Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 4/14
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(ACC Mentioned) FDA Reviewing Safety of Food-Contact Uses of 30 Phthalates
Apr 14, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the safety of 30 chemicals, called ortho-phthalates, used to make food packaging and food contact materials. -
(ACC Mentioned) This Is Some Very Bad News for Fast-Food Eaters
Apr 13, 2016 | Fortune
By Laura Lorenzetti
Fast-food eating may be worse for you than you even thought. It’s not just the calorie count or high saturated fats that are going to hurt you—it’s also the industrial chemicals. -
(ACC Mentioned) Your Fast Food May Come With Side of Industrial Chemicals
Apr 13, 2016 | Newser
By Michael Harthorne
People who eat fast food may have higher levels of potentially infertility-causing industrial chemicals in their body, according to a new study. Bloomberg reports researchers were looking specifically at DEHP and DiNP, two types of phthalates found in everything from cosmetics to window blinds -
EPA Announces Chemicals For June IRIS Meeting
Apr 13, 2016 | InsideEPA
EPA has announced that its June public science meeting for the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program will focus on two chemicals undergoing assessment in the influential program, tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) and Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP). -
FDA Agrees to Reconsider Safety of Ortho-Phthalates
Apr 14, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner
Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreed to consider withdrawing its approvals of 30 food additives known as ortho-phthalates from use in food packaging and food handling equipment. -
PFOA Testing Reveals Mixed Results in North Bennington, Pownal
Apr 13, 2016 | WPTZ
By Brad Evans
Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin announced mixed results of further testing for PFOA in North Bennington and Pownal. -
Senators Reach Deal to Act on Comprehensive Energy Bill
Apr 13, 2016 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport
Senators on Wednesday reached a deal to act on a comprehensive energy bill as soon as this week, breaking a three-month partisan standoff over the tainted water scandal in Flint, Mich. -
Senate Avoids Controversial Riders in Energy and Water Bill
Apr 13, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Hess, Geof Koss and Christa Marshall
Appropriators in both chambers advanced energy and water spending bills today, with senators choosing to avoid contentious policy riders, while members of the House incorporated thousands of special requests from members. -
Senate Subcommittee Approves Energy, Water Bill
Apr 14, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
A Senate Appropriations subcommittee voted April 13 to approve a $37.5 billion energy and water spending bill that would authorize interim nuclear storage sites. -
Stalled Energy Bill to Return to Senate Floor
Apr 14, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Energy legislation that stalled in the Senate amid a funding fight over Flint, Mich.'s, tainted drinking water supply will return to the Senate floor after a new agreement was reached on the bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced April 13. -
Dems Fear 'Surreal' Budget Delay Could Hit Spending Bills
Apr 14, 2016 | E&E Daily
By George Cahlink
A push by House Republican appropriators to begin moving fiscal 2017 spending bills this week without an overall budget set has Democrats worried that domestic spending, including environmental programs overseen by U.S. EPA, will wind up shortchanged. -
EPA Says States Can Target Climate Change Despite Utility GHG Rule Stay
Apr 13, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Anthony Lacey
Top EPA officials say that states can pursue strategies to address climate change despite the Supreme Court stay of the agency's power plant greenhouse gas (GHG) rule, though EPA says it will not formally process any compliance plans for the rule during the stay even if states submit them on schedule. -
Is Cheap Oil Contractionary?
Apr 13, 2016 | The New York Times
By Paul Krugman
Low oil prices were supposed to be a big boost for the world economy; but it didn’t happen. Maury Obstfeld, my long-time textbook co-author and now chief economist at the IMF, offers an interesting argument about why: he suggests that it’s because of the zero lower bound. -
U.S. Said to Issue Offshore Drilling Rule Industry Fought
Apr 13, 2016 | Bloomberg
By Jennifer A Dlouhy
The Obama administration will issue sweeping new regulations on offshore drilling Thursday, imposing potentially costly requirements for those coastal wells and the emergency equipment meant to prevent environmental disasters. -
The Most Important Mystery about U.S. Climate Change Policy
Apr 13, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
On the surface, it looks like extraordinarily good news. The United States isburning less coal — less of the fuel that contributes the most carbon dioxide to the atmosphere when burned. -
Public Health Groups Object to Ozone Delay Bill
Apr 14, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
A coalition of 12 public health organizations urged lawmakers to oppose legislation that they said would “permanently weaken” implementation of national ozone standards. -
Expect Clean Power Plan Fight ‘Through 2017': EPA Official
Apr 14, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Litigation over the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan will take several years to wind its way through the legal system, but the agency's general counsel is saying a federal appeals court decision later this year may be an enormous tea leaf for the regulation's ultimate fate.
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(ACC Mentioned) FDA Reviewing Safety of Food-Contact Uses of 30 Phthalates
Apr 14, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The Food and Drug Administration is reviewing the safety of 30 chemicals, called ortho-phthalates, used to make food packaging and food contact materials.
In an April 12 letter to the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the FDA said it would consider an environmental coalition's March 18food additive petition. The petition said the FDA should revoke or revise its regulations that allow the chemicals use, because ortho-phthalates can harm reproduction and development.
The FDA's letter saying it will review the phthalates is the first step. It doesn't mean the agency has taken any position on the merit of the coalition's claims.
Nor did the agency agree to consider all aspects of the food additive petition.
If the coalition wants the agency to consider prohibiting food contact use of eight specific ortho-phthalates or certain food additive uses of five ortho-phthalates, it must file a different type of request called a citizens petition, the FDA said.
Tom Neltner, EDF's chemicals policy director, said the coalition will soon supplement its food additives petition with a citizens petition so that all of the issues and uses about which it is concerned are brought before the FDA.
Phthalates are a family of chemical compounds primarily used to make plastics flexible. The petition focuses on a subset of this broader family, the ortho-phthalates that have a particular structure the coalition said allows the chemicals to affect the body in similar ways.
ACC Focuses on Safety
The American Chemistry Council , which represents most major U.S. chemical manufacturers, sent Bloomberg BNA a statement April 13, saying it is “confident FDA will continue to rely on the best available science to address the petition.”
That science supports the safety of phthalates, the ACC said.
Neltner said the FDA's decision to consider the coalition's food additive petition is important for several reasons.
First, he said, the agency is examining the safety of a class of chemicals that exhibit what scientists have called “phthalate syndrome,” a variety of effects in laboratory animals including infertility, decreased sperm count, undescended testes and malformed penises.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine used the term phthalate syndrome in its 2008 report, “Phthalates and Cumulative Risk Assessment: The Tasks Ahead.”
The report recommended phthalates' risks be evaluated using a cumulative risk assessment approach that considers the combined impact of chemicals that cause similar biological effects (244 DEN A-5, 12/19/08).
Cumulative Safety Assessment Required
A cumulative safety assessment is required under regulations implementing the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, Neltner said, highlighting that as a second accomplishment of the FDA's decision to review the petition.
The law (21 U.S.C. §348 (c)(5)(B) requires the agency to examine the cumulative effects of “any chemically or pharmacologically related substance or substances” in the diet.
Third, the FDA now has a “hard statutory deadline” by which it must make a decision as to whether ortho-phthalates used in direct or indirect food additives are safe, Neltner said.
Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act the agency's letter starts a 180-day clock. Within that time, the agency must determine whether it has reasonable certainty that the chemicals can continue to be used without harm.
