Preview Newsletter
ACC AM 6/13
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Hearing on Watchdog Recommendations to EPA
Jun 14, 2016 | Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management and Regulatory Oversight
Location: 406 Dirksen / 3:00 PM -
Hearing on Oil and Gas Infrastructure
Jun 14, 2016 | Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
Location: Dirksen 366 / 10:00 AM -
(ACC Mentioned) Law Firms Help Clients Prep for New Chemicals Law
Jun 10, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Most chemical manufacturers are well-positioned to keep their chemicals on a list that is crucial to stay in business, even though that list is slated for a complete overhaul under the chemicals bill Congress has passed, attorneys told Bloomberg BNA. -
(ACC Mentioned) 'Historic' TSCA Update Nearing the Finish Line
Jun 10, 2016 | Plastics News
By Gayle S. Putrich
The largest, most sweeping overhaul of U.S. chemical regulation in 40 years is finally on the president’s desk. -
(ACC Mentioned) Letters: Breaking the Cycle
Jun 13, 2016 | The New Yorker
Ian Frazier illustrates the town-by-town, city-by-city battle that is under way to diminish our reliance on single-use plastic bags (“The Bag Bill,” May 2nd). -
GOP Senators At Odds With Democrats On Intent For TSCA Bill Provisions
Jun 10, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Two top Senate Republicans are outlining what they say is Congress' intent for implementing major provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform legislation that is at odds with analysis of the legislation floated by Democratic senators, including how EPA should assess new chemicals for their potential risk to humans. -
Explainer: Toxic Substances Control Act
Jun 10, 2016 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
Calls to modernise the 40-year-old law regulating chemicals in the US have become louder and louder, amid recognition that it has failed to police the country’s chemicals. -
The Infuriating Reason Why Toxic Chemicals Lurk in Household Products
Jun 13, 2016 | Mother Jones
By Erica Langston
If a divided Congress uniting behind progressive public health legislation sounds too good to be true, that's because it likely is. -
MN Environmentalists Want More from New Toxics Rules
Jun 10, 2016 | Public News Sources
By Brandon Campbell
One step forward, two steps back. That's how some Minnesota environmentalists describe new federal rules on toxic substances that could limit the state's own protections. -
Group Worries New Toxin Rules Will Hurt State
Jun 12, 2016 | Jacksonville Journal Courier
By Brandon Campbell
One step forward, two steps back. -
Dow Chemical Commends Congress for New Chemical Safety Regulations
Jun 10, 2016 | Midland Daily News
By Jessica Haynes
Michigan’s U.S. senators and The Dow Chemical Co. are applauding the recent passage of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, the first change to the Toxic Substances Control Act in 40 years that revises the regulation of chemicals. -
Editorial: Thank Udall for Needed Chemical Safety Reforms
Jun 12, 2016 | Albuquerque Journal
By Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board
In the near future, when “you go into the grocery store or hardware store, (you can be confident) you are buying a product that has been tested by somebody to be safe.” -
Our View: Chemical Safety Bill Shows How Laws Can be Made
Jun 11, 2016 | Santa Fe New Mexican
In a Washington where so little is accomplished, passing groundbreaking legislation to reform chemical safety in a bipartisan fashion is just this side of a miracle. -
California Resets Maximum Dose Level Process for Six Triazines
Jun 13, 2016 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has replaced its proposal to set a maximum allowable dose level (MADL) for six triazines chemicals. -
Study: Drinking Water ‘Important Source' of Fluorochemical Exposure
Jun 13, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
Drinking water can be a significant source of human exposure to certain potential carcinogens, and the issue should become a research priority, a recent study by the state of California said. -
Scientist: We Could Be Inhaling Microplastics Laden With Chemicals
Jun 10, 2016 | Epoch Times
By Jim Liao
Microplastics, or microbeads, are small plastic particles generally defined as being smaller than 5mm and originating from the disintegration of larger plastic. -
ECHA Refers Hazardous Chemical Decisions
Jun 13, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) said June 10 that it will forward to the European Commission two decisions on the listing of hazardous chemicals as “substances of very high concern” (SVHC) under the European Union's REACH law. -
(ACC Mentioned) Ohio Drillers Could Cash in from Shell Facility
Jun 12, 2016 | Cleveland Business
By Dan Shingler
While regional natural gas prices remain among the lowest in the world, Ohio drillers got some promising news this month about the construction of pipelines and, more significantly, a big ethane cracker. -
Sit-Down Aims to Smooth Pre-Conference Tension
Jun 13, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
Top House and Senate lawmakers are expected to huddle this week and talk about how the much-anticipated energy conference committee would unfold, as Democratic concerns threaten to sink the legislative push before it gets off the ground. -
Week Ahead: Lawmakers Turn Focus to EPA Spending
Jun 13, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress will work in the coming week on contentious spending bills for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Interior Department. -
Fight Over Riders Returns with Bicameral Interior-EPA Action
Jun 13, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly, Phil Taylor and Tiffany Stecker
This week, both House and Senate appropriators are voting on their respective drafts of next year's spending legislation for U.S. EPA, the Interior Department and the Forest Service. -
House GOP takes aim at Federal Power Act
Jun 10, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey
House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans today complained to the nation's top energy regulator about "persistent and pervasive" problems in competitive markets and questioned whether the Federal Power Act is flexible enough to accommodate a new energy landscape. -
House Votes Once Again Against Carbon Tax Proposals
Jun 13, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Well over half of House lawmakers went on record June 10 opposing an economywide carbon tax and a proposed fee on each barrel of oil produced, despite no imminent chance of either of those policies being enacted. -
House Passes Resolutions Opposing Carbon, Oil Tax
Jun 10, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Ariel Wittenberg and Amanda Reilly
The House passed resolutions today targeting policies meant to address climate change and promote renewable energy that Republicans say would drive up energy prices. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA’s Chemical Plant Safety Proposal Satisfies No One
Jun 13, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
It is usually hard to make everybody happy, but sometimes it’s just as hard to make anybody happy. -
Chemical Breakdown: Part 3
Jun 13, 2016 | Houston Chronicle
By Mark Collette and Matt Dempsey
Somehow, George Freda was supposed to protect much of Harris County from chemical disasters. -
Ore. Senators Question Federal Response to Derailment
Jun 10, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey
Oregon Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley want to know why the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board didn't send an investigative team to the site of a crude-by-rail accident that caused an oil spill and fire in Oregon last week. -
Oregon Dems Push for More Federal Inspections at Derailment Site
Jun 10, 2016 | The Hill - E2 WIre
By Devin Henry
Oregon’s two Democratic senators are pushing a federal safety board to join the investigation into last week’s oil trail derailment in their state. -
Dear Conservatives, You Can Go Green Again
Jun 11, 2016 | The New York Times
By Richard Conniff
Not long ago I wrote an essay on how to talk about environmental issues with conservatives.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Environment News
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Hearing on Watchdog Recommendations to EPA
Jun 14, 2016 | Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management and Regulatory Oversight
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Hearing on Oil and Gas Infrastructure
Jun 14, 2016 | Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on June 14, 2016 at 10 a.m. to examine oil and gas pipeline infrastructure and the economic, safety, environmental, permitting, construction, and maintenance considerations associated with that infrastructure.
The hearing will be webcast live on the committee’s website, and an archived video will be available shortly after the hearing is complete. Witness testimony will be available on the website at the start of the hearing.Opening RemarksSen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)ChairmanSenate Energy and Natural Resources CommitteeSen. Maria CantwellRanking MemberSenate Energy and Natural Resources CommitteeWitness Panel 1Mr. Andrew BlackPresidentAssociation of Oil Pipe LinesMr. Ross EisenbergMr. Sean McGarveyPresidentNorth America's Building Trades UnionsDr. Paul W. ParfomakSpecialist in Energy and Infrastructure PolicyCongressional Research Service, Library of CongressMr. N. Jonathan PeressAir Policy Director - Natural GasEnvironmental Defense Fund
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(ACC Mentioned) Law Firms Help Clients Prep for New Chemicals Law
Jun 10, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Most chemical manufacturers are well-positioned to keep their chemicals on a list that is crucial to stay in business, even though that list is slated for a complete overhaul under the chemicals bill Congress has passed, attorneys told Bloomberg BNA.
Manufacturers may find, however, that in providing the Environmental Protection Agency information to stay on that critical list, the agency will raise legal questions about confidential business information or naming practices, according to attorneys from Keller & Heckman LLP.
Additionally, not only will multiple industry sectors be affected by the new bill, but many companies that will be affected don't yet realize it, an attorney from Sidley Austin LLP told Bloomberg BNA.
The Senate passed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 2576) June 7. The bill would revise core provisions of the nation's primary chemical law, the Toxic Substances Control Act. The bill passed the House on May 24 and is expected to be signed by President Barack Obama.
Once enacted, the legislation would boost the EPA's ability to get information about and regulate chemicals; require companies to pay fees for agency risk reviews; and require them to justify the confidential business information claims they make.
Anticipate and Participate
Bloomberg BNA spoke with five law firms that are preparing for implementation of the new law: Bergeson & Campbell PC, Beveridge & Diamond PC, Keller & Heckman LLP, Sidley Austin LLP and Steptoe & Johnson LLP.
The law firms are preparing for new mandates with in-depth analyses of changes and identifying the many deadlines the EPA would have to meet under the legislation with the goal of helping companies anticipate and participate in the development of rules, guidance and policies.
“The bill's many deadlines will drive EPA activities at a frantic pace,” said Lynn Bergeson, managing partner of Bergeson & Campbell.
Initial EPA Activities
Bergeson, Mark Duvall with Beveridge & Diamond and Martha Marrapese with Keller & Heckman have already detailed tasks they expect the EPA to focus on initially.
Among the deadlines the EPA faces in the first year of the law's implementation:
• review final legislative requirements,
• develop a strategic implementation plan,
• identify 10 “TSCA Work Plan” chemicals it will be evaluating within six months of enactment,
• review existing scientific, risk assessment and other science policy guidance and determine where changes or new guidance is needed,
• revise standards for what qualifies as a small business and
• establish a program, rules and schedule for industry fees.
“The bill's many deadlines will drive EPA activities at a frantic pace.”
Lynn Bergeson, Bergeson & Campbell
EPA's Deadlines to Drive Industry Action
The bill's mandates for the EPA identify tasks companies should undertake, Bergeson and Duvall said.
To start preparing, they urged companies to:
• read and understand the new law and its implications,
• review the TSCA Work Plan list of chemicals to identify any important to a company's operations,
• know what chemicals they make, import, use or ship,
• know what health, safety and exposure data they have for those chemicals and
• participate early and often in rulemaking initiatives.
Mandates Affect Companies to Varying Degrees
Judah Prero, an attorney formerly with the American Chemistry Council and now with Sidley Austin, said some deadlines the EPA must meet won't have a big effect on industries but some others will.
He pointed to the bill's requirement that the EPA have risk assessments for 10 chemicals under way within six months of enactment of the law.
The EPA must select the 10 chemicals from the 2014 TSCA Work Plan list that consists of about 90 chemicals. EPA already is assessing enough chemicals that it may be complying with the legislation's requirement, Prero said.
“I don't think you're going to see a flurry of activity stemming from that,” Prero said.
However, within one year of enactment, the EPA would be required to propose and issue two rules: a “prioritization” rule detailing how it would designate chemicals in commerce as high- or low-priority for further review, and a rule describing how it will “reset” an inventory of chemicals that may be out of date.
Those EPA efforts will generate a huge uptick in regulated entities' activities across multiple industry sectors, Prero said.
“There are many companies that don't think they are regulated by [EPA's] TSCA,” but will now be affected, Prero said.
The companies think of their products as being regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission or the EPA's Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, he said.
“Once the EPA decides to focus on a specific chemical, it will initially seek to determine the range of uses of that chemical in order to select the one or ones posing a potential risk,” Prero said.
Methods, Models Offer Clues to EPA's Priorities
Marrapese said companies can get an idea of EPA's likely prioritization approach by looking at themethod the agency employed to develop its Work Plan chemicals list.
“That will provide a road map for prioritization,” she said.
As it sets priorities to review existing chemicals, the EPA is likely to use computer models, databases and other tools to flag potential hazards of new chemicals, Marrapese said.
A Chemical Categories document the EPA updated in August 2010 that encompasses 56 groups also could be useful, Marrapese said.
The categories document describes human health or environmental concerns triggered by that category and the types of data that could address its concerns.
Tom Berger, also with Keller & Heckman, said chemicals that are structurally similar to substances on the work plan could be early targets for EPA scrutiny.
Inventory Reset: Key to Staying on the Market
Each of the attorneys told Bloomberg BNA that the bill's requirement that the EPA “reset” the currently incomplete TSCA Inventory should be a key focus for chemical manufacturers.
The inventory lists more than 84,000 chemicals that are or have been made, sold or distributed in the U.S.
All chemicals in U.S. commerce must now be on that inventory. Companies that have violated that requirement have paid fines totaling more than $1 million.
One of the problems TSCA reformers aimed to address with the new law is that only a fraction of the chemicals listed on the TSCA Inventory are actually in commerce. The EPA doesn't know precisely how many or which ones and the bill heading to the president's desk would require the agency to reset the inventory by dividing it into two categories: active in commerce and inactive.
The reset would let the EPA focus its attention on the active chemicals that may impact human health and/or could be released into the environment.
If a company wants to start making, processing or trading an inactive chemical it could request that EPA transfer the name of that substance to the active inventory.
Prero said the anticipated timing of the legislation is good news for companies.
“A large chunk of the regulated population is well-prepared,” he said.
