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TTIP Could Weaken REACH Safeguards, Groups Say
Mar 22, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
A pair of European environmental protection groups criticized U.S. and European Union trade negotiators working on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), saying the trade pact could weaken European controls over harmful chemicals. -
Endocrine Disruptors' Costs Said to Top $1.5 Billion
Mar 22, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Endometriosis and fibroids that may be attributable to phthalates and diphenyldichloroethene (DDE)—a breakdown product of DDT—cost 1.4 billion euro ($1.5 billion) in the European Union in 2010, according to a study to be published March 22 in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. -
Portland Becomes 7th City to Sue Monsanto Over PCB Contamination
Mar 22, 2016 | EcoWatch
Portland, Ore., is suing Monsanto over contaminating the city’s waterways with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a highly toxic group of chemicals that endangers human health and the environment. -
US Agency Seeks Nominations for Toxicological Profile Development
Mar 22, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has begun to establish its next set of priority hazardous substances for development of toxicological profiles. -
EPA Releases Draft RDX Assessment Pushing Back On DOD Research
Mar 22, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA has released a draft updated Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of the chemical known as royal demolition explosive (RDX), pushing back on Defense Department (DOD) pressure to weaken its 1993 assessment of the chemical’s non-cancer risks and leave out a cancer risk estimate. -
AFPM 2016: US Petrochemical Industry Faces Challenges - Pryor
Mar 21, 2016 | Platts
By Christopher Ferrell
While low crude oil prices and the resultant squeeze on margins may be the biggest current issue troubling the US petrochemical industry, it's certainly not the only challenge producers will have to overcome in the coming years, Stephen Pryor, the president of ExxonMobil Chemical from 2008 to 2014, said Monday. -
McConnell: Wait and See is Still 'Most Responsible Approach'
Mar 21, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
The Senate's top Republican today told governors to continue their "wait-and-see" stance regarding compliance with the Obama administration's carbon rule for power plants. -
McConnell Presses States to Stop Clean Power Plan Work
Mar 22, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) launched another bid to dissuade states from working toward compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency's carbon dioxide standards for power plants while the rule has been stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court. -
Court Tosses Clean Power Plan Argument Over E-Mails
Mar 22, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
A federal appellate court will not entertain a free market group's argument that a former Environmental Protection Agency official colluded with environmental advocates via a private e-mail address during the drafting of the Clean Power Plan (West Virginia v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1363, 3/21/16). -
Stop Fracking? Shatter the Economy
Mar 21, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Paul Sullivan
Fracking accounts for close to 50 percent of all natural gas and oil production. Our production of natural gas from shale fields and tight gas has increased by 40 billion cubic feet per day since 2002. Our production of shale and tight oil from fracking has increased by 4 million barrels a day since 2002. -
New Market for U.S. Shale Gas Opens in Europe
Mar 21, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Selina Williams
Swiss petrochemicals giant Ineos Group Holdings SA plans to accept the first American shipment of a type of shale gas to Europe on Wednesday—a milestone that marks the opening up of a new market for American energy producers trying to sell a glut of the fuel. -
Obama's Top Climate Envoy Stepping Down
Mar 21, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Todd Stern, the diplomat who led President Obama’s efforts in negotiating last year’s Paris climate change agreement, is leaving the administration.
