PM ACC 3/18/2016

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) Barring Plastic Bag Bans, Another ALEC Law Takes Aim at Local Democracy

   Mar 18, 2016 | Truth-Out

   By Jessica Mason
   
   
   The pay-to-play model of government advanced by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) scored another victory this week.
2. (ACC Mentioned) Center for the Polyurethanes Industry Expands Educational Offering with New Education Center

   Mar 18, 2016 | SprayFoam

   To meet growing demand, the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) is offering a number of exciting new educational opportunities for the polyurethane industry.

Chemical Management News

3. California Agency Takes Emergency Action on BPA Under Prop 65

   Mar 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch

   By Kelly Franklin
   
   
   California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has issued a proposed emergency regulation regarding exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) from canned and bottled foods and beverages.
4. The Poisonous Conservative Thinking That Caused the Flint Crisis

   Mar 18, 2016 | Washington Post

   By Dana Milbank
   
   
   In a hearing this week about the poisonous water in Flint, Mich., Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) tried to blame the lead-tainted water on the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency.
5. E&E Daily's Stecker Talks Next Steps for White House, Lawmakers After Contentious Hearing

   Mar 18, 2016 | E&E TV

   Following a heated oversight hearing in the House on the Flint water crisis, what are the next steps for U.S. EPA officials and top-ranking members of the Michigan government? On today's The Cutting Edge, E&E Daily reporter...
6. Washington DC Mayor Signs TDCPP, TCEP Bill

   Mar 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch

   The mayor of the District of Columbia has signed a bill to ban two chlorinated flame retardants from most household items.
7. What I Learned by Participating In EWG’s Mercury in Seafood Study

   Mar 18, 2016 | Environmental Working Group

   By Karen Grote
   
   
   After a year of trying to conceive a child, several months of infertility treatment and finally a miscarriage, I felt completely out of control over my own body.
8. Why It’s So Hard to Eat Fish and Avoid Mercury

   Mar 18, 2016 | Washington Post

   By Chelsea Harvey
   
   
   Women who eat as much seafood as the FDA recommends for people who are pregnant — or who eat slightly more — may be exposing themselves to unsafe levels of mercury depending on the kinds of fish they’re eating...
9. A Legal Loophole Might Be Exposing Children to Lead in the Nation’s Schools

   Mar 18, 2016 | Washington Post

   By Emma Brown
   
   
   Children drinking from water fountains at the nation’s schools — especially in aging facilities with lead pipes and fixtures — might be unwittingly exposing themselves to high levels of lead, which is known to cause brain damage...

Energy News

10. (ACC Mentioned) Once a Prop for Industry, Petrochemicals Now Rattle Some Nerves

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire

    By Nathanial Gronewold
    
    
    Cheap natural gas is keeping the nation's petrochemical sector bullish on the future, but Wall Street is beginning to have some doubts.
11. Petchem Demand Robust as U.S. Feedstock Cost Advantage Fluctuates

    Mar 18, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence

    By Joe Fisher
    
    
    Global ethylene demand will grow by about 90 million tons (60%) over the next 15 years, and "the U.S. Gulf Coast is in pole position for this feedstock-driven capacity growth," the CEO of a logistics provider to the chemical industry...
12. McCabe Says 'Premature' to Speculate Whether ESPS Deadlines Delayed

    Mar 18, 2016 | InsideEPA

    By Abby Brown
    
    
    EPA’s acting air chief Janet McCabe is reiterating agency statements that it is too soon to know how the Supreme Court stay of EPA’s existing power plant greenhouse gas rule will affect the regulation’s deadlines...
13. Offshore Oil, NatGas Activities Need Updated Air Quality Oversight, BOEM Says

    Mar 18, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence

    By Carolyn Davis
    
    
    The Obama administration on Thursday proposed updating 36-year-old air quality regulations that govern offshore oil and natural gas activity to more accurately measure emissions.
14. America’s Energy Edge

    Mar 18, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog

    By Stephen D. Eule
    
    
    After seven years, it’s pretty clear that the Obama administration just can’t stand it when energy prices are low.
15. States Launch Another Attack on EPA Mercury Rule

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire

    By Robin Bravender
    
    
    States want the Supreme Court to take another crack at U.S. EPA's rule to limit power plants' mercury emissions.

Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Transportation News

16. Regulators Float Long-Awaited Safety Overhaul for Gas Transmission

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire

    By Mike Lee and Blake Sobczak
    
    
    Nearly six years after a natural gas pipeline explosion killed eight people in San Bruno, Calif., regulators are seeking tighter safety standards for the 300,000 miles of gas transmission lines that crisscross the United States.
17. Is LNG-Related Pipeline Rejection a First for FERC?

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire

    By Jenny Mandel
    
    
    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may have issued its first-ever denial to a pipeline project last week, according to an environmental group that alleges the agency is too close to the companies it oversees.

Environment News

18. E.P.A. Faces Bigger Tasks, Smaller Budgets and Louder Critics

    Mar 18, 2016 | New York Times

    By Coral Davenport
    
    
    Under fierce attack from the political right, and with even some Democrats questioning its competence, the Environmental Protection Agency is facing a tumultuous election year — with rising regulatory responsibilities...
19. EPA Readies Crackdown on Laggard States

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire

    By Sean Reilly
    
    
    U.S. EPA has officially started the clock for acting on recent determinations that two-thirds of states with designated sulfur dioxide nonattainment areas have yet to submit cleanup plans.
20. Texas Says Grid Reliability at Risk from EPA Plan

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire

    By Sean Reilly
    
    
    Texas state leaders are throwing their weight behind several power producers' bids for a court-ordered stay of U.S. EPA's regional haze reduction plan.

Industry and Association News

1. (ACC Mentioned) Barring Plastic Bag Bans, Another ALEC Law Takes Aim at Local Democracy

   Mar 18, 2016 | Truth-Out

   By Jessica Mason

   The pay-to-play model of government advanced by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) scored another victory this week. On Tuesday, the Wisconsin Senate voted along party lines to approve a bill that would prohibit local communities from issuing their own rules on plastic bags and other containers.

   This is part of an emerging national trend.

   Preventing local governments from banning, charging a fee for, or otherwise regulating plastic bags is part of a national strategy by corporate interests and groups they fund, like ALEC to override progressive policy gains at the city and county level.

   Similar state "preemption," or state intervention, measures have gone after popular city measures to increase the minimum wage, require paid sick leave, ban fracking, and bar discrimination.

   The Wisconsin bill, AB 730/SB 601, was introduced by ALEC legislators including Reps. Rob Swearingen, David Craig, Mike Kuglitsch, David Murphy. ALEC legislator co-sponsors include Sens. Frank Lasee, Chris Kapenga, and Devin LeMahieu. (Through ALEC, corporate lobbyists get an equal vote with state legislators on ALEC task forces considering "model" bills that are priorities to the corporate legislative agendas of the special interests that fund ALEC or underwrite trips by ALEC legislators to resort meetings where they are wined and dined.)

   In Wisconsin, no city had adopted a plastic bag ban to address the proliferation of the bags used to carry groceries or other goods, even though some such bags can take hundreds of years to degrade if left in the sun (and may never degrade if put in a landfill).

   Nationally, Local Governments Are the Vanguard in Addressing Plastic Waste

   An estimated hundred billion plastic bags are used in the U.S. annually, but only about 12 percent of them are recycled, making them a significant waste-disposal problem for towns and cities.

   In addition to the cost of burying billions of disposable containers in landfills, plastic bag litter often ends up in streams and rivers, where it potentially leaches endocrine-disrupting chemicals such as bisphenol A into the water supply.

   Single-use and disposable containers also threaten marine life and contribute to growing "garbage patches" in the Great Lakes and the world's oceans.

   The ocean’s five plastic gyres -- the most infamous being the Great Pacific garbage patch -- are rapidly expanding. At current rates, by 2050, there will be more plastic (by weight) in the ocean’s water than fish, leading the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment and the Ocean Conservatory to declare, "the amount of unmanaged plastic waste entering the ocean... has reached crisis levels."

   Beyond threatening ecosystems and human health, plastic waste is already taking a financial toll on fishing industries, urban infrastructure, and tourist economies. The World Economic Institute concludes that "the cost of such after-use externalities for plastic packaging, plus the cost associated with greenhouse gas emissions from its production, is conservatively estimated at $40 billion annually -- exceeding the plastic packaging industry’s profit pool."

   U.S. cities started experimenting with ways to reduce plastic bag waste in the late 2000s, with cities like Washington, D.C., and Portland, Maine, adopting small fees on single-use plastic bags. Other cities like Honolulu tried out biodegradable and compostable bags. Still other cities, such as San Francisco, banned plastic bags altogether.

   In 2013, the City Council of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, considered a measure that aimed to reduce -- not ban -- plastic bag use through voluntary measures and a 5-cent fee phased in over several years, a modest measure that would still be prohibited under AB 730, the bill that passed on Tuesday.

   But disposable consumer goods -- and the disposable bags that carry them home -- are a lucrative business.

   The plastics industry's response to these local bag regulations reveals a lot about how corporations can do an end-run around local democracy when affects their bottom line, even if the public interest supports such measures.

   Who Needs Democracy When You Have the ALEC Inside Track?

   One of the few pieces of model legislation adopted by the American City County Exchange (ACCE), the ALEC offshoot targeting local elected officials, is a resolution titled "Regulating Containers to Protect Business and Consumer Choice."

   That resolution calls on municipal governments not to regulate single-use containers and packaging, such as "reusable bags, disposable bags, boxes, cups, and bottles that are made of cloth, paper, plastic, extruded polystyrene, or similar materials…"

   It also asserts that "confusing" regulations will lead to increased costs to consumers and businesses, and claims that the "free market is the best arbiter of the container," despite the failure of the market to address the problem of the estimated nearly 88 billion plastic bags that are not recycled annually in the U.S.

   A group calling itself the "American Progressive Bag Alliance" (ABPA), a trade group that has been funded by plastics manufacturers like Novolex, the Superbag Corporation, and Advanced Polybag, paid an unknown sum to ALEC to present a "workshop" to policymakers claiming that plastic bag regulations are "ill-advised and deliberately misleading legislation." That presentation was at the December 2014 ACCE meeting in Washington, D.C.

   At ALEC/ACCE, Local Democracy on Fracking = "Hitler" and "Fascism" according to the American Petroleum Institute

   Attendees of that meeting were also treated to an American Petroleum Institute lobbyist's presentation that likened local ordinances to bar fracking to "the rise of Hitler and the rise of Fascism."

   APBA also paid to sit alongside local elected officials at the July 2015 ACCE conference in San Diego where the "model" resolution against plastic bag bans was drafted and adopted.

   In December 2015, APBA also paid to send its policy chair, Philip Rozenski, to the ACCE meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he claimed to elected officials that plastic bags were actually good for the environment.

   Rozenski, who also works as the director for marketing of Novolex, warned that city plastic bag bans were "stepping stones to the regulation of all packaging."

   State bills prohibiting local plastic bag bans were proposed in a number of states in 2015 and 2016, including in Georgia, South Carolina, and Idaho, as well as Wisconsin.

