Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 7/22/2016
-
TSCA Reformed: What Companies Need to Know
Jul 22, 2016 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Lynn L. Bergeson
With significant revisions to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), companies producing or processing industrial chemicals in, or importing them into, the US will need to become aware of what’s changed, quickly. -
Sen. Leahy Touts Chemical-Specific Wins in TSCA Reform Language
Jul 22, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is highlighting provisions in the newly enacted revisions to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that he says will help EPA or states address or continue to address specific chemicals, including assurances from lawmakers that the state preemption... -
Is Walmart a Leader on Safer Chemicals?
Jul 21, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Boma Brown-West and Jennifer McPartland
Consumers want to know that the products they buy contain ingredients that are safe for them and their loved ones. EDF has identified five pillars of leadership to help companies meet that demand and in doing so build consumer trust in the products they make... -
REACH 2018: Challenges for Lead Registrants
Jul 22, 2016 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Sami Vesikansa
For the May 2018 REACH registration deadline, there will be many more SMEs and smaller Siefs than for the previous registration deadlines. At the same time, less information will be available on the substances being registered. It is evident that some will have to... -
Regulating Nanomaterials – EU Shifting the Burden
Jul 22, 2016 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By David Azoulay
The current state of EU governance and regulatory oversight for the development, production, marketing, use and disposal of nanomaterials is marked by severe deficiencies. -
Technology Offers Hope for End of Animal Testing
Jul 22, 2016 | Medical Xpress
By Patricia Torres
Hoping to make the lab rat a thing of the past, scientists at Lawrence Livermore Lab are testing technology that replicates vital human tissues on microchips. -
Obama Administration Closes Offshore Drilling Sale to Public
Jul 22, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Obama administration is banning environmental activist protesters from an offshore drilling lease sale next month. -
Your Clinton Veepstakes Prize Could Arrive Today
Jul 22, 2016 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton may unveil the name of her running mate today, or by tomorrow at the latest. And just to make sure everyone's ready, here's a rundown on the energy and environment backgrounds of the rumored candidates. -
Commentary: Shale Revolution Fulfills Promise on Jobs, Energy, Environment
Jul 22, 2016 | Philadelphia Inquirer
By David Spigelmyer
...America's shale revolution is making once-unthinkable progress on the nation's shared energy, environment, economic, and security objectives. And as President Obama has said, "we need to encourage" domestic natural-gas development and its broad benefits... -
Pennsylvania Bill to Roll Back Some of DEP's New Oil/Gas Regs Fails
Jul 22, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
A Pennsylvania Senate bill that would have rolled back certain provisions of a wide-ranging regulatory package for shale drillers that’s set to take effect soon lost steam last week and failed before the legislature recessed for the summer. -
EnergyWire's Sobczak Discusses Investigation of Ukraine Attack, U.S. Grid Security
Jul 22, 2016 | E&E TV
Following Ukraine's unprecedented cyberattack in December,EnergyWire launched an investigation into the attack and the security gaps that exist across the U.S. power grid. On today's The Cutting Edge, EnergyWire reporter Blake Sobczak gives background... -
To Secure Grid Supply Chain, FERC Aims for 'Lightning Speed'
Jul 22, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
In an effort to stay nimble in the face of a fast-moving cyberthreat, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has followed through on what Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur once called a "thankless task." -
No Health Effects from Chemicals from West Virginia Spill
Jul 22, 2016 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The January 2014 chemical spill in West Virginiathat resulted in a large quantity of (4-methylcyclohexyl) methanol (MCHM) and stripped polyglycol ethers (PPH) contaminating local water supplies is unlikely to have harmed residents. -
(ACC Mentioned) State Seeks Fee on Dangerous Chemicals Crisscrossing California
Jul 22, 2016 | Sacramento Bee
By Tony Bizjak
Day and night, trains crisscross California pulling long strings of tanker cars carrying volatile gas, chemicals and crude oil. -
Republicans on Sidelines Talk Climate 'Solutions'
Jul 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Geof Koss and Hannah Hess
Is the Grand Old Party showing signs of life on climate change? -
Enviros Sue 16 States over Ozone Cleanup Plans
Jul 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have failed to turn in full cleanup plans for meeting the 2008 ozone ambient air quality standards, environmentalists allege in a lawsuit filed yesterday that seeks to prod U.S. EPA to act. -
EPA Steps Up Use of Methane 'Cost' Metric Despite Growing Hill Opposition
Jul 22, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Despite growing opposition on Capitol Hill, EPA is stepping up its use of its social cost of methane (SCM) metric for measuring the climate benefits of rules limiting the potent greenhouse gas, strengthening a precedent in cost-benefit reviews that could aid agencies...
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Environment News
-
TSCA Reformed: What Companies Need to Know
Jul 22, 2016 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Lynn L. Bergeson
With significant revisions to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), companies producing or processing industrial chemicals in, or importing them into, the US will need to become aware of what’s changed, quickly. The amendments were immediately effective and important regulatory developments are underway.
If companies consider that these extensive TSCA revisions do not impact their business, they should think again. TSCA reform is far reaching, consequential and will affect key manufacturing sectors, which includes manufacturers of chemicals and articles imported into the US. These changes, and the TSCA implementation process now underway, need to be known, understood and monitored by business people, lawyers, scientists, consultants, product stewards, and other chemical industry stakeholders.
What just happened?
TSCA is the federal law authorising the US EPA to regulate the importing, manufacturing and processing of industrial chemical substances, broadly defined to include just about every industrial chemical going into a manufacturing process for the production of a finished good. Importers of chemicals are defined as “manufacturers”. Therefore chemicals produced off-shore and imported into the US as industrial chemicals are subject to TSCA, just as they would be if produced domestically.
TSCA was enacted in 1976 and has not been substantively amended since. A number of reasons were behind the reform: the passage of time, the enactment of the EU’s REACH and K-REACH in Korea, and elsewhere globally other progressive chemical management programmes, and the rapid proliferation of US state-specific chemical regulatory measures. These developments put pressure on Congress to modernise TSCA and enact reforms urgently needed to assure a restless public that the EPA was capable of delivering on the promise of chemical safety.
Key provisions in amended TSCA
On 7 June, Congress passed the Frank R Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act; President Obama signed it into law on 22 June. These TSCA amendments fundamentally revise the law, greatly expand the EPA’s authority, and address many of the deficits that undermined the agency’s ability to manage risks from existing chemicals. The EPA’s implementation of these substantial revisions will improve public health protection and restore much of the public’s confidence in chemical safety. The new law shifts the burden of demonstrating chemical safety of all chemicals, old and new, to chemical manufacturers, processors, and manufacturers of the finished goods that contain them, away from the EPA proving the opposite. Key changes include:
Safety reviews for all chemicals in commerce – the EPA’s implementation of the act had been hampered by the lack of a clear legislative mandate to prioritise, evaluate and regulate the 62,000 plus chemicals originally “grandfathered” under TSCA, placing them beyond the EPA’s jurisdictional scope to review before they entered the market. The agency is now required to prioritise and evaluate all existing chemicals in commerce according to enforceable deadlines. Chemicals that may present an unreasonable risk because of a potential hazard and exposure are deemed “high-priority” chemicals, while those not meeting this standard are “low-priority”. Where information is insufficient to support a low-priority determination, the default is high-priority. The agency is required to prioritise the review of chemicals that are persistent and bioaccumulative and that are known carcinogens and highly toxic.
Risk evaluation and risk management is required – revised TSCA eliminates the challenging “least burdensome” requirement, previously required for the assessment of chemicals in commerce under the old law. It establishes a safety standard that excludes “consideration of costs or other nonrisk factors”, and authorises looking at these in developing risk abatement measures. Amended TSCA requires the protection of vulnerable populations, including children and pregnant women.
The EPA must make an affirmative determination for all new chemicals – previously, TSCA allowed new chemicals – those not listed on the TSCA inventory - onto the market if the EPA reviewers of premanufacture notices (PMNs) or significant new use notices (SNUNs) did not notify a submitter within 90 days of submission. If the EPA flagged a concern within this timeframe, the review period could be suspended to allow the agency, and the submitter, to address the concern and allow the new substance onto the market, enter into a non-section 5(e) significant new use rule (Snur), negotiate a section 5(e) Snur or withdraw the PMN.
Under amended TSCA, the EPA must make one of three alternate affirmative determinations on all new chemicals and significant new uses of them. These are:
· the new chemical or significant new use presents an unreasonable risk;
· available information is insufficient or the new chemical or significant new use may present an unreasonable risk or it has substantial production and exposure; or
· the new chemical or significant new use is not likely to present an unreasonable risk.
The EPA must regulate under the first two scenarios. If the substance is determined not likely to present an unreasonable risk, the “submitter of the notice may commence” manufacturing (including importing) or processing, even in advance of the expiration of the 90-day review period. Importantly for importers of finished goods, the agency may require notification for the import or processing of a chemical as part of an article if the agency “makes an affirmative finding in a rule … that the reasonable potential for exposure to the chemical substance through the article or category of articles subject to the rule justifies notification.” This will make it harder for the EPA to impose Snur requirements on chemicals in imported articles.
Substantiation of CBI claims – amended TSCA limits entities’ ability to claim information as confidential business information (CBI), requires substantiation of certain claims, including those for chemical identity for existing chemicals, and all expire after ten years unless reasserted. For new claims, the EPA must affirmatively review all chemical identity CBI claims, and will screen a subset (25%) of non-chemical identity claims. It will review past claims to determine the adequacy of substantiation.
Preemption – amended TSCA grandfathers state actions taken before 22 April and those taken pursuant to a state law in effect on 31 August 2003 (California’s Proposition 65, for example). After final EPA action, amended TSCA prohibits states from:
· establishing or continuing to enforce measures that duplicate certain TSCA provisions;
· prohibiting or restricting a chemical, after the agency has determined that it does not present an unreasonable risk, following the issue of a final rule under section 6(a); or
· subjects a chemical to notifications already established under a section 5 Snur.
The EPA can order chemical testing and charge higher fees – under amended TSCA, the EPA is authorised to mandate chemical testing by order, adding to its preexisting authority to compel testing by rule or consent agreement, including for purposes of establishing chemical prioritisation. Importantly, the new law expands the EPA’s authority to collect fees from manufacturers and processors for chemical assessments. Fees are widely expected to increase, perhaps significantly.
There are many other changes to TSCA, too numerous to outline here.
Actions stakeholders can take immediately
Stakeholders may wish to undertake several steps immediately. As the law is in effect, the EPA has begun implementation and important changes have already been announced.
Read the law – it is long but nothing beats reading the original text penned by Congress.
