Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 4/11/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC: Manufacturing Investment Linked to Shale Gas Reaches $164 Billion
Apr 7, 2016 | Energy In Depth
By Jacques Klick
This week, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) made a remarkable announcement regarding the chemical industry’s investments in natural gas projects across the United States. -
(ACC Mentioned) A New High for US Plastics Recyclers
Apr 11, 2016 | Recycling International
By Kirstin Linnenkoper
The recycling of post-consumer rigid plastics in the USA surged 27% in 2014, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC). -
(ACC Mentioned) Green Biologics Selects Nexeo Solutions
Apr 11, 2016 | Brainerd Dispatch
Green Biologics, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Green Biologics Ltd., a U.K. industrial biotechnology and renewable chemicals company, announced a distribution agreement with Nexeo Solutions, a Texas based... -
(ACC Mentioned) Stakeholders Press EPA to Update Exposure Guidelines for Varying Reasons
Apr 11, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
Both environmental groups and the chemical industry in recent comments are faulting EPA’s draft changes to its 24-year-old human exposure assessment guidelines for failing to bring the document up to date with current and emerging... -
Echa to Recheck More Than 800 Registrations
Apr 11, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Echa is to reopen hundreds of REACH registration dossiers for new completeness checks. This follows the decision of last month’s Board of Appeal ruling, which upheld the "one substance, one registration" (Osor) principle. -
Beaver County Prepares for Shell Cracker
Apr 7, 2016 | Pittsburgh Business Times
By Jennifer Curry
Beaver County’s actively getting ready for Royal Dutch Shell’s arrival, whether or not the energy giant ultimately decides to build an ethane cracker plant in Beaver County. -
PJM Finds Low Gas Prices Could Ease Climate Rule Compliance
Apr 11, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Natural gas prices lower than previously expected could drive coal plant retirements and ease the early years of compliance with federal climate regulation for a major regional power grid. -
U.S. Natural Gas Electricity Efficiency is Always Improving
Apr 10, 2016 | Forbes
By Jude Clemente
For electricity, the lifeblood of our modern world, efficiency has been installed as the 1st choice to reduce energy usage and related GHG emissions. -
NETL Develops 'Game-Changing' Fracking Data Set
Apr 11, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
A federal research laboratory dropped a hint last week about new data that could prove a "game changer" in improving the shale oil and gas extraction process. -
Sanders and Activist Go After Clinton on Fracking
Apr 11, 2016 | Washington Post
By David Weigel
Josh Fox walked up to Sen. Bernie Sanders's lectern and plunked it down – a glass jug of brown water. The director of two documentaries titled “Gasland,” who did more than anyone to popularize the case to ban fracking... -
EPA Knows Which Plants Violate Rules -- But It Can't Tell You
Apr 11, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
U.S. EPA knows which chemical facilities aren't following federal safety protocols, but it can't tell the public where they are. -
Feds Push Stronger Cyber Protections at Nuclear Sites
Apr 11, 2016 | The Hill- E2 Wire
By Tim Devaney
The federal government is moving to impose new cybersecurity requirements on nuclear facilities. -
Grid's Cyberattack Savior May Not be the Military
Apr 11, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
As lawmakers and energy officials puzzle over how the power sector would respond to a cyberattack on the grid, they shouldn't count too closely on the Pentagon, experts say. -
Iowa Regulators Award Dakota Access Oil Pipeline Final Permit
Apr 11, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
As a follow-up to its initial approval in early March, the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) on Friday issued the backers of the Dakota Access Pipeline a final permit to build the proposed four-state, 1,154-mile pipeline to ship Bakken crude... -
Keystone Pipeline Restarts After Oil Leak
Apr 11, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Operators of the Keystone oil pipeline resumed pumping this weekend after shutting down the pipeline for repairs for nearly a week. -
Obama’s Fast Move to Join the Paris Climate Agreement Could Tie Up the Next President
Apr 11, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney and Juliet Eilperin
In late March, when the United States and China jointly declared that they’d be moving to immediately sign and then join the Paris climate agreement “as early as possible this year,” it was seen as the latest show of joint leadership... -
One State's 'Burden' is Another's 'Prudent' Duty to Address Carbon
Apr 11, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
To a group of former state regulators supporting U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, opponents of the rule who argue it's a burden to continue planning for carbon reductions are being "hyperbolic." -
Industry Attorneys Expect Narrow Victory in CWA ‘Jurisdiction’ Order Suit
Apr 11, 2016 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
Industry attorneys expect a win in a pending Supreme Court case in which property owners are trying to win judicial review of regulators’ findings that waters are jurisdictional under the Clean Water Act (CWA)...
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(ACC Mentioned) ACC: Manufacturing Investment Linked to Shale Gas Reaches $164 Billion
Apr 7, 2016 | Energy In Depth
By Jacques Klick
This week, the American Chemistry Council (ACC) made a remarkable announcement regarding the chemical industry’s investments in natural gas projects across the United States. ACC Senior Director of Energy Policy, Owen Kean, said that investment due to cheap and plentiful shale gas has reached $164 billion, calling it a turnaround for an industry that has struggled in recent memory:
“U.S. chemical manufacturers rely on natural gas for heat and power, and it contains ethane, an NGL that serves as our main feedstock…Dramatic supply growth has had an equally dramatic impact on U.S. natural gas prices. It’s a stunning reversal of fortune from just a few years ago, when the chemical industry was losing market share – and jobs – to competitors abroad.” (emphasis added)
ACC’s analysis into the relationship between the chemical industry and natural gas development found that its $164 billion investment could lead to $105 billion per year in new chemical industry output, which would help create 738,000 new permanent jobs by 2023. Much of the industry’s investment was tailored towards export markets, which could help to restore the trade balance in the United States.
Kean stressed the fact that the potential of the industry would be affected by the buildup of the infrastructure needed for it to continue to grow:
“We need the right regulatory and policy approaches in order to fully realize the potential of shale gas as an engine of manufacturing growth… Policymakers must avoid unreasonable restrictions on oil and gas production on public lands; keep oversight of production on private lands in the hands of the states; and expedite the construction and permitting of infrastructure, such as pipelines, needed to move natural gas and NGLs to market.”
The economic benefits of shale gas continue to stretch beyond the oil and gas industry. The U.S. chemical industry has reached new heights in success thanks to investments in clean natural gas. American consumers are benefitting from lower natural gas prices, and our economy is getting a boost in jobs and economic output.
http://energyindepth.org/national/acc-economic-investment-linked-to-shale-gas-reaches-164-billion/
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(ACC Mentioned) A New High for US Plastics Recyclers
Apr 11, 2016 | Recycling International
By Kirstin Linnenkoper
The recycling of post-consumer rigid plastics in the USA surged 27% in 2014, according to the American Chemistry Council (ACC). This represents an increase of 276 million pounds (125 000 tonnes), which is a ‘new high’ from the 1.28 billion pounds (580 000 tonnes) recycled in the previous year.
Approximately 64% of the 1.28 billion pounds of rigid plastics collected for recycling was processed in the USA or Canada - down slightly from 2013 - while exports went mostly to China, the ACC reports. Polypropylene and high-density polyethylene accounted for, respectively, 38.3% and 34.1% of all material collected. The increase is attributed mainly to: a 'rebound' from the 2013 Green Fence initiative in China; improved bale quality; and growing standardisation of plastics bales.
The reported volume of recycled rigid plastics - tracked separately from bottles or film - is now said to be four times greater than the volume reported in 2007, the ACC points out. 'This is really exciting news,' comments ACC vice president Steve Russell. 'The combination of more advanced sorting technologies coupled with expanded consumer access is making a positive difference, and we look forward to seeing growth in rigid plastics recycling continue.'
http://www.recyclinginternational.com/recycling-news/9586/plastic-and-rubber/united-states/new-high-us-plastics-recyclers
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(ACC Mentioned) Green Biologics Selects Nexeo Solutions
Apr 11, 2016 | Brainerd Dispatch
Green Biologics, Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Green Biologics Ltd., a U.K. industrial biotechnology and renewable chemicals company, announced a distribution agreement with Nexeo Solutions, a Texas based global distribution company
Green Biologics purchased the assets of Central Minnesota Ethanol Co-op LLC in Little Falls in December 2014. The acquisition included a 21-million gallon per year ethanol plant, which GBL is repurposing to produce normal butanol and acetone, with planned startup in 2016.
