Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 3/21
-
Hearing on EPA Budget
Mar 22, 2016 | Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies
Location: B-308 Rayburn / 9:00 AM -
Hearing on EPA Budget
Mar 22, 2016 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittees on Energy and Power, and Environment and the Economy
Location: 2123 Rayburn / 2:00 PM -
Evolving State Green Chemistry Initiatives
Mar 19, 2016 | The National Law Review
By Mark N. Duvall
States continue to enact new laws and implement a diverse array of programs and requirements seeking to regulate the manufacture, sale, and use of chemicals in products. -
U.S. Senator Pushes for Legislation, Funding to Fix Water Crisis
Mar 19, 2016 | WRGB News
Another top elected official was on the ground Friday in North Bennington, Vermont, one of three communities in our area battling a massive water contamination involving the chemical PFOA or perfluorooctanoic acid. -
(ACC Mentioned) Mossville’s End
Mar 21, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Rick Mullin
Blessed by light rush hour traffic through Baton Rouge on a Thursday morning, I arrive 20 minutes early for an interview with Michael Hayes, vice president of public affairs for Sasol U.S. Mega Projects at the South African chemical firm’s offices in Westlake, La. This gives me more than enough time for a tour of the small town that is likely to dominate our discussion. -
From China to Switzerland, U.S. Crude Oil Exports Go Mainstream
Mar 21, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Javier Blas and Laura Hurst
Three months since the U.S. lifted a 40-year ban on oil exports, American crude is flowing to virtually every corner of the market and reshaping the world's energy map. -
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. -
Utilities Announce Billions in Investments in NatGas Infrastructure, Generation
Mar 18, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
Two major U.S. utilities recently announced five-year plans to invest billions in their natural gas infrastructure. -
Industry Quick to Criticize Offshore Emissions Proposal
Mar 21, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The oil and gas industry was quick to criticize a proposed rule that would update Interior Department air quality regulations for the first time in 36 years, arguing the government should have waited for air modeling research to be completed. -
States Again Ask Supreme Court to Stop EPA Air Pollution Rule
Mar 18, 2016 | The Hil - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A group of 20 states is trying once again to get the Supreme Court to put an end to a controversial air pollution rule that the court has already found to be unlawful. -
Air Agencies' Chief Has Bold Prediction Should EPA Climate Rule Fall
Mar 21, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
The longtime Washington chief of the association of state and local air pollution agencies has a bold prediction as to what will happen should U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan ultimately be vacated. -
Oil Industry Dreads Trump-Clinton Choice
Mar 18, 2016 | Politico
By Elana Schor
The staunchly GOP-aligned oil industry that championed George W. Bush and Mitt Romney isn’t yet willing to embrace Donald Trump — and some of its lobbyists wonder if they could stomach seeing Hillary Clinton in the White House instead. -
EPA Eases Outreach Portion of Air Monitoring Rule
Mar 21, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency eased some public outreach requirements for states in a final rule updating the federal air monitoring requirements. -
Advocates Want Clinton-Era Ozone Standards Retained
Mar 21, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
A coalition of environmental groups argued that a federal appeals court should vacate various portions of the Environmental Protection Agency's implementation rule for the 2008 ozone standards, including the agency's decision to revoke the previous standards South Coast Air Quality Mgmt. Dist. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1115, brief filed 3/17/16. -
EPA Ozone NAAQS Implementation Rule Faces Competing Legal Attacks
Mar 18, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's rule outlining the steps states should take to implement its 2008 ozone air standard is facing competing legal attacks, with environmentalists urging a court to scrap the rule over provisions that could lead to “backsliding” air pollution increases while a California air district warns the rule will make it harder to meet the standard.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time
Environment News
-
Mar 22, 2016 | Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment and Related Agencies
Location: B-308 Rayburn / 9:00 AM
-
Mar 22, 2016 | Energy and Commerce Subcommittees on Energy and Power, and Environment and the Economy
Location: 2123 Rayburn / 2:00 PM
-
Evolving State Green Chemistry Initiatives
Mar 19, 2016 | The National Law Review
By Mark N. Duvall
States continue to enact new laws and implement a diverse array of programs and requirements seeking to regulate the manufacture, sale, and use of chemicals in products. Some state requirements have a narrow scope limited to particular chemicals or products (e.g., children’s products), whereas others, such as California, have instituted comprehensive regulatory frameworks that govern the use of chemicals in a broad range of products. Amidst all of this state activity, Congress is nearing passage of a bill that would overhaul the federal Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and strengthen the national program for reviewing and regulating chemicals.
The number of state green chemistry laws is growing. In the past two years, Vermont and Oregon joined California, Washington, Maine, and Minnesota by adopting green chemistry laws. The existing laws in these states authorize state agencies to regulate chemicals in products through different approaches. Some laws simply require notification and reporting of substances, while others require alternatives analyses and authorize far-reaching restrictions. Additional states are considering new legislation, as evidenced by the current flood of bills related to chemical restrictions in over 20 U.S. states, which are detailed in this companion report.California
California’s landmark green chemistry law is the most extensive state chemicals management framework in the country. Passed in 2008, the law requires the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to identify and prioritize chemicals of concern, and to evaluate products containing chemicals of concern to limit exposure to or reduce the hazards of the chemical in the product.
The law applies broadly to all consumer products placed in the stream of commerce in California, which include any “product or part of the product that is used, brought, or leased for use by a person for any purposes.” In other words, the law gives DTSC the authority to regulate any consumer or industrial product or component of any such product in the state.
After a prolonged rulemaking, DTSC promulgated the final implementing regulations–termed theSafer Consumer Products (SCP) regulations–on October 1, 2013. The SCP regulations establish a regulatory framework with four key components:DTSC identifies a list of chemicals of concern from a broader list of candidate chemicals. These chemicals of concern serve as the basis for selecting priority products.DTSC identifies and lists priority products that contain one or more candidate chemicals of concern. DTSC must list priority products by rulemaking under the California Administrative Procedure Act.Responsible entities are required to notify DTSC if they produce, assemble, import, or sell a priority product, and to then conduct an alternatives analysis. The alternatives analysis requires responsible entities to evaluate and compare a priority product and one or more alternatives to determine whether a safer, feasible alternative exists. After conducting the alternative analysis, responsible entities must submit an Alternatives Analysis Report to DTSC.Based on the results of the alternatives analysis for the priority product, DTSC can impose a range of regulatory responses to address the hazard or potential exposure. According to the SCP regulations, DTSC may: require additional product information for consumers; impose use restrictions on chemicals and products; prohibit the sale of a product; require engineering controls; require end-of-life management; or order funding for green chemistry research.
Since finalizing the SCP regulations, DTSC has made little progress listing priority products or moving forward with the program. DTSC issued a draft list of initial priority products on March 13, 2014 that included the following product/chemical combinations:Spray polyurethane foam systems containing unreacted diisocyanatesChildren’s foam padded sleeping products containing tris(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TDCPP)Paint and varnish strippers containing methylene chloride
DTSC conducted a series of workshops in 2014 and accepted comments on the draft priority products. Since the announcement of the first three draft priority products, the agency has not taken any further action or issued a proposed rule to formally list these priority products.
On April 16, 2015, DTSC released its Priority Product Work Plan, which identifies seven product categories and a list of potential chemicals that DTSC will consider when selecting priority products under the SCP program over the next three years. The Priority Product Work Plan sends a signal to manufacturers of listed products that contain candidate chemicals. The Work Plan does not, however, impose or introduce any new regulatory requirements. The seven categories identified in the Work Plan include:Beauty, personal care, and hygiene productsBuilding products such as paint, coatings, adhesives, sealants, and flooringHousehold, office furniture and furnishingsCleaning productsClothingFishing and angling equipmentOffice machinery
For each of these categories, DTSC identifies a list of potential chemicals or chemical classes for listing. DTSC can, however, consider any candidate chemicals as it evaluates these product categories for listing.
On September 24, 2015, DTSC released its draft Stage 1 Alternatives Analysis Guide for public comment. The guidance is intended to provide useful approaches, methods, resources, tools, and examples to help responsible entities conduct Stage 1 of the alternatives analysis process under the SCP regulations. The comment period for the Stage 1 Alternatives Analysis Guide ended on November 16, 2015. DTSC has yet to release the final Stage 1 Guide. DTSC has also indicated it plans to release a draft of its Stage 2 Alternatives Analysis Guide in the first quarter of 2016.Washington
Washington’s Children’s Safe Products Act of 2008 established a green chemistry program focusing on children’s products in the state. The Act gives the Washington Department of Ecology (DOE) the authority to create a list of chemicals of high concern to children and implement a reporting program.
DOE created the first Reporting List of Chemicals of High Concern to Children in 2011. In 2013, DOE promulgated the Children’s Safe Products–Reporting Rule, establishing a reporting system for manufacturers of children’s products containing chemicals of high concern to children. Manufacturers of children’s products containing chemicals of high concern above the reporting thresholds must report to DOE annually. The threshold for intentionally-added chemicals is the practical quantitation limit, and the threshold for trace contaminants is 100 parts per million (ppm). DOE publishes a report compiling all of the disclosures. The report is available on DOE’s website, and is searchable by chemical, company, or product.
Under its Rule, DOE created a phased-in reporting schedule for manufacturers based on the size of the manufacturer and the types of products they sell. This schedule requires different reporting dates for every manufacturer category (divided by size) and every product tier (divided by exposure levels). For example, the next reporting deadline is August 2016 for “Smaller” manufacturers that produced Tier 2 Products, and “Tiny” manufacturers that produce Tier 1 Products. The schedule is included in the Reporting Rule.Maine
The Toxic Chemicals in Children’s Products Law regulates chemicals in children’s products in the state. Under the law, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) identifies and prioritizes chemicals subject to notification requirements. Under limited circumstances, DEP is also authorized to impose use restrictions.
