Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 5/23
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TSCA Modernization Act of 2015
May 23, 2016 | The Energy and Commerce Committee
Location: H-313 / 5:00 PM -
Impact of EPA’s Clean Power Plan on States
May 26, 2016 | Committee on Science, Space & Technology, Environment Subcomittee
Location: 2318 Rayburn House Office Building / 9:30 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) US Lawmakers Release Negotiated TSCA Bill Text
May 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Text of the compromise bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) has been publicly released, following yesterday’s announcement that negotiators had reached agreement. -
(ACC Mentioned) Agreement Reached on Lautenberg Chemical Safety Bill
May 20, 2016 | NJ.com
By Jonathan D. Salant
Legislation to update a 40-year-old law requiring that chemicals be tested for safety could pass Congress as early as next week as U.S. House and Senate lawmakers agreed on a compromise bill. -
(ACC Mentioned) The Near-Final TSCA Reform Legislation – A Rundown
May 21, 2016 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Andy Igrejas
On Tuesday night a “final draft” of legislation to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) became quasi-public and a vote is expected in both houses of Congress next week. Staff from both chambers have been meeting since February to reconcile the Senate and House versions of reform that passed last year. -
Distinguished European Scientists Challenge Endocrine Pseudoscience
May 20, 2016 | Science 2.0
By Gregory Bond
Last week I wrote about how a consensus statement released by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) on criteria for identifying endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) supported a risk-based approach to identifying and managing EDCs, but ironically, the EU nevertheless seems stubbornly committed to taking a hazard-only based approach to the issue. -
Rules Committee to Set Vote on Final TSCA Bill
May 23, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Sam Pearson
The House Rules Committee will take the first step this evening to set up a vote on final legislation to reauthorize the nation's chemicals law, which could come as soon as tomorrow. -
House Tees Up Vote for Final TSCA Bill, Releases Text
May 20, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
House lawmakers released the final text of a proposed deal to reauthorize the nation's chemical law this afternoon as lawmakers, state agencies and interest groups continued to jockey for changes to the bill. -
House, Senate Roll Out Chemical Safety Compromise
May 20, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Leading lawmakers in the House and Senate on Friday unveiled a compromise chemical safety overhaul bill after months of negotiations. -
Lawmakers Reach A Deal To Expand Regulation Of Toxic Chemicals
May 20, 2016 | NPR
By Geoff Brumfiel
House and Senate negotiators have agreed on a plan to update a 40-year-old law regulating the safety of chemicals. -
Week Ahead: Chemical Safety Bill Nears Finish Line
May 23, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
If everything goes according to plan, the House and Senate will fast-track a compromise chemical safety bill in the coming week and deliver it to President Obama for his signature by Memorial Day. -
Chemical Bill's Preemption Provisions Panned as Vote Nears
May 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The House released a bill May 20 that reconciles the House and Senate's separate measures to revamp the Toxic Substances Control Act. -
Final TSCA Reform Bill Would Give Major Boost To EPA's Toxics Oversight
May 23, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Lawmakers' final compromise bill to overhaul the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) would significantly boost EPA's authority to regulate chemicals, including mandating reviews of whether existing substances are safe; setting deadlines for restricting chemicals deemed unsafe; and requiring safety findings before new substances enter the marketplace. -
Sanders Pans Chemical Safety Reform Deal
May 20, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders slammed the compromise chemical safety bill unveiled Friday, saying it does too much to prevent states from regulating dangerous substances. -
Sanders Opposes TSCA Deal
May 20, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darren Goode
Sen. Bernie Sanders today came out against a bicameral deal overhauling the decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act chemical safety law because he says it goes too far in blocking state action. -
General Mills Wins Reversal of TCE Class Certification
May 20, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Perry Cooper
General Mills successfully challenged certification of a class of homeowners alleging the company's former plant contaminated their properties (Ebert v. Gen. Mills Inc., 2016 BL 161161, 8th Cir., No. 15-1735, 5/20/16). -
(ACC Mentioned) Oversight of U.S. Energy
May 23, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Mark Barteau
I wish to respond to the opinion piece by Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, in C&EN’s April 4 issue (page 26). -
House Subcommittee Plans Clean Power Plan Hearing
May 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on the Environment will hold a hearing May 26 to gather state perspectives on the impact of the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, according to a notice. -
House Bill Adds Controversial Measures Ahead of Conference
May 23, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
The long-awaited conference committee that will resolve differences between the House and Senate's competing energy bills is expected to take at least an initial step this week, as lawmakers race the clock in the hopes of getting the first major energy bill signed into law in nearly a decade. -
House Unveils 806-Page Energy Package in Response to Senate Energy Bill
May 20, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Andrew Restuccia
The House Rules Committee published an 806-page amendment to the Senate's energy bill today that will serve as the chamber's opening gambit in pending conference negotiations. -
New Report Shows Importance of Clean Power Plan
May 23, 2016 | The Hill - Pundits Blog
By Daniel Cohan
Power plant emissions of carbon dioxide have been falling for a decade, even without national regulations. However, further progress could cease in the absence of the Clean Power Plan, whose fate awaits hearings by the Supreme Court and U.S. Court of Appeals. -
Former Obama DOE Official Set to Critique 'Stupid Regulations'
May 23, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Amanda Reilly
A former Obama administration official plans this week to tell lawmakers that the Clean Power Plan is "ideological mumbo jumbo" and that the government would be better off investing more money into clean energy and fossil fuel technologies. -
Chemical Breakdown: Part 2
May 20, 2016 | Houston Chronicle
By Mark Collette and Matt Dempsey
In an instant, his face was on fire. Flames burned Anselmo Lopez’s arms and chest, and the explosion knocked back three co-workers whose eardrums burst. -
EPA Approves Alternatives to Ozone-Depleting Substances
May 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency is approving four alternative substances for use in refrigeration, air conditioning and food processes as part its Significant New Alternatives Policy for substances that deplete the ozone layer. -
What Are Donald Trump’s Views on Climate Change? Some Clues Emerge
May 20, 2016 | The New York Times
By Erica Goode
So far, Donald J. Trump has said very little about climate change and energy policy beyond his Twitter posts on the issues.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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TSCA Modernization Act of 2015
May 23, 2016 | The Energy and Commerce Committee
Location: H-313 / 5:00 PM
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Impact of EPA’s Clean Power Plan on States
May 26, 2016 | Committee on Science, Space & Technology, Environment Subcomittee
Location: 2318 Rayburn House Office Building / 9:30 AM
Witnesses:
The Honorable E. Scott Pruitt
Attorney General, State of Oklahoma
Ms. Brianne Gorod
Chief Counsel, Constitutional Accountability Center
The Honorable Charles McConnell
Executive Director, Energy and Environment Initiative, Rice University
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(ACC Mentioned) US Lawmakers Release Negotiated TSCA Bill Text
May 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Text of the compromise bill to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) has been publicly released, following yesterday’s announcement that negotiators had reached agreement.
In addition, a summary highlighting the main areas of compromise between the Senate and House reform bills has been issued by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Even in the final hours of negotiation, environmental officials from six states called on federal lawmakers to rethink certain provisions.
In a statement, they said the agreement bill, as announced Thursday, “goes too far” in preempting state authorities, and that “state authorities are excessively and unnecessarily preempted, in exchange for the promise of federal protection that is too meager” under the bill.
The letter was cosigned by leadership from the environmental offices of Washington, Connecticut, New York, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
At least one legislative change sought by the officials – to remove the “pause” provision that would block a state from regulating a chemical while EPA is evaluating it – remained in the final agreement text.
But according to analysis by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the agreement does narrow the scope of preemption from what had been put forward under the House-passed bill.
The House-Senate agreement, according to the EDF, preempts only state substance restrictions, “leaving common state actions like reporting, monitoring and other information requirements unimpaired”. This includes “unambiguous protection for past and future actions” for Proposition 65.
And the agreement clarifies that a state may take action to restrict a substance after an EPA assessment, if it is addressing a risk not considered at the federal level.
Richard Denison, lead senior scientist at the EDF, told Chemical Watch that the group “always knew [preemption] would be the first issue in this debate and the last issue in this debate”.
But the NGO holds that the agreement bill "would address critical flaws in TSCA" and supports its passage.
Industry groups, including the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (Socma), the American Cleaning Institute (ACI), and the Toy Industry Association (TIA) have also lent their support as news of the bill agreement has unfolded.
https://chemicalwatch.com/47521/us-lawmakers-release-negotiated-tsca-bill-text
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(ACC Mentioned) Agreement Reached on Lautenberg Chemical Safety Bill
May 20, 2016 | NJ.com
By Jonathan D. Salant
Legislation to update a 40-year-old law requiring that chemicals be tested for safety could pass Congress as early as next week as U.S. House and Senate lawmakers agreed on a compromise bill.
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act would require the Environmental Protection Agency to test chemicals using "sound and credible science" and impose regulations if they are shown to pose a health risk.
The EPA would set priorities for evaluating chemicals and would not first have to show they pose a potential risk. Manufacturers could ask the EPA to evaluate a particular chemical if they are willing to cover those costs.
The agreed-upon measure combined elements of the Senate legislationapproved in December and the House measure that passed that chamberlast June.
Chemical safety regulations initially were enacted in 1976, during the administration of President Gerald Ford. The original law exempted chemicals already being used, which prevented the federal government from later regulating asbestos. When he served in the Senate, Lautenberg (D-N.J.) spearheaded efforts to update the rules. He died in 2013 at age 89.
"I'm encouraged that we were able to come together to find agreement on chemical safety reform through a bill that honors the legacy of Senator Frank Lautenberg and will help keep American families and children safe from toxic chemicals," said U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who succeeded Lautenberg in the Senate.
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-6th Dist.), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and a co-sponsor of the initial House bill, is reviewing the final measure and is continuing talks, spokesman Anton Becker said.
The final legislation drew support from both industry groups and the environmental community.
"As with any compromise, this legislation balances the priorities and interests of multiple stakeholders, while producing an agreement that pragmatic industry, environmental, public health and labor groups can ultimately support," said former Rep. Cal Dooley (D-Calif.), president and chief executive of the Washington-based American Chemistry Council.
