Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 8/8/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) Outstanding Safety Performance Brings Miller Transporters Top Accolade as One of the Safest Tank Truck carriers
Aug 8, 2016 | Bulk Transporter
By Charles Wilson
MILLER Transporters Inc just picked up its second National Tank Truck Carriers Outstanding Safety Performance Trophy in nine years. It couldn’t have come at a better time. -
Deals Flourish in Sulfur Chemicals
Aug 8, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Michael McCoy
The normally quiet sulfur chemicals industry is seeing a flurry of merger and acquisition activity—and more may be in the offing. -
(ACC Blog) Is Your Mustard Jar Hiding a Chemical Secret?
Aug 8, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By Steve Hentges
From American hotdogs, to Bavarian pretzels, to Swiss sausages, and to Indian roasted fish, mustard is one of the most popular and widely used condiments in the world. But is this beloved condiment hiding a dark secret? -
Chemical Company Presses EPA To Drop Tert-Butanol Cancer Risk Analysis
Aug 8, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Chemical producer LyondellBasell is pressing EPA to drop from its pending draft assessment of the chemical tert-butanol (TBA) its proposed classification of the substance as showing "suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential" and its cancer risk estimate... -
State Legislators Wrestle with Changing Industry
Aug 8, 2016 | E&E Power Plays
By Emily Holden
State lawmakers at their annual summit here are tackling how to support evolving energy business models and prioritize different types of power based on affordability, reliability and environmental benefits. -
Trump Pledges ‘Energy Revolution’
Aug 8, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump promised Monday to bring about an “energy revolution” if he is elected president. -
EPA Nixes Industry, Enviro Bids to Revisit MATS Issues
Aug 8, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA has rejected administrative requests for reconsideration of an array of startup and shutdown issues in its regulations for power plant mercury emissions. -
Ending $4 Billion U.S. oil Subsidy Would Have Minor Impact, Report Says
Aug 8, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By Bloomberg
Eliminating $4 billion of petroleum subsidies in the U.S. would have only a minor effect on oil production and demand and boost the country’s influence in advocating global climate change action, according to a report for the Council on Foreign Relations. -
EAB UIC Permit Remand Could Set Strict Test for EPA Comment Response
Aug 8, 2016 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
EPA's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) has remanded to the agency an oil and gas drilling wastewater underground injection control (UIC) permit because EPA failed to properly respond to a citizen's comments on the permit, which could set a strict precedent... -
Artificial Intelligence Leads the Next Generation of Cyberdefense
Aug 8, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
After eight nonstop hours of network warfare, the hacker nicknamed Mechaphish couldn't close the lead built by her rivals, Xandra and Mayhem -
DuPont Refutes Claims of Reporting Violations at Louisiana Acid Plant
Aug 8, 2016 | SE Texas Record
By Carrie Salls
...In an appellate brief filed by DuPont on July 25, the company said Simoneaux’s argument fails to recognize that Section 8(e) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) contains a reporting obligation... -
Many Countries Will Need Help Adapting to Climate Change
Aug 8, 2016 | New York Times
By Editorial Board
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last week that global temperatures last year were the highest on record — and that this year is likely to be hotter still.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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Aug 8, 2016 | Bulk Transporter
By Charles Wilson
MILLER Transporters Inc just picked up its second National Tank Truck Carriers Outstanding Safety Performance Trophy in nine years. It couldn’t have come at a better time.
The Jackson, Mississippi-based chemical hauler recently began celebrating its 75th anniversary. Top management makes it clear that safe performance has been a priority throughout the company’s more than seven decades in business.
“We’re here to celebrate our 75th anniversary because of our safety culture,” says Lee Miller, Miller Transporters president. “Safety and longevity go hand in hand. We won our first Outstanding Safety Performance Trophy for our record in 2006, and the latest one was for our performance in 2015.
“These trophies affirm our mission to put safety above everything else. The two trophies are symbolic recognition of two great years in safety. We want that level of safe performance every year. We calculate our performance metrics on achieving award-winning safety every day, every month, and every year. This latest trophy is proof that our drivers have fully bought into our safety program.”
Reinforcing safety
Brent Cobb, vice-president of safety and quality for Miller Transporters, adds: “We were very excited to receive this recognition from NTTC. At the beginning of 2014, Miller’s safety department set out to reduce our DOT accident frequency by concentrating efforts in three specific areas. First was conducting more one-on-one training with all new drivers. Next, we began working with drivers showing at-risk behavior through our proprietary predictive analysis. Finally, we set out to improve the informational content of our driver safety meetings.
“Much of the credit goes to Ray Riley, our director of safety, and his team for successfully implementing the plan. Through the hard work of our safety department and each driver’s commitment to excellence, Miller has been able to improve upon a safety program that had already been recognized as an industry leader. The drivers are the big winners for making this happen by reducing our accident frequency by 56% in two short years to the lowest level in our history.”
The safety program they built earned the carrier the NTTC Outstanding Safety Performance Trophy in the new Harvison Division, which is for tank fleets running more than 15 million miles a year. Miller Transporters earned the award with an accident frequency of 0.295 per million miles.
Over its 75-year history, Miller Transporters evolved into a chemical hauling specialist. The carrier provides service across the United States, Canada, and Mexico with a fleet that includes 420 tractors and more than 1,000 tank trailers and tank container chassis. Cargoes include general chemicals, resins, petroleum additives, paper additives, and lubricants.
The fleet is dispersed among 20 locations, and the average length of haul is 475 miles. The carrier boasts a mix of regional and longhaul activity, with the longest trips running as much as 3,000 miles.