   One such measure passed in Arizona, which is now being sued by Tempe City Councilmember Lauren Kuby. (Kuby attended one of the ALEC/ACCE meetings and wrote about the experience on CMD's PRWatch.org.)

   APBA has also led an effort to kill California's statewide ban on plastic bags. The trade group spent $3 million in 2015 on a petition drive in California to force a referendum on a statewide ban on plastic bags, which goes before voters later this year.

   APBA’s website also links to a "recycling awareness campaign," abagslife.com, which doesn't highlight its authorship. Older posts on the site reveal that the campaign purports to be a "collaborative effort between the Florida Retail Federation, American Chemistry Council and Florida Recycling Partnership." But the site's domain was registered by the American Chemistry Council, the trade association for chemical manufacturers that merged with the American Plastic Councils in 2002.

   APBA also directs visitors to bagtheban.com, a site that tracks local plastic ban ordinances and encourages visitors to send form letters to state legislators opposing regulation of disposable bags. The website names Novolex as its author, but the domain was registered by the huge PR firm Edelman, Inc.

   Edelman is also the PR firm hired by ALEC in 2012 to "help it deal with recent corporate fallout and opposition to its legislative positions" after the shooting of Trayvon Martin drew outrage over ALEC's role in spreading "Stand Your Ground" legislation. (ALEC’s current spokesman is also an Edelman alum.)

   ALEC Corporate Members Lobby for More Preemption in Wisconsin

   Plastics manufacturers weren't the only corporate interest groups pushing for preemption in Wisconsin. In addition to APBA, several of other organizations that lobbied for Wisconsin's AB 730 are major national lobbyists and ALEC corporate funders that have actively worked to undermine local democracy all across the country.

   The American Chemistry Council (ACC), which has been a member of ALEC's Energy, Environment, and Agriculture Task Force. ACC has fought for years to keep the U.S. hooked on disposable plastic products. Its lobbyists have previously been caught editing environmental textbooks in California to support plastic bag use.

   ACC was even discovered to have written entire sections of a discredited U.S. Food and Drug Administration decision that claimed that bisphenol A was safe for all uses. (Since then, the public has demanded products, particularly for children, not contain bisphenol A, and the FDA has de-authorized the use of the substance in baby bottles, even though the EU has banned the product in response to health concerns raised by experts independent of industry.)

   The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) purports to be a nonpartisan trade group representing small business interests; however, NFIB primarily lobbies for big corporate interests and almost all of its political contributions support Republican candidates. Its funding sources have included the Koch brothers' Freedom Partners and Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS.

   NFIB became a member of ALEC's corporate board in 2014, and NFIB has actively opposed local control on other issues such as paid sick days. (CMD’s SourceWatch has documented NFIB’s fronting for huge corporate interests on its NFIBexposed.org site.)

   Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC) is the state chapter of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Wisconsin Restaurant Association (WRA) is the state chapter of the National Restaurant Association; both national organizations are ALEC members.

   WMC and WRA were major supporters of the 2011 Wisconsin preemption bill that blocked Milwaukee's paid sick days ordinance. As CMD uncovered, a few months later that bill was brought to ALEC as a model for the Labor and Business Regulation Subcommittee of the ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force. The National Restaurant Association even prepared a target list and a map of state and local paid sick leave policies for meeting attendees.

   Last but not least, Koch Companies Public Sector, LLC, the lobbying arm of Koch Industries, has had a seat and a vote on ALEC’s corporate board for more than two decades, and previously chaired it. Koch Industries and the Koch family fortune underwrite ALEC in numerous ways making Koch money the biggest funder of ALEC. The total amount in millions that the Koch brothers’ company, foundations, and grantees have given ALEC is unknown.

   The Koch fortune has been built in part on petroleum processing, which creates compounds that can be used to manufacture plastic bags. (Other major petrochemical corporations also fund ALEC, like Exxon.)

   ACCE's model resolution claims to let the "free market" determine how to deal with wasteful single-use containers like plastic bags. But as the legislative preemption strategy shows, there's little room for local democracy in ALEC's vision of freedom.

   http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/35282-barring-plastic-bag-bans-another-alec-law-takes-aim-at-local-democracy
   

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2. (ACC Mentioned) Center for the Polyurethanes Industry Expands Educational Offering with New Education Center

   Mar 18, 2016 | SprayFoam

   To meet growing demand, the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) is offering a number of exciting new educational opportunities for the polyurethane industry. The expanded offerings provide information about recent advancements in color science and colorant technology along with polyurethane chemistry. These additions were created to help members expand their knowledge further with the already robust offerings.

   At the same time, CPI is creating a hub to make it easier for members to access and benefit from the wide range of services. The new hub—the CPI Education Center—will serve both industry newcomers and veterans, helping everyone stay current with the latest advances in technology, regulations and emerging issues. The CPI Education Center is an evolving resource for polyurethane professionals around the globe and throughout the value chain, to expand their knowledge of the polyurethane industry.

   “For more than a decade, CPI has provided the industry with the most up-to-date information about polyurethane,” noted Lee Krinzman, CPI manager, industry affairs. “Now through the CPI Education Center we are adding diverse learning opportunities and expanding our course offerings to better meet the needs of the industry. Our courses are unmatched in providing participants information to increase their knowledge of the polyurethane industry, no matter what stage they are at in their career.” The CPI Education Center will continue to provide opportunities that keep industry professionals on top of the latest regulations, trends and issue developments by offering three convenient ways to learn.

   www.sprayfoam.com/foam-news/center-for-the-polyurethanes-industry-expands-educational-offering-with-new-education-center/2651

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Chemical Management News

3. California Agency Takes Emergency Action on BPA Under Prop 65

   Mar 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch

   By Kelly Franklin

   California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has issued a proposed emergency regulation regarding exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) from canned and bottled foods and beverages.

   The regulation would require a temporary uniform point-of-sale warning message for BPA exposure for these products. This, says the agency, is to “avoid a potential misperception on the part of the public that the canned and bottled food supply poses an imminent health threat”.

   Seperately, the agency has initiated a proposed rulemaking to set a maximum allowable dose level (MADL) for dermal exposure to BPA at 3 micrograms per day.

   Emergency action

   BPA was added to the Prop 65 list of substances known to the state to cause reproductive toxicity on 11 May 2015. Warning is required to be provided for all exposures to BPA that are not less than 1,000 times below the no observed effect level (NOEL) for the chemical, from 11 May 2016.

   According to the agency’s notice, many canned and food beverage manufacturers have begun to limit or eliminate BPA from their products. But due to the long shelf life of such products, “a reasonable transition period is needed to avoid consumer confusion and at the same time provide the required warning for significant exposures to BPA”.

   The emergency action sets forth a “point-of-sale” warning label, to be displayed where a customer pays for products in a retail facility. This is to be no smaller than 5 by 5 inches, and read:

   “WARNING: Many cans containing foods and beverages sold here have epoxy linings used to avoid microbial contamination and extend shelf life. Lids on jars and caps on bottles may also have epoxy linings. Some of these linings can leach small amounts of bisphenol A (BPA) into the food or beverage. BPA is a chemical known to the State of California to cause harm to the female reproductive system. For more information go to: www.P65Warnings.ca.gov/BPA.”

   Under the proposed rule, compliance with the BPA exposure warning requirement could be achieved through either affixing a standard “clear and reasonable” warning to the product, or by providing appropriate written notice – as outlined in the emergency regulation – to a retail seller regarding the point-of-sale warnings.

   The agency says that this emergency action is needed because:

   “widespread” Prop 65 warning labels could cause Californians to reduce or forego purchasing canned and bottled vegetables and fruits, “to the detriment of their own health”;

   “a number of” 60-day notices of intent to sue over alleged failure to warn may be brought forth by private enforcers immediately following 11 May; and/or

   retailers may remove all canned and bottled food products from shelves, due to a lack of knowledge as to which do or do not contain BPA.

   Pursuant to the California Code of Regulations, interested person will have five calendars days to submit comments on the proposed emergency regulation.

   MADL

   Oehha has also issued a proposed a MADL for BPA of 3µg/day for dermal exposure from contact with solid materials.

   This was derived following the agency’s review of hazard identification materials that examine the effects of BPA on the female reproductive system.

   A MADL is the established limit below which a Prop 65 warning label is not required for a listed chemical. Its establishment  “provides assurance to the regulated community that exposures or discharges at or below it are considered not to pose a significant risk of developmental or reproductive harm.”

   With regard to an MADL for oral exposure – that which would occur with the consumption of packaged foods – the agency says “ the timing of that regulatory action is dependent on the availability of necessary scientific information”.

   Written comments on the proposed dermal MADL will be accepted until 16 May. Oehha will convene a hearing on 29 April.

   https://chemicalwatch.com/45833/california-agency-takes-emergency-action-on-bpa-under-prop-65
   

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4. The Poisonous Conservative Thinking That Caused the Flint Crisis

   Mar 18, 2016 | Washington Post

   By Dana Milbank

   In a hearing this week about the poisonous water in Flint, Mich., Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) tried to blame the lead-tainted water on the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency.

   EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy explained that, under the law Congress passed, states are in charge of enforcing drinking-water standards.

   “The law?” Carter replied, contemptuously. “The law? I don’t think anybody here cares about the law.”

   It was an awkward and inadvertent moment of truth. Congress has hamstrung the federal government, giving states the authority to enforce drinking-water standards and all but eliminating the EPA’s power to intervene. This is a pure expression of the conservative doctrine of federalism: States handle things better than the feds because they are closest to the people.

   But then came the debacle in Flint, when Michigan authorities embraced cost-saving changes in the city’s water supply and caused mass lead poisoning. Now members of Congress are blaming the EPA for failing to stop the problem — oblivious to the irony that they and their predecessors were the ones who denied the federal government the ability to enforce drinking-water standards in the first place.

   It’s a vicious cycle: Washington devolves power to the states. When states screw up, conservatives blame the federal government, worsening the public’s already shaky faith. Having tied the hands of the feds — in this case, the EPA — they use the failure as justification to restrict federal power further — thus giving more control to the states, which caused the problem in the first place.

   This is no abstract problem. The leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination promises to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency — or the “Department of Environmental Protection,” as Donald Trump calls it — “in almost every form” and to “bring that back to the states.”

   We don’t have to wonder what that would look like. It would look like Flint.

   Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA takes a back seat to state regulators. Even if the EPA finds evidence that water is unsafe, it can’t take action until it can prove that a problem is widespread — and until it gives a state time to fix the problem.

   In Flint’s case, an official appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder (R) decided in 2013 to save money by changing the water supply, with disastrous results. EPA had no say. It got wind of the trouble early in 2015, but, by the time it could meet the law’s requirements to take action, Michigan had already switched Flint back to its original water supply.

   “Congress was very clear in the law and also in the congressional record that they wanted us to keep in our lane and they didn’t want us to step on states’ rights,” McCarthy testified.

   Snyder, whose administration was responsible for the disastrous decisions in Flint, got relatively gentle treatment from Republicans on Thursday while sitting at the witness table with McCarthy. Republican members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee focused their ire on McCarthy.

