Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 5/31
-
Business Wants a WTO Trade Deal to End Tariffs on Chemicals
May 30, 2016 | Reuters
By Tom Miles
A treaty to scrap import tariffs on chemicals emerged as a favoured candidate for a new trade agreement on Monday, as more than 60 business leaders debated ideas for new agreement at the World Trade Organisation headquarters. -
(ACC Mentioned) Green Jobs are Sprouting Up. Will It Last?
May 31, 2016 | Environmental Leader
By Ken Silverstein
Solar jobs are hot and growing faster than those in the fossil fuel sector. That’s according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, which said that more than 8 million around the globe had jobs in the clean tech sector in 2015. -
California Proposes to List Bromodichloroacetic Acid Under Prop 65
May 31, 2016 | Chemical Watch
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has issued a notice of its intent to list bromodichloroacetic acid on Proposition 65 as a substance known to the state to cause cancer. -
'Better Living Through Chemistry' ... Says Who?
May 31, 2016 | Creators
By Marilynn Preston
On the healthy lifestyle beat, you can't ignore politics. Well, you can, but it would be wrong. Congress is finally having a go at redoing the shoddy and shameful Toxic Substances Control Act. -
Flame Retardants Tied to Risk of Thyroid Disease in Women
May 30, 2016 | Reuters
By Lisa Rapaport
Women with high levels of common flame retardants in their blood may have an elevated risk for thyroid disease, a recent study suggests. -
Is Your Kid's Car Seat Toxic? Maybe We'll Finally Find Out
May 31, 2016 | New Jersey Star-Ledger
By Editorial Board
Your allergy medication doesn't go on the market without being tested, but the same isn't true for the paint on your baby's crib. -
Inside the Toxin-Free Hospital of the Future
May 31, 2016 | GreenBiz
By Gary Cohen
Last week, hundreds of changemakers from hospitals, health systems and medical products or supplier companies gathered in Dallas to learn and compare notes at the 13th CleanMed Conference. -
Who Bears the Most Risk From Fracking?
May 31, 2016 | The New York Times
By The Editorial Board
Say this for John Quigley, until a few days ago the state of Pennsylvania’s top environmental officer. With a profanity-laced email that played a role in his resignation he put the dangers of hydraulic fracturing front and center in the public consciousness -
Conservation Program at Center of Energy Bill Fight
May 31, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The long-term fate of a major conservation program could end up being a key sticking point in negotiations over federal energy policy reform. -
Federal Study Clears Fracking Off California Coast
May 31, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Hydraulic fracturing and other techniques for stimulating oil and natural gas wells should cause no significant harm when used in federal waters off the California coast, a federal analysis concluded. -
CSB Urges EPA to Require Inherently Safer Technologies
May 31, 2016 | Occupational Health & Safety
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has submittedcomments in response to an EPA proposed rule on accidental release prevention requirements, part of the risk management programs specified by the Clean Air Act. -
Why a Power Grid Attack is a Nightmare Scenario
May 30, 2016 | The Hill - Cybersecurity (In Real Clear Energy)
By Katie Bo Williams and Cory Bennett
Stores are closed. Cell service is failing. Broadband Internet is gone.Hospitals are operating on generators, but rapidly running out of fuel. Garbage is rotting in the streets, and clean water is scarce as people boil water stored in bathtubs to stop the spread of bacteria. -
Sierra Club Challenges EPA's Air Monitoring Rule
May 31, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Sierra Club wants a federal appeals court to review an Environmental Protection Agency regulation updating federal air monitoring requirements under the Clean Air Act (Sierra Club v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1158, 5/27/16).
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
-
Business Wants a WTO Trade Deal to End Tariffs on Chemicals
May 30, 2016 | Reuters
By Tom Miles
A treaty to scrap import tariffs on chemicals emerged as a favoured candidate for a new trade agreement on Monday, as more than 60 business leaders debated ideas for new agreement at the World Trade Organisation headquarters.
Until 2013, WTO trade talks were deadlocked in the "Doha Round" of negotiations, but WTO members broke the impasse, striking a deal to cut customs red tape. An agreement to scrap tariffs on information technology products followed in 2015, and a similar deal on environmental goods is being worked on.
Chemicals could follow the same tariff-cutting template, said Kati Suominen, chief executive of TradeUp Capital Fund, who chaired one of four closed-door sessions.
"I think the discussion on chemicals was motivated by our discussion of ... the Information Technology Agreement and perhaps using a similar modality for the chemicals sector, where there's a wide range of products, and similar ideas for liberalising this sector worldwide," she said.
Other areas where businesses would like to see global standards or lower barriers included e-commerce, movement of people, consumer protection, local content requirements on manufactured goods, double taxation, data transfer and foreign direct investment.
Those ideas would all need further discussion, whereas "in certain sectors like chemicals we probably know what to do right away," Suominen said.
Carole Kariuki of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance, who chaired another session, said: "While there were many other sectors, the chemicals sector seems a little more organised."
The session on small- and medium-sized enterprises had a "robust discussion" on trade finance, which was a critical bottleneck, Suominen said.
"As we look around the world we see that banks are now more stifled from lending to SMEs in light of the fact that they have higher capital and 'know your customer' requirements. But at the same time we see a rise of alternative financing vehicles, online platforms and such, and we thought that this may be a great opportunity for the WTO to explore."
"Apparently chemicals was mentioned more than anything else," said WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo. He said business leaders had approached him about holding the event. It was still early to say how the WTO's 162 members could develop the ideas.
"This is just the first shot. My understanding is that the group wants to continue this and maybe meet again and come back to us with more detailed proposals," he said. "Clearly the WTO can do things. We have been doing a lot in just two years."
http://www.reuters.com/article/trade-wto-chemicals-idUSL8N18R3DY
-
(ACC Mentioned) Green Jobs are Sprouting Up. Will It Last?