The 180-day clock can be temporarily stopped, or “held in abeyance,” for reasons such as obtaining more data from petitioners or related reasons.
Agency Can Be Sued for Delays
If the agency delays too long, however, petitioners can file a lawsuit as six advocacy groups recently did when the FDA failed to respond to their petition to ban perchlorate in food packaging (63 DEN A-24, 4/1/16; Breast Cancer Fund v. FDA 9th Cir., No. 16-70878, 3/31/16).
Finally, Neltner said, the decision to review the safety of these phthalates is important, because if the FDA determines the phthalates aren't safe, any food that touched materials made with the chemicals would be adulterated—illegal to sell—the day the decision is published in the Federal Register.
That decision is unlikely, according to the American Chemistry Council .
“Phthalates have been reviewed and studied by numerous government scientific agencies and regulatory bodies world-wide,” the council said. “Their conclusions have been essentially the same each time: that the phthalates in commerce today do not pose a risk to human health at real-life exposure levels.
“Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the last 10 years, demonstrate that exposure to phthalates from any source is extremely low and significantly lower than acceptable levels as set by regulatory agencies,” the chemistry council added.
Perfluorinated Chemicals Cited as Precedent
Neltner said it's too early to speculate on the FDA's conclusions.
An environmental coalition's previous petition prompted the FDA in January to revoked its previously approved use of three grease-proofing agents, perfluorinated chemicals, that coat paper wrappers and containers that come into contact with food, he said (03 DEN A-8, 1/6/16).
In that case, the agency said it couldn't be sure the class of long-chain perfluorinated chemicals would be safe, so—unless a manufacturer had evidence proving safety—it would presume a member of that class wouldn't be safe, Neltner said.
Most of the studies that have examined reproductive and other endocrine-related effects of ortho-phthalates have found they cause problems, Neltner said.
FDA could presume the class would, he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=87271301&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=497239000&searchid=27393666&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
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(ACC Mentioned) This Is Some Very Bad News for Fast-Food Eaters
Apr 13, 2016 | Fortune
By Laura Lorenzetti
Fast-food eating may be worse for you than you even thought. It’s not just the calorie count or high saturated fats that are going to hurt you—it’s also the industrial chemicals.
An analysis of people who ate fast food over the previous 24 hours found that they had elevated levels of phthalates, a chemical used to make plastics more pliable, reported Bloomberg.
The study by researchers at the George Washington University looked at federal nutrition survey data 2003 to 2010 from more than 9,000 people, who provided urine samples and a log of what they ate over a 24 hour period. The urine samples were analyzed for byproducts and two distinct industrial chemicals were linked with higher fast-food consumption: DEHP and DiNP, two types of phthalates.
Phthalates are known as endocrine-disrupting chemicals and can be found in a range of products, from cosmetics to glues to detergents. It’s primary use is to make plastic materials softer, more transparent, and more flexible, which means they are very commonly found in food packaging. Research suggests that the phthalates can leach into food through this packaging or machinery used to process ingredients.
The bigger question is how dangerous these chemicals are to human health, which is unclear. Research in rats shows that phthalates can affect the male reproductive system and human studies have hinted at similar results. The American Chemistry Council says that the chemicals “don’t pose a risk to human health at typical exposure levels,” though the Environmental Protection Agency says it is “concerned about phthalates,” especially given the widespread exposure.
The recent study by George Washington researchers, which was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, only looked at the limited timeframe of a day. It didn’t follow longterm exposure or look at the effects of increase phthalates in the body.
http://fortune.com/2016/04/13/fast-food-industrial-chemicals/
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(ACC Mentioned) Your Fast Food May Come With Side of Industrial Chemicals
Apr 13, 2016 | Newser
By Michael Harthorne
People who eat fast food may have higher levels of potentially infertility-causing industrial chemicals in their body, according to a new study. Bloomberg reports researchers were looking specifically at DEHP and DiNP, two types of phthalates found in everything from cosmetics to window blinds. They studied nutrition data from nearly 9,000 people and found those who got more than 35% of their total energy intake from fast food in the previous 24 hours had DEHP and DiNP levels 24% and 39% higher respectively. Phthalates may be entering fast food products through packaging, gloves worn by workers, or machinery used to process the food. Meat and grain products from fast-food restaurants were shown to be the most associated with higher phthalate levels in diners, according to apress release.
"Our findings raise concerns because phthalates have been linked to a number of serious health problems in children and adults," researcher Ami Zota says in the press release. Previous studies show those problems include possible damage to the male reproductive system. While the American Chemistry Council says phthalates aren't harmful, the EPA is concerned about them, Japan has banned them in food-prep gloves, the EU has limited their use in food, and a 2008 US law restricted them in children's toys. Further studies are needed to see if phthalates in fast food are responsible for any health problems. But Zota has some solid advice either way: "People concerned about this issue can't go wrong by eating more fruits and vegetables and less fast food." (Phthalates in mom's nail polish could lower baby's IQ.)
http://www.newser.com/story/223529/your-fast-food-may-come-with-side-of-industrial-chemicals.html
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EPA Announces Chemicals For June IRIS Meeting
Apr 13, 2016 | InsideEPA
EPA has announced that its June public science meeting for the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program will focus on two chemicals undergoing assessment in the influential program, tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) and Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP).
The June 29-30 meeting in Arlington, VA, will focus on a pending draft IRIS assessment of TBA and “[p]otential approaches to estimate the risk of skin cancer following dermal exposure” of BaP according to an April 12 emailannouncement from the agency. The notice indicates that the IRIS program will release the draft TBA assessment and other materials early in May.
EPA's draft IRIS assessment of BaP contains the first risk estimates from dermal exposures that the IRIS program has produced, figures that critics protested for being overly stringent and had urged the agency to create a guidance on how agency assessors should evaluate dermal risks in general before undertaking an IRIS assessment. The issues also led to much discussion among science advisors who peer reviewed the assessment.
At a February meeting of the chartered Science Advisory Board, where members voted to approve sending the peer review report to EPA, pending some revisions, IRIS Director Vincent Cogliano told the advisors that staff will “do some more work and discussing with the public" on the issue.
http://insideepa.com/news-briefs/epa-announces-chemicals-june-iris-meeting
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FDA Agrees to Reconsider Safety of Ortho-Phthalates
Apr 14, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Tom Neltner
Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agreed to consider withdrawing its approvals of 30 food additives known as ortho-phthalates from use in food packaging and food handling equipment. The chemicals are in a class of chemically- and pharmacologically-related substances used as plasticizers, binders, coating agents, defoamers, gasket closures, and slimicide agents to process and package food. The agency allows them to be used in cellophane, paper, paperboard, and plastics that come in contact with food. All of the chemicals were approved by the agency before 1985. Pursuant to 21 U.S.C. 321(s), chemicals that are reasonably expected to get into food from their intentional use in materials contacting food are considered "food additives."
FDA acted in response to a food additive petition submitted by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Center for Environmental Health, Center for Food Safety, Clean Water Action, Consumer Federation of America, Earthjustice, Environmental Defense Fund, Improving Kids’ Environment, and Learning Disabilities Association of America – groups all concerned by the adverse health effects of ortho-phthalates at the levels typically seen in food.