Know which chemicals are core to the business – the EPA must prioritise and evaluate high-priority chemicals according to a judicially enforceable schedule. This makes it imperative to know which chemicals are core to your business. The EPA’s workplan for chemical assessments list of chemicals is a must-read and, if this programme is unfamiliar to you, it would be helpful to review EPA’s TSCA Work Plan for Chemical Assessment website. The EPA’s review and evaluation of high-priority chemicals will have significant impacts on the chemicals assessed, their uses and applications, and commercial profiling. Unsurprisingly, evaluations of existing chemicals will inevitably lead, in some cases, to product reformulation. Reformulation takes a long time, particularly when formulations must qualify for use in procurement-driven markets that are highly susceptible to federal “green” purchasing mandates.
Reassess CBI claims and qualify new claims carefully – amended TSCA makes it harder to assert and sustain CBI and requires claims substantiation. Begin now to reassess CBI claims, a process that will take time and resources to do well, and qualify new claims. The intensely competitive nature of product manufacturing makes it all the more important to protect CBI, and stakeholders will need to be diligent in developing suitable protocols and systems to comply with the law’s mandate.
Expect more chemical testing – the EPA can be expected to mandate more chemical testing. Even if your company is not actually conducting the testing or paying for it, your product line will not be immunised from the consequences of testing done by others. For example, if an upstream supplier is subject to robust toxicological or environmental fate testing of a chemical, critical to your product line, you need to know that this testing is ongoing and anticipate its consequences. This could include managing the optics inspired by unexpected test results that portray the product in an unfavourable light. Or having to consider product reformulation in the event the supplier discontinues production or import of the test chemical.
Focus on the upside and seize opportunities to innovate new products, to fill the inevitable chemical product deselection void – with change comes opportunity, and new products with a sustainable profile will do well. Stakeholders should use the new law as a spur to innovation and benefit from the marketing opportunities that accompany product ingredients that are more sustainable than incumbent chemicals.
TSCA reform has been a work in progress for years.
As reformed TSCA is now a reality, it is time to think strategically and prepare to engage in the implementation process. Amended TSCA will fundamentally revolutionise chemical management in the US. Smart stakeholders will see this for what it is - a critically important business challenge and opportunity that requires stakeholders to review carefully manufacturing processes, critically assess product lines’ chemical feedstocks, and seize opportunities for change by innovating in ways that improve product safety and the bottom line.
https://chemicalwatch.com/48767/tsca-reformed-what-companies-need-to-know
-
Sen. Leahy Touts Chemical-Specific Wins in TSCA Reform Language
Jul 22, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Bridget DiCosmo
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is highlighting provisions in the newly enacted revisions to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that he says will help EPA or states address or continue to address specific chemicals, including assurances from lawmakers that the state preemption language will not block Vermont’s policies targeting perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA).
The law, known as the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, would give EPA substantial new powers to govern the safety of chemicals, including mandating that the agency affirm the safety of new chemicals before allowing them to enter the marketplace and of existing chemicals grandfathered in under the old TSCA.
The law for the first time includes some provisions that target specific chemicals or groups of chemicals, such as language that would require EPA to prioritize taking actions on chemicals that are persistent and bioaccumulative and those that are known carcinogens with high acute and chronic toxicity, such as asbestos, and a whole host of provisions providing for targeted action on mercury.
The law also establishes a novel preemption regime that includes a “pause” while EPA reviews the risk of a chemical, which would create a period during which states could not promulgate new rules or policies for that chemical. But Leahy says this should not interfere with Vermont’s PFOA regulations.
Vermont as of June 22 issued a revised drinking water health advisory of 20 parts per trillion (ppt) applicable to the sum of PFOA and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), replacing its earlier 2016 values. PFOA, a persistent, toxic non-stick chemical, was used in a slew of consumer and industrial applications, and has been linked to adverse health effects, including kidney and testicular cancers.
“There have been assurances to the Vermont congressional delegation from the EPA that Vermont will be able to retain its more stringent regulation of PFOA,” Leahy said during floor remarks June 7 preceeding a successful voice vote on the TSCA bill in the upper chamber.
In May, EPA tightened its drinking water advisory for PFOA and PFOS, setting lifetime exposure health advisory levels at 70 ppt for both substances and also recommending that the combined concentrations of PFOA and PFOS, if found together in drinking water, not exceed 70 ppt. The levels apply to both short-term and chronic exposures, according to EPA.
Leahy’s June 7 remarks highlighted that Vermont was especially concerned about the controversial preemption language in the law, especially with the discovery of PFOA contamination in the Vermont communities of North Bennington and Pownal.
Preemption Regime
“Unfortunately, due to shortcomings in the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, PFOA was one of many chemicals that had been presumed safe without any requirement for testing or review,” Leahy said.
“While the inclusion of even minimal State preemption action in the final bill is unfortunate, the final compromise largely retains the Senate bill’s provisions and allows States 12 to 18 months to enact tougher regulations through a waiver process after the EPA formally announces that it has started the review process for a chemical,” Leahy said.
The law’s controversial preemption regime -- the result of lengthy compromise talks -- could be precedent-setting. It grandfathers existing state chemical regulations but would block recent and new state requirements while EPA assesses risks from a chemical.
The regime would create a “pause” period blocking new state actions that would begin when EPA defines and publishes a scope of the safety assessment and end when the agency finalizes a safety determination for a chemical under section 6 of TSCA -- which applies to regulation of existing chemicals -- or misses a three-and-a-half year deadline for issuing the determination.
But preemption does not apply to the first 10 chemicals EPA is directed to assess under the bill, derived from its 2014 TSCA work plan for addressing risks from chemicals. Preemption would also not apply to industry-requested chemicals designated for risk assessment.
Leahy also touted the mercury provisions in the final bill, which include creation of a mercury inventory and the expansion of the export ban to certain mercury compounds. The provisions were taken in part from the Mercury Use Reduction Act, which was introduced in 2012 but not passed.
Of the inventory provision, Leahy says it will generate data to enhance EPA’s ability to reduce the health risks from mercury exposure, and that the second provision expands upon the Mercury Export Ban Act of 2008, expanding the ban currently in effect for elemental mercury to include certain mercury compounds that could be traded to produce elemental mercury in commercial quantities, thus undermining the existing export ban.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/sen-leahy-touts-chemical-specific-wins-tsca-reform-language
-
Is Walmart a Leader on Safer Chemicals?
Jul 21, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Boma Brown-West and Jennifer McPartland
Consumers want to know that the products they buy contain ingredients that are safe for them and their loved ones. EDF has identified five pillars of leadership to help companies meet that demand and in doing so build consumer trust in the products they make and sell. One company that has recently taken major steps to drive safer chemicals and products into the market is Walmart.
In 2013, Walmart published its Sustainable Chemistry Policy, which focuses on ingredient transparency and advancing safer product formulations in household and personal care products. EDF worked with Walmart as it developed its policy and has advised the company during implementation and data analysis. This past April, Walmart announced that the company achieved a 95% reduction in the use of high priority chemicals of concern. Now, Walmart has sharedconsiderable additional information detailing the progress made, including the identities of the high priority chemicals.
In our previous blog, we broke down the wealth of information that Walmart has shared. However, to fully evaluate the significance of the numbers, we now look at how well Walmart has done against EDF’s five pillars: institutional commitment, supply chain transparency, informed consumers, product design, and public commitment.
EDF’s Five Pillars of Leadership: How does Walmart Measure Up?
EDF’s Leadership Pillar 1: Institutional Commitment - See more at: http://business.edf.org/blog/2016/07/21/is-walmart-a-leader-on-safer-chemicals/#sthash.wsjG51gV.dpuf
What it is: Successful outcomes require commitment and support from leaders across the organization – from the C-suite to middle management. The most effective tool in building Institutional Commitment is a written corporate chemicals policy that articulates to all levels of the organization, as well as to business suppliers, what the company wants to achieve.
What Walmart did right: Walmart has done a great job at building a foundation for Institutional Commitment. It spent several years developing and operationalizing a comprehensive corporate chemicals policy that contains specific goals and timelines focused on transparency and safer products. In the subsequent release of its policy implementation guide in 2014, Walmart went further by providing guidance to suppliers on how to adhere to the policy. They also pledged to measure progress using a list of specific metrics, including the mass of high priority chemicals (HPCs) and number of products containing HPCs.
These are key elements of quantifying one’s chemical footprint, defined by the Chemical Footprint Project as “the total mass of chemicals of high concern in products sold by a company, used in its manufacturing operations and by its suppliers, and contained in packaging.” Walmart led by committing to measure the portion of its chemical footprint related to the products and priority chemicals covered by its policy.
What Walmart should do next: Walmart’s chemicals policy is limited to the United States and only covers formulated consumables (largely liquids, sprays and gels) sold in the household cleaning, personal care, and cosmetic aisles. We commend Walmart for starting with products that consumers use on and around themselves every day. In the coming years, Walmart should extend its sustainable chemistry philosophy across all products sold and all stores globally.
EDF’s Leadership Pillar 2: Supply Chain Transparency
What it is: A company needs to know the chemicals present in the products it sells. This means knowing all the intentionally added chemical ingredients, including those in mixtures like fragrances, as well as known contaminants that occur in the making of the product. Such information enables the identification of areas of greatest risk, opportunities for action, and a means for measuring and monitoring progress.
What Walmart did right: Walmart required suppliers to submit “full product formulations” – the names and concentrations of all ingredients in a product – to a 3rd party-managed chemicals database called WERCSmart. By doing this, Walmart gained access to aggregate information on the types and quantities of chemicals in the products on its shelves. This enables its policy implementation to be based on real data and for Walmart to be empowered to drive change and measure progress.
Walmart reported that 94% of the product formulations entered into WERCSmart are full formulations. This suggests that the retailer’s chemical footprint calculations are based on complete ingredient information. Walmart has shown real leadership here, proving that you can have greater supply chain transparency while still protecting proprietary information.
What Walmart should do next: Robust data means robust calculations, and robust data relies on transparency – about all intentionally added chemicals and any changes in formulations – along the supply chain from ingredient manufacturers to brand suppliers. Currently, it is unclear how supplier-entered data in WERCSmart is verified for accuracy. Walmart should require suppliers to proactively check that product formulas are up to date and consider introducing sporadic spot-testing of products.
EDF’s Leadership Pillar 3: Informed Consumers
What it is: Sharing ingredient information with consumers is a key part of leadership. It shows that a company embraces and executes on the philosophy that consumers have the right to know what is in the products they buy.
What Walmart did right: Walmart called for online disclosure of all ingredients in the products covered by the policy starting in 2015. According to the results of Walmart’s Sustainability Index, its annual environmental issues survey sent to suppliers, 78% of respondents reported they share ingredient information online for every product they sell globally. As we discussed in a previous blog, Walmart also began disclosing ingredients online for some of its own private brand products in 2015 — a good first step.
