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ACC PM 6/22/16

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Connecticut Joins Film Recycling Program
Jun 22, 2016 | Plastics News
By Jim Johnson

Connecticut is joining the Wrap Action Recycling Program aimed at increasing opportunities for both residents and businesses to recycle flexible film packaging.
(ACC Mentioned) Connecticut Joins Initiative to Increase Plastic Film Recycling
Jun 22, 2016 | Recycling Today
By Staff

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and the Washington-basedAmerican Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Flexible Film Recycling Group (FFRG) has announced a public-private partnership designed to increase opportunities for residents and businesses to recycle flexible film packaging, including consumer and commercial product wraps; bags for groceries, produce and bread; and items such as sealable food storage bags and shipping pillows.
(ACC Mentioned) New Partnership Gives Conn. Residents More Options for Recycling Plastic Film
Jun 22, 2016 | Waste 360
By Staff

One of the fastest growing areas of recycling is flexible plastic film, which includes items like consumer and commercial product wraps, bags for groceries, produce and bread, sealable food storage bags, shipping pillows and more.
(ACC Mentioned) Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) Provides To Purchase SolarCity Corp. For a $2.8B- FMC Corp. (NYSE:FMC), ContraFect (NASDAQ:CFRX)
Jun 22, 2016 | Seneca Globe

Shares of Tesla Motors, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) knocked down -0.04% to finish at $219.61 in last run as Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA) reported that it has provided to purchase SolarCity Corp., a $2.8B accord that would unite two Bay Area companies funded and driven by Los Angeles billionaire Elon Musk.
(ACC Mentioned) FMC Corp (NYSE:FMC) & Alon USA Energy, Inc. (NYSE:ALJ) Basic Material Stocks on Trader’s Radar
Jun 22, 2016 | Wall Street 24
By Joseph Stanley

On Tuesday, Shares of FMC Corp (NYSE:FMC) lost -0.80% to $48.23. The share price is trading in a range of $47.76 – $48.62. The stock exchanged hands with 1.66 Million shares contrast to its average daily volume of 1.62 Million shares.

Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Obama Signs TSCA Reform into Law
Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Colby Bermel

President Obama signed into law today the first overhaul to the nation's chemical laws in nearly 40 years, a milestone in the history of environmental legislation and a feather in the caps of Democrats and Republicans alike.
(ACC Mentioned) Obama Signs Chemical Safety Overhaul into Law
Jun 22, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama

President Obama on Wednesday signed into law a sweeping overhaul of the nation's chemical safety standards.
(ACC Mentioned) Obama Signs Major Overhaul of Toxic Chemicals Rules Into Law
Jun 22, 2016 | AP (in ABC News)
By Josh Lederman

President Barack Obama signed the first major overhaul of toxic chemicals rules in 40 years into law on Wednesday, calling it proof that Washington can function despite intense polarization.
(ACC Mentioned) TSCA Reform: These Toxic Chemicals Are Still Allowed Under The EPA’s Chemicals Law
Jun 22, 2016 | International Business Times
By Maria Gallucci

Asbestos, C8, styrene and bisphenol A — U.S. regulators have known for years these chemicals pose risks to human health and the environment. But a restrictive, 40-year-old chemicals law kept regulators from limiting the use of such compounds in many consumer and industrial products.
(ACC Mentioned) It Could Take Centuries for EPA to Test All the Unregulated Chemicals Under a New Landmark Bill
Jun 22, 2016 | PBS
By Mark Scialla

Synthetic chemicals surround us. They’re in our takeout containers, children’s toys, furniture and clothes. There’s BPA in our receipts and flame retardants in our children’s carseats. You might think the government has carefully reviewed every chemical for safety before it hits the market. But it hasn’t.
(ACC Mentioned) President Obama Signs Bipartisan TSCA Reform, Historic Environmental Legislation
Jun 22, 2016 | Powder & Bulk Solids

The President of the United States Barack Obama signed the bipartisan Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, legislation to reform the nation's 40 year-old chemical management law, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), into law.
TSCA Reform Signed into Law
Jun 22, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin

US President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill to modernise the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
The President Just Signed a Law That Affects Nearly Every Product You Use
Jun 22, 2016 | Washington Post
By Darryl Fears

President Obama signed a bill into law Wednesday that places stronger regulations on chemicals present in nearly every product Americans use, including detergents, clothing, paint thinners, cleansers and automobiles.
Obama Signs TSCA Reform Law, Shifting Focus To EPA's Implementation
Jun 22, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Anthony Lacey

President Obama has signed the bipartisan Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) overhaul into law, shifting focus to how EPA will implement the extensive new authorities under the law for addressing the safety of chemicals -- with at least one Senate proponent of the law vowing to closely track the agency's implementation.
TSCA Reform: Renewing Public Confidence in Chemical Control
Jun 22, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Lynn L. Bergeson

The past four decades have seen a steady erosion of public confidence in the federal government’s ability to identify and control potential risks from exposure to industrial chemicals, especially when they’re in consumer products.
A Strong New TSCA
Jun 22, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Richard Denison, Ph.D.

Those are four words that I thought I might never get to say and see over the many years I’ve worked on this. But today, at a ceremony to be held at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, President Obama will sign the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.
We Just Got the Biggest Environmental Law in a Generation
Jun 22, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Diane Regas

Most Americans believe that chemicals in products they buy in the store are approved for safety. But it’s not true. Our clothes, couches, and cleaning products – among thousands of other goods – contain chemicals linked to cancer, Parkinson’s and other serious health problems.
Udall: President Signing Chemical Reform Bill is Historic Progress for Americans' Health and Safety
Jun 22, 2016 | KRXG FM
By Tom Udall

Commentary: Today, in a ceremony at the White House, President Obama signed into law U.S. Senator Tom Udall's landmark bipartisan legislation to overhaul the nation's broken chemical safety program.
Breaking News: Obama Signs Measure to Dramatically Reduce Animal Testing
Jun 22, 2016 | Humane Society

Today, it was my great honor to attend the presidential signing ceremony at the White House for a revision of TSCA, the Toxic Substances Control Act, with my colleague Sara Amundson from the Humane Society Legislative Fund.

Energy News

Federal Court Kills BLM Fracking Rule
Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer

The Obama administration's hydraulic fracturing rule is dead.
Critics Exult After Fracking Rule's Legal Collapse
Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer

Opponents of the Obama administration's hydraulic fracturing rule are rejoicing today after a federal court's monumental decision to strike down the years-in-the-making regulation.
Obama Fracking Rules Are Struck Down by Court
Jun 22, 2016 | The New York Times
By Coral Davenport

A federal judge on Tuesday night struck down an Obama administration regulation on the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, foroil and gas on public lands, a blow to President Obama’s muscular stand on the extraction of fossil fuels on government lands.
Obama Administration Decries Judge’s Fracking Ruling
Jun 22, 2016 | AP (in Washington Post)
By Matthew Daly

The Obama administration on Wednesday decried a ruling by a federal judge that blocks rules for hydraulic fracturing, saying the decision prevents regulators from using “21st-century standards” to ensure that oil and gas operations are conducted safely on public lands.
Patchwork of State Plans Could Mean More CO2 Emissions -- Study
Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Emily Holden

A new analysis outlines the potential downsides of states pursuing a patchwork of strategies to meet federal climate change regulations.
Colo. Regulators Find Methane Violations at 10 Companies
Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Gayathri Vaidyanathan

Colorado regulators have issued warnings to 10 energy companies that operate in the Denver-Julesburg Basin for emitting methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that contribute to ground-level ozone or smog.

Chemical Security News

Obama Signs Pipeline Safety Bill into Law
Jun 22, 2016 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Andrew Restuccia

President Barack Obama just signed into law the first major pipeline safety legislation since 2011.

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

Environment News

Polluted Estuaries Spew 'Potentially Significant' Emissions
Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly

Estuaries may be releasing more methane into the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a study done on the Chesapeake Bay.

Industry and Association News

(ACC Mentioned) Connecticut Joins Film Recycling Program

Jun 22, 2016 | Plastics News

By Jim Johnson

Connecticut is joining the Wrap Action Recycling Program aimed at increasing opportunities for both residents and businesses to recycle flexible film packaging.
The program, called WRAP for short, was created by the Flexible Film Recycling Group of the American Chemistry Council.
“Recapturing and recycling more plastic bags and flexible film packaging material will reduce solid waste disposal costs, reduce the contamination of other materials contained in single-stream recycling bins, and create jobs right here in Connecticut,” said Commissioner Robert Klee of the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection in a statement.
Work in Connecticut will be aimed at increasing voluntary plastic bag, wrap and film recycling at grocery stores and other retail locations.
FFRG hopes to double used polyethylene film recycling by 2020.

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(ACC Mentioned) Connecticut Joins Initiative to Increase Plastic Film Recycling

Jun 22, 2016 | Recycling Today

By Staff

The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and the Washington-basedAmerican Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Flexible Film Recycling Group (FFRG) has announced a public-private partnership designed to increase opportunities for residents and businesses to recycle flexible film packaging, including consumer and commercial product wraps; bags for groceries, produce and bread; and items such as sealable food storage bags and shipping pillows.
Shari Jackson, director of the FFRG, says, “We are very pleased Connecticut has become a partner of our Wrap Action Recycling Program (WRAP). WRAP will provide tools and best practices to support DEEP’s community outreach and education efforts to increase the recycling of plastic film.”
“Recapturing and recycling more plastic bags and flexible film packaging material will reduce solid waste disposal costs, reduce the contamination of other materials contained in single-stream recycling bins and create jobs right here in Connecticut,” Connecticut DEEP Commissioner Robert Klee says. “This strategy is also one of many action-oriented steps we can take to meet the goal outlined in our draft Comprehensive Materials Management Strategy of increasing the state’s diversion rate to 60 percent by 2024.”
A major focus of the new partnership will be to increase voluntary participation in the recycling of plastic bags, wraps and other film packaging at supermarkets, grocery stores and other retail locations. Encouraging Connecticut’s retailers to offer this opportunity—and building greater public awareness of it—will reduce the volume of plastic bags and film inappropriately deposited in curbside recycling containers, the partners say.
“Cleaning up our single-stream recycling and making our recyclables more marketable is a very high priority,” Klee says. “Plastic bags and other film packaging are recyclable and have real value—just not in our curbside bins.”
He adds, “Residents should bring plastic bags and other polyethylene (PE) film material to participating retailers, such as grocery stores, which have established collection programs to maintain the quality of film for recycling. Our partnership with ACC’s WRAP program will strengthen that recycling network and make more people aware of it.”
Successful WRAP initiatives can be seen in the states of Washington and Wisconsin, which have demonstrated that greater awareness of store drop-off programs helps reduce film contamination in curbside bins and at local materials recovery facilities (MRFs), the ACC says.
In Vancouver, Washington, the WRAP campaign helped to more than double collection of plastic film packaging through return-to-retail recycling programs, according to a new case study conducted with the city of Vancouver’s Environmental Resources Division. The study also found a 75 percent decrease in plastic bag contamination at a local MRF.
A video of Vancouver’s campaign can be viewed here.
Plastic film is one of the fastest growing areas of recycling, with collection growing 79 percent since 2005, ACC says. At least 1.17 billion pounds of postconsumer film were recovered in 2014, and the recycling rate grew to 17 percent.
The FFRG, a collaboration working to double the recycling of postuse PE film by 2020, represents materials suppliers, brand owners, manufacturers and recyclers. In Connecticut, the partners include municipalities, waste authorities, recycling processors, haulers and retailers.
http://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/connecticut-wrap-action-recycling-program-partnership/