   “I heard calls for resignation. I think you should be at the top of the list,” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.).

   Said the chairman, Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah): “Wow, you just don’t get it.”

   Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.) said McCarthy should “consider scrapping” other pending regulations because “it’s clear EPA cannot currently handle the issues on its plate.”

   Even though EPA should have acted faster once it learned of Flint’s troubles, there is no dispute that the state was solely responsible for the changes that caused the lead poisoning. But Snyder, while accepting culpability, said “I’m ready to get sick” — essentially because EPA didn’t stop him and his state officials earlier from doing harm.

   Chaffetz, the chairman, joined this complaint. When McCarthy explained that, under the law, she had to provide elaborate documentation before overriding state officials, Chaffetz was livid. “Why do we even need an EPA if you can’t do that?” he asked. “If you want to do the courageous thing,” he said, you “should resign.”

   Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), comparing McCarthy unfavorably with Snyder, accused her of “fraud, denial, incompetence and bureaucratic nepotism” and said she “should be impeached.”

   Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.) accused her of a “coverup.”

   Chaffetz called her too slow to implement new rules — an inversion of the usual conservative complaint that EPA is too quick to impose regulations.

   McCarthy responded by noting the “infuriating” aspect of the law — the requirement to give states time to demonstrate that they are fixing problems. “I wish we had yelled from the treetops,” she said. “But there is no way that my agency created this problem.”

   No, this problem was created by a religious adherence to the notion that states will police themselves — and that the federal government should step aside.

   https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-poisonous-conservative-thinking-that-caused-the-flint-crisis/2016/03/18/06700ca2-ed01-11e5-bc08-3e03a5b41910_story.html
   

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5. E&E Daily's Stecker Talks Next Steps for White House, Lawmakers After Contentious Hearing

   Mar 18, 2016 | E&E TV

   Following a heated oversight hearing in the House on the Flint water crisis, what are the next steps for U.S. EPA officials and top-ranking members of the Michigan government? On today's The Cutting Edge, E&E Daily reporter Tiffany Stecker discusses the fallout from this week's contentious House hearing and the future of a federal aid package in the Senate.

   Monica Trauzzi: Welcome to The Cutting Edge. Heated hearings this week in the House Oversight Committee as the governor of Michigan and EPA's administrator testified on the Flint water crisis. E&E Daily's Tiffany Stecker has been following all the details, and she's here with the latest. Tiffany, there was a lot of finger pointing this week among top officials. Emails were released that shed some light on who knew what and when. What do we know now from those emails?

   Tiffany Stecker: So, I think overall, the emails -- one thing that really struck me was you could really see the relationship between EPA and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. There was -- it seemed like EPA was kind of tiptoeing around the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, MDEQ. You see emails like a staffer in Region 5, which is the Chicago-based headquarters of that region for the Great Lakes, saying things like, "Oh, you know, MDEQ might get defensive if we issue a violation to them. Maybe we should work with them instead of actually going in and saying, 'You're doing something wrong.' You know, slapping their wrist. Or doing something more serious."

   Another interesting thing that came out of the emails was the understanding of when Gina McCarthy knew certain things. It really seemed like things were kind of dripping through, like little pieces of information were coming through throughout the year, while this Flint crisis was happening. In September, it seems there was really a turning point where Gina McCarthy said, "OK, this is going to be big, this is important." But in that point, instead of saying, "We need to go in," she said the govern -- the Michigan department needs to step up. So really, it seems like EPA was really looking at Michigan to step up to do the work and it wasn't until later that they said, "OK, we need to step in here."

   Monica Trauzzi: And there are calls for EPA Administrator McCarthy to resign. Is that largely political or do you think it has teeth?

   Tiffany Stecker: Well, you know the chairman of the Oversight Committee, Jason Chaffetz, made it very clear he wanted Gina McCarthy to resign. There were other lawmakers yesterday, Republicans, that called for a resignation. These are Republicans, of course, who don't like EPA, period. Who don't like Gina McCarthy, period. So, I think it was really part of that anti-EPA feeling. At this point, Gina McCarthy has been very vehemently saying that EPA didn't do anything wrong. They should have known something at the time, but they didn't do anything wrong, given the information they had at the time. So that doesn't sound like someone who's ready to resign.

   Monica Trauzzi What are the next steps from the House?

   Tiffany Stecker: So, after the hearing yesterday, Jason Chaffetz said that he would probably focus on the lead and copper rule. This is a regulation, it's about 25 years old, that regulates how much lead can be in the public drinking water system. He -- in Flint, the lead and copper rule was violated. But the MDEQ was able to sort of use loopholes in the rule to technically follow the rule, but not really -- but still continue to contaminate the water with lead, through not using corrosion control. So, I really think that's going to be an area where the House tries to tighten the regulations.

   Monica Trauzzi And over on the Senate side, where do things stand on their aid package?

   Tiffany Stecker: So, they're still working. There's a hold now from Sen. Mike Lee on the package. This is a $220 million package for Flint to replace some of the lead pipes, to help with some of the health services that some of the residents are going to need that have been -- who have been poisoned by lead. Up until a week ago, the senators from Michigan, Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters, were still saying there was progress and that there was -- they were able to -- you know, they were hopeful that this hold would be lifted. To this point, it seems like it's been stalled. So I think senators are still hopeful that it might go through, but they're looking at other options at this point.

   Monica Trauzzi Thanks, Tiffany. Wonderful reporting on this issue.

   Tiffany Stecker: Thank you.

   Monica Trauzzi Thanks for coming on the show. The Cutting Edge will be on break next week. We'll return Friday, April 1st. We'll see you then.

   http://www.eenews.net/tv/videos/2110/transcript
   

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6. Washington DC Mayor Signs TDCPP, TCEP Bill

   Mar 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch

   The mayor of the District of Columbia has signed a bill to ban two chlorinated flame retardants from most household items.

   The Carcinogenic Flame Retardant Prohibition Amendment Act (B21-143) prohibits the manufacture, sale or distribution of products containing TDCPP and TCEP:

   in children's products and residential upholstered furniture, at concentrations above 0.1% by mass, by 1 January 2018; and

   in “any product containing more than 0.1% by mass in any product component”, with some exceptions, by 1 January 2019.

   The measure also outlines hazard criteria that limit which replacement substances may be used.

   The District is set to join several other states, including Maryland, Minnesota and New York, in restricting the chemicals’ use.

   Pursuant to laws governing the District of Columbia, the measure will be subject to a 30-day review by Congress before it can become law.

   https://chemicalwatch.com/45829/washington-dc-mayor-signs-tdcpp-tcep-bill
   

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7. What I Learned by Participating In EWG’s Mercury in Seafood Study

   Mar 18, 2016 | Environmental Working Group

   By Karen Grote

   After a year of trying to conceive a child, several months of infertility treatment and finally a miscarriage, I felt completely out of control over my own body. I learned about EWG and began researching what chemicals I was being exposed to and how I could limit my exposure.

   One day, as I waded through my friend’s food pictures, baby photos and political statements, I came across a post on EWG’s Facebook page asking if I ate lots of tuna (yes), sushi (yum) and shellfish (all the time). A few weeks later, I asked my husband to cut a sample of my hair for testing through EWG’s Mercury in Seafood study.

   When the results came back, I learned something incredibly valuable: eating all that fish had led to a higher mercury level than was recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency, and higher still than recent studies have suggested. You can read the full report here.

   It was an eye opener, and more than a little scary. I learned that mercury exposure is most serious for those who are pregnant or trying to become pregnant – precisely what I was trying so hard to do.

   Mercury affects brain development, memory and verbal skills in children exposed before birth. It all seemed like a high risk to take just because I liked eating fish.

   In my defense, I had always believed seafood – in addition to being delicious – was actually good for me. But here’s the truth and the big takeaway for me from this study: All seafood is not created equal. 

   There are plenty of fish in the sea, and when it comes to selecting which to eat, you have to be careful. The good news is that along with mercury, some seafood also contains omega-3 fatty acids, which are really good for you.

   The trick is to strike a balance between the two: low mercury, high omega-3s.

   Luckily, EWG took all the guesswork out for study participants and provided a handy chart that categorized seafood in five easy-to-understand categories.

   The chart was small enough to fold up and carry in my wallet, which is exactly what I did. From then on, if I was deciding between salmon (a “best bet”) or tuna (in the “avoid” category), the choice was easy. 

   But it’s not just about the type of seafood I was eating, but also the amount.

   According to EWG, the best solution is one or two servings of seafood a week. Before getting my results I never thought twice about ordering seafood while dining out. I started taking note of how much seafood I ate each week, and once I hit the limit, I knew it was time to find something else on the menu. 

   By participating in the study, I felt so much more informed, and as coworkers and friends saw me consulting the chart at restaurants, they were interested too. Some even made copies or took photos. Turns out I wasn’t the only one who didn’t really know the truth about seafood.  

   I still love eating fish. I continue to make it a part of my diet, but my choices are much more informed. I cut out all high-mercury fish (I’ll miss you, tuna) and began limiting my consumption of all but the “best bets” and “good choices.” 

   I am so thankful that I parted ways with that little bit of hair to participate in the study. I learned what I needed to know to make myself healthier, both for my own well-being, and for the well-being of the child I learned I was carrying exactly two months after getting my results. Nice timing, EWG.

   http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/03/what-i-learned-participating-ewg-s-mercury-seafood-study
   

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8. Why It’s So Hard to Eat Fish and Avoid Mercury

   Mar 18, 2016 | Washington Post

   By Chelsea Harvey

   Women who eat as much seafood as the FDA recommends for people who are pregnant — or who eat slightly more — may be exposing themselves to unsafe levels of mercury depending on the kinds of fish they’re eating, says a new study just published by the Environmental Working Group (EWG). The report calls for more detailed federal guidelines on what types of fish are safe, and in what quantities.

   But an industry group has already criticized the study. The National Fisheries Institute, a trade organization representing the seafood industry, released astatement Tuesday decrying the report’s “fear-mongering,” even as other academics supported its basic conclusions.

   Mercury contamination in the environment comes from a variety of sources, mainly industrial pollution. Mercury that makes it into water systems and eventually into the ocean can be consumed by small organisms and work its way up the food chain in larger and larger amounts, which is why it tends to exist in the highest levels in large, predatory fish — often the kinds of fish that people like to eat, such as certain species of tuna.

   In previous decades, nutritionists have recommended that pregnant women abstain from seafood entirely to avoid exposing their developing babies to harmful mercury. But in the past decade or so, “we’ve seen the nutritional science shift to say that there are benefits to eating seafood,” said the new report’s lead author Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst at the EWG, a nonprofit environmental group with a long history of working on the mercury issue.

   The most widely touted of these benefits is the prevalence of omega-3 fatty acids, which are considered essential for human health but can’t be made naturally by the body. There are three types of omega-3s, two of which are found mainly in seafood. Research has suggested that consuming these omega-3s during pregnancy can aid in a fetus’s development, which is the major reason nutritionists now generally give pregnant women a complex recommendation: consume a moderate amount of seafood, adhering to certain federal guidelines to create a safe level of mercury exposure.  

