Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 6/21/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Activity Barometer Continues Solid Growth in June
Jun 21, 2016 | Live Trading News
By Shayne Heffernan
The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB), a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), expanded 0.8 percent in June following a revised 0.9 percent increase in May and 0.7 percent increase in April. -
PALLONE: Bill to Enable EPA Regulation of Toxins
Jun 21, 2016 | Ashbury Park Service
By Frank Pallone
President Barack Obama will sign a major piece of environmental legislation into law Wednesday named after New Jersey’s longtime environmental and public health champion, the late Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg. -
PCBs Poison America’s Teachers & Students, But EPA & Monsanto Won’t Take Responsibility
Jun 21, 2016 | Mint Press News
By Kit O'Connell
A toxic chemical that used to be prevalent in construction materials may still be hiding in the walls of thousands of American schools, and experts believe the EPA is doing too little to prevent it from poisoning a new generation of children. -
Pennsylvania Urges Military to Pay For Citizens' Health Tests Near PFC Sites
Jun 21, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Pennsylvania officials are appealing to the military to pay for blood and other testing of residents living near bases with known perfluorinated chemical (PFC) contamination... -
(ACC Blog) Spray Foam Insulation and California’s Goal for Zero Net Energy
Jun 21, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By Justin Koscher
Residential and commercial buildings together in the United States account for about 40 percent of total energy consumption – a greater share than either the industrial or transportation sectors. -
BLM Says Fracking Rule Freeze 'Ignores a Century of Precedent'
Jun 21, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
The Obama administration's new rules for hydraulic fracturing on public and tribal lands are not only legal -- they're overdue, government lawyers told a federal court yesterday. -
Clinton's Energy Plan Pits Green Against Green
Jun 20, 2016 | Roll Call
By John Bicknell
There is a civil war going on in the environmental movement. No blood will be spilled, but like the conflagration that nearly destroyed the Union in the 19th century, disagreements over the use of public lands for alternative energy production... -
GOP: Trump Will Talk More About Energy
Jun 21, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Donald Trump will go into further depth about his energy and environment positions as the campaign carries on, the Republican Party's top spokesman said Tuesday. -
Mayors, Climate Group Join Forces on Planning for Rule
Jun 21, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Elizabeth Harball
The nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) announced plans today to team up with the U.S. Conference of Mayors and businesses to urge carbon reductions from U.S. power plants. -
Carbon Could Rise Without Tighter Limits After 2030 -- EIA
Jun 21, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden and Elizabeth Harball
Carbon emissions from the power sector could stop declining or rise after 2030 if caps are not tightened past the end of the Clean Power Plan, according to new analysis from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. -
Obama’s Advisers Just Dismantled a Key Myth About the Future of Clean Energy
Jun 21, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
Most people these days know that wind and solar energy are booming. And for the most part, we simply see this as adding two new and cleaner sources of electricity to the mix that we already have. -
What We Know – And Don't know – About Toxic Wastewater from the Oil and Gas Industry
Jun 21, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Cloelle Danforth
For all that we hear and think about oil and gas production, wastewater may not be at the top of our list of concerns. And yet, onshore oil and gas operations in the United States produce more than 800 billion gallons of toxic wastewater each year. -
Rex Energy Lands More Money to Hold Appalachian Acreage with Production
Jun 21, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Rex Energy Corp. is pushing ahead on its recently acquired Moraine East area in Western Pennsylvania's northern Butler County, announcing Tuesday that it has completed 20 Marcellus and Upper Devonian shale wells there since it started drilling operations last year (see Shale Daily, June 11, 2015). -
California’s Last Nuclear Power Plant Could Close
Jun 21, 2016 | New York Times
By Diane Cardwell
California, among the first states to embrace nuclear energy in the 1950s, may be breaking things off for good. Under a proposal announced on Tuesday, Pacific Gas and Electric would shutter the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, the state’s last operating nuclear facility... -
1 dead, 3 Injured in Bakken Explosion
Jun 21, 2016 | AP/Bismarck Tribune (In E&E Energywire)
State environmental scientist Bill Suess said the explosion happened near Watford City on an XTO Energy Inc. site and was caused by a gas line leak. -
Advocates Ramp Up Internal Talks on Air Law Section 115 EPA GHG Rule
Jun 21, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Environmentalists are ramping up internal conversations about the merits and pitfalls of using section 115 of the Clean Air Act -- which governs cross-border pollution -- to target greenhouse gases (GHGs) across the economy, as some groups mull how hard... -
California Cap-and-Trade Emission Auctions Could Face Bleak Future
Jun 20, 2016 | Sacramento Bee
By Dan Walters
When California’s “cap-and-trade” auction of carbon emission allowances imploded a month ago, it clobbered ambitious plans by Capitol politicians to spend many billions of dollars. -
Trader Joe's to Cut Greenhouse Gases, Pay Fine in U.S. Settlement
Jun 21, 2016 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Jonathan Stempel
The popular U.S. grocery chain Trader Joe's Co agreed to spend $2 million to reduce refrigerator coolant leaks at 453 stores, to settle federal claims it failed to promptly repair leaks that deplete the ozone layer and contribute to global warming.
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Activity Barometer Continues Solid Growth in June
Jun 21, 2016 | Live Trading News
By Shayne Heffernan
The Chemical Activity Barometer (CAB), a leading economic indicator created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), expanded 0.8 percent in June following a revised 0.9 percent increase in May and 0.7 percent increase in April. All data is measured on a three-month moving average (3MMA). Accounting for adjustments, the CAB remains up 2.5 percent over this time last year, a marked deceleration of activity from one year ago when the barometer logged a 2.7 percent year-over-year gain from 2014. On an unadjusted basis the CAB jumped 0.4 percent in June, following a similar 0.4 percent gain in May. The CAB is signaling higher U.S. business activity through the end of the year.
In June, all four categories for the CAB improved for the third month in a row. Production-related indicators were positive, with improvement in plastic resins used in packaging and trends in construction-related resins, pigments and related performance chemistry were positive and suggest recovering housing activity. Equity prices further gained in June, joined by a firming in product prices. Inventories and other downstream indicators were positive.
The Chemical Activity Barometer has four primary components, each consisting of a variety of indicators: 1) production; 2) equity prices; 3) product prices; and 4) inventories and other indicators.
The Chemical Activity Barometer is a leading economic indicator derived from a composite index of chemical industry activity. The chemical industry has been found to consistently lead the U.S. economy’s business cycle given its early position in the supply chain, and this barometer can be used to determine turning points and likely trends in the wider economy. Month-to-month movements can be volatile so a three-month moving average of the barometer is provided. This provides a more consistent and illustrative picture of national economic trends.
Applying the CAB back to 1919, it has been shown to provide a lead of two to 14 months, with an average lead of eight months at cycle peaks as determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The median lead was also eight months. At business cycle troughs, the CAB leads by one to seven months, with an average lead of four months. The median lead was three months. The CAB is rebased to the average lead (in months) of an average 100 in the base year (the year 2012 was used) of a reference time series. The latter is the Federal Reserve’s Industrial Production Index.
The CAB comprises indicators relating to the production of chlorine and other alkalies, pigments, plastic resins and other selected basic industrial chemicals; chemical company stock data; hours worked in chemicals; publicly sourced, chemical price information; end-use (or customer) industry sales-to-inventories; and several broader leading economic measures (building permits and new orders). Each month, ACC provides a barometer number, which reflects activity data for the current month, as well as a three-month moving average. The CAB was developed by the economics department at the American Chemistry Council.
http://www.livetradingnews.com/chemical-activity-barometer-continues-solid-growth-june-7384.html#.V2llZvl97IU
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PALLONE: Bill to Enable EPA Regulation of Toxins
Jun 21, 2016 | Ashbury Park Service
By Frank Pallone
President Barack Obama will sign a major piece of environmental legislation into law Wednesday named after New Jersey’s longtime environmental and public health champion, the late Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg.
This legislation takes a major step in fixing our nation’s federal chemical safety laws, which have been broken for a long time. The Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, was first signed into law 40 years ago to regulate thousands of chemicals, many of which we use every day.