Build Upon Information Already Gathered
Prero said the Chemical Data Reporting rule information that chemical manufacturers must submit to the EPA between June 1 and Sept. 30 includes chemical production volumes information for 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015 along with data about how companies processed and used the chemicals in 2015.
The timing of rule submissions means that, “A lot of companies will have up-to-date information on what they are making and how it's used,” Prero said.
Companies will likely have to supplement the information they prepared for the reporting rule to be sure the portfolio of chemicals they make, process or import remains on the TSCA Inventory, he said.
The reason, Prero said, is that TSCA doesn't require companies to provide chemical data reports for some compounds including polymers, microorganisms and certain forms of natural gas and water.
To stay in business, however, companies that make, import or use these chemicals will have to make sure these substances get assigned to—and remain on—the active inventory, Prero said.
Review “Confidential” Claims
As companies develop internal lists of chemicals they make, import, process or ship, they should determine which chemicals have identities or other information that is kept confidential by the EPA, Bergeson and Duvall said.
TSCA and the legislation updating it allow the exact identity and formula of a chemical to be claimed as confidential business information to prevent competitors from making the same substance.
The identities of roughly 17,000 of 84,000 chemicals on the TSCA Inventory are currently claimed as confidential, Richard Denison, lead senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund, wrote in an April 23, 2015, blog.
New mandates in the TSCA-reform bill, however, would require companies to substantiate the reasons they claim confidentiality, and require the EPA to periodically review the substantiation, Bergeson and Duvall said.
EPA May Dispute Chemical Identities
Marrapese and Berger said the chemical identities companies use to describe a chemical may be challenged by the EPA as it resets the inventory, in part because the nomenclature the agency uses to identify chemicals has changed over time.
In the late 1970s, when the agency compiled the initial TSCA Inventory, there were fewer rules or naming conventions, he said.
At the time, much of the information companies provided was not closely scrutinized by the EPA until 1995's nomenclature guidance, Berger said.
The agency issued nomenclature guidance in conjunction with amendments to a pre-manufacturing notice rule it issued, but by then tens of thousands of chemicals already were listed without the benefit of the clarifying guidance and might be named differently today, Berger said.
Marrapese said when the European Union's sweeping new chemicals law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals, known as REACH) went into effect, securing agreement on chemical identity information was the first challenge companies faced.
Manufacturers registering their chemicals under EU law had to make “sameness” determinations and agree they made the same substances even though at times they had relied on different Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) numbers—a globally used chemical identification system—for the same compound.
“This made reconciliation under [EU law] quite a challenge because no rules for making equivalency determinations existed at the time. A similar exercise will happen under TSCA reform,” Marrapese said.
Scientific Expertise Critical
Hiring a law firm with access to chemists and other scientists on staff as well as attorneys cross-trained in chemical engineering and intellectual property can help, Marrapese and Berger said.
Keller & Heckman has 23 staff scientists—at least one in each of the firm's offices, they said.
Bergeson said her law firm has cultivated core scientific, administrative, risk assessment and legal competence in chemicals for more than 25 years.
Access to scientific expertise is critical, she said, because, “Disagreements are very common in the area of scientific interpretation.”
Ripe for Lawsuits?
Prero, from Sidley Austin, said he expects to see legal challenges over the science the EPA uses or the ways it applies that science in risk assessments mandated under the legislation.
“EPA's decision that a chemical poses or does not pose an unreasonable risk is judicially reviewable,” he said.
Outside groups may also pursue “deadline litigation,” and sue the EPA for missing a deadline, Prero said.
Duvall, from Beveridge & Diamond, said despite lengthy discussions of the confidential business information provisions of the bill, some ambiguity remains about the confidentiality of chemical identities used in health and safety studies, which may spark legal challenges, he said.
Cynthia Taub, of Steptoe & Johnson, said federal preemption of state laws and regulations may also be contested in litigation.
Striking a balance between federal and state authority over chemicals was a central issue throughout the extensive debates and negotiations in Congress as it prepared and revised the Lautenberg bill.
Resources for TSCA-Reform Implementation
Taub and other attorneys urged companies to join or be more active in trade associations.
Industry associations, she said, can:
• identify opportunities to weigh in on policies and requirements the EPA develops,
• bring divergent companies together to develop advice for the agency and
• help companies work together when EPA needs toxicity, exposure or other risk-related data.
Meanwhile law firms are reaching out through webinars, conference briefings and other ways to educate attorneys within their own firms, existing clients and attract new potential clients about ways the TSCA-reform bill could affect them.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=91471014&vname=dennotallissues&wsn=495896500&searchid=27782783&doctypeid=1&type=date&mode=doc&split=0&scm=DELNWB&pg=0
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(ACC Mentioned) 'Historic' TSCA Update Nearing the Finish Line
Jun 10, 2016 | Plastics News
By Gayle S. Putrich
The largest, most sweeping overhaul of U.S. chemical regulation in 40 years is finally on the president’s desk.
The update to the much-maligned 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) regulates the manufacture, transportation, sale and use of thousands of chemicals, from resins to flame retardants, and is meant to give the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency a freer hand in regulating harmful chemicals.
Just as the passage of the new law has come excruciatingly slowly, so could some of its implementation.
Dubbed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, after the deceased New Jersey Democratic senator who began the push for reform by penning a 2013 bill with Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), the Senate gave final approval to the measure June 7. The voice vote came after the hold placed on the bill was lifted by Sen. Rand Paul, who refused to let the bill be approved under unanimous consent in late May, though the House passed the final compromise bill with a bipartisan 403-12 on May 24.
Businesses and trade groups, including the plastics industry, have long supported the TSCA update and lauded the bill’s passage, calling it “historic.”
“This consensus-based bill is the product of thoughtful discussions by House and Senate negotiators. It gives consumers the confidence in the products they depend upon each day, while giving companies a more predictable regulatory system that’s based on science rather than rhetoric,” said Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. President and CEO Bill Carteaux, in a statement. “This is a great day for the U.S. plastics industry and its nearly 1 million workers and their families. We look forward to continuing to grow the American economy by manufacturing the safest, strongest and most technologically advanced products and materials.”
“This legislation is significant not only because it is the first major environmental law passed since 1990, but because TSCA reform will have lasting and meaningful benefits for all American manufacturers, all American families and for our nation’s standing as the world’s leading innovator,” said American Chemistry Council President and CEO Cal Dooley. “The path to more modern chemical regulation has been decades in the making and it’s been over three years since work to achieve TSCA reform began in earnest.”
The bipartisan legislation will provide the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency with significantly more power and responsibilities, including the ability to obtain information about a chemical before passing judgment on its use or risks, while providing industry with a single regulatory process, protection for proprietary information and a pathway to prioritize approval of new chemicals before they hit the market.
States will still have the right to seek a federal waiver to impose their own rules on any given chemical and animal testing will be seriously curtailed under the new law.
Of the approximately 85,000 chemicals in commercial use, EPA has only managed to ban five in the years since TSCA was originally signed into law. There are 90 chemicals the agency has deemed high priority for review under the new “worst first” methodology, among them bisphenol A, styrene and a handful of flame retardants — along with arsenic and asbestos, which was nearly banned in 1991 until federal courts overturned the EPA decision.
Under the new law, safety evaluations of 10 from the list of 90 must begin within six months of its passage, and at least 20 must be underway in three and a half years; a decision on bans or restrictions would come only after the reviews are complete. And once EPA begins a review on a substance, states would be blocked from taking chemical regulation matters into their own hands.
Still, the first rulings on chemicals under the new law are not expected to hit manufacturers or processors until 2022. And with increased power come increased responsibility — and an ever-increasing need for funding for EPA. But the agency’s budget has flatlined under the current Republican-led Congress, which has made no secret of its lack of love for EPA over the years, and EPA staffing levels are the lowest since 1989. Under the new law, chemical companies will be expected to foot some of the bill for testing and safety evaluations but federal employees still require federal funding to run the programs.
Congress is expected to provide $65 million for the first year, which Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico, a co-sponsor of the bill and the top Democrat on the Senate panel that sets EPA’s budget, has said is enough to begin evaluating the first round of 10 chemicals.
Though even environmental groups were able to find much they liked in the new law, funding for its implementation remains a concern for many, including Environmental Working Group.
“To make TSCA better than the status quo, Congress should have provided enough funding to review the most dangerous chemicals in a generation, not a century,” said the Washington-based green group, estimating that EPA needs about $90 million per year — a sum that neither the original House nor Senate bill even came close to providing — and as long as 28 years to complete risk evaluations on the 90 chemicals in its current work plan.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20160610/NEWS/160619980/-historic-tsca-update-nearing-the-finish-line
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(ACC Mentioned) Letters: Breaking the Cycle
Jun 13, 2016 | The New Yorker
Ian Frazier illustrates the town-by-town, city-by-city battle that is under way to diminish our reliance on single-use plastic bags (“The Bag Bill,” May 2nd). The very properties that make single-use plastic bags attractive are the same ones that cause environmental harm: they are light, flexible, extremely durable, and, above all, cheap. In theory, these bags can be recycled, although the fifteen-per-cent rate that Frazier quotes, which comes from the American Chemistry Council, is misleading. This number includes other kinds of recycled waste—not just the single-use shopping bags in question. Most experts agree that the actual rate for post-consumer shopping bags is dramatically lower. According to calculations using U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data, the national rate is less than three per cent. Furthermore, the bags cause major problems for even the most sophisticated recycling facilities. As someone with more than fifteen years of experience in the field of recycling, I can attest that a small fee has been shown again and again to be the most effective way to reduce their use, and the problems they create for recycling facilities and in the natural environment.
James Ecker
Brunswick, MaineABUSING THE SYSTEM
The inmate abuse that Eyal Press exposes in his article on the Florida correctional system is horrifying, and stems from a twenty-year-old law that is almost entirely unrecognized (“Madness,” May 2nd). I’m a civil-rights lawyer, and when I accepted my first inmate-death case, more than fifteen years ago, I assumed that instances of inmate abuse, maltreatment, and in-custody death were relatively rare. Soon, I was inundated with inquiries from grieving relatives of incarcerated people around the country who had died under unusual circumstances. Many victims have not been convicted of a crime of any kind, and are being held in county or municipal jails pending trial; many of them are mentally ill. One of the primary reasons these deaths occur is the Prison Litigation Reform Act, passed by Congress in 1996 for the purpose of preventing courts from “micromanaging” correctional facilities and of curbing “frivolous” lawsuits. The Act vastly restricts the rights of prisoners to sue for relief, and deprives the courts of jurisdiction of hearing most alleged-abuse cases. As a result, inmates experiencing abuse are left without recourse to stop it. Since the law was enacted, lawsuits by prisoners have decreased dramatically even as the prison population has substantially increased. When courts don’t look at cases like the ones that Press mentions, people die.
Edwin S. Budge
Seattle, Washington
According to the latest Bureau of Justice Statistics estimate, fifty-six per cent of inmates in state prisons and forty-five per cent of inmates in federal prisons have mental-health disabilities. But Press’s disturbing story makes it clear that jail is never an appropriate place to “treat” mental illness, especially when such treatment is solitary confinement and other forms of abuse. And yet, as a nation, we fail to fund and provide significant community-based mental-health services for people at risk of incarceration and for prisoners who have been released and are reëntering society. This is particularly shameful because we know which services work: there is a broad consensus among mental-health experts that programs like Assertive Community Treatment (act), supportive housing, intensive case management, peer support, and mental-health-crisis services help keep people with mental illness out of the criminal-justice system.
Emily B. Read
Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law
Washington, D.C.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/06/20/the-mail-june-20-2016
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GOP Senators At Odds With Democrats On Intent For TSCA Bill Provisions
Jun 10, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Two top Senate Republicans are outlining what they say is Congress' intent for implementing major provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reform legislation that is at odds with analysis of the legislation floated by Democratic senators, including how EPA should assess new chemicals for their potential risk to humans.
Senate Environment & Public Works Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK) and panel member David Vitter (R-LA) entered into the June 7 Congressional Record a conversation, in which they asked each other detailed questions about the TSCA bill and the intent behind various provisions. Both senators gave highly specific answers to various provisions of the bill, which cleared the Senate in a voice vote that day.
While some of the clarifications are in line with Democrats' view of the legislation, some of the Republican senators' statements are at odds with conclusions in a written analysis of the bill by four Senate Democrats also included in the June 7 Congressional Record. The Democrats' analysis is signed by EPW ranking member Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and fellow Senate Democrats Edward Markey (MA), Jeff Merkley (OR) and Tom Udall (NM). Udall was an original co-sponsor of the Senate version of TSCA reform along with Vitter.
The dueling analyses signal that both groups of lawmakers want to influence how EPA implements the bill's various provisions. Both analyses could also potentially be cited in future litigation over implementation of the legislation, because it could be a factor in any disputes over Congress' intent when crafting the bill.
The bill, H.R. 2576, is known as the Frank R Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act in honor of the late Sen. Lautenberg (D-NJ) who for years unsuccessfully tried to advance TSCA reform in the Senate.
“Senator Vitter and I rise today to discuss a few provisions in the bill with the desire of clarifying what the Congressional intent was behind specific provisions of the legislation,” said Inhofe on June 7.
Conditions Of Use
For example, they said that the language of the compromise bill makes clear that EPA in pursuing a risk evaluation of whether a chemical presents an “unreasonable risk” has to make safety determinations on all conditions of use for that substance. “To be clear, every condition of use identified by the Administrator in the scope of the risk assessment must, an will be either found to present or not present an unreasonable risk,” Vitter said.
Moreover, if EPA pursues a section 6 risk management rule that targets some, but not all, conditions of use included in the scope of the risk evaluation, the senators say the evaluations and safety determinations for all of the conditions of use, not only those subject to the rulemaking, would be considered final agency actions ripe for judicial review. Section 6 outlines the agency's authority to regulate against unreasonable risks from a chemicals once it has found it does not meet the safety standard.
