Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 4/18/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) Study: Fast Food Comes With a Helping of Industrial Chemicals
Apr 17, 2016 | Eater
By Brenna Houck
It's generally accepted that fast food isn't particularly healthy, but a new study out this week suggests that people who consume more fast food may also be ingesting potentially harmful chemicals. -
California Agency Releases Biomonitoring Panel Meeting Transcript
Apr 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has released the transcript of the 3 March meeting of the Biomonitoring California Scientific Guidance Panel. -
Why Children, Pregnant Women Should Eat Food with Fewer Pesticides
Apr 18, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
“For many children, diet may be the most influential source” of pesticides, said the Academy of Pediatrics in a landmark report published in November 2012. -
Week Ahead: Senate to Take Up Energy Reform, Spending Bills
Apr 18, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Senate is planning to take up and vote on its previously stalled energy reform legislation and appropriations bill for energy and water programs. -
EPA is Downplaying Sweeping Rule -- Challengers
Apr 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Opponents of the Clean Power Plan are swatting back at U.S. EPA in court, deriding the agency's defense of the rule as an attempt to understate its "radical" approach to power plant regulation. -
BLM Defends Calif. Oil and Gas Plan Against Enviro Challenge
Apr 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
The Obama administration last week fired back at allegations that it's allowing unchecked hydraulic fracturing in California. -
States, Agencies Eye Options to Bolster Use of Oil & Gas Produced Water
Apr 18, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Anthony Lacey
States, EPA and the Department of Energy (DOE) are weighing options to bolster the use of produced water from the oil and gas sector, saying that recycling or otherwise reusing the water can have significant economic benefits... -
Fracking And Natural Gas Have Cut Pennsylvania's CO2 Emissions 30%
Apr 17, 2016 | Forbes (In Real Clear Energy)
By Jude Clemente
Thanks to the mighty Marcellus shale play, Pennsylvania’s natural gas production has boomed nearly 30-fold since 2005. -
Loosely Regulated Fertilizer Sites Remain Near Texas Cities, Homes
Apr 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
Texas cities continue to struggle with how to handle ammonium nitrate storage facilities three years after the West Fertilizer Co. explosion in West, Texas, killed 15 people. -
(ACC Mentioned) What Happened to 2020? A Casse-Tête Wrapped in a Mystère inside an Enigme
Apr 18, 2016 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
At some point during negotiations in Paris over the climate change agreement, a proposed line requiring the deal to go into force no earlier than 2020 disappeared — and no one is saying who did it. -
Industry Groups Endorse Ozone Bill
Apr 18, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Critics of the Obama administration’s tightened standards on surface-level ozone have endorsed a House package to reform how the government regulates the pollutant. -
Deese Defends Paris Deal Days Ahead of Signing
Apr 18, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President Obama's senior adviser on climate change moved last week to defend the Paris climate agreement from a wide range of critics, including those who say it threatens the U.S. economy and those who describe it... -
President Obama’s Signing of the Paris Agreement is Only Good for Nine Months
Apr 18, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blogs
By Joel Stonedale
This Earth Day, President Obama will sign the Paris Agreement on climate change, which seeks to limit greenhouse gas emissions and funnel aid to developing nations. Amid the pageantry and celebration, a crucial fact will be downplayed... -
A Push to Demystify Climate Rules on Campuses
Apr 18, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
A national environmental advocacy group aimed at raising climate change awareness among millennials is taking to college campuses to educate students about U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan. -
This Baltimore 20-Year-Old Just Won a Huge International Award for Taking Out a Giant Trash Incinerator
Apr 18, 2016 | Washington Post
By Darryl Fears
Baltimore stands apart as the American big city with the most deaths caused by air pollution, and Curtis Bay is its dirtiest community.
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(ACC Mentioned) Study: Fast Food Comes With a Helping of Industrial Chemicals
Apr 17, 2016 | Eater
By Brenna Houck
It's generally accepted that fast food isn't particularly healthy, but a new study out this week suggests that people who consume more fast food may also be ingesting potentially harmful chemicals. According to Bloomberg, the research provides evidence that fast food is a major source of a category of industrial chemicals called phthalates.
Phthalates are used to make plastic and vinyl more flexible and durable and are common in a variety of household products such as soap, cosmetics, flooring, window blinds, and food packaging. Fast food is particularly susceptible to phthalate exposure because it is highly processed, packaged, and often handled with gloves, reports CNN. While the impact of these chemicals on human health isn't fully understood, some research on rats has shown instances of male infertility associated with phthalate exposure. Other studies are now looking into the impact of phthalates on pregnant women and children. Several governments have already taken action to reduce phthalates. Japan banned food workers from using vinyl gloves and the European Union has also moved to reduce their concentration levels in food and toys.
The latest study looked at the relationship between the amount of fast food individuals consumed and the level of phthalates found in their urine using data from a Centers for Disease Control survey collected between 2003 and 2010. A total of 8,877 adults and children participated. Those who reported having consumed 35 percent or more of their calories from a fast food restaurant in the last 24 hours showed heightened levels of the chemicals DEHP and DiNP (two common phthalates) compared to participants who had not consumed fast food.
The National Restaurant Association and the American Chemical Council are currently reviewing the study. The organizations say the levels of phthalates identified in the surveys were still below requirements set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Of course, there are plenty of other health concerns related to fast food. One researcher claimed that eating McDonald's for 10 days straight completely destroyed his son's gut bacteria. Still, other researchers have gathered evidence demonstrating that dining at a high-end restaurant can be evenless healthy than eating at a fast food joint.
Correction: The American Chemical Council is working with the National Restaurant Association, not the American Chemical Society as was previously stated in this piece.
http://www.eater.com/2016/4/17/11447574/study-fast-food-chemicals-phthalates
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California Agency Releases Biomonitoring Panel Meeting Transcript
Apr 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has released the transcript of the 3 March meeting of the Biomonitoring California Scientific Guidance Panel.
It has also published the presentations on the meeting’s main agenda topics. These were:
· new results for 1-nitropyrene metabolites in children and underground miners;
· urinary metabolites of 1-nitropyrene in US-Mexico border residents; and
· repeated measurements of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) metabolites in women – initial results from a sub-study for women’s health and the environment.
The panel will meet again 28 July and 3 November.
https://chemicalwatch.com/46603/california-agency-releases-biomonitoring-panel-meeting-transcript
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Why Children, Pregnant Women Should Eat Food with Fewer Pesticides
Apr 18, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Alex Formuzis
“For many children, diet may be the most influential source” of pesticides, said the Academy of Pediatrics in a landmark report published in November 2012.
The Academy, which represents more than 60,000 pediatricians, advised parents to “minimize using foods in which chemical pesticides were used” in order to reduce “unnecessary exposure.”
EWG agrees, which is why we issue the annual Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce. The guide encourages parents to make sure that their children eat plenty of healthy fruits and vegetables while minimizing their exposure to the pesticide residues found on some conventionally grown produce – even after it’s been thoroughly washed.
Experts who have dedicated their careers to protecting children from the risks of synthetic pesticides agree. Dr. Philip Landrigan, whose early research in the 1970s helped eliminate the use of lead in paint and gasoline, is one of the foremost authorities. He urges parents to feed children organic produce when feasible instead of conventionally grown products, especially those that have high amounts of pesticide residues.
“While there has been significant progress to reduce children’s exposure to the most toxic pesticides, we have learned even more about the capacity of these chemicals to harm the developing fetus and child,” says Landrigan, dean of global health and director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. “Parents looking for help in lowering their children’s exposure to pesticides while still eating plenty of healthy fruits and vegetables can turn to EWG’s guide as an easy-to-use resource when shopping at the store.”
Many kids, like my five- and seven-year olds, eat a lot of fruit. And children consume much more food relative to their body weight than adults do, which can increase the amount of pesticides they’re exposed to if they’re eating conventionally grown strawberries, apples and grapes. The brain and nervous systems of young children are far from fully developed and are exquisitely sensitive to disruption and damage from industrial chemicals, including pesticides.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture does the annual testing of pesticide residues that EWG uses to create its Shopper’s Guide. The most recent round found, among many others, one type of pesticides, called organophosphates, that have been strongly linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, in children. Diagnoses of ADHD in American children has surged in recent years, and leading researchers, including Landrigan, point to organophosphates as one of the driving factors.