Unfortunately, the law did not allow the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate known toxins or to require testing of any chemicals before they were brought to market. If these types of requirements had existed, we could have likely prevented toxic chemicals from ever being put in baby bottles, toys, children’s pajamas or living room couches. Superfund sites throughout New Jersey might never have been contaminated in the first place, and workers could have been protected from exposure to asbestos decades ago.
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act reforms this broken law in order to protect the health and safety of our families and our planet. For the first time, under this bill, EPA must decide whether or not to regulate a chemical based solely on health and environmental factors.
It will finally allow EPA to require testing of chemicals quickly and efficiently by providing an alternative to the years-long process that now exists. It will also ensure that new chemicals are reviewed and regulated, if necessary, before they go on the market.
As one of the lead House negotiators on the bill, I am particularly proud that it protects vulnerable populations — infants, children, pregnant women, workers and the elderly — that are disproportionately exposed to toxic chemicals. EPA must now identify populations that are disproportionately at risk either due to greater exposure to a particular chemical or greater susceptibility to injury from the chemical. Then, if EPA decides to regulate the chemical, it must protect the vulnerable populations impacted by that chemical.
I hope this legislation will empower EPA to get dangerous chemicals like asbestos, lead, BPA and phthalates out of consumer products and out of the environment.
The bill removes a procedural hurdle that prevented EPA from regulating asbestos for the past 25 years. Back in 1989, the EPA banned asbestos under TSCA after conducting 10 years of study and analysis. However the ban never took effect. Instead, it was overturned by the courts because of a serious flaw in the law and serious limitations on EPA’s authority to ban the substance. This bill fixes that flawed provision.
It provides more funding so EPA has the resources to conduct all of this important work through new user fees charged to the chemical companies.
The final bill includes a provision that ensures EPA can act quickly to reduce our exposure to the worst chemicals currently on the market. These chemicals threaten public health, our oceans, and the entire environment, and therefore EPA should have the ability to review them immediately.
As this legislation moved through the process, it garnered widespread support from both Democrats and Republicans. The final bill passed the House in May by a vote of 403 to 12, and then the Senate unanimously approved it earlier this month.
Garnering that type of bipartisan support requires compromise. There are several provisions that I would have liked to have seen in the final bill that, unfortunately, we were not able to include. Nevertheless, this is a major and long-overdue step forward to protecting families and communities from toxic substances.
Senator Lautenberg dedicated the last years of his long career in the Senate to fixing this law, and tomorrow the President will honor that memory by signing this bipartisan legislation bearing his name.
Frank Pallone is a Democratic congressman whose 6th District in New Jersey includes most of Middlesex County and much of Monmouth County.
http://www.app.com/story/opinion/columnists/2016/06/21/pallone-bill-enable-epa-regulation-toxins/86176836/
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PCBs Poison America’s Teachers & Students, But EPA & Monsanto Won’t Take Responsibility
Jun 21, 2016 | Mint Press News
By Kit O'Connell
A toxic chemical that used to be prevalent in construction materials may still be hiding in the walls of thousands of American schools, and experts believe the EPA is doing too little to prevent it from poisoning a new generation of children.
Polychlorinated biphenyls, a family of chemicals better known as PCBs, were commonly used in building materials until 1979, when they were finally banned due to the threat they pose to human health.
But the damage had already been done, according to Al Letson, the host of the Reveal podcast.
“By the time PCBs were banned in the late 70s, tens of thousands of public schools had been built, and today no one knows how many of those schools have a ticking timebomb,” Letson said in a June 11 episode devoted to this toxic threat. Reveal is a project of The Center For Investigative Reporting, which collaborated with WNPR in Connecticut for the PCBs report.
While EPA regulations ban PCBs and require it to be removed if it’s found in schools, the Reveal investigation found that the regulations do not require widespread testing. With budgets getting slashed nationwide, school districts often can’t afford to grapple with the consequences of discovering PCBs. WNPR’s David DesRoche reported that some schools have even been forced to close their doors:
“In December 2014 Clark School was slated to be renovated. The school officials decided to test for PCBs. They found the school was saturated with them in window caulking, in dust, in fireproofing and paint. It even leached into brand new ceiling tiles. It was so bad they eventually closed the school for good. Five other schools in Hartford have also tested positive. In one case the district replaced a single window, but there were 30 other schools in the city that were also built before 1979 and they haven’t been tested.”
Thanks to lax regulations and the high costs of addressing problems when they’re found, it’s easier not to test at all. “Proper PCB remediation is expensive and time-consuming, and so the workaround is this: If you don’t find them — that is, if you don’t test for them — you’ll never know you have them,” DesRoche said.
This, of course, leaves teachers, staff and students at risk. Schools in Malibu, California, became a focus of concern after three teachers who worked in a single classroom at Malibu High developed cancer. Other health problems followed, including birth defects. Subsequent testing of window caulk in the school found levels of PCBs that were 11,000 times higher than the acceptable limits under EPA regulations.
Without a mandate for widespread testing, the full extent of the problem remains unknown.
Experts say industry influence is behind the lax EPA regulations. Swann Chemical Company, one of the original manufacturers of PCBs, was bought out by Monsanto, the massive corporation known today as a manufacturer of pesticides and genetically-modified seeds, in 1935.
Although Monsanto no longer manufactures PCBs, it continues to face lawsuits over the chemicals’ lingering effects on the environment and human health. And stricter EPA regulations could leave the agribusiness giant open to increased legal risks. DesRoches reported:
“I asked Hugh Kaufman, who’s also with the EPA, and he put it pretty bluntly. He said it’s because of Monsanto’s liability. He says the EPA doesn’t want school districts getting together and suing Monsanto in a class action lawsuit.”
The EPA is rife with ties to the same industry it’s meant to regulate, DesRoches said. He explained:
“There’s a history of people moving back and forth between the EPA and various industries, and when the PCB problem first surfaced, the person who managed the whole school PCB problem for the EPA was a former consultant for a major chemical lobbying group, and the number 2 person at the EPA at the time was a former executive with Monsanto, who later went on to DuPont.”
Meanwhile, attempts to clean up known sources of contamination continue to face hurdles. In March 2015,America Unites for Kids, a Malibu-based NGO, launched a lawsuit against the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District to force the immediate remediation of PCBs. The group also started a petition demanding that the EPA support widespread PCB testing in U.S. schools built between 1950 and 1979.
“This caulking is in arm’s reach of children. PCBs have been found in the air, dust, soil. The law requires PCBs to be immediately removed. Removal is the only action that will comply with the law and ensure protection of human health,” the organization noted.
“Every child has a right to a great education free from toxic PCBs.”
http://www.mintpressnews.com/pcbs-poison-americas-teachers-students-epa-monsanto-wont-take-responsibility/217366/
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Pennsylvania Urges Military to Pay For Citizens' Health Tests Near PFC Sites
Jun 21, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
Pennsylvania officials are appealing to the military to pay for blood and other testing of residents living near bases with known perfluorinated chemical (PFC) contamination, becoming what may be the first state to signal it is hard-pressed for resources to pay for such testing in response to EPA's recently released drinking water health advisories for two PFCs.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) and state representatives wrote to Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and Air Force Secretary Deborah James June 9 requesting that they consider assisting the state with blood testing of nearly 70,000 residents potentially exposed to the PFCs in private and municipal drinking water sources in three communities neighboring Horsham Air Guard Station in Horsham, PA, and Naval Air Warfare Center in Warminster, PA. States and EPA lack the ability to enforce the lowered drinking water health advisories.
The Pennsylvania officials in their letter note EPA's significant reduction in what it considers a safe level for two PFCs, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), in drinking water.
In its long-awaited May 19 announcement, EPA set lifetime exposure health advisory levels at 0.07 micrograms per liter (ug/L) for each chemical, which translates to 70 parts per trillion (ppt). EPA also recommends that the combined concentrations of PFOA and PFOS, if found together in drinking water, not exceed 70 ppt. The levels apply to both short-term and chronic exposures, according to EPA.
The non-stick chemicals were used in a slew of consumer and industrial applications and in firefighting foam used by the military and others, contaminating fire-fighting training sites across the country. They have been linked to adverse health effects, such as particular cancers.
