Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 3/24
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(ACC Blog) Polyurethanes: Never Too Cool for School
Mar 23, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By Lee Krinzman
American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) is creating an education hub to make it easier for members to access and benefit from the wide range of services. https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2016/03/polyurethanes-never-too-cool-for-school/ -
(ACC Mentioned) Modernised TSCA Could be Gold Standard, Says Dooley
Mar 24, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Chynoweth
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) wants to work with its Canadian counterparts to promote a “North American model” of regulation to other countries considering enhancing their chemicals management systems. -
(ACC Mentioned) US Chemical Regulation Reform Expected this Year
Mar 23, 2016 | Plastics News
By Gayle Putrich
Confidence is high among chemical industry leaders that the U.S. Congress will come to an agreement on chemical regulation reform this year. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Makers Urged to Prepare for Updated TSCA
Mar 24, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical manufacturers should review the chemicals they make and chemical data they have in hand to prepare to implement an amended Toxic Substances Control Act even before Congress passes the law, attorneys and chemical company officials said March 23 during a Global Chemical Regulations Conference. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Touts Assessing Chemical Risks, Proposing Rules
Mar 24, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Refining risk assessments of chemicals in commerce, proposing rules to ban or restrict certain uses of some chemicals, and issuing final rules on nanomaterials and formaldehyde emissions are among the Environmental Protection Agency's priorities for 2016, officials said March 23. -
(ACC Mentioned) Proposition 65 - California Proposes Regulations for Exposures to Bisphenol A (BPA)
Mar 23, 2016 | The National Law Review
By Melvin S. Drozen
The Proposition 65 warning requirement for exposures to BPA, listed as a reproductive toxicant, is effective on May 11, 2016. -
(ACC Mentioned) Tighter, Controversial Silica Rules Aimed At Saving Workers' Lungs
Mar 24, 2016 | NPR
By Nell Greenfieldboyce
The Department of Labor is issuing a long-awaited and controversial rule Thursday aimed at better protecting workers from inhaling silica dust. -
Work Plan Chemicals Relevant to Reformed TSCA, Says EPA
Mar 24, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Chynoweth
The US EPA’s work plan chemicals programme is providing the agency with experience that will be relevant under a reformed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
Beyond The Monsanto Clause: What Else Does The House Chemical Bill Get Wrong?
Mar 24, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Melanie Benesh
We wrote earlier this month about a troubling provision that was slipped at the last minute into the House version of the industry-backed chemical regulation bill that would update the weak 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act. -
Chlorinated Solvents Next Up Under TSCA Work Plan
Mar 24, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Evaluation of several chlorinated solvents under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Work Plan programme is a priority for the US EPA Office of Pollution and Prevention (OPPT) this year. -
EPA to Brief House Committee on IRIS
Mar 24, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform soon will be briefed by the Environmental Protection Agency on the extent to which its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program is implementing recommendations to improve its efficiency and the clarity of the science used to assess chemicals, an aide for the committee told Bloomberg BNA March 23. -
New Rules Aim to Reduce Silica Exposure at Work Sites
Mar 24, 2016 | The New York Times
By Barry Meier
The Labor Department plans to announce on Thursday new rules that sharply reduce workplace exposure to silica, a potentially deadly mineral found in materials commonly used in construction and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. -
CSB Improves Payment System, EPA Finds
Mar 24, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
In another step forward for a once-reeling agency, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board was found to have come into compliance with federal payment law, according to a March 23 report from the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general. -
House Panel to Scrutinize EPA Rules in 2016
Mar 24, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The House Science Committee intends to closely scrutinize any major regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in the last year of President Barack Obama's administration, Republican members of the panel said March 23. -
House GOP Lawmakers Appear Divided Over Restoring EPA Funding Cuts
Mar 23, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Lee Logan & Stuart Parker
House Republican lawmakers appear divided over whether to restore proposed budget cuts to major EPA programs, with GOP members of the Appropriations Committee's interior panel suggesting a need to boost water infrastructure funds and other other programs while energy panel Republicans oppose funding increases for the agency. -
Deals Undermine Climate Push -- Enviros
Mar 23, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
The Trans-Pacific Partnership and a parallel European trade deal under negotiation would hand some of the largest corporate carbon polluters broad new powers to challenge climate policies, according to a study released by the Sierra Club today. -
Ozone NAAQS Critics, Defenders See Flaws In EPA Cost-Benefit Analysis
Mar 23, 2016 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
Critics and defenders of EPA's recently tightened ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) say there are flaws in the agency's cost-benefit analysis for the rule, with an opponent of the strict standard saying that the regulation imposes unreasonable compliance costs while an advocate of the rule says the analysis is hard to defend. -
Fight to Keep Alternative Energy Local Stymies an Industry
Mar 23, 2016 | The New York Times
By Diane Cardwell
Up and down the center of the country, winds rip across plains, ridges and plateaus, a belt of unharnessed energy capable of powering millions of customers, with enormous potential to help meet national goals to stem climate change. -
Truth or Consequences in Energy Policy, Part I
Mar 24, 2016 | The Hill - Pundits Blog
By Charles McConnell
The climate and the environment; energy security and energy affordability. No topics are more relevant and impactful. -
From Flint to Fracking, EPA Can Learn from Its Mistakes
Mar 23, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Barbara Gottlieb
As most of us have heard by now, an emergency manager in Flint, Michigan switched water sources from Lake Huron to the Flint River in April 2014 to cut costs without adding required corrosion controls.
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time
Environment News
Energy News
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(ACC Blog) Polyurethanes: Never Too Cool for School
Mar 23, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By Lee Krinzman
American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) is creating an education hub to make it easier for members to access and benefit from the wide range of services. The new hub—the CPI Education Center—will serve both industry newcomers and veterans, helping everyone stay current with the latest advances in technology, regulations and emerging issues. The CPI Education Center is an evolving resource for polyurethane professionals around the globe and throughout the value chain, to help expand their knowledge of the polyurethane industry, regardless of geographic location.
After a decade of providing industry with annual, classroom-style instruction on fundamentals related to the polyurethanes industry, we are evolving to offer more diverse learning opportunities and expand our curriculum to meet the demands of this innovative industry. While we will continue to offer Professional Development Program classes concurrently with the annual Polyurethanes Technical Conference, the CPI Education Center now adds live webinars and on-demand learning. Users can also access CPI’s well-known product stewardship training classes and videos via the new CPI Education Center.
I’m excited about the expansion of CPI’s educational offerings in 2016. The CPI Education Center is a platform for our members in the polyurethane industry to learn the latest innovations in a convenient user friendly way if they are unable to attend our annual Polyurethane Technical Conference. Over the course of 2016-2017, we will offer a range of opportunities for the polyurethane industry. I’m excited to announce that our first new webinar, “Introduction to Color Science and Colorant Technology for Urethane Applications” will be held on May 3. And on June 14, we’ll hold a webinar to further explore “Color Selection and Control in Urethane Applications.” I view CPI’s continuing education courses as an essential service to help both CPI members and other members of the value chain expand their knowledge of the polyurethane industry.
For more information about the CPI Education Center visit its webpage athttps://polyurethane.americanchemistry.com/CPI-Education-Center.
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(ACC Mentioned) Modernised TSCA Could be Gold Standard, Says Dooley
Mar 24, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Chynoweth
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) wants to work with its Canadian counterparts to promote a “North American model” of regulation to other countries considering enhancing their chemicals management systems.
Speaking at the GlobalChem industry conference in Washington, DC, this week, ACC president and CEO Cal Dooley said if the TSCA modernisation bill is passed and implemented, it would be a “gold standard internationally”. And, he added, countries like Brazil, India, China and Taiwan should be encouraged to adopt.
Mr Dooley told delegates he hopes the bill – which he "cautiously expects" will be passed by Memorial Day (30 May) – will introduce a more efficient and less bureaucratic approach, while still meeting environmental, health and safety needs and leading to greater innovation.
He went on to describe the EU REACH system as “a good effort”, adding that the US has the benefit of learning from its "inefficiencies".
But Mr Dooley's prepared remarks, published by ACC beforehand, were more critical of REACH. These described it as something "which many agree has failed in more ways than it has succeeded. Fortunately, we have taken the lessons learned from REACH and have made sure we do not repeat its mistakes."
Commenting on Mr Dooley’s remarks, Echa’s cooperation director Andreas Herdina said he hoped the US could draw “valuable conclusions from our experience”.
Assuming the TSCA reform law is passed, Mr Dooley told his audience, industry must make sure that it is implemented in "a way that meets our primary objective: that we have a chemicals management system in the US that will be the gold standard internationally.”
To achieve this, he said companies will need to commit to provide the information and data that the EPA needs to make safety determinations. For its part, he said the agency should only ask for the information it needs.
Mr Dooley also said it is important to capitalise on advances in risk assessment to do a better job of evaluating chemical safety. This includes:using weight-of-evidence approaches:incorporating exposure and threshold models; andinvestigating modes of action.
The EPA's assessment work, he said, should focus on priority chemicals that are in commerce – noting that Canada had addressed around 4,000 substances in its chemicals management plan. The fact that there are 85,000 chemicals listed on the TSCA inventory continues to frustrate industry, he said, because it believes the actual number in commerce is far lower, and ACC hopes the EPA will “reset” it.
https://chemicalwatch.com/45912/modernised-tsca-could-be-gold-standard-says-dooley
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(ACC Mentioned) US Chemical Regulation Reform Expected this Year
Mar 23, 2016 | Plastics News
By Gayle Putrich
Confidence is high among chemical industry leaders that the U.S. Congress will come to an agreement on chemical regulation reform this year.
