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Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Chems Must Adopt Game-Changing Data Analysis
Jun 6, 2016 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood and Joseph Chang

The advent of continuous data collection and analysis has the potential to change the face of the chemical industry, and will create the need for platforms allowing companies to analyse a material throughout its value chain, consultants at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said on Monday.
Sasol's Lake Charles Project Behind Schedule, Over Budget
Jun 6, 2016 | NGI Shale Daily
By Joe Fisher

South Africa-based Sasol has reevaluated its Lake Charles Chemicals Project (LCCP) in Louisiana and determined that the 1.5 million tonne per annum ethane cracker and six associated downstream chemical facilities are running behind schedule and over budget.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Paul Lifts Hold on TSCA Overhaul; Bill Set for Vote
Jun 7, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Arianna Skibell

Lawmakers plan to vote on a long-awaited chemicals overhaul bill this week following an unexpected delay before last week's recess.
(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Safety Reform Bill Headed to Obama’s Desk Lets Down Women With and at Risk of Breast Cancer
Jun 6, 2016 | EcoWatch
By Karuna Jaggar

Cost. Quality. Color. These are some of the things we consider when choosing which products to buy.
(ACC Mentioned) Styrofoam Coolers Would Bring $100 Fine at Miami-Dade Parks Under Proposed Crackdown
Jun 6, 2016 | Miami Herald
By Douglas Hanks

A day at the beach for the Lo family meant a Styrofoam cooler filled with water bottles, juice packs, fresh fruit and the potential for a $100 fine if they keep it up much long longer.
(ACC Mentioned) PFA Opposes Reclassification of TDI
Jun 6, 2016 | Rubber & Plastics News

The Massachusetts Toxic Use Reduction Institute’s scientific panel has recommended TDI should be classified as a higher hazard substance, and the recommendation brought a swift reaction from the U.S. Polyurethane Foam Association.
Green Light for Senate TSCA Bill as Sen. Paul Drops Objection
Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott and Brian Dabbs

Legislation to overhaul a 1970s-era U.S. chemical law now has a green light to return to the Senate floor, possibly this week, after Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul agreed to drop his objection to a fast-track vote.
Rand Paul Withdraws Block on Chemical Safety Bill
Jun 6, 2016 | The Hill
By Timothy Cama

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is withdrawing a hold that prevented Congress’s bipartisan chemical safety overhaul bill from moving forward in the Senate.
Rand Paul Drops Objection to Toxic Substances Bill
Jun 6, 2016 | Morning Consult
By Jack Fitzpatrick

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has dropped his objection to the bipartisan bill overhauling the Toxic Substances Control Act, spokeswoman Jillian Lane told Morning Consult on Monday.
Inhofe: Paul Lifts Hold on TSCA
Jun 6, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Alex Guillen

Sen. Rand Paul has lifted his hold on the unanimous consent motion to move forward with bipartisan reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act, Sen. Jim Inhofe told reporters in the Capitol this afternoon.
Highlights of Chemical Bill Senate Considering
Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

Bloomberg BNA prepared an analysis of the Toxic Substances Control Act compared with the authorities provided and requirements of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 2576).
Will the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act Pass This Week?
Jun 6, 2016 | The Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance Blog
By Gary Cohn

Just days before Memorial Day, the U.S. Senate seemed poised to pass a long-overdue, sweeping overhaul of the decades-old, ineffective law governing toxic substances, including asbestos.
New State, Federal Guidelines for Cancer Cluster Investigations
Jun 6, 2016 | WTHR
By Sandra Chapman

Big changes are on the way to help report, track and investigate cancer clusters in Indiana and across the country.
US House Committee Repeats IRIS Document Request
Jun 7, 2016 | Chemical Watch

The US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology has reiterated its request for the EPA to furnish documents related to the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS).
House Panel Threatens To Subpoena EPA IRIS Documents
Jun 6, 2016 | Inside EPA

The chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee is threatening to subpoena documents regarding EPA's influential but controversial risk assessment program should the agency continue to ignore the committee’s May request for information regarding the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program.
N.Y. and PFOA Firms Sign Consent Order
Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Gerald B. Silverman

Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. and Honeywell International Inc. have entered into a consent order with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to investigate the source and scope of water contamination in Hoosick Falls, N.Y., and identify potential alternative water supplies.
Canada's Environmental Auditor Criticizes Chemicals Oversight
Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Menyasz

Canada's federal health department fails to ensure that products and cosmetics available to consumers are free of toxic substances, the country's environmental auditor said.

Energy News

Murkowski Urges Dems Not to Bury Conference Committee
Jun 7, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is looking to convince wary Democrats against blocking the first energy bill conference committee in a decade.
Advocates Cite Air Rules In Bid To Overturn EPA Cooling Water Regulation
Jun 6, 2016 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss

Environmentalists are citing EPA emissions rules and a power sector shift from coal to natural gas to help make their case for a federal appeals court to scrap the agency's Clean Water Act (CWA) permit rule for cooling water intake structures, saying the CWA rule sets weak standards based on “stale” information on the utility industry.
More Discovery in Murray Energy-EPA Lawsuit to Be Argued
Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers

A federal district court judge has ordered oral argument June 29 on a coal company's motion to compel additional discovery from the Environmental Protection Agency in an ongoing lawsuit about the impact Clean Air Act regulations have on employment (Murray v. McCarthy, N.D. W.Va., No. 5:14-cv-00039-JPB, 6/3/16).
More Litigation Over EPA's Mercury Rule ‘Corrections'
Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ben Remaly

An Environmental Protection Agency rule that the agency said made “technical corrections” to its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants is being challenged by a power industry trade group (Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1171, 6/6/16).
Why Congress Should Reject New Energy Taxes
Jun 6, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Thomas Pyle

As early as this week, Members of the House of Representatives will face a very simple choice: support a tax that will make everyday life harder for their constituents, or take a stand for the American people and reject any new energy taxes.
Industry Group to 'Key-Vote' Carbon Tax Resolution
Jun 7, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Amanda Reilly

The American Energy Alliance this week is going to bat for a GOP resolution opposing a carbon tax.

Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Transportation News

The Latest: Oregon Leaders Want Temporary Stop to Oil Trains
Jun 6, 2016 | AP (In The New York Times)

Several top Oregon leaders are calling for a temporary halt to oil train traffic in the Columbia River Gorge after Friday's fiery train wreck.
Ore. Leaders: Halt Oil Trains for Now
Jun 7, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Hannah Hess

Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, Gov. Kate Brown (D), and two other Democrats who represent the state in Congress yesterday called for a temporary halt to oil trains rolling through the Columbia River gorge.
Anger as Trains Resume After Oregon Derailment, Fire
Jun 7, 2016 | AP (In The Washington Post)
By Gillian Flaccus and Phuong Le

Local politicians and residents reacted with shock and anger Monday as Union Pacific began running trains through this tiny Columbia River Gorge town just three days after a fiery derailment forced residents to evacuate and water and sewage systems to shut down.
Mount Olive, Washington Township, Morris County Demand Removal of Gas Tanks
Jun 7, 2016 | Mount Olive Chronicle
By Phil Garber

The chance of being killed by a railway propane explosion is less than the risk of being killed by lightning but Mayor Rob Greenbaum still doesn’t like the odds.
State's New Rail Director Will Tackle Oil-Train Safety, Other Issues
Jun 6, 2016 | StarTribune
By Maya Rao

The map above Alene Tchourumoff’s desk shows lines that appear, at first, to denote rivers — they sprawl and branch off, weaving and curving across the state.

Environment News

Hundreds of Green Groups Tell Lawmakers to Reject Trade Deals
Jun 6, 2016 | The Hill
By Devin Henry

More than 450 green groups on Monday urged members of Congress to reject two landmark Obama administration trade deals.
High Court, Plaintiffs Move To Quickly Enforce CWA 'Jurisdiction' Ruling
Jun 6, 2016 | Inside EPA

The Supreme Court and plaintiffs in several federal district court suits are moving to quickly enforce the justices' recent decision that regulators' Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdictional determinations (JDs) are “final action” subject to legal challenge, with the high court reversing an appellate case that held otherwise while district judges are weighing briefs that invoke the ruling in cases involving agency CWA decisions.
What Charles Koch Really Thinks About Climate Change
Jun 6, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Jim Tankersley and Chris Mooney

Charles Koch had been talking for more than an hour — about markets, philosophy and why he is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fund university research, particularly in economics — when the subject turned to climate change.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Chems Must Adopt Game-Changing Data Analysis

Jun 6, 2016 | ICIS

By Al Greenwood and Joseph Chang

The advent of continuous data collection and analysis has the potential to change the face of the chemical industry, and will create the need for platforms allowing companies to analyse a material throughout its value chain, consultants at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said on Monday.
In the future envisioned by PwC, the chemical industry will be able to collect and analyse data on polymers and other chemicals throughout their lifecycles – from their creation, to their sale to other manufacturers, to their incorporation into final end-products, to their sale to end consumers and to their uses by those consumers, said Vijay Sarathy, principal at Strategy&, the global strategy consulting arm of PwC.
“The data has always existed. But now there’s the ability to capture data from every part of your value chain and analyse it,” he said.
Sarathy made his comments during an interview with ICIS on the sidelines of the American Chemistry Council's (ACC) Annual Meeting.
Chemical companies already collect and analyse plenty of data, but this is often done at individual parts of a product's cycle, Sarathy said. He expects companies will soon develop data threads that will run across the lifecycle of a chemical.
Such ambitious data collection and analysis is being made possible by advances in digital technology, Sarathy said. Instead of conducting a limited number of tests on a physical product, companies can run an infinite number of virtual tests. Companies can avoid the time and expense of producing samples and running physical tests on them.
They can also avoid the limited data that comes with samples, Sarathy said. With new technology, companies can now analyse the performance of a whole population of products in real-time applications – versus the performance of a single product in a test setting.
The advent of the so-called "cloud" of internet-based computing provides companies with even more possibilities, said Robert McCutcheon, Pittsburgh managing partner, US industrial products leader, PwC. It allows them to bring together data from disparate sources.
Chemical companies are already incorporating new information technology in product development.
Virtual modelling is allowing many companies to test how composites and resins perform in new automotive applications. The auto industry is eager to adopt new materials to lighten the weight of their vehicles as it tries to meet ever-tightening emissions standards.
The auto industry, in fact, is hiring increasing numbers of chemists, said Antoine Westerman, a partner at PwC.
While companies are adopting new information technology, it might not be at the scale required in the future, Sarathy said.
New companies or new entrants could develop the disruptive platforms that the chemical industry or its customers need to make the most of new digital technology.
These could be businesses that do not make a physical product, Sarathy said. Instead, they would provide services and solutions to the companies that manufacture chemicals, or to the customers of those companies.
For example, a polymer films producer can use a wide variety of resins for multiple layers. If sensors are put in place to collect data on how each polymer is used, in which layers and how they perform, virtual tests can be run to determine optimal formulations.
“If a [Procter & Gamble] or a Kraft needs something specific, instead of going to a polymer producer, they may go to another entity for that solution,” said Sarathy.
“It’s game changing because you can use a combination of technologies – sensors, robotics, etc -- into an ecosystem that allows you to innovate,” said McCutcheon.
Chemical companies could face cultural barriers in making the most of the new opportunities provided by digital technology, Sarathy said.
While companies regularly collaborate with their peers, as suppliers, customers, or partners, they must be willing to work with businesses in other industries, he said.
If the chemical industry is successful, new digital technology could deliver it from the rut of low productivity growth that it and much of the world is currently struggling through, Sarathy said.
“What we call 'Industry 4.0' involves cultural change. CEOs realise this and worry about whether they will be able to make the changes to boost revenue and lower costs,” said Sarathy.
“Companies need to look outside themselves and have a willingness to collaborate with other sectors. The ecosystem plays a huge role,” he added.
For years, the chemical industry has achieved productivity gains through operational-excellence initiatives and similar programmes, Sarathy said.
These have largely played through. New information technology could provide chemical companies with the next stage of growth, he noted.
“There is a digital thread that cuts across the value chain, capturing and harnessing the data. The next tranche of benefit can come from this,” said Sarathy.
The ACC Annual Meeting runs through Wednesday in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
http://www.icis.com/resources/news/2016/06/06/10005338/chems-must-adopt-game-changing-data-analysis/

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Sasol's Lake Charles Project Behind Schedule, Over Budget

Jun 6, 2016 | NGI Shale Daily

By Joe Fisher

South Africa-based Sasol has reevaluated its Lake Charles Chemicals Project (LCCP) in Louisiana and determined that the 1.5 million tonne per annum ethane cracker and six associated downstream chemical facilities are running behind schedule and over budget.
In March Sasol began a review of LCCP. "At that time, there were early indications that the overall end-of-job cost was under pressure...Total capital expenditure for the project could increase up to US$11 billion, including site infrastructure and utility improvements," the company said. "This estimate includes a sufficient contingency to effectively manage the project to beneficial operation." When the project was announced in late 2014, the cost was estimated at $8.1 billion (see Daily GPI, Oct. 27, 2014).
Most of the cost hike is due to construction delays caused by excessive rainfall, higher labor costs, certain lump-sum bid contract prices being higher than estimates, as well as some bulk materials quantities exceeding original estimates, Sasol said.
The six downstream chemical projects of LCCP include two large polymers plants and an ethylene oxide/ethylene glycol plant, which together would consume about two-thirds of the ethylene produced by the cracker. Also included are three smaller, higher-value derivative plants, which would produce specialty alcohols, ethoxylates and other products. The project is under construction near Lake Charles, adjacent to Sasol's current chemical operations.
Sasol has dialed back spending until June 2018 in response to low oil prices, and this has extended the LCCP schedule and contributed to cost increases, the company said. "The increase in the estimated LCCP capital cost and extended schedule will reduce the expected project returns by approximately the same amount as the company's lower long-term price assumptions," Sasol said.
Sasol said it expects to complete a detailed review of the project during the third quarter and will announce findings along with annual results in September. At the end of April, capital expenditure was at US$4.5 billion, with project completion beyond 40%.
"It is, however, important to emphasize that no material or unexpected scope changes to the project have taken place," Sasol said. "Overall construction on the project continues on all fronts, with most engineering activities nearing completion and procurement well advanced."
The ethane cracker could be online during the second half of 2018. "...which will enable around 80% of the total output from LCCP to reach beneficial operation later in 2018 and early 2019. The remaining volumes from the other derivative units will reach beneficial operation by the second half of 2019," Sasol said.
Analysts at Tudor, Pickering & Holt Co. said the cost overruns and delay are "not a huge surprise" in light of the large number of chemical and liquefied natural gas projects in the region.
Separately on Monday, BASF Corp., the North American affiliate of BASF SE of Germany, said it has postponed a final investment decision on its proposed methane-to-propylene complex in Freeport, TX. "On-purpose production of propylene based on favorable U.S. shale gas is interesting for BASF. We will regularly review the development of raw material prices and the relevant market conditions to determine the right point in time to commence such a major investment," said Wayne T. Smith, a BASF board member. BASF said in 2014 that it was considering the project (see Daily GPI, May 2, 2014).
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/106657-sasols-lake-charles-project-behind-schedule-over-budget