While water testing is how regulators and others determine if the health advisory is exceeded, and EPA did not set a safe blood level, "we believe blood testing is critical to addressing the concerns of private citizens who may have been exposed," the governor's letter says.
'Structural Deficit'
The state's Department of Health (DOH) estimates that even if just half of the nearly 70,000 citizens choose to have their blood tested, the cost will be $7 million, it says. It notes that the state "is facing a structural deficit of upwards of $2 billion in 2016-17. We simply do not have the resources to commit to dedicating $7 million or more to blood testing, despite our best efforts to address the needs and concerns of all Pennsylvanians and, in this particular situation, those affected by PFOS and PFOA contamination in Horsham, Warrington, and Warminster."
To ensure residents are protected and informed, the governor and state lawmakers request the two military services pay for blood testing of these residents due to the federal government's contamination of their water. They also ask the services to provide carbon filters on any remaining wells not addressed to ensure a safe water supply.
Pennsylvania's two U.S. senators and the three Congress members who represent the areas affected also wrote to the Navy urging it to provide health screenings and water filtration systems for residents of the area, noting the high levels of PFOS and PFOA found in public and private wells near the former military facilities there.
While the lawmakers say they appreciate the steps taken by the Navy to provide affected residents with bottled water, they say that as a responsible party for the contamination, "we believe the Navy has an obligation to take further steps to address ongoing health and safety concerns."
A Navy spokesman in a written response to questions says the Navy plans to respond to the letters soon.
Specifically, the congressional letter asks the Navy to work with DOH to fund health screenings and blood tests to determine whether the chemicals have a presence in their bloodstreams.
They note the precedent set in Hoosick, NY, where a plastics company linked to PFOA contamination of groundwater worked with the state to provide free blood screenings to affected residents.
Unsuccessful Amendment
In addition, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) earlier this month was unsuccessful in attaching an amendment to the fiscal year 2017 defense authorization bill that would have required the military services to identify and make public a list of bases where the firefighting agent aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) -- which contains PFCs -- could have been discharged, test drinking water for PFOS and PFOA and provide notifications to citizens if the health advisories are exceeded, offer alternative drinking water and develop and implement a remediation plan.
But the Defense Department (DOD) says the military is already identifying locations where it has used the PFOA/PFOS-containing firefighting foam and where a release is suspected. A DOD spokesman, in a written response to Inside EPA, says the department is using the new health advisory levels "to determine risk to human health from past contamination."
DOD will continue to investigate releases and take action under the Superfund law. "DoD will begin to remove and properly dispose of PFOS and PFOA-containing AFFF wherever possible as long as there is no undue impact on the DoD mission," he says.
At the end of FY14, DOD had identified 664 fire or crash testing sites where the firefighting foam may have been used, although the list is not complete, he says. DOD is continuing to identify sites, and is evaluating the 664 sites to determine the risk to drinking water in accordance with Superfund law, he says.
The Navy spokesman says the Navy is working closely with regulators to prioritize its sites, including PFOA/PFOS sites, and notes that the Navy has funding remaining in its FY17 budget "to address the highest priority sites this year and is working with our regulatory partners to prioritize additional sites."
The Navy relies on funding through its environmental restoration and base closure accounts to pay for the sites, he adds.
An Air Force spokesman says in a written response to questions that if the service believes it is "the probable contributor to PFC contamination in water supplies above the EPA's health advisory level, the Air Force will fund actions to manage the issue," including offering alternative water supplies and working to solve the issues for the long-term.
In a subsequent written response to questions, an Air Force spokesman says, "It's important to understand that the Air Force addresses actual environmental threats as they arise, and adjust funding as necessary to protect human health and the environment. If we have a reasonable expectation that the Air Force is the probable contributor to PFC contamination in water supplies above the EPA's health advisory level, the Air Force will fund actions to manage the issue. This includes providing alternative water supplies when appropriate and working with the affected communities and regulators for long term solutions.
"The Defense Environmental Restoration Program is a requirements-driven program and funding is based on prioritized requirements in any given year. We have been able to fund the response to PFCs by shifting funds from other cleanup efforts. We have been able to cover requirements associated with PFCs, including planned site investigations at all installations, and the Air Force is programming for known PFC requirements in the current budget cycle. For installations closed under Base Realignment and Closure Act, the Air Force follows the same prioritization process, but has the ability to use available funds from the previous fiscal years to meet new requirements."
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/pennsylvania-urges-military-pay-citizens-health-tests-near-pfc-sites
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(ACC Blog) Spray Foam Insulation and California’s Goal for Zero Net Energy
Jun 21, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By Justin Koscher
Residential and commercial buildings together in the United States account for about 40 percent of total energy consumption – a greater share than either the industrial or transportation sectors. Furthermore, residential energy consumption exceeds commercial, accounting for 22 percent of total primary energy consumption. California has been a leader in reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from the buildings we live and work in. In 2007, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) announced anambitious goal to make all new homes in California zero net energy (ZNE) by 2020. In addition to government engagement, consumer demand for energy efficient homes has increased and high-performance buildings are becoming the norm.
Spray polyurethane foam (SPF) insulation can substantially reduce energy needs and costs by providing a versatile building enclosure solution that meets new insulation requirements.* A ZNE home produces as much energy as it consumes over the course of one year through energy efficient designs supplemented with on-site renewable sources. As a result, new ZNE homes will require builders to increase insulation R-values and decrease air leakage for maximum energy efficiency using products like SPF. Installed as a single product to provide a layer of insulation in walls, floors and ceilings, SPF significantly reduces heating and cooling loads, and minimizes energy loss.
A typical home can lose as much as 40 percent of its energy through cracks and gaps in the walls and roof. As part of California’s drive for all new ZNE homes, the California Energy Commission (CEC) released the 2016 Title 24 requirements for new single-family residential buildings set to go in effect on January 1, 2017. Key changes include the addition of high-performance walls (HPWs) and high-performance attics (HPAs).
The new HPW and HPA requirements will enable builders to increase the energy efficiency performance of homes through existing designs and materials. As an example, constructing an unvented attic (UVA) with SPF insulation is a proven HPA design. This design uses SPF applied to the underside of the roof deck to seal attics from air infiltration, effectively bringing the space into the conditioned building envelope and providing energy savings.
o assist builders, the Spray Foam Coalition released a guidance document that walks users through the techniques for modeling SPF UVA design using Title 24-approved software tools. Modeling demonstrates that an UVA design using R-22 SPF outperforms existing requirements for attic insulation; a design using R-28 SPF outperform the new 2016 prescriptive insulation requirements for attics.
ZNE home construction will be a topic of discussion at PCBC, the largest homebuilding tradeshow on the west coast and host to 350 leading building product manufacturers and suppliers along with 10,000 attendees including home builders, developers, architects, contractors, investors, capital providers, interior designers, remodelers, real estate brokers, distributors and other industry stakeholders.
The Spray Foam Coalition will exhibit at PCBC and can provide more information about SPF insulation and its effective use in ZNE homes. Feel free to drop by our exhibit and say hello!
* Savings vary. Find out why in the seller’s fact sheet on R-values. Higher R-values mean greater insulating power.
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2016/06/spray-foam-insulation-and-californias-goal-for-zero-net-energy/
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BLM Says Fracking Rule Freeze 'Ignores a Century of Precedent'
Jun 21, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
The Obama administration's new rules for hydraulic fracturing on public and tribal lands are not only legal -- they're overdue, government lawyers told a federal court yesterday.
In a brief to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, lawyers for the Bureau of Land Management pushed to reverse a lower court's decision to freeze the fracking rule while it's being debated in that court.
Critics say the rule exceeds BLM's authority and encroaches on states' regulatory turf. Four states, two industry groups and one American Indian tribe are challenging the rule in court.
BLM lawyers and their environmental allies swatted back at the allegations yesterday, arguingthat state and federal rules for oil and gas development can and should coexist.
"Federal regulations governing mineral development on public lands have co-existed with state oil and gas regulations for decades," environmental groups represented by Earthjustice told the court. "The Rule is simply a long-overdue update of BLM's rules to address the recent hydraulic fracturing boom."
The fracking rule sets new requirements for well construction, wastewater management and chemical disclosure for fracking on public and tribal lands, and requires operators to get BLM approval before fracking. It has been stalled in litigation since its release more than a year ago.