May 31, 2016 | Environmental Leader
By Ken Silverstein
Solar jobs are hot and growing faster than those in the fossil fuel sector. That’s according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, which said that more than 8 million around the globe had jobs in the clean tech sector in 2015.
Proponents of national investment in the green economy will tell us that the money has paid off while critics will say that it is happening because of taxpayer-funded subsidies. But public policy is a function of democratically-run elections, at least in those areas of the globe where free elections exist. To that end, public officials represent the will of the people. Still, there are critical follow up questions, such as whether the jobs are temporary or permanent as well as to recognize that fossil fuels play a far bigger role in national economies in terms of running their cars and power plants.
“We are seeing remarkable positive trends in the competitiveness of renewables worldwide,” says Adnan Z. Amin Director-General International Renewable Energy Agency, in a speech. “We are consistently seeing renewable electricity either at grid parity or beating conventional energy on the grid in more and more markets around the world.”
What he goes on to say is that this is the “golden age” of renewables and he would expect to see exponential growth in jobs — as much as 24 million people around the world working in clean tech by 2023. That’s if global climate pact COP21 is carried out.
Here in the United States, the trends are similar, although critics will say that it is because of subsidies given to renewables while proponents will say that market forces are driving the shift. In other words, consumers are demanding it, technology companies are providing it and policymakers are stepping up.
“As technology is advanced and the cost curves have come down, I think policy plays much less of a role now in advancing the ball,” says Ron Litzinger, president of the Edison Energy Group, at a conference moderated by this reporter on behalf of Energy Manager Today and Environmental Leader. “And customers see that you can do it cost effectively now, with today’s technology. And that is ramping up the demand.”
That means jobs — in the corporate world, all to keep up with those developments: 769,000 in the United States, says the International Renewable Energy Agency. That includes 209,000 in solar and 88,000 in wind.
Regardless of what one may think, President Obama has taken decisive positions that will leave a mark on the nation, perhaps most notably in the energy and the environmental areas. Indeed, it has been Mr. Obama’s original economic stimulus into the New Energy Economy that started things off — the more than $1 trillion invested into green energy technologies and the smart grid, all intended to create economies of scale and new job opportunities.
“Seven years ago, we made the single biggest investment in clean energy in our history,” the president said during his State of the Union in January. “In fields from Iowa to Texas, wind power is now cheaper than dirtier, conventional power. On rooftops from Arizona to New York, solar is saving Americans tens of millions of dollars a year on their energy bills, and employs more Americans than coal …”
But don’t count out fossil fuels, especially natural gas that is slowly but surely overtaking coal as the leading fuel to create electricity — a function, in part, of the Clean Power Plan that requires a 32 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2030, from 2005 levels. And natural gas liquids are also in demand, helping to recruit global manufacturers and chemical makers that are attracted by the abundance and costs of shale gas in the United States.
As such, public investment in renewable fuels and private investment in shale gas development can share in the credit for a US economic revival: There will be 930,000 shale-gas driven jobs by 2030 and 1.4 million by 2040, says PriceWaterHouseCoopers.
There’s at least 2,515 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves in this country, amounting to a century’s worth, according to the Potential Gas Committee. Prices are now slightly more than $2 per million Btus – much less than what the Europeans or Asians are paying. And in the heart of heating season late this year, they are not expected to go much higher.
The American manufacturing and chemical industries are thriving as a result of cheap natural gas, while their foreign counterparts are investing billions here as well. Witness the rebirth of petrochemical plants all over this country — the equivalent of $258 billion in new manufacturing output by 2020 and $328 billion by 2025, says the American Chemistry Council.
Does the growth in natural gas conflict with that of renewables? Environmentalists would say that it does — that the earth is warming and that natural gas is fossil fuel that doesn’t help the cause. They want more and more national investment in green energy.
But President Obama suggest that the two go hand-in-hand — that natural gas is fueling economic growth here while also lessening its overall emissions. His New Energy Economy is thus defined broadly as not just renewable technologies but also cleaner fossil fuels.
“Companies want resiliency,” says Scott Samuelsen, who leads the University of California at Irvine’s Advanced Power and Energy Program. “The second driver is sustainability.”
The bottom line is that the modern technologies are giving companies environmental advantages that are creating goodwill in the communities where they operate. And it means jobs, especially in the green sector.
http://www.environmentalleader.com/2016/05/31/green-jobs-are-sprouting-up-will-it-last/#ixzz4AEdQa5hk
-
California Proposes to List Bromodichloroacetic Acid Under Prop 65
May 31, 2016 | Chemical Watch
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has issued a notice of its intent to list bromodichloroacetic acid on Proposition 65 as a substance known to the state to cause cancer.
The action is being proposed under the authoritative body's listing mechanism, based on a 2015 National Toxicology Program (NTP) report on the substance.
Bromodichloroacetic acid is a water disinfectant byproduct. According to the NTP, it is formed after disinfection of water with halogenated oxidants, usually chlorine.
Comments on the proposed listing will be accepted until 27 June.
In a separate notice, Oehha advised that it will be holding a meeting of its Developmental and Reproductive Toxicant Identification Committee (Dartic) on 27 October.
The Carcinogen Identification Committee (CIC) will meet on 15 November.
https://chemicalwatch.com/47718/california-proposes-to-list-bromodichloroacetic-acid-under-prop-65
-
'Better Living Through Chemistry' ... Says Who?
May 31, 2016 | Creators
By Marilynn Preston
On the healthy lifestyle beat, you can't ignore politics. Well, you can, but it would be wrong. Congress is finally having a go at redoing the shoddy and shameful Toxic Substances Control Act. It was passed 40 years ago, in 1976, to the delight of the chemical industry, and it should have been called the Toxic Substances Out of Control Act. It is now considered a public health calamity, but help may be coming — in a bipartisan way. It's that bad!
