Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 5/23/16
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(ACC Blog) EE Global 2016: Remarkable Gains, Significant Potential for Energy Efficiency
May 23, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
The Alliance to Save Energy’s 9th annual Energy Efficiency Global Forum (#EEGlobal), held May 11-12, showcased the many ways energy efficiency drives productivity and profitability across the economy. Industry professionals, policymakers and members of academia reflected on the significant gains achieved to date and “next steps” for efficiency efforts. -
(ACC Mentioned) With TSCA Vote, GOP to Give EPA New Authority
May 23, 2016 | Bloomberg Government
By Catherine Traywick and Laura Curtis
Republicans in Congress have voted dozens of times to block regulations by President Barack Obama’s EPA. This week they are set to give the agency more authority. After a bipartisan accord, Congress is poised to overhaul the 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act, with legislation to give the agency greater wherewithal to regulate about 100 hazardous chemicals. -
(ACC Mentioned) Feds Blamed for Needlessly Exposing Kids to Cancer-Causing Car Seat Chemicals
May 22, 2016 | CBS San Francisco
Car seats are the only consumer product that parents are legally required to purchase in every state, though they are also commonly used outside of the car as strollers seats, swing inserts and as a place for babies to sleep inside the home. -
Key House Dems Announce Support of TSCA Deal
May 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
Last-minute changes to pending legislation to update the federal government's handling of toxic chemicals won the support of three top House Democrats today. -
House Dem Leaders Back Chemical Safety Bill
May 23, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
House Democratic leaders and the chairman of a key committee are supporting a bipartisan deal on overhauling the nation’s chemical safety standards. -
Pelosi, Hoyer, Pallone Join TSCA Compromise Deal
May 23, 2016 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Darren Goode
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and top Energy and Commerce Democrat Frank Pallone gave their blessing to a deal today to update the Toxic Substances Control Act, though they are criticizing some of the compromises. -
Congress All About Energy Business
May 23, 2016 | Politico Pro - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
Congress is done messing around, that's for sure. This week, legislators will take crucial steps toward finishing the energy bill, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and the Energy and Water Appropriation. The House will introduce and mark up the Water Resources Development Act, and the appropriators will start work on a spending bill for Interior and Environment. Let's get to it! -
US House Advances Bills Addressing Flame Retardants in Military Uniforms
May 23, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Sylvia Palmer
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would encourage exploration of "emerging flame-resistant technologies" for military personnel uniforms. -
Attorneys General Demand EPA Cease All Work Related to Rule
May 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
A pair of Republican state attorneys general are calling on U.S. EPA to halt all work related to the Clean Power Plan while the rule remains frozen by the Supreme Court. -
EPA Readies Landfill Methane Air Rules While Use Of Gas For Energy Slows
May 23, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA appears on track to meet its July 14 legally binding deadline for issuing updated emissions rules to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) methane from landfills, environmentalists say, while the agency says that use of landfill gas for energy -- which some states are seeking to promote to cut emissions -- has slowed due to economic factors. -
GOP Senators Scold EPA on Justification for Methane Rule
May 23, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
Six Republican senators are demanding more information from U.S. EPA about how the agency calculated methane emissions from the oil and gas industry in the United States. -
Toxic Chemicals from Fracking Wastewater Spills Can Persist for Years
May 20, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Deirdre Lockwood
In North Dakota’s Bakken region, the fracking boom has generated nearly 10,000 wells for unconventional oil and gas production—and along with them, almost 4,000 reported wastewater spills resulting from the activity. -
EPA Again Faults Texas Air Permit Program For Gas Processor Exemption
May 23, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA has again rejected a Texas provision providing a regulatory exemption from new source review (NSR) air permitting for some natural gas processing facilities, fearing that ambiguous regulatory language submitted for agency approval as part of the state's Clean Air Act implementation plan could allow circumvention of NSR. -
N.Y. Senators Urge FERC to Suspend Gas Project
May 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
New York's Democratic senators want federal energy regulators to freeze their review of a hotly contested natural gas project slated to run through densely populated communities in their state, one including the Indian Point nuclear plant. -
Many Natural Gas-Fired Power Plants Under Construction are Near Major Shale Plays
May 23, 2016 | U.S. Energy Information Administration (in Real Clear Energy)
By Victoria Zaretskaya
Natural gas-fired power generation increased 19% in 2015, because of low natural gas prices, increased gas-fired generation capacity, and coal power plant retirements. EIA's May 2016 Short-Term Energy Outlook forecasts that this year, natural gas-fired generation will exceed coal generation in the United States on an annual basis. -
Audit Faults CSB Transparency, Management of Office Space
May 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board needs to work on procedures for publishing information on public meetings, documenting its budgeting process and reducing excess office space, according to a new audit. -
Spill Dumps 120,000 Gallons in North Dakota
May 20, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By Associated Press
Crews in North Dakota excavated pastureland after more than 120,000 gallons of oil and drilling wastewater overflowed from a tank, the state Health Department said Friday. -
Drinking Water For 13.8 Million People Tainted By Unsafe Levels Of PFCs
May 23, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Bill Walker
Drinking water supplies serving more than 13.8 million Americans may be contaminated with two perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs, at levels higher than the Environmental Protection Agency now deems safe, according to an EWG analysis of EPA test data. -
EPA Advisory Panel Ready to Meet Despite Legal Challenge
May 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
A U.S. EPA air pollution advisory panel plans to proceed with a public teleconference today despite an anti-regulatory group's legal bid to block it. -
Grid Overseer Says Renewables a Winner Under EPA Rule
May 23, 2016 | E&E Interactive
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
Regardless of whether U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan survives legal challenge, the nation's power generation mix is adding a large amount of renewable resources, according to the electric industry's grid watchdog.
Industry and Association News
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Environment News
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(ACC Blog) EE Global 2016: Remarkable Gains, Significant Potential for Energy Efficiency
May 23, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By American Chemistry
The Alliance to Save Energy’s 9th annual Energy Efficiency Global Forum (#EEGlobal), held May 11-12, showcased the many ways energy efficiency drives productivity and profitability across the economy. Industry professionals, policymakers and members of academia reflected on the significant gains achieved to date and “next steps” for efficiency efforts.
In exciting keynotes, Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) shared their insights on how to move the U.S. to a more energy-efficient future. Each welcomed the Senate’s bipartisan action on theEnergy Policy Modernization Act (S. 2012), which was passed in April by a vote of 85-12. As Senator Portman said, the legislation has broad benefits, including job creation, cost savings and lower emissions. ACC has long supported the bill’s energy efficiency provisions, including the Portman-Shaheen language and the SAVE Act. A House-Senate conference is expected this summer.
"With patience and perseverance comes progress." –Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) on energy efficiency
Buildings of the Future
At an executive dialogue session on designing and constructing energy-efficient buildings, The Dow Chemical Company’s Michael Mazor declared that energy-saving solutions have the scale to make a real difference, but consistent policy signals are needed. A number of panelists talked about the importance of strong, updated building energy codes. In the U.S., buildings consume 40% of the energy and 70% of the electricity, so there is vast potential for further savings. Chemistry and plastics play an important role in energy-efficient building and construction.
Energy Productivity in Manufacturing
On Thursday, a compelling panel focused on strategies to double energy productivity in manufacturing. Richard Northcote, chief sustainability officer for Covestro, said the savings can be sizeable: “We’ve had breakthroughs in process technology that you can see it straightaway in the bottom line.” Klaus Briel of DENEFF linked energy efficiency to businesses’ competitiveness. Greg Bertelsen of the National Association of Manufacturers said EE “is still the lowest-hanging fruit” and should remain a priority.
As part of Responsible Care®, ACC member companies are required to consider operational energy efficiency as well as waste minimization, reuse and recycling when developing their environmental, health, safety and security plans. In April, ACC honored 19 of our member companies for implementing energy efficiency improvements in 2015. The total energy savings of the winning projects was 4.25 trillion BTUs.