“Our longest runs are literally from coast to coast,” Cobb says. “Our primary operating area is the eastern half of the United States, and most of our terminals are in the South and Southeast.”
Changing program
Cobb points out that the carrier has made plenty of changes since winning its first NTTC Outstanding Safety Performance Trophy nine years ago. Changes range from adopting new fleet management software to joining the American Chemistry Council’s Responsible Care Program and becoming more active in the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance and the Cooperative Hazardous Materials Enforcement Development Program (COHMED)—a part of CVSA.
Miller Transporters has been active in NTTC’s Tank Truck Safety & Security Council for many years, and Riley is a past chairman of that group. More recently, the carrier has become very involved in the Cargo Tank Risk Management Committee (CTRMC), a group that is striving to improve worker safety around cargo tanks.
“Most importantly, we made safety our most critical focus,” he says. “For instance, one of the questions Lee (Miller) asked me when I was named to this position in 2011 was ‘what would it take to win another Outstanding Safety Performance Trophy?’”
Cobb says Miller Transporters was the first bulk carrier to be certified with ACC’s Responsible Care Management System in 2007. Since then, the carrier has won ACC’s Partner of the Year award four of the six years it has been presented. Miller Transporters was last named Partner of the Year in 2015.
“We wouldn’t have been named Partner of the Year even once if safety wasn’t a core value for us, and we certainly wouldn’t have earned a second Outstanding Safety Performance Trophy,” Cobb says. “It starts with commitment at the top and includes everyone in this company. Every employee is empowered to stop an operation if they see a problem that could compromise safety. We have turned down business that raised safety concerns.”
Companywide focus
Riley also emphasizes the importance of the company-wide focus on safety. “Our dispatchers are critically important, because they have daily contact with the drivers,” he says. “In fact we believe the dispatchers are so important that we put them through the same new-hire orientation as the drivers. Terminal managers and staff also are important because they reinforce the safety program at every one of our fleet locations.”
Drivers clearly are the central focus of the safety process, and the management team works hard to develop and keep the best and safest drivers in the industry. Basic qualifications include a valid commercial driver license with tank truck and hazardous materials endorsements. In certain instances, Miller Transporters will consider a driver younger than 23 years old.
Ideally, a candidate will have at least two years of over-the-road truck driving experience. About 60% of current applicants are coming in with tank truck experience.
Applicants go through a thorough evaluation that includes background checks, face-to-face interviews, referrals from other Miller Transporters drivers, pre-employment driving tests, and pre-employment written tests. “We want to make sure a driver will fit our system,” Cobb says.
Serious training
Once selected, a driver spends a week at the training center at Miller Transporters’ Jackson headquarters. Two training sessions are scheduled each month with four to 10 students per class.
These are no-nonsense sessions that consist of 25 training modules that Miller Transporters deem vital to safe, effective tank truck driving performance, according to Al Dear, Miller Transporters director of training. Each day brings homework assignments that are due the next morning. In addition, drivers must pass a comprehensive job knowledge test to graduate from the program.
Classroom instruction is followed by at least a week of on-the-job training at the driver’s home terminal. Working with a driver trainer, the new driver gains hands-on experience with loading and unloading trailers, hauling loads on the road, reviewing in-cab technology functions, and practicing company safety policies. Once a driver has completed the field training and is certified by the driver trainer, he is scheduled for a 90-day Safety Refresher, which included a face-to-face meeting with the regional safety manager.
The 90-day Safety Refresher is one of several steps taken recently to strengthen the safety program. The carrier also developed its own driver risk analysis program to identify higher-risk drivers.
“We look at 13 data points in all, including past accidents and incidents,” Riley says. “We have a sit-down meeting with the at-risk driver that usually takes an hour and a half to two hours.
“We’re trying to catch the behavior before an incident or accident occurs, and we do the review with the driver. Typically, these drivers have worked for us one to three years. The numbers show that after three years, they will have bought into our safety program.”
Fleet equipment
The fleet gets as much attention as the drivers. The newest company tractors from Freightliner were specified with the new Detroit Assurance package with a number of safety technologies that include lane departure warning, collision avoidance, active brake assist, and adaptive cruise control. It should be noted that owner-operators contracted to Miller Transporters can purchase tractors with similar specifications through the carrier’s truck dealers.
Detroit 13-liter engines are rated at 450 horsepower and set for a 65-miles-per-hour maximum speed. Ten-speed transmissions are from Eaton Fuller.
For product handling, company tractors are specified with Ranger pumps and Paragon hydraulic power. Bendix 34.8-cfm truck compressors are used for air offloading of product.
A variety of tank trailers are used by Miller Transporters. For general chemicals, the newest DOT407 stainless steel trailers were built by Wabash National’s Brenner Tank brand. The 7,000-gallon insulated trailers were specified to handle products with temperatures up to 400°F.
“The higher temperature capability gives us the ability to haul a wider range of cargoes,” says Jeff Allen, Miller Transporters director of maintenance.
The fleet is split 50/50 between straight barrel and double-conical tanks. Most of the general chemical trailers are constructed from 316 stainless steel, but the carrier is running 62 tank trailers fabricated from lean duplex steel.
As part of the carrier’s CTRMC involvement, the newest tank trailers in the fleet were specified without cleanouts. “This is part of our effort to keep drivers off our trailers as much as possible,” Allen says. “We also equip our trailers with ground-level vapor recovery valves. For fall protection, we’re specing safety ladders and a work platform with a folding safety rail.”