What Walmart should do next: Walmart should continue to push itself and its suppliers to bring greater transparency to the contents of their products. Many companies, including Walmart, continue to use generic names in their online disclosure lists, and very few companies reveal the chemicals behind trade name ingredients. EDF's Rules of Online Disclosure provide guidance for meaningful disclosure, and we encourage Walmart to adopt it as the standard for itself and all suppliers.
Walmart states that 87% (by sales) of suppliers covered by the policy (Walmart U.S.) participated in the Index. Walmart should continue to boost Sustainability Index response rates and expand coverage of the Index to all the categories and suppliers covered by the policy.
EDF’s Leadership Pillar 4: Product Design
What it is: Leading on product design means using safer chemicals and phasing out chemicals of concern when manufacturing and selling products. Measureable objectives must be set, a credible and science-driven methodology must be used to assess chemical safety, and a measurement plan implemented to track progress.
What Walmart did right: There are many things Walmart has accomplished here. Walmart’s policy prioritizes safer products for customers by calling for (1) the “reduction, restriction, and elimination” of Walmart’s designated priority chemicals (PCs) of concern, and (2) designing products using “informed substitution principles.” Walmart based its PCs list on 16 reputable regulatory and authoritative lists. Walmart focused its suppliers’ attention on a short list of High Priority Chemicals (HPCs) to catalyze action. These eight chemicals and chemical classes (butylparaben, propylparaben, nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), formaldehyde, dibutyl phthalate, diethyl phthalate, triclosan, and toluene) appear on a number of authoritative lists (e.g. EU REACH Substances of Very High Concern) for their hazardous properties and are worthy of action by Walmart.
Walmart also established and implemented a strong measurement plan, the key metrics being (1) total chemical mass, measured in pounds of PCs and HPCs going out the door, and (2) frequency of use, measured by the number of products on store shelves that contain PCs and the number of suppliers using PCs in their products.
Walmart tracked progress by using aggregate data from RetailLink, its internal product inventory database, and WERCSmart, and will be tracking this information over time. Prompted by what the data revealed, Walmart identified the greatest opportunities to work with specific suppliers to drive progress against its goals. Walmart has made commendable progress in calculating and reducing this portion of its chemical footprint (95% weight reduction in use of HPCs). See our previous blog for additional details.
What Walmart should do next: While Walmart reduced the total mass of HPCs by 95%, these chemicals are still frequently being used across products by many suppliers. Aggregate exposure, which is exposure to the same chemical through multiple sources, and cumulative effects, which is exposure to multiple chemicals that contribute to the same health outcome, pose significant health risks. Creating a healthier marketplace means reducing the total toxic chemical load on people while taking into account varying susceptibilities, vulnerabilities, and co-exposures to diverse environmental stressors (e.g., social, chemical) experienced in the real world.
Walmart can’t solve this alone, but it can act. First, Walmart should talk with suppliers who don’t use HPCs and share their success stories of safer formulations. Walmart can also work with suppliers and upstream manufacturers to identify and find solutions to the issues hindering widespread elimination, such as misaligned incentives or lack of broadly applicable viable chemical substitutes.
Preventing regrettable substitutions – hazardous ingredients getting replaced with other problematic ones – remains a challenge. Walmart’s current tracking of the changing amount of all PCs is a good first step; if this number goes up while the HPCs amount goes down, regrettable substitutions may be occurring. Walmart’s report of a 45% weight reduction in the mass of all PCs is a promising result. The company should continue to track this metric, and investigate any significant increase in the mass or frequency of use of PCs.
Walmart should also meet its pledge to increase private label offerings certified by Safer Choice, a voluntary U.S. EPA program that recognizes and brings consumer awareness to products using safer ingredients. It is the only policy commitment for which no quantitative data was released. As a 2016 Safer Choice Partner of the Year, EDF believes Walmart can join the ranks of other partners, including Wegmans and Albertsons Companies (owner of Safeway, Shaw’s, and Jewel-Osco), who have successfully increased their offerings of Safer Choice products and worked to educate consumers about the program.
EDF’s Leadership pillar 5: Public Commitment
What it is: Effective communication of a company's policy, goals, timelines and progress can garner valuable support from the general public. Telling the story about one’s journey – including the pitfalls along the way – can be just as powerful as sharing success stories.
What Walmart did right: Walmart has shown strong leadership here by publishing its policy, publicly pledging to measure progress, sharing its metrics, and committing to report progress starting in 2016. Walmart has now released a trove of quantitative information, good and bad, and the calculations behind them. This is a first among retailers.
Walmart has also deepened its public commitment by meeting its own call for increased retail transparency by revealing the names of the Walmart High Priority Chemicals. Knowing the identity of the chemicals on which so much action has been focused provides a number of benefits. First, it gives the public a greater understanding of the initial results. Second, it allows Walmart suppliers to point to their own successes in tackling toxic chemicals. Finally, it focuses the market signal for safer solutions around specific compounds.
All in all, by being public about its safer chemicals journey, Walmart is communicating a clear message to its internal business, suppliers, and the public that the company is serious about driving positive change.
What Walmart should do next: We encourage Walmart to keep the momentum going – not only on implementation of its policy but also on publicizing the journey. Publishing progress results annually and sharing the instances of challenges and problem-solving will ensure that Walmart’s leadership continues to resonate with the public as well as provide incentive for other retailers to follow Walmart’s lead.
Conclusion: safer chemicals leadership is achievable
Walmart’s policy is working because it hits on every one of EDF's five pillars of leadership for safer chemicals in the marketplace. Has the company achieved full leadership according to the five pillars? Not quite, but many of the critical foundational pieces (e.g. chemicals policy, measurement system, transparency goals) are in place, suggesting Walmart is well on its way if it can keep the momentum up.
EDF believes that other retailers can achieve similar successes. We look forward to doing our part to help all retailers pursue the five pillars of leadership and transform the marketplace.
http://business.edf.org/blog/2016/07/21/is-walmart-a-leader-on-safer-chemicals/
-
REACH 2018: Challenges for Lead Registrants
Jul 22, 2016 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By Sami Vesikansa
For the May 2018 REACH registration deadline, there will be many more SMEs and smaller Siefs than for the previous registration deadlines. At the same time, less information will be available on the substances being registered. It is evident that some will have to become lead registrants, meaning a big responsibility to lead the joint registration work and ultimately submit the dossier in time, before the deadline. Awareness of REACH obligations, registration costs, Sief work and lack of internal resources have been identified by SMEs as areas of concern.
A significant challenge
The management of the whole lead registration project requires expertise and knowledge from various areas, such as chemistry, toxicology, environmental science, economy, regulatory issues, IT and finance. The tasks of a lead registration include, among others, data mining and information collection, Iuclid dataset population, hazard assessment of chemicals, exposure assessment for human health and the environment, risk characterisation, Sief communication, drafting of agreements, clarifying copyright issues, negotiations for read-across data and so on. Furthermore, a lead registrant needs to be in contact with outside consultants, data holders, testing labs and even competitors. This means that particular expertise and knowhow is required from the lead to accomplish all necessary steps of the work.
Cooperation
The major challenge of the Sief work is cooperating with other companies, as the law restricts them from working together. However, this cooperation between competitors is obligatory according to REACH. Thus, companies have to agree with their co-registrants how to work and communicate within the Sief. It is recommended that they communicate early on and regularly. The lead registrant should prepare an agreement to lay down principles of cooperation. If there are few members, and no newcomers are expected, it is possible to decide upon working without such an agreement, but this is not recommended.
If it is agreed that one member takes a prominent role or to appoint a consultant, this work should typically be compensated by the other members. The lead registrant needs to seek agreement on fair and transparent cost sharing. New challenges to calculating the letter of access (LoA) costs are set out in a newdata sharing Regulation that entered into force on the 26 January. The Regulation requires the lead registrant to share detailed cost information with the (potential) co-registrants. This means that the lead needs to itemise all data, and non-study (management), costs related to a specific study. Furthermore, they need to have a cost sharing model which includes a reimbursement mechanism and future expenditure.
Risk of rejection
Identifying a substance is the central task in the REACH registration process and a prerequisite for successful registration. The lead registrant needs to characterise the substance by chemical analysis to determine its composition and type (monoconstituent, multiconstituent or UVCB). Clear identification poses a challenge, especially in the case of substances of unknown or variable composition, complex reaction products or biological materials (UVCB substances). Thus, it is recommended that companies seek to establish the identity of their substance as soon as possible.
The lead registrant has to prepare the substance identity profile (SIP), where this is clearly defined. The data should be as detailed as possible, but also generic enough to be accepted by all interested registrants in the Sief.
Furthermore, the unambiguous identification of a substance enables data sharing by potential registrants and data holders, and prevents the duplication of testing on animals and unnecessary costs.
Testing
All available data should be collected in the registration dossier, including on the substance, its intrinsic properties, on manufacturing and uses, and on the related emissions and exposures.
To fulfil the information requirements, the lead may use its own studies, ask for data from the Sief members, use that from literature, investigate read-across possibilities and study waiver justifications. If studies are requested from data holders outside the Sief for a similar substance, the lead registrant should identify the data owner of this study, determine intellectual property rights (IPRs) and obtain access to the data, where relevant. They should be aware that the negotiations with the data owner may take longer than expected.
If available data is limited and of a poor quality, the lead registrant will most likely need to allow time to generate new data at competent laboratories. The companies should plan their testing programmes early because laboratory capacity may run out the closer to the registration deadline.
If vertebrate studies are needed, it is advised to allow up to six-nine months to complete these tests, typically required for ten-100 tonne substances.
When planning the testing programme, try to prepare an intelligent strategy because it is not necessary to test every substance for every endpoint. Registrants may group substances based on certain properties, and then use a read-across approach within the group.
Iuclid 6
This summer, version six of Iuclid will be released. It will have many improvements, including a streamlined structure in all sections. It also follows the OECD harmonised templates more closely. The 2016 release is linked to a wider update of Echa’s IT tools with new versions of REACH-IT and Chesar. When the new version of REACH-IT is available, all dossiers submitted to the agency will have to be created in the Iuclid 6 format. So registrants need to prepare their organisation’s IT for these changes and familiarise themselves with these new updated programmes.
Preparation
A chemical safety report (CSR) must be prepared if a ten-100 tonnes dossier is submitted, either by the lead or by each co-registrant that needs it. Furthermore, if the substance is hazardous, an exposure assessment has to be conducted. The most challenging part of the CSR is section nine (exposure assessment) and section ten (risk characterisation). Lead registrants have found the preparation of the CSR a time-consuming challenge to date, and many were rushed to meet previous deadlines. As a result of the low quality, they will need to be updated in good time to comply with all relevant requirements.