The chemical industry is a leader in the use of combined heat and power (CHP), also known as co-generation. CHP is the simultaneous generation of electricity and heat from a location that is very close to the manufacturing facility and is often twice as efficient as older coal-burning electric utilities. Increased deployment and use of CHP can help keep electricity reliable and affordable.
About 90% of chemical processes already use catalysis for efficient production. R&D can accelerate the benefits of this powerful, energy-saving technology.
Energy-Water Connection
Also on Thursday, Ramola Musante of Ecolab moderated a fascinating discussion of the energy-water nexus and policies and projects that could advance energy and water efficiency in water infrastructure systems and end use. She began by telling the story of how businesses are discovering the many ways that water management affects operational and energy efficiency. Panelists representing the public, private and utility sectors all agreed that stakeholder collaboration will be key to enhancing attention, education and engagement of these issues.
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2016/05/ee-global-2016-remarkable-gains-significant-potential-for-energy-efficiency/
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(ACC Mentioned) With TSCA Vote, GOP to Give EPA New Authority
May 23, 2016 | Bloomberg Government
By Catherine Traywick and Laura Curtis
Republicans in Congress have voted dozens of times to block regulations by President Barack Obama’s EPA. This week they are set to give the agency more authority. After a bipartisan accord, Congress is poised to overhaul the 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act, with legislation to give the agency greater wherewithal to regulate about 100 hazardous chemicals.
“For decades all stakeholders on this issue agreed that this area of federal law had to be updated,” Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, said. “Now we’re doing that and passing this very needed update which is the first major statutory update to environmental law that’s been passed in over 25 years.
Vitter predicted the measure, planned for the House floor as soon as Tuesday, would sail through the Senate with little debate this week. Under existing law, EPA has succeeded in regulating only five toxic chemicals since 1976, prompting public health advocates to decry TSCA as broken. Part of the problem is that the law grants EPA only 90 days to decide whether a new chemical poses “unreasonable risk” before it can enter the market, and agency officials say they rarely get the toxicity data they need to make that call in time.
The compromise legislation posted Friday would remove those procedural hurdles, require EPA to focus on “high priority” chemicals such as arsenic and asbestos, and give the agency new tools to collect data from companies. It also grandfathers in some existing state chemical safety laws, such as those enacted under California’s Proposition 65, but limits states’ authority to create their own restrictions on chemicals in the future. State pre-emption was a key point of contention between Democrats and Republicans during negotiations.
Industry advocated for the federal law in part to avoid a patchwork of different state rules, and in part to reassure a public about the safety of chemical products. “Over time, confidence in EPA’s regulation of chemicals has eroded,” the American Chemistry Council said on its website. “This lack of confidence has created pressure on individual state legislatures to create their own chemicals management laws and on retailers to pull products from the shelves, often based on the claims of activists rather than scientific conclusions.”
The EPA called the bill “a clear improvement over current law.” Some safety advocates are less enthusiastic. The draft “contains several reforms that would empower EPA, but it also restrains EPA and especially state governments in new and unacceptable ways,” Andy Igrejas, director of Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families, said in a statement.
The House Rules Committee is scheduled to consider the bill on Monday evening, teeing it up for a floor vote as early as Tuesday. Sen. Jim Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said he expects the Senate to take up the bill as soon as it’s passed by the House. “We’ll have it passed, signed, to the President’s desk before the recess,” which starts at the end of this week.
http://about.bgov.com/blog/with-tsca-vote-gop-to-give-epa-new-authority/
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(ACC Mentioned) Feds Blamed for Needlessly Exposing Kids to Cancer-Causing Car Seat Chemicals
May 22, 2016 | CBS San Francisco
Car seats are the only consumer product that parents are legally required to purchase in every state, though they are also commonly used outside of the car as strollers seats, swing inserts and as a place for babies to sleep inside the home.
A recent KPIX investigation repeatedly uncovered concerning, even cancer causing, chemicals in a majority of the car seats tested, and many blame the federal government.
The alleged culprit: the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) 44-year old Federal Motor Vehicle Flammability Standard, FMVSS No. 302.
The Test
Instead of focusing on protection from typical-sized car fire flames, the 44 year flammability standard relies on a 1.5 inch test flame.
Fire scientists like Dr. Vyto Babrauskus, the former head of furniture fire research at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), said the outdated standard is unnecessarily exposing millions of children to concerning chemical flame retardants in their car seats.
“The flame spread standard was never designed with any recognition of how real world car fires behave,” Babrauskas said.
He explains that anything manufactured for the interior of a vehicle must meet the federal flammability standard, introduced in 1972. This includes things like fixed vehicle seating, floor mats, dash boards, and aftermarket products like child car seats—which incidentally weren’t required in most states until a decade later.
The test requires each component material, the fabric, foam, plastic, etc., each pass a small-flame spread test. While some fabrics are naturally flame resistant and can pass without added chemicals, manufacturers say they must add chemical flame retardants to the foam padding inside the car seat in order to pass the test.
However, fire scientists like Babrauskas contend the test is irrelevant in a real-world car fire, because once the fabric ignites, the flame is too large for flame retardants in the foam to be effective.
“The flame spread standard was never designed with any recognition of how real world car fires behave,” Babrauskas argued.
Babrauskas and others contend the current test is only relevant if fires are first ignited inside the car seats themselves by something smaller than a 1.5 inch flame.
They say a fire ignited anywhere else in the vehicle would be too big for flame retardants by the time flames reached the car seat, and it would be too late to save a child by the time flames reached the foam inside the car seat, and under the child.
The Evidence
A 2008 study titled “Human Survivability in Motor Vehicle Fires” found the 1972 standard is “no longer relevant,” because “the primary threat has changed” from “a lit cigarette, in 1960” to ignition of combustible materials “by an impact-induced fire.”
The Department of Transportation, which oversees NHTSA, defended the standard to one car set manufacturer, citing the possibility of “children in the back seat… playing with matches, a cigarette lighter.”
The chemical industry says “retardants provide an important layer of fire protection” and points to more than 150,000 vehicle fires a year.
However, critics argue that most of those fires could not be prevented, or even addressed by the current flammability standard which focuses primarily on fires ignited in upholstered materials by a small flame or ignition source.
According to the car fire data cited by both NHTSA and the American Chemistry Council in defense of the standard, only 3% of all car fires are first ignited in upholstered materials.
Additional data indicates that 98% of those injured or killed in car fireswere too old to have been in a car seat, and there is no evidence that any of those fires began in a child’s car seat.
The Chemical Concern
The concerns about fire retardants date back to the 70’s, whencertain chemicals were banned, and later voluntarily removed from children’s pajamas after researchers discovered they were mutagens, linked to cancer.
However, our recent investigation repeatedly found those same chemicals inside even allegedly “green” car seats, and inside a child who used one.
Decades of research similarly link flame retardants in furniture and baby products to high levels in babies and breast milk.
Groups, like the American Academy of Pediatrics, are calling on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to outlaw certain flame retardants in children’s products, but the agency has no jurisdiction over car seats which are regulated exclusively by NHTSA, under the DOT.
This is a rare case where the manufactures and the green scientists agree on changes to a regulation. Both groups believe that car seats should be exempted from the current flammability standard.
However, while green scientists contend that chemical flame retardants are harmful to children, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) simply questions whether they are necessary in car seats.
Lack of Evidence
“I was pleased somebody was digging into the issue,” said Rep. Jarred Huffman, (D) California, after seeing our reports. “It seemed so obvious that we should be asking hard questions.”
Like us, Huffman questioned the NHTSA about its standard. In response, the agency told the congressman it is “initiating a two-year research program” and will try to quantify “child fatalities and injuries prevented by FMVSS No. 302.”