Although the use of organophosphates has declined, they were detected once again in the most recent USDA tests, reflected in EWG’s 2016 guide. The tests on strawberries found one notorious organophosphate, malathion, along with another group of widely used insecticides called pyrethroids, which also appear to pose risks of ADHD. Another insecticide, called bifenthrin, found on more than 40 percent of strawberry samples tested in 2014, has been classified as a possible human carcinogen by California regulators.
Children’s contacts with pesticides begin even before birth, however, so women who are pregnant or wish to become pregnant should also try to reduce their exposure. Agricultural chemicals have been detected in the umbilical cord blood that nourishes the unborn fetus, and the mother’s diet can be a primary source. In 2004, laboratory testing commissioned by EWG found a number of pesticides in the umbilical cord blood of all 10 newborn babies tested.
Parents and pregnant women can consult the Dirty Dozen list in EWG’s Shopper’s Guide to see which produce they should consider purchasing organic, and use theClean Fifteen list to see which conventionally grown varieties have the fewest residues.
Organic produce usually does cost more, of course, but there is evidence that it has a real payoff. A 2006 study took 23 elementary school children off a diet of largely conventional foods and put them on an all-organic diet for five days. The researchers tested the children’s urine twice a day for 15 days and found that the levels of malathion and another pesticide, chlorpyrifos, plummeted to “non-detect levels immediately after the introduction of organic diets.” Both pesticides “remained nondetectable until the conventional diets were reintroduced,” wrote the scientists, led by Dr. Chensheng (Alex) Lu, now with the Harvard School of Public Health.
“Research that I and others have conducted clearly shows children can dramatically reduce the levels of pesticides in their bodies by eating organic fruits and veggies, or those conventional versions that regularly have far fewer pesticide residues,” says Lu. He adds that “when choosing an all-organic diet is not an option… one way to give children a healthy diet with plenty of fresh produce is to consult EWG’s Shopper’s Guide.”
Some groups that represent big agribusiness and pesticide interests, including those in California that grow the most strawberries and other major produce staples for the U.S. market, regularly attack EWG’s Shopper’s Guide. They claim that it’s the reason Americans generally don’t eat enough fruits and veggies, which is laughable. As if people would choose a healthy, plant-based diet instead of one packed with processed meats and junk food if only EWG would stop issuing that pesky list every year.
EWG’s consistent advice for everyone is to consume plenty of nutrient-rich produce – organic or conventional. But if you can, go with organic for products that are high in pesticide residues. Ingesting toxic pesticides, even at low levels, is probably not good for you – and especially not good for young children and pregnant women.
Of course, I’m not telling you anything really new. The steadily growing surge in sales and demand for organic produce from consumers and retailers is all the evidence anyone needs that Americans simply don’t want to eat pesticides with their food.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/04/why-children-pregnant-women-should-eat-food-fewer-pesticides
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Week Ahead: Senate to Take Up Energy Reform, Spending Bills
Apr 18, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Senate is planning to take up and vote on its previously stalled energy reform legislation and appropriations bill for energy and water programs.
The energy reform bill is the result of nearly a year and a half of work by Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). It's a bipartisan bill that mostly avoids hot-button issues but aims to modernize policy touching the electrical grid, renewables, energy efficiency, natural gas exports and more.
Days ago, the outlook seemed grim for the bill. But Democrats agreed to drop their demand to attach a $220 million aid package for the water crisis in Flint, Mich., allowing the bill to move forward.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) set up a series of amendments to the bill for votes as soon as Tuesday, after which time the Senate can vote on the legislation as a whole.
Senators are also planning to consider the appropriations bill for the Department of Energy and water development programs. The $37.5 billion bill, which has bipartisan support so far, passed the Appropriations Committee with nearly unanimous support.
It directs new money to the Energy Department's defense and energy research programs, as well as the Army Corps of Engineers.
Senators have withheld potential amendments during the subcommittee and committee markups, but they're likely to bring them up on the floor and seek votes.
The appropriations process is going to be keeping others on Capitol Hill busy as well.
The House Appropriations Committee will meet Tuesday to vote on that chamber's energy and water bill, along with other legislation. The subcommittee with jurisdiction passed it the same day as the Senate's, but the upper chamber moved faster.
The House's bill is far more controversial and takes direct aim at President Obama's environmental priorities. It would take significant funding away from clean energy research and development and direct it toward fossil fuels, which the GOP says is a better use of money, since those are the dominant fuels in the United States.
The bill also seeks to stop the Clean Water Rule, among other provisions.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is getting in on the appropriations action with a Tuesday hearing examining the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 2017 budget request.
The Environment Committee's clean air and nuclear safety subpanel will meet Thursday for a hearing on the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act, a bipartisan bill to change how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) works regarding its fee structure and licenses for advanced reactors.
The senators will hear from representatives of the NRC and various stakeholders from business and research organizations.
The Senate Energy Committee is holding a hearing Tuesday on the impact of low prices on oil and natural gas development, and its public lands subcommittee will meet Thursday to discuss nine bills in its jurisdiction.
On the other side of Capitol Hill, the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Interior will have a two-part hearing over two days on what lawmakers see as barriers to taking species off the endangered list.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is bringing in Mathy Stanislaus, head of the EPA's land office, for a hearing Thursday on the brownfields program, which provides grants and help for communities to remediate and reuse polluted lands.
Two of its subcommittees will hear from NRC representatives Wednesday about that agency’s budget request for fiscal 2017.
The week wraps up Friday with Earth Day, which is also the day on which numerous countries plan to send representatives to United Nations headquarters to sign last year's Paris climate change agreement, the first day it's available to sign.
Secretary of State John Kerry will be representing the Obama administration at the event. Once 55 countries sign it, representing 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, the agreement takes effect.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/276509-week-ahead-senate-to-take-up-energy-reform-spending-bills
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EPA is Downplaying Sweeping Rule -- Challengers
Apr 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Opponents of the Clean Power Plan are swatting back at U.S. EPA in court, deriding the agency's defense of the rule as an attempt to understate its "radical" approach to power plant regulation.
In briefs filed Friday, the massive coalition of challengers -- states, utilities, coal companies and others -- renewed previous arguments that the rule is both beyond EPA's jurisdiction and procedurally flawed. They slammed EPA for "ty[ing] itself in knots" to defend the rule as both monumentally important and a continuation of industry trends.
"In its response brief, EPA ties itself in knots, torn between touting the Rule's significance and downplaying the extraordinary nature of what it seeks to do," the petitioners wrote, citing part of an EPA brief that describes the rule as "critically important" but later contends it is not transformative because industry is already moving away from coal-fired electricity generation.
But the rule does represent a radical change, the challengers argued, because it "is premised on the unprecedented assertion that EPA has the legal authority under section 111(d) [of the Clean Air Act] to require emission reductions based on shutting down existing fossil fuel-fired power plants and building new, EPA-favored plants to replace them."
"The agency wants to have it both ways, touting the Clean Power Plan as a major environmental milestone, while downplaying to the point of absurdity the rule's unprecedented legal overreach," the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association's Jeffrey Connor said in a statement. NRECA is a party to the case. "The fact is that EPA didn't produce a rule simply to reduce emissions -- it crafted a radical plan to restructure the U.S. power sector."
The briefs are the latest in a flurry of legal filings in the high-stakes litigation over the Clean Power Plan, which aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector. Critics of the rule made their case in February in opening briefs before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. EPA and its allies responded three weeks ago, and last week's briefs represent challengers' reply.
Congressional authorization?
The 150-plus petitioners filed two briefs Friday: one focused on core legal issues in the Clean Power Plan and one focused on alleged procedural missteps, following their setup for opening briefs (EnergyWire, Feb. 22).
On core issues, the challengers doubled down on arguments that EPA is overstepping its bounds in regulating the power sector without "clear Congressional authorization." They say legal precedent requires explicit statutory support, not just "vague text," for such "expansive assertions of agency authority." The argument takes aim at one of EPA's key defenses, that it is entitled to deference on its interpretation of the Clean Air Act.
The brief goes on to challenge EPA's decision that rebalancing state energy portfolios is the "best system of emission reduction" under the Clean Air Act. The agency says several states have made successful efforts to increase cleaner power generation, prompting the Clean Power Plan's push for broader generation shifting.