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
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Environment News
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TTIP Could Weaken REACH Safeguards, Groups Say
Mar 22, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
A pair of European environmental protection groups criticized U.S. and European Union trade negotiators working on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), saying the trade pact could weaken European controls over harmful chemicals.Specifically, officials with the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and ClientEarth said the latest TTIP regulatory cooperation proposals could threaten implementation of the EU's Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations. REACH requires companies to register any production or importation of chemical substances into the EU that could have negative impacts on human health and the environment. The two groups pointed to a pair of recently released TTIP textual proposals regarding regulatory cooperation and good regulatory practices as evidence that the proposed deal would chip away at REACH chemical safeguards. “The latest TTIP proposals would allow ‘regulatory cooperation’ to affect the implementation of EU chemical laws,” says Baskut Tuncak, a senior attorney with CIEL. “This is a serious threat to EU chemical laws and policies as the U.S. continues to lobby against more protective EU standards,” he said in a March 21 news release. TTIP negotiators are expected to further discuss and refine their regulatory cooperation proposals at their next negotiating round in April.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=85512723&vname=dennotallissues&fn=85512723&jd=85512723
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Endocrine Disruptors' Costs Said to Top $1.5 Billion
Mar 22, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
Endometriosis and fibroids that may be attributable to phthalates and diphenyldichloroethene (DDE)—a breakdown product of DDT—cost 1.4 billion euro ($1.5 billion) in the European Union in 2010, according to a study to be published March 22 in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. The findings suggest preventing exposures to DDE and phthalates alone would substantially reduce reproductive disease among European women while decreasing health care and other social costs, wrote the research team led by Leonardo Trasande, an associate pediatrics professor at New York University's Langone Medical Center. The authors described limitations of their study, for example, they estimated a low to moderate probability that phthalates and DDE caused the particular cases of endometriosis and fibroids they observed. Yet many other illnesses and hormonally active chemicals that they did not consider could significantly increase the estimated costs of exposure to endocrine disruptors, they said. The study, Female Reproductive Disorders, Diseases and Costs of Exposure to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals in the European Union, will be available at http://press.endocrine.org/doi/10.1210/jc.2015.2873.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=85512708&vname=dennotallissues&fn=85512708&jd=85512708
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Portland Becomes 7th City to Sue Monsanto Over PCB Contamination
Mar 22, 2016 | EcoWatch
Portland, Ore., is suing Monsanto over contaminating the city’s waterways with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a highly toxic group of chemicals that endangers human health and the environment.
Portland City Council unanimously passed a resolution Wednesday authorizing city attorney Tracy Reeve to sue the biotech giant.
“Portland’s elected officials are committed to holding Monsanto accountable for its apparent decision to favor profits over ecological and human health,” Reeve said in a statement. “Monsanto profited from selling PCBs for decades and needs to take responsibility for cleaning up after the mess it created.”
Portland is now the seventh West Coast city to sue Monsanto over PCB contamination, joining Seattle, Spokane, Berkeley, San Diego, San Jose and Oakland.
According to a statement from the plaintiff’s law firm Gomez Trial Attorneys, Portland has spent and will continue to spend significant public funds to investigate and clean up PCB contamination in the Willamette River and Columbia Slough. The chemical is also one of the main targets of the massive Portland Harbor Superfund cleanup project.
Travis Williams, executive director of Willamette Riverkeeper, explained to KGW: “In our case there are PCBs widely distributed throughout Portland Harbor and that’s one of the main reasons it was listed as a superfund site back in December of 2000.”
The city has spent more than $1 billion cleaning up the Willamette, Portland mayor Charlie Hales told OPB.
“The citizens of Portland dug deep in order to pay for cleaning up our mess, and other businesses should be held to that standard,” Hales added.
As EcoWatch mentioned recently, PCBs were once used to insulate electronics decades ago. Before switching operations to agriculture, Monsanto was the sole manufacturer of the compound, raking a reported $22 million in business a year.
The law firm said that Monsanto manufactured more than 1 billion pounds of PCBs between the 1930s and the 1970s, adding that Monsanto’s own documents show that it continued to sell PCBs long after it allegedly knew of the dangers they presented to human health and the natural environment.
As the Portland Tribune reported: “Documents show Monsanto knew as far back as 1969 that PCBs led to contamination of fish, oysters and birds, said John Fiske, a senior trial attorney with Gomez Trial Attorneys, in a presentation before the City Council on Wednesday. The company realized its product might cause ‘global contamination,’ Fiske said, yet continued to peddle its product, ‘choosing profits over environmental health.’”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned PCBs in 1979, due to its link to birth defects and cancer in laboratory animals. PCBs can also have adverse skin and liver effects in humans. PCBs linger in the environment for many decades.
The EPA estimates that 150 million pounds of the chemicals are dispersed throughout the environment, including air and water supplies; an additional 290 million pounds are located in landfills in this country.