However, Huffman wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “ I don’t want to wait years and years while millions of babies continue to be exposed to a carcinogen for apparently no safety benefit,” he said.
In an email, the agency told us it “believes the standard has saved many children” but admits it has no evidence.
KPIX 5 reached out to more than a dozen government agencies and industry groups, and no one could provide any evidence or data that indicates flame retardants in car seats offer any safety benefit in a car fire.
In spite of repeatedly denying requests for exemptions from car seat manufactures, NHTSA now admits the agency has never even tested the standards effectiveness in car seats.
KPIX Combustion Test
With the help of Combustion Scientist Don Lucas and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, KPIX 5 did what the regulators never have -we lit car seats on fire to test the standard.
In addition to igniting large portions of fully assembled car seats, we conducted a side-by-side comparison burn of a two car seat covers, one with flame retardants and one without.
One sample was taken from a car seat that does meet NHTSA’s FMVSS No. 302. The foam inside was tested to ensure it contained an average amount of flame retardants (specifically TDCPP).
The other sample was an aftermarket organic car seat cover, originally purchased on ETSY. Instead of foam, the interior padding was made of organic wool.
Despite the common belief that organic wool is naturally flame resistant, a side by side test of the naked wool and the naked FR-treated foam demonstrated that the wool was highly flammable on its own. While the foam burned comparatively slowly and melted, the naked wool immediately ignited and incinerated within seconds.
However, in a car fire, the interior padding is covered by the car seat fabric which can be naturally flame resistant without chemicals. Again, fire scientists argue that once the fabric ignites, the interior padding is irrelevant. That is essentially what we found.
When we lit the car seat samples for a second time, this time leaving the organic wool and the FR-treated foam covered in their respective car seat fabrics, we got entirely different results.
Side by side, with the fabric and foam combined, as they would be in a real-world fire, the flame retardant-free sample performed better.
“Looking at the amount of smoke production and fire propagation, I think the one without flame retardants (preformed) a little better,” Lucas said, also noting that the sample with flame retardants was dripping flames and producing a thick black smoke.
By comparison, the flame-retardant-free sample took longer to ignite, burned slowly and produced less smoke.
“Even though the materials in car seats can meet the federal standards, they don’t always perform better than materials that wouldn’t meet the fire standards. I think we need to revisit it and determine how car seats preform in real-world fire situations,” Lucas said after seeing the results.
Changes To The Standard
Fire scientists say, instead of addressing the rare instances of upholstery fired, the flammability standard focus on preventing fires from crashes and gas tank explosions.
To address flame spread, they recommend a testing standard “similar to California’s new furniture flammability standard TB117-2013. The new standard can be met with smolder resistant fabrics or a barrier fabric between the foam and the fabric. Flame retardants are not needed.
Members of both the senate and the house have reviewed our findings and reached out to NHTSA. The U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation is now planning hearing where members will have the opportunity to questions the DOT about our findings.
Quick Release Technology
In an email to KPIX, NHTSA defended the standard stating it “believes there is a safety need to control how quickly flame can spread to afford time for caregivers to help their children escape the vehicle in the event of a fire.”
However, NHTSA does not require that car seats allow for quick release in an emergency and KPIX has learned that NHTSA reviewed quick-release car seat technology called the Child Safety Seat Emergency Harness Release System (EHRS) nearly a decade ago.
The inventor of the technology, Michael Blackmon, said he reached out to several car seat manufacturers after his discussion with NHTSA, but they told him they weren’t interested in testing the technology because NHTSA doesn’t require it.
“The irony is that NHTSA justifies flame retardant foam because it might save one child playing with a cigarette while exposing millions to chemicals, yet can’t justify my invention because not enough kids die after the accident in a fire or drowning scenario,” Blackmon says. “Tell that to the parents and lawyers that reached out to me over the last eight years about their dead kids and clients.”
He says, in addition to parents involved in car fires, he’s heard from several parents who’s children drowned when a car rolled into a lake and the parents were unable to get the child out of a car seat.
Amy Basset-Brevik says she got the same response from several manufacturers after she and her husband struggled to get their twin daughters out of their car seats in a fire.
“Something hit the undercarriage of our vehicle and when I looked back I just saw flames,” said Brevik. “I jumped out of the car to get to the girls in the back and everything was engulfed in flames.”
The Minnesota mom said flame retardants in her children’s car seats were irrelevant in the face of the giant flames. The bigger issue was the inability to quickly remove her kids from the seat as her clothing began to catch fire.
She’s been petitioning NHTSA, and car seat manufactures, for three years to get the quick-release technology on the market. “There needs to be a change,” she insists.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/05/22/feds-blamed-for-needlessly-exposing-kids-to-cancer-causing-car-seat-chemicals/
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Key House Dems Announce Support of TSCA Deal
May 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
Last-minute changes to pending legislation to update the federal government's handling of toxic chemicals won the support of three top House Democrats today.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone of New Jersey said they had secured new changes that "will reduce the harm of the state preemption provisions in the bill."
The changes will be made as a manager's amendment, the lawmakers said. They did not specify what was altered.
The House Rules Committee scheduled a vote this evening to set the terms of debate for the bill, which is expected to see floor time this week (E&E Daily, May 23).
Pallone said last week he believed the emerging compromise was worse than current law. His position put him at odds with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (E&E Daily, May 19).
"Senator Frank Lautenberg dedicated his career to fixing this law, and we honor his memory in this bipartisan legislation bearing his name," the lawmakers' statement today said. "It is not the bill Democrats would have written on our own, but it is a long-overdue step forward to protect families and communities from toxic substances."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/05/23/stories/1060037710
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House Dem Leaders Back Chemical Safety Bill
May 23, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
House Democratic leaders and the chairman of a key committee are supporting a bipartisan deal on overhauling the nation’s chemical safety standards.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Rep. Frank Pallone(N.J.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said Monday that they are ready to release the bill after changes they requested were adopted Friday.
“Democrats remain concerned by Republicans’ provisions limiting states’ ability to act aggressively on toxic substances. However, the bill grants EPA with significant new authority to protect the public from unsafe toxic chemicals,” the three said in a joint statement.
“House Democrats succeeded in empowering the EPA to unilaterally demand testing on chemicals it suspects are unsafe for people or harmful to the environment,” they said. “Recent changes Democrats made will reduce the harm of the state preemption provisions in the bill.”
Both chambers of Congress plan to vote on the bill this week, with the hopes of making it available for President Obama’s signature by the end of the week.
Preemption of states’ authority to regulate chemicals independently of the federal government has long been a sticking point for Democrats throughout the years of negotiations on reforming the 1976 Toxic Chemicals Safety Act.
Through last week, Pelosi, Hoyer and Pallone had not supported the bipartisan compromise bill. Pallone said his objection was mainly focused on the issue of state preemption.
With the backing of the House Democrats, the bill now has the support of party and committee leaders on both sides of Capitol Hill.
The bill, dubbed the Frank L. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act after the late senator, would give the EPA the authority and means to order testing of and regulate thousands of chemicals.
As of Friday, Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), top Democrat on the subcommittee with jurisdiction over the matter, did not support the compromise bill, citing state authority concerns.
http://www.thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/280919-house-dem-leaders-support-chemical-safety-bill
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Pelosi, Hoyer, Pallone Join TSCA Compromise Deal
May 23, 2016 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Darren Goode
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer and top Energy and Commerce Democrat Frank Pallone gave their blessing to a deal today to update the Toxic Substances Control Act, though they are criticizing some of the compromises.
“Democrats remain concerned by Republicans’ provisions limiting states’ ability to act aggressively on toxic substances," the three Democrats said in a joint statement.
