Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 3/24/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) Former Farmer Molds Nation's Chemical Law Behind the Scenes
Mar 24, 2016 | E&E News
By Sam Pearson
Cal Dooley is not your typical lobbyist. The former farmer who rises early and likes to work outside stands to make a big mark on U.S. environmental regulation as the head of the chemical industry's largest trade organization... -
Perez: Silica Rule is Feasible
Mar 24, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Marianne Levine
Labor Secretary Tom Perez said today that the Labor Department’s final silica rule “provides remarkable flexibility to employers.” -
Congress Protects Monsanto at Expense of Local Taxpayers
Mar 23, 2016 | San Jose Mercury News
By Ken Cook
San Jose, Oakland and Berkeley are suing Monsanto for poisoning San Francisco Bay with PCBs, chlorine-based chemicals that can cause cancer and other diseases. -
The Organic Industry’s GMO Hoax
Mar 24, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Amanda Zalukyj
The Senate failed to pass an amendment that would create a national policy of labeling foods containing genetically modified ingredients (GMOs). -
Seac 'Exceeded Its Powers' in Authorisation Case, Say MEPs
Mar 24, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Geraint Roberts
A group of MEPs has asked Echa to address what they call “important horizontal issues”, raised by the Opinions adopted by the agency’s committees on an authorisation application. -
With Climate Rule on Hold, Should States Worry About Deadlines?
Mar 24, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Critics of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan are urging states to stop planning for the electricity sector regulation, arguing they will get extra time to meet carbon targets if the courts uphold the rule. -
Time to Fess Up and Walk Back Our Paris Pledge
Mar 24, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Paul C. Knappenberger
At last December’s UN climate conference, President Obama pledged that the US would slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent between 2005 and 2025.. Since then, harsh realities have conspired against him... -
Clean Energy is Winning the Race Against Fossil Fuels — But the Planet is Still Losing
Mar 24, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
A new United Nations report has found that 2015 set a slew of new records for global investment in clean energy — and furthermore, the bulk of investment was not in places like the United States or Germany... -
Boost Investor Confidence and Watch America's Energy Market Transform
Mar 24, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Mary Barber
A recent decision by New Jersey utility regulators to standardize energy efficiency procedures for commercial buildings could have a major impact – not just on the Garden State – but on energy markets nationwide. -
'Fracture' Raises Alarm About Dangers of Fracking in Prose, Verse
Mar 24, 2016 | Chicago Tribune
By Thomas Fate
The same night I first started reading "Fracture," a new literary anthology about hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking"), I happened to hear Sen. Al Franken (D.-Minn.) on CNN, endorsing the practice as a "viable part of our energy policy." -
Feinstein: Iran Indictments Show Congress Must Act on Critical Infrastructure
Mar 24, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Joseph Marks
Congress must do more to protect U.S. critical infrastructure from cyberattacks, Sen. Dianne Feinsteinsaid today following the indictment of seven Iranian hackers accused of attacking U.S. financial institutions. -
Search Underway for Cause of Fatal Ammonia Leak in S. Boston
Mar 24, 2016 | Boston Globe
By Kathy McCabe and John R. Ellement
The federal workplace safety agency and other officials are investigating an ammonia leak inside a South Boston fish warehouse where a worker was killed Wednesday night as first responders struggled... -
'Long Shot' Project to Move Rail Outside Chicago Gets Lifeline
Mar 24, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Frank Patton is "absolutely convinced" he will build a railroad. Now he just needs to convince the public. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chlorine Industry Linked to Unreported Carbon Tetrachloride Emissions
Mar 24, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Philip Lightowlers
US scientists have found that atmospheric measurements of the ozone-depleting substance, carbon tetrachloride, show that national emissions are almost 100 times higher than reported to the US EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). -
Industries Use CWA Rule Suit Rehearing Bid to Challenge Permit Ruling
Mar 24, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Groups representing agriculture, developers, and other industries are adding to calls for the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to reverse a divided panel ruling giving the court authority to hear suits over EPA's Clean Water Act... -
Creating a Bipartisan Climate to Discuss Climate Change in Congress
Mar 24, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Reps. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) and Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.)
As a Republican and a Democrat representing South Florida in Congress, the alarming findings on the acceleration of sea level rise recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hit close to home. -
Punishing Climate-Change Skeptics
Mar 24, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By David B. Rifkin Jr. and Andrew W. Grossman
Galileo Galilei was tried in 1633 for spreading the heretical view that the Earth orbits the sun, convicted by the Roman Catholic Inquisition, and remained under house arrest until his death. Today’s inquisitors seek...
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(ACC Mentioned) Former Farmer Molds Nation's Chemical Law Behind the Scenes
Mar 24, 2016 | E&E News
By Sam Pearson
Cal Dooley is not your typical lobbyist.
The former farmer who rises early and likes to work outside stands to make a big mark on U.S. environmental regulation as the head of the chemical industry's largest trade organization, the American Chemistry Council.
But he wouldn't describe it that way, his backers say.
"Unlike many people in Washington, Cal is not looking for the spotlight," said Anne Kolton, the American Chemistry Council's vice president of communications, who joined the group in 2010 after stints at the George W. Bush White House and the Department of Energy.
His personality was evident in the staging of a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol last year that roped in 10 senators and members of advocacy groups that supported a pending bill to update the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Listed by a lawmaker's office as a speaker at the event, Dooley instead looked on from the audience.
But Dooley, 62, a Tulare County, Calif., farmer-turned-Democratic-congressman and now president and CEO of the powerful trade group that represents the nation's largest chemical companies, may have played the biggest role of all in making the legislative changes touted before reporters possible.
The effort roped in lawmakers of both parties, who often spar on other energy and environmental concerns (Greenwire, Oct. 6, 2015).
The trade group's decision to back TSCA on its terms -- rather than fighting to keep the status quo -- is seen as critical in creating a political environment where the issue can move forward in Congress. ACC upped its lobbying spending when Dooley was hired in 2008 and spent more than $72 million on advocacy through 2015, or about $135,000 per member of Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, and now has more than 200 employees at its Washington, D.C., offices.
Though the ACC faces criticism of its policies from many environmental groups, observers say its leader has used his own blend of pragmatism, cool-headed thinking and pro-business sensibilities to become a respected and well-compensated lobbyist. And his personal and professional connections have ingratiated him with lawmakers of both parties who stand ready to help the industry's priorities.
It's a style that has proven lucrative for Dooley, who earned more than $3 million from the tax-exempt group in 2013, according to its filings with the Internal Revenue Service.
"No one wants to be poisoning; everyone wants to be good stewards," said Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), who leads the committee with jurisdiction over federal regulation of toxic chemicals. "The question is, then, it's good stewardship by what degree? Good stewardship as defined by whom? And if good stewardship as defined by some environmental communities is, just shut down the factories? I don't think Cal's that kind of guy."
Even some of the group's adversaries find Dooley likeable, though they disagree with ACC's policy positions.
"It's sort of a classic Washington, D.C., frenemies story," said Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook, who testified before Congress last year that consumers had been "misled and worse time and again" by the industry.
Dooley is no stranger to building a coalition. As a lawmaker in the 1990s, he was among House Agriculture Committee leaders who worked to build a coalition to pass what became the Food Quality Protection Act in 1996.
Now, as the House and Senate are negotiating how to reconcile two versions of the TSCA legislation, Dooley stands on the cusp of what could be his biggest policy win yet -- though his aides say he isn't counting.
The soft sell
Former staffers and lawmakers who have worked with Dooley describe him as cerebral but passionate -- and one who prefers gentle persuasion to putting the screws on.
Dooley is "trusted and respected," Shimkus said, describing technical discussions between ACC lawyers and his committee staff on TSCA.
At such meetings, Dooley and Shimkus often both listen in as teams of lawyers get into the weeds.
"You're talking to lawyers, and they're talking to my lawyers, and I'm kind of in the room, hoping that they're talking the same language," Shimkus said.
While other lawmakers got worked up, Dooley preferred to stay cool and patient, said Adam Kovacevich, who served as Dooley's press secretary in the early 2000s and is now Google's director of U.S. public policy, even though that meant it sometimes took longer to get his points across.
"Cal just realized there was more power in calm, respectful, behind-the-scenes advocacy," Kovacevich said, "which turned out to be true."
Dooley bristled when New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall (D) asked at a 2011 hearing if he was concerned about health studies that showed harmful chemicals were accumulating in American's blood and fingered the industry as an obstacle to reform.
"I take offense when anyone would even insinuate that our industry is supporting an increase in the body burden of chemicals," Dooley said then.
But in reality, the men are on better terms.
Dooley and Udall have known each other for years, and their wives, Jill Cooper and Linda Dooley, are friends.
"It always makes a difference when you know each other and when you're able to have a basic trust of each other," Udall told Greenwire.