   In 2014, the FDA and EPA jointly released a new draft set of guidelines to aid in just that. Overall, for pregnant women and some other groups, the guidelines recommend eating 8 to 12 ounces of a variety of fish each week, and list a number of healthy, low-mercury examples, including salmon, shrimp and light canned tuna, as well as four types of fish to avoid entirely: tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico, shark, swordfish and king mackerel. They also recommend limiting the consumption of albacore tuna to 6 ounces or less per week.

   But the EWG’s report suggests that may not be specific enough. A study of more than 250 women of childbearing age who ate approximately the amount of seafood recommended by the federal guidelines found that around 30 percent of them had higher mercury levels in their bodies than is considered safe by the EPA. On average, the participants were found to have mercury levels 11 times higher than those of a control group of women who ate seafood rarely or not at all (though the control group consisted of only 29 individuals).

   The results suggest that study participants may not be choosing the most optimal fish for low mercury and high omega-3 intake. The study estimated, for instance, that tuna accounted for about 40 percent of all the participants’ mercury intake — a result that may have been caused in part by the guidelines’ incomplete recommendations when it comes to tuna consumption, Lunder pointed out.

   The government recommends light canned tuna — which is usually composed of skipjack tuna — as a healthy seafood choice that’s low in mercury. However, canned tuna comes in many other varieties, some of which include different species with generally higher mercury concentrations. Canned white tuna, for instance, is usually made from albacore tuna, which can have mercury concentrations several times higher than skipjack. 

   The importance of differentiating between the different types of canned tuna is not articulated in the guidelines. In fact, Lunder noted, when surveyed many of the study’s participants were unsure exactly what type of canned tuna they’d been eating. Additionally, participants reported eating many other forms of tuna, including tuna steaks and tuna sushi, which often are made from species with relatively high mercury contents. None of these are specifically addressed in the guidelines, either.

   In general, Lunder said, the EWG continues to support the recommendation that pregnant women consume more seafood. But, she added, “We think that those recommendations need to be paired with much more detailed information about moderate- and high-mercury species that would pose a risk if you eat them.”

   Other experts agree that better information needs to be included in the guidelines — it just needs to be done carefully.

   “I think that the recommendations that this group make are reasonable — the challenge is that there’s a trade-off in providing more information,” saidRoxanne Karimi, a research scientist at Stony Brook University who has conducted similar research. “Overall, more information is good so that consumers can make decisions on their own, but it can also be confusing, and there’s a concern that consumers will be discouraged from eating fish altogether, even when there’s an overall benefit.”

   Sharon Sagiv, an assistant adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of California Berkeley, noted that the FDA/EPA guidelines already list some specific recommendations when it comes to which fish to avoid and which fish might be better choices. So one question is whether the participants in the study were unclear about some of these recommendations (for example, the recommendations on tuna) or did not strictly heed them. Lunder pointed out that strict adherence to the types of fish recommended was not a requirement for participation in the study, and indeed some women did report eating fish that the guidelines specifically warn against, such as swordfish.

   So the issue is not that the existing recommendations are wrong. Rather, the report urges more specific and detailed instructions to consumers that may make it less likely for women to misunderstand the guidelines.

   “FDA and EPA can put out these recommendations, but if they’re at all complicated in terms of their message that’s a problem because it means that women aren’t necessarily getting effective risk communication,” Sagiv said.

   Sagiv has conducted research on the effects of prenatal exposure to both mercury and fish consumption. A 2012 study she co-authored found that low-level prenatal mercury exposure was associated with a greater risk for ADHD behaviors in children, but fish consumption during pregnancy can actually protect against these behaviors. “These findings underscore the difficulties of balancing the benefits of fish with the detriments of low-level mercury in developing dietary recommendations in pregnancy,” she and her colleagues wrote in the paper — a conclusion that aligns closely with the EWG’s new report.

   The EWG’s study has not been received favorably by all, however. “Published peer-reviewed science that takes into account the befits of omega 3’s and the risks of mercury together…is accepted and understood as the gold standard,” the National Fisheries Institute’s statement says. “Consumers don’t eat fish with a side of mercury, studying it that way only works to further EWG’s agenda when they don’t agree with the avalanche of research that stands in contrast to the narrative they are pushing to the press.”

   Aside from the value of revamping the seafood guidelines, Lunder noted that the report highlights the continued need for policies aimed at reducing mercury pollution. 

   In 2013, the U.S. was one of nearly 150 countries to ratify the Minamata Convention on Mercury, an international treaty aimed at reducing mercury emissions worldwide. The report calls for strong and effective implementation of the treaty. Such steps will be necessary to protect both the environment and human health, Lunden noted.

   “Since we’ve polluted nature’s perfect food, we now have to look to changing human habits and patterns in order to protect ourselves from these known toxins,” she said. And Sagiv echoed her sentiments.

   “If we didn’t have contaminated seafood, we wouldn’t have to advise women not to eat [certain types of] fish,” Sagiv said. “Unfortunately, we’re in an environment where we do have to worry about that, and that risk communication is really very important.”

   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/18/why-its-so-hard-to-eat-fish-and-avoid-mercury/
   

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9. A Legal Loophole Might Be Exposing Children to Lead in the Nation’s Schools

   Mar 18, 2016 | Washington Post

   By Emma Brown

   Children drinking from water fountains at the nation’s schools — especially in aging facilities with lead pipes and fixtures — might be unwittingly exposing themselves to high levels of lead, which is known to cause brain damage and developmental problems including impulsive behavior, poor language skills and trouble remembering new information.

   Under federal law, the vast majority of schools don’t have to test the water flowing out of their taps and drinking fountains, and many states and districts also do not mandate water testing at schools. Even when districts do test their water, they don’t always tell parents about the problems they find.

   This is not a hypothetical issue, nor a new one. Acute lead contamination has been found in school water in many cities during the past 15 years, includingLos Angeles, Seattle, Baltimore and the District of Columbia.

   But the problem of undetected lead in school water is receiving new attention in the aftermath of the crisis in Flint, Mich., where a switch in drinking water sources left children exposed to high levels of lead for months, both at home and at school.

   “Right now there is a yawning gap in our lead-testing protocols,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement last week when he introduced legislation that would provide $100 million in grants to help schools test drinking water for lead. “It’s disturbing that Flint may have been just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to toxic lead in our kids’ drinking water.”

   Schumer was motivated in part by the discovery of lead contamination in schools in Ithaca, N.Y., where officials began providing bottled water to students last month after finding high lead levels in two buildings, including one classroom sink with lead levels of 5,000 parts per billion — hundreds of times higher than the level at which the federal government requires action.

   Ithaca’s findings spurred officials in nearby Binghamton to reexamine test results from 2013; they found more than 50 taps with elevated lead in their public schools, including seven taps used for drinking water. And last week, elevated lead levels prompted New Jersey officials to shut off water fountains at nearly half the schools in Newark Public Schools, the state’s largest school system.

   Officials said Tuesday that they will test 17,000 Newark children for lead exposure, starting with 2,000 toddlers who attend preschools and day care centers. They also acknowledged that Newark school leaders have been aware of the risk of high lead levels for more than a decade, and have managed the risk in part by directing custodians to flush water fountains daily.

   Virginia Tech engineering professor Marc Edwards, who played a key role in bringing to light the crisis in Flint, said he believes the vast majority of the nation’s schools are not testing the water flowing out of their taps.

   “I’m really much more concerned about the schools you do not hear anything about, and that have not tested, than I am about schools that have tested,” Edwards said.

   “When people do the testing and they hear about the high lead, of course they’re rightly very worried. But everyone has to recognize that’s the good news: An adult did the sampling and protected kids going forward, thank goodness,” Edwards said. “As we’ve seen with Flint when it comes to lead what’s done cannot be undone, and we really need to get out there and do the testing so that future harm does not occur.”

   The Government Accountability Office found in 2006 that “few schools and child care facilities have tested their water for lead.”

   “In addition, no focal point exists at either the national or state level to collect and analyze test results,” the GAO wrote. “Thus, the pervasiveness of lead contamination in the drinking water at schools and child care facilities — and the need for more concerted action — is unclear.”

   Schools that provide their own water via wells must test their own water every three years under federal law. That’s how the problem in Ithaca was uncovered, but parents weren’t told about the elevated lead until February, six months after the tests were conducted.

   “I flipped out,” said Melissa Hoffman, the mother of a kindergartner and a fourth-grader at Caroline Elementary, where classrooms were found to have taps dispensing water with high lead levels. “I just assumed it would be safe.”

   Hoffman said she refuses to live in fear for her children. “The damage is done. I just have to move forward with them and continue to support them in healthy ways, and feed them healthy foods, and do the best I can by them,” she said. But she’s angry, and feels that the school system’s approach to drinking water quality indicates a lack of seriousness about children’s health and safety.

   But schools like Hoffman’s, where testing is required, account for just 8 to 11 percent of all schools.

   The rest of the nation’s schools — about 90 percent — get their tap water from municipal sources that must be tested for lead under federal law. The testing happens at the water treatment plant, before the water courses through miles of plumbing and fixtures.

   If those pipes and fixtures contain lead — and they often do, as lead-based pipes weren’t outlawed until 1986 — then water can become contaminated on the journey to the tap. If the water isn’t tested regularly as it comes out of the tap, there is no way to know if it is truly safe.

   Edwards said that the water in a school is often more likely to be contaminated than the water in a home because schools close for long periods, leaving water sitting in the pipes. The stagnant water creates chemical and bacterial conditions that can intensify the lead problem, he said.

   He said he’d like to see more schools testing their taps because it’s the right thing to do in order to protect vulnerable children, and he said he wishes the Environmental Protection Agency and Centers for Disease Control were more aggressive about pushing schools to initiate voluntary testing programs.

   But even testing is no guarantee of safety, he emphasized: Lead solder in the plumbing can break off into the water, contaminating water so acutely that it measures at hazardous waste levels. But that occurs randomly and is difficult to capture in standard testing protocols.

   “You’ll have these taps that I call Russian roulette taps. This is your worst nightmare,” Edwards said. “We’ve seen schools where drinking a single glass of water has the same lead exposure as eating five to 10 lead paint chips.”

   Many school districts — such as Newark — have attempted to manage the risk of lead contamination by advising custodians to flush water fountains and other taps every day for a minute or two, or longer. Edwards said that approach can be helpful in the short term but has never been proven effective over the long term, in part because school staff often don’t flush as often or as regularly as they are supposed to.

   “They’re always talking about how you have to run the water, run the water – but there’s nobody to run the water,” said Greg Goodrich, the parent of two children at Ithaca’s Enfield Elementary, where testing turned up high lead levels. “If you’re the first kid in the morning to drink out of the drinking fountain, you’re getting the largest dose.”

   At schools built before 1986, Edwards said he would advise concerned parents to advocate for installing lead filters on water fountains and taps that children use to fill water bottles. Such filters are effective at protecting water quality, Edwards said, and offer more peace of mind than testing ever could.

   Schools built between 1986 and 2014 are not entirely in the clear, carrying at least some risk of lead contamination in water because until 2014, brass fixtures were allowed to contain some lead. For schools from this time period, Edwards advises parents to advocate for a regular testing program to ensure that the water is safe.