The law establishes a tiered prioritization scheme for chemicals. DEP first established a list of chemicals of concern pursuant to the law that contains approximately 1,400 compounds. From this list, DEP, in coordination with the Maine Department of Health and Human Services and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, must narrow the broader list down to up to 70 chemicals of high concern. To date, DEP has identified 36 chemicals of high concern. DEP then designates certain chemicals of high concern as “Priority Chemicals.”
Children’s products containing a Priority Chemical are subject to regulation. Maine has designated several chemicals as Priority Chemicals, including, most recently, four phthalates and formaldehyde. Manufacturers selling children’s products in Maine that contain a Priority Chemical above specified thresholds must notify DEP. The threshold levels in Maine’s Safer Chemicals in Children’s Products regulations are the same as those in Washington: the practical quantification limit for intentionally-added chemicals and 100 ppm for trace contaminants or residuals. Manufacturers only need to report one time.
DEP requires notification and, in one case, imposes use restrictions for the following Priority Chemicals when used in children’s products sold in the state: Bisphenol A: The sale of reusable food, beverage containers, baby food packaging, and infant formula packaging made with BPA is prohibited. Manufacturers using BPA in toys, child care articles, and tableware sold in Maine must file a report with DEP within 30 days of the product’s availability in Maine.Nonylphenol and Nonylphenol Ethoxylates: Manufacturers using NP/NPE in household and commercial cleaning products, cosmetics and personal care products, and home maintenance products sold in Maine must file a report with DEP within 30 days of the product’s availability in Maine.Cadmium: Manufacturers using cadmium in certain children’s products sold in Maine must file a report with DEP within 30 days of the product’s availability in Maine.Mercury: Manufacturers using mercury in certain children’s products sold in Maine must file a report with DEP within 30 days of the product’s availability in Maine.Arsenic: Manufacturers using arsenic in certain children’s products sold in Maine must file a report with DEP within 30 days of the product’s availability in Maine.Phthalates (DEHP, DBP, BBP, and DEP): Manufacturers using any of the four listed phthalates in certain children’s products sold in Maine must file a report with DEP within 30 days of the product’s availability in Maine.Formaldehyde: Manufacturers using formaldehyde in certain children’s products sold in Maine must file a report with DEP within 30 days of the product’s availability in Maine.Minnesota
Adopted in 2009, Minnesota’s Toxic Free Kids Act is solely a listing statute. The Act requires the Minnesota Department of Health (DoH) to establish and update two lists of chemicals: a Chemicals of High Concern list and a Priority Chemicals list. DoH is required to review and, if needed, revise the Chemicals of High Concern list every three years. DoH published the first Chemicals of High Concern list in 2010 and updated it most recently on July 1, 2013. The Act does not require DoH to update the Priority Chemicals list.
DoH designates selected chemicals of high concern that pose an elevated risk to the public as Priority Chemicals. A chemical of high concern must meet one of three technical requirements under thestatute to be added to the Priority Chemicals list:The chemical has been found through biomonitoring to be present in human blood, including umbilical cord blood, breast milk, urine, or other bodily tissues or fluidsThe chemical has been found through sampling and analysis to be present in household dust, indoor air, drinking water, or elsewhere in the home environmentThe chemical has been found through monitoring to be present in fish, wildlife, or the natural environment
The Priority Chemicals list includes the following chemicals:Bisphenol A (BPA)CadmiumDecabromodiphenyl ether (decaBDE)FormaldehydeHexabromocyclododecane (HBCD)LeadPhthalates (BBP, DBP, and DEHP)
On July 1, 2013, DoH issued a Minnesota Chemicals of High Concern Report on the progress and future plans of the Minnesota Chemicals of High Concern list. In the Report, DoH stated that it was considering the addition of a candidate chemical and a candidate chemical group for the Priority Chemicals list: tris(1, 3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate (TDCPP) and nonylphenol, including its ethoxylates. Over three years later, DoH has not finalized its decisions to designate these chemicals as Priority Chemicals.Oregon
Oregon recently passed the Toxic-Free Kids Act, a chemical reporting statute with a strong regulatory component. The Act was signed on July 27, 2015, and became effective immediately. The Act requires the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) to establish a list of high priority chemicals of concern, and requires manufacturers of children’s products that contain any of these chemicals of concern to submit biennial reports. Unlike the green chemistry laws in Washington, Maine, Vermont, and Minnesota, Oregon’s statute eventually forces manufacturers to remove chemicals of concern from certain products or substitute other chemicals.
According to the statute, OHA must establish a list of High Priority Chemicals of Concern, and revise the list every three years. OHA may remove chemicals from the list and add up to five new chemicals during the review cycle. In early 2016, OHA published its first list of 66 High Priority Chemicals of Concern for Children’s Health, which includes eight phthalates, five flame retardants, bisphenol A, cadmium, formaldehyde, mercury, and vinyl chloride, among other chemicals. OHA also promulgatedregulations defining “children’s product” and detailing the criteria for adding or removing high priority chemicals of concern from the list.
Manufacturers of children’s products sold in Oregon that contain any listed chemical of concern above a specified threshold must submit biennial reports to OHA. A catalog of all the disclosure reports will be published in a searchable form on OHA’s website. Manufacturers must submit their first reports for the use of chemicals included in the High Priority Chemicals of Concern for Children’s Health list by January 1, 2018. OHA will convene advisory committee meetings in Spring 2016 and begin developing regulations detailing the reporting requirements for manufacturers.
The biennial reporting is just the first phase of the regulations. After two reporting cycles (beginning in 2022 at the earliest), a manufacturer of a product containing a high priority chemical of concern must: (a) remove the listed chemical from its product; (b) make a substitution for the chemical; or (c) seek a waiver under the Act. This requirement only applies to products that are mouthable, marketed for use by or to children less than 3 years of age, or are a children’s cosmetic.
If a manufacturer decides to remove the listed chemical, it must provide notice to OHA that its products no longer contain the chemical above de minimis levels. If a manufacturer decides to make a substitution for a listed chemical, it must submit a Hazard Assessment to OHA “that explains how the children’s product, and any substitute chemical the children’s product contains, is inherently less hazardous than before the substitution was made.” Manufactures can apply for a waiver of the Act’s removal/substitution requirements by submitting an adequate alternatives assessment or quantitative exposure assessment.
OHA intends to initiate the rule development process to establish requirements for the removal or substitution of chemicals of concern in 2019. These regulations will also define the waiver requirements and approved methods for alternatives assessment.Vermont
Enacted in 2014, Act 188 establishes the Chemical Disclosure Program for Children’s Products. The Program covers the disclosure, and potential regulation, of toxic chemicals in children’s products in Vermont. The Vermont Department of Health (DoH) established a list of Chemicals of High Concern to Children. The Act empowers DoH to add or remove chemicals from the list through rulemaking.
Manufacturers of children’s products containing a listed chemical of high concern above the reporting threshold must submit a report to DoH by July 1, 2016. Manufacturers must disclose and report chemicals of concern intentionally added to a children’s product above the practical quantitation limit or as a trace contaminant above 100 ppm. DoH has established a table of practical quantification limit reporting thresholds for chemicals of high concern. Manufacturers must submit reports to DoH every two years after the first reporting deadline of July 1, 2016.
On December 10, 2015, DoH promulgated the Chemicals of High Concern in Children’s Products Rule outlining the reporting procedures and required information for manufacturer notifications. According to the reporting rule, manufacturers must disclose the presence of chemicals of high concern in children’s products sold in the state, the concentration of the chemical in the product, and the function of the chemical in the product, among other details. The rule allows manufacturers to disclose concentration ranges in lieu of the exact concentration of the chemical; the ranges are stipulated in the text of the rule. The manufacture must also provide any other information the manufacturer deems relevant to the use of the product.
On February 16, 2016, DoH released a draft Chemical Disclosure Program Guidance Document for public comment. The Guidance Document explains the applicability of the reporting rules and outlines what information must be reported. The Guidance Document also explains the available exemptions from the reporting requirements. The comment period closed on March 15, 2016.
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/evolving-state-green-chemistry-initiatives
-
U.S. Senator Pushes for Legislation, Funding to Fix Water Crisis
Mar 19, 2016 | WRGB News
Another top elected official was on the ground Friday in North Bennington, Vermont, one of three communities in our area battling a massive water contamination involving the chemical PFOA or perfluorooctanoic acid.
PFOA was found in more than 100 private wells in the area at levels higher than what the state has deemed safe.
U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy is pushing for legislation and government funding, which he says will directly impact the situation there.
Leahy, and other state officials, say the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 needs to be strengthened.
"So that these chemicals aren't put onto the market until they've been properly vetted," DEC Waste Management and Prevention Division Director Chuck Schwer said.
But Leahy says along with reform must also come money for the Environmental Protection Agency. CBS6 asked Leahy where that more would come from.
"Ask a parent if they want money spent to make sure that their children are getting clean water or do they want money for an offshore war? I don't have to take a poll to know the answer to that," Leahy said.
Meanwhile, people who live in North Bennington want answers to other questions.
"We pay really high taxes and we're happy to do that because we're proud of our community but if our properties are not worth anything, are taxes going to be reassessed?" asked Mirka Prazak said.
Leahy said priority number one is cleaning up the water contamination. He says when that happens property values should be fine.
Prazak was not entirely satisfied with that answer.
"But Senator, I'm getting daily emails from people all over the country. From people who have read the newspaper coverage on what is happening in North Bennington," Prazak said.
"Let's hope that reputation by the time we get done is going to be unlike other towns. This is a town that stepped forward. They had a problem, they fix the problem," Leahy said.