But the petitioners argue that the Clean Air Act requires EPA to focus on individual sources. Generation shifting, they say, means operators will have to shutter individual sources, like coal-fired power plants, or buy credits and invest in renewables -- violating "unambiguous" limitations in the law.
Finally, the brief repeats past arguments that the Clean Power Plan violates the 10th Amendment and treads on state regulatory turf. According to the petitioners, state regulators should have the right to decide when and how to make changes to electricity generation.
On the procedural side, the challengers made a slew of technical arguments against the rule -- chiefly that the final version violates administrative law by being too different from the proposed rule. The petitioners argue that the final version of the Clean Power Plan incorporates a uniform, national performance rate for coal- and gas-fired power plants that was never contemplated in the draft rule.
"In promulgating a Rule it never proposed, EPA evaded its most fundamental obligation under [the Clean Air Act] -- to propose its Rule before finalizing it," the brief said.
The brief goes on to criticize the agency's technical support for the rule, arguing that the rule's goals are not actually achievable and that certain changes to generation could threaten the grid's reliability.
Intervenors in the case also weighed in last week, submitting a separate brief that challenges EPA's "sweeping" application of the Clean Air Act.
"EPA would transform Section 111(d) into a general enabling act, giving the agency authority over the entire electric grid, not to mention the entire American economy," Peabody Energy Corp. and other companies wrote. "EPA would convert an obscure, little-used provision into the most powerful section of the CAA, rendering much of the remainder surplusage."
Support for the rule
Proponents of EPA's rule shrugged at the challengers' latest arguments, instead focusing on growing support for the rule. A wide variety of corporations, religious groups, health groups, former government officials and others joined in support of the regulation earlier this month (EnergyWire, April 4).
"The Clean Power Plan is firmly rooted in our nation's successful clean air laws and time-tested solutions adopted under both Republican and Democratic Presidents," Environmental Defense Fund attorney Tomás Carbonell said in a statement. EDF is a party to the case on EPA's side.
"Across the country, public support for climate action is strong and continues to grow -- even in states whose officials are litigating against the Clean Power Plan," he added. "The Clean Power Plan is one of the most important steps we can take to protect our families, communities and businesses from the dangers of climate change while strengthening our clean energy economy."
Both sides will submit a final round of briefs Friday, setting the stage for oral arguments in June.
Click here to read more about the legal challenges to the Clean Power Plan.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/04/18/stories/1060035775
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BLM Defends Calif. Oil and Gas Plan Against Enviro Challenge
Apr 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
The Obama administration last week fired back at allegations that it's allowing unchecked hydraulic fracturing in California.
In a legal brief filed Friday, the Interior Department slammed a lawsuit from environmental groups challenging the agency's broad resource management plan for central California. While the groups argue that the plan would allow rampant development, especially fracking, on public lands, agency lawyers say the environmentalists are getting ahead of themselves.
"This case is not about an unforeseen and unanalyzed fracking boom," they told the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. "It is about the Bureau of Land Management's attempt to update two outdated resource management plans to better protect the environment while continuing to allow oil and gas development authorized by statute."
The Center for Biological Diversity and Los Padres ForestWatch filed their suit last summer, arguing that BLM's Bakersfield office finalized a resource management plan (RMP) and related environmental study in 2014 that fails to consider unique environmental impacts associated with fracking.
The RMP allows development on 1 million acres of federal surface land and mineral estate across the Central Valley, San Joaquin Valley, southern Sierra Nevada and central coast. The groups are asking the court to set aside the plan and order the agency to do a supplemental environmental impact statement (EnergyWire, June 11, 2015).
They are hoping the court takes its cue from the nearby Northern District, which in 2013 found that BLM had not considered the full effects of fracking in its environmental analysis of two oil and gas leases in Monterey County. BLM then agreed to prepare a new EIS for the region. A court decision requiring BLM to expand its fracking analysis for an RMP would be a big win for environmental groups looking to reel in the production process.
Interior and BLM are hoping to avoid that scenario by urging the court to throw out the lawsuit. According to government lawyers, the environmentalists don't even have standing to sue because they are not facing any concrete, particular harm from the management plan -- one of the thresholds for filing a lawsuit. Plus, they said, the RMP is simply not the proper stage for a lawsuit.
"Not only does judicial review at this stage require the Court to improperly speculate as to BLM's future decisions, it is also unnecessary," the brief said. "Plaintiffs will have the opportunity to challenge future oil and gas development at the leasing and permitting stages before any drilling occurs."
The brief added that environmentalists' concerns about widespread development in new areas were overblown: "While about 25% of new wells in the Bakersfield planning area are expected to be fracked, 98% of new wells on federal mineral estate in the planning area are projected to be drilled on existing leases that have been producing for over 30 years."
Lawyers for the environmental groups said in an email that they would review the government's brief but maintained their position that "BLM acted unwisely and unlawfully" in approving the RMP.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/04/18/stories/1060035776
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States, Agencies Eye Options to Bolster Use of Oil & Gas Produced Water
Apr 18, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Anthony Lacey
States, EPA and the Department of Energy (DOE) are weighing options to bolster the use of produced water from the oil and gas sector, saying that recycling or otherwise reusing the water can have significant economic benefits but also noting the need to pursue further research on issues such as the water's quality.
Underground oil and gas extraction, such as hydraulic fracturing, can produce large quantities of wastewater that contains potentially harmful constituents. Energy companies have traditionally injected the water underground in disposal wells, though some send the water to centralized waste treatment (CWT) facilities for processing.
At the Environmental Council of the States' (ECOS) spring meeting here April 10, members of the group's Shale Gas Caucus (SGC) highlighted ongoing work at the state and federal level on researching ways to useproduced water.
SGC Co-Chair and Chief of North Dakota's Department of Health Environmental Health Section David Glatt said that how to handle the water is a growing focus in addition to addressing emissions from the industry's operations.
"There are some exciting things being looked at" on produced water, including proper recycling, reuse, disposal and treatment, he said -- for example how to address changes in the water's overall quality.
Glatt noted that in North Dakota "we've seen water quality changing" in produced water, saying that the water can contain high levels of total dissolved solids and other substances. For example, he said that in his state some produced water has included "extremely high" levels of ammonia that regulators did not expect.
One of the major questions facing states and industry is "What's the appropriate quality for that water?" said Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment Director of Environmental Programs Martha Rudolph, who serves as the other SGC co-chair. "What's the quality of that water, and how should we treat it?"
Rudolph noted that there is interest from some stakeholders in using produced water for dust suppression, but said the issue of whether the water is of a suitable quality remains up for discussion. She noted that some states prohibit its use, other states allow its use, and her state of Colorado is "kind of in the middle."
During the next 12-18 months, ECOS -- which represents many state environmental agencies -- will host webinars and briefings to educate members on what can be done with produced water, she added.
EPA Actions
At the federal level, outgoing EPA Principal Advisor to the Administrator for Unconventional Oil and Gas Teresa Marks touted a number of recent or ongoing agency actions that affect the produced water debate, including EPA's recent draft study on the potential risks to drinking water from fracking operations.
"I think [the study] could be helpful when you're looking at how to manage your state programs," said Marks, because it highlights the constituents of concern that could be in produced water, which includes salt, minerals and dissolved organics.
"Most wastewater facilities don't treat for those types of constituents," she added. Marks noted that EPA last year issued a shale pretreatment proposal under section 304(m) of the Clean Water Act to fill what the agency says has become a gap in existing effluent limitation guidelines (ELG) for the oil and gas industry to help ensure that the current practice of not sending wastewater to publicly owned treatment works (POTW) continues. "It basically puts into regulation what has been common practice" said Marks, because "POTWs are not equipped to handle" produced water.
Marks -- who is leaving the agency in the coming weeks -- said EPA hopes to have the final ELG out by the end of the year, as well as release around the same time a pending study on the environmental impacts of CWTs.
Water Treatment
During the SGC meeting, DOE Energy Industry Analyst Marni Lenahan said that her department is "focused on providing research and analysis" to help in developing technologies for better treatment of the water.
Marks noted that in assessing the quality and quantity of produced water, one of the "recognized barriers" is cost, such as the cost involved with trucking produced water from oil and gas operations to its later use.
Southwestern Energy Company Vice President of Strategic Solutions Roy Hartstein said, "The challenge is the economic portion: How do we find ways to treat water that cost less than going to full distillation?"