The decades of research that are leading to 2016 congressional reform are above reproach and downright frightening: Synthetic (manmade) chemicals in our cosmetics, food, furniture, household cleaners, plastic bottles, toys, water — pretty much, our Everything — are irrefutably linked to a hideously wide variety of cancers, heart disease, obesity, male infertility and ADHD, and that should be enough to catch your attention.
"Of the more than 80,000 chemicals currently used in the United States," says the National Resources Defense Council, "most have not been adequately tested for their effect on human health."
And how about this read-it-slowly summary by the Environmental Defense Fund: "1 of 3 formulated products sold by major retailers contains chemicals known to pose health risks."
Yikes. The EPA hasn't been testing, and the chemical industry hasn't been resting, and it's all gotten so dangerous, so threatening to our health and safety, even Congress is paying attention.
This pending legislation, named the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, would shift the burden of proof onto the chemical companies, so they have to honestly prove a chemical is safe before it can be sold to and used by humans. They don't have to do that now. It's stunning, isn't it?
The new law (you can keep track of it at www.govtrack.us) would be an imperfect first step toward protecting our population.
More important are the steps you take, dear reader, without waiting for vested interests in Washington to have their sway.
Here is some well-researched advice from NRDC's reporter Alexandra Zissu about how to avoid endocrine-disrupting chemicals. I admit that some of her suggestions sound a bit extreme. But so does a diagnosis of breast cancer. TURN UP YOUR NOSE AT FRAGRANCES. Pretty smells can have ugly consequences, according to the research on a class of chemicals called phthalates, found in fragrances and countless consumer products. Even if you can't pronounce their name, phthalates are impacting your health as endocrine disrupters. A few innocent sniffs and they're inside your body, mimicking hormones and creating havoc with your endocrine system, a network of hormones and glands that regulate everything you do.Everything you do. So check labels and buy fragrance-free.
THINK TWICE ABOUT PLASTICS. Many plastics are carriers of hormone-disrupting chemicals that harm your health, even at very low doses. BPA is one of the bad-boy plastics to avoid ... but how? Clean up your act a step at a time: Replace plastic food containers with glass ones; never use plastic in the microwave; replace plastic baggies with reusable lunch bags and replace plastic cling wrap with beeswax-coated cloth. (I spark joy every time I use my reusable beeswax covers.)
SAY, "NO CAN DO." Zissu and the NRDC don't like cans of any sort, even those labeled "BPA free". Don't use them, she writes. Choose fresh, frozen or dried foods instead.
RETHINK KID COSMETICS. Zissu reports that kids are using personal care products more than ever, and just like the adult kind, the kid-marketed cosmetics and lotions are packed with substances that get directly into the skin — the largest organ of the body — where they can do damage. Precocious puberty, for example.
Holy baby sunscreen! "Kids don't need cosmetics," Zissu reminds us. But the chemical industry always needs more customers, so that explains that.
CLEAN SMARTER. Don't get me started on household commercial cleaners, the kind Alexandra Zissu suggests you dispose of immediately! Responsibly, of course.
For more than 40 years, we innocent zillions have been buying these big-bottle commercial cleaners and all their tainted cousins — oven cleaners, flame retardants — thinking they were harmless.
Oops.
The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 depended on the chemical industry to decide what's safe for consumers, aka "guinea pigs."
Let us agree they have not been doing a good job.
ENERGY EXPRESS-O! BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY?
"EDCs — Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals — have contaminated the world via the natural flow of air and water." — Linda S. Birnbaum, director of National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences
https://www.creators.com/read/marilynn-preston-energy-express/05/16/better-living-through-chemistry-says-who
-
Flame Retardants Tied to Risk of Thyroid Disease in Women
May 30, 2016 | Reuters
By Lisa Rapaport
Women with high levels of common flame retardants in their blood may have an elevated risk for thyroid disease, a recent study suggests.
The chemicals – known as PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers - can be used to make clothing or upholstery fire-resistant.
PBDEs belong to “a class of chemicals that interfere with our endocrine system – so-called endocrine disrupting chemicals," said lead researcher Joseph Allen of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
PBDEs disrupt the endocrine system by interfering with the body's production of the hormone estrogen. The thyroid, which controls metabolism, can malfunction without the right amount of estrogen.
Side effects from endocrine disruptors can cause developmental, reproductive, neurological and immune system problems.
Along with fabrics, PBDEs may be found in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, pesticides, plastics, detergents, food, and toys, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
Previous research has shown that flame retardant chemicals can accumulate in fatty tissue and interfere with hormone function, Allen and colleagues note in the journal Environmental Health.
For the current study, they reviewed data on thyroid problems and blood concentrations of four different types of PBDEs in women interviewed in 2003 and 2004 as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Compared to women with the lowest blood concentrations of flame retardants, women with the highest levels in their blood were 48 to 78 percent more likely to have thyroid problems, the study found.
Older women had more issues – 24 percent of post-menopausal women reported having thyroid issue at some point, compared with 12 percent of pre-menopausal women.
Because it's known that estrogen levels regulate thyroid hormones, researchers suspected post-menopausal women, who make less estrogen than younger women, might be particularly vulnerable to thyroid problems associated with the chemicals.
One limitation of the study is its reliance on survey participants to accurately recall and report on any thyroid problems, the authors note. The study also doesn't prove flame retardants cause thyroid damage, only that there appears to be an association between these two things.
"Flame retardants migrate out of furniture and other products into the air and dust in our homes, schools and offices," Allen noted in an email to Reuters Health.
Indeed, most exposure to PBDEs in the U.S. occurs through inadvertent contact and ingestion of dust particles in the home, said Heather Stapleton, an environmental health researcher at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who wasn't involved in the study.
"These chemicals are so persistent and ubiquitous that they are present at very low levels in the home," Stapleton said by email.
