Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 4/18/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) Glut Puts Pressure on Plastics
May 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
The U.S. shale boom brought a glut and a price rout to the natural gas market, and now that trend is headed down the chain to plastics, according to the IHS research firm. -
Negotiators ‘Finalising’ TSCA Reform Bill
May 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
A bipartisan group of US Senate and House of Representative leaders say that negotiators are in the process of "finalising" a bill to reform TSCA. -
TSCA Talks Near the Finish Line
May 18, 2016 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
A deal to overhaul the badly outdated Toxic Substances Control Act is nearly complete, but members of Congress and the Obama administration may have to decide whether to force it through over the objections of at least two key House Democrats. -
House Dems Face Off with Boxer on TSCA Bill
May 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
The decision by two key House Democrats yesterday to oppose a final deal on chemical reform legislation exposed a rift between them and Senate negotiators. -
Potentially Harmful Nanoparticles Found in Baby Formulas
May 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Arianna Skibell
Potentially hazardous nanoparticles are currently being used in a number of popular baby formula products. -
EPA Releases Draft IRIS Assessment Of MTBE Metabolite Tert-Butanol
May 18, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA has released its draft assessment of the human health risks of the chemical tert-butanol (TBA) in preparation for public comments and the June public meeting of its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program, where it will be discussed alongside the draft assessment of benzo(a)pyrene. -
FDA Anticipates Increased Challenges with FCM Regulations
May 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Sylvia Palmer
The US FDA anticipates ongoing challenges in their food contact regulatory programme, according to Allan Bailey, supervisory chemist in the Office of Food Additive Safety, division of food contact notification with the agency. -
Malibu PCBs Case Goes to Trial in Calif.
May 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
A one-day federal trial yesterday at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles could set new standards for when school districts must take action against polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. -
Making Informed Choices About Chemical Substitutes: The Path Less Traveled
May 18, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Michelle Mauthe Harvey
Finding substitute chemicals for ingredients either known to be harmful or with unknown safety information can be a case of swapping the devil you know for the devil you don't, a recent report found. -
Kaiser Permanente Sets Safer Products Purchasing Goal
May 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Healthcare provider, Kaiser Permanente, has announced a goal to increase to 50% the products and materials it purchases that meet company environmental standards by 2025. -
White House Responds to #keepitintheground Petition
May 18, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
The White House has responded to a petition from more than 100,000 environmental advocates who had urged President Obama to cement his "climate legacy" with a widespread freeze on fossil fuel extraction. -
Natural Gas -- Not Renewables -- Is Replacing Nuclear Power
May 16, 2016 | Forbes (In Real Clear Energy)
By James Conca
Across some parts of the country, nuclear power plants have been closing amid political pressure and warped financial markets, even though they contribute the overwhelming majority of their region’s clean power, and are the economic strength of their local economies. -
EMP Uncertainty is Another Foe Facing the Power Grid
May 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
When might the sun aim a massive, once-in-a-century electromagnetic eruption directly at North America, triggering widespread blackouts or worse? -
Ex-Cheniere CEO Souki Files for Massive New LNG Terminal
May 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
Developers are proposing to build a giant new liquefied natural gas export terminal in Calcasieu Parish, La., adding to a crush of proposals aiming to take advantage of the region's robust gas infrastructure. -
Marcellus-to-Southeast Takeaway Projects Hitting More Snags in WV, VA
May 17, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
Two Appalachia-to-Southeast takeaway projects continue to encounter obstacles as they plot routes through rural stretches along the border between West Virginia and Virginia. -
E&C Approves Ozone Delay Legislation
May 18, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
The House Energy and Commerce Committee today approved legislation that would delay the 2015 ozone standard from being implemented by a party-line vote of 30-23. -
Moniz Dismisses Trump’s Call to Change Climate Deal
May 18, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz says he doesn’t think a future president will be able to undo President Obama’s climate work. -
Why Trump’s Idea of ‘Renegotiating’ the Paris Climate Agreement is So Bizarre
May 18, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made what appeared to be some of his most extensive comments yet about international climate change negotiations.
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) Glut Puts Pressure on Plastics
May 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
The U.S. shale boom brought a glut and a price rout to the natural gas market, and now that trend is headed down the chain to plastics, according to the IHS research firm.
Natural gas is the building block for polyethylene and polypropylene, the most common building blocks for plastic, and new construction and production coming online are threatening to overwhelm that market, too.
"Economics will be challenged in the near term as global capacity expansions exceed demand growth and pressure margins," Nick Vafiadis, IHS Chemical global business director for polyolefins and plastics, said in a statement.
This is delaying or ending some petrochemical plant projects, but there are 266 more to come between 2010 and 2023, according to the American Chemistry Council. Of those, the council found 104 will be in Texas.
IHS estimates more than 24 million metric tons of new polyethylene capacity will come online by 2020, making up a quarter of the current market. Of that, they expect 8 million metric tons will come from the United States.
The growth will coincide with similar trends in the Middle East, according to Vafiadis, causing "significant trade imbalances as we see North America and the Middle East both add more [polyethylene] capacity than is warranted for their domestic markets, so exports will be key for producers" (Jordan Blum, Fuel Fix, May 17)
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/05/18/stories/1060037399
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Negotiators ‘Finalising’ TSCA Reform Bill
May 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
A bipartisan group of US Senate and House of Representative leaders say that negotiators are in the process of "finalising" a bill to reform TSCA.
According to a statement issued late Tuesday, the negotiated measure “represents an improvement over both the House and Senate bills in key respects”.
“We are hopeful that Congress will be taking action soon on reforming this important environmental law,” they added.
The statement was signed by 13 leaders in the negotiation process, including:
· Sen. Tom Udall (D–New Mexico);
· Sen. Barbara Boxer (D–California);
· Sen. Jim Inhofe (R–Oklahoma);
· Rep. John Shimkus (R–Illinois); and
· Rep. Fred Upton (R–Louisiana).
But absent from the signature were two key House Democrat negotiators: House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D–New Jersey) and Economy Subcommittee Ranking Member Paul Tonko (D–New York).
The two issued a separate statement, saying that they will “oppose the current framework of legislation … unless significant changes are made”.
According to their statement, Committee Republicans have “walked away” from a deal agreed last month, and are now working with Senate negotiators. Representatives Tonko and Pallone hold that “at this point, it would be better for us to not act at all than to pass the deal that Energy and Commerce Republican leaders and Senate negotiators are proposing.”
“The current draft is not only significantly weaker than the bipartisan deal we negotiated, it is actually weaker than current law,” they said. “We encourage our colleagues to reconsider the harmful changes they have made to the legislation in the last week, and continue working with us to craft a final bill that would truly protect public health and the environment.”
Although negotiations to reconcile bills passed by the House and Senate last year have been underway for several months, there is scant information available about which provisions will be included in the negotiated measure.
An announcement, in recent weeks, from Senators Inhofe and Boxer said the upper chamber had reached an agreement on some of the “key sticking points” in the negotiations. Details of this agreement were not released.
Late last week, 39 House Democrats wrote to Mr Pallone, calling on him to reverse his position on an animal testing provision and to accept a Senate proposal on the issue.
Advocacy from NGOs, trade groups and state attorneys general has continued throughout the negotiation. Such issues as state preemption, fees and protection of confidential business information have been flagged up as areas where agreement must be reached between the two bills.