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Paul Lifts Hold on TSCA Overhaul; Bill Set for Vote

Jun 7, 2016 | E&E Daily

By Arianna Skibell

Lawmakers plan to vote on a long-awaited chemicals overhaul bill this week following an unexpected delay before last week's recess.
The bill to overhaul the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, H.R. 2576, cleared the House last month, and many senators thought they could get unanimous support for the measure in their chamber.
That expectation was thwarted when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) objected, saying he had not had time to read the bill (E&E Daily, June 6).
Paul also said he had some reservations about parts of the bill setting criminal violations for individuals who use banned chemicals and establishing a stronger federal regulatory structure that would usurp states' ability to choose less regulation.
Paul spent the recess reading through the measure and gathering information, according to an aide, and is now prepared to let the measure proceed.
"Senator Rand Paul believes in reading legislation before voting for or against it," said his communications director, Sergio Gor, in a statement. "Having been given the opportunity to review this legislation, he's now prepared to allow a vote to occur."
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) said last night that the legislation could be passed by unanimous consent as early as this week.
"No reason not to, now," he said.
Some lawmakers criticized Paul's delay, saying the bill's provisions had been under discussion for months.
In an email to reporters, Inhofe spokeswoman Donelle Harder said Paul had at least nine months to raise the objections.
"I have personally carried and birthed a child in the same amount of time in which Rand Paul could have raised objections to the few lines in this bill that he is now calling 'rushed,'" Harder said (E&E Daily, May 27).
The American Chemistry Council had said in a statement that it was "sincerely disappointed that Senator Paul has decided to stand in the way of efforts to provide greater certainty and clarity to industry while holding EPA to strict accountability and transparency requirements."
Members are now discussing when to bring the TSCA bill to the floor, but there were no new scheduling announcements as of late yesterday, according to a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
"I think we'll have a clearer idea [today]," Harder said.
Reporter Hannah Hess contributed.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/06/07/stories/1060038385

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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Safety Reform Bill Headed to Obama’s Desk Lets Down Women With and at Risk of Breast Cancer

Jun 6, 2016 | EcoWatch

By Karuna Jaggar

Cost. Quality. Color. These are some of the things we consider when choosing which products to buy.
We shouldn’t also have to consider whether the chemicals in the products are linked to cancer.
I run a breast cancer watchdog organization, which for 26 years has been a leader in calling for protections from chemicals that can increase the risk of cancer. The outreach flyer for the first meeting to form Breast Cancer Action read: “Our goals are education and political action to prevent a further rise in the incidence of breast cancer; indeed, we hope that our efforts will serve in the future to lower the breast cancer rate in the United States.”
You would think that our founders, only one of whom is alive today, would be pleased then to see that long-overdue updates to chemical safety regulations are nearing the president’s desk. Unfortunately, the compromise bill that resulted from approximately a dozen years of negotiations puts industry interests first and lets down women at risk of and living with breast cancer.
Most of us assume that anything that makes it onto store shelves is fully regulated and appropriately safety tested to ensure that we aren’t harmed from using them. Unfortunately, that has never been true. And despite much-touted reforms to chemical safety laws, it is still “buyer beware” when it comes to chemicals linked to breast cancer.
The problem with putting the burden of protecting their own health on the public is that essentially none of us are equipped with the knowledge and expertise necessary to do so. This is not a question of passing a high school chemistry class. This each-for-her-own approach basically asks each of us to individually develop the safety-standard expertise of entire research groups and regulatory agencies in order to assess whether a particular chemical in a particular product is linked to health harms. Rather than accepting this requirement to become our own U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect ourselves and our loved ones, we should continue to demand that our government act to protect our health—no matter who we are or how much we know about toxicology or epidemiology.
The primary law that has regulated chemicals used in everyday products for the past 40 years is called the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Since it was first introduced, TSCA has failed to protect us from toxic chemicals in everything from sippy cups to saucepans. Under this weak law, since its passage in 1976, the EPA has been able to limit the uses of just five of the 85,000 chemicals currently on the market. For more than a decade, Breast Cancer Action has been working alongside other environmental health organizations to demand lawmakers update this toothless and out-of-date law.
Unfortunately, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, as the current compromise bill is optimistically named, puts corporate interests before public health and fails to improve chemical safety regulations for people living in the majority of states. This bill that Congress is preparing to send to the president for signature—barring further delay from Sen. Rand Paul—is a missed opportunity to reduce the incidence of cancer and other diseases and disorders.
How could efforts at reform fall so far short of the goals of environmental health advocates who have been working on this issue for years? It has often been said that “laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made” because of the messy, slow and too often mysterious process of making both.
To shorten a long story, by 2013 after nearly a decade of environmental health advocates working together on the issue, it appeared that a strong TSCA reform bill had a chance of moving forward. Seeing change on the horizon, industry moved quickly to hijack these efforts to improve TSCA. In fact, the Senate version of the bill was written by the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry’s biggest lobbying group. The resulting compromise bill fails to protect the public from exposure to harmful chemicals in consumer products—ultimately failing to prevent cancer.
As others before me have noted, it is testament to the power of the environmental health groups working on the issue for so long that the current bill is not worse than it is. Even though the revised TSCA doesn’t go far enough in protecting public health, these partner groups were able, through diligence and collaboration, to prevent critical roll backs of safety in a few key areas. And there is ground for improvement in some areas such as giving the EPA some ability to assess a chemical before it enters the market and requiring the EPA to consider the most vulnerable populations.
But in other areas—particularly for states with the strongest regulations—we are going backwards when it comes to protecting the public from chemicals linked to breast cancer and other health problems. One of the biggest problems is a provision, referred to as the “pause” provision, that would block a state’s ability to protect their residents from toxic chemicals—even when federal action is years away. This provision would stop the ability of states to create and implement laws around a toxic chemical as soon as that chemical went under review by the federal government—a process that can take years! During that time, states cannot protect their residents from exposure to these chemicals of greatest concern.
In the context of weak federal laws, stronger state protections have been important in both protecting their own residents and residents of other states. As a matter of practice, companies manufacturing or selling products in states with strong protections have often ended up lifting the standards for all of their products, even in states with weaker laws. We should not be sinking to the lowest denominator but instead raising everyone up to the highest level of protection.
In the U.S. we live in the richest country in the history of the world, with the world’s largest economy and an astonishing assortment of consumer products of every kind. We should be able to trust that our laws uphold the highest health and safety standards to protect us from cancer and other diseases and disorders.
https://ecowatch.com/2016/06/06/tsca-breast-cancer/

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(ACC Mentioned) Styrofoam Coolers Would Bring $100 Fine at Miami-Dade Parks Under Proposed Crackdown

Jun 6, 2016 | Miami Herald

By Douglas Hanks

A day at the beach for the Lo family meant a Styrofoam cooler filled with water bottles, juice packs, fresh fruit and the potential for a $100 fine if they keep it up much long longer.
County leaders want to ban Styrofoam from Miami-Dade parks, with a final vote scheduled for Tuesday that would impose the fine for people like Henry Lo and his trusty, lightweight, Publix-issued, University of Miami-themed, $5.19 cooler.
“It’s so light,” Lo, a computer programmer from South Kendall, said from his folding beach chair at Crandon Park on Sunday morning. “And cheap.”
The proposed ordinance joins a wave of similar crackdowns already enacted inMiami Beach, Key Biscayne and in cities across the country. Citing the crumbly remnants of smashed coolers, plates and cups, advocates of the ban say Styrofoam’s generic component, polystyrene, presents an environmental nuisance that harms wildlife, clogs drains and creates an oversized share of litter.
“It’s almost impossible to clean-up,” said Rachel Silverstein, executive director of the Miami Waterkeeper, an environmental advocacy group. “Municipalities spend a lot of money trying to clean up the foam debris.”

Miami-Dade would not enact its ban for nearly one year, with the $100 fine going into effect on June 1, 2017. The ban would apply to any property run by the Parks department, a portfolio that includes marinas, beaches, and more than 200 parks covering roughly 13,500 acres.
The proposed ban officially covers polystyrene, the generic name for Styrofoam, and prohibits bringing the material into parks. It also would prohibit vendors from selling it. Along with coolers, primary targets are Styrofoam cups and to-go food containers.
The makers of polystyrene say bans like the one sponsored by Miami-Dade Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava ultimately cost consumers more because restaurants and other businesses must shift to more expensive containers. In a statement issued Monday, the American Chemistry Council said the problem is trash, not the chemical component of the trash.
“Removing polystyrene will not reduce litter,” read the statement. “You will only be replacing one type of litter with another, unless consumer behavior is changed through education.”
The industry won passage of a Florida law this year that bans local governments from regulating polystyrene outright, which is why the Miami-Dade law only targets what can be brought into county parks. County law already bans visitors from bringing glass into parks, and the proposed ordinance adds the new prohibition for polystyrene.
A coalition of environmental groups sent a letter to Miami-Dade commissioners Monday urging passage of the ordinance.
“Most marine-based foam debris comes from land-based litter that degraded into small pieces, traveled down the storm drain, and ended up in the ocean,” read the letter, signed by leaders of Water Action, Reef Relief, Audubon Society of the Everglades, and others. “Birds, filter feeding organisms, and fish often mistake foam particles for food.”
The ordinance calls for a year-delay in implementing the ban in order to launch a publicity campaign announcing the change. For repeat offenders, the fine jumps to $200 per Styrofoam violation.
For Lo, the proposed ban means only a tweak in his family’s beach provisioning. He’s got plastic coolers at home, but considered them too big for the modest collection of water bottles, Kool-Aid juice packs and fresh strawberries brought along for this expedition to the Atlantic.
“I can understand the ban,” Lo said while he and one of his three triplets, 8-year-old Christopher Lo, presided over the family beach spot at Crandon. “Styrofoam pieces get everywhere.”
He’s already complying with one park ban, anyway. “I didn’t bring beer,” Lo said of his cooler components, “because I didn’t have any cans.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article82130412.html

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(ACC Mentioned) PFA Opposes Reclassification of TDI

Jun 6, 2016 | Rubber & Plastics News

The Massachusetts Toxic Use Reduction Institute’s scientific panel has recommended TDI should be classified as a higher hazard substance, and the recommendation brought a swift reaction from the U.S. Polyurethane Foam Association.
“We oppose this,” said PFA legal counsel Jim McIntyre at the association’s spring meeting in Tampa, Fla. “If they do, it sets a precedent for other states and will require companies that use TDI to find alternative ways to manufacture their products. It will impose additional reporting requirements on these companies and, incidentally, it will also increase the taxes. We are trying to forestall this.”
The PFA has created information to send to local legislators in conjunction with member companies in the state. The aim is to explain the wider economic impact to the wider business community.
“The goal is to demonstrate, through multiple communications channels, that the TURI classification is unnecessary, unsupported by risk analysis and would have significant negative consequences,” PFA president Bill Gollnitz said.
The American Chemistry Council’s diisocyanates panel also is fighting the TURI recommendation. The panel’s Bill Robert claimed TURI did not follow its own due process and transparency procedures, and it will have a big impact.
“(This) HHS directly impacts downstream users,” Robert said at the Florida meeting.
ACC state affairs staff members have met with the Massachusetts governor’s office to express concerns of a lack of process and scientific basis. While the rule could go through, this seems unlikely, Robert said; more likely is an outright rejection, or it will be sent back to the scientific advisory board for further investigation.
http://www.rubbernews.com/article/20160606/NEWS/160609981/pfa-opposes-reclassification-of-tdi

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Green Light for Senate TSCA Bill as Sen. Paul Drops Objection

Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Dean Scott and Brian Dabbs

Legislation to overhaul a 1970s-era U.S. chemical law now has a green light to return to the Senate floor, possibly this week, after Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul agreed to drop his objection to a fast-track vote.
“Senator Rand Paul believes in reading legislation before voting for or against it,” Paul spokesman Sergio Gor said in an e-mail to Bloomberg BNA, echoing the Kentucky senator's previous concerns that the Senate wasn't given ample time to review the bill.
“But [h]aving been given the opportunity to review this legislation, he's now prepared to allow a vote to occur,” the spokesman said.
It's unclear how quickly the bill, which already has House approval, can be returned to the Senate floor, but proponents are pushing for a vote this week.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the Senate majority whip, told Bloomberg BNA earlier in the day that the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 2576), which would revamp the Toxic Substances Control Act, remains a priority for Republican leaders—as long as a vote doesn't consume valuable floor time.
“It's a big, bipartisan bill, and I think most” concerns raised by Democrats and Republicans alike have “been hashed out already,” Cornyn said.
The majority whip spoke as senators returned to the Capitol to begin debate on the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 2943); that bill is likely to consume at least a week of floor time.
Donelle Harder, a spokeswoman for Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a leading proponent of the bill, confirmed that Paul had relented.
“Rand Paul lifted his hold today and we expect a vote on TSCA this week,” she said.
Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), who took up the mantle for TSCA reform after Lautenberg died in 2013, told Bloomberg BNA by e-mail: “TSCA reform will become law in the near future, the only question is how soon. Since there's overwhelming support for TSCA reform in the Senate, I remain optimistic that we will soon find a path forward on an agreement.”
Bloomberg BNA prepared an analysis of TSCA compared with the authorities provided and requirements of the Lautenberg bill (see table this issue).
Yet Another TSCA Resurrection?
Paul objected to the bill being approved under unanimous consent on the Senate floor May 26. Under that expedited procedure, an objection from a single senator essentially blocks its passage.
If passed, H.R. 2576 would update TSCA's core provisions for the first time since 1976. Supporters say the revisions would spur assessment of tens of thousands of chemicals in U.S. commerce that the EPA has not yet vetted, many of which threaten human health and the environment.
Paul's objections, which ranged from the need for more time to comb through the bill to concerns over preemption of state regulatory authority, halted progress on a bill that had sailed to passage in the House days earlier by a vote of 403-12 (106 DEN A-3, 6/2/16); (101 DEN A-1, 5/25/16).
Republican aides on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, which Inhofe chairs, said June 6 that they were in discussions earlier in the day with staff from Paul's office. The aides, however, declined to discuss specific details of the meeting but suggested a deal was imminent.
Cornyn sounded an optimistic note earlier in the day, suggesting another try at a unanimous consent vote remained the preferred option given the time-consuming alternative, which would be to bring the bill like any other legislation to the floor.
Avoiding Time-Consuming Route
That traditional route at a minimum would have required 60 votes to proceed, followed by days of debate, which could have derailed the measure given the Senate's already crowded legislative agenda.
“I just know that generally speaking he [Paul] is a pretty reasonable guy, and once he's able to express himself” the Kentucky Republican would likely relent, Cornyn predicted hours before Paul's announcement that he would allow the bill to go forward.
An aide to South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune, another member of the Senate Republican leadership, said Thune still considers the TSCA bill a priority “and remains hopeful that could happen as early as this week.”
If Paul had not relented, the bill would have faced stiff competition not only from multiple appropriations bills but also possible legislative action to address the Zika virus and Puerto Rico's debt crisis.
“I would be a little surprised if there was floor time devoted to TSCA” if the bill now headed for expedited action had required a week or more of legislative attention, Cornyn warned.
With assistance from Pat Rizzuto in Washington.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=91027101&vname=dennotallissues&fn=91027101&jd=91027101

