Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 5/6/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) Solid PS Prices up as Feedstock Costs Climb
May 5, 2016 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
A surge in benzene feedstock prices sent North American selling prices for solid polystyrene resin up an average of 5 cents per pound in April. -
(ACC Mentioned) CN recognized as Responsible Care Partner of the Year for Safe Movement of Chemicals
May 6, 2016 | American Journal of Transportation
CN (TSX: CNR) (NYSE: CNI) said today it has been recognized as one of the three recipients of the prestigious Responsible Care Partner of the Year award of the American Chemistry Council (ACC). -
TRANSCAER Recognized for 30 Years of Emergency Response Training
May 5, 2016 | Progressive Railroading
TRANSCAER, the voluntary national outreach initiative to help train emergency responders for possible hazardous material transportation incidents, is marking its 30th anniversary this year. -
(ACC Mentioned) More Clarity Urged for U.S.-Canadian Chemicals Work
May 6, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Representatives of different industry sectors asked U.S. and Canadian officials May 5 to explain why their chemical regulatory approaches vary despite their bilateral cooperation initiative. -
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Industry Urges EPA To Change Review Of Controversial Solvent
May 5, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
The chemical industry group American Chemistry Council (ACC) is urging EPA to delay the peer review of a draft risk assessment of 1-bromopropane (1-BP), arguing the members selected to serve on the panel reviewing the solvent are unqualified and raising concerns... -
EU Submits DecaBDE Restriction to WTO for Comments
May 6, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Commission May 4 told members of the World Trade Organization that it wants to largely outlaw the production and use of the flame retardant bis(pentabromophenyl) ether (decaBDE) in the 28-nation European Union. -
The EPA’s Lead-in-Water Rule Has Been Faulted for Decades. Will Flint Hasten a Change?
May 5, 2016 | Washington Post
By Brady Dennis
For a quarter of a century, the federal rule dictating how communities test for and control lead in drinking water has satisfied virtually no one. -
Obama’s Got Flint’s Back
May 5, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Editorial Board
The Flint, Michigan, water crisis began in April 2014. This week, two years later, President Obama stood before a crowd of Flint residents and said: “I’ve come here to tell you that I’ve got your back, that we’re paying attention.” -
Can the House and Senate Turn Two Energy Bills into One Law?
May 5, 2016 | Utility Dive
By Herman K. Trabish
Last month, the U.S. Senate defied the beltway trope of legislative gridlock that has characterized the Obama era, passing a broad energy bill in an 82-12 vote. -
Evolution of an Issue
May 6, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Fred H. Hutchison
When I started LNG Allies two and a half years ago, the energy world was quite different. -
Annals of the ‘Methane Age': Gas from Fracked Wells No Longer ‘Unconventional’
May 5, 2016 | New York Times
By Andrew C. Revkin
The Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration has posted a short update on trends in natural gas production in the United States that’s worth noting simply because it illustrates the profound nature of the energy transitions that are being propelled... -
Enviros Sue EPA, Seek Tougher Regulations For Oil, NatGas Waste Disposal
May 6, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligencw
By Jeremiah Shelor
A group of environmental and community organizations filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday seeking stricter federal regulations for the disposal of waste from oil and gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing. -
Chesapeake Eyeing More Dry NatGas Drilling in Utica, Holding Steady in Marcellus
May 6, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Chesapeake Energy Corp. may ramp up more dry natural gas drilling in the Utica Shale this year, but it also is eyeing a backlog of gas and oil opportunities that stretch across the country that only need higher commodity prices to accelerate activity. -
Exxon Mobil Backs FuelCell Effort to Advance Carbon Capture Technology
May 6, 2016 | New York Times
By John Schwartz
For years, FuelCell Energy has been considered a company to watch. Its technology promised to help economically reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, which could help combat climate change. The Danbury, Conn., company might be able to make a difference... -
(ACC Mentioned) State Officials Bash EPA Chemical Security Proposal
May 6, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Dabbs
State attorneys general lashed into another Environmental Protection Agency rulemaking under the Clean Air Act in recent days, this time directing their displeasure and legal questioning at the agency's proposal to revise oversight of facilities that house hazardous chemicals. -
(ACC Mentioned) AGs Protest Terrorist Risk, Data Breaches in EPA Facility Rule
May 5, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
Attorneys general from two big chemical-producing states told U.S. EPA this week that a recent proposal to change how facilities must prepare for potential safety incidents is likely to be ineffective and could present security risks. -
(ACC Mentioned) Assembly Blocks Bill to Expand Legal Rights for Aliso Canyon Neighbors
May 5, 2016 | Los Angeles Times
By Patrick McGreevy
A bill touted as providing legal protections to neighbors affected by the Aliso Canyon gas leak failed to muster the needed votes in the Assembly on Thursday amid strong opposition from businesses and the California Chamber of Commerce, which labeled it a “job killer.” -
Mexican Pipeline to Boost U.S. Gas Exports 20 Percent
May 6, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christine Buurma
A single pipeline project in Mexico is poised to expand U.S. natural gas exports in a big way. -
District Courts Expected to Decide on Water Rule Lawsuits
May 6, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Environmental groups led by the Natural Resources Defense Council informed a federal district court May 5 that they are withdrawing their complaint against the Clean Water Rule, marking the fourth such case to be voluntarily dismissed since an appeals court gave itself jurisdiction... -
EPA Seeks To Dismiss Texas District Court CWA Rule Suits
May 5, 2016 | InsideEPA
EPA is seeking to dismiss four lawsuits filed in federal district court in Texas challenging the agency's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule, arguing that an appeals court's finding of authority to hear such suits is controlling, deprives the district court of authority under... -
Congress Won't Undermine Paris Deal -- Cardin
May 6, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today sought to reassure global climate leaders that Congress would not undermine the Paris climate agreement.
Industry and Association News
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(ACC Mentioned) Solid PS Prices up as Feedstock Costs Climb
May 5, 2016 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
A surge in benzene feedstock prices sent North American selling prices for solid polystyrene resin up an average of 5 cents per pound in April.
Benzene settled at $2.16 per gallon for April, a 22 percent jump from March prices. The bounce was anticipated because of recent higher oil prices, according to Mark Kallman, a market analyst with Resin Technology Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas. Prior to the April increase, benzene prices had been at a multi-year low because of strong first-quarter imports of the material into North America, he added.
Solid PS prices had been flat in March after declining by an average of 2 cents per pound in February. Prior to the February drop, regional PS prices had been flat for four consecutive months.
Looking ahead, regional benzene prices are expected to settle near $2.07 per gallon for May, down 4 percent vs. April. A PS buyer in the Midwest told Plastics News that the benzene drop might not be enough to move PS prices, which he said have a good chance to be flat for May.
North American PS sales grew just under 1 percent in the first quarter of 2016, according to the American Chemistry Council in Washington. Sales of the material into the food service/food packaging end market grew 2.2 percent in that period. Food service/food packaging accounted for almost 65 percent of regional sales of solid PS for the quarter.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20160505/NEWS/160509895/solid-ps-prices-up-as-feedstock-costs-climb
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(ACC Mentioned) CN recognized as Responsible Care Partner of the Year for Safe Movement of Chemicals
May 6, 2016 | American Journal of Transportation
CN (TSX: CNR) (NYSE: CNI) said today it has been recognized as one of the three recipients of the prestigious Responsible Care Partner of the Year award of the American Chemistry Council (ACC). The award recognizes the strong performance and safety record of companies involved in the transportation, handling and marketing of chemicals.
Responsible Care® is the chemistry industry’s commitment to sustainability – it is a global voluntary initiative to guide member organizations in safely managing chemicals through creation to manufacturing to disposal or recycling.
CN has also earned a 2015 National Achievement Award from Transportation Community Awareness and Emergency Response (TRANSCAER®) in recognition of its ongoing work to help communities understand the movement of dangerous goods and what is required in the event of transportation incidents.
Through TRANSCAER®, whose sponsors include the ACC and the Association of American Railroads, CN works with partner chemical companies to support communities with information sessions and training and simulations for community leaders and first-responders about hazardous commodities.
The national TRANSCAER® award recognizes extraordinary achievements that support the organization’s emergency preparedness efforts. CN has won a National Achievement Award for seven consecutive years.
Jim Vena, CN executive vice-president and chief operating officer, said: “We are honoured to receive the Responsible Care Partner of the Year Award and the National Achievement TRANSCAER® award. CN is committed to operating a safe railway, to handling chemicals and all commodities safely, and to working closely with the communities where we operate to share information about dangerous goods and be ready to respond quickly and comprehensively to any incident.”
In 2015, CN conducted almost 300 TRANSCAER® events in Canada and the United States involving more than 6,000 participants. Such events included rail-related training sessions for firefighters the Moncton, N.B., region and South Bend, Ind., area.
https://www.ajot.com/news/cn-recognized-as-responsible-care-partner-of-the-year-for-safe-movement-of
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TRANSCAER Recognized for 30 Years of Emergency Response Training
May 5, 2016 | Progressive Railroading
TRANSCAER, the voluntary national outreach initiative to help train emergency responders for possible hazardous material transportation incidents, is marking its 30th anniversary this year.
To honor the milestone, the National TRANSCAER Task Group has designated May as "TRANSCAER Month" with more than 50 events scheduled to raise awareness of emergency response training.
Founded in 1986 by Union Pacific Railroad and the Dow Chemical Co., TRANSCAER stands for Transportation Community Awareness and Emergency Response. Last year alone, the initiative helped train more than 50,000 emergency responders throughout North America.
TRANSCAER's success is based on partnerships that help strengthen hazmat emergency preparedness in communities, said National TRANSCAER Task Group Chairman Frank Reiner, president of the Chlorine Institute.
"These include crucial partnerships between shippers and transportation carriers whose expertise forms the basis for TRANSCAER's training and education, and the public-private partnerships between our industries, first responders and service organizations such as the National Volunteer Fire Council and the Firefighters Education and Training Foundation," said Reiner in a press release.
Congress last month passed a resolution recognizing TRANSCAER's contributions over the past 30 years.http://www.progressiverailroading.com/safety/news/TRANSCAER-recognized-for-30-years-of-emergency-response-training--48159
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(ACC Mentioned) More Clarity Urged for U.S.-Canadian Chemicals Work
May 6, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Representatives of different industry sectors asked U.S. and Canadian officials May 5 to explain why their chemical regulatory approaches vary despite their bilateral cooperation initiative.
Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Health Canada met with dozens of industry and a few environmental representatives May 5 to discuss chemicals management efforts undertaken as part of the U.S.-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC). The chemicals meeting was among 19 industrial sector sessions held May 4-5 as part of the RCC's “Stakeholders and Senior Officials Meetings” (87 DEN A-8, 5/5/16).
Launched on Feb. 4, 2011, to increase regulatory transparency and cooperation between the U.S. and Canada, the RCC includes projects on chemicals management, engineered nanoscale chemicals, crop protection, pharmaceuticals and other issues.