Academic studies have linked some of these chemicals to various reproductive, developmental and endocrine health problems. In fact, every ortho-phthalate that has been studied for these types of health effects has been found to pose a risk. From lower IQ in young children to malformation of the male genital tract, the evidence of health effects in humans continues to grow. But, with more than half of the 30 chemicals lacking any published safety data, the full extent of the threat remains unclear.
Several reports have found numerous ortho-phthalates in everyday food. While these chemicals are used in many consumer products other than food, the primary source of exposure appears to be food, presumably from their FDA-approved use in food packaging and handling equipment.
What requests did FDA reject?
In a reminder of how arcane the law can be, FDA rejected two requests in the petition because it concluded that:A food additive petition could not be used to ban a chemical's use as a food additive. A petition must propose "the issuance of a regulation prescribing the conditions under which such additive may be safely used." (21 U.S.C. 348(b)(1)) In a narrow interpretation of its authority, FDA said that a food additive petition could not be used to ban or a set a "zero tolerance." As a result, it rejected the request to ban the ortho-phthalates that the Consumer Products Safety Commission has proposed to ban from children's toys, pacifers, teething rings and other products. Congress had already banned the use of some of these ortho-phthalates in 2008 in these products.Chemical uses "approved" by FDA or the U.S. Department of Agriculture prior to the enactment of the 1958 law are exempt from the definition of food additives. (21 U.S.C. 321(s)) These approvals are known as "prior sanctioned." I put "approved" in quotes because the agency only needed to issue a letter not objecting to a specific use for it to qualify as exempt. Not objecting is quite different than approving it. As a result of this interpretation, five ortho-phthalates used "as plasticizers when migrating from food packaging material" pursuant to 21 CFR 181.27 are not eligible for review by the agency through a food additive petition. All other FDA-approved uses of these chemicals – and there are many – will be considered as part of the food additive petition.
The agency advised the groups that a citizens petition pursuant to 21 CFR 10.30was the proper means to make those requests. The petitioners will submit the citizens petition soon.
What happens now?
FDA has 180 days from April 12, 2016 to determine if there is no longer a “reasonable certainty of no harm,” the legal standard of safety for food additives and generally recognized as safe (GRAS) substances, for ortho-phthalates as a class. If there are not adequate research data for a particular chemical in the class, FDA must assume that chemical also has reproductive, developmental and endocrine toxicity based on the precedent set by its January decision removing the agency's approval of perfluorinated compounds.
The stakes for children's health are high. If FDA agrees with this new petition, it will issue a final rule that removes its approvals for the class of chemicals. Any food that physically contacted materials using any of the ortho-phthalates affected by decision would be considered adulterated on the day it was published in the Federal Register. This means it would be illegal to sell them.
For more information, please see the NGO's food additive petition and FDA's decision.
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2016/04/13/ortho-phthalates-filed/#more-5143
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PFOA Testing Reveals Mixed Results in North Bennington, Pownal
Apr 13, 2016 | WPTZ
By Brad Evans
Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin announced mixed results of further testing for PFOA in North Bennington and Pownal.
The governor said three samples taken from maple syrup showed no signs of the toxic chemical.
Three of seven sediment samples tested showed levels of PFOA below state action stages. The other four samples did not show signs of the chemical.
Of 63 private Pownal wells tested, four were found to have levels of PFOA over the acceptable 20 parts per trillion. The highest well tested at 66 ppt. Seven wells had levels lower than the 20 ppt threshold, while the other 52 were negative.
Water samples taken from Pownal Elementary School, Oak Hill Children’s Center, Pownal Town Office and Cozy Meadow Mobile Home Park tested negative for PFOA.
The testing results will be discussed further with residents during a public meeting at 6 p.m. April 19 at Pownal Elementary School.
Samples from the Fire District No. 2 municipal water district in Pownal tested positive for PFOA in March. The state said Monday it would offer free blood tests for PFOA contamination to qualified residents of Bennington and North Bennington, but the free testing has not yet been offered to Pownal residents.
http://www.wptz.com/news/pfoa-testing-reveals-mixed-results-in-north-bennington-pownal/39007714
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Senators Reach Deal to Act on Comprehensive Energy Bill
Apr 13, 2016 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport
Senators on Wednesday reached a deal to act on a comprehensive energy bill as soon as this week, breaking a three-month partisan standoff over the tainted water scandal in Flint, Mich.
The bill, sponsored by Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska and chairwoman of the Senate Energy Committee, and Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington, the panel’s ranking Democrat, has broad bipartisan support and is expected to easily pass the Senate.
It represents the first major energy bill to come to the Senate floor since the Bush administration. A similar measure has passed in the House, and President Obama has signaled his support for it. The bill is designed to address major changes in the ways that power is produced in the United States by updating the nation’s power grid and oil and gas transportation systems.
But progress on the measure has been stalled since January, when Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, sought to offer an amendment that would have provided $600 million in aid to the victims of the Flint water crisis. Republicans opposed her, a position that Democrats said embodied a passion for smaller government gone bad.
Ms. Stabenow, backed by Senate Democratic leaders, put a procedural hold on the bill, blocking its progress to the Senate floor. But on Wednesday, she and a handful of other senators said they had lifted their holds.
Ms. Stabenow insisted that she would continue to push for a vote on the Flint aid. “This is about something as basic as making sure families have clean water to drink and children with lead poisoning get the help they need,” she said in a statement.
The progress on the bill provided Senate leaders from both parties a rare moment of unity.
Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday night, Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and majority leader, said “I think we’re on the cusp here of something very important and very much worth doing for the American people.”
To that, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic Senate leader, added:“We’re done with this. We’re going to finish this bill.”
Despite those proclamations, the lawmakers have not set a date for a final vote on the measure. Senate aides said it could come as soon as this week.
Final passage of the bill would represent a significant step forward for the nation’s energy policy. Since passage of the last major energy law, in 2007, the United States has gone from fearing oil and gas shortages to becoming the world’s leading producer of both fuels.
The use of wind and solar power is rapidly accelerating as those sources become cheaper than fossil fuels in some parts of the country. And Mr. Obama’s clean-air regulations are reshaping the nation’s power systems, as electric utilities shutter coal-fired power plants and replace them with alternative sources.
But the nation’s energy infrastructure has not kept pace with those changes, and the Senate bill is designed to take the first major steps in reshaping that infrastructure.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/us/politics/senators-reach-deal-to-act-on-comprehensive-energy-bill.html?_r=0
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Senate Avoids Controversial Riders in Energy and Water Bill
Apr 13, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Hess, Geof Koss and Christa Marshall
Appropriators in both chambers advanced energy and water spending bills today, with senators choosing to avoid contentious policy riders, while members of the House incorporated thousands of special requests from members.
This afternoon, the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee approved a $37.5 billion fiscal 2017 spending bill for the Department of Energy and the Army Corps of Engineers, which Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) said was a $355 million increase over the current year.
The House bill, unveiled yesterday, would provide $37.4 billion in fiscal 2017 to the same agencies, a $259 million increase over current spending levels and $168 million above President Obama's budget request. It would set funding for the corps to $6.1 billion, after Obama proposed shaving $1.4 billion.
The Senate measure -- which the full committee will vote on today and could reach the floor next week -- does not include "controversial riders," Alexander said at the outset of today's markup. Senate spending bill text and report language are generally not available until after the full panel vote.