But the bill gives EPA "significant new authority to protect the public from unsafe toxic chemicals," they said, touting "recent changes Democrats made [to] reduce the harm of the state preemption provisions in the bill." House Democrats also "succeeded in empowering the EPA to unilaterally demand testing on chemicals it suspects are unsafe for people or harmful to the environment."
"It is not the bill Democrats would have written on our own, but it is a long-overdue step forward to protect families and communities from toxic substances,” they said.
Pelosi, Hoyer and Pallone were the last major players to back a deal announced last week by Senate negotiators and House Republicans.
With or without the three Democrats, the House and the Senate are expected to pass the bill named after the late-Sen. Frank Lautenberg.
Some technical changes were made after the deal was filed to the House Rules Committee Friday and a managers amendment is being posted today.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Congress All About Energy Business
May 23, 2016 | Politico Pro - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
All the bills, all the time: Congress is done messing around, that's for sure. This week, legislators will take crucial steps toward finishing the energy bill, the Toxic Substances Control Act, and the Energy and Water Appropriation. The House will introduce and mark up the Water Resources Development Act, and the appropriators will start work on a spending bill for Interior and Environment. Let's get to it!
House readies energy bill for conference: A massive amendment to the Senate Energy bill will be taken up at the House Rules Committee Tuesday, an important prelude to a conference with the Senate. As Pro's Andrew Restuccia reports, the amendment includes nearly all of the House's own energy bill (H.R. 8) as well as large portions of three dozen other bills passed by the lower chamber. Those include large parts of Rep. David Valadao's California drought bill, much of which has also been added to the Energy and Water Appropriation.
And the amendment lifts entire titles authorizing Energy Department programs for nuclear, fossil and renewable energy research from the House Science Committee’s 2015 America COMPETES Reauthorization Act (H.R. 1806), which the chamber barely passed on a partisan vote. It also includes language from a nuclear energy bill (H.R. 4084) the House passed on a voice vote. That language found its way into the Senate energy bill thanks to a bipartisan amendment introduced by Sen. Mike Crapo.
Trouble ahead? A Senate Democratic aide told ME that "a conference would probably be a waste of Senators' time, if the House sends us a partisan package of veto-bait." The bill, along with a motion for conferees, is the last item on Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy's floor schedule for the week.
Livin' on TSCA time: TSCA comes before the Rules Committee tonight, and it's second on McCarthy's floor schedule, after the chamber decides on the Zika bill. As Pro's Darren Goode reports, the bill (H.R. 2576) is the result of a compromise between both parties in the Senate and the GOP in the House. Proponents aim to get the bill passed before next week's Memorial Day recess. The Rules Committee meets at 5 p.m. in H-313 in the Capitol.
Energy and Water Appropriation contemplation: And the House Rules committee will also set a path tonight for House consideration of the House's $37.4 billion energy and water appropriation, H.R. 5055. The Senate passed its bill last month in a bipartisan vote, and while the two chambers are close in dollar amounts, the House version contains California water measures. The bill is fourth on McCarthy's floor schedule, after one on the D.C. Home Rule Act.
Take them at their WRDA: The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee will host a mark up of its version of the $5 billion, biannual WRDA bill on Wednesday. As Pro's Annie Snider reports, the bill would authorize 28 new Army Corps of Engineers projects, and would offset those by canceling $5 billion in older projects. Unlike the Senate version, which advanced out of committee last month, the bill does not include money to replace lead pipe water distribution systems.
Last, but far from least: The Interior and Environment Appropriation will leave the starting box on Wednesday with a hearing before a panel of the House Appropriations committee. Confederate flag amendments to the bill derailed the entire appropriations process last year. It's always a magnet for policy riders, and with Republicans in Congress furious about EPA climate rules, this year will likely be no different.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2016/05/congress-does-all-its-energy-business-at-once-trumps-golf-course-preps-for-climate-change-oil-companies-face-green-shareholders-214440
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US House Advances Bills Addressing Flame Retardants in Military Uniforms
May 23, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Sylvia Palmer
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would encourage exploration of "emerging flame-resistant technologies" for military personnel uniforms.
The National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 (HR 4909) was agreed by the House on 18 May. Its accompanying report instructs senior military personnel to provide a joint briefing to the House Committee on Armed Services by 15 August to outline the process and costs for providing flame resistant uniform protections for all military personnel.
This follows a report, authorised under a previous defence authorisation act. This showed that the distribution of flame-resistant uniforms is limited to only certain service members.
A separate measure (HR 5293), advanced by the House Appropriations Committee, would encourage the Secretary of Defense to "explore the potential of utilising non-halogenated flame retardants in military uniforms."
The Committee, in an accompanying report to the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill, 2017, recognises the "increasing movement towards prohibiting halogenated flame retardants in commercial products due to health and safety concerns." Service members, says the report, should also be protected from exposures to such products.
Dirk Van Hyning, president of Alexium – a company that supplies chemicals for the military and commercial sectors – says "the legislation being considered is consistent with US and international trends to ban or restrict certain flame retardants that are outdated and unsafe."
https://chemicalwatch.com/47517/us-house-advances-bills-addressing-flame-retardants-in-military-uniforms
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Attorneys General Demand EPA Cease All Work Related to Rule
May 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
A pair of Republican state attorneys general are calling on U.S. EPA to halt all work related to the Clean Power Plan while the rule remains frozen by the Supreme Court.
In February, the high court halted EPA's program for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants pending the resolution of complex litigation.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) penned a letter to EPA, accusing the agency of not according the court's decision "proper respect."
Morrisey and Paxton asked EPA to stop helping states that want to proceed with the Clean Power Plan during the stay, as well as to stop two related rulemakings. They are among a group of attorneys general challenging the rule in court.
"At a minimum, we urge you to consider that you are spending scarce resources on a rule that the Supreme Court has indicated raises serious legal questions," says the May 16letter released today by Morrisey's office.
Republicans in Congress have also questioned EPA's activity during the stay (E&ENews PM, May 13).
Shortly after the Supreme Court made its move, Morrisey and Paxton called on states to put their pencils down and stop all planning activities related to the Clean Power Plan.
Many states, however, have continued their planning activities. Last month, 14 state environmental officials asked EPA for additional information and assistance on planning for the program.
EPA is also moving forward on the Clean Energy Incentive Program, which would reward states for taking early steps to cut carbon, and model rules to guide states in trading emissions credits (ClimateWire, May 6).
"Many states and tribes have indicated that they plan to move forward voluntarily to work to cut carbon pollution from power plants," EPA said in a recent statement, "and have asked the agency to continue providing support and developing tools that may support those efforts, including the CEIP."
EPA sent the proposed Clean Energy Incentive Program to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review last month. The agency called that a "routine step" and consistent with the Supreme Court stay.
But Morrisey and Paxton argue that because the Clean Energy Incentive Program and model trading rules are linked to the Clean Power Plan, work on them "calls into question" EPA's commitment to the Supreme Court order.
They also said that if EPA begins any public comment periods on the related rules, it would improperly compel states to take action related to the Clean Power Plan.
"The entire point of the Supreme Court's extraordinary action in putting a stop to the Power Plan was to preserve the status quo pending the outcome of the litigation," Morrisey and Paxton wrote. "EPA should respect that action by leaving things the way they are until the courts have had their say."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/05/23/stories/1060037690
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EPA Readies Landfill Methane Air Rules While Use Of Gas For Energy Slows
May 23, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA appears on track to meet its July 14 legally binding deadline for issuing updated emissions rules to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) methane from landfills, environmentalists say, while the agency says that use of landfill gas for energy -- which some states are seeking to promote to cut emissions -- has slowed due to economic factors.
The agency is revising its existing landfill emission guidelines, last set in 2000, alongside updated standards for new and modified landfills, which were last set in 1996. The agency is developing the rules in response to a 2011 petition from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) that asked EPA to update new source performance standards (NSPS) for new and modified sources, lowering a threshold at which facilities must capture methane emissions.