Pat Casano, an attorney with the General Electric Co., said during the chemicals meeting that it would help if future rules identify issues the governments jointly discussed and explained the rationale for that divergence.
For example, on May 4 and 5, officials from both countries cited an engineered nanoscale chemicals project as an example of how their governments can work together to develop a joint approach to an emerging and challenging issue.
Yet when Canada issued a final nanoscale chemicals data-collection rule in July and the EPA proposed a data-collection rule the same year, their approaches were very different, an American Coatings Association representative said May 5. EPA proposed its rule in March 2015 (58 DEN A-4, 3/26/15).
David Morin, director general of Environment and Climate Change Canada's Science and Risk Assessment Directorate, said the two governments will discuss whether their regulatory impact analyses could discuss work the RCC has undertaken when it is relevant to a particular regulatory decision.
Ideas for Future Work Invited
Morin and Jeffrey Morris, deputy director of the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, invited participants to suggest ideas for new projects the two governments could undertake once their current ones are completed.
Those two projects address: chemical risk assessments along with the EPA's significant new use rules (SNURs) and Canada's similar significant new activity notices (SNAcs) . The governments described these and other projects in updated work plans released in June 2015 (108 DEN A-15, 6/5/15).
Many participants urged both governments to build on their current SNUR and SNAc work by helping companies which purchase chemicals to make manufactured goods understand what those types of regulations are and whether they apply to them.
As they develop and issue SNURs and SNAcs, both governments “assume a knowledge base out there that may not be,” said a participant representing the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association.
In a letter disseminated at the meeting, the American Chemistry Council and the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada said companies throughout the supply chain would appreciate common definitions and approaches to what the governments describe as “manufactured items” and “articles.”
Other Ideas Suggested
Other ideas the two chemical trade associations suggested included:
• the U.S. adoption of a chemical prioritization approach modeled after the strategy Canada took to evaluate chemicals in commerce;
• allowing chemical manufacturers to use the same form in both countries when they are asking regulators to allow them to make or import a new chemical; and
• Canada and the U.S. adopting the same chemical inventory, a term that refers to a list of chemicals that are, or have been, in commerce.
Morin and Morris said their governments would discuss these and other ideas participants presented.
TSCA Reform Addressed
In response to questions, Morris also discussed how the EPA and its Canadian counterparts plan to address a revised form of the Toxic Substances Control Act if the U.S. Congress passes such legislation and the president signs it into law.
“If TSCA reform is real, we'll sit down with our Canadian colleagues in the fall and walk through whether it has implications for new RCC activities,” Morris said.
If so, the EPA, Health Canada and Environment Canada will identify possible new projects and discuss those with companies, environmental organizations and other interested parties, he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=89053484&vname=dennotallissues&fn=89053484&jd=89053484
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Industry Urges EPA To Change Review Of Controversial Solvent
May 5, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
The chemical industry group American Chemistry Council (ACC) is urging EPA to delay the peer review of a draft risk assessment of 1-bromopropane (1-BP), arguing the members selected to serve on the panel reviewing the solvent are unqualified and raising concerns about the process the agency used to create a larger committee overseeing the peer review panel.
ACC's requests related to the Chemical Safety Advisory Committee (CSAC) add to growing concerns from EPA critics about how the agency chooses who will serve on its standing advisory committees.
“ACC is very concerned that the majority of the experts nominated to serve on the CSAC subcommittee lack the expertise necessary to peer review EPA’s 1-BP risk assessment,” ACC Senior Director Christina Franz writes inApril 29 comments, posted to EPA's docket May 2.
Franz writes that of the 16 nominees EPA has proposed to serve on the subcommittee scheduled to peer review EPA's 1-BP draft assessment May 24-25, “only a few have expertise directly relevant to this risk assessment,” which she writes includes developmental and reproductive toxicity, mechanistic toxicology, mutagenicity, and carcinogenicity.
As a result, “ACC urges EPA to postpone the 1-BP peer review, publish a new [Federal Register] notice seeking the nomination of persons with the requisite expertise to adequately peer review this influential scientific assessment, and provide sufficient public comment on the potential panel appointees. Then, and only then, should EPA schedule the peer review of 1-BP.”
ACC continues, “EPA’s process to identify individuals to serve on the CSAC subcommittee, its failure to transparently describe the role, relationship to, and expected interaction with the standing CSAC committee during the peer review, and the lack of appropriate scientific expertise among the CSAC subcommittee nominees undermine the ability of EPA to have a credible, peer reviewed assessment of 1-BP.”
The chemical, also known as n-propyl bromide (nPB), is under review not only by EPA's toxics office as part of its Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) work plan risk assessment program, but also by the agency's air office. Last year, the air office began reviewing a 2010 petition from the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance and a 2011 petition from the state of New York to add the chemical to the Clean Air Act's hazardous air pollutants list, subject to strict air toxics rules.
Critics' Concerns
EPA has not responded to ACC's request top delay the peer review, nor has it responded to a second letter, which ACC sent EPA toxics chief Jim Jones April 22 regarding its concerns about the standing CSAC members, an ACC spokeswoman says.
However, it appears the agency is moving forward with its plan for the first meeting of the CSAC subcommittee later this month in Arlington, VA. In a May 5 Federal Register notice, EPA says it is shortening the length of the meeting from three days to two but does not note any other changes to the peer review schedule.
ACC in a separate April 22 letter to Jones outlines the group's “significant concerns regarding certain aspects of EPA’s new [CSAC]. ACC’s concerns fall into three categories: the process [EPA] used to select the members of the newly-established CSAC; the lack of diverse representation among the members selected; and the lack of sufficient time between stakeholder comment on the 1-bromopropane ... risk assessment and the CSAC’s scheduled peer review of it,” ACC Vice President Michael Walls writes.
The concerns about the CSAC process echo those raised in April by the Center for Regulatory Solutions (CRS) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) about another EPA advisory panel, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC).
CRS has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records on how EPA selects the members of CASAC, following a request by GOP Senate environment committee members seeking similar information due to concerns about alleged bias on the panel.
And Inhofe, who chairs the Senate environment committee, wrote to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy April 29,urging the agency to extend the current 30-day period for requests for nominations to CASAC in order to allow adequate time to make the process transparent.
While CASAC advises the agency's air office, EPA announced the creation last summer of CSAC to advise the toxics office in the same way the Scientific Advisory Panel (SAP) advises the pesticides office. The Science Advisory Board (SAB) provides input to the EPA administrator on a broad range of scientific issues, often undertaken by the research office.
Greater Transparency
The new CSAC is part of a push by Jones and Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics Director Wendy Cleland-Hamnett to more aggressively enforce TSCA while awaiting congressional reform of the statute, and preparing for that new legislation to pass, as they outlined at the annual chemical industry conference GlobalChem in Washington, D.C., in March.
But ACC argues that EPA's science policy office has conducted the process of setting up the new panel and selecting panelists behind closed doors, violating President Obama’s Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, EPA's Peer Review Handbook and a 2011 report on federal advisory committees from the Administrative Conference of the United States.
“EPA sought and received more than 50 nominations for the CSAC from interested stakeholders after it announced” it was forming the CSAC last summer, ACC writes. “However, EPA never sought public comment on nominated candidates and their qualifications before publishing the list of appointed CSAC members on March 17, 2016.”
This is “[i]n stark contrast to the process used to form” the SAP and is inconsistent with the approach EPA has used for SAP, SAB and CASAC, the chemical industry group says, noting that in those cases the public has always been provided with an opportunity to comment on a list of potential candidates.
ACC also protests the lack of individuals with industry experience among the CSAC members, stating that “ACC does not believe EPA has not ensured a balanced composition among its CSAC members,” as required by the Federal Advisory Committee Act.
“Eight of the 10 committee members are from academic institutions, with no clear background in regulatory risk assessments. Another member is from the American Cancer Society, which is self-described as a nationwide, community-based voluntary health organization dedicated to eliminating cancer as a major health problem, and the other is a Deputy Division Director at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences,” ACC's Walls writes. “One key purpose of the CSAC is to peer review EPA’s regulatory risk assessments and yet, as best we can discern, none of the appointees has any experience in regulatory risk assessments. Further, we fail to see who among these individuals is representative of an industry perspective . . .”
ACC also complains that “EPA has not explained how the CSAC and its subcommittee will engage and what role each will have in the review of the nBP assessment,” but notes that comments are being accepted on the nominees to serve on the first CSAC subcommittee, which will peer review EPA's draft risk assessment of 1-BP. Comments are due May 10.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/chemical-industry-urges-epa-change-review-controversial-solvent
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EU Submits DecaBDE Restriction to WTO for Comments
May 6, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Commission May 4 told members of the World Trade Organization that it wants to largely outlaw the production and use of the flame retardant bis(pentabromophenyl) ether (decaBDE) in the 28-nation European Union.
In a draft regulation, the commission said decaBDE had been identified “as a persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic substance (PBT) and a very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB) substance,” and also had been proposed for inclusion in the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
Consequently, tight EU controls under the bloc's REACH regulation were justified, according to the proposal.
The draft regulation would amend Annex XVII of REACH (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals), which contains substance restrictions. The new restriction would prohibit the manufacture or sale in the EU of decaBDE—also known as decabromodiphenyl ether—and would ban its inclusion in any new product above a concentration of 0.1 percent by weight.
Uses of decaBDE in aviation and in spare parts for aircraft and some other vehicles, however, should continue to be permitted for 10 years following the entry into force of the restriction, the regulation said.
The decaBDE restriction also would exempt electronic and electrical equipment, which decaBDE is already prohibited under the EU Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS Directive, 2011/65/EU).
The European Chemical Agency's Risk Assessment Committee and Socio-Economic Analysis Committee adopted opinions in favor of the restriction in 2015 (180 DEN A-16, 9/17/15).
The restriction would come into force 18 months after the final date of adoption of the commission's draft regulation.
WTO members should submit any comments on the draft regulation by July 3, said the commission, the EU's executive arm. The draft regulation was notified to the WTO under the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement.
The commission added that it expected to adopt the draft regulation in the second half of 2016 and that the REACH restriction was “expected to reduce emissions of decaBDE in the medium to long term,” with “no significant costs to producers and downstream users.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=89053475&vname=dennotallissues&fn=89053475&jd=89053475
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The EPA’s Lead-in-Water Rule Has Been Faulted for Decades. Will Flint Hasten a Change?
May 5, 2016 | Washington Post
By Brady Dennis
For a quarter of a century, the federal rule dictating how communities test for and control lead in drinking water has satisfied virtually no one.
For the past six years, the Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to rewrite its complex, controversial regulations.
And for the past six months, while the water-contamination crisis in Flint, Mich., became a national embarrassment, the pressure built to finish the job.
There is widespread agreement that major changes are well overdue for the Lead and Copper Rule, which governs about 68,000 public water systems and affects the health of millions of Americans.