"Historically almost all of this stuff was sent deep down disposal wells," said Environmental Defense Fund U.S. Climate and Energy Program Senior Policy Director Scott Anderson. "Therefore historically we haven't really needed to know very much about produced water," such as its composition or other information. But the growing interest in recycling or otherwise reusing the water warrants a closer review of the water's quality, he said. "The question of what the water quality standard is, how clean is clean, that needs to be addressed."
For example, he questioned what the infrastructure should be for storing or transporting produced water, saying that ensuring the adequate infrastructure for use of the water is a "risk area."
Anderson added, "It's vital that the produced water that's not going to go down disposal wells be treated to the point that it's fit for purpose" to make sure its use is a "win-win situation."
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/states-agencies-eye-options-bolster-use-oil-gas-produced-water
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Fracking And Natural Gas Have Cut Pennsylvania's CO2 Emissions 30%
Apr 17, 2016 | Forbes (In Real Clear Energy)
By Jude Clemente
Thanks to the mighty Marcellus shale play, Pennsylvania’s natural gas production has boomed nearly 30-fold since 2005. At over 16 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/day), the Marcellus, also being developed in West Virginia, now produces more gas than all of Canada. Our shale revolution is even more remarkable because it has generally come in spite of lower prices, a problem that obviously makes producing energy more difficult.
Rising shale has also led to a natural gas power generation revolution in once coal-dominant Pennsylvania. Electricity is a baseload demand market that usually comprises 40-45% of a state’s energy usage. The Keystone State has extended its gas capacity to about 12,200 megawatts (MW), up from 9,400 MW in 2010.
Unfortunately, with many coal plants coming offline, Pennsylvania’s overall power capacity has actually fallen from about 46,000 MW back in 2009 to 42,000 MW today. Thus, as a growing economy and population where power shortages mean more blackouts, the nearly $15 billion now being invested in new gas plants in Pennsylvania is crucial. Pennsylvania will see most of the 10,000 MW of coal capacity retired nationally 2016-2017 (here).
Pennsylvania’s natural gas boom has had the measurable benefit of lowering total CO2 emissions in the state’s power sector by about 30%, a very important development because it’s absolute emissions that are required to tackle Climate Change. As for unit of electricity produced, Pennsylvania has evolved from emitting about 1,300 pounds of CO2 per MWh in 2005 to just 910 pounds today, another example of why anti-fracking positions make little environmental sense.
This 30% reduction in CO2 emissions per MWh over 10 years is actually better progress than what has been experienced in California’s power market, continually cited as EPA’s exemplar for other states to follow (here). Since California first installed its Renewable Portfolio Standard in 2003, the state’s CO2 per MWh has surprisingly stayed at around 630 pounds, even increasing in some years (see EIA data, here). And Pennsylvania has tremendous room for natural gas growth: gas is only about 30% of Pennsylvania’s power generation, compared to over 60% in California.
So, despite not being blessed with the great sunshine and wind areas that California has, Pennsylvania has been lowering its CO2 emissions rate faster with shale gas. And California: has power rates that are about 40% higher, has a very expensive regulation of 50% RPS by 2030, and is forced to import 33% of its power. And also in stark contrast: California imports over 90% of its natural gas, while Pennsylvania supplies the clean energy source to surrounding states, like New York (here).
Pennsylvania does have an Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard, which calls for 18% all energy generated in the state come from alternative and renewable sources by 2021, including a very realistic 0.5% from solar. The standard “only requires renewable energy to account for about half of the total requirement.”
As for the source of the 30% reduction in total CO2 emissions in Pennsylvania’s power sector, let’s examine the facts. From 2005-2015, solar remained at 0% of electricity, hydro-electric stayed at 1%, wind increased from 0% to 1.5%, nuclear stayed at 35%, and overall annual power demand stayed about the same, 216-220 terawatt hours.
Thus, reduced CO2 emissions in Pennsylvania’s power sector can almost entirely be attributed to natural gas displacing coal and petroleum. Since 2005, coal’s share of Pennsylvania’s electricity has fallen from 55% to 30%, while oil’s share is down from 2.3% to 0%.
Natural gas-based electricity emits 30% less CO2 than oil and 50% less than coal, and has a lot less mercury, soot, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide pollution. As for production, EPA data shows that methane emissions from the gas output system has plummeted over 40% the past decade.
I’ve already shown how U.S. air quality overall has DRASTICALLY (and inconveniently for some) IMPROVED, and as for that of Pennsylvania’s Marcellus region: “The air is the cleanest it’s been since the Industrial Revolution,” says Jim Thompson, manager of the Allegheny County Health Department’s Air Quality Program.
Pittsburgh, long ago known as “The Smokey City” or “Hell with the lid off,” has come a long way. Pittsburgh is the largest city in Allegheny county, and improved air quality from natural gas helps the city’s most vulnerable: Forbes interestingly ranks Pittsburgh as “the oldest city in America…where 23.6% of the metro area’s population is over 60.”
In future, natural gas will be just as key for Pennsylvania because the state will need to cut its CO2 power sector emissions by 30-40% by 2030 to meet EPA’s Clean Power Plan (here), not to mention the fact that it’s gas that backups intermittent wind and solar.
Pennsylvania’s rising natural gas production is of national and international significance. Contrary to what the anti-oil and anti-gas business might be telling you, Pennsylvanians should be very proud of their shale energy boom. And the benefits go far beyond demonstratively better air and fewer CO2 emissions.
The Internet is rife with stories documenting the economic and environmental benefits of the Marcellus, probably the largest natural gas field in the world, but let me pass along just a few.
“The industry has contributed more than $34 billion to the state’s economy. Energy production in Pennsylvania saved state and local governments $19 billion and public schools $45.5 billion in 2012-2013.”
In fact, perhaps Pennsylvania’s fastest growing industry, the oil and gas business now has more than twice as many workers as the coal mining industry for which the state is traditionally known. Pay in oil and gas is nearly 75% above the average pay in the state (here).
In 2005, before the shale boom, Pennsylvania’s income was equal to that of the nation, but it is now about 3% above the national average, a per capita personal income in Pennsylvania of $49,180. Shale has helped make land owners rich (here), and lowered prices for families to save on energy bills (here).
The reliable and affordable energy that comes from shale gas gives Pennsylvania manufacturers a critical competitive advantage. “Pennsylvania’s shale industry has been a boon to the region’s steel industry with many of the manufacturing centers bringing on new employees to accommodate the oil and gas industry.”
Indeed, the Marcellus is a key reason why the U.S. will soon become a net gas exporter and help buffer the influence of energy-empowered despots and dictators around the world. And it’s the Marcellus that has been the driving force behind U.S. power sector emissions being their lowest in decades.
Looking forward, Pennsylvania is a booming non-traditional oil and gas region that is changing the entire U.S. and global gas markets by making natural gas, the world’s fastest growing major fuel and the energy source that will be leaned on most to meet environmental goals, more available.
Along with the Utica shale play in Ohio, the Marcellus is the driving force behind an expected 45% increase in U.S. gas production by 2040, with the Marcellus adding perhaps as much as 5-8 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) per year in new supply alone. As importers not producers, surrounding states will be increasingly dependent upon this gas, which is now slated to reach as far away as Florida (here).
The industry continues to impressively reduce costs and increase efficiencies to support production volumes in a low priced environment, the average break even price for shale has declined 33-50% in recent years.
Other states, like New York, that love to use fracked gas but won’t produce it itself, should be thanking Pennsylvania for producing and exporting so much. Again, it’s gas that will dominate under EPA’s Clean Power Plan, particularly since wind and solar are most often unavailable and nuclear plants are getting retired, not built.
These natural gas facts point to another energy reality that the “anti-frackers” must come to grips with. The country in general needs more pipelines to get more access to the Marcellus and Utica gas surge. Centered on new takeaway capacity in the Northeast, from 2015-2030, EIA reports that the country needs 38-42 Bcf/day in new pipeline additions, or about half of our total production.
For example, a lack of pipelines caused gas prices to spike during the Polar Vortex of 2014 (here), and the New England states have non-sensicially been forced to import expensive liquefied natural gas from risky Yemen because they lack access to more affordable Pennsylvania shale (here).