Once a negotiated bill has been agreed, it will need to be passed by both the Senate and the House before it can be considered by the president.
https://chemicalwatch.com/47462/negotiators-finalising-tsca-reform-bill
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TSCA Talks Near the Finish Line
May 18, 2016 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
HOUSE DEMS WALK AS TSCA DEAL NEARS HOME: A deal to overhaul the badly outdated Toxic Substances Control Act is nearly complete, but members of Congress and the Obama administration may have to decide whether to force it through over the objections of at least two key House Democrats. Pro’s Darren Goode has all the details. First, Reps. Frank Pallone and Paul Tonko said “it would be better for us to not act at all” than for Congress to pass a negotiated bill being negotiated by House Republicans and senators from both parties. Within a few hours, those negotiators responded with their own statement saying they were “finalizing a TSCA reform bill” that improves on the versions that already cleared both chambers. Among the 11 senators and two House members who signed on were five Senate Democrats, including Barbara Boxer and Cory Booker (with whom Pallone has been feuding over the bill, H.R. 2576).
EPA digs the deal: “The TSCA legislative draft that EPA has seen is a clear improvement over current law and is largely consistent with the Administration's Principles for TSCA Reform,” an agency spokesman said via email. “Critically, the bill would address the fundamental flaws that have hindered EPA's ability to protect human health and the environment from chemical risks. We understand that parties continue to work on further improvements to the draft, and EPA stands ready to support the effort to finalize strong legislation to protect public health.”
Pelosi a wildcard: Sources tracking the negotiations told Darren that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi stands as one of the biggest question marks in the process. On the one hand, she may be loath to abandon Pallone and Tonko, the top Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee and its environment subpanel. On the other, fellow Californian Boxer has secured concessions related to EPA preemption of state chemical laws that are a huge priority in their home state. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy has personally reached out Pelosi, who hasn’t decided whether to join the revolt or seek additional concessions.
So what’s in there? A source familiar with the contours of the deal tells ME it establishes a mandatory duty for EPA to evaluate existing chemicals with enforceable deadlines and requires the agency to determine that new chemicals are safe before they enter the market, among other provisions. Negotiators have said they hope to have a bill on the president’s desk before Congress leaves town at the end of next week for its Memorial Day recess.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2016/05/tsca-talks-near-the-finish-line-trump-aim-to-renegotiate-paris-deal-unnerves-greens-obama-regs-race-to-get-in-under-the-cra-wire-214359
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House Dems Face Off with Boxer on TSCA Bill
May 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
The decision by two key House Democrats yesterday to oppose a final deal on chemical reform legislation exposed a rift between them and Senate negotiators.
House Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy ranking member Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) called the bill worse than current law.
Their verdict comes after five months of negotiations between House and Senate lawmakers. It stands in contrast to the approach taken by Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who typically would side with Pallone and Tonko on environmental issues.
Boxer announced last week that she had reached an agreement with EPW Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) on language governing how states could pursue their own actions on substances being reviewed by U.S. EPA (E&E Daily, May 10).
Though Boxer and Inhofe have not released the text of their agreement, Senate aides said it contains several provisions meant to protect states in the event that they need to take action on a substance. But House Democratic aides said the provisions aren't sufficient.
Boxer's office declined to comment yesterday.
Pallone and Tonko's split from Boxer is especially notable because she was long the most aggressive counterweight to a drumbeat of senators and others pushing for the Senate bill. The duo's stance also drew a response from EPA, which said last night that the deal is not worse than current law (E&E Daily, May 18).
Another key Democrat on the fence is House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who has not taken a position on the proposals. Pelosi faces the dilemma of whether to side with home-state colleague Boxer or back her key committee leaders, Pallone and Tonko.
Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill didn't respond to a request for comment.
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, said yesterday that he did not expect Pallone and Tonko's opposition to affect the bill's passage (E&ENews PM, May 17).
Under the Senate bill (S. 697), states would be barred from restricting a chemical that is undergoing an EPA risk assessment. However, states could seek a waiver from EPA, which would be required to grant the waiver under certain conditions. States could sue EPA if it failed to approve a waiver. Industry groups support the measure, saying it would encourage consistency and reduce the chance that states would rush to restrict chemicals that EPA is concerned about but that have not been proved to cause harm.
A House aide said the Senate bill's pre-emption of state laws goes too far for Pallone and Tonko. Under H.R. 2576, states would not need to apply for an exemption in order to restrict a chemical before EPA has finalized its own action. That limbo period could last as long as three or four years under the Senate bill, the aide said.
Though Boxer and Inhofe have not shared the details of their agreement, House aides said it involves requiring that EPA's initial decision to designate a chemical as a high or low priority take at least nine months. During that time, states like California would have "lead time" to take their own regulatory action, with no need to seek a waiver to avoid pre-emption under federal law.
A Senate aide said the changes also involved adding language specifying that a state regulatory process that started before EPA began work on its own regulations would be allowed to continue without the state needing to seek a waiver.
House objections
As Boxer and Inhofe negotiated on the issue of pre-emption, the House aide said, "We kept saying, 'We don't know if it's going to work for us.'"
Delaying states' options until EPA has taken a final action, the aide said, is a giveaway to industry interests and would be harmful to the public.
With pre-emption, "the justification is you shouldn't have to comply with two regulatory schemes," the aide said, "but now the justification is you shouldn't have to comply with any regulatory scheme. It's really unprecedented, and it's worse than current law."
The House aide said Senate negotiators refused to bend on shortening the period for which EPA could wait to complete an assessment, during which states would be restricted. In addition, House GOP lawmakers decided to walk away from their agreement with House Democrats on other sections of the bill, the aide said, and partner with the Senate instead.
Many state attorneys general, the aide said, are uncertain about the Senate bill.
"They are deeply, deeply concerned," the aide said. "They are the ones who are going to be defending their state laws. If it is ambiguous, it is just going to go to court."
Andy Igrejas, the director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, said Pallone and Tonko were right to oppose the final bill. Igrejas said in a statement that the legislation has changed "in new and unacceptable ways."
The changes could harm people and wildlife; make it harder to ban toxic substances from toys, furniture and clothing; and stall state flame retardant restrictions in favor of federal rules that are years from completion and could be less protective, he said.
"We urge Congress to resume negotiations toward a final reform that advances public health and which can enjoy broad public support," Igrejas said.
But Boxer said her agreement with Inhofe left California's Environmental Protection Agency pleased that it could enforce state law under the federal proposal.
The House aide warned that the changes may not benefit other states as much as California. Those states lack agencies with the resources to propose complex regulations like California, and lawmakers may prefer to write legislation instead, the aide said. Other more cash-strapped California agencies like the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, part of the Department of Industrial Relations, could also find it too hard to meet the requirements of the deal, the aide argued.
The Senate aide disagreed.
"Is it better than current law? There's no question about that whatsoever," the aide said. "That's why the administration at just about every level is excited about this bill passing."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/05/18/stories/1060037488
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Potentially Harmful Nanoparticles Found in Baby Formulas
May 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Arianna Skibell
Potentially hazardous nanoparticles are currently being used in a number of popular baby formula products.
Researchers found unlabeled and underregulated nanoparticles in all six products tested, according to a study released yesterday by Friends of the Earth.
Friends of the Earth commissioned independent laboratory testing of baby formulas with a nanotechnology research facility at Arizona State University.