Still, Jeff Tittel, president of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said his organization would oppose the Lautenberg bill because it allows the federal government to prevent states from imposing tougher regulations of chemicals. State restrictions enacted on or after April 22 could be pre-empted by federal regulations, though they could apply for waivers.
"That to us is a deal killer," Tittel said. "I don't think the senator would support weakening protections in New Jersey."
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/05/agreement_reached_on_lautenberg_chemical_safety_bi.html
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(ACC Mentioned) The Near-Final TSCA Reform Legislation – A Rundown
May 21, 2016 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Andy Igrejas
On Tuesday night a “final draft” of legislation to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) became quasi-public and a vote is expected in both houses of Congress next week. Staff from both chambers have been meeting since February to reconcile the Senate and House versions of reform that passed last year. Our coalition laid out our preferred vision for how to do that in a February 1stletter signed by 133 diverse organizations.
The release of the draft was not without controversy. Basically four parties had been involved in the discussions: the Republican and Democratic staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and the Republican and Democratic staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. House Democrats did not sign off on the Tuesday draft. Congressman Tonko announced yesterday that he is opposing it. The House Rules Committee posted arevised version of the bill yesterday afternoon that under House procedures should be near final. We are told that negotiations continue. And we hope that’s true, as you’ll see below.
We have been too busy trying to improve the bill to comment on the draft in detail, but it seems timely to do so now.
The bottom line is that the bill is a significant improvement over the 2013 version that was introduced by Senator Vitter and the late Senator Lautenberg. That bill – essentially a deal between the American Chemistry Council and the Environmental Defense Fund – would have been a disaster for public health and the environment according to just about every other expert in this area. I don’t bring that up to be gratuitous but to highlight that because of a lot of hard work by people across the country as well as in Congress, the bill has changed. The new version strikes a better balance. It improves current law in many ways and, depending on implementation by EPA, should do some good. Unfortunately, it still goes backwards in a few important ways that reflect the enormous lobbying and political strength of the chemical industry.
At least as of this writing, the backward elements likely mean the broader public health community won’t be able to support the bill. If it could be further improved, it would make a difference. Our coalition members from diverse constituencies and our many activists who worked so hard on this should be proud of the impact we’ve had. We can’t exactly say, however, that the system worked.
Here is a rundown of the bill’s highlights in as plain English as I can manage for such a complex policy.Key Issue: Empowering EPA to Take Action
Bottom line: The core of the bill is weaker than what we wanted, but it is an improvement over current law and a major improvement over the 2013 bill.
The single biggest driver for reform is that under current law, EPA faces significant legal barriers that have prevented it from taking action on even the worst chemicals, like asbestos. Part of the problem stems from the law itself and part from a 1991 court decision that struck down EPA’s attempt to ban asbestos. (Court decisions that broadly impact public policy are known as “case law.”)
The key test for reform, therefore, is whether it addresses these legal barriers. The good news is that here, at least, the bill is an improvement over current law. The strict cost-benefit standard at issue in the court case has been changed to be a “health-only” standard. The requirement that EPA choose the “least burdensome” way of regulating a chemical (also a key factor in the asbestos court case) is removed.
Furthermore, the bill requires that EPA identify any populations that are disproportionately exposed to a toxic chemical (such as workers in a particular industry) or which are disproportionately susceptible to injury from the chemical (such as small children.) Any restrictions must protect these groups and not just the “average” person. Chemicals that persist in the environment and build up in the food chain (ending up in people) are put at the front of the line and get faster treatment. These are clear improvement too. The broad public health, environmental, labor and environmental justice communities were heard on these points.
On the downside, the bill still places a significant analytical burden on the EPA to justify the restrictions that it puts in place. The burden of proof is still on the EPA, rather than the industry (the same as now). The whole process – from evaluating to imposing restrictions on the chemical – can take from 5 to 7 years.Key Issue: State Authority or “Preemption”
Bottom line: The preemption provisions are substantially better than the 2013 bill, but still significantly weaker than current law and weaker than the House bill. They could have a real-world negative impact in the near future, especially for fire fighters who have pursued recent and pending state flame retardant bans.
The states have led the way in taking action against toxic chemicals during the many years that EPA has been hamstrung by TSCA. In fact their activity is the main thing that drove chemical companies to seek federal reforms. California is most famous for policies like Prop 65 (those little warnings about cancer and birth defects). Several other states have been leaders in this area too, including Washington, Maine, Minnesota, Vermont and Oregon. One of the only bright spots of the current law is that it allowed for this to happen. Under current law, states are allowed to restrict a chemical as they see fit unless EPA decides to impose its own restrictions. At that point, states can co-enforce the restriction, apply for a waiver, or ban the use of the chemical in the state. Because EPA never really imposed many restrictions (as per the court case above) the instance of when a state would be blocked from doing its own thing (known legally as “preemption”) was never tested.
This is an area where the new bill is significantly weaker than current law. A reasonable compromise position would have been to expand preemption to instances when EPA declares a chemical safe in exchange for the new powers described above. The House bill largely adopted this framework but it was abandoned in the final days when the chemical industry prevailed on House Republicans to adopt the Senate provisions. (Representative Tonko cited this policy change specifically.)
For background, the 2013 Senate bill staked out a position of wildly over-reaching preemption and dragged the debate far to the side of industry. Under that deal, states would have been blocked from restricting a chemical when EPA declared the chemical a high or low priority, years before EPA contemplated action (or in the case of “low priority” when they were declaring that theywouldn’t take action.) The preemption was also sweeping in its scope and states were even banned from “co-enforcing” federal restrictions, a ludicrous idea since most enforcement occurs at the state level. In short, that deal dug a very deep hole on this issue. We’ve dug most of the way out, but some people are still left down in the hole. I’ll explain why.
The final deal describes a set of state activities that are not preempted: laws dealing with air, water, waste, information collection and reporting, or which are delegated from the authority of another federal law (like OSHA). State actions that have been taken as of April 22ndof this year, will stand, regardless of what EPA does. Future state actions under laws passed before 2003 will also be exempted from preemption. This last provision is designed to accommodate California’s Prop 65. These exemptions – known legally as “grandfathering” – are all helpful from a public health standpoint.
But what about the future? The final bill includes a complicated deal struck by Senate Democrats last spring and further modified two weeks ago by an agreement between Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe. States are blocked from taking action early in the process of EPA’s review of the chemical, which can take up to 4 years. If EPA declares the chemical unsafe, states are allowed to step back in and impose restrictions while the EPA considers its own restrictions. When EPA finishes its own restrictions, the preemption takes effect again. Senator Boxer recently secured a grace period for states, whereby if they act in the 12 months following the EPA’s proposal to review the chemical, they are exempted from the early preemption. They have to apply for a waiver.
Hard to follow? Don’t blame yourself! The complicated provision reflects the chemical industry’s undue influence. So much of the drama of this debate has been caused by trying to work around it. The industry made this unprecedented early preemption a “must have.” The Boxer deal is helpful from a practical standpoint but it has two flaws: It did not include the EPA “Work Plan” chemicals, 90 of the worst chemicals already identified by the agency, and it requires a waiver process which will waste time and resources. Recent and pending state policies – particularly around toxic flame retardant chemicals – are still highly likely to be blocked by the bill. That means millions of people, and fire fighters in particular, will be exposed to these chemicals for years in those states. In the interest of political realism – and because of the clear public health impacts – we have focused on getting those chemicals included in the Boxer fix in these final days and removing the need for a waiver to make the grace period administratively easier.
Key Issue: Imported ProductsBottom line: This is a bad provision that will undermine the credibility of the whole system if/when a toxic chemical in an imported product causes a new scandal.
One of the benefits of the House bill was that it avoided a collection of rollbacks to EPA authority that were present in the Senate bill. The most important of these was to an obscure but important authority that relates to imported products. Unfortunately, the final draft bill includes this provision. Since so many products are imported, it’s a big deal.
The provision makes it very difficult compared to current law for EPA to require notification when a chemical is getting into the country in an imported product. It’s important because EPA chemical evaluations will necessarily be a snapshot in time. EPA will look at a chemical and how it is used and decide if restrictions are necessary. It might decide, for example, that a chemical is OK when used as part of an industrial process, but poses too much risk when used in the home. But how will EPA know if the use patterns of the chemical change in the future? The answer is a mechanism called a Significant New Use Rule or SNUR. EPA can require notification if the production of the chemical increases or if it is present in a consumer product including an imported product. It can then decide if the restrictions need to be updated to reflect the new reality and preserve public safety.
The political push to rollback this authority is driven by a consortium of companies, led by the auto industry but also including Intel and Boeing. They were all affected a few years ago when EPA restricted a toxic flame retardant called PBDE. The agency required notification about imported products (called “articles” under the law) and the companies did not like the hassle of being swept into a TSCA requirement.
In the final days of the TSCA discussion, this provision resurfaced as “the auto thing.” Literally, that’s what people are calling it. The problem is it applies to all imported products: toys, shoes, clothes, etc. In the interest of political reality and trying to ensure as much public health protection as possible, we’ve asked if the damage from this provision could at least be limited to automobiles, maybe aviation parts, if needed. Do we really want to make it harder for EPA to track down chemicals in the vast category of products that come in from overseas?
Key Issue: Will More Chemicals Be Tested?Bottom line: The final draft bill expands EPA’s testing authority in important ways though it falls short of what is required by Europe or in other federal programs that relate to the safety of substances.
The first major problem with current law is that EPA can’t act against even a very toxic chemical. The next major problem is that there is not even basic toxicity information for most chemicals. In other words, we don’t know whether most chemicals are toxic or not. Unlike with pesticides or drugs, chemicals are not required to have even a minimum amount of information to get on or stay on the market. EPA’s ability to require testing is limited to the administratively clunky mechanism of a formal rulemaking. That process requires proposed and final regulations, notice and comment, and it can be litigated. EPA has used it 200 times since 1976, while there are 84,000 or so chemicals on the market. Clearly, we want toxicity testing to be something that is more routine for any chemical that is being released into the environment, our homes and our workplaces.