The only way to know whether older furniture has flame retardants is to test it in a lab, Stapleton said. But there are other ways to minimize how much these chemicals seep into the body.
"Washing your hands before you eat is also likely to reduce exposure," Stapleton added. "It's also suggested that cleaning and dusting practices, particularly wet dusting or mopping approaches to minimize resuspension of particles, can reduce exposure."
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-thyroid-pbde-idUSKCN0YL1RX
-
Is Your Kid's Car Seat Toxic? Maybe We'll Finally Find Out
May 31, 2016 | New Jersey Star-Ledger
By Editorial Board
Your allergy medication doesn't go on the market without being tested, but the same isn't true for the paint on your baby's crib.
Few people realize that right now, there's no federal system in place to make sure the chemicals we touch every day are not causing cancer or birth defects.
Tens of thousands of inscrutable ingredients in our cleaning products, on our nursery walls and carpets have never been found to be safe. They are, in effect, innocent until proven guilty.An old federal law currently on the books, called the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, is so feeble that when the government tried to regulate toxic asbestos in the late 1980s, it wasn't even able to even do that.
Thankfully, our nation is about to give it a major overhaul, with a new chemical safety bill named for the late New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg – a longtime champion of this issue.
According to a deal reached last week in Congress, it will gradually subject all chemicals on the market to at least some level of screening, with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prioritizing the ones it sees as the riskiest.It also gives the EPA new power to require companies to test their chemicals before they show up in our household products. And it compels the feds to examine the effect on particularly vulnerable populations, like children and the elderly.
It took a long time to hash this out. Congressman Frank Pallone (D-NJ) was one of the lead negotiators in the House, and Sen. Cory Booker helped in the upper chamber. And it's not a perfect reform.
One big problem is that the new law will make it a lot harder for proactive states like New Jersey or California to have stricter regulations than the feds on a chemical.But lawmakers did negotiate an important caveat: A state can still apply for a waiver to federal preemption, if it can show good reason to come up with its own rules -- although this bill raises the bar to qualify.
The new standards will inevitably unleash a new round of animal testing, too, so another provision to prevent unnecessary cruelty -- promoted by Booker, a proud vegan -- is welcome. It is designed to reduce the use of animals when alternative tests that are scientifically reliable are available.
The EPA will require researchers to use other methods first, before resorting to primates, mice or rabbits. But let's make sure this isn't interpreted too strictly. Even if information is gathered through animal testing, the feds should still be able to use it to judge a chemical's safety.
Despite its flaws, the new law is an improvement over current policy, in which the EPA has to go through such a costly, lengthy process to test a chemical that it hardly ever does. Of the tens of thousands already on the market, it has only examined a measly 200.
That should change now. The House has approved this bill, and so should the Senate. But its effectiveness will ultimately depend on its enforcement. Let's hope the EPA is aggressive in using its new powers, and isn't cowed by industry.
We're finally taking the handcuffs off federal regulators. Now it's up to them to act.http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/05/is_your_kids_car_seat_toxic_is_your_flame-retardan.html
-
Inside the Toxin-Free Hospital of the Future
May 31, 2016 | GreenBiz
By Gary Cohen
Last week, hundreds of changemakers from hospitals, health systems and medical products or supplier companies gathered in Dallas to learn and compare notes at the 13th CleanMed Conference.
CleanMed is the nation’s largest conference focusing on health care sustainability. Every year, we connect the health care leaders working to accelerate our sector’s commitment to environmental sustainability and to spur a movement in regenerative health. These are people who have moved beyond protecting the environment and human health, to improving them.
When united, the health care industry can do a lot because we are big and powerful. Health care represents a whopping 20 percent of the nation’s market. Every year, health care companies buy $300 billion worth of goods and services.
When a hospital or health system makes a purchase, the organization likely has gone through an evaluation to assess pretty standard metrics for each product including: cost; safety for patients and staff; and performance.
Over the last decade, leading health care organizations have begun to re-evaluate products and goods purchased using some different metrics, and this is making a big difference in the kind of healing environment hospitals are creating for both patients and staff.
Aligning directly with health care’s healing mission, leading hospitals are beginning to evaluate a product’s potential toxicity to human health, the amount of resources used and the overall lifecycle cost.
Among the many tracks, presentations and conversations at CleanMed this year, it was clear that as leading hospitals change the kinds of products they buy, they are creating an entirely new kind of hospital: one where patient healing and environmental healing are fundamentally connected
.Food with a purpose
A major focus of CleanMed was on harnessing the buying power of health care to promote healthy, sustainable, locally sourced food in hospital cafeterias and food service.
This includes examining the impacts of agriculture on the environment (greenhouse gas emissions, water use, pesticides) as well as promoting foods on-site that support better health outcomes and reduce chronic disease.
Over the last few years, conference attendees have tackled how and why to make the switch from conventional meats and poultry to antibiotic-free meats and poultry, as part of the health care community’s longstanding work to reduce the overuse of antibiotics.
This year, conference attendees also discussed strategies to tackle food waste.
When food waste is sent to landfills, it is a major source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Opportunities for composting, as well as getting uneaten but still edible food to hungry Americans via food rescue organizations, is on the agenda in 2016.
Furniture and bedding
Many products used in health care settings may contain or release carcinogens, reproductive toxins or other hazardous materials. In addition, chemicals used in these everyday products — including beds, chairs and mattresses — have not been tested for toxicity.
We continue to see the sector shift away from chemicals of concern, especially when present in health care interiors. These include: flame retardants; stain- and water-resistant perfluorinated compounds; antimicrobials; PVC or polyvinyl chloride plastic; and formaldehyde.
This year at CleanMed, many hospitals discussed the strategies of implementing "Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP)," a system of purchasing that helps hospitals move toward purchasing safer products, all while reducing waste, energy and water use.