Nanoparticles are infinitesimally small substances that don't adhere to traditional laws of physics, making it difficult to understand how they could cause potential harm. Because nanoparticles have a greater surface area than larger particles, they are much more chemically reactive.
While scientists have found that some nanoscale ingredients may offer health benefits, their safety is not yet fully understood and a growing body of research suggests their use in food may be cause for concern.
The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for ensuring baby formulas are safe. But the FDA does not approve the formula before it reaches the market; it merely requires that baby formulas meet certain nutritional requirements and are screened for pathogens.
While companies must register with the FDA and provide a notice before selling a formula, they do not need to screen for nanomaterials or other potentially toxic synthetic ingredients.
"This technology is moving from the lab to the marketplace without sufficient regulation, safety assessment and labeling," said Ian Illuminato, a health and environment campaigner with Friends of the Earth and lead author of the study.
"It's of real concern that these tiny particles are used in hundreds of consumer products, and now in infant formula, with minimal to no oversight. Companies and regulators must take extra care with a product fed to the most vulnerable among us," he said.
Of great concern in the scientific community is whether nanomaterials can penetrate cell walls and migrate to other parts of the body due to their small, often needlelike structure.
There's even a possibility that a nanoparticle could cross the blood-brain barrier, potentially causing irreparable harm if the material is toxic.
"Few health impacts studies have been done upon nanoparticles. Yet we have concerns about potential health impacts," said Tracey Woodruff of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco.
"The problem is, there hasn't been enough research to suggest that using the types of nanoparticles found in this infant formula study is absolutely safe," Woodruff said in a statement.
The E.U. Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety found that a nanoparticle called nano-hydroxyapatite is potentially toxic and could be absorbed by and enter cells due to its needlelike structure.
The SCCS has said that nano-hydroxyapatite should not be used in products like toothpaste, teeth whiteners and mouth washes.
Friends of the Earth found nano-hydroxyapatite in baby formulas by Gerber, Enfamil and Well Beginnings.
"We hope this sets a precedent for regulating nanomaterial in consumer products," Illuminato said, "and that this sends a message that we need to be looking at these ingredients."
The FDA has issued guidelines informing the public that nanoparticles are not necessarily safe, though the recommendations are not binding.
Friends of the Earth is calling on the FDA to pass a moratorium on new commercial nanotech products, assess the safety of baby formulas on the market and recall ones with nanoparticle ingredients and label products that contain nanomaterials.
"It's a huge job to understand what's safe and what's not," Illuminato said. "But that's what we rely on the agency to do."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/05/18/stories/1060037479
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EPA Releases Draft IRIS Assessment Of MTBE Metabolite Tert-Butanol
May 18, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Maria Hegstad
EPA has released its draft assessment of the human health risks of the chemical tert-butanol (TBA) in preparation for public comments and the June public meeting of its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program, where it will be discussed alongside the draft assessment of benzo(a)pyrene.
EPA's draft TBA assessment, one of the first to adopt most of the reforms to the influential but controversial IRIS program, describes the chemical as "a solvent for paints, a denaturant for ethanol and several other alcohols, a dehydrating agent, and [used] in the manufacture of flotation agents, fruit essences, and perfumes."
The chemical, also known as tert-butyl alcohol, is also a metabolite of two better-known fuel oxygenators, methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) and ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE). The first has resulted in widespread contamination issues due to its use in the 1990s to meet Clean Air Act requirements, though groundwater contamination from leaking fuel storage tanks prompted dozens of states to ban its use in gasoline and liability concerns caused refiners to stop using it in the 2000s.
While the petroleum industry insists ETBE has not been used in the United States, the chemical has been found at cleanup sites and in groundwater sources, leading EPA to continue its efforts to assess ETBE despite industry urging the agency to drop it.
The IRIS program's first bimonthly public meeting, hosted in December 2013, included discussions of preliminary materials outlining early stages in the process of crafting TBA, ETBE and Royal Demolition Explosive IRIS assessments.
The draft document explains that TBA exposure "occurs through breathing air containing tert-butanol vapors and consuming contaminated water or foods," or through skin contact. "Animal studies demonstrate that chronic oral exposure to tert-butanol is associated with kidney and thyroid effects. Developmental effects (e.g., reduced fetal viability) have been observed in short-term exposure to high levels of tert-butanol (via oral or inhalation exposure) in animals."
The draft assessment proposes a reference dose (RfD), the maximum amount that the agency estimates an individual can consume daily over a lifetime without experiencing adverse health effects, of 0.1 milligrams per kilogram bodyweight per day (mg/kg-day). The agency also proposes a reference concentration, analogous to the RfD but for inhalation effects, of 0.9 cubic meters of air.
The draft assessment concludes there is "suggestive evidence that tert-butanol is carcinogenic to humans based on renal tumors in male rats and thyroid tumors in female mice," and calculates an estimate of cancer potency of 5x10^-4 per mg/kg-day.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-releases-draft-iris-assessment-mtbe-metabolite-tert-butanol
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FDA Anticipates Increased Challenges with FCM Regulations
May 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Sylvia Palmer
The US FDA anticipates ongoing challenges in their food contact regulatory programme, according to Allan Bailey, supervisory chemist in the Office of Food Additive Safety, division of food contact notification with the agency.
Speaking at the recent Smithers Pira Global Food Contact USA conference, Mr Bailey said that one such challenge is food additive petitions (FAPs). These petitions call for removal of chemical additives from common types of food contact materials like plastics, paper, adhesives, colourants and antimicrobials found in packaging.
Recent petitions, filed with the agency, have requested:
· various actions, concerning the use of perchlorate and long-chain perfluorinated compounds in food packaging;
· the delisting of three long-chain perfluorinated compounds based on safety;
· the delisting of two long-chain perfluorinated compounds based on abandonment; and
· various actions on ortho-phthalates esters (OPE) based on safety.Petitions will continue
As more attention is focused on the FDA’s evaluation of the safety of food contact materials, the agency anticipates more FAPs on the basis of delisting or abandonment.
But the FAP process is not “straightforward”, and there is a need for guidance on how to submit them, said Mr Bailey. Currently, the process is "ad hoc".
He told the audience that food safety information is needed in a timely manner, but the agency's limited resources challenge its ability to plan and manage its responsibilities.
Interagency cooperation with the EPA and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is necessary, he said:
· to clarify jurisdictions of authority;
· for more effective information sharing;
· for use of collaborative resources; and
· to eliminate duplication of efforts.
Cooperation, Mr Bailey added, is also needed between FDA and industry, to build trust in the FDA’s process for maintaining food safety.FDA ‘forced to pay attention’
Mitchell Cheeseman, managing director at law firm Steptoe and Johnson, told the audience that he predicts the agency will require additional information and impose new data requirements as an increasing numbers of petitions are filed.
Under the FAP process, the FDA has 180 days to review a petition. But without significant guidance governing how the FDA manages FAPs, the agency “always has choice on how much uncertainty exists in the process”.
Industry also needs to pay attention, Mr Cheeseman said. The next five to ten years will see continued pressure on FDA from NGOs, which are being relatively successful by threatening lawsuits in order to get a timely response on petitions filed.