After dossier submission, the lead should inform co-registrants of LoA availability and the costs entailed. The new data sharing Regulation will pose challenges to the lead registrant in calculating LoA costs as they will have an obligation to provide (potential) co-registrants with a breakdown on request.Keeping up to date
The lead has a legal obligation to update the submitted dossier, when new information on hazards or uses becomes available. Echa may examine any registration to verify if the information given by registrants is compliant with the legal requirements. Thus, it is recommended to take a proactive approach and not to wait for potential compliance checks by the agency.
Take-away messages
If there is no lead registrant for a substance critical to your business, consider taking up that role yourself. You may also think about commissioning a consultant to conduct the work for you. In the long term, it might be more cost-effective to outsource, at least some of the work, to ensure that it is done correctly. But, if you decide to take the lead role, you need to try to anticipate the work expected, based on the steps of the registration process and agree on how to organise cooperation within the Sief.
2018 lead registrants must be aware that the lead registration dossier needs to be submitted at least two months before the last REACH registration deadline (31 May 2018), to give member registrants ample time to submit their own co-registrant dossiers.
Joint submission is mandatory for all registrants of the same substance. This means that, since the release of the updated REACH-IT system last month, individual registrations – those registrations not part of a joint submission – cannot be submitted.
If your company is affected by the 2018 REACH deadline, make sure that you have or acquire adequate resources because the last registration deadline is only two years away.
https://chemicalwatch.com/48770/reach-2018-challenges-for-lead-registrants
-
Regulating Nanomaterials – EU Shifting the Burden
Jul 22, 2016 | Chemical Watch - Briefing
By David Azoulay
The current state of EU governance and regulatory oversight for the development, production, marketing, use and disposal of nanomaterials is marked by severe deficiencies. After more than ten years of discussions, two regulatory reviews, the adoption of nano-specific provisions in EU legislation and several guidance documents, nanomaterials are still coming onto the EU market without being properly assessed, labelled and identified.
And there are no specific disposal plans that would reduce possible impacts on human health and the environment. It is high time therefore to question the reasons that led to this situation and to identify the hold ups.
A scattered legal framework
In looking at the legal framework applicable to nanomaterials, we must distinguish between the pieces of legislation with nano-specific provisions and those that are supposed to support their regulatory oversight without these.
For the past seven years, the EU has revised a number of sectoral regulations and included similar nano-specific provisions in each of them. These include the cosmetic products Regulation, biocidal products Regulation, and the regulatory framework for food, including the novel food Regulation and the Regulation on food information to consumers.
All provide a legal definition of nanomaterials, which varies from one regulation to another, a form of declaration or prior authorisation for their marketing and a labelling requirement for products containing them. Unfortunately, none of these regulations are adequately implemented to date.
Under the cosmetic products Regulation, for example, the Commission is required to make available to the public a catalogue of nanomaterials used in the products and annually update the EU Parliament on this. However, due to inconsistent industry notifications, the Commission has declared that the publication of a catalogue is impossible.
In response to numerous requests from the European Parliament and civil society, it continues to delay implementation and to reject enforcement measures that would ensure manufacturers provide adequate information.
In the food arena, industry is resisting implementing the labelling obligation, and enforcement measures are, so far, similarly nonexistent. In April, the French organisation Agir pour l’Environnement tested four processed food products available on the French market.
All four contained nanoparticles, and none appropriately labelled despite a legal obligation dating back to 2011, and in force since December 2014. A survey of over 100 food products, likely to contain similar nanomaterials, showed that none of these were labelled either.
Both these examples demonstrate an obvious resistance to implementation by the relevant industrial actors and a serious lack of political will to enforce these legal obligations by the authorities.
Further to these sectoral regulations, a large portion of the EU regulatory framework theoretically applies to nanomaterials without specific provisions. The most emblematic of these legislative pieces is REACH, but the same applies to the Regulation on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP), the water framework Directive, and many more.
Experience, over the past several years, shows that these regulations are mostly useless when it comes to providing adequate governance and oversight of nanomaterials at any stage of their lifecycle.
One reason for this situation is that the implementation of the majority of existing provisions, from secondary legislation, relies on information and data that is currently unavailable.
In that respect, REACH deserves to be analysed separately. Because the adoption of specific nano provisions for REACH has been under discussion for several years now, and it is designed as both a data collecting tool and a risk management mechanism.
REACH plays a specific role in triggering the measures from secondary legislation. Although directives, such as the water framework Directive and waste legislation, provide governance measures that could be useful in protecting European health and environment from the negative impacts of nanomaterials, these are usually triggered by a classification under CLP. However, the latter is based on existing information, which REACH is supposed to deliver, but doesn’t.
The challenge of collecting relevant information
In order to adopt and implement adequate risk reduction and management measures, it is necessary to have information about the hazards of the various nanomaterials on the market, as well as credible exposure scenarios, derived in part from information about their presence and nature.
Since early discussions on the subject in 2008, REACH has been presented as the key to collecting this information. The past few years have demonstrated that this assumption is erroneous, which has lead to the development of national initiatives to, at least, collect information about the presence and nature of nanomaterials already on the market.
In 2008, after the publication of a report commissioned by DG Environment, calling for more transparency on the substances, the Commission refused to develop a new information collection tool, arguing that the first REACH registration deadline, in 2009, would provide all the information needed.
When the deadline passed and no relevant information was collected, the Commission argued that this was the result of a lack of guidance material. It then invited all stakeholders to work on developing such a document so that the information would be made available by the following registration deadline in 2012. When the deadline did not see real improvement on the information on nanomaterials on the market available through REACH, despite the adoption of several guidance documents, the Commission then said that this was the result of a lack of legally binding requirements.
In spite of calls by civil society and member state alike to either develop an ad-hoc piece of legislation or update the core text of REACH to collect this information, the Commission argued that the only timely way to get adequate measures in place for the final 2018 REACH registration deadline was to focus on updating the REACH annexes.
So, again, stakeholders dedicated significant resources to developing adequate annexes. However, these efforts were thwarted when the Commission deliberately delayed the outcome of this work. In March of this year, after two years of silence on the subject, it announced that the revised annexes would not be adopted early enough to be in force for the 2018 registration deadline, prompting widespread outrage among all stakeholders and rekindling ideas to develop a stand-alone nano-patch regulation for the EU regulatory framework.
Faced with Commission obtrusion, and strong resistance from the registrants of substances to voluntarily provide information on registered nanomaterials, Echa decided to use article 46.1 of REACH to request additional information from registrants. However, despite regular declarations of good will and intentions to build trust, registrants have systematically appealed every request for additional information before the Echa Board of Appeal, further delaying transparency and the possibility of carrying out an adequate risk assessment.
Discouraged by the EU Commission’s efforts to maintain the status quo and to block the adaptation of the regulatory framework, a number of member states developed their own national schemes to, at least, collect information about the nature and presence of nanomaterials on the market. This prompted another debate on whether the EU should adopt an information collecting tool (generally referred to as an EU-wide nanomaterial register).
After over two years of circular discussions, a costly impact assessment and a very technical public consultation, the Commission announced its decision not to develop an EU register, citing the need to avoid compliance costs for the industry. Instead, it chose to spend approximately two million euros to task Echa with developing a “nano observatory” which will merely re-package existing information about nanomaterials on the market.
This last decision to create a “nano observatory” raises serious concerns about the process guiding governance decisions on nanomaterials and the choices made by the Commission. Over the last three years, massive public resources were used to effectively block the evolution of the regulatory framework through a series of impacts assessments, public consultations and meetings to support the industry.
In the end, the Commission decided to disregard its own impact assessment. It proposed an option that had not been assessed by this, and did not wait for the Regulatory Scrutiny Board to validate the process.
Refusing to impose any costs on industry for the collection and provision of information on nanomaterials, it has decided to shift financial costs and the burden of health and environmental risks onto society and consumers instead.
This article was co-authored by Doreen Fedrigo-Fazio, senior policy officer at the European Environmental Citizens Organisation for Standardisation (Ecos).
https://chemicalwatch.com/48773/regulating-nanomaterials-eu-shifting-the-burden
-
Technology Offers Hope for End of Animal Testing
Jul 22, 2016 | Medical Xpress
By Patricia Torres
Hoping to make the lab rat a thing of the past, scientists at Lawrence Livermore Lab are testing technology that replicates vital human tissues on microchips.
Animal rights advocates are encouraged that the technology may one day end experiments on mice, rats, snakes and other animals used to test products and develop drugs in laboratories around the world.
The "Human on a Chip" program shifts the experiments from living animals to the lab by replicating cells of human organs and tissues, exposing them to chemicals and using electrical signals to measure the response.
While labs and university researchers in other parts of the United States are using similar technology to test different organs of the body, scientists at Lawrence Livermore are focusing on four vital body functions: the central nervous system, peripheral nervous system, blood-brain barrier and heart.
The chips allow scientists, for example, to measure how certain body parts react to caffeine, heart medicine or other more dangerous toxins. In one early experiment, scientists applied capsaicin, the chemical that makes peppers hot, to cells of the peripheral nervous system and were able to measure a response.
The cells can survive and function on chips for several weeks in some cases, so many different kinds of experiments can be done to measure how exposure to drugs or chemicals affects cells and to evaluate cell recovery, with no human or animal test subjects necessary.
Lawrence Livermore gets its human tissues from AnaBios Corp., a San Diego company. The tissues are derived from organ donors, and unlike tissues grown from stem cells, these are mature and can provide a more reliable response to stimuli.
Still under testing and far from being widely used, the process also has the ability to speed up development of medical countermeasures to toxins and provide more accurate data than animal testing does.
"Animal testing can be more complicated and costly, whereas these chips can be much more reliable," said Kris Kulp, a lab scientist who is part of the project.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 9 out of 10 drugs that pass animal tests fail in humans because they don't work or are dangerous. With this acknowledgment, various agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency and National Institutes of Health, have made efforts to reduce the use of animal testing.
Last month, President Barack Obama signed an updated Toxic Substances Control Act, originally approved in 1976, that includes a provision calling for restrictions on animal testing.
"We are familiar with this new direction that science is taking, and we're very excited about the possibility that it can replace animals in chemical testing, drug development and other areas," said Kathy Guillermo, vice president of laboratory investigations for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Joyce Tischler, general counsel for Animal Legal Defense Fund, said her group is excited about alternatives to animal testing.
"This also means that the science, environmental and animal welfare communities are all on the same page, which is to protect human life from chemicals and diseases," Tischler said. "We would just like to see it without the use of live animals."