Running well-maintained and roadworthy equipment is a top priority that is handled through a network of company-owned shops and approved third-party vendors. Company-owned maintenance facilities include the R-stamp trailer shop at the headquarters terminal in Jackson. Mechanics at the shop are qualified to weld on 316 and lean duplex stainless steel.
Mechanics keep a close watch on all of the tractors and trailers in the fleet. That includes owner-operator tractors, which must be inspected every 90 days at a company-approved shop. Any maintenance problems found during an inspection must be repaired and verified before the vehicle goes back into service.
It’s all part of the daily effort to ensure that the Miller Transporters fleet operates as safely and effectively as possible. Shortcuts simply are not part of the 75-year-old tank truck carrier’s safety culture.
http://bulktransporter.com/tank-fleets/outstanding-safety-performance-brings-miller-transporters-top-accolade-one-safest-tank-t
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Deals Flourish in Sulfur Chemicals
Aug 8, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Michael McCoy
The normally quiet sulfur chemicals industry is seeing a flurry of merger and acquisition activity—and more may be in the offing.
Chemours has sold its sulfur products business to Veolia for about $325 million. And Ineos has agreed to acquire Calabrian, a U.S. sulfur chemicals specialist, from the private equity firm SK Capital Partners for an undisclosed sum.
Chemours sold its business, which makes sulfur chemicals and recycles spent sulfuric acid for the refining industry, as part of a slimming-down process that started after its spin-off from DuPont last year. Veolia, a French resource management firm, says the purchase expands its offerings to refining customers, which use sulfuric acid as an alkylation catalyst.
Ineos, meanwhile, is getting a business that has expanded considerably since 2011 when SK Capital injected cash into Calabrian. When Calabrian’s “production facility in eastern Canada comes on-line at yearend, Calabrian’s earnings will have tripled since our acquisition,” says SK Capital Managing Director Barry Siadat.
For Ineos, the business complements a sulfur chemicals facility in the U.K. and a sulfuric acid plant in northern Spain that it acquired in December 2015.
Ineos also is a shareholder in the U.S. inorganic chemicals maker PQ, which in May completed a merger with Eco Services, a former Solvay business that recycles spent sulfuric acid. Ineos declines to discuss whether the next step might be to merge its sulfur chemicals business with PQ, saying its current focus is on integrating Calabrian.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i32/Deals-flourish-sulfur-chemicals.html
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(ACC Blog) Is Your Mustard Jar Hiding a Chemical Secret?
Aug 8, 2016 | American Chemistry Matters
By Steve Hentges
From American hotdogs, to Bavarian pretzels, to Swiss sausages, and to Indian roasted fish, mustard is one of the most popular and widely used condiments in the world. But is this beloved condiment hiding a dark secret?
The Swiss Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office (FSVO) recently released a surprising new finding:mild mustard commonly contains the chemical bisphenol F (BPF). According to FSVO, BPF is produced from a component naturally present in mustard seeds when the seeds are processed to make mustard.
This means that, for millennia, mustard-loving humans have unknowingly consumed BPF, a chemical also used in many consumer products and industrial applications.
Even if you’ve never heard of BPF, you’ve likely heard of its chemical cousin—bisphenol A (BPA). BPF and BPA are chemically very similar and are both weakly estrogenic.
Before you start to worry about your mustard, know that there’s no evidence that either BPA or BPF cause negative health effects at typical exposure levels. As to BPA, the European Food Safety Authority and U.S. Food and Drug Administration have recently concluded that BPA is safe.
The FSVO reinforced these conclusions, noting:
Our unexpected and surprising findings may shed a new light on the risk linked to the family of bisphenols and in particular to the controversially discussed BPA. BPF is structurally very similar to BPA and has similar hormonal effects and now we realise that BPF has been consumed over centuries in a popular condiment.
Typical exposure levels to BPF in mustard are similar to or higher than estimates of BPA exposure. Yet the FSVO report states, “we are not aware of any study connecting mustard consumption with an increased risk for human health.”
These new Swiss findings about BPF in mustard help confirm what governments around the globe already know: BPA poses no risk to human health as it’s currently used.
In contrast to the frequent calls to ban the synthetic chemical BPA based on claims that it causes health effects at low exposure levels, there has been no outcry to ban mild mustard based on the same concerns about naturally produced BPF.
Though, given NGOs disregard for sound scientific research, perhaps it’s only a matter of time before we see petitions to “Ban Mustard Now.”
https://blog.americanchemistry.com/2016/08/is-your-mustard-jar-hiding-a-chemical-secret/
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Chemical Company Presses EPA To Drop Tert-Butanol Cancer Risk Analysis
Aug 8, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
Chemical producer LyondellBasell is pressing EPA to drop from its pending draft assessment of the chemical tert-butanol (TBA) its proposed classification of the substance as showing "suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential" and its cancer risk estimate, arguing that agency risk assessors have misinterpreted toxicity data.
The company in recent comments submitted to EPA says the draft Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) review "draws some erroneous conclusions regarding TBA's potential for human health hazards and risks. . . . Neither of the draft IRIS identified rodent effects should be a concern for human cancer and hence the proposed cancer descriptor of 'suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential' is not justified nor is the development of a cancer risk slope factor."
The company claims that EPA is basing its cancer classification and risk estimate on animal toxicology data of an effect that is irrelevant to humans, without a known biological mechanism in humans.