And despite the very challenging times the industry faces right now because of sunken oil and gas prices, we can rest assured the gas supply is there and the future remains very bright. Pennsylvania’s gas reserves are up around 65 Tcf, a 5-fold jump since 2010 alone. As prices rise from the ongoing rise in demand, even more of the 500 Tcf of the Marcellus resource will become available.
So, take these natural gas facts to heart Governor Tom Wolf, now proposing the Pennsylvania’s gas drillers to pay a 6.5% tax on Marcellus production, a questionable move given the difficult times and a failed attempt to get anywhere last year with the lower 5% extraction tax proposal.
Perhaps Marcellus partner West Virginia is providing a better example. In March, Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomblin approved tax breaks for West Virginia’s rising shale gas industry.
There’s much at stake here Governor Wolf.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/judeclemente/2016/04/17/fracking-and-natural-gas-have-cut-pennsylvanias-co2-emissions-30/#486b54ea5165
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Loosely Regulated Fertilizer Sites Remain Near Texas Cities, Homes
Apr 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
Texas cities continue to struggle with how to handle ammonium nitrate storage facilities three years after the West Fertilizer Co. explosion in West, Texas, killed 15 people.
Few restrictions exist on where fertilizer storage sites can operate. While many agriculture supply stores that used to sell ammonium nitrate no longer do and fire officials can now inspect sites, most still do not have sprinkler systems that could help minimize the impact of a fire.
As many as eight cities have large stockpiles of ammonium nitrate near schools, homes and a hospital, state data show.
In Whitewright, Texas, real estate developers wanted to build low-income housing 1,000 feet from a fertilizer depot storing tons of ammonium nitrate. Though the U.S. Chemical Safety Board found many of the estimated 300 injured in West were further away, the developers argued the facility posed little risk to the community.
Eventually, the developers agreed to pay for a 29-foot-tall concrete dome for the plant to store ammonium nitrate, and construction was allowed to proceed.
Local officials said the risk of an explosion was not of concern.
"I'm not worried about it," Whitewright Mayor Allen West said, calling what happened in the city of West "just kind of a freak accident, in my opinion" (Ambrose/Vestal/McClure, Dallas Morning News, April 16)
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/04/18/stories/1060035801
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(ACC Mentioned) What Happened to 2020? A Casse-Tête Wrapped in a Mystère inside an Enigme
Apr 18, 2016 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
WHAT HAPPENED TO 2020? A CASSE-TÊTE WRAPPED IN A MYSTÈRE INSIDE AN ÉNIGME: At some point during negotiations in Paris over the climate change agreement, a proposed line requiring the deal to go into force no earlier than 2020 disappeared — and no one is saying who did it. The removal of the date could allow the deal to go into effect years earlier, adding momentum to the effort to combat global warming and, in the U.S., making it more complicated for a Republican president to withdraw. (But that that wouldn't stop a Republican like Ted Cruz or Donald Trump from ignoring the mostly non-binding agreement altogether.)
Pro's Andrew Restuccia dug into the question of where the language calling for a 2020 start date went, noting that the provision was in drafts almost until the end of negotiations. Most diplomats assumed the effective year would be 2020, or possibly even later. But then, like that, it was gone. U.S. officials told Andrew it wasn't them, and observers have no idea where the phrase went either. The prevailing theory so far is that French negotiators removed the line, knowing that major emitting countries, including the United States, would support seeing it go.
On the cusp: The U.S. and China have both promised to join the deal this year. Since those two countries emit 40 percent of the world's carbon, that's a big head start toward the requirement that 55 countries making up 55 percent of carbon emissions join in before it can go into effect.
Friday is the big day: Secretary of State John Kerry will join other world leaders on Earth Day (a.k.a. Friday) in New York to sign the agreement, setting the wheels in motion for putting the agreement into effect.
HAPPY TAX DAY! I'm your host Eric Wolff, and today's the day everyone has to pony up and pay for Congress, the EPA, offshore lease sales, and most of the other things we cover here are POLITICO, so let's all be on time, shall we? We have a big week, so keep ME ahead of the news with your tips, quips, and comments, and send them to ewolff@politico.com, or follow us on Twitter @ericwolff, @Morning_Energy, and @POLITICOPro.
ENERGY BILL FEELS LIKE SINGING: The bipartisan energy bill, once thought dead but now very much alive, is expected to see some Senate action this week. Under a procedural package agreed to last week, 29 amendments will likely be approved on a voice vote, followed by roll call votes on eight amendments upon which the Senate is more divided. After that, the full bill is expected to get a vote. ME hasn't heard anything on the timing of the votes, but our ear is to the ground
Approps-po of energy: The Senate is ready to rock and roll with its energy and environment appropriations, even as the House seems content to slow waltz through it's own appropriation process. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell filed cloture on Thursday on an energy and water appropriation that will fund the Department of Energy, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Army Corps of Engineers, setting up a vote to proceed with the bill.
Meanwhile, the wheels are also turning in the upper chamber to move the EPA appropriation forward, starting Tuesday with the Environment and Public Works hearing on the EPA's budget, followed Wednesday with a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee taking testimony from EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on the appropriation. The House Appropriations Committee will take up energy and water and agriculture appropriations on Tuesday, but otherwise the appropriation pipeline is pretty dry, featuring only subcommittee hearings on intelligence and legislative services.
Endangered Species Act has itself a week: Republicans will bring back one of their favorite punching bags this week, as two committees get their shots in on the Endangered Species Act. The House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing featuring Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe on Tuesday on a rule finalized in February that defines critical habitats. And Wednesday and Thursday, the Interior Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will discuss "barriers to delisting" animals from Endangered Species status.
Congress thinks about oil: Oil prices have been rebounding a little lately — both Brent crude and WTI closed over $40 on Friday — but they're still well off their peak. On Tuesday, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will weigh in with some helpful advice on developing oil resources in different price environments. That same day, the Homeland Security Committee will consider pipeline security in a hearing titled "Pipelines: Securing the Veins of the American Economy."
AGs WERE BRIEFED BY GREENS AS THEY CHALLENGED EXXONMOBIL: Matt Pawa, a Massachusetts lawyer who has challenged ExxonMobil in court, and Peter Frumhoff, the director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, privately briefed a coalition of Democratic attorneys general and their staff late last month ahead a press conference in which several AGs touted probes into the oil company. Pawa discussed “climate change litigation” and Frumhoff gave a presentation on the “imperative of taking action now on climate change” during a closed-door session with the AGs and their staff, according to emails obtained by the free-market think tank Energy & Environment Legal Institute. The emails, which were first reported by Reuters, also show that a staffer for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman asked Pawa not to confirm his attendance at the meeting during an interview with a reporter for The Wall Street Journal.
THE LEFT BEHIND EXTENDERS: Small wind, combined heat and power, fuels cell and some other energy technologies are hoping they'll get some tax credit love during the lame duck session of Congress, but they will still face strong political headwinds, including from powerful conservative groups.
As Pro's Esther Whieldon reports, these smaller industry groups were told by congressional staff their tax credits would get extended along with the much larger solar and wind industry credits in December's tax extender negotiations, but sources say that Republican House staff writing the legislation left them out. "There's definitely hard feelings" among the industry groups over what happened, said one renewable energy industry lobbyist.
METHANE EMISSIONS ARE HIGH, THEY ARE FAR: EPA saw its estimate of oil- and gas-related methane emissions increase from 32.4 million metric tons in 2010 to 42.4 million metric tons in 2014. As Pro's Elana Schor reports, natural gas emissions have exceeded agricultural fermentation as the largest U.S. source of methane since 2011. The increase affirmed environmentalists' justification for EPA's plan to regulate methane. "Some companies are already going in the right direction," Environmental Defense Fund Vice President Mark Brownstein said in a statement. "National standards are needed to ensure that all companies play by the same set of rules."
CLEAN POWER PLAN PETITIONERS REPLY BRIEFS ARE IN: Petitioners representing the 28 states and numerous trade groups and industry supporters responded in the D.C. Circuit on Friday to EPA's defense of the Clean Power Plan. The groups more or less went over their usual ground: The Clean Power Plan isn't legal under the law, the EPA's system of building blocks are not adequately demonstrated, the EPA's modeling is wrong, etc. Intervenors representing six corporations, including the bankrupt Peabody Energy, and the Gulf Coast Lignite Coalition, a group of power and coal companies, filed an intervenor reply brief outlining some similar arguments. The rule was suspended by the Supreme Court while the legal situation plays out. The D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in June.