More than 100 million animals are killed in experiments each year in the United States, according to the Laboratory Animal Resource Center at the University of California, San Francisco.
Lawrence Livermore Lab is spending nearly $2 million a year on the project, called iCHIP (in-vitro Chip-based Human Investigational Platform), which is now in its third year, said Elizabeth Wheeler, principal investigator.
The bulk of the chemicals used at Lawrence Livermore come from the Forensics Science Center, one of two U.S. labs certified for identifying chemical warfare agents. The U.S. Army in 2013 used the "Human on a Chip" technology to test chemicals used in warfare.
Wheeler said her group has no plans, nor is it legally allowed, to experiment with warfare agents.
She said the long-term goal is to collaborate with other research centers studying the technology on other parts of the body.
"We hope to integrate them all together and re-create the human body and the reactions it has to link multiple chips to capture interactions between different organs," Wheeler said.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-07-technology-animal.html
-
Obama Administration Closes Offshore Drilling Sale to Public
Jul 22, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The Obama administration is banning environmental activist protesters from an offshore drilling lease sale next month.
The auction, scheduled for Aug. 24 in New Orleans, will be webcast, and the public will not be allowed in the venue, a change from the tradition of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and its predecessors.
The decision came after a boisterous lease sale in March, in which hundreds of protesters at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome yelled over announcements, stormed the stage and tried unsuccessfully to shut down the event, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.
The activists were part of the “keep it in the ground” movement, a campaign that’s taken off in the last year and seeks to stop the federal government from allowing additional fossil fuel development on public lands and offshore.
The protests have taken the federal government by surprise; the sale events have previously been low-key with few public observers or protesters.
It spurred efforts both in the Obama administration and Congress to move sales online in some way. The House Natural Resources Committee approved a bill this month to require BOEM to move to a completely internet-based lease system within a year, inspired largely by the disruptive protests.
Environmentalists have pushed back against the efforts and accused the administration and oil and gas industry of trying to hide the sales from public scrutiny.
“New fossil fuel leasing is wrong for people and the planet. Moving lease sales online will only make it easier for fossil fuel companies to get away with turning our public lands and waters into energy sacrifice zones,” Marissa Knodel, the climate change campaigner with Friends of the Earth, said last week of the House bill.
Bids are not submitted or accepted at the auction events. Instead, companies wishing to bid on offshore parcels submit bids in sealed envelopes, and federal officials announce the bids and winners at the event itself.
The BOEM sought to highlight the efficiency benefits of holding the sale online.
“Making government data immediately available is a valuable resource for taxpayers, both in terms of dollars and cents but also in efficiency,” BOEM Director Abigail Ross Hopper said in a statement. “Through the use of technology we can deliver our lease sale information in a much more effective and accessible way to a much wider audience.”
At the sale next month, all drilling parcels in the western Gulf of Mexico, off the shore of Texas, will be available for lease, amounting to 23.8 million acres. The administration estimates that up to 200 million barrels of economically recoverable oil and 938 billion cubic feet of natural gas are available in the parcels for sale.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/288865-obama-admin-closes-offshore-drilling-sale-to-public
-
Your Clinton Veepstakes Prize Could Arrive Today
Jul 22, 2016 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
AND THE RUNNING MATE IS...: Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton may unveil the name of her running mate today, or by tomorrow at the latest. And just to make sure everyone's ready, here's a rundown on the energy and environment backgrounds of the rumored candidates. And to be clear, ME has no particular insight on who will be the eventual pick.
Sen. Tim Kaine: The Virginia senator has been top-of-the-list in the Veepstakes for weeks now, maybe months. Kaine is a genuine Democratic centrist, having opposed the Keystone XL pipeline and supported making Virginia communities more sustainable, but also working on legislation that would fast-track natural gas export facilities and backing new drilling along the Atlantic coast. Environmentalists see some things to like in that record, while the fossil fuel industry sees a man they can work with.
Sen. Cory Booker: The former Mayor of Newark brings to the table strong environmental bona fides, including an anti-fracking position that will cheer the hearts of environmentalists concerned that Clinton would never issue a call to ban the practice. In the Senate, Booker helped push through a reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act and he is an active member of a climate change task force that holds regular calls to strategize on the issue.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack: The former Iowa governor would provide Clinton with an ambassador to Midwestern states and rural voters who are often skeptical of both Clinton and President Barack Obama. Vilsack played key advisory roles in EPA's Waters of the U.S. rule, which incensed farm country, and on the Renewable Fuel Standard, which is a huge issue in his home state. He's also amped up the Agriculture Department's climate change research program, injecting $656 million into the program since 2009.
Labor Secretary Tom Perez: Perez doesn't have a deep history on environmental issues, but his work as Labor Secretary suggests sympathy for the victims of the pollutants environmentalists worry about. He brought over the finish line a four-decade effort to regulate silica dust, a major health issue for fracking workers who use crystalline silica, and last year he tried to nudge pension funds into investing in green industries.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Progressive darling Warren burnished her environmental credentials on Wednesday when she lashed out against House Republicans for subpoenaing her state's attorney general. "For the @GOP, states' rights only apply for restricting voting rights or regulating women's bodies," Warren tweeted. "Not investigating climate change fraud."
Gov. John Hickenlooper: Selecting Colo. Gov. John Hickenlooper wouldn’t sit well with the environmental movement. Hickenlooper’s not a supporter of the "Keep it in the ground" movement, and he's a defender of fracking, a major industry in his state, even as he’s backed the state’s effort to get 30 percent of its power from renewables.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2016/07/your-clinton-veepstakes-prize-could-arrive-today-215483
-
Commentary: Shale Revolution Fulfills Promise on Jobs, Energy, Environment
Jul 22, 2016 | Philadelphia Inquirer
By David Spigelmyer
While the daily headlines and nonstop, 24-hour news cycles focus overwhelmingly on issues that often divide the nation, it can be easy to lose sight of where common ground exists and what shared commitments bring us together.
And there's more that unites us - business and labor as well as Republicans, Democrats, and independents - than divides us. While division might drive TV ratings and social-media clicks, it's no secret that all Americans support a stronger economy with low unemployment; a thriving manufacturing sector that creates middle-class jobs for families; and a healthier, cleaner environment for our kids and grandkids.
America's shale revolution is making once-unthinkable progress on the nation's shared energy, environment, economic, and security objectives. And as President Obama has said, "we need to encourage" domestic natural-gas development and its broad benefits.
Advancing commonsense policies that view our clean-burning natural-gas resources as significant assets rather than a liability will allow our nation to continue to lead the world in air-quality improvements, all while creating hundreds of thousands of well-paying middle-class jobs, many of them in the building and union trades as well as across the manufacturing sector.
But don't take it from me. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking to America's position as the world's largest oil and natural-gas producer, has emphasized that the shale revolution holds "enormous" promise in jump-starting American manufacturing once again.
She's absolutely right. Thanks to shale, American manufacturers have gained the competitive edge in an increasingly global marketplace and are expanding, adding more shifts, and hiring more workers to produce "Made in America" goods once again. In fact, shale development will drive the creation of 930,000 domestic manufacturing jobs by 2030 and 1.41 million by 2040. And these natural-gas-driven American manufacturing jobs, as the president has stated, are "the quintessential middle-class job."
Look no further than the Marcus Hook complex here in Southeastern Pennsylvania for a key example of manufacturing's comeback. Marcus Hook has been transformed from a shuttered plant into a bustling petrochemical refining, storage, and export facility that supports thousands of local jobs. This economic progress does not occur without the development of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale.
But we need more pipelines to move our abundant natural-gas resources to market so that we fully capitalize on the nation's newfound manufacturing potential. These critical projects are "a lifeline to family-supporting jobs," as the Laborers International Union of North America's Dennis Martire has said.
And just as Americans want more jobs and a stronger economy, they also want clean air and a healthy environment. With natural gas, we can have both. It presents a false choice to suggest otherwise.
For the first time since the industrial revolution, and as a result of greater natural-gas use, carbon emissions have begun to decouple from economic growth, meaning that America's economy can expand without increasing carbon emissions, the New York Times reported in April. This significant progress came on the heels of federal data confirming that America leads the world in carbon-emission reductions, thanks in large part to the greater use of clean-burning, domestically produced natural gas.
No single policy or party platform can address all of America's complex energy and environmental challenges and needs. But given the broad economic, environmental, and national-security benefits of natural gas, it would be a mistake for the next president not to ensure that policies encourage - rather than discourage - the safe development of clean-burning natural gas, which supports hundreds of thousands of American jobs and is perhaps the single most effective tool to enhance our air quality.
David Spigelmyer is president of the Pittsburgh-based Marcellus Shale Coalition.
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20160722_Commentary__Shale_revolution_fulfills_promise_on_jobs__energy__environment.html
-
Pennsylvania Bill to Roll Back Some of DEP's New Oil/Gas Regs Fails
Jul 22, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
A Pennsylvania Senate bill that would have rolled back certain provisions of a wide-ranging regulatory package for shale drillers that’s set to take effect soon lost steam last week and failed before the legislature recessed for the summer.
SB 1229, which passed by a vote of 41-7 in the chamber, would have allowed shale producers 24 months -- instead of nine as the new regulations call for -- to restore a well site (see Shale Daily, July 12). It also would have prevented producers from filing waste disposal reports monthly under the new package and would have stopped the state Department of Environmental Protection from establishing new standards for freshwater storage used for oil and gas production.
While the measure enjoyed support in the Republican-controlled Senate, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf threatened to veto it, and the House of Representatives didn't vote on it. The bill was one of many energy-related items that failed before the summer recess or that were not included in the state's $31.5 billion budget, which was signed by the governor last week.
Wolf signed the 2016-2017 budget after letting part of the 2015-2016 budget pass without his signature at the end of a nine-month impasse that ended in March (see Shale Daily, March 23). Noticeably absent from the state's latest spending bill and the revenue package to pay for it was Wolf's 6.5% natural gas severance tax proposal, which faded from negotiations early in the process (see Shale Daily, July 5;Feb. 9). Wolf was also unsuccessful in getting a 3.5% severance tax and a volumetric fee passed along with the $30.5 billion 2015-2016 budget (see Shale Daily, Oct. 7, 2015).
Lawmakers also went back and forth on a gross receipts tax on natural gas customers, but that proposal ultimately failed. Instead, Wolf signed a $1.3 billion revenue package that relies heavily on a $1-per-pack hike on cigarettes -- in addition to other measures such as changes to gambling and wine sales -- to help plug the state's deficit.