The PFOA test results on about 40 private wells are continuing to trickle in with additional testing on dozens of other wells expected to start Monday. The results on the soil testing are expected to come back in in about a month.
-
(ACC Mentioned) Mossville’s End
Mar 21, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Rick Mullin
Blessed by light rush hour traffic through Baton Rouge on a Thursday morning, I arrive 20 minutes early for an interview with Michael Hayes, vice president of public affairs for Sasol U.S. Mega Projects at the South African chemical firm’s offices in Westlake, La. This gives me more than enough time for a tour of the small town that is likely to dominate our discussion. I proceed across the tracks.
It has been a long drive from New Orleans, mostly along Route 10, a highway elevated for long stretches over swamp water. Crossing the bridge after Lake Charles, however, the landscape is suddenly dominated by refineries and petrochemical plants. I move through the outskirts of Westlake, driving one of the few passenger cars in a line of construction vehicles until I reach Old Spanish Trail, a road running away from the factories but parallel to a construction site. It becomes the main street through Mossville.
The prospect on both sides of the road is bleak. A handful of houses, some obviously abandoned, are interspersed with concrete slabs where others have been razed. Thin clusters of bare trees can be seen behind the buildings still standing. Past these, dust clouds rise around heavy machinery tearing at the earth.
I pass the Miracle Deliverance Holiness Church. A chain stretches across its gravel driveway. Further along, I see the first people on my drive through Mossville—a young woman sitting on the steps of a trailer home with a baby on her knee. I turn around and head back to Westlake, noticing on this pass that a 1950s-vintage school building now houses Sasol business offices.
By all accounts, Mossville is dying. Settled by freed slaves as early as the 1790s, it was one of the first black communities in the U.S., an unincorporated town famous for a sense of community and self-sufficiency that carried it through the Jim Crow era. But in recent decades, Mossville has been less successful standing up to the steady encroachment of heavy industry.
Now it would appear that Mossville’s final demise is at hand. Seeking to take advantage of low-cost natural gas extracted from shale, Sasol has embarked on a huge expansion of its Louisiana facility that will run right up to the town line. Well over half of its residents have opted to accept a buyout from the company and abandon Mossville.
Turning onto Houston River Road and into the parking lot of Sasol’s new administration offices in Westlake, I pass groups of construction workers on lunch break walking along the dusty roadside. And again I hear Hayes’s voice on the telephone the day before: “You aren’t going to write that tired old Mossville story again, are you?”
Community outreach
Hayes, who is Sasol’s main community liaison, has endured plenty of coverage of Mossville’s demise. The Times-Picayune of New Orleans ran a feature describing the dissolution of the town through the buyout. PBS’s “Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly” did the same in an online feature. Mother Jones hit hard with the headline “A Massive Chemical Plant Is Poised to Wipe This Louisiana Town off the Map.”
The buyout has since run its course. Last month, a handful of residents who refused the deal petitioned Sasol to revisit its calculus for determining the value of their homes, hoping for higher offers. On the weekend I’m in town, a staunch holdout who owns property located in Sasol’s construction area is packing to leave, having finally agreed to a price.
A tall Texan who has worked in the industry for 40 years, 35 at the Sasol site, Hayes is palpably frustrated during our hour-long meeting. He enumerates a slate of Sasol initiatives to foster economic development in Southwest Louisiana—none of which have been covered in the national press—as the company begins work on the largest investment in the region’s history: a $9 billion ethylene cracker already under construction and an even more expensive gas-to-liquids fuel facility that is currently on hold.
The project is making waves in a state ranked number two for chemical production after Texas. Chemical manufacturing is a $68 billion industry in Louisiana that accounts for 23,000 direct jobs and more than 126,000 jobs in related industries.
The 1,200 jobs Sasol says its latest expansion will bring to the region are a boon in themselves. Sasol also has spent $4 million over the past three years to fund a regional impact study, cosponsor a small business resource guide, bankroll a scholarship fund for students at technical colleges in Lake Charles and Westlake, and fund an oral history project on Mossville at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Sasol’s Voluntary Property Purchase Program, or VPPP, under which it offers to buy residents’ property in Mossville, is a much larger investment that could run as high as tens of millions of dollars.
As of February, more than 80% of property owners eligible for the program have agreed to have their homes appraised. Sasol has made 773 offers on parcels and has so far closed 432 purchases.
Accurate population figures are difficult to come by, but Mossville was thought to have 1,000 residents in 2012. It is estimated that there are currently fewer than 250 people living in the town.
Sasol, which came to town when it acquired Condea Vista in 2001, recognized that its expansion project would require support. “This region does not have a community growth and development plan,” Hayes says. “It certainly didn’t have a plan that comprehended an addition of this number of workers. This has been a static economy for 20 years.”
The company has tried to persuade other firms operating in the region to participate in programs it is funding but with little success. “They have not insisted that they have a place at the table,” Hayes says dryly.
Local authorities and community organization leaders agree that Sasol’s economic and community support is unprecedented in a region that is host to more than a dozen multinational corporations. Critics note that the company has received a 10-year exemption on local property taxes and other incentives. But Hayes replies that all new projects in the region have received the same tax breaks since the 1970s.
He says the firm is eligible for a $115 million grant from the state, “but it requires us to reach certain targets and milestones, which we will find a challenge to achieve.” Sasol, he says, has self-funded the VPPP and will not be reimbursed by the state.
Two worlds
The harshest criticism of Sasol centers on its relations with Mossville, where community outreach is drastically different than in Westlake to the east. “Westlake is an incorporated community with good leadership,” Hayes says. “The focus is on schools, jobs, and business development. They as an organized community have a very different focus than the disparate community in Mossville.”
Whereas Sasol maintains a dialogue with the Westlake City Council and the Calcasieu Parish Police Jury, the county-level government, it has had to liaise with individual citizens and community organizations in Mossville. The company talked to local ministers. It met with members of a citizens’ group called Mossville Environmental Action Now, or MEAN, and it invited community members to meetings at the Rigmaiden Recreation Center, at which it detailed its plans and asked what people wanted.
The town’s primary concern was expressed clearly. “They asked for the opportunity to move,” Hayes says. “There were five stars next to that one.” The second most important concern was protecting the Morning Star Cemetery, one of two old church cemeteries in town. Its church has already been torn down.
It’s hard to dispute Hayes’s characterization of Mossville as a community without focus as residents and churches leave town in what amounts to a second exodus. A previous property buyout resulted from a 1998 citizens’ class-action suit brought when ethylene dichloride from a Vista plant was found to have contaminated groundwater in the town. That plant was sold by Vista prior to Sasol’s purchase of the company. Hurricane Rita in 2005 was another blow .
And there are long-standing health concerns. The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry, for example, tested residents in 1998 and found high levels of dioxin. But the current epoch is defined by Sasol’s buyout offer and the divide that has arisen between those residents who have accepted it and those who claim it is inadequate.
Kim Cusimano, a senior public and government affairs specialist at Sasol, pushes a 40-page handbook across the table. It outlines the deal that Sasol is offering everybody in town under the VPPP.
The company will pay the appraised value of a home or $100,000, whichever is higher, plus 60% of the appraised value as the basic purchase price. Thus, a homeowner whose property is appraised at $70,000 would receive $142,000. The owner of a home assessed at $150,000 would receive $240,000. Each seller is eligible for a $1,000 early sign-on bonus and can receive more than $20,000 for expenses.
Cusimano and Hayes explain that homeowners are required to get multiple appraisals based on properties comparable to their homes in nearby towns such as Carlyss, Sulphur, and Moss Bluff. Appraisals are impossible in Mossville as there have been no recent home sales. They also emphasize that no one is being forced to sell their home.
Hayes says Sasol studied other industry buyouts, notably Shell’s 2002 buyout of a black community called Diamond in Norco, La., in devising the VPPP formula. He claims that it’s the most generous voluntary buyout plan in history. “Anyone who says the process is not fair and undervalues the house either hasn’t read the program or is misrepresenting the program,” he says.
Public relations
Mimi Hayes (no relation to Michael) is waiting for me in the vestibule of the Westlake Multipurpose Building on Friday morning. She has invited members of the Sasol Community Advisory Panel, or CAP, which she heads, to meet with me. A man in a bright pink shirt strides up and vigorously shakes my hand. Mimi introduces her husband, W. C. “Skeeter” Hayes, a Westlake councilman and member of the CAP.
Waiting for the others to arrive, Mimi and Skeeter give me a little background on the CAP and community relations with Sasol.
“The industry always had a black eye in this area,” Skeeter says. “People thought they were just in it for the money and all that. But they’ve turned around and started getting good public relations people. Over the 20 years I have been on the panel, the credibility of industry has started to rise.” The CAP, he says, has played a big part.
CAPs are common in communities that border chemical plants, especially large ones. The government doesn’t require companies to convene CAPs, but they are closely associated with Responsible Care, an environmental management and safety protocol followed by members of the American Chemistry Council, a trade association.
Sasol’s panel is typical, as Mimi and Skeeter describe it. It is a one-company CAP, not unusual in communities that host multiple large chemical companies. It has a rotating membership of community leaders and residents from Westlake, Lake Charles, and Mossville. Meetings, which are attended by Sasol executives, usually including Michael Hayes, are held for the purpose of bringing community concerns to the company and passing along information about operations at the plant.
Some CAPs have a reputation for confrontational exchanges, but this does not appear to be the case in Westlake. Mimi credits the CAP for maintaining a line of communication that “corrects misconceptions” before things get out of hand, “because rumors have a tendency of growing.”
Williams’s perspective goes back twice as far as Green’s. “My daddy owned a wood yard,” he recalls. “Back in those days they sold a lot of firewood. He showed me how to use a saw. I was behind that saw many days growing up.”