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Rand Paul Withdraws Block on Chemical Safety Bill

Jun 6, 2016 | The Hill

By Timothy Cama

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is withdrawing a hold that prevented Congress’s bipartisan chemical safety overhaul bill from moving forward in the Senate.
Paul objected to the measure on May 26, preventing Senate leaders from scheduling a vote on it before the congressional recess, which angered many of his colleagues.
He said on the Senate floor that day that he had only received the 180-page bill two days prior, and needed time to read it. His action prevented the Senate from having unanimous consent to bypass the usual procedure and move to a vote.
“Sen. Rand Paul believes in reading legislation before voting for or against it. Having been given the opportunity to review this legislation, he’s now prepared to allow a vote to occur,” Sergio Gor, a spokesman for Paul, said Monday.
Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and a key backer of the bill, confirmed Monday that Paul was dropping his objection, and said he expects the Senate to hold a vote for passage this week.
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act would overhaul the way the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates potentially harmful chemicals, reforming the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act.
It would give the EPA new power to test and potentially ban thousands of chemicals, while restricting states’s abilities to regulate the substances.
After years of negotiations and legislative wrangling, the House passed the compromise bill on May 24. It passed overwhelmingly, with all but 12 members voting in favor.
Gor did not say whether Paul would vote in favor of the bill or against it when it comes up on the Senate floor. But in a radio interview last week, Paul was very alarmed by major provisions in the legislation.
“It’s sweeping. It preempts state regulations, and will be something that we will not go back on,” he said on WHAS.
“This set of regulations actually forbid the analysis of cost … and that’s precisely a recipe for overzealous regulators,” he continued, referring to the fact that the EPA would only be allowed to consider health and safety when deciding on chemical regulations under the bill.
Paul said he would speak further about his objections this week.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/282413-rand-paul-withdraws-block-on-chemical-safety-bill

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Rand Paul Drops Objection to Toxic Substances Bill

Jun 6, 2016 | Morning Consult

By Jack Fitzpatrick

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has dropped his objection to the bipartisan bill overhauling the Toxic Substances Control Act, spokeswoman Jillian Lane told Morning Consult on Monday. The decision clears the way for the measure to get a Senate floor vote and then likely be sent to the White House for a signature.
Paul put a “hold” on the 180-page bill, saying he hadn’t had time to thoroughly read it, on May 26, two days after it passed the House 403-12. The final deal between House and Senate negotiators had been announced the previous week. Both chambers had previously passed separate bills updating the 40-year-old law.
Paul “believes in reading legislation before voting for or against it,” Lane said in an email. “Having been given the opportunity to review this legislation, he’s now prepared to allow a vote to occur.”
Donelle Harder, communications director for Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), earlier criticized Paul for claiming he hadn’t had enough time to read the measure, considering lawmakers had been working on the overhaul for several years.
“I have personally carried and birthed a child in the same amount of time in which Rand Paul could have raised objections to the few lines in this bill that he is now calling ‘rushed,'” Harder wrote in an email to reporters after Paul formally placed a hold on the bill.
The measure would strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate dangerous chemicals, taking some authority away from state regulators. The original 1976 law applies such stringent restrictions to the EPA’s ability to regulate chemicals that the agency’s legal rationale for regulating asbestos was rejected under the current law.
https://morningconsult.com/alert/rand-paul-drops-objection-toxic-substances-bill/

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Inhofe: Paul Lifts Hold on TSCA

Jun 6, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard

By Alex Guillen

Sen. Rand Paul has lifted his hold on the unanimous consent motion to move forward with bipartisan reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act, Sen. Jim Inhofe told reporters in the Capitol this afternoon.
The bill should go to the floor this week, he added.
It passed the House two weeks ago by a 403-12 vote, and was expected to get a vote in the Senate then as well, but was held up by Paul over concerns that he had not had time to study key provisions.

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Highlights of Chemical Bill Senate Considering

Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

Bloomberg BNA prepared an analysis of the Toxic Substances Control Act compared with the authorities provided and requirements of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 2576).
The following chart details major differences between TSCA's core provisions and the proposed amendments.

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG CHEMICAL SAFETY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY ACT AMENDS TSCA's CORE PROVISIONS
TOPIC
TSCA
H.R. 2576
As approved by House May 24, 2016
Preemption of State Laws, Regulations
EPA rules for new or existing chemicals generally preempt state regulations.

Preemption has rarely, if ever, been applied with respect to EPA's rules of existing chemicals because the federal agency has issued so few.

At its discretion, the EPA may grant states waivers to issue restrictions that would be more stringent than federal standards—provided the state regulation did not unduly burden interstate commerce.
Past and future actions taken under state laws in effect on Aug. 31, 2003, would be protected. That means it would preserve California's Proposition 65 and Massachusetts's Toxics Use Reduction Act.

State laws or regulations in effect before April 22, 2016, that address a specific chemical also would be grandfathered, meaning they would remain in force.

States would be barred from establishing or continuing to enforce laws, administrative actions, or in some cases, criminal penalties, that would:
1) require parties to generate chemical information that the EPA already requires through the testing, new chemicals or existing chemicals provisions of TSCA, or this bill if it becomes law;
2) prohibit or restrict a chemical after the EPA has regulated it under the existing chemicals (Section 6) portion of TSCA; or
3) require a company to notify the state about a new use of a chemical that the EPA regulates under the new chemicals (Section 5) portion of TSCA or this bill if it becomes law.
States could regulate a chemical during the time between when the agency designates a chemical as a high priority subject to risk assessment and the time (estimated at 18 months) when the EPA defines the scope of its risk evaluation of that chemical.

States generally could not regulate the uses, exposures or other chemical factors that EPA defined in the scope of its risk evaluation for the next 30 months (36 with a brief extension) or until the risk evaluation is completed—whichever is sooner, a period known as the “preemption pause.”

If the EPA determined a chemical did not present an unreasonable risk, the state would generally be preempted from taking actions on the chemical that were within the scope of the EPA's determination.

If the EPA decided to regulate an unreasonable risk, a state could take certain actions to address the chemical's risks until the federal regulation became final.

However, during the preemption pause, states with a compelling reason to regulate a chemical could submit a waiver request to the EPA asking it to allow the state to regulate the chemical.

Risk assessments requested and paid for by companies would not trigger the preemption pause.

If the EPA regulated a chemical after completing its risk assessment, that regulation would preempt state regulations unless:
1) the state regulation would be identical to EPA's;
2) the state laws or regulation were due to federal laws other than TSCA; or
3) the state regulation would be adopted under the state's air, water or waste statutes.
Risk Assessments
No mandate to assess the safety of chemicals in commerce, but the EPA may conduct assessments if the chemical meets specified criteria.

New chemicals allowed into commerce—based on chemical identity, structure and other minimal information—unless the agency finds the chemical may present an unreasonable risk. If the EPA does nothing, the new chemical may enter commerce after 90 days.
Existing Chemicals: The EPA would be required to assess the risks—including the likely frequency, duration, and intensity of exposures—of chemicals in commerce based on their conditions of use. The agency would start with chemicals that cause cancer, persist in the environment or meet other criteria. The chemical risk evaluations proceed at a pace specified in the legislation and commensurate with the EPA's resources and capacity.

New Chemicals: EPA would have to reach one of three types of risk conclusions about a new chemical before it could be made commercially.
Regulatory
Standard
“Presents or will present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.”

The law blends risk assessment and risk management by requiring the EPA to balance the costs and benefits of taking action as it decides whether a chemical poses an unreasonable risk.
TSCA's standard that a chemical should not present “an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment” would be maintained but the agency's decision about whether the chemical poses a risk would be separate from any decision about how to manage that risk.

A health- and risk-based standard would be established, meaning the EPA's scientific evaluation of the risk posed by a chemical would be based on its hazards and exposures without considering cost or other non-risk factors.
Vulnerable
Populations
Law is silent.
EPA's risk assessments and regulations would be required to take into account harms a chemical could cause to potentially exposed or susceptible subpopulations.
Confidential Business Information (CBI)
No substantiation required of CBI claims at the time they are asserted, although the EPA has required this through regulation in some cases.

Health and safety studies of a chemical are not subject to protection from disclosure.

No time limit for CBI claims.

No access to CBI can be afforded state or local governments or health or environmental professionals unless the company that made the CBI claim authorizes that disclosure.
Companies must claim chemical identity, formulas and other specified information to be CBI, to protect it from being publicly disclosed.

Certain types of CBI claims, particularly chemical identity information for chemicals in commerce, would have to be substantiated.

EPA would be required to review, and approve or deny, all CBI claims for the specific identities of chemicals maintained on an active chemicals-in-commerce inventory established under Section 8.

CBI claims would sunset after 10 years, but could be re-substantiated.

As in current TSCA, health and safety information could not be claimed as confidential.

Properly claimed and substantiated CBI claims could be redacted in items that otherwise would not qualify for CBI protection.

States and health professionals would be allowed access to CBI information to ease their ability to address emergency spills, patients needing treatment and other situations.
New Chemicals
Manufacturers generally required to notify the EPA at least 90 days before they make or import a chemical that is not on the inventory of existing chemicals.

The EPA can request more information about a new chemical or prevent a new chemical from entering commerce only if the agency finds the chemical may present an unreasonable risk.

Where it makes such a finding, typically, the agency negotiates restrictions or data requirements with the manufacturer.

Manufacturing conditions and uses of a new chemical can be regulated through rules and consent orders.

If, after 90 days, the EPA takes no action on a new chemical, it may enter commerce for unlimited production and any use.
Manufacturers of a new chemical along with manufacturers and processors of a new use would—with a few exceptions already provided under TSCA—will be required to notify the agency at least 90 days before they make a new chemical.

Within 90 days of receiving the notice (and a possible extension of no more than 90 additional days), the EPA would be required to make a decision about whether or not the new chemical or new use could reasonably be made. The EPA could reach any of three decisions:
1) the new chemical presented an unreasonable risk, in which case the EPA would have to regulate it;
2) the new chemical may pose an unreasonable risk, or there is insufficient information to know, or the chemical is made in substantial quantities: in any of these cases the agency could allow it to enter commerce under specified conditions;
3) The new chemical is not likely to pose a risk and can enter commerce.
Inventory of
Chemicals in
Commerce
The EPA is required to maintain an inventory.

EPA's inventory reflects all chemicals that are or have been in U.S. commerce since the inventory was established in 1978.
The EPA would establish an inventory of chemicals in commerce, and a list of inactive chemicals. The inactive inventory would list chemicals that have been in commerce, but are not currently made, sold or distributed in the U.S.

Companies could notify the EPA to request it take a chemical off the inactive inventory and list it on the active inventory.
Nomenclature
Law is silent on how chemicals are to be identified, but over time the agency has established nomenclatures through regulations and adopted nomenclature conventions developed by the chemical sector.
Existing nomenclature regulations and conventions the EPA has used would be codified.
Prioritizing
Chemicals
for Risk Assessments
No prioritization required.
The EPA would be required to establish, within one year of enactment, a process of screening chemicals to determine which should be scrutinized for possible risks to people or the environment.

Criteria the EPA would be required to use to screen chemicals include both the hazard and exposure potential of a chemical. The criteria would include whether a chemical persists in the environment or will bioaccumulate up the food chain; whether it is stored near significant sources of drinking water; and whether certain populations may be significantly exposed (or have particular vulnerabilities due to their exposure), the conditions of use or significant changes in its uses, and the volume at which the chemical is manufactured or stored.

For the first several years the EPA would draw on an existing list of about 90 chemicals it already has designated as high-priority chemicals (the “work plan” list).
Pace of Prioritization
and Risk Assessments
No prioritization; no mandated safety assessment.
Within six months of the bill's enactment into law, the EPA would have to be assessing the risks of 10 chemicals selected from its 2014 “work plan” list.

Within 31/2 years, the EPA would have to be assessing the risks of at least 20 chemicals and have designated another 20 to be low priorities.
Testing
Authority
The EPA can require chemical manufacturers to conduct toxicity and other tests by rulemaking if it can meet multiple criteria such as showing the chemical may present an unreasonable risk. The law establishes what is colloquially called the “Catch-22” provision. Under that provision, the EPA must first have sufficient evidence of the risks chemicals in commerce pose before it can issue a regulation requiring companies to generate new toxicity, exposure or other data.

The agency also has negotiated consent agreements.
The EPA could obtain needed toxicity, exposure or other information through regulations, consent agreements or orders.

That authority would include allowing the EPA to obtain data it needed to prioritize chemicals for risk assessment.

In certain circumstances, the agency would need to explain the basis and reasoning for the data it would seek.

The agency would be required to use a tiered testing structure.

The EPA would be told it “shall not” use rules, agreements or orders to establish a “minimum information requirement” of data broadly applicable to manufacturers.
Animal
Welfare
Law is silent.
The EPA would be specifically directed to use existing data on chemicals as appropriate. Existing data would include information derived from computer-based toxicity and exposure models.

The EPA also would have to reduce and replace “to the extent practicable, and scientifically justified” the use of vertebrate animals in toxicity tests under TSCA.

Within two years of the bill becoming law, the EPA would have to develop a strategic plan to promote the development and use of new types of toxicity tests that reduce, refine or replace vertebrate animals as test subjects while providing scientific data that has equivalent or better relevance than provided by current tests.

The EPA would report progress on implementing this plan every five years thereafter.
Risk Assessments
Risks of a chemical must be balanced against its benefits and cost of any restriction or ban.
As it conducted risk assessments and used scientific information to make other decisions, the EPA would be required to base its decisions on the weight of scientific evidence; and use information, methods and models that meet the science criteria in section 26(h).

As part of this requirement, the EPA would have to consider factors such as:
1) the extent to which the scientific information and projections are relevant to the decision the agency would make;
2) the clarity and completeness with which the data, assumptions, methods, quality assurances and analytic procedures used to generate information are documented;
3) the extent to which the variability and uncertainty in the information, procedures, protocols, methods or models is considered and described;
4) the extent to which the information and methods are peer reviewed.
Decisions the agency made would be required to be based on the weight of scientific evidence.

The EPA would have to make nontechnical summaries of risk evaluations available when they involved a decision about banning or restricting a chemical in commerce.
Risk Management
EPA must choose the least burdensome means of adequately protecting against unreasonable risk.
TSCA's requirement that the EPA use the “least burdensome” regulatory option available would be eliminated.