“It clearly needs to be strengthened,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said recently at a congressional hearing, even as she emphasized that the debacle in Flint stemmed from Michigan’s failure to carry out the existing law.
Yet there is concern over how — and when — the overhaul will end, and whether the final product will rectify the shortcomings that have dogged the lead-testing regulations since their inception.
Environmental advocates have long argued that they are too easy to evade and too hard to enforce. Some state and local officials in charge of implementing them call them complex and unwieldy. The water industry has fretted over the associated costs.
“Something about this rule just brings out the worst in everybody,” said Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech professor who has helped expose lead-in-water crises in Washington as well as Flint. “It brings out the worst in EPA; it brings out the worst in the water industry. . . . It’s just dumbfounding.”
Federal requirements for testing water for lead are unique — and uniquely challenging. The toxic substance generally gets into drinking water only after it leaves a treatment plant, typically as it passes through aging lead service lines, solderings or fixtures. That means that testing must take place at the tap, in people’s homes, where contamination risks are greatest.
The government’s approach largely has relied on utilities ensuring that water does not become so corrosive that it leaches lead from pipes at any stage.
“That’s a pretty complicated set of tasks,” said Peter Grevatt, director of the EPA’s Office of Groundwater and Drinking Water. “[It] is one of the most complicated rules we have on the books.”
EPA officials have repeatedly said that updating the lead-in-water rule is one of the agency’s highest priorities — although just one piece of the bigger puzzle of ensuring safe drinking water nationwide. The effort, underway since 2010, is the most comprehensive ever, involving public meetings and input from an expert advisory council.
But the officials also say that they do not expect to conclude their overhaul until sometime in 2017, in part because of the complexities of the regulations and the diversity of opinions about what shape they should take.
Until the changes are released, key questions will go unanswered: Will the revised rule close loopholes? Will it speed the process of getting lead out of water systems for good? Will utilities embrace the new regulations, and will state officials implement them?
And will the EPA crack down on those who don’t?
Dangerous exposure levels
In 1986, an EPA policy analyst named Ronnie Levin began crunching whatever data she could gather about lead in water around the country. She determined that about 1 of 5 Americans served by public systems was being exposed to potentially dangerous levels — a disturbing figure given how lead can irreversibly hinder brain development in children and cause an array of behavioral problems.
Levin also calculated that stricter federal standards for lead in drinking water could have significant benefits, both in reducing health risks and in extending the life of public and private plumbing systems.
“The bottom line was a lot of people were being exposed to lead in drinking water, and the benefits of reducing that exposure were at least 4 to 1 over the costs,” Levin recalled.
A draft of her analysis, leaked by “a source seeking support for more stringent limits,” landed on the front page of The Washington Post. That year, Congress passed amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act that charged the EPA with restricting an array of contaminants and prohibited the use of most lead solder, pipes and fixtures.
In 1991, the EPA finalized the Lead and Copper Rule, requiring water utilities around the country to test consumers’ tap water for lead and take steps to control the corrosion of aging pipes.
The directive said that if more than 10 percent of the sites sampled in an area exceeded the “action level” of 15 parts per billion, a utility would have to take remedial steps to improve its corrosion controls and eventually could have to replace lead pipes.
The test samples were supposed to include the most “high risk” homes in a community, according to the rule. But even in bigger cities, the total number of homes sampled would not exceed 100. Although the rationale was to not overburden the industry, it also meant the testing would be, at best, a warning system of a potentially larger problem.
One official touted it as “the most stringent in the world for lead in drinking water.” But criticism came quickly.
Activists complained that some utilities had up to six years to implement the new requirements, and more than another decade to replace lead pipes if they could not control lead levels.
“EPA is shirking its responsibility,” Erik Olson, of the National Wildlife Federation, told The Post at the time.
The agency “completely abrogated its oversight duties,” Democratic congressman Henry A. Waxman (Calif.) told the New York Times.
Even Levin was disappointed. “It was obvious that it was not enforceable,” she recalled. “There were a lot of us who said that.”
On the flip side, some utilities remained concerned about the potential costs and headaches of testing, especially because, in many cases, residents would be responsible for taking the samples at their own faucets.
“When you do extensive sampling like this, you have to explain why, when in fact there might not be any problem,” one Illinois water-operations manager told the Chicago Tribune. “No one wants to hide anything from anyone, but the PR factor is something that has to be dealt with.”
Years of criticism
Fast forward 25 years. According to critics, gaps in the rule have long allowed for the “gaming of compliance” by utilities to avoid exceeding the 15 ppb action level.
“Utilities have no incentive to find the problem. That’s not a good rule,” said Tom Neltner, chemicals policy director at the Environmental Defense Fund and a member of the EPA expert advisory council that recommended changes to the regulations.
The suspect practices include removing aerators from faucets before testing, giving targeted consumers small-necked bottles and instructions to fill them slowly, and “pre-flushing” water from lines before taking a sample. All can temporarily lower lead levels.
In addition, although utilities are supposed to focus their testing on residences with the highest risk of lead contamination, that does not always happen, critics say.
“If you want to be clever, you can test where you’re pretty sure there’s not a problem and not find a problem,” said Olson, who now is the health program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. He, Edwards and others also have faulted the EPA for doing too little to crack down on such practices.
David LaFrance, chief executive of the American Water Works Association,wrote recently that “most water professionals are perplexed — even stunned — at what transpired in Flint.
“They take seriously their obligation to protect the families in their communities,” LaFrance continued. “They know in most cases lead risks in tap water can be effectively managed through corrosion control at the treatment plant. They monitor water for changes in water chemistry and quality. They are not satisfied to simply meet minimum regulatory requirements.”
Some concerns about the rule’s effectiveness and enforcement have come from inside the government. In a 2003 inquiry, launched after high lead levels were discovered in thousands of homes in Washington, the Government Accountability Office found that the EPA lacked recent test results for nearly a third of the nation’s largest water systems and lacked information about adherence to the regulations for more than 70 percent of community water systems. The apparent reason? States simply were not reporting the information.
“EPA has been slow to take action on these data problems and, as a result, lacks the information it needs to evaluate how effectively the lead rule is being implemented and enforced nationwide,” the report said.
A decade later, several EPA officials concluded after a study in Chicago that the existing sampling protocol “systematically misses the high lead levels and potential human exposure.” That was especially true where construction or other activity had disturbed lead pipes.
In February, with the agency under intense scrutiny because of Flint, a top official wrote to drinking water authorities in every state, reminding them to follow both the letter and spirit of the Lead and Copper Rule. Stick to proper testing techniques and be transparent with homeowners when problems arise,he wrote: “These actions are essential to restoring public confidence in our shared work to ensure safe drinking water for the American people.”
McCarthy sent a separate letter to governors, explaining that the EPA would be meeting with all drinking-water programs to make sure states “are fully implementing and enforcing this important rule.”
Last month, the Michigan attorney general filed criminal charges against two state environmental-quality officials and a local water-quality supervisor. All are accused of tampering with the results of lead testing in Flint.
The contamination there is having other reverberations. A Kaiser Health Tracking Poll released Thursday found that more than 60 percent of Americans think the federal government is doing just a fair or poor job protecting public drinking water.
Work on the rule update continues. In December, the EPA’s outside advisory council recommended that it set a “household action level” for lead in drinking water and require systems to alert public health officials whenever they exceed that. The group also urged the EPA to prioritize “to the greatest degree possible” the removal of the lead service lines that remain underground across the country.
Ridding the country of millions of lead pipes — a task that people on all sides agree will be slow, expensive and ultimately necessary — probably will take decades and generate controversy. In the meantime, officials say tougher, more enforceable testing for lead in water is essential.
One thing is certain: Flint has put the once-obscure process in a harsh spotlight.
During the recent congressional hearing, Rep. Gene Green (D-Tex.) asked Joel Beauvais of the EPA Office of Water if the agency “could actually speed up” the Lead and Copper Rule update.
“We certainly have a sense of urgency about the revisions. We also want to make sure we get them right,” Beauvais responded. He acknowledged Flint’s impact on the effort, adding, “Stakeholders’ understanding of where we need to go on this has evolved somewhat. . . . We do recognize there’s a lot of room for improvement in the rule.”
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) asked Beauvais to take his bosses a message: “We’d like to have something maybe earlier than 2017. That’s a long ways off. I would like to think that maybe there could be a little extra push.”
Neltner, for one, worries about the timing for a different reason.
“There’s a little problem. It’s called an election,” he said. “How do we know the next administration will make it a priority?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epas-lead-in-water-rule-has-been-faulted-for-decades-will-flint-hasten-a-change/2016/05/04/8d25bb12-0de9-11e6-bfa1-4efa856caf2a_story.html
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May 5, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Editorial Board
The Flint, Michigan, water crisis began in April 2014. This week, two years later, President Obama stood before a crowd of Flint residents and said: “I’ve come here to tell you that I’ve got your back, that we’re paying attention.”
And people wonder why Bernie Sanders is doing so well.
This being Barack Obama, he went on, embellishing his commitment to the people of Flint: “I will not rest, and I’m going to make sure that the leaders at every level of government don’t rest until every drop of water that flows to your home is safe to drink and safe to cook with and safe to bathe in, because that’s part of the basic responsibilities of a government in the United States of America.”
It’s worth parsing that last sentence about clean water being a basic responsibility “of a government in the United States of America.”
A government? Which government? Flint’s, or Michigan’s, or Barack Obama’s government in Washington?
After two years, what we know about this water crisis is that governments indeed failed at the local, state and federal level. That may have something to do with why the presidential campaign is overflowing, from right to left, with the idea that government is “failing” in virtually every imaginable respect. So maybe Mr. Obama has touched on something important, to wit: Why is it that government, whether in Flint or Washington, is in a failed state?
It looks to us as if Mr. Obama sensed that the narrative of the Flint failure was turning against his view of government, so he decided it was necessary to reframe the problem. He told the Flint residents that their crisis was the result of “a larger issue,” which was a certain mindset toward government. “It’s a mindset,” Mr. Obama said, “that believes that less government is the highest good no matter what.”
No matter what? No one believes that. The anger coursing through the electorate now is over a government that doesn’t seem to be able to do its job—no matter what.
The Flint water crisis is a case study in government that has become a morass of conflicting regulations and authorities, which in turn ensures that instead of responsibility or accountability—at any level—the agents of government spend their time buck-passing.
At congressional hearings in March, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy bucked it over to the state of Michigan, which had given her people “confusing, incomplete and incorrect information.” And so EPA staff was “unable to understand the problem” until it was too late.
But the EPA Region 5 administrator who later resigned, Susan Hedman, told Congress at that hearing she didn’t intervene in September 2015 for fear the Michigan Attorney General might sue her agency.
Worth noting here is the Clean Water Rule that Mr. Obama waved into existence in May, and with which the EPA now claims federal dominion over ditches and prairie potholes. But for Flint’s purposes, the more relevant directive is the 1991 federal Lead and Copper Rule, which gave EPA authority to control lead and copper in drinking water. Scientists have been urging a clarifying revision of that rule for the last decade. The update isn’t expected until sometime in 2017.