EDF sued EPA to force issuance of the rules, and the agency agreed to a settlement imposing a May 2014 deadline for issuing a final rule, though that deadline has been revised several times and is now July 14. "I have no reason to expect they are not on time," says one legal source of the latest deadline for the rule.
At press time, EPA had not sent the final version of the landfills rules to the White House Office of Management & Budget for pre-publication review, a process that typically takes 90 days but can take more or less time. EPA's "unified agenda" information contained in the regulatory docket for the rules projects their issuance in July.
Both the proposed emissions guidelines from 2014 and a supplement to the NSPS in 2015 would set an emissions threshold of 34 metric tons of methane, a level at which landfills would be required to begin capturing emissions of landfill gas, which contains methane and other pollutants. This is significantly lower than the 40-ton threshold that EPA floated in the earlier version of the proposed NSPS, and the existing 50-ton threshold.
Industry opponents of the landfill rules such as the Utility Air Regulatory Group in comments on the proposals say EPA lacks legal authority to update existing source standards issued under Clean Air Act section 111(d) -- the same provision the agency is using for its sweeping GHG regulations for power plants.
An EDF source rejects this claim, saying it is "an inherent power of administrative agencies" to go back and revise their regulations where they feel it necessary. The source notes that the air law requires that EPA review and if necessary revise the NSPS eight years after its issuance but has no such mandate for existing sources.
Reusing Gas
Some states and waste industry groups at last month's Environmental Council of the States meeting in Nashville, TN, said that capturing landfill gas and reusing it for energy could help cut GHGs.
For example, Maryland Secretary of the Environment Benjamin Grumbles said that waste-to-energy is a "great opportunity" and "makes a lot of sense" due to factors such as helping divert waste from landfills that have limited capacity, or from reducing GHG emissions by reusing waste streams.
But he added, "One of the fundamentally most difficult and biggest challenges on the waste to energy movement is environmental justice," and called it also one of the "most contentious" issues. He cited what he called the "six-year saga" of trying to locate a Baltimore-area project that would convert municipal and other waste types to energy. Grumbles said the project ran into opposition from citizen and environmental groups due to concerns about emissions associated with incineration, truck traffic to the facility and other issues.
Economic factors, however, could slow the potential for states and others to capture landfill gas and reuse it as an energy supply. EPA staffer Chris Voell in an April 7 presentation on behalf of the agency's Landfill Methane Outreach Program told the National Landfill Gas Energy Workshop in Charleston, SC, that landfill gas (LFG) "energy project development has slowed," with five new projects and five project expansions in 2015, fewer than in previous years.
"Economic factors continue to challenge project financial feasibility," such as increased production of natural gas that is sold for low prices, and also an "uncertain future for tax credits and market conditions" affecting the sector, Voell said. One exception is California, he said, where LFG gets credit under the state's Renewable Fuel Standard and Low Carbon Fuel Standards.
Voell also noted that states and municipalities are showing increased interest in diversion of organic waste from landfills, reducing the availability of LFG.
Diversion Policies
Bryan Staley of the Environmental Research and Education Foundation in a presentation to the same event -- jointly hosted by EPA and the Solid Waste Association of North America -- also noted declining LFG content per ton of waste landfilled, the result of the changing composition of municipal solid waste.
Diversion policies "substantially affect" LFG volumes, reducing GHGs but also reducing the available supply of LFG for potential beneficial reuse, he said.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-readies-landfill-methane-air-rules-while-use-gas-energy-slows
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GOP Senators Scold EPA on Justification for Methane Rule
May 23, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Niina Heikkinen
Six Republican senators are demanding more information from U.S. EPA about how the agency calculated methane emissions from the oil and gas industry in the United States.
In a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy late Friday, the lawmakers called into question the methodology behind the agency's 2016 Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks and its use in creating new methane regulations.
The latest inventory revised previous methane emissions estimates for the oil and gas industry upward by about 30 percent, and named the natural gas sector as the country's largest source of methane emissions in 2014. According to EPA, the changes were made to reflect additional data about natural gas and petroleum systems (E&ENews PM, April 15).
The senators suggested a different reason for the change.
"The timing of these revisions is deeply suspect," the letter said. "With about six months left in President Obama's second term, it is well known that you and the President view addressing global warming as key to his environmental legacy, and the forthcoming regulation of emissions from existing oil and natural gas infrastructure will be a key driver in doing so. But such political factors cannot change the facts."
The letter was sent by Sens. David Vitter and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Jim Inhofe and James Lankford of Oklahoma, Roger Wicker of Mississippi, and John Hoeven of North Dakota.
EPA's updated emissions data were published a month before the agency released its new methane regulations for new and modified sources in the oil and gas industry. It also proposed a draft information collection request for developing methane regulations on existing sources.
The senators questioned how EPA calculated the number of equipment, like pneumatic controllers and process fugitive components, and how the agency accounted for methane emissions from smaller oil and gas facilities. They also asked if the agency had considered other research on methane levels, such as a study published in the journal Science that found most global methane came from agricultural sources (ClimateWire, March 11).
The letter called for EPA to release any peer-review analysis of its new methodology, as well as communications with environmental and advocacy groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Center for American Progress and the Clean Air Task Force. The senators asked McCarthy to respond by June 7.
"It is deeply troubling to see the EPA's political agenda dictate its use and application of scientific data, as seen in their recent methane rule," said Vitter in a statement. "The Obama EPA has a long history of skewing the facts in order to push through their far-left environmental agenda, regardless of the cost on the economy or American jobs, and I quite look forward to EPA's explanation of the scientific methodology behind their seemingly baseless methane rule."
Vitter, who is chairman of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee, has criticized EPA's methane regulations for hurting small oil and gas producers and has said EPA's rule does not comply with the small business Regulatory Flexibility Act.
EPA said in a statement that it would review and respond to the letter.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/05/23/stories/1060037677
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Toxic Chemicals from Fracking Wastewater Spills Can Persist for Years
May 20, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Deirdre Lockwood
In North Dakota’s Bakken region, the fracking boom has generated nearly 10,000 wells for unconventional oil and gas production—and along with them, almost 4,000 reported wastewater spills resulting from the activity. A new study shows that these spills have left surface waters in the area carrying radium, selenium, thallium, lead, and other toxic chemicals that can persist for years at unsafe levels (Environ. Sci. Technol. 2016, DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5b06349). Soils and sediments at spill sites also harbored long-lasting radium contamination, the study found.
In hydraulic fracturing, operators inject fluid into shale formations to release natural gas and oil. During production, the well brings up a brine that carries the fingerprint of the rock formation below, including naturally occurring toxic or radioactive elements like selenium and radium. This wastewater, called produced water, may be reused, injected underground for disposal, or processed—though not always successfully—in water treatment plants. But as fracking has increased in the Bakken region, so has the incidence of wastewater spills, often resulting from leaks in pipelines that transport the brine to injection wells.
To trace the impact of these spills on the environment, Avner Vengosh of Duke University and his colleagues analyzed four samples of produced water from shale gas wells in North Dakota, and chemical data on produced water from the U.S. Geological Survey. They also took water, sediment, and soil samples at sites of reported brine spills—including the two largest spills in the state’s history—which had occurred months to years earlier. In the largest of these, the Blacktail Creek spill of 2015, an underground pipeline leak introduced almost 11 million L of brine near the creek, which flows into a tributary of the Missouri River.
The team used several geochemical tracers, including strontium isotopes, to detect wastewater residue at the spill sites. The ratio of 87Sr to 86Sr in fracking wastewater carries a distinctive signature of the rock formation where it was produced. By measuring strontium isotopes in the produced water and in water samples taken from spill sites, the researchers could identify brine residue from a spill. Other tracers present in both types of samples confirmed the link.