He also spent a lot of time in a school bus riding between Mossville and Lake Charles because black children were not allowed to attend high school in Westlake. When Mossville got its own high school in the 1950s, black students living in Westlake were bused to school there. Williams attended McNeese State University on the GI Bill after serving in the Korean War. He went on to become head coach at Mossville High School and eventually principal.
Williams, who has a street named after him in town, is not as sanguine about improvements in community-industry relations as Skeeter Hayes is. Attitudes toward industry have changed, Williams notes, as residents who worked at the local plants became more knowledgeable about the health risks. And he agrees with Green that the Vista contamination hit hard.
“Vista was unfair to the people of Mossville,” Williams says. “A lot of people went for that buyout, but what they didn’t realize was that when they moved out it would cost them more to start over again.”
He notes that the buyout led to the rise of MEAN, a political force centered on convincing industry to relocate the entire town.
Williams, like many others in Mossville, was heavily impacted by Hurricane Rita. We drive to his property after the meeting, where he shows me the stump of a huge tree that fell on his home. He received a loan from a state hurricane relief program with which he rebuilt the five-bedroom split-level.
“I had an opportunity in the second round to put a lot into the house that I didn’t have the first time, and I was thinking this is going to be the last time for me,” he says. “Then here comes Sasol.”
One of the first residents to sign on for a purchase offer from Sasol, Williams found a property in Carlyss that appeared suitable. But it turned out to have termites. “Sasol looked at what I had, they came back to the table, but it still isn’t enough to get me to move. They’ve got me on hold, I guess.”
Heaven on Earth
On Green’s recommendation, I stop for lunch at Heaven on Earth BBQ & Seafood, a small building on Prater Road. The restaurant, across the street from a trailer that serves as the headquarters for MEAN, is one of the few structures remaining on a major street arcing off Old Spanish Trail. It is the only commercial enterprise I will see in Mossville on my visit.
There are development plans for the sparsely wooded acreage behind the restaurant, however. A Utah company intends to construct a “man camp,” temporary housing for hundreds workers, many of whom will likely be deployed at Sasol and at an ethylene plant that Axiall and Lotte Chemical are planning for south of town.
The barbecued brisket lives up to the establishment’s name. I try to enjoy it in the five minutes I have to eat, watching “The Price Is Right,” which happens to be on the television in the corner—a surreal touch. A text message arrives from Wilma Subra saying she is in town and will meet me at the Rigmaiden Recreation Center.
Subra is an environmental consultant based two hours away in New Iberia, La. She began tracking industrial emissions and their impact on communities at the Gulf South Research Institute in the 1970s and has since formed her own consultancy, working with residents in towns like Mossville across North America. She is well-regarded by industry and environmental activists alike. But she’s made a few enemies. There are regular break-in attempts at her office, and once, it was shot at while she was inside.
Mossville has been a regular destination for Subra since the 1970s. “There are 14 industrial facilities surrounding this community,” she explained earlier over the phone. “These are petroleum refineries, vinyl chloride manufacturers, a coal-fired power plant, and a lot of chemical companies.”
The facilities, which proliferated as part of the war effort in the 1940s, were clustered around an estuary on a shipping channel off the Gulf of Mexico. “The African American community had a lot of property around them,” she says. Trucking and rail systems were developed, extending northwest from the shipping channel. “So the expansion didn’t happen in the white neighborhoods. It happened more in the black neighborhoods—over many decades.”
According to Subra, public concern about the health effects of living near these industries ramped up in the mid-1980s after the Bhopal disaster and the Environmental Protection Agency’s establishment of the Toxics Release Inventory, which tracks industrial chemical releases to air, water, and land. “We had been told for years that it was only steam coming out of all those stacks,” she said. “But we were able to receive the first TRI report, and it gave us data every year. We would see the trends. It was data we had never had access to.”
Holdouts
I find Subra in her car in the parking lot, leafing through a folder of notes. She hops out, and we make our way to the door of the center where we are met by local residents Larry Allison and Delma Bennett. Delma’s wife, Christine, joins us inside as does Allison’s neighbor, Ronald Carrier. Allison, the Bennetts, and Carrier have refused Sasol’s buyout offer. As such, they are a distinct minority in Mossville.
Carrier, 61, who owns a three-bedroom home not far from Williams, sought a Sasol buyout, but the total offered by the company, he says, is far less than he would need to relocate to a comparable three-bedroom home and lot. That’s especially true, he says, given the higher taxes and land prices he would pay in one of the surrounding communities.
“Once they announced this program,” Carrier says, “the property outside the city limits went up from $8,000 to $9,000 per acre to $30,000 to $35,000. If I were to buy my two-and-three-quarter acres back, I’d have nothing for a house.”
Allison, who is 66 and retired, is in the same boat. He moved to Mossville in 1976 and built his four-bedroom home while working for local industry.
“We are not down on people making progress,” he says. “We know that most of our families were raised on people working at the chemical plants.” He feels, however, that Sasol’s plan was implemented without adequate input from residents. “They say the preachers and everybody else said it’s okay to sell Mossville, but nobody came up here and said anything to us.”
Like Williams, Carrier and Allison emphasize that families on a fixed income feel stuck as their neighbors board up and eventually tear down—Sasol offers funds for razing homes, but the homeowner is responsible for the demolition. “We are at that age where we can’t afford to make a financial mistake,” says Carrier, who retired early because of a back injury sustained in a derrick accident. “We can’t go to work and work our way back up out of it.”
The Bennetts now live in Lake Charles but still own a home in Mossville where family members reside. Delma says that if Sasol offered him an amount that would allow him to replace his property in an affordable town nearby, “I’d be alright.”
“But your wife wouldn’t,” says Christine, who voices another perspective that is heard around Mossville. “There is not enough money that Sasol can pay to cover the hurt, the pain, and the suffering they are putting us through.”
Christine points to the health effects suffered over decades. “Nobody said that the plants didn’t provide a good living for the people. But no one, ever, until Wilma came around, let us know about the chemicals the people in the plants are dealing with and how it was destroying lives.”
As we head out to visit the homes of Allison, Carrier, and the Bennetts, Subra gives me a copy of a health effects study she prepared for Mossville in 2009. Of the 69 individuals surveyed, 57% considered themselves sick. The report identified 11 chemicals that are associated with conditions including skin rashes, shortness of breath, memory loss, and dizziness and are regularly detected in elevated concentrations in the ambient air of Mossville.
The Bennetts show us their family’s house, which is behind the Mount Zion Baptist Church cemetery. Delma checks his mailbox, which is often empty. Delivery is now sporadic. “Water bill,” he calls to Christine.
Further on East Burton Street, the west end of Old Spanish Trail, Carrier takes us behind his ranch-style home to see his property, which stretches back into winter gray forest. Two of his grandsons play with a boomerang behind a structure Carrier has built in the yard. “The man cave,” he says. There is a game of dominoes going on inside. Allison, a regular visitor to the man cave, says it’s busy virtually around the clock, except on Sundays.
My last stop of the day is the Morning Star Cemetery. Subra, riding with me, thinks she remembers the turnoff, which is just before Old Spanish Trail comes to the railroad tracks on the edge of industrial activity and construction. I tentatively pull into an uneven dirt and gravel driveway. “Yes,” she says. “There’s the bridge.”
Sasol, after what Subra describes as a fight, has agreed to keep the cemetery intact and to maintain public access. The company recently replaced the bridge over a swale that must be crossed to get to the graves. The grounds appear, on one side, to be poorly maintained, with several toppled stones dated from the mid-19th century and a lot of overgrowth. On the other side are new graves. It is still an active cemetery.
On our way out, we slip slowly between two police cruisers parked in the driveway at the edge of Old Spanish Trail. “The shift must be ending at the plants,” Subra says.
Subra will be back. A depleted MEAN, with her assistance, is now engaging Sasol in a bid for a better deal for the remaining homeowners. The group met with Michael Hayes and lawyers for the company at the end of January to discuss the VPPP. Sasol has agreed to a follow-up meeting where residents hope to get some concessions on the purchase plan.
Their chances are slim. Hayes notes that the VPPP is fundamentally different from standard real estate dealings that allow for price negotiation. He reminds me that the buyouts are voluntary and offered at the homeowners’ request. If Sasol were negotiating, he says, it would not agree to pay as much as it is offering under the VPPP.
“We told them at that meeting that we are a company that is suffering major cash flow constraints because of the price of oil and the impact on our operations in South Africa,” he says, “that we are under tremendous cost pressure because of the cost of this project and the need to bring it in on time.”
Indeed, in an earnings statement issued earlier this month, Sasol stated that “cost control” is a primary concern on the Westlake project, given economic uncertainties. The company also announced it will delay the opening of some of the derivative units in the new complex. Nonetheless, Hayes has promised to bring the group’s request to Sasol management.
“Lossville”
On Saturday, Stacey Ryan is packing to leave Mossville. He has agreed to a buyout after a long battle with Sasol that culminated in a lawsuit he brought against the company.
The building Ryan is leaving is a trailer that he set on family property in 2010. It is in the neighborhood affected by the Vista groundwater contamination, a lone dwelling in an area not covered by the Sasol buyout, though it is surrounded by Sasol construction.
Having grown up on the property, Ryan was determined to hold on to it, fulfilling a promise to his parents, both of whom died of cancer, that he would fight for the community.
“I was like a flea on a dog,” he says. “I was told by my own district representative that I would be a casualty of war, that I would be just swept aside because I am holding up progress.”