Nexeo Solutions will become Green Biologics' national distributor of renewable n-butanol and acetone to U.S. customers in a number of key markets including coatings, adhesives, sealants and elastomers, household, industrial & institutional cleaners, personal care intermediates and energy chemicals.
"Nexeo Solutions is a superb partner for Green Biologics," said Timothy G. Staub, Global Vice President of Business Development for Green Biologics in a news release. "With decades of distribution experience, particularly in high value solvents, Nexeo Solutions brings a unique combination of logistical capabilities and market knowledge along with a critical presence both in key markets and geographies important to our customers."
Green Biologics is currently constructing its first commercial production facility for renewable n-butanol and acetone in Little Falls and aims to start up the plant in late 2016 with shipments to customers by the fourth quarter.
Green Biologics is a new member of the American Chemistry Council and is building its new green solvents facility to meet Responsible Care standards.
"Our focus is to selectively move our renewable n-butanol and acetone into high value markets, and Nexeo is well qualified and positioned to help us reach key customers who are interested in sustainability and value," added Staub.
"Sustainability is an important metric for the chemical industry, and renewable chemicals are an important part of the equation for our customers and markets," said Dan Matheny, vice president Industrial Markets at Nexeo Solutions. "We are pleased to welcome Green Biologics to our industry and to the Nexeo family of suppliers."
Green Biologics Ltd is a renewable chemicals company based in Abingdon, England with a wholly owned U.S. operating company, Green Biologics Inc., based in Gahanna, Ohio. The company's clostridium fermentation platform converts a wide range of sustainable feedstocks into high performance green chemicals such as n-butanol, acetone, and through chemical synthesis, derivatives of butanol and acetone used by a growing global consumer and industrial products customer base. The platform combines advanced high productivity fermentation with superior-performing proprietary Clostridium microbial biocatalysts and synthetic chemistry to produce a pipeline of high value green chemicals with optimal performance in downstream formulations.
http://www.brainerddispatch.com/news/business/4006510-green-biologics-selects-nexeo-solutions
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(ACC Mentioned) Stakeholders Press EPA to Update Exposure Guidelines for Varying Reasons
Apr 11, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
Both environmental groups and the chemical industry in recent comments are faulting EPA’s draft changes to its 24-year-old human exposure assessment guidelines for failing to bring the document up to date with current and emerging analytical methods, though the stakeholders differ in how they believe the proposal is deficient.
The chemical industry association American Chemistry Council (ACC) faults EPA for not including guidance on the latest technologies for assessing exposure, and how to use this information in assessments, while environmental and advocacy groups are pressing EPA to recognize newer research on prenatal exposures, cumulative exposure and exposures to environmental justice communities.
EPA released the draft document, “Guidelines for Human Exposure Assessment,” in January, indicating that the guidelines will be peer reviewed by a contractor-managed panel of outside experts. The draft is intended to update existing guidelines published in 1992. The document largely compiles existing EPA guidance and policies on performing exposure analyses in risk reviews, while including new elements such as sections on environmental justice and children’s health, an agency source said in January.
“ACC believes that the evolution of predictive toxicology around in-vitriol methods is moving so rapidly that the role of exposure must be addressed in this document,” the group’s March 22 comments state. “We recommend that the final version of the Guidelines include at least a limited discussion of emerging developments in exposure science to give practitioners a sense of what EPA thinks will be important in this field and help build awareness so that practitioners can begin to develop greater expertise in emerging areas of exposure assessment.”
Environmental groups call on EPA to advance its scientific methods by incorporating approaches that better characterize risks to vulnerable life stages and cumulative exposures, among other issues. “EPA’s risk assessment practices, including exposure assessment, need substantial updates to reflect current science and ensure that EPA fully evaluates, and then addresses, the real-world risks to children and communities,” the groups’ March 22 comments state.
“EPA’s risk assessments have failed to properly address the vulnerability of the developing fetus, infant and child, thus likely contributing to an increasing burden of disease,” the comments say, adding that with the proposed revisions, “EPA has the opportunity to correct and strengthen outdated and scientifically unsupported practices that lead to underestimations of risk . . .”
Clear Guidance
Noting that the draft guidance speaks to several areas of risk assessment practice that have yet to be utilized, the environmentalists press EPA to provide clear guidance and directives to staff to adopt methods to accurately assess aggregate exposures, account for cumulative exposures, include vulnerable populations and life stages in the assessment and use accurate exposure models. Further, the environmentalists comment that the draft does not “adequately address” the science of early life-stage vulnerability or how to systematically collect and review information, both issues that the comments urge EPA to correct.
The environmental groups’ concerns are echoed in separate comments from Earth justice, which also urges EPA to modernize its risk assessment procedures in the new guide. “In recent decades, expert state regulators (such as California’s Office of Health Hazard Assessment) have surpassed EPA in addressing early life exposure and vulnerability, as well as aggregate and cumulative exposure to multiple chemicals, multiple pathways, and multiple
sources,” Earth justice writes in March 22 comments.
The guidance should also “acknowledge that many chemicals, from lead to arsenic and many others, do not have a safe level of exposure for carcinogenic, neurological, or other kinds of chronic risk. If EPA’s risk assessment guidelines are to have any meaning going forward, they must follow the most current science,” Earth justice says.
In contrast, ACC presses EPA to be more specific and scientific in its approach to new material in the draft guide discussing sensitive life stages, vulnerable populations and environmental justice, largely found in the guide’s fourth chapter. ACC calls for the upcoming peer review panel, yet to be scheduled, to “examine assumptions and seek to clarify concepts and terms to ensure that Chapter 4 focuses on the actual science and practice of exposure assessment involving life stages, vulnerable groups and populations of concern.”
ACC adds that it considers environmental justice “a legitimate concern that can be addressed directly in the exposure assessment as long as data can establish there are in fact greater exposure circumstances for a unique cultural and/or racial group.” But the group argues that EPA’s approach is too broad and could be “applied inappropriately,” particularly by more novice assessors. “EPA equates increased exposure with increased sensitivity under the umbrella of environmental justice, although the two risk assessment parameters cannot be assumed to be causally linked. Increased exposure potential does not necessarily equate to increased susceptibility, a fact that EPA should recognize in the Guidelines.”
ACC also urges EPA to strengthen its draft guidance by more fully addressing consumers’ concerns about chemical exposures. “A great deal of public discussion today about exposure to chemicals focuses on exposure from chemicals in consumer products as well as from other chemical uses . . . ,” the comments state. “Despite this increasing emphasis (both nationally and internationally) on understanding and estimating exposure to chemicals in consumer products, the Guidelines contain only a cursory review of the topic . . . We recommend that EPA consider including greater discussion of consumer exposure topics in the context of both developments in the science of exposure assessment and specific guidance to practitioners.”
Background Levels
Other industry groups reiterated the issues ACC cites, while also providing additional concerns of their own. For example, the North American Metals Council (NAMC) outlines another long-standing industry concern with EPA risk analyses: their treatment of background levels of environmentally-occurring contaminants, some of which can also be produced in industrial processes, thereby complicating remediation.
“NAMC requests that the guidelines give additional attention to background chemical concentrations from naturally occurring sources and how those should be addressed in a human exposure assessment. This issue is of particular interest for NAMC because mineral forms of metals are naturally occurring in the environment and as such, all environmental media will have naturally occurring mixtures of metals,” the group writes inMarch 22 comments. “These concepts are listed as key principles in the 2007 EPA Framework for Metals Risk Assessment and should be likewise highlighted in the updated EPA human exposure assessment guidelines.”
Comments from the Defense Department address another long-running concern to industry and other regulated entities, regarding EPA’s risk modeling practices. DOD presses the agency in its Feb. 16 commentsto update the guidance to be consistent with language in EPA’s 2005 Cancer Risk Assessment guidelines, which it says “recommends, that if deterministic models are used, that at least 2 estimates, one of the[m] ‘high-end’ as well as a measure of central estimates of exposures, e.g., the median, also be presented to provide the decision-maker with a quick measure of the range of possible exposures.”
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/stakeholders-press-epa-update-exposure-guidelines-varying-reasons
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Echa to Recheck More Than 800 Registrations
Apr 11, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Echa is to reopen hundreds of REACH registration dossiers for new completeness checks. This follows the decision of last month’s Board of Appeal ruling, which upheld the "one substance, one registration" (Osor) principle.