As an example, Mr Cheeseman pointed to the petitions brought against phthalates. NGO efforts on such "likely targets" require the agency resources to be "chewed up" to respond. The FDA, he said, is "forced to pay attention" as lawsuits may be filed for inaction.
Responding to a question of whether this NGO activity is “genuine concern for the public or just habit”, Mr Cheeseman said that the advocacy organisations “probably have the same motivation as the FDA: to protect public health”. But because of “politics” in the country, they have unfortunately had to be the “more radical element”.BPA Update
Mr Bailey included an update on BPA in his presentation, telling the audience that “FDA’s perspective is that BPA is safe at the current levels occurring in foods.” There are no plans for this to change, he said.
https://chemicalwatch.com/47464/fda-anticipates-increased-challenges-with-fcm-regulations
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Malibu PCBs Case Goes to Trial in Calif.
May 18, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
A one-day federal trial yesterday at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles could set new standards for when school districts must take action against polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.
Local groups backed by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility are suing a California school district for what they say is its failure to remove cancer-causing PCBs from school structures in Malibu. The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District contends it is following long-standing U.S. EPA guidance (Greenwire, March 24, 2015).
EPA has backed the school district's position. The district says EPA guidance does not require removal of caulk that poses no exposure threat to students even though the caulk may contain levels of PCBs above limits set under the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976.
The district said it "remains confident that it has acted in the best interests of the students and staff, and in accordance with the law and directions of the lead agency, EPA."
U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson is expected to issue a ruling later this summer after reviewing post-trial briefs from both sides (Stephanie O'Neill, Southern California Public Radio, May 17).
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/05/18/stories/1060037474
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Making Informed Choices About Chemical Substitutes: The Path Less Traveled
May 18, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Michelle Mauthe Harvey
Finding substitute chemicals for ingredients either known to be harmful or with unknown safety information can be a case of swapping the devil you know for the devil you don't, a recent report found.
“Buyer Beware: Toxic BPA and Regrettable Substitutes Found in the Linings of Canned Foods,” an extensive report by five public interest groups, documents the persistent use of bisphenol-A, or BPA, as a base ingredient for lining metal cans. Because of its endocrine-disrupting properties and other associated health risks, BPA has been the focus of a major federal research project and public campaigns to eliminate its uses in contact with food. Despite those efforts, 67% of tested cans still contain the chemical.
Equally troubling is that the report found four chemical types used in alternative can coatings – acrylic resins, oleoresin, polyester resins and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) copolymers. These chemicals not only were approved for uses decades ago with little to no data, but some have less-than-perfect safety profiles. This lack of innovation raises questions about the food industry’s use of informed substitutions.
Gauging alternative chemicals
In 2013, a group of more than 100 representatives of business, universities and NGOs published The Commons Principles for Alternatives Assessment, a broad consensus around simple, solutions-based guidance to move hazardous chemicals out of the supply chain and drive in safer innovations.
Key elements of informed decision-making that companies should use in choosing alternative product ingredients include reducing hazard, minimizing exposure, using the best available information, requiring disclosure and transparency, resolving trade-offs and taking action. While they were developed for chemicals in consumer products, these same principles apply to chemicals in food—or food additives— as well. In 2014, the National Academy of Sciences expanded these principles into its framework for chemical alternatives selection.
What’s in a can (liner)?
How do the food packaging industry’s choices and decision-making in replacing BPA measure up against the alternatives assessment principles listed above? According to the Buyer Beware report, not very well.
Some companies (e.g., ConAgra, Eden Foods, Campbell’s Soup) have taken action by either changing all their products to a BPA-free can or announcing a plan replace BPA in the near future. These actions are likely due at least in part to public pressure and international regulatory action; no company has acknowledged concerns about the safety of BPA. Only a few companies featured in the report disclose the composition of the substitutes they use; fewer still disclose safety profile data.
For many of the BPA replacements, little to no information on hazards or exposure is available. When individual components of the liners are disclosed, we see equally troubling chemicals such as styrene, vinyl chloride and hydroxyquinone. Information about leaching or migration from the cans and exposure estimates are also missing. Disclosure and transparency fare equally poor, as food contact substances are not listed in food packaging, although a few products carry a “BPA-free” label.
Key assessment factors to watch
To better understand alternatives, companies must review a chemicals’ performance, hazard, exposure and other data points. Trade-offs – such as differential performance based on food composition or human health and ecotoxicity issues – need to be factored into alternatives assessments, as do barriers to adoption such as availability or compatibility with existing processing equipment.
Simply deciding to use “anything but BPA” is a formula for regrettable choices. Companies looking to offer truly safer choices need to clearly and transparently document – and then pursue – their goals, principles for safer alternatives selection and decision-making processes.
http://business.edf.org/blog/2016/05/17/making-informed-choices-about-chemical-substitutes-the-path-less-traveled/
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Kaiser Permanente Sets Safer Products Purchasing Goal
May 18, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Healthcare provider, Kaiser Permanente, has announced a goal to increase to 50% the products and materials it purchases that meet company environmental standards by 2025.
Although these standards have not yet been defined, the company says it plans to build on its existing Environmental Preferred Purchasing (EPP) policy in designing the programme.
Kaiser’s current EPP policy requires consideration of a variety of environmental criteria – including the avoidance of certain substances – when making purchases decisions. Substances identified in the EPP include:
· PBTs;
· bisphenol A (BPA);
· carcinogens, mutagens and reprotoxins;
· halogenated and chlorinated flame retardants;
· mercury;
· phthalates; and
· PVC.
A Kaiser spokesperson told Chemical Watch that under the goal, they are targeting the purchase of all medical and non-medical products, including cleaning products, personal care products, medical supplies, building materials and furnishings.
Pharmaceuticals will not be covered at this time, “due to the unique aspects of [prescription medicine] development and substitution”.
The company expects to spend at least $56bn on these safer products in the next ten years.Disclosure key
Raymond Baxter, senior vice president of community benefit, research and health policy, told reporters that substance disclosure is a “fundamental problem” that it must contend with in achieving this goal.
Most of the products and materials that concern the company, he said, do not require disclosure. Consequently, the company is “constantly having to do our own work and rely on the work of others to identify those harmful chemicals, and then to hold our suppliers to a strict standard of disclosing to us what is there”.
But even having identified those products, there is not always an alternative available on the market, he said. This is why the company picked a 50% bar to reach.
Kathy Gerwig, Kaiser's environmental stewardship officer, added that the company encourages suppliers to look for chemicals that are “designed to be benign to human health and the environment”. And although the company will continue to pressure suppliers along these lines, she said that without disclosure of ingredients, it is very difficult for purchasers to know what products are safer.‘Remake markets’
The product purchasing goal was presented, together with several other environmental benchmarks the company seeks to achieve in the next ten years.
According to Ms Gerwig, some of the successes the company has had in phasing out substances of concern in recent years have been “years long in the making. We know that you have to be in it for the long game.”
Recent progress made by the healthcare giant, regarding substances of concern, include the phase-out of certain antimicrobials, and the avoidance of PFCs in the built environment.
Dr Baxter added that a “critical part” of their strategy to accomplish their environmental goals is to “remake markets”.
“We really need the support – and benefit from the support – of other organisations.” These include the NHO Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) and other hospitals that have taken similar approaches, he said.