Monsanto stopped production of PCBs in 1977 over human health and environmental concerns. The St. Louis-based company released a statement following Portland’s move:
“We are reviewing the lawsuit and its allegations. However, Monsanto is not responsible for the costs alleged in this matter. Monsanto today, and for the last decade, has been focused solely on agriculture, but we share a name with a company that dates back to 1901.
“That company manufactured and sold PCBs that at the time were a lawful and useful product that were then incorporated by third parties into other useful products. Various municipalities built landfills on their bays and operated them for decades to deposit city waste and PCB-containing products into those waterfront landfills. Manufacturing and industrial facilities also operated in these areas, contributing to PCBs in the general area. If the third-party disposal or municipal disposal practices of the past have led four decades later to the state’s development of lawful limits on future PCB discharges into various bays and rivers through storm water, then those third parties and municipal landfill operators bear responsibility for these additional costs.”
The seven cities suing Monsanto each filed separate lawsuits against Monsanto in federal court, but will be represented by the same two law firms, California-based Gomez Trial Lawyers and Texas-based Baron & Budd. According to the Portland Tribune, the firms plan to file a motion March 31 in a federal court in Santa Barbara, California, to ask that one judge handle all seven cases.
Meanwhile, a current House bill could give Monsanto permanent immunity from liability for injuries caused by PCBs. The New York Times reported last month that Republicans in Congress have inserted a clause into the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reauthorization bill that would effectively exempt Monsanto from liability for injuries caused by PCBs.Environmental attorney Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has sparred over PCBs for three decades, wrote this week that the “so-called “Monsanto Rider” would shield the chemical colossus from thousands of lawsuits by cities, towns, school districts and individuals, who have been injured by exposure to PCBs.“If Monsanto gets its way, the American people will pay a high price for corporate greed and political corruption,” Kennedy said.
http://www.care2.com/causes/portland-becomes-7th-city-to-sue-monsanto-over-pcb-contamination.html -
US Agency Seeks Nominations for Toxicological Profile Development
Mar 22, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has begun to establish its next set of priority hazardous substances for development of toxicological profiles.
The public may nominate substances to be evaluated for the agency’s 30th set of profiles, CERCLA set 30.
Candidates include chemicals listed on the ATSDR’s Substance Priority List (SPL). The agency will also consider nominations of additional substances “that may have public health implications”.
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) requires the ATSDR and the EPA to maintain the SPL. It represents the substances that are commonly found at facilities on the National Priorities List (NPL) and “which are determined to pose the most significant potential threat to human health, due to their known or suspected toxicity and potential for human exposure”.
Sets 28 and 29 of the CERCLA are currently under development. Toxicological profiles of substances that the agency is preparing or updating, within these, include:antimony;2,4-D; andbromoethane.
The consultation has closed for sets 24, 26, and 27 of the CERCLA. Based on public comments received, the agency will be releasing or updating the toxicity profiles of such substances as:trichloroethylene (TCE);toluene; andpolybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs).
Nominations to set 30 of the CERCLA will be accepted for 30 days.
https://chemicalwatch.com/45850/us-agency-seeks-nominations-for-toxicological-profile-development
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EPA Releases Draft RDX Assessment Pushing Back On DOD Research
Mar 22, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA has released a draft updated Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) assessment of the chemical known as royal demolition explosive (RDX), pushing back on Defense Department (DOD) pressure to weaken its 1993 assessment of the chemical’s non-cancer risks and leave out a cancer risk estimate.
Instead, the agency’s assessment concurs with EPA’s earlier non-cancer risk estimate and includes a cancer classification, while slightly weakening its previous cancer risk estimate.
EPA released the draft IRIS assessment of RDX, also known by its technical name, hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine, with a March 10 Federal Register notice seeking public comment through May 9. The draft assessment is also the focus of EPA’s next scheduled public bimonthly IRIS meeting, to be held May 10 in Arlington, VA.
The draft is the first that IRIS has released in some time -- the agency produced no new draft or final assessments in 2015, and it released just one final assessment, of Libby amphibole asbestos, in 2014. The program’s limited output has long been a concern of many stakeholders, ranging from agency science advisors to non-governmental organizations to industry.