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(ACC Mentioned) New Partnership Gives Conn. Residents More Options for Recycling Plastic Film

Jun 22, 2016 | Waste 360

By Staff

One of the fastest growing areas of recycling is flexible plastic film, which includes items like consumer and commercial product wraps, bags for groceries, produce and bread, sealable food storage bags, shipping pillows and more.
In an effort to increase plastic film recycling in Connecticut, the American Chemistry Council’s (ACC) Flexible Film Recycling Group (FFRG) and Connecticut’s Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) have announced a public-private partnership that will provide state residents and businesses with more opportunities for recycling flexible film packaging.
The FFRG has a goal of doubling the recycling of post-use polyethylene film by 2020, and it’s also working with the states of North Carolina and Wisconsin to make this goal a reality.
“Recapturing and recycling more plastic bags and flexible film packaging material will reduce solid waste disposal costs, reduce the contamination of other materials contained in single-stream recycling bins and create jobs right here in Connecticut,” said DEEP Commissioner Robert Klee in a press release. “This strategy is also one of many action-oriented steps we can take to meet the goal outlined in our draft Comprehensive Materials Management Strategy of increasing the state’s diversion rate to 60 percent by 2024.”
The partnership will also try to reduce the amount of film and plastic bags placed in curbside recycling bins by attempting to ramp up voluntary recycling drop-off programs in supermarkets, grocery stores and other retail locations for plastic bags, wraps and other film packaging.
“Cleaning up our single stream recycling and making our recyclables more marketable is a very high priority,” said Commissioner Klee in a press release. “Plastic bags and other film packaging are recyclable and have real value–just not in our curbside bins. Residents should bring plastic bags and other polyethylene (PE) film material to participating retailers, such as grocery stores, which have established collection programs to maintain the quality of film for recycling. Our partnership with ACC’s WRAP program will strengthen that recycling network and make more people aware of it.”
http://waste360.com/plastics/new-partnership-gives-conn-residents-more-options-recycling-plastic-film

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(ACC Mentioned) Tesla Motors (NASDAQ:TSLA) Provides To Purchase SolarCity Corp. For a $2.8B- FMC Corp. (NYSE:FMC), ContraFect (NASDAQ:CFRX)

Jun 22, 2016 | Seneca Globe

Shares of Tesla Motors, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) knocked down -0.04% to finish at $219.61 in last run as Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA) reported that it has provided to purchase SolarCity Corp., a $2.8B accord that would unite two Bay Area companies funded and driven by Los Angeles billionaire Elon Musk.
If a accord for the struggling rooftop solar giant is agreed, Tesla would become over just an electric car maker, evolving into an increasingly diverse firm with interests across a range of green technologies. “The world does not look for another car firm, the world looks for sustainable energy companies,” Musk told reporters and analysts in a call Tuesday.
Looking toward firm’s returns performance, it has return on equity of -99.60% and returns on assets was calculated -13.00% with -8.50% year to date performance. The yearly sales growth for the past five year was 103.20%.
How Tesla Motors, Inc. attracted investors to get BUY rating following this bullish run? Read Full Report Here
FMC Corp. (NYSE:FMC) knocked down turns in hot stance in regular session as it -0.80% to $48.23 in the session with shares volume of 1.66 Million. FMC Corporation (NYSE:FMC) has been recognized by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) with the 2016 Responsible Care “Initiative of the Year” Award. This year’s award recognizes FMC’s implementation of its new “Process Hazard Level (PHL) Screening Tool,” which is used to identify, analyze and rank process safety hazards across the firm globally.
The vice president of Operations, Barry Crawford stated that they are honored by ACC’s recognition of their new PHL screening tool. This exclusive way of managing process safety risks aligns with ACC’s recent updates to the Responsible Care Process Safety Code of Management Practices and is already having a positive impact at FMC. “The PHL tool is scalable, making it easy to share and have an impact on the larger chemical manufacturing community.” The Firm showed a positive 17.00% in the net profit margin and in addition to its operating margin which remained 4.40%.
What made FMC Corp. to beat analysts’ forecasts in this rally? Find Out Here
ContraFect Corporation (NASDAQ:CFRX) tries to make charm in street, as shares traded at $3.02 with plunge of -1.63% in last trading session. ContraFect Corporation (NASDAQ:CFRX) offers details of new data presented at the ASM Microbe 2016 Conference (ASM 2016), which was held June 16-20, 2016 in Boston, MA. ContraFect scientists presented new data at ASM 2016, which advance the understanding of the projected efficacious human dose and microbiologic profile of CF-301, which is presently in development for the treatment of Staphylococcus aureus (Staph aureus) bloodstream infections, comprising MRSA
PK-PD modeling of data from animal models and human clinical studies is a well-established methodology to determine the target human blood levels and human dosing of antibacterial agents.
http://www.senecaglobe.com/tesla-motors-nasdaqtsla-provides-to-purchase-solarcity-corp-for-a-2-8b-fmc-corp-nysefmc-contrafect-nasdaqcfrx/328740/

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(ACC Mentioned) FMC Corp (NYSE:FMC) & Alon USA Energy, Inc. (NYSE:ALJ) Basic Material Stocks on Trader’s Radar

Jun 22, 2016 | Wall Street 24

By Joseph Stanley

On Tuesday, Shares of FMC Corp (NYSE:FMC) lost -0.80% to $48.23. The share price is trading in a range of $47.76 – $48.62. The stock exchanged hands with 1.66 Million shares contrast to its average daily volume of 1.62 Million shares.
FMC Corporation (FMC) has been recognized by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) with the 2016 Responsible Care® “Initiative of the Year” Award. This year’s award recognizes FMC’s implementation of its new “Process Hazard Level (PHL) Screening Tool,” which is used to identify, analyze and rank process safety hazards across the company globally.
FMC is a member of the ACC and a proud participant in the Responsible Care program, the industry’s premier voluntary environmental, health, safety and security initiative. Initiative of the Year is selected at the ACC’s annual Responsible Care Conference & Expo by attendees who review submissions and speak to company representatives on-site at the conference. FMC also received the 2015 Initiative of the Year Award, in recognition of the company’s TH!NK. SAFE. global safety awareness and education program.
FMC Corp (NYSE:FMC)’s values for SMA20, SMA50 and SMA200 are -0.77%, 5.15% and 20.27%, respectively.
Shares of Alon USA Energy, Inc. (NYSE:ALJ) inclined 3.94% to $6.60.
Alon USA Energy, Inc. (ALJ) declared that its administration will attend the J.P. Morgan Inaugural Energy Equity Conference to be held on June 27-29, 2016 in New York City.
Paul Eisman, President and Chief Executive Officer, will take part in one-on-one meetings with investors to talk about both Alon USA Energy and Alon USA Partners, LP (ALDW) on June 28, 2016.
The related meeting materials will be accessible startning the morning of June 28, 2016 on the Investor Relations section of the Alon USA Energy website at http://ir.alonusa.com/ in addition to on the News & Events section of the Alon USA Partners website at www.alonpartners.com.
Alon USA Energy, Inc., headquartered in Dallas, Texas, is an independent refiner and marketer of petroleum products, operating primarily in the South Central, Southwestern and Western regions of the United States. Alon owns 100% of the general partner and 81.6% of the limited partner interests in Alon USA Partners, LP, which owns a crude oil refinery in Big Spring, Texas, with a crude oil throughput capacity of 73,000 barrels per day and an integrated wholesale marketing business. In addition, Alon directly owns a crude oil refinery in Krotz Springs, Louisiana, with a crude oil throughput capacity of 74,000 barrels per day. Alon also owns crude oil refineries in California, which have not processed crude oil since 2012. Alon is a leading marketer of asphalt, which it distributes primarily through asphalt terminals located predominately in the Southwestern and Western United States. Alon is the largest 7-Eleven licensee in the United States and operates about 300 convenience stores which also market motor fuels in Central and West Texas and New Mexico.
The stock’s price moved down its 200-day moving average of $10.85. The stock is presently trading down its SMA-50 of $7.88.
The share price of Alon USA Energy, Inc. (NYSE:ALJ) plunged -64.25% for the year. Year to Date, the current share price of the stock is below -55.53%. The company holds earnings per share of 1.48 for the twelve months.
http://wallstrt24.com/fmc-corp-nysefmc-alon-usa-energy-inc-nysealj-basic-material-stocks-on-traders-radar/2415028/

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Chemical Management News

(ACC Mentioned) Obama Signs TSCA Reform into Law

Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire

By Colby Bermel

President Obama signed into law today the first overhaul to the nation's chemical laws in nearly 40 years, a milestone in the history of environmental legislation and a feather in the caps of Democrats and Republicans alike.
"Most Americans would expect that we could come together to fix this law and do a better job of protecting the American people," Obama said at the signing ceremony in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. "Well, here's the good news: That's exactly why we're here today."
Introduced last year by Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) and Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), H.R. 2576, was named the "Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act" to honor the late New Jersey senator who spearheaded reform efforts for several years before his death in 2013. The original legislation, the Toxic Substances Control Act, was signed into law by President Ford in 1976.
The law gives U.S. EPA new authority to review and regulate chemicals, along with mandating that the agency update its inventory of existing chemicals and create a risk evaluation process -- all within six months from today.
"All right, Gina, go get 'em," Obama told EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy after he signed the legislation.
Obama recognized the legislative work it took to get TSCA reform to his desk.
"This has been years in the making. You don't get all these people in the same room without a few late nights on Capitol Hill," he said of the many members of Congress who shared the stage with him in the Eisenhower building's South Court Auditorium.
"I know there were times when folks questioned whether or not all the parties involved would be able to reach this agreement," Obama continued. "But that's what public service is about: pushing through disagreements, forging compromise -- especially when it's hard, and especially when it's about something as important as the health and safety of our kids and our families."
Now, Obama said, "I'm absolutely confident that we can regulate toxic chemicals in a way that's both good for our families and ultimately good for business and our economy. Here in America, folks should have the confidence to know that the laundry detergent we buy isn't going to make us sick, the mattresses our babies sleep on aren't going to harm them."
Industry groups and some environmentalists applauded the enactment of TSCA reform.
"Chemical evaluation and regulation will meet new 21st century standards, which will improve the lives of American families, support American manufacturing and bolster U.S. economic growth," American Chemistry Council President Cal Dooley said in a statement.
"President Obama's signature today launches a new law that will help to improve public health for years to come," said Environmental Defense Fund lead senior scientist Richard Denison in a statement. "While not perfect, the Lautenberg Act fixes the biggest problems with a badly broken law that has left our health at risk. Now the hard part must begin: tending to decades of neglect when it comes to unreviewed and unregulated chemicals."
Others were more skeptical.
"While this legislation falls short of what's needed, we're hopeful that President Obama will give the EPA the direction and resources needed to quickly review, regulate and, if needed, ban the most dangerous chemicals in commerce," said Scott Faber, the Environmental Working Group's senior vice president for government affairs, said in a statement. "Unless EPA acts to quickly remove chemicals linked to cancer from everyday products, the burden will continue to fall on states and consumers."
Honoring Lautenberg
Shimkus and Udall, the bill's main sponsors, stood behind the president as he signed the legislation. So did Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Tom Carper of Delaware and Barbara Boxer of California. Louisiana's David Vitter, an original co-sponsor of the Senate bill, was the lone Republican senator on stage.
Boxer is the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Committee Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), did not show up to the signing ceremony, even though he was heavily involved in the legislative process.
"No. That's all right," Inhofe said of attending today. "Doesn't make it any more major, does it?" (E&ENews PM, June 14).
Several members of the House attended: Reps. Gene Green (D-Texas), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.)
Pallone announced his opposition to the legislation in the eleventh hour but ended up supporting the bill and even won a few concessions (E&E Daily, June 9).
His GOP counterpart, Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.), was not in attendance. He was heading a full committee oversight hearing titled "Investigating the Appropriate Role of NEPA in the Permitting Process." NEPA stands for the National Environmental Policy Act, another major piece of green legislation originally enacted during the 1970s, this one by President Nixon.
Republicans are generally opposed to environmental legislation, claiming that it does more damage to businesses than it helps the planet. In the opening moments of his remarks before signing TSCA reform, Obama rebutted this notion and framed today's legislation as one of several important pillars in protecting Americans and their environment.
"Republicans and Democrats in Congress came together again and again to produce landmark environmental victories: the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, the creation of the EPA. All of them have benefited this country greatly," he said. "And to be fair, all of them happened under the initiative and under the watch of a Republican president: Richard Nixon."
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Senate President Pro Tempore Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) signed the enrolled version of the legislation last week, sending it to the president today (E&ENews PM, June 14).
"This is smarter regulation. Landmark legislation to keep Americans safe from dangerous chemicals," Ryan tweeted last week.
Obama praised the widow of his former Senate colleague Lautenberg -- Bonnie, who stood close to the president in a shining red dress -- saying she "carried the torch on this issue, cementing her late husband's legacy as one of our nation's finest environmental champions."
"He was just a wonderful man, and was a great friend to me," Obama said of Frank Lautenberg. "For him to be able to see this legacy completed must be greatly satisfying. He's looking down on us and feeling pretty good right now."
The president framed the enactment of today's law as a bipartisan lesson for those seeking to replace him in the Oval Office next year and for members of Congress looking to save their seats in the November elections.
"I want the American people to know that this is proof that even in the current polarized political climate here in Washington, things can work," he said. "It's possible."
He added, "If we can get this bill done, it means that somewhere out there on the horizon, we can make our politics less toxic as well."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/06/22/stories/1060039241

