters along the East Coast to leasing between 2017 and 2022. But a campaign to prevent any drilling -- and the seismic tests that come before it -- has grown to include more than 100 municipalities along the coast. Several coastal Republicans have also urged caution, though more have urged Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to open up wider swaths to drilling (E&ENews PM, Dec. 10, 2015).
On a call with reporters today, representatives from industry groups asserted that the Obama administration should make as much area available as possible to continue the country's "energy renaissance." Any concerns from the military can be worked out down the line, they said, with actions to reduce impacts.
"It's a issue of leadership," said Randall Luthi, president of the National Ocean Industries Association. "If the president would tell the secretaries of Interior and Defense to work this out, I can promise you they would work it out."
Erik Milito, director of upstream and industry operations for the American Petroleum Institute, pointed to drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, where he said industry and military officials work together to "come up with solutions." Oil and gas companies, he said, still haven't begun surveys to find untapped mineral deposits -- and they don't want any areas taken off the table before they do.
"We want to make sure that we don't take an opportunity off the table before we take a look at the geology," he said. "We don't know what's out there, and we need to have the opportunity to run the seismic tests, drill some exploratory wells and see what the reservoirs may hold."
Several companies are seeking authorizations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to harass marine mammals during seismic surveys, which use loud underwater guns to find untapped mineral deposits. Such "incidental harassment authorizations" are a required step, but NOAA has not yet issued any.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/03/14/stories/1060033979
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CSB to Be Audited Under New Cybersecurity Law
Mar 14, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
The U.S. EPA inspector general will audit the Chemical Safety Board's compliance with a new cybersecurity law, the agency watchdog said in a notice today.
Under the Cybersecurity Act of 2015, inspectors general are required to audit agencies to determine if they have implemented security policies and procedures in compliance with the law.
EPA's inspector general has oversight of CSB, an independent agency that doesn't have its own inspector general.
The law also made a variety of changes meant to encourage private companies to share cybersecurity information with each other and the federal government (EnergyWire, Dec. 18, 2015).
Previous audits have flagged some problems with CSB's information security.
The OIG found earlier this year that the chemical board's information security system had gaps allowing workers access to systems without personal identity verification cards, among other issues. The board said it would correct the issues (Greenwire, Jan. 27).
Earlier investigations also flagged problems with issues like data storage and keeping track of electronic devices.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/03/14/stories/1060033973
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Will Doubling the Number of Engineers Make Trains Safer?
Mar 14, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Ashley Halsey III
In a move that might have spared those involved in a deadly Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia last year, federal regulators Monday said they want a minimum of two engineers aboard most of the nation’s trains.
The proposal has been under discussion since before the May 13, 2015, Amtrak derailment that killed eight people and injured more than 200 when a train traveling twice the posted speed limit spun off the tracks on a curve. Engineer Brandon Bostian was alone at the controls. He said afterward that he had no recollection of why the train gathered speed, remembering only that he slammed on the emergency brake as it rounded the curve. Had he shared the locomotive with a second engineer, the sudden increase in speed might have been noticed.
The Federal Railroad Administration now has proposed requiring two engineers on most trains, making an exception for those trains that pose little safety risk.
Association of American Railroads President Edward R. Hamberger responded that “There is simply no safety case to be made for a regulation that requires two-person crews, especially where positive train control is fully operational.”
Positive train control is an emergency braking system that automatically kicks in when a train exceeds safe speeds. Federal officials have said that had it been in use, it would have prevented the Philadelphia derailment.
“Notwithstanding an extensive body of evidence showing that two-person crews are no safer than one-person crews, the nation’s Class 1 freight railroads currently operate with two-person crews, and have committed to continuing that practice for trains without PTC systems in place,” Hamberger said.
Class 1 freight railroads account for almost 70 percent of overall miles logged on the rails each year. The seven Class I railroad companies are BNSF Railway, CN, Canadian Pacific, CSX Transportation, Kansas City Southern, Norfolk Southern, and Union Pacific.