But the Democrats in their analysis are pushing a broad interpretation of the language on conditions of use that would ensure EPA is able to leave the door open to consider future risks from anticipated uses that may not yet be in practice in evaluating whether chemical's conditions of use pose unreasonable risk.
Citing the bill's new conditions of use definition, that says EPA can consider “reasonably foreseen” conditions the Democrats say the language “explicitly provides such authority and a mandate for EPA to consider conditions of use that are not currently known or intended but can be anticipated to occur.”
New Chemicals
The bill would revise EPA's authority to review new chemicals under section 5, and the Republicans say the changes should not result in major differences in how the agency currently manages risks from new chemicals. Section 5 of the existing TSCA describes EPA's ability to regulate new chemicals, which currently many say is not
Vitter said the “amendments to this section were intended to conform closely with EPA's current practice and maintain the Agency's timely reviews that allow substances to market within the statutory deadlines.”
For example, the bill retains the current 90-day review period for EPA to complete a risk-based decision on a new chemicals, and when insufficient information is available on a new chemical for evaluation, EPA must regulate to the extent necessary to guard against unreasonable risk. “These requirements largely reflect EPA's practice today, under which EPA can allow the new chemical on the market but with limits,” Vitter said.
Vitter said the bill is “very clear” that EPA should not slow or halt its review of new chemicals while it develops any needed new policies, procedures or guidance for implementing the changes to section 5.
But the Democrats, who have touted the bill's changes to the way EPA manages new chemicals as a key tenet of the bill, say in their analysis that the bill would make “significant changes to this passive approach under current law.”
For the first time, they say, EPA would be required to review all new chemicals and significant new uses and make an affirmative finding of safety prior to manufacture, as opposed to current law, which allows such safety reviews but does not mandate them. “Only chemicals and significant new uses that EPA finds are not likely to present an unreasonable risk can enter production without restriction,” the Democrats say in their analysis.
State Preemption
On preemption of existing and future state chemicals programs -- one of the most contentious sections of the bill during negotiations on final legislative text -- the GOP senators seek to highlight the limits on states acting.
States are preempted from taking action on a chemical once EPA has determined that the substance does not pose an unreasonable risk. Potential state actions on high priority chemicals moving through the agency's risk evolution process are also preempted.
But preemption does not apply to the first 10 chemicals EPA is directed to assess under the bill, derived from its 2014 TSCA work plan for addressing risks from chemicals. Preemption would also not apply nor to industry-requested chemicals designated for risk assessment.
Furthermore, the senators say that nothing in the compromise precludes states from offering opinions, advice or comment during the risk evaluation. “It is our hope that states with an interest in a particular chemical substance will in fact bring forward relevant scientific information on chemical hazards, uses and exposures to inform an effective federal decision,” Vitter said. There is also nothing to preclude states from taking action on chemicals that are not undergoing EPA risk evaluations or rulemakings, according to the senators.
In comparison, the Democrats' analysis says the bill “fully preserves”states' ability to impose “information obligation” requirements on manufacturers for chemicals, such as reporting and monitoring requirements. “These may include, but are not limited to, state requirements related to information, such as companies obligations to disclose use information, to provide warnings or to label products or chemicals with certain information regarding risks and recommended actions to reduce exposure or environmental release,” the analysis says.
The senators also cite language in the bill they say provides for both discretionary and mandatory waivers from preemption, though Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) says the preemption provisions are still too broad.
EPA Assessments
The Senate Republicans also say in their analysis that the provisions requiring EPA to base decisions on reviews of chemical substances' safety on the “weight of the scientific evidence,” are intended to deter “cherry-picking” studies with results favorable to the agency, and force a greater level of transparency.
The analysis also says that National Academy of Sciences recommendations on EPA risk assessment -- which largely focused on the Integrated Risk Information System assessments the agency conducts under its research authority apart from TSCA -- should not be the sole basis of the risk evaluations performed under a reformed TSCA.
“Rather, the EPA must conduct chemical assessments consistent with all applicable statutory provisions and agency guidelines, policies and procedures,” Vitter said.
The GOP senators are also seemingly pushing a more narrow interpretation of the new language the bill would add to TSCA to consider possible exposures to sensitive subpopulations when prioritizing, assessing and regulating chemicals.
Inhofe questioned Vitter on whether the language could be read by some to promote the concept of “low dose linearity” or no threshold for many chemicals.
In response, Vitter said the bill seeks to address the concern of “paralysis by analysis” in several ways. For example, the “unreasonable risk” standard itself does not mean “no risk,” but rather that EPA should determine on a case-by-case basis whether risks posed by a substance are reasonable under the circumstances of exposure and use.
The bill also affords EPA the discretion, when reviewing impacts of chemicals, to “identify relevant subpopulations but not does require -- or expect -- that all hypothetical subpopulations be addressed,” Vitter said.
Vitter added that a core objective of the bill introduced by himself and Lautenberg in the past was “never to require the national standard to be protective of every identified subpopulation in every instance.”
Moreover, Vitter writes, it is “clear that the concept of low dose linearity is not firmly established by the science, and the concept is not appropriate to apply as a default in risk evaluations.”
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/gop-senators-odds-democrats-intent-tsca-bill-provisions
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Explainer: Toxic Substances Control Act
Jun 10, 2016 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
Calls to modernise the 40-year-old law regulating chemicals in the US have become louder and louder, amid recognition that it has failed to police the country’s chemicals. However, political bickering has prevented any revamp of the law during several years of contentious negotiations. Meanwhile, about 85,000 chemicals are on the market in the US, with hundreds of new ones introduced every year.How are chemicals regulated in the US at the moment?
The Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) – nicknamed ‘tosca’ by policy wonks – was passed in 1976 in the US following a string of chemical scares in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Tosca was designed to regulate chemicals and gives the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to demand that industry keeps records on the chemicals it uses and produces, and also to restrict their use. The law doesn’t cover drugs, cosmetics and pesticides though, which are regulated by different laws.
Under the current law, a list is kept on every chemical manufactured or used in the US. While no judgment is passed on the toxicity of chemicals on this list, if their name isn’t down they’re not coming in (or made in the US).What’s wrong with the current law?
Currently, tens of thousands of compounds have never been subject to safety tests because they were on the market before the law was passed in 1976. Approximately 62,000 chemicals already on the market were ‘grandfathered’ in when tosca was enacted, and the new law had little power to investigate them. Tosca only requires that chemical manufacturers submit information about the production, use, exposure and environmental fate of new chemicals. Many argue that it falsely equated a lack of any safety data with a lack of risk.
Currently, a new chemical has to be shown to pose an ‘unreasonable risk’ before more information can be requested. Making a call on the risk a chemical poses is difficult to do without more information, however. This had led many observers to call tosca ‘toothless’.Did tosca achieve anything?
During tosca’s 40-year run only a little over 200 chemicals have been assessed out of roughly 85,000 chemical substances in its inventory. Only five chemicals (or classes of chemical) have been banned or restricted under the law: polychlorinated biphenyls, halogenated solvents in aerosols, dioxin waste, hexavalent chromium in air conditioning units and asbestos. In addition, certain uses of three metal working fluids have also been limited.
You may be surprised to learn that despite being targeted under tosca, cancer-causing asbestos is not banned in the US. In 1989, most asbestos products were banned but this was overturned in court in 1991 over a lack of evidence to justify such a broad ban. The court did agree that new asbestos materials could be outlawed though.
The failure to modernise tosca has left individual states trying to fill the void. At least 18 states, most notably California, have introduced stricter chemical controls. It’s estimated that states have together passed dozens or even hundreds of chemical safety laws, creating a confusing ‘patchwork’ of standards across the country.
How does the new law compare with the old?
The new law would, for the first time, require a safety review of all chemicals on the market in the US. Chemical safety assessments will have to be completed to tighter deadlines, with priority given to those substances of most concern. The new tosca has teeth – it gives the US’s environmental agency new powers to obtain information on chemicals, and mandates safety tests before they can be sold.
The reformed law also addresses a controversial aspect of the current law that allows companies to keep some chemical information confidential to protect trade secrets. Chemical manufacturers say such a provision is essential to preserve their competitive advantages, but health and environmental advocates argue that potentially important information is withheld. The new law makes it more difficult for a chemical manufacturer to claim certain data as a trade secret.Sounds good. Why didn’t it happen earlier?
Despite broad agreement that tosca needed fixing, political wrangling halted efforts to reform it. The Democratic sponsors of earlier attempts to re-write it believed that extensive changes were needed to reign in the chemical industry and protect the public and environment. The chemical industry and its advocates, however, thought that the changes they were proposing were too extreme, threatening innovation and trade secrets.
A compromise brokered in 2013 proved popular as it balanced stronger chemical regulation, while promising to protect firms’ trade secrets.
The new tosca is quite a different beast to the EU’s Reach regulation. Under Reach, the burden of showing each new chemical is safe rests on industry, with firms having to conduct and submit testing data. Under tosca this responsibility rests with the EPA.Will the new law fix chemical regulation in the US?
While the tosca revamp removes the major legal hurdles when it comes to evaluating chemicals and restricting their use, some say it won’t fix what ails the current law. They stress that the EPA needs far more money if it is to effectively police the thousands of chemicals on the market.
There are also concerns that tosca 2.0 could actually make it harder to control chemicals by making it more difficult for states to pursue their own tougher laws. Another fear is that the new law may make it harder for firms to be held liable when their products damage the environment or people’s health. Depending on how the issue of the new law’s primacy over states’ own rules is resolved, the revamped tosca could have an impact on people’s ability to sue for personal injury or loss.
There are other practical concerns. Groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists suggest that it could more than 50 years to assess even 1000 of the most toxic chemicals on the market.
The EPA already has a huge backlog of chemicals to address, on top of a steady stream of new ones entering the market. Assessing and regulating these compounds will require many more scientists and technicians and that won’t happen overnight. An expansion of the payroll of the EPA is also something that most Republicans are unlikely to embrace.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2016/06/toxic-substances-control-act-tosca-us-chemical-regulation-explainer
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The Infuriating Reason Why Toxic Chemicals Lurk in Household Products
Jun 13, 2016 | Mother Jones
By Erica Langston
If a divided Congress uniting behind progressive public health legislation sounds too good to be true, that's because it likely is. Last Tuesday, the Senate approved a bill that amends the Toxic Substances Control Act, a decades-old law intended to keep dangerous chemicals out of household and industrial products. The amendment is the first substantial update to chemical oversight since the TSCA was passed 40 years ago, and President Barack Obama is expected to sign it as early as this week. The much-needed update will tighten federal testing and rope in tens of thousands of industrial compounds that were previously unregulated.
But some environmental and public health advocates argue it doesn't go far enough to protect people from toxins found in things like mattresses, baby bottles, andwinter gear, and that it guts states' ability to enact stricter regulations on behalf of their residents. Here's what you need to know about the update—and why it might not be a cure-all for our chemical woes.
The Good: When the TSCA passed in 1976, some 62,000 chemicals already in use were grandfathered in and left unregulated, and since then only a few hundred of those have been tested for health and human safety. Even chemicals that are now known to be carcinogens, like asbestos, BPA, and some flame retardants, have been virtually impossible to regulate. The update will allow the Environmental Protection Agency to begin sifting through a long list of these household and industrial compounds and rein in those that have been out of regulatory reach for far too long.
The Bad: The update concentrates regulatory power at the federal level and prevents states from imposing extra regulations on a compound once the EPA begins reviewing it. This effectively sets a "ceiling" for public health protections,argues the US Public Interest Research Group. And that could be a problem, since state-led campaigns have been regulating toxic chemicals for decades. When BPA, a compound found in everything from pacifiers and sippy cups to medical supplies and food containers, was linked to an increased risk of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, it was state regulators who stepped in to police the chemical industry three years before the Food and Drug Administration announced its own restrictions. Academic scientists and local labs were among the first to find that BPA-free plastics could also be harmful to human health—as plastics makers fought tooth and nail to convince federal regulators otherwise. (Read Mother Jones' investigation into BPA-free plastics here.) Under the update, any state regulations passed after April 2016 will cede to EPA rulings, undercutting local efforts to protect people from hazardous toxins.
The Ugly: By and large, the update doesn't do enough to keep toxic chemicals out of everyday products, according to a statement released by the Physicians for Social Responsibility, an advocacy group. The EPA's efficiency is tied to a fickle budget that ebbs and flows with political tumult and can restrain the agency from reviewing chemicals in a timely manner. Only 20 chemicals will be screened at a time, and they can remain under review for up to seven years before a safety decision is made. Melanie Benesh, a legislative attorney for the Environmental Working Group, a research organization and advocacy group, says it will likely take years to rid harmful substances from products even after new EPA regulations are passed. "Most consumers expect EPA has the power to quickly review the most dangerous chemicals and that the chemicals in their cleaners are at least as safe as chemicals in their food," the EWG wrote in a statement. "The new bill fails to meet that expectation."
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/06/congress-voted-update-toxic-substances-control-act
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MN Environmentalists Want More from New Toxics Rules
Jun 10, 2016 | Public News Sources
By Brandon Campbell
One step forward, two steps back. That's how some Minnesota environmentalists describe new federal rules on toxic substances that could limit the state's own protections.
Congress this week sent a bill to update the Toxic Substances Control Act to President Obama's desk. It's the first update to the act in 40 years, and expands the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to study and test thousands of chemicals.
But Kim LaBo, program organizer with Clean Water Action Minnesota, says the proposed rules would also place new restrictions on how states can manage potentially toxic chemicals.
"Right now states can act," says LaBo. "That kind of quick action would be blocked when the EPA is assessing a chemical and then when they make a final determination states can't enact anything stronger than what the EPA has ruled."