Military researchers in 2012 published studies suggesting that EPA should weaken its current RDX risk standards for both cancer and noncancer endpoints. Their studies were incorporated into the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry’s (ATSDR) 2012 Toxicological Profile of RDX’s noncancer risks, adding to pressure on EPA to use the DOD data as well.
Though EPA recalculated its non-cancer risk estimate for RDX using a technical report published by the U.S. Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine in 2006, it reached the same conclusion number that it did in 1993: a reference dose (RfD), or estimate of the maximum amount that could be ingested daily over a lifetime without adverse reaction, of 0.003 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight per day (mg/kg-day).
By contrast, a group of military researchers at the Naval Medical Research Unit at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, OH, published a paper in the journal Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology in January 2012 outlining their approach to crafting an RfD. Following EPA’s IRIS methodology, and using a physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model they created, they proposed a less stringent RfD of 0.07 mg/kg/day.
DOD Assessment
The new draft’s cancer risk estimate is slightly weaker than the one EPA published in the 1993 estimate, and very similar to what the military researchers calculated “for comparison purposes only” in a second paper, published in the same journal in November 2012 outlining their cancer toxicity studies and how they used the new data to estimate RDX’s cancer potency. EPA’s newly proposed oral slope factor (OSF), or estimate of cancer potency from ingestion, is 0.04 per mg/kg-day, very similar to the researchers’ OSF of 0.0425 per mg/kg-day.
The military researchers’ paper, however, urges EPA to use non-linear cancer modeling, and to instead craft a cancer RfD for RDX -- an approach EPA did not choose to take in its new draft. The researchers argued that there is insufficient evidence to consider RDX mutagenic, one of the reasons why EPA uses conservative linear cancer risk modeling in its IRIS assessments. Linear cancer risk modeling assumes there is no safe level of exposure. EPA also uses this approach when an agent’s mode of action in unknown.
In the paper, the authors noted, “The new oral slope factor (derived for comparative purposes only) is 2.6-fold lower than [EPA’s] existing slope factor,” which at the time was the 1993 OSF of 0.11 per mg/kg-day (Superfund Report, Aug. 19, 2013).
DOD in comments on an internal 2014 draft of the assessment urges EPA not to calculate a cancer risk estimate, arguing that there is insufficient evidence of cancer risk to do so. EPA released these comments from other agencies along with the new draft.
“There is conflicting evidence supporting the contention that RDX is a human carcinogen that precludes quantifying a slope factor to assess the carcinogenic risk from RDX exposure,” DOD’s Chemical Material Risk Management Directorate writes in Oct. 28, 2014, comments. “Consider the entire weight of evidence and conclude that the data do not support a quantitative estimate of cancer risk for humans at this time.”
DOD’s comments also questioned EPA’s classification of RDX as showing “suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential.” But EPA in its response defended its conclusions.
“EPA’s cancer guidelines include a descriptor of not likely to be carcinogenic to humans, a descriptor that is appropriate only when the available data are considered robust for deciding that there is no basis for human hazard concern,” the agency writes in a March document on its responses to interagency comments. “In light of the dose-related increases in benign and malignant tumors in the liver and lung of mice and in the liver of rats in 2-year dietary studies, EPA disagrees with DoD’s recommendation to consider a descriptor for RDX of ‘unlikely to be carcinogenic.’”
EPA’s response document adds that peer reviewers will be asked to consider the issue.
Federal Support
EPA also responds to concerns from DOD and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regarding its statistical modeling approach for its non-cancer risk estimates. DOD argued that the approach is inconsistent with EPA’s 2012 Benchmark Dose Technical Guidance, while OMB’s Oct. 31, 2014, comments say that EPA’s approach “needs to be better supported . . .”
EPA responds that “BMR [benchmark response] is often used based on statistical and biological considerations . . . In the case of RDX, EPA considered the use of a BMR of 1% [extra risk] to be justified for an endpoint as severe as convulsions, and consistent with EPA guidance.”
DOD also questions one of the uncertainty factors that EPA applied to the RfD, resulting in an RfD three times more stringent than had it not been included. EPA responds that it added text to the draft to make its rationale more clear.