The agency will first check the 118 individual charcoal dossiers directly related to the BoA's decision. In this, the Board agreed with a lead registrant's appeal for it to annul the agency's decision to accept a separate registration dossier, because Echa "failed to adequately examine" the dossier’s completeness.
The BoA decision demonstrates the obligation of all registrants of the same substance to belong to a joint submission, and Echa's role in dealing with it.
It also clarifies that Echa can request further information through the checks, and revoke registrations that have missing information not provided within a set deadline.Further checks
Echa will also prepare to retroactively check approximately 700 individual registrations it identifies as possibly being in breach of Osor. These represent 1.5% of all registrations.
At the same time, the agency will recheck the completeness of the dossiers in its database with regard to the information requirements. It says it is verifying that the information provided is meaningful.
Echa is advising companies to check the relevance of the information submitted to ensure that the Osor principle is followed. If a dossier is found to be incomplete after the retroactive completeness check, the registrant will be given a "reasonable amount" of time to update it with the missing information.
If information for joint submissions for the same substance fulfils obligations and is provided within the deadline it can remain on the market.
"If the negotiations for sharing data and joining a joint submission fail after every effort to reach an agreement has been made, registrants can file a data-sharing dispute free of charge," Echa says.Enhanced systems
The new version of REACH-IT – an enhanced automated completeness check – will be introduced later this year, Echa says. It will include a manual verification of certain data elements that cannot be checked automatically. This will prevent registrants from "misusing the system by adding irrelevant information to bypass an information requirement, for new submissions and for updates of an existing registration".
https://chemicalwatch.com/46392/echa-to-recheck-more-than-800-registrations
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Beaver County Prepares for Shell Cracker
Apr 7, 2016 | Pittsburgh Business Times
By Jennifer Curry
Beaver County’s actively getting ready for Royal Dutch Shell’s arrival, whether or not the energy giant ultimately decides to build an ethane cracker plant in Beaver County.
That’s the word from a panel who spoke at the Pittsburgh Business Times Corridors of Opportunity: Beaver event, held Thursday at The Fez. Panelists included Chris Reber, president of the Community College of Beaver County; Pat Nardelli, a partner at Castlebrook Development; and Sandie Egley, Beaver County commissioner and chairman of the Beaver County Board of Commissioners.
“The one thing about Shell is whether they make the decision or not, they’ve spent a half billion to date if not more, and it’s going up every day,” Nardelli said. “The most important residual factor is we are going to have one heck of a building pad sitting down there totally prepared for whomever. … They are making this committment, they’ve built the bridge, are going ahead with the parking garage, so something is going to be done. We are training people now, and we are going to be ready for Shell when they make that announcement.”
Nardelli noted that the infrastructure is starting to be put into place for the plant, including work being done on Route 18, sewer water being taken care of, and Shell seeking land to develop parking for the thousands of anticipated jobs that will be created during the construction process.
“When Shell needs this stuff, it will be there,” he said.
CCBC also has been working on developing new credentials that will aid upcoming workforce needs if the plant is built in Beaver County. The college has introduced two new programs, an associate degree in process technology and an associate degree in advanced manufacturing.
Reber also said a key to meeting future workforce needs is to ensure more Beaver County residents get post-secondary degrees or credentials.
“The single most important ingredient to be able to move into life-sustaining wages is education,” Reber said. “We have in Beaver County far too many citizens who don’t have a post-secondary credential. We are trying to increase the level of population that has post-secondary credentials. (This) will create a pipeline of more people who pay taxes and add to th revenue base. This will also help attract industry into the county as they see we have a stable tax base.”
http://www.bizjournals.com/pittsburgh/news/2016/04/07/beaver-county-prepares-for-shell-cracker.html
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PJM Finds Low Gas Prices Could Ease Climate Rule Compliance
Apr 11, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Natural gas prices lower than previously expected could drive coal plant retirements and ease the early years of compliance with federal climate regulation for a major regional power grid.
PJM Interconnection LLC, which spans 13 mid-Atlantic and Midwest states, last week presented a reference case for comparing different strategies to meet power plant emissions goals under the Clean Power Plan.
The regional transmission organization found that low natural gas prices could push both coal and nuclear power offline. Natural gas may also compete with renewable power, which could be "very much dependent" on the federal production tax credit that expires in 2019, the investment tax credit that declines through 2022 and then state-by-state renewable portfolio standards, officials explained.
Muhsin Abdur-Rahman, a senior market strategist and project manager for the reference case, said states should use the data to consider how various "sensitivities" -- like the price of gas or the future cost of renewable power technologies -- might affect planning decisions.
Abdur-Rahman said while fuel costs could encourage a shift toward gas and away from other fuels, other factors may come into play, including individual business decisions and power line limitations.
PJM modeled two projections for average gas prices between 2016 and 2037 -- a reference case of $5.14 per million British thermal units and another case of $3.43/MMBtu. Both scenarios represent lower gas prices than PJM modeled last year.
The PJM region as a whole might not start to face a lot of pressure from Clean Power Plan goals until 2026, if gas prices are low enough.
But the impacts of gas prices would vary depending on each state's energy profile.
"The results -- while they look this way for the whole region -- there's likely to be differences state by state," Abdur-Rahman said.
A state that generated much of its power from natural gas in 2012 might run those plants more if prices drop, causing an increase in carbon emissions. A state that relied on coal power might shift more to gas and decrease emissions, he noted.
Market decisions by generators depend on public policy, regulations and market drivers such as fuel prices, demand growth, and technology costs and efficiencies, PJM reminded in adocument about the reference case.
Abdur-Rahman said the data are not meant to predict the future but to help states sift through what unknown factors they must consider.
PJM will work on Clean Power Plan analysis over the coming months and expects to finalize an assessment report in June.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/04/11/stories/1060035342
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U.S. Natural Gas Electricity Efficiency is Always Improving
Apr 10, 2016 | Forbes
By Jude Clemente
For electricity, the lifeblood of our modern world, efficiency has been installed as the 1st choice to reduce energy usage and related GHG emissions. Although renewables are ranked 2nd in this critical “loading order,” 3rd ranked natural gas often gets deployed 1st because of greater availability and reliability.
This demonstrates why since California first installed its Renewable Portfolio Standard in 2003, natural gas’ share in the power generation mix has actually risen from 47% then to 61% today.
Thanks to its clean burning, predictable, and flexible nature, natural gas has become an increasingly attractive fuel, boosted by a production boom and lower prices. Evolving technologies will continue to allow gas to play an expanding role in the clean generation of electricity.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports that “under the proposed Clean Power Plan, natural gas, then renewables, gain generation share.” In 2015, natural gas generated 33% of U.S. electricity, and gas is projected to overtake coal this year and become America’s leading source of power.
But, the rapidly evolving efficiency of gas-based electricity might be what’s most impressive.
“More than 80 percent of natural gas-fired generation in the U.S. comes from natural gas combined-cycle power plants.” Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGTs) can have energy conversion rates over 60% at full load, producing “up to 50% more electricity from the same fuel than a traditional simple cycle plant.”
One way to measure the efficiency of a generator or power plant is the heat rate, or the amount of energy required to generate a unit of electricity. Higher heat rates indicate less efficient units, since more fuel is required to produce. The heat rate of our natural gas fleet has continued to fall about 1% per year, while rising or staying flat for other competitive fuels (EIA data here).
These rising efficiencies for gas-based power are crucial because they mean less “feed” is required to produce more power, reducing GHG emissions, water use, etc. Very importantly, a 1% improvement in efficiency cuts GHG emissions by 1-3%.
· In 2015, “the capacity factor of the U.S. natural gas combined-cycle fleet averaged 56% in 2015,” compared t0 39% in 2010, as “power sector carbon dioxide emissions reach 27-year low.”
· In 2015, the U.S. used 9.6 Trillion Cubic Feet (Tcf) of natural gas to produce 1,340 Terawatt Hours (TWh) of electricity, more than a 20% improvement from 200o, when 5.2 Tcf produced 600 TWh.
In other words, producing 6 Tcf per year, the Marcellus shale gas play in Pennsylvania alone can generate 840 TWh of electricity, or enough to meet the entire electricity demand needs of Texas, California, and South Carolina combined. It’s no wonder, then, that Pennsylvania’s annual natural gas-based power generation has surged nearly 6-fold to 60 TWh since 2005, and the state is now investing $13.6 billion more in gas power plants.