A bill could be ready for President Obama’s signature before legislators depart for their Memorial Day vacation, American Chemistry Council President and CEO Cal Dooley said at GlobalChem, the annual chemical regulation conference and exhibition from ACC and the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA).
“We are rounding third base and heading home,” said Dooley of the much-anticipated legislation that would update the 1970s-era Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
After decades of failed attempts, one version of the bill (HR 2576) passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a 398-1 vote in June and another draft (S 697) was approved by unanimous consent in the Senate in December. A conference committee is currently working to reconcile the differences between the 45-page House bill and the more ambitious, 200-plus page Senate version.
Dooley also said March 23 that he is confident growth in the U.S. chemical market will continue despite current short-term price volatility, carried largely by the domestic 40-year natural gas supply that serves the industry as a feedstock as well as an energy advantage.
“We will maintain that global competitive advantage for decades to come,” he said.
Good regulation is key to that continued growth, Dooley said. With an improved chemical regulation law on the books and increased cooperation between regulators and industry under a more efficient and less bureaucratic system, the United States can lead the world in chemical safety — as long as industry does its part.
“It’s going to take more than just passing a law,” he said. “Implementation is key if are going to set the gold standard on chemical safety. We have a lot of work to do.”
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20160323/NEWS/160329890/chemical-regulation-reform-still-expected-this-year
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Makers Urged to Prepare for Updated TSCA
Mar 24, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical manufacturers should review the chemicals they make and chemical data they have in hand to prepare to implement an amended Toxic Substances Control Act even before Congress passes the law, attorneys and chemical company officials said March 23 during a Global Chemical Regulations Conference.
Shaun Clancy, director of product stewardship at Evonik Industries, said his company already has talked with attorneys about actions it can take to prepare for the passage of TSCA-reform legislation. He spoke at the annual global conference co-hosted by ACC and the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates, or SOCMA.
Momentum Building
Nearly every speaker said he or she expects Congress to pass this year some bill that merges the two chambers’ bills: the TSCA Modernization Act (H.R. 2576) and the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which passed the Senate as an amendment to H.R. 2576.
The Senate bill would require the Environmental Protection Agency to “reset” the TSCA inventory, which lists those chemicals that are or have been made in or imported into the U.S. since 1978. About 86,000 chemicals are currently on the inventory, but speakers said far fewer are expected to be in commerce.
In light of a possible inventory reset, Evonik plans to examine the chemicals it makes to be sure it knows which ones need to remain on the inventory, Clancy said. It also plans to double-check the names, or “nomenclature,” used to identify those chemicals, he said.
Substantiate Confidentiality Claims
Mark Duvall, an attorney with Beveridge & Diamond PC, said companies that conduct such internal reviews to prepare for an inventory reset should be prepared to substantiate any confidentiality claims they intend to make. Clancy said Evonik staff also will identify toxicity and exposure data the company has about its chemicals to be prepared to join trade association discussions that will address data call-in, the agency likely will issue in a few years, Clancy said.
In the near term, it is examining which company experts will participate in the EPA's implementation of the new law as there will be a need for technical and advocacy work, he said.
Cal Dooley, president and chief executive officer of the American Chemistry Council , said he expects the House and Senate to make significant progress on a TSCA-reform bill before Memorial Day.
The two chambers began to negotiate in earnest about differences between their two bills two weeks ago, Dooley told reporters. Had they started those negotiations two months ago, a bill could be law by now, he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=85707926&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=497715000&searchid=27235979&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Touts Assessing Chemical Risks, Proposing Rules
Mar 24, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Refining risk assessments of chemicals in commerce, proposing rules to ban or restrict certain uses of some chemicals, and issuing final rules on nanomaterials and formaldehyde emissions are among the Environmental Protection Agency's priorities for 2016, officials said March 23.
Jim Jones, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, and Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, director of the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, spoke to an audience of more than 450 participants at this year's Global Chemical Regulations Conference. The annual conference is co-hosted by the American Chemistry Council and the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates, or SOCMA.
If an updated version of the Toxic Substances Control Act is signed into law, “implementing that bill will be a priority,“ Cleland-Hamnett said.
Target on TCE, NMP and Methylene Chloride
Meanwhile, OPPT will continue its oversight of chemicals in commerce, she said.
The agency plans to propose rules, authorized under Section 6 of TSCA, to ban or restrict particular uses of three chemicals: trichloroethylene (TCE), n-methylpyrrolidone (NMP) and methylene chloride, Cleland-Hamnett said.
Working through its “work plan” list of about 90 chemicals that it plans to evaluate, the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics already completed its risk assessments of those three chemicals and determined certain uses could pose health risks to workers or consumers.
Of those three proposed rules, the EPA plans to propose one in late summer or early fall, Cleland-Hamnett said. She did not say which chemical that proposed rule would address.
It would be the first Section 6 rule the agency has proposed in 30 years, she added.
Proposed rules for the other two chemicals will be issued by the end of the year, Cleland-Hamnett said.
OPPT is working to issue a draft risk assessment for 1,4-dioxane and one for several groups of flame retardants including: chlorinated phosphate esters, cyclic aliphatic bromides, and tetrabromobisphenol A and related chemicals, she said.
Test Rule, Final Rules Coming
By late fall, the office intends to propose a TSCA Section 4 regulation that would require chemical manufacturers to generate new toxicity or other data for seven brominated phthalates, Cleland-Hamnett said.
The office already has begun to assess the risks of seven chlorinated solvents including perchloroethylene or PERC, she said.
The agency expects to issue two final chemical rules in 2016, Cleland-Hamnett said. Those would be final rules to collect existing toxicity and other data about nanoscale chemicals in commerce; and to restrict formaldehyde emissions from composite wood products.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=85707935&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=497715500&searchid=27235979&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
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(ACC Mentioned) Proposition 65 - California Proposes Regulations for Exposures to Bisphenol A (BPA)
Mar 23, 2016 | The National Law Review
By Melvin S. Drozen
The Proposition 65 warning requirement for exposures to BPA, listed as a reproductive toxicant, is effective on May 11, 2016. California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) has issued two proposed regulations -- an emergency regulation for exposure to BPA through ingestion, which permits temporary point of sale warning signage for canned and bottled food and beverages, and a proposed regulation which sets a safe harbor level of 3 mcg/day for dermal absorption of BPA from solid materials.Proposition 65 Background
The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (California Health and Safety Code §25249.5, et seq.) -- Proposition 65 -- requires the State of California to publish a list of chemicals "known to the state to cause cancer or reproductive toxicity," and establishes two prohibitions regarding these chemicals. One prohibition is that no person may knowingly and intentionally expose any individual in California to a significant amount of a listed chemical without first providing a "clear and reasonable warning" to such individual (for consumer product, occupational and environmental exposures). The other prohibition is that no person may knowingly discharge or release a significant amount of a listed chemical into drinking water or into or onto land where it will pass into a source of drinking water. More than 900 chemicals have been listed under Proposition 65 by OEHHA.
Warnings are not required and the discharge prohibition does not apply, when exposures are "insignificant." For warnings, an exposure is insignificant if the person responsible can show that it poses no significant risk assuming lifetime exposure at the level in question for listed carcinogens (the "no significant risk level" or "NSRL"), or that it will have no observable effect assuming exposure at 1,000 times the level in question for listed reproductive toxicants ("maximum allowable dose level" or "MADL"). The exposure assessment must be based on evidence and standards of comparable scientific validity to the evidence and standards which form the scientific basis of the listing. California has established NSRLs and MADLs (safe harbor levels) for a number of listed carcinogens and reproductive toxicants. The use of OEHHA safe harbors is voluntary, and the regulations allow a business to calculate its own NSRL or MADL, but those levels may be challenged in an enforcement action.
The law's discharge prohibition and warning requirement may be enforced by actions for injunctive relief and for civil penalties of up to $2,500 per day for each violation. In addition to enforcement by public prosecutors, Proposition 65 contains a bounty hunter provision that permits private enforcers to bring a lawsuit if a public prosecutor does not act within 60 days after notification ("60-Day Notice") from a bounty hunter of an alleged violation.
The majority of enforcement actions are brought by private enforcers, who are entitled to 25% of any civil penalty assessed by the courts; they can also seek attorneys' fees under California's private attorney general statute. Most Proposition 65 matters settle. In 2014, there were 663 private settlements under Proposition 65, totaling $29.5 million (over 70% of that amount was paid to private enforcers as attorneys' fees).Previous Proposition 65 Actions Regarding BPA
OEHHA's Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee (DARTIC) considered listing BPA in 2009 but voted unanimously against doing so, on the ground that the experimental animal data cited in support of the listing were insufficient.