Dooley's friendships with lawmakers stem from his time in Congress, ACC's Kolton said.
"It was nowhere near as personal as it is, or as it seems, today," Kolton said. "He has a lot of different friends from all different kinds of political backgrounds and all different walks of life."
Jon Whelan, a filmmaker who directed and starred in a 2015 documentary "Stink!" about the regulation of chemicals in the United States, included an unplanned interview with Dooley near the end of the film.
The ACC is "just used to dealing at a high level with press releases," Whelan said. "They don't want to talk to someone like me because I'll ask them questions that are off the script."
When Whelan posed a series of pointed questions to Dooley after he left a 2011 House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, the ex-lawmaker stayed on message -- arguing that chemicals are regulated by a strong federal system in which consumers should have confidence. Dooley encouraged the filmmaker to talk with his staff so they could film a longer interview. That never happened, Whelan said.
Dooley also declined to be interviewed for this story.
"He's a pro, you know what I mean?" Whelan said. "He's very slick. He doesn't break for a second. He could have punched me in the nose, but he didn't -- I'm grateful for that."
Despite getting the runaround, Whelan said he understood why Dooley made the arguments he did.
"I'm sure he's not an evil monster -- he's doing his job," Whelan said. "I'm sure you could sit there and have a beer and he's probably a nice guy."
Kolton said ACC's position that chemicals should be evaluated based on their exposure, and not solely their risk, dovetails with Dooley's political philosophy of regulatory pragmatism.
"The idea of risk, it's very consistent with Cal's overall outlook," Kolton said. "There are multiple factors that have to come into play when you make a judgement. Things are not as black and white as people will tell you they are."
Hands-on perspective
Dooley was part of the fourth-generation of his family to farm California's San Joaquin Valley. A graduate of Hanford High School in Hanford, Calif., in 1972, Dooley earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural economics from the University of California, Davis, and a master's degree in management from Stanford University.
Dooley also has family members in public service.
His brother, Dan Dooley, was a partner at several law firms and worked as an administrator at the University of California system and on the California Board of Food and Agriculture. Sister-in-law Diana Dooley serves as California's secretary of health and human services.
Unlike many of today's members of Congress, Dooley moved his family to a Northern Virginia home from the beginning, where he used to entertain other lawmakers, according to The Modesto Bee.
"Cal is a master barbecuer," Linda Dooley told the Bee in 2004.
Some lawmakers still regularly have dinner at the Dooley's McLean, Va., home.
Linda Dooley ran a nonprofit organization, the Bryce Harlow Foundation, before retiring in 2014. The foundation is a fellowship program for young professionals in the lobbying and communication fields.
Accepting an award from the foundation in 2004, Dooley said hard realities of being a farmer motivated him to branch out professionally.
"If you have ever been on a D7 Caterpillar tractor in the Central Valley of California in the middle of August when it is 105 and dusty, you know there is something better in life," Dooley said in 2004 while accepting an award.
Dooley is still a morning person -- a holdover from his days on the farm, Kolton said. He tries to be out of the office by 5:30 p.m.
Dooley's willingness to reconsider established positions -- like his pivot on ACC's past resistance to updating the chemicals law -- was evident in his openness to cutting farm subsidies as a member of the House Agriculture Committee.
As Congress worked on the farm bill in 2001, Dooley was one of just a few lawmakers open to taking an ax to the benefits -- even though his district was heavily agricultural and he was taking home the benefits personally at the time.
Dooley Farms received $306,942 in subsidies from 1996 to 2000, The New York Timesreported in 2001, citing EWG data.
Dooley was also one of 21 Democrats to support granting former President George W. Bush trade promotion authority in 2001 -- a proposal that passed the House by a single vote.
"He came from a very different background, and he looked at it very much through an agricultural lens," said Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.), a skeptic of free trade agreements.
Though Levin said he and Dooley didn't change each other's minds, "We respected our differences."
Dooley's openness to cutting farm subsidies won Cook's respect, the EWG head said. EWG -- which more recently has worked closely with a chemical industry critic, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) -- held press conferences with Dooley during the farm bill debate.
"When I listened to Cal, I learned something, and it was usually helpful," said former Rep. Charles Stenholm (D-Texas), then the ranking member on the Agriculture Committee, who pushed to keep the subsidies.
In the office, Dooley was known for worker-friendly policies such as encouraging new mothers to take their babies to work with them regularly during their first year after giving birth, a former staffer said. Dooley also wouldn't hesitate to insert himself in the weeds of policy when necessary, the ex-aide said, like meeting with House legislative counsel staffers drafting a proposed reform of the system of farm subsidies -- an unusual step for members of Congress to do themselves.
A motto in his old congressional office, Dooley said, was "Strive to be relevant."
Another former top aide, ex-chief of staff Lisa Quigley, said Dooley attracted staffers who wanted "to work for the people that are the most relevant to the process."
That made employment in Dooley's office attractive because of his influence as a moderate Democrat able to cut deals with the GOP and hold the ear of the Clinton and Bush administrations, Quigley said.
Quigley, who is now the chief of staff to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), ran and lost a primary campaign to replace Dooley in 2004 to Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.).
Stenholm echoed Cook's assessment.
"I haven't talked to him lately, but every time I have he's been very happy at what he's doing," Stenholm said, "and the people that are paying him are happy, too."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/03/24/stories/1060034579
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Perez: Silica Rule is Feasible
Mar 24, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Marianne Levine
Labor Secretary Tom Perez said today that the Labor Department’s final silica rule “provides remarkable flexibility to employers.”
Speaking at the International Masonry Institute in Maryland, Perez warned that some business groups will argue the new rule is economically unfeasible. But “we’re not imposing a one-size-fits all approach,” he said.
Workplace exposure to silica dust, common in the construction, shipbuilding, and fracking industries, can cause silicosis and lung cancer. OSHA estimates that the new standard will save 600 lives per year. But the Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the rule, said today that it "will require almost $1 million per plant to put in place compliance equipment, with an annual cost after that of almost $225,000."
Forty-five years in the making, the rule limiting workers' exposure to silica dust will reduce the permissible exposure limit to crystalline silica to 50 micrograms per cubic meter over an eight-hour period. The current exposure limit is 250 micrograms per cubic meter for the construction industry and shipyards and 100 micrograms per cubic meter for all other industries. That limit dates to 1971 and is a "standard" rather than a formal rule, limiting the preventive actions that the federal government may require.
Perez said that the Labor Department conducted “extensive public outreach” throughout the rule making process and, as a result, changed the proposed rule’s compliance provisions. For example, he said the Labor Department is providing the construction industry with two different ways to comply with the rule.
Perez said that the 1971 standard was "out of date" when it was issued, and that the new rule's standards should have been in place then.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Congress Protects Monsanto at Expense of Local Taxpayers
Mar 23, 2016 | San Jose Mercury News
By Ken Cook
San Jose, Oakland and Berkeley are suing Monsanto for poisoning San Francisco Bay with PCBs, chlorine-based chemicals that can cause cancer and other diseases. The groundbreaking litigation could set a precedent for communities' right to hold manufacturers liable for pollution from their products, even when the companies didn't directly spill or dump the toxins.
But the lawsuits could be thwarted by legislation pending in Congress. A little-noticed provision in an industry-friendly chemical regulation bill could let Monsanto off the hook for production of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, banned in the U.S. since 1979.
The Monsanto bailout clause is in a House bill to rewrite the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA. It could prevent states from passing their own laws on PCBs and block local governments, states and citizens from suing for damage or disease from the chemicals.
At stake is a staggering legacy of human and environmental devastation -- and lots of money. Cities are required by state law to treat runoff before it enters the bay, and Oakland's city attorney says the cost could be $1 billion in Alameda County alone.
PCBs have spread worldwide, polluting the bodies of polar bears, whales and almost everyone on Earth. They are listed as human carcinogens by the state of California and also linked to liver damage and reproductive disorders. Pollution from PCBs and mercury are why the state warns anglers to strictly limit eating fish from the San Francisco Bay.
From 1935 to 1977, Monsanto was the only maker of PCBs, which are fire-resistant agents used in electrical equipment and other products. Monsanto knew early on that PCBs were hazardous but hid what it knew from regulators and the public. The cover-up was revealed through documents unearthed in a lawsuit by residents of Anniston, Alabama, where Monsanto made PCBs. In 2003, the company settled the lawsuit for $700 million.
Monsanto and two spinoffs have been sued by hundreds of people sickened by PCBs, and last year, six Western cities sued to recover costs of treating PCB-contaminated runoff into waterways. They charge that though the pollution comes from other companies using PCBs, Monsanto, as the sole manufacturer, is at fault because it knew there was no way to keep PCBs from leaking.
Early drafts of the House TSCA bill said nothing about PCBs. But when the bill was introduced in May, days after another lawsuit was filed, a paragraph had been inserted that could exempt PCB makers -- read: Monsanto -- from liability.