The new regulations for unconventional oil and gas drilling -- designed to reduce impacts on public resources, such as schools and parks, help prevent spills, strengthen waste management and require stronger well site restoration standards -- finally passed the General Assembly last month after a lengthy bureaucratic and legislative process that ended with a compromise to scrap similar rules for legacy producers (see Shale Daily, June 15).
The fiscal code bill that serves as a spending blueprint for the state budget also took $12 million from a program to help fund the construction of energy efficient buildings for grants to businesses, municipalities and hospitals, among others, that switch to natural gas.
The fiscal code also amended a 1961 law to eradicate a provision that required shale drillers to adhere to additional permitting requirements and pay a $5,000 fee for conservation wells below the Marcellus Shale. Some producers had been forced to meet those requirements for skimming the Onondaga formation below the Marcellus during development of the shale. While it hasn't been common, the amendment had been introduced as its own bill before it was included in the fiscal code.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/107157-pennsylvania-bill-to-roll-back-some-of-deps-new-oilgas-regs-fails
-
EnergyWire's Sobczak Discusses Investigation of Ukraine Attack, U.S. Grid Security
Jul 22, 2016 | E&E TV
Following Ukraine's unprecedented cyberattack in December,EnergyWire launched an investigation into the attack and the security gaps that exist across the U.S. power grid. On today's The Cutting Edge, EnergyWire reporter Blake Sobczak gives background on the Ukraine attack and discusses the vulnerabilities it exposed in the United States' own grid security.
Monica Trauzzi: Welcome to The Cutting Edge. Following Ukraine's unprecedented cyberattack in December, EnergyWire launched an investigation into the attack as well as security gaps across the U.S. power grid, and joining me today is EnergyWire reporter Blake Sobczak to talk about this investigative series. Blake, thank you for coming on the show.
Blake Sobczak: Thanks for having me.
Monica Trauzzi: Blake, this four-part series that you've reported on with our colleague Pete Behr is quite eye-opening. Let's backtrack to December when the attack on Ukraine's grid occurred. What do we know now about the days leading up to that attack?
Blake Sobczak: So the day before the attack on December 22nd, both Ukraine and Russia were actually celebrating their Energy Day, which was a chance to celebrate the work of the line workers and the utility employees who keep the lights on in these countries.
It was interesting because Russia's President Vladimir Putin singled out the work being done in Crimea, which if you turn the clock back a few years in 2014, Russia annexed. It's a move that hasn't been recognized by international parties, including the United States, and it's launched Ukraine and Russia into this war that's played out both in Crimea and in the eastern stretches of the country.
Now Ukraine has been accused of cutting power to parts of Crimea in the months leading up to this attack. So many experts see it as a way for Russia to signal to Ukraine that they're not going to put up with that anymore and that they'll show Western Ukraine that they can hit their power supplies.
Monica Trauzzi: The U.S. government is concerned about what the attack means for the U.S.'s grid security. What are the biggest security gaps that you've uncovered?
Blake Sobczak: So even though this played out across the Atlantic in Ukraine, the U.S. is looking at this and seeing this as the first time that remote hackers have taken down a power grid and parts of utilities' distribution networks. So that's led to some questions about how well U.S. utilities are prepared for this.
The answer to that is generally they're working hard to secure their networks to keep them isolated from the internet, but a lot more remains to be done. There are some gaps particularly for smaller utilities. We're now in an era where nation-states such as Russia, China, even the U.S. and other parts of the world are squaring off against small private companies and trying to infiltrate their networks and even cause physical damage as we saw in Ukraine.
So the question you have to ask yourself is if you're a small utility district somewhere in Kansas or somewhere in New York, not to pick on any one state, how well are you going to square up against some of the best hackers in the world that might have state backing.
Monica Trauzzi: So what's the Department of Homeland Security doing?
Blake Sobczak: So the Department of Homeland Security's primary role is that of messenger. They obviously have access to classified information from U.S. intelligence agencies. They can use that and distribute it to utilities or to private entities so that they can know which threats they have to counter and they have to prioritize.
Now in this particular case, the Department of Homeland Security was slow to the game. They didn't actually mention the specifics of the Ukraine attack for two months after it occurred. So it's drawn some criticism of the way that the Department of Homeland Security gets this classified, really important, sometimes technical information out of the government and into the hands who need it most, namely the private utilities and some of these state authorities.
Monica Trauzzi: So this sounds like such a sticky world to navigate. How are utilities responding? Are they prepared? Do they have access to the tools that they need in order to prepare properly?
Blake Sobczak: I think the utility industry as a whole has taken a practice-makes-perfect approach to cybersecurity. They've done a lot of huge exercises recently. Last year there was the GridEx exercise which drew together all the various federal agencies and state authorities with a hand and grid security to rehearse, OK, what would happen if the worst really did occur and if hackers went after the U.S. grid in a big way? That was combined with physical attacks and all sorts of terrible scenarios.
Now utilities can also shore up their networks from a technical standpoint. That was something that maybe took a little bit of time to do after the specific tactics and techniques from the Ukraine case made their way out to the utilities who needed them. So I think that's where some of the pointed criticism of DHS's role, the Department of Homeland Security's role, came in because the utilities who needed these technical indicators weren't necessarily getting them because they were classified as either secret or not yet ready to be distributed.
Monica Trauzzi: Talk a bit about the challenges that you and Pete encountered in reporting for this series.
Blake Sobczak: So whenever you're dealing with something like this which has international implications, obviously the U.S. and Russia aren't on the best of terms these days. There's an ongoing war with Ukraine and Russia. There are a lot of sensitivities and I think there's a lot of desire for secrecy on both sides of the Atlantic here.
The Ukrainians that we spoke to, some of them weren't really keen on rehashing this event that doesn't always cast their country in the best light. It really highlights some of the vulnerabilities that Ukraine's old, Soviet-era grid still has. That the hackers were able to disable it. So I think there was some reticence there.
Meanwhile on the U.S. side, you have U.S. agencies who want to protect this information in case that it gets into the wrong hands. So I think there's sometimes a desire to hold back potentially important information from the public or from utilities out of this fear that somehow the bad guys could use it to cause trouble on the U.S. grid. That's a balance that the U.S. government has to strike.
Of course there's also the worry that revealing too much about the sources or methods used to obtain certain information about an event like this grid attack could divulge some sort of U.S. government secrets that they'd rather not have out in the open.
Monica Trauzzi: This is a fantastic series and wonderful reporting by you and Pete. Thanks for coming on the show.
Blake Sobczak: Thank you very much.
Monica Trauzzi: More Cutting Edge coming next Friday. We'll see you then.
http://www.eenews.net/tv/videos/2153/transcript
-
To Secure Grid Supply Chain, FERC Aims for 'Lightning Speed'
Jul 22, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
In an effort to stay nimble in the face of a fast-moving cyberthreat, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has followed through on what Commissioner Cheryl LaFleur once called a "thankless task."
Yesterday, the agency directed the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) to come up with a way to ensure that devices installed in the bulk electric system don't come hard-wired with any nasty surprises planted by hackers.
Under the terms of yesterday's order, NERC, the federally appointed grid overseer, will have one year to churn out the new set of complex and wide-reaching cybersecurity regulations.
"Developing and implementing a standard in such a short time frame may be premature," said Nadya Bartol, a vice president and cybersecurity strategist at the Utilities Technology Council, which promotes utility telecommunications interests. "I don't envy the drafting team."
FERC has listed four main objectives for the security controls: preserving software authenticity, locking down vendors' remote access to far-flung grid components, improving utilities' cyber awareness while planning their information systems, and somehow tightening security practices at the vendors and computer chip manufacturers that ultimately feed equipment into the bulk power grid.
"You buy a piece of equipment from a major vendor, and you may feel like, 'Oh, it's a major vendor; we can trust them' -- well, guess where they're getting all their chips?" said Tom Alrich, manager for enterprise risk services for Deloitte Advisory in Chicago. "People are deathly afraid that there are back doors in firmware."
While Alrich said that "everyone agrees [supply chain security] is a big issue," he added that FERC is pursuing the matter at "lightning speed."
Whether the rules NERC comes up with can pass muster with FERC on the first go or are pingponged back and forth for months or even years remains to be seen. Under their respective authorities for securing the bulk power grid, FERC can order NERC to come up with rules, then accept or reject proposals from the organization, but cannot step in to tweak specific regulatory language without sending it back to the drawing board.
The risk of moving quickly, only to cause the issue to be delayed further in a year, in part brought LaFleur to oppose passing yesterday's rule.
"I believe that the commission is essentially giving the standards development team a homework assignment without adequately explaining what it expects them to hand in," she said (Greenwire, July 21).
FERC commissioners tried to make sense of supply chain cybersecurity at a technical conference earlier this year, where multiple grid experts warned against diving headlong into the thorny issue with new regulations (EnergyWire, Jan. 29).
"It seemed from the commissioners' comments that they weren't too gung-ho about having standards, either," Alrich said, "and then all of a sudden, bam, this comes out."
NERC said in a statement that, alongside industry, it has "made security a priority and will continue the work toward assuring the reliability of the North American bulk power system." There was no mention of the tight deadline.
In a sign of potential conflict to come, the National Electrical Manufacturers Association, which represents major producers of grid components as well as medical device firms, urged NERC and FERC to be transparent "so that a single product sector or industry is not subjected to multiple and cumulative regulations."
Bartol backed up the notion that NERC would have to tread lightly, given that it has no direct authority over big manufacturers such as Siemens AG or Schneider Electric SE. "It's going to be interesting and challenging, developing something high-level that allows [utilities] to do what they need to do, while not being able to influence what the supplier does," she said.
The experts contacted by EnergyWire cautioned that they had not had time to review the full text of FERC's 72-page rule in detail.
But it's already clear that FERC has moved faster than many had expected.
"What FERC's concerned about, and rightly so, is that if they don't move quickly, the conversation will go for so long it will effectively die on the vine," said Patrick Miller, a managing partner at Archer Security Group, who added that tackling supply chain security issues "makes very good sense."
Miller said he had not expected to see a final rule emerge by now, given pushback from the electricity industry. "I think it goes to show that FERC can move quickly when they want to," he said.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/07/22/stories/1060040653
-
No Health Effects from Chemicals from West Virginia Spill
Jul 22, 2016 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The January 2014 chemical spill in West Virginiathat resulted in a large quantity of (4-methylcyclohexyl) methanol (MCHM) and stripped polyglycol ethers (PPH) contaminating local water supplies is unlikely to have harmed residents. That is the conclusion of a final reportfrom the US National Toxicology Program (NTP), released earlier this month.