As to Ms. Hedman’s fear of being sued by Michigan, maybe she had a point. Another recent Obama directive, the Clean Power Plan, is creating tension with the states and has made state officials defensive about their turf.
In Mr. Obama’s telling, Flints happen because of a “corrosive attitude” that forces us to “underinvest” in pipes, bridges and roads. That is, any government failure is due to a lack of funding. And the opposite: Spend more and government failure goes away.
A counter-view would be that “we” underinvest in better infrastructure because entitlement spending has first claim on so much of the revenue taxpayers send government, at every level. In Flint, pensions and retiree health benefits consumed one-third of the city’s budget.
The default solution, for Mr. Obama, is that Washington’s rainbow pot can be expanded to pay for Flints everywhere. This is what he means by, “I’ve got your back.” The prudent might slip a hand around to their back pocket.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamas-got-flints-back-1462490130
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Can the House and Senate Turn Two Energy Bills into One Law?
May 5, 2016 | Utility Dive
By Herman K. Trabish
Last month, the U.S. Senate defied the beltway trope of legislative gridlock that has characterized the Obama era, passing a broad energy bill in an 82-12 vote.
Approval in the Senate on April 20 marked the first time the chamber has passed a bipartisan energy bill since 2007, and national media reacted with appropriate surprise.
"It doesn't happen every day, but it happened Wednesday," the Washington Post noted in an article titled "The Senate just passed — overwhelmingly — an actually bipartisan energy bill."
But while passage of S. 2012, the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015, was an achievement for the senators, the bill's toughest test may still lie ahead. It must now be reconciled with a House bill that contains similar titles, but has garnered a veto threat from President Obama.
After efforts to forge a similar bipartisan coalition in the House failed last autumn, Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, pushed through a bill with solely GOP support. That angered many Democrats, with committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) calling the measure “a partisan backward-looking piece of energy legislation” that has “an unerring devotion to the energy of the past.”
The White House announced a likely veto of H.R. 8 soon after because it “would undermine already successful initiatives," according to a statement.
The House and Senate bill outlines are similar, but there are significant differences in their provisions. A conference committee made up of members from both houses is the next formal step in the legislative process, but backroom negotiations outside of the committee could also push efforts along.
“The actual mechanics of how we will reconcile the two bills has yet to be determined,” said Rosemarie Calabro Tully, staffer to Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee who helped craft the bill.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), the chair of the committee and chief architect of the bill, “looks forward to chairing a conference committee,” said her staffer Michael Tadeo. “She has a great deal of faith in the regular order legislative process and is confident that all involved will work together to resolve any differences between the chambers.”
Key bill provisions
In shepherding the Senate bill to passage, Murkowski and Cantwell found the common ground House leaders could not. Even Upton recognized it as “bipartisan” and said it moved Congress “one step closer to embracing policies that say yes to energy.”
Both packages of legislation are “broad” and “touch on many subjects,” said Kirk Johnson, vice president for government relations at the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), the trade group for U.S. co-ops. The Senate's version is bipartisan because "leadership made a decision to seek a bill in areas where agreement was achievable and not to try to tackle every issues,” he said, echoing earlier comments from Sen. Murkowski.
There are five titles, or subjects, covered by Senate bill: Efficiency, Infrastructure, Supply, Accountability and Conservation Reauthorization. Though it covers essentially the same subjects, H.R. 8 has seven titles, including ones relating to marine hydrokinetic energy and shared renewables.
House bill
To modernize energy infrastructure, the House reports, H.R. 8 puts increased emphasis on “the transmission, distribution, and storage of energy,” according to a release from the Energy and Commerce Committee. It would reduce “government red tape” and “costly environmental regulations” impeding project siting and permitting for power grid and gas transportation projects.
The bill addresses the “barrage of regulations” and “external threats” that put security and reliability at risk with plans for greater emergency preparedness as well as advanced technologies that would protect the electricity grid from “physical and cyber-attacks, electromagnetic pulse, geomagnetic disturbances, severe weather, and seismic events.”
The bill would streamline approvals for the export of petroleum products and liquefied natural gas (LNG), which House leadership argues would "strengthen energy security." It also promises strengthened strategic energy partnerships.
Finally, H.R. 8 would eliminate “government roadblocks” to “simple and affordable” energy efficiency measures that “save money and reduce energy use.” It also targets reducing “government waste” and providing “regulatory relief for U.S. manufacturers from burdensome federal efficiency mandates.” And, it alters PURPA regulations to include shared solar.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated H.R. 8 “would increase direct spending by $414 million over the 2016-2025 period.”
Senate bill
The Energy Efficiency title of S. 2012, the Senate reports, includes agreements on longer-term utility energy service contracts and reauthorization of many home, building, and manufacturing facility programs.
The Senate's infrastructure title has provisions to modernize the grid, improve cybersecurity, maintain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and grow a stronger energy sector workforce. There is also a research and development program for grid-scale storage. It funds studies, demonstrations, and planning for advanced grid architecture, microgrids, and distribution system and upgrades.
Like H.R. 8, the infrastructure title streamlines the Department of Energy (DOE) review of natural gas export projects. But the House bill limits reviews to 30 days while the Senate bill limits them to 45 days.
The S. 2012 supply title provides funding for research on nuclear fusion and fission, clean coal, methane hydrate exploration, and LNG. It supports biomass and significant growth for geothermal energy, hydroelectric power, and marine hydrokinetic energy.
The accountability title alters Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program for innovative technologies to require that borrowers provide 25% of the guarantee. It also authorizes the study of loan guarantees for fossil fuel energy, calls for interagency coordination of initiatives involving water use in energy production, and reauthorizes funding for America COMPETES Actresearch programs. It also imposes a requirement for Reliability Impact Statements.
The conservation title permanently reauthorizes the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). The intent is to balance the acquiring of land for infrastructure with conservation of environmental and historic sites.
S. 2012 would require $32 billion from 2016 to 2020 and $11 billion after 2020 from appropriations. Direct spending would increase by $659 million between 2016 and 2025, according to CBO.
Energy efficiency
When the Obama administration issued its veto threat, it singled out efficiency provisions in the House bill as one place for criticism.
The Senate bill, however, would answer some of those concerns about efficiency provisions, according to Lowell Ungar, senior policy advisor for theAmerican Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
“The House bill would result in more energy use rather than less energy use,” he said, while the Senate bill includes stronger overall efficiency measures.
The SAVE Act, which was added to the Senate bill late in the process, is a popular bipartisan measure that allow homeowners to finance energy efficiency projects through their mortgages, he added. It is not in the House bill.
The Senate bill would also direct the Department of Energy to strengthen building codes through a more active role in code development, adoption and enforcement, including providing grants to states and tribes for codes that increase energy efficiency. It would also boost efficiency targets for federal buildings and expand use of Energy Savings Performance Contracts.
Together, Unger said, those three programs account for more than 90% of the potential energy savings in the Senate bill, but remain absent from the House version.
No backers of the House bill interviewed by Utility Dive would comment directly on the efficiency provisions, including Reps. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) and Pete Olson (R-TX), the chair and vice chair of the House subcommittee on energy and power, respectively. Upton's office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
But even if they are loath to talk about it, there are also efficiency provisions where the House and Senate agree, Unger said, and others where they could still find consensus. One provision – the furnace standards – is actually stronger in the House bill, he said.
There is room for cooperation, specifically on the smart building and smart manufacturing provisions and the SAVE Act, Unger said.
The energy title
While the Senate bill includes some provisions boosting research into clean energy solutions it “has become more problematic as it has moved through the legislative process,” according to a coalition of environmental groups. Some last-minute amendments that were billed as “something for everyone” would have detrimental environmental consequences, they said.
The groups, including Earthjustice, the League of Conservation Voters, NRDC and the Sierra Club, do not support the Senate bill as it stands, said Marc Boom, associate director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
It could have been worse by including provisions like those in the House bill that “put a thumb on the scale for fossil fuels and overrode key environmental laws,” he said. But even the Senate bill contains the biomass definition, the expansion of methane hydrate research and development, and the delay on furnace standards.
“Neither bill has a strong renewables title,” Boom said. “The House bill includes burning natural gas at the wellhead as a renewable, its definition of biomass could result in increased greenhouse gas emissions, and the support for methane hydrates is especially of concern.”
House bill backers also declined to speak directly to the bill's energy title, but the absence of major changes in clean energy policy in either bill does not bother Chris Mele, legislative director for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC).
“The states have been the laboratories of energy innovation,” he said. “It is wise to let the states continue doing the job.”
NRECA's Johnson agreed.
“If Congress had to go deeper into energy policy and try to make changes on things like net energy metering or bigger changes in PURPA standards, it could easily derail legislation or at least make it more challenging to find common ground," he said.
The environmental groups, though concerned about the lack of bigger energy initiatives, applauded S. 2012’s support for “new clean energy technologies like marine hydrokinetic and geothermal technologies that have yet to be commercialized on a large scale.” They also welcomed increased budgets for DOE’s Office of Science and the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy(ARPA-E).
Natural gas
One possible place where Senate bill supporters may have leverage over the House bill backers could be on natural gas.
Because LNG export was a major priority for Sen. Murkowski, she did not push for any other significant oil and gas sector provisions. After DOE assured Sen. Cantwell it could comply with the 45 day review, she was able to support it, staffers for both senators told Utility Dive.
“DOE is on record that they can meet either [review deadline],” said Charlie Riedl, executive director for the Center for Liquified Natural Gas. “That 15 day difference is not an issue for our members and either is a major improvement on the current open-ended time period.”
Utilities need more streamlined pipeline siting “if we are going to quickly move from coal to natural gas,” said NRECA’s Johnson in defending the expedited permitting process, to which the White House objects. “We have to be able to build those pipelines.”
With the LNGCenter’s support, Upton could find reason to accede as well, Riedl said. Streamlined LNG permitting is crucial but there is room for compromise because regulatory certainty is even more critical for large-scale, capital-intensive investments.
“Having even a 45 day timeline for approval or rejection in place and knowing how to revise proposals if they are rejected will put to work capital that is waiting to move," Riedel said.
“Timely reviews of these projects is an unmitigated positive,” according to Rep. Olson (R-TX). He looks forward to hearing from his colleagues "why an additional two weeks of delay in the process is necessary," he said in an email.
The question is how to make sure LNG facility reviews are done right, Boom said, indicating why the White House could still object. “An arbitrary deadline almost guarantees they won’t be done properly. The 30 day and 45 day review periods are both too short.”
Land and Water Conservation Fund
Reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund was “a key part of why the bill was supported in the Senate,” Boom said.
During the reconciliation process, "watch the more contentious energy efficiency provisions and the permanent reauthorization of the LWCF to see if they want to come together or fight,” Ungar said.