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(ACC Mentioned) Obama Signs Chemical Safety Overhaul into Law

Jun 22, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire

By Timothy Cama

President Obama on Wednesday signed into law a sweeping overhaul of the nation's chemical safety standards.
The measure is the most significant environmental law in more than a quarter-century. It promises to completely revamp the way the federal government oversees thousands of potentially toxic chemicals sold to millions of Americans every day in common products.
The law is dubbed the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemicals for the 21st Century Act, after the late New Jersey senator who championed the concept for the better part of a decade.
“The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act will make it easier for the EPA to review chemicals that are already on the market, as well as the new chemicals our scientists and businesses design,” Obama said at a signing ceremony in Washington, D.C., attended by lawmakers who sponsored the bill, health advocates and Bonnie Lautenberg, the senator’s widow.
“This is a big deal. This is a good law, an important law,” he said.
The bill has been decades in the making and the result of years of intense on-and-off legislative negotiations. Obama noted that reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA) was a significant point of discussion when he was a senator on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee 10 years ago.
It reforms the TSCA, which numerous stakeholders had regarded for years as toothless. The TSCA prevented the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating even the most harmful chemicals, such as carcinogenic asbestos.
Under the new law, however, the EPA now has wide-ranging authority to order testing of and regulate the thousands of chemicals that are in use, as well as the hundreds of new substances that come on the market each year. Crucially, the EPA no longer has to prove that regulating a chemical is cost-effective and only has to show that it is harmful to public health or the environment.
The law also blocks states from taking action to control chemicals, a provision that was important to get the chemical industry to support the bill but is controversial among states that had taken the lead in regulating substances.
The bill had strong, bipartisan support in Congress. It passed the House, 403 to 12, and the Senate by voice vote.
It also has the support of major business groups such as the American Chemistry Council and the National Association of Manufacturers, as well as safety and health groups like the Environmental Defense Fund and Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families.
http://www.thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/284406-obama-signs-chemical-safety-overhaul-into-law

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(ACC Mentioned) Obama Signs Major Overhaul of Toxic Chemicals Rules Into Law

Jun 22, 2016 | AP (in ABC News)

By Josh Lederman

President Barack Obama signed the first major overhaul of toxic chemicals rules in 40 years into law on Wednesday, calling it proof that Washington can function despite intense polarization.
In a White House signing ceremony, Obama praised both chemicals industry groups and environmentalists alike for finding consensus despite their usual differences of opinion. He was joined by a diverse group of U.S. lawmakers who helped pass the legislation, including House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana.
"If we can get this bill done, it means somewhere out there on the horizon, we can make our politics less toxic as well," Obama said before putting his pen to the bill.
In addition to updating rules for tens of thousands of everyday chemicals, the law also sets safety standards for dangerous chemicals like formaldehyde, asbestos and styrene. The law aims to standardize on the national level what is currently a jumble of state rules governing the $800 billion-per-year industry.
Congress spent more than three years working on the bill, which rewrites the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act and aims to "bring chemical regulation into the 21st century," according to the American Chemistry Council, which backed the overhaul.
"Folks should have the confidence to know the laundry detergent we buy isn't going to make us sick, the mattress our babies sleep on isn't going to harm them," Obama said.
Republicans and some Democrats have been sharply critical of Obama's efforts to strengthen environmental and climate protections through the use of regulations they say stifles businesses and created unnecessary burdens. In recent years, many Republicans have worked to pull funding for the Environmental Protection Agency or eliminate it entirely.
So it was especially unusual that the toxic chemicals bill passed a Republican-controlled Congress with broad support despite giving the EPA increased authority to assess the safety of new and existing chemicals.
"That doesn't happen very often these days," Obama said. "So this is a really significant piece of business."
But business groups had sought a single, federal standard to eliminate the complexity of dealing with state regulations that don't always line up with each other. Still, some Republicans opposed the legislation and called it an overzealous Washington takeover of a matter they said should be left to the states.
Obama said the law meant that for the first time in its history, the U.S. would be able to regulate chemical effectively. He described it as an extension of bipartisan efforts decades ago to start protecting America's air, water and wildlife, and said the chemicals law would be particularly critical for vulnerable populations like children, pregnant women, the elderly and the poor.
The bill's namesake, former New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg, died in 2013 after having worked for years to fix the law. His wife, Bonnie Lautenberg, was on hand at the White House for the signing.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/obama-sign-toxic-chemical-rules-1st-overhaul-40-40035679

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(ACC Mentioned) TSCA Reform: These Toxic Chemicals Are Still Allowed Under The EPA’s Chemicals Law

Jun 22, 2016 | International Business Times

By Maria Gallucci

Asbestos, C8, styrene and bisphenol A — U.S. regulators have known for years these chemicals pose risks to human health and the environment. But a restrictive, 40-year-old chemicals law kept regulators from limiting the use of such compounds in many consumer and industrial products.
“The regulations proved to be paralysis by analysis,” said Richard Denison, a lead senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund in Washington.
Now, the Environmental Protection Agency will have more leeway to regulate scores of chemicals that are known to cause cancer, like asbestos, or threaten human development and reproduction, like bisphenol A. President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed a sweeping overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, marking the first substantial overhaul of a U.S. environmental law in more than two decades. “Here in America, folks should have the confidence to know that the laundry detergent we buy isn’t going to make us sick, that the mattresses our babies sleep on aren’t going to harm them,” Obama said in a signing ceremony at the White House.
The chemical safety reforms — adopted after a decade of debate and disputes among legislators, industry groups and public health advocates — will lift certain restrictions on the EPA’s authority and ease burdensome requirements that have kept the EPA from studying chemicals in clothing, household cleaning products, furniture, toys and other products we regularly wear and use. In the last four decades, the EPA has banned only five of the more than 80,000 chemicals used in the United States. Only about 7 percent of the roughly 3,000 high-volume chemicals have been tested for safety.
“This bill addresses fundamental flaws that have hindered EPA’s ability to protect human health and the environment from chemical risks,” Monica Lee, an EPA spokeswoman, said by email. “We stand ready to get to work on implementing these new reforms.”
Asbestos Attack
The original toxic chemicals law set such a high burden of scientific proof that the EPA’s evidence against asbestos — which kills as many as 15,000 Americans a year — wasn’t enough to pass the legal muster. Asbestos is a fiber once commonly found in construction materials such as concrete, ceiling insulating, fireproof drywall and flooring. It can also cause lung cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer specific to asbestos that forms on the thin protective tissues covering the lungs and abdomen.
EPA spent the 1970s and ’80s developing rules that would have eliminated most uses of the asbestos under Section 6 of the chemicals law. But a federal court dismissed the regulations, arguing the EPA had not proved asbestos presented an unreasonable risk to health or environment. The agency hasn’t attempted to ban a single harmful chemical in the 25 years since.
“EPA concluded that if after 10 years and with a substance like asbestos it couldn’t meet Section 6, then it couldn’t meet Section 6 for anything,” said Mark Duvall, a principal at the law firm Beveridge & Diamond P.C.
Noxious Cookware
After its asbestos defeat, the EPA instead tried to establish voluntary limits or phase-outs of certain compounds, such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), also known as C8. The synthetic polymer was for decades an essential ingredient in DuPont’s Teflon cookware and is still used in hundreds of other nonstick pots and pans.
While the coating makes frying an egg or flipping a quesadilla infinitely easier, C8 is linked to a litany of health problems. In 2011 and 2012, a panel of scientists found C8 was “more likely than not” linked to ulcerative colitis, high cholesterol, pregnancy-induced hypertension, thyroid disease, testicular cancer and kidney cancer. Scientists found C8’s effects were widespread throughout the body, even at very low exposure levels.
Because C8 and similar perfluorinated compounds are so ubiquitous — both in cookware and in the waterways where DuPont dumped it for years — some 99.7 percent of Americans have C8 in their bloodstreams, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found in a 2007 analysis.
Yet the EPA didn’t ban C8. In 2006, the agency reached an agreement with eight U.S. chemical companies, including DuPont, to virtually eliminate C8 from consumer products coated with the nonstick material. The voluntary pact was hailed as a breakthrough for public health and the environment; companies that made billions of dollars from products containing C8 had agreed to alter their manufacturing methods in a matter of years.
Perfluorinated compounds, however, are still widely used as nonstick polymers in everything from waterproof jackets and running shoes to microwave popcorn bags and pizza boxes. In 2015, more than 200 scientists from around the world signed a statement warning consumers about the dangers of new nonstick compounds, which may be just as toxic as C8.
Giving The EPA More Teeth
Proponents of this week’s reforms to the Toxic Substances Control Act said the revamped law will empower the EPA to more quickly and forcefully regulate chemicals like C8, asbestos and other harmful compounds.
National public health and environmental groups — including Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation, March of Dimes and the Humane Society — said the reforms marked a significant improvement over the status quo. Chemical manufacturers also largely supported the changes, noting that it will give consumers more confidence in the EPA’s assessment of chemicals. (Backing from industry groups also helps explain how a major environmental reform could garner bipartisan support in a sharply divided Congress.)
The law “will achieve a more predictable and uniform regulatory program, better protect Americans’ health and our environment, and support our economy while creating new job opportunities,” the American Chemistry Council, the main industry trade group, said in statement provided by email. Chemical companies will initially pay $25 million in annual fees to help cover the costs of EPA’s reviews of thousands of chemicals.
But the EPA will still face substantial hurdles in reviewing the tens of thousands of chemicals currently on its plate. Some organizations, such as the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups and Physicians for Social Responsibility, said that while the updated law is better than the original, the reforms don’t do enough to ensure EPA has sufficient funding or staffing power to review potentially toxic chemicals. The new law will also make it harder for state regulators in certain cases to impose their own restrictions on harmful ingredients, leaving power concentrated at the slow-moving, red tape-laden federal level.
Carli Jensen, the toxics campaign director at U.S Public Interest Research Groups, said it may take a full generation before Americans see the benefits of the Toxic Substances Control Act reforms. “It’s going to be a long period of time before we can feel safe under the new law,” she said.
http://www.ibtimes.com/tsca-reform-these-toxic-chemicals-are-still-allowed-under-epas-chemicals-law-2385455