The challengers say the process creates a costly red-tape headache for industry, with little to no payoff in environmental protection. And according to tribes, their land shouldn't be lumped in with public lands in the first place.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming last year dealt a major blow to rule backers when it issued a preliminary injunction and questioned whether BLM had authority over fracking at all. The high-stakes debate over that authority is center stage in the 10th Circuit appeal.
BLM defended the authority in yesterday's brief -- a final reply to challengers' arguments in the appeal -- saying the plain language and history of federal law grant the agency power over mineral development and environmental protection on federal lands.
"The preliminary injunction rests on the district court's flawed conclusion that BLM -- the agency Congress assigned to oversee all operations on federal and Indian oil and gas leases -- somehow lacks authority to regulate subsurface operations like hydraulic fracturing," government lawyers wrote. "That conclusion ignores a century of precedent and decades-old federal regulations."
Challengers have already urged the 10th Circuit to leave the injunction in place, blocking the rule from taking effect until the Wyoming district court decides whether it's legal.
In briefs last month, they argued that the Mineral Leasing Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act -- on which BLM is resting much of its argument -- were designed to encourage orderly development of oil and gas, not to promote an extensive federal regulatory state (EnergyWire, May 26).
The states in the lawsuit -- Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota and Utah -- have also argued that fracking is out of BLM's hands. They say Congress used the Safe Drinking Water Act to delegate authority over fracking to U.S. EPA and subsequently used the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to revoke that power and leave it in the hands of the states.
BLM lawyers called that logic "astounding" in yesterday's brief, arguing that the legislative history "clearly states Congress's intent to preserve BLM's independent authority to protect groundwater under the MLA and other statutes."
The decision to let the rule take effect is now in the hands of the 10th Circuit. The underlying argument over the rule's legality is under review at the district court in Wyoming.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/06/21/stories/1060039134
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Clinton's Energy Plan Pits Green Against Green
Jun 20, 2016 | Roll Call
By John Bicknell
There is a civil war going on in the environmental movement. No blood will be spilled, but like the conflagration that nearly destroyed the Union in the 19th century, disagreements over the use of public lands for alternative energy production is not likely to be settled by compromise. Somebody will win and somebody will lose.
Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, wants to “accelerate renewable energy project siting and development” on public lands, according to her campaign website. To that end, she has called for a “tenfold increase in renewable energy production on public lands and waters within ten years.”
For environmentalists more concerned about conserving public lands than bending to the crony capitalists profiting from climate-change disaster-mongering, that’s a declaration of war.
“Democrats now lay claim to being the principal protectors of the public lands, accusing Republicans of wishing to ‘privatize’ them. But it is the Democrats giving away the public lands wholesale for but a pittance in leasing fees,” said Alfred Runte , a respected historian of the conservation movement and author of “National Parks: The American Experience .”
For Runte, Clinton’s plan means a drastic reshaping of the purpose of public lands.
“It’s taking over our public lands — meant for biological conservation — for the idea of climate change,” he said. “It’s very troubling to me.”
The moves now endorsed by Clinton could mean that tens of millions of acres of national forests, wildlife preserves and even national parks could become home to giant solar and wind farms.
And Clinton rightly points out that all this new energy production will need to reach the grid. “A major barrier to renewable energy development on both public and private lands is the ability to build transmission lines to get that energy to market,” Clinton’s proposal states.
So, in addition to abusing the land itself, she is proposing to “streamline the federal permitting process and create a dedicated White House transmission office tasked with expediting federal agency reviews” for new transmission lines that will further mar the landscape.
To date, the temptation to simply turn over public land to crony alt-energy capitalists has been held somewhat in check.
In 2014 the Bureau of Land Management rejected a proposed solar farm between Death Valley National Park and the Mojave National Preserve.
But the sunny states of the Southwest have been a special target for alternative energy development on public land, and if Clinton is looking to expand, that’s where it is most likely to happen.
If the former secretary of State is serious about this proposal, she needs to fill in the blanks quickly.
“She is talking about the full-scale development of public lands,” said Runte, who served as an adviser on Ken Burns’s PBS series “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.”
About 40 million acres of public land have been designated as appropriate for solar development , Runte pointed out, and 300,000 acres are already developed or in the process of being developed.
As we have seen in Vermont with the siting of wind farms, this proposal will pit green against green — those dedicated to expanding renewable energy above all other conservation values, versus those whose paramount concern is protection of the land.
Siding with the alt-energy crowd are the crony capitalists who stand to profit from sweetheart leases and federal subsidies. But anyone who visits a national park, preserve or forest is an interested party.
“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread,” Edward Abbey wrote in Desert Solitaire . “A civilization which destroys what little remains of the wild, the spare, the original, is cutting itself off from its origins and betraying the principle of civilization itself.”
Where, exactly, would a President Clinton build wind and solar farms to increase production “tenfold?” What would she do to mitigate the corresponding increase in birds deaths — conservatively estimated at more than half a million, including hundreds of eagles, yearly — from wind turbines?
The voters who enjoy the wild, the spare and the original of our national park system, and those who live and work nearby, deserve to know.
John Bicknell is executive editor of Watchdog.org, a nonprofit journalism project of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/clinton-energy-plan-pits-green-green
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GOP: Trump Will Talk More About Energy
Jun 21, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Donald Trump will go into further depth about his energy and environment positions as the campaign carries on, the Republican Party's top spokesman said Tuesday.
Sean Spicer, communications director for the Republican National Committee, said the presumptive GOP presidential nominee doesn’t like talking about policy matters at his rallies.
Trump is likely to outline more specific energy positions in briefings and other means, he said.
“I think you might see briefings and policy papers and things put on websites, but I’m not sure that a lot of the discourse is going to delve into deep policy issues,” Spicer said at an American Petroleum Institute event.
“He is more of a populist speaker than getting to give wonky speeches at Brookings or Heritage,” he added. “That’s just not his thing. I think you might see a discussion of the issues, but it’s not going to be in the standard forums we’ve seen.”
Trump has mostly shied away from delving into deep public policy matters throughout his campaign, with some exceptions.
His largest foray into energy policy came last month in a detailed, scripted speech at an oil industry event in North Dakota.
He used it to outline an “American First” energy agenda that aligns generally with Republican orthodoxy, including expanding oil, gas and coal development, reversing President Obama’s environmental agenda and reducing dependence on foreign energy sources.
Trump’s speech was criticized by analysts for numerous reasons, including his pledges to increase both coal and natural gas production, despite the fact that they compete directly. His promise to bring back the coal industry was also criticized as unlikely.
Spicer said that the North Dakota speech is probably not the end of Trump’s energy platform, and he’s likely to expand on environmental policies as well.
“I think Trump is going to lay out a lot more about where he wants to go with the environment,” Spicer said. “But that’s for him go into more with.”
Trump promised in the speech to focus his environmental policy on clean air and water, while undoing all of Obama’s environmental regulations and pulling out of last year’s Paris climate agreement.
Spicer said that although Trump doesn’t believe in the science of climate change or policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the country could still cut emissions under a Trump presidency.
“I think you can do responsible things. There are things that we could be doing with clean technology that’s just good for business,” he said. “And so we don’t necessarily need to debate the science piece of it.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/284268-gop-spokesman-trump-likely-to-talk-more-about-energy
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Mayors, Climate Group Join Forces on Planning for Rule
Jun 21, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Elizabeth Harball
The nonprofit Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) announced plans today to team up with the U.S. Conference of Mayors and businesses to urge carbon reductions from U.S. power plants.
One of the alliance's main goals is getting cities and businesses to work with states on implementing U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, a rule aimed at reducing power plant emissions 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.
Judy Sheahan, assistant executive director for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said the group intends to take advantage of the Supreme Court stay of the rule to strategize how cities can be a more active part of the Clean Power Plan planning process.
"A lot of times, unfortunately, for state implementation plans, mayors are not usually at the table," said Sheahan. "What sometimes happens is things get implemented on a city rather than with a city.
"The plan is to have mayors and businesses work together, create some model best practices and, ideally, approach the state together," she said.
