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Congressional Hearings - There are no relevant hearings to report at this time

Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.

LCSA News

Attorneys Still Studying New Environmental Law
Sep 4, 2016 | Crain's Cleveland Business
By Jeremy Nobile

What’s widely considered the first major reform of any environmental law in nearly 20 years is raising some big questions for companies that use, manufacture, process or import chemicals in the United States.
What the EPA Should Do Under the Amended TSCA
Sep 2, 2016 | Natural Resources Defense Council

Under the newly amended Toxic Substances and Control Act (TSCA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is given the authority to obtain data and information on chemicals, conduct risk evaluations, and impose a range of restrictions on those deemed to pose an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment.
The Business Case for Safer Chemicals Now
Sep 2, 2016 | Triple Pundit
By Michael Green

Earlier this summer, President Barack Obama signed a major overhaul of our nation’s main law regulating toxic chemicals – the first such change in chemical regulations in 40 years.
Environmental Compliance: The New TSCA
Sep 5, 2016 | Electronic Products and Technology

As is well known the American presidential election will take place in November of this year. This question on everyone’s lips is which candidate is going to lead the country for the next 4 years?

Chemical Management News

F.D.A. Bans Sale of Many Antibacterial Soaps, Saying Risks Outweigh Benefits
Sep 2, 2016 | The New York Times
By Sabrina Tavernise

The Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of soaps containing certain antibacterial chemicals on Friday, saying industry had failed to prove they were safe to use over the long term or more effective than using ordinary soap and water.
FDA Bans Triclosan, Other Antibacterials in Consumer Products
Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By David Schultz

Hand and body washing products containing triclosan, triclocarban and 17 other antibacterial chemicals can no longer be sold over the counter after the FDA determined they may be harmful and ineffective.
A Proposition 65 Violation May Be Lurking in Your Cash Register or ATM Receipt
Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Meredith Jones-McKeown and Chris Mackay

Meredith Jones-McKeown is a partner in Sheppard Mullin's San Francisco office with extensive experience defending against Prop. 65 actions based on dozens of chemicals against all the major Prop 65 plaintiffs' firms.
Fuel Oxygenate Harms Kidneys, May Cause Cancer: EPA Draft
Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto

A former fuel oxygenate found in some gasoline-contaminated soils and groundwater harms kidneys and could cause cancer, according to a draft Environmental Protection Agency assessment.
PCBs Ordered Out of Malibu School District
Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Bruce Kaufman

Two schools in Malibu, Calif., must remove PCB-containing materials by the end of 2019, the Central District of California ruled Sept. 1 (Am. Unites for Kids v. Lyon, 2016 BL 287065, C.D. Cal., No. CV 15-2124 PA, 9/1/16).
UK Government to Ban Microbeads From Cosmetics By End of 2017
Sep 2, 2016 | The Guardian
By Adam Vaughan

Tiny pieces of plastic in personal beauty products, that end up in the oceans and are swallowed by marine life, will be banned from sale in the UK by the end of 2017, the government is to announce on Saturday.

Energy News

(ACC Mentioned) American Shale Gas Boom to Benefit US Plastics Customers
Sep 4, 2016 | Trade Arabia
By David Yankovitz

As a result of the shale gas boom in North America, a significant amount of new polymer capacity is coming on line.
Energy Bill Conference to Begin, But Tough Road Seen Ahead
Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Ari Natter

Is biomass an environmentally friendly energy source?

Chemical Security News

(ACC Mentioned) West Explosion Postscript: Over-Regulation of the Wrong Chemical?
Sep 4, 2016 | Emergency Management
By Lynn Brezosky

As did his father before him, Central Texas farmer Charles Krackau fertilizes his roughly 4,000 acres of corn, milo and wheat fields with anhydrous ammonia stored in a tank on his property.
New Regulations on Tank Small Retailers of Fertilizer
Sep 3, 2016 | San Antonio Express-News
By Lynn Brezosky

As did his father before him, Central Texas farmer Charles Krackau fertilizes his roughly 4,000 acres of corn, milo and wheat fields with anhydrous ammonia stored in a tank on his property.
Daikin Settles Allegations of PFOA Contamination in Alabama
Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid

Chemical manufacturer Daikin America Inc. will pay $5 million under a settlement with a Northern Alabama water utility to resolve allegations that fluorinated compounds from its facility contaminated drinking water supplies earlier this year.

Transportation News

Railroads Must Now Have Oil Spill Plans in Wash.
Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Paul Shukovsky

Railroads operating in Washington state that transport bulk oil are required to have oil spill contingency plans under a new rule that goes into effect Oct. 1.

Environment News

U.S., China Formally Join International Climate Deal
Sep 3, 2016 | PoliticoPro
By Andrew Restuccia

President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping formally committed their countries to last year's Paris climate change agreement on Saturday, ratcheting up pressure on other nations to follow suit.

Congressional Hearings - There are no relevant hearings to report at this time

Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.

LCSA News

Attorneys Still Studying New Environmental Law

Sep 4, 2016 | Crain's Cleveland Business

By Jeremy Nobile

What’s widely considered the first major reform of any environmental law in nearly 20 years is raising some big questions for companies that use, manufacture, process or import chemicals in the United States.
And for a region like Northeast Ohio, where the business sector is deeply connected to manufacturing and polymer industries, reform of the Toxic Substances Control Act could have major business implications.
While the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act that President Barack Obama signed into law in June to set that reform into motion is generally considered good for both industry and the environment, there will be more questions than answers for some time.
But Cleveland attorneys are trying to make as much sense of it as they can as their manufacturing clients look for guidance.
The new law does several things, notes Christopher Jones, a Cleveland environmental layer with Calfee, Halter & Griswold LLP.
The top concern is how those things will be implemented.
“You’re looking at five to six years before there’s a direct impact to the marketplace,” said Jones, a former director of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency. “We have to see how all this works before we can really react. And I think that’s where people are right now.”
The ability to clearly predict how manufacturers will truly be affected at this point is tough because there are so many moving pieces, said Allen Kacenjar, a Cleveland environmental lawyer with Squire Patton Boggs.
Overall, the reform creates long-sought uniformity in the law.
“(The Ohio Chemistry Technology Council) sees the legislation as a win for both industry and the environment,” said Jenn Klein, president of the OCTC, which advocates for the state’s chemical technology sector. “The business of chemistry now has a strong national chemical regulatory program that removes bureaucratic hurdles that impede growth and increases consumer confidence in the safety of chemicals.”
It’s sure to have a great impact on Ohio, and not just for chemical manufacturers.
“The business of chemistry touches more than 96% of all manufactured goods,” Klein said. “Chemical manufacturers in Ohio, which employ more than 43,000 residents, will have peace of mind that they can rely on a strong national regulatory program with greater certainty and not worry about having to comply with a patchwork of state regulations.”
That’s the perk of having one set of laws instead of ones that vary from state to state.

But there’s much more that could impact manufacturers who make and use chemicals.
New assessments
Among various components, the new law mandates the EPA evaluate existing chemicals for safety with clear and enforceable deadlines; establishes a new risk-based safety standard, increases transparency for chemical information; and provides a consistent source of funding for the EPA to carry out these new responsibilities. Whether the funding being considered will be enough to effectively meet the new goals, and how much cost might be passed on to manufacturers in these review processes, is a matter of concern for some, experts say.
For starters, the EPA has to establish a list of chemicals it will evaluate proactively for safety. Jones said the EPA is expected to prioritize for assessment in the near term 10 out of thousands of chemicals currently used. Those are supposed to be picked within 180 days of the law’s passing, with 20 reviewed in about the first three years or so.
If a chemical is deemed to pose an “unreasonable” risk people, Jones said, that will set into motion efforts to mitigate those risks. That level of risk also reflects a new and tighter level of scrutiny.
Those mitigating efforts could include phase outs, bans or other control plans, which in turn creates an air of uncertainty that has some manufacturers concerned, Jones said — and understandably so.
A ban alone could have major impacts to a manufacturing process. Just think of when asbestos was banned.
“If you start thinking about what could happen if the EPA assesses those, people who make those chemicals, or use them as components in products like paint or sunscreen, are concerned,” Kacenjar said. “There could be tort ramifications if the EPA deems a product we’re using to be unsafe. That’s one aspect that’s unnerving to some and generating a lot of interest and calls to our offices.”
The EPA also is charged with effectively resetting the chemical inventory by collecting information from anyone who makes chemicals, so this master list contains only chemicals people are using today.
It’s an “enormous” task the EPA will be handing down to individual companies, Kacenjar said, putting pressure on them to fully report what chemicals they use and how.
That can be quite an undertaking for a large company.
“There’s an enormous amount of information that needs to be collected and shared,” he said, “and everyone in the game will have to invest resources to understand and meet these changes. There’s going to be a real process cost with that.”Get your ducks in a row
The new assessments, which place more burdens on the companies themselves, could slow the entry of new chemicals to the market.
Under the old rule, the EPA evaluated a chemical to determine compliance costs of regulating a new chemical. The idea was to make regulations that caused the least burden to companies — a business-friendly approach versus an environmental or health-focused one, in effect.
The new law allows the EPA to consider those economic effects, but requires restrictions be based on environmental, health and safety impacts.
What this means, Jones explains, is that the burden of making sure a chemical is truly safe shifts to the business instead of the government.
With the old rule, if the EPA couldn’t make a determination that a chemical was unsafe in about 90 days, it could be marketed. Now, a company looking to introduce a new chemical will want to make sure that level of safety is achieved before getting an EPA review not beholden to an expedited timeframe.
“That will be good for health and the environment,” Jones said. “But if the EPA can’t move these evaluations through the process quickly, it’s a potential bottleneck for people trying to bring something new to the market.”
If you’re a manufacturer, the takeaway from all this is to truly and comprehensively understand what you’re making — if you don’t already — legal experts say, even though it will take years to see how the new law affects the manufacturing sector in the long run.
So companies should be preparing now.
“Get your ducks in a row,” Kacenjar said. “Assess your data and the chemicals you make. Bad things probably can and will happen under this new regime to those who don’t pay attention.”
“It’s time to build your teams internally and externally to focus on this,” he added. “How impacted might I be? Until you’ve answered that question, you’re taking a risk you don’t need to.”
http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20160904/NEWS/160909948/attorneys-still-studying-new-environmental-law