The EPA would be required to consider and issue its conclusions on factors including:
1) the effects and magnitude of exposure;
2) the benefits of the chemical;
3) reasonably ascertainable consequences of the rule; and
4) the costs and benefits and the cost-effectiveness of the selected regulatory option along with one or more alternative regulatory option(s) the agency considered.
Once the EPA determined a chemical posed an unreasonable risk, the agency would be required to issue a risk management rule, ranging from minimum labeling or notice requirements to an outright ban.

EPA rules would be required to the extent necessary to address identified risks.

The EPA would be required to consider the effects of a chemical on health and the environment, the chemical's benefits, and the economic consequences of the regulation. The consequences would include the rule's effects on the national economy, small business and technology innovation.

In selecting a risk management option, the EPA would have to factor in “to the extent practicable” the costs and benefits of the rule and cost-effectiveness of the regulation.

The EPA would be required to find out whether feasible alternatives are available before it decided to ban or restrict a chemical.

The EPA would be required to identify some persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals on its work plan list and promulgate risk management rules within three years of the bill becoming law.

If the EPA referred a risky chemical to another federal agency and that federal agency fails to act, the EPA would be directed to address the chemicals risks.
Articles, also calledmanufactured goods,such as cars, computers and cell phones
Significant new use rules (SNURs) or regulations to ban or restrict a chemical can cover chemicals in articles.
The EPA would be required to exempt replacement parts for complex durable goods and complex consumer goods that are designed before an applicable risk management regulation is published unless the parts contributed significantly to the health or environmental risks identified.

The EPA could restrict articles only “to the extent necessary to address the identified risks from exposure” to that article.

The legislation would provide certain critical use exceptions for restrictions or bans. For example, a chemical could be exempt from restriction if there were no safer alternative; the chemical's restriction would disrupt the economy, national security or critical infrastructure; or the chemical provided a substantial benefit to health, safety, or the environment.
Risk Management Deadlines
No deadlines to manage risks of existing chemicals.
For regulations of chemicals in commerce, the EPA would have to propose a rule within one year of completing its risk assessment.

The agency would be required to publish a final rule a year later.
Fees
EPA is authorized to charge fees to process data collected through test rules, but the EPA has never imposed these types of fees.

Fees for the EPA's reviews of new chemicals and new uses of chemicals are capped at $2,500 per notification ($100 for small businesses)

Fees go to the U.S. Treasury, not the EPA.
The legislation would establish a fee approach under which chemical manufacturers would contribute to the costs incurred to assess and, if necessary, regulate their chemicals.

Fees would be capped at 25 percent of the EPA's costs or $25 million in total, whichever is lower.

Chemical manufacturers that request the EPA to assess the risks of a chemical would be required to pay the full cost of the evaluation and regulation.

Fees would go to a dedicated fund for the EPA's chemicals office to use in carrying out specific tasks.
Enforcement by EPA and States, Also Called “Co-enforcement”
States may adopt chemical restrictions provided the restrictions are identical to the EPA's rules.

By enforcing their own regulations, the states increase the amount of possible enforcement.
States may adopt chemical restrictions provided the restrictions are identical to the EPA's rules.

The combined total state and federal penalty could not exceed the federal statutory minimum.
U.S. Ratification of Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent
Did not exist in 1976, when TSCA became law.
Bill is silent.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=91027104&vname=dennotallissues&fn=91027104&jd=91027104

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Will the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act Pass This Week?

Jun 6, 2016 | The Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance Blog

By Gary Cohn

Just days before Memorial Day, the U.S. Senate seemed poised to pass a long-overdue, sweeping overhaul of the decades-old, ineffective law governing toxic substances, including asbestos. After all, the legislation had unusual bipartisan support and had just passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 403-12. It also was being supported by such disparate groups as the Environmental Defense Fund, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), as well as by the chemical industry.
But then a single U.S. Senator, Kentucky Republican Rand Paul, raised objections on the Senate floor and blocked the bill from being passed under a fast-track procedure, delaying the Senate vote, at least temporarily, and frustrating the bill’s supporters. Now, with the Senate back in session beginning today, Congress once again appears to be on the verge of approving the bill, and the Obama administration has indicated that the president intends to sign it.
By most accounts, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act is a significant improvement over the weak, nearly 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Among other things, the new bill would subject thousands of chemicals to environmental testing and regulation for the first time and give the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) additional powers to regulate toxic substances, including asbestos – a move that could eventually pave the way for asbestos to be banned in the United States.
However, the bill also has serious flaws, both supporters and critics say, and it doesn’t provide for immediate or fast action. In the case of asbestos, for instance, it could take seven to 10 years before asbestos is banned, despite an overwhelming scientific consensus that asbestos is a carcinogen.
“This is a huge victory for the asbestos victim community, but to be honest, this is a…compromise bill,” said Linda Reinstein, president of the ADAO, which represents asbestos victims and supports the legislation. “It's a step in the right direction, but it doesn't go as far as myself and the ADAO community would have hoped. While it empowers the EPA to ban asbestos, it doesn't necessarily require the agency to move expeditiously through that process. ”She added, “ADAO wanted asbestos to be banned in three years or less, but it may take as many as seven years to assess, regulate and ban asbestos.”A Failure on Behalf of Public Health
Alex Formuzis of the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group, an environmental group that researches toxic chemicals and advocates for public health, was sharply critical of the bill.
“While there are some parts of the legislation that are an improvement over current law, holding those up as ‘comprehensive reform’ to the worst environmental law on the books is hardly a victory on behalf of human health and the environment.” Formuzis told Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance. “There are many problems with the plan, including making it hard for states to act to protect its own citizens, not requiring adequate funding from the chemical industry itself, and not eliminating ‘cost’ from EPA’s consideration on whether to regulate chemicals.”
He continued, “Under this bill, asbestos and other notorious toxic substances could, at best, be banned or restricted within a decade. And at worst, companies could tie up EPA’s authority in the courts, much like what happened with asbestos 25 years ago. The possibility that asbestos, under this proposal, could remain legal and in use for another 10 years or longer is, in our opinion, a failure on behalf of public health – not to mention the memories of the tens of thousands who have died from asbestos-triggered disease.”
An estimated 15,000 Americans die from mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases each year. Though it hasn’t been mined in the United States since 2002 and its use has declined significantly, American businesses still legally import, use and sell both raw asbestos and products made with it. Scientists and government agencies warn that any exposure to asbestos carries risks.
The administration of former president George H.W. Bush did attempt to ban asbestos. In 1989, the EPA issued a final rule banning most asbestos-containing products under the authority of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). But two years later, the EPA ban was overturned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, a decision that established a precedent that made it extremely difficult for EPA to ban any dangerous chemical.
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act appears to remove that hurdle, according to ADAO’s Reinstein.
“One of the best things this bill does is to remove many of our concerns from the equation when an asbestos ban is considered,” Reinstein said. “Per legislative text, substances that ‘present an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment,’ will be regulated ‘without consideration of costs or other non-risk factors.’” She added that asbestos is expected to be one of the first 10 substances to be evaluated because of its known toxicity to human health.A Long and Winding Road to Reform
Scientists, environmentalists, and consumer and health advocates have for years been trying to fix the TSCA, but their efforts have not been successful, largely because of opposition from the chemical industry. The current bill, though imperfect, has broad support among a wide array of groups. Its main sponsors in the Senate are Democrat Tom Udall of New Mexico and David Vitter of Louisiana.
After passing overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives last month, the bill seemed to be sailing towards Senate approval right before Memorial Day. But on May 26, Sen. Paul blocked quick consideration of the bill in the Senate, saying that he hadn’t had time to read the bill. Under the Senate rules, Republican leaders needed unanimous consent to fast track the bill.
Paul’s actions frustrated some of his fellow lawmakers and advocates who have been trying to reform the chemical safety law for years.
In a blog post titled “TSCA reform on hold again – and over what this time?” Richard Denison, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, wrote “Well, it looks like American families will have to wait a bit longer for better protection from toxic chemicals, with today’s decision by Sen. Rand Paul to place a hold on the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.”
ADAO’s Reinstein said she too was dismayed by Paul’s delaying tactics, though she expressed optimism that the bill would soon be passed.
“I am frustrated Sen. Rand Paul is blocking the passage of the Lautenberg bill and preventing it from swiftly passing the U.S. Senate by unanimous consent,” Reinstein said. “After working toward this reform for more than six years, I would have loved to see it finally pass and be signed into law before Congress went on Memorial Day recess, but this delay won’t derail the bill, it’s not a matter of ‘if’ – only when.
“They have the votes in the Senate, and the White House has already expressed support, so I'm confident it will be passed pretty quickly when Congress reconvenes and be quickly signed into law before July,” she said.
http://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/authors/gary/will-the-lautenberg-chemical-safety-act-pass-this-week.htm

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New State, Federal Guidelines for Cancer Cluster Investigations

Jun 6, 2016 | WTHR

By Sandra Chapman

Big changes are on the way to help report, track and investigate cancer clusters in Indiana and across the country.
13 Investigates first told you about gaps in the state's registry and why a group of Johnson County mothers joined a national fight for sick kids. Now a combination of historic new laws will address chemicals, cancer and the safety of our children going forward.
It was a victory lap for Johnson County kids fighting cancer when the 500 Festival Parade stepped off with 14-year-old Emma Stumpf as its grand marshal. Now those same Johnson County families are celebrating a parade of change from Indiana to Washington, D.C. where a new historic federal law will regulate chemicals in and near homes, schools and in new products.
"It's been an answer to prayer for us," said Patty Meade, whose son Evan was among the first Johnson County kids to get diagnosed with cancer.
Evan is now cancer-free, but his mother is one of the voices still pushing for change when it comes to investigating pediatric cancer.
"We are putting a law in place that is going to protect American families, protect children with regard to chemicals," said Senator Tom Udall, D-N.M., in announcing the nation's first major overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act in 40 years.
Included in that overhaul are new guidelines for investigating cancer clusters.
"We're so excited," said Stacy Davidson, the mother who reached out to 13 Investigates last fall to ask for help in bringing more attention to the high incidence rate of pediatric cancer in Johnson County. 13 Investigates documented 30 children diagnosed with blood and brain cancers all living within a 25-miles radius in Johnson County - many of them living in or with close ties to the city of Franklin.
"There's so many kids and the rise of pediatric cancer is crazy right now," Davidson said, underscoring the importance of the new screening standards passed by Congress.
"We fought. We got this into this law, 'Trevor's Law'," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., during a news conference outside of the Senate.
13 Investigates first told you about Trevor's law in March. Childhood cancer survivor Trevor Schaefer of Idaho was on a mission to get Congress to change the arbitrary process of investigating suspected cancer clusters. When he and other kids in his community got sick, health officials there called it insignificant.
When Trevor saw what 13 Investigates uncovered, he invited the Johnson County mothers who were speaking out to help him push for change.
"We're just glad to be a part of it," said Meade.
Under Trevor's Law, the Department of Health & Human Services would create guidelines to investigate potential cancer clusters, including the time frame over which the cancers occurred.
In the Johnson County cases, State Health officials spread out their analysis of sick kids over 13 years instead of focusing on the years in question. While the National Cancer Institute showed pediatric cancer rates in Johnson County higher than the state and national averages, the State Health Department reported a lower rate.
"They didn't have to follow any protocol. They didn't have to provide answers and they didn't have to look deeper into what we are seeing," Meade explained.
Trevor's Law will now force all states to categorize data the same way and will help funnel the information into a national database.
Congressman Andre Carson pledged his support of Trevor's Law months ago. Both Indiana Senators and the state's entire congressional delegation also voted yes to the Chemical Safety Act and Trevor's Law.
At the same time, state lawmakers decided to take some action of their own.
13 Investigates discovered a two year gap in the State's cancer registry. Under State law, doctors are required to report new cancer diagnoses each year, but State Health investigators could not use those reports to immediately identify or investigate current spikes in diagnoses or certain types of cancers. Investigations could only be triggered by public requests.
In July, that will change. Indiana lawmakers voted to explicitly allow the agency to use its own registry for cancer investigations.
"We're going to know there's a problem quicker," said Davidson looking ahead at the possible benefits of the change.
"Along with Trevor's Law, this is huge," Meade added.
For a group of mothers desperate for answers, the laws are victories in a fight for better cancer investigations.
"Absolutely, we deserve that. Our kids deserve that. It's definitely a step in the right direction," Davidson said with a satisfied smile.
"We told you we would be back. We're back, and it's time," concluded Meade, who says the group plans to ask the State Department of Health to conduct a more thorough investigation in Johnson County under the new guidelines.
The State Department of Health declined to comment on the federal legislation and how it will change the course of the agency's investigations.
The Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act for the 21st Century was started by the late New Jersey senator when he asked 12 Democrats and 12 Republicans to sit down and get to work. What followed was a unanimous vote in the Senate and overwhelming support in the House with just 12 members of Congress voting against it.
http://www.wthr.com/story/32156808/new-state-federal-guidelines-for-cancer-cluster-investigations

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US House Committee Repeats IRIS Document Request

Jun 7, 2016 | Chemical Watch

The US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology has reiterated its request for the EPA to furnish documents related to the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS).
The request is a follow up to the oversight committee's 10 May letter. This asked the agency to provide it with further information on the long criticised programme by 24 May.
But in a 2 June letter, the committee's chairman Lamar Smith (R–Texas) wrote that the agency had not provided "any documents and communications" as requested by the committee. Nor, he added, had the EPA communicated an intention to respond to the request.
Congressman Smith wrote that it is imperative that the EPA respond to the request. This is needed for the committee to fulfil its responsibility to "ensure the soundness and transparency of EPA's process of providing a scientific position on the potential human health effects from exposure to chemicals in the environment."
"Unfortunately, the EPA's failure to even respond to the committee's letter is just another example of its pattern of unresponsiveness to this committee's inquiries."
The committee asked that the requested materials be turned over immediately. If the documents remain outstanding by 9 June, it "will consider use of the compulsory process to obtain the information".
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform issued a similar inquiry earlier this year.
The EPA said it will "review and respond to the letter appropriately".
https://chemicalwatch.com/47876/us-house-committee-repeats-iris-document-request

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House Panel Threatens To Subpoena EPA IRIS Documents