If it becomes law, it could powerfully strengthen the company's argument that federal chemical regulations pre-empt lawsuits by state and local governments and citizens.
The bailout clause is one of many problems with both the House and Senate bills to revise TSCA -- a law already so toothless the Environmental Protection Agency has only regulated five chemicals since 1976. Both versions don't go far enough to give EPA the authority to ensure chemicals are safe before they're allowed in the market.
The Senate TSCA bill has a similar clause, but a committee report said it is not meant to bar lawsuits. The two versions must be reconciled before the bill becomes law. If the bailout clause stays in, it could leave PCB victims without recourse and stick cash-strapped local governments with the bill for Monsanto's mess.
Congress should reject the bailout, hold Monsanto responsible and enact real chemical reform to protect public health, not polluters' profits.
Ken Cook is president of the Environmental Working Group, with offices in Oakland and Washington, D.C. He wrote this for this newspaper.
http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_29672530/ken-cook-congress-protects-monsanto-at-expense-local
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The Organic Industry’s GMO Hoax
Mar 24, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Amanda Zalukyj
The Senate failed to pass an amendment that would create a national policy of labeling foods containing genetically modified ingredients (GMOs). Congress was forced to move on the issue after the Vermont legislature passed a law requiring all food and beverages sold in the state to carry a label if any ingredients were produced by genetic engineering. Without federal guidance, food companies are at the mercy of whatever patchwork laws the states cobble together. Sold as consumers “right to know” about their food, the real purpose of the Vermont law is to scare customers into buying pricier organic food by making them afraid of a safe technology.
Genetically modified crops are scientifically designed to enhance certain properties in a plant. Plants can be made pest-resistant or more nutritious, for example.
More than 1700 studies, conducted worldwide, have demonstrated genetically modified foods are safe for human and animal consumption. Their use has dramatically cut pesticide spraying, while simultaneously increasing yields and farmer profits.
To be considered organic, among other things, products must be free of genetically engineered ingredients. After recognizing the threat this new technology posed to its industry, organic product manufacturers began to insinuate GMOs were somehow dangerous and demand labeling.
Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association, admitted that scaring consumers into buying organic food was a marketing ploy, saying the first step to growing organic market share is to change labeling laws.
Other leaders in the organic industry believe the same, and they put their money where their mouths are. GMO labeling organization, Just Label It, was initially funded by a “who’s who” of organic product companies, including Organic Valley, Clif Bar, Annie’s Homegrown Organic, and Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. The head of the group is Gary Hirshberg, the chairman of Stonyfield Organic, who regularly implies that there is a link between GMOs and cancer or birth defects (there isn’t). Stonyfield Organic’s website claims, “There’s still a lot of work to be done to learn about the possible negative effects of GMOs on animal and human health.” Just Label It recently compared senators who voted against GMO labeling to Darth Vader, as though standing up for science based policy is the equivalent of being part of the Evil Empire.
There’s no scare tactic too dirty for the organic industry seeking new customers. The Organic Consumers Association recently claimed that it was pesticides, not the Zika virus, causing birth defects in South American children. (That’s false.) Horizon Organic Milk’s “consulting pediatrician” Alan Greene wrote in his book Feeding Baby Green that GMOs have caused food allergies. In actuality, no crops on the market contain allergens created by genetic modification and scientists carefully test new products to make sure that will never happen. But Horizon’s quack doctor continues to propagate the myth.
Besides the marketing, the organic industry has funded anti-GMO scientists who regularly perform poorly designed experiments that they claim “prove” GMOs are somehow problematic. Charles Benbrook, formerly a Washington State University research professor, indicated he was a “scientist for hire” in recently released emails. He offered to author an anti-GMO study for an Australian trial lawyer in exchange for a six figure payout.
The pay-to-play revelation was no surprise to those in the agriculture community. The organic industry funded his position at Washington State University from 2012 to 2015 and, in turn, he published numerous studies claiming to demonstrate the dangers of conventional agriculture and the benefits of organic. Those studies have been widely discredited and debunked by the scientific community for their “inaccurate claims,” “biased assumptions” and “misleading uses of official data.”
That didn’t stop the organic industry, and its activist allies, from trumpeting Benbrook’s findings and using them as proof that GMO labeling is necessary.
The congressional failure to pass the Roberts amendment (S.3450) providing federal guidance on GMOs shows these scare tactics have worked. The organic industry has taken a safe, effective technology and scared people into thinking it needs to be labeled. A better label for those worried about GMOs would be for organic packages, saying “I’m with stupid.”
Zaluckyj is an attorney and agriculture writer at The Farmers Daughter USA.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/274069-the-organic-industrys-gmo-hoax
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Seac 'Exceeded Its Powers' in Authorisation Case, Say MEPs
Mar 24, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Geraint Roberts
A group of MEPs has asked Echa to address what they call “important horizontal issues”, raised by the Opinions adopted by the agency’s committees on an authorisation application.
The four MEPs, all members of the Parliament’s Environment Committee and including representatives of the two main political blocs, the EPP and S&D groups, say Echa’s Socio-Economic Analysis Committee (Seac) “exceeded its powers” and accepted “unsubstantiated arguments” by the applicant.
In a letter to Echa executive director, Geert Dancet, and the chair of the agency’s Management Board, Nina Cromnier, they ask the agency to conduct an “in-depth assessment” of their legal concerns, and to ensure that, in the future, Seac leaves what it calls political decisions to the European Commission.
The MEPs – Pavel Poc, Cristian Silviu Busoi, Bas Eickhout and Benedek Jávor – say they were pleased that Echa’s Management Board was due to discuss the matter at its meeting last week.
Echa’s secretariat and parliamentary staff met on 26 February to discuss the concerns raised by the authorisation application, submitted by recycling firm Vinyloop for the formulation of recycled PVC, containing the phthalate DEHP.
The meeting came after the European Parliament passed a non-binding Resolution, last November, demanding that the Commission reject the application on the grounds that it posed a serious health risk to workers in recycling plants.
The MEPs say that both Seac and Echa’s Risk Assessment Committee (Rac), which also assesses authorisation applications, documented serious deficiencies in the application but recommended that authorisation go ahead. For example, although Rac decided adequate control could not be demonstrated, it recommended that authorisation be granted for four years. Similarly, Seac said there were “significant deficiencies in the socio-economic analysis provided by the applicant, such as the lack of a health assessment”, but decided on balance to recommend authorisation for seven years.
“Without proper use of data in the application … there is no basis for a proper assessment of the risks, nor of the socio-economic benefits, nor of available alternatives,” said the MEPs. “In our view, the recommendations by Rac and Seac violate the letter and the spirit of REACH.”
According to REACH Article 64(4b), Seac’s remit, they say, is simply to assess the socio-economic factors and the availability, suitability and technical feasibility of alternatives, not to assess whether the benefits outweigh the risks – a role that should be left for the Commission.
Seac also accepted unsubstantiated arguments, say the MEPs, and these led to inconsistencies in the committee’s assessment. For example, Seac said in the body of its Opinion that it “could not conclude on net societal cost or benefit to the applicant” – only to say in its conclusions that “there would be significant costs for the applicant.”
https://chemicalwatch.com/45927/seac-exceeded-its-powers-in-authorisation-case-say-meps
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With Climate Rule on Hold, Should States Worry About Deadlines?
Mar 24, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Critics of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan are urging states to stop planning for the electricity sector regulation, arguing they will get extra time to meet carbon targets if the courts uphold the rule.
But despite a Supreme Court order that could halt the standards for at least the next year and a half, supporters believe judges could adhere to most of the agency's original timeline and require emissions cuts starting in 2022.
"There's no reason to believe deadlines will be tolled in the way opponents of the plan have said," said New York University law professor and Institute for Policy Integrity Director Richard Revesz.
With the uncertainty surrounding the rule's timeline, states are examining legal precedent to figure out whether they might be caught flat-footed if they stop planning. Inadequate efforts could lead to fewer long-term climate benefits and higher electricity costs, backers of the rule say.
A Supreme Court decision on whether the Clean Power Plan is legal would come no sooner than the summer of 2017. If the high court reviews and upholds the rule, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit would likely be responsible for resetting any deadlines that have passed and deciding whether to push back, or "toll," future deadlines, Revesz said.
He believes the court would give states more time to submit their plans, since a 2016 deadline for initial plans would have passed and a 2018 deadline for final plans would be rapidly approaching. But he's not comfortable predicting whether a court would delay deadlines for states to start cutting emissions in 2022 and ramp up those cuts through 2030.
He said judges may look at how much progress states have already made toward their goals.
"It might be, for example, that renewables are entering the market more quickly than we had anticipated, which may mean that some of the burdens are less serious," Revesz said.