LaBo says Minnesota has passed at least eight laws in recent years, which protect families from toxic chemicals, including formaldehyde in consumer products. She says those moves would be undermined by the new rules, if they're made law by the president.
The Environmental Defense Fund, however, says the new toxics rules are a small step in the right direction, because they'll allow theEnvironmental Protection Agency to work through a backlog of tens of thousands of untested chemicals. But LaBo says the EPA only will be required to assess 20 chemicals at a time, which could leave future generations vulnerable.
"The schedule of chemical assessments could be a lot more aggressive," says LaBo. "Twenty chemicals at a time is really not a serious schedule."
Other environmental protection advocates, including U-S PIRG, say the bill takes away states’ ability to protect public health. President Obama has indicated that he will sign Toxic Substances Control Act.http://www.publicnewsservice.org/2016-06-10/toxics/mn-environmentalists-want-more-from-new-toxics-rules/a52325-1
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Group Worries New Toxin Rules Will Hurt State
Jun 12, 2016 | Jacksonville Journal Courier
By Brandon Campbell
One step forward, two steps back.
That’s how some Illinois environmentalists describe new federal rules on toxic substances that could limit the state’s own protections.
Congress last week sent a bill to update the Toxic Substances Control Act to President Barack Obama’s desk. It’s the first update to the act in 40 years, and expands the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to study and test thousands of chemicals.
But Abe Scarr, director for the Illinois Public Interest Research Group, says the proposed rules would also place new restrictions on how states can manage potentially toxic chemicals.
“It does take some good steps in the right direction,” he says. “It creates a better framework for toxic chemical regulation, which is sorely, sorely needed. But in the process of doing that, it had set a ceiling on what states can do, and we think federal regulations should be a floor, not a ceiling.”
Scarr says Illinois has passed laws that protect families from toxic chemicals in consumer products. He says those moves would be undermined by the new rules, if they’re made law by the president.
The new toxins rules will allow the EPA to work through a backlog of tens of thousands of untested chemicals. But the agency will only be required to assess 20 chemicals at a time.
Scarr is hopeful this is just the first step in enacting stronger protections in the future.
“It has been decades since Congress has taken action to improve our federal toxic laws,” he says. “So, hopefully, now that we’ve become unstuck we’ll be able to continue improving our toxic laws at the federal level and create even stronger protections for consumers.”
Environmental protection advocates are asking Obama not to sign the new rules. Instead, they are urging lawmakers to revise the proposal to keep state authority intact.
http://myjournalcourier.com/news/96538/group-worries-new-toxin-rules-will-hurt-state
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Dow Chemical Commends Congress for New Chemical Safety Regulations
Jun 10, 2016 | Midland Daily News
By Jessica Haynes
Michigan’s U.S. senators and The Dow Chemical Co. are applauding the recent passage of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, the first change to the Toxic Substances Control Act in 40 years that revises the regulation of chemicals.
Proponents of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, also known in Congress as H.R. 2576 and S.697, say it helps modernize the Toxic Substances Control Act while also strengthening it. It was first introduced in March 2015, and has gone through multiple stops in both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Andrew Liveris, Dow’s chairman and CEO, commended the senators who sponsored the legislation back in 2015 and remained dedicated to the “bipartisan legislation that allows U.S. manufacturers to continue to provide innovative solutions made possible today through advanced chemistry.”
“This landmark legislation will fundamentally reform our nation’s chemical regulatory program, restore confidence in the safety of chemicals and provide companies like Dow with the regulatory certainty necessary to drive investment,” Liveris said in a company press release.
According to Congress.gov, the bill repeals a requirement that the Environmental Protection Agency apply the least burdensome means of adequately protecting against unreasonable risk from chemicals.
It also revises the EPA’s authority to require the development of new information about a chemical by establishing a risk-based screening process.
In a statement published on her website, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said the overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act will help “protect families and provide certainty to businesses in Michigan and across the country.”
“Today’s overhaul of this outdated law will protect. As one of the earliest supporters of efforts to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act, I have been working hard to get this vital update across the finish line. Today’s vote is an important step forward that will help keep our families safe,” the statement read.
Stabenow was one of the original cosponsors of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which is named for the late New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg.
U.S. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., is listed as a cosponsor of the legislation on Congress.gov.
http://www.ourmidland.com/news/dow-chemical-commends-congress-for-new-chemical-safety-regulations/article_18efcc64-20b2-551d-87d2-a26484e767ee.html
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Editorial: Thank Udall for Needed Chemical Safety Reforms
Jun 12, 2016 | Albuquerque Journal
By Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board
In the near future, when “you go into the grocery store or hardware store, (you can be confident) you are buying a product that has been tested by somebody to be safe.”And you can thank Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M. Because before he took up the mantle of chemical safety legislation, that safety assurance was “not true, and this bill will make it true.”
Udall is co-sponsor of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. The legislation, which passed the House by a landslide and the Senate with a near-unanimous voice vote, now awaits President Obama’s signature. It will finally update the 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act, giving the Environmental Protection Agency new powers to test 85,000 chemicals currently in use and authority to review the approximately 750-1,500 new chemicals that emerge annually before they go on the market.
Chemical safety should be a nonpolitical issue – ask anyone who lives near the Kirtland Air Force Base jet-fuel plume or the Gold King Mine river spill. Udall has worked with co-sponsor Sen. David Vitter, R-La., on the legislation since Sen. Lautenberg’s death in 2013.
New Mexico’s senior senator says “it may surprise you, but the vast majority of states across the country do not have a regulatory mechanism. They haven’t spent the dollars and the time; they’ve relied on the federal scheme – which hasn’t been working.”
Udall understands his bill will only work as well as its implementation, and he emphasizes “the real job for the EPA is only beginning.” Yet having the EPA assess chemical safety based on risk to public health and the environment rather than economics is an important new bottom line.
And New Mexico’s senators – fellow Democrat Sen. Martin Heinrich also co-sponsored the bill – deserve credit for carrying it.
This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
http://www.abqjournal.com/790427/thank-udall-for-needed-chemical-safety-reforms.html
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Our View: Chemical Safety Bill Shows How Laws Can be Made
Jun 11, 2016 | Santa Fe New Mexican
In a Washington where so little is accomplished, passing groundbreaking legislation to reform chemical safety in a bipartisan fashion is just this side of a miracle.
At the center of this landmark legislation was New Mexico Sen. Tom Udall, who helped bring together the many sides of this issue to put together a law that will make Americans safer. President Barack Obama has said he will sign the legislation, which was passed by both the House and the Senate, and overhauls the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act.
Named the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety 21st Century Act, the overhaul will correct what is wrong with current law — namely, that it allows tens of thousands of chemicals to reach the consumer market without being evaluated for safety. The bill was named after Lautenberg, a former New Jersey senator who championed reform of the 1976 law. He died in 2013 and wasn’t able to see final passage. But Udall and his Republican partner, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, continued working (with House colleagues as well) to improve the legislation so that Americans will be protected from harmful chemicals.
It’s hard to believe, but the new legislation is the first-ever reform of the 40-year law designed to regulate the safety of chemicals manufactured and used in products that are part of our daily lives (think baby bottles, car seats, couches and the like). The last of the golden age of bills protecting consumers and the environment, the Toxic Substances Control Act was rendered almost toothless in 1991 by a court decision blocking an Environmental Protection Agency move to ban asbestos. The law no longer worked as intended, to protect people.
Yet, with Republicans and Democrats so far apart on issues and special interest groups weighing in, reaching any sort of consensus had long seemed impossible. Business interests didn’t want the regulatory oversight. Environmentalists wanted strict monitoring, the kind that many Republicans instinctively oppose. Udall, in his calm but firm manner, managed to keep people talking over the months and years it took to build final legislation (which, by the way, focuses on consumer products; chemicals used in agriculture fall under different regulations).
“Most Americans believe that when they buy a product at the hardware store or the grocery store, that product has been tested and determined to be safe,” Udall said after the Senate passed his legislation. “But that isn’t the case. Americans are exposed to hundreds of chemicals. We carry them around with us in our bodies — even before we’re born. Some are known carcinogens; others are highly toxic. But we don’t know the full extent of how they affect us because they have never been tested. And without a working federal safety program, states like New Mexico have no protection. When this bill becomes law, there will finally be a cop on the beat.”
He kept in mind the real goal of this legislation — protecting Americans. At a meeting in Santa Fe earlier this month, Udall and Mayor Javier Gonzales walked through Indigo Baby, an organic clothing store that works hard to offer affordable, safe merchandise (and not coincidentally, goods made by area manufacturers who maintain better safety measures). Owner Katie Hyde explained her philosophy that she wanted goods to be safe, whether wooden toys made by a family from Questa or cotton clothes made in Albuquerque that won’t irritate a baby’s skin. It was a look at a world that could be — affordable, safe products at every store. With new chemical legislation requiring more evaluation of products, products in all stores will be safe and affordable.
Under the new law, the EPA will be required to protect the most vulnerable, including children, the elderly, pregnant women and chemical workers. The agency will have new authority to order testing and to ensure that chemicals are safe, focusing on known carcinogens and toxic substances. Scientists will review chemicals before, not after, they hit market. It’s essential, of course, that the EPA has the resources to do its work — this bill will make industry giants pay some $25 million a year toward that goal. What’s more, there will be room for states to act on chemicals, including authority on chemicals where the EPA has not acted.
Importantly for small states like New Mexico, more action from the EPA safeguards its citizens. Unlike big states like California, New Mexico has not had the ability to monitor or regulate chemicals, leaving citizens without protection. This legislation changes the playing field.
It does so in a climate of mistrust and a massive failure of the two parties to work together. Yet Tom Udall, working with conservative Vitter, managed to put together a strong law that protects men, women and children, regulates powerful interests and finds a way to pay for enforcement. This is what government is supposed to do — improve the lives of citizens, safeguard the vulnerable and hold powerful interests accountable. We look forward to President Obama signing this legislation and to more bipartisan work coming out of Washington. Udall and his partners have shown what is possible. More, please.
http://www.santafenewmexican.com/opinion/editorials/our-view-chemical-safety-bill-shows-how-laws-can-be/article_50ef9950-ce0c-51de-bc86-2dfc2ea789e2.html
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California Resets Maximum Dose Level Process for Six Triazines
Jun 13, 2016 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has replaced its proposal to set a maximum allowable dose level (MADL) for six triazines chemicals.
In two separate notices, the agency gave notification that it was not proceeding on its 12 June 2015 MADLproposal, and issued a new proposed rulemaking to establish MADLs for the six substances.
The new proposal – like the withdrawn original – calls for an MADL of 100 micrograms per day for:atrazine;propazine;simazine;2,4-diamino-6-chloro-s-triazine (DACT);des-ethyl atrazine (DEA); anddes-isopropyl atrazine (DIA).
A legal challenge to the listing of the chemicals as reproductive toxicants under Proposition 65 delayed the original rulemaking. This prevented the agency from completing it in a one-year period, as required by law.
With regard to the ongoing litigation, judgement was entered in favour of Oehha on 8 April in the matter of Syngenta v Oehha. The company has appealed the decision and requested a stay on the listing of the chemicals.
A decision has not yet been reached by the Court of Appeals The agency does plan to complete the process for establishing safe harbour levels for the substances, should a stay on their listing not be put in place by the court.
Comments on the proposed MADLs will be accepted until 25 July.
https://chemicalwatch.com/47980/california-resets-maximum-dose-level-process-for-six-triazines
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Study: Drinking Water ‘Important Source' of Fluorochemical Exposure
Jun 13, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Rachel Leven
Drinking water can be a significant source of human exposure to certain potential carcinogens, and the issue should become a research priority, a recent study by the state of California said.
The study, conducted by the California Department of Toxic Substances, the Cancer Prevention Institute of California and six other organizations, examined 1,566 California women. Those who drank water with perfluoralkyl acids (PFAA) at levels above those in a recently issued federal advisory had roughly 30 percent to 40 percent higher concentrations of those chemicals in their blood than those who drank water without detectable amounts of the chemicals, the study said.
This is the first study to demonstrate a PFAA association between blood levels and drinking water supplies not previously identified as contaminated, it said.
One expert said the study highlights the need to limit use of these chemicals in the first place.
“This study shows that toxic and highly persistent fluorochemicals are making their way from drinking water into California women's bodies,” Arlene Blum, executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute, said in a June 10 statement. “It underscores the importance of reducing the use of these chemicals whenever possible to protect our drinking water and our health.”
The study focused on concentrations in drinking water of chemicals, including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) that were previously used to make non-stick products such as cookware.
PFOA, PFOS
In May, the Environmental Protection Agency issued lifetime drinking water health advisories of 0.07 microgram per liter for individual or combined exposure to PFOA and PFOS, as public concern has mounted over these chemicals.
These nonbinding limits are intended to guide local water systems, states and others in determining the concentrations of the highly fluorinated chemicals in drinking water that are considered safe for public health.
The study was authored by Susan Hurley, Erika Houtz and nine others and titled “Preliminary Associations Between the Detection of Perfluoroalkyl Acids (PFAAs) in Drinking Water and Serum Concentrations in a Sample of California Women.” It had several limitations ranging from data to lack of information related to participants' water consumption, it said.
The study was published June 6 in the journal Environmental Science and Technology Letters.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=91471039&vname=dennotallissues&fn=91471039&jd=91471039
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Scientist: We Could Be Inhaling Microplastics Laden With Chemicals
Jun 10, 2016 | Epoch Times
By Jim Liao
Microplastics, or microbeads, are small plastic particles generally defined as being smaller than 5mm and originating from the disintegration of larger plastic. The particles are also used as ingredients in industrial processes, such as in the creation of shampoo.