Gary Cohen, HCWH president, said in a press conference that Kaiser Permanente is “setting a very powerfully high bar for the other healthcare systems – not only in [the US], but around the world – to follow.”
https://chemicalwatch.com/47468/kaiser-permanente-sets-safer-products-purchasing-goal
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White House Responds to #keepitintheground Petition
May 18, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
The White House has responded to a petition from more than 100,000 environmental advocates who had urged President Obama to cement his "climate legacy" with a widespread freeze on fossil fuel extraction.
"A safe climate means we need to stop drilling and mining for more fossil fuels," activists told the president earlier this year. "And we need to keep at least 80 percent of what we already have in the ground."
The petition requested that the administration prevent new drilling offshore in the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, as well as the Gulf of Mexico.
Organized by Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network, Friends of the Earth, Oil Change International and other advocacy groups, the petition also requested that Obama halt all new drilling, hydraulic fracturing and mining in public lands and waters.
Responding late Monday, the White House said the current administration has led a global shift from fossil fuel reliance. It touted the growth of the renewable energy industry, U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, fuel efficiency standards for new cars and trucks, and congressional extensions of the investment and production tax credits for renewable energy.
"The administration is also listening to your input on future leasing on federal lands and waters, and putting it into action," the White House said.
Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell issued an order in January establishing a moratorium on federally owned coal deposits. And in March, the Interior Department announced it wouldn't consider lease sales in the Atlantic Ocean.
"Secretary Jewell noted that this decision was informed, in part, by environmental concerns and significant opposition from local communities along the Atlantic Coast," the White House said in its official response.
Petition met White House's threshold for response
The administration is evaluating leasing tracts in the Arctic Ocean and federally owned coal deposits.
"We're sure that the calls to end those programs are going to be deafening by the end of the comment period," said David Turnbull, campaigns director for Oil Change International.
President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a joint statement in March pledging to protect people living in the Arctic.
Turnbull said he hopes that announcement signals that the countries' leaders are moving toward a moratorium for the region.
In its letter, the White House said the country "will still need to use fossil fuels in the near term" -- a phrase that Turnbull said mischaracterizes what he and his peers set out to do.
"That's sort of actually dodging the demand that we've put in front of them," Turnbull said. "We've seen that sort of stigma in the responses from Secretary Jewell."
The objective isn't to supplant fossil fuels overnight, which would be impractical, but instead to stop the leasing of additional swaths of land and water for new drilling and mining, he said.
The authors used We the People, an online system that requires the White House to respond if a petition garners more than 100,000 signatures in 30 or fewer days.
Coal exec: Divestment movement 'frightening'
Turnbull, who joined more than 1,000 demonstrators in a march around Washington, D.C., this weekend to protest the leasing of fossil fuels on federal lands, said he had been optimistic that the White House would agree to the petition outright, but that the result wasn't surprising (E&E Daily, May 16).
"I don't believe it's a coincidence that this response from the White House came right after that major march in D.C.," he said.
At a recent energy conference in Billings, Mont., Colin Marshall, the CEO of Cloud Peak Energy Inc., one of a handful of U.S. coal companies that hasn't filed for bankruptcy, said he would do everything he could to keep his firm solvent.
"Last year, we paid $303 million in taxes and royalties, and we made no money," Marshall said. "We can't afford to buy new leases."
He criticized environmental groups -- organizations campaigning for drilling and mining moratoriums and that organize online under the #keepitintheground label -- for holding up the construction of coal export terminals in states bordering the Pacific Ocean.
"And the fact that there's a sympathetic audience is pretty frightening," Marshall said of the "keep it in the ground" campaigners.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/05/18/stories/1060037453
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Natural Gas -- Not Renewables -- Is Replacing Nuclear Power
May 16, 2016 | Forbes (In Real Clear Energy)
By James Conca
Across some parts of the country, nuclear power plants have been closing amid political pressure and warped financial markets, even though they contribute the overwhelming majority of their region’s clean power, and are the economic strength of their local economies.
As an example, the sad and unnecessary closing of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station at the end of 2014 led to an increase in fossil fuel use, specifically natural gas, that completely filled the gap (see figure). The potential closing of a few more nuclear plants in the region will increase gas use even more.
As all energy experts know, renewables will never replace any of nuclear’s clean power lost by the closing of nuclear plants. Renewables are having enough trouble replacing significant amounts of coal or keeping pace with demand, and require taxpayer subsidies to get built. So natural gas is the obvious choice for new electricity generation in all regions of the country.
This trend is unlikely to change. Electricity demand in New England is growing 1% annually. Total generating capacity for the region is 31 GW, but over 4 GW is retiring in the next few years, and another 6 GW is at risk of retirement by the early 2020s.
As a result, 13 GW of new natural gas is proposed to cover all expected increases in electricity demand for the next decade.
America is at a 27-year low in its carbon emissions almost solely because natural gas has been replacing coal. Gains in efficiency and conservation have also helped. But the loss of several nuclear power plants has effectively wiped out the recent progress of renewables on addressing carbon reductions by increasing gas emissions. New York is struggling with this conundrum as it attempts to force the shutdown of some nuclear plants even as it desperately tries to keep others open.
The argument that nuclear is too expensive, and that closing nuclear plants would save money, is absurd. Operating an existing nuclear plant is much more cost-effective than even existing coal and gas plants, and much cheaper than installing any new power plant, even natural gas.
Over the next 20 to 40 years, the Levelized Cost of Energy for an existing nuclear plant is only 3¢/kWh. For an existing gas plant the LCOE is 5¢/kWh, and for an existing coal plant it’s 4¢/kWh. The LCOE for a new gas plant is 7¢/kWh, for a new nuclear plant is 9¢/kWh, for a new coal plant is 10¢/kWh, and for new wind is 11¢/kWh. So closing any nuclear plant prematurely makes no sense economically.
And at 19.5¢/kWhr, New England still has the highest residential electricity costs in the contiguous United States. The national average is 12¢/kWh. In my own state of Washington, it’s only 8¢/kWh thanks to hydro, nuclear and a reasonable energy market structure (Forbes).
However, in the northeast, peak prices can exceed 100¢/kWh during bad weather like they did during the 2014 polar vortex (Forbes). It’s not that utility costs increased that much, it’s just that the companies are poorly prepared for extreme winters, when hiccups in the polar vortex allow huge volumes of cold Arctic air to escape their usual confines and flow into New England and north-central America (Forbes).
During these events, fossil fuel generation suffers severe outages, as they did in 2014. Coal stacks were frozen. Diesel generators simply couldn’t function in such low temperatures. Natural gas choked up – its pipelines couldn’t keep up with demand.
And prices skyrocketed in their “free” energy market.
During the last polar vortex, ISO New England, the region’s electricity transmission organization, had to bring up dirtier oil plants to try to make up the difference. Nuclear energy, unaffected by the cold, became the primary provider of electricity in New England, edging out gas 29% to 27% (Hartford Business). Oil generation made up 15% while coal accounted for 14%. Hydro, with little other renewables, provided the rest.
The loss of Vermont Yankee has further stressed the region’s ability to respond to extreme weather. Before it was closed, Vermont Yankee was the fifth-largest source of electricity generation in New England, accounting for 4% of New England’s total electricity generation and more than 70% of generation in Vermont.
New England has put too many of their energy eggs in the gas basket without thinking about what that means in terms of building the required pipelines and other infrastructure. For the last few years, ISO has warned New England about becoming increasingly dependent on natural gas for both electricity and home heating, to the exclusion of all else.