The long floor fight over S. 2012 and the long list of amendments added to it made the bill worse that the one passed out of the Murkowski-Cantwell committee, said Sierra Club Lobbyist Radha Adhar. The main compensation was environmental protections in the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) which is, the coalition of environmental groups say in their letter, “one of the nation’s best tools for protecting our national heritage.”
It is essential, said Boom. “Without the LWCF, it would be difficult to see a path forward.”
Veto threat hangs over conference
In 2007, the last time Congress passed a bipartisan energy deal, there was an informal deal-making version of reconciliation. That means legislators have not conferenced on an energy bill since 2005, Calabro Tully said.
“A lot of the staff and some of the members have never been through the process. It will be really interesting to see how it unfolds because it won’t be familiar to a lot of the people in the room.”
Though finding common ground will not be easy, “the staff working on reconciliation are consummate professionals,” said NARUC's Mele.
“The only way reconciliation will move forward is for everybody to get a half loaf and, sometimes, one side will get a quarter loaf and the other side will get three-quarters," he added. "That is the conference process."
A major challenge could be in confronting the issues in the House bill the White House found veto worthy.
“H.R. 8 would stifle the nation's move toward energy efficiency by severely hampering the Department of Energy's ability to provide technical support for building code development and state implementation,” the White House said in its veto letter.
It would also “undercut DOE's ability to enforce its appliance standards" and weaken requirements in the 2007 energy bill for “a reduction in fossil fuel generated energy in federal buildings," according to the letter.
Another provision in H.R. 8 alters the way the capacity markets of Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs) work. Capacity markets ensure system reliability but also have been a path to market for distributed energy resources and demand-side management. The White House wants them to remain under the authority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
Other provisions the White House objected to would broaden FERC authorityto limit environmental reviews of natural gas pipeline applications, limit DOE reviews of natural gas export projects, undermine Federal Power Act environmental protections in hydropower project siting, and potentially interfere with the President’s constitutional authority over electric infrastructure and project siting.
Both Whitfield and Olson declined to comment on specific White House objections to the bill, but Olson emphasized how important the GOP considers the expedited siting of natural gas projects.
“Natural gas is an ‘in time’ resource,” Olson said. “Unlike coal, you can’t generally stockpile it near the power plants where it is increasingly relied upon to power our grid.”
With natural gas increasingly crucial for reliability, “it becomes critical that we have a robust network of pipeline to keep the nation’s economy at work,” Olson said. “Ensuring that FERC can wrangle the various agencies working on projects and get a decision made in a timely matter is a reasonable step forward.” '
An appetite to get something done'
It has been widely reported that Murkowski and Cantwell want to move a law to the president that he can sign. Murkowski says she wants to do so before the August recess.
There may have been a hint of common ground in Chair Upton’s acknowledgement of six standalone provisions passed by the House and included in the Senate bill. But they are minor measures, far from where the real conference action is likely to be.
The differences are clear and significant but some observers also see common ground.
“None of the energy efficiency provisions are so contentious that they give a clear political advantage to either side so it is not a matter of electioneering,” Ungar said.
If there is the will and the time for compromises the House and Senate can work things out, he added. “It depends on whether they want to find places to agree or to fight.”
The LWCF is one of the issues that will require a lot more negotiating than other provisions, Johnson said.
Those are “major concerns that would negate any of the positive provisions,” Boom said.
The bills are far apart on the permanent re-authorization of the LWCF and neither bill has a strong renewables title, he added.
“We think there is a willingness to come to agreement on the LNG issues but there are differences on many other issues,” Riedl acknowledged. “I would like to think there are interested parties that stand to benefit both on the hill and in the private sector who could apply positive pressure to reach bipartisan cooperation.”
The key driver for both sides, he added, is the desire to get things done and the energy bills offer that opportunity.
“There is probably an appetite to get something done,” Boom agreed. Because the House has been unable to move basic legislation, “it would not surprise me if there was an attempt to do that by building off the Senate bill.”
After 25 years of observing and being part of conference committees, Johnson still finds it hard to predict how they will go, he said. “The art of compromise is tough. Sometimes it means getting rid of the difficult issues and sometimes it means making real compromises.”
Senator Murkowski’s push to get to a law has been exceptional, Mele said. “In an election year, this could benefit both parties by demonstrating Congress isn’t dysfunctional. They say politics is the art of the possible. But legislation is the art of the doable. Possible and doable are two very different things.”
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/can-the-house-and-senate-turn-two-energy-bills-into-one-law/418393/
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May 6, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Fred H. Hutchison
When I started LNG Allies two and a half years ago, the energy world was quite different.
Crude oil prices were in the $110 per barrel range, natural gas at the Henry Hub was trading above $4.00 per million BTUs (mmbtu), and spot LNG deliveries to Asia were bringing nearly $18.00 as measured on the same basis.
Now, oil is trading at $40 to $45 per barrel, Henry Hub prices are averaging about $2.00 per mmbtu, and LNG spot market deliveries to Asia are in the $4.50 to $5.00 per mmbtu range.
But, that’s not all that has changed.
As this is written, five U.S. LNG export facilities are under construction—versus just one 30 months ago. Moreover, initial export cargoes have already shipped from the first production “train” of the most advanced project, the Sabine Pass terminal operated by Cheniere Energy in Southwestern Louisiana.
Besides those first five export terminals, two other projects have received construction permits from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and at least three others should receive a similar “green light” before the end of the year.
In addition, the Department of Energy (DOE) has been steadily issuing licenses to export “the molecules” from those FERC-approved projects.
While these federal regulatory developments are notable, what has been really remarkable—in my opinion —is the evolution of the politics of the LNG issue.
In late 2013, there was organized opposition to LNG exports. An ad hoc lobbying coalition was arguing that the United States had to severely limit LNG exports to ensure that the domestic chemical industry would always have sufficient supplies of low-cost natural gas.
But the predicted gloom and doom never materialized even as domestic natural gas demand increased. In fact (as stated above), natural gas prices have actually declined by about 50 percent over the last two and a half years, while dozens of new chemical, fertilizer, and electric power plants have come on line.
As a result, the opponents of U.S. LNG exports have been largely silenced and even many of the most skeptical politicians won over.
How did this happen?
A lot of different organizations, including LNG Allies, had a hand in educating Congress and the public-at-large about the myriad benefits of U.S. LNG exports.
Our diverse coalition, which includes U.S. upstream producers, LNG exporters, and several foreign governments—most notably in Central and Eastern Europe—made the case that U.S. LNG exports could bring geostrategic (as well as economic and environmental) benefits to America’s allies.
Now, as the initial wave of U.S. LNG exports has started, LNG Allies is pleased to announce that we have begun a collaboration with Our Energy Moment (OEM), a diverse group of businesses, ports, and economic development organizations that is also dedicated to raising awareness and celebrating the many benefits of expanded LNG exports.
Our immediate task is to help push the pending LNG legislation over the congressional finish line so that a final bill is presented to President Obama as soon as possible.
This legislation has been steadily gaining bipartisan momentum as evidenced by the recent 85-12 Senate vote on final passage of S. 2012, a major energy bill which included the LNG provisions.
This legislation could speed up the final stage of the LNG permitting process by six to twelve months and we’re glad to see that it is steaming towards enactment.
However, our work will not end when the LNG bill is signed into law.
Dozens of other U.S. LNG export projects are under development, and our two organizations will continue to articulate the many domestic and foreign benefits that will accrue if/when these projects are built. The benefits here in the United States are especially clear: expanding LNG export markets will create thousands of jobs and grow our economy.
Given current LNG market conditions, it is often difficult “to see the ocean for the waves.” But, it is obvious to us that the United States and hundreds of other nations will need to dramatically increase the use of natural gas if climate, geostrategic, and economic development goals are to be met.
Together, LNG Allies and Our Energy Moment will continue to champion the U.S. LNG exports cause. While we’ve come far in a very short period of time, we’ve still a long ways to go. Fortunately, momentum is on our side and the future of U.S. LNG exports looks very bright indeed.
Fred Hutchison is executive director of both LNG Allies and Our Energy Moment.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/278840-evolution-of-an-issue
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Annals of the ‘Methane Age': Gas from Fracked Wells No Longer ‘Unconventional’
May 5, 2016 | New York Times
By Andrew C. Revkin
The Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration has posted a short update on trends in natural gas production in the United States that’s worth noting simply because it illustrates the profound nature of the energy transitions that are being propelled by the exploitation of shale deposits using hydraulic fracturing, known best as fracking, along with horizontal drilling.
There are, of course a host of issues accompanying the dawn of what Cesare Marchetti and others, as far back as 1986, called “The Methane Age” (natural gas being primarily methane).
One, touched on repeatedly here, is the need for regulations to catch up with this maturing technology — both in cutting gas leaksand handling drilling wastes.
Here’s the energy agency’s takeaway point:
For decades, hydraulic fracturing had been referred to as an unconventional completion technique, but over the past 10 years it has become the technique by which most natural gas is produced in the United States. Based on the most recent data from states, EIA estimates that natural gas production from hydraulically fractured wells now makes up about two-thirds of total U.S. marketed gas production. This share of production is even greater than the share of crude oil produced using that method, where hydraulic fracturing accounts for about half of current U.S. crude oil production.
In sifting for views on the scope of the change that has been set in motion by these technologies, I found Rod Janssen, a veteran Paris-based energy analyst who blogs at Energy in Demand. He wrote this in March, cautioning that more surprises lie ahead:
The whole story shows how much advances in technology can alter the outlook. A decade ago, no one projected the growth in shale gas or tight oil in the US or anywhere else in the world. In the outlook documents written at BP and elsewhere at that time, shale was not mentioned as a potential source of energy — I know, because I was involved in writing some of them. The physical existence of oil and gas in shale rocks was known but its development was believed to be uneconomic and it was therefore excluded from the projections.
Technology is changing the industry at a dramatic rate. The long-term outlooks produced by the companies and by institutions such as the International Energy Agency can only project the prospects on the basis of known and proven technology. That is a reasonable approach but no one should think that it represents the end of the story.
Finally, the financial blog Seeking Alpha has a useful fresh look atglobal gas economics and production trends.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/05/annals-of-the-methane-age-gas-from-fracked-wells-no-longer-unconventional/?_r=0
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Enviros Sue EPA, Seek Tougher Regulations For Oil, NatGas Waste Disposal
May 6, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligencw
By Jeremiah Shelor
A group of environmental and community organizations filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Wednesday seeking stricter federal regulations for the disposal of waste from oil and gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing.
The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asserts that EPA has "failed to meet continuing nondiscretionary duties under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act...to review and revise regulations and guidelines to keep up with this growing source of wastes and the threats these wastes pose to human health and the environment."
The plaintiffs in the case include the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Earthworks, the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, the West Virginia Surface Owners' Rights Organization, the Responsible Drilling Alliance and the Sun Juan Citizens Alliance.
The groups are urging EPA to ban the practice of using briny waste from oil and gas development to salt roads or fields, citing concerns about runoff into streams. They also called for EPA to establish federal standards for disposal of drilling and hydraulic fracturing waste into lined ponds or landfills.