The harm microplastics have wrought upon the marine environment is well-known, but a new report suggests the plastics could also be contaminating the air we breathe.
Frank Kelly, an environmental health professor, introduced a report to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) in the U.K. on May 24.
“When you [farmers] spread slurry on fields, it dries out,” Kelly said. “You end up having microplastics lying on the surface of the field.”
Kelly said it’s possible these particles are then brought into the air and we end up breathing them.
“The particles are of a size that they are [breathable],” Kelly added. “They are increasing in number in our environment and there is a question to be asked.”
The particles can bring considerable harm to the human respiratory system, said Kelly. Inhaling them can draw harmful chemicals into the lower part of the lungs as well as in the body’s circulation, a consequence comparable to vehicle emissions.
Plastics also contain chemicals known to interfere with human hormones. In addition, they are known for being “magnets” that attract other harmful chemicals.
In the marine environment, the plastic pieces are often able to bypass water treatment plants due to their small size. When they then enter bodies of water, they are often consumed by fish, birds, and other aquatic organisms. Since the plastics often contain dangerous chemicals that seep into the animal, this poses not only a problem for the animals, but for the humans higher up the food chain that consume the seafood.Some Are Skeptical
Not everyone is ready to accept that we’re breathing plastics just yet. Some members of the committee were taken aback by the idea, The Independentreported.
“This sounds like a very serious issue,” committee member Rebecca Pow said. “We’re not laughing about it, we’re laughing hysterically.”
Dr. Erik van Sebille, of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London, told the committee that plastic was a “fantastic material and we really wouldn’t want a society without plastic any more.”
He did add that plastic waste should probably be curtailed in order to reduce contamination of the natural environment.
Further studies are pending, regarding whether the plastic pieces are in the air, but the general public is already opposed to usage of the particles in manufacturing.
In 2015, U.S. president Barack Obama signed a bill that banned the use of microbeads in cosmetics.
A poll in the U.K. earlier this year also showed that two-thirds of the British public wished to follow suit and ban microbeads.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2087885-scientist-we-could-be-inhaling-microplastics-laden-with-chemicals/
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ECHA Refers Hazardous Chemical Decisions
Jun 13, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) said June 10 that it will forward to the European Commission two decisions on the listing of hazardous chemicals as “substances of very high concern” (SVHC) under the European Union's REACH law.
The agency is authorized to finalize decisions on designating chemicals as SVHCs if there is unanimous agreement in an ECHA committee of EU member country experts. When unanimity is lacking, however, the decision must be made by the commission, the EU's executive arm.
The chemicals agency said Denmark and Sweden had proposed the plasticizer dicyclohexyl phthalate (DCHP) for listing as an SVHC on the basis of its reprotoxic and endocrine-disrupting properties, but not all expert committee members supported the proposal for endocrine disruption.
Germany proposed as an SVHC the cosmetics ingredient 3-benzylidene camphor on the basis of its endocrine-disrupting properties, but a minority of committee members “requested more conclusive evidence,” ECHA said.
According to the dossiers the countries prepared, DCHP and 3-benzylidene camphor are low-volume substances with limited information on their use in the EU.
SVHC designation under REACH (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals) triggers an obligation to notify the chemicals agency of companies that supply products containing the substance above a volume of 0.1 percent by weight. So far, 168 substances have been designated substances of very high concern.
SVHC listing also can be a step toward prohibiting the use of a substance in the EU. So far, 31 SVHCs have been included in Annex XIV of REACH, meaning they are subject to phaseout decisions and cannot be used without specific continued-use authorizations.
Under REACH, the commission should prepare its decision on the listing of DCHP and 3-benzylidene camphor as SVHCs within three months.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=91471020&vname=dennotallissues&fn=91471020&jd=91471020
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(ACC Mentioned) Ohio Drillers Could Cash in from Shell Facility
Jun 12, 2016 | Cleveland Business
By Dan Shingler
While regional natural gas prices remain among the lowest in the world, Ohio drillers got some promising news this month about the construction of pipelines and, more significantly, a big ethane cracker.
Royal Dutch Shell finally said it has decided to move forward with its $4 billion ethane cracker near the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pa.
The massive facility is expected to employ 6,000 during three or four years of construction and 600 to run it afterward. But it has the potential to impact both drillers and Northeast Ohio’s plastics and specialty chemical industries in far bigger ways, which is why economic developers and the oil and gas industry have both seen getting one built here as the ultimate victory in exploiting the state’s newfound shale resources.
The American Chemistry Council was quick to applaud the announcement, which the group’s president and CEO, Cal Dooley, called “another sign that a renaissance in American chemistry is underway. … Our competitive edge will mean new jobs and exports and a stronger manufacturing sector for years to come.”
Shell’s facility would take massive amounts of ethane — the chief product of Utica and Marcellus shale gas wells, aside from methane — and turn it into ethylene. Ethylene, in turn, is used to make polyethylene. They are two of the chief ingredients of a low-cost plastics and specialty chemical industry.
“Ethane, a natural gas liquid, is the U.S. chemical industry’s main feedstock,” according to the ACC.
For places like Akron and other parts of Northeast Ohio, which are laden with businesses and technology institutions dedicated to the chemical and plastics industries, the development of Shell’s cracker would have about the same effect as moving their source of raw materials from the Gulf Coast to a site closer than Pittsburgh, economists say.
Industry backers and government officials in Ohio and western Pennsylvania say the facility will bolster the region’s existing industry and help it expand as more companies and production facilities locate here to take advantage of the new raw materials. And Northeast Ohio is a lot closer to more of the U.S. population than the Gulf region, which helps when these same companies ship their finished products, or so the logic goes.A little help here
For drillers, the facility could be a virtual lifeline.
Ohio drillers are suffering from having too few pipelines causing their gas to be “shut in” to the region and its world’s-worst prices. Also problematic is that the gas they do bring up is “wet” with ethane. That’s a good thing, if ethane prices are high and there’s a ready buyer. But with low prices and no large cracker complex nearby, Ohio drillers often have had to pay more to remove and ship their ethane than they get selling it — because if they don’t, they often can’t send their gas through a pipeline without doing so.
Shell’s cracker would take up much of the region’s ethane and turn it into valuable raw materials. It also could start a chain reaction resulting in other cracker’s being built, once other investors see that the region has a working ethane supply chain and productive drillers.
“It’s a great announcement. By the time the (drilling) industry picks back up and has its feet under it again, it will be built, and that’s a good thing,” said Shawn Bennett, executive vice president of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association.
“The benefits are going to span across the region,” Bennett predicted. “Just being within the proximity of the ethane cracker is going to spin off huge opportunities in the downstream sector. A number of manufacturing opportunities are going to pop up, as well as the stuff that’s already here.”
But, projects like the one Shell plans to build don’t quickly spring from the ground like gushers. The company said it will begin construction in about 18 months and complete the facility sometime in the 2020s, so drillers are expecting to wait five or six years before they are selling to it regularly and in high volumes. Even Bennett conceded that the industry could go from bust to boom and back again before the new cracker comes online.In the pipeline
Meanwhile, one thing the oil and gas industry hopes will help it in Ohio is the development of more pipelines to take natural gas to markets with prices better than the $1 to $2 per mcf drillers get in Appalachia, and to take their ethane to the Gulf Coast for processing.
On that front, about 175 industry participants got some upbeat updates from pipeline developers last Wednesday, June 8, at the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Midstream conference.
Erika Young, project director for Texas-based Spectra Energy, said her company’s proposed Nexus pipeline is on track to be built and online by the end of 2017. The $2 billion, 255-mile line would be three feet or more in diameter and deliver up to 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day to Ontario, Canada, as well as to customers in Michigan and Northwest Ohio.
The project has met with opposition in places like Green and Medina County, where officials and residents say it will stifle development because nothing can be built along its route, and also present a danger to populated areas.
Young and other Spectra representatives have assured opponents the pipeline will be safe. But many residents aren’t convinced. It didn’t help that another Spectra pipeline in Pennsylvania blew up in April, engulfing several homes in flames and creating an explosion residents said they felt 6 miles away.
Opponents also say there’s no reason the Nexus pipeline needs to go through more populated areas of northern Ohio, but Young said it does. She contends the company has important customers signed up along that portion of the route, though she did not name them.
“Being able to serve these markets is critical to the project,” Young said.
She also said her company has received the important go-aheads it needs from federal regulators to proceed with the project so far and is “marching along on target with our schedule.”Springing into action
The Canton group also got reports that two other pipelines — Marathon’s Cornerstone line and Energy Transfer’s Rover Pipeline — are moving ahead. Marathon commercial development senior engineer Jason Stechschulte said his company’s line will begin carrying natural gas liquids from processing plants in eastern Ohio to its Canton refinery later this year.
Energy Transfer will begin work on its Rover project late this year. The company expects the line will begin operating in Ohio by the middle of 2017 and will deliver up to 3.5 billion cubic feet of gas per day from the Utica and Marcellus shale plays to markets across the United States and Canada.
All of the projects are sorely needed, said Bennett of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. Drilling has virtually stopped in Ohio, with the state only issuing 16 drilling permits in May, down from 40 in May 2015. Drillers in the state have had to sell their gas on the cheap, at prices far lower than they could receive in other parts of the country.
“What the Appalachian basin has lacked is end-users,” Bennett said.
But he thinks the new cracker and pipelines will help.
“A lot of people looked at oil and gas as the answer to problems in eastern Ohio, in terms of unemployment,” Bennett said. “I’ve always looked at oil and gas more as the springboard. … The long-term effects of the gas and that cracker are going to be multi-generational, in terms of jobs and opportunities.”
http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20160612/NEWS/160619957/ohio-drillers-could-cash-in-from-shell-facility
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Sit-Down Aims to Smooth Pre-Conference Tension
Jun 13, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Geof Koss
Top House and Senate lawmakers are expected to huddle this week and talk about how the much-anticipated energy conference committee would unfold, as Democratic concerns threaten to sink the legislative push before it gets off the ground.
Senate Energy Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said Thursday that she was optimistic the huddle with ranking member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and the pair's House counterparts on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), would help clear the air over the conference process (E&E Daily, June 9).
"Our staffs have been working to try to pull some things together, but it doesn't happen till we get everyone sitting down," she said.
A vote to go to conference isn't expected in the Senate before that meeting, the timing of which Murkowski said had not been set as of last week.
Democrats have taken a dismal view of the House's revised energy bill over the inclusion of multiple bills that have drawn veto threats from the White House.
Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.), the ranking member on the Energy and Power Subcommittee that wrote much of the House bill, said Friday that Democrats in the House are "vehemently opposed" to the House measure. "Very few of our concerns were addressed," he said in an interview.
The bulk of House Democrats voted against going to conference, and Rush said Senate Democrats should follow suit.
"I don't think the Democrats in the Senate should support it," he said.
However, describing himself as an "eternal optimist," Rush said there's a "slight chance" of improving the bill in conference if members "are sincere in making improvements, but right now it's a long shot."
GOP aides have said that Senate Democrats want some items taken out of consideration for the conference, but House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) dismissed that idea Friday.
"Those decisions need to be worked out in the conference committee," he said. "Any kind of 'pre-workout' is silly."
Former Energy Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) last week suggested he was open to going to conference (E&E Daily, June 8), and committee member Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) on Friday signaled he was open to supporting the vote, as well -- provided there were some procedural assurances.
"As long as the conference was set up in a way that we could make sure that we can have an open, free conference and not just people that aren't on our committee will be calling the shots," he told E&E Daily. "That's where we are."
Murkowski aides have said that she, as conference chairwoman, plans a process that mirrors the manner in which the committee's bipartisan bill (S. 2012) was assembled -- with bipartisan cooperation. Murkowski has repeatedly noted that the president's veto pen hangs over any provisions the conference would produce (E&E Daily, June 7).
Her staff outlined a process in which less controversial matters in the bills would be addressed early on, with more contentious issues saved for later. Should agreement remain elusive on the thorniest matters, they could be set aside entirely.
Possible issues that may be given early consideration are workforce provisions in both the House and Senate bills.
The House bill includes some workforce provisions championed by Rush, who acknowledged their inclusion "makes it a little bit more difficult to me" to oppose the conference.
"But overall, in general, it's a horrible bill," he said.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/06/13/stories/1060038674
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Week Ahead: Lawmakers Turn Focus to EPA Spending
Jun 13, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress will work in the coming week on contentious spending bills for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Interior Department.
The full Appropriations Committee in the House is planning to vote on its bill and consider amendments Wednesday.
The $32.1 billion legislation was unveiled in May, and the subcommittee that wrote it approved itshortly after.
The bill takes aim squarely at President Obama's environmental priorities. It would cut $64 million from last year's levels and block funding for major regulations on power plant emissions, water pollution and coal mining.
The bill enjoys strong support among Republicans, who want to rein in Obama's environmental regulations. Democrats are ardently opposed, and are likely to introduce numerous amendments at the committee meeting to try to undo some of the top GOP requests in the bill.
The EPA and Interior spending bill in the upper chamber, though, is playing out differently.
The Senate Appropriations Committee is due to unveil its proposed Interior and EPA bill and move it through both subcommittee and committee.
Last year's bill tried to defund major environmental regulations. But each appropriations bill unveiled in the Senate so far this year has been bipartisan and free of policy riders, and the Interior and EPA bill is likely to follow suit.
The subcommittee with jurisdiction over the bill, headed by Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), will consider it Tuesday, and the full committee is due to act Thursday.
Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, the House Oversight Committee will meet Tuesday to examineallegations of misconduct and unethical behavior at the National Park Service (NPS).
On the agenda are numerous misconduct reports from the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General, including allegations surrounding conflicts of interest, sexual misconduct, improper contract steering and more.