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What the EPA Should Do Under the Amended TSCA

Sep 2, 2016 | Natural Resources Defense Council

Under the newly amended Toxic Substances and Control Act (TSCA), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is given the authority to obtain data and information on chemicals, conduct risk evaluations, and impose a range of restrictions on those deemed to pose an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment. At the same time, the amended law curtails the states’ previous authority to take action to restrict chemicals in important respects.
As the EPA must create a final rule establishing a screening process that includes criteria for prioritizing chemical substances for further risk evaluation, NRDC recommends setting guidelines for procedural steps necessary to ensure public participation and input in the prioritization process. We also focus on recommendations for methodological requirements that should be included in future guidance documents or other arenas in which prioritization methods are discussed. These comments and recommendations ultimately seek to assist the EPA in fully upholding the law and fulfilling its mission to “protect human health and the environment.”
When it comes to the states’ diminished authority to restrict toxic chemicals, the EPA must do the best job possible to ensure that its work meets the highest standards for evaluating chemicals and protecting the public. The agency should immediately and clearly delineate its independence from the influence of the chemical industry, which has for too long hindered, haggled, and hounded the EPA. Our comments on this topic are intended to offer the EPA advice on key steps for making the most of the amended TSCA to fulfill its purpose.
https://www.nrdc.org/resources/what-epa-should-do-under-amended-tsca

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The Business Case for Safer Chemicals Now

Sep 2, 2016 | Triple Pundit

By Michael Green

Earlier this summer, President Barack Obama signed a major overhaul of our nation’s main law regulating toxic chemicals – the first such change in chemical regulations in 40 years. But many are left wondering if the new law is likely to have significant effects on companies’ use of toxic chemicals.
Consider the case of children’s jewelry. In 2004, a Center for Environmental Health investigation exposed the use of lead-tainted metals in jewelry sold to children. At the time, studies found that upwards of 40 percent of the metal jewelry on the market contained high levels of lead.
Weeks after we released our findings, the government announced the largest toy recall in history, when 150 million pieces of jewelry were removed from gumball machines nationwide.
Within a few years, the entire jewelry industry had changed its practices, virtually eliminating this lead risk to children. Moreover, CEH’s work ultimately pushed Congress to adopt the first comprehensive federal law banning lead-tainted materials from all children’s products.
Contrast this swift change to protect children’s health with the new federal chemical regulations. Consider a chemical like bisphenol A (BPA), a substance that can disrupt the bodies’ natural hormones and has been linked to cancer and serious risks to reproductive health, especially for children and pregnant women.
Under the chemical safety bill, you might expect that the EPA would act quickly to regulate such a chemical. But once the EPA decides to subject a chemical to review, it has seven years to conduct that assessment. Even if the EPA determines that safety rules are needed, the law provides no deadlines for compliance, so the agency may give industry years more to bring safer products to market.
But the timeline could get even worse. Industry will surely use litigation to forestall any regulations they deem a threat to their profits. We’ve already seen this happen recently with BPA regulations in California: State scientists there unanimously agreed to add BPA to the California list of chemicals known to cause reproductive health problems, and the industry sued to stop any new restrictions on BPA. A state court eventually threw out the industry lawsuit, but their litigation bought the chemical companies another two years of toxic sales without regulation.
If we add the delays from lawsuits to the already bloated timeline in the federal bill, it’s clear that the new chemical safety bill might protect us from harmful substances like BPA – sometime in the next two decades or more. And this assumes that EPA will actually receive the funding needed to assess the hundreds of harmful chemicals that are currently used in hundreds of products our children and families use everyday.
So, we should pause when those who backed the new chemical regulations applaud the power this bill will have to protect us from the $800 billion a year chemical industry.
But fortunately, outside efforts will continue to move companies away from harmful chemicals. For example, researchers are looking for alternatives to BPA and other chemicals that can disrupt our hormones and cause serious health problems. One group of scientists has developed a cutting-edge screening process that uses a green chemistry framework to help producers avoid creating hormone-altering hazards when they develop new products.
As one of the developers of this testing regime noted, “We want to help chemists make money by grabbing market share in an economy where ‘safe’ is valuable.”
In fact, major companies are recognizing the business case for safer chemicals already.Walmart and Target are developing policies for safer products, not in response to the new law but as a result of consumer pressure. Similarly, as a result of consumer demand, dozens of leading furniture makers representing billions of dollars in annual sales are now offering furniture made without harmful flame retardant chemicals.
As Richard Liroff, executive director of the Investor Environmental Health Network, told GreenBiz: Companies that fail to address the health and environmental threats from toxic chemicals “pose a greater risk for investors than companies that take such steps.”
Smart companies know that safer products made without toxic chemicals will provide a marketplace advantage and avoid the liabilities associated with chemical health and environmental costs. Companies that continue to sell toxic products while such sales are protected under the treacherously slow progress of the new chemical safety law will soon find themselves outliers in the 21st-century reality of consumer demand for safe, healthy alternatives.
http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/09/the-business-case-for-safer-chemicals-now/

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Environmental Compliance: The New TSCA

Sep 5, 2016 | Electronic Products and Technology

As is well known the American presidential election will take place in November of this year. This question on everyone’s lips is which candidate is going to lead the country for the next 4 years? One thing is certain, the US environmental compliance landscape is going to drastically change with the implementation of the new TSCA.
Background information
Since President Obama’ signing of the H.R. 2576, Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, on June 22nd of this year, the TSCA has a new beginning. TSCA stands for Toxic Substances Control Act and was enacted in 1976. Since then, TSCA only enabled the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to request testing of certain toxic substances. Overall, it did not fully succeed in controlling toxic substances and a reform appeared necessary.
After several attempts throughout the last four decades, Congress finally agreed with a TSCA reform! Consequently several are expected and will certainly apply to the electronic industry.
Changes for existing chemicals
Existing chemicals in the US market undergo a Prioritization, Risk Evaluation, and Risk Management by the EPA. By 2018, the existing chemicals should be classified into two categories following a transparent process. They will either be listed as high risk or low risk chemicals. High risk chemicals that may show an unreasonable risk of hazard and exposure will be regulated, according to risk management actions that are being taken. The risk management actions include warning requirements, usage restrictions or bans. When the EPA bans a use, availability of technically and economically feasible alternatives will nevertheless be taken into account. An interesting fact is that by default, a substance will be listed as a high risk chemical when hazard and exposure information are missing.
Changes for new chemicals and new uses
Another EPA’s reformed role is to manage chemicals or chemicals usage that are new to the US market. Unlike existing chemicals, new chemicals or usages are being classified by the EPA into any of the following three categories depending if:
1. They present an unreasonable risk;
2. The information is insufficient; they may present unreasonable risk; has substantial production and exposure;
3. They are not likely to present unreasonable risk.
Prior to their commercialization, the EPA has to regulate these new chemicals and usages and publish its reasons ‘why not’.
What about States actions to substances management?
This question was one of the toughest concerns of the TSCA revision. What is the Federal VS State relationship going to be? The decision was to maintain any State’s action taken before April 22, 2016. State’s regulations, such as the Californian Proposition 65 – which requires providers to notify the consumer whether a product contains at least one chemical known to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm – remain in force. Nevertheless, some exemptions apply, for example in tort actions cases.
Similarities between the new TSCA and the European REACH?
Only the future will tell, depending on the risk management actions that are going to emerge from the modernized TSCA. However, it is reasonable to foresee that some chemicals that are regulated under the European Union REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals) will also be regulated under TSCA, due to the properties, toxicity and usage of these substances. The REACH obligation to disclose the identity of Substances of Very High Concern (SVHCs) in articles looks similar to the warning requirement on TSCA’s cards.
What should be done at this point?
As a manufacturer, if you export electronic products to the EU (European Union), you probably are already familiar with both the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and REACH requirements. There is a good chance that chemicals that are regulated under RoHS and REACH will also be part of TSCA’s high risk chemicals list and therefore be regulated. It is recommended to maintain your product’s technical documentation and to determine the concentrations of the hazardous substances that constitute your product’s components and materials. Solid processes must be in place to maintain such documentation. Also Important to note, the regularly updated EU RoHS exemptions and REACH SVHCs lists should be monitored according to you processes and be reflected in your products RoHS and REACH statements.
Additionally, the EPA keeps the public informed on TSCA’s implementation plan, according to EPA’s new responsibilities. In spite of the fact that the imposed deadlines are quite short, the EPA wants to engage partners and stakeholders early in the process and to be as transparent as possible (The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, First year implementation plan, June 29, 2016). Staying informed on these implementation plans and participating in information sessions are two good ways to anticipate the coming chemical risk management actions.
As soon as such actions are made available; whether these are warning requirements, usage restrictions or bans; you will then be able to verify if your product’s technical documentation is sufficient to confirm compliance. If compliance cannot be confirmed, you will able to make corrective actions, like updating your processes, replacing non-compliant parts, filling product’s documentation gaps etc. Using these due diligence actions, you should be able to confidently address your US customer’s new requests about restricted chemicals.
http://www.ept.ca/features/environmental-compliance-new-tsca/