"EPA's conclusion of 'suggestive evidence' of cancer is highly conservative based on: TBA's lack of genotoxicity, robust mode of action data indicating a lack of qualitative human relevance of rat kidney tumors, and lack of quantitative human relevance of mouse thyroid tumors. Overall, these data support a conclusion that TBA is a low concern to humans for carcinogenicity," LyondellBasell argues.
The company makes similar arguments to fault the non-cancer effects that EPA evaluates in the assessment, thyroid and developmental toxicity. LyondellBasell says these effects are also irrelevant because they occurred at high doses in animal tests that exceed U.S. and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development testing guidelines.
EPA's draft TBA assessment is one of the first to adopt most of the reforms to the influential but controversial IRIS program. It describes the chemical as "a solvent for paints, a denaturant for ethanol and several other alcohols, a dehydrating agent, and [used] in the manufacture of flotation agents, fruit essences, and perfumes."
The chemical, also known as tert-butyl alcohol, is also a metabolite of two better-known fuel oxygenators, methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) and ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE).
Groundwater Contamination
MTBE has resulted in widespread contamination due to its use in the 1990s to meet Clean Air Act requirements. Groundwater contamination from leaking fuel storage tanks prompted dozens of states to ban MTBE's use in gasoline and liability concerns caused refiners to stop using it in the 2000s.
While the petroleum industry insists ETBE has not been used in the United States, the chemical has been found at cleanup sites and in groundwater sources, leading EPA to continue its efforts to assess ETBE despite industry urging the agency to drop the pending assessment.
In its comments, LyondellBasell questions EPA's rationale for undertaking the assessment, noting that "EPA's justification for developing an IRIS assessment of TBA based on its use is questionable."
The company explains that TBA's "primary use is as a chemical intermediate," and that 99.96 percent of American production is converted into MTBE, ETBE or a third chemical, isobutylene.
The fuel oxygenator chemicals are all exported for use, while isobutylene "is converted to butyl rubber, lubricant detergent additives, and antioxidants," LyondellBasell says. "Approximately 2 [million pounds] of TBA is purified and sold domestically as a denaturant for ethanol and process solvents. Therefore the vast majority of TBA use is managed under strictly controlled and site-limited conditions and hence exposures are restricted and controlled."
LyondellBasell argues that while there are worker exposures in certain manufacturing processes, these exposures were measured in accordance with European regulations.
The resulting "assessment demonstrate[s] that estimated consumer exposures are well below the draft assessment's proposed [reference concentration (RfC)] value and that the general population estimated exposures are substantially lower than the draft assessment proposed RfC and [reference dose (RfD)] values," LyondellBasell says. "Given TBA's use as a chemical intermediate, worker exposures are also likely to be less than the proposed general population RfC and RfD values."
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/chemical-company-presses-epa-drop-tert-butanol-cancer-risk-analysis
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State Legislators Wrestle with Changing Industry
Aug 8, 2016 | E&E Power Plays
By Emily Holden
State lawmakers at their annual summit here are tackling how to support evolving energy business models and prioritize different types of power based on affordability, reliability and environmental benefits.
Legislators yesterday said they are particularly interested in how to strike a balance between power companies and consumers as rooftop solar grows.
"As utilities and their customers who are installing these either energy efficiency technologies or energy generating technologies, they both seek to monetize their advantages, and we need to try to spend some time thinking about that," said Kansas state Rep. Tom Sloan (R) at a meeting of the Energy Supply Task Force at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
An NCSL standing committee later this week will consider aresolution urging the federal government to spend money incentivizing states to "establish progressively increasing solar renewable energy standards, supported by mutually-beneficial net-metering policies made available under value-of-solar rate tariffs."
Net-metering policies require utilities to pay rooftop solar owners at the retail rate for any extra power they send back to the grid. Value-of-solar rate tariffs, which are uncommon, require customers to purchase all of their power at the retail rate and sell their own solar generation back at a separate rate.
State electric regulators, similarly, are considering the thorny issue of how to compensate rooftop solar and other distributed energy resources, but they are far from consensus (EnergyWire, July 27).
Washington state Rep. Jeff Morris (D), co-chairman of the Energy Supply Task Force, yesterday said lawmakers must study "the changing values consumers are bringing to the system, whether it's Microsoft or my grandma."
Morris said utility plans are shifting with those changing values. Officials at San Antonio's municipal utility, he said, recently told him that in 10 years, they expect to be energy consultants to customers, rather than mainly energy providers.
"Otherwise, they feel that someone else is going to come in and do that, whether it's Google or SolarCity," Morris said.
He cautioned that "a lot of our laws aren't set up to actually let utilities — whether they're co-ops, municipals or regular utilities — themselves sell products except the volumetric kilowatt-hour sales."
While the Clean Power Plan is suspended by the courts, lawmakers yesterday heard about how utilities and states must nonetheless moving ahead with energy planning decisions (ClimateWire, Aug. 8).
At a separate panel on Thursday, they will hear from energy analysts, including representatives from M.J. Bradley & Associates, a firm that has found that the United States is largely on track to meet the goals of the Clean Power Plan. Other speakers are from the Midcontinent Independent System Operator and the Electric Power Research Institute. The three panelists will discuss "a number of scenarios and how they may affect electricity generation, state economies, jobs and citizens," according to the agenda.
Lawmakers this week are also considering whether to incentivize zero-carbon nuclear generation, after New York regulators last week decided to subsidize three at-risk nuclear power plants (ClimateWire, Aug. 2).
Yesterday, they heard from the Nuclear Energy Institute's Rod McCullum, who said the industry is at a crossroads because of competition from low-cost natural gas.
"The role that you all play is definitely going to affect the outcome of this," McCullum said.