Alexander criticized mandatory spending proposals in the president's budget request to fund Mission Innovation, a plan among 20 countries to address climate change by doubling clean energy and research funding over five years.
"We know it isn't going to happen," he said of the mandatory spending.
The administration proposed a trust for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, for example, that would fund the agency at $1 billion in five years.
However, the subcommittee is calling for an increase to discretionary funding for ARPA-E -- a key component of Mission Innovation. Its plan would increase funding to $292.7 million, $1.7 million above last year's level but below the administration's request of $325 million.
Like the House plan, Senate appropriators are calling for a slight $50 million increase to DOE's Office of Science, which oversees most of the national laboratories and supports basic energy research.
Despite his criticism of Mission Innovation, Alexander reiterated his support for doubling basic energy research. His legislation would increase last year's record Science Office funding of $5.35 billion to $5.4 billion.
DOE's efficiency and renewables programs would receive flat funding of $2 billion in fiscal 2017, said a summary released by Senate Democratic appropriators.
In contrast, House appropriators are requesting $1.8 billion for those programs, $200 million below last year's level and more than $1 billion below Obama's request.
On the contentious mixed oxide fuel facility in South Carolina, Alexander said he and subcommittee ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) met earlier today with Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Senate Armed Services Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.), and South Carolina GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott on the matter, which will be the subject of a future Armed Services Committee hearing.
Senate appropriators are calling to eliminate funding for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, a massive project under construction in France with multiple countries to demonstrate fusion at large scale. Alexander said cutting the project would save $125 million.
"ITER started in 2005 with an initial cost of $1.1 billion, but we have already invested that much, and the project will not likely be completed until after 2025," he said in opening remarks.
Cuts to DOE's fusion programs have been a sticking point with lawmakers in both chambers. Moniz will likely send a report to Congress in early May about whether the United States should continue in ITER.
The Senate spending measure includes $94.5 million for advanced nuclear reactors, reflecting Alexander's long-standing support for the sector. That amount is $21 million above what the administration requested. Small modular nuclear reactors would see $95 million, $32 million over last year, according to Alexander.
Once again, the bill would authorize DOE to consolidate and store nuclear waste at interim storage sites, with Alexander noting that the sites would "complement" the disputed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
The bill would hand over $12.9 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration and $5.4 billion for cleanup of Cold War nuclear weapons production sites.
The corps would see $6 billion under the bill, according to the Democrats' summary. The Bureau of Reclamation would see $1.27 billion, including $100 million for drought relief efforts in the West.House bill advances
In a quick 12-minute markup, the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee advanced its own spending bill designed to restrict the Obama administration's jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act while boosting research spending on nuclear energy and fossil fuels.
"Increases over last year are targeted to those areas where they are needed most -- to provide for our nation's defense and to support our nation's infrastructure," said subcommittee Chairman Mike Simpson (R-Idaho).
The panel approved the legislation unanimously, as is generally the custom. The full Appropriations Committee could take up the measure as early as next week, a GOP aide said. There will likely be more debate then.
Under House rules, the chamber would need to adopt a budget agreement in order to consider appropriations bills before May 15, but GOP leaders do not appear to have the votes to do so (Greenwire, April 13).
The current path "puts the nation on a rather unsteady course," said Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), ranking member of the subcommittee.
Kaptur also voiced objections to "unnecessary and controversial" riders attached to the House spending bill, including measures that would allow the possession of firearms on corps lands.
Her home state would benefit from one provision that would block that agency from dropping dredged material into Lake Erie (E&ENews PM, April 12).
Western states also stand to gain from riders aimed at maximizing water deliveries in areas afflicted by drought. The bill would increase pumping in the California Delta, expand storage and protect area-of-origin water rights.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said his colleagues had offered relief policies for years now. "Unfortunately, each time our senators failed to meet the moment. I am hopeful this time will be different," he said.
Members made more than 2,700 requests to the subcommittee this year, and the final package contains support for 95 percent of those requests, according to Simpson.
Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) noted the bill would block the Obama administration from changing the definition of fill material, a step that could restrict dredge-and-fill permits for activities like mining.
Rogers said the changes would "shutter coal operations across the country and eliminate countless well-paying jobs in the process."
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/04/13/stories/1060035566
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Senate Subcommittee Approves Energy, Water Bill
Apr 14, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
A Senate Appropriations subcommittee voted April 13 to approve a $37.5 billion energy and water spending bill that would authorize interim nuclear storage sites.
The bill, which the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development approved by voice vote, would appropriate $30.7 billion for the Department of Energy, $6 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers, and nearly $1.3 billion for the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation, according to a bill summary.
The full committee is expected to approve the legislation during a markup April 14, and floor consideration could begin as soon as April 18, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), the subcommittee's chairman, told reporters following the markup.
Mining Rider
Similar to the House's $37.4 billion version, which was approved by the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development by voice vote April 13, the Senate version includes a rider sought by Alpha Natural Resources and other mining companies that prohibits any changes to the definition of “fill material” and “discharge of fill material” under the Clean Water Act.
Mining groups fear a revised definition could force mountaintop removal mining activities to be permitted under the Clean Water Act's Section 402, which governs discharge of pollutants, rather than the act's less stringent Section 404, which governs “fill material.”
Otherwise, the bill contains no controversial riders, Alexander said. “We believe those issues should be decided on the floor of the United States Senate.”
Other highlights of the bill include $2 billion for renewable energy efficiency programs within the DOE, $632 million for the DOE's fossil energy research and development programs and $293 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
No Yucca Funding
Unlike the House version, the Senate bill contains no funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Instead, the bill includes language allowing the DOE to develop interim nuclear waste storage sites, including private sites approved by the department.
Under current law, the DOE is prohibited from developing an interim storage site for commercial nuclear waste until the proposed permanent waste repository at Yucca Mountain is fully licensed.
The draft House bill, which could receive a full committee markup as soon as the week of April 18, includes language that would block the Obama administration's Clean Water Rule. It also includes parts of the House-passed California drought legislation (H.R. 2898) opposed by Democrats (71 DEN A-11, 4/13/16).
It is the first time California water provisions have been included in an appropriations bill, according to an April 12 news release from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
Drought Relief Language
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) issued a statement April 12 saying her full California water bill (S. 2533) should be moved through the Senate through regular order, and appropriations provisions should match last year's bill: $100 million for drought relief programs.
But McCarthy said April 13 at an energy and environment symposium that the appropriations process could be a good avenue to force action on California water.
“This is the window to make that all happen,” McCarthy said.
With assistance from Rachel Leven in Washington
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=87271296&vname=dennotallissues&fn=87271296&jd=87271296
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Stalled Energy Bill to Return to Senate Floor
Apr 14, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter
Energy legislation that stalled in the Senate amid a funding fight over Flint, Mich.'s, tainted drinking water supply will return to the Senate floor after a new agreement was reached on the bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced April 13.
McConnell did not specify when the broad energy bill (S. 2012) would return, but Senate aides said it could be as soon as this week or next.
The bill re-emerged bill after a new agreement was reached that would separate the Flint funding issue from the bill and drop another amendment that had drawn opposition, aides said.
The new agreement, which is being sought by unanimous consent—meaning a single senator could still object—calls for voice votes on 29 amendments and roll call votes on eight amendments, followed by a vote on final passage.