Ryan, who had begun growing vegetables and raising chickens and other animals, as families traditionally have done in Mossville, dealt with a series of setbacks, beginning with vandals destroying his well and Calcasieu Parish refusing to run a water line to the house. The municipal sewer system that served his trailer was damaged by construction work. Power to the lot was cut off before he arrived. He imported water, dug a septic system, and ran a generator.
Despite repeated insults—among the things stolen from his property were solar panels and a horse—Ryan held on. Although Hayes claims that Ryan came to Sasol looking for a buyout shortly after setting up on the property and has been vying for one ever since, Ryan says he is selling now only because a sibling who is part-owner of the property agreed to a deal with Sasol.
Ryan is moving in with a friend on the west end of Mossville, Haki Kazi (formerly Marvin D.) Vincent. I had met Vincent on Friday when he was walking to attend a meeting with Hayes. Wearing a jacket with a Lion of Judah patch and a red, gold, and green knit cap, Vincent, 81, introduced himself as the “gatekeeper” for the Vincent family, who were among the original Mossville settlers.
Vincent grew up in Washington, D.C., where his family also owns property, and was a general in the Black Panther Party in the 1960s. He spent time in Mossville as a child, however, and moved back in the 1970s. His activist fervor shifted to environmental justice as he became active in MEAN, he says.
Vincent claims to hold a land patent signed by President Grover Cleveland—typical of documents held by freed slaves in the 1800s under the Homestead Act—establishing that land settled and owned by his family, approximately 160 acres, cannot be sold. But it can be leased, Vincent says, and he wants to negotiate a 100-year lease with Sasol.
“Lossville,” he says of his hometown. “It’s like they have cleared all the trees. Nothing but dirt. It’s like they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Vincent tars all the companies in the Westlake area with the same brush, contending that development over the years has purposely been at the expense of the black community. He said as much in 1999 as part of a delegation at a World Court hearing in Geneva sponsored by MEAN and its supporters.
“We went to bring charges against the government and the surrounding industry,” he says. As for the corporations that have developed in the Westlake area, “they are worse than capitalists. They are imperialists.”
Vincent’s level of activism is high by Mossville standards. But his convictions regarding racial injustice reflect an undercurrent in sentiment. It’s pervasive enough for Sasol to include the following in a document titled “Myths and Facts about Sasol and Mossville”:
Myth: Sasol’s approach in Mossville is rooted in racism against African Americans and the apartheid past of Sasol’s home country, South Africa.
Fact: That accusation and that comparison are false, offensive, and not constructive to productive dialogue.
Hayes says he has met with Vincent several times and is aware of his desire to lease the land. “Our attorneys believe that that property can be sold,” he says.
Hayes does not count Mossville as a loss and says the company has no plan to build on the property of those who choose not to take a buyout.
“The last time I spoke with Coach Williams,” he says, “he talked about how he loves the location, having a pool in the backyard where he can play with his grandchildren, how he likes how the house is set up. At the end of hearing him talk, it’s like, ‘Coach, you have your dream home. Why would you want to move?’ ”
Hayes says a new road is planned that will connect homeowners including Williams, Carrier, and Allison to the north end of Calcasieu Parish. Once the road is complete, he contends, property values on either side will increase. “When the dump trucks stop running,” Hayes says, referring to the current construction traffic, “they will be back in the country, and it will be quiet again.”
The next wave of development is already on the drawing board, however, with Axiall and Lotte building to the south. And residents are concerned about the social impact of hundreds of transient workers moving into the man camp on Prater Road. Still, Hayes insists that current residents of Mossville can look forward to a future.
“If you want to stay, you are welcome to stay,” he says. “Recognize there will be a Mossville at the end of the process. What it looks like, what the texture of the community is, can’t be predicted.”
Allison, for one, is not optimistic. “How is it going to be worth anything?” he says of his depleted neighborhood. “Everything ain’t alright.”
http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i12/Mossvilles-end.html
-
From China to Switzerland, U.S. Crude Oil Exports Go Mainstream
Mar 21, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Javier Blas and Laura Hurst
Three months since the U.S. lifted a 40-year ban on oil exports, American crude is flowing to virtually every corner of the market and reshaping the world's energy map.
Overseas sales, which started Dec. 31, 2015, with a small cargo aboard the Theo T tanker, have been picking up speed. Oil companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. have joined independent traders such as Vitol Group and Trafigura Pte in exporting American crude.
The “growing volumes of exports” from the U.S. are now “spooking the markets,” Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultants Energy Aspects Ltd. in London, said March 18 in a note. The “flurry of export activity” is helping to support spot oil prices in the U.S. relative to contracts for later delivery, she wrote.
With American stockpiles at unprecedented levels, oil tankers laden with U.S. crude have docked in, or are heading to, countries including France, Germany, the Netherlands, Israel, China and Panama. Oil traders said other destinations are likely, just as supplies in Europe and the Mediterranean region also are increasing.
Small Scale
That said, the U.S. is likely to remain for the foreseeable future a small exporter compared with OPEC giants Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq and non-OPEC producers Mexico and Russia. Ian Taylor, chief executive of Vitol, the company behind the first export, believes exports will remain a “very marginal business.”
Yet, tanker by tanker, overseas sales are growing.
Enterprise Products Partners LP, one of the biggest operators of oil ports in the U.S., told investors this month that it expected to handle exports of crude and condensates—a form of ultra-high quality oil—of about 165,000 barrels a day during the first quarter, up almost 28 percent from the 2015 average.
Cheaper Transport
One reason behind the rise in exports is cheap pipeline and railway fees are available to move crude from the fields in Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota into the ports of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Another is U.S. oil prices have been trading at a discount to Brent crude, allowing traders to move oil from one shore of the Atlantic to another at a profit.
The exports could relieve pressure on storage capacity in the U.S. after stockpiles rose to the highest level in official data going back to 1930. The tanks at the oil hub of Cushing, the biggest in the country and the delivery point for benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude, are 92.5 percent full, according to the Energy Information Administration.
The risk is the U.S. could shift the glut into Europe and the Mediterranean, where there are higher-than-usual loadings from the North Sea and the arrival of the first barrels of Iranian crude to the region since 2012.
Texas to Sicily
The export ban was imposed in the aftermath of a 1973–1974 oil embargo by the Arab members of OPEC. It crippled the U.S. economy and highlighted its dependence on imports.
Before it was lifted, the U.S. sold as much as 500,000 barrels a day overseas, from Alaska and a few other origins allowed under federal law.
Exxon in early March became the first major U.S. oil company to ship American crude from elsewhere, sending the Maran Sagitta tanker from Beaumont, Texas, into a refinery it owns in Sicily. Days later, Sinopec lifted on the Pinnacle Spirt tanker a cargo of U.S. crude, a first for a Chinese oil group.
Oil traders are starting to export American crude to store it overseas and profit from a market condition called contango. That is where prices of oil for delivery today are lower than those in future months. Buyers with access to storage can fill up their tanks with cheap crude and sell higher priced futures contracts to lock in a profit.
Gunvor Group Ltd., a commodities trader with main offices in Geneva, plans to ship 600,000 barrels of U.S. crude to a storage terminal in Panama. It then is likely to ship the crude in Europe.
Oil traders are expecting more vessels to depart during coming weeks, with companies seeking to open new export routes from the U.S. West Coast and move barrels from new locations, including directly out of Cushing.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=84959997&vname=dennotallissues&fn=84959997&jd=84959997
-
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
-
Utilities Announce Billions in Investments in NatGas Infrastructure, Generation
Mar 18, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
Two major U.S. utilities recently announced five-year plans to invest billions in their natural gas infrastructure.
New Jersey-based Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) is planning $16 billion in capital investments in its electric and gas utilities and its power generation fleet over the next five years, the company told investors at a conference late last week. PSEG said “the bulk” of the planned investments will be made in New Jersey.
PSEG’s largest subsidiary is Public Service Electric and Gas Co. (PSE&G), which serves 1.8 million gas customers and 2.2 million electric customers in New Jersey.
“We’re replacing and upgrading critical transmission lines, making our systems more resilient...and modernizing 510 miles of older gas mains,” PSEG CEO Ralph Izzo said. “We are focused on future energy needs, and these necessary upgrades will help to ensure the reliability and safety of our electric and gas systems for our 2.2 million customers for the future.”
Over the last year, PSEG Power, the utility’s electric generation segment, has announced more than $2 billion in investments in three new combined cycle plants: the 485 MW Bridgeport Harbor Station in Bridgeport, CT; the 540 MW Sewaren 7 in Woodbridge, NJ; and the Keys Energy Center, a 755 MW plant in Prince George’s County, MD.
“PSEG Power’s capital program is focused on growth investments of efficient, clean, gas generation which enhance our fleet’s competitive market position,” Izzo said. “The addition of Keys, Sewaren and Bridgeport Harbor will bring PSEG Power’s fleet to more than 13,000 MW of generating capacity.”
Meanwhile, Detroit-based DTE Energy announced Wednesday that subsidiary DTE Gas will invest $1.4 billion over the next five years to upgrade its natural gas pipeline infrastructure in Michigan. The utility said it will “modernize its cast iron and steel main pipelines with newer, more durable material, and new service lines to homes and businesses also will be installed.”
DTE said it’s on track to replace more than 100 miles of gas main lines in 2016, up from about 80 miles in 2015, with plans to continue accelerating the pace of the upgrades.
Also as part of its modernization efforts, DTE will replace gas meters inside homes with advanced meters outside the homes, and it will upgrade its compressor stations.
DTE Gas CEO Mark Stiers said the utility will maintain “affordable” rates for customers even with the planned $1.4 billion in investments, thanks in large part to cheap natural gas.
“Lower natural gas prices have significantly reduced bills for our customers, who can be assured that they will continue to have a safe, reliable natural gas system,” Stiers said.