Jun 6, 2016 | Inside EPA

The chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee is threatening to subpoena documents regarding EPA's influential but controversial risk assessment program should the agency continue to ignore the committee’s May request for information regarding the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program.
Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) requested numerous documents regarding the IRIS program in a May 10 letter to Administrator Gina McCarthy. The letter questioned IRIS' management, and whether the agency is motivated to improve the program.
The letter was the second EPA received from Congress regarding the IRIS program in two months, following a March letter from House Oversight and Government Reform Committee leaders.
EPA missed Smith's May 24 deadline, leading Smith to write a second, June 2 letter, setting a new deadline for the requested information and raising the possibility of issuing a subpoena. “Unfortunately, the EPA's failure to even respond to the Committee's letter is just another example of its pattern of unresponsiveness to this Committee's inquiries,” Smith writes. “If the Department does not provide all of the requested materials by June 9 . . . the Committee will consider use of the compulsory process to obtain the information.”
Smith is seeking a number of documents relating to EPA's efforts to overhaul the IRIS program, which were spurred by a 2011 review from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) that criticized the agency's draft IRIS assessment of the human health risks of formaldehyde. Among the documents Smith requested were all documents related to EPA's development of its new IRIS handbook; all documents regarding the IRIS program's budget, staffing and hiring; “all documents and communications related to the involvement of the Office of the Secretary related to IRIS risk assessments from January 1, 2008, to the present”; all documents regarding a 2003 evaluation of the demand for IRIS assessments; all documents regarding implementing Government Accountability Office and NAS recommendations from 2008 to present; and all documents regarding the crafting of EPA's multi-year agenda, released last December.
Smith also reiterated his concerns about the program's output and management in his latest letter, noting that in May, “the Committee raised a series of concerns regarding the IRIS program's ability to complete sound assessments in a timely manner, and the procedures and protocols followed by the IRIS program. Given the Committee's responsibility to ensure the soundness and transparency of EPA's process of providing a scientific position on the potential human health effects from exposure to chemicals in the environment, it is imperative that documents and communications responsive to the Committee's request be provided.”
http://insideepa.com/news-briefs/house-panel-threatens-subpoena-epa-iris-documents

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N.Y. and PFOA Firms Sign Consent Order

Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Gerald B. Silverman

Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. and Honeywell International Inc. have entered into a consent order with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to investigate the source and scope of water contamination in Hoosick Falls, N.Y., and identify potential alternative water supplies.
The order, which was announced June 3, requires the companies to investigate perfluorooctanoic acid contamination in the Hoosick water supply from their nearby manufacturing plants. A second similar order was entered into with Honeywell for two other nearby sites.
The consent orders are the latest step by the state in response to the chemical found in the drinking water supply for Hoosick Falls, which is located about 35 miles northeast of Albany (94 DEN A-12, 5/16/16).
The key steps required under the consent orders are:
• investigation of a possible alternative water supply, including a new well field, a surface water supply source or an interconnection with an existing municipal water supply system;
• funding for temporary and full capacity water filtration systems for the Hoosick Falls water supply;
• continued payment for bottled water for residents until a permanent filtration system is installed; and
• reimbursement of state response costs.

http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=91027074&vname=dennotallissues&fn=91027074&jd=91027074

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Canada's Environmental Auditor Criticizes Chemicals Oversight

Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Peter Menyasz

Canada's federal health department fails to ensure that products and cosmetics available to consumers are free of toxic substances, the country's environmental auditor said.
While Health Canada has improved its oversight of chemicals in consumer products since the adoption of the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act in 2011, the federal department still falls short in its duty to detect health risks posed by products, Environment and Sustainable Commissioner Julie Gelfand said in a report to the Canadian Parliament (62 DEN B-1, 4/1/13).
“We concluded that Health Canada's Consumer Product Safety Program could not fully assure Canadians that its post-market oversight activities were working to protect the public by addressing or preventing dangers to human health or safety posed by chemicals of concern in household consumer products and cosmetics,” said the report, released May 31.
Health Canada is not responsible for the safety of consumer products or cosmetics before they enter the market, but is empowered to detect and respond to health and safety risks when problems arise with those products, the auditor said. Companies are required to report health and safety incidents involving consumer products, but not incidents involving cosmetics, the report said.
Risk of Exposure
The report found that Health Canada has not assessed the health risks posed by international products purchased online or by counterfeit products and does not regularly test cosmetic products for prohibited substances, microbial contaminants or heavy metals.
“The information gaps we identified limited Health Canada's ability to prevent, detect, assess and respond to potentially important threats to human health and safety,” it said.
The report urged Health Canada to inform consumers about the magnitude of risks posed by e-commerce products and counterfeit products, and to test cosmetics for prohibited or dangerous substances.
In a response to the audit's recommendations included in the report, Health Canada said it agreed with the findings and will implement the recommendations.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said May 31 that Health Minister Jane Philpott will follow up on the report's “troubling” conclusions.
Maggie MacDonald, toxics program manager with Canadian environmental group Environmental Defence, said: “Urgent action is needed to prevent Canadians' further exposure to carcinogens, endocrine-disruptors, environmental pollutants and other harmful chemicals in consumer products.”

http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=91027083&vname=dennotallissues&fn=91027083&jd=91027083

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Energy News

Murkowski Urges Dems Not to Bury Conference Committee

Jun 7, 2016 | E&E Daily

By Geof Koss

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is looking to convince wary Democrats against blocking the first energy bill conference committee in a decade.
The Senate could vote as early as next week on whether to launch a conference with the House to seek compromise on energy reform legislation. The House voted before the Memorial Day recess to begin talks.
Lawmakers and aides are looking to the conference that produced the landmark Energy Policy Act of 2005 for guidance. But first they have to secure enough buy-in from both parties for the process to begin.
Sierra Club policy advocate Radha Adhar said yesterday that there was significant opposition among Senate Democrats to the House's revised energy package. The chamber included multiple bills that the White House has threatened to veto. Leaders wanted to counterbalance the Senate's more robust legislation, S. 2012.
Adhar said about Senate backers of going to conference: "It seems pretty clear that they don't have the support they need to meet the 60-vote threshold."
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Additionally, lobbyists say Democrats are growing increasingly optimistic that they'll regain control of the Senate next year, strengthening their hand in producing energy legislation.
Murkowski acknowledged Democrats' wariness in an interview before the recess.
"I think there has to be a little bit of trust on how we're going to proceed," she told E&E Daily. "And I think the advantage that we have with the Senate bill is that we did demonstrate that trust and good faith in working with the other side -- and really trying to build something that could gain really significant support."
Murkowski said her goal was "not to jam the other side; it's not to put a target on something that the president is going to veto. I'm really seeking to update and modernize our energy policies. I want to get to a final product."
Republican aides say Murkowski is committed to running a conference committee, which she would lead, in the same bipartisan and inclusive manner that she has used to run the Energy Committee since taking the gavel last year.
They note that Murkowski and Energy ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) conducted extensive staff meetings with outside interests from across the political spectrum for writing S. 2012, which passed the chamber in April.
The measure, as introduced, contained 50 bills from members of both parties. It now includes a host of amendments from the extended floor debate.
"All we can do is run a conference the same way we ran the development of the bill," one aide said yesterday when speaking on background about the process.
Should a conference launch, the aide said, lawmakers would tackle the negotiations in "fairly manageable chunks." Staff would discuss issues and then present potential compromises to members for a vote.
Both House and Senate versions, for example, contain provisions to address the National Park Service Centennial and energy workforce issues. Lawmakers could find a compromise on those relatively noncontroversial sections before moving on to tougher debates, with an eye toward settling "resolvable" policy questions first, said the aide.
Should the bid for a formal conference fall short, the aide said, Murkowski would look for other ways to advance energy bill priorities.
"We're prepared for any outcome," the staffer said.
Asked about informal bicameral negotiations rather than a formal conference committee, Murkowski said she hoped to avoid that outcome.
"It may be that what we have to do is put together a framework that we agree to that gives perhaps greater comfort not only to the Dems but to the House guys, as well, so everybody kind of knows what the rules are, how we're going to be operating on this," she said.Looking to 2005
Lawmakers and staff members who were part of the last energy conference in 2005 say that experience demonstrated what members can do when they roll up their sleeves. Murkowski was part of that conference, but as a more junior lawmaker.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which created the Energy Department's loan guarantee program and the federal renewable fuel standard, and contained more than $11 billion in energy tax breaks, came on the heels of two failed attempts by the previous two Congresses to enact broad energy legislation.
Former Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), who was a stickler for regular order during his five terms in the Senate, said he sees no reason why a formal conference couldn't produce a bill that the president would sign, even in an election year.
"The big advantage they have this year, as we had in 2005, is the same party controls both houses," he said in a recent phone interview. "And the reported bills are pretty comparable in substance. I would think they could go through a conference, get a bill out and pass it before the election. I don't see a problem with that."
As ranking member on the Energy panel that year, Bingaman was the top Senate Democratic negotiator in the conference, with then-Chairman Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) taking the lead for Republicans.
In the House, former Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton (R-Texas) served as head of the conference, while retired Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) was the fourth main negotiator as ranking member of the House panel.
In an interview last month, Barton credited the four principals for the successful outcome. Other key House and Senate lawmakers contributed, as well, he said.
"We created what we called a big four working group -- Dingell, myself, Domenici, Bingaman -- and we would meet and decide which issues we could agree on, how we would bring them up," he recalled.
"And we actually had conferences where we took votes in front of the public. And the result was a bill that's really still the basic energy policy for the country, and I believe all the conferees signed the conference report."
Getting to that point was no small feat, Bingaman said.
"We had a lot of subjects that we disagreed about, obviously, most of the negotiations that I recall. We spent a lot of time trying to resolve issues, the four of us. And I think that process worked reasonably well," he said.
"We approached it with a positive attitude, and there were things in the bills that were important to each of us and we wanted to get a bill," said Bingaman. "And so I think it worked how conference committees on large, complex bills are supposed to work."
Bingaman ultimately had to walk away from a long-sought policy goal: language in the Senate bill to create a renewable portfolio standard to require that 10 percent of U.S. electricity come from renewable sources by 2020.
The final conference report also included a provision he opposed to secure some exemptions for hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The final product, however, included $11.5 billion in energy tax breaks, with $4.5 billion of those steered toward renewables -- a policy wish that Bingaman cultivated from his seat on the Senate Finance Committee.
Barton, in turn, had to drop a provision from the House-passed bill that would have opened Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas drilling.
Also omitted from the final bill were efforts to help shield manufacturers of the gasoline additive methyl tert-butyl ether, or MTBE, from liability -- a longtime priority of Barton and then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).House vs. Senate
The presence of Dingell, a master legislator who was a fixture on Energy and Commerce for decades, was a major asset, Barton recalled.
"Dingell and I, we worked together," he said. "We were good friends, we had differences. He helped me a lot. That was my first big conference."
Barton said, "It was the House against the Senate as much as it was Republicans against Democrats. But the whole group was good. Domenici and Bingaman. We didn't have a lot of tension and animosity."
The climate changed debate had not yet become such an intractable political issue. That also helped make the 2005 conference relatively smooth.
"I think that the reality was that climate change was not the driving force or such a large factor in our calculations about what we needed to do on energy," Bingaman said. "We wrote that bill, and when we wrote the 2007 bill we were getting more of a recognition that we needed to factor in climate change."
The 2007 energy law, also signed by President George W. Bush, was notable for the first congressionally mandated increase in federal fuel economy standards in three decades. The final text emerged from informal negotiations between the White House and the Democratic-led Congress, rather than the formal conference process.
Bingaman last week said he couldn't remember exactly why Democratic leaders chose to bypass a conference, which he would have led. The House and Senate generally rotate conference committee chairmanships.
"I think Speaker [Nancy Pelosi] at that point thought we could work out the differences," Bingaman said. "We went through various contortions there. I don't recall all the give and take."
Another key difference between 2005, 2007 and the current political environment is the occupant of the White House. As a senator from Illinois, Barack Obama ultimately voted for the 2005 conference report.White House role
Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz helped shape provisions of both the House and Senate bills to address recommendations included in DOE's Quadrennial Energy Review. The administration has also lobbied on language to put a deadline on applications for exporting natural gas. But the White House is at odds with the GOP on numerous other issues.
Bud Albright, Barton's staff director on the Energy and Commerce Committee during the 2005 conference, said support from the Bush White House helped the conference push through extensive deliberations that often dragged on through the weekend.
"I remember the president got us all together one day, it was a Saturday," Albright, now a lobbyist with Ogilvy Government Relations, said last week. "We were working, and they said that the president is going to call at 11. And sure enough, President Bush called and said, 'I just want to thank you guys.' He didn't have an agenda; he said, 'I know you're working hard to get to a solution; I hope you can get there. If there's anything I or my team can do, I'm here to help.'"
Albright said: "That's helpful. And his congressional staff was always there to say, 'You know we can do this; you can't do that.' They were very helpful. I don't think you'll find that with this administration."
Albright, who later served as a top DOE official during the Bush presidency, also said political considerations were secondary for conferees.
"It was hard, in that it was hard work," he said. "You have to remember that this was a comprehensive bill, hadn't been done in 10 years, really. But as hard as it was, I think what made it doable was everyone at the table was trying to get a product that would better serve America's energy situation, with politics being the second thought."
Albright said, "If we knew something couldn't be done, we didn't throw it in anybody's faces ... or walk away from the table. So I don't think there was any magic to it. ... The mindset of the principals was, 'We're going to get this done because it's good for America.'"
Albright also noted that the 2005 conference benefited from the previous two Congresses' having spent considerable time debating energy legislation. The House in 2003 passed a comprehensive energy conference report, but the Senate failed to move past a key procedural vote.
"We had lots of work to do, and we did it, but I think the work of earlier Congresses certainly helped our thinking," Albright said. "It gave us a path that had been cleared and graded, and we had to come in and pave it. I think it helped, showed us direction, showed us what was possible."
While former Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) was House Energy and Commerce chairman during those earlier debates, the difficulties involved in legislating comprehensive energy bills made Barton wary when he took the helm of the powerful committee during the 109th Congress.
Barton recalled visiting then-Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) to discuss the committee's agenda.
"I said one thing I'm not going to do is an energy bill -- I'm tired of messing with it," Barton recalled. "And Denny said, 'Well, I want you to make one more shot at it.' And I said, 'Well, Mr. Speaker, if that's what you want, but we failed the last two Congresses.' But I gave it another shot, and with a lot of help from John Dingell, we got it done."
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/06/07/stories/1060038380

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Advocates Cite Air Rules In Bid To Overturn EPA Cooling Water Regulation