C2ES President Bob Perciasepe, former U.S. EPA deputy administrator, said cities will leverage commitments they have already made through other groups like the Compact of Mayors, which was active during the Paris climate talks last year.
"How do we get that translated into both the Clean Power Plan work that can help states and regulated power companies implement the plan, but also, is there a way for some of that to start filling the gap that exists between what the U.S. has committed to do in Paris and what still needs to be done over the next 10 years?" Perciasepe said.
Perciasepe and Sheahan said cities are especially interested in working on EPA's Clean Energy Incentive Program, a voluntary program under the Clean Power Plan that gives extra credit to states that start installing renewable energy and energy efficiency in low-income areas before the compliance period begins. EPA released a formal proposal on the CEIP program last week.
Perciasepe confirmed that the alliance would work in states that officially have halted work on the federal climate rule due to the Supreme Court stay, but whether this will result in those states resuming work on the Clean Power Plan "remains to be seen," he said.
"What we do hope is that when more states get back to publicly working on their plans, that we will have a set of practices and approaches that will help cities and businesses participate in that," Perciasepe said.
No businesses have signed onto the alliance yet, but C2ES will be approaching them through its Business Environmental Leadership Council whose members include BP PLC, Dominion Resources Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Microsoft Corp. The Conference of Mayors also plans to approach its own business council, Sheahan said.
In a statement, Conference of Mayors President and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called the Clean Power Plan "the cornerstone of the nation's strategy" to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Rawlings-Blake has appointed Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales to lead the alliance.
"Cities are our nation's economic powerhouses, making them a key proving ground for policies to increase energy efficiency, deploy clean energy, and foster clean transportation," Gonzales said in a statement.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/06/21/stories/1060039151
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Carbon Could Rise Without Tighter Limits After 2030 -- EIA
Jun 21, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden and Elizabeth Harball
Carbon emissions from the power sector could stop declining or rise after 2030 if caps are not tightened past the end of the Clean Power Plan, according to new analysis from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
According to several different scenarios of how states could implement the greenhouse gas regulation, emissions could flatline or stop falling and start to rise in 2027.
Emissions could rise considerably if states take U.S. EPA's option to aim for an average rate of carbon each year, rather than capping carbon dioxide from existing and new power plants, EIA found.
In any case, overall carbon emissions would still be much lower than without the regulation. Still, the findings could put wind in the sails of environmental advocates who want deeper and longer-lasting carbon cuts than in the Clean Power Plan.
But there's a catch.
In models of the Clean Power Plan as written, average retail electricity prices in the late 2020s would be 3 percent higher than without the rule and would fall back to normal by 2040.
But if EPA strengthened the standards past 2030, prices later on would be higher. If EPA made a 45 percent cut from 2005 levels by 2040 (rather than what EIA estimates will be a 35 percent cut by 2030), average retails prices in 2040 would be 6 percent higher than without the rule.
Trading choices key to cost, emissions
The research released yesterday builds upon data EIA previewed last month on its reference case -- where all states cap emissions from all power plants and trade allowances within set regions (ClimateWire, May 18).
The findings are important because they show how emissions and power costs could vary depending on how states comply with the rule and what level of carbon trading emerges.
In its reference case, EIA noted that although electricity prices could average out to 3 percent higher than the baseline, they would vary from region to region. The Northeast would see larger price increases because it relies heavily on natural gas. That's true even though the Northeast is already on track to exceed Clean Power Plan goals because natural gas would be in higher demand around the country and cost more under the Clean Power Plan.
The Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Southeast would likely shift to more natural gas, to reduce coal-based power use, so they would see higher prices, too.
California and the Northwest would see smaller price increases.
EIA's earlier study assumed carbon trading would only happen within set regions. The new research looks at expanding that system so that all states in the Western Interconnection or all states in the Eastern Interconnection could trade carbon allowances.
This trading allows emissions to be above an individual region's cap, as long as that region holds allowances from another region with total emissions that are below its limit.
With that interregional trading, the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic would purchase the most allowances and retain more coal-fired power. The Southeast would sell the most allowances and reduce coal power, expanding to renewables, according to EIA.
That scenario, however, makes one big assumption -- that California would sell more than 20 million allowances in the West, putting the Western Interconnection below its emissions cap. It's unclear whether California wants to trade with other states.
Additionally, the new analysis examines a "hybrid case," which is what the power sector might look like if some states cap emissions and some use rate-based standards -- which seems likely if the rule survives court challenges.
But because EIA only assumed that the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative states and California used mass-based goals, while the rest of the country adhered to state carbon rates, the findings don't offer much insight. That's because the RGGI states and California are set to overcomply with their standards. So the results are the same as for EIA's rate-based scenario.
EIA also looked at another important question -- the cost impact of how states might distribute allowances.
EIA's reference case that estimates 3 percent higher electricity prices assumed that states would allocate allowances to utilities and those utilities would use them to offset customer bills. But if states instead gave allowances to generators and the value did not reach customers, bills would be higher, EIA found.
Impacts on the power mix
How states choose to comply with the Clean Power Plan would also significantly affect the future mix of energy sources across the United States.
If mass-based carbon trading systems form in individual regions, states that rely heavily on coal-fired power will have to make the biggest shifts. For example, the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic region could see coal decline from 48 percent of total electricity generation in 2015 to 28 percent in 2030.
But if broader carbon trading systems form, EIA predicts coal could remain a bigger part of the energy mix in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, declining to 37 percent of the electricity generation in 2030. An interregional trading system would also dampen the region's shift to natural gas, EIA reports.
However, overall coal use in the United States would decline no matter what states choose to 22 percent of total U.S. generation in 2030 compared to 33 percent in 2015.
EIA notes that renewable energy is going to become a bigger part of the energy mix in the United States even if the Clean Power Plan is struck down. But if states choose to go with a rate-based trading system, renewables would get even more of a boost.
In the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic region, wind and solar grows to 15 percent of electricity generation by 2030 under a rate-based system, compared with 5 percent of generation in the reference case. This adds up to an additional 95 billion kilowatt-hours of generation, EIA states. Similar patterns would happen in the Southeast, the Southern Plains and Texas under a rate-based system, EIA reports.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/06/21/stories/1060039135
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Obama’s Advisers Just Dismantled a Key Myth About the Future of Clean Energy
Jun 21, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
Most people these days know that wind and solar energy are booming. And for the most part, we simply see this as adding two new and cleaner sources of electricity to the mix that we already have.
But really, it is way more complicated than that. These two renewable sources have a tremendous difference from sources such as coal, nuclear and even hydropower that involves not where the energy comes from but, rather, when it comes. You can run a nuclear plant, or a coal plant, all night, steadily. But you cannot do that with a solar plant, except perhaps in the summer in far northern Alaska.
This large “variability” or “intermittency” of renewable energy has been endlessly cited to suggest that sources like wind and solar can only make up in the neighborhood of 15 to 20 percent of all electricity on the grid, notes a recent report by President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. And yet, the study goes on to say, we are already seeing isolated instances, albeit brief, of renewables doing much more than that in some locations.
“Portugal was run 100 percent on wind, solar, and hydropower for four days straight in May 2016, and Texas hit a record level of 45 percent instantaneous penetration from wind generation during one evening in February of this year,” the report observes.
So can we really attain far higher levels of renewables, and still get everybody power when they want and need it? Without suggesting it will necessarily be easy — or that we can entirely do away with “baseload” power sources like nuclear any time soon — what’s so striking is to find that Obama’s advisers think that, thanks to the burgeoning growth of grid batteries and other technologies that can help integrate variable energy streams, the answer is yes.
In the process, they’re subtly undermining one of the key arguments made by defenders of coal and also sometimes nuclear — that renewables cannot compete with the steady output of baseload electricity from these long established sources.
“What they’re getting at here is that these things are growing rapidly, and there isn’t a hindrance to higher penetration of renewables,” says Matt Roberts, executive director of the Energy Storage Association, an industry group that welcomed a White House rollout of the CEA report, other related battery-focused announcements, and an energy storage summit late last week. “There’s not some artificial cliff that says, ‘Okay, if we hit 30 percent, or whatever other magic number we decide, that renewables are un-viable.”
Through new administration moves and paired announcements by industry and utility companies, the expected upshot of the new initiatives is “at least 1.3 gigawatts of additional storage procurement or deployment in the next five years,” the White House said.