   Many states recognize that it’s important to ensure safe drinking water at school, but local authorities say they don’t have the resources for broad school-water testing programs, according to the EPA. “In the absence of additional federal funding,” the EPA wrote in a 2004 report, “it would be difficult to expand programs beyond existing efforts because state drinking water programs are already challenged by funding shortfalls.”

   Edwards also played a central role in revealing exceedingly high lead levels in Washington, D.C.’s municipal water source in 2003 and 2004, and later in its public schools. He discovered through a Freedom of Information Act request that in one school, the water flowing out of one tap had more than 7,500 parts per billion of lead; the EPA calls for action when lead levels in schools are at or above 20 parts per billion in a 250-milliliter bottle.

   The District’s school system now posts the results of regular water testing online.

   The results of D.C.’s recent tests show the importance of regular testing: Even years after installing filters on every tap to help resolve the lead problem in D.C., schools officials are still finding some school water fountains and taps with high levels.

   Testing in December, for example, found two taps at the District’s Leckie Elementary with elevated lead, and both were turned off until filters could be installed. One tap, inside a classroom, had a lead level of 68 parts per billion; the other, in the basement, was 54 parts per billion.

   In other cities that have faced lead crises in their public schools, it has often been parents who have raised concerns and pushed for change.

   That was the case in Baltimore, where school officials knew of lead contamination in school water fountains in the early 1990s. A decade later, in 2003, James Williams Sr. — the father of a child who had been poisoned by lead paint — raised an alarm.

   Williams told the city school board that he had visited a dozen schools where he saw children drinking from fountains that had been found to have elevated lead levels years earlier.

   Williams’ report forced officials to address the lead problem, introducing regular water testing and rigorous water-flushing protocols. But in 2007, the Baltimore school system gave up, choosing instead to provide all schools with bottled water. At $675,000 per year, bottled water was cheaper than testing and remediation, officials said at the time.

   “We took out and disabled every water fountain in the entire school system to make sure that we wouldn’t have an issue,” Keith Scroggins, the school system’s facilities chief, said in an interview.

   But cost wasn’t the only issue, Scroggins said. There also was time — and trust.

   Switching to bottled water “saved us a tremendous amount of headache because obviously people were still concerned that if we had all these issues with the piping, how could they actually know that we were actually doing the testing right?” he said. “Their children were at stake here.”

   The school system promised to provide bottled water for all 190 of its buildings until those buildings could be renovated or replaced. Progress has been slow: Just six buildings have had the necessary upgrades to allow students to go back to filtered tap water. Now, Baltimore City Schools is hoping to rebuild or replace more than two dozen additional buildings over the next four years, Scroggins said.

   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2016/03/18/a-legal-loophole-might-be-exposing-children-to-lead-in-the-nations-schools/
   

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Energy News

10. (ACC Mentioned) Once a Prop for Industry, Petrochemicals Now Rattle Some Nerves

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire

    By Nathanial Gronewold

    Cheap natural gas is keeping the nation's petrochemical sector bullish on the future, but Wall Street is beginning to have some doubts.

    Slowing economic growth globally and faltering demand growth in China are exposing potential overinvestment in natural gas projects, in particular liquefied natural gas. Low oil prices and the addition of huge new volumes of LNG by Australian projects are causing bearishness to creep in on that side of the energy business, throwing into question the future of LNG exports from North America.

    Petrochemical manufacturing that uses natural gas as a feedstock has been seen as one possible lifeline, inevitably lifting gas prices and revitalizing gas drilling by the end of this decade as production capacity expansions roll out. But the industry is now considering whether it is overstating the future demand growth for chemicals and plastics precursors, as well. That ongoing debate is a focus of talks at the IHS World Petrochemical Conference underway here this week.

    Industry leaders say they are unperturbed.

    "Have any of the fundamentals really changed?" asked Exxon Mobil Chemical Co. President Neil Chapman. "We don't believe so."

    Chapman said his company is holding firm to its bullish views on future chemical and plastics demand growth. The company continues to forecast that the world's middle class will double in size by 2030 despite recent worrisome economic signs. This transition to a wealthier planet "will continue to drive a consumption of chemicals," he said. "It's not just India and China."

    Cal Dooley, CEO of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), ran down the list of reasons natural gas producers should be confident of future demand from the petrochemical sector.

    Though construction has slowed some as oil and gas companies seek to save money in the wake of the oil price bust, ACC still is tracking around 260 individual petrochemical expansion projects underway in the United States, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico coastal region. It puts the total value of these investments at $184 billion; 61 percent of this investment is by foreign firms.

    Dooley issued some very bullish forecasts. ACC predicts chemical and plastics manufacturing expansions and the rise in natural gas demand those will fuel will create up to 807,000 permanent positions throughout the U.S. economy by 2023. Net exports should rise by $30 billion, he said.

    Thanks to shale gas, "we're going to have a competitive advantage for decades to come," Dooley said.

    The expansions underway in the Gulf Coast are huge, helping to offset employment declines in oil and gas, said Michael Sanches, a global accounts manager at the infrastructure workforce solutions firm Airswift. He says his company has managed to redirect recently laid-off oil and gas industry talent into the petrochemical projects the ACC chief described.

    "If you look at the skill set of project control engineering and commissioning, project management, we've been able to take that talent pool and bring them over to these capex [capital expenditure] projects, so from a workforce perspective we're still seeing a high demand for that," Sanches said in an interview.

    Long-term fears of overbuilding

    Sanches was less sanguine about the longer-term outlook. Airswift sees robust project buildouts globally, particularly in Asia, and good demand for its services for at least another decade. Sanches could not offer a view on whether the industry may be overbuilding for demand that may not be there -- one fear causing some concern in LNG project developers.

    "The Gulf Coast has a massive amount of projects," Sanches said. "Whether it's just true specialty chemicals, blending plants, LNG trains, a lot of those projects are keeping everyone quite busy."

    All of this, including foreign investment, is being driven by "cheap feedstock," he underscored. "We have quite a bit of project work to keep us busy for the next decade or so."

    Financiers are growing concerned, however.

    "A slowing global economy is a significant worry," said Paul Smith, managing director of Citigroup Global Markets.

    In a presentation, Smith highlighted that the petrochemical industry was already experiencing a "period of very high volatility," and that the longer-term outlook may be darkening somewhat. He said Wall Street is growing concerned that the industry is indeed overbuilding, not just in the United States but worldwide.

    By and large, however, the optimist's point of view is reigning for the time being.

    China and other emerging markets will continue to grow, if at a slower pace. Bullish investors also talk of an anticipated push in the automotive industry toward advanced chemicals and plastics to make vehicles lighter and safer. They see food packaging as another solid demand growth pool. Demand for specialty chemicals will rise swiftly, they contend.

    "Transportation is a market that we take very seriously," said James Fitterling, chief operating officer at the Dow Chemical Co. The U.S. petrochemical industry's prospects are bright, Fitterling insisted, "minus a global recession."

    Most in the industry believe the current high rate of investment in U.S. petrochemical production expansion, all backed by shale gas abundance, is wise. There's little worry so far that petrochemicals are following LNG exporters in their possible over-expectation of demand growth. More will be known around 2020, when the petrochemical expansions along the Gulf Coast are expected to begin lifting natural gas prices.

    http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/03/18/stories/1060034235
    

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11. Petchem Demand Robust as U.S. Feedstock Cost Advantage Fluctuates

    Mar 18, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence

    By Joe Fisher

    Global ethylene demand will grow by about 90 million tons (60%) over the next 15 years, and "the U.S. Gulf Coast is in pole position for this feedstock-driven capacity growth," the CEO of a logistics provider to the chemical industry told a Houston audience Wednesday.

    Royal Vopak CEO Eelco Hoekstra said his company is projecting that more than 50 ethane crackers will be built "somewhere in the world. Even if this is an overoptimistic view given today's global uncertainties, nobody doubts our industry will grow significantly," he said at the IHS Chemical 31st Annual World Petrochemical Conference.

    Siting of all the new crackers will be driven, in part, by feedstock advantage, Hoekstra said, and the U.S. Gulf Coast has that in spades "...as gas is cheap and readily available," he said.

    Right now, though, the U.S. feedstock cost advantage has been diminished by the crude oil price collapse. "Crude oil is down, naphtha is down. North America's ethylene advantage is also down. But have any of the fundamentals really changed? At ExxonMobil, we don't believe so," said Neil Chapman, president of ExxonMobil Chemical Co., at the same conference.

    Like Hoekstra, he sees robust demand for petrochemicals and is confident in the North American resource base, driven by unconventional oil and natural gas production. That's why ExxonMobil committed to a second steam cracker at its Baytown, TX, complex, he said.

    "Thanks to shale and other unconventional oil and gas, North America has one of the largest resource bases in the world," Chapman said. "That's why we see nearly $160 billion of announced investment...Until recently, the U.S. petrochemical producers were enjoying a gas cost advantage compared to regions that run mostly oil-based naphtha feedstock..."

    However, the 70% decline in the price of Brent crude over the last 18 months has curtailed that cost advantage. Chapman said ExxonMobil, unlike possibly some other chemical producers, wasn't banking on the North American cost advantage sticking around forever.

    "We designed our Baytown expansion to be resilient over a wide range of feedstock and energy scenarios," he said. "We cannot bank on North American ethane, or any other single feedstock, being cost-advantaged forever. It's not the way the world works."

    For that reason, ExxonMobil continues to enhance its ability to run liquid feedstocks.

    "We see global demand for chemicals rising by nearly 45%, or 4% per year, over the next decade," Chapman said. "That's significantly faster than the projected growth in global GDP and faster than overall energy demand. Two-thirds of that growth, we anticipate, will be in Asia-Pacific, of which, of course, the majority is in China and India. These countries are forecast to see a three-fold rise in per capita income through 2040."

    http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/105749-petchem-demand-robust-as-us-feedstock-cost-advantage-fluctuates
    

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12. McCabe Says 'Premature' to Speculate Whether ESPS Deadlines Delayed

    Mar 18, 2016 | InsideEPA

    By Abby Brown

    EPA’s acting air chief Janet McCabe is reiterating agency statements that it is too soon to know how the Supreme Court stay of EPA’s existing power plant greenhouse gas rule will affect the regulation’s deadlines, while suggesting the later compliance deadlines may not be delayed if the rule is ultimately upheld.

    “It’s actually a little premature to be speculating specifically about the compliance dates in the Clean Power Plan. I think we need to see how the litigation goes,” McCabe told the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) Policy Forum March 17.

    But McCabe also noted that the compliance deadlines are “significantly off in the future,” referring to the compliance period start date in 2022 and the final compliance deadline in 2030. The 2022 date is delayed by two years from the agency’s proposed existing source performance standards (ESPS), also known as the Clean Power Plan.

    “[W]e quite deliberately built a significant amount of time into the implementation dates of the Clean Power Plan because we knew that these programs took time,” McCabe said. The acting air chief did acknowledge, however, that the Sept. 6 deadline for states to submit initial plans “is not a date that states will need to meet.”

    McCabe’s comments underscore private comments she made last month -- shortly after the high court issued its stay -- suggesting that the agency may not extend some of the rule's compliance targets, including its initial 2022 start date.

    But such comments have galvanized agency critics, who charge that the agency is violating the high court's stay, which they say requires the agency to delay all deadlines.

    The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in a March 2 white paper charged that the stay requires EPA to “toll,” or delay, all of the rule’s compliance deadlines -- not just those that fall within the period of the stay. It is “beyond dispute” that any deadline that falls within the period of the stay is “without effect,” the white paper reads. “Second, administration officials have suggested that there is some debate about whether future deadlines will spring into effect as originally intended if the Rule is reinstated. However . . . the law is clear that all of the Rule’s deadlines should be tolled for at least the length of the Stay itself in the event the Rule is eventually upheld,” the paper adds.

    Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), chairman of the Senate environment committee, has echoed the Chamber, urging EPA in a March 10 letter to clarify whether it will abide by the “inherent” requirements in the Supreme Court order to delay all ESPS deadlines.

    Inhofe in his letter cites a portion of Basin Electric Cooperative’s request to the high court that calls for the extension of “all compliance dates by the number of days between the publication of the Rule and a final decision in this consolidated appeal.”

    “There should be no doubt that the granting of this and similar requests in other stay applications makes clear that all [ESPS] deadlines should be tolled even if the rule ultimately survives judicial review,” Inhofe argues.

    Legal Uncertainty

    The issue is uncertain, however, because the Supreme Court’s one-page Feb. 9 order staying the ESPS does not address how the stay will be enforced nor how the agency should adjust compliance deadlines should the rule ultimately be upheld.

    Georgetown law professor Lisa Heinzerling, who helped craft EPA's initial GHG program as head of the agency's policy office, charges in a forthcoming law review article that the stay provides no indication of how the agency should or should not proceed and is likely unenforceable.

    Prominent environmental lawyer Richard Revesz, who directs New York University’s Institute for Policy Integrity, argued in a recent op-ed in The Hill that past practice -- and high court precedent -- gives a lower court wide discretion on how to adjust the rule’s deadlines.

    Revesz cites a 2009 Supreme Court ruling in Niken v. Holder in which Chief Justice John Roberts notes a stay “halt[s] or postpon[es] some portion of the proceeding, or . . . temporarily divest[s] an order of enforceability,” while an injunction “directs the conduct of a party, and does so with the backing of [a court’s] full coervice powers.” Thus, he argues, because a stay was issued for the ESPS, it “holds much less power,” focusing only on the enforceability of the rule while the stay is in place.

    Revesz in his op-ed also notes there is legal backing for EPA to continue work on the ESPS’ policy framework -- including the model trading rules and the early action incentive program -- while the stay is in place. “In fact, there is ample precedent for federal agencies continuing to work on policies stayed by courts,” Revesz writes, citing EPA’s NOx-SIP call and other rules.

    In her ACORE remarks, McCabe doubled down on the agency’s commitment to continue work on developing the federal implementation plan, including the model trading rules, and the Clean Energy Incentive Program (CEIP).

    “We are continuing to work on those programs in a way that I want to emphasize is consistent with the stay but will help provide tools to states to the extent that they are looking for them, and also will mean that we will lose as little time as possible when the litigation is finally resolved,” McCabe said.

    Noting the public engagement process for the CEIP that EPA conducted last fall, McCabe said the agency received valuable input on how to structure the incentive program. The agency announced in January prior to the ESPS stay that it would release a proposed action early this year outlining further details of the program, and McCabe suggested EPA will still do so, though she did not mention a timeline for its release.

    “We’ve indicated that we do intend to put some more detail out for people, so we will be doing that,” McCabe said.

    The acting air chief also reminded stakeholders that EPA would, “while fully respecting the existence of the stay,” continue to work with states that voluntarily chose to move forward with ESPS compliance planning.

    “We have had states reaching out to us to ask for assistance,” she said, adding that “the Clean Power Plan for many states has represented a sensible way to move forward, so they’re asking question about the Clean Power Plan.”

    http://insideepa.com/daily-news/mccabe-says-premature-speculate-whether-esps-deadlines-delayed
    

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13. Offshore Oil, NatGas Activities Need Updated Air Quality Oversight, BOEM Says

    Mar 18, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence

    By Carolyn Davis

    The Obama administration on Thursday proposed updating 36-year-old air quality regulations that govern offshore oil and natural gas activity to more accurately measure emissions.

    The proposal would ensure that activities in the offshore don’t significantly harm the air quality of any state, said the Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM).

    The updates are intended to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide, carbon monoxide and particulate matter.

    “This proposal takes a balanced approach to modernize BOEM’s regulations and ensure compliance with today’s air quality standards,” said Assistant Secretary of Interior Janice Schneider. “These proposed improvements will minimize harm to human health and the environment from oil and gas activities.”

    BOEM regulates air emissions from oil and gas activity on areas of the OCS as a part of its review of exploration and development plans, as well as rights-of-use and rights-of-way applications in federal waters of the Western and Central Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates air emissions on the remaining OCS as part of its permitting process under the Clean Air Act.

    Under the BOEM proposal, requirements would be strengthened “for identifying, modeling, measuring and tracking the emissions of air pollutants, while retaining key aspects of the current plan approval process for offshore oil and gas exploration and development activity.”

    The improvements, regulators said, “will better ensure BOEM approves plans that do not significantly affect the air quality of any state, giving coastal communities and stakeholders greater confidence regarding expected air quality impacts from OCS activity.”

    The changes also are expected to give its sister agency, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, “better tools” to assess air quality compliance for OCS operations.

    “Informed by our longstanding relationship with operators, this proposal incorporates key aspects of today’s practices into our regulations, while also bringing our regulations up to speed with the best available science,” said BOEM Director Abigail Ross Hopper.

    A public comment period is scheduled. BOEM plans to conduct “rigorous stakeholder engagement before finalizing the regulations,” she said.

    Proposed updates would include addressing “all relevant criteria and major precursor air pollutants and cross-referencing the standards for those pollutants to those of the EPA to ensure that operators use the most current standards in submitting plans for BOEM’s review of the potential air quality impacts of offshore exploration and development plans.”

    Another improvement planned would help identify the state boundaries to determine potential air quality impacts.

    “The air quality program would measure these impacts landward from the state-seaward boundary, usually three nautical miles offshore, as opposed to only at the coastline,” BOEM said. “This proposed change would more accurately reflect impacts to the states by including impacts to all lands, including submerged lands, under state jurisdiction.”

    The proposed rule also would formalize requirements to consolidate emissions from multiple facilities that are wholly/partially owned or controlled by the same operator and intended to be part of one unit or project.

    “Specifically, the proposed rule would require a lessee or operator to add together emissions generated by proximate activities within one nautical mile from multiple facilities, whether or not they are described in a single plan,” regulators said. “The aggregated emissions from those facilities would then be combined for analysis.”

    The proposed rule is expected to result in more accurate calculations of emissions from support vessels because their use has increased as activities move farther offshore.

    “Rather than limiting consideration of emissions from supply vessels to within 25 miles of a facility, as BOEM’s current regulations do, the proposed rule recognizes the long distance covered by such vessels as development is extended in deepwater areas and the Arctic and appropriately accounts for emissions during a vessel’s entire transit.

    “Additionally, improvements since 1980 facilitate more accurate modeling of ship emissions where they actually occur. These improvements have been incorporated into the proposal.”

    As well, the proposed rule sets up a schedule to ensure that plans, including previously approved plans, would be compliant with the updated regulations.

    “With the proposed changes to the regulations, BOEM will have one set of requirements, appropriate to both regions where BOEM has authority, which will be more effective and increase predictability. The proposed regulatory changes will also provide BOEM and affected states improved information on the expected onshore air quality impacts of OCS exploration and development.”

    In response, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said the regulations “will impose additional costs in return for dubious benefits at a time when domestic operators are locked in ferocious competition with the likes of Iran and Russia.

    “The administration is trying to earn plaudits for including the Arctic offshore in its proposed leasing plan, but at the same time is proposing regulations that would make Arctic development all the more difficult. This smoke-and-mirrors approach jeopardizes the energy security of our nation.”

    However, Earthjustice’s Erika Rosenthal said the environmental group applauded the administration’s efforts to update its “woefully outdated air pollution standards for offshore drilling...The current standards exempt almost all offshore drilling activity from controls on emitting dangerous climate-warming air pollution that harms public health. Strong action to rein in this pollution is critical to protecting the air we breathe air and reducing the climate forcing pollution caused by ongoing offshore drilling.”

    The public comment period is to last 60 days once it is published in the Federal Register. To comment or to review comments, go to www.regulations.gov and enter “AD82 -- Clean Air Reporting and Compliance” in the search field.

    http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/105743-offshore-oil-natgas-activities-need-updated-air-quality-oversight-boem-says
    

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14. America’s Energy Edge

    Mar 18, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog

    By Stephen D. Eule

    After seven years, it’s pretty clear that the Obama administration just can’t stand it when energy prices are low. 

    You would think that after enduring oil costing north of $100 per barrel for the better part of four years, the administration would be celebrating with the rest of America that the price for oil is extraordinarily low—not to mention natural gas and coal. Well, think again. 

    Instead of sending U.S. energy producers a big thank you, President Obama wants to send them—and American consumers—a big bill. The administration’s new budget includes a proposal for a tax on oil products consumed in the United States equivalent to $10.25 per barrel of crude oil. 

    This is not the first time the administration has sought to raise energy costs. Indeed, then-presidential candidate Obama’s statement that he wanted electricity rates to “skyrocket” was a sign of things to come. The failed cap and trade bill the administration supported in 2009 was designed intentionally to raise energy costs.  And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan—which the Supreme Court wisely put on hold last week—also would saddle consumers and businesses with significantly higher electricity rates. 

    All this comes against the backdrop of America’s energy revolution, which has given U.S. businesses a critical leg up in today’s intensely competitive global economy. American industry pays two to four times less for natural gas, coal, and electricity than many of its global competitors, a difference that is helping to drive a U.S. manufacturing revival. 

    The Obama administration, however, is determined to relinquish this national energy advantage by saddling energy producers and consumers alike with ever more regulations and taxes. Because high-priced energy weighs more heavily on energy intensive industries such as chemicals, manufacturing, and steel, it could cause many trade-exposed companies in these sectors to shift production overseas. 

    Europe provides a cautionary tale. Regulatory structures—including the Emissions Trading System, taxes, user fees, large subsidies, and mandates—all conspire to make Europe’s electricity prices among the highest in the world. 

    Exorbitant energy prices are turning Europe’s energy-intensive industries into endangered species. More and more, we are seeing European companies closing up shop and fleeing to other countries, including the United States, with lower energy costs. 

    Consider the plight of the United Kingdom’s steel industry. Last July, Tata Steel announced 720 job cuts in its specialty steel business, citing among other factors “cripplingly high electricity costs.” This was followed up in October with the announcement that SSI UK was mothballing its Redcar plant with the loss of 1,700 jobs. It too cited energy costs as a reason for the closure. Meanwhile, Voestalpine and Benteler, two Austrian steel companies, are building mills in Texas and Louisiana to take advantage of lower U.S. energy costs.