A natural gas rush that has slashed total power sector CO2 emissions in The Keystone State by 25% in the past 10 years (here).
U.S. Natural Gas Plants Continue to Require Less Gas to Produce More Electricity
Since 2000, 80% of new generation capacity in the U.S. has been natural gas. Today, we have nearly 500,000 megawatts of gas capacity, compared to 375,000 back in 2005, meaning that over 33% of our gas plants are 10 years old or less, having a long-life often exceeding 30 years.
Efficiency improvements will continue because we are installing newer and better gas plants: over 70% of new capacity going forward will be natural gas. Gas utilities have an“ongoing effort to replace older plants with newer, more fuel-efficient energy centers” with state-of-the-art generation technologies.
This is great news for our environment: even the admittedly “left-leaning” The New York Times says that “in the U.S., the decoupling of emissions and economic growth was driven chiefly by the boom in domestic natural gas.”
Because of New Source Performance Standards, the electric power industry will shift mostly to CCGTs for higher efficiency and lower CO2 emissions. CCGTs are constructed in 30 months, far lower lead times than the average for solid fuel plants of about 72 months.
And CCGTs ”are clearly the cheapest to build among thermal power technologies,” a vital advantage for gas that is “maintained even after applying carbon capture technology.”
In fact, per Black & Veatch, in 2014, combined cycle gas accounted for about 21% of total U.S. power capacity, but this will rise to nearly 40% in 2038 under the Clean Power Plan. From now until then, total gas capacity will jump nearly 90%.
As for the all-important generation projections, EIA reports gas power could increase over 80% by 2040 to 2,440 TWh under the Clean Power Plan. But, this could ultimately be even higher because, as we know from the case of California, it’s gas that gets deployed under normal conditions: “the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.” Not to mention any sort of carbon tax/trading scheme that would give gas an even firmer upper hand on coal.
Indeed, it’s natural gas that has been replacing retiring coal plants (here), and the U.S. faces a “wave” of perhaps 15% or more of our nuclear reactor fleet retiring. In fact, EPA wants as much as 75% utilization for combined cycle natural gas plants (here).
EIA’s 2040 projection for the contribution of wind (14%) and solar (6%) to total electricity output under the Clean Power Plan is significant but these non-dispatchable sources will clearly remain constrained by technical, physical, and financial limitations, regardless of the much reported on “shift to renewables” in the final version of the Clean Power Plan as opposed to the draft proposal.
Simply put, no law changes our most basic electricity reality that natural gas power is almost always available, whereas wind and solar are typically unavailable. Moreover, “sweet spotting,” where the best opportunities get chosen first, indicates that many of quality wind and solar locations have already been deployed, and many of our quality energy efficiency chances have already been capitalized upon. Thus, incremental gains in these areas are far more difficult and expensive than you’re being told.
Indeed, the ongoing rise in natural gas power plant efficiency is just another indication that, as renewable energy technologies continue to evolve, so do fossil fuel technologies. Reality check going forward: renewables will not be competing against fossil fuels as they are now but as they will become.
Especially for cleaner burning natural gas, which is often incorrectly seen by the renewable energy business as unwanted competition, as opposed to the flexible peaker plants that will enable intermittent wind/solar to compete by backing them up, this constant evolution of fossil fuel technologies cannot be ignored.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2016/04/10/u-s-natural-gas-electricity-efficiency-continues-to-improve/#29558fef22c1
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NETL Develops 'Game-Changing' Fracking Data Set
Apr 11, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
A federal research laboratory dropped a hint last week about new data that could prove a "game changer" in improving the shale oil and gas extraction process.
Industry and members of the public will soon have access to "what is possibly the world's most comprehensive hydraulic fracturing research data set in unconventional shale," said the National Energy Technology Laboratory, an arm of the Department of Energy.
The data come from post-fracking core samples and paint a fuller picture of shale formations. The industry today relies on sophisticated computer simulations.
A photograph of the core included on NETL's website points to a level of complexity not fully understood by the oil and gas industry. Companies want to understand more clearly how artificial fractures created deep underground by pressure pumping align with natural fissures and cracks to carry fracking fluid and proppant more deeply into a formation, thereby improving hydrocarbon production volumes.
NETL says it partnered on the study with Laredo Petroleum Inc., the Gas Technology Institute and other industry partners. They believe the data acquired, once analyzed, could help industry get more out of a horizontally drilled and hydraulically fractured well with less effort.
Research work was focused on test locations in the Permian Basin oil patch. It involved drilling 11 wells over a mile in depth and at 10,000-foot laterals. About 600 feet of core sample was acquired "by drilling a one-of-a-kind core well through created hydraulic fractures," NETL researchers explained.
Laboratory representative Shelley Martin said the study lasted 18 months. She could not give a timeline of when the data will be made public. They're still being analyzed, she said.
Aside from the core samples, the research team is poring over well logs, seismic surveys, diagnostic test results, water and air samples, chemical tracer analyses and more.
The data won't be as useful for the industry in the current business downturn but will be instrumental once oil prices stabilize and U.S. shale oil production increases. A more complete understanding of how fractures propagate in certain formations could help drillers extract more oil and gas using less inputs like water and proppant, or perhaps via fewer frack stages.
The cost savings realized will help make U.S. shale extraction profitable at lower commodities price points. Oil field cost reduction will be critical to the long-term viability of shale oil and gas extraction.
NETL's notice suggests a treasure trove of data can be expected shortly.
"Based on a first look at the core, the research team predicts that the fundamental understanding of hydraulic fracture propagation, modeling, and effectiveness is about to undergo a game-changing alteration," it said.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/04/11/stories/1060035365
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Sanders and Activist Go After Clinton on Fracking
Apr 11, 2016 | Washington Post
By David Weigel
Josh Fox walked up to Sen. Bernie Sanders's lectern and plunked it down – a glass jug of brown water. The director of two documentaries titled “Gasland,” who did more than anyone to popularize the case to ban fracking, did not need to explain his prop.
“Are the people who banned fracking in the state of New York in the house?” Fox asked.
The Floyd L. Maines Veterans Memorial Arena, where thousands of voters had come to see Sanders (I-Vt.), rumbled with applause. Sanders’s campaign, bolstered by private polling, sees the fight over fracking (hydraulic fracturing of rocky shale to access natural gas) as an issue where former secretary of state Hillary Clinton would struggle to win New York Democrats.
Clinton’s campaign is looking to New York to continue its preferred theory of the primary – a march to the nomination, slowed but not impeded by Sanders. Several times, Clinton’s surrogates have chastised Sanders for negatively contrasting her record with his.
But the fracking issue is Clinton’s challenge in miniature. Where supporters once hoped that she could be toughened and pushed strategically on some key issues, the campaign to ban fracking started with grass-roots activists. They pressured politicians; the politicians did not reach compromise with them. They shared stories and fears of water being contaminated by fracking fluid; the political class reeled.
In 2014, progressive author and activist Zephyr Teachout ran a surprisingly strong primary campaign against Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.), running best in upstate and southern tier areas with strong anti-fracking sentiment; shortly after his second term began, Cuomo signed on to the ban. (Cuomo carried Binghamton’s Broome County, but by just five points.)
Pressed by reporters this year, Clinton has said she favors strong regulation of fracking and supports the New York ban. But Fox, who endorsed Sanders for president Feb. 28, asked voters not to fall for Clinton’s conversion.
“Hillary Clinton just said, ‘I support the New York fracking ban,’ ” Fox said. "But Hillary Clinton, as secretary of state, developed the global shale gas initiative, which sold fracking to 30 countries worldwide. And she is advocating for a ‘natural gas bridge to the future.’ What does that mean? It means frack gas pipelines crisscrossing everywhere. It means 300 new pipelines that will last for decades.”
When he took the stage, the brown water replaced by something drinkable, Sanders repeatedly promised to ban fracking and compared the anti-fracking movement to other great bottom-up causes.
“It didn’t happen because the governor woke up one day and said: 'Oh, why didn’t I think of that?' ” said Sanders. “He did it because he’s a good politician, and that’s fair enough. He responded to the people.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/11/sanders-and-activist-go-after-clinton-on-fracking/
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EPA Knows Which Plants Violate Rules -- But It Can't Tell You
Apr 11, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
U.S. EPA knows which chemical facilities aren't following federal safety protocols, but it can't tell the public where they are.