“Even the FRA concedes they have no ‘reliable or conclusive statistical data’ to suggest that two-person crews are safer,” Hamberger said. “I encourage the FRA to reexamine the facts and exercise sound regulatory judgment before finalizing a rule that lacks empirical support.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2016/03/14/will-doubling-the-number-of-engineers-make-trains-safer/
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Benicia Should Block Oil Trains
Mar 14, 2016 | The Sacramento Bee
By Tom Steyer and Steve Young
If approved, proposed new oil train terminals at refineries in California would turn our railways into crude oil superhighways. Mile-long oil trains would haul millions of gallons of toxic, explosive crude through downtown Sacramento and dozens of other California cities and towns. An estimated 5 million Californians live in the one-mile evacuation zone along oil train routes.
In Benicia, city officials are close to a final decision on the proposed Valero oil train terminal. It’s essential that City Council members, who hold a hearing on Tuesday, understand why oil trains are too dangerous for our communities. There is no sure way to protect public health while transporting crude oil by rail.1 of 2Karl Mondon MCT
Valero wants to bring two 50-car trains carrying about 3 million gallons of oil to its Benicia refinery every day. The environmental review of the proposal cites the “potentially significant” hazard of a spill and fire.
In 2013, the oil train explosion in Lac Megantic, Quebec, demonstrated the danger. It killed 47 people, destroyed dozens of buildings and poisoned a local lake. Three years later, residents still live with fear and anxiety, and scientists have recorded an “unprecedented” spike of fish deformities.
But it doesn’t take a catastrophe for oil trains to pose a serious threat to public health and safety. They disrupt traffic, delay emergency response and bring more poisoned air and increased disease. That’s why six counties and 22 cities around Sacramento have already said no to these trains. But the safety of all Californians living in the blast zone lies in the hands of Benicia city officials who will decide whether to approve Valero’s permit.
On Feb. 11, after days of testimony from experts and community members, the city Planning Commission voted unanimously to deny the permit. Valero has appealed to the Benicia City Council, which will make the final decision.
Something similar is happening in San Luis Obispo County, where the county staff and the California Coastal Commission recommended that the county reject the Phillips 66 oil train terminal proposal. The county Planning Commission must decide soon, but the final decision will rest with county supervisors.
Last year, NextGen Climate, the Natural Resources Defense Council, ForestEthics and Communities for a Better Environment released a report on oil industry plans to ship dirty Canadian tar sands crude to West Coast refineries. The report found that heavy crude would increase carbon pollution by as much as 26 million metric tons – the equivalent of adding 5.5 million cars to the road.
The good news is that we don’t have to live with these oil risks barreling through town. We can make our communities safer by transitioning to clean energy. A recent report by the Union of Concerned Scientists revealed that improvements in fuel efficiency and energy technology could help us cut oil consumption in half by 2030.
There’s no place for extreme tar sands or Bakken crude in California’s emerging clean energy economy – and there’s no place in our communities for dangerous, unnecessary crude oil trains.
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/soapbox/article66008827.html
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House Committee Issues New Pipeline Safety Draft
Mar 14, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Andrew Restuccia
A new House Energy and Commerce Committee draft of pipeline safety legislation set for a vote this week would give the Transportation Department new authority to impose widespread emergency restrictions on the country's pipelines.
The draft, which will be the focus of a Wednesday markup in the Energy and Power Subcommittee, appears to also eliminate language included in an earlier version that would have allowed citizens to file lawsuits to force PHMSA to implement regulations. The provision had come under fire from industry groups and Republican lawmakers alike, who worried that activists could abuse it.
Industry groups had similarly raised concerns about Democrats' plans to push the emergency order authority language, though they had signaled an openness to compromise on the issue.
The emergency order provision included in the new draft appears to find a middle ground. The bill allows the Transportation secretary to issue an order imposing "operational controls, restrictions, prohibitions, and safety measures" on the industry if the department identifies potential unsafe conditions that aren't already being addressed.
But it also gives pipeline operators the opportunity to petition the department to review its order. If the department does not conduct a review of its order within 30 days, the order "shall no longer be effective," the bill says.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard/2016/03/new-draft-pipeline-safety-bill-released-068879
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IG Will Study Toxics Data for Unregulated Discharges
Mar 14, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
U.S. EPA's inspector general will try to use data on toxic emissions to flag facilities that may be avoiding regulation, the office said in a notification released today.
The Office of Inspector General plans to review data from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) to identify "potentially unregulated facilities," including facilities that should be reporting to the risk management program.
