Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 6/6/2016
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What TSCA, Sen. Rand Paul and Bathrooms Have in Common
Jun 6, 2016 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
The Senate had planned to move forward with the Toxic Substances Control Act by now, but instead the chamber is trying to work through delaying tactics from Sen. Rand Paul on the bill that would update the 40-year-old regulations. -
Junk Science is Hazardous to Your Health
Jun 4, 2016 | Orange Country Register
By Joseph Perone
Have you heard about the latest study? Coffee fights cancer. Pizza and French fries are as addictive as crack. Midnight snacks hamper our ability to retain memories. -
Citing Broad SNAP Power, EPA Defends Phaseout Of High GWP Chemicals
Jun 6, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Abby Smith
EPA is strongly defending the use of its Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program to phase out high global warming potential (GWP) hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants... -
EU’s Reach 2018 Deadline a Challenge for SMEs - UK’s CIA
Jun 6, 2016 | ICIS
By Jonathan Lopez
If the UK votes to remain in the EU on 23 June, chemical small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will have to face the challenge of registering small substances – from 1 to 100 tonnes – under the EU’s chemical regulation Reach, with all the associated costs... -
Energy Bill Prospects Dim in Dispute over Drilling, Drought
Jun 6, 2016 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Matthew Daly
Congressional efforts to approve the first major energy bill in nearly a decade are in jeopardy amid a partisan dispute over oil drilling, water for drought-stricken California and potential rollback of protections for the gray wolf and other wildlife. -
Greens, Conservatives Form Coalition to Promote Clean Power
Jun 6, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Environmentalists and conservative advocates today announced a new coalition of groups from across the political spectrum dedicated to clean energy and climate change. -
New Initiative Puts American Values Ahead of Politics to Boost Clean Energy
Jun 6, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jeremy Symons
It’s a well-known fact that partisanship and politics often get in the way of accomplishing things most Americans want. -
Latest Utility Merger Looks Ahead to EPA Rule Compliance
Jun 6, 2016 | E&E Power Plays
By Rod Kuckro and Emily Holden
Great Plains Energy Inc.'s announcement last week that it intends to buy Westar Energy Inc. contained a rationale that may become more common to the utility mergers and acquisitions landscape. -
Environmental Concerns Still Spurring Research, Development
Jun 6, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Energy industry research and development has been hit hard in the oil price collapse, but one area is still seeing some business. -
Washington’s Energy Test
Jun 6, 2016 | Morning Consult
By George David Banks
The shale revolution has put the United States in a position to become one of the great power players in world energy markets, generating tremendous economic and national security improvements. Yet a major obstacle must be removed first -
Technology Forged During Downturn Preps Oil Industry for Upturn: Fuel for Thought
Jun 6, 2016 | Platts
By Starr Spencer
Upstream operators have masterfully used the current downcycle to prepare for the years ahead, achieving stunning efficiencies in drilling and completions even though tweaks and improvements were continuous in the years leading up to late 2014... -
Senators Unveil 'Retro' Proposal to Protect Grid
Jun 6, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
Senate Intelligence Committee members from both sides of the aisle introduced legislation today to protect the country's sprawling power system from devastating cyberattacks. -
An Attack on the Grid? Power Execs Push Back on Koppel Claims
Jun 5, 2016 | USA Today
By Bill Loveless
Eight months after veteran broadcast journalist Ted Koppel published a book predicting a devastating cyberattack on the U.S. power grid, leaders of the utility industry are sounding off over what they say is an exaggerated claim. -
Rockwell Launches New Network Platform to Increase Railroad Safety
Jun 6, 2016 | Railway Technology
US-based Rockwell Collins has introduced ARINC RailwayNet, a new network and messaging service for passenger and freight railroads. -
Green Groups Keep up Pressure Against TPP Deal
Jun 6, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Doug Palmer
A coalition of more 450 national, state and local environmental groups called on Congress today to reject the TPP, charging that oil, coal and natural gas companies could use investor-state dispute settlement provisions in the pact to block government action to thwart climate change. -
States Appeal District Court's Dismissal Of CWA Rule Suit
Jun 6, 2016 | Inside EPA
Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee have appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit a ruling dismissing a lower court challenge over EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule on the grounds that a 6th Circuit panel decided earlier this year...
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What TSCA, Sen. Rand Paul and Bathrooms Have in Common
Jun 6, 2016 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
WHAT'S TSCA GOT TO DO WITH TRANSGENDER-FRIENDLY BATHROOMS, ANYWAY? The Senate had planned to move forward with the Toxic Substances Control Act by now, but instead the chamber is trying to work through delaying tactics from Sen. Rand Paul on the bill that would update the 40-year-old regulations. Let Paul and Kentucky radio host Leland Conway explain! By preempting state regulations and giving EPA more power, the TSCA update provides “a recipe for over-zealous regulators,” Paul explained in an interview on local station WHAS recently. That’s when Conway jumped in, drawing "a parallel to this in the lawsuit brought by 12 states going against the federal government’s overreach on the transgender bathroom executive order ... Is this an example of that kind of federal overreach where the one-size-fits all does not do well in all of the individual communities that are served by it?” Paul responded, “Absolutely,” and pivoted to his talking points against the executive order.
Paul’s complaints are confounding supporters of the TSCA bill, which cleared the House 403-12 last month with the support of the entire Kentucky delegation and conservative stalwarts like Rep. Justin Amash and Louie Gohmert. Paul came out of nowhere to hold up the chemical safety reform bill that has near-universal support. He promised a speech this week that would focus on the “irony ... that businesses are clamoring for federal regulation because they don’t like state regulation.” The problem is that preempting high-regulation states like California also means preempting low-regulation states like Texas, “and then there will be no home for you.” But chemical companies typically sell their wares, such as cleaning products or fertilizer, nationwide, meaning that a tough California chemical rule would become a de facto national requirement. That’s a big part of the reason the industry has been so eager for EPA to take charge.
So now what?: Paul did not say whether he would keep objecting to a unanimous-consent request to set up an easy vote. If Paul does not relent, the Senate may have to spend a week or more burning up debate time and taking procedural votes, and time is in short supply. The defense authorization bill will be on the floor this week, and the upper chamber has 10 more spending bills to get through if it wants to finish the full dozen through regular order for the first time in years. Lawmakers will be in session six more weeks before adjourning for most of the summer and fall, although a post-election lame duck session remains likely.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2016/06/what-tsca-sen-rand-paul-and-bathrooms-have-in-common-will-the-energy-bill-ever-get-to-conference-bipartisan-group-gathers-to-fight-climate-change-214665
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Junk Science is Hazardous to Your Health
Jun 4, 2016 | Orange Country Register
By Joseph Perone
Have you heard about the latest study? Coffee fights cancer. Pizza and French fries are as addictive as crack. Midnight snacks hamper our ability to retain memories.
Actually, what’s really bad for our brains is all the junk science being reported as gospel.