The chemical industry drew a line in the sand against minimum information requirements like those imposed in Europe. The final draft bill gives EPA the ability to require testing on a case-by-case basis through the administratively less complicated provision of an “order.” However, it limits this expanded authority to a set of scenarios that are inadequate. For example, it can order testing if needed to decided whether to prioritize a chemical, to inform the formal safety evaluations described in the first section, or in response to a request by another agency.
But what about cases like the 2014 spill in West Virginia, when thousands of people were exposed to a chemical with barely any publicly available health and safety data? Or what about the case that is increasingly common, whereby major players in industry are moving away from a toxic chemical and want to know for sure whether the replacement is safer? What about when scientists discover something strange is going on with a wildlife population, like the intersex fish in the Potomac, and they ask EPA to require testing on a set of compounds that could be the culprit? The House bill allowed for a testing order based on the straightforward finding that the chemical “may present” an unreasonable risk. This order authority was excluded from the Tuesday draft, but appears to be included now. It makes a big difference.Key Issue: Will More Information Be Made Public?
Bottom line: More information should be made public as a result of the bill, but the identity-shielding provisions will continue to play a role in environmental scandals, like the recent one around the DuPont compound known as PFOA.
One of the issues that drove reform is the abuse of provisions for Confidential Business Information (CBI.) Everyone, including industry, agreed that this was a problem but solving it has proved tricky. The bill cleans up some of the abuses, but it technically goes backwards from current law on the issue of chemical “identity.”
Identity in this context refers to scientific name of the chemical compound, ie. methylhexylyah-yah. Companies argue that when it comes to chemicals the identity is the technology and if you make it public, you are giving away their technology for free. For that reason, the EPA evolved a practice of masking the identity of the chemical even in the context of a health and safety study. Current law says health and safety studies cannot be hidden from the public. The practice of masking identity is well-entrenched but not supported by the law.
There are broader problems with CBI, where companies routinely declare information CBI even though there is not a legitimate business reason. There is a backlog of CBI claims that have never been vetted. The good news is the bill requires the vetting of these claims going forward, and also re-substantiation of past claims. It also allows the sharing of CBI with state governments and health providers or emergency responders dealing with a potential injury. The bad news is that the chemical identity and that of mixtures are explicitly made eligible to be hidden if justified to EPA, which is a weakening of the current law, if not the current practice.Conclusion
There are other issues in the legislation. EPA will have the ability to raise fees to fund its chemicals reviews for example. Controversial science guidance has mostly been pared back. The provisions for prioritizing chemicals appear to be more or less OK. Provisions for new chemicals, which previously took away EPA authority, now, at least on paper, should enhance it. However, the five “key issues” described above are the “big ticket” items. If these last improvements identified in this blog can be included it will make a difference to public health and the environment.
http://saferchemicals.org/2016/05/21/e-near-final-tsca-reform-legislation-a-rundown/
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Distinguished European Scientists Challenge Endocrine Pseudoscience
May 20, 2016 | Science 2.0
By Gregory Bond
Last week I wrote about how a consensus statement released by the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) on criteria for identifying endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) supported a risk-based approach to identifying and managing EDCs, but ironically, the EU nevertheless seems stubbornly committed to taking a hazard-only based approach to the issue. Such a decision is likely to lead to fewer choices and higher costs for European consumers without resulting in any real public health benefits.
Very much concerned about the direction that the European Commission might take on EDCs, a small group of distinguished European scientists (Prof. Sir Colin Berry, Prof. Alan Boobis, Prof. Wolfgang Dekant, Prof. Daniel Dietrich, Prof. Helmut Greim, Prof. Pat Heslop-Harrison and Prof. Richard Sharpe) who are well-known experts on the topics of chemical risk assessment and endocrine active compounds, recently initiated a meeting with Dr. Vytenis Andriukaitis, Commissioner of Health&Food Safety during which they expressed identical concerns to the ones raised in my initial blog entry. Afterward, four of them, including three who signed the BfR consensus statement, took the unprecedented step of issuing a press release. in which they expressed their frustration “…it was emphasized that identification of EDCs is only the first step in the risk assessment of EDCs, but that potency and consideration of likely human exposure are necessary for any adequate evaluation of the human or environmental effects of EDCs”.
During their meeting with Dr. Andriukaitis and in the follow-up press release these well-respected scientists made the following additional points:
Public perception about EDCs and subsequent input to the European Parliament and Commission, are currently being dominated by a small group of scientists, NGOs and well-funded pressure groups, who categorically assert that EDCs and, even chemicals that display endocrine activity, but don't truly fulfill all the criteria to be confirmed as EDCs (i.e., they haven't been shown to cause adverse effects through an endocrine-mediated pathway) contribute to human cancer, reproductive disorders, obesity and type 2 diabetes.
The reality is that there is no robust, consistent scientific evidence to support such a dogmatic stance, and indeed most of the robust evidence points in the opposite direction.
Furthermore, there is no scientific justification for treating EDCs as a “special case” when considering their potential to do harm.
A substantial body of clinical evidence in humans demonstrates that thresholds of effect and safe dose levels can be established for EDCs and thus they can be managed according to the same well-established science and risk-based principles and processes as pertains to other chemical agents.
These scientists concluded by saying that they “...are confident that the current regulatory criteria for all potential EDCs can be developed by the Commission with the input of experienced toxicologists, endocrinologists and risk assessment professionals to enable the safe use of many compounds in a range of applications. In so doing, this will be achieved in a manner that ensures protection of human health and the environment, whilst maintaining the sustainability and competitiveness of the European economy.”
I applaud these scientists for their willingness to speak-out against pseudoscience and potentially bad regulation. They represent a silent majority who either do not have the time to engage on the issue or fear retribution from the pressure groups for doing so.
http://www.science20.com/endocrine_policy_perspectives/blog/distinguished_european_scientists_challenge_endocrine_pseudoscience-173159
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Rules Committee to Set Vote on Final TSCA Bill
May 23, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Sam Pearson
The House Rules Committee will take the first step this evening to set up a vote on final legislation to reauthorize the nation's chemicals law, which could come as soon as tomorrow.
The committee will review Senate amendments to a House bill passed last year, H.R. 2576, or the "TSCA Modernization Act."
The amendments incorporate changes negotiated between House and Senate lawmakers earlier this year. The final bill will be renamed to the "Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act," which was the original name for the bill that was introduced in the Senate last year, S. 697.
The product of months of bicameral negotiations, the bill would be the most significant environmental law enacted in decades. Lawmakers sought to thread a delicate compromise to protect industry interests while granting additional regulatory authority to U.S. EPA. The effort has had the support of groups like the Environmental Defense Fund and Moms Clean Air Force, but many other environment and public health groups remain unconvinced that the legislation will help consumers.
The final bill is being considered under a rule because Democratic defections prevented lawmakers from passing it under suspension, a process that requires a two-thirds majority.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Paul Tonko of New York, the lead Democrat on the Subcommittee on Environment and Economy, said last week they would oppose the legislation, calling it "worse than current law."
Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, said the bill should be able to pass even if Pallone and Tonko draw some other Democrats to their side.
The committee posted the text of the legislation Friday afternoon (E&ENews PM, May 20).
Senate leaders expect to then approve the bill under a unanimous consent agreement and send it to President Obama's desk by the end of the week.
Schedule: The Rules hearing is Monday, May 23, at 5 p.m. in H-313.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/05/23/stories/1060037660
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House Tees Up Vote for Final TSCA Bill, Releases Text
May 20, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Sam Pearson
House lawmakers released the final text of a proposed deal to reauthorize the nation's chemical law this afternoon as lawmakers, state agencies and interest groups continued to jockey for changes to the bill.
The House Rules Committee released a new version of the bill. It would keep the Senate's name for the legislation, the "Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act."
The Rules Committee will review the Senate amendments to H.R. 2576, or the "TSCA Modernization Act," in a meeting at 5 p.m. Monday, the committee said. Also being considered then are H.R. 897, or the "Zika Vector Control Act," and H.R. 5055, or the "Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act."
Hitching a ride on the final legislation is an unrelated bill, S. 1916, or the "Rural Health Care Connectivity Act," by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.).
Lawmakers continued to push for more changes to the bill. In a statement, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), the ranking member on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, called the bill "inadequate."
"We must have a strong national chemical program to protect Americans," Tonko said in a statement. "However, I am not convinced that the program that will be put into place by this bill justifies the unprecedented, new limitation of states' authorities."
Tonko added he recognized that the bipartisan nature of the bill meant some trade-offs were inevitable.
"Compromise means you don't get everything you want," Tonko said. "However, the inability of negotiators to budge at all on the pre-emption aspect of TSCA has forced me to respectfully oppose the bill in its current form."
California Secretary for Environmental Protection Matthew Rodriquez also weighed in for the first time on the final bill. Rodriquez credited Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) for securing changes to the bill but added more could be done to protect the state's residents.
"While there is still time to make changes to the text, we call on members of Congress to broadly protect states' regulatory authority by preserving TSCA's current provisions that allow states to ban dangerous chemicals, eliminating or further narrowing the scope of pre-emption when no federal protections apply to a toxic chemical, and ensuring that all chemicals U.S. EPA considers are subject to waiver provisions that may allow states to avoid pre-emption," Rodriquez said.
Boxer has described the California Environmental Protection Agency as playing a key supporting role during the negotiations. While both sides had hoped for a stronger bill, Boxer said last week, "My state EPA is very happy with it, so we're thrilled" (E&E Daily, May 10).
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders also weighed in against the deal this afternoon.
Sanders, an independent who is seeking the Democratic nomination for president, said the deal was harmful to his home state, which is trying to remove perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) from drinking water in some areas (Greenwire, May 20).
"While this legislation allows Vermont to continue enforcing existing state regulations to keep adults and children safe from toxic chemicals such as PFOA, it makes it more difficult for states to set new, stricter standards," Sanders said. "That makes no sense. Federal chemical regulations should be a floor, not a ceiling. States should not be stopped from going above and beyond minimum federal safety standards."
Sanders discussed the issue at a hearing of the Environment and Public Works Committee last year, before he launched his presidential campaign.