On Tuesday, legislators will hear more on nuclear power's woes from Exelon, NEI and the PJM Interconnection.
Reporters Emily Holden and Jeffrey Tomich are in Chicago covering the conference.
In case you missed it:
· On the one-year anniversary of EPA's release of the Clean Power Plan, markets have shifted in favor of the rule, but politics have not (ClimateWire, Aug. 4).
· EPA's main program to limit the Clean Power Plan's impact on the poor is a hard sell (ClimateWire, Aug. 5).
· The Clean Power Plan didn't come up much at the party conventions (ClimateWire, Aug. 1).
· California became the first state to adopt a Clean Power Plan compliance proposal (ClimateWire, Aug. 5). But the state is having trouble extending its own carbon targets (ClimateWire, Aug. 5).
· Companies and investors want tougher goals for the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (ClimateWire, Aug. 2).
· Massachusetts adopted the nation's most ambitious offshore wind energy law (ClimateWire, Aug. 2).
· New York regulators backed a plan to get half of the state's power from renewables by 2030 and to subsidize three nuclear plants (EnergyWire, Aug. 2).
http://www.eenews.net/interactive/clean_power_plan/column_posts/1060041297
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Trump Pledges ‘Energy Revolution’
Aug 8, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump promised Monday to bring about an “energy revolution” if he is elected president.
In a speech laying out his economic agenda, Trump contrasted his plans with what he framed as a destructive set of policies from President Obama and Hillary Clinton.
“Clinton not only embraces President Obama’s job-killing energy restrictions, but wants to expand them, including going after oil and natural gas production that employs some 10 million Americans,” Trump said.
“According to the Heritage Foundation, by 2030 ... the Obama-Clinton energy restrictions will eliminate another half a million manufacturing jobs, reduce economic output by $2.5 trillion and reduce incomes by $7,000 per person. A Trump administration would end this war on the American worker, and unleash an energy revolution that will bring vast new wealth to our country.”
Most of the Trump proposals on energy echoed a May speech focused on energy.
Trump has pledged to undo major pieces of Obama’s environmental agenda, including all of his climate policies and the Paris climate agreement reached last year.
He cited predictions from the fossil fuel-backed Institute for Energy Research that enacting various conservative energy policies would grow the economy by more than $100 billion annually, create more than 500,000 jobs a year and grow wages by over $30 billion in seven years.
“As a result of recent Obama EPA actions, coal-fired plants across Michigan have either shut down entirely or undergone expensive conversions, making them non-competitive in many cases. The Obama-Clinton war on coal has cost Michigan over 50,000 jobs,” he said.
“We will put our coal miners and our steelworkers back to work, where they want to be.”
Trump said every agency under his presidency would have to make a list of regulations that are unnecessary and do not protect public health, and those regulations would be repealed.
In a fact sheet accompanying the speech, Trump’s campaign said he would repeal all “job-killing” Obama energy actions, including the climate rules and the Clean Water Rule. The fact sheet Trump would also make more waters available for offshore oil and natural gas drilling and end the Interior Department’s moratorium on new coal-mining leases on federal land.
The League of Conservation Voters slammed Trump’s energy platform, calling it “Big Polluters First,” a mockery of his “America First” position.
“The policies he’s espoused — ending regulations, cutting the EPA and attacking the Clean Power Plan — as well as naming billionaire oil executive Harold Hamm as one of his economic advisors, shows that Trump is happy to give away our clean air and water to Big Polluters in the oil and gas industry with no regard for the damage they will do,” Clay Schroers, the group’s national campaigns director, said in a statement.
“By offering fossil fuel special interests a blank check under his presidency, Trump has again proven he does not have the temperament, character, or judgment to be in the White House.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/290754-trump-pledges-to-unleash-an-energy-revolution
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EPA Nixes Industry, Enviro Bids to Revisit MATS Issues
Aug 8, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA has rejected administrative requests for reconsideration of an array of startup and shutdown issues in its regulations for power plant mercury emissions.
In a Federal Register notice published today, the agency said petitions submitted by both environmental groups and an industry trade organization failed to meet the threshold for reconsideration.
In a broader 33-page explanation of the blanket turndown, EPA officials generally faulted both sides for failing to show why they couldn't have raised their concerns during the public comment period. The agency also cited more technical grounds in response to each of the issues raised.
In objecting to EPA's decision to allow a work-practice standard in place of numeric pollution limits, for example, the Environmental Integrity Project and two other groups argued that the agency had failed to show it was impractical to measure hazardous emissions during startup and shutdown periods. In its rebuttal, EPA said no certified methodologies exist to accurately measure such releases. And while the Utility Air Regulatory Group questioned EPA's analysis for identifying the best-performing electric generating units, EPA officials deemed its objections "not of central relevance."
Attempts to obtain comments this morning from representatives of the Environmental Integrity Project and the Utility Air Regulatory Group were unsuccessful. Both sides now have 60 days to challenge EPA's decisions with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Joining the Environmental Integrity Project in seeking reconsideration were the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and the Sierra Club.
EPA had published the mercury rule — formally known as the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards — in early 2012, with the goal of cutting releases of mercury and other pollutants from oil- and coal-fired power plants. It then followed up in November 2014 with amendmentsto the startup and shutdown provisions that were the basis for the latest petitions for reconsideration. Almost all coal-fired plants have met regulatory compliance deadlines, according to a report last month by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (Greenwire, July 11).