In January 2013, OEHHA sought to list BPA as a reproductive toxicant under the Proposition 65 authoritative bodies' listing mechanism, based on a 2008 report by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), which found "clear evidence" of developmental toxicity at high doses of BPA. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) brought a lawsuit in March 2013 challenging the listing. The court issued a preliminary injunction in April 2013, ordering that BPA be removed from the Proposition 65 list pending a final resolution of the ACC lawsuit (American Chemistry Council v Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment et al.). The trial court denied ACC's petition, finding that OEHHA did not abuse its discretion in listing BPA under the authoritative bodies' mechanism, and the ACC case is on appeal. The outcome of the ACC appeal will not, however, affect the latest listing of BPA because that was based on a DARTIC vote, which is a different mechanism for listing.Current Listing of BPA
On May 11, 2015, BPA was listed under Proposition 65 as a reproductive toxicant, for the female reproductive toxicity endpoint, after DARTIC reviewed epidemiological and toxicological data on BPA and female reproductive toxicity that had become available since 2009. The effective date of the warning requirement is May 11, 2016. Recently, however, OEHHA indicated that it was not going to propose a MADL for exposure to BPA from ingestion due to concerns regarding the sufficiency of data. In the absence of a proposed safe harbor level, industry faced a difficult compliance situation given OEHHA's position on existing data. Last week, OEHHA announced proposed regulations for BPA compliance, with respect to both ingestion and dermal absorption, as follows:1. Exposure -- Ingestion
OEHHA posted a proposed emergency regulation to permit temporary point of sale warning signage for canned and bottled food and beverages. The emergency safe harbor language, which is inoperative one year after the date of adoption (unless reenacted by OEHHA) is:
WARNING: Many cans containing foods and beverages sold here have epoxy linings used to avoid microbial contamination and extend shelf life. Lids on jars and caps on bottles may also have epoxy linings. Some of these linings can leach small amounts of bisphenol A (BPA) into the food or beverage. BPA is a chemical known to the State of California to cause harm to the female reproductive system. For more information please click here.
"Point-of-sale" means the area within a retail facility where customers pay for foods and beverages, such as the cash register or check-out line where the warning sign is likely to be seen and understood prior to the consumer purchasing the canned or bottled food or beverage. Point-of-sale also includes the product display page or electronic check-out functions for products sold over the internet. The warning signs must be no smaller than 5 by 5 inches, and the location must be conspicuous. For more information, please click here.
The current regulations do not expressly permit standard point-of-sale warnings for consumer products that cause exposures to listed chemicals, and OEHHA hopes to set a proposed MADL for exposures through ingestion during the period covered by the proposed emergency regulation. OEHHA concluded that the situation qualified as an emergency because if there was no regulation in place by May 11, 2016, manufacturers and retailers might remove canned and bottled food and beverage items from store shelves, or might place multiple and inconsistent warnings on products and on signage throughout a retail facility, resulting in confusion and unnecessary adverse impacts on public access to nutritious food, particularly for California's most vulnerable communities.
After submission of the proposed emergency regulation to the Office of Administrative Law, interested persons have five calendar days to submit comments. 2. Exposure -- Dermal Absorption
OEHHA also posted a notice of proposed rulemaking to establish a MADL of 3 mcg/day for dermal absorption of BPA from solid materials. Comments are due by May 16.
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/proposition-65-california-proposes-regulations-exposures-to-bisphenol-bpa#sthash.YFj3HyWQ.dpuf
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(ACC Mentioned) Tighter, Controversial Silica Rules Aimed At Saving Workers' Lungs
Mar 24, 2016 | NPR
By Nell Greenfieldboyce
The Department of Labor is issuing a long-awaited and controversial rule Thursday aimed at better protecting workers from inhaling silica dust.
The new rule dramatically reduces the allowed exposure limits for workers in a slew of industries, from construction to manufacturing to fracking.
Around 2.3 million people in the U. S. are exposed to fine grains of silica on the job; inhaling the dust is one of the oldest known workplace hazards. Silica, which is basically sand, scars the lungs, causing diseases like silicosis and cancer.
Secretary of Labor Tom Perez says the existing rule that limits a worker's exposure to silica dust hasn't been changed since the early 1970s. And even back then, he adds, research showed the exposure limit didn't offer adequate protection.
"We've known for over 40 years that it needed to be strengthened, and it has taken 40 years to strengthen it," says Perez. "Many people who are going to work right now and breathing unacceptable levels of silica dust are in for a brighter future."
He says the current rule for construction sites caps exposure at 250 micrograms of silica per cubic meter of air.
"And the science says we need to be at 50," says Perez. "So that's what the final rule will say." That same updated exposure limit will apply to general industry as well, he adds, which will cut the current exposure limit in half.
Silica can be found in materials like concrete, brick, and stone. Busting up those materials sends silica dust into the air. Workers can also get exposed in manufacturing industries that use sand, such as foundries.
Tom Ward, a brick and stone mason in Detroit, is strongly in favor of the new rule. His father died of silicosis after doing sandblasting at his job.
"We watched my dad basically suffocate," Ward recalls, adding that when he first started working, he didn't realize his saws and grinders also exposed him to silica dust.i
A slurry of cleaned silica sand flows into the wash plant, where it is washed in preparation for storage at the Wisconsin Industrial Sand Co.'s Maiden Rock facility in Maiden Rock, Wis.Ariana Lindquist/Bloomberg via Getty Images
He now worries about what he breathed in, and says he's troubled whenever he passes a construction site and sees workers in a cloud of dust.
"They have no idea that they're slowly poisoning themselves over their careers," Ward says.
Under the new rule, employers will have from one to five years to put protections in place, depending on the industry.
"We're estimating that once it's fully in effect it will save about 600 lives a year," says David Michaels, the head of the Department of Labor's safety agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The rule is also expected to prevent more than 900 cases of silicosis each year, Michaels says.
Controlling silica dust typically means using vacuums, wetting down surfaces, or having workers wear respirators.
"Silica is a killer and employers need to take the necessary steps so that they can reduce exposure," says Perez. "And the good news is that those necessary steps are not going to break the bank. It's real simple stuff. Get a vacuum. Get water. Those are the key elements of pretty simple compliance."
Before issuing this rule, the government held weeks of hearings, took comments from thousands of stakeholders, and did all kinds of analyses that took years, says Michaels, who notes that "we have to show that the rule will be economically and technologically feasible for every industry that we cover."
But a lot of industry groups disagree with that assessment, and have fought against the new rule.
Brian Turmail, a spokesman for the Associated General Contractors of America, says if a dust-producing part of a construction site has to be cordoned off and put off-limits to all workers except those in protective gear, "you would delay or lengthen the time it takes to complete projects. And certainly the cost of building any type of construction project — because virtually every type of construction project is going to create dust — will go up significantly."
He thinks officials should have focused on better enforcement of the existing exposure limits.
That point is echoed by Neil King, the outside counsel to the American Chemistry Council's Crystalline Silica Panel. "OSHA's own inspectors, when they conduct inspections, have been finding — year after year — that in more than 30 percent of the cases, the existing permissible exposure limit is exceeded," says King.
If industries consistently complied with existing limits, he says, "the number of silicosis cases, which has already fallen by 90 percent, would basically fall to zero or something very close to zero."
Others say that the administration has underestimated what it will cost businesses to comply with the new rule. Amanda Wood, director of employment policy for the National Association of Manufacturers, notes that OSHA says the cost will be hundreds of millions of dollars. "Based on our estimates, we know that the true cost will be more in the billions," Wood says.
She says her organization will consider all their options in preparing a response, including turning to Congress or the courts for assistance.
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/03/24/471585412/tighter-controversial-silica-rules-aimed-at-saving-workers-lungs
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Work Plan Chemicals Relevant to Reformed TSCA, Says EPA
Mar 24, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Chynoweth
The US EPA’s work plan chemicals programme is providing the agency with experience that will be relevant under a reformed Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
Speaking at the industry conference GlobalChem in Washington, DC, this week, Jim Jones, head of the agency's chemicals office, said TSCA is a very difficult statute to operate under, but the agency is developing processes and gaining experience of concepts that would apply when the Act is reformed.
For example, he said, prioritisation of chemicals would be a very important part of a reformed law. “As a regulator with limited resources, it’s a no brainer, if you have got 2,000 things you are worried about, but you only have resources for five or ten, it is really important to take the highest priority first.”
He added that the prioritisation process under a reformed TSCA might not be exactly the same as that currently used for work plan chemicals, but the two would be consistent.
Mr Jones also talked about possible approaches to evaluating risk – a subject mentioned in the House and Senate bills.
“We have experience now with risk evaluations for high priority chemicals,” he said. The agency will have to wait to see the exact context and scope of risk assessments required in the new statute – whether it is based around cost-effectiveness or risk-benefit standards – but, he said: “risk is risk … the way we approach risk won’t change”.
Lastly on the topic of actions relevant to reformed TSCA, he said: “The big trick is how we do the risk management under existing TSCA.” The agency has not looked at existing chemicals in a meaningful way since the failed TSCA Section 6 action to ban asbestos over 20 years ago. Now it is planning to issue risk management decisions for three substances and their uses by the end of the year. These are for:trichloroethylene used in degreasers, spray fixatives and as a stain remover;methylene chloride used in paint removers; andn-methyl pyrrolidone used in paint removers.
Mr Jones added: “We can and will make meaningful progress on existing chemicals with the statute we have.”
The agency hopes to support chemicals management in the US by working with partners in Canada and Europe to gain access to the “tremendous amount of data generated by companies” under their programmes. While the data will be used in a different context, for example in risk-benefit balancing, it is essentially the same data, he said.
https://chemicalwatch.com/45910/work-plan-chemicals-relevant-to-reformed-tsca-says-epa
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Beyond The Monsanto Clause: What Else Does The House Chemical Bill Get Wrong?