"We expect the majority party right now to go forward with massive cuts in the EPA," Sanders said then. "And now we're led to believe that it should not be states like Vermont or Massachusetts or California who have been vigorous in dealing with this issue, they should not have the responsibility to go forward, but it should be an EPA, which the Republicans want to substantially cut. Frankly, I don't think that passes the laugh test, if I may say so."
Sanders asked a single question of Jim Jones, EPA's assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention: "Isn't it true that this would weaken the ability of states like the state of Vermont to take action to limit toxic chemicals?"
"The state of Vermont would not be able to take action on a chemical that EPA designated as a high priority," Jones responded.
"OK," Sanders said. "Well, that is enough for me."
Sanders' Democratic primary opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, weighed in on the legislation in March, when she criticized a provision in the House bill that some stakeholders interpreted as favoring Monsanto Co. in litigation over polychlorinated biphenyls. A spokesman didn't respond when asked if Clinton favors the new version.
"Congress needs to finish its bipartisan work and update this law," Clinton said then.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group said in a statement that "in some ways" the bill would improve current law.
"There is a reason why the chemical industry supports this bill," the group said. "It handcuffs state regulators and takes 50 chemical cops off the beat. This proposal could best be characterized as one step forward and two steps back."
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/05/20/stories/1060037640
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House, Senate Roll Out Chemical Safety Compromise
May 20, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Leading lawmakers in the House and Senate on Friday unveiled a compromise chemical safety overhaul bill after months of negotiations.
The bipartisan bill, dubbed the Frank L. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, would reform the decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) after years of complaints that it is ineffective and causes uncertainty for businesses.
The legislation is the result of nearly a year and a half of intense legislative work and compromise and comes on the heels of numerous false starts and predictions that the reform effort would not succeed. Both chambers still must pass it, and President Obama must sign it.
“This bicameral agreement represents a vast improvement over current law and takes a thoughtful approach to protecting people all across the country from unsafe chemical exposure while setting a new standard for quality regulation,” Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and John Shimkus (R-Ill.), the chairmen of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and its environment subcommittee, said in a statement. “It’s good for jobs, good for consumers, and good for the environment.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the effort brought in more than 150 groups, the federal government, environmentalists, the chemical industry and others.
“This commonsense reform of TSCA will now provide regulatory certainty across America that will support the creation of more than 700,000 new jobs and more than $293 billion in permanent new domestic economic output by 2023,” he said. This historic piece of legislation also improves the safety of everyday products, from household cleaners to the material used to make our automobiles.”
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), the Democratic sponsor of the Senate’s original chemical reform bill, said the resulting product is a great improvement over current law.
“The new law will protect the most vulnerable, ensure [the Environmental Protection Agency] is testing all new chemicals and has the authority to take action if chemicals are unsafe, and it will provide EPA with resources — contributed by industry — to do its job,” he said.
Despite the buy-in from numerous constituencies, Reps Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), the top Democrats on Energy and Commerce and the environment subpanel, do not support the final version of the bill.
Pallone said earlier this week that he had multiple problems with the compromise, but his biggest objection was that it took too much power away from state environmental regulators to control harmful chemicals themselves if they do not believe the federal EPA has done enough.
“The problem is that the Republicans have made this bill, from what I understand, that the draft that they’re proposing, is weaker than the current law,” Pallone said Wednesday. “So there wouldn’t be any point in having it.”
Pallone did not respond to requests Friday for comment. But Tonko said in a statement that he opposes the legislation that was released.
“We must have a strong national chemical program to protect Americans,” he said. “However, I am not convinced that the program that will be put into place by this bill justifies the unprecedented, new limitation of states' authorities.”
Regulators in six liberal states agree with Pallone and Tonko’s concerns. They said in a joint statement late Thursday that the bill went too far in limiting states’ rights.
The opposition from Pallone and Tonko could doom the bill’s chances in the House. But Reps.Gene Green (D-Texas) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said that they disagree with their colleagues and support the measure.
“Our bipartisan, bicameral proposal will close the gap in the TSCA's shortcomings by requiring the EPA to protect our most vulnerable from unsafe chemicals,” said Green.
The bill is named after the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who worked for years to reform the TSCA until his death in 2013.
It would give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sweeping new authority and resources to order testing of and implement controls on thousands of potentially harmful chemicals. Under TSCA, the EPA has only banned six chemicals and hasn’t regulated a new one since 1990.
In return for the new rules that Democrats and environmental advocates wanted, Republicans and the chemical industry get to avoid a “patchwork” of state regulations. The bill would severely limit states’ rights to regulate chemicals, something on which they have taken the lead over the last few decades.
The House plans to take up the bill for a vote early next week, at which point the Senate can act and get the bill on Obama’s desk for his consideration by the end of the week.
The Obama administration has so far been supportive of the negotiations. The EPA said earlier this week that the latest draft its officials saw fit with the administration’s priorities and is a clear improvement over current law.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/280707-house-senate-roll-out-chemical-safety-compromise
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Lawmakers Reach A Deal To Expand Regulation Of Toxic Chemicals
May 20, 2016 | NPR
By Geoff Brumfiel
House and Senate negotiators have agreed on a plan to update a 40-year-old law regulating the safety of chemicals.
The bipartisan legislation would update the Toxic Substances Control Act, which became law in 1976. The original act gave the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to require testing and reporting of potentially harmful chemicals.
But as NPR's Jon Hamilton reports, the law didn't apply to most chemicals already on the market:
"It assumed that thousands of untested chemicals already in use were safe.
"The new legislation, if it becomes law, would require the EPA to begin evaluating those untested older chemicals. It would also allow federal regulations to pre-empt those adopted by states, even if the state regulations are more stringent."
The compromise bill — which the House and Senate are expected to vote on as soon as next week — is not universally supported. A group of House Democrats said in a statement that the legislation is "significantly weaker" than a previous House version of the bill as well as the 1976 law.
But backers say the final measure will significantly strengthen the decades-old regulation. "We have really a great bill here," James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said at a news conference Thursday.
The Oklahoma Republican noted that it has been backed both by industry and by environmental groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund.
"I wish I had the option to write the bill on my own. Believe me, it would have been much stronger," Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer of California said Thursday. "But I know if we want to make progress, we need to reach across the aisle. And as long as this is progress over the current situation, I am supporting it."
Inhofe says he hopes the legislation will be delivered to President Obama before the Memorial Day recess.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/20/478843876/lawmakers-agree-on-deal-to-expand-regulation-of-toxic-chemicals
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Week Ahead: Chemical Safety Bill Nears Finish Line
May 23, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
If everything goes according to plan, the House and Senate will fast-track a compromise chemical safety bill in the coming week and deliver it to President Obama for his signature by Memorial Day.
Lawmakers have finalized a reform package for the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) after years of complaints that the law was ineffective and confusing for industry.
The agreement gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) more authority to test products for harmful chemicals and ban those chemicals if needed. The bill also limits states' power to regulate chemicals on their own, a provision designed to give chemical producers more certainty about regulations on the industry.
If signed into law, the measure would be the first TSCA reform package in decades. Lawmakers spent more than a year and a half working on the deal, a process marked by open defections from important lawmakers and concerns a compromise package might never get done.
But key lawmakers -- a bipartisan, bicameral group that included Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) -- announced a final deal was imminent this week. Some members, including chief House Democratic negotiators Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.) and Paul Tonko (N.Y.), backed out of the process, but members are nonetheless confident the measure can clear Congress next week.
The final bill came out on Friday, and House Rules Committee will now consider it on Monday, setting up a final vote in the chamber later in the week. Senators also hope to pass the bill and send it to President Obama for his signature.
Chemical safety isn't the only thing on members' agenda next week.
The Rules Committee -- and then the full House -- will consider the chamber's $37.4 billion energy and water spending package for 2017 next week. The bill is slightly smaller than the package the Senate passed earlier this month, and it contains a host of environmental policy riders likely to turn off many Democrats.
House lawmakers will also take the procedural steps necessary to go to a conference committee with the Senate on an energy reform bill. If negotiators hatch a deal this year, it will be the first energy policy overhaul in nearly a decade.
Committees will hold a handful of hearings in the coming week, as well, including two on controversial EPA rules. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will meet to consider the "definition of Waters of the United States" on Tuesday, and the House Science Committee will hold a hearing on the impact of the EPA's power plant regulations on states on Thursday.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/280740-week-ahead-chemical-safety-bill-nears-finish-line
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Chemical Bill's Preemption Provisions Panned as Vote Nears
May 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The House released a bill May 20 that reconciles the House and Senate's separate measures to revamp the Toxic Substances Control Act.
For the first time, the nation's primary chemicals law would require the Environmental Protection Agency to evaluate the risks of chemicals in commerce. The bill also would make it easier for the EPA to obtain toxicity and other information to assess chemical risks, require chemical manufacturers to pay fees for services the agency provides, allow states access to confidential chemical information they may need to address spills or other situations and yet protect industry's ability to keep certain information confidential and out of competitors' hands.
Next Steps
The House Rules Committee will take up the bill, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 2576), May 23. As the leadership's traffic cop, the rules committee decides for how long and under what procedural rules the House will debate the bill (98 DEN A-2, 5/20/16).
The bill will go to the House floor for a vote the week of May 23, Matt Sparks, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), told Bloomberg BNA May 19.
The Senate will take up the bill following the House vote, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said at May 19 press conference (98 DEN A-1, 5/20/16).
The bill posted online has technical changes when compared to the widely circulated May 16 draft agreement, an aide from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce told Bloomberg BNA. For example, a sentence in the “replacement parts” portion of the bill was restructured giving it a more active voice.
The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee issued a summary of statements members of the House and Senate made supporting the bipartisan backed bill.
Flash Point: Preemption, Congressional Voices
As the final bill nears the House and Senate floors, some lawmakers objected to preemption provisions that remain. The provisions describe when states may regulate chemicals and when federal law would preempt them from doing so.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who also running for president, criticized the bill in a statement.
“While this legislation allows Vermont to continue enforcing existing state regulations to keep adults and children safe from toxic chemicals such as PFOA, it makes it more difficult for states to set new, stricter standards,” he said.
“Federal chemical regulations should be a floor, not a ceiling. States should not be stopped from going above and beyond minimum federal safety standards,” Sanders said.
Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, also issued a statement: “I am not convinced that the program that will be put into place by this bill justifies the unprecedented, new limitation of states’ authorities.”
Officials from Seven States Weigh In
Ken Zarker, section manager in Washington State's Department of Ecology, told Bloomberg BNA “a lot of good work has been done” on the bill, but it could be better.
States should be able to take regulatory action to manage a chemical's risks until the EPA takes a final action, he said.
The bill would strip states from taking certain actions—allowed under TSCA—to protect their residents, Zarker said.
A waiver process established in the bill is too complicated for states and the EPA, he said. States that have compelling reasons to regulate a chemical they would be preempted from managing could seek a waiver under the bill.
Environmental officials in California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Washington issued statements that also objected to the constraints on state chemical regulations they said remain in the bill.
“To be clear, there are good elements in the legislation. However, state authorities are excessively and unnecessarily preempted, in exchange for the promise of federal protection that is too meager,” six state officials wrote in a statement disseminated by Washington State's Department of Ecology.
State laws and regulations have in turn spurred marketplace changes and the federal government to improve chemical safety, the six officials said.
“The version of the reform bill currently under consideration contains broad preemption language that would effectively prevent states from banning chemicals and passing laws or updating regulations to address toxic chemicals affecting their people and environment,” the same officials wrote in a separate statement disseminated by New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation.
Matthew Rodriquez, California's Secretary for Environmental Protection, issued a statementsupporting TSCA reform and the extent to which Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and fellow Democrats already reduced the preemption in the bill.
The bill should be revised, however, to allow states to regulate more chemicals and ban dangerous chemicals, Rodriquez said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=90063151&vname=dennotallissues&fn=90063151&jd=90063151
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Final TSCA Reform Bill Would Give Major Boost To EPA's Toxics Oversight
May 23, 2016 | InsideEPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Lawmakers' final compromise bill to overhaul the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) would significantly boost EPA's authority to regulate chemicals, including mandating reviews of whether existing substances are safe; setting deadlines for restricting chemicals deemed unsafe; and requiring safety findings before new substances enter the marketplace.
The House-Senate compromise unveiled May 20 is slated for a House floor vote next week after the lower chamber's Rules Committee meets to discuss the bill May 23. Senators supportive of the measure have said that they hope the bill can clear the Senate and be sent to President Obama before the Memorial Day recess.
Although the agreement has led to rare bipartisan support from lawmakers often opposed on EPA policies -- with backing from Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK) and ranking member Barbara Boxer (D-CA), among others -- it still has some Democratic opponents. A handful of House Democrats have publicly stated their opposition, and it is unclear how many will vote against the final measure.
Senators at a May 19 press conference nevertheless expressed confidence in the bill, saying the compromise would lead to a much-needed overhaul of TSCA to give EPA new oversight on chemicals.
The bill would create new EPA powers to regulate both new and existing chemicals, include the thousands purportedly grandfathered under current law, and amending language that an appellate court in 1991 found barred EPA from banning asbestos -- one of the few times the agency has sought to ban an existing chemical.
The pact follows negotiations that began late last year between leaders on the House Energy & Commerce Committee and EPW to reconcile a narrow House bill, H.R. 2576, authored by Rep. John Shimkus (R-ILL), with a more comprehensive Senate bill, S. 697, authored by Sens. David Vitter (R-LA) and Tom Udall (D-NM).
The final bill, which is 208 pages, appears to retain much of the framework established in the Senate's broad version of TSCA reform legislation and the narrower TSCA reform bill approved by the House.
“We are on the cusp here of delivering an agreement, which is a major agreement, in terms of protecting the health and safety of American families,” said Udall at the May 19 press conference.
He noted that the 1991 decision on asbestos “made this law useless” and that the TSCA overhaul would give the agency new authority to target chemicals of concern. The final TSCA compromise is “putting the top cop back on the job to look at safety and that is the EPA,” he said.
EPA Authorities
Among the new authorities the bill would create for EPA is expanding the agency's testing authority to compel new data to be developed for chemicals when deemed necessary to review whether a new chemical should be allowed to enter the marketplace or to perform a safety review on an existing chemical.
The final bill would require EPA to develop within a year of enactment of those provisions a risk-based screening process and criteria for identifying at least 10 high priority existing chemicals to be flagged for safety assessment and determination as well as low-priority chemicals believed to meet the safety standard.
EPA would in the list of chemicals have to give preference to chemicals currently listed in the agency's 2014 work plan for reviewing chemicals under current TSCA authority and those that are believed to, “with respect to persistence and bioaccumulation, score high for 1 and either high or moderate for the other.”
Within five years of enactment, EPA would have to ensure that at least 25 high- and 25- low priority chemicals had been identified, with an interim period of three years for having listed at least 20 substances within each prioritization category.
The bill also would assert a new definition of “safety standard” to be used in EPA determinations on whether chemicals are safe, barring EPA from taking into consideration cost or other non-risk factors in evaluating whether a chemical poses “unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment” under its conditions of use.
In addition, the bill would set first-time deadlines for EPA to restrict high-priority substances within two years of completing and publishing a safety assessment and determination under section 6 of TSCA, removing language that EPA must identify the “least burdensome” option that stymied the agency's efforts to ban asbestos.
Additionally, the bill would include Senate-crafted language sought by animal rights activists to minimize whole animal use in toxicity testing, which some House lawmakers urged Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ), top Democrat on the House energy panel, to support.
For example, EPA would have to within two years of passage develop a strategic plan to promote the development and implementation of alternative test methods to “reduce, refine, or replace” the use of vertebrate animals, including toxicity pathway-based risk assessment, in vitro studies, computational toxicology, and other methods.
State Preemption
Boxer had blocked the Senate TSCA reform measure for many months last year over concerns that it too broadly preempted state chemical safety laws.
But she highlighted during the May 19 press conference several improvements made to the bill since its introduction -- including resolving her concerns on preemption.
For example, Boxer said, the negotiated agreement would give states a set period of time to take action and limit the time of preemption to 3.5 years if the federal government fails to complete the process to regulate a chemical.
Under the final bill, new state requirements would be preempted for a time period beginning when the agency defines and publishes the scope of a safety assessment under section 6 and ending when the deadline for completing the safety determination expires, or when the determination is published, whichever is earlier.
EPA under the final bill would have to publish a safety assessment and determination within three years from the date the agency designates a substances as a high priority.“I believe our agreement is respectful of the federal government’s role and the state government’s role,” Boxer said in a May 19 prepared statement.
But Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY), in a May 20 statement said that he plans to oppose the bill in the House over the preemption language, saying “I am not convinced that the program that will be put into place by this bill justifies the unprecedented, new limitation of states’ authorities.”
Tonko, ranking member on the House energy panel's environment committee, voted for the original House H.R. 2576 bill but says that the “inability of negotiators to budge at all on the pre-emption aspect of TSCA has forced me to respectfully oppose the bill in its current form.”
Environmental officials from Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Washington also issued a May 20 statement saying, “[W]e are greatly concerned about pending TSCA reform legislation in the Congress that will restrict states’ abilities to protect their citizens from toxic chemicals.”
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/final-tsca-reform-bill-would-give-major-boost-epas-toxics-oversight
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Sanders Pans Chemical Safety Reform Deal
May 20, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders slammed the compromise chemical safety bill unveiled Friday, saying it does too much to prevent states from regulating dangerous substances.
The Vermont senator's position stands in contrast to a wide range of his colleagues in the upper chamber, even some of the most liberal, who supported the bill to reform the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act.
Sanders, who is behind Hillary Clinton in the race to be Democratic Party’s nominee, said he agrees with his colleagues that the TSCA is ineffective and needs updating.
“While this legislation allows Vermont to continue enforcing existing state regulations to keep adults and children safe from toxic chemicals such as [perfluorooctanoic acid], it makes it more difficult for states to set new, stricter standards. That makes no sense,” he said in a statement shortly after the compromise legislation was unveiled.
“Federal chemical regulations should be a floor, not a ceiling,” Sanders said. “States should not be stopped from going above and beyond minimum federal safety standards.”
The bill, which still must go through the House and Senate and get President Obama’s signature, gives the Environmental Protection Agency new authority to review and regulate thousands of chemicals, but it also greatly limits states’ ability to put in place their own chemical rules.
The preemption of state authority was a key sticking point for Democrats in negotiating toward the legislation. The Democrats successfully changed the bill enough so that Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and other liberals joined in to support it.
Sanders’s opinion aligns with that of the top environmental regulator in Vermont and in five other states, who pushed lawmakers Thursday night to give states more authority.
Sanders sits on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, and joined four of his colleagues last April in voted against a previous version of the chemical bill.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/280715-sanders-pans-chemical-safety-deal
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May 20, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Darren Goode
Sen. Bernie Sanders today came out against a bicameral deal overhauling the decades-old Toxic Substances Control Act chemical safety law because he says it goes too far in blocking state action.
"While this legislation allows Vermont to continue enforcing existing state regulations to keep adults and children safe from toxic chemicals … , it makes it more difficult for states to set new, stricter standards,” Sanders said in a statement issued from his Senate office. “That makes no sense. Federal chemical regulations should be a floor, not a ceiling. States should not be stopped from going above and beyond minimum federal safety standards.”
“We need legislation that improves regulation of toxic chemicals but does not block a state’s ability to ensure the health and safety of its people," he said.
Sanders is echoing concern from environmental officials from his home state of Vermont and five others — Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York and Washington State — who came out in opposition to the TSCA deal Thursday. Their criticism is also reflected in the opposition of Environment and the Economy Paul Tonko, who was one of the central House Democrats in the talks.
But it is still unclear whether last-minute changes were enough to win support from other House Democratic leaders — including Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone. Sources closely following the talks were optimistic they would come onboard but text is still being reviewed.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard#
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General Mills Wins Reversal of TCE Class Certification
May 20, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Perry Cooper
General Mills successfully challenged certification of a class of homeowners alleging the company's former plant contaminated their properties (Ebert v. Gen. Mills Inc., 2016 BL 161161, 8th Cir., No. 15-1735, 5/20/16).