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/08/08/stories/1060041322
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Ending $4 Billion U.S. oil Subsidy Would Have Minor Impact, Report Says
Aug 8, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By Bloomberg
Eliminating $4 billion of petroleum subsidies in the U.S. would have only a minor effect on oil production and demand and boost the country’s influence in advocating global climate change action, according to a report for the Council on Foreign Relations.
Withdrawing oil-drilling subsidies could cut domestic production by 5 percent by 2030, which could increase international oil prices by just 1 percent, Gilbert Metcalf, a professor of economics at Tufts University, said in the report. Local natural gas prices could rise as much as 10 percent, while both production and consumption would probably fall as much as 4 percent, according to the report.
The viability of the three main oil and gas subsidies in the U.S. has been debated for years. Environmental groups argue that eliminating state support would not only increase government revenue but also push the country toward mitigating climate change. The industry says any changes would lead to large declines in domestic production and cut many jobs. The oil price crash over the last two years has made the U.S. oil industry more vulnerable, enhancing its argument for keeping the subsidies.
Metcalf concluded that “U.S. energy security would neither increase nor decrease substantially” if the three subsidies were repealed. The effect on oil consumption would be “even less noticeable,” implying “emissions of greenhouse gases that cause climate change would not change substantially,” he said.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/08/08/ending-4-billion-u-s-oil-subsidy-would-have-minor-impact-report-says/
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EAB UIC Permit Remand Could Set Strict Test for EPA Comment Response
Aug 8, 2016 | Inside EPA
By David LaRoss
EPA's Environmental Appeals Board (EAB) has remanded to the agency an oil and gas drilling wastewater underground injection control (UIC) permit because EPA failed to properly respond to a citizen's comments on the permit, which could set a strict precedent on the extent to which the agency must address public input on permits.
EAB issued a July 26 order in In re: West Bay Exploration Company remanding a Michigan drilling firm's UIC permit to EPA Region 5 because its response to comments did not address claims raised by a speaker at a public hearing on the permit. The speaker had raised concerns that waste from West Bay's operations could dissolve underground rock formations and enter groundwater.
"Region 5 cannot overcome a failure to clearly articulate a basis for the rejection of a number of significant comments by essentially asking the Board to decide these matters," EAB Judge Mary Kay Lynch writes for a unanimous three-judge panel that also included Judges Mary Beth Ward and Kathie A. Stein.
Under the Administrative Procedure Act agencies must consider and respond to public comments on binding actions such as permits and rules, but such actions are rarely overturned based on an inadequate response to comments. As a result, the board's West Bay decision is potentially significant as a marker for how thoroughly EPA must justify rejecting a stakeholder's comments on technical issues.
The panel says the permit is improper and must be reconsidered both because of inconsistent scientific analysis and because the agency in its response to comments did not fully rebut arguments by the speaker, Peter Bormuth, after he claimed that underground rock formations would not be able to contain West Bay's drilling waste.
Lynch writes in the decision that Region 5 -- which covers several Midwest states -- was required to fully consider and respond to Bormuth's testimony even though it was presented quickly and without a written submission to the agency.
"We recognize that Region 5 faced a difficult task in responding to Mr. Bormuth's comments. Not only did Mr. Bormuth raise complex, scientific arguments, but he presented them only during the relatively brief time allowed for oral statements at the public hearing for the West Bay permit and not through detailed written comments," she writes for the panel.
EPA's UIC permit program, established under the Safe Drinking Water Act, is intended to ensure that industrial and other types of injections of fluids deep in subsurface wells such as waste from oil and gas drilling do not contaminate groundwater.
UIC Permit
West Bay sought a UIC permit to dispose of corrosive brine from its drilling operations in Jackson County, MI. But the company faced opposition from local residents including Bormuth, who filed a petition with EAB challenging the final permit in 2015.
According to the EAB decision, Bormuth argued at a 2014 public hearing on the then-proposed permit that EPA was acting on incomplete or incorrect data on the underground rock formations that permit writers said would contain the brine. He argued that the formations did not extend as far as the agency claimed, and that even if they were present high salt content in the brine would allow it to dissolve rock and reach groundwater aquifers.
Region 5 noted Bormuth's claims in a three-page section of its response to comments issued alongside the final permit. However, EAB says the agency failed to justify rejecting his arguments.
Most of the response to comments section "is a repetition of Region 5's position that the presence of such formations . . . as well as other rock layers, will confine the injected brine. Only a single paragraph, a mere eight sentences, discussed" the claim that brine could dissolve the existing rock under high pressure, the decision says.
The eight-sentence passage "failed to engage the full extent of Mr. Bormuth's argument," and thus helps justify remanding the permit for further consideration, Lynch writes.
She also notes that upon review of the supporting documentation for the West Bay permit, there appear to be "discrepancies" casting doubt on EPA's judgment that natural rock formations would contain the brine, even without considering Bormuth's testimony.
Records compiled by other sources such as drilling companies "raise unanswered questions" on the geology of the area that EPA has not considered, Lynch says.
The panel's order remands the permit to EPA with instructions to re-assess Bormuth's comments and craft a site-specific analyses of the disposal site's geology, and to either approve or deny the permit based on that study -- with the possibility of another EAB petition challenging the agency's ultimate decision.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/eab-uic-permit-remand-could-set-strict-test-epa-comment-response
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Artificial Intelligence Leads the Next Generation of Cyberdefense
Aug 8, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
After eight nonstop hours of network warfare, the hacker nicknamed Mechaphish couldn't close the lead built by her rivals, Xandra and Mayhem. She finished the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's Cyber Grand Challenge in third place, though she felt neither pride nor resentment at her final standing.