In the water samples from spill sites, the team found that high concentrations of salts, trace metals, and other toxic contaminants persisted from the spills. Selenium, thallium, and radium exceeded maximum contaminant levels for drinking water in some samples. Additionally, ammonium and selenium concentrations were above recommended levels for aquatic life. In soil and sediment samples downstream from the Blacktail Creek spill site, radium concentrations were up to 100 times as great as in samples upstream.
Brian W. Stewart, a geochemist at the University of Pittsburgh who studies fracking wastewater, says this is the first time to his knowledge that systematic sampling has been done downstream of known brine spills to detect the impact of wastewater from fracking. “I was surprised that it persists that long,” he says; in two cases, the group found elevated levels of contaminants from a spill four years later.
In a separate study, Vengosh and colleagues showed that a radioactive tracer technique could accurately date recent spills, including the one at Blacktail Creek. The method relies on measuring the ratio of 228Th to 228Ra in the soil and sediment. 228Ra, which is soluble in water, comes to the surface with spills and is absorbed by soil, and then decays into insoluble 228Th with a half-life of about six years. The technique can date spills up to 10 years old (Environ. Sci. Technol. Lett. 2016, DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.6b00118). It could finger recent pollution from fracking wastewater in regions with a history of conventional oil and gas production, such as the Marcellus Shale region, potentially resolving issues in which producers claim that contamination resulted from earlier production, Vengosh says.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/web/2016/05/Toxic-chemicals-fracking-wastewater-spills.html
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EPA Again Faults Texas Air Permit Program For Gas Processor Exemption
May 23, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
EPA has again rejected a Texas provision providing a regulatory exemption from new source review (NSR) air permitting for some natural gas processing facilities, fearing that ambiguous regulatory language submitted for agency approval as part of the state's Clean Air Act implementation plan could allow circumvention of NSR.
In a May 2 Federal Register notice, EPA proposes to approve a number of changes to the Texas state implementation plan (SIP) -- a blueprint for compliance with federal air programs -- but for the second time rejects a definition of "modification of existing facility" that the state is again trying to advance.
EPA says the provision is not clearly limited to small changes in emissions that apply only to facilities considered "minor" under the air law, which are those emitting below 100 tons per year (tpy) or 250 tpy of pollution, depending on the pollutant. EPA is taking comment through June 1 on the proposed disapproval of the provision.
Texas originally submitted the provision for approval in 1998, and modified it in 2002, but EPA rejected it Nov. 17, 2011, "because it was not clearly limited to Minor NSR and we could not demonstrate whether this exemption met the anti-backsliding requirements" of the Clean Air Act, EPA says in the new notice. "Backsliding," or weakening of existing pollution controls, is not allowed under the air law.
Texas then re-submitted the same provision in 2010, but EPA says it still has concerns that the exemption can be used by facilities to avoid major-source NSR permits that could impose onerous and costly new pollution controls.
"The exemption provides that changes at certain natural gas processing, treating, or compression facilities are not modifications if the change does not result in an annual emissions rate of any air contaminant in excess of the volume for grandfathered facilities. The 'annual emissions rate' is the same as the 'volume emitted at maximum design capacity;' therefore, this would provide an exemption for those sources from permit review for any emission increases at these facilities," EPA says.
Grandfathered facilities are those pre-existing plants that are deemed compliant with a regulatory regime such as NSR, because they predate the program.
The contested provision "does not contain an applicability statement or regulatory provision limiting this type of change to Minor NSR," EPA says. The state "has not submitted any additional evidence to substantiate that this provision is only applicable to the Texas Minor NSR program. Further, the submittal does not include any explanation of the basis for exempting this type of change from the permitting SIP requirements."
"Without an analysis describing how this exemption does not negate the Major NSR SIP requirements," EPA says, "EPA has no basis to approve this exemption," and therefore proposes its disapproval, the agency says.
The dispute follows a history of conflict between EPA and Texas over the terms of Texas regulations implementing the federal Clean Air Act. For example, EPA initially rejected the state's "flexible permit" program, which allowed industrial facilities to alter their emissions within an overall cap without triggering major source NSR.
EPA disapproved the program, citing similar fears about circumvention of major source NSR, only to be reversed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. A new version of the program, which Texas insists applies only to "minor" sources emitting below the major source thresholds, is now in place.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-again-faults-texas-air-permit-program-gas-processor-exemption
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N.Y. Senators Urge FERC to Suspend Gas Project
May 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
New York's Democratic senators want federal energy regulators to freeze their review of a hotly contested natural gas project slated to run through densely populated communities in their state, one including the Indian Point nuclear plant.
Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday to suspend action on Spectra Energy Corp.'s Algonquin Incremental Market (AIM) Project until independent health and safety reviews of the project are completed.
"I have serious concerns with the Algonquin gas pipeline project because it poses a threat to the quality of life, environmental, health and safety of residents across the Hudson Valley and New York State without any long-term benefit to the communities it would impact," Schumer said in a statement. "It presents even more safety concerns given its proximity to Indian Point."
The commission must cease all work on the project until a "thorough, independent review of all of the project's potential health and environmental impacts" is completed and made public, Schumer said.
A spokeswoman for FERC said Norman Bay, the agency's chairman, would respond to congressional members after receiving the letter. The agency doesn't comment on congressional correspondence or on matters pending before the federal appeals court, said Tamara Young-Allen.
The senators' concerns align with those of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who earlier this year called on FERC to halt its review of the AIM project until the state conducted its own safety review.
Spectra is trying to expand its pipeline system running through New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Last year, FERC issued a positive environmental review of the project, which involves upgrading more than 20 miles of pipeline, building at least 5 miles of additional pipeline and upgrading six compressor stations -- all changes that would boost gas shipments along the East Coast (Greenwire, Jan. 23, 2015).
At scoping hearings on the project in New York, the project has sparked opposition from environmental groups -- including Stop the Algonquin Pipeline Expansion (SAPE) and Fighting Against Natural Gas (FANG) -- but support among unions. Green groups have specifically raised the concern that the pipeline would cross fault lines and run too close to the Indian Point nuclear plant in New York on the east bank of the Hudson River.
But FERC in its environmental review noted the Nuclear Regulatory Commission found that a breach and explosion of the proposed 42-inch-diameter natural gas pipeline would not "adversely impact the safe operation" of the Indian Point plant.
Spectra has touted the project as a critical means of boosting supplies of Appalachian gas to the Northeast, a region notorious for energy shortages during severe winter weather.
A coalition of bipartisan senators -- including Maine independent Sen. Angus King, Republican Sens. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Susan Collins of Maine, and Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire -- has recognized the need for new infrastructure in the area and has called on FERC in the past to conduct an expeditious and thorough review of Spectra's proposal.
But Schumer and Gillibrand said in a statement that they've received numerous comments from community leaders, advocacy groups and individuals concerned about the safety and potential negative environmental effects of the proposed project.
"The overwhelmingly negative feedback received from the public during scoping sessions hosted by FERC and at community meetings has made it clear that this project does not have the support of their constituents," read a statement issued by Schumer's office. "The senators also said that at no point has it been made clear that there is a compelling economic need for this project in New York, while the potential for long lasting environmental, safety and health impacts is clear."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/05/23/stories/1060037711
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Many Natural Gas-Fired Power Plants Under Construction are Near Major Shale Plays
May 23, 2016 | U.S. Energy Information Administration (in Real Clear Energy)
By Victoria Zaretskaya
Natural gas-fired power generation increased 19% in 2015, because of low natural gas prices, increased gas-fired generation capacity, and coal power plant retirements. EIA's May 2016 Short-Term Energy Outlook forecasts that this year, natural gas-fired generation will exceed coal generation in the United States on an annual basis.