Common issues don't predominate over all claims and the claims aren't sufficiently cohesive to support class certification, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled in a May 20 opinion by Judge C. Arlen Beam.
Minneapolis residents allege that General Mills Inc. caused the machine parts solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) improperly stored at the company's former plant to migrate onto their properties. Although the company has completed remediation projects in the past, the residents allege that TCE vapors now migrate into their homes, posing health risks.
The district court certified their claims. It bifurcated the action into two phases, liability and damages (42 DEN A-6, 3/4/15).
Manufactured Predominance
But the Eighth Circuit said bifurcating the case narrowed the question for which certification was sought. Doing so “limited the issues and essentially manufactured a case that would satisfy the Rule 23(b)(3) predominance inquiry,” the appeals court said.
Bifurcation “unravels and undoes any efficiencies gained by the class proceeding because many individual issues will require trial,” it said.
The Eighth Circuit also found the class wasn't cohesive enough to support certification of injunctive claims. “Remediation efforts on each of the affective properties, should they be awarded, will be unique,” the court said.
Judges Roger L. Wollman and Raymond W. Gruender also served on the panel.
Varga & Berger; Collins Law Firm; Zimmerman Reed; and Siegel Brill represented the plaintiffs.
Blackwell Burke and Faegre Baker represented General Mills.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=90063144&vname=dennotallissues&fn=90063144&jd=90063144
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(ACC Mentioned) Oversight of U.S. Energy
May 23, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Mark Barteau
I wish to respond to the opinion piece by Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, in C&EN’s April 4 issue (page 26). Gerard provides an overview of the benefits of the “shale gale” to the chemical industry, to the U.S. economy, and to workers. Others have described this as well, including the American Chemistry Council and the University of Michigan in our 2014 report “Shale Gas: A Game-Changer for U.S. Manufacturing.” Unfortunately, Gerard follows this review with a tired litany of complaints and half-truths about the impacts of environmental regulations on the U.S. energy industry, with the usual dogmatic solution of letting the market decide. When will industry learn that its arrogant dismissal of legitimate public concerns and public policy responses is its own biggest problem?
Those concerns run from cradle to end use of the products of the oil and gas industry; they are shared not only by the public but by other industries as well. For example, the Michigan report found that the leading concern of manufacturers in energy-intensive industries was their energy suppliers’ societal license to operate. Perhaps these industries might consider applying the market-driven tactics that Gerard advocates to improve the conduct of their suppliers in much the same way that companies in the apparel industry (such as Nike) have done.
Gerard levels the usual formulaic criticisms of environmental regulation by government. At a time when asthma rates continue to climb nationwide and local environmental crises are receiving national attention, it is very difficult for anyone but the most tone-deaf to argue that public health challenges can be effectively met by the free market.
Beyond that, Gerard’s characterization of the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan can be charitably labeled as a distortion. The principal target of the Clean Power Plan is coal, not natural gas; the emissions reductions can be met by a combination of carbon-free power generation and replacement of an aging fleet of coal-fired power plants with natural-gas-fueled plants. In the near and medium term, this will actually benefit the industry that Gerard represents, but apparently the aversion to thoughtful regulation trumps considerations of societal or even interest group benefit.
We must realize that the use of fossil energy sources is ultimately unsustainable, not because of supply or resource limitations, but because of the environmental and climate consequences of using them. We cannot rely on the market alone to produce adequate solutions as long as the externalities of fossil resource use remain unaccounted for.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i21/Oversight-US-energy.html
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House Subcommittee Plans Clean Power Plan Hearing
May 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on the Environment will hold a hearing May 26 to gather state perspectives on the impact of the Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, according to a notice.
Witnesses include Scott Pruitt, attorney general of Oklahoma; Brianne Gorod, chief counsel of the Constitutional Accountability Center and Charles McConnell, executive director of the Energy and Environment Initiative at Rice University.
Republicans on the subcommittee have been highly critical of the EPA's regulation to curb carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, which is currently stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court pending the outcome of legal proceedings (122 DEN A-21, 6/25/15).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=90063110&vname=dennotallissues&fn=90063110&jd=90063110
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House Bill Adds Controversial Measures Ahead of Conference
May 23, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
The long-awaited conference committee that will resolve differences between the House and Senate's competing energy bills is expected to take at least an initial step this week, as lawmakers race the clock in the hopes of getting the first major energy bill signed into law in nearly a decade.
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) last week said he expected conferees to be named before lawmakers leave town Thursday for the weeklong Memorial Day recess (Greenwire, May 19).
The House, which passed its own energy bill (H.R. 8) in December, for weeks has been weighing its strategy for responding to last month's Senate passage of its bipartisan energy package (S. 2012).
The Rules Committee will meet tomorrow afternoon to set the terms of the debate on the revised bill that was filed over the weekend, which is nearly three times as long as H.R. 8.
It includes a controversial drought relief package (H.R. 2898) the House passed last summer, which the White House has threatened to veto (Greenwire, July 16, 2015). The Senate bill does not specifically address drought in California, which is the subject of a separate effort in the upper chamber.
To match the critical minerals provisions in the Senate bill, the revised House bill includes H.R. 1937, which passed last fall along a party-line vote (E&E Daily, Oct. 23, 2015).
The House also included its own sportsmen's package (H.R. 2406), which passed in February over the White House's serious concerns (Greenwire, Feb. 26).
The House additionally folded in its version of the "America COMPETES Act" (H.R. 1806) that passed in May of last year under the threat of a White House veto (E&E Daily, July 9, 2015).
Another bill (H.R. 538) that drew a veto threat would streamline regulations for developing energy on tribal land (E&E Daily, Oct. 9, 2015).
The new House package also includes an assortment of public lands bills.
After the House passes its amendments to the Senate bill, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) can then name conferees. Conferees would include key members from both parties on the Energy and Commerce and Natural Resources committees, although lobbyists have said that members from other panels could be included to address issues in their jurisdiction.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said last week she's "itching" to launch the conference and hoped the upper chamber would be able to name its own conferees as well before leaving for the break.
"It's a pretty short procedure," she said. "I'm told it's just a couple hours."
A GOP aide said a move to go to conference would depend on the chamber's schedule this week, which includes the defense authorization bill.
Following passage of the Senate bill, Murkowski said she was hoping that a quick conference could produce a bill the president could sign before the August recess. That may be a tall order, given a busy legislative agenda and election-year pressures.
Conference committees have become increasingly rare on Capitol Hill in recent years but are given wide leeway in how they operate, according to the Congressional Research Service.
"Conference committees generally are free to conduct their negotiations as they choose, but they are to address only the matters on which the House and Senate have disagreed," CRS wrote last year.
Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), who chairs the Energy and Power Subcommittee that wrote the House bill, said last week that the conference may employ a combination of informal discussions and formal meetings (E&E Daily, May 19).
Schedule: The markup is Tuesday, May 24, at 3 p.m. in H-313 of the Capitol.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/05/23/stories/1060037653
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House Unveils 806-Page Energy Package in Response to Senate Energy Bill
May 20, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Andrew Restuccia
The House Rules Committee published an 806-page amendment to the Senate's energy bill today that will serve as the chamber's opening gambit in pending conference negotiations.
The amendment is a hodgepodge of more than three dozen House-passed bills, including H.R. 8, the already-massive energy bill that was approved in a party-line vote late last year. The energy package also includes a slew of land, water, wildlife and conservation bills, as well as a section on energy research and development.
Among the additions are major portions of House Republicans' California drought measure. California Republicans are eager to work out their differences over drought language with Sen. Dianne Feinsteinin conference and have also added provisions to the lower chamber's energy and water spending bill. Feinstein has her own bill sitting before Sen. Lisa Murkowski's Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
The Rules Committee is slated to meet on Tuesday to discuss the amendment and the full House is then expected to take up the package before a conference with the Senate can begin. The Senate approved its energy bill last month in a rare bipartisan vote.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard#
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New Report Shows Importance of Clean Power Plan
May 23, 2016 | The Hill - Pundits Blog
By Daniel Cohan
Power plant emissions of carbon dioxide have been falling for a decade, even without national regulations. However, further progress could cease in the absence of the Clean Power Plan, whose fate awaits hearings by the Supreme Court and U.S. Court of Appeals.
That's the conclusion of scenarios modeled by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in the "early release" issued last week of its "Annual Energy Outlook 2016." The scenarios predict that power plant carbon dioxide emissions would be 20 percent lower with the Clean Power Plan than without it.
In an earlier piece in The Hill, I noted that U.S. power plant emissions are already declining at a faster pace than needed to attain the Clean Power Plan's 2030 target. Emissions dropped 21 percent from 2005 to 2015, more than half of the 32 percent cut needed by 2030. Coal use is down sharply again so far this year.
However, the EIA projects that shifting market conditions could halt further progress unless emissions are regulated. Much of the decline in emissions to date has reflected a shift from coal to natural gas, driven by sharp declines in natural gas prices. The EIA forecasts natural gas prices will rise in coming years, improving the competitiveness of coal. New coal power plants would remain prohibitively costly to build, but the utilization of existing coal plants could rebound, driving up emissions.
The EIA takes major strides in its new outlook to better represent the costs of renewable technologies like wind and solar. Past "Annual Energy Outlooks" have overestimated the costs of renewables and underestimated their rates of deployment. The new outlook reduces those cost estimates, and accounts for the extension of tax credits for renewables passed by Congress in December 2015.
Even with the more favorable representation of renewables, the EIA predicts that they will be deployed too slowly to offset emissions growth as natural gas prices rise. Deployment of new wind turbines is expected to plummet after the production tax credit for wind is phased out. Solar power will continue to grow as its costs decline, but with growth rates slowed by the tapering of its tax credit. Meanwhile, emissions would be pushed up by a forecast 0.9 percent annual growth in electricity demand, which is nearly double the rate of the past 15 years.
The EIA will be releasing more detailed analyses and additional scenarios when it issues its full "Annual Energy Outlook 2016" in July. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) provided states substantial flexibility in how to attain the Clean Power Plan, so the scenario analyses could provide insights into those options.