A spokesman for Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), who had earlier placed a hold on the energy bill over a lack of funding for Flint, said the senator has dropped her hold and would seek another vehicle for the measure, though it wasn't immediately clear what that would be (24 DEN A-5, 2/5/16).
The new agreement, obtained by Bloomberg BNA, also doesn't include a revenue sharing amendment by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and opposed by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who also placed a hold on the bill.
Ryan Brown, a spokesman for Nelson, said the senator had lifted his hold.
“We had yet another small victory today in our ongoing fight to keep oil rigs away from Florida's coast,” Nelson said in a statement. “I've spent four decades fighting to protect Florida's coast from the threat of offshore drilling and I've made it clear to my colleagues in the Senate that I'm certainly not going to stop now.”
A Cassidy spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Sen. Murkowski is trying to resuscitate the energy bill,” Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) told reporters in reference to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
New Optimism Seen
Mike Tadeo, a Murkowski spokesman, said that “there are a few issues we are working on, but I am optimistic on the future of the energy bill.”
The bipartisan 424-page energy bill, which is supported by groups representing such companies as Cheniere Energy Inc., Devon Energy Corp. and ConocoPhillips, includes language to expedite the federal approval process for liquefied natural gas exports, encourage energy efficiency upgrades of schools and speed up licensing of hydroelectric power projects.
As previously proposed, the Flint aid package included $100 million from the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund and a $70 million credit subsidy from the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act for Flint. The package also would provide $50 million for national use on water infrastructure projects.
Flint switched the source of its water from Detroit's system to the Flint River, but the proper corrosion controls weren't put in place, causing lead to leach from service lines and contaminate residential drinking water supplies.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=87271303&vname=dennotallissues&fn=87271303&jd=87271303
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Dems Fear 'Surreal' Budget Delay Could Hit Spending Bills
Apr 14, 2016 | E&E Daily
By George Cahlink
A push by House Republican appropriators to begin moving fiscal 2017 spending bills this week without an overall budget set has Democrats worried that domestic spending, including environmental programs overseen by U.S. EPA, will wind up shortchanged.
House Democratic appropriators yesterday raised concerns over domestic funding as the Appropriations Committee approved its first fiscal 2017 spending bill, the Military Constriction and Veterans Affairs measure.
The legislation moved even as the House has yet to adopt a budget that sets allocations used for writing the 12 annual appropriations bills.
A push by House Republican appropriators to begin moving fiscal 2017 spending bills this week without an overall budget set has Democrats worried that domestic spending, including environmental programs overseen by U.S. EPA, will wind up shortchanged.
House Democratic appropriators yesterday raised concerns over domestic funding as the Appropriations Committee approved its first fiscal 2017 spending bill, the Military Constriction and Veterans Affairs measure.
The legislation moved even as the House has yet to adopt a budget that sets allocations used for writing the 12 annual appropriations bills.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/04/14/stories/1060035587
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EPA Says States Can Target Climate Change Despite Utility GHG Rule Stay
Apr 13, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Anthony Lacey
Top EPA officials say that states can pursue strategies to address climate change despite the Supreme Court stay of the agency's power plant greenhouse gas (GHG) rule, though EPA says it will not formally process any compliance plans for the rule during the stay even if states submit them on schedule.
While EPA will fully comply with the stay, EPA General Counsel Avi Garbow told the Environmental Council of the States' (ECOS) spring meeting here that “the issue of climate change is not stayed” and said the agency will continue to weigh efforts to help reduce GHG emissions, and urged states to do the same.
During an April 12 discussion at the Environmental Council of the States' (ECOS) annual meeting here, some states including California said that they are pushing ahead with a wide range of climate change policies, including crafting a plan to comply with EPA's rule, known as the Clean Power Plan (CPP). Other states said they are either halting all work on the rule entirely, or are weighing unrelated plans to tackle carbon pollution and other emissions.
States are divided over the rule, also known as the existing source performance standards, which the high court halted the agency from implementing while litigation over it is pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The rule has divided states, with some backing EPA and others opposing it.
Martha Rudolph, ECOS president and director of environmental programs for Colorado's Department of Public Health and Environment, said her state is “definitely in the middle” in that it will not comply with the looming September deadline to submit a CPP compliance plan, but it is weighing policies to curb GHG emissions.
She said her state has already been looking beyond power plants and beyond carbon pollution for ways to improve air quality, but reiterated that “[w]e won't be submitting a plan in September.”
Similarly, Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality Director Todd Parfitt said that even though his state has halted work on the CPP, it continues to pursue other options on carbon pollution.
California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Matthew Rodriquez said that his state is pursuing an ambitious range of climate change policies. He questioned EPA's Garbow on whether the agency would formally process a CPP compliance plan if California submits it in September.
“We are not going to take any regulatory activity pursuant to a rule that is stayed,” responded Garbow, saying that EPA will not be issuing formal plan approvals or disapprovals throughout the duration of the stay. He noted that the stay remains in effect until at least the resolution of an expected Supreme Court appeal of whatever the D.C. Circuit decides. The CPP litigation timeline as a result is likely to “carry us through 2017,” he added.
Garbow also noted that EPA “has been very open” that it does not believe the September deadline for submitting a CPP compliance plan is “pertinent for states anymore,” given the stay.
Acting EPA air chief Janet McCabe later said that it is unclear whether the stay will affect the rule's compliance period start date in 2022 and the final compliance deadline in 2030, echoing statements she made to the American Council on Renewable Energy Policy Forum on March 17.
Emissions Reductions
During the stay, EPA will not work on implementing the CPP but will pursue other efforts to help reduce GHGs, including a proposed Clean Energy Incentive Program, which is designed to give states matching compliance credits for renewable deployment and efficiency projects in low-income areas before the rule's compliance period begins. “States have asked for more clarity on that and we have promised it,” Garbow told ECOS.
McCabe said that she hopes states will continue to implement strategies to reduce GHGs -- particularly early actions they were considering -- regardless of the stay. McCabe said that early action to reduce emissions is “good for the climate and good for future compliance with the Clean Power Plan, assuming it is upheld.”
Oral argument is slated for June 2 in the CPP rule suit, known as State of West Virginia, et al. v. EPA, et al., though Garbow noted that there is the potential argument could continue to June 3.
He said that the agency is “quite optimistic” that the D.C. Circuit will ultimately uphold the rule, and cited the extensive public outreach that EPA did in crafting the Clean Power Plan. A “strong” ruling in favor of the rule's legality could help compel new discussions among states and utilities on complying, he added.
In the meantime, he reiterated his suggestion that states continue to look at ways they can reduce GHGs, which prompted a question from Rudolph on how to plan for GHG trading programs during the stay.
“The stay does not prevent any state having a discussion with another state about a putative trading scheme,” Garbow responded, and floated the possibility that EPA could help facilitate such talks.
Several states gave examples of work they are doing to cut GHGs, including Iowa getting at least 40 percent of its power from wind and Maryland weighing options to cut pollution while growing the economy.
At the end of the discussion, Rudolph said, “I think frankly every state is doing something to improve air quality and perhaps the stay allows them to think more creatively and more broadly.”