According to Pew Research, “79 percent of scientists believe it is a major problem for science that news reports don’t distinguish between well-founded and nonwell-founded scientific findings.” The cable TV comedian John Oliver recently took to the airwaves to blast the media for dividing public opinion and scientific knowledge. He and scientists are right to be critical.
Despite endless reports on the “latest study,” most reporters aren’t trained to evaluate research. Journalists report things which seem bizarre or scary because they grab viewers and draw website clicks. They rely on press releases distributed by university press offices that are designed to attract journalists’ attention, and often overstate the conclusions of the actual research. When journalists get a hold of the release, they may make another intellectual jump in order to create an attention grabbing headline. All of this effort to get attention often comes at the expense of the study’s context and limitations.
This system helps the scientist’s career and the university’s prestige, and the reporter gets a good scoop. But the current system often confuses public understanding of the relative risks they take on a daily basis. Science requires large sample sizes to confirm or disprove previous findings. A single study is not statistically significant enough to declare a new fact.
Further, any researcher will tell you that some studies are better, whether it’s their methodology or weight of evidence. Unfortunately for science, media attention gives things the sheen of importance or authority, which creates the illusion that all studies are equal.
This leads to another problem. By reporting “non-well-founded” findings, the media construct public skepticism toward things that scientists have agreed are “well-founded.” In the world of cable news, a poorly done new study might be debated by two people – a supporter and a detractor – but the format itself implies that each side is equally right. At best, the media break two beakers with one stone by promoting scientific illiteracy and restraining empirically supported laws and policies. At worst, it destroys public trust in science.
Genetically Modified Organisms are a great example of public skepticism skirting empirical evidence. The World Health Organization says GMOs “are not likely to present risks for human health.” There are nearly 2,000 studies affirming the safety of GMOs. And every major global health and scientific institution agrees: GMOs are safe. American scientists are no exception, as Pew Research shows 89 percent of them think that GMOs are safe to eat.
But with popular figures like Dr. Oz running a GMO segment titled, “The Global Conspiracy to Keep You from Knowing the Truth About Your Food,” it’s no wonder only 37 percent of Americans agree that GMOs are safe to eat.
Public passion also outweighs evidence regarding Bisphenol A. Both the European Food Safety Agency and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have reviewed hundreds of studies on BPA. The EFSA found that “BPA poses no health risk to consumers because current exposure to the chemical is too low to cause harm” and the FDA stated that “BPA is safe at the current levels occurring in foods.” Despite the science, headlines like “Another sign of BPA’s dangers” cause Americans to remain afraid.
In reality, you’d have to eat about 30 pounds of canned food every day to cause a problem from BPA. At that point, the risk of your stomach exploding is a much bigger concern!
But that also means you could design a study exposing rats to, say, hundreds or thousands of times the amount of BPA that humans are exposed to. You might well find negative effects at the exposure – which would allow for scary headlines that the media frequently pick up and pump out to the public, even if it’s meaningless for human health.
Too often, the media don’t mention it’s the dose that makes the poison. Even water and Vitamin D will kill you if you consume too much of them. The threat of science losing sway in the public square is a serious one in our time, which is why we need to renew our respect for it.
A good start is to forget the sensationalism. Fortunately, that advice isn’t rocket science.
Dr. Joseph Perrone is chief science officer for the Center for Accountability in Science.
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/science-718105-public-bpa.html
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Citing Broad SNAP Power, EPA Defends Phaseout Of High GWP Chemicals
Jun 6, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Abby Smith
EPA is strongly defending the use of its Significant New Alternatives Policy (SNAP) program to phase out high global warming potential (GWP) hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants, contending in a first-time legal challenge to its rules that it has broad authority under the Clean Air Act to use SNAP rulemakings to limit the substances due to their climate impacts.
In a May 27 response brief in the case Mexichem Fluor, Inc., v. EPA, the agency urges the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reject the petitioners' calls to vacate a rule that removed several high-GWP refrigerants from a list of acceptable chemicals under the SNAP program.
The petitioners, Mexichem and Arkema, Inc., argued in their recent brief that the agency lacks authority under the Clean Air Act to delist substances based on their GWP values and that it acted in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner by only considering a chemical's GWP in its determinations.
But the agency argues that it has clear and broad authority under the statute to limit HFCs under the SNAP program, as the program directs EPA to update the list of acceptable chemicals to reflect those that pose the lowest overall risk based on a variety of factors, including “human health and the environment.”
Thus, the answer to the question of whether EPA can regulate in this space “is unequivocally 'yes,'” EPA writes. “To hold otherwise, as Petitioners advocate, would disregard Congress's mandate that EPA consider risks to human health and the environment when regulating alternatives to ozone-depleting substances, and would stand in tension with settled principles of administrative law regarding an agency's authority to reconsider prior decisions.”
EPA further argues that it determined which chemicals to delist based on the SNAP program's “comparative risk framework” -- of which environmental impacts like GWP are only one factor. “Petitioners' dissatisfaction with that analysis should not be confused with a failure to perform it,” the agency contends later in its brief.
Beyond defending the basis of its authority to limit HFCs under the program, the agency also pushes back on the chemical companies' charges that EPA does not provide an “objective standard,” or a metric, by which it determines whether to delist a chemical. Were EPA to adopt such a “bright-line” approach, it argues in the brief, it would result in a less flexible regulatory approach, as the agency would not be able to weigh GWP against other factors like cost and availability of alternatives when making determinations.
While the Mexichem case challenges EPA's July 2015 SNAP rule removing several high-GWP HFCs from a list of acceptable chemicals, the litigation holds larger significance because it calls into question EPA's ability to use the program to limit high-GWP HFCs -- one of the administration's major climate policy agenda items in President Obama's final year.
Since the July 2015 rulemaking, the agency has already begun work on delisting a second round of chemicals that would further curtail production and use of the chemicals.
These domestic HFC limits are also critical to international efforts to craft this year an amendment to the Montreal Protocol that sets a global phase-down for the chemicals, as sources say the U.S. SNAP rulemakings have been crucial to demonstrate a level of commitment to the international community.
As a result, if the court were to rule for the chemical companies and overturn EPA's first SNAP rule, it would undermine the agency's domestic actions to phase out HFCs and potentially threaten any global deal.
'Fundamental Misunderstanding'
Mexichem and Arkema in their March 28 opening brief had argued that section 612 of the Clean Air Act, which authorizes the SNAP program, was intended solely to address ozone-depleting chemicals, not the high-GWP substances EPA is now targeting. Many of the ozone-depleting chemicals were replaced by HFCs -- chemicals that do not deplete the ozone layer but have since been found to have a high GWP.
The chemical companies argued that EPA, by moving to delist HFC chemicals that had once been approved as alternatives, was replacing “first-generation” substances with a “second-generation,” an action they charged is prohibited by the Clean Air Act.
But EPA in its response says the petitioners' claims reflect “a fundamental misunderstanding of both the use of the world 'replace' in [section 612], and the action EPA took here."
The word “replace,” EPA writes, is “directed at end-users,” meaning it is unlawful under the statute to replace an ozone-depleting chemical with a delisted substance.