“Updated rules for oil and gas wastes are almost 30 years overdue, and we need them now more than ever,” said Adam Kron, senior attorney at EIP. “Each well now generates millions of gallons of wastewater and hundreds of tons of solid wastes, and yet EPA’s inaction has kept the most basic, inadequate rules in place. The public deserves better than this.”
“Waste from the oil and gas industry is very often toxic and should be treated that way," added Amy Mall, NRDC senior policy analyst.
The practice of using underground injection wells for disposal of wastewater from oil and gas production has come under scrutiny in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Texas.
In Ohio, state lawmakers recently proposed banning injection wells (see Shale Daily, Jan. 20), while a county-wide ban in Fayette County, WV, has drawn legal challenges (see Shale Daily, March 29;Jan. 26). Local bans on injection wells have also been challenged in Pennsylvania (see Shale Daily, April 5).
Oklahoma regulators have taken a number of steps in recent months to crack down on underground injection wells that have been linked to an increase in seismic activity in the state (see Shale Daily, April 21).
Seismic activity in Texas has also been linked to underground injection wells (see Shale Daily, April 14).
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/106318-enviros-sue-epa-seek-tougher-regulations-for-oil-natgas-waste-disposal
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Chesapeake Eyeing More Dry NatGas Drilling in Utica, Holding Steady in Marcellus
May 6, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Carolyn Davis
Chesapeake Energy Corp. may ramp up more dry natural gas drilling in the Utica Shale this year, but it also is eyeing a backlog of gas and oil opportunities that stretch across the country that only need higher commodity prices to accelerate activity.
The Oklahoma City-based independent, which issued its first quarter results on Thursday, also reported an improving liquidity position after reaching a $470,000 agreement with Newfield Exploration Co. to sell close to half of its acreage in Oklahoma's Meramec reservoir within the Anadarko Basin (see related story).
"Chesapeake is delivering on all four of the focus points for 2016 that we stated in February: maximizing liquidity, optimizing our portfolio, increasing cash flow and reducing debt," CEO Doug Lawler said during a conference call.
Since he came aboard in the summer of 2013, Lawler has whittled Chesapeake's enormous onshore portfolio, selling more than $10 billion of assets from a land mass mostly strung together by former CEO Aubrey McClendon. Lawler, a former Anadarko Petroleum Corp. executive, had pledged in February to scrape another $1.7 billion of properties from the lineup this year.
Chesapeake now is producing about 1.8 Bcf/d in the Marcellus Shale, said Executive Vice President Frank Patterson, who oversees the northern division. The company also has more than 1 Bcf/d of gas that is available to ramp up rather quickly, including about 350 MMcf/d that is deliberately shut-in, 200 MMcf/d from wells that need "minor repairs" and about 450 MMcf/d from nearly 100 wells that are "sitting back," waiting to be completed.
Bringing on more gas in the Marcellus is a given if prices cooperate.
"We have gas that we can manage with no decline, basically, which is a great opportunity in the Marcellus," Patterson said. Chesapeake had no gas volumes that it was "counting on" from the proposed Constitution Pipeline, which is gasping for air after being denied a key water quality permit by New York regulators last month (see Shale Daily, April 29). Chesapeake also had a "small amount" of gas that it had planned to transport through the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline project, which was canceled last month (see Daily GPI, April 21). "Of course, that is apparently gone now," Patterson said. "But we have the opportunity to manage this field nicely with no decline in production and very little capital."
Chesapeake is not putting a lot of capital into the Marcellus "because it doesn't need capital," Patterson said. "As far as monies being spent in the field, it is going to the Utica...and we are going to be putting on additional Utica dry wells this year and next year and growing some additional Utica dry wells going forward."
Marcellus continues to be a "core asset," even though it has been considered for sale in the past. "There are parts of the Marcellus that might not be core, and we would consider that with the right price," Patterson said. However, the "Utica, we're pretty happy with our position."
Getting the gas out of Appalachia "is a key issue, and we'll continue to monitor that and be ready to invest there when the opportunity presents itself," Lawler said.
In another gassy asset, the Haynesville Shale, Chesapeake brought on its first two 10,000-foot wells, both coming on at 22 MMcf/d and nearly 8,000 psi, said Jason Pigott, who runs the southern operations.
"We expect to get the cost down on these wells to about $8.5 million," Pigott said. "What's great about that for me is that a couple of years ago when I came into the role the teams were making 4,500-foot laterals at $8.5 million a well. So we've seen wells that are twice as productive at the same cost we were two years ago, so it's been a huge efficiency gain for us." Chesapeake plans to keep running three rigs there this year and continue to pull down its drilled but uncompleted backlog. "We had 31 wells in inventory at the beginning of the year and expect to be at eight wells by the end of the year."
Chesapeake is earning "close to 20% returns at the strip," Pigott said. "It's hard to explain how impactful these long laterals have been to that play out there, because we're...seeing no degradation in performance with these 10,000-foot wells..."
In addition, Chesapeake has more upside in the extended Haynesville after recently completing its first 7,500-foot lateral Bossier well in the extended Haynesville, which is flowing at around 17 MMcf/d at 7,300 psi.
As to where money could be directed if commodity prices move higher? Pick a play, said Pigott.
In the Midcontinent, where the company has an estimated 1.5 million net acres, there are "really strong economics. And then our Eagle Ford Shale has experienced a renaissance as well with the longer laterals...Preferentially if we're spending more dollars, those plays always look really strong." In the Eagle Ford this year, plans are to drill 9,800-foot laterals, "which is nearly double what they were a couple of years ago."
Returns today in the Eagle Ford "are about the same as when oil was $80," Pigott said. "It's significant how much of a change the Eagle Ford team has made there. We had wells coming on a year ago at 500 b/d. Our latest wells are coming on close to that 1,000 b/d. So we've had just a huge transformation in the Eagle Ford team over this first quarter here that for me, again, if I'm fighting for capital, that's the area I want to send it first."
The company's cash costs "continue to decline, and we remain sharply focused on improving our margins through continued progress with our midstream and downstream partners," Lawler said. "As a result, we have recognized incremental improvements in both our production expense and our total gathering, processing and transportation expenses and revised our 2016 guidance accordingly."
Production, adjusted for divestitures, averaged 672,400 boe/d in the quarter, up 1% from a year ago. Chesapeake produced 276 Bcf of gas, 95,700 bbl of oil and 70,700 bbl natural gas liquids. Realized gas prices averaged $2.29/Mcf in 1Q2016 from $2.35 in 4Q2015 and $3.67 in 1Q2015.
Chesapeake, which at one time had more rigs working in the U.S. onshore than any company, operated only eight rigs during the first three months of this year, from 54 a year ago and 14 in the fourth quarter. In the latest period, 57 gross wells were completed, down from 261 year/year and 85 in 4Q2015. Wells spud (gross) declined to 41 from 244 a year ago and 66 in 4Q2015, while connected wells fell to 80 from 262 in 1Q2015 and 100 in 4Q2015.
Improved efficiencies sent drilling and completion costs to $281 million from $1.3 billion a year ago and from $405 million in the fourth quarter.
Net losses totaled $964 million (minus $1.44/share) in 1Q2016, compared with a year-ago net loss of $3.78 billion (minus $5.72). Chesapeake said the "primary driver" to the quarterly loss was the result of an $853 million price-related impairment on the carrying value of oil and natural gas properties. Adjusting for the one-time charges, the net loss was $120 million (minus 10 cents/share), versus year-ago profits of $42 million (11 cents).
Revenues declined by 39%, partially offset by improvements to production expenses and general/administrative expenses. Average production expenses fell by 31% year/year and 7% sequentially to $3.36/boe in 1Q2016. G&A expenses were down by 23% year/year and 3% sequentially to 79 cents/boe. Total capital investments were about one-third lower than a year ago at $365 million.
Chesapeake continues "looking at all options to ensure liquidity," and continued to be in "close alignment" with midstream partners to reduce gas gathering, processing and transportation agreements, CFO Nick Dell'Osso said.
Chesapeake's debt, closely followed by the investment community, saw its principal balance at the end of March fall slightly to $9.4 billion, from $9.7 billion at the end of 2015 and $11.5 billion at the end of March 2015. In April, Chesapeake amended its $4.0 billion facility, which matures in 2019, and agreed to pledge additional assets as collateral (see Shale Daily, April 11).
The company also reiterated that it is targeting asset sales of $1.2-1.7 billion of total gross proceeds from asset divestitures by year-end, with most expected to be completed by the end of September. For the expected $950 million in net proceeds currently closed or signed, the net reduction to production is projected to be 35,000 boe/d, 60% weighted to gas.
Since February, Chesapeake has layered on additional hedges for 2016 to help increase cash flow. It has about 476 Bcf of remaining 2016 gas production hedged at $2.71/Mcf and 18.2 million bbl of remaining 2016 oil production hedged at $46.32/bbl, which represents 64% of gas production and 69% of oil output from 2Q2016 through 4Q2016.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/106320-chesapeake-eyeing-more-dry-natgas-drilling-in-utica-holding-steady-in-marcellus
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Exxon Mobil Backs FuelCell Effort to Advance Carbon Capture Technology
May 6, 2016 | New York Times
By John Schwartz
For years, FuelCell Energy has been considered a company to watch. Its technology promised to help economically reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants, which could help combat climate change. The Danbury, Conn., company might be able to make a difference, experts said, if only it had a partner with really deep pockets.
Now it has one.
In an agreement announced on Thursday, Exxon Mobil said it had tightened an existing relationship with FuelCell in hopes of taking the technology from the lab to the market.
Any commercial development is years away, warned Vijay Swarup, vice president for research and development at Exxon Mobil Research and Engineering. But, he added, “We think it’s got the possibility to be a game changer.”
Although the companies did not disclose the size of Exxon Mobil’s investment in FuelCell, “We’re putting the necessary resources behind this to take the research to the next level,” Dr. Swarup said.
The technology — known as carbon capture and sequestration, or C.C.S.— is an important but challenging potential solution to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The goal is to take carbon dioxide, after it is removed from exhaust steam, and to lock it away by pumping it into the ground or use it in industrial applications.
Reducing the amount of carbon dioxide released by power plants could provide a bridge of sorts to the use of energy sources that do not emit greenhouse gases, said Emily A. Carter, founding director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University.
While many climate activists demand an immediate shift to renewable power sources like solar and wind, “We’re going to be burning fossil fuels for the vast majority of our electricity for some time to come, whether we like it or not,” she said. “We desperately need C.C.S.”
Carbon capture has not yet fulfilled its promise, in large part because of the enormous amounts of energy required in conventional processes to separate carbon dioxide from power plant exhaust and to compress it. Those processes greatly diminish the power output of the plant and raise the cost of the electricity produced.
What Exxon Mobil’s partner brings to this thorny problem is its particular class of fuel cells — devices that generate electricity through chemical reactions.