Jun 6, 2016 | Inside EPA

By David LaRoss

Environmentalists are citing EPA emissions rules and a power sector shift from coal to natural gas to help make their case for a federal appeals court to scrap the agency's Clean Water Act (CWA) permit rule for cooling water intake structures, saying the CWA rule sets weak standards based on “stale” information on the utility industry.
The advocacy group Clean Air Task Force (CATF) filed an amicus brief June 3 in the cooling water rule litigation now pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit that backs other environmentalists' argument that the rule is unlawfully weak because it fails to set a universal standard as the CWA requires.
However, the amicus brief includes a new argument not raised by the petitioners, which says that EPA's justification for a more flexible rule is based on outdated information on power plants' emissions.
The permit rule “is based on an obsolete understanding of the electricity generating industry, reflecting extremely stale data. Structural changes in the ten years since EPA’s data were gathered tilt strongly towards cleaner, less water-dependent generation sources in the energy sector. . . . EPA freely admits that this rule does not reflect those changes, but nevertheless bases its decision not to set national standards on that stale information,” CATF says in its brief in the case, Cooling Water Intake Structure Coalition, et al., v. EPA, et al.
EPA said in its CWA rulemaking that it avoided crafting a single technology standard for cooling water structures to apply nationwide in part due to concerns over increased air emissions from older power plants that would have to ramp up generation to accommodate an advanced design -- a so-called “energy penalty.”
But CATF says the agency based that conclusion on industry surveys conducted between 1996 and 2005, and failed to account for utility emissions reductions from implementing a host of recent high-profile air rules.
Most prominently, it says, EPA did not consider potential reductions from implementing its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) emissions trading program and the landmark utility maximum achievable control technology (MACT) air toxics rule, also known as the mercury and air toxics standards (MATS).
CSAPR was upheld by the Supreme Court in a 2014 ruling, but MATS is still under challenge, with the high court set to consider a new petition for certiorari filed by states seeking to vacate the rule on June 9.
EPA Regulations
“The combined effect of these two rules dramatically undermines EPA’s conclusions about air pollutant emissions resulting from the 'energy penalty.' The EPA’s Rule assumes that the CSAPR and MATS rules do not exist. The CSAPR and MATS rules apply regardless” of which cooling technology a power plant uses, the brief says.
CATF argues that failure to consider MATS and CSAPR “is sufficient to render EPA’s assertions about air emissions increases arbitrary and capricious. But the Agency also failed to consider the effects of its own Clean Power Plan (proposed June 2014) on carbon dioxide emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants, even as it was asserting that those emissions would increase if a national performance standard for cooling water intake structures were set.”
It refers to a 2011 report from engineer William Powers on the effects of emissions reductions from tightened regulations -- which the advocates say should include EPA's greenhouse gas standards for existing power plants, known as the Clean Power Plan. That rule has been stayed by the Supreme Court until litigation over it is resolved.
The 2011 report says that “if expected industry trends and regulatory activities are properly accounted for, there will be air emissions decreases, not increases, were EPA set a national performance standard for cooling water intake structures based on closed-cycle cooling technology,” the brief says.
The CWA rule seeks to limit harms from cooling water intake systems at existing facilities by setting technology standards for preventing fish from being trapped, or entrained, while taking in water. But EPA declined to establish a single “best available technology” as environmentalists sought, instead laying out a list of options that permit writers can choose to mandate for individual facilities depending on site-specific factors.
Along with its arguments about air emissions, CATF's brief also echoes arguments raised by environmentalist petitioners in the case that EPA's decision not to set a single nationwide technology standard is unlawful.
“While EPA has some discretion to interpret the term 'best technology available' as it applies specifically to cooling water intake structures . . . that discretion is not unfettered -- it does not extend to setting a standard that is no standard at all,” the brief says.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/advocates-cite-air-rules-bid-overturn-epa-cooling-water-regulation

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More Discovery in Murray Energy-EPA Lawsuit to Be Argued

Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Andrew Childers

A federal district court judge has ordered oral argument June 29 on a coal company's motion to compel additional discovery from the Environmental Protection Agency in an ongoing lawsuit about the impact Clean Air Act regulations have on employment (Murray v. McCarthy, N.D. W.Va., No. 5:14-cv-00039-JPB, 6/3/16).
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia Judge John Preston Bailey scheduled the argument in a June 3 order after Murray Energy Corp., which is seeking to compel the EPA to review the impact its air pollution rules have on jobs, filed a motion seeking additional discovery, arguing the agency had withheld documents that should have been disclosed.
Deliberative or Dodge?
The EPA has withheld some documents pertinent to the lawsuit, including a redacted e-mail from Administrator Gina McCarthy, by claiming they are deliberative only and do not represent agency final direction, Murray Energy Corp. argued in a May 31 memorandum in support of its motion for additional discovery. However, some of those documents could contain EPA directives that should have been disclosed during discovery, the coal company said. The company in its memorandum said it identified 96 documents listed by the EPA as privileged deliberative materials that also contain written agency directives and decisions that should not have been withheld from discovery.
Murray Energy identified another 41 documents that may also have a bearing on the lawsuit. The company has suggested the court could review the documents confidentially to determine their bearing on the lawsuit.
“This court is of the opinion that this matter may best be resolved following oral argument from the parties,” Judge Bailey said in the June 3 order.
Murray Energy, which is represented by attorneys from Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP and Dinsmore & Shohl LLP, is suing the EPA to compel it to evaluate the effect its regulations have on jobs as required by Section 321(a) of the Clean Air Act.
The EPA is seeking summary judgment in the lawsuit, arguing it has already spent millions of dollars and produced hundreds of documents as part of the discovery process (86 DEN A-1, 5/4/16).
The trial in the lawsuit is scheduled to begin on July 19.

http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=91027088&vname=dennotallissues&fn=91027088&jd=91027088

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More Litigation Over EPA's Mercury Rule ‘Corrections'

Jun 7, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Ben Remaly

An Environmental Protection Agency rule that the agency said made “technical corrections” to its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants is being challenged by a power industry trade group (Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1171, 6/6/16).
The Utility Air Regulatory Group, represented by Hunton & Williams LLP, filed a lawsuit June 6 seeking review of the rule by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The lawsuit is in addition to two separate challenges filed on June 3 by ARIPPA, a trade association representing coal refuse power plants, and a coalition of environmental organizations led by the Chesapeake Climate Action Network that also seek review of the rule (ARIPPA v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1168, 6/3/16; Chesapeake Climate Action Network v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1169, 6/3/16 108 DEN A-1, 6/6/16).
The EPA's rule (RIN:2060-AS41) made several changes to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, including removing language that shielded utilities that suffered unavoidable equipment malfunctions from civil penalties under the Clean Air Act. The technical corrections rule also included language intended to clarify that major and area source combustion turbines, except for integrated gasification combined cycle units, are not subject to emissions limits on mercury, filterable particulate matter and hydrogen chloride.
The Utility Air Regulatory Group is represented by Lauren E. Freeman, Makram B. Jaber and Andrew D. Knudsen from Hunton & Williams LLP in Washington, D.C.

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Why Congress Should Reject New Energy Taxes

Jun 6, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog

By Thomas Pyle

As early as this week, Members of the House of Representatives will face a very simple choice: support a tax that will make everyday life harder for their constituents, or take a stand for the American people and reject any new energy taxes.
That’s the choice offered by a resolution from Majority Whip Steve Scalise, which opposes any carbon tax proposals and expresses the sense of Congress that a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy.
There should be no doubt a carbon tax would be devastating for American families and businesses.
A carbon tax is essentially a tax on the use of natural gas, oil, and coal, which make up over 80 percent of the energy we use here in America. These energy sources power our homes and factories, keep our cars and public transportation moving, and provide Americans with countless products that make modern life possible. But a carbon tax would make using these resources much more expensive.
First, a carbon tax would saddle Americans with higher utility bills and higher gasoline prices at the pump. While this will hurt all Americans, it will have the harshest impact on the poor and those on fixed incomes. That’s because the poor spend a higher percentage of their income on energy costs.
A study by the Heritage Foundation shows that a $25 per ton carbon tax would cost the average American family of four $1,400 dollars per year through the year 2035. For families saving for retirement, their children’s college funds, or even just trying to make ends meet, $1,400 per year would make a huge difference.
But the consequences of a carbon tax aren’t just limited to rising energy costs. Energy is an integral part to every aspect of our lives, so when the price of energy goes up, the ramifications are felt everywhere.
For example, when a manufacturer has to pay more for the electricity to keep their factories up and running, that means they’re forced into either laying off employees or increasing the cost of their product, or both. And while natural gas, oil, and coal are typically only thought of as energy sources, they’re also key components to many of the products we use every day. Whether it’s petroleum-based plastics used to make life-saving devices for hospitals, or coal used for steel to build our nation’s infrastructure, these resources are essential to modern life.
The standard retort from carbon tax advocates is that the costs of such a tax are necessary to combat the threat of global warming. But even if we take them at their word on the issue of global warming, nearly every carbon tax proposal out there would have virtually no impact on global temperatures.
Don’t just take my word for it. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) models, even if the U.S. were to stop emitting carbon dioxide altogether by the year 2050, it would reduce global temperature rise by just 0.1 degrees Celsius by the year 2100.
In fact, as a recent article in The Wall Street Journal shows, it would take a carbon tax of $425 per ton of carbon dioxide to achieve the Obama administration’s previously stated goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent by the year 2050. That would amount to a $3.75 per gallon tax on gasoline alone!
Lawmakers should be skeptical of any calls for a so-called “moderate” carbon tax, as it is undoubtedly a stepping-stone for carbon tax advocates to call for a much higher and more painful carbon tax.
The debate over a carbon tax is not a nuanced one. It’s clear that a tax on our most abundant, affordable, and reliable energy sources would be a bad deal for the American people. It would raise the cost of energy and everyday products—hitting hardest those who can least afford it. And for all the economic pain, a carbon tax would do nothing to impact global temperatures.
When lawmakers head to the floor to vote on the Scalise resolution they will face a simple choice. They can vote against the resolution, leaving the American people more susceptible to higher energy costs, or they can vote in favor of it and protect their constituents from the devastating impacts of a carbon tax. The choice is theirs.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/282351-why-congress-should-reject-new-energy-taxes

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Industry Group to 'Key-Vote' Carbon Tax Resolution

Jun 7, 2016 | E&E Daily

By Amanda Reilly

The American Energy Alliance this week is going to bat for a GOP resolution opposing a carbon tax.
The right-leaning group, which advocates on behalf of the Institute for Energy Research, is planning a six-figure digital advertising campaign this week and will issue a "key-vote alert" urging House members to vote for the resolution.
Sponsored by Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), the sense-of-Congress resolution states that a carbon tax would be "detrimental" to the American economy and would disproportionately affect the poor.
H. Con. Res. 89 has 82 Republican co-sponsors, including some of the most conservative members of the House. The resolution could see a floor vote as early as Thursday.
"As early as this week, Members of the House of Representatives will face a very simple choice: support a tax that will make everyday life harder for their constituents, or take a stand for the American people and reject any new energy taxes," AEA President Thomas Pyle wrote in an opinion piece yesterday in Capitol Hill publication The Hill.
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A version of the resolution passed the House in 2013 as an amendment to anti-regulatory legislation.
The American Energy Alliance earlier this year joined more than 20 conservative and free-market groups in a February letter to Scalise in support of the reintroduced resolution. The vast majority of the resolution's co-sponsors signed on after that letter (E&E Daily, April 20).
The alliance plans to run ads on Facebook in up to 30 congressional districts that ask constituents to urge their representatives to vote for the resolution, according to AEA spokesman Chris Warren.
The ads will target a combination of Republican and Democratic districts, some of which are in energy-producing states, Warren said.
"Goods and services of all types would become more expensive," the ads say. "A carbon tax is bad for Americans."
According to Warren, the group's key-vote alert will tell members not only to support the carbon tax resolution but also to support a separate resolution introduced by Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) opposing President Obama's proposed $10 tax on barrels of oil.
That resolution is also scheduled to come to the floor as early as Thursday. Both resolutions are on the agenda for today's House Rules Committee meeting (E&E Daily, June 6).
The American Energy Alliance will include both resolutions on its energy scorecard for lawmakers, Warren said.
"We feel it's important that members vote for both, not just one or the other," Warren said.
Environmentalists oppose both resolutions and may weigh in later this week.
A spokesman for Citizens' Climate Lobby, which mobilizes volunteer climate activists, said yesterday that the group plans to use the Scalise resolution to "educate" members of Congress about a carbon tax during its fly-in in two weeks.
CCL supports a carbon tax under which collected revenue would be returned to households and a border adjustment would discourage businesses from relocating outside the United States.
"It's unfortunate that the Scalise resolution makes no allowance for a revenue-neutral fee that sends the money back to households," CCL Legislative Director Danny Richter said in a statement. "Under those circumstances, a carbon fee -- or tax, if you will -- would actually improve our economy, and we have the economic study to back that up. It's a little bewildering that they would want to take a market-based solution off the table."
Some Republican climate activists support a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Tomorrow, the American Sustainable Business Council will host a webinar to make a "conservative case for a national carbon tax." The event will feature former Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.), a prominent GOP carbon tax advocate.
"Many Republicans take a skeptical position regarding climate change, but behind the scenes some influential conservatives are acknowledging the reality of climate change," Inglis' group, RepublicEn, said in a news release yesterday. "These leading-edge thinkers seek a policy solution that gets the job done while maximizing the role of the market and minimizing the need for government regulations."
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/06/07/stories/1060038381

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Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.

Transportation News

The Latest: Oregon Leaders Want Temporary Stop to Oil Trains

Jun 6, 2016 | AP (In The New York Times)

The Latest on the train derailment in the Columbia River Gorge (all times local):
2:05 p.m.
Several top Oregon leaders are calling for a temporary halt to oil train traffic in the Columbia River Gorge after Friday's fiery train wreck.
U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, Gov. Kate Brown and Reps. Earl Blumenauer and Suzanne Bonamici released a joint statement Monday afternoon.
They say Union Pacific Railroad should not resume oil train traffic until the company thoroughly explains the cause of the derailment and provides assurances that it's taking steps to prevent another one.
Union Pacific spokesman Justin Jacobs said Monday morning that freight traffic — though no crude oil — has been moving through the area since Sunday night after multiple parties determined the area and the new track is safe.
He says the railroad "will not run any crude oil trains through this area any time soon."
---
1:05 p.m.
A Washington state official says an unknown amount of oil has been discovered in a vault that feeds into a wastewater treatment plant for the town of Mosier, Oregon.
Department of Ecology response manager David Byers said Monday that sewer pipes near the railroad tracks were damaged after Friday's fiery train derailment. Oil leaked into a sewer main and flowed downhill to the vault, which discharges treated water into the Columbia River.
Union Pacific spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza says none of that oil appears to have gotten into the river. She says efforts to remove oil from the tankers still at the site stopped Monday morning so crews could focus on the oil in the vault.
Thirteen tank cars remain at the site. Ten of them still contain crude oil.
---
9 a.m.
Union Pacific has resumed train service through the Oregon city affected by last week's fiery derailment.
As a precaution, the trains passing through Mosier are limited to 10 miles per hour, much slower than the usual 30 mph.
The company restarted service despite objections from the Mosier City Council.
At an emergency meeting Sunday afternoon, the council approved a motion demanding that oil be removed from derailed cars before traffic is restarted. They also wanted a thorough investigation before the resumption of "high-risk" traffic.
No injuries were reported in the derailment in which 16 of 96 tank cars went off the tracks and started a fire in four of the cars.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/06/06/us/ap-us-train-derailment-the-latest.html

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Ore. Leaders: Halt Oil Trains for Now