So-called outlier plants handle hazardous chemicals at levels high enough to trigger federal reporting requirements -- but they're not complying.
EPA identified between 13 and 15 potential violators in the wake of an explosion at an outlier plant in West, Texas, three years ago this month that killed 15 people. At least two outliers remain out of compliance.
But their identities remain a secret thanks to post-Sept. 11 regulations administered by a different agency, the Department of Homeland Security.
Unlike an earlier generation of environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, programs launched under the umbrella of DHS were crafted largely without any sense of transparency in mind.
If EPA told the public the names of the 13 outlier plants, people who live near them might be prodded to take more precautions. Workers might think twice before taking a job there. Or community groups could protest at the plants and pressure them to listen to federal overseers.
"The disaster at West illustrates the level of harm that our communities can suffer when something at even a small facility holding hazardous chemicals goes wrong," Rep. Patrick Meehan (R-Pa.) said at a hearing of the House Homeland Security Committee's Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection and Security Technologies in 2013. "Whether the harm is intentional or the result is an accident, the effects are devastating. And that's why it's so important that these outliers are accounted for."
Compliance with EPA and DHS programs is crucial because under the risk management program, it triggers notification of local emergency planning committees, which then can train emergency responders and prepare for worst-case scenarios.
Still, the identity of the two plants remains a mystery. EPA identified the sites using its Facility Registry Service, an internal database, to integrate DHS' Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards program information.
DHS keeps the information on servers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and has "robust physical security and cybersecurity controls in place for securing this data," Brian de Vallance, DHS' assistant secretary for legislative affairs, wrote in 2014.
The information, however, is available only to federal agencies -- not to the public.
"The remaining two are currently under EPA review," the agency said in response to a Freedom of Information Act request about the outliers.
Mathy Stanislaus, EPA assistant administrator for land and emergency management, described the hunt for outliers as a joint process between the two agencies, but most of the work was done by DHS, the agency said after processing a FOIA request for nearly 15 months.
"The EPA is only able to share final, non-deliberative records that fall outside the FOIA exemptions based on information owned or developed by the EPA," the agency explained.
It's just one example of the secrecy that keeps the identities of problem plants hidden -- a luxury not afforded to gross violators of air, water and other traditional environmental laws.
For these programs, the public can search using free online tools to identify industrial facilities that emit hazardous chemicals into the air or water at levels exceeding permitted amounts.
The secrecy surrounding chemical plants makes it hard for the public to know what DHS is doing to protect them. DHS didn't respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.
EPA said it could release only information that did not identify the facilities. In the two pages of correspondence the agency disclosed, an unidentified chemical facility tried to make the case that EPA was mistaken in its assessment of the quantity of chemicals it used and thus it did not have to participate in the risk management program.
For years, DHS officials have touted progress at the CFATS program, but it can be hard to verify whether that is true. In 2011, someone leaked documents to Fox News showing CFATS was woefully behind schedule, contradicting years of positive statements from the program's leaders (Greenwire, Dec. 23, 2011).
Officials now say a long-term reauthorization of the program approved by Congress in 2014 has led to nearly all site security plans being authorized, as the program envisions.
"There's no doubt that the DHS approach to restricting information really doesn't serve a significant national security concern," said Ron White, formerly the director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Effective Government and now a senior fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists, according to his LinkedIn page.
"It's particularly important to be able to know which facilities no longer pose a significant risk concern, because I think those serve as great examples of what others in the industry can do," White added.
Congratulating good sites
EPA has a variety of programs to draw attention to companies that have reformulated consumer products to remove more harmful substances, or plants that have come up with innovative ways to scrub air emissions and protect the climate.
But DHS' commitment to keeping facility information secret means it can't publicly pat plants on the back that no longer need its oversight.
For almost four years, the environmental group Greenpeace has sought a list of plants that have exited the CFATS program because they have modified their facilities to use safer chemicals. The group wants to highlight these facilities as examples the chemical industry should follow.
But its efforts have been stymied at nearly every turn.
The group maintains DHS should have no problem releasing the information because the plants are no longer in the CFATS program and pose no risk to the public.
It filed a FOIA request in 2012 seeking "all releasable documents and records that contain the most complete listing of chemical facilities that have reduced their holdings of threshold quantities of 'chemicals of interest' ... rendering them no longer 'high risk facilities' under CFATS."
In addition, the group sought information on "any safer chemicals, processes or methods these same facilities adopted to no longer be classified as 'high risk' facilities under CFATS."
The group noted Rand Beers, then the undersecretary of the National Protection and Programs Directorate, had told a House committee that year that "more than 1,600 facilities completely removed their chemicals of interest, and more than 700 others" cut their quantities low enough to avoid regulation. This had "made the nation more secure," Beers said.
In 2014, an administrative law judge with the Coast Guard, which handles FOIA appeals for DHS, reversed the agency's decision not to disclose more than 123 pages of records listing facility names. Timothy O'Connell, an attorney adviser at the Coast Guard, wrote the agency had withheld the information in a way that "is not in accordance with applicable case law."
The agency's assertion that disclosing the records would harm people was too "overly broad" to qualify for the exemption claimed, O'Connell wrote.
Nearly two years later, Greenpeace has not received the requested information from DHS. Last year, O'Connell wrote the group noting that, while DHS "is obligated to comply ... we have no ability to force compliance if an agency does not adequately obey our appellate decisions." The only further action, he explained, was to sue DHS in federal court.
Bill Allmond, the vice president for government relations at the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates, didn't oppose the release of the facilities' names.
"Very little ever satisfies Greenpeace, but it's really up to DHS," Allmond said. "I don't see any fundamental security reason as to why DHS would not divulge those facilities. I do know there's some sensitivity around what tier a facility has or had, but I cannot see any fundamental reason why DHS would not share that information."
The concern is that if the names were released, circumstances could change and they could end up back in the CFATS program, which is supposed to be kept confidential because of security concerns, Allmond said.
CFATS oversight is triggered automatically based on what quantities of specified chemicals are used at a site.
Local communities may benefit from the knowledge that a site is no longer considered high-risk but don't necessarily need to know how the plant achieved the risk reduction, Allmond said.
Greenpeace Legislative Director Rick Hind said that at first, the group simply wanted to obtain accurate statistical information to use in comments it planned to submit to DHS and EPA urging tougher chemical safety recommendations.
"We were rolling the dice assuming the best of them, and we got screwed," Hind said, "or we are getting screwed."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/04/11/stories/1060035384
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Feds Push Stronger Cyber Protections at Nuclear Sites
Apr 11, 2016 | The Hill- E2 Wire
By Tim Devaney
The federal government is moving to impose new cybersecurity requirements on nuclear facilities.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is taking steps to strengthen the existing physical protections at the sites to guard against hacking threats. The steps include the installation of new safeguards for certain fuel cycle sites that house potentially dangerous nuclear materials, as well as protections for uranium conversion and deconversion facilities.
The agency released a regulatory basis document Monday that will lay the groundwork for future rulemaking. A proposed rule on the cyber security of nuclear facilities is expected to follow in the coming months.
The cyber security requirements would provide a “high assurance that digital computer systems, communication systems, and networks associated with safety, security, emergency preparedness, and material control and accounting functions are protected from cyber attacks,” the agency wrote in the Federal Register.
The regulatory basis document is available immediately.
http://thehill.com/regulation/cybersecurity/275831-feds-pushing-stronger-cyber-protections-at-nuclear-sites
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Grid's Cyberattack Savior May Not be the Military
Apr 11, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
As lawmakers and energy officials puzzle over how the power sector would respond to a cyberattack on the grid, they shouldn't count too closely on the Pentagon, experts say.
The various branches of the U.S. military have key roles to play in deterring cyberthreats, blunting attacks and recovering from widespread outages. But while the Department of Defense takes responsibility for defending U.S. interests from cyberattacks, it must contend with limited resources, a stovepiped architecture for the National Guard and the fact that the power grid is largely maintained by the private sector, where there are safeguards against military overreach.
DOD "doesn't have the resources to deal with a large civilian outage" brought on by a cyberattack or other failure, said Richard Andres, a professor of national security strategy at the National War College.
Andres cited the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the National Guard struggled to coordinate with the civilian Federal Emergency Management Agency to bring New Orleans back online, rescue stranded Americans and maintain order, despite readying 10,000 troops in Louisiana and Mississippi.