On Capitol Hill, however, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is revitalizing his call for states to take a "wait-and-see" approach, recalling his largely unsuccessful campaign last year for them to refuse to make carbon-cutting plans and "just say no." Many states publicly opposing the Clean Power Plan had been meeting to prepare for it before the stay, which the Supreme Court issued in February (Greenwire, Oct. 28, 2015).
Now, 19 states have suspended official planning activities for the rule, although some of them have said they will continue limited talks behind the scenes.
GOP to EPA: Don't undermine the stay
Ken Colburn, a consultant with the Regulatory Assistance Project who works with state officials on the rule, noted that last year officials with suing states said publicly that they weren't planning. But, he said, "in reality, the agencies in almost all states were quietly getting their arms around what the CPP would compel them to do."
"Most state agencies regard the stay as providing some welcome additional time for continued planning," he said. "Obviously, the longer states have to plan, the better job they can do, even if their political situation requires them to stop short, say, of conducting broad public stakeholder processes just yet."
House Republicans in an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing with EPA chief Gina McCarthy this week questioned how EPA was handling the rule under the stay, charging that the agency may be encouraging states to keep working.
"You appear to be signaling to states that they must continue to take action and spend resources and signaling to utilities that they must respond to the potential rule, which appears to undermine the purpose of the stay," Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.) told the administrator, adding, "Congress may have to take steps to come in and prevent you from taking any action that effectively undermines the stay."
McCarthy reiterated that her agency "is not dictating any implementation of this rule or telling any state they have to do anything. We are just offering the ability to support them, as we always do."
Other than the cancellation of the initial submittal deadline this September, EPA has not made any definitive statements regarding whether Clean Power Plan timelines may change under the stay, although the agency continues to work on carbon trading guidance for states (ClimateWire, March 18).
Asked whether deadlines for Clean Power Plan compliance will change at a House hearing this week, McCarthy said, "The Supreme Court didn't speak to that issue. The only thing they spoke to was the stay of the rule. They didn't speak to ... what it meant in terms of compliance timelines."
EPA may have a hard time arguing that states could write plans and comply in a shorter time frame, since the agency intentionally gave states two more years to start making carbon cuts when revising an earlier draft of the regulation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has noted.
'The sausage may already be cooked'
EPA argues it's premature to say whether deadlines might change, so states are left reading the tea leaves to brace for any legal outcome.
Arizona is one of nine states still weighing what to do in the wake of the February decision to stay the rule. Researchers for the state's Department of Environmental Quality are reviewing case law to determine how likely the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit might be to push back EPA's deadlines, if the rule survives.
The rule's chances may have improved since Justice Antonin Scalia, a likely opponent of the rule, died, leaving an opening on the bench that often splits votes along ideological lines (ClimateWire, March 17). Senate Republicans have said they will not confirm any Obama nominee, arguing that the next president should pick the replacement justice.
Hoping for a Republican president and conservative nominee, opponents of EPA are telling states not to waste their time planning for a rule that may be struck down or changed drastically. At worst, groups like the Chamber of Commerce, American Energy Alliance, FreedomWorks Foundation and Heritage Foundation argue, states will have more time to write their plans.
A recent white paper written for the chamber by law firm Sidley Austin LLP points to multiple examples when the D.C. Circuit has revised deadlines after a stay, including for the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule.
The paper also argues that in granting a stay as requested, the Supreme Court was agreeing with the challengers who wanted to toll deadlines, which EPA disputes.
Tom Lorenzen, a former Justice Department attorney who represents industry clients at Crowell & Moring, said timeline decisions will ultimately be made by the courts, but "the terms of the order issued by the Supreme Court appeared to toll all the deadlines."
"They granted the application for the stay. They used that specific word, 'application,' for a stay," Lorenzen said. "The application asked for a one-for-one tolling of all deadlines ... so all the parties before the court understood that that was what was being talked about."
While the order is not explicit, Lorenzen said, "unless and until the Supreme Court says otherwise, that's what you have to assume."
Dan Byers, senior policy director for the chamber's Institute for 21st Century Energy, said EPA's refusal to say whether deadlines would be extended may influence state decisions to keep planning, even if EPA has said any work during the stay is not mandatory.
Not tolling deadlines would also punish states that are pushing back against the administration's climate agenda and don't have renewable electricity standards, said Nick Loris, an economist focusing on energy issues at the Heritage Foundation.
"By the time the Supreme Court makes a decision, the sausage may already be cooked," Loris said. "If that's the case, where so many stakeholders are buying into these plans when they are legally overturned or the Clean Power Plan is ultimately rejected by the courts, it might not matter because the states and all the stakeholders that are protecting themselves are going to want to move forward with the plan anyway."
Reporters Elizabeth Harball and Rod Kuckro contributed.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/03/24/stories/1060034549
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Time to Fess Up and Walk Back Our Paris Pledge
Mar 24, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Paul C. Knappenberger
At last December’s UN climate conference, President Obama pledged that the US would slash its greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent between 2005 and 2025. Since then, harsh realities have conspired against him, making that target infeasible if not downright impossible. Rather than pay the rest of the world to look the other way, the president should revise, or better yet, rescind that promise.
And now is the time to do that, before the grand signing ceremony of the Paris Climate Agreement that is scheduled for April 22, Earth Day, at the UN’s New York headquarters. Putting our name on a promise that we know we can’t keep would be a disingenuous act, painting the Paris Agreement not as a serious undertaking, but as a global publicity stunt.
It’s becoming all too clear that what the president was peddling at the UN climate conference—his leadership in producing great strides in reducing US GHG emissions and a laying the groundwork for a series of ever-more stringent policies going forward—was a bill of goods.
Consider his boasting that “[o]ver the last seven years, we’ve made…ambitious reductions in our carbon emissions.” Turns out that new scientific findings indicate that the EPA has been underestimating U.S. emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, so much so that whereas the EPA has been reporting a decline in methane emissions over the past decade, observations indicate a sharp rise. The EPA has now admitted that its past estimates were too low and is in the process of trying to fix them. Taking into account the new scientific findings, the recent decline in overall US greenhouse gas emissions highlighted by the president is lessened by nearly one-third—with much of what remains a result of the Great Recession and natural gas replacing coal in power generation, not Obama’s climate policies.
Or consider that the president told the UN assembly that “we’ve said yes to the first-ever set of national standards limiting the amount of carbon pollution our power plants can release into the sky” all the while knowing that virtually every analyst who had looked at the EPA’s Clean Power Plan knew that it stretched elements of the Clean Air Act to the point of breaking and was going to face a stiff, uphill legal battle. Barely two months later, the Supreme Court stayed the Clean Power Plan pending the outcome of the challenges. Even including the greenhouse gas reductions promised by the Clean Power Plan the path to Obama’s Paris pledge was uncertain, without it, there is no chance.
But that doesn’t keep the Obama administration from trying to make it seem otherwise. What it can’t achieve through emissions reductions, it is attempting to achieve through creative accounting. In the State Department’s Second Biennial Report Under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Obama administration significantly increased its estimates of how much carbon dioxide US forests were expected to uptake over the next 10 years. In its “optimistic” scenario, the one which gets closest to, but still doesn’t quite reach its Paris goals, the State Department projects the US forest carbon dioxide sink will expand by more than 33 percent. This seems highly implausible, considering the over the past 10 years, the US carbon sink has actually declined a small amount. But, by projecting the sink to change course and expand considerably, it reduces the pressure for Obama to find more emissions reductions, and thereby makes his emissions targets easier to reach.
Put it all together—a smaller observed decline in greenhouse gas emissions, a roadblock to additional emissions reductions going forward, overly optimist expectations—and add in cheap gas (more driving) and a growing economy that’s still tightly tied to fossil fuel use, and you are left with the stark realization that we are not going to come close to meeting the pledges Obama made to the international community in Paris last year.
The one promise, though, that the president has been able to keep, is his pledge to fund the UN.’s Green Climate Fund. Last week he handed over $500 million dollars to the Fund to show that “that the United States stands squarely behind our international climate commitments.” Perhaps that’ll be enough hush money to keep the rest of the world from complaining too loudly that the U.S. is overpromising its emissions commitments.
A successful signing day in New York this April will be a clear indication that the money transfer component of the Paris Agreement is more important than the climate change mitigation component. For those on the receiving end of this arrangement, this may be a good deal, but for us on the other end, we’re paying a lot, accomplishing little, and hoping to get kudos for “doing something.” Let’s just end the charade and say no to signing the Paris Climate Agreement.
Knappenberger is assistant director of the Center for the Study of Science at the Cato Institute.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/274068-time-to-fess-up-and-walk-back-our-paris-pledge
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Clean Energy is Winning the Race Against Fossil Fuels — But the Planet is Still Losing
Mar 24, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
A new United Nations report has found that 2015 set a slew of new records for global investment in clean energy — and furthermore, the bulk of investment was not in places like the United States or Germany but rather in the developing world. But the report also contained a grim punchline when it came to the impact this is having on the broader climate change problem.