By contrast, EPA’s draft was largely supported by other federal agencies, including ATSDR, the National Toxicology Program and the White House Council on Environmental Quality. ATSDR noted in its comments that it relied on the same study and model EPA did when ATSDR assessed RDX’s acute and intermediate exposure duration risks in 2012. ATSDR, however, noted that its chronic minimum risk level for RDX was less stringent than EPA’s, at 0.1 mg/kg-day. ATSDR used a different study, published in 1983, for this calculation.
RDX is of concern because it is an explosive used in more than 4,000 military applications such as munitions, and the chemical and its derivatives “have been detected in groundwater samples collected at various US military sites,” according to one of the journal articles by the military researchers.
The chemical is only produced at Army ammunition plants, according to the new draft assessment, and “[a]s of 2015, RDX was detected in surface water, groundwater, sediment, or soil at 34 current U.S. EPA National Priorities List (NPL) sites,” mainly sites “associated with military facilities.”
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-releases-draft-rdx-assessment-pushing-back-dod-research
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AFPM 2016: US Petrochemical Industry Faces Challenges - Pryor
Mar 21, 2016 | Platts
By Christopher Ferrell
While low crude oil prices and the resultant squeeze on margins may be the biggest current issue troubling the US petrochemical industry, it's certainly not the only challenge producers will have to overcome in the coming years, Stephen Pryor, the president of ExxonMobil Chemical from 2008 to 2014, said Monday.
Pryor, speaking at the International Petrochemical Conference while accepting the Petrochemical Heritage Award, said opposition to free trade, regulatory issues and a shortage of skilled technical workers will be major hurdles for the industry over the next decade.
The US petrochemical industry has seen heavy investment and a host of new projects as the result of cheaper, shale-based feedstocks. The end result for much of that new production will be plastics and end-products that support a rising middle class in the developing world.
"Now, more than ever, chemicals are more indispensable for human progress and development," Pryor said.However, moves to restrict free trade could jeopardize North America's ability to supply those products, and the chemicals and feedstocks used to make them to other regions.
"We don't like free trade if it doesn't suit our interest," Pryor said. "We have to stand up for free trade and do it even when you think, 'right now my interest won't be better served'," he said, adding that long-term ramifications should outweigh the short term in these cases.
Using natural gas as an example, Pryor said exports from the US would increase more demand and opportunities for the US, along with greater production of natural gas liquids and chemical feedstocks.
Stricter regulatory restrictions also could create barriers for the industry, Pryor said.
He said regulation and environmental issues are important and necessary, and he believes the industry works to behave in an environmentally responsible way.
"We have to fight for and promote regulations based on sound science and economic common sense," he said. "And that is a real challenge in this country, and not just in this country -- in Europe."
Finally, Pryor pointed to the continued need to develop skilled technical workers in the US, pointing to ExxonMobil's initiatives to work with universities and technical schools to help grow the workforce. The new plants being built by ExxonMobil and other petrochemical producers are creating thousands of new jobs, he said, and the industry has a responsibility to help make sure they have the employees to fill them.
"We're building all these plants and we can't find technical skilled workers for them," Pryor said. "So my view is, don't sit there and wait for the government to fix it, let's do something about it ourselves."http://www.platts.com/latest-news/petrochemicals/dallas/afpm-2016-us-petrochemical-industry-faces-challenges-21131657
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McConnell: Wait and See is Still 'Most Responsible Approach'
Mar 21, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
The Senate's top Republican today told governors to continue their "wait-and-see" stance regarding compliance with the Obama administration's carbon rule for power plants.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has long urged states to take such an approach, otherwise referred to as "just say no," and not submit implementation plans for the program. He argued in a letter to governors last year that U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan would not hold up in court (E&E Daily, March 20, 2015).
In a letter today to governors, McConnell said the Supreme Court's decision last month to freeze the program while litigation plays out shows that his earlier advice to states was warranted.
"'Wait-and-see' remains the most responsible approach today," McConnell wrote.
Under the Clean Power Plan finalized last year, states are required to craft plans to lower carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. The Supreme Court's stay was the first time the high court has ever frozen a regulation before a lower court has ruled on its merits.
McConnell claimed that the Obama administration's strategy was to hope that states were far enough along in developing their Clean Power Plan compliance plans before litigation over the program was resolved.