She added, “We're all looking at what we can do to clean our air and reduce our pollutants,” she said, noting that such an approach aligns with ECOS' new memorandum of understanding with EPA and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials on promoting the link between improving the environment and protecting public health.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-says-states-can-target-climate-change-despite-utility-ghg-rule-stay
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Apr 13, 2016 | The New York Times
By Paul Krugman
Low oil prices were supposed to be a big boost for the world economy; but it didn’t happen. Maury Obstfeld, my long-time textbook co-author and now chief economist at the IMF, offers an interesting argument about why: he suggests that it’s because of the zero lower bound. Falling oil leads to falling inflation expectations, and since interest rates can’t fall, real rates go up, hurting recovery.
Matt O’Brien is skeptical, and so am I — even though I am very much in favor of rethinking our usual assumptions when the economy is at the ZLB.
First, a priori, falling oil prices shouldn’t affect expectations for the rate of inflation of non-oil goods and services, or at least it’s not obvious that it should — and that’s the inflation rate that should matter for investment. Still, you could argue that oil is in fact driving those expectations, whether it should or not. What Matt does is question whether correlation is causation.
I’d make another point: even using market expectations, real interest rates have in fact gone down, not up, in the face of falling oil prices:PhotoCredit
How is this possible, given the zero lower bound? It’s all about the term structure: long-term rates aren’t at zero, although they’re at least somewhat supported by the floor on short-term rates. And as it turns out, during the recent oil crash long-term rates fell enough to more than offset the decline in expected inflation.
Of course, Maury could be right in an other things equal sense. But my guess is that the oil-price disappointment comes less from expectational channels than from two facts: oil is now a big driver of investment, via shale, and oil exporters are actually cash-constrained these days, with an arguably *higher* marginal propensity to spend than oil consumers.
Anyway, interesting stuff.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/is-cheap-oil-contractionary/
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U.S. Said to Issue Offshore Drilling Rule Industry Fought
Apr 13, 2016 | Bloomberg
By Jennifer A Dlouhy
The Obama administration will issue sweeping new regulations on offshore drilling Thursday, imposing potentially costly requirements for those coastal wells and the emergency equipment meant to prevent environmental disasters.
The plan to issue new well-control regulations, confirmed by a person familiar with the rulemaking, comes almost six years after the blowout of a BP Plc well in the Gulf of Mexico triggered an explosion that killed 11 workers and unleashed an oil spill that lasted for months.
Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Anadarko Petroleum Corp., and other oil companies have lobbied against the mandates, warning they will impose potentially tens of billions of dollars in new costs and threaten to reduce drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for about 17 percent of U.S. crude production.
While the final measure yielded to some industry demands, it is not expected to go far enough to satisfy the oil companies that say they need much more certainty to begin big, multibillion dollar projects.
The Interior Department’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which developed the measure, puts the price tag at about $1 billion over 10 years, and says it is essential to stepping up safety.‘Catastrophic Results’
Complex offshore oil and gas operations have many different points of failure that “can lead to catastrophic results,” Bureau Director Brian Salerno told a House committee last month. The measure is aimed at “higher risk activities, more complex geologic settings, and the utilization of more complex drilling systems” as oil companies move into deeper water and target higher-pressure rock formations miles below the surface of the sea.
The rule comes amid a crude price slump that has forced energy companies to dismiss workers and cut capital spending on new projects. Though prices have risen in recent weeks to more than $40 a barrel, they are a fraction of the $107.26 high reached in June 2014.
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana, told reporters Wednesday that the “one-size-fits-all rule from Washington could actually make it less safe for drilling.”
“That’s the last thing we need at a time when we’re closer to energy independence -- when our country is creating thousands of jobs,” Scalise said.Frequent Tests
Since the the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the administration of President Barack Obama has reorganized the federal agencies that oversee offshore oil and gas development and imposed new requirements, including periodic third-party audits of companies’ safety and environmental management systems.
But even with those changes, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board said in a draft report issued Wednesday, there are still too many risks offshore. The independent federal agency said those moves “do not go far enough to ensure effective industry management and control of major hazards or prevent possible future Macondo-type incidents.”
As proposed last year, the well-control measure would require more frequent testing of the blowout preventers that are used as a last defense against uncontrolled surges of oil and explosive gas, while mandating continuous monitoring of deep-water projects. The draft rule also would force offshore operators to stay within a newly defined “safe drilling margin” that specifies the precise balance between the drilling fluids that are pumped under the sea floor and the amount of pressure the underground formation can take before it cracks.
The narrow drilling margin at BP’s failed Macondo well was sharply scrutinized after the 2010 spill.More Flexibility
Oil companies have pleaded for more flexibility, saying that almost two thirds of the wells drilled in the Gulf of Mexico since 2010 wouldn’t meet the proposed requirements. In more than a dozen meetings with Obama administration officials in March, energy companies and their allies insisted that they needed assurance they could swiftly deviate from the drilling margin standards without waiting for approval from regulators.
The final rule responded to some industry concerns, including by giving oil and gas companies more discretion on the timing of equipment tests, according to a person familiar with the release who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The measure is still expected to specify a safe drilling margin while outlining a process for offshore operators to seek variances from the standard.Vetting Permits
The safety bureau says that dovetails with existing practice, with regulators vetting permits to drill that meet the same proposed margin standard in the proposed rule, even though it hasn’t previously been formalized in regulation.
“There’s been a lot of alarmist language associated with the rule,” Salerno told reporters March 2. “To believe that, you have to almost ignore the way the agency has historically operated, where we’ve had that dialogue, that back and forth with the industry in the permitting process. There’s no intent to change that process, that dialogue.”
Environmentalists had pushed the Obama administration to take a tougher approach by requiring offshore operators to drill two wells at the same time -- including one that could be used to stem out-of-control oil and gas flows. The Interior Department opted not to do that, or to mandate companies use a second, redundant blade on blowout preventers to boost the odds of the device slashing through drill pipe and sealing off an open well hole in an emergency.Rich Companies
"These are the richest companies in the world," said Jacqueline Savitz, a vice president at the conservation group Oceana. "These are companies that are doing quite well capitalizing on a public resource, so I don’t feel we’re asking too much of them to ask them to do it as safely as possible."
Savitz said the administration deserved credit for not giving in to requests by oil companies and some lawmakers to propose the rule again and subject it to a six-month comment period, almost certainly putting it in the hands of the next president.
The Interior Department said industry would face higher costs complying with the rule, including one-time charges associated with adding new equipment to existing rigs. Over 10 years, the proposed version of the rule would cost about $883 million, the government estimated, but that would be offset by benefits, such as averted oil spills, valued at as much as $5.3 billion.API Warnings
An analysis conducted for the American Petroleum Institute said the draft rule first proposed last year would impose new costs of $31.8 billion over the next decade.
“The narrow, duplicative requirements included in the proposal, if left in, could stifle innovation and delay implementation of new technologies that can improve safety and operations,” Erik Milito, an API director, told reporters on a conference call Wednesday.
A separate assessment conducted by Wood Mackenzie for the Gulf Economic Survival Team, a Louisiana-based business group, says the rule as drafted would cut exploratory drilling in half, or by about 10 wells a year. Those exploration wells provide the foundation for oil and gas production that can come online years to a decade later.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-13/obama-said-to-issue-offshore-drilling-rules-thursday
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The Most Important Mystery about U.S. Climate Change Policy
Apr 13, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
On the surface, it looks like extraordinarily good news. The United States isburning less coal — less of the fuel that contributes the most carbon dioxide to the atmosphere when burned. Instead, we’re swapping in cleaner burning natural gas, which could serve as a “bridge” to an era in which wind and solar provide the bulk of the nation’s power. And carbon dioxide emissions are already lower as a result.