ISO knows that low diversity in sources for electricity is dangerous, just like in biology. As demand for natural gas in home heating spikes in winter, there is much less fuel for power plants. And proposals for new gas pipelines have been stomped down.
Fierce opposition to building new pipelines from the shale gas-rich areas of western New York and Pennsylvania comes from concerns over fracking technologies, pipeline leaks and climate change. Even new transmission lines to carry hydropower from Quebec can’t find support in the people of New England.
So if you close nuclear plants for ideological reasons, close coal plants because of climate change, choose natural gas over all else but prevent associated pipelines and infrastructure from being built, then you’re probably going to have a reality check sometime soon.
Let’s hope it doesn’t happen during a polar vortex.
Dr. James Conca is a geochemist, an RDD expert, a planetary geologist and professional speaker.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/05/16/natural-gas-is-replacing-nuclear-power-not-renewables/#7ef99b9a4abb
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EMP Uncertainty is Another Foe Facing the Power Grid
May 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Peter Behr
When might the sun aim a massive, once-in-a-century electromagnetic eruption directly at North America, triggering widespread blackouts or worse?
Will North Korea ever choose war over threats and detonate an atmospheric nuclear weapon intended to paralyze the U.S. power grid? Could a terrorist group ever get that capability?
Because these questions have no ready answers, there is no comprehensive national policy to harden critical power grid facilities against these two low-probability, high-impact threats, witnesses told House Homeland Security subcommittee members yesterday.
The uncertainty factor was cited by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Joseph McClelland.
Scientists have documented the nightmare threat to electronic devices of all kinds from the electromagnetic pulses (EMP) of a nuclear explosion, said McClelland, director of FERC's Office of Energy Infrastructure Security.
"The question from industry's perspective is, how do we rank this risk?" McClelland said.
Utilities are grappling with how to prioritize an assignment from the federal government to invest in equipment to block EMP surges. McClelland said, "What is the probability that we will see a nation-state attack" with a high-altitude nuclear warhead?
Officials assess that risk as a low probability, but not a zero one, said Homeland Security Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa).
"While many believe the likelihood of such an attack is low, the damage and economic aftershocks that would follow demand that we address these risks," Perry said. "We cannot discount that other nation-states, such as North Korea, or sophisticated terror groups might want to utilize an EMP to wreak havoc on our economy."
But the uncertainty has helped stymie a response, FERC's McClelland said. "Because of that, there has been very little done by industry to prepare for this [kind of] attack," he said.
"The question of whether the grid can withstand a large electromagnetic pulse today, clearly, the answer is no," said Brandon Wales, director of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Cyber and Infrastructure Analysis. "We are not prepared for that type of significant attack."
Wales was pressed by subcommittee members on what DHS was doing to respond to a report in March by the Government Accountability Office that said the department's various programs responding to the EMP issue lacked top-level coordination and focus.
Chris Currie, director of GAO's Homeland Security and Justice issues group, said the lack of clear authority at the department on the EMP issue "has led to a lot of confusion, especially in industry, about who is responsible for this."
Wales said DHS has taken the GAO recommendations to heart, putting policy officials in charge of EMP threat coordination. But he told the committee that the final responsibility for EMP defense is the power industry's, not the department's.
"The ultimate burden for preparing for this type of event on the systems that operate our grid [is] going to be on the utilities themselves," Wales said.
Wales added that the technical means of hardening grid facilities and other electronic equipment against EMP are well-known. "The military has been doing it since the dawn of the nuclear age," he said.
"This is just an issue of whether this is a sufficient priority for industry to make the investment, and what is the best way for them to fund that," Wales said, "because they would have to ask permission from every state utility commission to recover the costs."
McClelland said that FERC, with DHS and Energy Department experts, has been advising owners of high-voltage grid facilities that are most important for protecting against EMP vulnerabilities and defenses.
"The first order of business would be to prioritize the [grid] assets," McClelland said.
"With 55,000 substations across the United States, I think the argument legitimately back from industry would be, 'We can't protect every one of these facilities from EMP. It's too difficult, and it's too expensive.'"
But if the process starts with protecting the most important grid sites, such as facilities providing power to vital Defense Department installations and nuclear power plants, then the initial challenge shrinks dramatically, he said.
"It won't be near 55,000 stations. It may just end up being a few hundred stations," he said.
The government can provide advice on best solutions and intelligence on threats. And FERC can approve cost recovery on transmission investments. From there, it's up to industry, McClelland said, "because the government can't do it without them. We don't own the facilities and we don't have authority to compel them to take action."
FERC has approved the first phase of a two-part regulation requiring bulk power transmission utilities to have emergency plans for protecting the grid against a threatening solar flare. The commission is reviewing a proposed second part of the regulation that would require affected utilities to assess threats to their systems from solar flares and take protective measures when the threats warrant it. Devices to shield transformers against this natural hazard could also provide some defense against EMP, experts say.
Congress last year directed the Energy Department to prepare a plan for stockpiling spare grid transformers that could be dispatched to bring power back up after a natural disaster or attack. It also gave DOE authority to order actions to protect the grid in national emergencies. Perry called on the Senate to approve a House-backed measure specifically targeting the hazard of EMP.
According to industry officials, DOE is now wrestling with the fundamental question of grid defense against remote, existential threats: Who pays and how much?
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/05/18/stories/1060037448
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Ex-Cheniere CEO Souki Files for Massive New LNG Terminal
May 18, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Jenny Mandel
Developers are proposing to build a giant new liquefied natural gas export terminal in Calcasieu Parish, La., adding to a crush of proposals aiming to take advantage of the region's robust gas infrastructure.
The latest project, called Driftwood LNG, would produce up to 26 million metric tons per year (mtpa) of LNG, or 4 billion cubic feet per day, and includes construction of a 96-mile pipeline segment to link the project to the gas grid.
Driftwood is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tellurian Investments Inc., the venture founded in February by Charif Souki, the former chairman, president and CEO of Cheniere Energy Inc., and former BG Group PLC executive Martin Houston (EnergyWire, Feb. 24).
Souki -- known for being the first business executive to pivot a proposed LNG import terminal to serve the U.S. shale gas boom with exports -- was forced out of his key positions with Cheniere in December, just weeks before the project loaded its first LNG shipment for export. The Sabine Pass terminal is the only LNG export facility in operation in the U.S. aside from a small terminal in Alaska built in the 1960s (EnergyWire, Dec. 15, 2015).
Souki and Houston founded Tellurian with a statement that the new company would focus on midscale LNG export projects, using small, modular liquefaction equipment to bring flexibility and speed to an industry accustomed to expensive, one-of-a-kind facilities.
But the Driftwood LNG proposal appears to break away from that.
In a request for "pre-filing" status that the company submitted to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week, Driftwood officials describe a project whose proposed 26 mtpa capacity would dwarf the 18 mtpa of capacity that Sabine Pass currently has under construction, and would be only slightly less than Sabine's capacity if another two proposed liquefaction trains are added to the four that are currently planned.
Driftwood says it would export LNG to countries around the world, with plans to obtain permits for sales to both U.S. free-trade partners and to non-free-trade nations like Japan, India and China, where much of the demand growth in LNG is expected to materialize.