He argued that the administration took a similar tack with its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants, which are also still mired in litigation.
"President Obama's desire to unilaterally reshape your state energy policies around his own ideological view rather than an evidence-based one is well-known," McConnell wrote, "but what is surprising is the fact that he thought he could do so without getting legislation through Congress."
Several states have said they would continue their planning activities related to the program despite the Supreme Court stay; EPA has said it would help any state that wishes to do so (Greenwire, Feb. 18).
McConnell said he believed the Clean Power Plan would ultimately be struck down. He was one of more than 200 lawmakers who filed an amicus brief supporting opponents of the program with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
In his letter today, McConnell noted that, despite what the courts decide, Obama will not be in office long enough to put the program in place thanks to the Supreme Court's stay.
"Moving forward," he wrote, "I hope that each of you will consider taking advantage of the relief granted by the Supreme Court and keep in mind that many of us in Congress stand ready to help you as you fight for the best interests of your states."
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/03/21/stories/1060034371
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McConnell Presses States to Stop Clean Power Plan Work
Mar 22, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) launched another bid to dissuade states from working toward compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency's carbon dioxide standards for power plants while the rule has been stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court.
McConnell, a leading congressional opponent of the Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33), argued in a March 21 letter to the National Governors Association that states that choose to work toward the EPA's carbon dioxide standards could face significant economic losses should the rule ultimately be overturned by the courts.
“The administration was evidently hoping that states would be so far down the road in developing their compliance plans that they would be committed to those plans before the legal issues surrounding the [Clean Power Plan] could be resolved,” McConnell said. “It is the same strategy this administration followed with the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards. While the Supreme Court ultimately struck down the MATS regulation, the damage had already been done; states, citizens and businesses had already faced irreparable harm.”
The U.S. Supreme Court took the unprecedented step Feb. 9 of staying the Clean Power Plan, which limits carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector in each state, even though the rule has not yet been argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (West Virginia v. EPA, U.S., No. 15A773, 2/9/16).
“Many characterize the Supreme Court's recent decision as unusual and unprecedented, which says a lot about the unusual and unprecedented nature of the [Clean Power Plan],” McConnell said.
McConnell has previously urged states to boycott compliance with the Clean Power Plan, a strategy known as “just say no.” That would force the EPA to issue a federal plan in place of one written by the states. Though some states are moving ahead—including the nine states in the Northeast's Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative's emissions trading program—others have halted their compliance planning work while they wait for the litigation to be resolved (28 DEN A-1, 2/11/16).
The D.C. Circuit will hear argument in lawsuits brought by 27 states and several utilities challenging the Clean Power Plan June 2 and possibly June 3 as well.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=85512709&vname=dennotallissues&fcn=4&wsn=497783500&fn=85512709&split=0
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Court Tosses Clean Power Plan Argument Over E-Mails
Mar 22, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
A federal appellate court will not entertain a free market group's argument that a former Environmental Protection Agency official colluded with environmental advocates via a private e-mail address during the drafting of the Clean Power Plan (West Virginia v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1363, 3/21/16).
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit March 21denied the Energy & Environment Legal Institute's Feb. 19 motion seeking to file a supplemental brief in challenges to the Clean Power Plan that would have addressed communication between Michael Goo, who was the EPA's associate administrator for the Office of Policy during the rule's development, and officials at the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Clean Air Task Force conducted via Goo's private e-mail address.
The EPA had opposed the request, arguing the group should not be given leave to file a supplemental brief after it was unable to coordinate with other challengers to the Clean Power Plan to have its argument included in their briefs (39 DEN A-12, 2/29/16).
An attorney for the Energy & Environment Legal Institute could not comment on the decision March 21.
Key Litigation Dates
• March 28: The EPA's brief is due.
• March 29: The EPA's intervenors' briefs are due.
• April 1: Amicus briefs supporting the EPA are due.
• April 15: Petitioner reply briefs are due.
• June 2: Argument is scheduled to begin.
The EPA's Clean Power Plan (RIN 2060-AR33) limits carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector in each state, with the standards implemented by state regulators. The rule is being challenged by 27 states as well as several utilities and other industry groups.