For now, though, the early release heightens the importance of the upcoming court decisions on the Clean Power Plan. Despite trend lines pointing toward attainment of the plan's goals, the EIA's outlook provides a stark indication of how quickly those trends can be halted if the Clean Power Plan is overturned.
The early release also provides a sobering reminder of how much more progress is needed to meet greenhouse gas emissions targets across the energy economy. President Obama pledgedto reduce overall U.S. emissions 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. Even with the Clean Power Plan, the EIA forecasts just a 15 percent reduction in overall carbon dioxide emissions over that span. Proposed rules to reduce fuel use by heavy-duty trucks will narrow the gap, but far more reductions are needed.
Globally, the need for more emissions reductions is even more daunting. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that a 40 to 70 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is needed by 2050 to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius. Even faster reductions will be needed to meet the Paris climate agreement's aim to keep the rise "well below" 2 degrees Celsius. However, the EIA's "International Energy Outlook 2016," released earlier this month, projects that global emissions will continue rising through 2040 in the absence of new policies.
Such a sharp bending of emissions curves from projections down to goals will require ambitious efforts worldwide. The EIA's latest release shows the Clean Power Plan to be a necessary but not sufficient step toward bending the curve in the U.S.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/280868-new-report-shows-importance-of-clean-power-plan
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Former Obama DOE Official Set to Critique 'Stupid Regulations'
May 23, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Amanda Reilly
A former Obama administration official plans this week to tell lawmakers that the Clean Power Plan is "ideological mumbo jumbo" and that the government would be better off investing more money into clean energy and fossil fuel technologies.
Charles McConnell, who was responsible for the Department of Energy's fossil fuels program, will testify Thursday in front of the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Environment.
He'll appear alongside Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R), who is challenging the Clean Power Plan in court, and Constitutional Accountability Center Chief Counsel Brianne Gorod, who represents more than 200 lawmakers who are in favor of the program.
McConnell served for two years as assistant secretary of energy at DOE before joining Rice University in August 2013, where he serves as executive director of its Energy and Environment Initiative. He's worked nearly 40 years on energy issues, formerly serving as vice president of carbon management at Battelle Energy Technology and as an executive of Praxair Inc.
At DOE, McConnell oversaw the budgets and policy strategy of programs in oil, natural gas, coal and advanced technologies.
In an interview Friday previewing his testimony, McConnell said he will tell the panel, which is chaired by a climate change doubter, Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-Okla.), that he believes in man-made climate change and climate regulations.
But, McConnell said, U.S. EPA's program for cutting carbon dioxide emissions from power plants would not measurably address global warming and the Obama administration is "disingenuous" for making it the cornerstone of its environmental agenda.
"I'm going to come right out of the box very quickly by not denying climate change. I believe that the climate's changing," McConnell said. "I think it's fundamentally important to look at carbon dioxide as a forcing function of climate change.
"Those two things being said," he continued, "and the fact that I believe CO2 regulation is important, my punctuation mark is this Clean Power Plan does not relevantly or impactfully affect global CO2 emissions."
While EPA has acknowledged that the Clean Power Plan itself won't have a big impact on global climate change, the agency has promoted it as part of a larger strategy and key to getting nations on board with the Paris climate agreement.
Along with furnishing a chart showing the Clean Power Plan's small impact on global greenhouse gas emissions, McConnell also plans to testify that the Clean Power Plan is illegal and an abuse of EPA's authority.
Charles McConnell.Photo courtesy of Rice University News & Media.
The former Obama administration official toldE&E Daily that EPA has wandered into the territory of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, state utility commissions and other state regulators.
EPA, he alleged, is trying to force a federal renewable fuel standard onto the country and is pushing wind and solar energy to the detriment of research on fossil fuel technologies such as carbon capture, utilization and storage.
"I'm not against climate regulations, nor am I against being concerned about the environment, but I am against stupid regulations," he said. "And I'm against an administration that would call for an all-of-the-above strategy and not put their money where their mouth is."
The United States, he said, should seek to lead "the Chinas and Indias of the world" in researching and advancing technologies to make burning fossil fuels cleaner.
At DOE, McConnell said, he was disappointed at the lack of coordination between the department and EPA on energy technologies. He said he sensed a disconnect between EPA's vision for regulations and the ability of technologies to achieve climate goals.
"EPA seems to be relying on the technology fairy to come in and sprinkle dust over this stuff and have it perform the way they want it to," he said.'Lawful exercise'
The hearing comes as the Clean Power Plan remains frozen by the Supreme Court until the resolution of complex litigation. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unexpectedly delayed arguments in the case until September before the full court instead of the typical three-judge panel (Greenwire, May 17).
Gorod of the Constitutional Accountability Center plans to defend the Clean Power Plan's legality at the hearing. She is representing 208 current and former members of Congress from 38 states -- mostly Democrats -- who last month filed a "friend of the court" brief in support of EPA's authority to issue the plan (Greenwire, April 1).
"I'll explain that the Clean Power Plan is a lawful exercise of the discretion that Congress conferred on EPA when it enacted and substantially amended the Clean Air Act," she said in an interview Friday.
The Constitutional Accountability Center promotes a progressive reading of the Constitution and has previously represented lawmakers in litigation over President Obama's health care plan. Gorod will be the Democratic minority's witness at the hearing.
She said her testimony will also focus on the state authority under the Clean Power Plan.
"This idea that the Clean Power Plan somehow intrudes on state authority," Gorod said, "I think it's very clear when you actually look at the rule, when you look at the Clean Power Plan, it actually accords states due respect."
Schedule: The hearing is Thursday, May 26, at 9:30 a.m. in 2318 Rayburn.
Witnesses: Scott Pruitt, attorney general of Oklahoma; Brianne Gorod, chief counsel of the Constitutional Accountability Center; and Charles McConnell, executive director of Rice University's Energy and Environment Initiative.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/05/23/stories/1060037661
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May 20, 2016 | Houston Chronicle
By Mark Collette and Matt Dempsey
In an instant, his face was on fire.
Flames burned Anselmo Lopez’s arms and chest, and the explosion knocked back three co-workers whose eardrums burst.
Lopez had been doing maintenance last October, pumping inert nitrogen through pipes at the SunEdison plant outside Houston, to flush out a highly volatile gas called silane.
When his crew opened a valve, silane leaked and combined with air. The mixture ignited.
Though SunEdison over the years had paid thousands in fines from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, safety remained a problem. Lopez’s injury — which would require multiple skin grafts and lifelong care — was the fifth time in nearly a decade that the plant had a toxic release, fire or serious safety violation.
It’s unusual that OSHA inspectors had been there at all.
Most Americans don’t know about chemical stockpiles near homes and schools, and often, the government doesn’t, either. The U.S. regulatory system is poorly funded and has outdated, complex rules that go unenforced, leaving facilities that handle hazardous chemicals mostly to police themselves, a Houston Chronicle investigation found.
The result: A government that reacts only to the worst accidents and does little to prevent them, even though the same mistakes keep happening.
OSHA doesn’t have enough inspectors to perform its mission, and its fines are paltry, even by its own measure.
The Environmental Protection Agency left gaping holes in its regulations despite its own calls for change and the president’s mandate to make improvements.
And the U.S. Chemical Safety Board plugs along with a tiny budget, taking on massively complicated investigations and issuing recommendations that go largely ignored by federal agencies.Not enough inspectors
Chemical safety experts from around the world gathered last year in Austin for the Global Congress on Process Safety.
Presenters and attendees talked in industry jargon — about good engineering practices and hazard studies and using data to recognize potential dangers.
Everyone was reminded about the importance of constant vigilance.
When someone wanted to lighten the mood, he’d bring up OSHA. As a punch line.
Some at the conference had little faith that OSHA inspectors are qualified to evaluate chemical process safety, and even when they are, there aren’t enough of them.
OSHA is charged with protecting American workers but has 1,840 inspectors — roughly the same since 1981 — for 8 million U.S. workplaces. Inspecting every facility one time would take 145 years, according to the AFL-CIO.
Only 267 OSHA inspectors have specialized training for about 15,000 chemical facilities.
In 2011, the agency began a chemical emphasis program, but it looks at a relatively small number of plants. An analysis by the Chronicle and researchers at the Texas A&M University Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center ranked thousands of facilities in greater Houston on their potential to harm the public. OSHA did not inspect most of the top 55 facilities in the last five years.
Dr. Sam Mannan, director of the O’Connor center and one of the nation’s preeminent experts on chemical safety, advocates for third-party inspections because federal agencies aren’t doing enough. The EPA is embracing the idea in a proposed rule change, over the strong objections of industry.
Rigorous enforcement creates a dialogue between government and industry, Mannan said, and ensures that companies breaking rules don’t fall through cracks.
OSHA penalties are mostly unchanged since 1990. Fines for four deaths after a preventable gas leak in November 2014 at the DuPont plant in La Porte totaled $372,000. That's about half of 1 percent of an average day’s revenue for the corporation.
The head of OSHA, Assistant Labor Secretary David Michaels, told a Senate panel in December 2014 that “our criminal penalties are virtually meaningless.”
The imbalance between fines for environmental violations and catastrophic safety problems can reach the absurd.
In 2001, a sulfuric acid tank exploded at a refinery in Delaware, killing Jeff Davis.
“His body had virtually decomposed,” Michaels said.
Workers had long warned the company about problems with the tank. OSHA issued a $132,000 fine. Because the incident polluted air and water and killed wildlife, EPA won a $12 million civil settlement.
“Can you imagine telling Jeff Davis’ wife, Mary, their five kids that the fine for the hazards associated with his death was one-fiftieth of the fine associated with killing fish and crabs?” he said.Not a wide enough net
The EPA is the only federal agency specifically tasked with protecting the public from chemical accidents and wields the biggest hammer in enforcement. But it traditionally has been focused on preventing and cleaning up environmental damage.
It commits less than 1 percent of its $8.6 billion budget to chemical safety. About 35 inspectors police more than 12,000 of the most dangerous facilities nationwide under its Risk Management Program.
That program, the agency’s chief prevention strategy, requires those facilities to develop emergency response procedures and to consider worst-case scenarios for toxic releases.
Only about 280 facilities in the Houston area are required to file such plans, according to federal data.