    And it’s not just steel. The European chemical industry also is feeling the effects of hefty energy costs. Back in March 2014, Jim Ratcliffe of the chemical company Ineos, wrote to the European Commission president warning that Europe’s chemical sector was headed the way of its textile sector. He points out that in the UK, there have been more than 20 chemical plants closures since 2009 and no new builds.

    A similar situation prevails in Germany. An October 2014 story in The New York Times notes how German chemical giant BASF and other energy-intensive industries are shifting investment away from Germany to the United State because “the benefits of shifting investment from Europe to the U.S. are significant.” No kidding. The same story reports on a German Chamber of Commerce survey that found nearly a quarter of all companies in heavy industry are considering reducing production in Germany. Like those Austrian steel companies, BASF is investing heavily in the U.S. Gulf Coast region.

    Ineos’s Mr. Ratcliffe sums up the situation this way: “I can see green taxes, I can see no shale gas, I can see closure of nuclear, I can see manufacturing being driven away. It’s not looking good for Europe, we are rabbits caught in the headlights, and we have got our trousers down.” 

    The energy landscape Mr. Ratcliffe sees bears an uncanny resemblance to the Obama administration’s energy policy wish list. There’s a lesson in this for America. We have a huge energy advantage. Why would we want to throw it away?

    Eule is the vice president for climate and technology at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/273487-americas-energy-edge
    

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15. States Launch Another Attack on EPA Mercury Rule

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire

    By Robin Bravender

    States want the Supreme Court to take another crack at U.S. EPA's rule to limit power plants' mercury emissions.

    In the latest of a series of legal attacks on the Obama administration's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, a 20-state coalition is asking the high court to toss the rule. Its argument: After the Supreme Court ruled last year that the mercury rule was illegal because EPA hadn't properly considered costs, a lower court decision to keep the rule on the books was also illegal.

    "Despite the facts that both Congress and this Court have required EPA to consider costs before it may impose any regulation on power plants (including the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards Rule), and that EPA has not completed this step, the Rule remains in place," the coalition, led by Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette (R), wrote in a petition asking the justices to hear the appeal.

    Rule challengers scored a big win last year when the Supreme Court found the mercury rule illegal. The justices didn't vacate the regulation but sent it back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for further consideration. The D.C. Circuit agreed to keep the rule in place, letting EPA tweak the regulation to bring it in line with a Supreme Court ruling. The agency has said it plans to issue a new determination next month finding that the benefits of the mercury rule justified the costs.

    The D.C. Circuit's decision to keep the rule in place "effectively thwarts" the Supreme Court's decision rejecting the mercury rule, the states wrote. "It is a fundamental principle of administrative law that agency actions taken without statutory authority must be vacated," they wrote.

    The same 20-state coalition last month asked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to freeze the mercury rule while the states prepared their petition asking the court to kill the rule. The request for intervention was seen as unusual, but the challengers were likely emboldened by the court's recent decision to freeze EPA's Clean Power Plan, a rule to limit power plants' greenhouse gas emissions.

    Roberts quickly rejected the bid to stall the mercury rule (Greenwire, March 3).

    The states waging war on the rule in court are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming.

    Environmentalists supporting EPA's regulation say they don't expect the justices to agree to hear the challenge.

    Earthjustice attorney James Pew said the request is unusual, given that "EPA has committed to getting its response to the Supreme Court's decision out next month." If the states are unhappy with EPA's final decision, he said, they can challenge it before the D.C. Circuit and could appeal again to the Supreme Court, if they choose to.

    Pew disputed states' argument that the law requires the courts to vacate a rule found to go beyond an agency's authority. He pointed to language in the Clean Air Act that says, "The court may reverse such action found to be ... in excess of statutory jurisdiction [or] authority."

    EPA has pointed to that same "may reverse" language in the fight over the rule, but the states told the Supreme Court that doesn't give judges discretion in this case. "If EPA is correct about what 'may' means, then courts have the discretion to leave in place even unconstitutional agency actions -- say, for example, an agency deciding whom to regulate based on the person's race or religion. That cannot have been Congress's intent," the states wrote.

    It takes the votes of four justices for the court to agree to hear an appeal.

    http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/03/18/stories/1060034289
    

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Transportation News

16. Regulators Float Long-Awaited Safety Overhaul for Gas Transmission

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire

    By Mike Lee and Blake Sobczak

    Nearly six years after a natural gas pipeline explosion killed eight people in San Bruno, Calif., regulators are seeking tighter safety standards for the 300,000 miles of gas transmission lines that crisscross the United States.

    The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is proposing to bring more pipeline inspections to less-populated areas while removing an exemption for testing gas lines built before 1970, among other changes.

    As much as 60 percent of the gas transmission system was built before 1970, and it's been exempted from the types of tests that are routine for newly built pipe. The National Transportation Safety Board has long criticized PHMSA for allowing older pipelines to avoid being subject to modern inspection techniques.

    In the San Bruno case, Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s faulty pipes were built in 1948. The section that ruptured was then rebuilt in 1956. The company didn't know crucial information, including the line's safety operating pressure. On Sept. 9, 2010, the pipeline ruptured under a residential neighborhood, killing eight people, injuring others and engulfing dozens of homes in flames.

    Eliminating the grandfather clause is "huge," said Connie Jackson, the city manager of San Bruno. The city learned in the aftermath of the explosion that PG&E had relied on an aggressive interpretation of the exemption.

    "It gave them, essentially, an excuse to avoid proper testing and oversight of the pipeline for decades," Jackson said. "It's been a little slow coming, but this is really a beneficial move."

    In its final report from San Bruno, NTSB said that if pre-1970 pipelines had been required to undergo the same hydrostatic pressure testing as newer infrastructure, the disaster could have been averted.

    "There is no safety justification for the grandfather clause exempting pre-1970 pipelines from the requirement for postconstruction hydrostatic pressure testing," NTSB concluded.

    Federal transportation officials have come under fire in recent years for their tepid response to a string of deadly incidents linked to aging gas transmission lines (EnergyWire, March 16, 2015). PHMSA said it expects that yesterday's 550-page proposed rule will address four congressional mandates dating back to 2011, one request from the Government Accountability Office and a half-dozen recommendations from the National Transportation Safety Board.

    It would impose annual costs of between $40 million and $47 million on the industry, PHMSA staffers said on a call with reporters.

    PHMSA Administrator Marie Therese Dominguez said the San Bruno tragedy showed "a pressing need to enhance public safety and the integrity of the nation's pipeline system." She said the steps unveiled yesterday "address the emerging needs of America's natural gas pipeline system and adapt and expand risk-based safety practices to pipelines located in areas where incidents could have serious consequences."

    NTSB also recommended after San Bruno that PHMSA require leak detection systems and automatic shutoff valves for gas lines in high-consequence areas. It took 95 minutes for PG&E to isolate the ruptured pipeline in San Bruno -- and it only happened after maintenance workers drove to the scene and manually turned off the valves that controlled the line, according to the NTSB report.

    The proposal doesn't address those recommendations, but PHMSA is developing separate regulations for shutoff valves on both liquid and gas pipelines, said Artealia Gilliard, the agency's director of governmental affairs.

    Regulating new areas

    Yesterday's proposed rule also homes in on gas gathering lines, which connect production sites to storage areas or transportation hubs. Their size and pressures often "[make] them similar to large transmission lines," though they aren't subject to the same oversight. PHMSA has raised the possibility of bringing thousands of more miles of gathering lines under its jurisdiction, provided that the diameter of the pipe is 8 inches or greater. The agency cautioned that such details "will be determined in the future" after it can complete a congressionally mandated report on the issue.

    About 300,000 miles of gathering lines would be subject to reporting requirements. Of those, 70,000 miles would be subject to some safety regulation.

    The proposal would also widen the areas where transmission pipeline companies are required to conduct periodic testing.

    Up to now, PHMSA has required pipeline companies to concentrate most of their testing and maintenance in so-called high consequence areas -- places with large populations or environmentally sensitive sites like river crossings.

    But there have been a string of pipeline fires and explosions that caused serious damage, even though they were in rural areas. In 2012, a 20-inch line burst near Sissonville, W.Va., scorching an area 820 feet by 1,100 feet and forcing the closure of Interstate 77.

    NTSB recommended that PHMSA extend its definition of high-consequence areas to include major interstate highways. The new 'moderate-consequence area' definition would apply to areas like Sissonville.

    There are about 30,500 miles of pipe in those areas, and 7,400 miles haven't been tested before, according to PHMSA.

    'Devil's in the details'

    The new steps would make the system safer, although "the devil's in the details," said Carl Weimer, executive director of the nonprofit Pipeline Safety Trust.

    For its part, NTSB indicated it would evaluate the rule to see if it satisfies the San Bruno recommendations. NTSB spokesman Christopher O'Neil said the independent agency "has been pleased with PHMSA efforts to respond to its recommendations."

    Congressional response was muted. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee was still reviewing the proposal yesterday, a committee aide said.

    Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), who chairs the committee, has previously said, "These are complex issues, and I want the agency to get the rulemakings right."

    Pipeline industry representatives have defended their safety practices while questioning the need for new layers of federal regulation.

    Don Santa, president and CEO of the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, said he is "encouraged" by the proposal's release and noted that his group would submit comments before the deadline with an eye to how PHMSA's proposal dovetails with voluntary programs. He pointed to an existing initiative aimed at achieving zero pipeline incidents even "in the absence of new federal regulation."

    The American Petroleum Institute issued a statement yesterday affirming the same goal, adding that "we will be looking to ensure that any proposed change to the current regulatory framework does not compromise safety," according to Robin Rorick, API's midstream group director.

    Dave McCurdy, president and CEO of the American Gas Association, a group of natural gas utilities, said he is "pleased that [the rule] is finally out" after five years of working with regulators.

    He added that AGA "will submit detailed comments that reflect our members' commitment to infrastructure safety and public safety, without placing an undue economic burden on our customers."

    http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/03/18/stories/1060034262
    

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17. Is LNG-Related Pipeline Rejection a First for FERC?

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire

    By Jenny Mandel

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission may have issued its first-ever denial to a pipeline project last week, according to an environmental group that alleges the agency is too close to the companies it oversees.

    A week ago, FERC rejected an application to build the Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline, a 232-mile natural gas feeder that would have connected the proposed Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas plant in southern Oregon to a point on the gas grid near the California border, stating that the project's lack of customers indicates that it offers no public benefit (EnergyWire, March 14).

    Following that decision, an environmental group is arguing that the denial is FERC's first such rejection of a pipeline proposal in its history and an effort by the agency to show that it is not excessively tied to the pipeline companies that it regulates.

    The Delaware Riverkeeper Network filed a lawsuit earlier this month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia charging that the commission's review and approval process violates constitutional due process rights because the commission's natural gas program budget is entirely financed by fees on natural gas pipeline users (Greenwire, March 3).

    "The Commission's funding mechanism combined with its overly broad regulatory power compels the Commission to be a business partner with, rather than a dispassionate regulator of, the industry it is tasked with overseeing," Delaware Riverkeeper wrote in its complaint. Days later, FERC issued the decision denying the Pacific Connector pipeline and associated LNG plant.