In opening briefs filed Feb. 19, opponents of the rule had argued that the EPA had overstepped its Clean Air Act authority by regulating how utilities generate electricity rather than setting limits on their emissions. Opponents also had questioned how the EPA chose to implement the rule (35 DEN A-16, 2/23/16).
The EPA's brief is due March 28, and the D.C. Circuit is scheduled to hear oral argument beginning June 2.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=85512716&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=497783000&searchid=27215307&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
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Stop Fracking? Shatter the Economy
Mar 21, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Paul Sullivan
Fracking accounts for close to 50 percent of all natural gas and oil production. Our production of natural gas from shale fields and tight gas has increased by 40 billion cubic feet per day since 2002. Our production of shale and tight oil from fracking has increased by 4 million barrels a day since 2002.
Fracking is one of the main reasons why oil and natural gas prices are so low. That also makes it one of the main reasons why gasoline and diesel prices are so low, and electricity prices have dropped in many areas. Crude oil is the feedstock for gasoline production. Natural gas is an increasing source of the fuel used to power our electricity generation stations nationwide.
Natural gas has been taking the place of coal in electricity production. Natural gas produces about one-half the CO2 as coal does in electricity generation. There is an environmental plus to moving from coal to natural gas in electricity generation.
If we stopped fracking in the U.S. natural gas would become far more expensive. More coal plants would be developed given that coal would then become a far cheaper source of fuel. So by stopping fracking we may make the environment worse. Also, electricity would become more expensive.
We are now exporting liquefied natural gas (LNG). Many LNG import facilities have been, are and will be converted to export facilities. Our net trade of pipeline gas with Canada and Mexico has also greatly improved due to fracking-base unconventional natural gas production in our country.
We are now often the largest producer of natural gas in the world – often beating the Russians at their own natural gas production game. Our exports of LNG can help our allies in Asia, most particularly Japan, and Europe become more energy secure. Our European allies can become less reliant on Russia gas, and will hence be less under the Russian thumb, because we can send LNG their way.
We are beginning to export oil. For many years a large proportion of our trade deficit was due to importing crude oil. We have reduced that import bill massively by producing more oil in our country – and importing less oil. We are now more oil secure than at any time in our recent past. Our exports of oil can also help Asian allies like Japan and many countries in Europe become more energy secure.
These are amazing positive changes in a very short time period. We should also be grateful that shale oil and shale gas helped dig us out of the 2008 “Great Recession” with jobs growth and the reduction in the cost of energy – and hence drops in the prices of things that use that energy to be made, transported and more.
With proper regulations and controls the potential environmental impacts of fracking can be controlled. The industry knows this and many in the industry are demading proper regulation to keep the amateurs out who could ruin the whole business with mistakes. .
What if we stopped fracking tomorrow? We would lose massive amounts of jobs, investments, oil, gas, and more (both the actual today and the huge potential ones in the future). Import costs would go up. Export revenues would go down. Inflation would go up. The economy would go down. Unemployment would go up. Standards of living would go down. Energy price shocks cause economic downturns. Stopping fracking would cause one of the biggest energy shocks in the recent past.
Who wants that?
Sullivan is professor of Economics at the National Defense University and adjunct professor of Security Studies at Georgetown. All opinions expressed are his alone.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/273612-stop-fracking-shatter-the-economy
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New Market for U.S. Shale Gas Opens in Europe
Mar 21, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Selina Williams
Swiss petrochemicals giant Ineos Group Holdings SA plans to accept the first American shipment of a type of shale gas to Europe on Wednesday—a milestone that marks the opening up of a new market for American energy producers trying to sell a glut of the fuel.
The ship is carrying a type of natural-gas liquid known as ethane that was extracted from the Marcellus Shale in western Pennsylvania, where companies such as Range Resources Corp. and Consol EnergyInc. have been looking to diversify the markets for their ethane because of pipeline and storage limitations.
The shipment is the first seaborne export of ethane to Europe from the U.S., Ineos said, another sign of how the North American shale boom has transformed the global energy map.
The recent ramp-up in U.S. shale oil production has challenged Saudi Arabia’s sway over international oil markets, while an earlier shale-gas boom sent prices to record lows and upended coal’s dominance in the power sector.