Yet there’s a nagging problem here that just won’t go away. Environmentalists have charged for some time that the fracking boom — the rise in unconventional natural gas that is the key driver of all of this — has a dark underbelly. Natural gas’s principal component is methane, which is also a greenhouse gas. And if it gets to the atmosphere unburned, it has a much larger warming effect than carbon dioxide does, over a period of about 10 years.
So if there are enough leaks from the new wave of unconventional oil and gas drilling operations, it is possible to substantially undermine the climate benefits that accrue from less burning of coal — and moreover, to do so over the crucial next few decades, when all the key changes have to be made if there’s any hope of averting the worst climate damage.
Recent events and recent science alike are now forcing this issue. The Aliso Canyon natural gas leak near Los Angeles was simply enormous, pouring nearly 100,000 metric tons of methane into the atmosphere. It was the “largest methane leak in U.S. history,” according to a recent report by the scientific advisory panel of the Climate & Clean Air Coalition, a group of countries and partners trying to reduce emissions of short-lived climate change pollutants, such as methane. Similarly, a recently released infrared camera survey, conducted by helicopter, of some 8,000 U.S. oil and gas well pads in a number of high producing regions found leaks at 327 pads, or 4 percent overall. It concluded that the EPA “may be underestimating” emissions caused by oil and gas tanks on these sites in particular.
Meanwhile, still more recent satellite research is suggesting that U.S. methane emissions are on a big upswing — even as the EPA is expected tosoon report new totals for methane emissions from oil and gas, as part of its broader annual inventory of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions submitted to the United Nations. And if it sticks with preliminary figures, it will revise 2013 emissions upward by more than 25 percent, according to an analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund. (What happens with other years remains to be seen).
In the meantime, the numbers have already been disputed. “The release of these partially revised numbers is misleading,” said the American Petroleum Institute’s vice president for regulatory and economic policy, Kyle Isakower, in March. “We have every reason to believe that the final data, when issued, will still indicate a significant downward trend in emissions even as oil and natural gas production has risen.” So the question is both urgent, and also difficult: Is the U.S. undermining its climate progress with invisible leaks of a second, even more potent greenhouse gas?
“A little bit of a mystery right now”
Let’s start with the basics: Globally, concentrations of methane in the atmosphere, just like concentrations of carbon dioxide, are rising. The rise hasn’t been as steady, though — it actually appeared to stall in the 2000s. However, it is now on a major upswing again, which is certainly very bad news for the climate, and bad news that couldn’t come at a worse time.
But the question is, why?
(NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory)That’s where things get complicated. Methane could definitely rise in the atmosphere because of more leaks from oil and natural gas operations. But it could also rise because there are more cows belching it into the air, or the world has changed how it feeds cows, or manages their manure — or, how it manages rice agriculture. Methane has many sources.
Scientific literature is somewhat contradictory about all this.
For instance, a blockbuster and much cited study in Geophysical Research Letters earlier this year used satellite observations to pick up an apparently huge boom (30 percent) in U.S. methane emissions from 2002 to 2014, one large enough to explain 30 to 60 percent of the recent trend. Seeking to trace the source of the emissions, the research targeted a broad region “in the central part of the country.” While the study pointedly noted that the time period in question is one that includes the fracking and natural gas boom, it also added that “the spatial pattern of the methane increase … does not clearly point to these sources.”
“It would be very tempting to say it’s the rise in oil and gas production, the fracking, and so on,” says Daniel Jacob, a Harvard researcher who is one of the study’s authors. “But the pattern is not necessarily that. It could also be an underestimate of livestock emissions, those tend to be regionally overlapping.”
“It’s a little bit of a mystery right now,” Jacob continues. However, he adds, “why would livestock emissions have increased a lot? I don’t really know why that would be.”
Yet also earlier this year, a much noted study in Science came to a different conclusion — neither pointing the finger at oil and gas, nor at the United States. The research used an examination of the ratios between different isotopes of carbon in methane, and at least tentatively attributed increasing global emissions to agriculture. The findings “rule out fossil fuel production as the major cause in the rise of methane levels in the atmosphere since 2007,” according to New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, whose atmospheric scientist Hinrich Schaefer led the research.
Weighing the evidence
Faced with contradictory studies like this, it helps to turn to expert assessments of the weight of the evidence. One example comes in the form of a recent annual report by the scientific advisory panel of the Climate & Clean Air Coalition. That board is comprised of a star-studded, international group of 14 scientists and experts, led by Drew Shindell of Duke University.
And this group is unprepared to let U.S. oil and gas off the hook. Its report asserts that atmospheric methane levels are rising “rapidly” and that the cause “is likely due to a number of factors, including increased emissions from agriculture activities, large increases in natural gas extraction and associate leaks.”
Duke’s Drew Shindell, chair of the panel, further alluded to oil and gas in an interview. “I think what all these results are suggesting is that, to first order, their efforts to reduce emissions from the oil and gas industry are a good thing, and they should keep going with that,” he said. “But the next level is that they need to make more progress and prevent overall methane emissions from going up as we exploit natural gas resources more, which is what appears to have been happening in the US.”
“The US story is, CO2 is decreasing, and we’re making more progress than most countries in the world,” Shindell continued. “But methane is going up, and it appears to be going up enough to offset the bulk of the benefit from reducing the CO2.”
However, the issue remains hotly debated and the industry, at least for now, has a different point of view. The American Petroleum Institute’s Isakower last month not only questioned the new, preliminary EPA figures, but argued that “even as oil and natural gas production has risen dramatically, methane emissions have fallen, thanks to industry leadership and investment in new technologies.”
The EPA’s upward revisions?
If U.S. oil and gas operations – including unconventional gas operations tied to the fracking boom — are emitting more, then that should be recorded by the U.S. government. In particular, the EPA keeps an annual inventory (with a time lag) of all of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.
In previous inventories, the EPA has found “no significant trend in U.S. anthropogenic methane emissions from 2002 to present,” notes Jacob’s recent study – which challenges that conclusion.
It’s not the only one. “Comparison of recent estimates of methane emissions with existing inventories such as that of the USEPA shows that current inventories underestimate methane emissions due to inaccurate measurements in some emissions sectors,” such as oil and gas, concludes the recent document from the science advisory panel to the Climate & Clean Air Coalition.
“I do think that the evidence is strong that EPA has underestimated methane emissions,” adds Rob Jackson, a researcher at Stanford who contributed to the recent helicopter based infrared camera study that found leaks at 4 percent of over 8,000 well pads in key U.S. drilling regions.
In a sign that the agency is taking note, a draft version of the annual report’s latest installment bumped up 2013 emissions by 27 percent, from 7.3 million to 9.3 million metric tons, according to an analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund. A final EPA inventory up through 2014 is expected soon, and the numbers will be watched very closely.
“Their revision is going to bring their emissions up, I don’t know how much. I don’t think it’s going to bridge the gap, but it’s going to go in the right direction,” says Harvard’s Daniel Jacob.