EPA JETTISONS RACING LANGUAGE FROM TRUCK RULE: EPA on Friday quietly dropped a provision in its forthcoming second phase truck efficiency rule that had Republicans and the racing world up in arms over concerns that it would effectively prohibit amateur racing. The proposed language was only meant to clarify EPA's policy on the use of "defeat devices" to get around emissions standards, not go after small-time racers, EPA says. But the agency said in a short notice that since its "attempt to clarify led to confusion, EPA has decided to eliminate the proposed language from the final rule." It added: “EPA’s focus is not on vehicles built or used exclusively for racing, but on companies that don’t play by the rules and that make and sell products that disable pollution controls on motor vehicles used on public roads.”
Republicans quickly waved the checkered flag: “EPA had no business using Heavy Duty Truck rules to sideline racecars,” House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton and Reps. Ed Whitfield and Richard Hudson said in a statement. “Today marks an important victory in our continued efforts to get the EPA back on the right track when it comes to regulating under the Clean Air Act.”
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LNG STRUGGLES TO GET A FOOTHOLD IN OREGON, AGAIN: Oregon LNG reneged Friday on its plans to build a liquefied natural gas export terminal in the state as well as an 87-mile pipeline connected to the project. According to The Oregonian, the company told Warrenton Mayor Mark Kujala that it withdrew based on "a funding decision." But the paper also explained that Oregon LNG’s proposal had been unanimously rejected by local county commissioners and that a city hearings officer recently nixed important land use applications. Asia is particularly hungry for LNG, but Oregon LNG is the second project to wither in the Beaver State. FERC shot down the Jordan Cove LNG project there last month, however the developers have sought an appeal with regulators citing several purchase agreements signed since the March 11 rejection.
But Gulf Coast LNG project moves ahead: While the Oregon LNG project seemed to have died on Friday, FERC unanimously approved the Magnolia LNG export terminal project near Lake Charles, La., that same day. FERC’s go-ahead of the project, which could export up to 1.07 billion cubic feet per day, also came with 115 environmental conditions.
Gas court: A trio of environmental groups will get to make their arguments in federal court Tuesday morning that FERC shouldn’t have approved Dominion’s Cove Point LNG project in Maryland in 2014.
CAP CALLS FOR FEDERAL CARBON PROXY PRICE: The Center for American Progress is calling for Congress to require federal agencies to consider a carbon price in all of its activities, or, failing that, for the president to use existing authorities to require such a practice. In a report out today, the liberal group argues that the government should follow the lead of private companies in considering the carbon impact in assessing its activities by adding the cost of each ton of carbon dioxide equivalent emitted to a project's costs. The group suggests the government could either broadly apply the social cost of carbon figure already used in calculating the costs and benefits of carbon-reducing rules, or perhaps choose a proxy price that reflects mid-century emission reduction goals.
So does Ban Ki-moon: On Friday U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called for a world wide carbon price, according to a tweet from his spokesperson. "We must put a price on pollution & provide incentives 2 accelerate a low carbon pathway," he said.
OIL FREEZE TALKS COLLAPSE: Eighteen OPEC and non-OPEC nations gathered in Qatar this weekend to try to freeze oil production at January levels — only to see talks collapse over Saudi Arabia's insistence that Iran join the agreement, Reuters reports. Iran is promising to ramp up its production now that sanctions from western countries have been lifted. But Iran wasn't at the talks, and Saudi Arabia wanted them there. The Saudi stance led to tension with Russia, which called the demand "unreasonable."
IRAN & THE EU — NUCLEAR FRIENDS: Seven European commissioners, including Miguel Arias Cañete, popped by Tehran over the weekend, and agreed to cooperate on the “peaceful uses” of nuclear energy. That includes holding a high-level dialog once a year, and working together on issues like nuclear safety, radiation protection, waste and spent fuel management and nuclear research and development. It will all start this year, with the EU putting money into a project to enhance the Iran Nuclear Regulatory Authority’s capabilities. Iran has lots of oil and gas, but it wants to green up and upgrade its own electricity supply. At their first energy dialogue, the two sides discussed trade in Iran's oil and gas, and the European Union's renewables and energy efficiency expertise. “I think we can engineer a very good understanding in view of coming back to Iran and becoming a big supplier of oil and gas for the European Union,”Arias Cañete said.
MAIL CALL: INDUSTRY TO CONGRESS, LET'S DIAL BACK THE OZONE RULE: Over 200 industry groups, including the American Chemistry Council, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, will send Congressional leaders in both parties a letter today supporting H.R. 4775, the Ozone Standards Implementation Act of 2016. They're calling for it to be added to the Fiscal 2017 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriation. The bill would delay the recently finalized ozone standard, and slow down the creation of future standards. "H.R. 4775 and the related appropriations request provide a common-sense plan that maintains continued air quality improvement without unnecessarily straining state and local economic resources," the letter says.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2016/04/morning-energy-wolff-213810
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Industry Groups Endorse Ozone Bill
Apr 18, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Critics of the Obama administration’s tightened standards on surface-level ozone have endorsed a House package to reform how the government regulates the pollutant.
In a letter to members of Congress on Monday, 215 groups said they support Rep. Pete Olson’s (R-Texas) bill to delay the implementation date for the ozone standards released last October.
The legislation would also slow down the required review schedule for the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, which are Environmental Protection Agency pollution rules that include ozone.
The bill, the groups said, would help states, localities and industrial producers reduce their ozone pollution without causing them economic problems, a major complaint from groups and officials when the EPA released the new rule last year.
The bill “will help prevent unnecessary nonattainment designations and cost burdens, without sacrificing environmental protection,” the groups wrote. "The legislation’s permitting relief and other reforms are also an important step towards air standards that balance environmental protection and economic development.”
The groups suggested the bill be included as a policy rider in the 2017 EPA spending legislation, which hasn’t been released yet. Major groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, which has led the charge against the ozone standards, signed the letter.
The EPA in October announced a new ozone standard of 70 parts per billion, a tighter level than the 75 parts per billion limit that was then on the books.
Industry groups warn that such a change would be expensive to implement and threaten jobs. They had encouraged the Obama administration not to change the standard, and many groups and states have sued over them since their release.
The EPA and the Obama administration, though, have said their economic concerns are unwarranted, noting declines in ozone pollution even as the economy has grown. The EPA has said the rule will prevent hundreds of premature deaths and reduce spending on health problems more than the cost of implementing the standards.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/276674-industry-groups-endorse-ozone-bill
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Deese Defends Paris Deal Days Ahead of Signing
Apr 18, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President Obama's senior adviser on climate change moved last week to defend the Paris climate agreement from a wide range of critics, including those who say it threatens the U.S. economy and those who describe it as insufficient in the face of dangerous global warming.
Brian Deese said the landmark climate deal is a global venture that would compel actions from all major emitters -- including U.S. competitors -- and an essential step toward action to avert the worst impacts of warming.
"If you're invested in addressing insufficiency and increasing certainty, this is an opportunity to make progress well before anyone expected," he said.
Deese's remarks, delivered Friday during an event in Oregon, seemed calculated to rebut assertions by Republicans that the December accord would hamstring the U.S. economy while emissions continue to rise in countries like China and India. Senate Republicans aired such views last week during a hearing of the Environment and Public Works Committee, in which they panned the agreement as an economic catastrophe.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) said during the hearing that Obama administration policies underlying the Paris Agreement had led to "pessimistic, downtrodden pockets of poverty" in her coal-dependent state. Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), meanwhile, said Paris "will do more harm than good to vulnerable communities" in the United States -- particularly as developing countries continue to increase their carbon output as their economies expand.
"In fact, it will cost hundreds of billions of dollars each year and have minuscule benefits that will be completely undone by a few months of economic activity in China," Inhofe said.
Deese said Friday that the economies of the United States, China and India are becoming less carbon-intensive. He also noted that the "bottom-up" architecture of the Paris Agreement includes politically binding commitments from a range of countries, including major developing economies. He again touted the administration's strategy of forging bilateral agreements with nations like China and India before Paris to encourage climate action by players in the developed and developing world.
These relationships not only made Paris possible, he said, but brought into being "a new global coalition on climate change."
"And that is truly historic," Deese said.