The company’s fuel cells are already used to provide clean energy in about 50 locations around the world but without a connection to fossil-fuel power plants, as envisioned in the new agreement.
The fuel cells use a high-temperature molten carbonate salt mixture. Carbon dioxide flows into the fuel cell and emerges in a concentrated form that is ready for storage.
It is this idea of matching up power plants, which produce carbon dioxide, with fuel cells that are hungry for it that led to a collaboration between Exxon Mobil and FuelCell that started more than four years ago.
The result, at least so far in the laboratory, is that the fuel cells effectively isolate and compress the carbon dioxide while producing enough power to more than make up for the energy cost of capturing the carbon.
Exxon Mobil estimates that a 500-megawatt power plant with these fuel cells could generate 120 megawatts of additional power, compared with a loss of 50 megawatts of power using conventional carbon capture technology.
The company estimates that using these fuel cells with natural gas power plants could lead to a reduction of more than 90 percent in the plants’ carbon dioxide emissions, while also producing large amounts of useful hydrogen.
FuelCell Energy’s products can also strip 70 percent of the smog-producing oxides of nitrogen from the exhaust of coal-burning power plants.
Chip Bottone, president and chief executive officer of FuelCell Energy, said he hoped the research would lead to a process that could be incorporated in power plants around the world.
“When you can make it affordable with private capital, everybody wins,” he said.
Such a high-profile effort to fight climate change could be interpreted by critics of the company as an attempt to improve the public image of Exxon Mobil at a time that it is under investigation by state attorneys general andnews organizations, and attacked for its past funding of organizations that denied climate change.
Alan Jeffers, a spokesman for Exxon Mobil, said that he expected activists to accuse the company of engaging in a public relations stunt to burnish its reputation, but he added, “That’s untrue.”
Noting the four-year history of the work with FuelCell, he said the research would continue for years to come.
Professor Carter of Princeton said, “The idea of merging these two technologies to get something that’s greater than the sum of its parts is terrific.”
“It’s preliminary,” she said of the collaboration, which she learned of before the official announcement.
Her program administers a research agreement between Exxon Mobil and Princeton, and she has received a consulting fee in the past for reviewing the company’s research.
“The proof will be in the pudding,” she added.
Jay Faison, a Republican entrepreneur who is urging his party to support clean energy, called Exxon’s announcement a “monumental point in time for this energy transition,” adding that “when the market leader makes that move, you have to think that others aren’t far behind.”
An expert in the carbon capture field had a more measured view.
David Keith, a professor of physics and public policy at Harvard and the founder of a carbon capture company in Canada, said that the greatest challenge surrounding C.C.S. was not technological.
He said the biggest need was for policies to encourage its widespread adoption, as subsidies helped make technologies like solar and wind power competitive enough to take hold.
“The basic blockage around C.C.S. isn’t making the technology a little better,” Dr. Keith said. “It’s the policy snafu around the business case.”
“My guess,” he added, “is that there’s something real and useful here.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/06/science/exxon-mobil-backs-fuelcell-effort-to-advance-carbon-capture-technology.html
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(ACC Mentioned) State Officials Bash EPA Chemical Security Proposal
May 6, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Brian Dabbs
State attorneys general lashed into another Environmental Protection Agency rulemaking under the Clean Air Act in recent days, this time directing their displeasure and legal questioning at the agency's proposal to revise oversight of facilities that house hazardous chemicals.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and his Texas counterpart, Ken Paxton, decried alleged EPA abuse of authority in its Risk Management Program (RMP) proposal in a May 3 letter to Administrator Gina McCarthy.
Many of the provisions in the rulemaking “fall outside of EPA's purview,” said Landry and Paxton, who described themselves as “dumfounded” by language related to public disclosures and community outreach. The proposal would increase chemical facility vulnerability, raise the risk of terrorist attacks and improperly burden the chemical industry, they said.
“This unauthorized expansion of the program does not make facilities safer, but it does subject facilities to even more burdensome, duplicative and needless regulation,” the letter said. “Industries' resources need to be spent on what truly matters, making facilities safe and secure, not responding to unauthorized regulation that is perpetuated for regulation's sake.”
Proposal's Requirements
The EPA issued the proposal, dubbed the Accidental Release Prevention Requirements: Risk Management Programs Under the Clean Air Act, in February (39 DEN A-13, 2/29/16).
The proposal requires facilities to conduct analysis of inherently safer technologies and industrial practices, while revising language on emergency preparedness, public access to information on the facilities and disaster response coordination.
EPA officials moved forward with the rulemaking to follow through on agency commitments to improve safety in the wake of the West, Texas, fertilizer plant explosion in 2013.
Aggressive Challenges
In recent months, attorneys general disputed the EPA's new regulations on mercury standards for power plants (15 DEN A-15, 1/25/16).
Some also have led the effort to overturn the agency's Clean Power Plan (84 DEN A-1, 5/2/16).
The May 3 criticism of the RMP proposal represents another example of aggressive state confrontation of EPA rulemaking under the Clean Air Act, Judah Prero, counsel at the Sidley Austin LLP environmental arm and a former staffer with the Maryland attorney general's office, told Bloomberg BNA May 5.
Seeing More Activity
“You're definitely seeing an uptick in AG activity on these Clean Air Act rules and willingness to litigate when it comes down to it,” Prero said. “I'm not surprised by the tone. It's consistent with some of the AG letters that have been critical elsewhere.”
Landry and Paxton are challenging whether the EPA is meeting congressional intent for the air act, Prero said.
Rick Hind, a high-level official with Greenpeace, hit back at that argument strenuously in a May 5 interview with Bloomberg BNA, saying the EPA is well within its bounds to issue the rulemaking.
“Tactically, this is just another example of the state of our politics today,” Hind said. “Politicians are beholden to special interests, in this case the chemical industry, such as Dow.”
Hind said environmental groups are ready to litigate the rule as well if necessary.
Comment Period Closing
Attorney general pressure on such rulemaking carries “significant weight” and indicates states will act if they deem that route reasonable, American Chemistry Council spokesman Scott Jensen told Bloomberg BNA May 5.
Jensen, however, deflected a question over whether he expects groups such as his to litigate a final EPA rule on RMP.
“I think it's too soon to tell,” he said. “We would certainly hope that EPA would take the AG concerns and concerns from other parts of the regulated community to heart.”
Prero said, however, that prospect is unlikely.
“My take after seeing the way EPA has proceeded so far is it seems like they're moving full steam ahead,” Prero said. “I'd be surprised if there were significant changes, and I wouldn't be surprised if the rule is litigated.”
The comment period for the RMP rule ends May 13, at which point the EPA will be able to send a final rule to the Office of Management and Budget.
EPA spokeswoman Mollie Lemon told Bloomberg BNA May 5 the agency “will consider and address all comments it receives in the final rule.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=89053501&vname=dennotallissues&fn=89053501&jd=89053501
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(ACC Mentioned) AGs Protest Terrorist Risk, Data Breaches in EPA Facility Rule
May 5, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
Attorneys general from two big chemical-producing states told U.S. EPA this week that a recent proposal to change how facilities must prepare for potential safety incidents is likely to be ineffective and could present security risks.
In public comments submitted to EPA, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) said EPA's proposal would be burdensome to chemical companies and "may actually lead to an increased risk of intentional release by those with nefarious motives."
"In light of recent and significant terrorist attacks that have resulted in the loss of life, as well as the perpetual cyberattacks and data breaches on and from our federal government that are leading to disclosure of personal and sensitive information, we are dumfounded as to why you would like to acquire and then make readily available sensitive information pertaining to chemical facilities to the public at large," the attorneys general wrote.
EPA's proposal requires plants to conduct reviews to determine whether safer processes are feasible but doesn't require that they implement the findings. In addition, the plants are not required to send the assessments to EPA or to make them public.
The plan would require plants to "provide certain basic information to the public through easily accessible means," including a facility website, public library or government office, "or use other means appropriate for particular locations and facilities."
Only "a subset of facilities" would be required to share compliance audits, emergency response exercises, accident history and investigation reports -- and not with the public, but with Local Emergency Planning Committees, and only upon request.
Because the information would not be stored at a centralized location, it would be difficult for EPA or the public to compare plants or draw broader conclusions about the information, critics say.
Plants would also have to hold a public meeting shortly after a reportable incident.
Paxton and Landry said this disclosure "does nothing to prevent accidents or reduce potential harm, but likely increases the vulnerability of multiple facilities."
Under the Chemical Safety Information, Site Security and Fuels Regulatory Relief Act of 1999, members of the public who want to view off-site consequence information -- plants' estimate of the impacts of a catastrophic release on the surrounding area -- can do so only at an EPA reading room. Access is limited to people who live near the site, and the law imposes a cap on how many reports can be viewed in a period of time. These restrictions would remain under the recent proposal.
EPA was also duplicating some of the work of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which should take the lead on issues related to worker safety, the officials argued.
Paxton and Landry's criticism is overblown, Greenpeace Legislative Director Rick Hind said.
"It's reading like it was written by the American Chemistry Council," Hind said, because it mirrors many industry concerns.
Hind said the industry may fear that safety audits, if submitted to EPA, would be disclosable under the Freedom of Information Act.
"If they do an assessment and find it feasible for their facility but they don't implement it, then they're on thin ice in terms of their public image," Hind said, "and maybe even legally, if there's an incident or an accident of some kind."
Because EPA would have to request documents on a case-by-case basis, practical limitations make it unlikely that it would target many sites at the same time, Hind said.
In a statement, the American Chemistry Council said Paxton and Landry "have highlighted important concerns" regarding the proposed rule.
"According to EPA data, the number of accidents at chemical facilities across the nation has been reduced by 75 percent over the past twenty years," the trade group said. "Despite this fact, EPA is pursuing an aggressive timetable for finalizing the proposal without fully evaluating its impact and ability to enhance safety and is not providing the public sufficient time to review and comment on the complex proposal."
EPA has defended the proposal as an effective compromise and the product of more than two years of public outreach.
At a public meeting last month, Mathy Stanislaus, the agency's assistant administrator for land and emergency management, said the rule "struck a very good balance" (Greenwire, March 30).
The proposed rule is open to public comments until May 13.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/05/05/stories/1060036793
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(ACC Mentioned) Assembly Blocks Bill to Expand Legal Rights for Aliso Canyon Neighbors
May 5, 2016 | Los Angeles Times
By Patrick McGreevy
A bill touted as providing legal protections to neighbors affected by the Aliso Canyon gas leak failed to muster the needed votes in the Assembly on Thursday amid strong opposition from businesses and the California Chamber of Commerce, which labeled it a “job killer.”
The bill by Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D-Glendale) failed on a 28-32 vote — it needed 41 votes to pass. Gatto was given permission to bring it back up in the future if he can get the needed votes.
Gatto’s bill would extend the statute of limitations from two to three years for filing civil actions alleging injury, illness or death caused by exposure to a hazardous material or toxic substance.