With its SNAP rulemaking, however, EPA notes it “did not replace anything,” but rather published a list of prohibited chemicals as allowed under the statute.
Furthermore, the agency argues that petitioners' approach to the SNAP program is illogical because it “would force EPA to leave a toxic chemical on the approved list where that toxic effect was not discovered until years later, simply because it does not deplete ozone. Not only that, but it would also prohibit the alteration of the list of approved alternatives if one day after an alternative was added, a far-less-risky alternative was discovered.”
The response brief adds: “EPA should not be forced to keep an alternative on the approved list where the Agency has unambiguously determined that a less-risky substitute is available, and nothing in section [612] indicates that Congress intended to hamstring EPA in that way.”
In addition, the agency argues that the lack of time limits under the statute, as well as the manner in which Congress delegated EPA authority using present tense, supports the notion that lawmakers intended for EPA to update the SNAP program as knowledge of risk and availability evolved.
EPA further notes that petitioners' challenge to the SNAP program is “untimely,” as petitioners are attempting to find fault with the program's implementing rule that was originally promulgated more than 20 years ago, in 1994.
Comparative Risk Framework
In the brief, EPA also pushes back against the petitioners' claims that it made determinations based solely on GWP, detailing the seven-factor “comparative risk framework” the agency uses as part of the SNAP program. The factors include: atmospheric effects and related health and environmental impacts; general population risks; ecosystem risks; occupational risks; consumer risks; flammability; and cost and availability of the substitute.
The agency also notes that its authority to make determinations is much more broad than petitioners have claimed. Mexichem and Arkema in their brief argue that EPA did not weigh the “significance of risk” when delisting HFC chemicals, but the agency notes that it is only required to determine “that the alternative 'may' pose a risk and that other alternatives are available that pose an overall lower risk to human health and the environment.”
Due to this simpler standard for determining risk, EPA notes it does not need to conduct a more “in-depth” analysis of chemicals' energy efficiency and other factors -- as the chemical companies implied should be done. The agency argues that conducting such analysis would not only be “unprecedented” but also that “neither the statute nor EPA's regulations require such excruciating detail.”
EPA also notes that petitioners' complaint that EPA does not specify a metric by which it determines whether to delist a chemical is inconsistent with the broad nature of the agency's authority under the statute, as well as with the comparative approach directed by section 612.
In addition, the agency notes that such a “bright-line” approach -- where EPA would articulate a numerical GWP limit by which it would delist chemicals -- would ultimately be less flexible than the agency's current approach that allows it to examine risk “in the context of what substitutes are available in a particular end-use.”
The agency adds: “Petitioners' argument that EPA must identify an acceptable amount of global warming potential completely disregards the multi-factor, comparative nature of EPA's action.”
Parties intervening on EPA's behalf, including Chemours, Honeywell and the Natural Resources Defense Council, are slated to file their briefs June 10. Petitioners' response briefs are due July 15, with final briefs due Aug. 12.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/citing-broad-snap-power-epa-defends-phaseout-high-gwp-chemicals
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EU’s Reach 2018 Deadline a Challenge for SMEs - UK’s CIA
Jun 6, 2016 | ICIS
By Jonathan Lopez
If the UK votes to remain in the EU on 23 June, chemical small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will have to face the challenge of registering small substances – from 1 to 100 tonnes – under the EU’s chemical regulation Reach, with all the associated costs, according to an executive at the country’s Chemical Industries Association (CIA).
Although the 2018 Reach deadline will affect all companies, SMEs will have it harder as the cost for small players can be higher than their own profit margins, said CIA, who however declined to forecast if the small substances registration could mean many SMEs going out of business.
“It’s hard to say at the moment. Our view is that it will be a huge challenge to small companies but it’s too soon to talk about businesses going out of business [because of the 2018 deadline],” said Silvia Segna, CIA Reach executive, and member of REACHReady, the CIA’s subsidiary providing consulting and advice to companies regarding EU regulation.
“Companies might be concerned about the cost of registration overall [and the] 2018 deadline may be problematic. This is the case where the cost of registrations tend to be higher compared to [profit] margins, and that situation might last several years after the registration,” she added.
Segna went on to say CIA’s REACHReady can make the process less painful, and urged companies to start making provisions so they can be ready for the 2018 deadline.
Regarding the EU’s regulation itself, the UK’s chemical trade group said it is expectant to see what comes out the Refit programme established by the European Commission, which aims to look at areas where Reach could be improved and costs for SMEs lowered.
Equally, the Commission has promised chemicals to publish in coming weeks a cumulative cost assessment (CCA) to evaluate how costly regulation really is. European chemical sources have said the cost of regulation for all companies would total €10bn across the 28 countries in the EU.
The Commission has also launched the Better Regulation package, which has the same objectives but which according to some critics aims to soften the EU’s chemical regulations in line with those of other jurisdictions like the US and the EU.
CIA denied that extreme, however.
“The commission is keen to look at what areas of Reach can improve, especially for SMEs, but at the same time protection of health and safety needs to be maintained,” said Segna.
“[Costs from regulation] depends on the way it is implemented [and] it can be simplified in certain areas which would potentially make the cost more affordable. We don’t yet know what those are. It’s too sweeping to say any reassessment means that it does bring the cost down. It might not, but without trying to look at it we don’t know.”
Also subject if the UK remains in the EU post-referendum, CIA said the region’s chemical regulation remains one of the most contentious issues in the negotiations to sign a free trade deal between the EU and the US, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TIPP) as both jurisdictions’ regulations are irreconcilable.
The European Commission has said the content of Reach will remain intact under a potential EU-US free trade deal.
“It is something we think the negotiators are working on [chemicals and TTIP]. It is in the negotiations and we briefed the negotiators in both sides where we stand on Reach and we’ll see how negotiations come out,” said Segna.
“But it remains one of the biggest challenges of TTIP, which we believe if implemented successfully is in the best interest of our companies.”
http://www.icis.com/resources/news/2016/06/06/10004844/eu-s-reach-2018-deadline-a-challenge-for-smes-uk-s-cia/
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Energy Bill Prospects Dim in Dispute over Drilling, Drought
Jun 6, 2016 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Matthew Daly
Congressional efforts to approve the first major energy bill in nearly a decade are in jeopardy amid a partisan dispute over oil drilling, water for drought-stricken California and potential rollback of protections for the gray wolf and other wildlife.
A bipartisan bill approved by the Senate in April would boost oil and natural gas production while encouraging renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, and increased energy efficiency.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairwoman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, called the overwhelming 85-12 Senate vote “a significant victory that brings us much closer to our goal of modernizing our nation’s energy policies,” while Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington, the panel’s senior Democrat, said the measure was “urgently needed.”
But the bill’s prospects dimmed after the House approved a series of election-year amendments last month that promote Republican priorities, such as increased drilling for oil and gas and overriding protections for the gray wolf and other species under the Endangered Species Act. The House bill also would promote hunting and fishing on federal lands, shift more water to California farmers and cut the flow for threatened fish.
The House proposal includes at least seven measures that the White House strongly opposes or has threatened to veto.