Starting with furniture and bedding is a great way to begin to embed EPP into a hospital’s purchasing system. And the more hospitals and systems that choose EPP, the more the market changes.
A big announcement was made at CleanMed that will help accelerate EPP across the sector. Attendees witnessed the launch of Greenhealth Exchange (GX), a purchasing cooperative created by four founding health systems — Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Dignity Health, Gundersen Health System and Partners HealthCare — and Health Care Without Harm.
Working with health care suppliers and group purchasing organizations, GX will help make it easier for hospitals and health systems to purchase green products.
Through detailed product specifications and supplier performance requirements, GX will offer members access to high-quality green products brought together in one catalog at competitive prices; apples-to-apples comparisons on key product features including price and sustainability score plus health, environmental and community benefits; and reporting on the benefits associated with every purchase.
Green cleaning
The health care sector is beginning to recognize that chemicals can and do play a significant role in the development of disease, even at miniscule amounts.
While chemicals are used in health care for a variety of good reasons (including providing life-saving medications to cleaning and disinfecting to diagnostic testing to diagnostic testing in labs), many leading hospitals are creating a framework for choosing safer chemicals where possible — or even eliminating them altogether.
This includes using safer alternatives for pest management, cleaning, mercury elimination, reducing hazardous waste and disinfection.
Of course, hospitals and health care facilities must follow strict protocols to prevent infection and maintain health and safety. In the past, this meant traditional cleaning products that did a good job at maintaining a sterile healing environment, yet many contained chemicals known to cause health problems for patients, the environment and health care professionals alike.
In fact, the health care sector has a higher incidence of work-related asthma than other industries, with cleaning products identified as one of the top causes.
Today, leading hospitals are turning to options such as ultraviolet (UV) light to clean and sterilize. UV disinfection is so effective, it has been cited as a chemical-free alternative to cleaning by both the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control.
According to a study from the American Journal of Infection Control, antibiotic-resistant superbugs are decreased among patients by 20 percent after adding UV disinfection to the cleaning regimen.
Best of all, it poses no health hazards to patients or staff.
Reduced emissions
Climate change is emerging as the most important environmental and human health issue of our time. Operating 24/7 means hospitals consume vast amounts of energy, making them a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions.
When it comes to their commitment to address climate change, CleanMed attendees never have been clearer. We heard from a number of hospitals making measurable progress towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions in their own operations.
This includes members of the Health Care Climate Council, a leadership network of health systems built around the idea that hospitals can be more effective in addressing climate and health issues by working together.
Recognizing climate change as one of single largest threats to public health, hospitals and health systems shared strategies to address the causes and impacts of climate change.
This includes accelerating investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency; scaling the health sector’s adoption of climate change mitigation and resiliency programs; and advocating for local, state and national policies that ensure a sustainable and healthy future consistent with our collective vision for healthy individuals and communities.
A new social contract
Health care is the only sector of the economy that has healing at the core of its business. At CleanMed, I spoke with many leaders who are interested in creating a new social contract between health care and society, a contract that expands our healing mission outside our walls to the communities we serve and the environment that sustains us.
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/inside-toxin-free-hospital-future
-
Who Bears the Most Risk From Fracking?
May 31, 2016 | The New York Times
By The Editorial Board
Say this for John Quigley, until a few days ago the state of Pennsylvania’s top environmental officer. With a profanity-laced email that played a role in his resignation he put the dangers of hydraulic fracturing front and center in the public consciousness. Mr. Quigley had backed tough new updates in state rules governing drilling for natural gas. But after legislators voted them down, he blistered environmentalists for failing to support the cause.
“Where the (expletive) were you people yesterday?” he wrote in an email on April 13. “The House and Senate hold Russian show trials on vital environmental issues, and there’s no pushback at all from the environmental community? Nobody bothering to insert themselves in the news cycle?”
A few more expletives later and Gov. Tom Wolf reportedly began questioning whether Mr. Quigley could any longer be effective in his job.
His voice could be missed. Natural gas is big business in Pennsylvania, which sits on top of the Marcellus Shale, whose rich deposits have brought jobs and revenue to the state. More than 9,000 oil and gas wells have been drilled using hydraulic fracturing in Pennsylvania since 2005, the most in any state on the Eastern Seaboard.
The shale bonanza has also brought environmental headaches and raised concerns about whether the companies have disadvantaged poor people by drilling wells in low-income areas and exposing them to dust and traffic as well as air and water pollution.
In a letter last month, the Center for Coalfield Justice, the Pennsylvania chapter of the Sierra Club and the Clean Air Council asked the state’s Office of Environmental Justice to give the public more say in the permitting of wells. The groups believe the industry may be choosing drilling sites that disproportionately affect low-income and minority residents.
The groups are asking the environmental justice office, a unit of the department Mr. Quigley ran, the Department of Environmental Protection, to impose greater protections going forward. They have also called for a retroactive analysis of past permits to determine whether low-income communities have borne the brunt of gas drilling.
Pennsylvania is not the only state where fracking has raised such concerns. In California’s Kern County, Latino and African-American residents aredisproportionately likely to live in high-pollution areas near oil and gas wells. Environmental groups are fighting a county ordinance that could allow thousands of new wells without full environmental review. In the Eagle Ford shale field of southern Texas, a recent study found that sites for the disposal of fracking wastewater were disproportionately located in areas with high percentages of poor and minority residents. Many states have laws or policies that are supposed to ensure equal protection from environmental and health hazards, but not all are reliably enforced. And some states are striking down local laws passed by communities that don’t want fracking.
As for Pennsylvania, Mr. Wolf would be well advised to name a new environmental boss who shares Mr. Quigley’s values if not his penchant for ill-tempered emails.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/31/opinion/who-bears-the-most-risk-from-fracking.html
-
Conservation Program at Center of Energy Bill Fight
May 31, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
The long-term fate of a major conservation program could end up being a key sticking point in negotiations over federal energy policy reform.