Mar 24, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Melanie Benesh
We wrote earlier this month about a troubling provision that was slipped at the last minute into the House version of the industry-backed chemical regulation bill that would update the weak 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act.
The so-called “Monsanto clause” is certainly disturbing, but it’s hardly the only problematic aspect of the legislation. Here are a few others:
May not preserve a role for the states. In the absence of federal action, states have for decades led the way on chemical safety. The House bill could significantly limit the states’ role by preventing them from taking action on a chemical once the federal government issues its own regulation. Even more problematically, the bill does not define or limit the scope of this restriction. That means that federal action on formaldehyde in flooring, for instance, could block states from regulating the chemical in cleaning products.
Not enough funding. To adequately assess chemicals’ safety and issue appropriate regulations, the Environmental Protection Agency needs resources. One of the biggest problems with the House bill is that instead of imposing industry fees to fund EPA’s chemical safety program, it leaves it entirely at the mercy of congressional appropriations. There should be dedicated industry fees to ensure that EPA has the resources it needs to evaluate and regulate the nearly one thousand chemicals in commerce that it says raise safety concerns.
Industry fast lane. The House bill doesn’t require industry to pay for EPA’s work on chemicals the agency wants to evaluate, but companies do have to pay for safety reviews that industry requests. What’s more, there is no cap on the number of these industry-requested assessments. Without limits and without other funding, it’s possible that EPA could never get around to reviewing the safety of chemicals that its own experts consider priorities. Industry shouldn’t have its own unchecked fast lane.
Secret chemicals. There must be limits on what companies can keep secret about their chemicals. The House bill allows companies to hide the identity of a chemical evaluated in health and safety studies, rendering those studies useless. The legislation also lacks clear guidance on what a company needs to show before it can ask for trade secret protection, and it does not require EPA to revisit past trade secret claims. Furthermore, EPA would only be able to reevaluate a trade secret claim once every 10 years, even if it has safety concerns before then.
Access to data. EPA needs access to company testing data to determine whether chemicals are safe. Under current law, EPA has to show that a chemical poses an “unreasonable risk” before it can ask chemical companies to supply more data. Of course, it’s hard for EPA to show there’s a risk without getting the data first. While the Senate bill eliminates this unworkable catch-22, the House bill does not.Replacement parts. Both the House and the Senate bills would exempt chemicals in replacement parts from EPA’s regulations, allowing companies to offload existing stock before complying with the new rules. While the Senate bill limits this exception to parts that have already been manufactured, the House bill allows companies to keep on producing any replacement parts that have already been designed. This creates a big loophole and a potentially indefinite way for companies to get around regulations.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/03/beyond-monsanto-clause-what-else-does-house-chemical-bill-get-wrong
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Chlorinated Solvents Next Up Under TSCA Work Plan
Mar 24, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Evaluation of several chlorinated solvents under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Work Plan programme is a priority for the US EPA Office of Pollution and Prevention (OPPT) this year.
Initiation of the substances’ review was announced as part of OPPT director Wendy Cleland-Hamnett’s update on the agency’s 2016 priorities, presented yesterday at the industry conference GlobalChem.
Problem formulations are being developed for the following chlorinated solvents:1,1-dichloroethane;1,2-dichloroethane;trans-1,2-dichloroethylene;1,1,2-trichloroethane;carbon tetrachloride; andtetrachloroethylene (Perc).
The EPA began issuing problem formulations as standalone documents in 2015 “to facilitate public and stakeholder comment and input prior to conducting further risk analysis”. The agency will initiate a risk assessment process if the problem formulations indicate there is a need to do so.
Another priority on the OPPT agenda is the release of proposed rules under Section 6 of TSCA. This enables it to ban or restrict the manufacture, production or use of substances that present an unreasonable risk. The agency has not issued a rule under this section for close to 30 years, following a 1991 court overturning of its 1989 final rule to ban asbestos in most existing uses.
The rules are being proposed for three substances which have been found to present significant risk for specific uses during TSCA work plan risk assessment. These are:trichloroethylene (TCE) used in degreasers, spray fixatives and as a stain remover;methylene chloride (MC) used in paint removers; andn-methyl pyrrolidone (NMP) used in paint removers.
Ms Cleland-Hamnett said that the agency is set to release the first of the proposed Section 6 rules in late summer or early autumn, with the remaining two to follow potentially before the year’s end. “A lot of effort” is going into developing those three rules this year, she added.
Also on the agency’s 2016 agenda will be an effort to reduce the risk posed by existing chemicals through the use of significant new use rules (Snurs).
This includes finalising Snurs for nonylphenols and nonylphenol ethoxylates (NP and NPE), long-chain perfluoroalkyl carboxylates (LCPFAC); and trichloroethylene (TCE) in consumer products.
A proposed Snur for alkyl pyrrolidones used as paint removers – as this substance is an analog to the paint removers subject to possible Section 6 action – is also planned.
Other activities planned for 2016 include:continuation of ongoing risk assessment for substances such as 1-bromopropane, 1,4-dioxane, andflame retardant clusters;issuance of a TSCA Section 8 reporting rule for nanoscale materials, which Ms Cleland-Hamnett said the agency is “getting close” to finalising;applying requirements similar to those established in California for formaldehyde emission from composite wood products;proposing a modification to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) use authorisation;execution of the quadrennial chemical data reporting (CDR) Rule;raising consumer awareness of the Safer Choice programme and expanding product categories under it; andsetting a goal to increase by 10% the number of substances on the Safer Choice Ingredient List (SCIL).
Ms Cleland-Hamnett also indicated that, should TSCA reform be passed by Congress, its implementation would become the chief priority for the agency.
https://chemicalwatch.com/45913/chlorinated-solvents-next-up-under-tsca-work-plan
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EPA to Brief House Committee on IRIS
Mar 24, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform soon will be briefed by the Environmental Protection Agency on the extent to which its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program is implementing recommendations to improve its efficiency and the clarity of the science used to assess chemicals, an aide for the committee told Bloomberg BNA March 23. The briefing on IRIS, a compendium of chemical toxicity values, is scheduled to occur in the next couple of weeks, the aide said. The briefing will address questions the committee posed March 8 as it launched an investigation into the extent to which the IRIS program has implemented improvement recommendations the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine has made (46 DEN A-3, 3/9/16).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=85707964&vname=dennotallissues&fn=85707964&jd=85707964
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New Rules Aim to Reduce Silica Exposure at Work Sites
Mar 24, 2016 | The New York Times
By Barry Meier
The Labor Department plans to announce on Thursday new rules that sharply reduce workplace exposure to silica, a potentially deadly mineral found in materials commonly used in construction and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Safety experts have urged a tightening of silica exposure standards since the 1970s because research shows that particles of the mineral, when inhaled, can cause silicosis, a disabling and sometimes fatal lung disease. However, progress was stymied for decades by resistance from affected companies and regulatory inaction.
The new rules are the second major action taken by the Obama administration in recent months to address a long-known workplace hazard. In August, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration proposed lowering exposure to beryllium, an industrial metal, to one-tenth their current levels.
Officials estimate that the new silica standard, when fully in effect, will save 600 lives and prevent 900 new cases of silicosis every year.
“One of the basic bargains we make is that every working person should come home safely at the end of the day,” Thomas E. Perez, the secretary of labor, said in a telephone interview.
Silica, which is a component of sand and stone, is found in materials such as concrete, brick, building blocks and mortar. During procedures like sandblasting and fracking or when building materials are cut, large quantities of silica particles can be released into the air. Those particles can lodge deep in the lung, setting off processes that can lead to lung cancer as well as kidney disease, in addition to silicosis.
Under the new rules, permitted exposures to silica throughout the construction industry would be cut to 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air over an eight-hour period from 250 micrograms. In other industries, which have a 100 microgram standard, it will also be reduced to 50 micrograms.
Companies will be required, among other measures, to keep records of employee exposure to silica and to provide a medical examination every three years to each worker whose level of exposure is high enough to require wearing a protective respirator for at least 30 days a year. The new ruleswere first proposed in 2013 and went through a two-year period of review and public comment.
Companies have argued that voluntary steps already adopted, like the use of respirators or vacuums that trap and collect silica dust, have sharply reduced the incidence of silicosis. And they have said the new rule would impose billions of dollars in new costs on them.
In addition, several trade groups, like the National Industrial Sand Association, have questioned the health effects from changing the rules. Last year, in publicly filed comments on the new rule, the groups argued that OSHA had failed to show that reducing exposure limits to 50 micrograms within industries already covered by the 100 microgram standard would result in added safety benefits for workers.
An estimated 2.3 million workers are affected by the new rule, with about two million of them employed in construction-related industries, according to Labor Department estimates.
In recent years, new workers have been exposed to silica’s risks. In 2012, for example, federal officials issued an alert about the hazards that workers faced during fracking, a process that uses sand to force oil through underground rocks.
In a speech this year to an energy industry group, Dr. David Michaels, the director of OSHA, stated that many oil and gas companies were not meeting the current silica exposure standard.
“We regularly run into employers who are not in compliance with the current standard,” Dr. Michaels said in a telephone interview.