DTE Gas serves approximately 1.2 million customers in Michigan, owning and operating 278 storage wells.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/105748-utilities-announce-billions-in-investments-in-natgas-infrastructure-generation
-
Industry Quick to Criticize Offshore Emissions Proposal
Mar 21, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The oil and gas industry was quick to criticize a proposed rule that would update Interior Department air quality regulations for the first time in 36 years, arguing the government should have waited for air modeling research to be completed.
The proposal, issued by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management March 17, would update requirements for the identification, modeling, measurement and tracking of air pollution from offshore oil and gas operations on the Outer Continental Shelf of the U.S. The proposal (RIN 1010-AD82) would update regulations that were issued in March 1980.
While environmental advocates said the administration's proposal to update air pollution standards was long overdue, the American Petroleum Institute said the federal government should have waited until 2017. Erik Milito, group director of upstream and industry operations, said in a March 17 statement that Bureau of Ocean Energy Management studies on air modeling were commissioned to inform the rule but are not expected to be completed until next year.
“The agency should not get ahead of the science and proceed with a rule proposal without the necessary data to justify costly regulatory changes,” Milito said.
The Environmental Protection Agency typically has jurisdiction over the permitting of industrial pollution sources under the Clean Air Act. But the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has jurisdiction under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to regulate emissions from oil and gas activities as part of its review process for exploration and development plan, as well as right-of-use and right-of-way applications in federal waters.
Pollution Reductions Expected
The proposed rule would modify emissions exemption thresholds, require facility operators to aggregate emissions generated by proximate activities from multiple facilities and require certain large emitters to develop a method of measuring and reporting emissions to demonstrate that their actual facility emissions do not exceed the level of emissions modeled during the permit approval process.
The cost-benefit analysis for the proposed rule projects the revisions will result in between $8 million and $43 million in annual benefits attributed to the reduction of nitrogen oxides emissions from oil and gas projects that are expected to actually require emissions reductions. The Bureau also expects possible reductions in volatile organic compounds, sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide and particulate matter.
Earthjustice attorney Erika Rosenthal said in a March 17 statement that the proposal would revise “woefully outdated” standards that exempt almost all offshore drilling activity from needing to add pollution controls.
“Strong action to rein in this pollution is critical to protecting the air we breathe and reducing the climate-forcing pollution caused by ongoing offshore drilling,” Rosenthal said.
Abigail Ross Hopper, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said in a March 17 statement that the proposal was informed by the agency's “longstanding relationship” with oil and gas facility operators. Hopper pledged to engage in “rigorous” discussions with affected parties before the final rule is issued.
“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,” Hopper said.
Industry Predicts Significant Burden
While Hopper touted the Bureau's relationship with industry as informing the rule, industry associations were quick to characterize the proposal as another action by the Obama administration that will hurt domestic energy development.
Dan Naatz, senior vice president of government relations and political affairs at the Independent Petroleum Association of America, criticized the administration for issuing the air pollution proposal on the heels of its decision to drop the prospect of oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic from the Interior Department's proposed five-year offshore leasing plan (51 DEN A-1, 3/16/16).
Naatz described the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management proposal as a “highly complicated 349-page regulatory scheme” that will toughen reporting requirements and add compliance burdens on domestic energy producers.
“Not only is this administration making it harder for American operators to stay in business, it is robbing the American taxpayers of billions of dollars in additional revenue that would be generated from this production,” Naatz said.
Milito of the API described the proposal as “regulation for regulation's sake” and predicted that the proposed changes could significantly affect oil and gas operations.
When asked to elaborate on the aspects of the rule that were most concerning to industry, an API spokesman directed Bloomberg BNA to a February letter the association sent to the Obama administration.
In that letter, the API said it would not object to revisions that would reflect changes to the EPA's national ambient air quality standards, which are included in the proposal. However, the trade association said it would be unwarranted for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to further expand its regulatory program through new monitoring and reporting requirements, lower exemption thresholds or a required aggregation of emissions sources.
Additional modeling requirements could cost existing facilities as much as $260 million, the API said.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management projected that its proposal would cost industry about $290 million over 10 years. While the projected costs of the rule outweigh the quantified benefits in seven of the 10 years between 2017 and 2026, the bureau said it expects that unquantified benefits of additional pollution reductions, as well as the ability to implement emissions offsets onshore, will be “more than sufficient” to justify the rulemaking.
A 60-day public comment period on the proposal will open once the rule is published in the Federal Register. Comments can be filed at http://www.regulations.gov under Docket No. BOEM-2013-0081.
The public will have 60 days to submit comments on the proposal once it is published in the Federal Register.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=84960009&vname=dennotallissues&fn=84960009&jd=84960009
-
States Again Ask Supreme Court to Stop EPA Air Pollution Rule
Mar 18, 2016 | The Hil - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A group of 20 states is trying once again to get the Supreme Court to put an end to a controversial air pollution rule that the court has already found to be unlawful.
The states, led by Michigan, are asking the Supreme Court to take up the case against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) mercury and air toxics standards, which have already caused numerous coal-fired power plants to shut down because they could not comply.
The court said last year that the EPA did not properly account for the costs of the regulation before it decided to write it, but the justices let the rule stay in place while the administration figures out how to fix it.
It’s the latest attempt by the states to stop the mercury rule following the Supreme Court’s decision last year. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit refused to stop it in December, and Chief Justice John Roberts declined to do so earlier this month.
Michigan and its allies say that the EPA is effectively enforcing a rule now without authorization from Congress.
“What happens when a federal agency promulgates a rule without first receiving authority from Congress,” the states ask in their brief with the court.
“The answer should be clear: agency action, taken without any authority, cannot be left in place to have the effect of binding law. Instead, the agency itself, to say nothing of the reviewing courts, should recognize that the rule must be vacated.”
The states are unlikely to find a sympathetic voice in the Supreme Court. Though its ruling last year was on a 5-4 vote, Justice Antonin Scalia’s death in February leaves the conservative wing of the court one vote short of a majority.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/273577-states-ask-scotus-again-to-stop-epa-air-pollution-rule
-
Air Agencies' Chief Has Bold Prediction Should EPA Climate Rule Fall
Mar 21, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
The longtime Washington chief of the association of state and local air pollution agencies has a bold prediction as to what will happen should U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan ultimately be vacated.
States such as California and the members of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, along with numerous large cities and counties, will move ahead with their own programs to curb greenhouse gas emissions, said Bill Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies.
And that "patchwork quilt of greenhouse gas reduction programs at the state and local level will trigger a rush -- ironically, by the same opponents [of the Clean Power Plan] -- to EPA and to Congress to sort this out," Becker said last week at a forum sponsored by the American Council on Renewable Energy.
Regulated electric utilities, the largest of which operate in multiple states, will "come forward and make the case for a federal program," he said.
While the Supreme Court stay of the Clean Power Plan could be in place well into 2017, if not early 2018, two-thirds of the states "are either moving full speed ahead or are moving directionally ahead but maybe slowing down their pace a bit" toward possible compliance with the rule, Becker said.
And even in states that are suing to stop the EPA rule, some governors are directing their staffs "to continue some of the discussions, to continue doing analysis and to try to be prepared to comply," he said.
By Becker's count, there are nine or 10 states that "from the get-go are already meeting their 2030 mass-based targets" under the rule.
"About 30 states are more than halfway toward meeting their 2022 interim targets, and 20 states are already more than halfway toward meeting their 2030 final targets," he said.
While the CPP's requirements are "tough for many states, they are not nearly as onerous as opponents are suggesting," Becker said.
Tonight in Washington, the University of Chicago Energy Policy Institute will host a panel discussion on what impact the Supreme Court's recent stay could have on the Clean Power Plan and its potential effects on energy producers, prices, markets and the environment.
On Tuesday, two House of Representatives subcommittees will hold hearings on EPA's budget request, and the back-and-forth undoubtedly will touch on the agency's controversial rule to cut carbon emissions from power plants. Administrator Gina McCarthy will be testifying. Greenwire's Amanda Reilly will be reporting.
Also on Tuesday, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Air Quality Bureau will host an all-day stakeholder meeting in Des Moines that will feature modeling presentations by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, MidAmerican Energy, Alliant Energy, the American Wind Energy Association and the Electric Power Research Institute. EnergyWire's Jeffrey Tomich will be reporting.
In case you missed it: EPA will respect the Supreme Court's stay of its climate rule, said acting EPA air chief Janet McCabe. But the agency will continue working out the details on some of the Clean Power Plan's more technical underpinnings to aid states that want to move forward with carbon emission reductions (ClimateWire, March 18). The Clean Power Plan could force more coal plant retirements than initially expected in the nation's midsection, according to the most recent modeling by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (EnergyWire, March 17). If Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland were confirmed by the Senate, his record indicates a positive view of EPA's climate rule (EnergyWire, March 17). Missouri lawmakers are pushing legislation to prohibit the state from planning for the Obama administration's climate change regulation until the Supreme Court stay is lifted (ClimateWire, March 16). Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy, says EPA used "unreasonable" assumptions in the climate rule (OnPoint, March 15). Emails expose tension in Michigan between Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and his attorney general over federal climate change regulations (ClimateWire, March 14).
http://www.eenews.net/interactive/clean_power_plan/column_posts/1060034325
-
Oil Industry Dreads Trump-Clinton Choice
Mar 18, 2016 | Politico
By Elana Schor
The staunchly GOP-aligned oil industry that championed George W. Bush and Mitt Romney isn’t yet willing to embrace Donald Trump — and some of its lobbyists wonder if they could stomach seeing Hillary Clinton in the White House instead.