House leaders have named 40 lawmakers to serve on a joint House-Senate committee to negotiate a final agreement, but Democrats are threatening to use a procedural motion to scuttle Senate action unless the GOP amendments are withdrawn.
“I wish they could do something besides legislation that has been already circled for veto pen action by the president,” Cantwell said after the House vote. A House-Senate “conference that starts with that as the baseline is not going to be a productive effort.”
Senators from both parties are expected to discuss the bill at closed-door luncheons on Tuesday.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the House-approved bill was nothing more than “a partisan, special interest package that fails to invest in infrastructure, leads to more energy consumption and carbon pollution, stacks the deck against the environment and ... undermines protections for our public lands and wildlife.”
Republicans defended the measure.
“This bill is about jobs. It’s about keeping energy affordable. It’s about boosting our energy security, here and across the globe,” said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Eight Democrats joined 233 Republicans to support the bill, while 178 lawmakers— including six Republicans — opposed it.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said the GOP bill “modernizes our energy infrastructure so we can address urgent priorities for the country, from tackling California’s drought crisis to healing our forests in order to prevent wildfires.”
The next steps are unclear.
“It’s really hard to see how this thing moves forward,” said Marc Boom, associate director of government affairs for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. “I don’t see why senators who worked very hard on a bipartisan process would want to get into the (negotiating) room with a partisan product” like the House bill.
Even so, Murkowski professed optimism, especially given the overwhelming vote in the Senate. “There’s just so much good in this, let’s figure out how we can get going,” she said.
Cantwell did not rule out participation by Senate Democrats in a House-Senate conference, but said, “A 21st-century energy policy has nothing to do with rolling back environmental laws. It should be about smart investments in American infrastructure, innovation and new technologies.”
Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, strongly opposed the Senate bill, especially proposals to support renewable energy and extend authorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which protects parks and other public lands.
While Heritage is confident that House Republicans will hold the line on the bill, Democratic efforts to scuttle the measure may turn out to be a blessing in disguise, spokesman Dan Holler said. “If the result of Democrat obstructionism is that they snuff out awful policy, that’s fine with us,” he said.
Phil Sharp, a former Democratic congressman who now serves as president of Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan think tank, said the energy bill poses “a real test” for Congress, especially Ryan and other House GOP leaders.
“Do they think they are there to legislate and make progress, or do they want to make a statement about themselves?” Sharp said. “Speaker Ryan suggests this is an important priority for him. We’ll see if that suggests action.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal_government/energy-bill-prospects-dim-in-dispute-over-drilling-drought/2016/06/06/704174e0-2c08-11e6-b9d5-3c3063f8332c_story.html
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Greens, Conservatives Form Coalition to Promote Clean Power
Jun 6, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
Environmentalists and conservative advocates today announced a new coalition of groups from across the political spectrum dedicated to clean energy and climate change.
The "Clean Energy Commitment" is promising to push for energy policy reform by rallying citizens to advocate for renewable power sources.
The new alliance includes the Environmental Defense Fund, the American Security Project, the Christian Coalition of America, the National Wildlife Federation, Young Conservatives for Energy Reform, the Moms Clean Air Force and Defend Our Future.
"By bringing together organizations that represent different points of view on many issues, we may appear to be an unlikely partnership in an era of intense partisanship," Jeremy Symons, Environmental Defense Fund associate vice president of climate political affairs, wrote in a blog post today.
"But outside the Beltway, a conversation is gaining momentum about how to set a new direction for America's energy future," Symons said.
The coalition has what it calls three central goals: holding companies responsible for carbon pollution impacts, removing subsidies for "energy sources of the past" and removing limits to "clean, affordable" energy.
"America should lead the world in cleaner, more secure energy choices that create American jobs and protect our environment," said Michele Combs, chairwoman and founder of Young Conservatives for Energy Reform.
"But today, this shift is being slowed by politics," she said. "It is essential to broaden the base of support for energy policy reform, and young conservatives are ready to lead."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/06/06/stories/1060038347
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New Initiative Puts American Values Ahead of Politics to Boost Clean Energy
Jun 6, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Jeremy Symons
It’s a well-known fact that partisanship and politics often get in the way of accomplishing things most Americans want.
That’s why organizations from across the political spectrum – representing millions of parents, young Americans, environmentalists, national security experts, and hunters and fishermen – are mobilizing behind a call for a Clean Energy Commitment.
Its goal: Rallying citizens to tell their elected representatives to set aside political differences in order to remove barriers to clean energy and ensure that companies that pollute are responsible for the impacts.With support from 80% of Americans
By bringing together organizations that represent different points of view on many issues, we may appear to be anunlikely partnership in an era of intense partisanship. But outside the Beltway, a conversation is gaining momentum about how to set a new direction for America’s energy future.
According to a recent YouGov poll, 80 percent of Americans – including 67 percent of Republicans, 95 percent of Democrats, and 75 percent of Independents – support the goals spelled out by the Clean Energy Commitment.3 central energy goals
So Environmental Defense Fund is kicking off the Clean Energy Commitment together with the American Security Project, Christian Coalition, National Wildlife Federation, Young Conservatives for Energy Reform, Mom’s Clean Air Force and Defend Our Future.
And we’re calling for energy policy reform toward three central goals:
1. Companies that contribute to carbon pollution should be responsible for its impacts.
When companies are responsible for their pollution, it creates incentives for innovation and more clean energy jobs while protecting our kids and wildlife from climate change.
2.Taxpayers should not be subsidizing the energy sources of the past.
Rather than using taxpayer money to subsidize the energy sources of the past, we need sensible incentives for the clean, innovative, and job-creating energy sources of the future.
3. Everyone should have the freedom to choose clean, affordable energy.
Outdated rules are still limiting who has access to clean energy. Government rules shouldn’t stand in the way of our freedom to choose – especially as the cost of renewables plummet and clean energy jobs multiply.
We have already seen how clean, renewable alternatives can grow a prosperous clean energy economy and dramatically reduce harmful pollution. That is good for the health of our families, especially children and seniors. It will be also a big step towards reducing the damaging impacts of climate change.
We can’t afford to let the politics of energy remain stuck in unproductive standoffs. Instead, we think we can bring America together to make progress and build a better future.
That’s what the Clean Energy Commitment is all about.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2016/06/06/new-initiative-puts-american-values-ahead-politics-boost-clean-energy
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Latest Utility Merger Looks Ahead to EPA Rule Compliance
Jun 6, 2016 | E&E Power Plays
By Rod Kuckro and Emily Holden
Great Plains Energy Inc.'s announcement last week that it intends to buy Westar Energy Inc. contained a rationale that may become more common to the utility mergers and acquisitions landscape.
The parent of Kansas City Power and Light Co. said the deal will result in "a more diverse and sustainable generation portfolio" that will "provide increased flexibility to mitigate the potential customer impacts from future carbon regulation."
In other words, the $8.6 billion merger will make it easier for Great Plains to comply with U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan or any other future effort to regulate carbon emissions.