While other industries will have two years to conform fully to the new exposure rules, the fracking industry will have five years.
Mr. Perez, the labor secretary, acknowledged that companies might sue the department in an effort to block the regulations.
But he said he thought that many companies would easily adapt to the new standard because inexpensive equipment is available to control and trap the release of silica dust.
In the 1970s, when OSHA set the silica standard, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health was already recommending that it be reduced to the 50-microgram threshold.
“This is no different than the story of asbestos,” Mr. Perez said. “After 40 years, the political will has finally caught up with the science.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/24/business/new-rules-aim-to-reduce-silica-exposure-at-work-sites.html
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CSB Improves Payment System, EPA Finds
Mar 24, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
In another step forward for a once-reeling agency, the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board was found to have come into compliance with federal payment law, according to a March 23 report from the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general. According to the report, the CSB was fully compliant with legislation for improper payments in fiscal year 2015. The board also was found to have conducted a risk assessment that didn't turn up any programs or activities susceptible to significant improper payments. The report follows on a 2014 inspector general report that alleged that the CSB didn't use a system designed to verify the eligibility of payments or have the ability to test its payroll and benefits prepayment. The positive finding marks another milestone for CSB chief Vanessa Sutherland, who has won widespread praise for improving both the morale and the professionalism of an agency that, under its previous leader, Rafael Moure-Eraso, was said to be in disarray. The report is available athttps://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-03/documents/20160323-16-p-0109.pdf.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=85707962&vname=dennotallissues&fn=85707962&jd=85707962
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House Panel to Scrutinize EPA Rules in 2016
Mar 24, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The House Science Committee intends to closely scrutinize any major regulations issued by the Environmental Protection Agency in the last year of President Barack Obama's administration, Republican members of the panel said March 23.
The committee's oversight plans include a yet-to-be-scheduled hearing this spring, wherein EPA officials will be invited to testify about environmental regulations, according to Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), chairman of the Subcommittee on the Environment.
Bridenstine, during remarks at a March 23 subcommittee hearing, said EPA officials will be asked questions about their plans to issue a number of “hasty, non-scientific” regulations late in Obama's term, including federal implementation plans under the regional haze program.
“As the Obama administration nears the end of its time in office, we must carefully review the impact, costs and achievability of any rules and implementation plans this activist EPA attempts to put in place on the way out the door,” Bridenstine said. “The EPA needs to be held accountable to the American people.”
Bridenstine made his remarks during a hearing on the EPA's regional haze program, which aims to reduce pollution that affects visibility in national parks and other protected areas. During the hearing, the subcommittee heard testimony from representatives of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Oklahoma Industrial Energy Consumers and the law firm Hunton & Williams LLP on the effects of the EPA's disapproval of state regional haze plans and promulgation of federal plans.
Effects Anticipated From Haze Program
Thomas Schroedter, executive director of the Oklahoma Industrial Energy Consumers, told the subpanel that compliance with the EPA's regional haze requirements will result in “substantial rate impacts” for all utility ratepayers in Oklahoma, including residential customers and small businesses.
Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) criticized the EPA's decision to issue a federal regional haze plan that set sulfur dioxide emissions limits on coal-fired power plants in Texas. The rule is being challenged in federal appeals court by Texas and an industry coalition that includes Luminant Generation Co. and the Utility Air Regulatory Group. The EPA on March 22 asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to transfer the litigation to the D.C. Circuit, which has jurisdiction over all challenges to nationally applicable regulations under the Clean Air Act (Texas v. EPA, 5th Cir., No. 16-60118, motion filed 3/22/16; see related story).
‘Costly and Burdensome.'
Smith described the EPA's regional haze rule in Texas as the latest in a series of “costly and burdensome” regulations issued by the EPA and vowed to “rein in” the agency when it oversteps its statutory authority.
“Congress clearly intended through the Clean Air Act that individual states be responsible and in charge of the program, not the federal government,” Smith said of the regional haze program. “We cannot allow a federal agency to assume power that Congress has not given it.”
The EPA issued a federal haze plan for Texas after it deemed the state-developed plan was insufficient.
Smith said that at the planned hearing, EPA officials will be expected to answer questions about the haze rule, as well as other regulations that the agency has issued recently.
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House GOP Lawmakers Appear Divided Over Restoring EPA Funding Cuts
Mar 23, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Lee Logan & Stuart Parker
House Republican lawmakers appear divided over whether to restore proposed budget cuts to major EPA programs, with GOP members of the Appropriations Committee's interior panel suggesting a need to boost water infrastructure funds and other other programs while energy panel Republicans oppose funding increases for the agency.
The split could complicate efforts to move the agency's fiscal year 2017 appropriations legislation through the lower chamber. President Obama earlier this year proposed to fund EPA at $8.27 billion, a slight increase from its enacted FY16 funding of $8.14 billion. While the FY17 proposal is an increase to the agency's actual current funding level, it would be $320 million less than Obama's FY16 proposal to fund EPA at $8.59 billion.
The administration proposes offsetting various spending increases for a host of EPA programs in part by cutting the clean water state revolving fund (SRF) from its enacted $1.39 billion funding down to $979 million. However, the drinking water SRF would see a boost, from $863 million currently up to $1.02 billion.
At a March 22 House Appropriations Committee interior and environment panel hearing, Rep Mike Simpson (R-ID) listed several EPA programs that he argued are “needing more funding” than Obama's proposal.
Simpson highlighted the SRFs -- which water groups and others have said should get a boost to prevent disasters like the Flint, MI, drinking water crisis -- as well as the agency's diesel engine retrofit fund, an inter-agency water quality initiative for the Great Lakes, local water cleanup efforts and environmental grants to states.
He said that Congress is “probably going to have a flat or reduced budget. That's the challenge we're going to face. We're going to have to balance those competing interests and try to put together a bill.”
Simpson criticized the administration for using “gimmicks” to fund several critical programs, such as mandatory spending that would be created in part by a proposed new $10.25-per-barrel tax on oil. That money would help to pay for the diesel engine program, for example. Those are “things that we are pretty sure won't happen. I don't see us putting on the oil barrel tax and some of the other things that are used” for the mandatory funding, he said.
As such, as lawmakers look to fund those programs, Simpson said, they will have to use discretionary funding that EPA has asked to be used for other priorities.
Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA), chairman of the interior panel, said Obama's proposal means popular programs would get a cut to provide “more funding to implement regulations the courts have put on hold,” referencing EPA's contested greenhouse gas (GHG) rule for existing power plants.
He also pointed to the importance of funding under the Diesel Emission Reduction Act (DERA) for his home region of Southern California to make progress in meeting air quality standards. Under the agency's recently tightened standard for ozone, Calvert said the “South Coast will invariably remain out of compliance.” As such, he is “struggling to understand” why EPA proposes to cut discretionary DERA funding by 80 percent.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who testified at the House Appropriations Committee interior panel hearing, responded that “you and I understand how valuable that program is.”
Water Infrastructure
GOP and Democratic lawmakers at the interior panel hearing faulted EPA's proposed clean water SRF cut.
Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), ranking member on the subcommittee, said the Flint crisis “shines a bright light on why it's necessary to have federal protections for our environment, our water and our public health.”
But she said the proposed FY17 budget “sadly” cuts funds for the SRFs and the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). “I have to wonder if these cuts were proposed not on the their merits, but because the agency was trying to fulfill requests for other increases within their already strained budget,” she said. The SRFs and GLRI “are among the few programs in EPA that have strong bipartisan support. I will be working with Chairman Calvert to restore these cuts.”
McCollum also lamented that there is not similar bipartisan support for EPA's “core” programs.
In response to criticism from McCollum and Simpson on the SRF funding, McCarthy noted that EPA in 2010 estimated that there is a $300 billion backlog in water infrastructure needs, which she said is likely a “low-ball estimate.” She has heard more recent projections of around $600 billion, she added.
“We have some real challenges that EPA's operating money is not going to resolve,” McCarthy said. While it is OK to have $2 billion in total SRF money that is weighted more toward drinking water systems -- as EPA proposes -- “there does have to be a larger conversation about how do we keep this core need and right of people in place.”
She also noted that the agency is stepping up enforcement of its existing lead and copper rule, which she noted Flint was not complying with, even as officials work on revisions to strengthen the rule.
Asked about the proposed significant cut to the SRF for wastewater systems, McCarthy said the proposal is “based on the needs out there long term. It's a shift a little more toward the drinking water side than the clean water side.”
But she said “part of challenge [is to] make sure we stay within our budget.” That is why EPA also asked for $20 million to fund a new water program that seeks to leverage private funding for infrastructure upgrades.
Flint Crisis
McCarthy said EPA hopes to use some of the “visibility and concern” from Flint “to sort of raise the flag if you will, to say that all of these efforts are good, but we need to do more. . . . We really need to step back and realize that our water infrastructure is old, and investments are not being made in a way to keep that as a modern system that we once had. There does need to be a larger discussion and opportunity to take a deep breath and see whether clean water remains a need and value in this country and whether or not we are providing that.”
At the March 22 Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies' water policy conference in Washington, D.C., a Democratic lawmaker and others also called for boosting overall SRF funding.
Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) said, “There has been a lot of finger pointing over Flint. Certainly at EPA. A lot of it has been by Congress. Some of it is pointing the finger at us. We have turned a blind eye to those looming problems and discouraged investment for decades. We have not reauthorized the [drinking water SRF] since 1996. Twenty years have lapsed without any responsibility by the federal government in my view. This [Flint] has been a choke point that has caused investment to fall behind at every level of government.”
He added, "The current federal funding will not cut it. It is 10 times more expensive to repair pipes after they have broken than when you could have done it better . . . it's foolish, the money we're letting go down the drain."
Adam Krantz, chief executive officer of the National Association of Clean Water Agencies, said, “We need to make sure we keep everyone's feet to the fire on the SRF. We need to grow the pie. The argument is not to take money from x to pay y at this point. It's time to boost funding for it all rather than take some from clean water to pay for drinking water, some from drinking water to pay for wastewater. We all need to grow that pie. That's crucially important.”
GOP Criticisms
However, not all Republican lawmakers appear sympathetic to calls for boosting EPA funding. At a March 22 joint hearing of the House Energy & Commerce Committee energy and environment subcommittees, GOP members criticized a wide range of agency programs and signaled opposition to any funding increases.
“You are at 1989 staff levels, 2008 funding levels, and my constituents say that is still too much,” said environment subcommittee Chairman Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), reflecting on the hostility to EPA in parts of the country, notably in areas that rely on coal, where the agency is blamed for policies that adversely affect coal production. Shimkus added, “we have an education to do” to persuade such skeptics that EPA is worth funding.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), chairman of the full Energy & Commerce Committee, assigned blame widely for the Flint incident, including on EPA. He called Flint “a sign perhaps that the EPA had strayed from its core mission” of ensuring public health.
During the hearing, GOP committee members also criticized EPA's focus on climate change policies, which they said was inconsistent with the original purpose of the agency. For example, Upton said Congress should sharpen EPA's oversight of drinking water.
Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) suggested EPA shift funding from its support of the now-stayed Clean Power Plan, EPA's program to reduce GHGs from existing power plants, toward clearing a backlog of 557 state implementation plans for Clean Air Act compliance that are at EPA's regional offices awaiting approval.
At the March 22 hearing, Tonko again stressed the importance of increasing SRF funding for both drinking water and wastewater, saying that boosting drinking water funds at the expense of wasterwater is “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
Local governments are often “cash-strapped” and cannot afford to pay for the necessary repairs and upgrades to their water systems, Tonko said. He touted a bill, H.R. 4653, that he introduced along with 28 House Democratic co-sponsors Feb. 29, which would set SRF funding at over $3 billion in FY17, rising to 5.5 billion in FY21.
In response, McCarthy -- who also testified at the energy panel hearing -- said that both drinking water funds and wastewater funds are necessary to ensure a clean water supply, but that the drinking water SRF is in “dire need of additional assistance,” and EPA was forced to prioritize under tight budgetary conditions. EPA has “quite a bit of flexibility” to move money between the funds, she said.
But she said current water infrastructure funding “doesn't even come close” to meeting states' long-term needs, and she again called for a “very serious and much larger conversation” about water funding. EPA could only increase SRF funding by taking away from its operating budget, which is already strained, McCarthy said.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/house-gop-lawmakers-appear-divided-over-restoring-epa-funding-cuts
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Deals Undermine Climate Push -- Enviros
Mar 23, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
The Trans-Pacific Partnership and a parallel European trade deal under negotiation would hand some of the largest corporate carbon polluters broad new powers to challenge climate policies, according to a study released by the Sierra Club today.
The group's report builds on environmentalists' long-standing opposition to the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions of such trade deals, which allow private firms to challenge government policies that run afoul of trade rules.
Green groups have seized on TransCanada Corp.'s notice earlier this year that it plans to seek $15 billion in damages under the ISDS provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement over President Obama's rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline to rally opposition against TPP (E&E Daily, Jan. 7).
In today's report, the Sierra Club says that action "may be just the beginning of a swell of such challenges to hard-fought climate protections" if TPP and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) -- currently being negotiated with the European Union -- take effect.
"Both deals would dramatically expand the number of corporations that could follow TransCanada's example and use private tribunals as a backdoor way to challenge and potentially undermine U.S. policies that keep fossil fuels in the ground," the report states.
Saying specialty law firms are helping to fuel a "rapid rise" in ISDS cases, the report notes that "half of the new cases launched in 2014 targeted policies affecting oil or gas extraction, mining, or power generation."
That figure would soar under TPP and TTIP, which would more than double the number of foreign fossil fuel firms eligible to bring investor challenges to U.S. policies.
"The two deals would newly grant broad foreign investor rights to more than 1,000 U.S. subsidiaries of over 100 foreign fossil fuel corporations -- more than the total number of fossil fuel firms that have such rights under all 56 existing U.S. trade and investment pacts combined," it states.
"Forty-five of the 50 private corporations historically responsible for the most climate-disrupting emissions would be empowered to challenge climate policies in ISDS tribunals under the TPP and TTIP. These 45 corporations are collectively responsible for more than 20 percent of the world's historical greenhouse gas emissions."
That list includes the eight largest private-sector greenhouse gas emitters outside of the United States: BP PLC, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Total Gas and Power Ltd., BHP Billiton Ltd., Anglo American Oil Co. Ltd., RWE AG, Eni SPA and Rio Tinto Group.
Along with the report, the Sierra Club today also unveiled an interactive map highlighting U.S. investments in hydraulic fracturing, offshore drilling, fossil fuel leasing on public lands and pipelines -- issues for which green groups are pressing policies to keep fossil fuels "in the ground."
"This would be a bad time to give many more fossil fuel corporations access to such broad rights," said Ben Beachy, a senior policy adviser for the Sierra Club who wrote the report, on a conference call today.
The report is the latest pushback against TPP, which must be approved by Congress to take effect. GOP leaders have said that vote is likely to happen during the lame-duck session after the November elections, and skepticism on both sides of the aisle means the White House has its work cut out for itself securing the necessary votes for approval (E&ENews PM, Feb. 11).
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/03/23/stories/1060034533
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Ozone NAAQS Critics, Defenders See Flaws In EPA Cost-Benefit Analysis
Mar 23, 2016 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
Critics and defenders of EPA's recently tightened ozone national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) say there are flaws in the agency's cost-benefit analysis for the rule, with an opponent of the strict standard saying that the regulation imposes unreasonable compliance costs while an advocate of the rule says the analysis is hard to defend.
Speaking at a recent session of the annual conference of the Society for Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) in Washington, D.C., Anne Smith of NERA Economic Consulting said EPA's analysis of the likely costs from its revised standard ignores the basic principles of BCA that the agency uses to justify its rules.
“What we have here is a complete devolution away from the core BCA concepts that we're supposed to be analyzing when we do benefits and costs analysis in these regulatory impact analyses,” Smith said.
During the same session, Resources for the Future (RFF) researcher Alan Krupnick -- a supporter of the rule -- echoed Smith's claim that the agency's cost assessment is flawed. “There was a great deal of shifting around between the proposed and final RIA, with benefits and costs both dropping. . . . What the heck happened? I have to say, we couldn't figure it out from the RIA. I really think some obfuscation was going on,” he said.
The concerns over the cost review could potentially bolster opponents of the Oct. 1 rulemaking that revised the standard down from the 2008 limit of 75 parts per billion (ppb) to 70 ppb. Various industry groups and some states have filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, claiming that the agency lacked scientific justification to tighten the standard -- although environmentalists are suing saying the limit is too weak.
Advocates argue the NAAQS needs to be even stricter to meet a Clean Air Act mandate that the standard be set at a level requisite to protect human health within an adequate margin of safety.
Industry groups, some states, and GOP lawmakers are attacking the NAAQS as too stringent and based on inadequate data. They warn that the standard will place many areas out of attainment with the NAAQS, triggering Clean Air Act mandates for those areas to impose strict air pollution reduction mandates on industrial sources of ozone-forming emissions. This in turn will drive businesses away from such areas, critics say.
In the final ozone NAAQS issued Oct. 1, EPA projects costs and benefits that are billions of dollars lower than the proposed version of the 70 ppb rule the agency released in November of 2014.
At the time of the proposal EPA sought comment on setting the NAAQS at a limit within the range of 65-70 ppb and took comment on going above or below that range. In a fact sheet released alongside the proposal the agency estimated that a 70 ppb limit would create annual health benefits of $6.4 to $13 billion compared to $3.9 billion in costs, excluding California. EPA assessed the benefits for California separately, given its major ozone problem.
But in the final rule released Oct. 1, the agency revised the cost-benefit assessment to project a 70 ppb limit will create $2.9 to $5.9 billion in annual benefits compared to $1.4 billion in costs.
The agency in its regulatory impact analysis for the final NAAQS said that updated emissions modeling lead to the lowered projections for both the costs and benefits of a 70 ppb ozone limit. “The more geographically refined modeling and improved ozone response factors resulted in fewer emissions reductions needed to meet a revised standard of 70 ppb and an alternative standard level of 65 ppb,” according to the RIA.
Potential Costs
At the March 18 BCA event, Smith defended the conclusions of a 2015 NERA study that faulted EPA's RIA for the proposed revisions to the NAAQS, arguing that the agency understated the costs of complying with a stricter standard.
She faulted the agency's RIA for apparently assuming that the cost of reducing emissions of ozone precursors would stay constant even as the standard becomes more stringent.