Jun 7, 2016 | E&E Daily

By Hannah Hess

Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, Gov. Kate Brown (D), and two other Democrats who represent the state in Congress yesterday called for a temporary halt to oil trains rolling through the Columbia River gorge.
The statement from Reps. Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici and others comes on the heels of the derailment of 11 cars of a Union Pacific train carrying crude oil. It jumped the tracks Friday, causing a spill and fire in rural Oregon. The incident forced about 100 people to leave their homes over the weekend (EnergyWire, June 6).
"Oil train tankers are still lying on their sides in Mosier, the ground and water have yet to be cleaned up, and there's still no good explanation for the cause of Friday's crash. It is too soon to resume oil train traffic through the Columbia River Gorge," the leaders said.
Before resuming oil train traffic, they said, Union Pacific officials should meet with the community and give a thorough explanation for the cause of the accident, plus assurances that the company is taking steps to prevent another one.
"A train full of toxic crude oil derailing, burning, and exploding near homes, schools, and businesses is a worst fear realized for people who live in Mosier and in other communities along the tracks throughout the Gorge. They deserve to know that the causes of this derailment have been both identified and fixed, and there should be a moratorium on oil train traffic until they get those explanations and assurances," the Democrats added.
The group will also be pushing for the Department of Transportation to take a hard look at alternative routes for oil and hazardous material trains.
In 2014, Merkley and Wyden urged Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx for more transparency about oil-by-rail shipments, arguing that first responders needed to have more information about the delivery routes. The accident appears likely to reignite that debate.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/06/07/stories/1060038379

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Anger as Trains Resume After Oregon Derailment, Fire

Jun 7, 2016 | AP (In The Washington Post)

By Gillian Flaccus and Phuong Le

Local politicians and residents reacted with shock and anger Monday as Union Pacific began running trains through this tiny Columbia River Gorge town just three days after a fiery derailment forced residents to evacuate and water and sewage systems to shut down.
Residents shot video from an overpass of trains sliding past crumpled and burnt oil tankers, some of them still dripping oil onto the tracks. The town’s mayor and fire chief expressed deep concern about the trains running again before a full investigation was complete and before the damaged tankers were cleared.
Trains began running Sunday through the town of about 400 people carrying mixed goods — but no crude oil.
“This is all about money. They’re willing to risk us blowing up again for their money to keep coming in,” said Loretta Scheler, who rents out a two-story building just a few hundred feet from the tracks. “It’s just insane.”
The derailment occurred on a stretch of track that passes within 300 feet of the edge of the K-8 campus in this town 70 miles east of Portland. Sandwiched between the tracks and forested cliffs at a bend in the river, Mosier is part of a scenic area that’s world famous for the summer winds that blow through the Columbia River Gorge and attract wind surfers and kite sailors.
Union Pacific defended its actions Monday, saying it was safe to run other trains while crews continued to drain oil from the crashed tankers. Thirteen tankers remained and 10 still contained crude, said Raquel Espinoza, a spokeswoman for the Railroad. Trains are moving at about 10 mph.
“We will not run any crude oil trains through this area any time soon,” Union Pacific spokesman Justin Jacobs said Monday morning. “The community is at the forefront of our efforts, and we’re absolutely aware of their concerns.”
Several top Oregon lawmakers said later in the day that Union Pacific Railroad should not resume oil train traffic until the company thoroughly explains the cause of the derailment and provides assurances that it’s taking steps to prevent another one. They stopped short of calling for limiting other train traffic.
Sixteen tank cars went off the tracks Friday. Fire started in four of the cars. An estimated 42,000 gallons of crude oil was released, said Don Hamilton, a spokesman for the state, federal and tribal agencies responding. About 10,000 gallons were recovered in wastewater systems, while the rest was burned off, captured by booms or absorbed into soil, he said.
No injuries have been reported. Dozens of residents have been given the all clear to return home.
Friday’s derailment comes as a massive oil-storage terminal proposed along the Columbia River in southwest Washington is under review. The proposed terminal near Vancouver would handle up to 360,000 barrels of Bakken crude oil, where it would be stored and loaded on to tankers for export to West Coast refineries.
Critics say the derailment underscores the risk faced by every town and city along rail lines when trains carrying volatile oil roll by.
“It shines a light on how reckless approving the oil terminal would be,” said Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of the Columbia Riverkeeper. “I can’t see how any reasonable person can look at this explosion and invite more trains.”
The federal government regulates interstate railroad commerce, so cities and towns have no regulatory power over the movement of oil trains.
Eric de Place, policy director with Sightline Institute, a progressive think tank, said states and cities can deny projects in other ways, such as through zoning or permit restrictions. Hoquiam, Washington, last year approved a ban on bulk crude oil storage facilities. Vancouver is considering a similar ban.
Mosier is among dozens of communities that have officially called for stronger federal safety measures and other actions because of increasing oil train shipments through the Northwest.
“The federal government, the railroad and oil companies need to protect us,” said Paul Blackburn, mayor of Hood River, a city about 7 miles west of Mosier.
Hood River passed a resolution in 2014 opposing the transportation of crude oil through the Columbia River Gorge either by rail or by barge.
Mosier Fire Chief Jim Appleton said he had been a supporter of Union Pacific’s right to move oil through his town until the derailment.
Appleton, who operates with a fulltime volunteer firefighting crew of six and has 30-year-old fire trucks, said the derailment terrified him. Firefighters poured 1,000 gallons of Columbia River water a minute on the blaze for eight hours straight to bring it under control, he said.
“The media has been saying this incident is ‘near Mosier,’” he said. “No. It went end-to-end through our entire town.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/anger-as-trains-resume-after-oregon-derailment-fire/2016/06/06/f6558c4c-2c44-11e6-b9d5-3c3063f8332c_story.html

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Mount Olive, Washington Township, Morris County Demand Removal of Gas Tanks

Jun 7, 2016 | Mount Olive Chronicle

By Phil Garber

The chance of being killed by a railway propane explosion is less than the risk of being killed by lightning but Mayor Rob Greenbaum still doesn’t like the odds.
Greenbaum is leading an effort by local and Morris County officials to force a Canadian-based company to remove 20 rail cars filled with butane and propane that are being stored along a railroad spur in Flanders. The township and county were expected to file separate requests on Monday for a Superior Court judge to issue an injunction against the tanker storage.
“I don’t think it’s safe and we will do everything we can to stop it,” Greenbaum said. “There has been no planning in terms of emergency preparedness. It’s just not an appropriate place to store gas.”
The rail spur is behind the Toys ”R” Us warehouse and not far from homes andWest Morris Central High School located on Bartley Road in Washington Township. The high bridge rail track is owned by Morris County and leased to the Morristown and Erie Railway, which, in turn, contracts with rail companies.
The rail cars also are near to the "Uncommon Carrier" company which stores Class 3 hazardous materials, according to Fred DeToro, the town's emergency management coordinator.
A spokesman for the railway did not return a call for comment.
DeToro said he learned of the tanks in a call on Tuesday, May 31, from the Morris County Office of Emergency Management. On Friday, DeToro received a call from the railroad police chief of the Morristown and Erie Railway saying that he tanks would be arriving around 12:30 p.m.
Greenbaum said the issue was discussed during a conference call on Thursday that included officials from Mount Olive, Roxbury, Washington Township and Morris County.
Morris County Administrator John Bonanni said in a release that county and local emergency management personnel and members of the Picatinny Arsenal Fire Department went to assess the potential dangers.
A statement from Washington Township police said that the Morris & Erie Railway has a one-year agreement with Gibson Gas to store up to 100 liquefied butane and propane cars on the High Bridge Branch.
“The Railway has communicated that all federally-required safety and security requirements are in place,” said the statement. “This knowledge does not lessen the concerns of the county and local governments, who are adamant about preventing this practice in any way they can.”
Tank Cars Arrive
On Friday, 15 cars were parked on the spur. Each was marked as containing “non-oderized liquified petroleum gas” and each car had the notification that in case of an emergency to call Chemtrec “day or night” at 800-424-9300. Chemtrec is a company that responds to hazardous materials emergencies.
The cars are owned by Procor and leased to the Gibson Gas Liquids Partnership of Canada. Procor is Canada's largest private rail car rental fleet, with more than 21,000 conventional and special-purpose tank and freight cars.
Liquefied petroleum gas or liquid petroleum gas has no odor and is also referred to as propane or butane, flammable mixtures of hydrocarbon gases used as fuel in heating appliances, cooking equipment, and vehicles.
A chemical is often added that emits a powerful odor if there is a leak in the propane tank. DeToro said he believes that the odor was not added to the tanks at the request of customers. He said he is concerned that a leak would not be detected. He also said the area of the rail spur is not secured and that youths on ATVs ride in the area and hikers walk along the tracks. Evidence of the lack of security is a bullet hole in a sign along the tracks, DeToro said.
Detoro said local and county emergency management officials have devised an evacuation plan in event of a leak or wore. He said a propane fire can't be extinguished but rather must burn itself out, a situation that could take days or more. DeToro said a large concern is providing adequate water to cool tank cars near a leaking car.
DeToro said the town and county are asking for increased security from the rail line along with installation of a remote monitoring system.
Wendy Buckley, a former rail line inspector with the N.J. Department of Transportation, is president of “Specialty Transportation and Regulatory Services” (STARS) of Bensalem, Pa., a consulting firm specializing in all facets of hazardous materials transportation for rail, air, highway, vessel, and pipeline.
Buckley said rail lines are not required to notify municipalities of pending shipments although there should be an ongoing, mutual relationship between the parties. She said she expects the cars contain propane residue and are not filled but DeToro said the cars are filled.
“Most railroad companies are very cognizant of not putting filled cars in areas near residences,” Buckley said. “Chances are good they are not loaded cars.”
Buckley said rail cars carrying flammable gas like propane are carefully controlled by the federal government. They are made with double steel layers to sustain extreme pressure and safety systems.
“These cars are very, very safe,” Buckley said. “The cars are designed to keep the material in the cars. This is a very common practice all over the country, every day.”
Raymond Casey is a consultant on rail car safety with Railroad Regulatory Services of Falls Church, Va. Casey said rail cars carrying propane are regularly inspected with tanks tested every 10 years and safety valves replaced periodically.
“There is no real safety issue,” Casey said. “Liquified petroleum gas is transported safely every day.”
Major Industry
Butane and propane is an $8 billion a year industry and is a major source of energy in the U.S. More than 1 million commercial establishments, such as hotels, restaurants and laundromats use propane for heating and cooling air, heating water, cooking, refrigeration, drying clothes, barbecuing, and lighting. More than 350,000 industrial sites rely on it for space heating, brazing, soldering, cutting, heat treating, annealing, vulcanizing, and many other uses.
The U.S. Department of Energy released a report in 1981 that analyzed fatal accidents involving propane gas transportation and storage between 1971 and 1979. The report showed that the individual risk is about one death per 37 million persons or about the same as the risk of a person on the ground being killed by an airplane crash, and much less than the risk of death by lightning, tornadoes, or dam failures.
A Chemtrec statement said that the U.S. propane industry’s safety record has been praised in the Congressional Record, and by organizations including the National Fire Protection Association, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, and the International Association of Fire Chiefs.Gibson Gas Liquids Partnership of Canada was honored on May 10 with three rail awards from Canadian National Railway, Canadian Pacific Railway and CSX Corporation for its commitment to safety in 2015.
“The annual awards recognize customers who load and transport dangerous goods and meet strict standards for the safe handling and shipment of regulated product,” said a Gibson statement.
Last year, the company sold more than 600 million gallons of liquefied natural gas to customers throughout North America.
“Working together, our partners haul thousands of loads every year throughout Canada and the U.S. providing only the highest quality of service in the industry,” the statement said.
But there have been accidents.
One of the most dramatic was in July 1973 in Kingman, Ariz. Fire broke out as propane was being transferred from a railroad car to a storage tank. The blast that killed 11 firefighters occurred after a leak in a fitting was discovered and a large wrench was used, igniting the gas. Flaming propane sprayed by the explosion along with falling debris ignited several buildings in the vicinity, according to published reports.
Another major accident occurred on Aug. 24, 2011 in Lincoln, Calif., when a rail tank car carrying 29,000 gallons of propane caught fire. Nearly 5,000 families were evacuated form the area and a high school and middle school were closed.
http://www.newjerseyhills.com/mt_olive_chronicle/news/mount-olive-washington-township-morris-county-demand-removal-of-gas/article_4210c840-a1b6-51e6-9e00-598f27f7b31e.html

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State's New Rail Director Will Tackle Oil-Train Safety, Other Issues

Jun 6, 2016 | StarTribune

By Maya Rao

The map above Alene Tchourumoff’s desk shows lines that appear, at first, to denote rivers — they sprawl and branch off, weaving and curving across the state.
Instead, they depict a vast network of railroad tracks.
In her new role as Minnesota’s rail director, Tchourumoff will refer back to the map often as she leads Gov. Mark Dayton’s efforts to improve rail safety, train first responders and track the movements of the rail cars that transport Bakken crude oil and other hazardous freight.
While the federal government is the chief regulator of rail safety, Minnesota’s state agencies also have some oversight, spanning the departments of public safety and transportation and the pollution control authority. Concerned that the state needed better coordination of its efforts to monitor oil train issues, the governor created the position of rail director this spring.
The Dayton administration wanted someone “who could look across all those agencies and help bring those different threads together to help be a point of contact and drive and promote the decisions on rail-related issues,” Tchourumoff said.
States around the country are trying to assert more oversight of oil trains following high-profile derailments — the latest in Mosier, Ore., where a train hauling Bakken crude ran off the tracks last Friday and caught fire. One hundred people evacuated the town.
Tchourumoff hopes to be a point of contact for citizens worried about the potential for dangerous crashes from the oil trains rumbling through their communities. And she wants to organize more forums and round tables on rail issues.
“This gives [citizens] another opportunity to reach the governor’s office and help provide us with insight [into] what their concerns are,” said Tchourumoff.
States step up role
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order in 2014 for the state’s multiple agencies to assess their disaster preparedness for oil- and ethanol-related incidents.
Tchourumoff sees the possibility of taking lessons from New York and other states that are examining oil train issues.
Can state officials make much of a difference, given the federal government’s vast jurisdiction over the industry? Tchourumoff believes they can.
“I think there’s definitely a role for the state to play,” she said.
Tchourumoff, who started the position in early May, previously served as director of the planning department for Hennepin County Public Works, leading the county’s freight rail planning efforts. She has also been a manager for Deloitte Consulting in Washington, D.C., advising the Federal Railroad Administration on rail program implementation and financing. And Tchourumoff has advised the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the California High-Speed Rail Authority, and Dallas Area Rapid Transit on rail policy and finance issues.
The state’s commissioners of transportation and public safety praised Tchourumoff’s appointment, saying they’ve already started conversations with her about their efforts on rail issues.
“All of us realized we needed more expertise and people close to the issue who could speak with authority and have direct access to … the governor’s office,” said Transportation Commissioner Charles Zelle.
‘She jumped right in’
Hennepin County Emergency Management Director Eric Waage recalled her attending a meeting with emergency managers, first responders and railroad officials at the start of her job.
“She jumped right into the fray,” he said.
The discussion revolved around local responders’ push for railroad companies to turn over more disaster planning records. They want to coordinate a more detailed response plan in the event of a hazardous explosion. After a proposal to address the matter stalled at the Capitol this session, responders and the railroad industry have been meeting to work out a compromise without legislation.
Minnesota railroad lobbyist John Apitz, who attended the meeting, said he is excited about Tchourumoff’s appointment and that they had already started discussing the issue of sharing information with first responders. In the long run, he hopes to work with her on using railroads to foster economic development.
“This is the first time that there’s kind of been a single focal point for all those conversations,” said Apitz, who represents the Minnesota Regional Railroads Association. “Quite often in the past, one agency didn’t know what the other agency was doing and it was confusing for the railroads as to who you were dealing with.”
She noted that the slowdown in the North Dakota oil fields “alleviates some of the immediate congestion concerns.” But even with the decline, she added, there’s still up to 55 oil trains a week that pass through Minnesota.
There’s less immediate risk of a derailment, she said, “but I still think it’s something we need to think about and really plan for.”
http://www.startribune.com/state-s-new-rail-director-will-tackle-oil-train-safety-other-issues/382043621/