Driftwood expects to spend one year in pre-filing with FERC, during which time it will conduct public outreach on the project; work to establish a route for the proposed new connecting pipeline; and carry out environmental and safety reviews necessary for federal, state and local permitting processes.
The company said it aims to enter formal permitting with FERC in 2017 and to receive construction authorization from the agency in early 2018. The target date to bring the first LNG plant into service is in 2022, with the full project completed in mid-2025.
Export boom
The Louisiana and Texas Gulf coastlines are hot spots of LNG activity, offering deep port access points to accommodate large LNG tankers along with a skilled oil and gas workforce, numerous connections to the natural gas grid, and proximity to prolific natural gas plays in Texas that are seeking foreign outlets for their gas.
The proposed Driftwood site is on the Calcasieu River in the greater Lake Charles area in Cameron Parish, La. The Lake Charles LNG project, backed by Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners, was recently approved by FERC for construction nearby, and Sempra Energy's Cameron LNG project is under construction further up the Calcasieu Ship Channel.
Other nearby projects include one by privately owned G2 LNG, which proposes to build a large LNG terminal elsewhere on the Calcasieu Ship Channel; Magnolia LNG, which has been approved by FERC for a terminal in Lake Charles; and Venture Global Calcasieu Pass.
Another three terminals -- a floating LNG terminal proposed by Cambridge Energy Group Ltd.; Louisiana LNG Energy LLC, in development by a subsidiary of Parallax Enterprises LLC; and a second project by Washington, D.C.-based Venture Global LNG -- are proposed for construction in Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, in the far southeastern corner of the state.
The long lead time for big LNG export projects requires developers to plan a decade ahead, lining up investors with the capacity to wait years before income materializes.
The frenzy of LNG export development in the United States comes at a time when LNG markets worldwide are soft, and many observers predict that supply will outpace demand through at least 2020, and possibly 2022, depending in part on the global economic picture. But demand is expected to continue to grow after that, leading to tight markets by 2025 that require additional capacity.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/05/18/stories/1060037423
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Marcellus-to-Southeast Takeaway Projects Hitting More Snags in WV, VA
May 17, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
Two Appalachia-to-Southeast takeaway projects continue to encounter obstacles as they plot routes through rural stretches along the border between West Virginia and Virginia.
Both Atlantic Coast Pipeline LLC (ACP) and Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC (MVP) are seeing still more pushback as they seek FERC’s blessing to begin construction.
Late last week, Friends of Wintergreen (FOW), a nonprofit advocating for the interests of the Wintergreen Resort ski area in Nelson County, VA, filed an alternative route for ACP with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. The group said ACP’s current route cuts too close to Wintergreen’s entrance and would have “adverse environmental and economic impacts” on the resort and the surrounding area.
Also late last week, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) wrote in a letter to FERC that MVP’s current plan to cross the Appalachian National Scenic Trail is “inadequate because it does not meet the scenic integrity objectives” of the government’s land and resource management plan for the area.
Friends of Wintergreen Pushing Back Against ACP
The route submitted last week by FOW was the fourth detailed alternative route proposed by the group, and like the previous three it generally aims to mitigate impacts on the Wintergreen Resort. FOW, represented in its FERC filing by international law firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, enlisted environmental and technical consultants to develop the alternative routes.
The group alleged in its most recent filing that ACP backer Dominion did not adequately consider its three previous alternative routes, which were referenced in supplemental data requests from FERC. FOW argued that its alternative routes are “both technically feasible and less environmentally and economically damaging than ACP’s Proposed Route.”
Dominion finished responding to FERC’s supplemental data requests last month (see Daily GPI, April 18). A significant portion of those filings pertained to an alternative route developed in response to USFS concerns about ACP’s path through the George Washington and Monongahela national forests (see Daily GPI, Feb. 12).
“Despite the very serious economic, safety and environmental impacts of the Proposed Route in the Wintergreen area that have been detailed for over six months, the Dominion Response to [FERC’s data requests] refused to identify any alternate route, including minor route variations, that would eliminate or even reduce the damage to the Wintergreen area,” FOW wrote. “Instead, Dominion’s response to the Data Requests has been to identify alternate routes that are unworkable from both a legal and engineering perspective and then to reject them.”
FOW said ACP’s route change to accommodate the USFS “inexplicably and sharply turns northeast” to reconnect with the original proposed route. The group said the route change “creates an excellent opportunity to avoid all the damage identified by FOW” and proposed an alternative route branching to the southeast that would bypass the Wintergreen Resort area.
FOW argued that FERC should “expressly direct Dominion to fully evaluate each of the four specific route alternatives or deviations” described in its filing and “either adopt one of these alternatives or explain in detail why they should not be adopted.”
Asked about the alternative routes submitted by FOW, Dominion spokesman Aaron Ruby told NGIthat the company has “given those alternatives the careful consideration they deserve. However, our analysis found a number of significant construction challenges and federal land management restrictions that would prevent us from using those alternatives.”
A number of the FOW alternatives “cross federally managed lands that do not allow utility corridor crossings,” Ruby said. The proposed alternatives also present constructability challenges related to “extremely steep terrain and severe side slopes,” he said.
“We’ve looked at more than 6,000 miles of potential routes in order to choose what we believe is the best 600-mile route that has the least possible impact on landowners and the environment,” he added. “We’ve studied the route for close to two years; we’ve surveyed more than 500 miles on the ground; and we’ve worked with hundreds of individual landowners to address their input; not to mention the extensive consultations we’ve had with more than a dozen state and federal agencies.”
FERC recently reopened the scoping process for ACP to gather additional input on its latest route changes (see Daily GPI, May 3).
USFS Tells MVP To Rethink Appalachian Trail Crossing
In its filing with FERC last week, USFS said MVP “should develop and evaluate additional construction alternatives and/or mitigation measures...in order to gain consistency with the scenic integrity objectives” for the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.
The USFS recommendation came after a site visit last month at MVP’s planned crossing of the trail that was attended by representatives from USFS and MVP, as well as other stakeholders.
As proposed, MVP’s “conventional bore site on the south (Virginia) side of the [trail] would be visible to hikers traveling west...and the removal of tree canopy associated with the pipeline corridor will be visible to hikers traveling in both directions. The proposed bore site on the north (West Virginia) side of the footpath would be visible to hikers traveling in both directions and the removal of vegetation, including understory and overstory, will be visible to hikers traveling in both directions on the footpath,” USFS wrote.
MVP spokeswoman Natalie Cox told NGI Tuesday that the project’s environmental team has been working closely with USFS throughout the siting process. MVP “will evaluate potential alterations that are able to meet MVP’s technical and constructability requirements, as well as those of the USFS. We are confident that any route modifications will lie within the existing study corridor for which MVP survey activities have been completed; therefore, we do not anticipate any additional delay to our proposed schedule.”
The latest obstacles for MVP and ACP come as the Pennsylvania-to-New York Constitution Pipeline, another Appalachian Basin takeaway project, has been stalled over a permit denial in New York state (see Shale Daily, April 25). The legal battle over the pipeline’s future began to heat up this week, with New York’s attorney general calling on FERC to investigate Constitution for allegedly cutting trees and taking other unauthorized actions for the project (see Shale Daily, May 16).
ACP and MVP both submitted applications with FERC last fall and have similar aspirations of connecting producing areas in the Appalachian Basin to markets in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic (see Daily GPI, Oct. 23, 2015; Sept. 18, 2015). Both are targeting in-service dates in late 2018.