The world invested an unprecedented $286 billion in clean energy in 2015, the report found — and with that money purchased a similarly unrivaled 118 gigawatts (or billion watts) of new wind and solar photovoltaic electricity generating capacity, among other installments. More than half of all new generating capacity in 2015 was in renewables, another new record.
In other words, for the very first time, the world spent more money setting up new wind, solar and other installations than it spent on all new coal, gas and nuclear plants. Indeed, if you just stack up renewables investments against new coal and gas investments for the generation of electricity, they were more than twice as large.
China led the way, with 36 percent of all the investment, or $102.9 billion — and developing nations, a group also including India and Brazil, invested more in renewables than developed countries for the first time. (The figures for renewables do not include investment in large hydroelectric dam projects, which stood at another $43 billion in 2015.)
The annual report, Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2016, was released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Programme. It was written by the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
“All this happened in a year in which prices of fossil fuel commodities — oil, coal and gas — plummeted, causing distress to many companies involved in the hydrocarbon sector,” the report noted. In other words, we’re adding renewables for reasons that go beyond mere cost (such as concerns about climate change). It doesn’t hurt that wind and solar energy are also getting cheaper.
At the same time, a less noticed milestone also pointed to a key new trend — globally, 250 megawatts (or million watts) worth of electrical storage was also installed at the utility scale, much more than in 2014. Storage is an oft-discussed technology in combination with renewable energy because wind and especially solar energy can be very intermittent, only available to generate electricity when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. Storing energy generated at those times is thus seen as a key to enabling technology for renewable energy.
All of this, and yet if you read the report closely, you’ll find that in many ways, the news is not so good — in fact, it’s quite bad.
Yes, the world is adding more renewables than ever. But as the document noted, “the outlook for power sector emissions remains alarming — despite the agreement at COP21 in Paris, and despite the growth of renewables detailed in this report,” noted the document.
How is that possible?
Renewables may have made up more than 50 percent of all new electricity installments, but they only generated 10.3 percent of all global electricity last year, the document found. One reason is simply that there is so much legacy coal, gas, nuclear and other types of generation. Renewables are playing a very, very long game of catch-up at the moment.
And intermittency holds them back further — “wind and solar generate power for a lower percentage of the year than other sources such as coal, gas, oil, nuclear, hydro, geothermal and biomass,” the document noted.
That game is made still harder by the fact that the world hardly stopped adding fossil fuels in 2015. The report actually finds that a huge 85 gigawatts worth of new coal-fired power plants became operational in 2015, although that was offset by 43 gigawatts worth of plant closures, leaving the net increase at 42 gigawatts. Gas added another 40.
The point is that we are still not only adding fossil fuels but adding new plants that have long lifetimes and will burn coal for decades. This is occurring even as the world as a whole will have a greater demand for power, as electricity is extended to more people and the global population itself increases.
The report therefore forecasts that greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector will still increase out to 2026. And it’s not the only one: “None of the major forecasting organisations see a peak in power sector CO2 emissions this decade, or even early in the next one,” the document noted.
In other words, while there is now a momentous effort afoot to green how we get electricity, it’s still too soon to really turn the corner on the climate problem.
“The CO2 content of the atmosphere looks set to rise sharply beyond the 2015 average of 401 parts per million,” said the document.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/03/24/clean-energy-is-winning-the-race-against-fossil-fuels-but-the-planet-is-still-losing/
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Boost Investor Confidence and Watch America's Energy Market Transform
Mar 24, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Mary Barber
A recent decision by New Jersey utility regulators to standardize energy efficiency procedures for commercial buildings could have a major impact – not just on the Garden State – but on energy markets nationwide.
The reason: It gives investors more confidence in performance and returns which is exactly what can fuel a big push to make buildings across the United States more efficient. It might eventually transform our energy efficiency market into an economic power house.
Giving investors peace of mind
Energy efficiency is an untapped opportunity of enormous proportions. An estimated $279 billion could be invested in residential, institutional and commercial sector retrofits – with the latter holding the largest potential.
Enter Environmental Defense Fund’s Investor Confidence Project, which provides tools to help investors assess risk more accurately.
Through rigorous measurement and verification metrics, and by standardizing the way projects are developed and brought to market, the initiative brings better financial and environmental results. By reassuring developers, building owners and investors, it can fill the gap between a proposed energy efficiency project and the ability to finance it.
New Jersey is the first state in the nation to incorporate ICP protocols into an existing state energy efficiency program for commercial buildings, and we hope to deploy this model nationwide.
Saving potential: $1 trillion over 10 years
Taken as a whole, the energy efficiency market in the U.S. could yield more than $1 trillion in energy savings and 3.3 million new jobs over 10 years, a 2012 Deutsche Bank and Rockefeller Foundation study found.
Buildings use 40 percent of all energy consumed in the U.S. today. If we fully take advantage of the technology and know-how that exists today, building owners could thus save billions of dollars in combined annual energy costs.
Such opportunities multiply in other ways. Carbon emissions and other pollution decrease when we use less electricity – two-thirds of which is still supplied by fossil fuel sources in the U.S.
And as the market for building energy efficiency grows and investors leverage this opportunity, more jobs are created and real estate values increase. Energy efficiency in demand
Long a clean energy pioneer, New Jersey can serve as a model for other states. So far, 12 development companies have undergone training in the state to participate on a voluntary basis in the ICP program, of which four have been certified.
Initial projects where ICP was implemented have also been launched in New York, California, Connecticut and Texas; and Europe joined the effort after the European Commission officially adopted the protocols earlier this month.
Once the building retrofit standards are adopted as part of state programs across the country, we can bring energy efficiency to market on a large scale – in the U.S. and overseas.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2016/03/24/boost-investor-confidence-and-watch-americas-energy-market-transform
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'Fracture' Raises Alarm About Dangers of Fracking in Prose, Verse
Mar 24, 2016 | Chicago Tribune
By Thomas Fate
The same night I first started reading "Fracture," a new literary anthology about hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking"), I happened to hear Sen. Al Franken (D.-Minn.) on CNN, endorsing the practice as a "viable part of our energy policy." "Fracking isn't all bad," Franken claimed, because, he argued, the production of natural gas through fracking is less harmful to the environment and climate change than coal production, which it might replace.
When progressive senators such as Franken support the fracking industry, one realizes the difficulty of confronting this energy debacle. Though a clear environmental threat, some liberal senators view it as a necessary evil as they grope for compromise on a "clean energy" bill amid a divided Congress and against the lobbying muscle of Big Oil.
But "Fracture," a collection of essays, stories, and poems about fracking in America, makes a gallant attempt to take on Big Oil and corporate greed. The editors, Taylor Brorby and Stefanie Brook Trout, have collected the works of nearly 50 writers — from Bill McKibben to Rick Bass to Pam Houston to Linda Hogan. And these are not, of course, the old nature writers — who sought to discover the unspoiled, the remaining bits of "untouched" wilderness, which they flew to in jets and bush planes. These are environmental writers, who seek to recover the spoiled, the damaged, the non-wilderness. Their task is not to discover the rare, but to recover the ravaged. As writers, they are necessarily both artists and activists.
Even so, "Fracture" includes a wide variety of voices and thinking, which is what keeps the book from slipping into what anthologies of social critique can become — cycles of guilt-laden lament, where the language of the activist overwhelms the language of the artist. In "Fracture" these two viewpoints somehow converge rather than compete, resulting in an innovative and compelling weave of writers who both educate and inspire.
Historian Patricia Nelson Limerick defines hydraulic fracture: "a process to release gas and oil from impermeable ('tight') underground formations. The technique known as horizontal drilling makes it possible to drill a well vertically and to branch off horizontally and thereby to reach a much greater area of the subsurface for fracturing. Bringing a vast resource of shale gas and shale oil into reach, the convergence of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have called into question…the looming scarcity of US-produced oil and natural gas."
Later, philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore opens the big question: "By what right do humans take what they want from the land — not just what they need, but whatever they want — with no regard for the living, animate community that already exists in that place? By what right do heavy-booted invaders tromp over a land of night lizards and woodrats under pinyon pines, and canyon wrens that pour their golden scales down red rocks that once were beaches of an ancestral salt sea, a land of small crossroad towns and, in hidden places among the rocks, drawings of water, human hands, and spiraling time?"
And later, poet Claire Kruesel frames moments of revelation from the Bakken fracking field in North Dakota. In so doing, like the other poets and writers in "Fracture," she reminds readers of a central, though subtle, point in the book: You must see the world before you can save it, again suggesting the artist as activist.
At night, the civilized world blooms gold,
to the eyes of roving satellites,
the dark globe
branded by loose pockets
of fire and filament.
The amber body of gasoline
curls into buried drums, to feed
cars and trucks and motorcycles
that illuminate the country
in vanishing glimpses.