House lawmakers last week appointed members of an energy conference committee, the first step toward finalizing a deal with the Senate on an energy overhaul bill.
Democrats support including in a final deal the Senate’s long-term extension of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), a popular public lands program.
But most House Republicans last week voted to block Democrats’ motion to support such an extension. Key Republicans on the energy conference committee have said they'll look to water down efforts to keep the program on the books without major reforms.
“The best chance is none at all,” House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop(R-Utah) said of potential LWCF provisions in an energy bill compromise.
“It’s not going to be mandatory, and it’s not going to be permanently reauthorized. I would love to try and do some reforms to the program. I don’t know if that’s too heavy of a lift to do in a conference report.”
A final energy bill deal is a long way off — the Senate has yet to appoint conference committee members — and given this year’s restricted congressional calendar, an energy package might not make it across the finish line at all.
But Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she hopes to at least convene a conference committee after the Memorial Day recess. Once such a panel comes together, an LWCF extension will be on members’ agenda.
The LWCF is a $300 million program that preserves federal lands around the country and funds outdoor recreation. Lawmakers agreed to extend it for three years in December’s year-end spending deal.
Senators, though, included a permanent reauthorization of the program in the energy bill they passed in April. They also changed the program’s funding stream to mandatory rather than discretionary, taking it out of appropriators’ hands.
While popular with the public — and often earning broad bipartisan support on Capitol Hill — some Western Republicans have looked to overhaul the LWCF, arguing it gives the federal government too much power over state and local land holdings and conservation efforts.
Bishop led the charge against a Democratic motion last week to instruct House conference committee members to accept the Senate’s LWCF language in a final deal.
“The way we’re doing it right now is just so damn stupid,” he said of the program in an interview. “I’m not going to allow it to continue on, and I’m certainly not going to make the stupidity permanent.”
Bishop said his goal now is to stop the Senate’s LWCF provisions from coming out of a conference committee. He will sit on the panel, and the four other Republican Natural Resources Committee members joining him all voted against the Democratic motion on Wednesday.
LWCF supporters insist they have politics on their side.
The Senate approved the energy bill — and the LWCF extension — with 85 votes in April, and 63 senators, including 16 Republicans, batted down an amendment from Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) to set new limits on the LWCF’s spending powers.
Depending on what a final deal looks like, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said he doubts House Republicans would sink an energy bill filled with otherwise agreeable provisions just because of the conservation fund.
“If, by some miracle, there is bipartisan consensus and there’s been some negotiations to strip some horrible things out, and to retain that Senate portion — which was bipartisan on the Senate side — if it were to come back that way, I think the Republicans here would be hard pressed to vote against it,” he said.
Michael Hacker, a spokesman for the LWCF Coalition, said conferees would risk losing Democratic votes for a final energy bill if the package doesn’t include an extension of the conservation fund.
If a compromise bill incorporates provisions unpalatable to conservatives, he said, final passage would depend, in part, on Democratic votes.
“It’s less about people and more about the political situation, and the political reality is an energy bill conference can’t succeed without LWCF,” he said.
What’s more, supporters note that many Republicans already favor extending the program. Besides the Senate’s bipartisan energy bill vote, 25 House Republicans voted for Democrats’ LWCF motion on Wednesday, showing that there is GOP support for a long-term extension of the Fund.
Murkowski acknowledged some Republicans’ aggression toward extending the conservation fund. But she said she hopes energy conference committee members will be able to come to some consensus on the LWCF regardless.
“This is one of those issues that generates some very substantial support — I think we saw that play out on our side — and then you have its detractors,” she said.
“I have been one who has said LWCF is fine, but I’m going to insist on some reforms. I think Mr. Bishop is in the reform camp, so I think we’ve got some room to run.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/281548-conservation-program-at-center-of-energy-bill-fight
-
Federal Study Clears Fracking Off California Coast
May 31, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Hydraulic fracturing and other techniques for stimulating oil and natural gas wells should cause no significant harm when used in federal waters off the California coast, a federal analysis concluded.
“The comprehensive analysis shows that these practices, conducted according to permit requirements, have minimal impact,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in a statement accompanying release of the finding of no significant impactand its accompanying environmental assessment May 27.
Pending completion of the assessment, Interior had been withholding approvals of applications for permits to drill and applications involving fracking and acidizing on the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf.
The assessment was done by Hopper's agency and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement as part of a settlement of a lawsuit brought by the Environmental Defense Center, an activist group worried not only about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, but the stimulation technique called acidizing (20 DEN A-13, 2/1/16).
Fracking involves pumping water, sand and chemicals down a well to create fractures for the flow of oil or gas in a geologic formation. Acidizing involves pumping a hydrochloric acid solution down a well to clean the well bore or to create, expand or clear flow channels for oil or gas in a formation. Acidizing can, for example, dissolve sediments clogging flow channels.
Agencies Note Scope of Review
There have been 24 well stimulation treatments—21 involving hydraulic fracturing—on the Outer Continental Shelf offshore California between 1982 and 2014, the agencies said. The treatments were conducted from four offshore platforms.
The region includes 43 federal lease areas with 22 producing platforms that could employ well stimulation techniques. The programmatic environmental assessment included evaluations of potential water quality impacts from discharges of produced water, and the potential for associated impacts to fish and wildlife based on the possibility of up to five applications a year to use well stimulation techniques.
Taking into account the low expected concentrations of well stimulation chemicals and the protective nature of the applicable National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System general permit, the assessment affirmed that wastewater discharges from proposed well stimulation activities will not have a significant impact, the Interior agencies said.
Randall Luthi, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, issued a statement saying the assessment “reaffirms what our industry already knows: there are no significant environmental impacts from offshore fracking. Unlike the hyperbole released by many of the extreme environmental groups, the EA's findings are backed by ground-truthed science.”