Growth in natural gas-fired generation capacity is expected to continue over the next several years, as 18.7 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity comes online between 2016 and 2018. Many of the new natural gas-fired capacity additions in development are near major shale gas plays. The Mid-Atlantic states and Texas have the most natural gas-fired capacity additions under construction with planned online dates within the next three years (2016–18).
Mid-Atlantic states. Many of the natural gas capacity additions are concentrated around the Marcellus and Utica shale regions, largely located in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio. These states have been leading the growth in U.S. natural gas production over the past several years, driven by increasing production in the Marcellus and Utica shales. Natural gas infrastructure has been added in these regions to transport natural gas to population centers along the Atlantic Coast. Among the states near the Marcellus and Utica shales, Virginia accounts for the largest cumulative additions of gas-fired capacity over the 2016–18 period, with 2.3 GW of gas-fired capacity under construction, followed by Ohio with 1.9 GW, Pennsylvania with 1.8 GW, and Massachusetts with 0.7 GW, according to EIA's Electric Power Monthly.
Expanding pipeline networks in the Northeast are increasing takeaway capacity from the Marcellus and Utica shales, which will support the growth in natural gas-fired generating capacity. In 2015, 6.0 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of new pipeline takeaway capacity in the Northeast was commissioned to transport natural gas to the east, south, and west of the Marcellus and Utica shales. In 2016, 2.2 Bcf/d of new pipeline capacity currently under construction is scheduled to come online in the Northeast, according to EIA data on natural gas pipeline infrastructure.
Texas. Significant levels of natural gas-fired capacity are under construction in Texas, with 3.2 GW expected to become operational over 2016–18. Texas produces more natural gas than any other state and is home to several major shale plays, including the Eagle Ford and Barnett shales.
Florida has the largest cumulative additions of gas-fired capacity currently under construction, with three plants that have a combined capacity of 3.8 GW expected to come online in 2016–18. Although the state has no shale gas production, the retirement of older, less-efficient coal units and the replacement of some oil-fired capacity have led to the expansion of regional pipeline networks to bring more shale gas to serve gas-fired generation.
The cumulative capacity additions cited above include plants that are under construction. The Mid-Atlantic states and Texas also have the most regulatory permit filings for new gas-fired capacity additions. Their combined received and pending permits amount to a cumulative 12.1 GW over the 2016–18 period. Texas leads the United States in permit filings, with received and pending permits to construct a cumulative 6.6 GW over the 2016–18 period.
http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=26312
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Audit Faults CSB Transparency, Management of Office Space
May 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sam Pearson
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board needs to work on procedures for publishing information on public meetings, documenting its budgeting process and reducing excess office space, according to a new audit.
The report by the U.S. EPA Office of Inspector General -- which has oversight of CSB -- found the board often fails to post summaries and transcripts of recent public meetings promptly, as required under Office of Management and Budget guidance. The agency also lacks procedures for how it budgets and leases more office space than it needs, the audit found.
The report is the latest of several examining CSB management practices. The OIG and lawmakers have paid more attention to CSB in recent years after the departure of its former chairman, Rafael Moure-Eraso, following disputes over his management (E&E Daily, March 27, 2015).
The OIG found the board sometimes posts summaries and transcripts of public meetings quickly, and other times delays for weeks or months. Of 16 quorum sessions in which board members and staff discussed information together in fiscal 2014, two summaries were prepared in time and others were not finished for as long as 234 days after the event, the audit found.
The lack of attention to the matter "could impact the ability to respond to [Freedom of Information Act] requests and limit the transparency of CSB's governmental actions," the report said.
CSB hires an outside firm to transcribe its public meetings, but it doesn't post the transcriptions promptly or consistently, the report found. The delay puts CSB out of compliance with an OMB directive requiring that transcripts be made available within 30 days, the audit says. CSB posted transcripts of nine meetings held between November 2013 and January 2015 as long as 281 days after the fact, the OIG said.
The auditors also took issue with the design of CSB's website, saying it posts information like transcripts in confusing and inconsistent locations.
The OIG said the board's lack of "documented internal guidance" for its internal budgeting process -- also required by OMB -- leaves it at higher risk of mismanaging its $11 million annual budget. The agency has also failed to document procedures by which it twice bought legal services using purchase cards before following up with a larger contract.
CSB also leases more office space than allowed under General Services Administration guidelines, the audit found. CSB recently moved its headquarters to a new Washington, D.C., location. Its Denver regional office has several empty staff offices because the space is larger than necessary for the number of staff working there, the OIG said. The audit said CSB could have saved more than $600,000 by leasing less office space.
CSB said it would address the issues raised by the audit.
The agency will develop guidance specifying that transcripts are to be posted "promptly" within 30 days, or 60 days if they are from a multiday hearing. It also plans to work with GSA to "review possible space adjustments" in the years ahead.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/05/23/stories/1060037707
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Spill Dumps 120,000 Gallons in North Dakota
May 20, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By Associated Press
Crews in North Dakota excavated pastureland after more than 120,000 gallons of oil and drilling wastewater overflowed from a tank, the state Health Department said Friday.
The spill happened Wednesday morning near Marmarth in southwestern North Dakota at a site operated by Plano, Texas-based Denbury Onshore LLC, according to Bill Suess, an environmental scientist who heads spill investigations for the state Health Department. The company notified state regulators of the spill immediately, he said.
About 17,000 gallons of oil and 105,000 gallons of what’s called produced water — a mixture of saltwater and oil that can contain drilling chemicals — spilled from a tank after a shut-off sensor failed, Suess said.
Denbury spokesman John Mayer said crews may have the spill cleaned up by the end of Friday, though monitoring would continue. State Health Department and Oil and Gas Division employees are monitoring the cleanup.
The company told investigators that a power outage caused the sensor to fail, though Suess said the cause of the outage has not been determined.
An area about the size of a football field beyond the well site was affected, but no waterways or drinking water sources were threatened, Suess said.
“It is a relatively significant volume but from an overall risk standpoint it’s not that high,” he said, noting that the company had a berm around the oil well site but it wasn’t adequate to contain the spill. Neither investigators nor the company could confirm how much oil and drilling wastewater left the site.
Suess said crews used huge vacuums to suck up the overflow, and crews have had to dig at least 18 inches down to remove affected soil.
“Once they excavate, it will be replaced with clean fill,” Suess said.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/05/20/spill-dumps-120000-gallons-in-north-dakota/
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Drinking Water For 13.8 Million People Tainted By Unsafe Levels Of PFCs
May 23, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Bill Walker
Drinking water supplies serving more than 13.8 million Americans may be contaminated with two perfluorinated chemicals, or PFCs, at levels higher than the Environmental Protection Agency now deems safe, according to an EWG analysis of EPA test data.
Since 2013, an EPA-mandated testing program has detected elevated levels of the chemicals in 55 public water systems in 20 states plus two Pacific island territories. Those systems had at least one sample contaminated with either one of or both of the two PFCs at an amount greater than the new lifetime health advisory level announced this week by EPA
The agency’s new health advisory for the combined level of chemicals PFOA and PFOS in drinking water is 70 parts per trillion – about a drop of water in 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools. EPA said that at this level or below, the chemicals are “not expected to result in adverse health effects over a lifetime of exposure.”
EPA said the new advisory level was set to protect health during critical windows of infant and child development when harm is most likely to occur. But a robust body of independent research has also linked the chemicals to cancer, thyroid disease, endocrine disruption and other health problems, and the newest research says they can cause harm at levels 70 or more times lower than the EPA recommended.
The advisory level is not a legally enforceable limit, although after EPA’s announcement some utilities immediately warned customers not to drink or use the water. The EPA has said it could be 2019 or beyond before it sets enforceable drinking water standard.