To this trio of voices add the essayist, the fiction writer and the investigative reporter, and you get some idea of the range of the writing included in "Fracture."
But the work is not only diverse in style and genre. The sociopolitical critiques of the impact of fracking are quite varied, which may be why I wasn't completely floored to find an essay that aligned with Franken's belief that fracking isn't all bad — an essay that is more pragmatic than idealistic.
In geographer Tyler Priest's essay "Frackenstein's Monster," he quotes French philosopher Bruno Latour, who compared Dr. Frankenstein's creation with the "monster" of fracking: "We confuse the monster for the creator and blame our sins against Nature on our creations." Priest expands on Latour's thought: "Humans create flawed technologies, not perfect ones. The moral of Shelley's story is that we should not reject our monsters but care for them just like we would our children.... But fracking, like the reanimation of Frankenstein's monster…cannot be undone. Killing the monster is also undesirable, given the environmental advantages of generating electricity from natural gas versus coal…. We should acknowledge unconventional oil and gas as vital national assets, but we also should place conditions on developing them. Mutual understanding and compromise between the industry and its opponents are necessary…. Although not easy, this is really the only choice we have."
This moderate, compromising angle is rare in "Fracking," and some will likely find fault with it. Yet it points to one of the book's strengths: The writing goes beyond artfully condemning the evils of fracking. Instead, many writers think outside the box of hopelessness, inspiring readers to get involved in the struggle, and perhaps even to become a part of the solution,. and to find hope therein.
Tom Montgomery Fate teaches creative writing at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. His most recent book is "Cabin Fever," a nature memoir.
"Fracture"
Edited by Taylor Brorby and Stefanie Brook Trout, Ice Cube, 472 pages, $24.95
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/books/ct-prj-fracture-taylor-brorby-stefanie-brook-trout-fracking-20160324-story.html
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Feinstein: Iran Indictments Show Congress Must Act on Critical Infrastructure
Mar 24, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Joseph Marks
Congress must do more to protect U.S. critical infrastructure from cyberattacks, Sen. Dianne Feinsteinsaid today following the indictment of seven Iranian hackers accused of attacking U.S. financial institutions.
One of the hackers was also charged with breaching a dam in Rye, N.Y.
“If hackers are able to access dams, the electrical grid, airports, our water supply or nuclear plants, the amount of damage they could do is enormous,” said Feinstein, who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Feinstein and Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr co-sponsored 2015 legislation that gives legal protections to companies that share cyber threat information with the government. She told POLITICOsoon after that bill passed that protecting critical infrastructure is the obvious next step.
A section championed by Sen. Susan Collins that was stripped from the final version of that bill would have required the Homeland Security Department to asses cyber vulnerabilities at roughly 65 critical infrastructure providers. The section was criticized by industry groups that thought it could lead to cybersecurity mandates and increased regulation.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, also praised the Iran indictments today, saying they’re a “warning to U.S. companies and individuals that the threats we face online are pervasive and potentially devastating.”
Sen. Chuck Schumer, who earlier called the dam attack in his own state “a shot across our bow,” said today the U.S. “must step up our counter-hacking game ASAP” to counter cyberthreats from Iran and elsewhere.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Search Underway for Cause of Fatal Ammonia Leak in S. Boston
Mar 24, 2016 | Boston Globe
By Kathy McCabe and John R. Ellement
The federal workplace safety agency and other officials are investigating an ammonia leak inside a South Boston fish warehouse where a worker was killed Wednesday night as first responders struggled to reach a shut-off valve, authorities said.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has dispatched investigators to the Stavis Seafoods facility on Channel Street, where the worker was initially overcome around 6 p.m., triggering a response by the Boston Fire Department’s hazardous materials unit.
Firefighters donned full protection suits, but were unable to reach the shutoff valve as quickly as hoped.
Department spokesman Steve MacDonald said Thursday the ammonia was flowing into the warehouse on the first floor, but the shut off valve was located on the second floor, increasing the amount of time it took for rescuers to reach it.
He said the valve was also located in the middle of the building, further hampering the emergency response.
“The shut off valve was in the middle of the building. That’s one of the issues we will be looking at: why was it located in the middle of the building?’’ MacDonald said. “Usually [the shut-off valve] is located near the entrance. That’s also something we will be looking at as far as the cause.’’
The valve was finally closed at 9:20 p.m., officials said.
A spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley’s office said the man’s death is not considered a homicide and the investigation is now being led by Boston police detectives from Area C-6, which includes South Boston.
OSHA spokesman Edmund Fitzgerald said Thursday that the investigation has just begun and its far too soon to identify the cause of the fatal incident.
OSHA inspected the facility in 2009 and cited the company for 15 “serious” violations of workplace safety rules and one “other than serious” violation, OSHA records show.
During the 2009 inspection, OSHA faulted the company’s “process safety management program’’ (PSM) specifically for its handling of “anhydrous ammonia in the facility’s refrigeration system,’’ the agency said in a 2009 press release.
The requirements of OSHA’s PSM “standard are stringent and comprehensive because a leak could have a severe or catastrophic effect on employees,” Brenda Gordon, OSHA’s area director said in the 2009 release. “That’s why it is imperative for employers to rigorously, completely and continuously scrutinize, update and properly maintain’’ their PSM programs.
Stavis was initially fined $47,250, but later reached an agreement with OSHA and nine citations were “deleted.’’
The seven remaining infractions pertained to hazardous waste operation and emergency response, respiratory protection, control of hazardous energy, medical services and first aid, powered industrial trucks, OSHA records show.
A request for a response to the 2009 OSHA investigation has been forwarded to a company spokeswoman on Thursday.
On Wednesday, the worker who died was found on the second floor of the facility near a stairwell. The leak was reported just before 6 p.m., the end of a shift for employees at the warehouse, where the chemical is used in the refrigeration process, officials said.
The overwhelming smell of ammonia prompted street closings, and local business people and residents were ordered to stay in place, or stay away from the area.
In a statement released Thursday, Stavis Seafoods chief executive Richard Stavis said the company will cooperate with investigators, but did not comment on the findings from the 2009 investigation.
“Our concern today is with the tragic death of our employee, his family and finding out exactly what happened,’’ Stavis said in the statement. “The safety of our employees and our workplace is always our greatest priority. To that end we will do everything we can to assist with the investigation.’’
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/03/24/search-underway-for-cause-fatal-ammonia-leak-south-boston-fish-warehouse/RXnsiu1fzef9r18RSUflGI/story.html
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'Long Shot' Project to Move Rail Outside Chicago Gets Lifeline
Mar 24, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Frank Patton is "absolutely convinced" he will build a railroad. Now he just needs to convince the public.
The former information technology professional wants to rewire one of the busiest freight corridors in the nation, linking railroads in the Midwest without forcing them to pass through Chicago. His plan would add about 278 miles of track to Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana -- all to avoid the Windy City's notorious rail traffic jams.
While the chairman of Great Lakes Basin Transportation Inc. freely admits he may prove to be "delusional," Patton said his idea has gained traction with federal transportation regulators. The Surface Transportation Board announced last week that it would hold eight public hearings on the project as part of an environmental impact review.
"They could have said, 'Sorry, guys, see you in six months or a year'" to give the proposal more time to mature, Patton said. "What happened was the exact opposite."
Now the goal is to get the short line up and running by 2020, "which is very aggressive -- but I want to live to see this through," said Patton, who turns 73 next month.
Still, STB's environmental review could take up to three years to play out, and Patton said he expects to encounter resistance from some communities concerned about shipments of hazardous materials such as crude oil (EnergyWire, March 26, 2014).
Jim Wilson, a veteran of the rail industry who is president of the Great Lakes line, said the new railroad would be ideal for running mile-long "unit trains" of oil, ethanol, coal and grains. Many of those commodities have been snarled in Chicago, where roughly a quarter of the nation's rail freight passes through on a given day.
Wilson said he isn't discouraged by the fact that low crude prices and an ailing coal industry have hurt energy business for the other, larger railroads that Great Lakes is courting.
"These cycles have gone up and down ever since the rail industry has started, with different commodities and different political situations," he said. "But the industry still keeps growing, and they respond to market changes."
'Long shot'
One longtime consultant in the region called the rail runaround an "interesting idea," albeit one that would cost billions of dollars and could expect to see significant hurdles en route to completion.
"It's a long, long, long shot," said Bill Schauer, who noted that is his personal view and not the position of the Midwest Association of Rail Shippers, where he works as executive director. "They're talking about meeting the demands of 2030 or 2050 -- and you gotta start somewhere, so give them credit for that."
The response from the rail industry has been tepid. A spokeswoman for Union Pacific Railroad said the company reviewed the proposal in 2014 and "was not interested in moving forward with a discussion on the Great Lakes Basin Railroad's bypass project."
"Union Pacific is focused on several major public-private partnerships, including CREATE, which will benefit the region and enhance efficiency for Chicago-area and regional railroad operations," said Calli Hite, referring to a multibillion-dollar initiative aimed at funding projects to alleviate rail congestion in the Chicago region.
For its part, CSX Corp. said through a spokeswoman that it is "reviewing the [STB] filing and will provide input as appropriate through the established process."
Canadian National Railway Co., which bought the 200-mile Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway west of Chicago seven years ago in a bid to improve its own traffic issues there, declined comment.
Public input
Wilson and Patton said their proposed route may change following the STB review and comments from locals along the line. For now, the railroad's path would take it from Milton, Wis., to La Porte, Ind., through several wetlands and small towns. Their goal is to cut what can be a 30-hour train trip through Chicago down to just eight hours or less.
Chicago environmental activist and union negotiator Charles Paidock said Great Lakes can expect intense scrutiny during the eight public meetings scheduled for next month.
"The public may not have any specific opposition, but they take an interest," said Paidock, who has previously lobbied on behalf of Amtrak and high-speed rail projects. "I've seen that in even the simplest transit projects."
Paddock has protested against North Dakota oil shipments through the Chicago area, warning of the potential danger from tank car explosions. A July 2013 oil train derailment and explosion in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, killed 47 people and brought a greater focus on crude-by-rail safety on both sides of the border.
He said routing crude away from population centers -- as Great Lakes Basin rail line would do -- "merits taking a look at" but likely wouldn't assuage all environmentalists' concerns.
"I don't like to push the hazard onto other communities and believe that's a solution," he said.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/03/24/stories/1060034558
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(ACC Mentioned) Chlorine Industry Linked to Unreported Carbon Tetrachloride Emissions
Mar 24, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Philip Lightowlers
US scientists have found that atmospheric measurements of the ozone-depleting substance, carbon tetrachloride, show that national emissions are almost 100 times higher than reported to the US EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).
The researchers, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and several universities, used a national air sampling network to measure emissions between 2008 and 2012. The results, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show that average emissions are 4 kilotonnes per year. Emissions recorded in the TRI have averaged 0.06kt/y since 1996.
Dispersive emissions have been banned in developed countries, under the UN Montreal Protocol, since that year. Some 200kt is produced globally for non-dispersive applications, such as the manufacture of hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and vinyl chloride monomer. The substance is toxic, a suspected carcinogen and a suspected reproductive toxicant, although its REACH evaluation leaves the latter undecided in view of minimal human exposure.
A national US sampling network of nine tall towers and 16 aircraft sites have allowed the researchers to locate the areas responsible. The distribution “is more consistent with industrial emissions recorded in the TRI than with the distribution of other potential sources”, the scientists conclude. “Our findings suggest that the majority of US emissions could be related to industrial sources associated with chlorine production and processing.”
The areas with significant emissions, detected in the survey, are the Gulf coast states Texas and Louisiana; Boulder, Colorado; and the San Francisco Bay area. Companies registered in the TRI as emitting carbon terachloride in these areas include Dow Chemical and Occidental Chemical.
Chemical Watch asked both companies for a comment but they passed the enquiry to the American Chemistry Council, which responded: “The use of carbon tetrachloride is restricted to non-emissive industrial applications and is strictly regulated by the US EPA. Any use must also comply with the Montreal Protocol and emissions are well monitored and controlled."
The US Chlorine Institute was also asked to comment but did not respond.
The scientists consider that their results have global significance because “emissions of carbon tetrachloride from this industry are not likely to be limited to the US alone.” They note that the reported US emissions on the TRI constitute just 8% of the reported global total.
https://chemicalwatch.com/45856/chlorine-industry-linked-to-unreported-carbon-tetrachloride-emissions
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Industries Use CWA Rule Suit Rehearing Bid to Challenge Permit Ruling
Mar 24, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Groups representing agriculture, developers, and other industries are adding to calls for the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit to reverse a divided panel ruling giving the court authority to hear suits over EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) rule, and using the bid to also push for scrapping a contested 2009 CWA permit ruling.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Washington Cattlemen's Association filed their joint rehearing request March 23, the same day that the Texas Alliance for Responsible Growth, Environment and Transportation (TARGET) -- which represents Texas developers -- separately asked the court to exclude its suit over the rule from the decision.
The court set a March 23 deadline for petitioners to seek rehearing of a three-judge panel's decision issued Feb. 22 in Murray Energy, et al., v. EPA, et al., in which two judges ruled that the court has power to hear suits over EPA's rule, while one dissented and said that suits over the rule belong in district courts. One of the majority judges only agreed to take the suit because he said the court was bound by precedent set in the older CWA permit decision.
Various groups filed petitions for rehearing, including a coalition of Georgia industries that called the Murray Energy decision a “1-1-1” split ruling. The industries said the decision “muddles” a pending case in the 11th Circuit that also tests the question of the proper venue for suits over the CWA jurisdiction rule.
The Utility Water Act Group (UWAG), representing nearly 200 power providers, also filed a petition for rehearing saying the decision leaves “no clear signal” on whether future CWA suits should be heard in appellate courts. UWAG said the ruling “presents a question of exceptional importance,” the legal bar for en banc review, because it “calls into question the validity of Sixth Circuit precedent, raises questions about proper interpretation of that precedent, and, in the case of the lead opinion, expands that precedent past its breaking point.”
A coalition of petitioners including the National Association of Manufacturers, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Road & Transportation Builders Association and others in their Feb. 29 petition for en banc rehearing asked for full briefing and oral argument on which court should hear suits over the rule.
The joint Chamber-Cattlemen's petition and the separate TARGET petition both filed March 23 appear to bring the total number of individual requests for full 6th Circuit rehearing to six.
The court set an April 1 deadline for the Department of Justice to respond to the petitions on behalf of EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers, which crafted the CWA jurisdiction rule with EPA.
Observers have said that the division among the judges in the Murray Energy ruling on both the merits of the decision and the scope of the precedent set in the 2009 CWA permit decision in National Cotton Council v. EPAmeans that the ruling is likely vulnerable to the full appellate court granting rehearing. Sources also predicted the en banc requests would be used as a vehicle for seeking to overturn National Cotton.
Precedential Ruling
The Chamber-Cattlemen's petition asks the court to overturn National Cotton or, alternatively, set new limits for applying the precedent from that decision. “It is precisely that lack of a limiting principle in National Cotton’s holding that gives rise to the fractured opinion of the panel,” say the groups.
In Murray Energy Judge David McKeague wrote the lead opinion that said suits over the rule must be heard in appeals court and not lower courts, an issue which is murky for certain CWA regulations, including the jurisdiction rule. McKeague said that although the water law is unclear on where suits over the rule should start, the 6th Circuit has jurisdiction under a “functional approach” to interpreting its judicial review provisions.
McKeague relied in part on the 6th Circuit's 2009 ruling in National Cotton that said section 509(b)(1)(f) authorizes direct circuit court review beyond agency actions issuing or denying particular permits. The court inNational Cotton said the courts of appeal have direct power to review regulations governing permits under the CWA's section 402 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit program.
Judge Richard Allen Griffin only supported the decision to take the case because he found it is in line with precedent established by National Cotton, but added that he believes the 2009 case was wrongly decided.
Dissenting Senior Judge Damon J. Keith said National Cotton should not apply, and industry groups critical of the rule have cited his and Griffin's statements in calling for en banc review of the decision. Observers have suggested that a successful rehearing request could also lead to overturning National Cotton.
The Chamber-Cattlemen's petition says the Murray Energy decision is “held together only by a prior decision that two panel judges state should not support a finding of jurisdiction.”
They highlight Griffin's remarks in the concurrence that National Cotton was decided erroneously and Keith's dissent that National Cotton did not support the jurisdictional finding.
While National Cotton broadens the scope of circuit court authority over CWA regulations, the petition argues, “Just how far it broadens that jurisdiction, however, no two judges of the panel agreed.”
The petition calls on the full court to overturn the 2009 ruling, saying, “National Cotton’s limitless holding departs into a boundless region in which the specific enumeration of seven discrete types of cases for which jurisdiction lies, gives way to jurisdiction over any case under the Clean Water Act” section 509. Section 509 lists seven types of CWA actions that can be reviewed in the circuit courts in initial challenges.
“If National Cotton is not overruled, the en banc Circuit should at least, for the sake of clarity and uniformity, provide the limiting principle it lacks,” the petition argues.
TARGET's Petition
Meanwhile, TARGET in its en banc petition makes the novel argument that the 6th Circuit panel's divided ruling should not apply to the coalition, because its lawsuit over the CWA rule concerns only the possibility of regulation under section 404 of the water law, and not section 402, which was at issue in National Cotton.