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Environment News

Hundreds of Green Groups Tell Lawmakers to Reject Trade Deals

Jun 6, 2016 | The Hill

By Devin Henry

More than 450 green groups on Monday urged members of Congress to reject two landmark Obama administration trade deals.
In a letter signed by The Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and others, the groups said the trade deals would benefit fossil fuel producers and allow them to challenge domestic pollution policies in international tribunals.
The groups cited TransCanada’s plan to sue the United States under a North American trade treaty, and warned that, if instituted, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) could lead to similar issues.
The letter said the deals would allow investors to demand compensation from nations, including the United States, that institute polices threatening their industries.
“The TPP and TTIP would more than double the number of fossil fuel corporations that could follow TransCanada’s example and challenge U.S. policies in private tribunals,” the letter said.
“Indeed, the pacts would be the first to allow the world’s largest polluters — including all of the eight largest private greenhouse gas emitters outside of the U.S. — to wield this tool against U.S. climate policies.”
Part of Obama's pivot to Asia, TPP is meant to bolster trade among the US and several Pacific and Southeast Asian countries. TTIP focuses on trade relationships between the US and European countries.
Congress, the groups said, should reject the former, and negotiators should fix the latter.
“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 any provision that empowers corporations to challenge government policies in extrajudicial tribunals,” the groups wrote.
Congressional liberals and conservatives alike have lined up to oppose the trade deals. The Obama administration has looked to assuage those concerns: on the environment, the White House notes the TPP includes for protections for wildlife and the oceans, as well as sanctions for those who violate the protections.
The administration has also highlighted other environmental groups' support for the TPP, and in a statement, a U.S. Trade Representative spokesman said it "includes the strongest environment commitments of any trade agreement in history and upgrades NAFTA by putting fully enforceable environment obligations at the core of the agreement."
"The United States has never lost an [investor-state] case," the spokesman added. "We have prevailed in every case in part because we have continued to raise standards through each agreement."
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/282342-hundreds-of-green-groups-tell-lawmakers-to-reject-trade-deals

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High Court, Plaintiffs Move To Quickly Enforce CWA 'Jurisdiction' Ruling

Jun 6, 2016 | Inside EPA

The Supreme Court and plaintiffs in several federal district court suits are moving to quickly enforce the justices' recent decision that regulators' Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdictional determinations (JDs) are “final action” subject to legal challenge, with the high court reversing an appellate case that held otherwise while district judges are weighing briefs that invoke the ruling in cases involving agency CWA decisions.
In Supreme Court orders released June 6, the court reversed Kent Recycling v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which had been held without action while it heard Corps. v. Hawkes Co. Both suits tested whether JDs can be challenged in court before EPA or the Corps takes enforcement or permitting action based on their findings that a property contains water protected by the CWA.
The unanimous high court found in its May 31 Hawkes decision that JD recipients can file pre-enforcement suits challenging the agencies' findings, upholding a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit that the Corps appealed.
In contrast, the 5th Circuit's unanimous 2014 ruling in Kent held that the opposite was true, saying that JDs are not final action and may not be challenged independent of a CWA permit or enforcement suit.
The Supreme Court's June 6 orders reverse the Kent decision without comment, and remand the case to the 5th Circuit “for further consideration in light of” the Hawkes ruling.
Industry groups had called on the high court to hear both JD suits simultaneously, arguing that only Kent would allow a ruling on whether the Constitution's Due Process Clause requires pre-enforcement review of JDs. However, the high court only took up Hawkes and did not consider constitutional issues, instead deciding the case based on the Administrative Procedure Act and a Corps-EPA memorandum of agreement on JDs' binding effect.
Pending Lawsuits
Meanwhile, plaintiffs in at least three pending district court suits against EPA and the Corps are raising the Hawkes decision as a reason for judges to back their arguments for judicial review of the agencies' CWA findings.
While two of the suits deal with assertions of CWA jurisdiction over marginal waters, a third, Southern California Alliance Of Publicly Owned Treatment Works (SCAP), et al., v. EPA, does not involve an assertion of jurisdiction at all, potentially signaling how litigants will seek to expand Hawkes' impact.
In that case, wastewater utilities are asking the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California to overturn an agency guidance on CWA test methods they say is being applied as if it were a binding rule. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has countered that the guide is not “final action” and therefore cannot be overturned in court.
But in a June 3 brief, SCAP and its allies argue that Hawkes signals a more lenient test for what agency actions are subject to suit, whether or not the action in question relates to CWA jurisdiction.
The high court ruling “directly relates to the question of whether the [CWA] guidance documents constitute 'final agency action' subject to judicial review,” the plaintiffs' brief says.
The two lower court cases dealing with CWA jurisdiction are Foster, et al. v. EPA, et al, where farm sector plaintiffs filed a June 2 notice of supplemental authority with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, and Duarte Nursery Inc. v. Army Corps of Engineers, et al., where plaintiffs filed their notice with the California eastern district court on May 31.
Compliance Order
Both cases challenge an agency compliance order commanding the recipients to halt work filling in wetlands that regulators have identified as jurisdictional. The plaintiffs are claiming the Due Process Clause requires judicial review of such orders, and are invoking Hawkes as evidence that the Supreme Court agrees.
“Today the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously held that approved jurisdictional determinations do have a variety of legal consequences, including placing the owner of property subject to one at an increased risk of criminal and civil penalties,” Duarte's notice says.
However, the Department of Justice countered Duarte in a June 1 filing, arguing that Hawkes “has no material relevance” to the case because the cease-and-desist order at issue there is materially different from a JD, and the high court “did not address Due Process Cause arguments in its decision.” -
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/high-court-plaintiffs-move-quickly-enforce-cwa-jurisdiction-ruling

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What Charles Koch Really Thinks About Climate Change

Jun 6, 2016 | The Washington Post

By Jim Tankersley and Chris Mooney

Charles Koch had been talking for more than an hour — about markets, philosophy and why he is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fund university research, particularly in economics — when the subject turned to climate change. The question, from The Washington Post’s Jim Tankersley (who wrote about the main thrust of the interview here), was whether any evidence could persuade the libertarian billionaire that regulation of carbon emissions is necessary to head off disastrous global warming.
Koch’s answer went on for several minutes. He did not deny global warming, but he did downplay the risks of climate change, based on his read of the scientific evidence. The full exchange sheds new light on Koch’s beliefs about climate and carbon regulation.
[Inside Charles Koch’s $200 million quest for a ‘Republic of Science’]
Here, then, we provide an annotated transcript of those comments, highlighting areas where Koch does — and, where he doesn’t — align with what scientists have to say about the subject, and more generally exploring his remarks. The questions are Tankersley’s, the answers are Koch’s and the notes are from energy and environment writer Chris Mooney.
Jim Tankersley: Do you still have the potential to be surprised or have your mind changed on big things, and the specific example I was thinking of is, could someone produce a piece of research that could convince you that carbon regulation is necessary to head off disastrous global warming?
Charles Koch: Yeah. If we apply the republic of science here and use the scientific method rather than of trying to shut down and shout down and punish anybody who wants to enter into debate about it. And not do it through corporate welfare. Look at what’s happened. What’s being done is symbolic, even under their own thing. It’s not reducing CO2. Not approving the Keystone pipeline – so the oil is produced, now it’s shipped by rail and shipped to China, rather than by pipeline. So that’s symbolic. And making wood pellets, subsidizing making wood pellets, I mean, we’re back in medieval times, we’re going to burn wood. And shipping them to Europe. How is that reducing CO2? And we’re going to put a tax on natural gas, on BTUs, here, so we’ll be making less chemicals and fertilizers here, and we’ll be doing it in China, where they make it out of coal gas, and per unit the production has five times the CO2 emissions. So these things don’t make sense.
Koch’s point about wood pellets suggests a surprising alignment with many environmentalists and scientists, who have raised concerns about the potential carbon consequences of burning wood for electricity. The argument that failing to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline was at least partly “symbolic” in a national and global context, meanwhile, also has its strength — as the State Department itself explained in rejecting TransCanada’s permit application, “granting a Presidential Permit for this proposed Project would undermine U.S. climate leadership and thereby have an adverse impact on encouraging other States to combat climate change and work to achieve and implement a meaningful global climate agreement.”
However, the idea that mainstream scientists are trying to “shut down” debate on climate change is another matter. These researchers would probably counter that any debate, such as it is, should occur in the peer-reviewed scientific literature and in official scientific processes like that conducted by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They would further state that in that literature and in those documents, the consensus that humans are causing global warming is crystal clear.
CK: And then these agreements on limiting CO2 — well I liken it to, if you’re at a poker game, and you don’t know who the pigeon is, you’re it. And we’re it. So we’re going to regulate the hell, make our — particularly the poor — worse, stifle the economy by having less reliable, cheap, abundant energy, and make it more expensive.
If we’re talking about cost, then what about also considering the cost of doing nothing on climate change?
The International Monetary Fund, for instance, recently noted that “Climate change is expected to significantly impact the global economy in the coming decades.” A global average temperature rise of 3 degrees Celsius, which the world has now pledged to avoid, could cost 2 percent of global GDP, notes a recent IMF research note. Granted, cost estimates range widely, and impacts would be varied and highly uneven around the world.
Nor is this necessarily the worst case, the group notes: “Essentially nothing is known about potential damages from extreme (and unprecedented) warming scenarios.”
The IMF also generally favors setting a price on carbon in order to counter climate change and carry out the objectives of the Paris climate accord. And while the aforementioned research note remarks that carbon pricing will surely lead to economic costs, it adds that these can be offset by wise policy design. Or as the report notes: “Revenues could be used for lowering taxes on labor and capital that distort economic incentives, producing a counteracting economic benefit to the costs of higher energy prices. The economic costs of carbon tax shifts (ignoring environmental benefits) might even be negative for modest emissions reductions if revenues cut an especially distorting tax. Revenues could be used for new spending or reducing debt, though the social benefits should be comparable to those from cutting harmful taxes.”
CK: China and India are going to do what they’re going to do anyway. So we just hurt ourselves, even under their theory. And their theories aren’t working very well, because they keep predicting all these theories that aren’t happening. And if they start happening, or they get evidence, and they’ll enter into a debate rather than shut down anybody who has questions about it or wants to challenge any aspect of it, then I get a lot more sympathetic, yeah. If we’re all trying to find the truth of the matter, then I’m all for that. I’m all for applying the Republic of Science on climate, as I am on anything.
Both India and China are making major steps towards installing more renewable energy. (That’s what they’re “going to do anyway.”)
China led the world in investment in renewable energy last year — as it has for some time. India has set forward a plan to install 175 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2022.
JT: Do you think it’s a problem the market can solve, without governments?
CK: I think it will, just like we’re doing all these things (at Koch Industries). We’re investing heavily in biofuels, in biotechnology, in information technology, to do this. Why do we do it? Because we think through innovation we can make it competitive, better than competitive. And that’s the way to go. And like, Bill Gates is raising billions to go find it — that’s the way to do it, is innovation. So it’s win-win, rather than more cronyism, which so far, all it does is enrich a few people and hurt the average and particularly the poor.
While we’re at it, we should note that the Koch Nitrogen Co. plant near Enid, Okla., has also been highlighted as a leader in carbon capture and sequestration. Carbon dioxide from the process of making nitrogen fertilizer is piped to oilfields nearby, where it is used in enhanced oil recovery and then left buried beneath the ground, according to the Global CCS Institute.
“Exceptionally, the Enid Fertilizer plant in Oklahoma, United States, operated by the Koch Nitrogen Company, has captured over 600000 tCO2 a year since 2003 for use in [enhanced oil recovery],” notes the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
KOCH AIDE: There’s a lot of varying reports on what Charles’s position on climate change actually is. So I think it would be a good idea if —
CK: Yeah, I say that a lot of what is done by the climate lobby is anti-science. But there is some science behind it. Like, there are greenhouse gases, and they do contribute to warming. But if you look at the last, say, 160 years, the first 80 of that period, they went up four-tenths of a degree. And now, the second 80 that CO2 has gone up, what, 30 percent or something, it’s gone up five-tenths of a degree. And there’s been in the last 30 or 40 years, there’s been no real increase in storms or bad weather. So, let’s use the part that’s real science and then apply the Republic of Science to the rest of it.
First of all, based on this statement, Koch does not deny human-caused climate change. However, he does seem to minimize its potential gravity. So let’s look at this more closely.
It is unclear why Koch goes back 160 years when NASA starts in 1880 with reliable temperature measurements. Here is their temperature record:
If you take the whole record, it presents a rise of about 1 degree from 1880 to the present — and that’s Celsius, not Fahrenheit (it would be 1.8 degrees F).
Given that this is the temperature of the entire planet as an average — the Arctic warming is considerably greater, for instance — it is hard to see why this trend would be something to minimize. It is also clear that the 1980s is when the truly relentless upward temperature march began.
The “no real increase in storms or bad weather” statement appears misleading, although it depends on precisely what is meant by “storms or bad weather.” Scientists have documented increasing weather and temperature extremes of many (although not all) kinds. “Some extreme weather and climate events have increased in recent decades, and new and stronger evidence confirms that some of these increases are related to human activities,” notes the U.S. National Climate Assessment. For instance, that report notes that in the United States, heavy downpours are increasing and notes that “the mechanism driving these changes is well understood. Warmer air can contain more water vapor than cooler air.”
CK: And then I’m on board. If there’s some risk here that this could be bad, I don’t want that.
Every policy — and by the way, what you read about us, if you assume the opposite is true, you will bat a higher average. But every position we take is, by trying to answer the question, will it make people’s lives better or worse? And are we applying the scientific method?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/06/06/what-charles-koch-really-thinks-about-climate-change/

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