PFOA, formerly used to make DuPont’s Teflon, and PFOS, formerly an ingredient in 3M’s Scotchgard, are the most prominent members of a class of chemicals that have been used for decades in hundreds of consumer products and industrial applications. Both chemicals were also used for firefighting at military airfields and commercial airports.
They were phased out after revelations that the manufacturers had withheld decades of studies showing that the chemicals were extraordinarily persistent in the environment and build up in people’s blood. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says both substances contaminate the blood of almost all Americans and can be passed from mothers to unborn children.
The count of 13.8 million people drinking PFC-contaminated water is boosted significantly by the inclusion of New York City, where the chemicals were found in a small number of samples from just two locations. Several other large metro areas also had detections in a small number of samples. It is not known exactly how many people were served the contaminated water, and since testing began three years ago, some systems may no longer be contaminated.
Conversely, the number of people drinking the tainted water could actually be higher. The EPA testing program covered only a small sample of water systems that serve fewer than 10,000 customers and did not cover private wells. About 19 percent of Americans drink water from these smaller systems and another 15 percent get their water from private wells.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/05/drinking-water-138-million-people-tainted-unsafe-levels-pfcs
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EPA Advisory Panel Ready to Meet Despite Legal Challenge
May 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
A U.S. EPA air pollution advisory panel plans to proceed with a public teleconference today despite an anti-regulatory group's legal bid to block it.
The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee Particulate Matter Review Panel remains scheduled to start the teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT, according to a website posting that was confirmed by an EPA spokeswoman.
The Energy & Environment Legal Institute had requested a stay to stop the meeting from occurring as part of a lawsuit filed earlier this month to force EPA to reconstitute the panel on the grounds that most members are not independent of the agency (Greenwire, May 17).
As of this morning, Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had taken no action on the request, according to the court's online records system.
In an interview today, institute attorney Steve Milloy said the Washington, D.C., group is now pursuing a temporary restraining order to keep today's meeting from taking place.
Regardless of the outcome, Milloy said, the institute will proceed with the lawsuit, which alleges that 22 of the review panel's 26 members have been recipients of EPA research grants and will thus be "inappropriately influenced" by the agency's view that fine particles warrant stiffer regulation.
The panel, comprising mostly university researchers, will play a central role in determining whether any updates are needed to EPA's ambient air quality standards for particulate matter, which is linked to premature death and aggravation of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Today's four-hour teleconference is intended to discuss the draft of a review plan for the benchmarks.
EPA lawyers haven't yet replied in court to the institute's allegations. But John Walke, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's clean air program, said he sees the suit as an industry-driven attempt to undercut the standards-setting process. It's unlikely to succeed, he said.
"It is targeting EPA with a baseless set of legal claims," Walke said in an interview last week.
Milloy, he noted, was involved in a 2012 lawsuit filed by another group that likened EPA tests exposing people to diesel engine particulate emissions to medical experiments performed in Nazi concentration camps (Greenwire, Sept. 24, 2012).
In that case, EPA responded that participants, who were paid and received a medical examination, were fully informed of potential risks. A federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed the suit within months on the grounds that those challenging the diesel emissions tests lacked standing, meaning that they failed to prove they were harmed as a result (Greenwire, Feb. 1. 2013).
In the new suit, the institute says it's representing the Western States Trucking Association, a group of almost 1,000 trucking companies whose members are "adversely impacted" by particulate matter regulations. The institute is also representing James Enstrom, an epidemiologist formerly with the School of Public Health at UCLA, who was "discouraged" from applying for a position on the panel because he had challenged EPA's position on the dangers posed by particulate matter, according to the suit.
Enstrom, who had received tobacco industry research funding and questioned whether the health risks of secondhand smoke were as serious as portrayed, was fired by UCLA in 2012 (Greenwire, Aug. 9, 2013).
In a settlement last year to a wrongful dismissal suit, the university agreed to rescind the termination, pay Enstrom $140,000 and allow him to use the title "retired researcher," according to a report in the Daily Bruin, a UCLA student newspaper.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/05/23/stories/1060037706
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Grid Overseer Says Renewables a Winner Under EPA Rule
May 23, 2016 | E&E Interactive
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
Regardless of whether U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan survives legal challenge, the nation's power generation mix is adding a large amount of renewable resources, according to the electric industry's grid watchdog.
Combined wind and solar capacity will rise by 10-20 gigawatts over the next 15 years, while coal capacity will decline by up to 27 GW as a result of the EPA carbon rule, the North American Electric Reliability Corp. said last week.
When state renewable portfolio standards and extensions of tax credits for renewable energy are considered, about 120 GW of wind and solar resources will be added to the grid between now and 2030, NERC said in its report, "Potential Reliability Implications of EPA's Clean Power Plan -- Phase II."
"NERC's assessment shows that significant changes to the resource mix are occurring regardless of the CPP, but that the CPP accelerates some of these changes, underscoring a potential reliability challenge," said Thomas Coleman, director of reliability assessment at NERC.
"Generation and transmission planners are encouraged to use this report and its findings to develop more localized studies for both generation and transmission adequacy," Coleman said.
The Clean Power Plan also will contribute to the trend of lower annual electricity demand growth, NERC said. Present data show average growth of 0.61 percent annually, while the new NERC analysis shows this growth rate declining to 0.31 percent annually.
"This report appears to paint a relatively upbeat assessment of the reliability implications of the Clean Power Plan relative to prior NERC analyses," said Matt Stanberry, vice president for market development at the clean energy business group Advanced Energy Economy.
"We already know we agree with what appears to be NERC's primary message to the states: The CPP would merely accelerate existing market trends, so states should be planning now for the transition that is already underway with or without the CPP," Stanberry said.
This week
Today at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) discusses legal challenges he is leading against the Clean Power Plan. Morrisey will be joined by former EPA Air Office head Jeff Holmstead, now an industry attorney representing the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity in the case, and utility policy analyst Christine Tezak of ClearView Energy Partners LLC. EnergyWire reporter Rod Kuckro will moderate.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency meets tomorrow to discuss how carbon allowances might be distributed to power companies under the Clean Power Plan. Utilities and environmental advocates will present their preferences in two separate panels. The Bipartisan Policy Center recently completed modeling that state officials are reviewing.
On Wednesday in Atlanta, the Solar Power Southeast conference will feature a panel on the Clean Power Plan, how Southern states are responding and how the rule might affect the growth in solar energy. Panelists include Donald van der Vaart, North Carolina secretary of environment and natural resources; Alexandra Dunn, executive director of the Environmental Council of the States; Nachy Kanfer, deputy director the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign; and Francis Hodsoll, president of solar developer SolUnesco. EnergyWire's Rod Kuckro will be moderating.
On Thursday, a House Space, Science and Technology subcommittee will hold a hearing on the impact of EPA's Clean Power Plan on states. Witnesses include Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R), Brianne Gorod of the Constitutional Accountability Center and Charles McConnell of Rice University's Energy and Environment Initiative. Greenwire's Amanda Reilly will be covering.
In case you missed it
Pennsylvania coal lobbyist John Pippy fights 'for men and women in coal fields' (ClimateWire, May 20).
James Rubin, a partner at Dorsey & Whitney, says a changed court schedule for the Clean Power Plan may affect the legal arguments lawyers will present ( E&ETV's OnPoint, May 19).
The first of multiple studies from the Energy Information Administration suggests some implementation methods for the Clean Power Plan may have a more modest impact on power bills than opponents predict (ClimateWire, May 18).
The new timeline has lawyers shuffling their schedules (Greenwire, May 17).
Oregon is kicking off a study on cap and trade (ClimateWire, May 17).
The firm that predicted double-digit rate hikes is stressing it's difficult to estimate costs without knowing what states will do (EnergyWire, May 16).
http://www.eenews.net/interactive/clean_power_plan/column_posts/1060037670
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