NPS Director Jonathan Jarvis will testify, along with acting Inspector General Mary Kendall.
The House Natural Resources Committee has a full slate of items on its agenda for the week.
It will hold subcommittee hearings on a bill to establish an Interior Department stakeholder committee on royalty policy, hearings on a pair of bills regarding American Indian tribes and the Bureau of Land Management's land planning regulations, as well as a full committee markup.
On the Senate side, the Energy and Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing Tuesday on pipeline infrastructure and the "economic, safety, environmental, permitting, construction and maintenance" considerations associated with them.
The next day, that panel's subcommittee on national parks will meet to debate dozens of bills in its jurisdiction.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/283067-week-ahead-lawmakers-turn-focus-to-epa-spending
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Fight Over Riders Returns with Bicameral Interior-EPA Action
Jun 13, 2016 | E&E Daily
By Sean Reilly, Phil Taylor and Tiffany Stecker
This week, both House and Senate appropriators are voting on their respective drafts of next year's spending legislation for U.S. EPA, the Interior Department and the Forest Service.
While the two camps are likely to be relatively close on overall funding allocations for fiscal 2017, they could take dramatically different paths in their approach to policy issues.
The full House Appropriations Committee, for example, will be taking up a subcommittee-passedbill that keeps total spending near this year's $32 billion level.
But the measure is again studded with riders seeking to stymie a host of administration priorities, from regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions to endangered species reviews for the sage grouse.
Pushing policy riders was a strategy that Senate Republicans also enthusiastically embraced last year. This year, perhaps, not so much.
The Senate Appropriations Committee plans to release a summary of its latest spending bill and hold a subcommittee markup tomorrow. The full panel will take up the language Thursday.
While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a member of the Interior and Environment Subcommittee, last year claimed credit for key riders, a spokesman declined to say Friday whether he intends to follow a similar route in this round.
Subcommittee Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) hedged last week, telling E&E Daily that she was striving to craft a bipartisan bill but was unsure whether contentious issues would arise during the markup (E&E Daily, June 10).
But both the subcommittee's top Democrat, Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico, and another senior member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), said they knew of no controversial riders in the base bill.
Outside players with a stake in the outcome will be watching closely. The House bill, for example, would block EPA from implementing its Clean Power Plan and using the social cost of carbon calculation.
The legislation would also bar EPA from using any money next year to pursue new limits on methane emissions from oil and gas facilities.
On Friday, the Center for Methane Emissions Solutions, which describes itself as a voice for businesses involved in efforts to curb methane releases, issued a news release that stopped short of taking a stance on the EPA regulations, but said work on curbing leaks of the potent greenhouse gas could be "a win-win-win for the industry, economy and environment."
A spokesman for Heritage Action, a conservative advocacy group that champions the use of appropriations riders to battle the administration, could not be reached for comment Friday.
This week's twin markups are only early steps in a long, grinding march that will almost certainly last past the beginning of fiscal 2017 in October.
The House version of the Interior-EPA bill, which also covers agencies like the Smithsonian Institution, would carve out $32.1 billion in funding for 2017, about $1 billion below the White House's request but close to this year's threshold.
The top-line number for the Senate measure will probably not be much different, said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a spending watchdog group.EPA, water
Under the House bill, EPA would receive $7.98 billion next year, about a 2 percent cut from the current level and well below the administration's $8.26 billion request.
One target is the agency's regulatory programs, which would be cut by $43 million from this year's level and $187 million below the White House proposal.
Some initiatives would buck the downward trend. Spending for two relatively small grant programs -- one to reduce diesel emissions and the other to improve air quality in particularly polluted locales -- would double under the House bill (E&E Daily, May 25).
Also getting slightly more money than the president requested are the Clean Water and Drinking Water state revolving funds, which would receive $2.07 billion under the House bill.
House appropriators would set aside $1 billion for the Clean Water SRF, which helps fund upgrades to stormwater and sewage treatment systems.
The number is slightly more than the $979.5 million in Obama's budget request and just below the current spending level of $1.018 billion.
The drinking water fund, which pays for state-run loan programs for water system repairs, would receive $1.07 billion, a 24 percent increase from the $863 million appropriated for fiscal 2016.
Even though clean water projects are typically more expensive than drinking water projects, the ongoing lead contamination crisis in Flint, Mich., has shifted the attention to the latter.
The bill would fund the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) at $50 million, marking the first time the loan program would be funded since it was enacted in 2014.
WIFIA creates a pilot program to use Treasury bonds for multimillion-dollar projects. The president's budget requested only $20 million -- $15 million for loans and $5 million for administration..
In addition, the House legislation would allocate $109.7 million for state grants to improve operations and oversight of drinking water programs, a $7.7 million increase above current spending levels.
It would also set aside $6.5 million for integrated planning activities, agreements between communities and EPA to help bring communities into compliance with the Clean Water Act.
House appropriators added a number of water policy riders, similar to provisions in the fiscal 2017 energy and water spending bill. The most prominent one would block EPA from making changes to the definition of "navigable waters" under the Clean Water Act.Interior, Forest Service
Members of the House and Senate spending panels will wrestle with key questions over the funding and management of federal lands controlled by Interior and the Forest Service, with likely partisan flare-ups over energy development, roads, conservation and wildfires.
Much of the attention will focus on the forthcoming Senate bill, particularly how it would fund wildfires and the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
Last year's Senate Interior-EPA spending legislation would have provided a first-ever fire cap adjustment to prevent the practice of fire borrowing in severe wildfire years.
The language was a partial victory for the Obama administration and logging and conservation groups that have sought to prevent borrowing to spend more on tree harvests and restoration.
But House appropriators did not follow suit, and the year-end omnibus spending measure contained no structural reforms to how wildfires are funded.
This year's appropriation effort comes weeks after Murkowski and a bipartisan cadre of Western senators released the draft "Wildfire Budgeting, Response and Forest Management Act," which would seek to both end fire borrowing and streamline permitting for logging projects that mitigate wildfire severity (E&E Daily, May 26).
It remains unclear which wildfire and logging reform language the Senate spending bill will adopt, if any.
Conservation and sportsmen's groups will be watching closely for how appropriations fund LWCF, the government's main program for acquiring new lands, preserving private lands and helping states fund local recreation projects.
Last year's omnibus provided $450 million for LWCF, a nearly 50 percent boost over the previous year. The House bill would cut funding to $322 million and shift more money to states, a policy direction Murkowski favors. The White House has asked for $475 million in discretionary funding for LWCF in fiscal 2017.
Senate appropriators will find it a challenge to maintain current LWCF funding levels given that the panel's overall spending allowance is $134 million less than fiscal 2016. Advocates also expect the Senate to fund payments in lieu of taxes, a roughly $450 million county assistance program, in its bill.
Murkowski in March balked at the Obama administration's request for $425 million in mandatory spending for LWCF and $1.5 billion in mandatory spending over three years for the National Park Service centennial.
"Don't get me wrong -- I will work with the administration and my colleagues on a responsible, bipartisan National Park Service centennial bill, but the $1.5 billion proposal put forward here is simply unrealistic," Murkowski said in March.Land riders
While it's unclear how many policy riders the panel will include in its bill, a top priority for Murkowski is undoubtedly the approval of a road through the Izembek National Wildlife Refuge, which she successfully slipped into her 2016 spending bill but failed to pass in the omnibus.
Murkowski has made construction of the 10-mile gravel road a central plank of her public lands platform, calling it a critical lifeline for residents in the remote community of King Cove, Alaska, to access medical care in emergencies.
Critics including Interior Secretary Sally Jewell -- who officially rejected it in December 2013 -- say there are better transportation solutions than slicing a road through designated wilderness that provides key habitat for migratory birds.
The House bill, as it stands, would block a major Bureau of Land Management rule to curb the escape of natural gas from drilling operations on federal lands in the West and would prevent the agency from hiking royalty rates for oil, gas or coal.
It would also require the Fish and Wildlife Service to reissue rules removing Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in Wyoming and the Great Lakes, among other policy riders.
One key authority the bill has not touched is the president's ability to designate national monuments under the Antiquities Act. Republicans have long complained that the 1906 law vests too much power in the White House to permanently ban activities like drilling, mining and road building on federal lands.
As President Obama considers designating additional monuments in or near Republican congressional districts in Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon, it's likely the issue will arise as the House spending bill advances.
Last summer, the full House voted 222-206 for a Republican amendment to the 2016 spending bill that would restrict agencies from implementing a presidential monument designation in several Western states. Negotiators nixed the language from the omnibus.
Another issue is the sage grouse. While the House panel's bill would bar FWS from listing the bird under ESA, many Western Republicans would like the bill also to roll back sage grouse land-use plans by the BLM and Forest Service that industry groups have criticized as overly restrictive. The full committee markup or House floor action may offer an opportunity to pass such an amendment.
Separately, the House bill would block the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement from pushing ahead with its stream protection rule.
Schedule: The House Appropriations Committee markup is Wednesday, June 15, at 9:30 a.m. in 2359 Rayburn.
Schedule: The Senate subcommittee markup is Tuesday, June 14, at 9:30 a.m. in 124 Dirksen.
Schedule: The Senate full committee markup is Thursday, June 16, at 10:30 a.m. in 106 Dirksen.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/06/13/stories/1060038684
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House GOP takes aim at Federal Power Act
Jun 10, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey
House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans today complained to the nation's top energy regulator about "persistent and pervasive" problems in competitive markets and questioned whether the Federal Power Act is flexible enough to accommodate a new energy landscape.
Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) also hinted at the need for far-reaching reform of the nation's power markets in a letter to Norman Bay, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
House Republicans have for months expressed alarm about a growing number of nuclear and coal plant closures. Upton and Whitfield outlined a host of changes occurring in the markets -- environmental regulations like the Clean Power Plan, the emergence of more distributed power systems, a surge of renewables and cheap gas, and lower demand. Amid these changes, a number of new technologies -- energy storage, microgrids, electric vehicles, rooftop solar and "big data" analytics -- are making their way onto the system.
The lawmakers asked Bay: "Does the Federal Power Act continue to be suited to today's electricity sector?"
The most critical points in the letter were directed at restructured wholesale markets. Upton and Whitfield said that, despite efforts by FERC and grid overseers, competitive electricity markets continue to "underachieve." They said inefficiencies have impeded the proper deployment of capital.
Upton and Whitfield added that while recent court cases have reaffirmed FERC's interpretation of the agency's authority, the line between federal and state jurisdiction could become increasingly complex as new technologies emerge.
They also asked Bay about ways to educate members and "set the stage" for a review of the nation's electricity markets in future sessions of Congress.
Republican Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois, whose state hosts the largest number of reactors in the U.S., also weighed in.
"While the EPA's anti-fossil fuel policies and apathy toward the critical role of nuclear power are the biggest obstacles to reliable and affordable baseload generation, the transformation of our electricity markets over the last two decades cannot be discounted," Shimkus said in a statement. "An exploration of the effects that new technologies, consumer preferences and regulatory challenges are having on those markets is critical, and I look forward to actively engaging on this important issue moving forward."
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/06/10/stories/1060038661
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House Votes Once Again Against Carbon Tax Proposals
Jun 13, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Anthony Adragna
Well over half of House lawmakers went on record June 10 opposing an economywide carbon tax and a proposed fee on each barrel of oil produced, despite no imminent chance of either of those policies being enacted.
Republican lawmakers said the votes on two non-binding resolutions showed overwhelming opposition to the policy proposals, which while not currently getting any traction during the Obama administration are seen as potentially viable as part of broader tax overhaul efforts by the next president. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has said he opposes a carbon tax, while presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has not endorsed the idea.
“There's bipartisanship on this issue, and the bipartisanship is in opposition to a carbon tax,” House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), the sponsor of the anti-carbon tax resolution, said. “So why don't we go on record and be very clear about it? Not just that it's bad policy but to reaffirm how devastating it would be for the United States economy.”
Scalise's resolution (H. Con. Res. 89) passed by a vote of 237 to 163 with two voting present. The other resolution (H. Con. Res. 112) opposing the oil barrel tax, offered by Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.), cleared the chamber by a similar 253 to 144 margin with two members voting present.
President Barack Obama proposed a $10.25 fee per barrel of oil produced as part of his fiscal year 2017 budget that would be used to boost low-carbon and clean energy transportation infrastructure, but Republicans called the idea dead on arrival.
Democrats Vote Against Oil Fee
Twenty-three Democrats broke ranks to oppose Obama's proposed tax on each barrel of oil produced: Reps. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), Brad Ashford (Neb.), Ami Bera (Calif.), Sanford Bishop (Ga.), Julia Brownley (Calif.), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Tammy Duckworth (Ill.), Gwen Graham (Fla.), Al Green (Texas), Gene Green (Texas), Ann Kirkpatrick (Ariz.), Ann Kuster (N.H.), Michelle Lujan Grisham (N.M.), Ben Ray Lujan (N.M.), Sean Patrick Maloney (N.Y.), Patrick Murphy (Fla.), Collin Peterson (Minn.), Cedric Richmond (La.), Raul Ruiz (Calif.), Krysten Sinema (Ariz.), Mike Thompson (Calif.), Marc Veasey (Texas) and Filemon Vela (Texas).
Just six of those same Democrats—Ashford, Bishop, Cuellar, Kirkpatrick, Peterson and Sinema—also voted yes on the resolution opposing any carbon tax.
The vote against a carbon tax for Peterson, Cuellar and Bishop stands in stark contrast to their votes in favor of 2009 legislation (H.R. 2454) to essentially impose a carbon price using an emissions trading system. Kirkpatrick opposed that measure, while Ashford and Sinema were not in Congress at the time.