The Council of Economic Advisers report amounts to the intellectual backup for these endeavors. It finds that two key trends — managing the grid’s electricity requirements at a given time through innovations such as “demand response,” and a greater proliferation of batteries and other energy storage technologies — can substantially ameliorate the very real problems caused by the variability of wind and solar and “support further increases” in the deployment of these electricity sources.
Granted, more wind and solar “will require a re-envisioning of the management of the grid,” the report notes. But it argues that this re-envisioning is not only possible, it’s already underway.
The key problem is that with more wind and especially more solar on the grid, you reach a situation where solar can be doing a great deal of work for supplying electricity during the middle of the day, when it’s most plentiful — but also one in which demand for electricity rises steeply, even as solar availability declines, in the evening. This means that other energy sources, such as natural gas, will have to ramp up very rapidly to close the gap, and this is quite expensive — unless, that is, there is a way to mitigate the steepness of this daily rise in demand.
At the same time, there’s another, more general issue. The variability of renewables — epitomized by a cloudy day, or one that isn’t very windy — adds more question marks for those charged with operating the grid on a daily basis. This means that as more wind and solar are added to the grid, there will also be a need for more ways of switching where and when power is used, which comes with a cost.
However, forms of energy storage — for instance, charging up batteries when there is a lot of solar power, and then having that electricity ready to dispatch when it’s needed — could mitigate this problem to a significant extent. Large-scale energy storage today remains expensive to deploy, but the Council of Economic Advisers concludes that that’s going to change, even as more penetration of renewables makes its deployment more valuable because of the need for the additional services it can provide.
And then, there’s “demand response,” getting key users of electricity — either large businesses or aggregated groups of individuals — to use less at key times when the grid faces high levels of demand. This could significantly ease the evening ramp-up of electricity demand, and basically amounts to a technology and coordination problem: You need to be able to alter electricity usage quickly at key moments, and you need to be able to organize and provide compensation to those who are willing to help out the grid by doing so.
But this, too, is becoming more and more possible. The Council of Economic Advisers finds that “continued expansion of smart markets and advanced communications is likely to make demand response all the more valuable going forward.”
The Supreme Court recently resolved a challenge aimed at large-scale demand response — mainly used by big companies that use a lot of electricity, and want to get paid for being selective about when they use it — in its favor. But there are also many smaller scale, individual possibilities with demand response, involving home appliances that can become “grid interactive” and modulate precisely when they are used. Water heaters and electric vehicles, in particular, are promising in this respect, says the Council of Economic Advisers.
The upshot is that while really big changes are clearly coming to the grid — and while nobody is saying that we can suddenly go to 100 percent renewables — there are many reasons to think that new technologies, as they become cheaper, will work hand-in-hand with the growth of wind and solar to make a cleaner grid possible. And if we see these technologies grow, and drop in price, at anything like the rate that wind and solar themselves have, that grid could come sooner than we think.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/06/21/obamas-advisers-just-dismantled-a-key-myth-about-the-future-of-clean-energy/
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What We Know – And Don't know – About Toxic Wastewater from the Oil and Gas Industry
Jun 21, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Cloelle Danforth
Co-authored by Steven Hamburg.
For all that we hear and think about oil and gas production, wastewater may not be at the top of our list of concerns. And yet, onshore oil and gas operations in the United States produce more than 800 billion gallons of toxic wastewater each year.
Most oil and gas companies either dispose of this water deep underground, or recycle it for use in other wells. But a growing number of operators are now considering alternate ways to discharge or reuse this water above ground.
Before we can effectively manage this influx of wastewater in new ways, we need to have a better understanding of what’s in it.
This is why new research by Environmental Defense Fund in collaboration with Columbia University and the University of Colorado is so important. With generous support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, we’re working hard to find better ways to test for the multitude of chemicals that may be in this wastewater.
We believe management of this water has become a defining challenge of modern oil and gas production.
An environmental problem, a resource – or both?
Historically, oil and gas operators injected about 93 percent of their wastewater deep underground. Hardly any of this wastewater was reintroduced into the ecosystem, which limited the need for regulators or others to thoroughly characterize the constituents of the wastewater.
But there are several reasons we should have a closer look now.
The escalating scarcity of fresh water in the West has prompted policymakers to explore other alternatives for oil and gas wastewater disposal – such as reusing it for irrigation and livestock purposes. Growing concerns over earthquakes sometimes caused by the use of deep disposal wells have also, in some cases, fueled such efforts.
By 2012, more than 30 billion gallons of wastewater from the oil and gas industry was discharged above ground, a volume likely to increase based on current disposal trends. The problem is, there are major gaps in our understanding of potential risks and impacts associated with such practices.
Adding this water into the ecosystem with a limited understanding of its chemistry is deeply concerning, and we need to stay ahead of such practices.
Why oil and gas wastewater is so complex
The chemical make-up of this type of wastewater can change over time and across different geographies, making treating it a complicated issue that requires different solutions in different places at different times.
Additionally, it can contain a variety compounds and pollutants – for example hydraulic fracturing fluids used to stimulate the well, compounds used to maintain oil or gas production, or pollutants that are naturally present deep underground.
Existing methods of analyzing the chemical composition of the fluid are difficult to use because the wastewater is often extremely salty – as much as 10 times saltier than the ocean. And for some chemicals, testing methods that work effectively in these salty solutions simply don’t exist.
Without working methods, it’s difficult to detect and remove pollutants, understand their potential risks to the environment, and regulate and monitor them effectively.
Our goal: Less risk to ecosystem and health
The primary purpose of our new research project is to develop methods for analyzing organic chemicals in high-saline wastewater, and to investigate options for less energy and resource-intensive treatment systems than what exist for this type of wastewater today.
It will advance our current understanding of wastewater from oil and gas production and provide more clarity to operators, regulators and communities where alternative disposal methods may be taking place.
Ultimately, this work will help reduce potential risks to public health and the environment on which we all depend.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2016/06/21/what-we-know-and-dont-know-about-toxic-wastewater-oil-and-gas-industry
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Rex Energy Lands More Money to Hold Appalachian Acreage with Production
Jun 21, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Rex Energy Corp. is pushing ahead on its recently acquired Moraine East area in Western Pennsylvania's northern Butler County, announcing Tuesday that it has completed 20 Marcellus and Upper Devonian shale wells there since it started drilling operations last year (see Shale Daily, June 11, 2015).
The company's joint venture (JV) partner in the Moraine, investment firm Benefit Street Partners LLC (BSP), also has elected to participate in the next 12 wells there, increasing its capital commitment from $51.6 million to $98.1 million, Rex said. The company announced the partnership in March, saying BSP would jointly develop 58 wells in the Moraine and the Warrior North Prospect of Ohio's Carroll County that would net it up to $175 million (see Shale Daily, March 2).
Rex added that it has reached an agreement with its gathering partner in the Moraine, Stonehenge Energy Partners II LP, to reduce its overall minimum daily volume commitment in the region, but it didn’t say that would affect this year’s production guidance
The JV was executed as part of a broader financial initiative to protect its acreage from expiring, boost liquidity and pay down debt. The company has made progress in shoring up its balance sheet, announcing the $40 million sale of its Illinois Basin assets in Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky, the exchange of senior notes and a stock swap to reduce interest and dividend payments and generate more cash (see Shale Daily, June 15; March 15)
"The increased $45.7 million capital commitment from BSP, plus proceeds from the recently announced Illinois Basin sale, will provide Rex Energy with over $80 million of additional liquidity in 2016," said CEO Tom Stabley. "The liquidity will enable Rex Energy to continue our plan to hold the majority of the Appalachian Basin acreage by production by mid-year 2017."
Rex acquired its Moraine East assets in a larger 2014 deal with an affiliate of Royal Dutch Shell plc for $120 million (see Shale Daily, Aug. 13, 2014). The properties sit to the north of Rex's core legacy acreage in Butler County, where the company also inked a JV last year with ArcLight Capital Partners LLC to help develop both areas (see Shale Daily, March 31, 2015).
The company first drilled the Moraine in 1Q2015. BSP's latest commitment increases its participation in the area to 30 wells, and helps Rex keep this year's capital expenditures at $35.5 million.