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Chemical Management News

F.D.A. Bans Sale of Many Antibacterial Soaps, Saying Risks Outweigh Benefits

Sep 2, 2016 | The New York Times

By Sabrina Tavernise

The Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of soaps containing certain antibacterial chemicals on Friday, saying industry had failed to prove they were safe to use over the long term or more effective than using ordinary soap and water.
In all the F.D.A. took action against 19 different chemicals and has given industry a year to take them out of their products. About 40 percent of soaps — including liquid hand soap and bar soap – contain the chemicals. Triclosan, mostly used in liquid soap, and triclocarban, in bar soaps, are by far the most common.
The rule applies only to consumer hand washes and soaps. Other products may still contain the chemicals. At least one toothpaste, Colgate Total, still does, but the F.D.A. says its maker proved that the benefits of using it — reducing plaque and gum disease — outweigh the risks.
The agency is also studying the safety and efficacy of hand sanitizers and wipes, and has asked companies for data on three active ingredients — alcohol (ethanol or ethyl alcohol), isopropyl alcohol and benzalkonium chloride — before issuing a final rule on them.
Public health experts applauded the rule, which came after years of mounting concerns that the antibacterial chemicals that go into everyday products are doing more harm than good. Experts have pushed the agency to regulate antimicrobial chemicals, warning that they risk scrambling hormones in children and promoting drug-resistant infections.
“It has boggled my mind why we were clinging to these compounds, and now that they are gone I feel liberated,” said Rolf Halden, a scientist at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University, who has been tracking the issue for years. “They had absolutely no benefit but we kept them buzzing around us everywhere. They are in breast milk, in urine, in blood, in babies just born, in dust, in water.”
The agency first proposed the rule in 2013, when it told companies that unless they could prove that chemicals like triclosan and triclocarban did more good than harm, they would have to remove the products that contained them from the market. On Friday, the agency said that it was not convinced.
The F.D.A. has given industry more time to prove that an additional three chemicals are safe and effective — benzalkonium chloride, benzethonium chloride and chloroxylenol. Products with those chemicals can stay on the market for now.
The American Cleaning Institute, a trade group, opposed the rule, saying the agency “has in its hands data that shows the safety and effectiveness of antibacterial soaps.” The group said manufacturers were continuing to work to provide even more science and research “to fill data gaps identified by the F.D.A.”
But some of the largest companies have already started removing the chemicals, in part a reaction to rising consumer concerns. Both Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble announced their intention to phase out the chemicals in their products before the rule was made final, said Dr. Theresa Michele, the director of the division of nonprescription drug products at the F.D.A.’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
Studies in animals have shown that triclosan and triclocarban can disrupt the normal development of the reproductive system and metabolism, and health experts warn that their effects could be the same in humans. The chemicals were originally used by surgeons to wash their hands before operations, and their use exploded in recent years as manufacturers added them to a variety of products, including mouthwash, laundry detergent, fabrics and baby pacifiers. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the chemicals in the urine of three-quarters of Americans.
Dr. Halden began publishing findings on what appeared to be risks of triclocarban in 2004. He said it is an older chemical, part of the family of organochlorines, like DDT and hexachlorophene, some of which were eventually banned. Newer chemicals are much lighter on the environment, he said, but triclocarban takes a very long time to disappear. In one study in New York City, for example, his team found traces of it that dated back to the 1960s.
“It was still sitting there in Jamaica Bay near J.F.K. Airport,” he said. “This stuff makes no sense.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/science/fda-bans-sale-of-many-antibacterial-soaps-saying-risks-outweigh-benefits.html

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FDA Bans Triclosan, Other Antibacterials in Consumer Products

Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By David Schultz

Hand and body washing products containing triclosan, triclocarban and 17 other antibacterial chemicals can no longer be sold over the counter after the FDA determined they may be harmful and ineffective.
The final rule establishing the ban on these chemicals means the likely end to their use in hundreds of consumer products. Theresa Michele, head of the Food and Drug Administration's nonprescription drug evaluation division, said the cleaning industry did not or could not produce data showing that the benefits of these chemicals outweigh their potential health risks.
“Millions of Americans use antibacterial products every day,” Michele said in a Sep. 2 press conference, “but these products may not provide any benefits beyond soap and water.”
The runoff of these chemicals into water supplies has been a major concern for environmental activists because of their potential effects on the endocrine systems of aquatic animals. However, Michele said the FDA did not consider the environmental effects of the chemicals when making its decision, but instead looked only at their efficacy and their ability to affect human health.
Three Exceptions
Manufacturers will have a year from Sept. 6, when the final regulation will be published in the Federal Register, to phase these chemicals out of their products. Michele said roughly 40 percent of the more than 2,000 personal cleaning products on the market contain at least one of the 19 chemicals affected by the new regulation, which was first proposed in 2013. She said companies could reintroduce them into the marketplace only if they undergo the FDA's screening for prescription drugs.
Not included in the 19 chemicals affected by this regulation are three other antibacterial agents: benzalkonium chloride, benzethonium chloride and chloroxylenol. Michelle said the FDA is giving the personal cleaning product industry more time to submit safety and efficacy data on these chemicals before it takes action on them.
The American Cleaning Institute, which represents companies that make products containing these chemicals, said in a statement that its members will work to provide FDA with the data it needs. But it also said the FDA already has data on the other 19 antibacterial chemicals that shows they are safe and effective.
The FDA's actions only apply to consumer-grade washing products. The 19 chemicals are still permitted for use in alcohol-based hand sanitizers, which are used without water, and in antibacterial products that are used in health care settings.

http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=96671440&vname=dennotallissues&fn=96671440&jd=96671440

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A Proposition 65 Violation May Be Lurking in Your Cash Register or ATM Receipt

Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Meredith Jones-McKeown and Chris Mackay

Meredith Jones-McKeown is a partner in Sheppard Mullin's San Francisco office with extensive experience defending against Prop. 65 actions based on dozens of chemicals against all the major Prop 65 plaintiffs' firms.
Chris Mackay, senior managing toxicologist at Intertox Inc., helps companies analyze whether exposures above the Prop. 65 Maximum Allowable Dose Level or No Significant Risk Level have occurred. Intertox fields expertise to help manage supply chains to ensure Prop. 65 violations do not occur.

Businesses operating in California have long been aware of the perils of utilizing any of the almost 1,000 chemicals identified by the state of California as potentially causing cancer or reproductive harm under California's “Proposition 65.” Consumer-facing businesses have learned to identify high-risk Prop 65 targets: soft, flexible plastics; faux and colored leathers; and any kind of brass or metal that may contain lead or other heavy metals. If they don't, scores of Prop 65 “bounty-hunters” are waiting in the wings to seek penalties and attorney's fees from businesses when they are caught including these chemicals in their products without a compliant warning label.
But since California typically leads the way on consumer regulations, even businesses that don't operate in California should be aware of a recent addition to the Prop 65 list: bisphenol A, or “BPA.” Consumer advocates have long voiced concerns about the use of BPA in baby bottles, as a liner for canned goods, and in other plastics and products. And as of May 11, 2016, BPA has been added to the Prop 65 list, so many businesses are scrambling to eradicate its use from these known sources. But one source may come as a surprise: BPA may be lurking in your cash register receipts and other thermal papers.
The Addition of BPA to the Proposition 65 Chemical List. Effective May 11, 2016, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) added BPA to the list of Proposition 65 chemicals known to the state of California to cause reproductive harm. BPA commonly exists in certain plastics and as a liner for canned foods. But many do not realize that thermal paper (commonly used in printing machines such as cash registers, credit card machines, ATMs and automated ticket printers due to the fact that it does not require ink stock) is also likely to contain BPA—and businesses that fail to phase out the use of BPA-containing thermal paper before May 11th will eventually run the risk of receiving a Proposition 65 Notice of Violation from the plaintiffs' bar. Under Prop 65, businesses have a one-year grace period after the chemical is listed to achieve compliance.
Thermal Paper Technology. The technology of thermal-sensitive paper is straightforward. Normal paper is coated with an ink in a form that has little color at neutral or high pH, but becomes vivid at low pHs. These inks are commonly made with leuco dyes that demonstrate this pH-dependent color change. The paper is then sequentially coated with a thin layer of a temperature-sensitive polymer and a solid-state acid, which acts as a developer. When the paper is heated by the printer head, the polymer melts and the dye and acid combine, the pH of the ink drops, and inks shifts to the colored form. When the paper cools back to room temperature, the thermal polymer condenses over the visible ink, thereby preserving the writing.
Why BPA is Commonly Used in Thermal Paper. In order to function correctly, the acid component of the thermal dye must be solid with moderate water solubility, chemically stable within a large range of temperatures, and possess a low vapor pressure. BPA is one of the few chemicals that meet these criteria, and it provides the additional benefit of being low cost.
Rationale for Adding BPA to the Proposition 65 Chemical List. The toxicology of BPA is complex and its effects on humans are unknown although a substantial number of animal studies have examined it. BPA has been classified as a weak estrogenic mimic, meaning that it produces effects similar to the female sex hormone estrogen. Binding studies with BPA and the classical estrogen receptors suggest its activity is 1,000 to 10,000 times less than estrogen. However, some animal studies show impacts at lower concentrations. Some researchers have opined that BPA may act as a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM), while other researchers have advanced alternative theories.
MADL for Reproductive Impacts.OEHHA has promulgated a dermal MADL of BPA of 3 ug/day effective October 1, 2016. This is extremely conservative and may not be supported by data. Studies reported by the National Toxicology Program suggest that a more appropriate MADL would be on the order of 150-250 μg/day.
Concern about Dermal Uptake from Thermal Paper. Because BPA in thermal paper is present in its monomer form, some studies have suggested that it is more available for transfer to people than BPA trapped in a polymer; one academic study published in 2010 reports that a single 5 second contact by two fingers resulted in the average transfer of 1.2 μg (~0.22 μg/cm) of BPA during testing. The study also reported that the transfer amount increased by about 10 times when the fingers were moistened. Interestingly, multiple exposures did not increase the BPA concentration on the skin nor did longer holding periods (60 seconds compared to 5 seconds). This breaks down to an exposure of 3 μg/day (0.05 μg/kg-day) for the incidental user (i.e. consumer) and about 15.8 μg/day (0.24 μg/kg-day) for the occupational user (e.g. sales clerk).
Problems Coming into Compliance. With the finalization of the 3 µg/day dermal MADL, there is an urgent need to remove all BPA-containing thermal paper from the market. Proposition 65 prohibits exposing an individual to a listed chemical without first giving a clear and reasonable warning. The warning must be reasonably calculated, considering the alternative methods available under the circumstances, to make the warning message available prior to exposure. Since exposure to the receipt is automatic for every customer who receives a receipt, traditional Proposition 65 warning systems may not be sufficient to avoid liability for alleged exposures.
Alternative Materials for Use in Thermal Papers. BPA is not the only possible acid that can be used in thermal paper. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) evaluated the hazard levels of 19 different alternatives to BPA that can be used in thermal paper, although “no clearly safer alternatives” were identified in the report. Substitute materials include sulfonyl ureas or substituted salicylic acids, such as zinc di-tert-butylsalicylate. Another alternative commonly used in thermal paper is bisphenol S (BPS); however, because BPS itself has been implicated as a potential endocrine disruptor, it too may face limitations in the near future.
Cost Considerations of Alternative Materials in Thermal Paper. Economically viable chemical substitutes for BPA in thermal paper would include those that are easy to process and cost-effective to integrate into existing products. The Danish Environmental Protection Agency published a report confirming that five of the 19 chemical alternatives identified by the EPA were on the European market as developers in thermal paper. These alternatives have a financial benefit to companies because they can be used in existing thermal printers without adjustments. However, all five of these alternatives are still more expensive than BPA; BPS-based thermal paper is the most common and cheapest alternative at 5 percent to 10 percent more expensive, and Pergafast-based thermal paper is the priciest alternative at 10 percent to 25 percent more expensive. In addition to the higher costs of these alternative chemicals, substituting the developer requires significant adjustments to the manufacturing process and chemistry of the paper. Like the EPA study, this study also could not confirm that these alternatives were healthier than BPA. Where compatibility is not available, companies may need to modify their processes, and potentially purchase new equipment. Other considerations include the handling, disposal, and treatment costs of these substitute materials. Substitution decisions should be seen as long-term investments, and companies should anticipate using any chemical replacement for many years to come, with consideration of future regulatory actions as well as market trends.
Alternatives to Thermal Paper. Alternatives to thermal paper may be considered for substitution, including alternative printing systems to thermal paper, and the use of electronic or digital receipts (e-receipts). The EPA report cautioned that alternative printing systems should be evaluated for performance, cost, and hazard, and the Danish EPA report called these systems “outdated.” These products may also be more expensive because they require ribbons, inks, or toner cartridges, and typically have higher maintenance costs. E-receipts, in addition to being environmentally friendly, generate financial benefits by reducing manufacturer, transport, storage, and disposal costs, but also require additional data storage devices, electronic products, and peripherals that make their implementation and use more expensive. Today, more than one-third of retail businesses in the U.S. offer e-receipt options, and the practice is a growing trend. Should companies offer the option of either an e-receipt or a paper receipt at the counter, it may be possible to warn consumers who elect a paper option about the risks of BPA in those receipts, prior to their exposure.

Chemical structure of bisphenol A (top) and the related bisphenol S (bottom). BPA is a common chemical used in the adhesives and plastic industries. It is the common monomer in epoxy adhesives (the resin component) and is also used as a monomer high impact polycarbonates used to make reusable bottles, safety glasses, and CD/DVDs. Other advanced plastics such as polyether- and polyether ether ketones as well as polysulfonates may contain BPA. BPA may also be found in PVC and vinyl (softened PVC), where it is sometimes included in the product as both a polymerization terminator and as an antioxidant.

Daily BPA exposure based on urinary metabolite. The 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Survey (NHANES), performed annually by the Centers for Disease Control, measured BPA metabolites in participants and back-calculated exposures by age group. Bars represent the 25th (black), 50th (red), and 95th (green) percentile estimates from the 2003-2004 NHANES survey. The current draft MADL BPA falls in the 25-50th percentile.

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Fuel Oxygenate Harms Kidneys, May Cause Cancer: EPA Draft

Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Pat Rizzuto

A former fuel oxygenate found in some gasoline-contaminated soils and groundwater harms kidneys and could cause cancer, according to a draft Environmental Protection Agency assessment.
The EPA released Sept. 1 a draft toxicological review of ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE) that concludes the chemical shows “suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential” based on liver tumors found in male rats. Studies of male and female rats also showed ingestion or inhalation of ETBE could harm kidneys, the agency said.
Petroleum companies added ETBE to gasoline from 1990 to 2006 to reduce pollution in vehicular exhaust, the agency said. Other oxygenates—notably methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE)—were more commonly used, however, the EPA said. The use of these oxygenates in the U.S. has ceased, largely in response to their potential to contaminate groundwater, the agency said.
The EPA's draft assessment is being conducted under its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program. If issued as a final analysis, the assessment's conclusions about the hazards of ETBE and the doses at which those hazards could manifest will be entered into the IRIS database. The EPA's regulatory offices, states, environmental consultants and regulators in other countries use information from the IRIS database to conduct risk analyses that underlay regulatory decisions.
Information from a final ETBE analysis could be used as part of hazardous waste and groundwater cleanups. California maintains a database of contaminated sites that reported ETBE in groundwater at 607 sites between 2010 and 2013, the draft assessment said.
Information about the scope of ETBE contamination across the U.S. is incomplete, however. Only 13 states routinely analyze environmental media for the oxygenate at fuel contaminated sites, and fuel-related cleanups are largely done by states, the EPA said.
The agency will host a public science meeting Oct. 23 to discuss ETBE's liver tumors in particular as the relevancy of some rodent liver tumors for humans is debatable. The agency will accept comments on the draft assessment through Oct. 31.
Ingesting, Inhaling ETBE
No human studies are available to evaluate the health effects of ETBE following ingestion or inhalation, the EPA said.
The agency's IRIS program has not issued a final assessment of ETBE before, although it published a draft assessment in 2009. That draft assessment also proposed to classify the oxygenate as having “suggestive evidence of carcinogenic potential.”
That assessment, however, was among four IRIS chemical evaluations the EPA placed on hold after the U.S. National Toxicology Program and an Italian research organization, the Ramazzini Institute, reached divergent opinions on cancer data the institute generated.
The EPA's new draft assessment proposes a reference dose of 0.5 milligram per kilogram bodyweight per day. The proposed reference dose drew heavily on a study conducted since 2009, when the EPA said available data was too uncertain to estimate a reference dose, which is a dose the agency presumes humans, including vulnerable populations, could ingest every day of their life without harm.
The agency's new draft assessment proposes a reference concentration of 9 milligrams per cubic meter of air (mg/m3), also based on research conducted since 2009. That reference concentration presumes people could inhale more of ETBE without harm than the agency estimated in 2009, when it proposed a 0.006 mg/m3 reference concentration.
Global ETBE Demand
Lyondell Chemical Co. and one other company—which claimed its name to be confidential business information—were the two U.S. manufacturers of ETBE in 2011, the most recent year for which U.S. production data is available from the EPA. The agency withheld ETBE's national production volume information to protect proprietary information.
The U.S. produced 25 percent of the global demand for ETBE in 2012, the EPA's draft assessment said. Western Europe consumes the most with use in Eastern Europe and Japan also relatively high, the agency said.

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PCBs Ordered Out of Malibu School District

Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Bruce Kaufman

Two schools in Malibu, Calif., must remove PCB-containing materials by the end of 2019, the Central District of California ruled Sept. 1 (Am. Unites for Kids v. Lyon, 2016 BL 287065, C.D. Cal., No. CV 15-2124 PA, 9/1/16).
The permanent injunction is intended to force the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District to strictly follow existing plans to replace and renovate pre-1979 buildings.
It follows a May bench trial in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.
The order requires that all window and door systems, including the surrounding caulk, at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School and Malibu Middle and High School be replaced by Dec. 31, 2019.
This approach is a “reasonable and appropriate remedy” for violating the Toxic Substances Control Act, the court said.
The ruling also winnowed the number of plaintiffs in the suit.
Plaintiff Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a non-profit organization that “advocates for public employees concerned with environmental issues,” lacks organizational standing because its affidavit was filed by a group “supporter” rather than a group “member,” the court said.
A second advocacy group, America Unites for Kids, remains a plaintiff.
Judge Percy Anderson wrote the decision.
The defendants are represented by Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman.
Plaintiffs' attorneys include Nagler & Associates.

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UK Government to Ban Microbeads From Cosmetics By End of 2017

Sep 2, 2016 | The Guardian

By Adam Vaughan

Tiny pieces of plastic in personal beauty products, that end up in the oceans and are swallowed by marine life, will be banned from sale in the UK by the end of 2017, the government is to announce on Saturday.
The move comes just days after MPs called for a ban on so-called microbeads, and sees the UK following in the footsteps of the US, which has banned them beginning in mid-2017. More than 357,000 people signed a petition calling for a UK ban, and environment groups welcomed the news of the ban.
Microbeads are very small pieces of plastic in products such as facial scrubs and makeup. Some are visible to the naked eye, but others are as tiny as one micrometre. Conservationists have warned that they can affect fish growth and persist in the guts of mussels and fish that mistake them for food.
The industry had argued that it was already phasing them out voluntarily, but critics have claimed some companies were exploiting loopholes or dragging their feet on a phase-out.
Greenpeace said the new ban was welcome but should be extended to other products too.
“It’s a credit to Theresa May’s government that they’ve listened to concerns from the public, scientists, and MPs and taken a first step towards banning microbeads,” said the group’s oceans campaigner Louise Edge. “But marine life doesn’t distinguish between plastic from a face wash and plastic from a washing detergent, so it makes no sense for this ban to be limited to some products and not others, as is currently proposed.”
The Cosmetic, Toiletry & Perfumery Association, which represents the industry, said it was not surprised by the ban, but did not understand why it had been singled out, given other plastic rubbish dumped in the oceans.
Dr Chris Flower, its spokesman and director general, said: “It was inevitable. But it will ban something we are not using. The survey we’ve carried out [on members] shows a 70% reduction [in products with microbeads] since 2015, and almost zero by the end of 2018.”
He said it would not increase costs to consumers, but did mean some health and beauty products would disappear from shelves, as manufacturers work to overcome “supply, quality and reliability and microbiological purity issues”.
The environment minister, George Eustice, said in May that the government “fully backed” a ban and that costs to industry would “not be that high”.
The government is to publish a consultation next week on how wide-ranging the ban should be, and which products will be covered. Keith Taylor, the Green party MEP, welcomed the ban but said it should extend much further than just beauty cosmetics.
Mary Creagh, the Labour MP and chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, agreed, saying: “I’m pleased to see the Government has finally agreed with my Committee’s call for a ban on microbeads. Fish don’t care where the plastic they are eating comes from, so it’s vital the ban covers all microplastics in all down the drain products.”
The US ban, approved by Barack Obama, covers cosmetic products with plastic microbeads, including toothpaste, soap and body washes.
One cleansing product can contain hundreds of thousands of the microbeads, which end up in the oceans after being washed down sinks. Yet natural alternatives that biodegrade and pose no harm to marine life exist, including jojoba beads, apricot kernels, ground nutshells and salt.
Supermarket beauty products such as those by Asda, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s have already had the plastic dropped, and major companies such as Unilever – which owns Dove and other brands – have also phased them out. But other big names such as Procter and Gamble, which owns Crest toothpaste, Gillette, Olay, and Tesco, will not have phased them out entirely until the end of 2017.
Consumers looking to avoid microbeads in the meantime should avoid products containing polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and nylon, campaigners say.
So far, no conclusive scientific evidence has proved the microplastics pose any threat to human health when passed up the food chain by fish. “No studies were identified that address the potential human health effects of microplastics ingested by humans through the food chain,” a review of their safety by the European Food and Safety Agency found.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/02/uk-government-to-ban-microbeads-from-cosmetics-by-end-of-2017

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Energy News

(ACC Mentioned) American Shale Gas Boom to Benefit US Plastics Customers

Sep 4, 2016 | Trade Arabia

By David Yankovitz

As a result of the shale gas boom in North America, a significant amount of new polymer capacity is coming on line. Much of this production will be exported, and three trends suggest that US plastics customers will benefit from the bounty of low-cost feedstocks and an abundant supply of domestic resins, write David Yankovitz and Paul Bjacek of Accenture in an article.

Over 23 billion pounds per year of new polymer (including PE, PVC, ABS, PET, PP, PS, EPS) capacity is likely to come on-stream in the US by 2020, most justified based on low cost gas. This will allow the US to be the second lowest cost region in the world for products such as polyethylene. If all were to be used domestically, its calculation would mean adding 2,000 to 10,000 new plastic processing lines, depending on the type of plastic, process and application. However, much will likely be exported, said the article.

The report also suggested that US plastics customers, that is, plastics processors (those that buy raw plastic resin and convert it to various products, like packaging materials, pipe, bottles and other finished products) will be able to share in the bounty of low-cost feedstocks and abundant domestic resins production.

Processors are betting on the home market
The analysis indicates that domestic plastics processors (or “converters”) are gearing up to take advantage of the inevitable favourable price and volume position of North America when the new polymer plants start up. About 60 per cent of plastics processing machinery used in the US is imported. Imported machinery data is, therefore, a very good barometer of plastics processors’ investment sentiment. Encouragingly, plastics and rubber machinery imports grew 9 per cent per year between 2010 and 2015, with important items such as injection molding machine imports growing by up to 16 per cent per year. This is consistent with American Chemistry Council analyses that indicate more than 500 plastic processor expansions have been announced since mid-2012. In fact, new equipment purchases are rising much faster than the capacity utilisation increases in plastics and rubber products production.

The article said that this phenomena is mainly related to the shale gas advantage and to plastics processing in particular.

The US has advantages versus other economies in terms of the current exchange rate, making equipment costs lower (imported aggregate plastics machinery values dropped 31 per cent between 2010 and 2015), as well as an improving total labour cost differential with China, where China’s relative labour cost rose 36 per cent over the past six years, as those of the US declined by 6 per cent. It could be that processors were taking advantage of the low equipment prices based on exchange rates. However, we believe the manufacturing renaissance, where automation reduces the importance of labour costs, is a real occurrence, although muted a bit due to poor world economic growth.

While these low labour and equipment costs bode well for US manufacturing, plastics processing is doing even better. As a matter of fact, after several years of weaker performance versus total manufacturing, plastics processing has outperformed total manufacturing output in the US since the end of 2011, as shown in Figure 5 by the ratio of plastics to manufacturing output. Manufacturing grew by 1.8 per cent per year between December 2011 and December 2015 versus 4.1 per cent per year for plastic products manufacturing.

The price gap
The gap of US domestic plastics prices versus those of Southeast Asia has been widening over the past few years. As new North American capacity comes on-stream and domestic producers battle for market share, domestic prices may move toward the levels of the largest importing region, Asia. This would narrow the competitive gap between Asian plastics processors and those of the US, and allow US processors to push back on imported plastic products, increase exported plastic products and raise plastic products production beyond the old growth rates of 4 per cent to 4.5 per cent per year.

Avoiding missing the local bus versus the export boat
North America holds strong prospects for growth, especially in megatrend-linked markets. For instance, over the next five years, US gross output in construction, consumer electronics and medical equipment is expected to grow over 4.5 per cent per year. Innovative plastics applications geared towards these markets can even experience higher growth. The aging population, for example, is requiring more healthcare-related products that can assist in mobility and convenience. Strong, lightweight materials can enable electric mobility devices to do more with less energy.

North American polymer producers must prove the worth of their business to these demanding domestic customers in order to maintain market value and share. As assessed in a past blog, producers must innovate in product, service and efficiency to serve the high demands of domestic customers. For instance, some innovations of value to automobile manufacturers’ include the integration of electronics (like sensors) into plastic trim, adding colour to parts that eliminates the need to use paint, making rapid changes to specifications and supplying global needs with consistent product.

The US finished goods manufacturers that surviNorth Americaved manufacturing offshoring trends in the early part of this century are the most nimble, efficient, resourceful and demanding of resin suppliers, the article says.
http://www.tradearabia.com/news/OGN_312991.html

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Energy Bill Conference to Begin, But Tough Road Seen Ahead

Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Ari Natter

Is biomass an environmentally friendly energy source?
That's one of the many questions energy bill conferees will face as they begin the formal process of slogging through the myriad differences between the House and Senate bills.
The Senate bill contains language deeming power produced by biomass such as wood as a carbon-neutral renewable energy source, while the House bill doesn't address the issue.
The language, backed by the American Forest & Paper Association, a trade group that represents companies such as Deltic Timber Corp. and Resolute Forest Products, is opposed by some environmentalists in a fight reminiscent of ethanol's role in addressing climate change.
“It has implications for state renewable energy programs. It has implications for the Clean Power Plan,” Liz Perera, the Sierra Club's director of climate policy, told Bloomberg BNA in an interview. “It essentially means you can count that source of power as a zero for carbon emissions.”
With time running short, and election year politics in full swing, that's just one of the issues House and Senate negotiators will need to reach agreement on.
Other divisive issues include whether to permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the management of federal forests, and how to deal with California's drought.
“They will have plenty to argue about, I'm sure of that,” said Jeff Bingaman, the former New Mexico senator and chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee who played a major role in the enactment of broad energy legislation in 2005, which also happens to be the last time Congress held a formal conference on an energy bill.
Even areas where the two chambers align on policy issues—such as the speeding the Energy Department's approval process for natural gas exports—minor differences remain that need to be worked out. The House bill, for instance, sets a 30-day time line for the department to approve license applications after the completion of an environmental review, while the Senate bill give the agency 45 days.
Backroom Compromise
The first conference committee on the legislation (S. 2012), scheduled for Sept. 8, will feature opening statements, but no amendments or bill text will be considered, according to a meeting notice.
Still, most of the action likely will be worked out by the bill's principal authors, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Reps. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the respective chairmen and ranking members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and House Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
“It has to be done by a relatively small group of people as a logistical matter,” said Bingaman, who chaired the Senate Energy Committee from from 2001-2002, and again from 2007 until the end of his term in 2013. He said that for the Energy and Policy Act of 2005, the chairman and ranking members of the House and Senate committee worked out a compromise bill and then put that before the conferees for a vote.
“I'm sure it's different every time, but that's not an unusual approach,” Bingaman said.
Those following the bill, such as Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, a Washington nonprofit, said a short congressional session and the fact it is an election year are among the factors that make reaching a compromise on the bill an uphill climb.
60 Percent Odds of Passage Seen
“All of those factors will put them at a disadvantage at this point,” Pyle said in an interview. “Time is their enemy.”
Washington-based ClearView Energy Partners puts the odds that Congress will pass the legislation during the lame duck session of Congress at 60 percent, Kevin Book, the consulting firm's managing director, told Bloomberg BNA.
“This is a doable bill,” Book said, adding he thought conferees would ultimately decide to drop some of the more contentious provisions. “We still see room for real consensus.”
The legislation would promote cybersecurity of the bulk-power system and streamline licensing for hydropower projects. It also would authorize funding for measures to increase energy conservation in the federal data centers, establish voluntary national model building codes, and boost energy efficiency in the manufacturing and commercial sectors.

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Chemical Security News

(ACC Mentioned) West Explosion Postscript: Over-Regulation of the Wrong Chemical?

Sep 4, 2016 | Emergency Management

By Lynn Brezosky

As did his father before him, Central Texas farmer Charles Krackau fertilizes his roughly 4,000 acres of corn, milo and wheat fields with anhydrous ammonia stored in a tank on his property.

Because it is the cheapest and most potent form of nitrogen fertilizer around, he also peddles it to a couple neighboring farmers, who come down the road to collect it in two-ton “nurse tanks” for application on their own land.

They all know it’s toxic. While not an explosive, improperly released fumes can choke a person to death. But “running the pencil to it,” as Krackau put it, they also know they’re saving $15 to $20 per acre over using less concentrated liquid nitrogen. And he said the farmers he sells to have been around the chemical their whole lives and know how to handle it.

But like thousands of other small-time anhydrous dealers across America, Krackau, 52, is thinking of shutting down. He just got hit with a $25,000 fine after a Department of Transportation inspector saw one of his neighbors transporting about $900 worth of anhydrous from Krackau’s farm in a nurse tank that lacked the proper markings, breaking rules Krackau said he didn’t know existed.

He was planning on investing about $7,000 to bring the tanks up to standard. But by the end of September, he’ll face a whole new set of regulations, this time by the Department of Labor.

“They won’t be able to use it down here,” Krackau said. “It’s getting that everybody’s coming after you, pay this, pay that. And it’s just not worth it any more.”

The federal government issued the new regulations after the 2013 explosion in West that killed 15 people, including 12 first responders, and destroyed a nursing home, apartment complex, nearby homes and school buildings. It caused an estimated $100 million in damages.

What bothers opponents is that the explosion in West — a town north of Waco on Interstate 35 — was not caused by the anhydrous ammonia stored there, but instead by ammonium nitrate detonated in what has been deemed an arson.

“Which is a little puzzling,” said Jimmy Schulz of SureGrow Ag in Wharton. “You know, if they're not even up to speed on what happened in West, what makes them the authority on anything else?”

In a July 2015 memo, the department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, revised a 23-year-old definition of “retailers” that are exempt from its process safety management, or PSM, standards on anhydrous. Under the new definition, some 3,800 smaller dealers like Krackau would be considered wholesalers, and like manufacturers will be subject to the regulations.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers that includes the congressman whose district includes West are trying to block funding to implement the revision — which is set to go into effect Oct. 1 — saying compliance costs could run upward of $30,000 in the first year and would potentially put many of those smaller vendors out of business.

Industry critics say the rule change could introduce new hazards by forcing farmers to transport the chemical longer distances and store it themselves. And many are rankled that the changes came as a result of an interpretive memo that they say skirted the usual rule-making procedure of publishing in the Federal Register and allowing for a period of public comment.

The memo came in response to President Obama's August 2013 executive order to improve the safety of industrial facilities following the explosion in West.

OSHA could not comment on the memo or criticisms of it due to pending litigation. But according to OSHA’s published commentary, the old interpretation of retail facilities was meant to exclude those that are low risk because they sold only small amounts of hazardous chemicals.

The West facility stored more than 50,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, which was more than five times the threshold quantity to trigger the PSM standard. West was exempted as a retailer from the standard because it sold the chemical directly to farmers.

David Michaels, OSHA’s assistant secretary of labor, has cited EPA data that between 2004 and 2013 more than 80 workers and nine first responders were injured in incidents at agricultural ammonia facilities.

“I am concerned that actions that may eliminate or weaken the protections afforded by implementation of the July 2015 guidance will continue to expose workers, first responders and residents to unnecessary and preventable risks,” Michaels said in a May 6 letter to Congress.

Why anhydrous ammonia?

Anhydrous ammonia is made up of hydrogen and nitrogen, a vital plant nutrient that is rapidly depleted by farming. The widespread use of nitrogen fertilizers such as anhydrous ammonia dates back to the end of World War II, when the government built plants that could produce 1.6 million tons of nitrogen-rich ammonia to make bombs. With the war over, the U.S. was suddenly the global leader in production of very potent fertilizers.

Under high pressure, the gas is compressed into a liquid that when pumped into the soil spreads rapidly in a gaseous form. In Texas, it’s widely used to produce corn, wheat, sorghum and cotton.

Travis Miller, a soil and crop scientist and interim associate director for state operations for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, said the widespread availability of anhydrous ammonia helped revolutionize U.S. agriculture.

The average yield of corn in the 1950s was about 30 bushels per acre, he said. The average yield today is about 170 bushels an acre, in large part due to the application of nitrogen.

“Anhydrous ammonia is the building block for all forms of nitrogen we use other than what we might get from organic farms like manure or guano,” Miller said. “And if you don’t have nitrogen fertilizers, I would expect (the farmers’) yields would drop by 50 to 60 percent in most of our commodities.”

Farmers who have been struggling to raise yields in what has been a low commodities market would have an even tougher time should suppliers pull out and the cost of the fertilizer becomes prohibitive, he said.

“Most of the farmers are losing money right now,” Miller said. “If they had to pay 50 percent or more for nitrogen, that would be a major blow to them.”

Donnie Dippel, president of the Texas Ag Industries Association, said the memo caught dealers off guard.

“All of a sudden they woke up and decided that no, the retailers were under this plan also,” he said. “That’s backwards from where things usually go. Usually you do the rule changes and then enforce it. You don’t enforce it and then do rules. And that’s what OSHA’s trying to do right now.”

He said some retailers had already dropped anhydrous, not willing to deal with the red tape and costs of the new risk management plans.

“The scary part to me is that when these retailers are going out of business, there’s farmers out there that still need this product,” he said. “And so what happens a lot of times is the farmer will come in and buy stuff from the dealer and he will put it out on his farm. And at that point OSHA or EPA has no control of it any more.”

“There’s no rules for the farmer,” Dippel continued. “So now the farmer — he can be storing it, he can be transporting it, there’s nobody that’s looking at his equipment and the storage tanks ... and he can be right there on the edge of town just like the retailer.”

Backdoor rule-making?

At least two lawsuits were filed by industry groups that said the memo process, which also was used for two other revised interpretations of PSM, amounted to backdoor rule-making.

One, brought by the American Chemistry Council, settled last month with OSHA agreeing to revise a separate memo and push implementation back several months to April 2017.

But that settlement had no effect on the new definition of “retailer,” which is the subject of a lawsuit brought by The Fertilizer Institute, Agricultural Retailers Association, and more than a dozen other entities.

“Picking and choosing who the law applies to effectively amends the law, and is thus a quintessentially legislative action,” according to court documents filed in the lawsuit.

OSHA’s responses have centered on the position that the definition was previously ambiguous and that the agency’s reinterpretation of retailer is a clarification that does not constitute a new rule.

A federal appeals court is expected to make a ruling on the case soon.

In March, 41 members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Bill Flores, R-Waco, signed a letter urging Oklahoma Republican Tom Cole, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that deals with the Labor Department, and Connecticut Democrat Rosa DeLauro, the ranking member, to cut off funding to implement the changed standards.

“We are concerned that these changes will place a significant time and cost burden on America’s agricultural retailers without providing them and other impacted stakeholders with an adequate opportunity to provide the Agency with input prior to the policy change,” the lawmakers wrote.

OSHA did relent and agree to conduct a formal rule-making process, but did not rescind the memo.

“The regs regarding anhydrous ammonia are the typical way that the Obama regulatory machine has operated in that they go propose a regulation, a set of regulations, in search of a problem that really doesn’t exist,” said Flores, whose district includes West.

The West response

After a long investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials concluded that on April 17, 2013, someone set a fire to the seed room of the West Fertilizer Co. According to OSHA’s Chemical Safety Board, the flames detonated about 30 of the up to 60 tons of fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate (FGAN), stored there.

By comparison, Timothy McVeigh used only 2 tons of the chemical to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City in 1995, leaving 168 people dead and hundreds more injured.

“OSHA efforts to oversee facilities that store and handle FGAN fell short at the time of the incident,” the Chemical Safety Board said of the West explosion, noting that ammonium nitrate was “inadvertently omitted” from the list of chemicals that fall under the PSM standard.

Brian Reuwee, spokesman for the Agricultural Retailers Association, in an email said it was important to note that the anhydrous ammonia (NH3), which is on the list, didn’t ignite in West.

“Although NH3 was on-site, the tanks performed as designed and were some of the few structures left standing at the blast site,” he wrote.

The West explosion set off a flurry of reflection in Washington, D.C., and Austin.

State legislators floated two bills on the handling of ammonium nitrate. One, by Rep. Kyle Kacal, R-College Station, and Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, resulted in a new Texas law that requires ammonium nitrate be stored at least 30 feet away from combustible materials. In the case of the West explosion, the seed room was connected to the fertilizer building.

Gov. Greg Abbott has come under fire for a 2014 ruling preventing state officials from releasing information on where the fertilizer is stored, saying only the private facilities themselves could make the information public. The ruling made it nearly impossible for people to find out about any nearby stockpiles of hazardous chemicals.