    In a statement following the Jordan Cove decision, Delaware Riverkeeper described the Pacific Connector pipeline decision as an outlier for an agency that normally serves as a "rubber stamp" issuing pipeline approvals.

    "This is the first time, in its history, FERC can be said to have denied a pipeline proposed for approval," the environmental group said.

    That record is difficult to evaluate.

    Tamara Young-Allen, a FERC spokeswoman, could not recall a pipeline project that had been rejected but said the agency does not track project denials. "I get this question all the time. There's no one here who maintains a list of rejected projects," Young-Allen said by phone.

    The commission's website includes lists of "major projects" that are pending or approved but does not track those that have been denied.

    Young-Allen said a search of the agency's "e-library" database would be the only way to assess how many pipeline permits have been denied over the years, but searching the system for decisions including the keywords "deny" or "reject" yielded thousands of results.

    Young-Allen said FERC staff has combed through such search results before, recalling that a commissioner once requested a summary of project denials and agency staff conducted a laborious database review to answer the query.

    "I think it only went back to 2011, just to reduce the research [burden] on the staff who had to stop their busy schedules just to conduct their research," Young-Allen said. The results indicated that "there weren't that many ... rejections," she added.

    A request for search help from FERC's online support team was not immediately answered; FERC does not comment on pending legal matters such as Delaware Riverkeeper's charges.

    Pacific Connector is owned by a limited liability company, also called Pacific Connector Gas Pipeline, that owns a 1 percent stake in the project, and by two partners, Williams Gas Pipeline Co. and a subsidiary of Alberta-based Veresen Inc., which each own 49.5 percent interests. Williams did not reply to a request for comment. Veresen says it plans to request a rehearing on the decision.

    http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/03/18/stories/1060034242
    

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Environment News

18. E.P.A. Faces Bigger Tasks, Smaller Budgets and Louder Critics

    Mar 18, 2016 | New York Times

    By Coral Davenport

    Under fierce attack from the political right, and with even some Democrats questioning its competence, the Environmental Protection Agency is facing a tumultuous election year — with rising regulatory responsibilities, falling budgets and its very existence at stake.

    The agency has long been a favorite political target for Republicans, who criticize its authority to regulate large swaths of the American economy as it enacts rules to curb pollution. But the E.P.A.’s challenges in 2016 are multifaceted. The Democratic presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, have questioned the agency’s handling of the drinking water crisis in Flint, Mich. And a toxic wastewater spill in a Colorado river last year brought charges of incompetence from both parties.

    The leading Republican presidential hopefuls, Donald J. Trump and Ted Cruz, have each vowed to eviscerate the agency.

    “We are going to get rid of it in almost every form,” Mr. Trump said at a debate this month. “We’re going to have little tidbits left, but we’re going to take a tremendous amount out.”

    Mr. Cruz, at the same debate, added, “I will pull back the federal regulators, the E.P.A. and all the regulators that are killing small businesses and manufacturing.”

    Republican policy experts are already talking about how to translate such talking points into concrete elements of the party’s policy platform, to be unveiled this summer at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. While many policy experts are dismissive of Mr. Trump himself, the candidate’s views on a sharply limited federal role in environmental protection align with specific ideas that some conservatives have pushed for years. No matter who emerges as the Republican nominee, the party’s official policy will almost certainly take aim at the size, scope and structure of the E.P.A.

    Conservative policy makers are considering proposals that would effectively strip the agency of its authority to set, put in place and enforce pollution standards. The agency would continue to exist, at least in name, but it could end up functioning only as a small scientific research agency, possibly swallowed into another department.

    “There’s no reason to have the agency in its current form,” said Michael McKenna, a Republican energy lobbyist who has played a central role in drafting the party’s environmental policy platform in previous presidential campaigns. “Something’s going to be in the platform that gives the E.P.A. a serious haircut.”

    Democratic candidates are not exactly rushing to the agency’s defense. Mrs. Clinton said that as president she would open an investigation into the agency’s handling of the Flint water crisis. Mr. Sanders said that he would “fire anybody who knew about what was happening and did not act appropriately.”

    The agency’s responsibilities have never been greater, and its resources have never been so strained. Created in 1970 by President Richard M. Nixon, the E.P.A. is charged with writing, carrying out and enforcing regulations under existing laws like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Its rules impose restrictions on business, industry and agriculture, limiting the amount and types of pollutants that can be emitted into the air and water, as well as where and how landowners can use their property. The regulations can sometimes impose billions of dollars of costs on industry, requiring companies to install expensive pollution control technology and in some cases to shut down polluting facilities.

    But President Obama’s effort to combat global warming has transformed that mandate. The president’s climate policies require regulations so sweeping that the E.P.A. has essentially been tasked with transforming major sectors of the American economy, including the auto industry and the electric power sector, over the next decade.

    Because those global warming regulations have been issued under the legal authority of an existing law, the Clean Air Act, it could be difficult for a Republican president to simply repeal them outright. But substantially weakening the agency that enacts the rules could effectively hamstring Mr. Obama’s climate change legacy.

    Historically, environmental regulations have required polluters to install new equipment like so-called smokestack scrubbers and catalytic converters in cars, factories and power plants. But Mr. Obama’s current suite of climate change regulations, if enacted, would go far beyond that. The E.P.A. would effectively change how automobiles are propelled (with electricity, not gasoline) and how electricity is delivered (via wind and solar, not coal), said Bob Persciacepe, the agency’s deputy administrator during Mr. Obama’s first term.

    “We are at a pivotal moment in time, when, in fits and starts, the world is dealing with climate change and every country has to play an important role,” he said. “E.P.A. has been put in the spot to do this. The weight on their shoulders is heavy.”

    All of this is supposed to be accomplished under tight budgets imposed by a hostile Congress. The agency’s spending under Mr. Obama has been cut between 10 and 20 percent below the budgets of the previous three administrations, when adjusted for inflation. The agency’s budget has averaged about $8.8 billion annually under Mr. Obama, compared with (in today’s dollars) $9.7 billion under George W. Bush, $10.6 billion under Bill Clinton and $10.4 billion under the elder George Bush. The agency’s 15,408 employees are its fewest since 1989.

    As the E.P.A. has taken on more work with fewer resources, problems have proliferated. Last year, after the E.P.A. accidentally spilled three million gallons of toxic wastewater from an abandoned mine into the Animas River in Colorado, a government report found that it lacks the technical skills to handle such tricky projects.

    A spokeswoman for the E.P.A. declined to comment on the politics swirling around the agency. But Obama administration officials noted that the E.P.A. still enjoyed public support. A Pew poll in September 2015 found that 52 percent of respondents had a favorable view of the agency.

    That support could make it more difficult for a Republican president to enact some of the most drastic changes envisioned by those drafting the party’s policy platform, because at least some proposals would have to go before Congress. And eliminating the E.P.A. would not eliminate the government’s legal obligations to carry out regulations under existing laws.

    “I’m a very conservative guy, and there are legitimate criticisms of E.P.A., and there has been E.P.A. overreach,” said Jeffrey Holmstead, a former deputy administrator of the agency under George W. Bush. But, he noted, under the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, the E.P.A. is required to supply operating permits to industrial plants and manufacturers.

    “Even if E.P.A. disappeared tomorrow, the regulations would still have the force of law,” Mr. Holmstead said.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/us/politics/epa-faces-bigger-tasks-smaller-budgets-and-louder-critics.html

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19. EPA Readies Crackdown on Laggard States

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire

    By Sean Reilly

    U.S. EPA has officially started the clock for acting on recent determinations that two-thirds of states with designated sulfur dioxide nonattainment areas have yet to submit cleanup plans.

    The "findings of failure" will take effect April 18, the agency said in a Federal Register noticepublished today.

    They potentially affect 11 states that have not yet turned in state implementation plans (SIPs) due almost a year ago explaining how they will bring nonattainment areas within their borders into compliance with the 75-parts-per-billion ambient air quality standard for sulfur dioxide.

    If those states -- which include Pennsylvania, Arizona and West Virginia -- don't submit SIPs within 18 months after the agency's findings take effect, EPA could sanction them and eventually step in to ensure compliance by October 2018.

    Sulfur dioxide is a toxic gas produced by burning coal. It can worsen asthma symptoms and narrow the bronchial tubes. SO2, along with other sulfur oxides, can also react with other atmospheric compounds to form fine particles linked to heart and lung disease.

    EPA lowered the primary sulfur dioxide standard -- which is intended to protect public health -- to 75 ppb in 2010. The 11 states that have so far failed to submit SIPs are among 16 found in 2013 to have nonattainment areas.

    Acting EPA air chief Janet McCabe signed the failure findings March 10, a little more than two months after the Sierra Club sued to force the agency to act (Greenwire, March 14).

    The next day, EPA lawyers asked U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly for the District of Columbia to dismiss the suit as moot. As of this morning, Kollar-Kotelly had not ruled on the motion.

    EPA proposed a second round of SO2 nonattainment designations last month. Under a settlement related to a separate Sierra Club lawsuit, the agency must make the remaining designations in 2017 and 2020.

    http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/03/18/stories/1060034274
    

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20. Texas Says Grid Reliability at Risk from EPA Plan

    Mar 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire

    By Sean Reilly

    Texas state leaders are throwing their weight behind several power producers' bids for a court-ordered stay of U.S. EPA's regional haze reduction plan.

    In a motion filed yesterday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) accused EPA of upsetting the Clean Air Act's "cooperative federalism framework" and of imposing a cleanup plan that will force some coal-fired plants to close. As a result, the state's electric grid "faces significant reliability risks," Paxton said in the filing with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Joining him were the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the Texas Public Utility Commission.

    "Much like its like-minded Clean Power Plan, this is a case of the EPA attempting to restructure the national electric grid, without the authority to do so," Paxton said in a news release this morning.

    Luminant Generation Co. LLC, a branch of Energy Future Holdings Corp., and two other power companies first sought the stay two weeks ago, also arguing the haze plan puts grid reliability in peril. Their call has since been endorsed by Nucor Corp., a steel manufacturer that said this week that the potential impact on electric rates threatens its ability to operate profitably in Texas. EPA lawyers have until March 31 to respond to the joint stay request, according to a recent court order.

    The regional haze plan, published in the Federal Register in January, is intended to cut pollution from coal-fired plants and improve visibility in Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains national parks in Texas and the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma.

    To reduce sulfur dioxide emissions that contribute to haze, seven Texas plants will have to install new scrubbers, while another seven units will have upgrade existing scrubbers at a projected total cost of $2 billion over the next few years, according to the state's motion. The filing cites a passage from last year's Supreme Court ruling on EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards that says "it is irrational 'to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits.'"

    Siding with EPA are the Sierra Club and the National Parks Conservation Association, which argued last week that the EPA plan would bring some of the nation's worst-polluting power plants in line with industry standards (E&ENews PM, March 10).

    Paxton's office filed the initial legal challenge with the 5th Circuit, which covers Texas, on March 1. It has since been followed by lawsuits in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which encompasses Oklahoma, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a common venue for litigation over major federal regulations.

    http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/03/18/stories/1060034293
    

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