It’s yet another sign of how Trump’s unconventional campaign and bombastic rhetoric have upended many of the traditional assumptions of presidential politics. For oil and gas supporters, the industry’s traditional allegiance to the Republican Party is bumping up against the GOP front-runner’s support for ethanol, his puzzling remarks about grabbing “a chunk” of the Keystone XL pipeline and his attacks on oil as just another “special interest.”
Story Continued Below
Among those expressing uncertainty is the industry's top lobbyist, American Petroleum Institute CEO Jack Gerard, who told POLITICO this month that he doesn't know whom he will vote for in November.
"It's probably premature for me to judge," said Gerard, a former Bush campaign bundler who in 2012 was widely viewed as a potential White House chief of staff or energy secretary if Romney won.
Another oil industry source was even blunter about the prospects of a match-up between Clinton, who promises to crack down on oil and gas pollution, and Trump, who has accused Republican rival Ted Cruz of being "totally controlled by the oil companies."
"Is there a Door Number Three?" the source asked by email.
None of this may translate into outright industry support for Clinton, especially given the leftward lurch she has taken while working to assuage suspicious green activists and fend off a Democratic primary challenge from Bernie Sanders. But some oil and gas representatives say they may be resigned to Clinton winning in November, allowing the Republican Party to mount a strong comeback four years later.
"It might be better to have four years of Clinton and try again in 2020," Republican energy lobbyist Mike McKenna said.
Stephen Brown, a vice president at the refining company Tesoro, said the choice "comes down to which risky bet are you willing to take."
"Is Hillary really more centrist on traditional energy issues than she is posturing on the campaign trail or is Trump more substantive on these same issues than he has telegraphed thus far?" Brown asked. "And can Republican incumbent senators running in blue states sufficiently present themselves as a check on a Democratic White House enough to win if Trump is tanking?"
Traditionally, the oil industry could hardly be more allied with the GOP — in the last two election cycles, for instance, Gerard’s group gave about 80 percent of its campaign contributions to Republican candidates. Gerard has personally donated more than $75,000 to candidates in the past decade, nearly all of which went to Republicans.
But Trump’s comments about energy policy have largely avoided detailed proposals, and his rhetoric on the trail has often raised huge eyebrows among petroleum backers.
In Iowa, Trump pledged to corn growers that he will promote ethanol, irking oil refiners who say the plant-based biofuel drives up their costs. He assures sportsmen that he will protect the federal lands where they hunt and fish, raising worries among energy companies that he might block oil and gas development. And while he supports approving Keystone, the Canadian-backed effort to transport Alberta’s oil to the Texas Gulf Coast, he pledged to make a deal in which “we get a chunk of it” — so that “a lot of the money they make is going to come back to the people of this country.”
The courts would probably invalidate any attempt to impose a profit-sharing deal on the pipeline, and oil lobbyists don’t take all of Trump’s comments that seriously. "I don't think he cares" about the details of the ethanol fight, one says.
But more to the point, Trump has offered few solid clues about what his energy policies would look like. And his unpredictability is an overarching concern for an industry in which regulatory certainty is a top priority.
So while Trump has dismissed the idea that the government should take action on climate, for example, that does little to reassure the industry that he would have its back when decision time arrives.
“Would he take a carbon tax as part of a tax reform deal? Of course, because he cares about tax reform," said McKenna, the Republican energy lobbyist. "You start asking yourself policy questions, ‘Would he do X?’ The answer is usually yes."
Gerard said much about Trump’s energy philosophy is still a mystery. "The question on Mr. Trump’s side is, 'How do you feel about energy generally?' He hasn't talked about it a lot.”
And when he has talked about it, Trump has used the oil industry as a cudgel to attack his rivals. In multiple debates, he derided Ohio Gov. John Kasich's economic record as a lucky result of the fact that his state "struck oil." He attacked Cruz as an enemy of Iowa's corn growers because of his opposition to a congressionally created mandate that requires refiners to blend biofuels into the gasoline supply.
"I'm not really blaming him because he's financed by oil people,” Trump said of Cruz during the Iowa caucuses, which the Texas senator won.
Trump has also broken with the industry on larger questions of environmental policy. He told Field & Stream magazine in January that "I don't like the idea" of returning federal land to the states, a contravention of conservative energy doctrine grave enough to prompt a rebuke from the American Legislative Exchange Council, which is supported by oil and gas companies among other business interests.
Still, most oil advocates are not exactly warming to Clinton. They worry about her recent calls to ban offshore drilling outside the Gulf of Mexico, as well as her pledge to regulate drilling so strictly that there will not "be many places in America where fracking will continue" — even if she doesn’t promise an all-out fracking ban, as Sanders does. Those stances are a switch from positions she took as secretary of state, when her department promoted fracking in foreign countries and she said the administration was “inclined” to approve Keystone.
But Gerard questioned whether Clinton would moderate her views if she secures the Democratic nomination — or if she would continue to repeat the "Bernie mantra" of keeping fossil fuels locked in the ground.
"Does she move to the center?" he asked. "That's where you win the election."
Industry-linked donors and oil patch voters have shown a clear preference for Cruz, who has received more than $800,000 in direct donations from oil and gas interests, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. But Clinton ranks next among the still-active presidential candidates, taking in about $250,000 directly from donors linked to the industry, followed by Kasich, who has received about $100,000.
Trump's contributions from oil- and gas-linked interests total about $9,000, the center says — less than the $15,000-plus that has gone to Sanders.
Three fossil-fuel titans who supported other Republican candidates — Jeb Bush backer T. Boone Pickens, Scott Walker booster Dan Eberhart and Cruz fan Toby Neugebauer — told POLITICO this month that they would support Trump in a matchup against Clinton. But it remains unclear whether they would back up their preference with donations.
“We won’t be donating to Trump, and I don’t know any of our donor peers that would donate,” Eberhart said to Reuters this week. “If he’s the nominee, we will support him in spirit but not in cash.”
Six of the top 10 oil-producing states have voted so far, and Cruz has won five of them: Texas, Alaska, Oklahoma, Kansas and Wyoming. In Louisiana, he and Trump secured an equal number of delegates.
But Cruz's path to the nomination is a narrow one that would require him to far outperform his polling in the remaining states, and it is mathematically impossible for Kasich, who has won only his home state of Ohio, to secure enough delegates, leaving a contested convention as his only opportunity.
Trump's campaign did not return a request for comment on his previous remarks on oil and gas-related issues. Nor did Clinton's campaign return a request for comment about the industry's reticence regarding a general election contest with Trump.
Some oil supporters still call the choice between parties a no-brainer. “Every Republican, when it comes to American resources, is going to be better for our economy" than a potential Democratic president, said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a close ally of his state's fossil-fuel producers. Either Clinton or Sanders would preside over significant job losses in drilling and mining, Barrasso predicted, and "we just can't allow that to happen."
Other fossil-fuel players appear ready to hope that Trump gets an education in their priorities.
Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy predicted that Trump's base, dominated by "disaffected, underemployed, blue-collar" voters disillusioned with President Barack Obama, would push him in the right direction on policies that benefit oil and gas.
"Reality is going to educate him," Cassidy said in a brief interview. "It educated Barack Obama, who came in opposing fracking — now, he's for fracking."
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/oil-industry-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-choice-220947
-
EPA Eases Outreach Portion of Air Monitoring Rule
Mar 21, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency eased some public outreach requirements for states in a final rule updating the federal air monitoring requirements.
The EPA's final rule (RIN 2060-AS00), released March 18, will require states to respond “as appropriate” to public comments they solicit on annual air monitoring network plans that must be submitted to the agency for review. As proposed, the rule would have required states to respond to all public comments gathered during the 30-day public review period, which states said could slow the process and force them to miss the July 1 deadline to submit the plans to the EPA.
“To avoid such delays, it would also be acceptable for states to submit the proposed plan with comments and any resulting changes, and where the EPA finds it necessary to discuss how the state considered and addressed specific comments, the EPA will follow up as part of our process for reviewing the plan for approval,” the agency said.
The EPA's final rule updates definitions, simplifies data reporting requirements, clarifies requirements for public notice of annual monitoring network plans and revises network design criteria for nonsource lead monitoring as part of the first comprehensive update to the ambient monitoring requirements at 40 CFR part 58 since 2006.
The EPA proposed the rule in 2014 (176 DEN A-4, 9/11/14).
Reduce Burdens
State regulators said they are still reviewing the final rule, which is intended to minimize burdens on state and local governments.
“It's been along process and one where we've been glad to work with EPA to develop air monitoring regulations that minimize the workload for EPA and states,” Clint Woods, executive director of the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies, told Bloomberg BNA March 18.
One proposed change the EPA chose not to include in the final rule was a required discussion by states about converting “special purpose monitors,” which are used to investigate air quality problems, that are deployed long term into state- or locally-operated monitoring stations. The EPA said the proposed rule was only intended to require states to include a discussion of that option in their monitoring plans. However, several states interpreted that requirement as an implied limitation on the use of special purpose monitors as part of state monitoring networks.
“The EPA believes that some misunderstanding still exists as to the intent of the proposed addition of a required discussion and rationale concerning longer-term SPM monitors,” the agency said. “Although preamble language explicitly stated that the EPA was not intending to propose an automatic conversion process for such SPMs, several commenters interpreted the proposal in that way.”
The final rule will take effect 30 days after it is published in the Federal Register.
EPA Offers ‘Good Neighbor' Guidance on Particulates
Separately, the EPA issued guidance March 18 to states and regional offices on the upcoming review of state implementation plans to address the “good neighbor” interstate emissions transport provisions under Section 110(a)(2)(D) of the Clean Air Act for the national ambient air quality standards for fine particulate matter set in 2012.
The EPA set the revised annual, health-based standard for fine particulate matter at 12 micrograms per cubic meter. States, as part of their implementation plans, are required to take steps, known as the “good neighbor” provision, to ensure that their emissions will not prevent downwind areas from failing to attain the air quality standards.