And the EPA ignores an entire category of risk.
For years, experts have asked the EPA to regulate reactive chemical dangers, which the agency itself — along with OSHA — suggested after a New Jersey disaster in 1997.
In 2002, CSB researchers found 167 accidents over a 20-year period that involved uncontrolled chemical reactions, causing 108 deaths and hundreds of millions of dollars in property damage.
But regulations have never been updated to include reactive dangers.
There are other gaps. Fuel retailers are exempt under the RMP. Farmers using ammonia as fertilizer, such as the ammonium nitrate that killed 15 in the West Fertilizer Company explosion three years ago, also are exempt. Hundreds of dangerous chemicals aren’t covered.
The EPA has one other tool when it comes to avoiding chemical accidents — the General Duty Clause of the Clean Air Act.
The clause instructs businesses to identify hazards, design and maintain safe facilities, prevent accidental releases, and minimize consequences if a release occurs.
“It’s a powerful and broad enforcement tool for EPA,” said Jean Flores, an environmental law attorney in Dallas who represents industrial clients.
The EPA typically doesn’t use it to prevent accidents, mostly just to punish companies for chemical leaks.Not enough follow-through
The Chemical Safety Board is to the chemical industry what the National Transportation Safety Board is to airlines, railroads and trucking firms. With fewer than 50 employees and an annual budget of just $11 million, the CSB has investigated only 16 of at least 340 chemical accidents since 2014.
Investigations are prioritized based on the number of deaths or damage. Even when it does investigate, the CSB has no authority to force change. It only makes recommendations.
In 2006, the board called on OSHA to create an industry standard for combustible dust after three separate explosions left 14 dead and more injured. After more accidents and deaths, the CSB in 2013 called the dust standard a “Most Wanted Chemical Safety Improvement.”
To date, no standard has been set.
In 2010, after a refinery explosion in Washington state, the CSB recommended requiring inherently safer technologies, like substituting equipment or chemicals for less dangerous ones. Water plants, for example, could use liquid chlorine instead of gas, which can spread into neighborhoods.
It hasn’t been done.
In Washington, that surprises no one. Since 2002, the CSB has issued 44 recommendations to federal agencies. Just 20 were adopted.
The NTSB’s recommendations over 40 years have had a clear impact on public safety. Investigations spurred improved regulations on everything from commercial truck driver training to de-icing aircraft. It helps that aviation and rail incidents require reports to the federal government, and all fatal motor vehicle crashes are reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
There is no reporting requirement for chemical incidents.
The CSB relies primarily on media reports to track incidents nationwide, so not even the government has a clear accounting of the injuries, property and lives lost to chemical mishaps.
In all, fewer than 400 federal inspectors — through OSHA, EPA and CSB — provide oversight for the chemical industry, with a combined budget of less than $50 million a year.
The industry, by comparison, with about 15,000 manufacturing plants, has spent an average of $191 million annually on lobbying since 1998, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.Not enough action
One moment three years ago was supposed to redefine everything in chemical safety.
Firefighters rushed to a fire at West Fertilizer. Fourteen minutes later, 12 of them died in a blast that also killed three others and barely missed hundreds of students who had been in nearby classrooms hours earlier.
The perils of ammonium nitrate had not been explained to first-responders in the Central Texas community of West, nor to those who lived blocks away.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recently announced the initial fire was set intentionally by an unknown person. The CSB said the explosion could have been avoided with better regulatory oversight, plant construction, hazardous materials handling, and zoning. The town had grown perilously close to the plant over the years.
Vanessa Allen Sutherland, the board’s chairman, in January had harsh words about the state of chemical safety in America, citing “too many violent detonations and runaway reactions” and a “lack of adequate federal, state or local oversight …”
The board’s report on West reads like dozens that have come before — the major themes indistinguishable from one tragedy to the next. Government failed. Industry failed. Laws didn’t work as intended.
President Barack Obama, in West’s aftermath, issued Executive Order 13650. It called for an updated law on safety in chemical processing, mostly unchanged since 1992. It ordered federal agencies to figure out how to disclose more information to the public. And it asked them not just to improve emergency response and readiness, to thwart the kind of carnage seen at West, but also to stop accidents from happening.
Peter Boogaard, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman, said recently that the White House remains “committed to preventing similar incidents from occurring at chemical facilities and increasing overall chemical facility safety and security.”
The executive order working group — representing EPA, OSHA and others — has blown multiple deadlines and is in danger of leaving its work unfinished before the end of Obama’s presidency. OSHA has acknowledged it will take years to update process safety regulations. There is no guarantee the next administration will pick up the mantle.
Agency officials say some progress has been made: EPA is launching a national enforcement initiative in 2017-2019 aimed at chemical safety, but it would start with the same list of 12,000 facilities in its Risk Management Program. More than 400,000 locations are required to file hazardous chemical inventories.
The agency has proposed updates to the RMP. The changes would require additional hazard analysis for some companies, improved emergency preparedness and updated regulatory definitions, among other things. It won’t update or expand the list of chemicals.
The EPA says it will put renewed focus on Local Emergency Planning Committees to promote plant safety and improve emergency response.
The working group upgraded software to provide better modeling for chemical releases, took steps to simplify an array of federal databases on chemical facilities, expanded inspector training programs and, with West in mind, focused heavily on emergency planning and response.
Too heavily for Ron White, the former director of regulatory policy at the Center for Effective Government.
He’d like to see more proactive measures.
He suspects it will take the deaths of schoolchildren before the EPA will focus on prevention.
“It will take another disaster,” he said.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/chemical-breakdown/2/
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EPA Approves Alternatives to Ozone-Depleting Substances
May 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency is approving four alternative substances for use in refrigeration, air conditioning and food processes as part its Significant New Alternatives Policy for substances that deplete the ozone layer.
The EPA said the four substances being approved, which include carbon dioxide, have lower global warming potentials than other alternatives with less impact on the ozone layer than other substances, according to a determination of acceptability (RIN:2060-AG12) to be published in the Federal Register May 23.
The new alternatives policy is intended to transition from ozone-depleting compounds to substitutes that offer lower overall risks to human health and the environment.
The EPA notice lists as acceptable alternatives:
• Carbon dioxide (R-744) for use in ice skating rinks, centrifugal chillers, positive displacement chillers and industrial process air conditioning,
• HFO-1336mzz(Z) for use in centrifugal chillers, positive displacement chillers, industrial process air conditioning and non-mechanical heat transfer,
• HFO-1336mzz(Z)/trans-1,2-dichloroethylene blend for use in centrifugal chillers and positive displacement chillers, and
• R-513A
for use in retail food refrigeration.
The EPA in 2015 approved HFO-1336mzz(Z) as an acceptable alternative for use in high-pressure two-part spray foam (136 DEN A-5, 7/16/15).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=90063130&vname=dennotallissues&fn=90063130&jd=90063130
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What Are Donald Trump’s Views on Climate Change? Some Clues Emerge
May 20, 2016 | The New York Times
By Erica Goode
So far, Donald J. Trump has said very little about climate change and energy policy beyond his Twitter posts on the issues.
He has called global warming a “hoax,” for example, and claimed that the Chinese fabricated climate change (just a joke, he later said). And in an interview this week with Reuters, he said that he was “not a big fan” of the Paris climate accord, and that “at a minimum I will be renegotiating those agreements.”
But more clues about Mr. Trump’s views on environmental issues emerged this week from a four-page briefing on energy policy prepared for the presumptive Republican nominee by Representative Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota and an early supporter of Mr. Trump.
Mr. Cramer, who defines himself as a climate change skeptic, discussed in his briefing paper a variety of government regulations that Mr. Trump might do away with if he were president.
They included the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, currently pending in the courts, as well as a federal rule intended to protect waterways and wetlands, and a regulation setting standards for methane emissions that the Environmental Protection Agency completed last week.
In an interview, Mr. Cramer said he wrote in the briefing paper that a growing number of Americans wanted action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels. And he outlined a broad energy policy that embraced all types of fuel sources — including coal, oil, solar, wind and hydropower — that he called an “all-of-the-above, America-first energy message.” Mr. Cramer, from a heavy coal- and oil-producing state, said it was important that any policy does not “punish coal” or other fossil fuels.
Mr. Trump may soon share more of his views. His press secretary, Hope Hicks, said that the campaign “will have more to say on the topic soon.” He is scheduled to speak at an oil conference in North Dakota on Thursday.Continue reading the main story
Whenever Mr. Trump does fill in more details on the topic, he will have eager audiences both inside and outside his political party.
Republican leaders worry that Mr. Trump’s views, his climate-denying Twitter messages notwithstanding, could end up somewhere left of the party’s mainstream.
“I think there is concern about where he stands because he hasn’t come out strongly one way or another,” said a Republican aide who insisted on anonymity because she was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Environmental groups, for their part, have seized on each new scrap of information to warn of disastrous consequences should Mr. Trump be elected.
“Trump and Cramer are two peas in the climate denial pod, who would make reckless attacks on the progress we have made in the fight against climate change,” Seth Stein, a spokesman for the League of Conservation Voters, said in response to news reports Thursday afternoon about Mr. Cramer’s briefing paper.Sign Up for the Science Times Newsletter
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If Mr. Trump were to acknowledge the reality of climate change, that might provide some Republican politicians with political cover to do so as well.
Since 2010, when a Republican member of Congress, Bob Inglis, lost his re-election bid after saying he would favor a carbon tax, many in the party have regarded any mention of climate change as the equivalent of political suicide. (Mr. Inglis has since focused on persuading conservatives to be “less averse” to addressing climate change, and started a nonprofit group, the Enterprise and Energy Initiative, focusing on conservative responses to the problem.)
Yet polls have repeatedly found that a majority of Republican voters, particularly young ones, believe that climate change is real and that the government should take action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale program on Climate Change Communication, said that a nationally representative survey of 1,004 registered voters, conducted in March in conjunction with George Mason University, found that 56 percent of Trump voters agreed that climate change was occurring. Just over half of them, however, thought those changes were caused by natural changes in the environment, rather than the result of human-generated emissions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/21/science/donald-trump-global-warming-energy-policy-kevin-cramer.html?_r=0
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