Its 20th well in the Moraine, the Kleaver 2HB, set a company record for longest lateral at 10,200 feet. Rex is currently drilling the third of four wells on its Baird pad there, as well.
A focus on operational efficiencies has also further reduced the company's costs to drill and complete a 6,000 foot lateral on a four-well pad in the Butler Operated area. Rex said its average drilling and completion cost is now $5 million, or 6% less than its previous average of $5.3 million per well, and it expects those costs to keep declining this year.
In the Warrior North, the company recently placed three Utica wells on the Goebeler pad into sales at an average lateral length of 7,500 feet, saying the preliminary results were encouraging with sales rates set to be announced at the end of the second quarter. The company is also currently completing the two-well Perry pad with an average lateral length of 6,650 feet.
Rex management said in May that the company plans to drill another 12 wells in the Moraine this year and up to nine in 2017 to finish holding its acreage there (see Shale Daily, May 11).
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/106830-rex-energy-lands-more-money-to-hold-appalachian-acreage-with-production
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California’s Last Nuclear Power Plant Could Close
Jun 21, 2016 | New York Times
By Diane Cardwell
California, among the first states to embrace nuclear energy in the 1950s, may be breaking things off for good.
Under a proposal announced on Tuesday, Pacific Gas and Electric would shutter the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, the state’s last operating nuclear facility, and would compensate for the lost output with technologies that do not emit greenhouse gases, including renewable energy.
The proposal, part of an agreement with environmental and labor groups, is intended to help meet California’s aggressive clean energy goals, which have already transformed the power mix with a large and growing renewable energy fleet at a time of slowing electric demand. It also comes after years of public pressure to close the plant, near San Luis Obispo, because of safety concerns over its location, near several fault lines, and its use of ocean water for cooling.
“California’s energy landscape is changing dramatically, with energy efficiency, renewables and storage being central to the state’s energy policy,” Tony Earley, PG&E’s chief executive, said in a prepared statement. “Diablo Canyon’s full output will no longer be required.”
Under the proposal, which would require the approval of the California Public Utilities Commission, the plant’s two reactors would be shut down in 2024 and 2025, when their operating licenses expire, as long as the State Lands Commission extends a permit set to expire in 2018 that grants access to the ocean for the cooling operation.
The planned closing comes as the future of many of the country’s 99 nuclear reactors — a majority of which are more than 30 years old — is looking grim. The flood of cheap natural gas and slowing demand for electricity have driven down power prices, making it difficult for the aging plants to compete in wholesale markets. In recent years, several plants have shut down before their licenses expired, and more early closings are planned or threatened around the country.
But nuclear plants provide nearly 60 percent of the country’s carbon dioxide-free power. So some state and federal officials, and environmentalists have been scrambling to help save the plants in order to meet national goals to stem climate change. A rise in greenhouse gas emissions has tended to follow closings of nuclear plants, as they have most often been replaced by natural gas. That was the case in New England and California after Vermont Yankee and San Onofre shut down.
The plan for Diablo Canyon, which began operating in 1985 and stirred controversy from the start, is aimed at avoiding that.
“It lays out an effective road map for a nuclear phaseout in the world’s sixth-largest economy, while assuring a green energy replacement plan to make California a global leader in fighting climate change,” said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, an environmental group that was formed in opposition to the plant in 1969 and that helped develop the agreement.
The state’s evolving policies require utilities to include 50 percent renewables in the power they provide by 2030, to sharply reduce electricity sales through efficiency measures and to include the use of energy storage. That, combined with the increasing availability of renewable energy from large-scale wind and solar farms, as well as rooftop systems spreading throughout the state, means that the need for conventional nuclear plants, whose output is difficult to adjust quickly, is diminished.
“Giant baseload nuclear power plants like Diablo Canyon cannot easily be taken offline, or ramped up and down, as system needs change,” said Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council and the group’s lead negotiator on the agreement. “This worsening problem is forcing the California grid operator to shut down low-cost renewable generation that could otherwise be used productively.”
Other organizations participating in the agreement include Environment California, the Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245 and the Coalition of California Utility Employees.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/22/business/californias-diablo-canyon-nuclear-power-plant.html?_r=0
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1 dead, 3 Injured in Bakken Explosion
Jun 21, 2016 | AP/Bismarck Tribune (In E&E Energywire)
One person was killed and three were injured in a North Dakota oil rig explosion Saturday morning, according to authorities.
State environmental scientist Bill Suess said the explosion happened near Watford City on an XTO Energy Inc. site and was caused by a gas line leak.
Suess said the leak caused a "flash fire," injuring four workers. Johnny Stassinos, 52, of Wyoming died of his injuries Saturday afternoon. Two others were listed in critical condition at a burn center, and the fourth was treated for minor injuries.
Suess said no oil spilled from the incident.
XTO Energy is a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corp. A spokeswoman said the workers were contractors employed by oil well maintenance companies.
The oil and gas industry has more deaths from fires and explosions than any other private industry, according to a 2014 EnergyWire review of federal labor statistics (EnergyWire, Oct. 20, 2014). It employs less than 1 percent of the U.S. workforce, but in the previous five years, it had seen more than 10 percent of all workplace fatalities from fires and explosions (AP/Bismarck Tribune, June 20).
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/06/21/stories/1060039102
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Advocates Ramp Up Internal Talks on Air Law Section 115 EPA GHG Rule
Jun 21, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Environmentalists are ramping up internal conversations about the merits and pitfalls of using section 115 of the Clean Air Act -- which governs cross-border pollution -- to target greenhouse gases (GHGs) across the economy, as some groups mull how hard to press the next presidential administration to adopt the approach as part of its climate change policy.
So far, the groups have not yet agreed on any strategy on the issue, with sources describing more of a continuous process of getting potential section 115 supporters up to speed on the option.
But several sources describe an uptick in discussion of the concept -- including a recent closed-door meeting in Washington, D.C., involving numerous major environmental groups -- an indication that talk of the air act mechanism is moving beyond a largely theoretical discussion in legal analyses.
“There are serious conversations taking place among environmental groups on how 115 would work,” says one advocate.
In a similar vein, David Bookbinder, an energy consultant and former Sierra Club lawyer, said during at a June 9 presentation at the United States Energy Association that section 115 is the “silver bullet du jour” for environmentalists,
“They are dead serious about this. . . . They are already working on the [Hillary] Clinton energy people, [saying] 'We want section 115. We want you to use it,'” Bookbinder said.
While he did not offer an assessment of the merits of the approach, Bookbinder has in the past characterized the option as legally suspect, suggesting that seeking to use the authority to address GHGs “would give EPA completely unconstrained power that we do not think Congress ever intended, and that the courts would never uphold.”
Details of the recent closed-door meeting remain scarce, but sources characterize it as part of a broader section 115 education process that has occurred with the involvement of advocates including the Center for American Progress (CAP) and two former staffers for retired House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) -- Phil Schiliro, who was both chief of staff to Waxman and President Obama's director of legislative affairs, and Phil Barnett, the former staff director of the House Energy & Commerce and oversight committees..
The idea of using section 115 as a possible route to GHG control is not new, with legal experts and advocates having talked for several years about the provision -- which provides authority to remedy air pollution that causes harm abroad -- to take steps beyond failed cap-and-trade legislation in 2010 or current EPA GHG rules.
Under the provision, supporters argue, EPA could move forward with economy-wide rules after finding that GHGs contribute to climate change that harms other countries, as well as a “reciprocity” finding that other countries' are making similar efforts on emissions. Supporters say the second finding was recently made far easier by the Paris climate deal.
After issuing those two findings, the agency must then inform states where sources of the pollutant at issue are located. That notice would then spur states to revise state air pollution control plans to address the emissions.
Supporters say the process would direct the development of state plans to curb emissions that allow for maximum flexibility, rather than regulating emissions on a sector-by-sector basis as EPA has been doing.
Never Been Used
The provision has never been successfully used, though EPA in the waning days of the Carter administration tried to use it to target acid rain. The Reagan administration subsequently declined to pursue the effort, and it was ultimately rendered moot by the acid rain program in the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990.