Once the deal is complete, Great Plains Energy will have more than 1.5 million customers in Kansas and Missouri.
"We are a heavily coal Midwestern utility; that's our heritage. But we happen to sit in the Saudi Arabia of wind between southern and southwest Kansas and northwest Missouri," said Chuck Caisley, Great Plains' vice president of marketing and public affairs.
Caisley said a "very compelling" aspect of the merger is that by early next year, Great Plains will have nearly 1,400 megawatts of installed wind capacity and Westar will have 1,700 MW.
"And when you put those together and couple it with [the Wolf Creek] nuclear plant that we jointly own, you get to about 45 percent of our retail electricity sales being fulfilled by non-carbon-emitting generation," Caisley said in an interview.
"While nobody knows for sure when or in what form the Clean Power Plan may ultimately be enacted, we are pretty confident that someday, in some form or another, this is something that we're going to have to deal with and comply with," he said.
"It's not surprising to me that companies, when they do an acquisition, look at economic and operational considerations, and certainly a renewable fleet is becoming a larger part of both the economic and operating decisions that are getting factored in when people are making M&A decisions," said Brian Boufarah, a deal management partner in Deloitte Advisory's Mergers, Acquisitions and Divestitures practice.
"If it's cheaper to comply [with the Clean Power Plan] by doing an M&A deal and there's more value there for your shareholders, then I think people will go that route," he said.
Kenyon Willhoit, director in PwC's Power & Utilities practice, said his firm has "definitely heard dealmakers cite renewables as one factor that they have considered."
"The overall trend that we're seeing in the market is that a lot of electric utilities are being faced with a stagnant load growth environment, and they're looking for growth opportunities, and the M&A market is one avenue to help diversify your portfolio," he said.
This week
Today, an advisory committee to Nevada's New Energy Industry Task Force, convened by Gov. Brian Sandoval (R), will hold a public meeting to discuss the state's renewable portfolio standard and the Clean Power Plan. Presenters include representatives from M.J. Bradley & Associates and Advanced Energy Economy. The meeting will be live-streamed from the Governor's Office of Energy website.
Also today, WIRES and the Brattle Group release a report on "the need for a new approach to transmission planning," including in light of the Clean Power Plan.
On Thursday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold a hearing on implications of the Supreme Court's stay of the Clean Power Plan.
In case you missed it
· More than 500 pages of emails E&E obtained through public records requests show EPA shocked but unbowed by the Supreme Court's stay of the rule (Greenwire, June 3).
· The National Association of Clean Air Agencies released a comprehensive report with sample carbon-cutting plans and legislation for states to implement the Clean Power Plan (ClimateWire, June 2).
· To cut carbon emissions, some argue for nuclear power (ClimateWire, June 3).
· Arizona may already be on track to meet its Clean Power Plan goals, according to studies (ClimateWire, June 3).
· Washington revised its proposal to cap carbon emissions (ClimateWire, June 2).
· Maryland's Republican governor has proved unpredictable on climate policy, after backing a greenhouse gas goal but rejecting a more ambitious renewable portfolio standard (ClimateWire, May 31).
http://www.eenews.net/interactive/clean_power_plan/column_posts/1060038323
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Environmental Concerns Still Spurring Research, Development
Jun 6, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Energy industry research and development has been hit hard in the oil price collapse, but one area is still seeing some business.
Weak oil and natural gas prices continue to crimp companies' budgets, even at the largest and wealthiest oil and gas operations. Capital expenditures on new upstream projects have been slashed for two years in a row, causing concerns over future oil supply. R&D spending on new technology and improved extraction techniques has also fallen sharply, hurting academic partners with industry in particular.
But work continues on environmentally friendly applications, driven by federal regulations on methane emissions, wastewater disposal and well integrity. Those rules may compel industry to maintain or even expand its support for research on improving the environmental performance of oil and gas drilling and extraction, even during this downturn.
Indeed, eco-friendly R&D may point toward a viable path for one major research consortium that was earlier facing possible extinction.
"With the last year or so of fallen commodity prices and the impact, that has been hard on exploration budgets, but really, that's hit R&D, as that's really one of the first things to go," said Jack Belcher, a consultant and vice president at HBW Resources LLC.
Still, Belcher said companies could be compelled to direct some funding to R&D primarily because of "a lot of challenges in terms of new regulations, especially on the environmental side, with the new rules regarding methane emissions, new regulation regarding air emissions, of water disposal, a whole host of issues that the industry is challenged with."
Ongoing fears of earthquakes induced by industry activity are propelling a major scientific initiative in Texas. Companies inject wastewater from horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing into injection wells deep underground, and these wastewater injection wells have been linked to seismic events.
A contract worth about $2 million was recently finalized with the company Nanometrics to begin deployment of TexNet. It's a project to establish seismic monitoring equipment across Texas, enabling researchers to monitor the state's seismicity and examine how earthquakes may be tied to oil and gas operations. TexNet is being spearheaded by the University of Texas, Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology, with support from the state government.
The oil price collapse hasn't slowed down preparation and deployment of TexNet.
"Not only will Nanometrics supply and assist in installing the instrumentation for BEG's TexNet, but its world-renowned experts will help to maintain network equipment after installation, allowing the Bureau's staff to focus on network management, scientific products and research activities related to the resulting data," according to the company.
TexNet data will be used by industry and regulators, but will also be made available to scientists seeking to better understand Texas' geology and its natural seismicity.
New partnerships
Belcher's HBW is looking to keep environmental R&D in the oil and gas industry alive for years to come, even in a depressed commodity price environment.
The Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA) was established in 2002 as a quasi-government office tasked to bring academic researchers and energy companies together to collaborate on areas of R&D that might otherwise have been overlooked. RPSEA recently lost congressional funding but has been kept alive by existing funds and Department of Energy support. The oil price collapse affecting industry partners threatens future projects.
In an effort to cope, RPSEA has hired HBW Resources to strengthen its industry ties, with an emphasis on environmental applications for R&D projects. The partnership aims to "grow [RPSEA's] capabilities and opportunities to focus research on the development and deployment of safe and environmentally sensitive technologies to efficiently deliver domestic energy resources."
Belcher said there is no one priority area for the partnership to focus on. Regulatory pushes the industry faces leave open a wide variety of paths for industry R&D, including wastewater cleanup and disposal, emissions controls at oil and gas operations, and seismicity.
"We consider them all priorities," Belcher said. "Clearly, there's flaring, and the methane rule, that's an immediate priority the industry is facing. Another one is well control."
Funding drying up
The bulk of the RPSEA projects that are still active are environmentally focused.
Examples include the Environmentally Friendly Drilling Technology Integration Program, in partnership with the Houston Advanced Research Center. A separate $1.7 million R&D endeavor was seeking out technology to treat drilling and fracking wastewater using osmosis.