If it’s oil and gas, it ought to be fixable
The good news, suggests Jackson, is that while it’s very hard to do anything about a global trend in agricultural emissions, it’s not so hard to clamp down on U.S. oil and gas leaks, which his latest study suggests are worse in some key areas — which means they can be targeted.
“We’re democratizing leak detection,” says Jackson. “New technologies, cheaper sensors, we’re entering an era where citizens will have cameras they can use to film wellpads. We’re close to having satellites that we’ll be able to image single wellpads or clusters of wellpads. We’ll crack this nut.” If so, that would mean that the long term emissions problem remains carbon dioxide, and that while U.S. methane may have seen a temporary increase, it’s controllable, despite any near term setbacks.
Mark Brownstein, who heads the oil and gas program at the Environmental Defense Fund, argues that ultimately, the question of whether emissions are now going up due to fracking in the U.S. is somewhat of a “red herring” — the fact is, there are substantial emissions from the oil and gas sector, and they’re fixable, he argues. You simply have to regulate the industry, rather than let it police itself voluntarily — something President Obama pledged to do along with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau in March.
And if you fix methane, then unlike what happens with carbon dioxide, the stuff doesn’t remain too long in the atmosphere, so the problem substantially cleans itself up over time (assuming, that is, that there isn’t a spike from some other source, such as agriculture).
Until that happens, though, more studies will likely continue to probe the methane problem — and more activists will continue challenging fracking operations, and questioning whether we’ve undermined our gains from cutting back on coal.
“The methane issue is front and center on the debate around the legitimacy of natural gas, as an energy source, at least in the near term,” says Brownstein.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/13/the-most-important-mystery-about-u-s-climate-change-policy/
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Public Health Groups Object to Ozone Delay Bill
Apr 14, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
A coalition of 12 public health organizations urged lawmakers to oppose legislation that they said would “permanently weaken” implementation of national ozone standards.
The American Lung Association, the American Thoracic Society and other groups sent an April 13 letter to members of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power one day before the panel is scheduled to hold a legislative hearing on the Ozone Standards Implementation Act of 2016 (H.R. 4775).
Balance and Delay
The legislation, introduced in March by Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas), would delay implementation of the Environmental Protection Agency's 2015 ozone standards of 70 parts per billion by providing states with an additional eight years to make recommendations for areas that fail to attain those standards. H.R. 4775 would also push back the review cycle for all national ambient air quality standards from five years to 10 years, require the EPA to consider technological feasibility and adverse economic effects associated with attainment strategies in future reviews, and alter planning requirements for the most polluted nonattainment areas (53 DEN A-4, 3/18/16).
Olson said that the bill would create a “proper balance” between air quality and economic concerns. However, the public health coalition said the legislation would make “sweeping changes” that would weaken both the 2015 ozone standards and future air pollution standards for ozone and other criteria pollutants, including particulate matter and sulfur dioxide.
“H.R. 4775 is a sweeping attack on lifesaving standards that protect the public health from air pollution,” the groups said in their letter. “This bill is an extreme attempt to undermine our nation's clean air health protections.”
State, Local Officials to Testify
The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power is scheduled to hold an April 14 legislative hearing on the Ozone Standards Implementation Act of 2016.
During that hearing, the subpanel is scheduled to hear testimony from a variety of state and local air pollution control officials. The invited witnesses are:
• Misael Cabrera, director of the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality;
• Alan Matheson, executive director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality;
• Ali Mirzakhalili, director of the Division of Air Quality in the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control;
• Seyed Sadredin, executive director of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District; and
• Dr. Bryan Shaw, chairman of the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality.
Arizona and Texas both filed lawsuits challenging the 2015 ozone standards, while Utah has been granted intervenor status in that litigation. Briefing over the legality of the 2015 ozone standards is scheduled to begin April 22 (Murray Energy Corp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1385, 3/9/16; 48 DEN A-16, 3/11/16).
Air Act Amendments?
H.R. 4775 is the latest measure to be considered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee that would alter aspects of the Clean Air Act. The committee in February approved a pair of bills that would alter compliance obligations under EPA emissions standards covering the coal refuse-to-energy sector and brick manufacturing facilities (38 DEN A-10, 2/26/16).
Both of those bills (H.R. 4557, H.R. 3797) were passed by the House, but have yet to be taken up by the Senate and face long odds of becoming law given that both measures drew veto threats from the White House.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=87271277&vname=dennotallissues&fn=87271277&jd=87271277
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Expect Clean Power Plan Fight ‘Through 2017': EPA Official
Apr 14, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Litigation over the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan will take several years to wind its way through the legal system, but the agency's general counsel is saying a federal appeals court decision later this year may be an enormous tea leaf for the regulation's ultimate fate.
Avi Garbow, the agency's general counsel, told the Environmental Council of the States spring meeting in Nashville, Tenn., April 12 to expect a ruling by a federal appeals court in late summer or early fall, petitions from the losing side to the U.S. Supreme Court and litigation over the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's domestic climate change efforts to last “through 2017.”
“The substance of that [appeals court] opinion—whether it's a win or a loss on the Clean Power Plan—is going to be something that not only we in the government will be digesting, but really has the potential for substantial impacts on policy choices,” Garbow said. “If, for example, the agency prevails and it's a strong defense of the rule, I expect there will be conversations among utilities and others and states in this room about what this may portend, if you will, for the Supreme Court.”
Garbow said the agency respects the “letter and spirit” of the U.S. Supreme Court's unprecedented decision Feb. 9 to put the regulation on hold through potential high court consideration. More than two dozen states, as well as several utility and industry groups, are challenging the EPA's regulation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (27 DEN A-1, 2/10/16).
The D.C. Circuit has scheduled oral arguments in the litigation for June 2 and possibly June 3 before Judges Judith Rogers, Karen LeCraft Henderson and Sri Srinivasan.
September Deadline ‘Not Pertinent.'
Garbow said the only deadline related to the Clean Power Plan looming imminently—the Sept. 6 requirement for states to make initial submissions–was no longer “really pertinent” to states.
“No other deadlines in that rule right now are implicated by the stay,” Garbow said. “When it is lifted, if the rule is still in place, that is the right time for all sides to reassess how much time has gone by, what the implications are for the requirements in the previously stayed rule.”
Despite the stay, Garbow said states would be welcome to solicit input from the EPA on compliance strategies and technical questions associated with the Clean Power Plan.
Taking Stay ‘Quite Seriously.'
The EPA general counsel also said that while the Supreme Court's stay would be taken “quite seriously” and the agency understood the sorts of activities it could not do, there would continue to be “a door open policy” for states seeking assistance in reducing their carbon dioxide emissions.
“If you look at that frame, you'll understand there's a lot that can be done,” Garbow said. “[Senior officials] have as busy a dance card as we've had in the past.”
Given the stay, the EPA does not anticipate processing or looking at any submissions this fall, Garbow said, even from states eager to take action to curb their carbon emissions.
“We're not going to take any regulatory activity pursuant to a rule that's stayed,” Garbow said. “I would not expect us to formally process a submission or application.”
Fight to Stay Engaged
Todd Parfitt, director of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, said his office had to fight a reluctant state Legislature to stay informed about Clean Power Plan developments after the Supreme Court's stay.
“What we conveyed [to the Legislature] throughout is we have to be able to stay engaged,” Parfitt said. “It would be a mistake to bury our head in the sands and pretend this whole thing is going to go away just because a stay was issued.”
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