More recently, New York University's Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) in February 2013 petitioned EPA to regulate GHGs under the provision, and a 2014 paper from Center for Biological Diversity senior counsel William Snape argued the provision provides a “complimentary authority” for a GHG emissions cap.
Further, a January analysis from numerous legal experts at Columbia Law School, UCLA School of Law and IPI touted section 115 as a possible route to an economy-wide GHG trading plan without the need for new action by Congress.
Former EPA senior policy counsel Robert Sussman in an April 29 blog post called the idea of using section 115 both legally defensible and necessary to meet U.S. GHG reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement.
“Section 115 has strengths that no other provision of existing law offers. Using it will not be easy,” Sussman said. “But failure to take advantage of its strengths will handicap U.S. policymakers in designing a path to achieve the ambitious GHG reduction targets that the Obama administration has pledged to meet by 2025.”
Sussman, in a June 15 follow-up interview with Inside EPA, said that “the number of people interested in the idea [of section 115] is growing,” and that it is a “significant part of the discussion” on the options available to a possible Clinton administration.
Several sources also point to ongoing behind-the-scenes outreach on the issue, including the large meeting within the last several weeks heavily attended by “people inside the D.C. environmental community” and focused specifically on section 115, according to one source familiar with the issue.
Another source says the “closed-door” meeting was held so advocates could speak freely about the issue, but declined to offer details about what was said at the meeting.
Sources say that the meeting does not signal that environmentalists have agreed on a section 115 strategy, but they call the meeting part of a necessary process to familiarize advocates with the idea before the concept can become viable.
“Ultimately, if the federal government is going to take action under section 115, it is going to require unified support from the environmental community,” the first source says.
CAP's involvement in the effort could be important because the group has long held sway among Democratic administrations and was formerly led by John Podesta, who is now chairman of the Clinton campaign and an ardent supporter of aggressive climate policy.
Similarly, sources also point to the involvement of the pair of former Waxman aides as key, given Waxman's continued advocacy for stringent GHG curbs.
Potential Complications
Despite advocates' behind-the-scenes discussion, the history of section 115 -- as well as current political realities -- suggest that the Obama administration and its successor might face some complications to quickly moving forward with the option.
Those hurdles include the immediate perception problem of undertaking the section 115 effort with litigation on EPA's landmark GHG standards for existing power plants still pending -- which could be interpreted as either a signal that the rules are vulnerable or that the administration is overreaching.
Most sources also doubt that the outgoing Obama administration could do much to set the table for action under section 115, citing a Reagan-era decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit inThomas v. New York that made clear that only a notice-and-comment rulemaking would be sufficient to issue the required endangerment and reciprocity findings.
Then-appellate judge Antonin Scalia ruled in the case that the Reagan EPA faced no legal mandate to proceed on the Carter administration's section 115 acid rain effort because it had not conducted a notice-and-comment rule.
Instead of a rule, EPA in the waning days of the Carter White House had issued a letter to Capitol Hill finding that section 115 was triggered by acid rain impacts in Canada.
Several sources say the Obama administration has little time or inclination to pursue a rulemaking on either the reciprocity or endangerment findings in its remaining months given litigation on the power sector GHG rules and its current focus on oil and gas methane emissions and curbing refrigerants that act as potent GHGs.
“I don't think the Obama administration will do anything on 115,” a third advocate says.
Another advocate, however, suggests that it is theoretically possible for the outgoing administration to take some initial steps that could set the table for the next administration, including a potential “exchange of letters” with Canada that would “leave something on the table” and demonstrate international cooperation on GHGs.
That source, however, says advocates would need more than “letters” to force action on a section 115 rule if presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has dismissed global warming as a Chinese conspiracy and sharply criticized Obama's climate program, is elected president.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/advocates-ramp-internal-talks-air-law-section-115-epa-ghg-rule
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California Cap-and-Trade Emission Auctions Could Face Bleak Future
Jun 20, 2016 | Sacramento Bee
By Dan Walters
When California’s “cap-and-trade” auction of carbon emission allowances imploded a month ago, it clobbered ambitious plans by Capitol politicians to spend many billions of dollars.
The immediate question was whether the May 16 auction, in which the state realized just 2 percent of the money officials had projected, was a one-time thing or the harbinger of a deeper and longer decline.
The official response from Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration, uttered by Department of Finance official Amy Costa at a state budget hearing, was, “I would caution about reading too much into one auction.”
Since then, analysts of the complex system of auctioning off rights to emit carbon dioxide have concluded that future quarterly auctions are likely to see similarly poor results, citing the legal and political uncertainty about the program’s future and a massive glut of allowances available in the secondary market for prices well below the state’s minimum price.
A lawsuit by business groups contends that the cap-and-trade program is a tax that must be approved by a two-thirds legislative vote, and the underlying 2006 legislation, Assembly Bill 32, is limited to emission reduction goals by 2020, which is fast-approaching.
The Brown administration had contended that it could continue the program after 2020 without further authorization, but it now is signaling that it wants an extension to 2030, with even more ambitious reduction goals.
A bill in the current legislative session, Senate Bill 32, would provide that authority, but after passing the Senate last year, it garnered just 30 votes in the Assembly while needing 41. Moreover, it’s at least possible that any reauthorization would require a two-thirds vote because Proposition 26, passed in 2010, tightened the legal definitions of taxes and fees.
As the legal and political wrangling continues, the glut of emission allowances continues to build.
ICIS, an international energy data authority, calculates that California may have an “oversupply” of available allowances over 250 million tons, or roughly the equivalent of three quarterly auctions.
“The oversupply peaks at about 260 million tons in 2018, but it may take until 2024 before the program comes into balance and the surplus is worked off,” the Carbon Market Compliance Association concludes in its analysis.
Authorities are mulling various strategies to bring the supply of allowances into closer balance with demand, including withdrawing state-owned allowances. But withdrawal or any shrinkage would also make it impossible for the state to realize the $2.4 billion in annual revenue it had forecast from allowance sales.
Brown had proposed a $3.1 billion spending plan, with his pet bullet train project, which otherwise has few financing prospects, designated to get a quarter of the auction revenue.
With the situation in flux and the next auction scheduled in two months, the Legislature passed a 2016-17 budget without making any appropriations from auction proceeds, even money the state had banked from previous auctions.
This is just the beginning of what will be a long saga. FACEBOOK
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/politics-columns-blogs/dan-walters/article84930702.html
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Trader Joe's to Cut Greenhouse Gases, Pay Fine in U.S. Settlement
Jun 21, 2016 | Reuters (In The New York Times)
By Jonathan Stempel
The popular U.S. grocery chain Trader Joe's Co agreed to spend $2 million to reduce refrigerator coolant leaks at 453 stores, to settle federal claims it failed to promptly repair leaks that deplete the ozone layer and contribute to global warming.
Trader Joe's also agreed to enter a consent decree and pay a $500,000 civil fine to resolve claims it violated the Clean Air Act, the U.S. Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday.
Regulators said the accord is expected to cut greenhouse gas emissions equal to the amount generated by more than 6,500 cars each year.
They also said Costco Wholesale Corp and Safeway Inc previously settled cases over refrigerants, but that Trader Joe's accord is the EPA's first requiring repairs of hydrofluorocarbon leaks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Trader Joe's did not admit liability in agreeing to settle.
A spokeswoman, Alison Mochizuki, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trader Joe's is privately held, and based in Monrovia, California.
Regulators accused Trader Joe's of failing to promptly fix leaks of R-22, which is used as a refrigerator coolant but also depletes the ozone and has 1,800 times more global warming potential than carbon dioxide. They also said the company failed to keep adequate servicing records.
Under the consent decree, Trader Joe's agreed over the next three years to reduce its leak rate to less than half the average in the grocery store sector, and to use non-ozone depleting refrigerants at all new and heavily remodeled stores. It also agreed to improve its leak monitoring and recordkeeping.
The terms "set a high bar for the grocery industry for detecting and fixing coolant leaks," Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for the EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, said in a statement.
Trader Joe's has 461 stores in 43 states and Washington, D.C., and in 2014 had $9.38 billion of revenue, the government said.
Safeway was bought last year by investors including private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2016/06/21/business/21reuters-traderjoes-settlement.html
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