Smith also criticized EPA for attributing as much as 50 percent of expected ozone reductions to “unknown” or “unnamed” control technologies -- meaning the agency could not say for certain what methods would be employed for those reductions -- whose costs were estimated rather than being based on observed data. “The fraction of what I call the 'unnamed controls' is so large . . . you just don't leave that open to speculation and understatement by ignoring the issue,” Smith said. She added that EPA by designating many controls as unidentified avoided having to investigate the costs of reducing emissions from small sources, which industry has claimed will be extremely high.
“The point is that [unnamed controls] exist and if they were to be identified or named, boom, we can start talking about what they cost. . . . We know what they are. They're going to come from all the small sources all across the country that haven't yet been thoroughly controlled. They have to come from there because that's the only place emissions will remain,” she said.
Smith continued that by relying on estimated costs for “unnamed controls” EPA avoided considering the “basic principle” of marginal costs, which says that that the cost of reductions will increase as the target approaches zero emissions. Instead, she said, EPA's RIA seems to assume that the cost of eliminating a ton of ozone precursor emissions through unnamed controls will always be constant.
“In EPA's analysis . . . [cost] never starts to increase as we get closer and closer to zero emissions,” Smith said. She called that analysis “the point of complete failure of the benefit-cost system.”
However, an EPA employee in the audience countered that the agency was following past recommendations from the agency's Science Advisory Board to use a single average cost figure as a “proxy” for the costs of implementing a currently-unknown technology, rather than trying to calculate how unknown technologies will increase in costs as they target more stringent goals, which is a much more difficult task.
“I'm not sure where she's getting that -- EPA certainly has never said that marginal control costs are constant for that entire range,” the employee said.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
During the same BCA session, RFF's Krupnick outlined his concerns about parts of the cost-benefit analysis but argued that EPA's ultimate conclusions in the RIA for the final rule appear closer to being accurate than do NERA's.
Krupnic, speaking on a competing assessment of the ozone NAAQS' costs that he authored with other RFF researchers, nevertheless outlined some criticisms of the final RIA.
For example, he also targeted the agency's reliance on unknown controls in its cost estimate, saying that even if the RIA's ultimate conclusion is correct, the methodology could leave it open to challenge. "By not doing more to identify reduction options, EPA provides an opening for other groups . . . They don't provide a satisfying estimate for the majority of [ozone precursor] reductions, and they create an opportunity for these outside organizations,” he said.
EPA's cost calculations could play a major role in eventual litigation over how the new ozone standard will be implemented -- though the rule must first survive the pending D.C. Circuit challenge.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/ozone-naaqs-critics-defenders-see-flaws-epa-cost-benefit-analysis
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Fight to Keep Alternative Energy Local Stymies an Industry
Mar 23, 2016 | The New York Times
By Diane Cardwell
Up and down the center of the country, winds rip across plains, ridges and plateaus, a belt of unharnessed energy capable of powering millions of customers, with enormous potential to help meet national goals to stem climate change.
And because the bulk of the demand is hundreds of miles away, companies are working to build a robust network of high-voltage transmission lines to get the power to the coasts.
If only it were that simple. In all, more than 3,100 miles of projects have yet to be built, in need of government approval.
One of the most ambitious projects, called the Grain Belt Express from a company called Clean Line Energy Partners, spent six years winning the go-ahead in three of the Midwestern states it would cross, only to hit a dead end in Missouri when state regulators voted 3 to 2 to stop the project. They were swayed by landowners like Jennifer Gatrel, who runs a midsize family cattle operation with her husband, Jeff, here in the northwestern part of the state.
She and other opponents made the usual arguments against trampling property rights through the use of eminent domain, obliterating their pastoral views and disrupting their way of life.
But they also argued something else: Why should they have to live beneath the high-voltage lines when there is plenty of wind in the East?
Now the whole project is waiting, putting the Gatrels in the middle of an emerging battle over how the nation should shift to renewable energy and meet ambitious targets in carbon reduction. The outcome will determine where and how green energy will develop over the coming decades.
“We have this potential for high-quality renewables in real volume for the first time,” said James J. Hoecker, a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who now advises the transmission industry. “The problem is, where the best renewables are, there are few customers.”Continue reading the main story
The transmission lines like Grain Belt Express, he said, would bring the electricity to where there is demand.
The push to enhance the grid has gained urgency as renewables have spread. Already, electric systems in areas like Hawaii and Germany are under strain as wind and solar power fluctuate and overload the wires. What is needed, proponents say, is a new infrastructure better suited to handle renewable energy.
Energy Department officials acknowledge as much, saying that the United States must significantly upgrade its transmission and distribution system to meet both the needs of the information economy and clean energy goals, an effort that would require an estimated $900 billion in investment by 2030.
A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado, Boulder, found that with such a network, the United States could supply most of its electricity with renewables by then at costs near today’s prices and get close to meeting the goals set in the Paris agreement on climate change.
But opponents like Ms. Gatrel say that giant projects like the Grain Belt Express represent an outmoded, centralized approach to delivering energy. Just as it is healthier and more sustainable to eat foods close to where they are grown, the argument goes, so, too, should electricity be consumed closer to where it is produced.
“We believe that the East Coast has access to abundant offshore wind and that any time you talk about green or clean, you should also be talking about local,” she said. “Unnecessary long-haul transmission lines are not our country’s future.”
It isn’t just here in northwestern Missouri that construction of new power lines has met resistance, and transmission projects can live or die at the hands of state and county officials representing the local interest.
Clean Line has five projects in the works, including one that failed to gain approval in Iowa and another that ran aground in Arkansas and is awaiting federal approval under a thus-far unused provision of the 2005 Energy Policy Act. TransWest Express, a connector that the billionaire Philip Anschutz is proposing to install from the enormous wind farm he is developing on his south-central Wyoming cattle ranch to Las Vegas, is also awaiting a federal go-ahead.
But some energy officials and executives say there is a more dynamic and resilient alternative to these sprawling networks. Instead, they are promoting the development of less centralized systems that link smaller power installations, including rooftop solar, storage and electric vehicles, an approach known as distributed generation.
Conflict over those competing visions has cropped up across the country in fights over both wind and solar developments, but nowhere is that conflict starker than in Missouri’s rejection of Grain Belt.
The transmission line, which could create thousands of temporary manufacturing and construction jobs in the state, attracted strong support among some economic development officials and landowners. They saw it as a chance to bring needed revenue to local counties and school districts, as well as to provide extra income for those whose land it crosses.
“I’m wanting to make sure that my local district has the assets to be able to do what they need to do,” said Wayne Wilcox, 68, who runs a farm that has been in his family since 1884 and is a commissioner in Randolph County. “I just believe a project like this brings a lot of good to a community.”
But opponents flooded the state Public Service Commission with thousands of comments against the proposal. Among the objections was granting Clean Line eminent domain so it could profit from shipping electricity to energy-hungry regions that command higher power prices. In addition, opponents say that the lines can interrupt farming operations, pierce the country quiet with humming or popping sounds and pollute the nights with a glow.
And although the lines are said to be safe, farmers are warned not to refuel vehicles underneath them, or if refueling is necessary, to ground equipment with heavy chains.
Michael Skelly, Clean Line’s president and founder, said that the lines would not glow, but acknowledged that most landowners wouldn’t be eager to have the towers, which could rise 150 feet, on their properties. He also said that the exceptional winds of the Great Plains could go a long way toward reducing the country’s carbon emissions, and that the company would compensate landowners for their sacrifice. And since there is no comprehensive, national transmission-building program, he said, it was up to private companies to devise business models to handle it.
“The difficult thing is that with infrastructure of any type, it has to go somewhere,” he said, adding, “To motivate investors, there has to be a possibility that they make money — otherwise, it’s not going to happen.”
The state’s five-member Public Service Commission, which rejected the proposal by one vote, concluded that its priority was Missouri, and “that any actual benefits to the general public from the project are outweighed by the burdens on affected landowners.”
One of the dissenting commissioners, Daniel Y. Hall, who is now the chairman, wrote that the majority had used an “overly narrow and parochial interpretation of the public interest” that put the state “on the wrong side of history.”
That debate is far from over. Clean Line plans to reapply, Mr. Skelly said, and Ms. Gatrel and her neighbors have vowed to continue their fight.
Last month, she stood on a windswept hill at her home, just below a flock of chickens and ducks pecking near a cold frame holding the last of a crop of lettuce. Her son, Dalton, ran a pony around a ring while her husband, who like his wife is 35 years old, worked cattle on horseback in a nearby pasture.
“I love this life,” she said. “I love this land.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/24/business/energy-environment/fight-to-keep-alternative-energy-local-stymies-an-industry.html?_r=0
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Truth or Consequences in Energy Policy, Part I
Mar 24, 2016 | The Hill - Pundits Blog
By Charles McConnell
The climate and the environment; energy security and energy affordability. No topics are more relevant and impactful.
In this piece and two more to follow, I'll examine three simple questions and answers, much like the old television show "Truth or Consequences." Clean coal technology: Is it possible? If so, how? Or should we simply eliminate coal?The Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan (CPP): Can we afford to stop it? Can we afford to adopt it? Is it meaningful?Clean, accessible energy: What does Bill Gates's energy rallying cry require for success?