The measure also says residents cannot be required to sign a waiver of future claims against a polluter in order to be reimbursed in an environmental disaster. The bill also allows those who sue polluters to be reimbursed for attorney fees.
“This is for the worst of the worst in terms of environmental disasters,” Gatto told his colleagues. “This is a righteous bill.”
However, Republican and moderate Democratic Assembly members voted against the measure after it was expanded beyond applying to Aliso Canyon to apply throughout the state.
“It’s a trial lawyer’s dream bill,” said Assemblyman Scott Wilk (R-Santa Clarita), who predicted it would clog the courts with lawsuits.
A letter circulated by business groups including the Western States Petroleum Assn., the American Chemistry Council and the California Chamber of Commerce called the bill a “job killer.”
“Release clauses are one of the primary incentives for defendants to settle disputes and avoid prolonged, expensive litigation,” the letter said.
Assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles) said he liked that the bill could also benefit residents who have suffered lead contamination from the Exide battery recycling plant in Vernon.
“Here we have the one opportunity to hold companies accountable,” Santiago said during the floor debate. “We have expanded the bill to apply statewide because it absolutely makes sense.”
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-essential-poli-bill-expanding-legal-rights-for-aliso-canyon-neigh-1462471201-htmlstory.html
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Mexican Pipeline to Boost U.S. Gas Exports 20 Percent
May 6, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Christine Buurma
A single pipeline project in Mexico is poised to expand U.S. natural gas exports in a big way.
The Los Ramones Phase II line, which state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos is developing with private equity firm First Reserve Corp. and BlackRock Inc., which oversees $4.6 trillion in assets worldwide, is projected to boost U.S. gas deliveries south of the border by about 17 percent to 22 percent, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Pemex has said the system may begin service this month.
The Los Ramones project will add to the flood of gas heading to Mexico as producers in the lower 48 states seek new markets for a glut of supply from shale formations. U.S. gas futures have rebounded from a 17-year low on speculation that exports and a drilling slowdown will prevent stockpiles from rising to a record before the winter.
The deregulation of Mexico's energy market has made it easier to develop pipeline projects, boosting demand for U.S. gas, Jacob Fericy, an analyst at BNEF in New York, said by phone last week. Power plants in Mexico are increasingly switching to the fuel from oil, he said.
‘Pent-Up' Demand Cited
“The recent changes are allowing infrastructure like these pipelines to come into place in the most efficient way possible,” Fericy said. “A lot of pent-up industrial demand for gas is being fulfilled.”
Los Ramones II may begin operations sometime this month, Jorge Martinez, Pemex's interim director of industrial transformation, said on a conference call April 28. The company didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Analyst reports indicating the pipeline started up in late March weren't accurate, according to Rick Margolin, senior natural gas analyst at Genscape Inc. in Boulder, Colo.
The U.S. sent 98.8 billion cubic feet of gas to Mexico in February via pipeline, or about 4.3 percent of total marketed production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That's more than double 2012 levels for the time of year.
With assistance from Adam Williams.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=89053469&vname=dennotallissues&fn=89053469&jd=89053469
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District Courts Expected to Decide on Water Rule Lawsuits
May 6, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
Environmental groups led by the Natural Resources Defense Council informed a federal district court May 5 that they are withdrawing their complaint against the Clean Water Rule, marking the fourth such case to be voluntarily dismissed since an appeals court gave itself jurisdiction over challenges to the regulation (Nat. Res. Def. Council v. EPA, D.D.C., 15-01324, 5/5/16).
The groups, however, will pursue their challenge at the appellate level.
The action follows the April 21 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati reaffirming itself, rather than the nation's district courts, as the proper venue to hear challenges to the Clean Water Rule. The Sixth Circuit stayed the rule nationwide until it can rule on its legality (RIN:2040-AF30) (78 DEN A-4, 4/22/16)(82 ERC W-3, (4/29/16)).
In a notice today to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the groups officially withdrew their suit against the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that jointly promulgated the rule in June 2015 to clarify the regulatory reach of the Clean Water Act. The withdrawal took effect immediately, not requiring the court's approval, as the federal agencies had not yet responded to the challenge.
Aside from the NRDC, the coalition includes the National Wildlife Federation, One Hundred Miles and the South Carolina Coastal Commission. The NRDC and these groups also are involved in the pending review of the water rule itself before the Sixth Circuit both as challengers and intervenors.
NRDC Attorney Jon Devine, who was the lead counsel for the coalition, told Bloomberg BNA May 5 that the voluntary dismissal from the D.C. District Court doesn't mean the groups have completely withdrawn their challenge.
“Our affirmative challenge is also pending in the Sixth Circuit, where we're confident we will have a full opportunity to have our claims heard,” he said. “In addition, we're involved in that court as intervenors to defend the rule against claims it protects too much.”
Challenges Pending in Other Courts
Six other federal district courts have yet to determine whether to proceed with hearing the complaints themselves or to follow the district courts in the Southern District of Ohio, the District of Arizona and the Northern District of Oklahoma in deferring to the Sixth Circuit (see related story).
Richard Stoll, a partner in the Washington and Milwaukee offices of Foley and Lardner LLP, doesn't believe that the remaining district courts will dismiss the water rule challenges based on “the shakiness of the 6th Circuit's 1-1-1 ruling.”
Two of the three judges agreed, based on different rationales, that the appeals court has jurisdiction, while the third judge dissented. To complicate matters further, two of the three judges agreed that the Clean Water Act didn't authorize an appeals court to review challenges to the rule.
“It is hard for me to believe that at least one or two other courts outside the 6th Circuit won't rule that jurisdiction lies in the district courts (as the North Dakota court already has),” Stoll said. “What continues to be so ironic, though, is that EPA and the Corps are fighting so hard to confine review to the 6th Circuit—which has already determined the rule should be stayed pending judicial review.”
The environmental groups' lawsuit was filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in July and then a month later in D.C. District Court on grounds that the rule improperly excluded waste treatment systems and waters traditionally regulated by the agencies (141 DEN A-2, 7/23/15).
Devine was the lead attorney.
Catherine Wannamaker of the Southern Environmental Law Center represented One Hundred Miles and the South Carolina Coastal Conservation League.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=89053500&vname=dennotallissues&fn=89053500&jd=89053500
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EPA Seeks To Dismiss Texas District Court CWA Rule Suits
May 5, 2016 | InsideEPA
EPA is seeking to dismiss four lawsuits filed in federal district court in Texas challenging the agency's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule, arguing that an appeals court's finding of authority to hear such suits is controlling, deprives the district court of authority under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and creates duplicative litigation.
“Finally, the Sixth Circuit and two other district courts have correctly concluded that the Rule is exclusively reviewable in the courts of appeals under” section 509 of the CWA, Justice Department (DOJ) attorneys write on behalf of EPA in May 4 motions filed in four separate suits.
The suits are Texas Alliance for Responsible Growth, Environment and Transportation (TARGET) v. United States Environmental Protection Agency; State of Texas v. EPA, et al.; American Farm Bureau Federation, et al., v. EPA; and American Association of Railroads et al., v. EPA, et al., all filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas at Galveston, all challenging the rule on its merits.
DOJ argues that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit's Feb. 22 panel decision, and subsequent full court refusal to grant six petitions for rehearing of that decision en banc, giving it power to hear suits over the rule means the district courts should halt those proceedings for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
The department notes that federal district courts in Ohio and Oklahoma have already opted to dismiss lawsuits challenging the rule, though states and business groups are appealing the dismissal in U.S. District Court for the District of Oklahoma litigation to the 10th Circuit.
Opening briefs in the 10th Circuit suit are due June 14 for the business groups, including U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Business, Portland Cement Association, State Chamber of Oklahoma, and Tulsa Regional Chamber, according to a May 5 order by that court.
DOJ argues in the Texas suits filings that the availability of review for the rule in the 6th Circuit precludes the district court challenges, because the appeals court held that the rule falls within the CWA's section 509 exclusive judicial review provisions. “Plaintiffs thus have an adequate remedy in a court and cannot pursue a duplicative challenge in this Court under the APA,” DOJ argues.
http://insideepa.com/news-briefs/epa-seeks-dismiss-texas-district-court-cwa-rule-suits
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Congress Won't Undermine Paris Deal -- Cardin
May 6, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Amanda Reilly
The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee today sought to reassure global climate leaders that Congress would not undermine the Paris climate agreement.
Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) told an audience in Washington, D.C., that included top U.N. officials and world diplomats that the intensity levels among supporters of the deal in Congress "far outweigh" those of the opposition.
For proof, he pointed to the delegation of senators who traveled to Paris in December in support of the negotiations that led to the agreement. Cardin was part of the delegation.
"We had 10 United States senators who went to Paris to let the participants know ... that we strongly support the global agreement. Ten for," Cardin said. "Those who say they were not happy didn't show up in Paris. It was zero."
Republican critics of addressing climate change have vocally opposed the Paris climate deal, in which more than 190 nations agreed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius and to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 C. Last month, 175 nations signed the deal; countries are now in the process of formally adopting the agreement.
Largely led by Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), Republican critics in Congress have sought a say in whether the United States formally joins the agreement. They've argued that countries won't be able to live up to their pledged greenhouse gas reductions and that the United States shouldn't be funding global climate efforts.
In a new line of attack, Senate GOP critics have alleged that Palestine's membership in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change means that the United States will no longer be able to contribute to U.N. climate efforts.
But Cardin today slammed the opposition as "just words."
He counted as a win the omnibus funding bill that Congress passed at the end of last year, which extended renewable energy tax credits and did not bar the United States from providing money to a U.N. fund for developing countries to address climate change.
"None of the anti-environmental riders -- zero -- got into the omnibus appropriations bill. And the Democrats don't control either the House or the Senate," Cardin said. "So you judge us by our actions."
He also urged global climate leaders to frame policies to address climate change in a manner that speaks to their economic and national security benefits.
While Cardin asserted that the Paris deal was safe from foes in Congress, U.S. presidential politics also throw some uncertainty into future international efforts on climate change. World leaders have expressed some worries should Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has called global warming a "hoax," win the presidential election in November (ClimateWire, May 5).
While not mentioning Trump, Bob Inglis, a Republican climate advocate and a former congressman from South Carolina, told the D.C. gathering that Republicans are coming around to the mainstream science on climate change and the idea that free enterprise can solve the problem.
"We're finding Republicans that are disenchanted by the disputation of the science," Inglis said, "and the rejection of the idea that we can come together as a nation and as a world to solve a huge challenge."
But Bill McInturff, a Republican strategist and co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies, today said that while Americans are becoming more concerned about climate change, that increase is being driven by Democrats.
"The issue of climate change is probably one of the two or three issues in which there's the largest gap between the two parties," McInturff said. "Having said that, I'm optimistic that this country is still moving in a very aggressive way."
McInturff told the international audience that Trump in many ways "does not represent the mainstream views of the Republican Party" and predicted that the businessman would probably lose the election against likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by "5-7 points."
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/05/05/stories/1060036798
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