“We know that shale-gas economics revitalized U.S. manufacturing, and for the first time Europe can access this important energy and raw material source too,” said Ineos Chairman and founder Jim Ratcliffe.
Ethane is a component of natural gas that is separated out and often turned into a liquid for transporting.
It is used to make plastics for food and medical packaging, among others.
Ineos’s shipments from the U.S. are underpinned by a 15-year contract with Range Resources, one of the most active drillers in Pennsylvania, and Consol Energy, another independent exploration-and-production company drilling in the Marcellus Shale.
Both companies, and many of their peers, are struggling as declining energy prices have cut their revenue and share prices in recent years.
Ethane has been among the worst-performing commodity markets, and the companies have spearheaded an effort to ship it to new customers on the Gulf Coast, in Canada and abroad.
“Certainly new end-user markets for our products outside of the Appalachian basin are vital to” the industry’s growth, said Consol spokesman Brian Aiello.
Adding customers abroad would help stabilize U.S. producers, which could convince domestic buyers that they can count on rising supply, he added
Unlike crude oil and natural gas, ethane isn’t restricted for export from the U.S. But a lack of transportation options has limited exports to pipelines.
The ethane cargo left the Marcus Hook terminal near Philadelphia on March 9.
Jeff Ventura, president, chairman and CEO of Range Resources, said the deal to export the ethane “was an incredibly creative solution to what was at one time viewed as a problem—what to do with our ethane.”
Ineos plans to use the ethane at its petrochemical plant in Rafnes in Norway.
By 2020, the company said it aims to be importing about eight shipments a month from the U.S. to supply its European petrochemical facilities and refinery as well as an ethylene plant owned by Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp. in Scotland.
The ethane shipment comes as Europe’s leaders have long been hoping that U.S. shale gas would help the bloc reduce its reliance on gas from Russia, which provides around a third of the region’s supplies. The ethane from Ineos’s shipment won’t be a substitute for Russian gas, which is mostly methane, but it will help to lower prices in the European market, said Karen Sund, partner at Norway-based Sund Energy consultancy.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-market-for-u-s-shale-gas-opens-in-europe-1458588920
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Obama's Top Climate Envoy Stepping Down
Mar 21, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Todd Stern, the diplomat who led President Obama’s efforts in negotiating last year’s Paris climate change agreement, is leaving the administration.
Stern, whose title is special envoy for climate change at the State Department, will leave April 1, after seven years with the administration, Secretary of State John Kerry announced Monday.
“For seven years, Todd Stern has helped lead U.S. efforts to address one of the greatest challenges facing the world today, culminating in the historic global climate agreement reached at [the conference] in Paris last year,” Kerry said in a statement.
“I have felt fortunate from day one to have Todd on my team, and we have all benefitted from his mastery of the climate challenge and all of its nuances, his diligence, and his negotiating skills,” he said. “He played an enormous role in achieving so many of our climate milestones, and the tireless work by Todd and his team over many years will benefit future generations in every corner of the globe.”
The Paris deal was the first time that nearly 200 countries, including developing ones, agreed to limit greenhouse gases and fight climate change.
Stern and the Obama administration played a key role in getting developing countries to the table, since they historically feel that richer nations should bear most of the brunt of greenhouse gas cuts.
While most of the work of implementing the climate deal will fall to the next administration, which could be Republican, Stern said he’s confident the United States will meet its stated pledge: cutting greenhouse gases 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025.
“I don’t think any president is going to pull us out of Paris,” he told Politico in a Monday interview. “We would shoot ourselves in the foot if anybody were to try to pull ourselves out of Paris.”
Top White House adviser Brian Deese told Politico that Stern’s “contributions to protect our planet, our health and our national security from the risks posed by climate change will benefit people across the world for decades to come.”
Stern said he hasn’t made final plans for what to do after he leaves the administration, but he hopes to teach at a university.
He has worked in climate diplomacy for nearly two decades and worked at the White House during President Clinton’s administration.
Kerry said Jonathan Pershing, a top climate adviser to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, would take Stern’s place as climate envoy.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/273742-obamas-top-climate-envoy-steps-down
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