Let's begin with today's question: Is there any such thing as clean coal technology? How can it be achieved and what have we done so far? If you take climate change and carbon dioxide emissions seriously, it's no joke! The consequences of getting this wrong are enormous.
The first answer is yes, clean coal technology does exist and it is possible. In 1970, our country faced a need to double the amount of generated electricity to fuel our growth, and natural gas was not an option yet realized. Coal was the most abundant and affordable fuel and yet the environmental consequences of the day were recognized to be SOx (sulfur oxide), NOx (nitrogen oxide), mercury and suspended particulates (the four Ps), and they had to be curtailed. We took the challenge by investing in technology, and over the next 30 years, we doubled our electricity generated by coal and reduced the four Ps by 90 percent. Technology in its finest hour.
The public/private/governmental investment in coal technology research, deployment of advanced technologies, and systems and efficiency all contributed to this phenomena. Developing countries in the world today face those same energy-growth needs, and coal is the fuel that continues to grow 20 percent per year globally. Advanced technologies must be deployed globally to realize positive environmental impact.
Yet today, we face a fifth environmental challenge: carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. Climate change is occurring. It's real. Carbon dioxide emissions are impacting our climate and arguing about it further only serves to take our eye off the ball. The actions we take must be sensible, impactful and effect real change.
This is where the debate and thoughtful thinking should be about how to address carbon dioxide emissions, but instead it devolves into choosing sides between either using coal or quitting coal. That is the wrong debate. It's not about the fuel; it’s about the emissions! The world will continue to increase coal use globally. How we use coal and what emissions result is the real question. Quitting coal is not an option for today or the foreseeable future, and in fact, many who suggest natural gas as the miracle replacement for coal ignore the fact that carbon dioxide is emitted from natural gas generation as well.
In his most recent annual letter, Gates notes that "the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent by 2050, and eliminate them entirely by the end of the century." I will discuss Gates's charge in an upcoming column, but this message is clear: We must take action on the emissions or there will be consequences. But how?
Wind, solar, renewables of all kinds, as well as nuclear, will all play a role and require massive investment and deployment for the rest of this century. But over the coming 50 plus years, the globally growing (20 percent per year) coal-fired power-generation emissions must be reduced.
The International Energy Agency has recently published the road map for climate and energy policies, and it clearly states there is no possible way to achieve long-term carbon dioxide emissions reductions and climate change without carbon dioxide capture and storage from existing coal and fossil-fueled power plants, much less any new investments in electric generation.
But would it not be great to just eliminate coal and gas-fired power? No, not really — not yet. Our world relies on energy, and our grandest global challenge is providing electricity to the 1 billion people living in energy poverty today and for the additional 2 billion people on our planet by the year 2050 who will double energy demand. We need all of the energy we can get, and it must be secure, abundant and affordable, so eliminating energy-supply options to the world is counterproductive as we must facilitate the transition, not burden it with a lack of affordable energy.
Carbon capture and storage of carbon dioxide is a program that the U.S. Department of Energy has been promoting for nearly 15 years. Recently, the global acceptance of the inevitable need for worldwide deployment has never been stronger. It is also now recognized that simply treating carbon dioxide as a "waste" is just that — a waste. Using the carbon dioxide for business purposes in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is not only good for energy security and productivity, but also for the climate. We capture the carbon dioxide, prevent it from being emitted into the atmosphere, use it and then safely and permanently store it: carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS). We produce oil and gas while creating environmental benefit.
CCUS is no joke if one is serious about the environment. It is the pathway for fossil fuels to be responsibly used over the next 50 years as our society makes the transition to a less fossil-fuel-dependent future. Any carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere over these next 50 years will still be in the atmosphere at the end of this century. We must act now and not be deluded by wishful thinking that renewables are the sole answer. It's not even close.
When Secretary of State John Kerry was recently questioned by Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) about coal, Kerry acknowledged that coal will be "an energy of choice due to affordability." He said, "I've always supported major efforts for clean coal technology investment, and we ought to be trying to lead on that. If we can discover how to do that, that would be superb."
So now, the truth or consequences test: True, coal will be an energy of choice due to affordability. But, unfortunately, Mr. Secretary, this administration has not always supported clean coal technology. I previously served in this same administration, when the Department of Energy (DOE) coal technology budgets to address carbon dioxide were slashed 40 percent per year for two years in a row. This year, the administration is actively working to defund $240 million more from CCUS efforts and "repurpose" those funds to renewables. Another 40 percent cut to the DOE fossil budget for research.
The consequences of pretending to be supportive are devastating. The U.S. has a CCUS program in the DOE, with key industry co-investors, and it can accomplish the "superb" you speak of. And yet, we are cutting the budget for it again?
Does that sound like leading to you? Me neither.
Globally, we are looked upon as leaders, but are we? Where I grew up in eastern Ohio and later in Pittsburgh, where many of my former colleagues at the National Energy Technology Laboratory reside today, we had a most appropriate response to talk that sounded phony: "Put your money where your mouth is."
So, Mr. Secretary and this administration, what is it? Do you really wish to lead technology change globally and truly impact the environment or would you rather go to the next Sierra Club meeting as a keynote speaker and pronounce a feel-good moment for zero tolerance of any future with coal or fossil fuels?
Let's stop the political pontification and embrace investing in technology. Let's put our money where our mouth is.
It surely won't come from environmental overreach policies that sound like the salvation but in fact are not. But that's the topic for the next column on the proposed Clean Power Plan that this administration has categorized as the "centerpiece to our climate plan ... reducing carbon emissions." Truth or consequences?
McConnell is executive director of the Energy and Environment Initiative at Rice University and a former assistant secretary of energy at the Department of Energy from 2011 to 2013.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/274156-truth-or-consequences-in-energy-policy-part-i
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From Flint to Fracking, EPA Can Learn from Its Mistakes
Mar 23, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Barbara Gottlieb
As most of us have heard by now, an emergency manager in Flint, Michigan switched water sources from Lake Huron to the Flint River in April 2014 to cut costs without adding required corrosion controls. The EPA was aware of dangerously high levels of lead in the water supply the following year, but chose to remain silent for months.
The result? Hundreds of Flint children are thought to now have elevated blood-lead levels, which can lead to serious, irreversible damage to the nervous system.
To its credit, EPA has finally admitted its mistakes and begun to take responsibility. But Flint is not an isolated example. All too often, the EPA seems to let polluters off the hook.
A striking example is EPA’s report on the drinking water impacts of fracking for oil and natural gas. In June 2015, EPA released a draft report summarizing the scientific evidence about the frequency and severity of fracking’s impacts on drinking water. The EPA reviewed evidence of fracking incidents including spills of toxic fracking fluid and chemicals, groundwater contamination, discharges of fracking waste into rivers and streams, and underground migration of fracking chemicals, including methane, into drinking water wells.
The report confirms over 450 specific cases of spills of chemicals and water contamination caused by drilling and fracking-related actions. The report also identifies the multiple mechanisms by which contamination took place.
Despite these clear findings, the report used language that was misleading and has since been misinterpreted by the media, industry and the public to suggest that fracking is safe and that there is not evidence of harm to our water resources. They summarize the draft report saying that the “assessment shows hydraulic fracturing has not led to widespread, systemic impacts to drinking water resources.”
Now EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board panel, tasked with reviewing the June draft, has raised highly critical comments about the agency’s representation of its findings. Last month in a public teleconference on the report, scientific, health, and legal experts testified about the shortcomings of the Agency’s study. Numerous organizations, including my own, have submitted letters to the Science Advisory Board, voicing our own disagreement with EPA’s apparent stance.
Is EPA too focused on protecting the fracking industry, rather than the people it is supposed to serve? Several well-known fracking cases highlight this concern, yet were inexplicably excluded from the June draft report.
In late 2010, EPA issued an emergency order that said at least two homeowners in Parker County, Texas were in immediate danger of having their water contaminated, and required the local drilling company, Range Resources, to provide clean water. But over a year later the mandate was quietly dropped. It was later revealed that EPA had scientific evidence indicating that the driller, Range Resources, had caused the water contamination, but the Agency acceded to corporate pressure from the company, choosing to discontinue the investigation rather than see it through.
In a second high-profile case, EPA released in 2011 a draft report suggesting that fracking likely explained pollution of underground sources of drinking water in the Pavillion gas basin in Wyoming, where residents had been complaining about foul water for years. Two years later EPA suddenly dropped the investigation, handing it over to Wyoming state officials, who happened to be pro-fracking.
A similar situation arose in Dimock, Pennsylvania, where EPA cut short its investigation despite strong evidence of water contamination, including multiple cases of exploding drinking water wells.
The pattern is clear and troubling: EPA has dropped investigations that seemed likely to lead to the conclusion that fracking causes health and safety hazards.
As health professionals we work to prevent harm to the public’s health. The public has a right to know the risks associated with fracking in their communities.
For these reasons, we call on the EPA to clearly state in its report the logical conclusion of its own findings: that specific mechanisms associated with fracking activities place our aquifers and drinking water at increased risk of harm, and that evidence exists of harm already inflicted on drinking water resources, caused directly by fracking and its related activities.
Then it will be time to turn our attention to protecting affected residents and remediating the chemical contamination that they, like the children of Flint, face in their drinking water and their daily lives.
Gottlieb is director of Environment & Health for Physicians for Social Responsibility.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/273950-from-flint-to-fracking-epa-can-learn-from-its-mistakes
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