Through RPSEA, the Colorado School of Mines has been contracted to explore methods for fracturing shale oil and gas reservoirs using cryogenic liquids, such as liquid carbon dioxide or liquid nitrogen. The approach has the potential to significantly reduce or eliminate the need for water in fracking and guard against groundwater contamination, as the ultra-cooled gases would simply evaporate once reaching higher temperatures. Participants in the project include Pioneer Natural Resources Co., CARBO Ceramics Inc. and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
But the funding periods for these projects are scheduled to end this summer. The cryogenic fracking R&D and Environmentally Friendly Drilling initiatives both show funding periods ending at the start of July. The fracking wastewater osmosis treatment research ran out of initial funding at the end of May.
Belcher says he's not worried. HBW wouldn't have signed up to assist RPSEA if it didn't think environmental R&D in oil and gas had a viable future.
"We're working with RPSEA to help identify new opportunities for research and development to tackle what we consider to be the big challenges facing industry today," he said.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/06/06/stories/1060038304
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Jun 6, 2016 | Morning Consult
By George David Banks
The shale revolution has put the United States in a position to become one of the great power players in world energy markets, generating tremendous economic and national security improvements. Yet a major obstacle must be removed first. Surprisingly, it was not thrown up by Russia or China or Iran, but by our own government.
The United States has been the world’s top natural gas producer since 2011, when we bumped Russia to the No. 2 spot. With the U.S. Energy Information Agency projecting world natural gas consumption to grow by 69 percent between 2012 and 2040, the United States is poised to greatly enhance our security and strengthen our economy by becoming a top supplier to nations dependent on natural gas imports.
However, these gains are already being thwarted by the ill-conceived Natural Gas Act of 1938 (that date is not a typo). By requiring an expensive and lengthy approval process before liquefied natural gas (LNG) can be exported to countries that have not entered into a free trade agreement with the United States (which includes many of our closest allies), the law has already impeded the growth of U.S. LNG exports and the numerous benefits these exports would provide.
The need to swiftly remove these foolish restrictions is obvious. With worldwide natural gas consumption rising so quickly, we have a unique opportunity to begin supplying growing markets with American energy. We have a limited window of time in which to beat our geopolitical rivals to these markets.
In short, we can exert American influence in parts of the world that are of growing strategic importance, or we can let Russia and the Middle East squeeze us out.
The top five LNG importers last year were Japan, South Korea, China, India, and Taiwan. They were followed by the United Kingdom, Spain, Turkey, France, and Italy. The United States has free trade agreements with only one of these countries — South Korea.
While U.S. natural gas producers wait for federal approval to export LNG to the countries that need it the most, those countries seek new supplies. For instance, Japan’s largest gas company wants to build a natural gas pipeline to Russia, something Russia has sought for years. If the United States lets Russia, Qatar, and other major natural gas exporters dominate in these markets in the coming years, we will have made a major strategic mistake.
In Europe as in Asia and Africa, we have a tremendous opportunity to increase U.S. influence at the expense of Russia. “Any future American cargoes would further erode Gazprom’s pricing power in Europe, and erode the Kremlin’s political leverage,” The Daily Telegraph of London’s international business editorwrote of U.S. LNG exports last year.
As U.S. LNG exports expand U.S. influence globally, they will simultaneously boost the U.S. economy. “Economic gains generally increase with the amount of added LNG exports,” concluded a U.S. Department of Energy report from last fall.
An ICF International study concluded that LNG exports could add between 73,100 and 452,300 American jobs by 2035.
President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors reported last year that LNG exports would “increase our GDP, create jobs, promote cleaner energy around the globe, all while maintaining a competitive cost advantage for U.S. manufacturers who thrive off cheap domestic natural gas.”
The good news is that Washington recognizes the problem and is taking some steps to alleviate it. The Senate and House have approved different versions of energy legislation which would expedite the review of LNG export terminal applications, and House Democrats and Republicans have named representatives for the joint conference committee that will merge the two bills. But though these developments remain promising, it is imperative these differences are worked out quickly so that U.S. LNG exports are no longer stuck in red tape while other nations hurry theirs along.
If Congress fails to remove this bureaucratic obstacle that prevents the United States from realizing its potential as a global energy exporter, we will suffer strategically and economically for decades. It would be like sending shiploads of money and power directly to OPEC. Washington can choose to make America stronger or weaker. The right choice is clear.
George David Banks is Executive Vice President of the American Council for Capital Formation.
https://morningconsult.com/opinions/washingtons-energy-test/
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Technology Forged During Downturn Preps Oil Industry for Upturn: Fuel for Thought
Jun 6, 2016 | Platts
By Starr Spencer
Upstream operators have masterfully used the current downcycle to prepare for the years ahead, achieving stunning efficiencies in drilling and completions even though tweaks and improvements were continuous in the years leading up to late 2014 when oil prices plummeted and kicked off what has arguably been industry’s worst slump.
Some of these advancements “absolutely” would not have happened if not for the downturn, Allen Gilmer, CEO of DrillingInfo.com, said.
One of the first ways operators cut costs and drove what has become known as “efficiencies” was simply getting better at the logistics and coordination of supplies and equipment.
Efficiency gains have varied by operator and play, but results obtained by the best operators “look like step change–two times as much as before per same quality of rock,” Gilmer said.
An even more exciting way that companies improved their cost structure was getting better at how oil was extracted and delivered. And one method that made this happen was better geosteering–the ability “to land in the right spot…the sweet spot” of a reservoir, Muqsit Ashraf, Managing Director for Energy at Accenture Strategy, said.
“You can be off a few feet [from the optimum target] and see significantly different levels of production,” Ashraf said.
In addition, advances in reservoir modeling, lateral logging and measurement-while-drilling allows real-time gauges of the rock’s petrophysical properties and higher productive zones, he said, which are “constantly being perfected.”
With continual technology improvements in geosteering and real-time monitoring as the well is drilled, “you can avoid sidetracks [drilling detours], which are costly, happen more frequently than people expect them to–typically every five to ten wells–and can add hundreds of thousand dollars each time,” Ashraf said.
For example, EOG Resources has publicly stated in the last year that it continues to perfect what it calls “precision targeting” to drill the very best areas of a formation. Instead of landing wells anywhere within a 150-foot window, the company steers them exactly in a much narrower window of around 20 feet, its executives have said.
Microseismic monitoring
Other technologies, such as microseismic, allow operators to effectively monitor the hydraulic fracturing process in real time to change perforation spacing–adjusting the number of intervals or sections that require fracturing–and also modifying the fracturing fluid recipe that includes sand and chemicals.
These and other technology advances can improve perforation efficiency from about 50%-60% to as much as 80% or more, Ashraf said, and yield significantly more production from a given well.
“Companies say it enhances net present value [by] one to two million dollars per well,” he said.
In addition, EOG also recently announced it has developed a proprietary enhanced oil recovery technology to use on mature wells in the south Texas Eagle Ford Shale, to force out crude that was missed the first time around.
A recent focus of upstream companies has been to drill the longest laterals that are possible while using geosteering to stay within a zone, Guggenheim analyst Subash Chandra said. A lateral is a well’s horizontal portion.
“The only limit to this is the ability to stimulate the ‘toe’ of the well,” Chandra said.