One Republican—Rep. Richard Hanna (N.Y.)—voted against the oil fee resolution; all House Republicans voted to block a carbon tax. Those include members of the Bipartisan Climate Caucus, including Reps. Chris Gibson (R-N.Y.) and Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.).
Two members voting present on the oil fee legislation were Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) and Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), while the two voting present on the carbon tax resolution were Reps. Lujan Grisham and David Jolly (R-Fla.).
‘Political Effort, Solely.'
House Democrats criticized Republicans for refusing to hear from experts on how to design a well-functioning carbon tax.
“We just voted on two bills that aren't going anywhere,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said. “They have no chance of passage. What did you want to do? You wanted to play politics.”
Hoyer said holding votes on the two resolutions was a “political effort, solely.”
“We had that chance [to design a carbon tax] and we haven't done it, but this will not be the last word,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) said. “This meaningless resolution will undoubtedly pass today. It's not going to have any impact in terms of the long-term. We're on a path to price carbon and we have the capacity to do so in a thoughtful and effective way.”
Democrats, including Reps. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and John Delaney (Md.) and Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.) and Brian Schatz (Hawaii), have introduced a number of approaches to pricing carbon this Congress. None of those proposals have received consideration in the Republican-controlled chambers.
A number of prominent Republicans, including former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson and economist Arthur Laffer, have endorsed a carbon tax. Major corporations that have already adopted an internal carbon fee include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Microsoft Inc., Chevron Corp. and General Electric Co.
Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) said the carbon tax resolution was designed to stifle any debate on what many economists argue is the most efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“It is short-term thinking and economic folly” to ignore environmentally beneficial ways of raising much-needed revenue, Beyer said. “A carbon tax should, in fact, increase the cost of fossil fuel,” he said. But it would also drive down the cost of renewable energy sources “and perhaps, even nuclear” power, he said.
With assistance from Dean Scott in Washington.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=91471023&vname=dennotallissues&fn=91471023&jd=91471023
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House Passes Resolutions Opposing Carbon, Oil Tax
Jun 10, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Ariel Wittenberg and Amanda Reilly
The House passed resolutions today targeting policies meant to address climate change and promote renewable energy that Republicans say would drive up energy prices.
One of the resolutions would express a sense of Congress that a carbon tax would be "detrimental" to the American economy, and the other opposes President Obama's budget proposal for a $10.25-per-barrel oil fee.
The carbon tax resolution, introduced by Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), passed 237-163 with two members voting "present."
While the United States does not currently have a carbon tax, today's vote sends a signal that Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, who has called for action to address climate change, may have a difficult time getting a carbon price through Congress if she becomes president.
No Republicans, including those who have come out in favor of climate change action, voted against today's resolution.
A carbon tax "would drive up the cost of energy, which would most affect those at a lower income," Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) said today on the House floor. "It would destroy well-paying jobs in the energy industry."
Republican Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida, even though he voted for the resolution, issued a statement afterward saying he was "firmly committed" to finding solutions to climate change.
A moderate Republican, Curbelo earlier this year helped form a bipartisan caucus in the House devoted to addressing global warming.
He has called climate change an "existential threat" to his home. Rising sea levels linked to climate change already are affecting his district in South Florida (E&E Daily, April 19).
"Today's non-binding symbolic votes do not help find consumer-driven, market-based solutions that will result in a healthier environment and promote American innovation," Curbelo said in the statement.
"If Congress fails to offer ideas and alternatives to improve the environment, they will be forfeiting to the arbitrary, heavy-handed regulations advanced by the Administration," he said.
One Republican, Rep. David Jolly of Florida, voted "present" instead of casting a vote one way or the other. Jolly, considered vulnerable in the upcoming elections, has also expressed concerns about the impacts of climate change on his district.
Six Democratic members joined their Republican colleagues in opposing a carbon tax, including Reps. Brad Ashford of Nebraska, Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Democratic Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico voted "present."
Even though some House Democrats sided with the GOP, most of them this morning opposed the measure on the floor, saying that it was indicative of Republicans' climate denial.
"What it does is it expresses the nonsense of Congress," Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.) said. "We are here witnessing the latest example of climate denial."
Democrats also called for a substantive congressional debate on a carbon tax, which many economists agree is an efficient way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. They emphasized the handful of conservative advocates who have called for a carbon tax that uses revenue to lower capital and income taxes.
"I really appreciate this little window of an opportunity to talk about a carbon tax," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). "I hope that the day will come when we will have an opportunity to have that discussion in a robust and thoughtful way in our Ways and Means Committee."
Some conservatives in favor of a carbon tax earlier this week said that the fact the House was holding a vote on a carbon tax showed that the idea of a price on carbon is gaining momentum (E&E Daily, June 9).Oil companies torn
Six major oil and gas companies -- BG Group PLC, BP PLC, Eni SpA, Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Statoil ASA and Total SA -- last year called for a price on carbon in the runup to the Paris climate negotiations. The firms did not specify whether they supported a tax or a cap-and-trade program.
Exxon Mobil Corp., facing pressure over its past research and disclosures on climate change, has also publicly endorsed a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Environmentalists, however, have criticized the company for not actively lobbying on the issue. And the refining trade group American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, which counts among its membership Exxon and subsidiaries of BP, Shell and Total, today came out in favor of the House resolution against the tax.
"A carbon tax, or consumer energy tax, is bad for American consumers and business and this resolution makes that clear," AFPM President Chet Thompson said in a statement.
The American Petroleum Institute, however, did not weigh in on the vote.
David Bookbinder, former chief climate counsel at the Sierra Club, said there was no incentive for oil and gas companies to individually advocate Congress for a carbon tax as long as refineries are not subject to restrictive greenhouse gas limits.
"They support it. They're not going to advocate for it," said Bookbinder, who now consults on climate and energy issues at Element VI Consulting.
Conservatives who have endorsed a carbon tax, including former South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis, have also called for eliminating regulations targeting greenhouse gases, including U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan.
While some are claiming momentum, Bookbinder said that coming to a compromise between those conservatives and environmentalists who want to see Congress pass climate change legislation would be a difficult balance.
"The environmental groups would like to make progress, but they just don't know how much of the regulatory program they would give up," Bookbinder said, "and you can start fights with them by saying you're going to have to give up all the stationary source authority, and they run screaming from the room."
He said, "If you go to the Republicans and say, 'No, you have to keep the regulatory program,' Republicans walk out of the room."
Republican energy strategist Mike McKenna also predicted that the idea of eliminating regulations for a carbon tax was not likely to gain wide approval.
"The idea of a regulatory swap for a carbon tax is pure myth," McKenna wrote in an email yesterday evening. "It is a way to get some (not bright) Republicans to negotiate with themselves."Oil tax
The House also passed a resolution from Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) opposing the Obama administration's proposed $10.25 oil tax in a vote of 253-144.
Republicans slammed the proposal when the White House released it earlier this year. Critics called it "dead on arrival." And many Democrats remained largely silent on the issue (E&E Daily, Feb. 5).
Democrats walked a thin line today in debating Boustany's resolution opposing the oil tax, speaking out against the resolution while steering clear of actually supporting the president's proposal.
Blumenauer went only so far as to defend the intention behind Obama's idea.
"The president is not imposing a fee to have the money burned up, he is proposing a fee to fix America's crumbling infrastructure," he said.
Blumenauer disagreed with Republican characterizations that the fee would be overly burdensome, noting that drivers already have to pay increased vehicle maintenance costs because of deteriorating roads.
But while Blumenauer said he supported some mechanism to pay for infrastructure repairs, he did not expressly voice support for the oil tax itself, saying instead that the House Ways and Means Committee should "sit down and actually have meaningful discussions."
House Transportation and Infrastructure ranking member Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) took a similar approach. In a passionate speech, he said he opposed the resolution for being a "meaningless piece of paper" and a "waste of time."
DeFazio accused conservatives of using the resolution to avoid a debate on alternative ways to fund infrastructure improvements.
"What they are doing is continuing to avoid a discussion of how we will pay for the nation's infrastructure," he said.
DeFazio noted that the gas tax has remained the same since 1993 and that Republicans have consistently resisted Democratic proposals to raise it, along with other highway "user fees" to pay for infrastructure.
"If I was in the majority I would be embarrassed if this is what I was wasting time on when people are trapped in traffic and people are dying and blowing out tires," he said. "We are all for infrastructure until it comes to paying for it."
For their part, Republicans made arguments against the oil fee similar to those in opposition to the carbon tax. They said a $10.25-per-barrel tax would be a "stab in the heart" of the economy.
"We should be embracing the energy revolution that is being unleashed by American innovation, not taxing it into oblivion, not overregulating it into oblivion," Boustany said.
The lawmaker also insisted that Republicans were in fact in favor of "user fees" but did not offer any specific examples other than expressing support for the gas tax.
Rep. Garret Graves (R-La.) said: "The gas tax was set up to be a user fee. It was set up to be a user fee that the more you drove, the more you use the roads, the more you pay for it. That's the way this is supposed to work, and the president has come out and offered a proposal that disconnects that."
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/06/10/stories/1060038659
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA’s Chemical Plant Safety Proposal Satisfies No One
Jun 13, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
It is usually hard to make everybody happy, but sometimes it’s just as hard to make anybody happy.
That appears to be the case with an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to overhaul a 25-year-old regulation intended to minimize chemical plant accidents, protect workers and the public, and shine light on industry practices that could lead to disaster. That regulation is called the Risk Management Program (RMP).
EPA’s proposed changes . . .
The American Chemistry Council, an industry association, opposes all the proposal’s provisions with the exception of the root-cause investigation requirements...
Subscription required, for full story:
http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i24/EPAs-chemical-plant-safety-proposal.html?type=paidArticleContent
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Jun 13, 2016 | Houston Chronicle
By Mark Collette and Matt Dempsey
Somehow, George Freda was supposed to protect much of Harris County from chemical disasters. He had a stack of files in his house, with lists of one compound after another, but he was a committee of one.
He had no staff, no money and no clear directive.
Such are the shortcomings of Local Emergency Planning Committees, the groups that the federal government says could prevent the next major incident.
Under a mandate from Congress, thousands of committees were created in 1986, two years after Union Carbide’s leak in Bhopal, India killed thousands.
The committees were the first line of defense, empowered to share information about local dangers and prepare the community for any emergency.
Thirty years on, Freda and others like him pose little defense at all. Scores of LEPCs all over Texas are disbanded or barely functioning, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.
“If this were a battle and they were the front line,” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said, “our enemy is going to come through the front line real fast.”
The Environmental Protection Agency considers the committees to be a cornerstone of reforms following the fertilizer explosion three years ago in West that killed 12 firefighters and three residents. At a minimum, LEPCs are required to disclose chemical inventories to interested residents or community watchdogs.
But Texas has circumvented federal law by withholding those reports, and the EPA does nothing to stop the state.
The Texas Attorney General’s office, under Greg Abbott and now Ken Paxton, have told committees that they do not have to make inventories available, citing a state law that restricts information that might be useful to terrorists. Despite the terror threat they cite, state officials do not stop LEPCs like Freda’s that choose to make inventories public.
Former New Jersey congressman James Florio, who helped craft the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, calls the Texas approach “totally irrational” and said security concerns should be addressed by individual companies. The goal of the federal law “was to hold everyone to a minimal standard of disclosure,” he said. “Can you imagine if we relieved nuclear facilities of their security responsibilities, and we just tried to hide where they are?”****
Collecting data from LEPCs across Houston is largely an exercise in futility.
Most of the 20 Houston-area LEPCs rejected the Chronicle’s requests for chemical inventories, called Tier Two forms, including Brazoria, Galveston, Waller and Fort Bend counties. One of the committees that did release the information — Southeast Regional — had a trove of data from companies outside its jurisdiction, so an analysis included more than 2,500 businesses in greater Houston. Fifty-five of those facilities were found by chemical safety experts at Texas A&M to have a high potential for public harm. Close to 600 scored in the medium group, storing chemicals dangerous enough to impose serious harm in an incident.
The analysis, plus a string of chemical fires and explosions all over the area — about one every six weeks — is leading some to rethink old policies.
“There are still a lot of things being viewed through the lens of 9/11,” Emmett said. “I would think people who live around a facility storing hazardous materials are going to want to know that information. That’s more important to them than the risk of a terrorist attack.”
Mathy Stanislaus, assistant EPA administrator, said the agency recommends that the public be made aware of facilities and what chemicals are stored there. But he defended the EPA’s practice of allowing states to bypass the federal law, because it’s a “locally grounded statute.” The law contains a line that says it doesn’t overrule state or local statutes.
The Texas Homeland Security Act, passed in 2003, made government information confidential if it could be used to plot terror attacks. For more than a decade, the law was never invoked to block release of chemical inventories. The state reversed course after widespread media interest in the data following the West explosion.
Then-Attorney General Abbott, quoting the 2003 law, issued a ruling that allows state and local agencies to withhold inventories.
Abbott told reporters in 2014 that private companies were still required to release them to the public.
“You know where they are if you drive around,” Abbott said. “You can ask every facility whether or not they have chemicals … and if they do, they tell which ones they have.”
But it is virtually impossible to find all but the most obvious chemical plants, the Chronicle found. For instance, a warehouse in Spring Branch that exploded in May, about 1,200 feet from a school west of downtown, housed chemicals that had no public paper trail.
Also, many companies do not understand their responsibilities under the law.
State Sen. Rodney Ellis tried to get the data for the Chronicle from the Department of State Health Services, which ran the state’s Tier Two program before another agency took over this year, but he was initially rebuffed.
Then he was told he would have to swear to keep the information secret. He declined.
“I’ve never heard of a legislator being required to sign an affidavit saying they were accepting criminal liability if (state records) got out of their office,” Ellis said. “It makes me wonder what are they hiding?”