In fact, she had no feelings upon completing "the ultimate test of hacker skill." That's because Mechaphish, short for the Mechanical Phish, isn't human. Her creators at the University of California, Santa Barbara, decided to assign the computer program a gender as a hat tip to women who pursue careers in information security.
"Eventually, Mechanical Phish will kill us all, or hack us all while the actual robots kill us," said Yan Shoshitaishvili, one of the UCSB researchers on the 12-person team behind Mechaphish.
Shoshitaishvili was joking, having put on his tongue-in-cheek "hacker persona" for the four-day DEF CON cybersecurity conference in Las Vegas over the weekend.
But the technology underpinning Mechaphish and the six other supercomputers in DARPA's Cyber Grand Challenge offers a serious glimpse at the next generation of cyber defense. That future could render moot the current debate about supply chain cybersecurity in the bulk electric power system and other industries, in addition to upending the way operating systems like Windows and iOS protect users.
"You've got seven different visions, all remarkably competitive, for solving a programming problem that we all assumed a couple years ago couldn't be done: software that fixes itself," said Art Conklin, director of information and logistics technology at the University of Houston's Center for Information Security Research and Education. "Ten years from now, a lot of the things we do in security day-to-day just to fix little stupid stuff will be gone because of these programs."
The robotic hackers squared off in a 96-round "capture the flag" tournament that challenged them to find and attack bugs in their competitors' code, while guarding their own software "flags" and keeping normal services such as email running smoothly. None of the competitors had early access to the code that would be used, meaning the systems needed artificial intelligence to locate, repair and exploit flaws they had never seen before.
DARPA, the U.S. military's research and development arm, which organized the challenge, modeled some of the software bugs after real-world vulnerabilities like Heartbleed and SQL Slammer. But DARPA's programmers accidentally added their own mistake to at least one slice of code. One of the machines dutifully found and patched that vulnerability, while another competitor soon tried to take advantage of it.
Such previously unknown bugs, known in the computer security industry as "zero days," can take months for humans to discover. The infamous Stuxnet cyberattack that destroyed Iranian nuclear centrifuges in 2010 relied on several "zero days" that caught the worm's victims unawares.
At last week's Grand Challenge, the computers uncovered something even the competition's organizers couldn't see, then fixed the zero day in minutes rather than years.
"There's a saying in the hacker community that a zero day can happen to anybody," Mike Walker, a former hacker who served as program manager for the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge, said after last Thursday's competition. "Tonight, we showed machines exist that can detect those lock picks in use and respond immediately. We have redefined what's possible, and we did it in the course of hours."
The event itself played out before a packed audience of hackers and was streamed online with play-by-play narration from astrophysicist Hakeem Oluseyi.
The teams ranged from a pair of academics to an 11-member group backed by Raytheon Co. The final seven had been narrowed down from an original field of more than a hundred.
All groups were paid to the tune of $750,000 for a year's worth of work and research. But the top three teams — ForAllSecure, TECHx and Shellphish — took home $2 million, $1 million and $750,000, respectively, in added prize money.
Now, the code bases they spent months assembling are free for anyone to access.
"If you pay attention, you've got $10 million of open research here," said Conklin, suggesting that companies such as Microsoft and Google could start to "play with" and improve upon the newly disclosed code. "These seven [programs] are the ones that change the world, but the one that fixes the world will be by somebody else."
From cars to code
In the early 2000s, DARPA engineers wondered if computers could take the place of human drivers. The agency sponsored a challenge as a way to fuel interest in future self-driving cars.
The autonomous vehicles in that 2004 Grand Challenge were costly and clunky, and couldn't successfully navigate an isolated desert course, let alone a real road with traffic and pedestrians.
"At the time, people were saying, 'Do you really think that someday you'll be sitting inside a computer, and it'll be driving you around? That's absurd,'" said Shoshitaishvili of UCSB's Team Shellphish. "And now you have people driving themselves to the hospital while they're having a heart attack in their Tesla."
DARPA's goal is for the supercomputers in last week's competition to set off a similar flurry of activity in the cybersecurity field, despite the fact that self-healing software is in its infancy. Much as the earliest chess engines failed to beat human grandmasters, the Cyber Grand Challenge winner Mayhem turned in a dismal performance as the lone machine entrant in DEF CON's human capture-the-flag tournament over the weekend. (Mechaphish also competed, but had some assistance from its authors.) Most observers, including Walker, had expected Mayhem to be outclassed in what is widely considered to be one of the toughest hacking competitions in the world.
Walker declined to speculate about when the technology could hold its own against real-world hackers. "I can say for certain that a spark was lit," he said. "It has nowhere to go except to get better."
DARPA Director Arati Prabhakar said a self-repairing cybersecurity solution will be critical to the agency's other research interests, from building autonomous vehicles to expanding usable capacity on parts of the radio spectrum now crowded out by wireless services.
"Every single one of those big ambitions depends on cybersecurity," she said. "We can't achieve these big dreams unless we can trust our data, trust these systems that we are so completely reliant on today."
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/08/08/stories/1060041298
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DuPont Refutes Claims of Reporting Violations at Louisiana Acid Plant
Aug 8, 2016 | SE Texas Record
By Carrie Salls
E I DuPont de NeMours & Co recently asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to dismiss a False Claims Act-based lawsuit filed against the company by Jeffrey M. Simoneaux.
DuPont is asking the appeals court to vacate a ruling made by a U.S. district court denying the company’s motion for a summary judgment, as well as to dismiss all of Simoneaux’s claims.