Forests a future focus
Some climate advocates have argued the agreement is not as "historic" as it should have been. They contend the voluntary emissions reductions promised by countries before the summit fell short of the agreement's long-term goal of keeping postindustrial warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius -- a level that scientists say would help the world avoid catastrophic warming.
A few advocates, like the Third World Network, suggest the poor world could gain leverage in ongoing negotiations by refusing to heed calls by the United States and others to ratify the Paris accord quickly, after it opens for signature Friday (ClimateWire, March 30).
Deese said last week that the delaying tactic would be a mistake. While the so-called intended nationally determined contributions to Paris are "insufficient," slow-walking ratification could jeopardize the global coalition around addressing warming, he said.
The best way to strengthen the Paris Agreement is adopting it and then strengthening it, he said. The deal's provision requesting that countries submit strategies for making deeper reductions by midcentury is one opportunity to do that, he noted.
"For the United States, this will mean, among other things, a more comprehensive approach to our land sector," Deese said in Oregon.
Forests, wetlands and grasslands will play a role in the white paper the administration has vowed to produce this year, he said.
"We'll need tools to help our carbon sinks remove more emissions from the atmosphere, including by enhancing our ability to measure, monitor and verify them," Deese said.
The Paris deal will take effect soon after 55 countries covering 55 percent of the world's emissions have joined it.
It seems likely that these thresholds will be easy to achieve. More than 150 countries are expected to sign the agreement Friday, and countries like China, India, Brazil and South Africa have all called for quick ratification.
"Already -- before the agreement even opens for signature and ratification next week -- we are within striking distance of having the agreement start years earlier than anyone anticipated," Deese said.
"If Paris enters into force early, it would have a catalytic effect, allowing resolution of key negotiating issues sooner, encouraging swifter implementation of domestic reforms," he added. "The machine turns more quickly."
The White House would not say whether Deese would attend the ceremony at U.N. headquarters, but Secretary of State John Kerry will sign the deal for the United States. Obama will be traveling in Europe when the agreement opens for signatures.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/04/18/stories/1060035747
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President Obama’s Signing of the Paris Agreement is Only Good for Nine Months
Apr 18, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blogs
By Joel Stonedale
This Earth Day, President Obama will sign the Paris Agreement on climate change, which seeks to limit greenhouse gas emissions and funnel aid to developing nations. Amid the pageantry and celebration, a crucial fact will be downplayed: Obama’s signature is good for a maximum of nine months.
President Obama is signing the Paris Accord, but The United States is not. To bind the country, the Agreement must be ratified as a treaty by two thirds of the Senate.
The Administration argues that the Accord is not a treaty but rather an executive agreement between President Obama and other nations. Even so, the President cannot bind the country with an executive agreement; he can only bind his administration.
Thus, the Paris Agreement is either an unratified treaty—in which case it has no effect—or it is an agreement only with the Obama Administration—in which case it is only valid for the nine months until his administration ends. Either way, the agreement is ineffective come January.
The Constitution’s separation of powers prevents the President from binding the country unilaterally. Our system does not divide authority into spheres controlled exclusively by the Senate, House, and President. Rather, it requires combinations of offices to work together, be it passing a law or appointing the head of an agency. A bill passed only by the Senate is not the law of the United States, nor is an agreement signed solely by the President. No single branch or chamber acts alone. Broad consensus is required.
The President’s counterparties in Paris realized that he lacked the support to bind the country. In fact, they watered down the wording of the Agreement to facilitate the Administration’s argument that it does not require ratification. For example, they changed the word “shall” to “should” in many places, and they avoided calling it a “treaty.”
The negotiators had a choice between a treaty that might bind the United States and nine-month promise from an outgoing president. They chose the promise from an outgoing president. Any claims that the next administration or the country is “going back on its word” will be disingenuous. Only the Obama administration gave its word, and the other parties in Paris helped design the agreement to make that result possible.
This approach contrasts starkly with prior climate negotiations. Both the Kyoto Protocol and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change were negotiated as treaties in order to bind the United States. The UNFCCC passed the Senate, but Kyoto never garnered enough support for President Clinton to put it to a vote.
Despite Kyoto’s lack of popularity, President Clinton did not deny it was a treaty. Instead, he continued to lobby senators in an effort to eventually convince them to ratify it. Clinton knew Senate approval would be difficult, but he also knew it was the price of a binding agreement. Kyoto failed, but it came one step closer to binding the Untied States that the Paris Agreement has.
The Obama Administration describes the Paris Accord as “the most ambitious climate change agreement in history.” That is an odd way to describe a decades-long promise it cannot keep for more than nine months.
Stonedale is an attorney with the Center for the American Future at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/276668-president-obamas-signing-of-the-paris-agreement-is
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A Push to Demystify Climate Rules on Campuses
Apr 18, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
A national environmental advocacy group aimed at raising climate change awareness among millennials is taking to college campuses to educate students about U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.
Defend Our Future, a project of the Environmental Defense Fund, posts full-time employees to universities around the country to coordinate student volunteers who canvass about global warming. Students encourage their peers to make minor changes in their everyday lives, by walking or biking instead of driving, using reusable grocery bags, and conserving water when brushing their teeth.
"Our whole premise is focused on encouraging students to take small action in everyday life or get involved on the larger scale to encourage action on climate change," said Kevin Puleo, field director for Defend Our Future.
Defend our Future in recent weeks has hosted panel discussions with environmental advocates in Ohio, Colorado and Arizona about EPA's complex rule to curb power-sector carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change.
In the next two weeks, students will hear from experts supporting climate action in California, New York and Florida. The events coincide with regional Climate Leadership Summits.
Defend Our Future calls its work nonpartisan, and volunteers aim to steer conversations away from politics and the presidential campaign while also encouraging students to vote. But the group's programs do target some battleground states. Puleo could not say how the group picks states, and he didn't disclose how many campus organizers are employed by Defend Our Future.
He said the panels are "an effort just to help students be aware of the historic significance of the Clean Power Plan."
Signing 'commitment cards'
At Ohio State University in Columbus last Wednesday, several dozen students, like second-year environmental engineering major Fran Kaler, learned about state regulations guaranteeing income for local coal plants, for example.
Kaler stood in front of the school's library the next morning talking to students about climate change and asking them to sign "commitment cards," stating that climate change is real and should be addressed. Kaler and fellow volunteers canvass daily and are aiming to collect about 700 signatures a week on a campus of about 65,000.
Defend Our Future overall wants to engage 1 million youth by the fall, including with an online campaign.
Kaler said students often ask how they can improve the environment as just one person. "That's how change is made," she tells them.
Jack Shaner, senior director of legislative and public affairs at the Ohio Environmental Council, said he explained to students in broad terms "what is at stake with the Clean Power Plan."
"We believe that ultimately the Supreme Court will uphold the rule and that states will have to comply with it ... even though a state like Ohio is fighting it tooth and nail," Shaner said.
Ohio's Legislature has frozen energy efficiency and renewable energy standards, and the state's attorney general is challenging the power plant regulation in court, along with more than two dozen other states.
But "if the Clean Power Plan were to somehow legally crash and burn, that doesn't lessen the need for a plan, and so students need to become educated and become active," Shaner said.
He added, "The younger you are, the more you're going to be affected by climate change," noting that "students historically have been an important part of so many successful movements in this nation, from civil rights ... to the environment."
Shaner doesn't encounter many young people in his work, but he said youth should engage in public and legislative debate.
"I think we're right on the cusp of a massive sea change [in public opinion], and I think students can be a part of that," he said. "Our future leaders are coming out of our universities, and it's sort of like a flower casts a hundred seeds, you know, you just don't know which one may sprout and be a president one day."
At a similar event at Colorado State University in Fort Collins on Thursday, students heard from speakers including former Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat who runs the Center for the New Energy Economy at the university. CNEE has been coordinating multistate talks on the Clean Power Plan.
Lauren Liedtke, a junior wildlife biology major who is president of the campus Defend Our Future chapter, said she didn't know much about the rule before the event. Although she said CSU is a "very aware campus" and many students believe climate change is happening, the 52 students who attended the event had a lot to learn about the federal regulation.
Liedtke began volunteering after another student approached her on campus, noted her refillable water bottle and asked whether she cared about the planet. From there, she started interning, and many of her friends joined the effort.
"It's really been a grass-roots, build-from-the-bottom sort of thing," Liedtke said.