‘Most of the spilled chemicals had no effect in the studies that were performed,’ the NTP found. In tests the chemicals were only linked with harmful effects when they occurred at levels considerably higher than either the drinking water screening levels for MCHM and PPH recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) or the estimated levels found in contaminated drinking water. Negative health effects were not seen at or below the 1 part per million that the CDC recommended as a drinking water screening level for MCHM.
However, the NTP said rat prenatal developmental toxicity research does show that rat foetuses were lower weight due to MCHM exposure. This finding led the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources to analyse whether there had been any the prevalence of human children with low birth weights born during the period of the chemical spill in the nine affected counties. This recent investigation found no meaningful differences in birth weights as a result of the chemical spill.
A separate study by researchers at Colorado State University and Purdue University indicates that exposure to MCHM following the West Virginia chemical spill from a tank at a Freedom Industries’ storage site primarily came from showering and flushing out taps and toilets. The residents were advised to flush out their water systems which would have exposed them to air contaminated with these chemicals.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2016/07/no-health-effects-west-virginia-freedom-industries-chemicals-spill
-
(ACC Mentioned) State Seeks Fee on Dangerous Chemicals Crisscrossing California
Jul 22, 2016 | Sacramento Bee
By Tony Bizjak
Day and night, trains crisscross California pulling long strings of tanker cars carrying volatile gas, chemicals and crude oil.
These shipments have long played a key role in powering the state economy, providing materials for medical supplies, computers and fertilizers, as well as fuels for vehicle fleets. But they also pose the risk of catastrophic spills.
Jolted by a series of oil train explosions nationally, including one in Oregon last month, the state this summer has drawn up a list of what it says are the 25 most hazardous materials shipped on rail in California. It plans to impose a new $45 fee later this year on every rail car carrying one of those materials. The money will be used to ramp up the state’s emergency spill and fire response capabilities.
The state Legislature ordered the fee program after a Governor’s Office of Emergency Services analysis that found significant gaps in California’s ability to deal with spills, especially in rural and remote areas.
The fee plan is disputed by the state’s major railroad companies who say they think it’s illegal.
The top 25 list includes materials that are dangerous to humans either by direct contact or because they are highly flammable. They include ammonia, chlorine, propane, butane, fertilizers, acids, petroleum gases and oils.
“When one of these trains derails, it puts lives, property and the economy at risk,” said State Fire and Rescue Chief Kim Zagaris. “And right now, we don’t have surge capacity to deal with a major spill.”
Because of the secrecy shrouding shipments of hazardous materials, it’s hard to know how big a risk they pose. State safety officials and private shippers refuse to disclose the amount, frequency, routes or timing of hazardous material shipments, citing federal safety regulations and state health and safety law restrictions, as well as concerns about terrorist or other criminal acts.
Even local fire departments typically don’t know in detail what materials are coming through, although they can get some after-the-fact information about hazardous materials that have traveled through their areas, if they request it.
Hazardous materials in train tanker cars can be identified, however, at least generically, by the identification numbers on diamond-shaped placards displayed on the sides of cars.
Trains observed by The Sacramento Bee in recent weeks in downtown and midtown Sacramento carried numerous hazardous materials, including liquefied petroleum gas, sulfuric acid and liquids designated hazardous at temperatures above 212 degrees Fahrenheit. A few trains were carrying either cleaning fluid, weed killing fluid, diesel fuel or other flammable liquids. Others were listed as holding unspecified petroleum distillates or petroleum products.
Shippers also have acknowledged transporting Bakken crude oil and Canadian tar sand oil through Sacramento neighborhoods.
California’s planned $45 per-train-car fee will pay for the creation of 12 specially trained hazmat teams to be spread out geographically near “gap” areas where there is a lack of expertise and equipment to deal with major spills, state Office of Emergency Services officials said.
Most will be in the lower Central Valley, on the coast and in Southern California. One hazmat team will be located in Yuba City, not far from the Feather River Canyon, where trains carrying hazardous materials travel the steep mountainside above a river that provides drinking water to urban areas as well as water for Central Valley farms.
Many larger fire departments already have specially trained hazmat teams. There are four in the Sacramento area, one each stationed in Roseville, Natomas, Carmichael and south Sacramento.
Railroad companies contend the proposed fee is illegal under federal law, which prohibits states from putting any constraints on interstate commerce via rail. Under the state plan, the companies that own the hazardous materials must pay the fee, but railroad companies must collect the fee from them and convey it to the state.
The Union Pacific and BNSF – the two main hazardous materials shippers in California – sent letters to the state last month saying the fee interferes in the railroads’ business dealings with their shipper customers and demanding the state desist.
“These emergency regulations violate federal law; therefore, (California) must abandon the process of adoption,” UP assistant vice president Phillip Christensen wrote. “No state can regulate the rates or charges a railroad collects from its customers. This kind of ‘economic regulation’ is categorically prohibited” by federal interstate commerce law.
UP officials declined to be interviewed for the story. The company sent The Bee an email saying that safety is the railroad’s primary focus when transporting hazardous materials. The email did not say whether the railroad might sue the state to stop the fee.
The American Chemistry Council, which represents hazmat shippers, said its members are concerned that California’s actions could lead to dozens of states imposing rail fees, creating what chemistry council spokesman Scott Jensen calls a confusing “patchwork” of regulations without certainty about how the money would be spent, beyond creation of some hazmat teams.
Dow Chemical regulatory affairs official Dale Backlund said his company would like the state to meet more with the industry to talk about the best approach to conducting emergency response training. “Can we slow down the train and think through the implications of this?” he said.
Despite such complaints, state Office of Emergency Services officials say they plan to impose the fee later this year, although they expect to continue talking with the railroad companies and shippers about fine-tuning the fee program.
“It is law now,” Zagaris said. “We are following the law.”
The state plans to collect up to $10 million annually from hazardous materials shippers, to be placed in the Regional Railroad Accident Preparedness and Immediate Response Fund. The fund will be capped at $20 million.
Although hazardous materials also are shipped on highways, the fee is being applied only to rail shipments, mainly because the threat of a major spill incident is greater on rail, Zagaris said.
“It is a bigger item for us to deal with, takes a larger response, more surge capacity and it puts the public and environment at more risk,” he said. “That’s not to say, at some point, (the state) won’t come back and try to ID things transported on the road.”
Railroads and hazardous materials shippers argue that the risks of oil and hazmat spills are being overplayed by anti-oil advocates and some community leaders. Very few trains derail, they note, and most hazardous material spills are small. A crude oil train crash in a Canadian town three years ago, though, unleashed a firestorm that killed 47 people, some in their sleep.
A Bee review of the state’s rail spill database found that hundreds of hazardous material spills occur annually. The database represents an incomplete listing, based only on initial reports, not on post-response findings. But it does offer a glimpse at the many types of hazardous materials that run on local rails.
Most spills are small and many happen in railyards around the state, such as the Union Pacific yard in Roseville. There were about 50 reported spills in the Roseville yard in 2015. The largest local spill that year, as initially reported, was 300 gallons of diesel fuel that leaked due to an improperly closed locomotive fuel filter cap. Other small spills around the Roseville yard in 2015 involved butane, oil, liquid petroleum gas, anhydrous ammonia, picoline and sodium sulfide.
Larger spills, though rare, can be devastating to wildlife and rural economies. The most notorious modern rail-related toxic spill in California occurred 25 years ago when a train derailed and spilled 19,000 gallons of the pesticide metam sodium into the Sacramento River near Dunsmuir, killing aquatic life on a 40-mile stretch of the river for years. Rail safety improvements have since been made at a tight rail curve at that spill site.
In Sacramento, several dozen trains cross daily in downtown Sacramento on two main freight lines. A Bee review of trains on those tracks recently found that more than half of the trains included at least a few cars carrying hazardous materials.
One freight line is a north-south route that comes through the region between Yuba City and Stockton and passes through midtown Sacramento between 19th and 20th streets. The other is an east-west route that runs through Roseville and on a berm above downtown Sacramento, through the downtown railyard and through Davis, adjacent to downtown and the university campus.
Sacramento City Fire Department hazardous materials coordinator Jerry Apodaca said the Sacramento region, with four hazmat teams, is well positioned to deal with a potential spill. But he and other local fire officials say they remain on alert, not knowing on any given day what shipments are coming through or when.
“We don’t know what’s in those cars until we get there,” he said.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/transportation/article91112797.html
-
Republicans on Sidelines Talk Climate 'Solutions'
Jul 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Geof Koss and Hannah Hess
Is the Grand Old Party showing signs of life on climate change?
While the official platform approved at the Republican National Convention this week promises to end the Clean Power Plan and U.S. funding for international climate talks, while taking a pre-emptive swing at any carbon tax talk, there were also signals of a subtle yet distinct shift in tone on climate (Greenwire, July 19).
Curbing emissions was a recurring topic of discussion at multiple energy-themed events across Cleveland, where Jay Faison, the head of the ClearPath Foundation, publicly made the case he's made privately in face-to-face meetings with 65 GOP members of Congress this year: The party's positions on climate change are out of step with voter sentiment.
He appealed to fellow Republicans to set aside the divisive debate on climate science and focus instead on finding areas of common agreement on clean energy "solutions," citing polls that show the party's lack of a coherent policy for lowering emissions is becoming a dangerous political liability.
"We don't have to agree on the problem to agree on the solution," he said this week during an event sponsored byPolitico. "By talking about climate change, we get sucked down into a trench warfare situation that's been pretty unproductive for the last 10 or 15 years, when the solutions themselves, we virtually all agree on."
Those solutions echo familiar GOP themes, with an emphasis on technology, innovation and market-based forces, rather than "command and control" regulatory schemes. It's hardly a new argument; Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) last year expressed similar views in an op-ed (E&E Daily, July 30, 2015).
But in Cleveland there were signs of growing recognition among Republicans over the need to offer policy "solutions" beyond the usual statements questioning climate science and anti-EPA rhetoric that has emanated from the GOP for the duration of the Obama administration.
Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), a coal booster who is serving as an informal energy adviser to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, this week said he agrees with Faison that public opinion and the Republican Party are diverging on climate change.
"Regardless of where you feel on that spectrum, they do want solutions," he said. "Jay is exactly right. They want some solutions and if you're not dealing with solutions, you're hard-pressed to oppose certain solutions."
While Cramer noted that he believes a carbon tax is bad policy, he declined this week to completely rule out that emissions fees could play a future role in the context of a broader tax overhaul (Greenwire, July 21).
"I just think in the spirit of compromise and the realization that you do nothing without a majority of two chambers and the president, courts are going to make these determinations with the only people having input being the executive branch," Cramer said. "So that's why I say I want to have the discussion to save not just the planet, but to save the economy."
While opposition to carbon pricing remains solid in most corners of the GOP, there's also "broad agreement" among Republicans for environmental protection, said Karen Harbert, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for 21st Century Energy.