He pointed out that even Oklahoma, site of the worst domestic terror attack, freely divulges Tier Twos.
Ellis said legislators should carve out an exception for disclosure within the terrorism statute.
“I don’t know how many tragedies like the one out in Spring Branch we have to have to do that,” he said.
Abbott did not grant an interview.
A spokesman reaffirmed the governor’s position that the information could aid terrorists.
At least 10 states release inventories, and no state has reported a terrorist attack on a plant, according to reviews by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Government Accountability Office. Some states don’t release inventories or provide partial information, while others didn’t respond to inquiries.
Houston Congressman Gene Green, whose district is among the most heavily industrial in the nation, called for a clear national standard.
“We’re not talking about state secrets here,” he said. “We’ve ended up having 50 standards for the community’s right to know.”****
Federal law does little to spell out how committees are supposed to advance plant safety.
Charles Sluder, the fire marshal for the city of South Houston, flipped through files in a cabinet to figure out who was even in charge of the local committee. The man listed as the head of the LEPC had died two years earlier.
Sluder, who is now a member of the LEPC, said he tracks which facilities have hazardous materials and makes sure the companies’ chemical information is current. He also stops by once in a while.
“I know we’re supposed to be proactive, but who’s going to put out the information on what we’re supposed to do?” Sluder asked. “And who’s going to pay for it? We don’t have the resources.”
Sluder’s complaint was echoed by many committees in the area. Congress did not fund LEPCs.
Green said the committees must be funded and monitored by the EPA. He doesn’t share the agency’s opinion that the committees are at the center of chemical plant safety.
“I’ve never been to any of them that generated a complaint to the EPA,” he said.
Under the 1986 law, LEPCs are to help formulate emergency response plans. In 2014, a federal task force reported that many are incapable of doing so and need training.
Most rules regarding LEPCs relate to being the point of contact between companies and the public.
By law, they must have a chairman and an information coordinator.
They are required to have representatives from local government, environmental groups, emergency management, the media, first-responders, facilities and community groups. A single person can represent multiple groups, and there is no minimum number of members.
Most LEPCs fall short of the rules but face no consequences.
A bigger problem: Many simply don’t exist anymore.
Among more than 250 LEPCs in Texas listed with the Department of Public Safety, the Chronicle found 26 with disconnected phone numbers. Emails bounced back or weren’t available for 22 percent.
In 2008, the EPA surveyed committees around the nation.
Sixty percent didn’t respond.
****
Greater Houston is one of the committees that answers the phone, but it also represents the struggles of the program writ large: trouble releasing information, money problems, no direction.
It initially asked the Chronicle for $8,000 to produce around 680 Tier Two forms. After months of discussions, the LEPC released all its digital copies without charge.
It later produced two boxes of documents, many in sealed envelopes, that had sat in storage.
Inside those envelopes were Tier Twos, but also uncashed checks totaling hundreds of dollars donated by some of the companies in their area.
Greater Houston covers the most territory of any local committee, stretching from Kingwood to just north of Sugar Land.
Last year, the chairman retired and moved to Kansas.
The group lost most of its emails in a technical snafu.
Its bank account was closed because the LEPC didn’t have a physical address.
The city of Houston took back the office it had once provided and also reassigned an employee tasked with helping the LEPC.
Denise Walker, chief emergency management officer for Lone Star College, became chairwoman in January. Walker wants the committee to be more active and organized.
The LEPC set up a physical address to apply for grants, reopened its bank account and hired a part-time staffer. It brought in an air quality expert this year, and ran a tabletop exercise, where members verbally walked through safety scenarios, this month. It was the first such training in years.****
Even the best-funded, smoothest-functioning committees have trouble fulfilling the government’s expectations.
The La Porte LEPC meets every month and collects dues from each participating company. In 2014, the committee collected $193,626, making it one of the most well-funded in the state.
It readily provided its chemical inventories to the Chronicle.
It runs annual safety fairs for the public. It shares educational material with businesses and schools on how to shelter in place in the case of emergency.
At the LEPC’s suggestion, the city does drills where dispatchers call a random company and say it is now undergoing a chemical emergency. The company then runs through its procedures.
“It’s good practice for our dispatchers, too,” said Kristin Gauthier, emergency management coordinator for La Porte and an officer of the LEPC.
Gauthier said she knows other committees aren’t working well.
“Are you doing training? Are you reviewing plans? Are you communicating to the public? Or are you just checking off things on a list?” she asked.
All that effort didn’t prevent multiple failures in response to the fatal leak at the former DuPont plant, where four workers died in November 2014.
The company’s emergency vehicles broke down.
City firefighters didn’t have enough oxygen for a sustained rescue effort.
The 911 caller from DuPont couldn’t identify what chemical was leaking, but that didn’t stop him from saying that there was no harm to the public. (In fact, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board has not determined the scope of the danger.)
The plant had a strong supervisor culture and, with the people in charge unaccounted for, no one knew what to do, said Jeff Suggs, the LEPC’s vice chairman.
How could something like that happen in a community with such a strong LEPC?
“That was an anomaly. A catastrophic failure,” Suggs said. “It could happen anywhere.”
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/chemical-breakdown/3/
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Ore. Senators Question Federal Response to Derailment
Jun 10, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Hannah Northey
Oregon Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley want to know why the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board didn't send an investigative team to the site of a crude-by-rail accident that caused an oil spill and fire in Oregon last week.
Wyden and Merkley told NTSB Chairman Christopher Hart in a letter yesterday that they were "troubled" by that decision and questioned whether NTSB was fulfilling its unique safety mission.
"The NTSB would have brought a vital perspective to investigations being carried out by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and Oregon Department of Transportation," the senators wrote.
A mile-long Union Pacific train hauling crude oil jumped the tracks last week, catching fire in rural Oregon and forcing about 100 people to leave their homes (EnergyWire, June 6). Though no injuries were reported, the nearby town of Mosier, Ore., saw its aquifers run dry and its sewer systems disabled as a result of the derailment.
Trains hauling Bakken crude oil have caught fire and exploded in previous accidents, including a July 2013 derailment in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, that killed 47 people.
The senators said the effects of the spill and fire were "unique and substantial" and asked Hart whether the agency has enough resources to carry out its oversight duties. They asked Hart to provide more information about NTSB staffing and resources, a status update on a host of safety recommendations, more clarity on the number of oil-by-rail accidents that have occurred, and measures NTSB will take to prevent such disasters in the future.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/06/10/stories/1060038656
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Oregon Dems Push for More Federal Inspections at Derailment Site
Jun 10, 2016 | The Hill - E2 WIre
By Devin Henry
Oregon’s two Democratic senators are pushing a federal safety board to join the investigation into last week’s oil trail derailment in their state.
In a letter to the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley said officials from the agency “would have brought a vital perspective to investigations being carried out by the Federal Railroad Administration and Oregon Department of Transportation.”
The letter comes amid probes into the derailment of 14 cars in an oil trail outside of Mosier, Ore. on June 3. Several of the cars caught fire after the accident.
The NTSB should investigate the crash, they wrote, because it involved oil trains. Since those trains have a history of accidents, they show “problems of a recurring character,” and are within the NTSB’s purview.
“We feel strongly that the residents of Mosier, Oregonians and residents on both sides of the Columbia River deserve to know exactly why this accident occurred and how to prevent future accents from occurring,” the senators wrote.
“We call on the NTSB to investigate major oil train derailments going forward in order to identify every facet of the accident’s cause, and work to prevent, not just mitigate, the potential devastation.”
In response to the incident, Wyden and Merkley this week said lawmakers should pass a bill to help local communities reroute rail lines away from heavily populated areas.
Other officials in the state called for a moratorium on oil trains in the Columbia River Gorge as a result of the derailment.
Christopher O’Neil, an NTSB spokesman, said the board decided not to launch an investigation after gathering information from the Federal Railroad Administration, the train operator and local first responders.
But he said the agency is “actively collecting information” which will “be assessed to determine whether further safety recommendations are necessary.”
“The NTSB recognizes the impact of this accident, or any rail accident involving hazardous materials, in environmentally sensitive areas and in proximity to residential, commercial and recreational areas, and understands the concerns of those affected,” he said.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/283063-oregon-dems-push-for-more-federal-inspections-at-derailment-site
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Dear Conservatives, You Can Go Green Again
Jun 11, 2016 | The New York Times
By Richard Conniff
Not long ago I wrote an essay on how to talk about environmental issues with conservatives. Talk persuasively, that is, not confrontationally. A conservative promptly replied that I was afflicted with “fundamental ignorance,” and possibly worse. The gist of it was that conservatives are already environmentalists, and the rest of us are just too stupid to recognize it. I put on my cheerfully positive face and suggested that he amplify his point by listing 10 pro-environment actions by conservatives in this century. (O.K., maybe that was my passive-aggressive face, given that George W. Bush was president for eight of those 16 years.) He replied with more name-calling.
This is a shame, because conservatives used to be almost by definition conservationists, focused on preserving our shared heritage from destructive influences. You can, in fact, date the rise of the conservation movement as a political force in this country to a December 1887 dinner party of wealthy big game hunters, largely Republicans, hosted in a Madison Avenue house by Theodore Roosevelt (still a hero to many modern conservatives, despite certain progressive leanings). He and his guests that night formed the Boone and Crockett Club, dedicated to preservation and management of game.
Putting to work their considerable social and political clout, as well as their money, they went on to save the bison from extinction, greatly expand the national park system, and help establish both the National Wildlife Refuge System and the United States Forest Service. The Lacey Act, still our most important law against wildlife crime, was largely their doing. Ducks Unlimited, a Boone and Crockett offshoot, became an early force for wetland conservation.
This natural link between conservatives and conservation lasted through much of the 20th century. Conservatives may complain about oil companies being shut out of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but most of the credit for protecting that habitat belongs to Dwight D. Eisenhower, who also signed the nation’s first air pollution control law. Richard M. Nixon, not otherwise a candidate for sainthood, changed the way the nation lives, breathes and does business, establishing the Environmental Protection Agency and enacting the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act, among other major environmental initiatives. George H. W. Bush, finally, began to take conservation in a new market-based direction, pushing through a cap-and-trade system in 1990 that enabled industry to reduce sulfur dioxide emissions, which causes acid rain, far more quickly and cheaply than anyone imagined possible.
So what does it take to bring conservatives back, after a quarter-century of their reflexively treating even the mention of environmental issues as a treasonous attack on business and the nation? It’s possible they are already returning, with the House of Representatives last month approving a major environmental reform by an astonishingly bipartisan 403 to 12 margin, and the Senate almost certain to follow.
Among that legislation’s sponsors are the unlikely Senate partners Tom Udall, Democrat of New Mexico, and David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana. It repairs and strengthens the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, and belatedly enhances the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to test the safety of chemicals being developed and manufactured every year. Industry came to the table because a single federal regulatory standard seemed preferable to state-by-state regulation. The rest was old-fashioned give-and-take, with each side resisting the urge to fling bombs at the other, and both swallowing aspects of the law they didn’t like for the common good. It was a product, that is, of what we used to call democracy.
It’s also arguably a model for further cooperation on environmental issues. But how to make progress on other vital environmental issues? It will help for environmentalists to acknowledge past contributions by conservatives and also the potential value of conservative approaches for the future.Continue reading the main story
For instance, a program called “catch shares,” pushed by both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, has arguably done more for fish stocks and the fishing industry than decades of old-style command-and-control government regulation. There are about 15 active fisheries nationwide, and federal councils simply establish the sustainable annual catch and allot a share to each fishing boat.
As with cap-and-trade for acid rain, each participant is then free to figure out the most efficient way forward — going out when the weather is good, or the price is high, rather than wasting fuel and long hours racing to out-fish competitors in an artificially shortened season. The catch share system has begun to rebuilt stocks and increase profits for fisheries from Alaskan halibut to Gulf of Mexico red snapper. A study early this year found that kind of share-based reform has the potential to restore 98 percent of fisheries worldwide and sustainably feed a much larger human population by 2050.
But win-win situations are hard to come by. Real progress may require both sides to rethink sacred cows. For instance, Jonathan Adler, a Case Western Reserve University law professor with a libertarian take, argues that perverse incentives make the Endangered Species Act ineffective. Landowners often deny wildlife researchers access to their land and have at times even destroyed potential habitat, for fear of endangered species (and the attendant regulations) turning up there. Mr. Adler argues for a system of easements and subsidies to reward property owners, instead of punishing them, for protecting endangered species.
On the other hand, if conservatives genuinely oppose big government, Mr. Adler adds, they should start by opposing costly government programs that are a leading cause of environmental damage — including fossil fuel subsidies, ethanol subsidies, agricultural subsidies and many of the ill-conceived dam and irrigation projects of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation.
Mr. Adler doesn’t draw the line at turning federal lands over to private ownership, under the right circumstances — for instance, with groups like the Nature Conservancy among the potential private owners. I think that would be a betrayal of Teddy Roosevelt’s considerable bequest to the nation, with Cliven Bundy clones more likely to be among the owners. But Mr. Adler and I could certainly talk about market-based alternatives to the current federal mismanagement.
With recent polls suggesting that climate change has begun to loom ominously for many Republicans as it does for the majority of Democrats, it may be time for big, bold, even alarmingly bipartisan thoughts. In the end, our need for clean air to breathe, safe water to drink, a climate that does not change too drastically and forests, oceans and wildlife that remain healthy and resilient has almost nothing to do with whether we are Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, and everything to do with being fellow residents of Planet Earth, with no place else to call home. So here’s the idea: Why don’t we all just take a walk and have a long conversation about how we can fix up the old neighborhood together?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/opinion/sunday/dear-conservatives-you-can-go-green-again.html?_r=0
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