The guidance relies on a four-step process that the EPA and states have used before when conducting the required analyses:
• Identify downwind areas that may have trouble attaining the air quality standards,
• Determining which upwind states contribute to that nonattainment,
• Identifying what emissions reductions are required from upwind states, and
• Adopting permanent and enforceable measures to control those upwind emissions.
The EPA's guidance focuses on the steps states need to take when conducting the first two phases of that four-part analysis.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=84960008&vname=dennotallissues&fn=84960008&jd=84960008
-
Advocates Want Clinton-Era Ozone Standards Retained
Mar 21, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
A coalition of environmental groups argued that a federal appeals court should vacate various portions of the Environmental Protection Agency's implementation rule for the 2008 ozone standards, including the agency's decision to revoke the previous standards South Coast Air Quality Mgmt. Dist. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1115, brief filed 3/17/16.
The environmental petitioners, in a March 17 brief, argued that the EPA's decision to revoke the 1997 ozone standards of 84 parts per billion is irrational because timely attainment of those standards is still a legal objective under the Clean Air Act. The decision to revoke those standards allows nonattainment areas to meet their Clean Air Act obligations by maintaining existing pollution control measures, even if those measures won't bring the area into attainment according to the deadlines established by Congress, the environmental groups said.
“Timely attaining the 1997 standard is as important today as it was before the revocation,” the petitioners said. “Delaying health protections by waiving consequences for areas that fail to attain these levels by the congressionally-mandated attainment deadlines is inconsistent with Congress's objectives.”
The implementation rule (RIN 2060-AR34), issued in 2015, established various requirements for state plants to bring nonattainment areas into compliance with the 2008 ozone standards of 75 ppb, set under President George W. Bush. In addition to revoking the 1997 standards, the rule also altered how states can fulfill reasonable further progress requirements for moderate and serious nonattainment areas, a policy change that the South Coast Air Quality Management District alleged is based on an inaccurate EPA interpretation of a court decision (53 DEN A-5, 3/18/16).
The EPA's response brief, which will address the arguments raised by both the environmental petitioners and the South Coast AQMD, is due to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by June 15.
Other Arguments Raised
The environmental petitioners, which include the Sierra Club and the Conservation Law Foundation, objected to more than just the EPA's decision to revoke the 1997 ozone standards.
The environmental groups also objected to the EPA's decision to permit states to include areawide emissions averaging programs in their pollution plans to address reasonably available control technology requirements for major sources in moderate, serious and extreme nonattainment areas, as well as in an ozone transport region. That decision is a violation of clear, unambiguous Clean Air Act language requiring all major stationary sources of nitrogen oxides to install reasonably available control technology to reduce emissions, the petitioners argued.
While Congress established three specific exemptions to the requirements for major sources of nitrogen oxides, the EPA lacks the authority to create a new exemption based on areawide or regional emissions averaging, the groups said.
“By allowing nonattainment areas subject to the technology requirement to satisfy it by averaging emissions across the area ... EPA lets individual sources avoid achieving any emission reductions, and even to increase emissions, rather than achieving the technology-based emission reductions that Congress mandate,” the environmental petitioners said.
The environmental groups also alleged that the EPA's implementation rule illegally waived a statutory requirement that areas that have historically had ozone problems, but are able to demonstrate attainment with the 2008 ozone standards, adopt plans providing for maintenance of those standards. The implementation rule established that statutory maintenance plan requirements for “orphan nonattainment areas,” which are designated in nonattainment for the 1997 standards but are in attainment for the 2008 standards, are met if the state has an approved construction permitting plan.
“EPA is letting such areas rely on plans that at best provide only for maintaining the weaker [84 ppb] 1997 standard coupled with plans to limit additional pollution from only a limited class of very large new sources,” the petitioners said. “EPA had no lawful or rational basis for doing so.”
The environmental petitioners are represented by Earthjustice attorneys Seth Johnson and David Baron.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=84960000&vname=dennotallissues&fn=84960000&jd=84960000
-
EPA Ozone NAAQS Implementation Rule Faces Competing Legal Attacks
Mar 18, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA's rule outlining the steps states should take to implement its 2008 ozone air standard is facing competing legal attacks, with environmentalists urging a court to scrap the rule over provisions that could lead to “backsliding” air pollution increases while a California air district warns the rule will make it harder to meet the standard.
The pending consolidated suits over the ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS) implementation rule could result in a ruling that sets important precedents not only on the requirements for states and localities to attain the 2008 ozone limit but also EPA's stricter ozone standard issued last year and other NAAQS pollutants.
EPA set the ozone NAAQS at 80 parts per billion (ppb) in 1997, although this was interpreted as 84 ppb by air regulators under an EPA rounding convention. The agency then tightened the NAAQS to 75 ppb in 2008, and again in 2015 to 70 ppb. Currently, states must comply with both the 2008 standards and 2015 standards.
Legal challenges to the Oct. 1 decision to revise the standard down to 70 ppb are pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Environmentalists are intervening on EPA's behalf to defend the agency against claims from various industry groups and some states that the agency lacked scientific justification to make the standard stricter -- but advocates are also suing and claiming that the NAAQS should be even stricter.
The ozone implementation rule being challenged in a separate D.C. Circuit suit only applies to the 2008 standard of 75 ppb, however, so any immediate precedent from the case would affect plans to attain that limit.
The March 6, 2015, rule revokes the 1997 ozone standards and sets out implementation conditions for the 2008 ozone NAAQS describing what states must include in their state implementation plans (SIPs), which are blueprints for attaining the standard. The measures that states must craft to demonstrate compliance with the standard include deadlines for developing the plans; allowable emissions control strategies; and various other elements including criteria for states to show “reasonable further progress” (RFP) in reducing ozone-forming emissions.
A coalition of environmental groups in their March 17 brief in the consolidated suit, South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) v. EPA, et al., warns the rule risks backsliding, which is the removal of pollution controls once an area has come into attainment with a NAAQS.
By revoking the 1997 NAAQS, EPA has unlawfully weakened emissions control requirements for some areas that experience high ozone levels, says the brief filed by the Sierra Club, Conservation Law Foundation, Downwinders at Risk, and Physicians for Social Responsibility -- Los Angeles.
“EPA’s decision to revoke the 1997 ozone standard arbitrarily waives the legal obligation to attain that standard by the deadlines assigned under the statute,” they say. “EPA’s revocation decision allows millions of Americans to be exposed to unhealthful air for far longer than Congress permitted. EPA’s approach promises to allow the worst-polluted areas to perpetually avoid the mandates that Congress intended to impose to finally protect public health.”
'Anti-Backsliding Protections'
They also claim that the rule violates “repeated holdings” by the D.C. Circuit that such Clean Air Act emissions control requirements as transportation conformity and new source review (NSR) -- “which undisputedly aim to control ozone pollution -- must be retained as anti-backsliding protections in areas initially designated attainment under the 2008 standard but still designated nonattainment under the 1997” NAAQS.
Transportation conformity requirements ensure that transportation projects such as roadbuilding do not result in NAAQS violations, while NSR governs the issuance of air permits to major pollution sources and can require installation of strict emissions controls. The D.C. Circuit has held previously that EPA may not lift these requirements, even where states have demonstrated their attainment of newer, tougher ozone standards.
“EPA also created an extra-statutory 'redesignation substitute' to allow areas designated nonattainment under the 2008 and prior standards to shed anti-backsliding protections. EPA has no authority to invent this substitute, and failed to explain how such a substitute could eliminate anti-backsliding protections,” the advocates say.
Environmentalists further argue that EPA departed from air law requirements by allowing states to choose their own “base year” from which to measure RFP that they must demonstrate in reducing air pollution. “Contrary to EPA’s claims, the Act specifies the year of designation/classification [as nonattainment] as the baseline year,” they say.
The brief also claims that the implementation rule contravenes the air law by allowing areas to escape the requirement to impose reasonably available control technology that they would otherwise have to install to control pollution. In fact, “EPA’s rule allows major sources to avoid installing or operating any emission controls at all -- and to even increase their emissions -- via area-wide emission averaging programs.”
With respect to the 2008 NAAQS of 75 ppb, EPA also erred by lifting the requirement for states to submit “maintenance” plans to ensure that areas that have once violated the standard do not do so again, environmentalists argue. “Despite unrefuted evidence that numerous areas initially designated attainment under the . . . 2008 standard haven’t stayed in attainment, EPA is waiving the statutory requirement that areas with historic ozone problems adopt plans providing for maintenance of the 2008 standard,” they claim.
District's Concerns
Meanwhile, California's South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) -- responsible for crafting the ozone SIP for that area -- argues that EPA's implementation rule will make attainment too difficult.
SCAQMD in its March 16 brief does not address the issue of backsliding. Instead, the district claims that EPA in the rule erroneously changed its interpretation of the Clean Air Act to a new requirement that areas demonstrate RFP in their state implementation plans for NAAQS attainment using exclusively emissions reductions achieved inside a designated nonattainment area.
The district, which represents the greater Los Angeles area, says this approach is a new departure in EPA policy and renders attainment even more difficult for certain Southern California areas that experience a significant proportion of their pollution as a result of emissions from elsewhere, the air district argues.
The Clean Air Act “is ambiguous as to the meaning of 'in the area' in the context of baseline emissions and reasonable further progress, and thus may be interpreted differently from similar language in other provisions,” SCAQMD says, arguing that EPA should have stuck to its preferred policy option of counting out-of-area emissions, and not concluded that it lacked the legal authority to do so.
Oral argument has not yet been scheduled in the case.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-ozone-naaqs-implementation-rule-faces-competing-legal-attacks
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested