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ACC PM 8/22/16
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(ACC Mentioned) Lower Prices Bring Uneven First-Half Chemical Earnings
Aug 21, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Melody M. Bomgardner
If the U.S. chemical industry decided to form a support group for companies dealing with falling sales, it would need a pretty big church basement. -
Why The TSCA Reform Comment Period Matters For Smaller Chem Companies
Aug 22, 2016 | Chem Info
By Meagan Parrish
If there’s one group of chemical manufacturers that could get hosed by TSCA reform, it’s the little guy. -
(ACC Mentioned) Scientists Seek New Catalysts For Natural Gas-Based Chemicals
Aug 22, 2016 | Chem Info
By Andy Szal
Leading scientists hope that newly developed materials could allow chemical manufacturers to take greater advantage of growing domestic stocks of natural gas from fracking operations. -
EPA Delays Decision on Del. Complaint Over Pa. Power Plant
Aug 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA is giving itself another six months to act on a complaint that a Pennsylvania power plant is hurting Delaware's attempts to meet federal air quality standards for ozone. -
Distorted CFR Report Aims to Crush US Energy Revolution
Aug 22, 2016 | The Hill - Pundits Blog
By David Williams
A new report from the Council on Foreign Relations is music to the ears of environmental activists. It claims to show that if the federal government ended its "preferential" tax treatment of the oil and gas industry, public revenues would jump by billions and climate change would slow considerably. -
Court Got it Wrong on Fracking — Former Interior Officials
Aug 22, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Former Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes had been waiting a while to get this off his chest. -
US LNG Tanker Arrives in China, First to Land in Key NE Asian Market
Aug 22, 2016 | Platts
By Stuart Elliott
The first cargo of US LNG to target the world's biggest LNG demand center in northeast Asia arrived Monday at the Chinese port of Yantian, according to cFlow, Platts trade flow software. -
Number of Leaks and Spills Continued to Grow in 2015
Aug 22, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
The number of pipeline leaks and spills rose to a five-year high last year, although there was a decline in serious accidents. -
Obama Admin Asks Court to Uphold Dismissal of WOTUS Challenge
Aug 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are pushing back against attempts to revive a district court case challenging the Obama administration's Clean Water Rule.
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(ACC Mentioned) Lower Prices Bring Uneven First-Half Chemical Earnings
Aug 21, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Melody M. Bomgardner
If the U.S. chemical industry decided to form a support group for companies dealing with falling sales, it would need a pretty big church basement. In the first half of this year, 17 of the 18 firms tracked by C&EN—all but FMC Corp.—brought in lower sales than during last year’s first half. On average, sales dropped 10%.
Still, company leaders have plenty of coping strategies to discuss over weak coffee. Seven of those 17 firms . . .
On average, the near-term forecast for U.S. chemical firms is positive, according to the industry’s main trade group, the American Chemistry Council. . .
Full Article found at this link: http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i33/Lower-prices-bring-uneven-first.html?type=paidArticleContent
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Why The TSCA Reform Comment Period Matters For Smaller Chem Companies
Aug 22, 2016 | Chem Info
By Meagan Parrish
If there’s one group of chemical manufacturers that could get hosed by TSCA reform, it’s the little guy.
According to Maureen Gorsen, an environmental and land development lawyer and the former director of the California Department of Toxic Substances Control, the upcoming comment period by the Environmental Protection Agency is a critical time for chemical manufacturers to have a say in the rules that will affect them. But they often don’t have the resources to participate.
“You’ve got the big companies participating, like Dow, DuPont, etc. But mid- and smaller-sized companies are busy running a business,” she says. “They don’t have time to send people to sit through day-long regulatory workshops. So they often get the short end of the stick.”
Reform for the nation’s decades-old chemical rules, known as TSCA, were passed by Congress and signed into law earlier this summer. The new laws, known as the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, give the EPA sweeping authority to regulate chemicals.
“The EPA has never had this authority over every product sold in the U.S. The EPA usually regulates facilities — not goods. Now they’re going to have authority over the entire economy,” Gorsen says.
But it’s up to the EPA to determine exactly how the regulations will be put in place. This is where the comment period comes into play.
The Safety Factor
Within days of the law’s passage, the EPA released a roadmap to how the law will be implemented.According to the agency, drafts for many of the new rules will be published mid-December. Once published, the public comment period typically lasts 180 days. But it could go longer, especially for contentious aspects of the regulations like risk evaluations.
“The statute doesn’t yet say what the safety standard is. So that’s the meat. That’s where the rubber hits the road,” Gorsen says.
According to Gorsen, much of the debate is likely to come down to how the EPA decides when a chemical is “safe.”
“A lot of people think that if something has a hazard trait it should be banned. Some say everything has a hazard trait. So what’s considered ‘safe’ could be a range,” she says.
Why You Should Weigh In
If the rules end up requiring expensive and arduous testing protocols, it's smaller companies that will struggle to absorb the new costs. And even though smaller chemical companies may not have the resources to influence regulatory decision making as much as bigger players, there are a few ways they can be involved to make sure their voices are heard.
The first is to simply keep an eye on the EPA’s Lautenberg home page, read the proposed rules when they come out, and then give feedback to the agency on how it could affect the way you do business.
This is especially important when it comes to the safety standard and firguring out the rules for chemical tests.
“You need to know if there are going to be 14 different rat tests required, or what it’s all going to mean,” Gorsen says.
There are indications that the industry is closely following how Lautenberg rules are unfolding. According to a recent report by Bloomberg BNA, traffic to the Lautenberg page has skyrocketed since the law was passed — it had 37,193 views between June 22 and Aug. 16 — which is a good sign that there could be a high level of involvement in the rulemaking process.
Aside from directly communicating with the EPA, Gorsen recommends being involved in industry trade groups like the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (SOCMA) or the National Small Business Association (NSBA). Both of these groups may be more keyed into regulatory affairs and have a better idea of how to influence the process.
http://www.chem.info/article/2016/08/why-tsca-reform-comment-period-matters-smaller-chem-companies
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(ACC Mentioned) Scientists Seek New Catalysts For Natural Gas-Based Chemicals
Aug 22, 2016 | Chem Info
By Andy Szal
Leading scientists hope that newly developed materials could allow chemical manufacturers to take greater advantage of growing domestic stocks of natural gas from fracking operations.
Chemical Regulation Reporter profiled a workshop convened earlier this year by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, which was sponsored by the Energy Department and National Science Foundation along with Dow Chemical, Saudi Basic Industries Corp. and industry group the American Chemistry Council.
Participants discussed the potential of new catalysts to convert natural gas and its components into high-value chemicals with less energy and environmental impact.
They were particularly interested, CRR reported, in converting the natural gas component methane into chemicals without producing carbon dioxide — both of which are greenhouse gases.
Advanced catalysts could also enable the country to take more advantage of natural gas from shale deposits. The U.S., unlike other markets that rely on crude oil, uses natural gas as its primary chemical feedstock.
The prevalence of domestic shale gas is already expected to generate sharp job gains in the chemical and plastics sectors in coming years.
http://www.chem.info/news/2016/08/scientists-seek-new-catalysts-natural-gas-based-chemicals
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EPA Delays Decision on Del. Complaint Over Pa. Power Plant
Aug 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA is giving itself another six months to act on a complaint that a Pennsylvania power plant is hurting Delaware's attempts to meet federal air quality standards for ozone.
In an upcoming Federal Register notice, Administrator Gina McCarthy said the agency needs more time to finish a technical review, develop a proposal and allow for public feedback in response to the administrative petition filed last month by Delaware regulators. The petition charged that nitrogen oxide emissions from the Brunner Island Steam Electric Station, an approximately 1,400-megawatt coal-fired power plant in York, Pa., owned by Talen Energy Corp., are fostering ozone attainment problems in Delaware.
Under the standard 60-day deadline, EPA's response had been due early next month; with the extension, the agency will have until March 5 of next year. A spokesman for the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control had no immediate comment this morning.
Ozone, the main ingredient in smog, is formed by the reaction of volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides (NOx) in sunlight; its health effects include irritation of lung airways and aggravation of asthma and emphysema.
In the petition, Delaware alleged that NOx emissions from the Brunner Island plant were contributing to nonattainment issues with both the 75-parts-per-billion ozone standard that EPA set in 2008 and the tighter 70 ppb limit imposed last fall.
Delaware is also suing EPA over its decision to give a Philadelphia-based nonattainment area another year to comply with the 2008 ozone air quality standard.
The nonattainment area covers parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware. While the first three states favored the extension of the attainment deadline, Delaware was opposed, arguing that most of its ozone problem stems from pollution that originates outside its borders.
The suit is pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In astatement of issues filed earlier this month, Delaware questioned whether EPA violated the Clean Air Act in granting the extension without the states having requested it.
The state also recently filed another petition with EPA alleging that a West Virginia plant owned by FirstEnergy Corp. is also contributing to ozone standard exceedances.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/08/22/stories/1060041888
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Distorted CFR Report Aims to Crush US Energy Revolution
Aug 22, 2016 | The Hill - Pundits Blog
By David Williams
A new report from the Council on Foreign Relations is music to the ears of environmental activists. It claims to show that if the federal government ended its "preferential" tax treatment of the oil and gas industry, public revenues would jump by billions and climate change would slow considerably.
This is pure fantasy. The report's methodology is fundamentally flawed, confusing tax deductions with subsidies and completely overlooking the vital role oil and gas plays in the American economy.
Subsidies are a direct transfer of money from the U.S. Treasury to a private company. American oil and gas companies receive zero — that's right, zero — subsidies.
What these firms do receive, however, is the same tax treatment as all other businesses, which, in part, allows them to deduct certain operating expenses. This deduction is typically used to offset the substantial costs of drilling and preparing wells — and that's a good thing. These deductions encourage energy companies to grow and create jobs.
And the biggest tax benefits aren't going to Big Oil. Back in 1975, federal lawmakers partially repealed a tax code provision known as "Percentage Depletion," which allowed fossil fuel producers to deduct the deprecation of their reserves. Only small and independent operators are now allowed to make such write-offs. ExxonMobil, Shell, and other large oil companies cannot. Likewise, credits such as the Enhanced Oil Recovery Tax Credit and Well Tax Credit are almost exclusively used by small and mid-sized operations.
These facts have been lost on both the media, which regularly repeats the myth that energy companies receive special tax treatment, and the White House, which has long advocated for steep tax hikes on the energy industry.
If the CFR report informs policy and the federal government does indeed eliminate tax deductions for fossil fuel producers, the American economy would be deeply damaged. After a decade of steady growth, this sector now supports more than 9 million jobs. It would contract under a heavy new tax burden, eliminating many of these positions and putting Americans all over the country out of work.
The CFR report also claims that ending energy tax "breaks" would help fight global warming, chiefly because it would afford the United States the moral standing needed to effectively pressure other nations to end their preferential tax policies and shrink their own fossil fuel sectors.
This claim ignores that fact that, counter intuitively, America is leading the world in emissions reductions thanks to the fossil fuel industry.
Thanks to the rapid expansion of America's natural gas sector, electricity plants have switched from coal to gas. Largely because of this migration, America's annual carbon emissions are now at a 20-year low. What's more, fossil fuel companies have poured billions into researching and developing carbon reduction technologies. Since 2000, oil and gas companies have invested more than twice as much as any other industry in such technologies.
This Council on Foreign Relations study claims that oil and gas firms receive special public subsidies. That isn't true. The sector simply benefits from the deductions afforded all other businesses. And these write-offs have helped the industry grow, create economic opportunity, and invest in clean energy technologies. The Council — and its activist allies — need to check their facts.
David Williams is president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to educating the public on the government's effects on the economy.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/292161-distorted-cfr-report-aims-to-crush-us-energy-revolution
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Court Got it Wrong on Fracking — Former Interior Officials
Aug 22, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Former Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes had been waiting a while to get this off his chest.
In a legal brief filed Friday, Hayes and three other former Interior officials — both Democrats and Republicans — lambasted a federal judge's recent decision that the agency has no authority over hydraulic fracturing.
"It strikes at the heart of the fundamental responsibility that Congress gave to the Interior Department to ensure that the public lands are managed in a sustainable way for the benefit of generations of Americans to come," he said in an interview, adding that the lower court's decision was "astonishing."
Hayes, who served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, has watched the fracking rule's legal trajectory with dismay since last fall, when the U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming froze the rule and questioned the agency's fracking authority.
In June, the district court struck down the rule, and the decision is now under review at the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The rule would set new requirements for well construction, wastewater management and chemical disclosure for fracking on public and tribal lands.
Last week, Hayes joined with former Deputy Secretary Lynn Scarlett, who served during the George W. Bush administration; James Caswell, BLM director under George W. Bush; and Michael Dombeck, BLM acting director under Clinton and special assistant and science adviser under George H.W. Bush (Greenwire, Aug. 19).
The group, represented by appellate attorneys Sean Donahue and Susannah Weaver, filed a friend-of-the-court brief at the 10th Circuit to offer their own understanding of the historical regulatory role of Interior and its Bureau of Land Management, as laid out in numerous public lands laws.
"Under these statutes, the BLM has for decades specified operational requirements for lessees engaged in oil and gas drilling activities," they wrote. "The hydraulic fracturing rules are simply the latest manifestation of this well-established authority. The district court erred in concluding to the contrary.
"Its deeply flawed decision threatens the federal government's ability to protect its lands from injury and must be reversed," they added.
Elephants in mouseholes
In their brief, the former officials assailed the notion that Congress ever intended to prevent BLM from regulating fracking. An exemption for fracking from U.S. EPA oversight under the Safe Drinking Water Act does not affect Interior's authority under distinct public lands laws, they argued.
The brief goes through a litany of past court cases and legislative history to support that point, noting that "none of the supporters of the Energy Policy Act ever mentioned such a sweeping intent."
"If what Congress sought to do in the Energy Policy Act was to oust all federal authority over hydraulic fracturing, even on federal lands, it chose an exceedingly odd way to do so," the brief says. "Rather than saying, for example, 'regulation of hydraulic fracturing is reserved to the States,' it merely defined one term in one federal statute administered by one agency to remove hydraulic fracturing from that statute's purview."
"Congress does not 'hide elephants in mouseholes,'" they added, quoting an influential 2001 Supreme Court case.
The former officials also noted that 10th Circuit precedent has continually affirmed Interior's legal duty to prioritize environmental protection while issuing leases and permits on public lands.
In the recent case State ex rel. Richardson v. BLM, for example, the appeals court ruled that BLM had not adequately considered the impacts of an oil and gas land-use plan on an aquifer in New Mexico.
"After seeing many decisions like Richardson concluding that the Interior Department and other land management agencies have not adequately taken environmental considerations into account, it is especially frustrating to read the district court's decision here, striking down a comprehensive rule to protect the public lands based upon extensive study and public input," the brief says.
And without authority over fracking, the officials said, Interior would be unable to adequately regulate any oil and gas development, as nearly all wells today are fracked.
"If you can't regulate what happens below ground ... then the federal government is just a powerless bystander," said Hayes, who helped craft the fracking rule during the early years of the Obama administration. "And that's clearly not what Congress intended through the many decades that it has affirmed the authority and responsibility of the Interior Department to manage our public lands."
The agency's fate is now before the 10th Circuit, where government and environmental lawyers filed opening briefs last week (EnergyWire, Aug. 15). Oral arguments are expected as soon as this fall.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/08/22/stories/1060041858
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US LNG Tanker Arrives in China, First to Land in Key NE Asian Market
Aug 22, 2016 | Platts
By Stuart Elliott
The first cargo of US LNG to target the world's biggest LNG demand center in northeast Asia arrived Monday at the Chinese port of Yantian, according to cFlow, Platts trade flow software.
The Maran Gas Apollonia was the 19th cargo of LNG to load from the Sabine Pass export facility in the US Gulf of Mexico, but the first to reach northeast Asia since the first loading in February this year.
The Shell-controlled vessel was previously expected to deliver into Latin America, but changed course headed for Asia in late July.
Exports to the key markets of China, Japan and South Korea were made considerably more economical with the opening of the expanded Panama Canal last month.
The Maran Gas Apollonia was the first LNG tanker to transit the newly expanded canal.
Previous cargoes from Sabine Pass have been delivered to South America, the Middle East and South Asia, with the majority of cargoes going to South America.
Just two US LNG cargoes have so far made it to Europe -- one to Portugal and one to Spain.
But with the start-up of the second train of Sabine Pass at the end of July, it is expected that more US LNG will make its way to Europe.
Spain's Gas Natural has a 20-year offtake agreement for LNG from Train 2 of Sabine Pass.
Shell has annual offtake of 3.5 million mt from Sabine Pass Train 1.
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/london/us-lng-tanker-arrives-in-china-first-to-land-26526937 -
Number of Leaks and Spills Continued to Grow in 2015
Aug 22, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Mike Lee
The number of pipeline leaks and spills rose to a five-year high last year, although there was a decline in serious accidents.
Across all types of pipelines, there were 709 reportable incidents in 2015, up from 701 the previous year and a 20 percent increase over 2011, according to statistics from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.
There were 326 breaches that involved injuries, deaths or sizable spills, which the Department of Transportation classifies as "significant incidents." That's also a five-year high and a 13 percent increase over 2011. PHMSA is part of DOT.
Pipeline industry groups say they have gotten better at avoiding large spills and leaks and that more of the spills are being confined to their own property.
"Our primary safety efforts are addressing larger incidents impacting the public or environment," John Stoody, vice president of the Association of Oil Pipe Lines, said in an email.
Carl Weimer, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust, said the industry could improve its record. While the number of major spills is down, for instance, the amount of oil spilled hasn't fallen.
"While the industry loves to point out that 99.999 percent of product moves through pipelines safely, that means that, for instance in 2015, 4.3 million gallons of hazardous liquids spilled," Weimer said in an email.
Oil pipelines accounted for about two-thirds of the leaks and spills in 2015 but 55 percent of the significant incidents. Gas transmission lines — the high-pressure pipes that carry the fuel over long distances — accounted for 20 percent of the overall incidents but 23 percent of the significant incidents.
The Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, which represents the biggest gas lines, said the statistics can be misleading, since PHMSA includes both cross-country and purely intrastate systems together as transmission lines.
Among INGAA's own members, "We've seen a virtual flat line in the number of PHMSA significant incidents," Cathy Landry, a spokeswoman for the association, said in an email. "We want drive those numbers down."
The increase in spills and leaks came as U.S. oil and gas production surged, increasing the use of pipelines. Oil output rose about two-thirds from 2011 to 2015, to about 9.4 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Gas output increased about one-fifth during the same time, to about 74 billion cubic feet a day.
PHMSA has also stepped up its enforcement of spill and leak reporting requirements, which has led to an increase in the number of publicly disclosed incidents. The agency is working on new safety regulations for both oil and gas lines, including improved leak detection and other technological improvements, PHMSA said in an emailed statement.
PHMSA increased its enforcement activity in 2015, opening 197 cases. That's a turnaround from 2014, when the agency opened fewer cases and imposed fewer fines than the previous four years (EnergyWire, April 8, 2015).
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/08/22/stories/1060041856
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Obama Admin Asks Court to Uphold Dismissal of WOTUS Challenge
Aug 22, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
U.S. EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are pushing back against attempts to revive a district court case challenging the Obama administration's Clean Water Rule.
On Friday, the agencies urged the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm the February decision by the Oklahoma district court to scuttle the case because it didn't have jurisdiction.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R) and industry groups, on the other hand, have asked the appeals court to let the case proceed in the lower court (E&ENews PM, July 7).
The administration's push to block the Oklahoma district court from taking another look at the case is the latest move in a dispute about whether challenges to the Clean Water Rule belong in federal district or federal appeals courts.
The Clean Water Rule — also known as the Waters of the United States, or WOTUS, rule — aims to define which waters in the country qualify for regulatory protection under the Clean Water Act.
In the filing Friday, EPA and the Army Corps argued that the lawsuits over the rule belonged in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which issued a divided opinion Feb. 22 ruling that it had jurisdiction to hear the numerous challenges. The 6th Circuit has also put the rule on hold nationwide while the litigation plays out (Greenwire, Feb. 22).
"Plaintiffs are entitled to their day in court, and they shall have it — in the Sixth Circuit," the government brief says. "They are not entitled to two separate days, in two separate courts, on the same claims."
To bolster their argument, the federal agencies invoked last week's decision by an Atlanta-based federal appeals court to not proceed with challenges to the rule.
A three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals instead punted the case to the 6th Circuit, saying it would be a "a colossal waste of judicial resources" for two separate appeals courts to hear the same challenges to the rule (Greenwire, Aug. 17).
The 11th Circuit also directed a district court in Georgia to halt a pending case while the 6th Circuit court action plays out.
Pruitt, however, argues that the challenges to the Clean Water Rule belong in district courts.
"The Sixth Circuit's decision does not control the outcome of this case, and the district court erred in holding that it does," Pruitt wrote last month. "[R]eview of the WOTUS Rule must begin in the district courts. The district court's dismissal of the case should be vacated, and the case should be remanded to the district court for a decision on the merits."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/08/22/stories/1060041877
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