"Now imagine a national outage that affects hundreds of cities, and you understand the magnitude of the problem," Andres said. "It's simply beyond the ability of DOD to take care of."
That's not to say the military has a blind spot in the bulk power sector. As far back as the 1990s, the Pentagon appreciated how cyber vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure could affect its mission. In recent years, officials have gone so far as to test a cyber-secure microgrid to keep the lights on at a Marine Corps installation in Hawaii, just in case the local utility went down (EnergyWire, Aug. 28, 2015). Late last year, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency offered to award $77 million for solutions to a worst-case attack on the grid, hoping to find new techniques for detecting and responding to such an incident.
GridEx
Several DOD components, including the U.S. Cyber Command, Northern Command, North American Aerospace Defense Command and National Guard, joined the electricity industry last November to practice for what would happen in a wide-scale cyber and physical attack on the power grid.
In its public report on that exercise, dubbed GridEx III, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) stressed the need for better communication among utilities, law enforcement and other government entities.
"The large-scale cyber and physical attack scenario was designed to overwhelm even the most prepared organizations," NERC noted, adding later that "lessons learned from some organizations indicated that day-to-day communication mechanisms, roles, and responsibilities during such an event would be insufficient."
Herb Lin, a senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, lauded NERC for combining cyber and physical elements in the exercise, although he also identified some areas for improvement.
He pointed out that participation in NERC's scripted scenario was voluntary. "You would expect that the people who participated are the people who feel like they're reasonably well-prepared," Lin said. "It's not clear that's where the biggest problem is."
Lin said it was not far-fetched to imagine a scenario where National Guardsmen are called in to assist with a cyber emergency that outstrips the ability of the power sector to respond.
In the wake of GridEx, the industry has started building its own program to ensure there are enough cybersecurity experts on hand without relying on DOD.
Modeled after existing procedures for sharing line workers after a big storm, the cyber mutual assistance program would, in theory, allow technology professionals to repair other utilities' networks during an emergency.
Grid operators still have to overcome technical and legal hurdles to reach the "critical mass" of participants needed for the program to succeed (EnergyWire, Feb. 17).
Unclear roles
In the meantime, defense officials have acknowledged in strategic documents the crucial role they play for critical infrastructure protection.
But a report last week from the Government Accountability Office found gaps in the way DOD would support civilian authorities during a big cyber incident.
The DOD has a long-standing memorandum of understanding with the Department of Homeland Security, the lead agency for dealing with cyberattacks on domestic infrastructure.
In a major event such as a widespread power outage, however, it's not always clear that DOD would know how to assist its civilian counterparts, GAO found in its audit.
"Until DOD clarifies the roles and responsibilities of its key entities for cyber incidents, there would continue to be uncertainty about which DOD component or command should be providing support to civil authorities in the event of a major cyber incident," GAO said, noting that DOD had not provided a timeline for updating strategic documents.
Spokeswoman Lt. Col. Valerie Henderson said the Defense Department "understands the importance of providing clear guidance for DOD's authorities, roles and responsibilities in the cyber domain."
"DOD is developing policy guidance on how DOD provides Defense Cyber Assistance to civil authorities, including the use of the National Guard," she added.
Andres of the National War College said he had seen cooperation between DHS and DOD improve over the past 10 years.
Still, he said the legal framework for using defense assets for a civilian mission is "not a straightforward or easy process to work through."
And DOD's grid defense capabilities, in Cyber Command or the National Guard, may not live up to expectations during a worst-case cyber assault.
"I've spoken to many captains of industry and local government officials, and they think that the DOD is going to help if something like this happens," Andres said. "We have to tell them, 'No -- there's not a whole lot that the Department of Defense can do.'"
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/04/11/stories/1060035371
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Iowa Regulators Award Dakota Access Oil Pipeline Final Permit
Apr 11, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
As a follow-up to its initial approval in early March, the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) on Friday issued the backers of the Dakota Access Pipeline a final permit to build the proposed four-state, 1,154-mile pipeline to ship Bakken crude to markets along the East, West and Gulf coasts.
In following conditions the IUB outlined for approval on March 10 (see Shale Daily, March 11), the board said Dakota Access has "substantially complied" with the requirements of the board’s original order, and so the IUB has issued a hazardous liquid pipeline permit to Dakota Access, LLC. The board also issued an order accepting Energy Transfer Partners' (ETP) compliance filings required for the pipeline permit.
The IUB acknowledged that Dakota Access still must file various documents before starting construction on a simultaneous basis in all four states (North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois).
Earlier, Dakota Access committed to the IUB that it would file permits and approval documents from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources prior to commencing construction. The company has also committed to file final versions of mandated plans covering stormwater pollution prevention and unanticipated discoveries prior to commencing construction.
ETP's Dakota Access Pipeline has said it will begin construction simultaneously in all of the states once the project satisfies the final conditions from the IUB (see Shale Daily, April 1).
On March 18, Iowa regulators denied the pipeline backers' request to expedite the process and start construction immediately of the $3.8 billion crude oil project (see Shale Daily, March 28). Dakota Access Pipeline filed a subsequent "motion for clarification" and to set a permitting schedule that was also denied March 24.
A revised filing was subsequently submitted dealing with parcel-specific changes that the regulators made as part of their conditioned approval of the pipeline project and the condemnation request of Dakota Access on some parcels where easements could not be worked out with landowners.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/106011-iowa-regulators-award-dakota-access-oil-pipeline-final-permit
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Keystone Pipeline Restarts After Oil Leak
Apr 11, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Operators of the Keystone oil pipeline resumed pumping this weekend after shutting down the pipeline for repairs for nearly a week.
Officials discovered a leak in Keystone outside of Freeman, South Dakota, last week, forcing TransCanada to shut down the pipeline and conduct repairs. Officials say about 17,000 gallons of oil leaked from the pipeline, more than the company’s initial estimates.
TransCanada restarted the pipeline this weekend, but at reduced pressure, after receiving approval from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) on Saturday. The company will be conducting aerial patrols and visual inspections of the leak site along the way, Reuters reports.
“As part of the return-to-service plan approved by PHMSA, TransCanada is operating the pipeline at reduced pressure,” the company said in a statement.
The 3,000-mile Keystone pipeline carries crude oil from the Alberta tar sands to oil facilities in Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas.
TransCanada has tried for years to extend the pipeline, but President Obama in November rejected its application to do so. Environmentalists had warned about the potential for a spill along an extended route, and they criticized the pipeline last week for its leak.
“South Dakota’s farmers and ranchers should know they can maintain their family operations without threat of bursting pipelines and oil spills,” Dakota Rural Action said in a statement last week.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/275816-keystone-pipeline-restarts-after-oil-leak
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Obama’s Fast Move to Join the Paris Climate Agreement Could Tie Up the Next President
Apr 11, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney and Juliet Eilperin
In late March, when the United States and China jointly declared that they’d be moving to immediately sign and then join the Paris climate agreement “as early as possible this year,” it was seen as the latest show of joint leadership by the two largest emitters.
But there’s another possible implication that went largely unnoticed. If the nations of the world, led by its two biggest contributors to climate change, jump through all the hoops needed to bring this agreement into force before President Obama leaves office, the next U.S. president could have a difficult time — or at least, a long wait — if he or she wanted to get out of it.
The Paris agreement does not state or limit when it can go into effect — it simply depends on when enough countries formally sign and join it. If that occurred while Obama is still in office, “then the next president could not withdraw until sometime in 2019, and the withdrawal would not be effective until sometime in 2020,” said Daniel Bodansky, a scholar of international environmental law at Arizona State University and a former attorney at the State Department focused on climate change.
The top two Republican presidential contenders, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and New York businessman Donald Trump, have both expressed major skepticism about the extent to which human activity is driving climate change. Cruz said in an interview with National Public Radio in December, “The scientific evidence doesn’t support global warming,” and that when it comes to the “theory” of climate change, “this is liberal politicians who want government power over the economy, the energy sector and every aspect of our lives.”
Trump, for his part, has suggested slashing funding for the Environmental Protection Agency–the primary agency responsible for imposing limits on the nation’s carbon output–saying “what they do is a disgrace” and that even if it’s shrunk to a small portion of its current size, “We’ll be fine with the environment. We can leave a little bit, but you can’t destroy businesses.”