On campus, an 'existential' threat
Puleo argues students should also be aware of the Clean Power Plan because it could help transform states' green economies, making jobs available to young people in the decades ahead.
Two groups, Environmental Entrepreneurs and the Natural Resources Defense Council, released a guidebook Friday for millennials seeking those careers, profiling youth working in green energy in the Midwest.
Clean power jobs total more than half a million in 12 Midwestern states, and they are expected to grow 4.4 percent in the next year, said Gail Parson, a regional director for Environmental Entrepreneurs.
"We want to make sure that young people know that there are opportunities in the clean energy field," said Parson, who spoke to students at Northwestern University Law School in Chicago on Friday.
Cory Connolly, a 28-year-old who works on clean energy project financing for Levin Energy Partners in Detroit, said young people are well-suited for the industry because it doesn't have a lot of "entrenched processes," and there is room for new ideas.
When he got into the field, he assumed he would have to work at nonprofits, but he ended up working on environmental research for a few years before moving home to Michigan to get more experience on the ground.
"I was working at an environmental law and policy nonprofit that was doing really great work, but I felt like I wasn't having the type of real impact I wanted to have," Connolly said.
Connolly first learned about environmental issues in college through the Roosevelt Institute, a nonprofit that encourages "working to redefine the rules that guide our social and economic realities."
"What got me into it is I felt like we're facing a major environmental crisis and honestly an existential one for humanity," Connolly said.
Puleo said the best way to engage millennials is on college campuses.
"Talking about climate change is something that they rank as a very high issue that is of importance to them," Puleo said. Having staff on the ground to talk face to face is "essential" to Defend Our Future's work, he said.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/04/18/stories/1060035778
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Apr 18, 2016 | Washington Post
By Darryl Fears
Baltimore stands apart as the American big city with the most deaths caused by air pollution, and Curtis Bay is its dirtiest community. Several years ago, the air there stood to get even worse when the state approved a permit for a giant incinerator that would burn 4,000 tons of trash every day and emit up to 1,240 pounds of lead and mercury every year.
But destiny intervened. More specifically, a 17-year-old high school senior named Destiny Watford.
Outraged that her community was once again “being dumped on” and that the health of her family and neighbors was being “sacrificed for a profit,” the self-described shy girl led fellow students at Benjamin Franklin High School in a four-year campaign that mobilized Curtis Bay and halted the incinerator’s construction indefinitely.
As state environmental officials seek to revoke the permit for good, Watford is being honored with one of the world’s most prestigious environmental awards. On Monday, she was announced as a 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize winner for her community leadership.
Not only is Watford, at 20, the youngest of this year’s six recipients — who hail from Slovakia, Cambodia, Tanzania, Puerto Rico and Peru — she’s the third-youngest honoree in the history of the prize. She says she never imagined becoming an activist, let alone that her efforts would allow her to stand shoulder to shoulder with internationally recognized advocates of environmental justice. But her mother, Kimberly Kelly, isn’t surprised.
“I have five kids,” Kelly said, “and I just knew she was going to be different. She’s a debater. She wants to get her point across.”
Growing up in Curtis Bay, a community of rowhouses near Baltimore’s industrial southern tip, Watford watched her mother struggle with asthma. She knew neighbors afflicted with respiratory disease. During the campaign, when she and other students asked members of an art class at Franklin High if any of them had asthma, “almost every hand shot up,” Watford recalled last week.
A 2013 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that 113 people per 100,000 Maryland residents — higher than in any other state — die as a result of emissions from car and truck traffic, trains and ships, commercial heating systems and industrial smokestacks. Baltimore’s rate was far higher, exceeding that of New York City and smoggy Los Angeles.
Curtis Bay is Baltimore’s epicenter of pollution and bad health. Jutting into the bay where it meets the Patapsco River, it started out as a focal point for World War II-era shipping. It later gained a coal-burning power plant, a chemical-processing plant, a medical-waste incinerator and other industry.
And the air kept getting dirtier. In 2007 and 2008, Curtis Bay ranked worst in the nation for the release of toxic air pollutants, according to a report by the Environmental Integrity Project using emissions data from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The following year, it ranked second.
Like many residents there, Watford had no idea the incinerator had been approved for her community until she saw a story about it on the Internet in 2012.
Energy Answers International was promoting the project — set to be the biggest of its kind in the nation — as an energy-producing power plant that would serve schools and other facilities. It would be located less than a mile from Franklin High and Curtis Bay Elementary, which state environmental regulations wouldn’t typically allow. But the rule became irrelevant when the Public Service Commission approved the incinerator as an energy plant.
The company said by email last week that the PSC granted the exemption because the tire rubber, vinyl, plastic, metals and other municipal waste burned at the site would be processed into a fuel elsewhere. About 1.5 million tons of landfill waste annually would be diverted, converted and marketed as renewable energy, making the facility, “by all definitions, an energy plant,” according to a company statement.
The statement noted the upper limits of lead and mercury emissions under the permit and said the company never expected the incinerator to approach those. The project would require 1,300 temporary construction workers and create 200 permanent jobs, the statement said.
Watford and her classmates were concerned more about the air. They formed an advocacy group called Free Your Voice and studied the history of industry and pollution in Curtis Bay, as well as in the nearby Brooklyn and Hawkins Point neighborhoods. They began knocking on doors, expanding their network to hundreds of residents who circulated petitions that resulted in thousands of signatures. Their rallying cry: “Clear air is a human right.”
Ten students were the core of Free Your Voice, but the Goldman Prize will be given to Watford, because “she’s kind of been the glue, the person who not just stuck around but deepened her involvement,” said Greg Sawtell, an organizer for the nonprofit activist group United Workers who acted as a mentor and helped nominate her for the award.
“She distinguished herself beyond the organizing with her ability to use writing and creative expression through video,” Sawtell said. “Older people said they got involved from their doors being knocked on by Destiny. She inspired a multigenerational struggle. She showed a lot of wisdom and patience.”
Watford, whose soft Afro frames a baby face, had never heard of the prize. When the Goldman Prize director called to congratulate her, she almost didn’t answer because the number showing on her cellphone was unfamiliar. Then she didn’t know what to say: “I was really confused. I didn’t know who he was or what he was talking about.”
He was talking about her work. Early on, the students thought they would win because of the incinerator’s proximity to the two schools. They persevered after that setback and discovered that the school district and city government agencies had signed an agreement to purchase energy from the incinerator, according to the Goldman Prize. Watford led students to a school board meeting at which they used artwork and video to convince members to reconsider. The board eventually took a student-organized tour of the proposed site and divested from the project.
In the end, the plant was derailed last fall on a different issue identified by Free Your Voice. According to state law, construction on an industrial project must begin during the 18 months before a permit’s air-quality provision expires. That never happened. In December, the 90-acre construction site was still only gravel and patches of grass.
The students pressed the point during a showdown at the Maryland Department of the Environment’s headquarters. With the help of United Workers, Free Your Voice brought 200 protesters to confront Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles. Only a few were allowed in for a discussion.
“We told them, ‘You guys have to take action. If not, there’s going to be a consequence,’ ” Watford recounted. The group would not accept the secretary’s explanation that his hands were tied by legal red tape, she said, and the protesters refused to leave until Grumbles declared that Energy Answers no longer met the air-quality provision. The agency officially notified the company last month of its decision.
“The permit had expired due to a lack of ‘continuous construction,’ ” Grumbles said in a statement last week. The statement acknowledged the students’ frustration over the months-long wait for his department’s final decision. It also singled out their leader.
“Destiny is a talented, resourceful and passionate young advocate,” Grumbles said, “with great potential to make a difference in the lives of those around her.”
The Goldman prize described her in similar terms, noting her “unwavering dedication and wisdom beyond her years.”
Energy Answers still holds a lease on the property and is fighting to build its plant, but at this stage of the process the company would have to get the community’s approval, which is unlikely. When Energy Answers President Patrick F. Mahoney attended a Curtis Bay meeting in March to talk about the jobs and revenue the plant would bring, he was shouted down by angry residents.
Watford, who is a junior at Towson University north of Baltimore, is now leading an effort to turn half of the proposed construction site into a community-owned solar panel farm. The project would provide energy to schools and businesses just as the incinerator would have — but without the same health risks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/04/18/this-baltimore-20-year-old-just-won-a-huge-international-award-for-taking-out-a-giant-trash-incinerator/
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