“Texans deserve to know what kinds of chemicals are being stored in their communities,” Abbott wrote in a July 2014 opinion piece for the San Antonio Express-News. “At the same time, the Texas Legislature is equally concerned about providing terrorists a road map to all facilities in Texas that could be used to build bombs and destroy communities.”

The facilities also are a target for people who cook methamphetamine, a highly addictive illegal drug.

Chemical confusion

During a House hearing on the blast in August 2013, Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-Pennsylvania, said he was discouraged to learn that the Department of Homeland Security didn’t know about the West plant.

During the hearing, Flores said that the problem stemmed from the company’s “failure to comply with existing regulations and the lack of oversight and — and enforcement. It didn't occur from a lack of regulations, it appears.”

“Before Congress or regulatory agencies consider new statutes or rule-making, they should make sure that the ones we have are being properly implemented and adjudicated,” Flores said.

Dippel testified that after the West explosion his phone was ringing off the hook with questions from retail dealers confused about the regulations.

“Texas has an ammonium nitrate law,” he said. “And they're one of the six states that has an ammonium nitrate law which requires that the product be secured. And you cannot ship to a retailer before they have a plan in place with the Feed and Fertilizer Control Service.”

Sean Moulton, director of open government policy at the Center for Effective Government, pointed to a jumble of agencies and rules. Federal and state agencies were aware of different aspects of the West plant but didn’t share their knowledge about the ammonium nitrate.

OSHA hadn’t visited the West facility since 1985, when inspectors levied a $30 fine for a serious violation for storage of anhydrous ammonia.

West recovers

West’s middle and high school students started the school year a few weeks ago in a new campus, which West Mayor Tommy Muska said was yet another step on the return toward normalcy for the small city.

“They’ve been in portable buildings since the explosion,” he said. “It’s a big benchmark. It’s one of the many benchmarks that the city has gone through over the last three and a half years.”

A new school brings new hope that people will buy property and build, he said, no longer discouraged by the idea of their children having to go to a temporary school. Of the 120 destroyed homes, 100 have been rebuilt, he said, with the remainder largely owned by elderly residents who moved to nursing homes or other places.

The nursing home has been back up and running for over a year. The city park was rebuilt thanks to a collaboration of public and private funds. The Dallas Mavericks pitched in with a new basketball court.

A new group of young men has helped rebuild the ranks of the volunteer fire department. The city has implemented new fire codes and is working on zoning, and especially zoning for extraterritorial jurisdiction. The fertilizer plant was outside city limits.

Yet even Muska questioned OSHA’s expanded regulation of anhydrous ammonia.

“I’m not one that would over-regulate the industry,” he said. “We do have a lot of agriculture. Fertilizer plants are needed in the agribusiness, in and around West, in and around the country. And so whatever regulations you put on them are going to be passed along, either to the consumer or farmer or somebody.”

As for ammonium nitrate, Muska pointed to the new state law on storage.

“It may not have gone as far as some people would like, but I do think it did at least bring (storage issues) into the limelight, to the forefront, that there’s a problem with it.”

lbrezosky@express-news.net
http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/West-explosion-postscript-over-regulation-of-the-wrong-chemical.html

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New Regulations on Tank Small Retailers of Fertilizer

Sep 3, 2016 | San Antonio Express-News

By Lynn Brezosky

As did his father before him, Central Texas farmer Charles Krackau fertilizes his roughly 4,000 acres of corn, milo and wheat fields with anhydrous ammonia stored in a tank on his property.
He also peddles the cheap, potent form of nitrogen fertilizer to a couple neighboring farmers, who come to collect it in two-ton "nurse tanks."
They all know it's toxic - improperly released fumes can choke a person to death - but they also know they're saving $15 to $20 per acre over using less concentrated liquid nitrogen.
Krackau, one of thousands of small-time anhydrous dealers across America, is thinking of shutting down after getting slapped with a $25,000 fine after a Department of Transportation inspector saw one of his neighbors transporting about $900 worth of anhydrous from Krackau's farm in a nurse tank that lacked the proper markings, breaking rules Krackau said he didn't know existed. Come the end of the month, he'll face a whole new set of regulations from the federal government written after the 2013 explosion in West that killed 15 people, including 12 first responders, and destroyed a nursing home, apartment complex, nearby homes and school buildings. It caused an estimated $100 million in damages.
"It's getting that everybody's coming after you, pay this, pay that. And it's just not worth it any more," Krackau said.
What bothers opponents is that the explosion in West - a town north of Waco on Interstate 35 - was not caused by the anhydrous ammonia stored there, but instead by ammonium nitrate detonated in what has been deemed an arson.
"Which is a little puzzling," said Jimmy Schulz of SureGrow Ag in Wharton. "You know, if they're not even up to speed on what happened in West, what makes them the authority on anything else?"
Lawmakers involved
In a July 2015 memo, the department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, revised a 23-year-old definition of "retailers" that are exempt from its process safety management, or PSM, standards on anhydrous. Under the new definition, some 3,800 smaller dealers like Krackau would be considered wholesalers, and like manufacturers will be subject to the regulations.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers that includes the congressman whose district includes West are trying to block funding to implement the revision - which is set to go into effect Oct. 1 - saying compliance costs could run upward of $30,000 in the first year and would potentially put many of those smaller vendors out of business.
Industry critics say the rule change could introduce new hazards by forcing farmers to transport the chemical longer distances and store it themselves. And many are rankled that the changes came as a result of an interpretive memo that they say skirted the usual rule-making procedure of publishing in the Federal Register and allowing for a period of public comment.
The memo came in response to President Barack Obama's August 2013 executive order to improve the safety of industrial facilities following the explosion in West.
OSHA could not comment on the memo or criticisms of it due to pending litigation. But according to OSHA's published commentary, the old interpretation of retail facilities was meant to exclude those that are low risk because they sold only small amounts of hazardous chemicals.
The West facility stored more than 50,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, which was more than five times the threshold quantity to trigger the PSM standard. West was exempted as a retailer from the standard because it sold the chemical directly to farmers.
David Michaels, OSHA's assistant secretary of labor, has cited EPA data that between 2004 and 2013 more than 80 workers and nine first responders were injured in incidents at agricultural ammonia facilities.
Why ammonia?
Anhydrous ammonia is made up of hydrogen and nitrogen, a vital plant nutrient that is rapidly depleted by farming. The widespread use of nitrogen fertilizers such as anhydrous ammonia dates back to the end of World War II, when the government built plants that could produce 1.6 million tons of nitrogen-rich ammonia to make bombs. With the war over, the U.S. was suddenly the global leader in production of very potent fertilizers.
Under high pressure, the gas is compressed into a liquid that when pumped into the soil spreads rapidly in a gaseous form. In Texas, it's widely used to produce corn, wheat, sorghum and cotton.
Travis Miller, a soil and crop scientist and interim associate director for state operations for the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, said the widespread availability of anhydrous ammonia helped revolutionize U.S. agriculture.
The average yield of corn in the 1950s was about 30 bushels per acre, he said. The average yield today is about 170 bushels an acre, in large part due to the application of nitrogen.
Donnie Dippel, president of the Texas Ag Industries Association, said the memo caught dealers off guard.
"All of a sudden they woke up and decided that no, the retailers were under this plan also," he said. "That's backwards from where things usually go. Usually you do the rule changes and then enforce it. You don't enforce it and then do rules. And that's what OSHA's trying to do right now."
He said some retailers already had dropped anhydrous, not willing to deal with the red tape and costs of the new risk management plans.
"The scary part to me is that when these retailers are going out of business, there's farmers out there that still need this product," he said. "And so what happens a lot of times is the farmer will come in and buy stuff from the dealer and he will put it out on his farm. And at that point OSHA or EPA has no control of it any more."
"There's no rules for the farmer," Dippel continued. "So now the farmer - he can be storing it, he can be transporting it, there's nobody that's looking at his equipment and the storage tanks ... and he can be right there on the edge of town just like the retailer."
The West response
After a long investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives officials concluded that on April 17, 2013, someone set a fire to the seed room of the West Fertilizer Co. According to OSHA's Chemical Safety Board, the flames detonated about 30 of the up to 60 tons of fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate (FGAN) stored there.
By comparison, Timothy McVeigh used only 2 tons of the chemical to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City in 1995, leaving 168 people dead and hundreds more injured.
Brian Reuwee, spokesman for the Agricultural Retailers Association, in an email said it was important to note that the anhydrous ammonia (NH3), which is on the list, didn't ignite in West.
"Although NH3 was on-site, the tanks performed as designed and were some of the few structures left standing at the blast site," he wrote.
The West explosion set off a flurry of reflection in Washington, D.C., and Austin.
State legislators floated two bills on the handling of ammonium nitrate. One, by Rep. Kyle Kacal, R-College Station, and Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, resulted in a new Texas law that requires ammonium nitrate be stored at least 30 feet away from combustible materials. In the case of the West explosion, the seed room was connected to the fertilizer building.
Gov. Greg Abbott has come under fire for a 2014 ruling preventing state officials from releasing information on where the fertilizer is stored, saying only the private facilities themselves could make the information public. The ruling made it nearly impossible for people to find out about any nearby stockpiles of hazardous chemicals.
"Texans deserve to know what kinds of chemicals are being stored in their communities," Abbott wrote in a July 2014 opinion piece for the San Antonio Express-News. "At the same time, the Texas Legislature is equally concerned about providing terrorists a road map to all facilities in Texas that could be used to build bombs and destroy communities."
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/New-regulations-on-tank-small-retailers-of-9202353.php

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Daikin Settles Allegations of PFOA Contamination in Alabama

Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Amena H. Saiyid

Chemical manufacturer Daikin America Inc. will pay $5 million under a settlement with a Northern Alabama water utility to resolve allegations that fluorinated compounds from its facility contaminated drinking water supplies earlier this year.
In the settlement with Northern Alabama's West Morgan-East Lawrence Water and Sewer Authority, announced Sept. 1, Daikin America agreed to install an activated carbon filtration system at the water authority at a cost of $3.9 million, attorney Carl Cole, of Decatur, Ala.-based The Cole Law Firm LLC, told Bloomberg BNA Sept. 2. Cole represents the water authority.
Of the remaining amount, $450,000 would go toward reimbursing consumers who paid for temporary measures to control the contaminants through an increase in water bills, according to Cole. In exchange for this settlement, the chemical manufacturing company would no longer be held liable.
Prior to announcing the settlement, which the court still has to approve, Daikin America notified the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama that it was withdrawing its earlier motion to dismiss the water and sewer authority's lawsuit (West Morgan-East Lawrence Water and Sewer Authority v. 3M Co., N.D. Ala., No. 15-01750, notice filed 9/1/16).
The utility had sued Daikin, 3M Co. and its subsidiary Dyneon LLC for allegedly contaminating water supplies with perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS)—fluorinated chemicals used in nonstick cookware and other consumer products that resist heat and repel oil, grease and water.
The granular activated carbon system that will capture the perfluorochemicals in the Tennessee River is a temporary solution to the problem and will last three to four years. “That will give us an opportunity to get 3M to pay for the permanent solution, which is to install a reverse osmosis treatment system,” Cole said.
Cooperation Resolved Lawsuit
Daikin America was pleased to have reached an agreement with the water authority and other parties, David Hendrixson, executive vice president of manufacturing for Daikin America, told Bloomberg BNA in a statement e-mailed Sept. 2.
“We believe this is the result of our efforts to work cooperatively with our local, state and federal officials to help address the situation,” Hendrixson said. “We believe the settlement is in the best interests of the community since it resolves the uncertainty of litigation, provides funding for a water treatment system and reimburses citizens for past water bills.”
The underlying lawsuit against 3M Co., which is contesting the allegations, however, continues in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
“3M is the primary bad actor that we want to hold accountable for these chemicals being present,” Cole said.
Daikin America stopped using PFOA and related chemicals in 2011 and never used PFOS, according to company spokesman Forrest Keith.
Cole noted, however, that Daikin and 3M are located on properties adjacent to each other. In fact, Cole said, the Daikin plant is situated on land that was owned by 3M and is “dealing with legacy perfluorochemical issues.”
‘Dramatic Difference.’
Cole noted the “dramatic difference” in the responses of the two corporations to drinking water concerns.
“It is amazing,” he said. “Daikin was willing to listen, to work together to find a solution and act like a good corporate citizen. In contrast, 3M has completely ignored the situation and engaged in tactics to deny and delay efforts to find a resolution and even refused to pay for a bottle of water.”

The water authority's lawsuit in October 2015 was prompted by the presence of perfluorochemicals in drinking water, according to Cole who said the water intake pipe for the utility was at risk because it was so close to the chemical plants.
The authority's claims were buttressed in June when it had to warn customers against drinking water owing to health advisories issued by the Environmental Protection Agency regarding potential tap water contamination from PFOA and PFOS.
Daikin America, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Daikin Industries Ltd. of Osaka, Japan.

http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=96671443&vname=dennotallissues&fn=96671443&jd=96671443

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Transportation News

Railroads Must Now Have Oil Spill Plans in Wash.

Sep 5, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report

By Paul Shukovsky

Railroads operating in Washington state that transport bulk oil are required to have oil spill contingency plans under a new rule that goes into effect Oct. 1.
The Aug. 31 Washington Department of Ecology rule mandates that the railroads demonstrate the capability to respond to a “worst case spill,” including one that would empty the entire capacity of the train based on 714 barrels per tank car and complicated by adverse weather conditions. Draft plans will be made available for public comment prior to department approval.
“There are enforcement mechanisms within it and they can include penalties,” Rob Dengel, department spill program supervisor, told Bloomberg BNA Sept. 2. “The statute provides a range of penalties depending on the nature of the violation up to $100,000 per violation. Our approach is to work with plan holders so that we never get to the enforcement phase.”
Under another rule adopted Aug. 24, refineries in the state will have to provide advance notice of crude-by-rail movements beginning Oct. 1.

http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=96671425&vname=dennotallissues&fn=96671425&jd=96671425

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Environment News

U.S., China Formally Join International Climate Deal

Sep 3, 2016 | PoliticoPro

By Andrew Restuccia

President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping formally committed their countries to last year's Paris climate change agreement on Saturday, ratcheting up pressure on other nations to follow suit.
During a ceremony in the southeastern Chinese city of Hangzhou one day before the G-20 summit, the two leaders submitted documents to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that officially accept the terms of the Paris agreement.
Story Continued Below
The Obama administration is hoping that the Paris deal will enter into force before the president leaves office, a move that would simultaneously bolster his environmental legacy and make it more difficult for Donald Trump to withdraw from the accord if he wins the presidency. The U.N. is hosting a summit in on Sept. 21 in New York aimed at further pressuring countries to formally ratify the deal.
Saturday's announcement, which POLITICO earlier this week reported was in the works, comes as leaders of the world's largest economies are arriving in China for the G-20 summit. Xi and Obama are expected to lean on the other world leaders to formally endorse the agreement. Obama is expected to meet briefly with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the summit to encourage him to quickly join the Paris deal, according to a source briefed by the administration. White House climate adviser Brian Deese told reporters that he expects Modi and Obama will "touch base” about climate change during the G-20, but officials have not announced a formal bilateral meeting between the two leaders.
The Paris accord is one step closer to entering into force with China and the U.S. formally on board. Under U.N. rules, the agreement will take effect 30 days after 55 countries representing 55 percent of global emissions formally approve or ratify it. Together, China and the United States account for just under 40 percent of global emissions.
About two dozen other countries have already joined the agreement, accounting for about 1 percent of global emissions. More than 30 additional nations have indicated they plan to join this year. If those countries follow through, the deal should clear the threshold required for entry into force.
Climate change is a rare bright spot in the U.S. relationship with China, which has suffered amid tension over hacking and uncertainty about trade. After repeated failures to reach consensus at international global warming negotiations, U.S. and Chinese officials embarked on a years-long diplomatic push to find common ground on climate change. The campaign culminated in November 2014 when Obama and Xi jointly announced domestic plans to limit their emissions.
“Cooperation between the U.S. and China on climate change once unimaginable, now stands as the brightest spot in their relationship. In joining the Paris Agreement in tandem, these two leaders have reconfirmed their responsibility to lead by example," World Resources Institute President Andrew Steer said in a statement.
Nearly 200 nations negotiated the terms of the climate deal last year during a two-week summit in Paris that capped off decades of tense international talks. As part of the agreement, each nation designed domestic plans to curb carbon emissions with the goal of limiting the increase in global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius. But the agreement does not carry the legal weigh of a treaty, a factor that allowed Obama to join the deal without submitting it to the Senate for ratification.
Scientists warn that unchecked global warming will lead to catastrophic temperature increases, sea-level rise, drought and ocean acidification. While the effects of the warming planet are already being felt around the world, experts say that countries must dramatically limit greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades to prevent disastrous climate change.
Republicans have long opposed the Paris agreement and expressed outrage at the president's decision to join it.
“The president is again putting America's economy and jobs at an extreme disadvantage for an international agreement that China and other countries have no incentive to abide by," Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said in a statement. "This questionable unilateral action by the president can and should be struck down as soon as possible.”
India is the world's third-largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and U.S., and its speedy decision to ratify the deal would help ensure it goes into effect this year. The country is also a key player in negotiations over an ambitious push to phase down hydrofluorocarbons, powerful greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air conditioners that exacerbate climate change. International negotiators are scheduled to meet in Rwanda in October to finalize an HFC-phase-down amendment to the Montreal Protocol, a 1987 international agreement that helped eliminate gases that caused a hole in the ozone layer.
In addition to encouraging Modi to join the Paris deal this year, Obama is expected to press the Indian leader to support a stringent Montreal Protocol amendment, the source said. Success there could be one of the biggest steps toward meeting the goals set forth in Paris. While preliminary talks in Vienna made progress, India was seen by some outside observers as signaling its reluctance to key parts of the amendment proposals.
Top Obama administration officials have been in close contact with Indian officials in recent weeks to discuss climate-related issues. "The president has invested probably just as much on this issue with Modi as he has with Xi, but it’s in some ways been tougher to align perspectives," a person familiar with the issue told POLITICO. "India has been a little bit tougher to predict."
The U.S. and China, for their part, have made progress toward finding a compromise on an HFC amendment. The White House announced on Saturday that the two countries agreed to work toward an amendment with an "early freeze date" at which time countries must stop increasing the production and use of HFCs, while pledging to work toward an "ambitious phase down schedule, along with increased financial support to assist in implementation."
The two countries also pledged to work with other nations to come reach an agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from international aviation. The U.S. and China pledged Saturday that they would volunteer to become early participants in any program to slash aviation emissions.
Despite objections from Republicans in Congress, there appears to be little they can do to undermine the deal, given how it was structured. Deese told reporters that the use of executive agreements instead of treaties is "well established, both legally and diplomatically," adding, "We’re very comfortable with its legal form.”
Trump has promised to "cancel" the Paris deal, but formal withdrawal will take years once it enters into force. Still, Trump could opt to simply ignore the agreement and turn his back on the domestic climate plan the Obama administration developed, which sets a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2016/09/us-china-formally-join-international-climate-deal-128324

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