While 10,000 feet has become a customary lateral length in recent years, big independent Pioneer Natural Resources–one of the first companies to try unconventional technologies to produce oil from West Texas’ Permian Basin–is taking some of its horizontal wells there out to 13,000 feet. Longer laterals allow access to more hydrocarbons per well.
As oil prices climb and operators step up activity these advances will begin to bear fruit that forecasters may be missing in their estimates of future production.
Some market watchers have said that since producers have already migrated to a basin’s sweet spot, it will be difficult to achieve production levels seen over the last two years.
However, with untouched areas underneath currently exploited shale plays and EOR projects yet to get underway; the US could be primed for yet another oil boom.
Upstream operators have masterfully used the current downcycle to prepare for the years ahead, achieving stunning efficiencies in drilling and completions even though tweaks and improvements were continuous in the years leading up to late 2014 when oil prices plummeted and kicked off what has arguably been industry’s worst slump.
Some of these advancements “absolutely” would not have happened if not for the downturn, Allen Gilmer, CEO of DrillingInfo.com, said.
One of the first ways operators cut costs and drove what has become known as “efficiencies” was simply getting better at the logistics and coordination of supplies and equipment.
Efficiency gains have varied by operator and play, but results obtained by the best operators “look like step change–two times as much as before per same quality of rock,” Gilmer said.
An even more exciting way that companies improved their cost structure was getting better at how oil was extracted and delivered. And one method that made this happen was better geosteering–the ability “to land in the right spot…the sweet spot” of a reservoir, Muqsit Ashraf, Managing Director for Energy at Accenture Strategy, said.
“You can be off a few feet [from the optimum target] and see significantly different levels of production,” Ashraf said.
In addition, advances in reservoir modeling, lateral logging and measurement-while-drilling allows real-time gauges of the rock’s petrophysical properties and higher productive zones, he said, which are “constantly being perfected.”
With continual technology improvements in geosteering and real-time monitoring as the well is drilled, “you can avoid sidetracks [drilling detours], which are costly, happen more frequently than people expect them to–typically every five to ten wells–and can add hundreds of thousand dollars each time,” Ashraf said.
For example, EOG Resources has publicly stated in the last year that it continues to perfect what it calls “precision targeting” to drill the very best areas of a formation. Instead of landing wells anywhere within a 150-foot window, the company steers them exactly in a much narrower window of around 20 feet, its executives have said.
Microseismic monitoring
Other technologies, such as microseismic, allow operators to effectively monitor the hydraulic fracturing process in real time to change perforation spacing–adjusting the number of intervals or sections that require fracturing–and also modifying the fracturing fluid recipe that includes sand and chemicals.
These and other technology advances can improve perforation efficiency from about 50%-60% to as much as 80% or more, Ashraf said, and yield significantly more production from a given well.
“Companies say it enhances net present value [by] one to two million dollars per well,” he said.
In addition, EOG also recently announced it has developed a proprietary enhanced oil recovery technology to use on mature wells in the south Texas Eagle Ford Shale, to force out crude that was missed the first time around.
A recent focus of upstream companies has been to drill the longest laterals that are possible while using geosteering to stay within a zone, Guggenheim analyst Subash Chandra said. A lateral is a well’s horizontal portion.
“The only limit to this is the ability to stimulate the ‘toe’ of the well,” Chandra said.
While 10,000 feet has become a customary lateral length in recent years, big independent Pioneer Natural Resources–one of the first companies to try unconventional technologies to produce oil from West Texas’ Permian Basin–is taking some of its horizontal wells there out to 13,000 feet. Longer laterals allow access to more hydrocarbons per well.
As oil prices climb and operators step up activity these advances will begin to bear fruit that forecasters may be missing in their estimates of future production.
Some market watchers have said that since producers have already migrated to a basin’s sweet spot, it will be difficult to achieve production levels seen over the last two years.
However, with untouched areas underneath currently exploited shale plays and EOR projects yet to get underway; the US could be primed for yet another oil boom.
http://blogs.platts.com/2016/06/06/technology-forged-downturn-preps-oil-industry-upturn/
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Senators Unveil 'Retro' Proposal to Protect Grid
Jun 6, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
Senate Intelligence Committee members from both sides of the aisle introduced legislation today to protect the country's sprawling power system from devastating cyberattacks.
Maine independent Sen. Angus King, Democrat Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, and Republicans Jim Risch of Idaho and Susan Collins of Maine proposed setting aside $10 million to study security threats to electronic control systems underpinning the nation's power grid.
The two-year pilot program within the national laboratories would focus on replacing key devices, like computer-connected systems vulnerable to cyberattacks, with analog and human-operated equipment.
The bill, dubbed the "Securing Energy Infrastructure Act," would also establish a 10-member working group to develop a national strategy for isolating the grid from cyberthreats.
Members would include representatives from federal government agencies, the energy industry, a state or regional energy agency, the national labs and other groups with relevant experience, the lawmakers said.
"The United States is one of the most technologically-advanced countries in the world, which also means we're one of the most technologically-vulnerable countries in the world," King said in a statement.
"In fact, right now there are hackers across the globe working to exploit weaknesses in the digital systems that help run critical infrastructure like our electric grid," he said. "And a successful attack could have catastrophic consequences."
King said the bill's "retro" approach looks to the past -- when humans, not computers, operated the grid -- to look for security options.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/06/06/stories/1060038352
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An Attack on the Grid? Power Execs Push Back on Koppel Claims
Jun 5, 2016 | USA Today
By Bill Loveless
Eight months after veteran broadcast journalist Ted Koppel published a book predicting a devastating cyberattack on the U.S. power grid, leaders of the utility industry are sounding off over what they say is an exaggerated claim.
“We’re speaking out on it now because we think there is an important story to tell,” Scott Aaronson, the managing director for cyber and infrastructure security at the Edison Electric Institute, said last week at a briefing for reporters.
“If it’s only going to be the movie-script scenarios, then I can understand why customers might lose confidence.”
What Aaronson and others in the utility industry are taking issue with is a warning by Koppel in his bestselling book, Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath.
According to Koppel, who anchored the ABC news program Nightline from 1980 to 2005, the U.S. is likely to eventually suffer a cyberattack on its grid that could leave millions of Americans in the dark, short of water and food, and generally desperate for months.
The risk is considerable, Koppel claims, because the U.S. government and the utility industry are ill prepared to fend off such an assault by foreign adversaries and to help the nation recover from it.
Not so, Aaronson told reporters.
“Part of what we want to do is interject a little bit of sanity and engineering and thoughtfulness into what can quickly devolve into a bit of a hysterical discussion,” he said at the Washington headquarters of EEI, the trade association for investor-owned electric utilities.
As he did at recent House and Senate hearings on cybersecurity, Aaronson ticked off a number of steps taken by utilities and the government to address the threat, including standards requiring stepped-up protective measures and carrying penalties of up to $1 million per violation per day.
Moreover, utilities are increasingly coordinating to share information and expertise and to test their preparedness, including a drill conducted last fall by the industry’sNorth American Electric Reliability Corporation, in which 4,400 participants from the industry and governments in the U.S., Canada and Mexico simulated coordinated cyber and physical attacks on the grid.