Those positions suggests they would be none too keen about the Paris agreement, which takes climate science as a fundamental premise and seeks to organize the world’s countries into a process that will lead to global emissions reductions, providing a structure and reporting requirements for how individual countries will do so. Republicans have repeatedly said they would seek to overturn several signature Obama policies as soon as they took control of the White House, and reversing his climate rules and agreements rank high on that list. But with an already in-force Paris agreement, that might be pretty tough.
The Trump and Cruz campaigns did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
“Thanks to the president’s leadership, the historic Paris Agreement put in place a framework for all countries to take action to address the growing threat of climate change, and to increase their action and commitments over time,” said White House spokesman Frank Benenati, in response to a request for comment from the Post. “The sooner we bring the Agreement into force, the sooner the framework created by the Paris Agreement is put in place to ensure that all countries are acting and responding to climate change, as we are already seeing and experiencing the effects today and there is no time to waste.”
The text of the Paris agreement was negotiated in December and agreed to unanimously by the 195 countries that are parties to the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change.
But for the agreement to take effect, two steps must be taken. First, nations must formally sign the agreement — which they can do starting on April 22, when a signing ceremony is being held at the United Nations’ headquarters in New York. The United States and China have pledged to sign immediately then, along with some 130 other countries.
Second, nations must also take further steps to implement the agreement at home, before going back to the U.N. and depositing what are called their “instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession.” After signing, “then they each go through their respective domestic processes to formally ratify, or approve, there’s a whole string of alternate verbs that are used depending on one’s process,” says Elliott Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions.
The United States has said that the Paris agreement is not, in its eyes, a formal, legally binding treaty, which means that it doesn’t have to be ratified by the Senate. Thus, the formal process is likely to amount to a presidential order or statement, Diringer said.
When at least 55 countries, who account for at least 55 percent of global emissions, have all moved to join the agreement in this way, the Paris agreement then enters into force after a 30 day wait period. According to data just released by the U.N., the U.S. and China accounted for around 38 percent of emissions, meaning that if the two act swiftly, it will be much easier to meet the emissions threshold. Other big emitters who could then help substantially in getting to 55 percent include Russia (7.5 percent), India (4.1 percent), Japan (3.79 percent), and Brazil (2.48 percent).
White House senior adviser Brian Deese made a point of saying, on a March 31 press call, that the fact that China had indicated it wanted to join the accord “as soon as possible this year” was “significant.”
“That commitment will help build momentum for expeditious entry into force, which is something both our countries, through this joint statement, are calling for and that we will both be working together and respectively to try to encourage going forward,” he said, adding that having it enter into force will send “a strong, durable market signal to the global economy that we’re moving in the direction of low-carbon solutions, and will help ensure that the critical implementation steps that were left from the Paris agreement will be taken seriously and there won’t be any backtracking.”
Besides the United States and China, it is far from clear how quickly other countries will move in joining the agreement. But “there is a concerted effort now by a significant group of countries to make sure this agreement comes into force before the end of the Obama administration,” says Nigel Purvis, the president and CEO of Climate Advisers and a former State Department environmental official in the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.
“While success is not guaranteed, the U.S. and China decision to move forward quickly provides significant momentum,” Purvis continued.
On top of that, the BASIC group of countries — Brazil, South Africa (which accounts for 1.46 percent of global emissions), India, and China — recently released a statement saying they would also start domestic moves to ratify the agreement “as soon as possible,” suggesting other major emitters may be moving quickly.
It’s important to note that in earlier drafts of the Paris agreement being negotiated last year, it contained language suggesting that it couldn’t have entered into force so soon. Todd Stern, the U.S.’s special envoy for climate change and the agreement’s chief negotiator, noted on the March 31 press call that these earlier drafts had said it would not enter into force before 2020. “But that language fell out of the final draft,” said Stern, “so as soon as you hit that double threshold [55 countries representing 55 percent of emissions], the agreement is in force. And that could potentially happen this year.”
So suppose that the agreement enters into force before the next president is inaugurated. At that point, to get out of it again, one turns to its Article 28, which states that, “At any time after three years from the date on which this Agreement has entered into force for a Party, that Party may withdraw from this Agreement.” It adds, though, that the withdrawal itself doesn’t take effect until “expiry of one year from the date of receipt by the Depositary of the notification of withdrawal.” So that’s 4 years — the length of a presidential term.
This text, it’s important to emphasize, doesn’t seem to have been meant to trap anyone. It’s boilerplate language, says Arizona State’s Bodansky, and also found in other accords like the Kyoto Protocol and United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change. “It was not negotiated by the U.S. (or any other country) as a means of binding the next president,” he says.
Any attempt to abandon or withdraw from the Paris agreement — either before or after its entry into force — would likely create international uproar.
“Entry into force does in a sense create a higher hurdle in terms of reversing course essentially. But the political consequences are there under any circumstances,” says David Waskow, who directs the international climate initiative at the World Resources Institute.
Granted, even if an unsympathetic U.S. president couldn’t formally withdraw immediately, that doesn’t mean that his or her hands would be overly tied by the agreement. That’s because when it comes to delivering actual emissions cuts, the agreement largely relies on the individual commitments by the world’s nations.
“The provisions of the agreement which would remain in place for three years and that would therefore ‘bind’ a future president are not very onerous,” said John Bellinger, a former legal adviser to the State Department under Condoleeza Rice and currently an attorney at Arnold and Porter. “The Obama administration carefully negotiated the Agreement to ensure that the binding provisions are not so burdensome as to require the agreement to be treated as a treaty for purposes of U.S. law, thereby requiring Senate advice and consent. The administration has already complied with one of the binding provisions, which was to announce a carbon reduction goal. But the agreement does not require a future president actually to achieve that goal.”
So, the administration of a future President Trump or Cruz would presumably have to report to the U.N. on how it is going about implementing the Paris agreement, and how it intends to cut emissions (whether it actually does so or not). The agreement gives the United States “a responsibility to have a climate plan and to report transparently on progress to the international community,” says Purvis.
And what if a future administration didn’t even do that? Failure to comply with the agreement does have some consequences, though they too do not appear to be very onerous. The text lays forth a “compliance” mechanism in the form of a “committee” that would be “non-adversarial and non-punitive.”
“The premise of the Paris agreement is one of political pledges and political accountability,” says Purvis. “And the consequence for not complying is international criticism. And the need to explain oneself.”
Still, it appears that an increased global desire to move fast on getting the agreement implemented, combined with some boilerplate language, does create a situation in which an in-force agreement would be fairly tough for the next president to get out of.
“Countries gave considerable thought in Paris to creating a durable agreement that would outlive occasional lapses in political will,” said Purvis.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/11/obamas-fast-move-to-join-the-paris-climate-agreement-could-tie-up-the-next-president/
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One State's 'Burden' is Another's 'Prudent' Duty to Address Carbon
Apr 11, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
To a group of former state regulators supporting U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, opponents of the rule who argue it's a burden to continue planning for carbon reductions are being "hyperbolic."
"To seek a judicial blessing to sit on your hands not only is insulting to sort of what good government should be and good regulatory oversight should be, it also is a shift in the way policy should be done," said Karl Rábago, who was a member of the Texas Public Utility Commission in the early 1990s and now runs Pace University's Energy and Climate Center.
Each Monday, Power Plays previews upcoming moves on the way to Clean Power Plan compliance and recaps the week's developments.
Rábago and 15 others who have served as high-level state environmental and energy officials submitted an amicus briefin a lawsuit against the regulation, arguing the power sector is already heading in the low-carbon direction and that planning around evolving business models and environmental standards has long been the job of state regulators.
While Rábago acknowledges the rule is broader and requires a more holistic look at the power industry than previous regulations, he said it is not far outside the normal work of state energy and environment officials.
Rábago said the U.S. Supreme Court stay of the rule has fueled a "strategic effort to imply that these environmental regulations are in themselves a burden and that burden is primarily associated with planning and the difficult, prudent business of government."
His group's 41-page brief pushes back against that idea.
The shift from coal to cheaper natural gas, paired with rapidly declining costs of solar and improvements in energy efficiency "are already moving the power sector toward significant reductions in carbon pollution," the brief says. "The CPP provides a framework to capture these trends and market signals, and the impetus to ensure states achieve the necessary emission reductions in the most efficient and cost effective way possible."