The Environmental Defense Center announced its disappointment May 27.
“Fracking and acidizing present new and unstudied risks to the environment,” such as impacts on marine life from dumping of toxic fluids into the ocean, said Maggie Hall, a staff attorney with the group.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=90517372&vname=dennotallissues&fn=90517372&jd=90517372
-
CSB Urges EPA to Require Inherently Safer Technologies
May 31, 2016 | Occupational Health & Safety
The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has submittedcomments in response to an EPA proposed rule on accidental release prevention requirements, part of the risk management programs specified by the Clean Air Act. CSB is charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents, and the act directs the CSB to make recommendations on EPA risk management rulemaking; modernizing process safety regulations is on CSB's "Most Wanted Safety Improvements" list, and CSB's comments say the agency is encouraged that EPA "is making progress towards much needed change to better prevent chemical incidents." But CSB parts ways with EPA when it comes to mandating inherently safer technologies.
CSB stated that it agrees investigating the root causes of incidents is an important tool for using lessons learned to prevent future incidents and agrees with the information EPA outlined for inclusion in an incident investigation report. CSB also said it strongly agrees with the proposed requirement to include at least one person with appropriate knowledge of the facility process and experience in incident investigation techniques to be on the incident investigation team.
CSB asked that EPA to include a requirement to investigate near-misses for Program 2 and 3 facilities and that EPA not defer to owners/operators in relying on their own definitions of a near-miss. "The incident investigation section of the Proposed Rule is strengthened by defining 'root cause' and 'catastrophic release,' and 'near-miss' should also be defined," the board said in the comments, adding that it believes, as EPA has pointed out, that the Center for Chemical Process Safety has a robust definition that could be proposed for adoption.
The board has repeatedly stated in its investigation reports that effectively implementing inherently safer technology can prevent major chemical incidents. While calling EPA's proposed modification to the process hazard analysis provisions in section 68.67 regarding analysis of potential safer technology and alternatives a step in the right direction, CSB asked EPA to adopt more robust requirements regarding the use of inherently safer systems analysis and the hierarchy of controls. "The EPA's current proposed language requires owners or operators to 'consider' inherently safer technology (IST) or design during the PHA process only. The CSB believes this permissive language results in an activity-based requirement; meaning, the company can poorly perform the analysis and still satisfy the requirement," the board stated, adding that this was the case in CSB's investigation of the Aug. 6, 2012 accident at the Chevron Richmond refinery in Richmond, Calif., "where the refinery repeatedly implemented inherently safer systems inadequately, ultimately contributing to the pipe rupture and fire. Despite these deficiencies, however, Chevron still satisfied the regulatory requirements to 'consider' inherent safety."
The board said applying inherently safer technologies and the hierarchy of controls is a key opportunity for preventing major chemical incidents, and thus should apply to other key safety management elements, as well.
EPA's proposed rule should further emphasize the prevention of chemical incidents, according to the board, which said it encourages EPA to ensure that compliance with risk management plan provisions are predominantly the responsibility of facilities, rather than under-resourced LEPCs.
https://ohsonline.com/articles/2016/05/31/csb-urges-epa-to-require-inherently-safer-technologies.aspx?admgarea=news
-
Why a Power Grid Attack is a Nightmare Scenario
May 30, 2016 | The Hill - Cybersecurity (In Real Clear Energy)
By Katie Bo Williams and Cory Bennett
Stores are closed. Cell service is failing. Broadband Internet is gone.
Hospitals are operating on generators, but rapidly running out of fuel.
Garbage is rotting in the streets, and clean water is scarce as people boil water stored in bathtubs to stop the spread of bacteria.
And escape?
There is none, because planes can’t fly, trains can’t run, and gas stations can’t pump fuel.
This is the “nightmare scenario” that lawmakers have been warning you about.
The threat of an attack on the nation’s power grid is all too real for the network security professionals who labor every day to keep the country safe.
“In order to restore civilized society, the power has got to be back on,” said Scott Aaronson, who oversees the Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council (ESCC), an industry-government emergency response program.
While cybersecurity experts and industry executives describe such warnings as alarmist, intelligence officials say people underestimate how destructive a power outage can be.
The most damaging kind of attack, specialists say, would be carefully coordinated to strike multiple power stations.
If hackers were to knock out 100 strategically chosen generators in the Northeast, for example, the damaged power grid would quickly overload, causing a cascade of secondary outages across multiple states. While some areas could recover quickly, others might be without power for weeks.
The scenario isn’t completely hypothetical. Lawmakers and government officials got a preview in 2003, when a blackout spread from the coastal Northeast into the Midwest and Canada.
“If you think of how crippled our region is when we lose power for just a couple of days, the implications of a deliberate widespread attack on the power grid for the East Coast, say, would cause devastation,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
Researchers have run the numbers on an East Coast blackout, with sobering results.
A prolonged outage across 15 states and Washington, D.C., according to the University of Cambridge and insurer Lloyd’s of London, would leave 93 million people in darkness, cost the economy hundreds of millions of dollars and cause a surge in fatalities at hospitals.
The geopolitical fallout could be even worse.
“If [a major cyberattack] happens, that’s a major act of war, bombs are starting to fall,” said Cris Thomas, a well-known hacker who is now a strategist at security firm Tenable.
A former senior intelligence official who spoke to The Hill echoed that assessment.
The specter of a catastrophic attack on the electrical grid looms large for utilities and the federal government. They all agree that a “cyber Pearl Harbor” would be a deliberate attack, most likely from a foreign adversary.
“It’s an act of war, not an act of God,” Aaronson said.
One of the most fearful aspects of a cyberattack is that they can be difficult to spot, even when they are happening.
At first, power providers may only notice a cascade of overloaded transmission lines failing in rapid succession — something that happened during the 2003 blackout, which was caused by an ordinary software bug.