In the event of an incursion that disables electric infrastructure, power providers are expanding programs to share transformers and other equipment, and replace damaged equipment relatively quickly, Aaronson said.
“I disagree with the premise that we would be in a situation where we would have to deal with a months-long outage that would require people to shelter in place,” he said.
As a sign of that resiliency, Aaronson recalled an attack on Pacific Gas & Electric's Metcalf substation south of San Jose in 2013 by unidentified snipers. The attack left 17 of the facility’s 21 transformers destroyed and caused $15 million in damage.
“The lights didn’t even blink in San Francisco and Silicon Valley,” he said, adding that the substation was back in service in just over a month.
Nevertheless, Koppel remains unpersuaded by the industry’s criticism of his book.
“It is surely only a matter of time before a terrorist group, unrestrained by any geopolitical interests, acquires the capability to attack one of our power grids,” he testified at a May hearing in the Senate where Aaronson also appeared.
There’s no dispute in the industry or the government that hackers want to disrupt power supplies and cause havoc in the U.S. In fact, the National Security Agency has acknowledged that “cyber intrusions” on control systems for the grid have increased, though none has caused a blackout.
But what Aaronson and his colleagues in the utility sector are trying to convey more now than before is that while there will always be room for improvement in addressing the risk, it isn’t going unattended.
“You’ve got to be a little sensitive about how much you talk about it publicly,” said Philip Moeller, EEI’s senior vice president of energy delivery and a former member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who joined Aaronson at the press briefing.
“Particularly in the aftermath of Metcalf, we didn’t want copycat attacks, which are much more likely to happen once it’s in the headlines. But just because we don’t talk about it doesn’t mean a lot isn’t being done.”
Bill Loveless —@bill_loveless on Twitter — is a veteran energy journalist and podcast host in Washington. He is the former anchor of the TV program Platts Energy Week.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/2016/06/05/attack-grid-power-execs-push-back-koppel-claims/85358254/
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Rockwell Launches New Network Platform to Increase Railroad Safety
Jun 6, 2016 | Railway Technology
US-based Rockwell Collins has introduced ARINC RailwayNet, a new network and messaging service for passenger and freight railroads.
Designed to increase safety in the industry, the new solution will help railroads meet the positive train control (PTC) requirements mandated by the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008.
Enacted by US Congress, the federal law required the installation of PTC technology on most of the railroad network in the country by last year but the deadline was extended to 2018.
By offering a hosted service to short-line, regional and commuter railroads in North America, ARINC RailwayNet aims to address the technical challenges of PTC adoption.
Rockwell Collins surface transportation systems vice-president Denny Lengyel said: "ARINC RailwayNet leverages Rockwell Collins' expertise to create a common communication infrastructure for all railroads.
"ARINC RailwayNet provides the network connections and office applications required to exchange critical information among Class 1 railroads and their partner short line and commuter railroads.
"With RailwayNet, Rockwell Collins is helping short line and commuter railroads meet the PTC mandate efficiently, cost-effectively and securely."
The US Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has awarded a $4.9m grant to Rockwell Collins in order to implement the new system.
The grant will be used to provide technical support to participating short line as well as commuter railroads that need assistance to implement the office and networking segments of a PTC system.
ARINC RailwayNet provides connectivity into the interoperable train control (ITC) federated network that supports PTC messaging.
http://www.railway-technology.com/news/newsrockwell-launches-new-network-platform-to-increase-railroad-safety-4914219
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Green Groups Keep up Pressure Against TPP Deal
Jun 6, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Doug Palmer
A coalition of more 450 national, state and local environmental groups called on Congress today to reject the TPP, charging that oil, coal and natural gas companies could use investor-state dispute settlement provisions in the pact to block government action to thwart climate change.
“We strongly urge you to eliminate this threat to U.S. climate progress by committing to vote no on the TPP and asking the U.S. Trade Representative to remove from TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership] any provision that empowers corporations to challenge government policies in extrajudicial tribunals,” the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and other groups said in a letter to members of Congress.
Many of the same organizations sent a similar letter in March, but the latest effort includes a large number of lesser known groups like Bus for Progress, Catskill Citizens for Safe Energy, Great Old Broads for Wilderness and It's Not Garbage Coalition.
The Obama administration says the TPP agreement has the “most robust enforceable environment commitments of any trade agreement” in areas like protection of endangered species, wildlife trafficking, illegal logging and illegal fishing. It also says the ISDS provisions preserve the rights of governments to regulate in the public interest while providing an “impartial, law-based approach” to resolve investment disputes.
"The United States has never lost an ISDS case," a USTR spokesman said. “We have prevailed in every case in part because we have continued to raise standards through each agreement.”
Still, the letter shows a large portion of the environmental community remains deeply suspicious of both the TPP and TTIP agreements, especially after TransCanada filed a $15 billion
lawsuit against the United States under ISDS provisions of the NAFTA agreement.
The company claims the Obama administration’s failure to approve the Keystone XL pipeline violated U.S. obligations under 22-year-old pact.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy
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States Appeal District Court's Dismissal Of CWA Rule Suit
Jun 6, 2016 | Inside EPA
Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee have appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit a ruling dismissing a lower court challenge over EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule on the grounds that a 6th Circuit panel decided earlier this year that appeals courts -- not district courts -- should hear initial challenges to the rule.
The three states in State of Ohio, et al. v. EPA, et al. filed their appeal May 27, asking the 6th Circuit to reverse anApril 25 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio's Eastern Division in which Chief U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus, Jr., found that the district court lacked jurisdiction over the case.
In the order, Sargues noted the 6th Circuit's divided Feb. 22 decision giving that court authority to review cases challenging the rule. The judge said that the states may opt to re-file the lower court suit in the event that the “circumstances surrounding this Court's jurisdiction change,” suggesting the possibility of Supreme Court review of the CWA jurisdiction case and the question over which court should first hear suits over the rule.
The 6th Circuit appeal of the district court case would preserve the states' district court challenge in the event of a high court decision that the lower courts may hear rule challenges rather than the appeals courts.
DOJ argued in a March 14 motion that because the 6th Circuit confirmed its jurisdiction to review initial challenges to the CWA rule, the states that filed the district court case are now barred under the Administrative Procedure Act from pursuing a duplicative challenge to the rule in the lower court.
The states challenging in the Ohio district court suit -- Ohio, Michigan, and Tennessee -- in a March 4 brief acknowledged the likelihood that the suit would get dismissed, saying, “The States therefore recognize that this Court may conclude that it lacks jurisdiction here in light of the Sixth Circuit ruling, and may therefore dismiss this action (without prejudice and on jurisdictional grounds only).”
But the states preserved the potential for an appeal of any dismissal, saying they “respectfully object to any such dismissal even while understanding that this Court must act in accordance with its view of the law as guided by controlling Sixth Circuit precedent.”
http://insideepa.com/news-briefs/states-appeal-district-courts-dismissal-cwa-rule-suit
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