The group, which represents developers with interests in Texas wetlands, is arguing that because it is only challenging a wetland provision of the final rule -- concerning coastal prairie wetlands in Texas -- which would be permitted under section 404, the 6th Circuit ruling does not govern its challenge.
The petition argues that the permitting regimes under section 404 and section 402 of the CWA are mutually exclusive, citing the Supreme Court's 2009 ruling in Couer Alaska v. Se. Alaska Conservation Council. In that case, the court said that if the Corps has authority to issue a permit under section 404, then EPA lacks section 402 authority.
“Because TARGET’s Petition does not relate to matters permitted under Section 1342, this Court should grant rehearing and conclude that the Court does not have jurisdiction over its Petition,” the petition argues.
The group also refreshes arguments made by other stakeholders that the rehearing is warranted because “the proceeding involves one or more questions of exceptional importance . . .” in particular because the panel agreed on only one basis for jurisdiction, which the concurring judge determined was mandated by National Cotton but that it was incorrectly decided.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/industries-use-cwa-rule-suit-rehearing-bid-challenge-permit-ruling
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Creating a Bipartisan Climate to Discuss Climate Change in Congress
Mar 24, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Reps. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) and Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.)
As a Republican and a Democrat representing South Florida in Congress, the alarming findings on the acceleration of sea level rise recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hit close to home. In South Florida, king tides regularly flood low-lying communities like Miami Beach and Key West, and the saltwater creep threatens the freshwater supplied by the Everglades to over seven million Americans. Yet according to this research, coastal communities like ours are struggling to cope with what are only the first few inches of sea level rise that will reach between 1.7 and four feet by 2100.
Across the country, the challenges posed by warming temperatures, storm surge, and severe flooding represent mere previews of the consequences to come due to climate change. In New Jersey, the storm surge that accompanied a recent blizzard left shore towns flooded by icy waters. In Charleston, South Carolina, the number of flood days more than quadrupled in the last half a century. Even in Colorado, warmer winters and reduced snowfall has disrupted tourism and the ski industry.
This research makes clear that the time to debate whether climate change threatens our economy and our security has long past. It should also lend credence to our decision to establish the Climate Solutions Caucus the first bipartisan task force in the House of Representatives devoted to addressing climate change. Already, Reps. Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.), Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.) have joined us as members, and we are hearing from other colleagues thirsty for a bipartisan dialogue on climate change.
We know that the rigid partisan climate in the House and Senate has prevented Congress from tackling an array of issues in recent years. But the idea that the elected representatives of the American people cannot come together to even discuss climate change while the governments of nearly 200 countries can, as we recently saw in Paris last year, demonstrates the frustration of this stalemate.
The absence of congressional leadership has led President Obama to take executive regulatory actions that not only intensify partisanship but may not prevail in court. It’s also left local governments and the private sector with the immeasurable burden of figuring out how to protect property and infrastructure from seas that are rising faster than they have in more than 3,000 years.
The dangers posed by climate change will touch Americans of all political persuasions. We cannot let partisan politics relegate the legislative branch of the United States to the sidelines as communities, local governments, and private industry grapples with an increasingly existential threat.
In the coming weeks, the Climate Solutions Caucus will arrange briefings and discussions with local officials and private sector leaders from across the political spectrum who recognize the need for action. Together, we hope to arrive at economically viable, market-driven approaches to reducing carbon emissions that can efficiently and effectively address this threat.
While Congress in the past has failed to pass comprehensive climate change legislation, the right solutions are still out there. They have to be. Before we were Republicans or Democrats in Congress, we were parents. And while we may not live to see the worst of the consequences of unchecked carbon pollution, we know that our children and our grandchildren someday will. The Climate Solutions Caucus may be just a small step, but it’s a step worth taking if we have any hope of restoring dialogue and addressing climate change in a bipartisan way.
Deutch represents Florida’s 21st Congressional District and has served in the House since 2010. He sits on the Ethics; the Foreign Affairs; and the Judiciary committees. Curbelo has represented Florida’s 26th Congressional District since 2015. He sits on the Education and the Workforce; the Small Business; and the Transportation committees.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/274061-creating-a-bipartisan-climate-to-discuss-climate
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Punishing Climate-Change Skeptics
Mar 24, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By David B. Rifkin Jr. and Andrew W. Grossman
Galileo Galilei was tried in 1633 for spreading the heretical view that the Earth orbits the sun, convicted by the Roman Catholic Inquisition, and remained under house arrest until his death. Today’s inquisitors seek their quarry’s imprisonment and financial ruin. As the scientific case for a climate-change catastrophe wanes, proponents of big-ticket climate policies are increasingly focused on punishing dissent from an asserted “consensus” view that the only way to address global warming is to restructure society—how it harnesses and uses energy. That we might muddle through a couple degrees’ of global warming over decades or even centuries, without any major disruption, is the new heresy and must be suppressed.
The Climate Inquisition began with Michael Mann’s 2012 lawsuit against critics of his “hockey stick” research—a holy text to climate alarmists. The suggestion that Prof. Mann’s famous diagram showing rapid recent warming was an artifact of his statistical methods, rather than an accurate representation of historical reality, was too much for the Penn State climatologist and his acolytes to bear.
Among their targets (and our client in his lawsuit) was the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank prominent for its skeptical viewpoint in climate-policy debates. Mr. Mann’s lawsuit seeks to put it, along with National Review magazine, out of business. Four years on, the courts are still pondering the First Amendment values at stake. In the meantime, the lawsuit has had its intended effect, fostering legal uncertainty that chills speech challenging the “consensus” view.
Mr. Mann’s lawsuit divided climate scientists—many of whom recognized that it threatened vital scientific debate—but the climate Inquisition was only getting started. The past year has witnessed even more heavy-handed attempts to enforce alarmist doctrine and stamp out dissent.
Assuming the mantle of Grand Inquisitor is Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.). Last spring he called on the Justice Department to bring charges against those behind a “coordinated strategy” to spread heterodox views on global warming, including the energy industry, trade associations, “conservative policy institutes” and scientists. Mr. Whitehouse, a former prosecutor, identified as a legal basis for charges that the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, the federal statute enacted to take down mafia organizations and drug cartels.
In September a group of 20 climate scientists wrote to President Obama and Attorney General Loretta Lynch encouraging them to heed Mr. Whitehouse and launch a RICO investigation targeting climate skeptics. This was necessary since, they claimed, America’s policy response to climate change was currently “insufficient,” because of dissenting views regarding the risks of climate change. Email correspondence subsequently obtained through public-records requests revealed that this letter was also coordinated by Mr. Whitehouse.
Reps. Ted Lieu (D., Calif.) and Mark DeSaulnier (D., Calif.) followed up with a formal request for the Justice Department to launch an investigation, specifically targetingExxon Mobil for its funding of climate research and policy organizations skeptical of extreme warming claims. Attorney General Lynch announced in testimony this month that the matter had been referred to the FBI “to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for what we could take action on.” Similar investigations are already spearheaded by state attorneys general in California and New York.
Meanwhile, Mr. Whitehouse, joined by Sens. Edward Markey (D., Mass.) and Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), sent letters to a hundred organizations—from private companies to policy institutes—demanding that they turn over information about funding and research relating to climate issues. In his response to the senators, Cato Institute President John Allison called the effort “an obvious attempt to chill research into and funding of public policy projects you don’t like.”
Intimidation is the point of these efforts. Individual scientists, think tanks and private businesses are no match for the vast powers that government officials determined to stifle dissent are able to wield. An onslaught of investigations—with the risk of lawsuits, prosecution and punishment—is more than most can afford to bear. As a practical reality, defending First Amendment rights in these circumstances requires the resources to take on the government and win—no matter the cost or how long it takes.
It also requires taking on the Climate Inquisition directly. Spurious government investigations, driven by the desire to suppress a particular viewpoint, constitute illegal retaliation against protected speech and, as such, can be checked by the courts, with money damages potentially available against the federal and state perpetrators. If anyone is going to be intimidated, it should be officials who are willing to abuse their powers to target speech with which they disagree.
That is why we are establishing the Free Speech in Science Project to defend the kind of open inquiry and debate that are central to scientific advancement and understanding. The project will fund legal advice and defense to those who need it, while executing an offense to turn the tables on abusive officials. Scientists, policy organizations and others should not have to fear that they will be the next victims of the Climate Inquisition—that they may face punishment and personal ruin for engaging in research and advocating their views.
The principle of the First Amendment, the Supreme Court recognized in Dennis v. United States (1951), is that “speech can rebut speech, propaganda will answer propaganda, free debate of ideas will result in the wisest governmental policies.” For that principle to prevail—in something less than the 350 years it took for the Catholic Church to acknowledge its mistake in persecuting Galileo—the inquisition of those breaking from the climate “consensus” must be stopped.
Messrs. Rivkin and Grossman practice appellate and constitutional litigation in Washington, D.C.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/punishing-climate-change-skeptics-1458772173
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