"As soon as you jump into the climate debate, everybody runs into their respective corners. And if we allow ourselves to stay in 'Are you a climate denier? Do you believe in the science? Do you not believe in the science?' nobody's going to get anywhere, including the environmental movement, because they're castigating very good people that have very good ideas," she told Greenwire. "Where I think we need to be going is 'we're going to talk about clean air and clean water, and how do we continue to improve our water, improve our air, improve our land, improve our environment?' And it does not mean the small toolbox that they are representing is only wind and solar."
She continued, "We're optimists, we believe in the technologies that have lowered our emissions to the lowest level in 20 years. We believe that we have more opportunity to advance more technologies, make our infrastructure more efficient, build better rather than the infrastructure of the '50s. There are things we can do that are pro-growth, very transparent, participate in the market. It does not have to be some big-government regulatory, top-down system. And lower emissions."
Market-driven solutions
Hot topics included "clean coal," a phrase in the GOP platform that drew fire from environmentalists; enhanced oil recovery; and other strategies to broaden the toolbox of carbon reduction technologies (E&E Daily, July 13).
Conservatives also talked about clean energy and carbon capture technologies -- without delving into the relationship between carbon dioxide and global warming.
Republicans who believe in climate science see positive momentum on the right.
Earlier this month, for instance, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) added his name to bipartisan legislation that would increase federal tax incentives for large carbon capture and storage projects and expand the number of projects that would qualify (Greenwire, July 15).
The Heritage Foundation will be working with ClearPath in September on a project related to nuclear regulation, according to Faison. Money is also flowing from Koch Industries Inc. and ClearPath to the Energy Innovation Reform Project, where Executive Director Samuel Thernstrom is studying enhanced oil recovery.
"The Kochs and I would agree on a lot more than we disagree with," Faison said.
One part of politics is convincing voters "that your solutions pass the smell test," said Jai Chabria, a former strategist for Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R).
"Most people believe that climate change is happening, and we have to accept those realities as a party. We can't be the party where nothing gets done," said Chabria, managing director of Mercury, a public affairs and consultancy shop.
At a panel on the closing day of the convention about the energy industry's role in building a better future, American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard touted market-driven approaches to reducing the impact of oil and natural gas extraction and refining on the environment.
"The United States now leads the world in a near 20-year low in our carbon emissions at the same time we are increasing our production and consumption of fossil fuels," Gerard said.
API's election advocacy arm, Vote4Energy, sponsored discussions about energy by Politicoand The Atlantic. The campaign was also prominently featured in The Washington Post's PostLive hub.
"Ten years, 20 years down the road, when most of us have moved onto other things, we'll look back at this time as the turning point of the energy discussion in the United States," Gerard predicted.
But there was also plenty of familiar rhetoric on EPA's regulatory agenda and the administration's emphasis on renewables and efficiency.
Marathon Petroleum Corp. President and CEO Gary Heminger railed against climate change advocates for ignoring the "trade-offs" of swapping fossil fuels for renewable sources like wind and solar. Heminger also took aim at EPA regulations, while emphasizing how much his company has cleaned up its act.
"We produce, process and use fossil fuels more cleanly and safely than ever before," Heminger said. "Our emissions are lower than ever, and we are the most prosperous nation in history."
Clean Power Plan
Republicans who are trying to persuade their colleagues to propose solutions on clean energy and climate change keep coming back to a carbon tax as the best alternative if EPA's Clean Power Plan overcomes court challenges.
Cramer this week called carbon capture utilization and storage a "noble goal."
Before lawmakers consider a carbon tax, the U.S. Chamber energy advocate Harbert urged them to consider the question, "What other things do we need to be considering so the solutions bring down the cost?"
If Trump wins the election, Cramer predicted the GOP presidential nominee would "stop the bleeding" by reversing Obama administration policies that he said are harmful to coal.
Then, Trump would look to bring closed production facilities back online, Cramer said, or foster new plants "that can be built based on new technologies that would in fact meet the clean standard."
His comments, during a discussion sponsored in part by API, irked Faison.
"I don't think calling coal 'clean' without explaining is a great political move, and I'm not sure I agree with that exactly," he said. Faison agrees rules and regulations are constraining sectors of the energy industry, but he says coal can only be part of the solution with innovation and technology to make it clean.
Faison also argues voters do not need to hear the words "climate change."
"People love the outdoors," Faison said, and they simply want to see Republicans show sensitivity to issues like melting snowpack and water supply.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/07/22/stories/1060040685
-
Enviros Sue 16 States over Ozone Cleanup Plans
Jul 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have failed to turn in full cleanup plans for meeting the 2008 ozone ambient air quality standards, environmentalists allege in a lawsuit filed yesterday that seeks to prod U.S. EPA to act.
The plans from California, Maryland and other states were legally due last July, according to thesuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and two other groups in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs are asking a judge to require EPA to formally issue "findings of failure to submit," a sanction that would start the clock on a process to require the states to eventually file complete plans or risk having federal regulators step in and do the job for them.
Other states named in the suit include Connecticut, Illinois, Maine and Pennsylvania; the court filing also lists the specific elements that are allegedly missing from each state implementation plan.
An EPA spokeswoman declined to comment this morning on pending litigation.
Ozone, a lung irritant that is the main ingredient in smog, is formed by the reaction of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in sunlight.
In 2008, EPA lowered its ozone standards from 80 parts per billion to 75 ppb. Although the agency last October further reduced the standards to 70 ppb, more than 90 million people still live in areas that have not yet met the 2008 benchmark, the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity said in a news release.
"The public has a right to rely on government following the law in order to properly protect public health," Joe Minott, executive director and chief counsel at the Philadelphia-based Clean Air Council, another plaintiff in the suit, said in the release. Also suing is the Center for Environmental Health in California.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/07/22/stories/1060040680
-
EPA Steps Up Use of Methane 'Cost' Metric Despite Growing Hill Opposition
Jul 22, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
Despite growing opposition on Capitol Hill, EPA is stepping up its use of its social cost of methane (SCM) metric for measuring the climate benefits of rules limiting the potent greenhouse gas, strengthening a precedent in cost-benefit reviews that could aid agencies as they craft rules that curb short-lived, but potent, GHG.
EPA used the tool to calculate the bulk of the benefits of its newly finalized methane standards for new and existing landfills, which it released July 15.
For its final new source performance standards (NSPS) for new landfills, EPA says the rule would have methane- and carbon dioxide-related benefits of $68.3 million in 2025, compared with an estimated $6 million in costs. A companion rule for existing landfills would have $444 million in climate-related benefits in 2025, compared with $54 million in costs.
In each rule, more than 95 percent of the quantified benefits are tied to the SCM, though EPA says it was unable to calculate health, visibility and vegetation benefits from reducing conventional pollutants in landfill gas.
Beyond the newly final landfill rules, EPA and the Transportation Department July 18 issued a joint report that uses the SCM -- as well as the related social cost of carbon (SCC) metric -- to quantify the climate benefits of GHG and fuel economy rules for light-duty vehicles.
Additionally, the agencies used the two metrics in their proposed phase 2 GHG standards for heavy-duty trucks, and they are expected to do so again when they issue the final truck standards, expected by the end of July.
The agency has also used the metric to quantify the benefits of its first-time methane rules for the oil and gas sector.
But the agency's use of the tool comes despite growing calls from Republicans in Congress to drop such efforts. For example, Rep. Evan Jenkins (R-WV) on July 7 introduced legislation, H.R. 5668, to prohibit EPA and the Department of Energy (DOE) from using the SCM and the related SCC that values the benefits from reducing CO2.
Also, the agency's oil and gas rules rejected calls from key senators to stop using the metric.
Both the SCM and the SCC seek to quantify the future cost to society from climate change-related damages tied to incremental increases in atmospheric emissions, though the SCM seeks to account for methane's higher global warming potential than CO2.
The SCM is based on a 2014 paper by an agency researcher, Alex Marten, and four co-authors. It was peer reviewed in early 2015. It uses an approach similar to the SCC, which was developed in 2010, and subsequently revised, by an inter-agency working group.
EPA cited the Marten paper to justify both the oil and gas rule, as well as the landfill rule. “Based on the evaluation of the public comments on this rulemaking, the favorable peer review of the Marten et al. application, and past comments urging the EPA to value non-CO2 GHG impacts in its rulemakings, the agency has concluded that the estimates represent the best scientific information on the impacts of climate change available in a form appropriate for incorporating the damages from incremental [methane] emissions changes into regulatory analysis,” the landfill rule says.
Capitol Hill Opposition
But critics, including Senate environment committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK), have charged that both values overstate rules' benefits, underestimate the costs and are not adequately peer reviewed.
Similarly, the recent bill from Jenkins says that continued use of the two metrics in cost-benefit reviews “ignores sound science in order to eliminate the exploration, mining, production, and use of our abundant domestic sources of fossil fuel energy.”
The bill would block DOE and EPA from using the two sets of values unless a new statute “explicitly authoriz[es] such consideration.”
It would also require DOE, EPA, the Interior Department and the White House Council on Environmental Quality to issue a report detailing the number of rules, guidance documents and other “agency actions” under the Obama administration that relied on the SCC and the SCM.
In a July 11 letter, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers says it “fully supports” Jenkins' bill, arguing the SCC is a “a misleading, political tool that suffers from a lack of appropriate peer review and fails to adhere to established federal rulemaking guidance in determining its value.”
Similarly, the oil and gas sector had strongly criticized the novel methane benefit estimates in the NSPS for that sector, arguing the values are “highly uncertain and likely overstated.”
North Dakota on July 18 filed a legal challenge over the oil and gas NSPS, and several other parties are expected to file similar suits ahead of an early August deadline to challenge the rule. It is unclear whether issues related to the SCM will be part of any litigation.
House lawmakers are also seeking to undermine EPA's use of the SCC metric. The House's fiscal year 2017 spending bill for EPA includes language requiring the agency to only account for domestic benefits, rather than the global benefits the values assume. It also requires the agency use a 7 percent discount rate to calculate present day values of future benefits, rather than the 3 percent and 5 percent rates the administration uses.
Either step -- considering only domestic climate damages, or using the 7 percent discount rate -- would dramatically reducing the quantified benefits of cutting emissions.
But the White House is threatening to veto the bill in part over the SCC rider. The measure “ignores the trans-boundary movement of carbon and climate impacts, fails to capture key costs of carbon emissions, and disrupts upcoming rules that would use the SCC to monetize carbon reduction benefits,” the White House said.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-steps-use-methane-cost-metric-despite-growing-hill-opposition
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
LCSA News
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News
Environment News
Add recipients
Suggested