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(ACC Mentioned) It Could Take Centuries for EPA to Test All the Unregulated Chemicals Under a New Landmark Bill

Jun 22, 2016 | PBS

By Mark Scialla

Synthetic chemicals surround us. They’re in our takeout containers, children’s toys, furniture and clothes. There’s BPA in our receipts and flame retardants in our children’s carseats. You might think the government has carefully reviewed every chemical for safety before it hits the market. But it hasn’t.
In fact, there are more than 80,000 chemicals registered for use today, many of which haven’t been studied for safety by any government agency. But that’s about to change…somewhat. President Obama today signed into law the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, named after the late senator who introduced a version of the bill in 2013. This marks the first overhaul in 40 years to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976, the nation’s main law governing toxic chemicals.
Public health and environmental advocates protested for decades that TSCA was too old and too weak to shield Americans from toxic chemicals. More than 60,000 commercial chemicals were allowed on the market without safety testing. And regulators had to prove a substance posed an “unreasonable risk” before they could take action – a burden of proof so difficult that the Environmental Protection Agency couldn’t ban asbestos, a known carcinogen that still kills 15,000 people each year.
The latest version of the law has received unusual bipartisan support. It passed the Senate on June 7. The House approved it last month, 403 to 12. Those involved with the bill see the passage as an example of cross-aisle compromise that better protects the environment and meets industry needs. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., worked with the chemical industry to draft legislation that would succeed with Republicans, who’ve repeatedly sought to defund the EPA.
“There was such strong support for this,” Udall said. “Not a single senator came to the floor to vote against this bill, and so this is pretty overwhelming support, and I think it really shows that senators and representatives want this to work for the American people.”
The new law requires EPA to test tens of thousands of unregulated chemicals currently on the market, and the roughly 2,000 new chemicals introduced each year, but quite slowly. The EPA will reviewa minimum of 20 chemicals at a time, and each has a seven-year deadline. Industry may then have five years to comply after a new rule is made. At that pace it could take centuries for the agency to finish its review.
There are other significant updates. Manufacturers will have a harder time making trade secret claims to keep basic chemical information confidential. It also allows agency findings to preempt state regulations. While states will still be able to regulate a chemical before the EPA reviews it, they must ultimately uphold the agency’s final decision. For decades, states have filled the gap in strong federal rules by crafting their own protections, but manufacturers complained it created a patchwork of regulations and increased costs. A strong state preemption was crucial to getting industry on board.
“There was not a piece of legislation that was introduced prior to this particular bill that achieved any bipartisan support and that was also a reflection of the polarized approach,” said Cal Dooley, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council, a chemical industry advocacy group. “What was significant about this measure was that we were able to secure the support of industry, the environmental community, animal welfare groups, and from health and safety groups, as well as an overwhelming bipartisan support in both the house and the senate.”
But the bill didn’t win over everyone in Congress. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, is one of the 12 representatives who voted against reform. She thinks the compromise ceded too much to the chemical industry, especially when it comes to state preemptions.
“Coming from a state like Maine where we have done some very good work on limiting the use of toxic chemicals, and knowing that there are so many of them out there, I just hated to see a state have its hands tied in the future, and I was concerned that things weren’t going to happen fast enough,” Pingree told NewsHour.
Critics of the law are also worried that EPA might lack the resources to effectively regulate. Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, an environmental and consumer watchdog, said his group found that EPA doesn’t have enough money to review even the most dangerous chemicals on the list.
“The bill doesn’t provide EPA enough money to get through this enormous backlog of old, and in some cases, very dangerous chemicals to assess whether they need to be regulated or even banned,” he said. “It will take EPA decades to get through the thousand most dangerous chemicals that EPA itself has said need urgent review.”
So while Americans wait for the federal government to begin slowly testing and regulating the toxic chemicals encountered everyday, the burden is still on consumers to educate themselves about what toxins could be in the things they buy.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/it-could-take-centuries-for-epa-to-test-all-the-unregulated-chemicals-under-a-new-landmark-bill/

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(ACC Mentioned) President Obama Signs Bipartisan TSCA Reform, Historic Environmental Legislation

Jun 22, 2016 | Powder & Bulk Solids

The President of the United States Barack Obama signed the bipartisan Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, legislation to reform the nation's 40 year-old chemical management law, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), into law.

American Chemistry Council president and CEO Cal Dooley issued the following statement following the enactment of TSCA reform legislation:

"The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act is a historic bipartisan achievement at a time when such achievements are increasingly rare. It is the first major environmental law passed since 1990. Under it, chemical evaluation and regulation will meet new 21st century standards, which will improve the lives of American families, support American manufacturing and bolster U.S. economic growth.

"Reforming TSCA has been ACC's top priority since 2008. For the past three years, ACC and our coalition partners, the American Alliance for Innovation (AAI), have worked together to support bipartisan efforts to modernize TSCA in a way that ensures smart, effective chemical regulation. We applaud President Obama for signing this legislation into law, and we are incredibly grateful for the tireless work and unwavering commitment from Senators Inhofe, Vitter, Udall, and Markey, and Congressmen Shimkus and Pallone to bipartisan TSCA reform."
http://www.powderbulksolids.com/news/President-Obama-Signs-Bipartisan-TSCA-Reform-Historic-Environmental-Legislation-06-22-2016

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TSCA Reform Signed into Law

Jun 22, 2016 | Chemical Watch

By Kelly Franklin

US President Barack Obama has signed into law a bill to modernise the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA).
The Frank R Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act updates the US’s chemicals management law for the first time in 40 years, and reflects years of congressional effort to get the law reformed.
The measure cleared Congress in a Senate voice vote on 7 June. The final bill came after months of negotiation between Senate and House leaders on both sides of the aisle, who sought to reconcile bills passed by the respective chambers last year.
"This is a good law, it is an important law," said President Obama, at its signing. "For the first time in our history, we'll actually be able to regulate chemicals effectively."
Senator Tom Udall (D–New Mexico) said the challenge will now be to "ensure the new programme is a success". As the lead Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the EPA's budget, he said he was "putting the EPA and the industry on notice: I will be watching".
The law’s enactment now sets into motion a series of "very ambitious deadlines" to implement the measure.
Implementation begins
In just the first year, for example, the EPA must complete several formal rulemakings, including to establish processes for prioritisation, risk evaluation and "resetting" the inventory of chemicals in commerce.
Meanwhile, the Lautenberg Act requires the agency to work on risk evaluations for at least ten substances, within the next six months. Additional guidance documents, policies and activities prescribed by the law must also be completed.
EPA's leader Gina McCarthy said the law is a "huge win for public health", and that the agency is "eager to get to work".
Administration’s priorities
The President’s signature was all but assured, given the administration’s public endorsement of the bill shortly before the House’s vote on the measure.
A 23 May Statement of Administration Policy said the bill “is a clear improvement over the current TSCA and represents a historic advancement for both chemical safety and environmental law”. It had urged “quick action on this landmark reform”.
The statement said that “while not perfect, the bill meets the high goals set by the administration for meaningful reform,” in order to address “flaws” under existing TSCA that have limited the EPA’s ability to provide sufficient protections against chemical risks.
Ms McCarthy echoed those sentiments, saying the original law "fell far short of giving EPA the authority we needed to get the job done".
"The updated law gives EPA the authorities we need to protect American families from the health effects of dangerous chemicals," she added.
These include such changes as:
requiring the EPA to evaluate new and existing chemicals against a risk-based safety standard, with explicit consideration for vulnerable populations;
empowering the agency to require the development of chemical information to support risk assessment;
establishing "clear and enforceable deadlines" for prioritisation and any necessary risk management;
increasing transparency of chemical information by limiting “unwarranted claims of confidentiality”; and
providing more funding for the EPA to carry out its new responsibilities.
https://chemicalwatch.com/48169/tsca-reform-signed-into-law

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The President Just Signed a Law That Affects Nearly Every Product You Use

Jun 22, 2016 | Washington Post

By Darryl Fears

President Obama signed a bill into law Wednesday that places stronger regulations on chemicals present in nearly every product Americans use, including detergents, clothing, paint thinners, cleansers and automobiles.
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act passed by Congress early this month in a rare bipartisan vote. It updates the Toxic Substances Control Act, which had not been reauthorized since the Ford administration in the mid-1970s. The new law gives the Environmental Protection Agency more oversight and stronger tools to monitor chemicals that in some cases could cause cancer and other health problems in adults and children.
Minutes before signing the law, Obama said the bill's passage showed the "even in the current polarized political process here in Washington, things can work." He added: "Somewhere on the horizon we can make politics less toxic as well."
Congress passed the legislation after decades of criticism from environmental groups that called on lawmakers to fix what they called "one of the worst environmental laws on the books." Federal oversight over chemicals was so weak that a court ruled the EPA lacked the power to fully regulate use of asbestos.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said the TSCA was well meant when it was originally passed but "without major changes to the law, EPA couldn’t take the actions necessary to protect people from toxic chemicals."
"The updated law gives EPA the authorities we need to protect American families from the health effects of dangerous chemicals," McCarthy said in a statement. "And at EPA, we’re excited to get to work putting it into action."
Now the EPA is expected to start reviewing at least 10 potentially toxic chemicals that are commonly found in households and businesses across the country: asbestos, formaldehyde and flame retardants. Those chemicals are in the framework of homes, cars, family sofas, clothing and even newspaper ink.
Remarking on the bill's passage, Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) explained why the old law fell short. "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," he said. "But that isn't the case. Americans are exposed to hundreds of chemicals from household items."
The Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates praised the bill's passage as historic and said it "begins the process of regaining the public's confidence in everyday products made possible by our industry."
The reaction of environmental groups was deeply split, with some hailing the bill as a new way forward and others calling it a disappointment.
Richard Denison, a lead scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, called it "a strong new TSCA." Unlike the old version, the new law allows the EPA to stop a potentially dangerous chemical from going to market. A consideration of high risk populations, such as pregnant women and children, will factor into decisions on whether to approve chemicals. Chemicals with high priority concerns will get faster reviews, and companies can no longer hide behind "trade secret" claims to shield the identity of chemicals they use so officials can't investigate them.
But the Environmental Working Group said the bill got a lot wrong. States would be stripped of their power to stop products they deem suspicious from going to market for up to three years during an EPA investigation. Congress doesn't provide the agency with adequate funding to take on a stronger oversight role, the group said. And EPA must factor in the cost to a company for eliminating a chemical deemed harmful to public safety.
"The failure to include a bulletproof safety standard or sufficient resources, along with the uncertain effects of new restrictions on state action, could ultimately result in less regulatory action than supporters claim," Melanie Benesh, an attorney, and Scott Faber, vice president of government affairs, wrote for EWG.
Chemical companies can continue to tie up the EPA's oversight in the courts, "which is exactly what happened 25 years ago when the courts overturned EPA’s attempt to ban asbestos."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/06/22/obamatoxic/

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Obama Signs TSCA Reform Law, Shifting Focus To EPA's Implementation

Jun 22, 2016 | Inside EPA

By Anthony Lacey

President Obama has signed the bipartisan Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) overhaul into law, shifting focus to how EPA will implement the extensive new authorities under the law for addressing the safety of chemicals -- with at least one Senate proponent of the law vowing to closely track the agency's implementation.
Obama signed the TSCA reform deal, known as the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, at a June 22 White House ceremony. The law is named after the late Democratic senator from New Jersey who for years advocated unsuccessfully for Congress to adopt proposals on overhauling the 1976 toxics law.
“For the first time in 20 years we are updating a national environmental statute. For the first time in our history we'll actually be able to regulate chemicals effectively,” Obama said. The law will “make it easier for the EPA to review chemicals already on the market as well as the new chemicals our scientists and our businesses design.”
The president signaled that attention will now shift to how EPA implements the various new authorities and programs created under the law, saying of the agency that “it's now their task to implement it.”
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) had worked with Lautenberg on TSCA reform, and after Lautenberg's death Vitter teamed up with Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) to craft a TSCA proposal that cleared the upper chamber last year. That bill was then reconciled through informal conference talks with the TSCA overhaul that the House approved in 2015. Both chambers then held votes in recent weeks to approve the final compromise bill and send it to Obama.
Udall, ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee interior panel that oversees EPA's budget, said in a June 22 press release that his focus will now be on how the agency implements the new law. “This isn't the last step -- we must ensure the new program is a success. And as the lead Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the EPA's budget, I'm putting the EPA and the industry on notice: I will be watching.”
The senator has previously suggested that the agency will not receive any additional appropriations to help pay for implementing the law, arguing that EPA likely has enough funding already and that the TSCA agreement includes an industry fee program that will also help the agency in paying for the overhaul.
The Environmental Council of the States, representing most state environmental agencies, has also said it plans to focus on how EPA will implement the TSCA overhaul, saying that the potential impacts to states from the various new programs under the law is an issue ECOS needs to closely track.
Several states had previously raised concerns about provisions in the law that would preempt states from regulating chemicals when EPA is taking action on them. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) long opposed previous TSCA reform bills, fearing the preemption provisions were too sweeping and would block chemicals programs such as those in California. But Boxer signed off on the final law's compromise language on preemption.
'Big Deal'
Obama in his remarks at the bill's signing ceremony said that the law ensures that EPA scientists will receive “the funding they need to get the job done and keep us safe. So this is a big deal.”
The law gives EPA significant new authorities. For example, it removes a number of obstacles in TSCA that many say prevent EPA from adequately regulating chemicals believed to be unsafe, such as removing language that would require the agency to identify the “least burdensome” option before regulating a chemical. That language is believed to have hindered EPA's bid to ban asbestos after a 1991 U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit decision in Corrosion Proof Fittings v. EPA found the agency failed to adequately identify the least burdensome option.
Obama highlighted the asbestos ban as underscoring the limits of the existing TSCA and the need for the overhaul law. “[T]he system was so complex, it was so burdensome, that our country hasn't even been able to uphold a ban on asbestos,” a known carcinogen, he said. “From a regulatory perspective, this was tough.”
Advocates, industry groups and others have noted that the process for EPA implementing the new law will give organizations a chance to try and sway the final outcome of the new programs it creates.
"The rulemaking process is pretty interesting," a source with the American Sustainable Business Council, representing companies that seek strong environmental health protections, said in May. As EPA pursues notice-and-comment rules to implement various provisions of the law, advocacy groups have the chance to try to influence the agency's approach -- including for critics to push to "roll back" some provisions of the law.
The law also leaves some unanswered questions about how EPA will implement the agreement's program for reviewing the potential risks of new chemicals entering the market.
One industry source said the law has a “lack of clarity” on the status of substances on which manufacturers have already submitted pre-manufacture notices under section 5 of TSCA, which covers EPA's authority to regulate new chemicals and allows for a 90-day review period before manufacturing begins.
The law could also have implications for EPA beyond its toxics program, with language that requires the agency to ensure TSCA regulatory actions use the “best available science,” potentially changing how the agency conducts Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) risk assessments, stakeholders say.
Former agency officials, industry sources and others say that language in the law could give EPA a more focused direction on how to conduct IRIS assessments, helping the agency to overcome long-running criticisms that some IRIS reviews “cherry pick” science or contain other data flaws.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/obama-signs-tsca-reform-law-shifting-focus-epas-implementation

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TSCA Reform: Renewing Public Confidence in Chemical Control

Jun 22, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog

By Lynn L. Bergeson

The past four decades have seen a steady erosion of public confidence in the federal government’s ability to identify and control potential risks from exposure to industrial chemicals, especially when they’re in consumer products. That’s why many of us who work extensively in product law, regulation, and policy celebrated President Obama’s signature today on H.R. 2576, the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. The bill extensively amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the federal chemical management law. These amendments go a long and comforting way in fixing what was wrong with TSCA, and empower the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identify and manage chemical risks more efficiently and effectively.
Here are four reasons why the American public has reason to celebrate today, the first day in a long time that we have a comprehensive and vastly improved domestic chemical management law.
Reformed TSCA strikes the requisite balance between Congressional specificity and Agency discretion. TSCA lacked a clearly articulated mandate; EPA had struggled for decades with implementation since the Act’s passage in 1976. The result has been diminished public confidence in the government’s ability to assure chemical safety. The extraordinary number of state and local chemical laws and related retailer initiatives that have emerged in recent years reflect this undeniable truth.
Reformed TSCA addresses the law’s most celebrated deficits.  The federal government’s inability quickly and decisively to control risks from chemicals grandfathered in under TSCA is, to many, TSCA’s greatest failing. The new law eliminates the impossibly problematic “least burdensome requirement” that EPA was required to prove in regulating risk from existing chemicals. EPA’s inability to regulate asbestos under TSCA Section 6 is proof positive of this standard’s fundamental flaw. Eliminating this ill-conceived requirement and imposing aggressive timelines for completion of measures for ensuring chemical prioritization, risk evaluations, and risk management actions are exactly the measures needed to restore public confidence in EPA’s ability to manage chemical risks. Reformed TSCA provides all of these measures.
Reformed TSCA gives EPA authority to do its job: manage chemical risks.  The new law contains mandates to initiate rulemakings by specified dates for all chemicals determined to meet the risk evaluation standard. In regulating a chemical under the new law, EPA is required to consider and publish a statement of essential considerations, including the effects and magnitude of chemical exposure, the benefits of the chemical, the reasonably ascertainable economic consequences of the rule, the costs and benefits of the regulatory action, and one or more primary alternative regulatory actions EPA has considered. In framing the safety standard in this way, the new law properly allows EPA to consider costs and benefits in considering its regulatory options to address chemical risks identified in the risk evaluation process.
Reformed TSCA ensures greater transparency and public engagement in the chemical evaluation process.  In requiring rulemakings that invite public comment and engagement, the new law provides all stakeholders an opportunity to review, consider, and comment on EPA’s chemical evaluations. Similarly, the new law requires EPA to review and approve or deny all past Confidential Business Information (CBI) claims filed to mask the identities of chemicals in commerce as listed on the TSCA Inventory. It also requires that most CBI claims be substantiated when asserted and reviewed by EPA; it calls for them to expire after 10 years unless re-substantiated. These measures go a long way in restoring the public’s trust in a system that must both recognize the need to foster innovation by protecting legitimate CBI and acknowledge the public’s right-to-know.
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act is well-crafted legislation and its enactment today makes TSCA a better, more protective law. These reforms have been years in the making, and the wait, while long and challenging, has paid off. We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who worked tirelessly to draft the legislation and champion its enactment.
Lynn L. Bergeson is Managing Partner of Bergeson & Campbell, P.C.
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/284417-tsca-reform-renewing-public-confidence-in-chemical

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A Strong New TSCA

Jun 22, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund

By Richard Denison, Ph.D.

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.
Those are four words that I thought I might never get to say and see over the many years I’ve worked on this. But today, at a ceremony to be held at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, President Obama will sign the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act.
The Lautenberg Act amends the core provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), our nation’s main chemical safety law, for the first time since its passage 40 years ago. Those amendments are extensive, reaching into nearly every aspect of TSCA – reflecting the need for a top-to-bottom overhaul.
I’ve already blogged recently about both how this was made possible and why it is so significant (see here andhere). And I’ve developed some resources for those wanting to understand what the Lautenberg Act does and how it changes TSCA for the better.
The path leading to today’s historic Presidential signing opened up just over 3 years ago, when two Senators who couldn’t have been more different politically – the late Sen. Lautenberg and Sen. David Vitter – came together to introduce the first bipartisan TSCA reform legislation. At that time, I and others here at EDF had a tough decision to make: lend our support to give momentum to a bill that we knew had serious flaws, or withhold that support – lest it give momentum to such a bill.
We took the calculated risk – and it was a big one – to support the bill for four reasons.
First, we believed Sen. Lautenberg, our community’s longtime champion on this issue, deserved our support. Second, the bill, despite its flaws, held the seeds of many of the reforms we sought even as it had many provisions we did not support. Third, we were concerned that, were there to be no support from our community, the bill would be unlikely to advance and we would lose yet another opportunity to reform TSCA. Fourth, we believed that the best way to fix the serious problems with the bill was to help get it moving through the legislative process, work diligently to find solutions to those problems that could still retain bipartisan support, and encourage the engagement of additional lawmakers to make those changes in exchange for their support for the bill.
I fully recognize and respect that others in our community chose a different approach, didn’t support EDF in our decision, and maybe still don’t. To that, I’ll quote a song from the 1960s I still love: “Different strokes for different folks.” There’s simply no way we would have passed this law – and this strong a law – without multiple actors taking multiple approaches to getting it done.
The path by which this new law wended its way through Congress over the past three years has been likened to climbing a very high mountain. You can’t do it all in one climb; you can’t begin to think about doing it by yourself; and you need to establish and attain multiple base camps on the way up. (I could torture the analogy further: watch out for avalanches and sudden storms that can sweep you away at any moment; expect to suffer repeatedly from exhaustion and shortness of breath; don’t hurry and stick close to the ropes; and so on.)
Before I get carried away, let me close by restating something I said in a recent perspective piece:
Of course, now the real work begins—implementing the law. Which brings me to my last point: A fervent hope that stakeholders will give this new law every chance to work. … I realize it’s a tall order to expect stakeholders with strong interests in certain outcomes not to use every possible avenue to influence every step the EPA takes under the new law. But it’s vital that its implementation lead to improved public health protection as well as a restoration of public confidence, after decades of erosion of that confidence under a badly broken chemical safety system. That means the EPA needs to be given some breathing room, to get a new system up and running, and to get some points on the board early that demonstrate its ability to make decisions and take needed actions.
Meanwhile, I’ll say those four words again: A strong new TSCA. That sounds really great, doesn’t it?
http://blogs.edf.org/health/2016/06/22/a-strong-new-tsca/

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We Just Got the Biggest Environmental Law in a Generation

Jun 22, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund

By Diane Regas

Most Americans believe that chemicals in products they buy in the store are approved for safety. But it’s not true. Our clothes, couches, and cleaning products – among thousands of other goods – contain chemicals linked to cancer, Parkinson’s and other serious health problems.
Recently, though, there’s been some very good news. Congress finally reformed the 40-year-old law at the root of our broken chemical safety system. And today, President Obama signed into law the most important new environmental legislation in decades.
Reforms will transform marketplace
The Toxic Substances Control Act, passed in 1976 and never reformed until now, grandfathered nearly 62,000 chemicals without any safety review and passively allowed 700 to 1,000 new chemicals onto the market every year.
This law not only failed to protect Americans from toxic chemicals; it failed to provide the private sector incentives for investing in safer and sustainable alternatives.
The reforms passed by Congress will begin to transform the marketplace.
Under the Lautenberg Act, all new chemicals will have to meet a safety standard. The Environmental Protection Agency will have new authorities to require testing. And it will finally have a legal mandate to review existing chemicals on the market.
While these changes won’t transform consumer goods overnight, the new law will expand information about chemicals and improve transparency, generating more incentives for companies to invest in safer chemicals when designing products.
To see how much the reform of an environmental law can benefit us over time, look at the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. They remain vigorous today, cleaning the air and saving lives.
Citizen activism, retailers drove change
This reform is part of a process that began with citizen activism and greater consumer awareness. Americans have been demanding more information and higher standards for safety when it comes to chemicals they bring into their homes.
Growing scientific insights into how chemicals can disrupt normal development and result in chronic diseases are further raising the bar by which we judge their safety.
For many years, consumer product companies and major retailers have been responding to these rising consumer demands by removing hazardous ingredients and calling for safer alternatives.
More and more companies are applying the principles of sustainability to the chemicals that make up their products, striving for continuous improvement in health and environmental impacts.
Just this year, Walmart announced the first progress report on its Sustainable Chemistry Policy for household and personal care products announced in 2013. The company worked with suppliers to phase out high priority chemicals and reported a 95-percent reduction, by weight, in use.
Big job ahead: Getting all toxic chemicals off shelves
The new law puts in place a purely health-based standard by which chemicals will be judged.
As companies continue to work to meet rising consumer expectations about the safety, health and sustainability of products, this new law will provide a strong foundation to build upon and expand efforts for generations to come.
Moving potentially hazardous chemicals out of the products on store shelves and driving innovations in safer chemicals is a big task. It won’t happen overnight and we can’t expect the government alone to solve it.
Consumers, advocates, companies and retailers all have a significant role to play by demanding safer chemicals and products and striving for continuous improvement by going beyond simple compliance with the law.
The signing of the Lautenberg Act into law today ushers in a new legal framework upon which we can all build a healthier future for all.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2016/06/22/we-just-got-biggest-environmental-law-generation

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Udall: President Signing Chemical Reform Bill is Historic Progress for Americans' Health and Safety

Jun 22, 2016 | KRXG FM

By Tom Udall

Commentary: Today, in a ceremony at the White House, President Obama signed into law U.S. Senator Tom Udall's landmark bipartisan legislation to overhaul the nation's broken chemical safety program. Udall's Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act reforms the broken Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA) to keep children and communities in New Mexico and across the nation safe from dangerous chemicals. Udall released the following statement:
"I want to thank President Obama for his support for this landmark new law. When the ink dries on his signature, we will put 40 years of broken law behind us. It is a historic step forward that will improve the health and safety of every American family.
"Over the years of working on this bill, I met many people who illustrated why reform was so important. Two of them are Dominique Browning and Lisa Huguenin. Dominique, who works with Moms Clean Air Force, is a kidney cancer survivor. When she asked her doctor what caused her cancer, he said, 'It's one of those environmental ones. Who knows? We're full of chemicals.' Lisa is a Ph.D. scientist who has done work on chemical exposure at Princeton and Rutgers universities. Lisa was motivated to fight for reform not just because of her work, but because her family has experienced health problems that could be linked to environmental chemicals, and she wants answers about what's in our environment. Her son was born with autism and auto-immune deficiencies, and her husband has undergone tests for a rare and newly discovered disease. She has special training in human exposure to chemicals, and she pointed out that if she can't be confident that she's keeping her family safe, then how can the average mom or dad.
"There are countless other stories like Lisa and Dominique's in communities all across New Mexico and throughout our country. It took 40 years and a lot of hard work, and today I'm elated that with this new law, we're finally creating a regulatory system that will protect them, their families and the health of all Americans. This isn't the last step -- we must ensure the new program is a success. And as the lead Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the EPA's budget, I'm putting the EPA and the industry on notice: I will be watching."
http://krwg.org/post/udall-president-signing-chemical-reform-bill-historic-progress-americans-health-and-safety

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Breaking News: Obama Signs Measure to Dramatically Reduce Animal Testing

Jun 22, 2016 | Humane Society

Today, it was my great honor to attend the presidential signing ceremony at the White House for a revision of TSCA, the Toxic Substances Control Act, with my colleague Sara Amundson from the Humane Society Legislative Fund. Today’s final action upgrades a 40-year-old federal law regulating the use of chemicals, and contains – for the first time in any broader environmental and health protection statute – an explicit decree from Congress to minimize animal testing and to create a clear preference for the development and use of alternative methods and strategies.
The section of the bill relating to animal testing, championed by Senators Cory Booker, D-NJ, and David Vitter, R-La. – and strongly supported by Senators Tom Udall, D-NM, Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, Chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and committee ranking member Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., was a hard-fought battle. The inclusion of this language will almost certainly accelerate the movement away from animal tests for chemicals, pesticides, biocides, cosmetics, and other potentially dangerous substances in risk assessment protocols or for safety substantiation. So many lawmakers who pushed the measure across the finish line also attended the ceremony and celebration this morning.
President Obama’s signing of the bill gives the Environmental Protection Agency an unmistakable mandate from Congress that it must continue to embrace 21st century science and transition away from outdated animal testing protocols, which are expensive, slow, and often non-predictive of the human circumstance. I wrote recently that the EPA is dramatically decreasing animal tests for pesticide hazard assessments, and is now working to replace animal tests in its endocrine screening program. In fact, in 2016, the EPA proposed to waive skin lethal dose tests for pesticide formulations.
To be sure, this is a global movement, and there is progress on many fronts. In 2013, the European Union banned cosmetic animal testing and trade, and India followed suit the next year. Recently, we announced that Australia will soon join that club. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a consensus body of 34 member nations, including the United States, has embraced the concept of using the best new techniques and approaches for safety assessment, and that will also accelerate the move away from animal testing on the international stage.
We are making gains in other domains where animal testing has long been a feature of risk assessment. In 2012, our Humane Society International team in Europe worked to reduce animal testing requirements, perhaps by as much as 50 percent, for risk assessment for pesticides and biocides. We’ve also succeeded in convincing Brazil, Canada, the EU, and India to delete a notorious one-year dog pesticide-poisoning study requirement (the United States deleted the requirement back in 2007).
In the past year HSI also worked with the EU to adopt animal replacement methods for skin/eye irritation, skin allergy, skin lethal dose testing, and a reduced animal use test for reproductive toxicity under its chemicals law – potentially sparing 2.6 million animals the effects of these painful tests, while the Indian health ministry banned repeat animal testing of new drug imports.
In all, there is evidence around the globe that a combination of moral intention to reduce and eliminate animal testing and implementation of new technologies that give us superior options are ushering in a new paradigm in the realm of safety testing and drug efficacy work. This is the humane economy in action, and the new law on chemical testing is an enormous advance for our cause. The long-established practice of poisoning animals for a variety of purposes is on the way out, and it will be replaced by human biology that will give us better results and not leave a trail of animal victims in our wake.
http://blog.humanesociety.org/wayne/2016/06/obama-signs-tsca-bill-reducing-animal-testing.html

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Energy News

Federal Court Kills BLM Fracking Rule

Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Energywire

By Ellen M. Gilmer

The Obama administration's hydraulic fracturing rule is dead.
In a monumental ruling last night, the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming struck down the years-in-the-making regulation, concluding that the Bureau of Land Management has no authority over fracking.
Supporters of the rule plan to appeal the decision, calling it a stunning assault on BLM's ability to regulate development on public lands.
The ruling came down last night from Judge Scott Skavdahl. The Obama appointee sided with the four states that last year challenged the rule as an overstep of agency authority.
According to Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota and Utah, Congress expressly removed fracking from the federal government's turf through the Safe Drinking Water Act and Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Skavdahl agreed, finding that Congress never delegated authority over fracking to BLM or the Interior Department.
"Congress has not delegated to the Department of Interior the authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing," he wrote. "The BLM's effort to do so through the Fracking Rule is in excess of its statutory authority and contrary to law."
The decision is a blow to the Obama administration, which crafted the rule as its marquee effort to crack down on the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing, the production technology that helped transform the onshore U.S. oil and gas industry. While the rule is officially scrapped, supporters are expected to appeal the decision through the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Still, Interior framed the decision as a "delay" while legal battles around the rule continue.
"It's unfortunate that implementation of the rule continues to be delayed because it prevents regulators from using 21st century standards to ensure that oil and gas operations are conducted safely and responsibly on public and tribal lands," an agency spokeswoman said in an email.
Industry rejoices
Critics of the fracking rule praised the decision.
The court focused on questions of federal authority and did not delve into oil and gas industry arguments about whether the rule was properly crafted. Industry challengers still viewed the decision as a major victory.
"Today's decision demonstrates BLM's efforts are not needed and that states are -- and have for over 60 years been -- in the best position to safely regulate hydraulic fracturing," Independent Petroleum Association of America spokesman Neal Kirby said last night.
IPAA and the Western Energy Alliance have argued that the rule placed illogical or infeasible requirements on operators and would be drastically more expensive than BLM projected.
Industry lawyer Mark Barron, of BakerHostetler, noted that those arguments will still be in play at the 10th Circuit. He also warned against "drawing broad conclusions" and argued that the ruling has a limited scope that will not hamstring the agency from performing its traditional regulatory role.
"There is no need to extrapolate this decision to any other technique," he said. "This is a pretty unique situation, one that Congress has spoken to specifically and expressly."
The Ute Tribe, another challenger of the fracking rule, also missed out on star treatment in last night's decision. The tribe's arguments about the legality of the rule's application to tribal lands made only a brief appearance in Skavdahl's ruling, though the judge slammed BLM last year for not engaging in "meaningful" consultation with tribes before issuing a rule that treats their lands no different from public lands.
'Key tool to protect public lands'
Interior and its allies, meanwhile, decried the decision as a legally flawed ruling that will result in harm to public and tribal lands.
In an email, Interior reiterated the purpose of the rule: "ensuring adequate well control, preventing groundwater contamination, and increasing transparency about the materials used in the fracturing process."
Earthjustice attorney Mike Freeman, representing environmental groups who intervened in the case, said the ruling, if upheld, would mark a dramatic change in BLM's ability to oversee public lands.
"It would drastically change how public lands in this country are managed and rob the federal government of a key tool to protect public lands from energy companies," he told EnergyWire.
"BLM's updating its regulations to try and deal with the reality of oil and gas development today," he added. "To rule that the agency doesn't have authority to address hydraulic fracturing ignores the reality of what oil and gas development involves."
The district court decision comes just a day after BLM and environmentalists finished briefing a related battle at the 10th Circuit over whether the district court was correct in freezing the rule during litigation (EnergyWire, June 21). That thread of the litigation will now either be dismissed or rolled into the broader appeal of yesterday's decision.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/06/22/stories/1060039204

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Critics Exult After Fracking Rule's Legal Collapse

Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire

By Ellen M. Gilmer

Opponents of the Obama administration's hydraulic fracturing rule are rejoicing today after a federal court's monumental decision to strike down the years-in-the-making regulation.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming last night ruled that the Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management have no authority to regulate fracking on public and tribal lands -- capping off more than a year of litigation since the rule's release last March.
According to Judge Scott Skavdahl, an Obama appointee, Interior's position that fracking falls within its traditional, "long-standing" area of regulation is flawed because the agency waded into fracking regulation after Congress moved to exempt the technique from federal oversight.
"BLM's present characterization of their 'regulation' of oil and gas well-stimulation techniques to protect groundwater as 'long-standing' is without merit," the judge wrote. "Moreover, an agency's regulatory authority emanates from Congress, not an agency's self-proclaimed prior regulatory authority."
While Interior framed yesterday's decision as a "delay" to the safety standards -- which set new requirements for well construction, wastewater management and chemical disclosure -- the oil and gas industry, several states and their allies celebrated the ruling as an affirmation that states should be the sole regulators of fracking.
"This is the latest in a series of court decisions addressing the limits of federal environmental and regulatory authority," North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem (R) said in a statement. "This ruling is a victory in our ongoing efforts to restrict federal overreach."
North Dakota is one of the four states challenging the rule, along with Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. Stenehjem vowed to continue fighting after BLM and environmentalists' expected appeal.
Industry groups also trumpeted states as the rightful regulators of oil and gas development.
"The Judge could not have been more clear when he ruled, 'Congress has not directed the BLM to enact regulations governing hydraulic fracturing. Indeed, Congress has expressly removed federal agency authority to regulate the activity, making its intent clear,'" Independent Petroleum Association of America President and CEO Barry Russell said in a statement.
IPAA was one of two industry groups that joined with four states and an American Indian tribe to challenge the rule in court, opening a high-stakes debate over the extent of BLM's authority over the oil and gas production technique.
The Western Energy Alliance, the other industry group to challenge BLM's rule, was "overjoyed with the ruling," said Kathleen Sgamma, its vice president of government and public affairs.
"The judge determined that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate fracking, period," she said. "He decided exclusively on statutory authority, so there's nothing to remand, no do-over. He didn't even rule on our technical Administrative Procedures Act arguments, which we believe are still strong and represent another line of defense if BLM appeals to the circuit court."
Republican lawmakers chimed in for the victory lap. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) called the ruling an "encouraging" check on administrative power.
"Wyoming and other energy states -- not Washington -- are best prepared to regulate oil and natural gas production," he said in a statement. "It is encouraging to see a federal court clearly state the limits of the president's power. Judge Skavdahl's ruling should be upheld. The courts must recognize that Congress has not given BLM the power to regulate hydraulic fracturing."
According to House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the rule was designed to regulate the industry "out of existence" and directly contradicted Congress' efforts to exempt fracking from federal oversight through the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
"I'll say it again: Only Congress can write laws," Ryan said in a statement. "Agencies acting without authority from Congress is simply illegal. I applaud this court ruling, which upholds the Constitution and protects the energy revolution from the heavy hand of big government."
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) called the ruling "great news for Montana made energy and Montana made jobs."
"It's important that the Obama administration's over-regulation tyranny comes to an end," he said in a statement. "Yet another court decision confirms: President Obama can't make laws with his phone and pen."
Crippled authority?
For the Obama administration and its environmental allies, all attention is now on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where further legal wrangling is certain. Environmental intervenors in the case have already promised to challenge the ruling, and Interior is expected to do the same.
"It's unfortunate that implementation of the rule continues to be delayed because it prevents regulators from using 21st century standards to ensure that oil and gas operations are conducted safely and responsibly on public and tribal lands," an Interior spokeswoman said in an email last night (EnergyWire, June 22).
Earthjustice attorney Mike Freeman, who is representing the intervenors, said he's confident in the legal underpinnings of the rule.
"The arguments that the states are making and that the district court accepted are meritless -- with all due respect to Judge Skavdahl," he said. "The plain language of the statutes and a century of regulations and case law show that BLM has the authority and obligation to regulate all aspects of oil and gas development on federal lands."
If fracking were exempted from federal regulation, he said, BLM's ability to adequately oversee public lands would be crippled.
Freeman and Department of Justice attorneys representing Interior have argued that the agency has broad authority under the Mineral Leasing Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act to regulate development on public and tribal lands.
"It has been clear all along that the Bureau of Land Management has the authority to safeguard our health and our environment from the dangers of fracking," said Lena Moffitt, director of the Sierra Club's Dirty Fuels campaign. "Our hope remains that the full 10th Circuit will continue its review of the case and uphold this rule."
The 10th Circuit typically doesn't hear cases during the summer, so it is expected to hear an appeal on the fracking rule as early as this fall.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/06/22/stories/1060039229

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Obama Fracking Rules Are Struck Down by Court

Jun 22, 2016 | The New York Times

By Coral Davenport

A federal judge on Tuesday night struck down an Obama administration regulation on the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, foroil and gas on public lands, a blow to President Obama’s muscular stand on the extraction of fossil fuels on government lands.
The rule, released by the Interior Department in March of last year and scheduled to take effect this Friday, was designed to increase the safety of fracking. It would have required companies to comply with federal safety standards in the construction of fracking wells, and to disclose the use of some chemicals in the fracking process.
Judge Scott W. Skavdahl of Federal District Court in Wyoming ruled that the Interior Department lacked the authority from Congress to issue the regulation, and also noted that fracking is already subject to other regulations under state and federal law.
The decision comes amid a heated political debate over fracking, which involves the injection of water, gravel and chemicals underground to extract oil and gas. The technology has produced an oil and gas boom in the United States, but environmentalists say fracking can contaminate groundwaterand lead to the leaking of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
The blocked rule would not have affected most fracking operations in the United States, since it would have applied only to fracking on federal lands. The vast majority of fracking in the United States — almost 90 percent — is done on state and private land and is governed by state and local regulations. The rule was unlikely to have stopped most new fracking on public lands, although oil and gas companies complained that it could have slowed operations by creating burdensome paperwork.
And Judge Skavdahl’s ruling is not the final word. While the regulation will be temporarily halted, the federal Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit is also reviewing the rule. Obama administration officials characterized Judge Skavdahl’s ruling as a delay, and said they were waiting for the decision by the appeals court.
“It’s unfortunate that implementation of the rule continues to be delayed, because it prevents regulators from using 21st century standards to ensure that oil and gas operations are conducted safely and responsibly on public and tribal lands,” the Interior Department said in a statement from the agency’s spokeswoman, Jessica Kershaw.
Nonetheless, the oil and gas industry and Republicans who have opposed Mr. Obama’s environmental regulations claimed a victory.
“Today’s decision demonstrates B.L.M.’s efforts are not needed and that states are – and have for over 60 years been – in the best position to safely regulate hydraulic fracturing,” said Neal Kirby, a spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which had sued the administration over the rule.
The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, said in a statement: “Hydraulic fracturing is one of the keys that has unlocked our nation’s energy resurgence in oil and natural gas, making the United States the largest energy producer in the world, creating tens of thousands of good-paying jobs, and lowering energy prices for consumers. Yet the Obama administration has sought to regulate it out of existence. This is not only harmful for the economy and consumers, it’s unlawful — as the court has just ruled.”
Mr. Ryan added: “Only Congress can write laws. Agencies acting without authority from Congress is simply illegal.”
Environmentalists say they held out hope that the rule would be upheld by an appeals court.
“Our hope remains that the full 10th Circuit will continue its review of the case and uphold this rule,” said Lena Moffitt, director of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels campaign.
“While there is no way to ever make fracking safe, the oil and gas industry has repeatedly proven that it needs more standards to keep the public safe from the dangers of fossil fuels, not less,” she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/23/us/politics/hydraulic-fracturing-interior-department-regulations.html?_r=0

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Obama Administration Decries Judge’s Fracking Ruling

Jun 22, 2016 | AP (in Washington Post)

By Matthew Daly

The Obama administration on Wednesday decried a ruling by a federal judge that blocks rules for hydraulic fracturing, saying the decision prevents regulators from using “21st-century standards” to ensure that oil and gas operations are conducted safely on public lands.
Jessica Kershaw, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said “modernized fracking requirements” imposed by Interior Secretary Sally Jewell reflect best industry practices and are aimed at ensuring adequate well control, preventing groundwater contamination and increasing transparency about the materials used in fracking.
Kershaw’s comments came after a judge in Wyoming ruled late Tuesday that federal regulators lack authority to set rules for hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Scott Skavdahl deals another setback to the Obama administration’s efforts to tighten how fossil fuels are mined.
Skavdahl said the Bureau of Land Management can’t set the rules because Congress has not authorized it to do so. The judge, who was nominated by Obama in 2011, wrote that the court’s role is not to decide whether hydraulic fracturing is good or bad for the environment, but to interpret whether Congress has given the Department of Interior legal authority to regulate the practice.
“It has not,” wrote Skavdahl, who last year blocked implementation of rules drafted by the agency.
The states of Colorado, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming oppose the rules involving hydraulic fracturing, which involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals underground to increase production from oil and gas wells.
The Bureau of Land Management and a coalition of environmental groups say the rules are necessary to protect the environment. The bureau’s rules would have required petroleum developers to disclose to regulators the ingredients in the chemical products they use to improve the results of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking.
Neal Kirby, a spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said Tuesday he is pleased with Skavdahl’s decision.
“BLM did not have the authority to issue its rule in the first place,” Kirby said. “Today’s decision demonstrates BLM’s efforts are not needed and that states are — and have for over 60 years been — in the best position to safely regulate hydraulic fracturing.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., called the ruling a victory for states’ rights.
“This rule undermined the careful and efficient regulation of fracturing that states have put in place, like the rules written by Wyoming,” Lummis said.
The states and other rule opponents, including groups representing the energy industry and the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray, based in Utah, filed briefs with Skavdahl. Wyoming, Utah and Colorado worked together on the case, while North Dakota filed its own brief.
The Ute Tribe stated in its brief that it agrees with the states that the Bureau of Land Management lacks rulemaking authority. The tribe also said that the federal agency lacks authority to regulate fracking on land that the United States holds in trust for the Indian tribes and tribal members.
Tuesday’s ruling marked the latest setback for the Obama administration’s efforts on environmental issues. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s effort to slow climate change by reducing power-plant emissions by one-third by 2030. The court said legal challenges to the rules had to be resolved first.
About two dozen states, most of them GOP-led, and scores of utilities and coal mining companies have sued to stop the rules.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/judge-us-agency-lacks-authority-to-set-rules-on-fracking/2016/06/21/8e22df64-382c-11e6-af02-1df55f0c77ff_story.html

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Patchwork of State Plans Could Mean More CO2 Emissions -- Study

Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Energywire

By Emily Holden

A new analysis outlines the potential downsides of states pursuing a patchwork of strategies to meet federal climate change regulations.
The report released by the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) finds that if some states cap mass emissions from existing and new plants under U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan and others aim for an average power-sector rate each year, carbon levels would be higher than if they all settled on one of those strategies.
It also notes that while costs would be lower for states that cap emissions from existing and new power plants, they might not be lower for rate-based states.
The analysis comes the closest yet to projecting what carbon emissions and electricity prices would look like if states choose diverging compliance pathways. It is based on early discussions about how states might break into carbon-trading groups -- a factor that could have a big impact on both emissions and costs.
The research is "illustrative rather than predictive," but assumed states in the Southeast, as well as Iowa and New Jersey, chose rate-based plans, and the rest of the country capped emissions from existing and new power plants and traded within the Western Interconnection, Eastern Interconnection and Texas Interconnection grids.
Utilities in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee have said they favor a rate-based plan. Officials in Iowa and New Jersey have floated the idea, although they haven't made any decisions. Power companies in Arizona may also want that approach.
The study highlights how dependent the impacts of the Clean Power Plan are on market factors, state decisions and perceptions about future carbon constraints. BPC found a wide range of total compliance costs based on how states comply. Average annual costs could range from around $1 billion to around $9 billion. In general, the study found that lower-cost Clean Power Plan scenarios result in higher levels of carbon.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration's modeling, on the other hand, finds average retail power costs would likely be about 3 percent higher than without the rule (ClimateWire, June 21).
EIA Chief Adam Sieminski said at an energy conference yesterday that "the Clean Power Plan isn't going to make that much of a difference to the rates that customers are paying, but it makes a big difference in the kind of fuel that's being consumed to supply that energy."
Navigating uncertainty
Falling gas prices, federal renewable power incentives and falling clean energy costs mean the country as a whole is on the right trajectory to meet early Clean Power Plan goals, BPC noted.
Many states are largely on track to meet the early Clean Power Plan standards, and those that are not can benefit from broad carbon trading, said report co-author Jennifer Macedonia.
"Certainly there's a lot of uncertainty in what will the exact gas price be, what will be the exact cost of renewables in the future," Macedonia said. "There are a lot of market factors and state decisions that will impact what are the exact impacts of the Clean Power Plan."
But she said "trading provides additional flexibility and is a hedge against some of that uncertainty, and a broad range of potential futures become certainly achievable and available at low cost."
Under a mass-based plan, a state would adhere to a cap on tons of carbon emitted by the power sector. Under a rate-based plan, a state would have reduce the amount of carbon emitted for each megawatt-hour of power produced.
If all states used a rate-based standard, the study finds, complying with the rule would cost the most -- near $9 billion per year on average. But carbon levels would be lower than in any other scenario.
If all states capped emissions from existing and new plants, the regulation would cost about $5 billion per year and result in similar carbon reductions.
If some states went rate-based, costs would fall to just over $3 billion per year, but carbon reductions would not be as high.
If states only capped emissions from existing plants, the rule would cost just over $1 billion per year. But emissions would be higher than in any other scenario.
Additionally, if companies could bank allowances for later compliance periods, carbon levels would fall faster and costs would be lower, BPC found.
BPC stressed that because natural gas prices are expected to be low, the fuel could represent a bigger share of the power mix. That would lead to additional coal retirements, but it would depress power prices and make it harder for zero-carbon nuclear generation to compete.
Nuclear power would fare best if all states capped emissions from all plants and if the Clean Power Plan is extended to required continued carbon cuts.
If the power industry expects tougher standards past 2030, investments would change. Companies would build more wind and solar power, retire more coal, and keep more nuclear plants online, even in the earlier years of the regulation, BPC said.
The modeling also shows energy efficiency could be important for limiting costs and smoothing the power-sector transitions.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/06/22/stories/1060039178

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Colo. Regulators Find Methane Violations at 10 Companies

Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Climatewire

By Gayathri Vaidyanathan

Colorado regulators have issued warnings to 10 energy companies that operate in the Denver-Julesburg Basin for emitting methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that contribute to ground-level ozone or smog.
Methane and VOCs are stringently regulated in Colorado, which suffers from a chronic ozone problem. Smog can trigger asthma and respiratory problems in some people.
"That's one reason why stringent oil and gas controls are so important in our ozone nonattainment area," said William Allison, director of the Air Pollution Control Division at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Inspectors recorded violations at 152 well pads between 2014 and 2015. The officials did not need special equipment to make their cases; the leaks were so large that they could smell the gases and hear the hiss of escape, according to letters issued to the companies by the Air Pollution Control Division.
PDC Energy Inc., a Denver-based energy company, operated 43 percent of the offending well pads. The company did not respond to ClimateWire's request for comment by deadline.
The repeat violations were recorded in a state that arguably has the nation's toughest methane rules. Colorado has been regulating VOC emissions from the oil and gas industry since 2007 and methane since February 2014. The state served as a model for federal regulators when they issued a nationwide methane rule this year (ClimateWire, May 13).
The oil and gas industry has argued that federal regulations are unnecessary and that companies can police themselves. But the Colorado violations show the fault in this argument, said Seth Gladstone, deputy communications director at Food & Water Watch, an anti-fossil-fuel environmental group.
"We have seen evidence of this [leakage] not just in Colorado, but in Pennsylvania and Texas and anywhere where large-scale fracking for oil and gas is taking place around the country," Gladstone said. "Despite what regulations may or may not be in place, in any particular state or locality, this is a process that is inherently polluting and cannot be regulated safely."
Trade group says companies 'getting up to speed' on regs
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an environmental group that supports the safe extraction of natural gas, said the violations show how important enforcement is.
"We need the backstop of regulatory enforcement to make sure all of the state's oil and gas operators are inspecting their equipment regularly and fixing leaks when they find them," said Dan Grossman, national director of state programs at EDF. "As we can see from these letters, voluntary programs by themselves are simply insufficient to address the pollution and climate problems caused by methane emissions from the oil and gas sector."
Colorado's air chief Allison said the state's methane rules and enforcement have been "extremely effective and successful."
Since the rules came on the books, the number of facilities with leaks on the Denver-Julesburg Basin has fallen by 75 percent, he said.
But Doug Flanders, director of policy and external affairs at the Colorado Oil & Gas Association, said the companies were taken aback by the letters and their tone because they had assumed a strong working relationship with the regulators.
"Even the bigger companies are getting up to speed on many of the new regulations as we are learning more about these," he said. "When you are trying to implement a new rule that has never been done -- this [rule] is the first of its kind, we are the only state that actually regulates methane -- sometimes to be able to get to that spot where you need to be within those regulations, it just can take a while."
The companies that contributed the 152 alleged violations include: Encana Oil & Gas Inc.; Great Western Oil & Gas Co.; Bill Barrett Corp.; K.P. Kauffman Co. Inc.; Kerr-McGee Oil & Gas Onshore LP; Bonanza Creek Energy Operating Co. LLC; Extraction Oil & Gas LLC; Synergy Resources Corp.; PDC Energy Inc.; and Bayswater Exploration and Production LLC.
All the leaks were from storage tanks, where companies store condensates produced at the well pads.
Colorado's regulators are investigating the violations. If found culpable, the companies could be fined $15,000 per day of violation or have their permits revoked.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/06/22/stories/1060039181

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Chemical Security News

Obama Signs Pipeline Safety Bill into Law

Jun 22, 2016 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard

By Andrew Restuccia

President Barack Obama just signed into law the first major pipeline safety legislation since 2011.
The bill, S. 2276, reauthorizes the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration through fiscal year 2019. PHMSA has long faced criticism for not doing enough to prevent pipeline accidents. The bill prods PHMSA to complete a series of long-delayed safety regulations mandated in a 2011 law by requiring that the agency publish regular updates on the status of the rules.
The bill includes a measure that would give PHMSA new, but limited, authority to impose emergency restrictions on pipeline operators in the event of unsafe conditions. It also mandates that PHMSA set federal minimum standards for underground natural gas storage facilities, a response to the methane leak at Aliso Canyon in California.
The legislation was approved by the Senate and House earlier this month after the two chambers reached a compromise.
Industry groups successfully lobbied for the removal of a provision authored by Sen. Ed Markey that would allow lawmakers to review unredacted emergency response plans. While safety advocates favored the measure because it would bring greater transparency, industry argued national security could be threatened if the unredacted plans leaked to the public.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard

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Environment News

Polluted Estuaries Spew 'Potentially Significant' Emissions

Jun 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire

By Amanda Reilly

Estuaries may be releasing more methane into the atmosphere than previously thought, according to a study done on the Chesapeake Bay.
The bay's low-oxygen "dead zone" that forms in summer may be contributing to the buildup of the potent greenhouse gas in its waters, the study released this week warns.
While it's yet unclear how much methane escapes into the atmosphere, the amount is "potentially significant," the study says.
"This is just one estuary, and there are many others that go anoxic in the summertime," said author Laura Lapham of the University of Maryland's Center for Environmental Science. "We need to look at these eutrophic estuaries as perhaps a larger source of methane than we thought."
The study was published in the journal Limnology and Oceanography and partly funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund.
Scientists have attempted to measure the amount of methane emitted from estuaries since the 1970s. Studies recently have focused on what causes methane concentrations to change over space and time.
The Chesapeake is America's largest estuary, an area of brackish water that connects to the ocean. The summer dead zone is fueled by nutrients that wash off farms and developed areas, feeding algal blooms that suck up oxygen that marine life need to live.
To measure the bay's methane concentrations, the Center for Environmental Science used pumps to continuously sample bottom waters from April to October 2013.
Researchers found that when those waters lost dissolved oxygen, methane was released from the sediment. Usually, microbes in the bay bottom consume the methane, but those microorganisms lose the ability to effectively take up the gas when water is deprived of oxygen, according to the study.
The greenhouse gas, which is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide, built up below the pycnocline, or the layer of water where density begins increasing rapidly with depth.
Summer storms churn the water and bring methane to the surface.
"Taken together, the time-series data show that methane flux from the bay is variable, potentially significant and dependent upon storms," Lapham said.
If all that methane were released to the air, it would equal the total current estimates for the amount of methane emitted by all the estuaries in the world, according to the Center for Environmental Science.
Worldwide, estuaries and coastal systems are estimated to emit 3 percent of global methane emissions.
The study found that methane levels peaked in mid-July during the summer dead zone and then decreased beginning around early August. But samples showed there was still a "significant" amount of methane in the surface waters in September.
By late September, methane concentrations in the water were back to normal background levels.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/06/22/stories/1060039230

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