Rábago believes the federal regulation will bring lagging states up to the level of those that have charged ahead with investments in cleaner energy.
"It's the worst kind of cynical for any one or number of states to seek a competitive advantage through a destruction of the commons and a cheapening of the value of the life in their states," he said. "It's a legitimate function [of government] to prevent that kind of advantage seeking by setting a floor below which we cannot slide."
While the power sector is already on a lower-carbon trajectory, Rábago said the rule is necessary because "time is of the essence" to combat climate change.
At 3 p.m. Thursday, a team of E&E reporters will take to Twitter to answer questions about the Clean Power Plan, its legal status and how states and companies are responding to the Supreme Court stay. To join the conversation, tweet questions with the hashtag #GetSmartCPP.
This week, reporter Elizabeth Harball will be traveling to a meeting of state environmental officials in Nashville, Tenn. Environmental Council of the States (ECOS) President Martha Rudolph of Colorado is moderating a dialogue on the Clean Power Plan that will feature EPA General Counsel Avi Garbow and ECOS Secretary-Treasurer Todd Parfitt, who is director of Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy will also speak.
Tomorrow and Wednesday in Houston, the Gulf Coast Power Association holds its spring conference, featuring a keynote address from ICF International's Chris MacCracken on the "national perspective" on the Clean Power Plan. ICF has been conducting modeling on the rule. Reporter Edward Klump will attend the conference.
On Capitol Hill on Wednesday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee holds ahearing "to examine the impact the president's climate policies are having on economic opportunity, national security, and related issues."
Also Wednesday in Washington, D.C., E&ETV's Monica Trauzzi will moderate two panels for a U.S. Association for Energy Economics conference on energy economics in a climate-constrained world.
Later this month, Washington state's Department of Ecology will restart consideration of a rule to cap and reduce carbon pollution. The agency withdrew an earlier draft of the rule "to allow more time to continue working with stakeholders and to integrate suggestions," according to an email from spokeswoman Camille St. Onge=. The Department of Ecology will share its latest thinking in a webinar on April 27.
In case you missed it:
· Heeding concerns from utilities, West Virginia lawmakers advanced a change that might allow environmental regulators more flexibility to comply with the Clean Power Plan if the rule survives court challenges (ClimateWire, April 7).
· Energy giant Dominion Resources Inc. is making a strong business case in favor of the rule, telling a federal appeals court that compliance is "feasible" and that "effects on power plants and customers can be successfully managed" with market-based tools (EnergyWire, April 6).
· A swarm of new Clean Power Plan backers arrived on the legal scene last week, with filings rolling in from big technology companies, government officials and a couple of oddballs (ClimateWire, April 4).
· Minnesota could import hydropower from Canada to cut carbon emissions (ClimateWire, April 4).
For more news and analysis about the Clean Power Plan, visit E&E's Power Plan Hub.
http://www.eenews.net/interactive/clean_power_plan/column_posts/1060035345
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Industry Attorneys Expect Narrow Victory in CWA ‘Jurisdiction’ Order Suit
Apr 11, 2016 | InsideEPA
By David LaRoss
Industry attorneys expect a win in a pending Supreme Court case in which property owners are trying to win judicial review of regulators’ findings that waters are jurisdictional under the Clean Water Act (CWA), but some expect a narrow ruling that is unlikely to affect advisory findings by other agencies on non-environmental issues.
The high court heard argument March 30 in Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., with liberal and conservative justices alike appearing sympathetic to claims that CWA jurisdictional determinations (JDs) have practical or legal effects that can justify a court challenge even before the Corps, EPA, or other regulators mount an enforcement action or issue permit limits.
Following argument, one industry attorney tells Inside EPA, “[w]e were really pleased with how it went. . . . Going into it I was worried that the case could end with a 4-4 tie, but now I’m much more confident that our side can win outright.”
“I’m sure the court will write this in a way that applies only to JDs by the Army Corps [and EPA], which is fine -- that’s what the case is about,” adds a conservative attorney backing Hawkes.
A second industry attorney says, “We would be thrilled with a decision, even if it’s a narrow decision, making clear that a landowner has a right to challenge a positive jurisdictional determination.”
But that source hopes for a broad ruling, saying, “[I]deally we would like to see broad enough language, emphatic enough language, to make it clear that business can seek judicial review when they’ve been affected by an agency action that has immediate consequences.”
The pending case tests whether a JD qualifies as “final agency action” open to challenge under the Administrative Procedure Act.
The high court in its landmark 1996 decision Bennett v. Spear said whether an action is “final” depends on whether it represents the “consummation of the agency’s decisionmaking process” and is one from which “rights or obligations have been determined, or from which legal consequences will flow.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ), which has argued JD cases on behalf of the Corps and EPA, says the determinations fail the Bennett test because they carry no legal consequences.
But Hawkes -- a peat mining company subject to a JD -- as well as other property owners and their supporters have countered that the orders effectively bar owners from using land found to contain jurisdictional waters unless they go through the often-expensive permit process, or risk being the target of CWA enforcement.
Justices at the March 30 argument seemed to back that position. For instance, Justice Stephen Breyer said “Those sound like important legal consequences that flow from an order that, in respect to the agency, is final, for it has nothing left to do about that interpretation. And B, is perfectly suited for review in the courts.”
Narrow Ruling
The industry attorney said the justices’ support for Hawkes is especially encouraging since the court’s ideological mix is in flux following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia earlier this year.
If the court’s liberals, including at least one of President Obama’s appointees, were to join the conservatives in opening JDs to suit, it would “absolutely” be a good sign for such cases in the future, the source says.
But a victory in the current case could be narrower than some of Hawkes’ backers are hoping, because many of the justices who seemed to back Hawkes also weighed how to narrowly tailor a ruling allowing review to the water law, as opposed to a broad, precedent-setting decision that would allow suits over other letters from executive agencies where the regulators identify conduct they consider unlawful.
For instance, Justice Anthony Kennedy said JDs are different from agency letters on other subjects because the CWA is uniquely unclear on where EPA and the Corps have authority.
Chief Justice John Roberts raised the idea that JDs should be considered enforcement tools that give regulators “extraordinary leverage” over property owners, rather than informational letters.
Those concepts could assuage concerns Justice Elena Kagan raised that a broad ruling in Hawkes’ favor might open advisory letters from the Federal Communications Commission, Securities and Exchange Commission and other agencies to suit, despite those letters being offered “for good reason.”
The conservative attorney backing Hawkes predicts a narrow ruling tailored only to CWA JDs, but adds, “I think Justice Kagan’s concerns are overblown.”
Broad Impact
However, other Hawkes supporters are hoping for a sweeping decision that would reach beyond the CWA, despite Kagan’s concerns.
The second industry attorney says such a wide-ranging decision would create the broad impact that EPA critics hoped to see after the Supreme Court’s landmark 2012 ruling in Sackett v. EPA, where the justices unanimously held that agency compliance orders that carry penalties for noncompliance must be open to court challenge immediately after issuance.
“I thought that Sackett was pretty emphatic for purposes of what constitutes finality under the Administrative Procedure Act,” but courts have continued to block suits over agency orders that allegedly create immediate consequences, the attorney says.
For instance, the source points to a July 7 ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, Building Industry Association v. U.S. Department of Commerce, where the unanimous panel held that the association could not sue over agencies’ designation of lands as critical habitat for green sturgeon under the Endangered Species Act.
“Agencies shouldn’t be able to create regulatory burdens without judicial review. . . . With strong enough language in Hawkes, perhaps that would create some kind of wiggle room in these cases,” the attorney continues.
Bennett Test
Similarly, the justices appear unlikely to strike down the second prong of Bennett altogether -- whether a decision has legal consequences -- as Hawkes and the conservative Cato Institute, an amicus party in the case, urged them to do in briefs.
Hawkes argued in its first merits brief to the high court that any agency action that represents the “consummation” of its decisionmaking process should be open to challenge, even if it determines no legal rights or obligations as Bennett requires.
However, the justices seemed to avoid that line of thought during argument, focusing their questions on whether JDs have binding effect.
“I think there’s still a way to write the opinion that way, to revise the Bennett test. Whether they want to do that or just say that these JDs qualify under the existing test -- in practice, it looks like that’s what it’s going to come down to,” the conservative attorney says.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/industry-attorneys-expect-narrow-victory-cwa-%E2%80%98jurisdiction%E2%80%99-order-suit
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