The 1.5 Bcf/d, 600-mile ACP is backed by Dominion, Duke Energy, Piedmont Natural Gas and AGL Resources. The 2 million Dth/d, 301-mile MVP is a joint venture between EQT Midstream Partners LP, NextEra US Gas Assets LLC, Con Edison Gas Midstream LLC, WGL Midstream, Vega Midstream MVP LLC and RGC Midstream LLC.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/106457-marcellus-to-southeast-takeaway-projects-hitting-more-snags-in-wv-va
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E&C Approves Ozone Delay Legislation
May 18, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen
The House Energy and Commerce Committee today approved legislation that would delay the 2015 ozone standard from being implemented by a party-line vote of 30-23.
H.R. 4775, the Ozone Standards Implementation Act, would extend state deadlines to submit implementation plans for the new ozone standard of 70 parts per billion until 2026.
The bill also would extend the statutory review cycle for all of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards from five years to ten years, and would order EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee to provide advice to EPA on the “adverse” effects on areas like the economy and welfare of new air standards, among other things.
The committee approved an amendment expanding the ozone delay to cover minor as well as major stationary sources seeking pre-construction permits, as well as an amendment ordering EPA to conduct peer-reviewed studies on wintertime ozone formation and the contribution of NOx, volatile organic compounds and other pollutants in ozone formation.
Democrats and environmentalists say the bill will weaken key environmental protections, as has the Obama administration, which has not yet issued a veto threat.
The bill was approved in subcommittee last week on a party line vote.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Moniz Dismisses Trump’s Call to Change Climate Deal
May 18, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz says he doesn’t think a future president will be able to undo President Obama’s climate work.
Moniz dismissed presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s call to renegotiate or ignore the Paris climate deal, saying at a Politico event Wednesday that “that’s a hypothetical that I don’t expect to come.”
Moniz said he wouldn’t directly comment on Trump’s promise to Reuters on Tuesday that “at a minimum I will be renegotiating those agreements.” Trump said the deal was unfair, economically, to the United States economy.
But Moniz noted the climate deal has built-in reassessments over the next few decades. He said, though, that countries should use those to ramp up the greenhouse gas reduction commitments they enshrined last year in the Paris deal.
“Clearly, we have essentially every country in the world having made [contributions] and are moving forward with that,” he said.
“But I remind you that there is, within the agreement, a mechanism for revisiting, in the sense of five-year revisits, with the idea that countries, hopefully, as costs go down for technologies, will be having greater ambition going forward as we meet increasingly stringent targets for the years and decades ahead.”
The United States, under the Obama administration, has vowed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025.
Moniz said rolling back Obama’s other climate work will be difficult for any future president, noting the challenge of undoing formal rulemaking, continued industrial adjustment to cleaner energy and the prospect for future legislation on climate change, something Moniz said “I believe we will reach.”
“The innovation agenda is going to make this clean energy future much more attractive, both for climate reasons and for things like energy security,” he said of the U.S. following through on its climate commitments.
“I believe that mother nature is speaking to us with a louder and louder voice about the need to address these issues.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/280320-energy-secretary-dismisses-trumps-call-to-fix-climate-deal
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Why Trump’s Idea of ‘Renegotiating’ the Paris Climate Agreement is So Bizarre
May 18, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made what appeared to be some of his most extensive comments yet about international climate change negotiations.
In particular, Trump said he didn’t like the Paris climate agreement, recently signed by 175 countries, including the United States, and would either renegotiate it or do something more than that.
“I will be looking at that very, very seriously, and at a minimum I will be renegotiating those agreements, at a minimum. And at a maximum I may do something else,” Trump told Reuters. “But those agreements are one-sided agreements and they are bad for the United States.”
The main reason given, in the Reuters story about the interview, was that Trump didn’t believe other countries would comply with what Paris requires. “Not a big fan because other countries don’t adhere to it, and China doesn’t adhere to it, and China’s spewing into the atmosphere,” he said.
Environmental groups quickly denounced the statements — which appear more baffling than a rehash of Trump’s overall climate change skepticism.
Consider some of the things that don’t make much sensTrump suggests the agreement is “one-sided” or “bad” for the United States. It’s not entirely clear why he believes that, but if the implication is that it imposes something on us from outside, that isn’t how the agreement works. Under Paris, each country makes its own individual commitments to reduce emissions. The United States sets its own targets, in pledges made to the United Nations, and like every other country, it is supposed to increase them over time. Thus, in the end, the United States does as much as it can or wants to under Paris.
In fairness, the agreement certainly does assume that all countries are earnestly committed to cutting emissions. The current U.S. pledge, to reduce emissions 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, is fairly ambitious, and without such a pledge by the world’s second largest emitter, the Paris agreement would have been harder to reach.
Equally surprising is Trump’s assertion that China “doesn’t adhere” to the Paris agreement.e about what Trump appears to be saying, in light of what the Paris agreement actually is and how it works.
China’s commitments, too, are self-generated under the agreement, but no less significant for that reason. Getting on the same page with the world’s top emitter, as President Obama did in late 2014, was key to setting the world on the road to achieving Paris. And if China did balk at those commitments — a commitment, principally, to peak its greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030 and to “make best efforts to peak early” — that would pose a problem just like any balking by the United States would.
For the agreement to work, countries individually have to live up to what they say they’re going to do — which then gives the entire agreement credibility in the eyes of its many parties. That’s the nature of the Paris game. And there will be many tests ahead to see whether this all actually works as intended.
But we don’t really have any reason right now to think China isn’t serious about the Paris accord. If anything, there is evidence suggesting that China could peak its emissions, and start reducing them, well before 2030. The country is striving to burn less coal and ramp up renewable electricity production.
It is, in fact, leading the world in both areas. Last year China invested more than any other country — and twice as much as the United States — in clean energy, at $ 110.5 billion, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. And more plug-in electric vehicles were sold in China last year than in any other country.
Most of all, though, the problem with Trump’s statement it that it isn’t clear what renegotiating the Paris agreement would even mean, or look like. The agreement is the result of a multi-year process through the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change, and one that 195 countries already agreed to after assembling their negotiators in Paris in an enormous, long-planned event. You don’t just suddenly pull them all back into a room and require changes.
Indeed, if ongoing ratification efforts move fast enough, it’s possible that the agreement could come into force this year, binding a future hypothetical president Trump to comply with it. Even if he wanted to, Trump then couldn’t completely withdraw, once the agreement is in force, for four years.
“Countries gave considerable thought in Paris to creating a durable agreement that would outlive occasional lapses in political will,” said Nigel Purvis, the president and CEO of Climate Advisers, in an April interview with The Washington Post.
Among all these hurdles to renegotiating the Paris agreement, there’s also this: Trump would be negotiating with, among others, Patricia Espinosa, the new executive secretary of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change. Espinosa was previously the minister of foreign affairs for Mexico under then-President Felipe Calderón, who has slammed Trump for his pledge to build a “huge” wall on the Mexican border and make the Mexican government pay for it.
Calderón said of Trump: “We won’t pay a single cent for that stupid wall. It’s pathetic. . . . Trump is completely demagogical.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/05/18/why-trumps-idea-of-renegotiating-the-paris-climate-agreement-is-so-bizarre/
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