A major attack would trigger a series of actions laid out in an ESCC playbook, and even for regional blackouts, energy companies would begin communicating instantly.
After a recent blackout at Washington, D.C.’s biggest electricity provider, “Immediately, I called a guy at Pepco and just said, ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ ” recalled Tom Fanning, who heads the country’s fourth largest utility, Southern Company, during an industry conference in March.
One of the things the industry has done to prepare for attacks is to set aside “clean” replacement equipment, like transformers, that could be deployed in an emergency. Transformers can be the size of school buses, but industry officials say they can be moved quickly and easily.
The energy sector for years has also had a mutual assistance program that kicks in during major power disruptions. Providers in unaffected areas send crews to places that have been crippled by a big storm, accelerating the work to restore power.
The assistance program could prove difficult to carry out during a cyberattack, however.
“If I’m sitting in Columbus, Ohio, and I know there’s a storm in Maryland, I’m not worried about sending my resources to Maryland,” said Stan Partlow, chief security officer at American Electric Power. “We’re pretty confident when we let those crews go that we’re not in trouble. On the cyber side, if I’ve sent my resources somewhere else and I’m next on the list…”
If the power grid were attacked, government workers would be scrambling at a command center in Arlington, Va.
The National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) is part of the Department of Homeland Security. In the last six years, it has emerged as a hub for all the cyber information the government collects and analyzes.
Inside the complex, government employees and representatives from critical infrastructure industries monitor cyber activity around the clock. The NCCIC floor is lined with wall-sized screens and filled with rows of computer monitors.
The electricity industry’s main nonprofit regulatory body, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), has a representative on the NCCIC floor every day.
If large swaths of the power grid went down, the government would tap the NERC representative to serve as a go-between to the industry as it sought to identify malicious software as quickly as possible.
After identifying the software, the government could help develop tools to boot out the hackers and eradicate lingering security flaws.
The NCCIC can also deploy “fly away teams” to utilities during a cyberattack. Those units can collect samples of malware causing outages and help mitigate network damage.
Over at the FBI, agents have been trained to assist with cyber investigations. If an attack occurred, their job would be to figure out the culprit.
“That’s really where they make their bones in this space,” said Austin Berglas, a former head of the FBI’s New York Cyber Branch and a lead investigator into last fall’s data breach at JPMorgan Chase.
Given all the preparations, it would seem that the U.S. has a rapid response plan ready to go in the event of any power grid hack.
But according to numerous cybersecurity experts, companies are mostly basing their preparations on the few case studies they’ve seen, creating the potential for gaps.
“I’ve spoken to CEOs and utilities about this problem,” Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said at a congressional hearing in March. “There’s clearly more to do.”
Last December, electric companies got their first look at what a blackout caused by hackers might look like.
In a coordinated assault, suspected Russian hackers penetrated Ukraine’s power grid, knocking out electricity for 225,000 people. The hackers flooded the customer service center with calls, causing technical difficulties and slowing the response.
“That isn’t the last we’re going to see of that,” National Security Agency Director Adm. Michael Rogers said recently. “And that worries me.”
Hackers already target the energy sector more than any other part of U.S. critical infrastructure, according to the most recent government report. There are more reported cyber incidents in the energy industry than in healthcare, finance, transportation, water and communications combined — and those are just the intrusion attempts that get noticed and reported.
Probing the power grid for digital vulnerabilities — which China, Russia and Iran do routinely — is now considered a standard part of intelligence gathering.
But those countries are careful not to disrupt economic and diplomatic relations with the U.S. No such constraints exist for rogue nations like North Korea and terrorist groups like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
“I believe that right now in Raqqa they're working hard on trying to orchestrate cyberattacks [on the power grid], just as they are working hard on trying to develop weapons to be used,” said Sen.John McCain (R-Ariz.), who chairs the Armed Services Committee, referring to the Syrian city ISIS has claimed as its home base.
The grid is like a single, sprawling machine made up of thousands of discrete operating units — a soft target, but a diffuse one, with redundancies built in. Turning the lights off would require the ability to strategically and simultaneously active many pieces of malware in separate locations.
“Right now the people who could do it, won’t — nation-states — and the people who want to, can’t,” Aaronson said.
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/281494-why-a-power-grid-attack-is-a-nightmare-scenario
-
Sierra Club Challenges EPA's Air Monitoring Rule
May 31, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The Sierra Club wants a federal appeals court to review an Environmental Protection Agency regulation updating federal air monitoring requirements under the Clean Air Act (Sierra Club v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1158, 5/27/16).
The environmental organization filed a May 27 lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the rule (RIN:2060–AS00), which was the first comprehensive update to ambient monitoring requirements in a decade. Provisions of the rule include updated definitions, simplified data reporting requirements and clarified public notice requirements for annual monitoring plans.
The EPA said the rule was intended to minimize burdens on state and local governments that perform ambient monitoring under the Clean Air Act (81 Fed. Reg. 17,248; 54 DEN A-4, 3/21/16).
The lawsuit did not include the Sierra Club's rationale for challenging the rule, but Earthjustice attorney David Baron, who is representing the organization, raised several objections to a proposed version of the rule in November 2014 comments. Baron, in joint comments filed with the American Lung Association, pushed the EPA to ensure that the public was offered a meaningful comment opportunity on annual air monitoring network plans that states submit for review each year.
The agency's proposal would have required states to make annual monitoring network plans available for public comment before submission to the EPA and would have required states to address any comments in the submitted plan. The environmental and public health organizations said the EPA should require states to prominently advertise monitoring plans and allow for another public comment period on any decision to approve or disapprove of the plan made by the EPA.
The final rule issued by the EPA instead eased the proposed public outreach provisions, requiring states to respond “as appropriate” to public comments.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=90517378&vname=dennotallissues&fn=90517378&jd=90517378
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested