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ACC AM- 27/6 dry run
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(ACC Mentioned) 'Uncertainty' Surrounds Louisiana’s Ninth-Largest Trade Partner, Major In-State Investor Following Brexit
Jun 24, 2016 | The New Orleans Advocate
By Ted Griggs and Timothy Boone
The only thing certain about Britain’s exit from the European Union is “uncertainty” for a country that is Louisiana’s ninth-largest trading partner and a major investor in the state. -
(ACC Mentioned) US Stock Indices Fall Over 3% After UK Exit Vote
Jun 24, 2016 | ICIS
By Al Greenwald
US stock indices fell by more than 3% on Friday in one of their steepest losses in months, with shares for many chemical companies falling by over 6%. -
After Brexit, Chemical Companies Urged to Review Contracts
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical manufacturers located outside the European Economic Area, but exporting to it, should review contractual relationships in their supply chain to determine whether they have any U.K. operations responsible for complying with European Union regulations, a Steptoe & Johnson LLP attorney said June 24. -
(ACC Mentioned) Update of Law on Toxic Chemicals, Years in the Making, A Victory
Jun 24, 2016 | San Francisco Chronicle
By Carolyn Lochhead
Four years ago, retired San Francisco firefighter Tony Stefani, stricken with a rare form of pelvic cancer tied to flame retardants, sat before a Senate committee as a living example of how the federal government allowed tens of thousands of potentially toxic chemicals to be used in household products that Americans assumed were safe. -
Fifteen States Sue Over EPA's Power Plant Mercury Rule
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
Fifteen states, led by Michigan, sued the Environmental Protection Agency June 24 over its affirmation that it is appropriate to regulate toxic pollutants from power plants under its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule (Michigan v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1204, 6/24/16). -
Toxics Law May Give Some Regulatory Relief
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Car, engine and printed circuit board manufacturers are among the companies that may get some regulatory relief from the newly amended chemicals law, according to industry officials. -
Energy Brief: Week in Review & What’s Ahead
Jun 26, 2016 | Morning Consult
By Asha Glover
President Obama signed legislation into law that overhauls the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act. -
Bipartisan Support Moved TSCA Reform
Jun 25, 2016 | Delaware Voice
By Krysta Harden
Congress recently made the most significant reforms to environmental and public health law since the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act with the passage of legislation that updates the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). -
California Attorney General Comments on Chemical Safety Bill in Congress
Jun 24, 2016 | Legal Newsline
By Mark Iandolo
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris has released comments on the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act in Congress, which provides reforms to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA) in order to limit the number of dangerous chemicals in the environment. -
Reformed Bill Gives EPA Teeth to Tackle Toxic Chemicals
Jun 24, 2016 | AG Web
By Ben Potter
Back in 1976, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was first enacted. But it’s never had the power it truly needed until President Obama signed a bipartisan bill into law that reforms TSCA so it requires EPA to evaluate existing chemicals with clear, enforceable deadlines. -
Obama Lawyers May Appeal Ruling Overturning Fracking Rule
Jun 27, 2016 | The Hill- Policy
By Timothy Cama
Obama administration lawyers filed notice that they may appeal a court decision from earlier this week that overturned the Interior Department’s regulation on hydraulic fracturing. -
Obama Admin Appeals Fracking Smackdown
Jun 24, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Robin Bravender
The Obama administration is hoping a federal appeals court will revive its efforts to regulate hydraulic fracturing on public lands. -
Pennsylvania Fracking Rules Become Law
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
Pennsylvania will impose new rules on hydraulic fracturing, delay plans to limit carbon dioxide emissions, and postpone regulatory updates for conventional oil and gas drillers, under bills the governor signed into law June 23. -
A New Fracking Fight is Brewing in Maryland
Jun 24, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Josh Hicks
Maryland regulators are paving the way for energy companies to begin fracking in the state once its moratorium on the controversial gas-extraction process ends in the fall of 2017. -
DNC Platform Draft Rejects Carbon Tax, Full Fracking Ban
Jun 27, 2016 | E&E News Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
A committee drafting the Democratic Party's 2016 platform late Friday night rejected a host of key environmental provisions favored by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, including the implementation of a carbon tax and a nationwide ban of hydraulic fracturing. -
Commentary: US Petrochemicals Could Be Tighter and Brighter
Jun 23, 2016 | ICIS
By Nigel Davis
How will integrated cracker operators with assets in the US fare over the next few years? The first big, new US crackers will come onstream from 2017, most integrated to significant polyethylene (PE) capacity. -
Opinions Mixed on Oil/Gas Price Recovery Timeline at Industry Conference
Jun 24, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
The prolonged decline in the nation's oil and natural gas rig count, falling production and a dwindling inventory of drilled but uncompleted (DUC) wells, paired with the long-awaited increase in gas demand from nearly every corner of the market, could signal a recovery in commodity prices sooner rather than later. -
Week Ahead: Wait Drags On For Energy Talks
Jun 27, 2016 | The Hill - Policy
By Devin Henry
The Senate is the only show in town in the coming week, meaning the energy world's eyes will be trained on the chamber, looking for signs of movement on an energy reform package. -
Senators Look to Make Progress on Energy, Spending
Jun 27, 2016 | E&E News Daily
By Geof Koss and George Cahlink
Senate negotiators will continue talks on a possible conference with the House on energy legislation this week, along with pressing forward on spending legislation and Puerto Rico relief. -
Shell Gives Up on Arctic Offshore Lease Extensions
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Royal Dutch Shell Plc has given up on its administrative appeal to win Interior Department extensions of leases for oil exploration in Arctic offshore waters north of Alaska. -
(ACC Mentioned) Time to Let the Rail Carrier Competition Roll
Jun 24, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Cal Dooley
In “Freight Railroads Are Braking for Regulatory Creep” (op-ed, June 15) about regulation of freight railroads, Edward R. Hamberger presents a misleading critique of a proposal that would actually reduce regulatory burdens and promote free-market competition. -
Rail is still the safest, cleanest way to move hazardous materials
Jun 26, 2016 | The Spokesmen Review
By Kris Johnson
The recent train derailment in Mosier, Oregon, drives home the importance of transportation safety and emergency response preparations. It also puts a spotlight on the hazardous materials that are essential to supporting jobs and maintaining public health. -
Washington Governor Calls For Oil Train Moratorium on Union Pacific
Jun 24, 2016 | The Columbian
By Lauren Dake
Gov. Jay Inslee called for a halt on Union Pacific Railroad oil trains traveling through Washington on Friday until stricter safety standards are enacted. -
Opposition Turns to FTC to Stall Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Claims Antitrust
Jun 24, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
Opposition forces trying to stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), having already filled FERC’s docket with comments, are now petitioning the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with claims that the project violates antitrust laws. -
FERC Says Overlapping Rover, Leach XPress Pipelines Can't Be Built Without Solution
Jun 24, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
FERC has notified affiliates of Energy Transfer Partners LP and Columbia Pipeline Group Inc. that it can't approve two major Appalachian pipeline projects until an overlapping 13-mile section of the proposed routes in Monroe and Noble counties, OH, is redesigned. -
Major Battle Over Oil Terminal Unfolds in Pacific Northwest
Jun 25, 2016 | AP (In U.S News)
By PHUONG LE
Two companies proposing to build the nation's largest oil-by-rail marine terminal along the Columbia River in Washington see a unique opportunity to link domestic crude oil from the Midwest to a West Coast port. -
New Push to Extend California Greenhouse Gas Law Past 2020
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
California state Sen. Fran Pavley (D) has renewed an effort to extend the state's landmark greenhouse gas emissions law beyond 2020. -
Study Links 6.5 Million Deaths Each Year to Air Pollution
Jun 26, 2016 | The New York Times
By Stanley Reed
A sobering report released on Monday by the International Energy Agencysays air pollution has become a major public health crisis leading to around 6.5 million deaths each year, with “many of its root causes and cures” found in the energy industry. -
EPA Finalizes Revisions To Incinerator Air Rule
Jun 24, 2016 | Inside EPA
EPA has issued a final rule revising parts of its new source performance standards (NSPS) and emissions guidelines for existing sources for commercial and industrial solid waste incineration units (CISWI), including weakening some emissions limits and adjusting the rule to take into account the variability of toxics content in fuel.
Congressional Hearings
Industry and Association News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Environment News
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Jun 24, 2016 | The New Orleans Advocate
By Ted Griggs and Timothy Boone
The only thing certain about Britain’s exit from the European Union is “uncertainty” for a country that is Louisiana’s ninth-largest trading partner and a major investor in the state.
The U.K. also is a substantial source of tourists. New Orleans is the second-most popular entry point for English visitors to the United States behind only New York.
“It’s very difficult to say what will happen,” said Dominik Knoll, CEO of the World Trade Center of New Orleans.
The potential spillover is something the World Trade Center is keeping a close eye on now that Britain, the world’s fifth-largest economy, has voted to exit the 28-member European Union in a process that will take at least two years and involve negotiating new trade deals around the world.
Exports through Louisiana topped $1.4 billion in 2015 to the U.K. — the state’s third-largest European trading partner.
“Louisiana’s largest export destinations in Europe are France and the Netherlands and not the U.K.,” said LSU Department of Economics associate professor Areendam Chanda.
By comparison, China is the state’s top trading partner at $6.6 billion.
Petroleum and coal products account for 60 percent of the U.K. activity, Knoll said.
David Dismukes, executive director of the LSU Center for Energy Studies, said there will be no big direct effects on Louisiana. “But this is going to have an indirect impact, and we’ll just have to see how this plays out and how the markets react to this over the next couple of weeks,” he said.
A recent report from the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed the outlook for European growth wasn’t all that strong without Britain’s exit, Dismukes said. The “Brexit” — Britain’s secession — forecast basically showed no growth for Europe.
“If you’re in a commodities business or producing commodity chemicals like the facilities are here, it’s going to be challenging — not just for Britain but for all of Europe and probably the rest of the world because of the hangover effects to everybody else,” Dismukes said.
“It’s history in the making. It’s the first time, other than Greenland, somebody is leaving the EU. So we’re kind of in uncharted territory,” said Kevin Smith, the American Chemistry Council’s chief economist.
“The short-term prospects, a lot of people feel it will shave some economic growth off of the U.K. this year and maybe next year,” Smith said. “To some extent, it may lower exports from the United States.”
The U.S. runs a fairly large chemistry trade deficit with the U.K., much of it in pharmaceuticals, he said.
Britain still must complete the EU exiting process. The move may involve waiting for a new prime minister to be elected, and that could begin the two-year period for negotiating a host of trade deals, Smith said.
One of the consequences of exiting the EU is an end to Britain’s tariff-free access to other EU members. Britain will have to negotiate fresh trade pacts in Europe and with the U.S., until then trading under the rules of the World Trade Organization. That means Britain could be subject to a long period of tariffs and other barriers that slow commerce, according to published reports.
British companies have invested more than $1.4 billion in Louisiana since 2003, according to Louisiana Economic Development.
Drax Group, for example, spent $350 million building a wood pellet storage facility at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge and two wood pellet-producing plants in Bastrop and Gloster, Mississippi. Hunting PLC spent nearly $20 million in 2013 to expand its Houma oilfield supply manufacturing facility and announced last year it was considering a $62 million expansion.
The main thing is that U.K. businesses have a large investment in Louisiana, and they know the state is an excellent place to do business with a great workforce, the World Trade Center’s Knoll said.
“They have a deep history with us,” he said. “We have an advantage with the relationships we’ve developed over many, many years.”
Chanda, the associate professor, noted that some of the European companies with the largest employers in Louisiana are based out of Scotland, adding, “It will be interesting to see how things develop given that they overwhelmingly voted to remain in the EU.”
Some have speculated Britain’s EU exit could inspire Scotland to secede from the U.K.. Others fear more EU members will follow Britain’s lead.
As for British tourism, New Orleans was the entry point for 19.6 percent of English visitors to the United States, according to a 2013 study the University of New Orleans did for the state Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism. Only New York was a more popular gateway, at 29.3 percent.
On average, English visitors to Louisiana spent nearly $342 per person per day. More than 64 percent of U.K. visitors to the state stopped in New Orleans.
The Brexit could hit Britons’ wallets.
In published reports, the International Monetary Fund has said the British economy could shrink 5 percent because of its EU secession. The London School of Economics estimated that middle-class families face the loss of 4 percent of their income.
Another consequence of the EU secession: It makes it harder for million of Britons to travel freely and work on the European continent.
Others predict the loss of Britain’s status as a financial center. Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase & Co. officials have warned they may move operations and tens of thousands of jobs out of Britain.
http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/16207405-172/uncertainty-surrounds-louisianas-ninth-largest-trade-partner-major-investor-in-the-state-as-britain-
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(ACC Mentioned) US Stock Indices Fall Over 3% After UK Exit Vote
Jun 24, 2016 | ICIS
By Al Greenwald
US stock indices fell by more than 3% on Friday in one of their steepest losses in months, with shares for many chemical companies falling by over 6%.
Every US-listed stock followed by ICIS fell. The decline followed the so-called Brexit referendum, in which UK voters decided to leave the EU.
The UK is a major trade partner with the US, according to statistics compiled by the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
In 2015, US chemical exports to the UK totalled $7.46bn, making it the seventh largest destination behind Brazil. Chemical imports from the UK totalled $13.3bn, the fifth largest provider for the US, behind China.
The British pound weakened against the US dollar, reaching levels on Friday not seen since the recession of 2008-2009. A stronger dollar makes US exports less competitive and UK imports more attractive.
This could threaten the profitability of the INEOS cracker in Grangemouth, UK, since the plantwould rely on US ethane. The cracker's capacity is 700,000 tonnes/year, according to ICIS plants and projects.
These currency fluctuations extend beyond the British pound.
The Mexican peso also fell sharply against the US dollar, reaching the multi-year lows seen earlier in 2016.
Mexico is the second largest chemical export market for the US, behind only Canada, according to ACC data. US chemical exports to Mexico reached $21.7m in 2015.
A plastics seller from Mexico said on Friday that it did not expect to conduct any large operations during the day due to the magnitude of the market reaction to the UK vote.
In addition to currency fluctuations, the UK's decision to exit the EU will throw the country's trade agreements with the US up in the air, said Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The EU had negotiated the trade deals for all of its member countries – both in regards to agreements with other nations and with the World Trade Organization (WTO), Hufbauer said. "All of these are now question marks."
In a statement, the US Chamber of Commerce urged policymakers to avoid precipitous action in the upcoming negotiations with the EU.
"American companies’ investments in Britain are worth more than half a trillion dollars, and many of those investments were made to reach not just British consumers but those in the European mainland as well," according to a statement by Thomas Donohue, the chamber's CEO. "We are committed to working with the UK government to ensure that the priorities of these stakeholders are taken into account in the debates that lie ahead."
Trade agreements are not the only items that will be disrupted by the UK leaving the EU. The union's Reach (registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals) regulations could be another challenge.
Upon leaving, Reach would no longer apply in the UK, according to David Gordon, partner in the environmental and chemical industry group at law firm Squire Patton Boggs. The only UK legislation that currently applies to Reach is for enforcement of the regulation.
Upon exiting, UK companies exporting to Europe could face substantial extra costs, as they would have to go through the registration process all over again. The regulation for chemicals is probably the one piece of legislation most heavily impacting UK chemical producers.
Jonathon Wright, a partner with the consultancy Roland Berger, warned that the UK vote and subsequent exit could weaken the European economy. "There is a distinct possibility of a recession, which will directly impact the European chemical companies."
On the other hand, the UK has a chemical trade deficit with the rest of the EU, so more favourable trade agreements could be negotiated in the upcoming years, said Paul Bjacek, a principal director who leads Accenture's chemicals and natural resources strategic research.
Overall, small businesses in the UK seemed to favour leaving the EU more than larger firms – due to stricter regulations, Bjacek said. As a result, there could be more investment from smaller firms in the medium and long term.
This trend could even lead to more innovation, since smaller businesses are the font of such developments, he said.
Regardless of the long-term prospects, the immediate fall-out of Thursday's vote was pessimistic.
In the US stock markets, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 17,400, down more than 611 points or 3.39%. The S&P 500 closed at 2,037, down 76 points or 3.60%. The Nasdaq Composite fell to 4,708, down 202 points or 4.12%. The Dow Jones US Chemicals Index fell by nearly 5%.
Polyurethanes producer Huntsman fell by the most, declining by 11%. Paints and coatings producer Valspar and vinyls producer Axiall fell by the least, less than 1%. Both are being acquired.
Among the majors, Dow Chemical fell by 4% and DuPont declined by 5%.
Refiner Valero fell by 2%. Fertilizer producer PotashCorp dropped by 3% while industrial gases producer Praxair declined by 4%. Paints and coatings producer PPG Industries fell by 8%
http://www.icis.com/resources/news/2016/06/24/10011032/us-stock-indices-fall-over-3-after-uk-exit-vote/
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After Brexit, Chemical Companies Urged to Review Contracts
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Chemical manufacturers located outside the European Economic Area, but exporting to it, should review contractual relationships in their supply chain to determine whether they have any U.K. operations responsible for complying with European Union regulations, a Steptoe & Johnson LLP attorney said June 24.
Chemical and pesticide manufacturers should determine wherever a U.K. entity discharges its EU regulatory obligations, Darren Abrahams, a partner in Steptoe & Johnson's Brussels’ office, told Bloomberg BNA. He discussed near term actions chemical manufacturers may want to undertake in light of the U.K.’s June 23 vote to leave the European Union.
If the worst case scenario happens and the U.K. not only exits the European Union but also doesn't join the European Economic Area (EEA), which consists of the 28 EU member states along with Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, companies with U.K. operations that discharge regulatory obligations for REACH and the Biocidal Products Regulation may have to end contracts, arrange new ones and take other actions, Abrahams said.
No chemical or pesticide can be sold in the European Economic Area unless it complies with the EU's REACH (registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals) regulation or its biocides regulation.
Chemical and pesticide manufacturers that are based outside the European Economic Area but export their products to the EEA comply with both chemical laws by designating EEA-based entities, Abrahams said. Those EEA-based companies discharge the regulatory obligations, he said.
Will U.K. Join EEA?
One uncertainty is whether the U.K. will exit the European Union and join the European Economic Area or, as Abrahams said seems likely at present, remain outside both legal structures.
If the U.K. remains outside both legal structures, U.K.-based companies could no longer discharge the regulatory obligations they currently carry out for REACH or the BPR, Abrahams said.
The full impact of the U.K. vote won't be known for two or more years, because it depends on exit negotiations that can't yet begin, Abrahams said.
The U.K.'s vote has no immediate impact, he said.
The negotiating process triggered by Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which addresses a member state's decision to withdraw from the union, begins after the state formally notifies the European Council of its intention.
Former Prime Minister Punts on Responsibility
Newly resigned Prime Minister David Cameron has said he will leave it to his successor to issue that notification and formally begin the withdrawal process.
That means, Abrahams said, the formal exiting process may not begin for months.
Once the negotiations begin, it will take the full two years allowed under Article 50—a timeline that can be extended—to complete the enormous amount of work needed to legally separate the U.K.'s and EU's integrated legal and regulatory systems, he said.
That gives businesses time to prepare for divergent possible outcomes, he said.
Capital, Tax Implications
Herb Estreicher, a partner with Keller and Heckman LLP, agreed companies have time to make preparations but said getting ready for possible Brexit scenarios will take time.
U.S. companies that have set up an affiliate in the U.K. that serves as their only representative, meaning it discharges their REACH obligations, may need to soon start looking at options to establish an only representative in the EEA, he told Bloomberg BNA by e-mail.
Companies will have to consider capital requirements as well as income and value added tax implications, he said.
Challenges for U.K. Chemical Manufacturers
Abrahams said U.K. chemical manufacturers face different and trickier challenges.
Under REACH, chemical companies that make more than one metric ton but less than 100 metric tons of a chemical must register that substance by 2018.
Non-European chemical manufacturers can appoint an only representative in the EEA to discharge their regulatory compliance, Abrahams said.
The REACH regulation, however, doesn't allow a company located in the EU—as the U.K. will be until the exit process is complete—to appoint an only representative, he said.
The U.K. exit negotiations are unlikely to be completed by 2018, but U.K. chemical manufacturers may want to consider contingency plans, such as having an arrangement with an EU-based company to take over registration and other compliance obligations, Abrahams said.
Considering this contingency plan should be only a paper exercise, he said.
Transitional Period Said Likely
Most likely the U.K. and EU will negotiate some kind of transitional period, he said.
Estreicher said: “U.K. chemical companies need to continue their registration efforts.
“If worst comes to worst, and the U.K. does not become a member of the European Economic Area, then the U.K. companies will need to appoint EU-based only representatives and transfer the registrations to them.”
Groups of chemical manufacturers that have formed consortia or Substance Information Exchange Forums (SIEFs) and appointed a U.K.-based company to be the lead registrant as they jointly register the same chemical should think about contingency plans, Estreicher said.
Similar to the U.K. chemical manufacturers, these consortia and SIEFs should ensure that an EU-based company is willing to take on the lead registrant role if worst comes to worst, he said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=92548074&vname=dennotallissues&fn=92548074&jd=92548074
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(ACC Mentioned) Update of Law on Toxic Chemicals, Years in the Making, A Victory
Jun 24, 2016 | San Francisco Chronicle
By Carolyn Lochhead
Four years ago, retired San Francisco firefighter Tony Stefani, stricken with a rare form of pelvic cancer tied to flame retardants, sat before a Senate committee as a living example of how the federal government allowed tens of thousands of potentially toxic chemicals to be used in household products that Americans assumed were safe.
Last week, in a White House auditorium dotted with cancer survivors and widows and chemical industry lobbyists, President Obama signed into law the first update of the Toxic Substances Control Act, first signed by President Gerald Ford in 1976. The rare bipartisan achievement marks the first strengthening of a major federal environmental statute in two decades.
Under the new version of the act, the government will slowly begin to require federal testing of industrial chemicals and could lead to a ban on asbestos, a known lethal carcinogen still in public commerce.
At Obama’s shoulder during Wednesday’s signing was Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who called Stefani to testify before the Environment and Public Works Committee she chaired in 2012. For years, Boxer stubbornly blocked proposed reforms of the toxic substances law to protect California’s stricter chemical standards, at one point battling her personal friend, the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, after whom the reform is named.
“This bill started out a disaster,” Boxer said as she stood in the celebratory chaos after the signing ceremony. “It was a a very tough slog. Years in the making.”
The bipartisanship on the issue grew out of industry frustration with the proliferation of state chemical regulations that filled the vacuum resulting from the weak federal law, which was further hamstrung by court rulings that limited the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to carry out the law.
Maintaining momentum
Democrats were eager to toughen federal law, but Boxer sought to preserve state authority because California had moved aggressively on its own, both legislatively and at the ballot box. Three decades ago, voters approved Proposition 65, a law that requires the state to update and publish a list of chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm.
But Boxer also wanted to get new legislation passed before she leaves the Senate this year. Her seniority as the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, her knowledge of the bill’s details and political history, and her deep relationships with Republicans on the panel, particularly its chairman and her friend, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., gave her leverage that no successor could hope to have.
“I knew how bad it could be if we lost momentum,” Boxer said. If the bill had not passed under her watch, “then when I was gone they’d start all over, and who would really be there to be the pain in the neck fighting? I was worried.”
Boxer said she is confident in the new bill now, having held out until the end on its most controversial part — allowing states an 18-month window to regulate chemicals on their own before the EPA acts. The law also allows California to keep Prop. 65. If the EPA fails to regulate a hazardous chemical within 3½ years, states can move on their own to regulate the chemical. The bill also assigns a priority for the EPA to review toxic chemicals that are known to persist in the environment and accumulate in the food chain, including in the human body.
Finding common ground
After the signing ceremony, Boxer jostled with well-wishers, including 26-year-old Trevor Schaefer of Boise, Idaho, who survived a diagnosis of brain cancer at age 13. Near him stood Sen. Mike Crapo, the Idaho Republican Boxer worked with to make “Trevor’s Law” part of the legislation, requiring the government to identify and track “cancer clusters” such as the one found in Schaefer’s logging community.
“We have very different political positions,” Crapo said, referring to Boxer. “But we can find areas where we can work together and make it happen.”
Linda Reinstein of Manhattan Beach (Los Angeles County), who co-founded the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization in 2004 after her husband, Alan, died of mesothelioma, broke down in tears as she described a six-year fight against the chemical industry to pass the new law.
“I have never seen a harder battle,” Reinstein said. “The American Chemistry Council was hugely funded, so they were able to lobby the Hill with propaganda.
“Asbestos hasn’t been banned. and we still import it,” she said, but under the new law, it is expected to be among the first 10 substances the EPA reviews.
For firefighter Stefani, the new law is but “a start in the right direction.”
Even if the EPA, whose budget is under constant assault from conservative lawmakers, receives full funding, it will take decades for the agency to examine the tens of thousands of chemicals in current use that have not been regulated.
Most people have no idea how lax the current regulatory regimen is and simply assume chemicals used in household products are safe, Stefani said. In the meantime, when buildings and their contents burn, firefighters breath in the gases released from everything inside them.
Decades of exposure
“We are still faced with these toxic exposures, and that’s going to continue for decades and decades,” Stefani said in a phone interview from San Francisco, where he now lives cancer-free and heads the San Francisco Firefighters Cancer Prevention Foundation.
“There are so many toxins out there, it’s hard to visualize that we’re going to be at a place someday where everything that we pick up and put in our hands, and the air that we breath, is considered safe.”
http://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/Update-of-law-on-toxic-chemicals-years-in-the-8324534.php
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Fifteen States Sue Over EPA's Power Plant Mercury Rule
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
Fifteen states, led by Michigan, sued the Environmental Protection Agency June 24 over its affirmation that it is appropriate to regulate toxic pollutants from power plants under its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards rule (Michigan v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1204, 6/24/16).
The lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenges the EPA's April 25 supplemental finding (RIN:2060-AS76) that regulating power plants' toxic pollutants is “appropriate and necessary” under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act. The EPA's finding comes in response to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that held the agency had failed to properly consider compliance costs for utilities as part of that determination for its Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (Michigan v. EPA, 135 S. Ct. 26992015 BL 207163, 80 ERC 1577, 2015).
Most of the 15 states challenging the EPA's affirmation of its appropriate and necessary finding—Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming—participated in the prior challenge to the EPA's Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.
Additional lawsuits were filed June 24 by Oak Grove Management Company LLC and five utilities (Oak Grove Management Co. LLC v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1206, 6/24/16;Southern Co. Services, Inc. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1208, 6/24/16).
The states' lawsuit follows similar litigation brought by coal giant Murray Energy Corp., which filed the first lawsuit over the rule, and ARIPPA, a trade association representing coal refuse power plants (Murray Energy Corp. v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 16-1127, 4/25/16).
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=92548066&vname=dennotallissues&fn=92548066&jd=92548066
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Toxics Law May Give Some Regulatory Relief
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Car, engine and printed circuit board manufacturers are among the companies that may get some regulatory relief from the newly amended chemicals law, according to industry officials.
The newly signed overhaul of the Toxic Substances Control Act, which President Obama signed into law June 22, would require the Environmental Protection Agency to determine whether TSCA's reporting requirements should be reduced or altered for companies that recycle, reuse or reprocess inorganic byproducts.
The changes the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (H.R. 2576) made to TSCA guarantee a regulatory process—not a regulatory outcome, Fern Abrams, director of regulatory affairs and government relations for IPC—Association Connecting Electronics Industries, told Bloomberg BNA in a June 16 interview. IPC represents companies throughout the electronics industry supply chain, including those that design and make printed circuit boards for machinery and computers.
The outcome of the mandated regulatory process, Abrams said, could be to make it easier for companies that make finished goods to recycle wastes with copper and other metals.
Focus on Recycling
Honda North America Inc., is hopeful that the EPA will alter the inorganic byproducts reporting requirements to allow its facilities to more easily meet the corporate objective of sending zero waste to landfills, a Honda official told Bloomberg BNA.
The complex process of determining which byproducts would be sent for recycling would be subject to toxics law reporting and which would not is a hurdle to achieving that goal, the Honda official said.
Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio), who worked with sponsors of the Lautenberg Act to insert the byproducts provision, told Bloomberg BNA: “We must make certain that TSCA reporting requirements are encouraging industries to recycle byproducts when possible, not incentivizing them to be discarded in landfills.”
In an e-mail, Rep. Johnson said he learned from electronics industry representatives during the toxics law reform negotiations that the agency's reporting requirements, which did not exist for the first 30 years of the law's implementation, created a disincentive to recycling.
What's in the Amended Law?
The newly amended law only has a small provision that addresses byproducts.
Under that provision, the administrator must conduct a negotiated rulemaking and propose a rule not later than three years after enactment. Negotiated rulemaking is a process in which federal agency representatives and affected parties work together to reach consensus on what can ultimately become a proposed rule, the Congressional Research Service said in a 2006 report.
The Lautenberg Act amended TSCA to say the proposed rule would limit reporting requirements of the Chemical Data Reporting rule, which the EPA issues under Section 8 of the toxics law. EPA's rule will address manufacturers of inorganic byproducts “when such byproducts, whether by the byproduct manufacturer or by any other person, are subsequently recycled, reused or reprocessed,” according to the amended section of the toxics law.
The rule would not alter a recycler's obligations to report to the EPA saleable material it generates from byproducts; that obligation remains, Abrams said.
Why Are Inorganic Byproducts an Issue?
Abrams said inorganic byproducts' reporting requirements became an issue in 2002 when the EPA lifted the previous exemption it had provided for inorganic chemicals.
Metals, a form of inorganic chemicals that can be recycled, are the critical issue, she said. Copper is a common metal found in byproducts generated when printed circuit boards are made.
The problem, Abrams said, is that the EPA's byproducts reporting requirements mean circuit board manufacturers have to know how the recycler is transforming the manufacturers' rinse waters, spent etchants (which “etch” designs onto materials) or other manufacturing leftovers into something the recycler will sell.
If the recycler uses heat or a physical process to separate metals from the byproducts to generate a saleable product, the manufacturer does not have to report byproduct production under the Chemical Data Reporting rule, she said.
If, however, the recycler uses a chemical reaction to recover metals from the electronic manufacturer's byproducts, then the manufacturer is responsible for filing reporting information for the chemicals in its rinse waters and other byproducts, she said.
“A recycler's processes are often proprietary and are in constant flux based on market conditions,” IPC said in background materials it provided Bloomberg BNA. Making manufacturers' byproducts reporting obligations contingent on recyclers' processes compromises data quality, IPC's materials said.
Data quality is compromised, Abrams said, because manufacturers have to guess about the recycler's operations.
The rulemaking process required under the amended TSCA should allow many aspects of the byproducts issue to be raised for public discussion and resolved, Abrams said.
One important issue is whether public health or environmental protection benefits by the byproducts' data the agency gets from the reporting rule, she said.
The agency receives much of that information already through EPA reporting requirements mandated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act and Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, Abrams said.
Separate Challenge Remains
The changes made to TSCA will not address a separate challenge IPC members face, Abrams said.
The newly amended law addresses the byproducts provisions of Chemical Data Reporting rule obligations.
Companies with manufacturing processes that generate byproducts also may be subject to Section 5 of the toxics law, which addresses new chemicals.
If a recycler uses a chemical reaction, the byproduct that is fed into the recycler's reaction is—according to EPA's definition—a new chemical that must be listed on the TSCA inventory of chemicals in commerce, Abrams said.
The amended law does not require the EPA to address that obligation.
“If the byproducts are not listed on the inventory, recycling cannot lawfully occur,” IPC's background materials said.
If, however, a manufacturers’ byproducts are not recycled but sent to a landfill, the byproducts are not subject to either the toxics law's new chemicals or Chemical Data Reporting rule requirements, Abrams said.
The EPA's interpretation of the new toxics law for byproducts discourages recycling, she said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=92548053&vname=dennotallissues&fn=92548053&jd=92548053
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Energy Brief: Week in Review & What’s Ahead
Jun 26, 2016 | Morning Consult
By Asha Glover
Week In ReviewExecutive Action
President Obama signed legislation into law that overhauls the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act. The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in both chambers — the House voted 403-12 to pass it, while the Senate advanced it to the president’s desk by voice vote.
The law will strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate chemicals and allow final decisions issued by the EPA to regulate chemicals will pre-empt any conflicting state regulations. The EPA will also be required to restrict use of any chemical substance presenting an unreasonable risk with a range of options, including imposing warning requirements and chemical phase outs or bans.
Obama also signed into law the PIPES Act. The legislation, introduced by Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), will reauthorize a number of PHMSA programs through fiscal 2019 and require the Transportation Department to develop minimum safety standards for underground natural gas storage facilities. It will also authorize the department to issue emergency orders to impose restrictions on owners and operators of pipeline facilities.
Nothing Definite on Energy Bill Conference
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said they want to work with the Senate to create passable energy legislation. The Senate passed its own energy bill in April with overwhelming bipartisan support, while the House passed its measure mostly along party lines.
Green groups are concerned about several controversial provisions in the House-passed bill. Twenty-three environmental organizations urged senators not to work with the House to overhaul energy policy.
Volkswagen Agrees on Settlement
Volkswagen has agreed to pay about $10.2 billion to settle claims stemming from its emissionsscandal. Most of the money would go toward compensating 482,000 owners of vehicles with 2-liter diesel engines programmed with an emissions cheat, while a smaller portion would be paid to the government in penalties.
Car owners would have the choice of selling their vehicles back to Volkswagen or letting the company repair it for free. Regardless of what option they choose, VW owners would receive $1,000 to $7,000 depending on the age of their car. The average payment would be $5,000.
Federal Judge Strikes Down Fracking Rule
A federal judge struck down the Interior Department’s hydraulic fracturing rule, marking a major loss for the Obama administration. Judge Scott Skavdahl, who was appointed by Obama, ruled the DOI does not have authority to regulate fracking. The judge agreed with opponents of the rule who argued a 2005 law passed by Congress mostly blocks the DOI from getting into fracking regulation.
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) applauded the decision, saying the Obama administration wants to regulate fracking out of existence.
Tesla Wants to Take a Chance on SolarCity
Tesla’s board of directors sent a letter to SolarCity Chief Executive Lyndon Rive offering to buy SolarCity in an all-stock deal that could value SolarCity at as much as $2.8 billion. Investors weren’t thrilled with the idea, prompting the automaker’s stock to slide more than 10 percent.What’s Ahead
The Senate will be in session this week. The House is in recess until July 5.
On Tuesday, a federal judge is scheduled to disclose the official details of Volkswagen’s settlement stemming from its emissions cheat. Sources familiar with the matter said Volkswagen has agreed to pay almost $10.2 billion to settle claims from the scandal.
On Tuesday, the Energy Information Administration will release updated energy projections, including scenarios on the Clean Power Plan, fuel economy standards for trucks and other variables that could affect the country’s energy sources. EIA has received criticism for underestimating the growth of renewables in previous reports, and its first energy outlook in 2016 assumed the CPP and Paris agreement would not go into effect. These updates provide a wider range of scenarios, compared to the fossil fuel-heavy reports that it has released in the past.
https://morningconsult.com/briefs/energy-brief-week-review-whats-ahead-13/
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Bipartisan Support Moved TSCA Reform
Jun 25, 2016 | Delaware Voice
By Krysta Harden
Congress recently made the most significant reforms to environmental and public health law since the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act with the passage of legislation that updates the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). On behalf of DuPont, I commend Congress, particularly Sen. Tom Carper, Sen. Chris Coons and Rep. John Carney, for their extraordinary leadership and vision in passing a modernized TSCA that meets the needs of the 21st century and reassures the public about the safety of chemicals used in everyday products.
Since its original enactment in 1976, TSCA had become badly outdated. Court interpretations of the statute in the four decades since it was passed have constrained the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take specific actions under the law to ensure the safety of chemicals in commerce.
The lack of strong, effective federal regulation, and growing public concerns about the safety of chemicals in products, led to a patchwork of inconsistent rules at the state and local level to restrict or ban particular chemicals.
While they may have been well intentioned, these efforts were often not based on the best available science or complete risk assessments of the particular chemicals at issue. Complying with this growing patchwork of state-by-state chemical bans, restrictions, phase-outs and substitutions created tremendous uncertainty for both small and global businesses seeking to produce safe, reliable products that can be sold in the United States and abroad.Many other countries have updated regulatory frameworks for chemicals, and our outdated system put the United States at a disadvantage in our trading relationships, negatively impacting our economy. And, confusing and inconsistent regulations meant that consumers weren’t sure if they were getting accurate information about the safety of chemical products.
DuPont, along with dozens of organizations, including environmental groups, medical institutions, chemical companies and trade unions, knew that it was time for TSCA to be reformed. We also knew that an updated regulatory framework for chemicals management would only be effective if it was able to both keep pace with scientific advancements and ensure that chemical products are safe for intended use — while also encouraging innovation towards safer and more effective chemicals.
The updated TSCA that President Obama signed into law this week will do just that, making much-needed and thoughtful improvements to an outdated law and providing certainty to companies, our trading partners and consumers here at home and abroad. Under the new law, chemicals used in the manufacture of products will be subject to an Environmental Protection Agency safety review, starting with priority chemicals.
In fact, the updates to the Toxic Substances Control Act passed nearly unanimously – a testament to both the dire need for reform and the bipartisan efforts of the Delaware delegation. Sen. Carper and Sen. Coons were both original co-sponsors of the Senate bill and Rep. Carney supported the House bill. As a senior Democrat on the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Carper played a key role in helping to shape the Senate bill to ensure that it moved through the Committee on a bipartisan vote. All three of members of Congress stayed engaged as leaders hammered out a final House-Senate compromise and pushed the final version through both bodies and to the President’s desk. We are fortunate that the members of our Delaware delegation all see the value in working towards consensus to get things done.
TSCA reform demonstrates what can be accomplished when different stakeholders work together to find common ground and build strong bipartisan support for policy changes. And it provides us all with a road map of how to achieve better protection of the environment and public health, while growing the economy.http://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/contributors/2016/06/24/bipartisan-support-moved-tsca-reform/86348740/
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California Attorney General Comments on Chemical Safety Bill in Congress
Jun 24, 2016 | Legal Newsline
By Mark Iandolo
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris has released comments on the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act in Congress, which provides reforms to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA) in order to limit the number of dangerous chemicals in the environment.
“California leads the nation in protecting our air, water, and public health, and has taken bold steps to guard against the unsafe presence of toxic chemicals in our state,” Harris said. “I applaud Congress’ bipartisan effort to update and reform the long-standing Toxic Substances Control Act and thank Sen. Barbara Boxer [D-Calif.] for her advocacy to protect California’s public health and environment.”
The final bill advanced by Congress reflects five principles first outlined by Harris and a coalition of attorneys general in January. Under the new law, the scope of state law will be no broader than the scope of the EPA’s action on a chemical. Additionally, states will not be preempted from creating requirements on chemicals pursuant to longstanding laws and will be able to continue to enforce state chemical restrictions. States can maintain their role as co-enforcers of EPA regulations. Finally, state laws related to water quality, air quality and waste treatment and disposal will not be preempted.
http://legalnewsline.com/stories/510937074-california-attorney-general-comments-on-chemical-safety-bill-in-congress
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Reformed Bill Gives EPA Teeth to Tackle Toxic Chemicals
Jun 24, 2016 | AG Web
By Ben Potter
Back in 1976, the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was first enacted. But it’s never had the power it truly needed until President Obama signed a bipartisan bill into law that reforms TSCA so it requires EPA to evaluate existing chemicals with clear, enforceable deadlines.
“Forty years after TSCA was enacted, there are still tens of thousands of chemicals on the market that have never been evaluated for safety because TSCA didn’t require it,” says EPA administrator Gina McCarthy. “And the original law set analytical requirements that were nearly impossible to meet, leaving EPA’s hands tied, even when the science demanded action on certain chemicals.”
McCarthy points to asbestos as a prime example – this chemical was easily determined unsafe but proved difficult to ban - it is, in fact, still being used today in things like automatic transmission components and vinyl floor tiles. During the 40 years since TSCA was enacted, McCarthy says only five chemicals have ever been banned.
But with this newest reform, that all could change.
“Within a few years, EPA’s chemicals program will have to assess at least 20 chemicals at a time, beginning another chemical review as soon as one is completed,” McCarthy says.
Also, McCarthy notes that under the old law, EPA was unable to take action to protect public health and the environment, even if the agency could prove that a chemical posed a known health threat.
“Under the new law, EPA will evaluate chemicals purely on the basis of the health risks they pose, and then take steps to eliminate any unreasonable risks we find,” she says.
Richard Denison, lead senior scientist with Environmental Defense Fund, says what comes next is just as important as getting the bill signed into law in the first place.
“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,” he says. “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.”
EPA has conservatively estimated there are more than 12,000 agricultural chemicals used in the U.S. each year, with more than 80,000 total chemicals used in the U.S. annually.
http://www.agweb.com/article/reformed-bill-gives-epa-teeth-to-tackle-toxic-chemicals-naa-ben-potter/
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Obama Lawyers May Appeal Ruling Overturning Fracking Rule
Jun 27, 2016 | The Hill- Policy
By Timothy Cama
Obama administration lawyers filed notice that they may appeal a court decision from earlier this week that overturned the Interior Department’s regulation on hydraulic fracturing.
The Justice Department’s notice, filed Friday in federal court in Wyoming, said it is asking the Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit to reconsider the case.
An Interior spokeswoman said that the attorneys filed the notice only to protect their right to appeal within the time frame allowed, but that the department has not actually decided whether to move forward with the appeal.
Judge Scott Skavdahl, a President Obama appointee, ruled late Tuesday that Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, which wrote the rule, does not have the authority to regulate fracking on federal land because Congress specifically denied it that authority.
“Congress has not delegated to the Department of Interior the authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing,” Skavdahl wrote. “The BLM’s effort to do so through the Fracking Rule is in excess of its statutory authority and contrary to law.”
The ruling was a major loss for Obama, his environmental agenda and his first attempt at national fracking standards.
The oil industry and congressional Republicans applauded the ruling and held it up as an example of Obama trying to blatantly ignore Congress’s instructions.
In briefs in the Wyoming court, lawyers argued that the conservative states and oil companies challenging the regulation relied on misreadings of the law, and the ability to regulate fracking is inherent in the laws giving the federal government control over its own lands.
“The Rule properly implements BLM’s long-standing authority under the Mineral Leasing Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act to regulate oil and gas development on federal lands,” the government wrote in an April filing.
“BLM’s authority has not been curtailed by the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Rule does not improperly intrude on any authority reserved to the states.”
The regulation has three main provisions. It sets standards for construction of well casings, safe storage of wastewater fluids and disclosure of the chemicals used in the fracking process.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/284815-obama-lawyers-may-appeal-court-decision-overturning-fracking-rule
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Obama Admin Appeals Fracking Smackdown
Jun 24, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Robin Bravender
The Obama administration is hoping a federal appeals court will revive its efforts to regulate hydraulic fracturing on public lands.
The Justice Department filed a notice today alerting a federal court in Wyoming to its appeal with the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
On Tuesday, Obama-appointed Judge Scott Skavdahl of the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming struck down a Bureau of Land Management fracking regulation in a sharply worded opinion declaring that the agency had no authority to issue that rule (EnergyWire, June 22).
The Obama administration framed the decision as a delay and was widely expected to appeal the ruling.
John Cruden, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division, said in a statement yesterday that his office would continue to "vigorously defend" the fracking rule and other key environmental regulations that have "exceptional and significant environmental benefits."
Meanwhile, states and industry groups today urged the 10th Circuit to dismiss the Interior Department's bid for that court to overturn an injunction issued last year by the Wyoming district court.
Skavdahl last year stalled the regulation while the legal challenges played out in court (EnergyWire, Oct. 1, 2015).
Interior appealed that decision to the 10th Circuit, arguing in a brief earlier this week that drawing a conclusion that BLM lacks authority to regulate fracking "ignores a century of precedent and decades-old federal regulations."
The administration's opponents told the 10th Circuit today that the case challenging the injunction "should be dismissed as moot" in light of the lower court's decision to kill the rule.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/06/24/stories/1060039400
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Pennsylvania Fracking Rules Become Law
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
Pennsylvania will impose new rules on hydraulic fracturing, delay plans to limit carbon dioxide emissions, and postpone regulatory updates for conventional oil and gas drillers, under bills the governor signed into law June 23.
Gov. Tom Wolf (D) signed Senate Bill 279, now Act 52, approving new standards for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, finalizing a rule that took five years to finish. Known as the Chapter 78a regulations, the new rules will better protect public resources, specifically around water, land and community areas such as parks and schools. Act 52 also postpones the implementation of similar revisions to regulations governing traditional oil and gas wells, resolving complaints from the industry that the needs of conventional oil and gas drillers had not been fully considered during the rulemaking process.
Wolf also signed Senate Bill 1195, now Act 57, which extends the amount of time the state has to finalize its implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan.
Both measures are compromises that Wolf, a Democrat, has made with Republican lawmakers over the past few weeks as a way to smooth budget negotiations.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=92548060&vname=dennotallissues&fn=92548060&jd=92548060
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A New Fracking Fight is Brewing in Maryland
Jun 24, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Josh Hicks
Maryland regulators are paving the way for energy companies to begin fracking in the state once its moratorium on the controversial gas-extraction process ends in the fall of 2017.
Meanwhile, state lawmakers opposed to the drilling method, technically called hydraulic fracturing, have begun making plans to permanently ban it during the next legislative session.
Maryland’s Department of the Environment this month outlined proposals that closely align with rules the administration of former Democratic governor Martin O’Malley pitched several years ago, but with faster permitting and looser requirements for buffers to protect areas near the sites.
The department briefed the public on its proposals this week in Allegany County, and it has scheduled meetings in Baltimore on Monday and Garrett County on Wednesday.
Environmental watchdogs plan to protest at the Baltimore event with former gas-industry workers and Pennsylvania residents who say they were harmed by hydraulic fracturing. Some are taking a zero-tolerance approach to the drilling method, which has raised concerns about groundwater contamination, air pollution and earthquakes.
“There’s no evidence that regulations of any kind can protect the environment from fracking,” said Thomas Meyer, a senior organizer with the advocacy group Food and Water Watch. “This underscores the need for the legislature to pass a ban.”
Several Maryland lawmakers plan to propose prohibitions during the 2017 legislative session.
Sen. Robert A. Zirkin (D-Baltimore County), who sponsored a bill to ban fracking in 2014, said he will introduce a similar measure next year, which he sees as the last chance to block drilling before the state’s moratorium expires in October 2017.
“We have one shot to prevent this,” he said. “It’s our responsibility to stop this.”
Del. A. Shane Robinson (D-Montgomery), who sponsored bills to ban fracking in 2013 and 2014, said he might introduce such legislation in the House next year. “If somebody else doesn’t do it, I will plan on cross-filing Zirkin’s legislation,” he said.
Fracking supporters say the extraction method, which involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into deep wells to break up rock and release natural gas, could provide economic benefits for Western Maryland.
A 2014 study by Towson University’s Regional Economic Studies Institute found hydraulic fracturing in that area of the state could generate more than 3,000 jobs and at least $5 million in tax revenue each year during peak drilling.
“It could help our economy considerably,” said Sen. George C. Edwards (R-Garrett). “This is one of the poorest parts of Maryland. The key is to monitor it and make sure people are doing what the department says they should do.”
The state’s new plans are a slightly revised version of regulations released during the final weeks of O’Malley’s second term.
Instead of requiring setbacks of 1,000 feet between the overall fracking operations and places where people live and work, the buffer would extend from the gas wells themselves.
The permit-review process also would be simplified to shorten it from the expected seven months the O’Malley plans would have required. Regulators also have proposed moving air-quality testing from the fracking sites to a monitoring station in Frostburg.
Maryland Environment Secretary Benjamin H. Grumbles defended the state’s proposals, saying his department must be doing something right if both sides of the debate are unsatisfied.
We’re working toward the middle, trying to find a sweet spot between stringent regulations and workable, achievable requirements,” he said. “We want to protect public health and the environment, and recognize that the market is going to determine whether we get applicants for fracking down the road.”
Industry groups say opponents have little to complain about with the proposed rules.
“They’ll still be the toughest, strongest hydraulic-fracturing regulations in the country,” said Drew Cobbs, executive director of the Maryland Petroleum Council.
But opponents say the state will suffer in the long term if it allows fracking to take place.
“The type of damage done by the fracking industry is hard to undo,” Zirkin said. “It’s an inherently dangerous industry.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/a-new-fracking-fight-is-brewing-in-maryland/2016/06/24/d561aece-3a1f-11e6-8f7c-d4c723a2becb_story.html
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DNC Platform Draft Rejects Carbon Tax, Full Fracking Ban
Jun 27, 2016 | E&E News Daily
By Jennifer Yachnin
A committee drafting the Democratic Party's 2016 platform late Friday night rejected a host of key environmental provisions favored by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, including the implementation of a carbon tax and a nationwide ban of hydraulic fracturing.
The document, which was finalized Saturday, will next go to a vote before the 187-member Platform Committee at its meeting in Orlando, Fla., in early July and will be presented for ratification at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia the week of July 24.
In an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" yesterday, Sanders criticized fellow Democrats for rejecting other proposals, including language opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as well as the environmental measures.
"We won some very, very important victories in our effort to try to make it clear to the American people that the Democratic Party stands with the middle class, stands with working families and is prepared to take on Wall Street and the big money interests," Sanders said. "But we lost some very important fights."
Sanders, who has yet to concede the Democratic presidential nomination to the expected winner, Hillary Clinton, vowed to raise the carbon tax and other proposals at the Orlando meeting in an effort to have them added back to the platform before it is ratified.
"We're going to take that fight to Orlando, where the entire committee meets in two weeks. And if we don't succeed there, we are certainly going to take it to the floor of the Democratic convention. And that is what this discussion in St. Louis did not include, as you indicated, the need to deal in a very strong way with the crisis of climate change," Sanders said. "We need a tax on carbon. We need to end fracking."
Sanders' campaign noted that measures that are not adopted in Orlando but that receive 25 percent of the full committee's vote may be raised again in Philadelphia.
According to a statement released by the DNC on Saturday, the platform does look to shift Democratic focus on energy policy from supporting an "all of the above" approach to emphasizing "the urgency of climate change as a central challenge of our time."
The document calls for at least 50 percent of electrical generation to come from renewable energy sources within a decade. That echoes Clinton's own vow to shift 50 percent of the nation's energy production to renewable sources by 2030.
But the platform also includes a nod to Sanders' platform promise to move the country to a "100 percent clean energy system" by committing to a such a goal by "midcentury" (Greenwire, Dec. 7, 2015).
Environmentalist Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, sponsored a quintet of measures aimed at moving toward the goal of 100 percent renewable energy generation by 2050 -- including the proposals to ban fracking and institute a carbon tax.
McKibben, who was tapped by Sanders to serve on the drafting committee, told E&E Dailyyesterday that each of his proposals were rejected on a 7 to 6 vote, with Clinton appointees on the panel rejecting his proposals en bloc.
The proposals also called for keeping fossil fuels "in the ground" on federal land, an end to eminent domain for fossil fuel companies on federal land and a "climate test" for federal government actions, similar to what President Obama used to address the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
"It's possible I just did a poor job of explaining them, so happily I'm pretty sure at least some will be reintroduced by more skillful orators at the Orlando meeting, and maybe if that doesn't work then in Philadelphia," McKibben told E&E Daily via email. "It's good to have everyone engaged in the task of making the platform a strong foundation for this fall's run for the White House."
The Democratic platform will also support the Paris climate agreement, which presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has vowed to "cancel" if elected (ClimateWire, May 27).
In addition, the drafting committee approved language calling on the Justice Department to investigate whether fossil fuel companies deceived the public and investors on the risks associated with climate change.
Sanders revealed Friday in an interview on MSBNC's "Morning Joe" that he will vote for Clinton in the general election, but he has yet to formally concede the Democratic presidential primary or to explicitly endorse the former secretary of State in her run for the White House.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/06/27/stories/1060039425
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Commentary: US Petrochemicals Could Be Tighter and Brighter
Jun 23, 2016 | ICIS
By Nigel Davis
How will integrated cracker operators with assets in the US fare over the next few years? The first big, new US crackers will come onstream from 2017, most integrated to significant polyethylene (PE) capacity. At least one consultant has warned of a “bloodbath” in the sector as players seek to export polymer away from an oversupplied market. How low prices go will depend on how much excess capacity is available at any one time.
An alternative view is that the ethylene oversupply will be worked off relatively quickly in a market that needs capacity added globally at a steady rate. There will be a battle for market share but that will vary from market to market and grade to grade.
The Wall Street view has tended to be negative, the new capacities seen as driving a surge of oversupply for a period before domestic and regional Americas demand can catch up. Hassan Ahmed, analyst at Alembic Global Advisors, however, presents a very different opinion, suggesting the consensus consultants and trade press view overestimates 2015-2019 global ethylene supply by as much as 7.1m tonnes/year, or 22%. The shortfalls in expected capacity additions would be in North America, the Middle East and China, he said.
t is all about timing, of course. The Alembic analysis indicates that ethylene capacity in North America and China, particularly, will not grow by 40% and 23%, respectively between 2015-2019. Delays subtract 3.1m tonnes/year of additional ethylene capacity from the North America total over the forecast period. China’s coal to olefins (CTO) capacities could be overstated by as much as 3.3m tonnes/year if those plants run at typical reduced rates. Alembic’s Middle East ethylene supply growth total of 3.2m tonnes/year is 0.8m tonnes lower than consensus.
“Using our supply growth estimates and IMF’s global GDP growth forecast, we contend that a peak in the cycle could arrive as early as 2016,” Ahmed said. “Additionally, that peak could be multi-year one buoyed by increased outages in the US and asset closures in Europe on the back of an ageing asset base. We also believe the US ethane advantage could continue, as our forecast points to ethane oversupply despite incremental ethylene capacity.”
Under Alembic’s peak scenario, earnings and valuations for US ethylene-exposed companies Dow Chemical, LyondellBasell and Westlake Chemical could “virtually double”, said Hassan.
http://www.icis.com/resources/news/2016/06/23/10010645/commentary-us-petrochemicals-could-be-tighter-and-brighter/
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Opinions Mixed on Oil/Gas Price Recovery Timeline at Industry Conference
Jun 24, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
The prolonged decline in the nation's oil and natural gas rig count, falling production and a dwindling inventory of drilled but uncompleted (DUC) wells, paired with the long-awaited increase in gas demand from nearly every corner of the market, could signal a recovery in commodity prices sooner rather than later.
This was a bullish assessment offered by one analyst at an industry conference in Pittsburgh this week. But while others disagreed and tended to lean toward the lower-for-longer scenario, many of the expert presentations didn't deny certain factors that could help lift the industry out of the doldrums as early as next year. Relief, they said, could come for gas-heavy producers first.
"Natural gas production volumes are coming off pretty significantly," said Ponderosa Advisors LLC Managing Partner Bernadette Johnson. "They were up above 73 Bcf/d on the dry gas side and now we're only at about 70.5 Bcf/d, and that's only over the past few months, so we're seeing some declines.
"The forward [price] does not support natural gas production growth, but a cold winter could push natural gas production prices north of $4," she added. "We're out in the world saying, 'we think gas prices could be over $4 next year,' and a lot of people think we're crazy."
Johnson delivered her remarks on Wednesday at Hart Energy's annual DUG East Conference & Exhibition. Ponderosa is a consulting firm that works for private equity, hedge funds, exploration and production (E&P) companies and utilities, among others. "So at the end of the day, we are in the business of predicting price," Johnson assured attendees of the firm's projections.
The U.S. rig count, Johnson said, has declined substantially since mid-2014. On Wednesday, it stood at about 430, she said, up from 424 at the end of last week and up from 414 on the week ending June 10.
"We have a lot of structural demand coming online on the gas side. We're starting to see liquified natural gas (LNG) exports; we have a lot of power demand -- a lot of that is structural -- it's new gas build, it's retiring coal, it's not just because of low prices," she said. "You've still got industrial demand coming on, a little bit of growth in residential/commercial, you've got Mexican exports.
"All of these things are years in the making and they're starting to come on, so we can't have declining [gas] production, which also means we won't have $2.75 prices next year either."
Johnson added that even with marginal rig additions like those seen in recent weeks and a dwindling inventory of DUCs, it won't be enough to keep production flat. In February, there were about 4,000 DUCs nationwide, Johnson said, citing information from drillinginfo.com. On Wednesday, that number had dwindled to 3,100 from a peak of about 4,600 late last year.
"If we continue slight [DUC] declines, how quickly would we run out of DUCs? Later this year." Johnson said. "If we ramp-up and try to keep production flat, we run out sooner."
If an increase in demand prompts a supply response, Johnson said Appalachian producers are poised to benefit. She said the region is nearing debottlenecking in some areas, with excess pipeline capacity set to come online in the months and years ahead. While more infrastructure won't significantly impact all pricing points, some, such as those on Texas Eastern and Columbia Gas Transmission, could see basis tighten.
"Excess capacity means we're about to get an economic uplift up here," she said. With infrastructure growing, the demand stack getting stronger and a projected shortfall in production, Ponderosa is predicting a $4.50/MMBtu Henry Hub price by 2017. If gas does go that high, it could be short lived, especially if oil breaches the $50 mark for an extended period of time.
With oil already hovering near $50 or more in recent weeks, E&Ps have began layering on more hedges and adding back rigs, Johnson said. With any sustained increase in oil prices, she added, production would ramp back up, boost associated gas recovery in oilier plays and bring gas prices back down.
"As the crude price recovers, the natural gas price comes down, because you bring on more of that associated gas and you don't need $4.50 anymore once you have the Permian and Eagle Ford gas back," Johnson said. "There's still a price ceiling, you're not going to see $6 gas, but we expect you're going to see a really strong price signal this winter, enough to bring more gas-directed rigs back."
William Marko, managing director of the energy investment bank group at Jefferies LLC, tempered Johnson's outlook. He noted that last week's New York Mercantile Exchange forward price for West Texas Intermediate showed it hitting $50.60/bbl in 2017, with an uptick on the way of $52.07/bbl in 2018. Natural gas, according to the forward Nymex, hits $2.67/MMBtu in 2017 and doesn't move above $3.89 through 2025.
"The U.S. needs probably $60 for many of the [oil] plays, there's not a lot that works at $40, and only a few more that work at $50, but still not a lot," Marko said. "If you look at forward Nymex gas prices, I think that's about right...$2.50 or so next year and out into the $3 range in the future."
Deputy Director for Energy Security at the U.S. Department of Energy Carmine Difiglio noted, however, that there are encouraging signals on the horizon for natural gas producers. While international gas prices have lowered substantially, "LNG exports are going to explode," he said. "We have a number of important LNG export projects under way and we're very confident that we'll hit as much as 10 Bcf/d of exports by 2020 or so, and we expect that this will continue to grow, with total exports hitting 20 Bcf/d by 2040."
Although global trade is currently down on a weak international economy, Difiglio said his office still expects U.S. LNG exports to be competitive given how low natural gas prices are here and how competitive the contracts are as a result.
"Regardless of what happens to the LNG market and how soft it can become, we expect that LNG customers will continue to take delivery of U.S. LNG," he said, adding that demand for ethane is increasing with more crackers set to come online and shale exports headed overseas. He also said there's a boom expected in Mexican gas exports (see Daily GPI, June 2). Basins near the Mid-Atlantic and the Southwest should also benefit from growing demand for power, where these regions lead the country in proposed natural gas-fired plants, according to the Energy Information Administration (seeDaily GPI, May 19).
But predicting prices is a guessing game, as always, Difiglio said.
"It's likely we're going to be entering into a more volatile period," he said of oil. "First of all, the companies are cutting back, not just the shale players, but the big oil companies with deep sea operations and Gulf of Mexico projects. With decline rates in existing fields, we're going to see a potential liability for supply to keep up with the world increase in demand."
If the global economy improves anytime soon, he said, another 1.5 million b/d of additional oil demand is expected.
"We're likely to see even more volatility in prices as unplanned outages in the Middle East and Northern Africa continue to rile the market. It's unpredictable."
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/106868-opinions-mixed-on-oilgas-price-recovery-timeline-at-industry-conference
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Week Ahead: Wait Drags On For Energy Talks
Jun 27, 2016 | The Hill - Policy
By Devin Henry
The Senate is the only show in town in the coming week, meaning the energy world's eyes will be trained on the chamber, looking for signs of movement on an energy reform package.
After a climactic two-day confrontation regarding gun legislation on the floor last week, the House left Washington for the Independence Day recess, leaving senators alone to go about their work. In this case: trying to find a path forward on the energy bill.
The House has sent the Senate an energy reform bill chock full of conservative proposals that have turned Democrats against the legislation, and in some cases, against the idea of even going to a conference committee to try writing a compromise package.
There was some movement on the matter last week. First, two top House Republicans --Energy Chairman Fred Upton (Mich.) and Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (Utah), both would-be conferees for the bill -- put out a Monday statement saying they want to "get something to the President that he will sign into law" this year. The two indicated a willingness to cut out some of the GOP energy measures that have upset Democrats.
Then, on Wednesday, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of Democratic leadership, told Bloomberg News, "we'd like to have a conference. The Energy Committee pushed the two developments to reporters on Thursday, claiming "continued progress" toward a Senate vote on going to conference with the House.
Even so, the legislative calendar is dwindling, making it tougher for an energy bill to come together before electoral politics consumes Washington.
The Senate breaks for a short weekend Fourth of July recess on Friday, and when it and the House return after the holiday, they will have only about nine legislative days before an extended August recess -- and the beginning of campaign season.
Sensing the need to hold the line just a little bit longer, 23 green groups wrote the Senate to file their objections to going to a conference committee, saying the House bill "undermines the progress our nation needs."
As it stands, rank and file Democrats will be pressed between their leadership -- including top Energy Committee Democrat, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) -- and a major constituency next week as they consider what steps to take, if any, on energy reform.
Other legislative work next week includes a Tuesday hearing in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on sage grouse conservation work, a hot topic for members and western states. And an Environment and Public Works Committee panel will hold a Wednesday hearing on "Environmental Protection Agency Enforcement and Compliance Programs."
Off Capitol Hill, Interior Secretary and National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis will attend a Monday dedication ceremony in New York for a new national monument near the Stonewall Inn. It's the first national monument marking the LGBT movement.
On Tuesday, the Energy Information Administration will hold a forum on its 2016 Annual Energy Outlook.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/284850-week-ahead-wait-drags-on-for-energy-talks
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Senators Look to Make Progress on Energy, Spending
Jun 27, 2016 | E&E News Daily
By Geof Koss and George Cahlink
Senate negotiators will continue talks on a possible conference with the House on energy legislation this week, along with pressing forward on spending legislation and Puerto Rico relief.
Senate Republican leaders are still hoping to complete as many spending bills as possible before the long summer recess. And energy bill boosters see the measure as a potential win during an election year. But gun control debates and passing legislation to shore up Puerto Rico's finances are stressing an already stretched calendar.
Last week, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said key lawmakers on energy and natural resources issues had made "good progress" after their Tuesday talk.
Cantwell outlined a number of outstanding issues the group was wrestling with (Greenwire, June 22). Non-energy issues are generating the most disagreement.
Much of Tuesday's discussion stemmed from issues within the jurisdiction of the House Natural Resources Committee, including drought, wildfire and riders related to the National Environmental Policy Act, Cantwell said.
The drought provisions are "very problematic," she told reporters. "And I think what we're all trying to say is ... we would like to solve these problems, but if we can't ... we don't want to see good energy policy held up just because of the complexity of those issues."
The group also spent a few minutes at the end of the meeting discussing some differences related to energy efficiency between the competing House and Senate bills.
"We just had barely a conversation about the fact that the bills are going in different directions, so we don't know really what the issue is," Cantwell said. "We don't know if it's the building code aspect of it or the authorization aspect of some of these provisions. We don't know what their problems are."
House Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), meanwhile, struck a pessimistic tone about the prospects for a conference.
He slammed the House Republican-backed bill as "totally partisan and counterproductive" because it "encourages fossil fuels" and not renewables.
"And you've got a bipartisan Senate bill, which is certainly an improvement, but still doesn't really move us forward in a significant way toward our energy future," he said Thursday.
"The only way I can support a conference is if it goes beyond both of these bills and actually provides some resources for energy infrastructure, moves toward renewables and away from fossil fuels -- it would be very hard to reconcile these bills unless you just cut all the bad items and just boil it down to some small items that we can agree on," said Pallone.
"So I'm not very optimistic at all that we're going to be able to come to an agreement on these two bills."
Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) last week said the principals were trying to be "constructive" in sorting out the legislative differences.
"From our perspective, we're anxious to see the Senate actually name conferees," he said. "So I'm hoping that can happen. I don't know if it will or not."Appropriations outlook
Senate leaders have said repeatedly their top legislative priority this year is moving spending legislation, but that push is growing more complicated.
The fiscal 2017 Commerce, Justice and Science bill, S. 2837, which has been on the floor for two weeks, slowed to a crawl by Democratic attempts to attach gun control provisions.
"We hope to able to work through the CJS appropriations," a Senate Appropriations spokesman said Friday.
Republican leaders, however, have yet to file for cloture on the bill, a sign that they might not see an easy route to passage.
Moreover, the Senate last week rejected a procedural attempt to kill a revised amendment to prohibit people on the no-fly list from buying a gun. GOP leaders, who oppose the provision, could opt to block it by simply deciding to halt work on the CJS legislation altogether.
Beyond the Justice Department, the $56.6 billion bill funds NASA, the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Science Foundation.
Dozens of other amendments remain pending, including provisions to prevent NOAA from prohibiting commercial cargo vessels in national marine sanctuaries and to require the agency's National Marine Fisheries Service to pay for at-sea monitors.
Georgia Republican Sens. Johnny Isakson and David Perdue have also filed amendments to address a provision related to controversial water allocations in the Southeast.
Cantwell introduced an amendment that would provide $4.1 million in emergency funding for any commercial fishery that has failed since 2014 after a resource disaster.
The Senate also could take up the House-passed $1.1 billion Zika spending bill conference report, H.R. 2577, this week. It contains a rider providing an up-to-six-month waiver of U.S. EPA permitting requirements for spraying mosquito pesticides.
"The House did its part, now the Senate needs to do its part -- and this agreement represents our only chance to put Zika control money to work now," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
GOP leaders have filed for cloture on the conference report, and a vote could come as early as today. It would require 60 votes to move ahead.
Democrats, however, have said they will oppose calling up the legislation over proposed spending offsets and add-on policy riders. The White House has also said it would reject the legislation.
"This is a conference report that doesn't look like it can even pass the United States Senate. But if it did, and the president was presented with the bill, he would veto it," Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman, said last week. He noted the pesticide waiver "guts some provisions of the Clean Water Act."
McConnell said last week his chamber would "be dealing" with Puerto Rico before July 1, when the island's government is due to make a $2 billion debt payment. A Puerto Rico debt bill passed the House earlier this month after several weeks of negotiations.
But senators from both parties said they would like to see changes to the House bill. If they amend it, the measure would have to return to the House, which is not in session again until after July 4.
The bill would create a seven-person federal oversight board to promote economic growth and help the territory pay its $72 billion in debt. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority is responsible for about $9 billion of that debt.
http://www.eenews.net/eedaily/2016/06/27/stories/1060039429
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Shell Gives Up on Arctic Offshore Lease Extensions
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Alan Kovski
Royal Dutch Shell Plc has given up on its administrative appeal to win Interior Department extensions of leases for oil exploration in Arctic offshore waters north of Alaska.
The Interior Board of Land Appeals dismissed the case June 23 after Shell decided to withdraw its appeal.
Shell suspended all operations in waters off Alaska in 2015 but sought to hold onto some leases for several more years in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement rejected the company's request for “suspension of operations” approvals—jargon for extensions—for leases that were set to expire in 2017 and 2020.
The BSEE said Shell failed to satisfy the necessary legal requirements, codified at 30 C.F.R. Section 250.171(b), because the company failed to submit “a reasonable schedule of work leading to the commencement or restoration of the suspended activity.”
That led Shell to appeal through its subsidiaries Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc. and Shell Offshore Inc. to the administrative law judges of the Interior Board of Land Appeals.
Little Action in Arctic Offshore
No companies currently are operating in U.S. federal Arctic waters, though a few Arctic offshore fields continue to produce oil from gravel islands built in Alaska state waters. One company, Hilcorp Alaska LLC, has proposed building another gravel island to reach the Liberty field, an undeveloped oil field in federal waters of the Beaufort Sea.
Shell spent more than $7 billion in its unsuccessful effort to find oil in the Chukchi. In September the company said it failed to find commercially developable quantities of oil at the Burger prospect in the Chukchi.
The decision was lamented by Alaska officials worried about the loss of economic prospects. It was hailed by environmental advocates fearful of the consequences of offshore work and possible oil spills.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=92548073&vname=dennotallissues&fn=92548073&jd=92548073
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(ACC Mentioned) Time to Let the Rail Carrier Competition Roll
Jun 24, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Cal Dooley
In “Freight Railroads Are Braking for Regulatory Creep” (op-ed, June 15) about regulation of freight railroads, Edward R. Hamberger presents a misleading critique of a proposal that would actually reduce regulatory burdens and promote free-market competition. The proposal is called competitive switching, and it would simply allow rail customers to request that their freight be moved to another major railroad if it is reasonably accessible. It isn’t really a radical idea since it’s a process that has worked well for more than a century in Canada, which has a similar freight rail network.
As it stands now, federal regulators prevent rail customers with access to only one railroad from requesting a quote from a nearby rail carrier, even when customers are willing to pay to have their cargo switched to another railroad. This situation has left U.S. manufacturers, farmers and energy producers footing the bill to protect railroads from competing for each other’s business. Congress has long envisioned switching as a way to promote rail competition. But due to antiquated rules that effectively block competitive switching, no shipper has been able to obtain it. Eliminating these regulatory barriers would help reduce the need for government intervention and foster a healthy and competitive freight rail system.
The Surface Transportation Board is expected to act on a petition to allow for competitive switching this summer. We, along with the Rail Customer Coalition, strongly urge the board to adopt the proposal and put the marketplace back in the driver’s seat.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/time-to-let-the-rail-carrier-competition-roll-1466794859
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Rail is still the safest, cleanest way to move hazardous materials
Jun 26, 2016 | The Spokesmen Review
By Kris Johnson
The recent train derailment in Mosier, Oregon, drives home the importance of transportation safety and emergency response preparations. It also puts a spotlight on the hazardous materials that are essential to supporting jobs and maintaining public health.
Slamming the brakes on shipments of hazardous materials by rail could have unintended consequences, such as damaging the economy, threatening public health, harming the environment, and increasing the risk of accidents.
All modes of transportation – trucks, trains, ships and aircraft – involve the risk of an accident. Rail transportation is recognized as the safest method of moving large quantities of hazardous materials over long distances. Of all deliveries of hazardous materials by rail, 99.99 percent are completed without incident.
Our daily lives rely on the transport of hazardous materials. There are the obvious examples like the fuel we put in our cars, trucks, tractors and airplanes. Almost all of the motor fuel used in Washington state comes from one of the four refineries in northwest Washington. And that means transporting crude oil by ship, pipeline and rail to the refineries and then transporting the fuel to where it is needed.
Chlorine is another hazardous materials example. Rail is responsible for hauling 22 percent, or 35,000 carloads of chlorine every year. Chlorine is essential to keeping our drinking water supply safe. Additionally, 85 percent of all pharmaceuticals contain chlorine.
Then there’s ammonia – a common ingredient in many of our household cleaners. But nearly 80 percent of ammonia is used in agriculture as fertilizer. Though considered a hazardous material, over 37,000 Washington farms need ammonia to maintain our $49 billion agriculture industry.
Are there inherent risks with transporting hazardous materials? Yes, of course, but no mode of transport is better than rail in terms of providing safety and environmental performance.
The railroad companies, which are required by federal law to transport hazardous materials, have invested billions of dollars to reduce risk and improve emergency response capabilities. For example, BNSF Railway has completely replaced hundreds of bridges, inspects its network more frequently than required by federal regulations, operates some of the most sophisticated, proprietary technology in the industry, and has trained thousands of emergency responders.
Train derailments attract a lot of attention – as they should. But, in fact, derailments are rare. Over the past 16 years, the train accident rate is down 45 percent – the lowest rate ever, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. Track-caused accidents are down even more – 54 percent – reflecting maintenance and capital investment by the railroads.
In addition to being safer, rail is also a much more environment-friendly mode of transportation. Rail accounts for only 2.3 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. By comparison, emissions from passenger vehicles and trucks add up to 84.6 percent.
A single train can haul the same amount of cargo as up to 280 trucks. Rail frees up capacity on highways and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by double digit percentages.
Hazardous materials are a fact of our everyday life and are vital to maintaining jobs, the economy and public health. Rail is the safest, cleanest mode of transporting hazardous materials.
Let’s learn from the accident at Mosier and continue to make investments and enhancements to improve transportation safety. But, at the same time, avoid arbitrary actions or policies that could have unintended consequences.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/jun/26/rail-is-still-the-safest-cleanest-way-to-move-haza/
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Washington Governor Calls For Oil Train Moratorium on Union Pacific
Jun 24, 2016 | The Columbian
By Lauren Dake
Gov. Jay Inslee's calls for halt to oil transport after fiery crash in Gorge
Gov. Jay Inslee called for a halt on Union Pacific Railroad oil trains traveling through Washington on Friday until stricter safety standards are enacted.
Inslee’s call comes after an oil train headed to Tacoma derailed in the Columbia River Gorge, in the town of Mosier, Ore., earlier this month. Oregon’s Gov. Kate Brown and other political leaders called for a moratorium on oil transport in response to the fiery crash. Inslee’s call for curtailing Bakken oil traveling through the state focuses solely on Union Pacific.
Jamie Smith, Inslee’s spokeswoman, said Inslee’s call for a “moratorium would essentially apply to UP (Union Pacific) since they aren’t doing adequate inspections,” but added, “the ask is to halt any Bakken oil trains that haven’t been cleared by a walking inspection by the railroad.”
BNSF Railway has inspectors who walk the tracks, Smith said. BNSF is the primary carrier of oil in Washington, according to state data.
“Ideally, FRA (the Federal Rail Authority) could halt all oil trains that don’t have all the safety improvements, electronic brakes, newer cars, but that doesn’t appear to be within their authority,” Smith wrote in an email, adding that’s why Inslee is focused on stopping all oil trains until walking inspections are mandatory.
Inslee said in the statement, he’s not “interested in symbolic measures.”
“It is unclear at this point whether the FRA (Federal Rail Authority) has the authority to order a stop to unsafe oil train transport, but they committed to looking into what they can do and will revisit what can be done to halt UP’s (Union Pacific) Bakken oil train transport until necessary safety improvements are made,” Inslee said.
In the past couple of years, the number of oil “unit trains” traveling through both states has increased dramatically. Many more trains would be likely to travel through the Columbia River Gorge if Vancouver Energy’s plans to build the nation’s largest oil terminal here are approved. The governor has the final say in whether the Tesoro-Savage project will be approved.
The state kicks off its public review of the proposal on Monday.
The Union Pacific tracks near Mosier had been inspected shortly before the derailment and no problems were identified. However, accident investigators believe a track problem caused the derailment.
Oregon’s Gov. Kate Brown repeated her call for a moratorium on oil transport on Thursday.
“The Federal Railroad Administration’s preliminary Mosier derailment report calls attention to serious safety concerns and the need for improved track inspections,” Brown said in a statement. “I expect the final investigation report to be completed quickly and again call on rail operators to halt oil trains in Oregon until the strongest safety measures are put in place by federal authorities to protect Oregonians.”
http://www.columbian.com/news/2016/jun/24/washington-governor-calls-for-oil-train-moratorium/
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Opposition Turns to FTC to Stall Atlantic Coast Pipeline, Claims Antitrust
Jun 24, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
Opposition forces trying to stop the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP), having already filled FERC’s docket with comments, are now petitioning the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with claims that the project violates antitrust laws.
The Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, in a letter addressed to the FTC and also filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s ACP docket [CP15-554], wrote Friday that the 600-mile, 1.5 Bcf/d Marcellus-to-Southeast (see Daily GPI,March 23) project would unduly incentivize its regulated utility backers to invest in natural gas-fired generation.
Explaining their reasoning, the Sierra Club wrote that they “anticipate harmful, anti-competitive consumer impacts of having one corporation [ACP 45% interest holder Dominion], which enjoys state-sanctioned monopoly status for electricity service in much of Virginia, involved in the ownership of a natural gas pipeline that is not needed and that would, if built, saddle Dominion Virginia Power customers with unnecessary additional costs for decades, while excluding competition from other sellers of electricity and developers of renewable energy projects.”
The Sierra Club argued that ownership interest in ACP would mean backers Dominion and Duke Energy would be less likely to invest in solar and wind generation, calling the investment structure of the pipeline “apparent self-dealing and [a] conflict of interest.” The risks of rising natural gas prices would fall to ratepayers, the group wrote.
The Sierra Club provided numerous attachments to its letter, including a recent report from renewal advocacy group Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis that concluded the Marcellus and Utica shales are on course for a pipeline overbuild (see Daily GPI, April 27).
Friday’s letter was written in support of a protest written to the FTC (and filed in the FERC docket) last month by Michael J. Hirrel, a retired attorney with the Department of Justice.
“If Dominion, Duke and Piedmont [another ACP joint venture partner] were to acquire their gas and its transportation, plus electricity generation, in competitive markets, they would, the Commission must suppose, engage in a very different decision making process,” Hirrel wrote.
“But that process will be rendered moot when they acquire and transport their own natural gas, and generate their own electricity. They will distribute the electricity and gas to their own monopoly retail customers, who have no alternative. Those customers must pay the costs...whether the costs were efficiently assumed or not.”
ACP and Dominion Energy spokesman Aaron Ruby told NGI via email Friday that the antitrust complaint is without merit.
“It doesn’t demonstrate any anti-competitive behavior, and it doesn’t point to any relevant market that will be monopolized as a result of construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. In fact, the opposite is the case,” Ruby wrote. “The ACP will actually introduce more competition into the market. As an example, North Carolina is currently served by a single natural gas transmission pipeline. Gas and electric utilities in the state have no other option. By introducing a second transmission pipeline into the market, utilities will have more choices, more competitive pricing, more reliability.
“...Investments to increase natural gas capacity are traditionally considered as having the effect of lowering prices, and are recognized as pro-competitive activities that would not support an antitrust claim.”
Ruby noted that, even assuming the ACP did hypothetically have the effect of increasing customer rates, such an increase would only be approved through state regulation and would be “presumed to be reasonable for purposes of antitrust laws and cannot be the subject of a private antitrust action for damages.
“Finally, the complaint ignores the fact that the parties involved in the project undertook two competitive [request for proposal] processes prior to selecting ACP as the preferred project to meet the needs of public utilities in Virginia and North Carolina,” Ruby wrote. “The complaint also ignores the fact that both state and federal agencies have jurisdiction over approval of the project and pricing.”
The ACP, like many high-profile pipeline projects in recent years, has encountered vocal and organized pushback from environmental groups, some landowners and even government officials along its route (see Daily GPI, June 22; May 17).
Matthew Hoza, an analyst with BTU Analytics, told NGI Friday that “while chances are low that the FTC will launch an investigation,” the antitrust complaint could still bolster anti-pipeline efforts by increasing “public awareness of the project while putting it in a negative light.”
Any increase in public opposition to the project could create more scrutiny at the state level, he said.
“While extra scrutiny might not scrap [the project] entirely it could add additional delays, which is one objective opposition groups have on their path to their larger goal of getting projects cancelled,” Hoza said.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/106880-opposition-turns-to-ftc-to-stall-atlantic-coast-pipeline-claims-antitrust
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FERC Says Overlapping Rover, Leach XPress Pipelines Can't Be Built Without Solution
Jun 24, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
FERC has notified affiliates of Energy Transfer Partners LP and Columbia Pipeline Group Inc. that it can't approve two major Appalachian pipeline projects until an overlapping 13-mile section of the proposed routes in Monroe and Noble counties, OH, is redesigned.
In a letter to developers this month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) said its review of the Rover and Leach XPress pipeline projects revealed that they "are proposed in exactly the same location," with construction "planned for the same calendar year." FERC said if the problem is not resolved to its satisfaction, then it could not continue its review or approve the projects.
The commission asked for a response within 10 days of its June 21 letter. A Rover spokesperson said the company is currently working with Columbia and plans to propose a resolution during the week of June 27.
Energy Transfer's 700-mile Rover pipeline would stretch through parts of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan to deliver 3.25 Bcf/d of natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shales to the Midwest and Canada. The company has already delayed the pipeline's in-service date to early 2017 after requesting an expedited review last year for approval by 2Q2016 (see Daily GPI,Nov. 9, 2015).
Columbia's 130-mile Leach XPress, including two new pipeline segments and loops, would take gas from West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, adding 1.53 Dth/d of capacity to the Columbia Gulf Transmission system for delivery to better markets outside the basin.
Earlier this month, the Environmental Protection Agency said in comments filed with FERC that the draft environmental impact statement for both the Leach and Rayne XPress projects is insufficient and recommended that additional information be included in the final version (see Daily GPI, June 15).
The agency identified several potential available alternatives that might reduce the environmental impacts of those projects. Specifically, it noted some of the other pipeline projects that are currently under review in the region that would provide more firm transportation from the Marcellus and Utica, saying those projects might make it unnecessary to build the Leach XPress.
FERC has requested more information about how Rover and Columbia have worked to determine the best way to construct their projects along a similar path.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/106876-ferc-says-overlapping-rover-leach-xpress-pipelines-cant-be-built-without-solution
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Major Battle Over Oil Terminal Unfolds in Pacific Northwest
Jun 25, 2016 | AP (In U.S News)
By PHUONG LE
Two companies proposing to build the nation's largest oil-by-rail marine terminal along the Columbia River in Washington see a unique opportunity to link domestic crude oil from the Midwest to a West Coast port.
Two companies proposing to build what would be the nation's largest oil-by-rail marine terminal along the Columbia River in Washington see it as an opportunity to link domestic crude oil from the Midwest to a West Coast port.
Critics, however, see an environmental and safety catastrophe waiting to happen, especially after a train carrying volatile Bakken crude oil derailed and burned on June 3 in Mosier, Oregon, just 70 miles upriver from the project site in Vancouver, Washington.
The battle over the Tesoro Savage Vancouver Energy terminal — which would handle about 360,000 barrels of crude oil a day — unfolds Monday when the parties make their case for or against the terminal before a state energy panel.
The Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council will hear testimony from dozens of experts and other witnesses over five weeks. It will make a recommendation to Gov. Jay Inslee, who has the final say.
Vancouver Energy is expected to argue that the terminal is needed to meet fuel needs; that it satisfies the council's criteria; that risks of oil spills or accidents at the facility are remote; and it adds economic benefits to the region.
The Port of Vancouver also plans to testify in support, saying the facility is designed to be as safe as possible, there's need for it and it's suitable for the industrial site.
They'll face a chorus of opposition. Tribes, environmental and community groups, the city of Vancouver and a Washington state agency will urge the panel not to recommend approval. They plan to show that it poses too great a risk to people and the environment, the dangers extend well beyond the facility to include communities along rail lines across the state, and it's not in the public's interest.
Tesoro Corp. and Savage Cos. are proposing a $210 million terminal that would receive an average of four 1½-mile long crude oil trains a day, likely traveling on tracks between Spokane and Vancouver. Oil would temporarily be stored on site and then loaded onto tankers and ships bound for West Coast refineries.
"This is too risky for the state of Washington," said Kristen Boyles, an attorney with Earthjustice representing Columbia Riverkeeper, Climate Solutions and six other groups who intervened in the proceedings to oppose the project.
In briefs filed ahead of Monday's hearing, the cities of Vancouver and Spokane, among others, say they're concerned about the risk of oil spills and accidents as more trains cut through their communities. They question whether emergency responders would be able to handle a large fire from a derailment.
"Tesoro's proposal constitutes a clear and present threat to human life and health," Vancouver city attorneys wrote. The council "simply has no ability to ensure the safety of Vancouver's citizens while the equivalent of 1,667 tanker trucks of volatile crude oil per day move into and out of the heart of the fourth largest city in Washington."
In a separate brief, the state-appointed attorney who represents the public's interest in protecting the environment writes that oil trains moving across the state and close to or on the Columbia River "presents a continuing risk of significant environmental impacts and harm."
The consequences of the worse-case oil spill would affect the Columbia River for years to come and cause losses to salmon, birds and other natural resources, assistant attorney general Matthew Kernutt wrote.
The Yakama Nation and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation also plan to show that the project interferes with their treaty-reserved fishing rights and that a potential oil spill could have devastating consequences to salmon and other natural resources on which the tribe depends.
The Washington Department of Natural Resources is also urging the council to reject the project, citing risks of blazes from increased train traffic and other concerns.
Vancouver Energy says the project can be done safely and will provide jobs and tax revenue as well as reduce dependency on foreign oil. Vancouver Energy General Manager Jared Larrabee said the terminal has committed to only accept tank cars that meet or exceed DOT-117 standards, has purchased and placed oil spill response equipment along the rail corridor and taken other safety measures.
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New Push to Extend California Greenhouse Gas Law Past 2020
Jun 27, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Carolyn Whetzel
California state Sen. Fran Pavley (D) has renewed an effort to extend the state's landmark greenhouse gas emissions law beyond 2020.
At a June 27 hearing, the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources will consider an updated version of S.B. 32, introduced in last year's session by Pavley that stalled but survived as a two-year measure.
S.B. 32 would amend the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, or A.B. 32, to include a 2030 emissions limit and authorize the state to develop a plan to achieve the goal.
The legislation would build some certainty into the future of California's climate policies, Pavley and other Democrats have said.
Pending litigation challenging the state's greenhouse gas emissions cap-and-trade program's auction and lackluster demand for emissions allowances in the latest auction have injected some uncertainty into the program's future.
A letter the state legislative counsel forwarded to Republican leaders earlier this year suggested Gov. Jerry Brown (D) lacked authority under the Global Warming Solutions Act to continue the program past 2020.
Tied to Another Bill
Pavley's updated bill aims to codify into the law the emissions reduction target of 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 that Brown established in Executive Order No. B-30-15 and signed in April 2015.
Pavley's bill is tied to passage of A.B. 197, which she has said would provide the legislative oversight of the California Air Resources Board several members of the Assembly have sought.
A.B. 197, which the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality will consider June 29, would add two members of the Legislature to the CARB's governing body. Both would be non-voting members of the board. The bill would create a new joint legislative committee to “ascertain facts and make recommendations” on climate policies to the Legislature.
Authored by Assembly Member Eduardo Garcia (D), A.B. 197 also seeks to establish priorities for how CARB would adopt greenhouse gas emission reduction measures and how they are ranked based on their air pollution co-benefits and cost-effectiveness.
The accountability provisions in A.B. 197 would ensure greenhouse gas emissions are achieved equitably, fairly and economically, Pavley said in a June 14 statement urging fellow lawmakers to support the two bills.
“It is critically important, sooner rather than later, to extend our climate targets and to put them into statute,” Pavley said. “Businesses have told me time and again they need market certainty and predictability in order to plan and innovate and succeed. That's what S.B. 32 brings—certainty and predictability that California will build the clean energy economy that finally moves us away from our dependence on dangerous resources like fossil fuels.”
Clean energy businesses and environmental groups support the two bills.
Whether the measures have sufficient support to pass is unclear.
Last year, several moderate Democrats backed away from supporting S.B. 32, some of which received campaign support from groups funded by the oil industry, and forced the Senate leader to the remove provisions in a measure, S.B. 350, that called for a 50 percent reduction in the use of transportation fuels by 2030.
In May, Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin De Leon (D) said there would be “a concerted push to establish targets post-2020.”
“The question is: “What do you give up?” De Leon said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=92548061&vname=dennotallissues&fn=92548061&jd=92548061
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Study Links 6.5 Million Deaths Each Year to Air Pollution
Jun 26, 2016 | The New York Times
By Stanley Reed
A sobering report released on Monday by the International Energy Agencysays air pollution has become a major public health crisis leading to around 6.5 million deaths each year, with “many of its root causes and cures” found in the energy industry.
The air pollution study is the first for the agency, an energy security group based in Paris, which is expanding its mission under its executive director, Fatih Birol.
The agency, whose 29 members are wealthy, industrialized countries, was founded in response to the Arab oil embargo in 1973 to coordinate international responses to energy issues. It is perhaps best known for its monthly oil market reports that are eagerly awaited by traders.
Mr. Birol, an economist, argues that pressing concerns about climate change and the emergence of countries like China and India as major energy consumers and polluters mean that the agency needs to shift its strategy.
“To stay relevant,” he said in an interview on Friday, we “need to work much closer with new emerging energy economies.”
Mr. Birol has been working to build bridges with China in particular, which energy experts say is crucial to the success of global efforts to reduce emissions.
“To solve today’s biggest energy problems, the I.E.A. needs to have the world’s most important energy players as part of it,” said Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
Environmental issues, Mr. Birol said, are very important to emerging economies like India and China, whose cities are often plagued by choking smog.
Helping these countries solve problems through increasing energy efficiency or filtering out pollutants can make progress on climate change goals. We need to make these countries “understand that their problems are our problems,” Mr. Birol said.
Mr. Birol appears to be well-suited to this approach. Born in Turkey, he obtained his doctorate in energy economics in Vienna and began his career as an analyst at the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, the oil producers’ group, often seen as having an agenda rivaling the agency’s.
Mr. Birol appears to be pushing to make the agency crucial in coordinating a global approach to energy-related efforts. This includes carrying out theglobal emissions reduction agreement reached in Paris last year. “The world needs a global energy body,” said Neil Hirst, a senior policy fellow at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College in London.
Mr. Birol said that through relatively low-cost actions, like adopting more ambitious clean air standards and more effective policies for monitoring and enforcement, countries could make major strides in reducing pollution over the next quarter-century.
China, for instance, needs to retire polluting coal-fired power plants and to establish stricter standards for motor vehicles.
Such changes could produce big benefits. In India, the proportion of the population exposed to a high concentration of fine particles, a type of pollution, would fall to below 20 percent in 2040, from 60 percent today. In China, it would drop to below one quarter, from well over one half.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/27/business/energy-environment/study-links-6-5-million-deaths-each-year-to-air-pollution.html
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EPA Finalizes Revisions To Incinerator Air Rule
Jun 24, 2016 | Inside EPA
EPA has issued a final rule revising parts of its new source performance standards (NSPS) and emissions guidelines for existing sources for commercial and industrial solid waste incineration units (CISWI), including weakening some emissions limits and adjusting the rule to take into account the variability of toxics content in fuel.
The final rule, published in the June 23 Federal Register, revises the CISWI NSPS and emissions guideline rule first issued in 2011 and modified in 2013. The rule is part of a broader package of air rules targeting CISWI, as well as emissions standards for boilers and a regulation defining whether incinerated waste is subject to the CISWI rules or the more-stringent boiler standards.
EPA in December 2014 issued a proposed reconsideration of some aspects of the CISWI rules, including changes sought by industry groups to various provisions of the regulation.
In the final rule, EPA finalizes changes to the definition of continuous emissions monitoring system data during startup and shutdown periods to make the term specific to different subcategories of incinerators.
EPA also revises the emissions limit for particulate matter emitted by the “waste-burning kiln” subcategory. “EPA has determined that the test averages, instead of the individual test runs, should be used to establish the standards for new and existing waste burning kilns. Based on that approach, the final PM emission limits for existing kilns is 13.5 mg/dscm and the final PM emission limit for new kilns is 4.9 milligrams per dry standard cubic meter (mg/ dscm),” the agency says. This compares to limits of 4.6 mg/dscm for existing units and 2.2 mg/dscm in the 2013 rule.
Also, EPA is incorporating a fuel variability factor for coal-burning energy recovery units, which adjusts emissions limits according to the pollutant content of coal. The move comes in response to industry criticism that the prior limits in the 2013 rule did not realistically reflect the emissions of coal-burning units. The result is altered emissions limits, making limits tougher for coal-burning units for cadmium, mercury, lead and particulate matter, but weaker for hydrogen chloride, nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide.
http://insideepa.com/news-briefs/epa-finalizes-revisions-incinerator-air-rule
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