High-risk chemical facilities are required to file risk management plans if they process certain chemicals above specified quantities. By examining data, the agency's internal watchdog aims to determine if plants reported discharges of these chemicals to the inventory at levels that should have required them to file a risk management plan for the chemicals.
The OIG also planned to analyze information on water discharges. By comparing facilities' Clean Water Act permits to determine what they are permitted to discharge, the watchdog said it may be able to determine if the facilities had not filed required reports to the TRI program. It also can check to find out if the facilities could be reporting data to TRI showing unpermitted discharges to water.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/03/14/stories/1060033973
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Environmental Factors Like Pollution Cause a Quarter of Deaths, W.H.O. Says
Mar 15, 2016 | The New York Times
By Sabrina Tavernise
About a quarter of all deaths globally are attributable to preventable environmental factors, such as air and water pollution, according to a new report by the World Health Organization.
The report, based on data from 2012, found that environmental risk factors accounted for about 12.6 million deaths out of a total of 55.6 million. One of the biggest scourges was air pollution, which caused not only lung and respiratory infections but also heart disease and cancer. Water pollution and poor sanitation contributed significantly to diarrheal diseases andinfant mortality.
Africa and Asia had the most environmental deaths. The percentage of total deaths caused by environmental factors was unchanged from the previous W.H.O. report on the topic, which came out in 2006.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/health/environmental-factors-like-pollution-cause-a-quarter-of-deaths-who-says.html
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How Cleaner Air Could Actually Make Global Warming Worse
Mar 14, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Chelsea Harvey
A significant amount of the climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions in the past century has been hidden from us, scientists say — by another type of pollution that actually cools the climate and temporarily cancels out some of the warming. Two new studies, both released today in the journal Nature Geoscience, address the powerful influence of aerosols — fine particles or drops of liquid often released by industrial activity — on the climate, and suggest that as nations around the world work to reduce this type of air pollution, we will begin to see more rapid warming than expected. And that could hurt our ability to meet the climate goals set in last year’s Paris Agreement.
Scientists have long been aware that certain types of aerosol emissions — most notably, sulfate — can block solar radiation from getting through to the surface of the Earth, either by scattering sunlight directly or by helping to increase the extent and reflectivity of cloud cover over the planet. This results in a kind of cooling effect, especially in the areas where the pollution is heaviest, which can temporarily mask the ongoing warming effect caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The important thing to remember about aerosols, though, is that they tend to have a rather short lifespan in the atmosphere — eventually, the rain brings them back out of the sky. If humans are continuously pouring pollution into the air, then the cooling effect will probably appear pretty constant. But as certain parts of the world start cutting down on their aerosol emissions, scientists have actually noticed a phenomenon known as “regional brightening,” in which the dimming effect on solar radiation begins to lift away.
This effect is already having a significant impact on certain parts of the world, as one of the new Nature Geoscience studies points out. That paper examines the impact of European reductions in aerosol emissions on warming in the Arctic, which is proceeding at a faster rate than other parts of the world. Out of all the regions of the world, Europe has reduced its aerosol loading the most in the past several decades, which means its policies have likely had the biggest effect on recent aerosol-related climate changes.
Using simulations from a climate model, which took changes in aerosol loading into account, the authors conclude that as much as 0.5 degrees Celsius of the warming that took place in the Arctic between 1980 and 2005 can be explained by aerosol reductions in Europe during that time. In other words, as the aerosol “mask” is being pulled away, researchers are seeing an enhanced regional warming as a result.
It’s true that aerosols produce the biggest effects in the regions where they’re emitted. Unlike greenhouse gases, which stay in the atmosphere for long periods of time and gradually diffuse out over the Earth, aerosol particles cluster in the sky where they were originally emitted — they don’t really have time to spread out much before raining back down.
The reason that changes in aerosols over Europe have such an effect in the Arctic has to do largely with the oceanic and atmospheric currents that run between Europe and the Arctic. In an accompanying commentary in Nature Geoscience, Thorsten Mauritsen of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology — who was not involved with the study — notes that “Europe is situated right on the main pathway that air and ocean currents take from more southerly latitudes into the Arctic.”
So, he adds, “In summer, the warming of the atmosphere and upper ocean through reduced aerosol cooling over and around Europe yields a strengthened transport of heat into the Arctic.” And because the Arctic is generally so pristine otherwise, any aerosols that managed to drift up there from Europe would have likely had a more noticeable cooling effect than in other parts of the world — translating to a similarly pronounced increase in warming when they finally rained back down to Earth.
The researchers on that study are already starting an examination of whether changes in North American aerosol emissions — though less pronounced than the changes that have taken place in Europe — might have had similar effects, said the paper’s senior author Annica Ekman, a professor of meteorology at Stockholm University. But for now, the new paper points to the significant influence aerosol emissions can have on the Earth’s climate, at least regionally — and how their disappearance from the atmosphere might be revealing a more profoundly warming world than suspected.
As if that’s not enough, the second study published in Nature Geoscience on Monday points to the significance of the aerosol effect on a global scale.
Because of the major impact aerosols can have on the Earth’s temperature, many scientists agree that it’s important to consider them when making predictions about the earth’s climate future. And one important way of understanding what future warming will look like is to investigate a phenomenon known as Earth’s “transient climate sensitivity” — that is, how much the planet’s temperature will change when the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reaches double the level it was in preindustrial times.
This carbon dioxide doubling is expected to occur some time in this century, depending on how much humans are able to reduce carbon emissions in the meantime, said Trude Storelvmo, an associate professor of atmospheric science at Yale University and lead author of one of the new papers. So it’s important to figure out what kind of temperature changes we might expect to see as a result.
These calculations are generally based on the temperature responses caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere already. But because aerosol emissions are believed to have masked a significant amount of the warming that’s happened on Earth so far, some scientists believe that estimates of Earth’s climate sensitivity are too low — that the climate may, in fact, be more sensitive to carbon emissions than anyone realized, which would likely mean greater warming in the future.
Storelvmo and an interdisciplinary group of colleagues decided to investigate. But rather than using climate models, which they say don’t always accurately simulate the effect of aerosols on clouds in the atmosphere, they instead based their calculations entirely on records of temperature and solar radiation taken from more than a thousand measurement sites around the world between 1964 and 2010. They then performed a statistical analysis designed to help distinguish between the temperature changes that were caused by greenhouse gas emissions and those caused by aerosols.
Their analysis suggests that about a third of the continental warming that occurred between 1964 and 2010 was masked by the cooling effect caused by aerosols. In other words, greenhouse gas emissions during that period had a bigger effect on the climate than they actually appeared to at the time. Taking this into account, the researchers then calculated Earth’s transient climate sensitivity and found that at the time of carbon dioxide doubling — whenever that occurs — we should see a temperature increase of about 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
Previous estimates of the transient climate sensitivity have produced a wide range of results, anywhere from below 1 degree to above 3 degrees Celsius, the authors point out, although they note that most other observational studies have produced central estimates below 2 degrees. Storelvmo suggests that some of these studies may have underestimated the influence of aerosols, or that their methods were too sensitive to short-term fluctuations in the climate, such as the so-called warming hiatus over the past decade.
On that note, this paper’s results are significant because of the goals that were set during December’s UN climate conference in Paris. Until that point, many climate activists had pushed to keep warming below a 2-degree limit, citing the potentially catastrophic climate effects that could occur otherwise. But more recently, scientists have suggested that allowing even 2 degrees of warming might be too much. So during the Paris conference, world leaders agreed to make an effort to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“Obviously, [our study] has the implication that we can’t allow for carbon dioxide doubling to happen if we care deeply about these warming limits,” Storelvmo said. “And so it has really implications in the sense that the higher the transient climate sensitivity is, the more fossil fuels will have to stay in the ground.”
Both studies contain sobering sets of results that speak to both the urgency of reducing global dependence on fossil fuels and the importance of taking the aerosol effect into account when making estimates about global warming.
When it comes to the Arctic, one of the world’s most vulnerable and rapidly changing regions, Ekman noted that “it seems like our aerosol particles have somehow masked the amplified Arctic warming, and as greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase, it’s going to take over — basically, it’s going to warm more and more in the Arctic.”
And as more and more parts of the world start to cut down on their aerosols as well — a process that is vital for the improvement of air quality and the protection of human health around the globe — we may start to see the mask begin to lift away in other areas as well.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/14/how-cleaner-air-could-actually-make-global-warming-worse/
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