Simoneaux, a former DuPont safety operator, alleged that the company retaliated against him when he filed a False Claims Act lawsuit that claimed DuPont did not report carcinogen leaks found at one of its plants in Burnside, Louisiana.
In an appellate brief filed by DuPont on July 25, the company said Simoneaux’s argument fails to recognize that Section 8(e) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) contains a reporting obligation, not an obligation to pay or transmit money to the government.
“To this day, no fine or penalty has been imposed against DuPont related to its alleged failure to give notice under Section 8(e),” DuPont said. “Thus, there is not now, nor has there ever been, an obligation to pay or transmit money to the government which DuPont could have concealed, decreased or avoided.”
DuPont said an unassessed fine or penalty does not constitute an obligation to pay the government money. Instead, DuPont said the TSCA imposes an obligation on manufacturers to report certain events, which the company said is considered under the TSCA “an activity not inherently linked to the payment of any money to the government.”
“The mere fact that DuPont’s alleged failure to report might result in a fine or penalty is insufficient to establish an obligation to pay,” DuPont said in its appellate brief. “This is unequivocally true in this case where the United States has not taken any enforcement action to assess a TSCA penalty.”
In addition, DuPont said any failure to report under the TSCA does not expose it to a statutorily established fee, but, rather, it could open the company up to a potential penalty or fine, at the discretion of the Environmental Protection Agency.
DuPont also said in the brief that Simoneaux mischaracterized the company’s summary judgment argument regarding the retaliation claim. In addition to arguing that Simoneaux “had not engaged in protected activity under the FCA because he had not attempted to stop DuPont from submitting false or fraudulent claims for payment to the government,” DuPont said it argued that Simoneaux’s claim should be dismissed because he cannot prove the necessary elements of a retaliation claim under the FCA.
To prove a retaliation claim, DuPont said Simoneaux would need to show that he engaged in conduct protected by the FCA, that DuPont knew that he engaged in that protected activity and that he was retaliated against because of that protected activity.
“In opposition to DuPont’s motion for summary judgment, (Simoneaux) did not provide evidence of an investigation of illegality or fraud,” DuPont said.
Rather than providing evidence of an investigation of fraud, DuPont said Simoneaux stated that “he specifically complained that there were leaks and that those leaks were not being reported to the EPA as required by law.”
http://setexasrecord.com/stories/510974460-dupont-refutes-claims-of-reporting-violations-at-louisiana-acid-plant
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Many Countries Will Need Help Adapting to Climate Change
Aug 8, 2016 | New York Times
By Editorial Board
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported last week that global temperatures last year were the highest on record — and that this year is likely to be hotter still. That is a powerful reason for rich countries to begin making good on their promises to help low-lying island nations, some of the poorest countries in the world, build their defenses against the disastrous effects of climate change, which some are already experiencing.
In the Solomon Islands, receding shorelines have destroyed some villages and rising sea levels have submerged five uninhabited islands, according toa study published in May. Drinking water is becoming increasingly scarce in Kiribati, another Pacific Ocean nation, as wells run dry or become contaminated by saltwater. And droughts appear to have become more intense in Africa and the Middle East and are probably a contributing factor to the migration of millions of people to Europe in recent years.
At last year’s United Nations climate summit meeting in Paris, countries agreed to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels, a point beyond which the widespread drought, flooding and extinctions of species are expected to kick in. But even if the world meets that target — and the various national plans offered in Paris to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are still not strong enough to get there — many poor countries will still be vulnerable to warmer temperatures, higher sea levels and more frequent natural disasters. Some small island nations could disappear entirely in the coming decades.
While it’s hard to connect any single natural disaster to climate change, weather-related calamities worldwide have increased in recent years. There were an average of 335 such disasters a year between 2005 and 2014 — nearly twice the yearly average from 1985 to 1994, according to a report by the United Nations and the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters. And these disasters are more severe and more likely to displace people, according to a 2015 report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center and the Norwegian Refugee Council. Last year, about 19.2 million people fled their homes because of disasters.
Developing countries will not be able to make the investments needed to survive conditions brought on by global warming — nor should they have to do so alone, as a matter of fairness. Poor countries are responsible for only a small share of all greenhouse gas emissions. Industrialized nations bear the greatest responsibility for climate change. It is also in their interest to help the rest of the world adapt, because experts expect that tens of millions to several hundred million people will be displaced by climate change. Most will move within their countries, but some of them inevitably will seek refuge in developed nations because they have no other place to go.
In 2014, the world’s leading powers and institutions, like the World Bank, committed about $25 billion to help developing nations adapt to climate change, according to a United Nations report published in May. Developed countries have said that they will increase their support, to $100 billion a year starting in 2020, to help developing countries reduce emissions and adapt to climate change. That promise was made at the climate meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 and reaffirmed in Paris. (Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, was a major force behind the 2009 pledge.) But that falls far short of the United Nations report’s estimate that between $140 billion and $300 billion a year will be needed for adaptation by 2030.
Some of that spending would go toward building warning systems like those that exist for tsunamis, as well as stronger barriers against storm surges. Developing countries will also need to improve water conservation and flood management, restore wetlands and strengthen building codes.
Increases in temperatures and sea levels are likely to reduce agricultural yields, forcing more people to migrate to crowded cities. That’s why political leaders need to start making policy changes that could take years to have an impact — like helping farmers switch to other crops and investing in infrastructure and housing in urban areas. While the world ponders ways to reduce emissions, the consequences of climate change are already underway.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/opinion/many-countries-will-need-help-adapting-to-climate-change.html?_r=0
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