Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 9/6/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) California Adopts Changes to Prop 65 Warning Requirements
Sep 6, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has adopted amendments to how "clear and reasonable warning" is provided under Proposition 65. -
FDA Bans Several Antibacterial Ingredients from Soaps
Sep 6, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Gabriel Dunsmith
The Food and Drug Administration banned the chemical triclosan — along with a host of other synthetic chemicals — from antibacterial hand soaps and shower products last week, saying they are "not generally recognized as safe and effective." -
Trickiest Energy Bill Fights May Come over Water Provisions
Sep 6, 2016 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
When House and Senate negotiators sit down Thursday to begin to try to hammer out an agreement on the first major energy policy bill in years, it may not be energy issues that are most driving the conversation. -
Climate Liabilities May Drive Big Oil to Advocate Carbon Taxes
Sep 6, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Paul Bledsoe
Economists in both parties, climate change activists, and many nations, including China, support taxing carbon dioxide emissions as the most efficient way to fight the increasingly serious problem of climate change. -
In Puzzle of Oklahoma’s Earthquakes, New Data May Provide Clues
Sep 6, 2016 | New York Times
By Michael Wines
Scientists and regulators agree that earthquakes like the 5.6-magnitudetremor that struck Oklahoma on Saturday, and thousands of smaller ones in recent years, are triggered by the disposal of millions of tons of wastewater that is pumped to the surface... -
N.Y. Enviros Push Incentives to Keep Renewables In-State
Sep 6, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Saqib Rahim
Renewable energy interests in New York are warning that Massachusetts and other neighbors could siphon off green electrons from the Empire State. -
When It Comes to Cyber, Utilities Sweat the Small Stuff
Sep 6, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
During an unprecedented cyberattack on Ukrainian electric utilities last December, an obscure piece of equipment came under fire: the serial-to-Ethernet converter. -
Cybersecurity: The Key Issue Trump and Clinton Still Need to Address
Sep 6, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Alex Manea
Over the past 16 months, we’ve seen the candidates in the 2016 U.S. presidential election discuss, debate and discourse a wide variety of topics that are important to voters across the country, from immigration reform to health care to foreign policy to the threat of... -
GOP Response Muted to U.S.-China Ratification of Paris
Sep 6, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President Obama's announcement Saturday that the United States and China had joined last year's landmark Paris climate agreement together elicited tepid response from Republicans in Congress who insist the administration has shirked its obligation...
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(ACC Mentioned) California Adopts Changes to Prop 65 Warning Requirements
Sep 6, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment has adopted amendments to how "clear and reasonable warning" is provided under Proposition 65.
Among changes, the update will require the warnings to contain the name of at least one substance for which notice is being provided under the law. A pictogram – an exclamation mark within an equilateral triangle – must also be included.
Warning statements under the new law shall also direct consumers to the new Prop 65 website, maintained by Oehha, which contains supplemental information on listed substances.
The regulatory action comes after more than a year and a half of consultation on two separate proposals. But a coalition of more than 200 industry groups has remained concerned with several provisions throughout.
The American Chemistry Council’s Karyn Schmidt told Chemical Watch that the requirements “will simply exacerbate Proposition 65’s problems of overwarning, consumer confusion and rampant lawsuit abuse”.
“Oehha’s new warning regulation does not remedy the fundamental problem with Proposition 65 labels: they fail to communicate risk to consumers,” said Ms Schmidt. And “requiring labels to arbitrarily list one or more chemicals and include a pictogram hazard symbol does nothing to improve the quality or the meaning of information conveyed to consumers,” she added.
The ACC also maintains that a provision in the law, which limits the information that may be included to supplement a Prop 65 warning, “violates affected businesses’ First Amendment rights”.
But in its Final Statement of Reason (FSOR), Oehha says that existing safe harbour warnings “lack the specificity necessary to ensure that the public receives useful information about potential exposures”.
The new regulations, says the agency, will “further the right-to-know purposes of the statute and provide more specificity for the content of safe harbour warnings for a variety of specific kinds of exposures, and corresponding methods for providing those warnings.”
The nearly 300-page FSOR addresses substantive comments submitted through the rulemaking process.
The new Prop 65 warning requirements take effect from 30 August 2018. In the meanwhile, businesses may either comply with the new provisions or with the law prior to its amendment.
https://chemicalwatch.com/49460/california-adopts-changes-to-prop-65-warning-requirements
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FDA Bans Several Antibacterial Ingredients from Soaps
Sep 6, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Gabriel Dunsmith
The Food and Drug Administration banned the chemical triclosan — along with a host of other synthetic chemicals — from antibacterial hand soaps and shower products last week, saying they are "not generally recognized as safe and effective."
The new guidance follows years of federal studies of the chemicals and a prolonged campaign by public health advocates to seek tighter regulation.
In 2013, the FDA released a proposed rule that forced manufacturers to provide the agency with safety metrics on their ingredients if they wanted to keep relevant products on the market (E&ENews PM, Dec. 16, 2013). But the data that the soap industry compiled didn't satisfy the agency.
In its Friday rule, FDA said product manufacturers failed to show "that the ingredients are ... safe for long-term daily use."
The agency named 19 ingredients that companies must now remove from their products.
"Consumers may think antibacterial washes are more effective at preventing the spread of germs, but we have no scientific evidence that they are any better than plain soap and water," said the FDA's Janet Woodcock. "In fact, some data suggests that antibacterial ingredients may do more harm than good over the long term."
In addition to triclosan — frequently added to liquid soap — the FDA is also restricting triclocarban, which is commonly found in bar soaps.
Triclosan is an endocrine-disrupting compound suspected of impairing thyroid function, even at minimal exposure. Scientists have linked it to liver problems as well as inhalation toxicity, and it is a known toxin to aquatic life.
The American Medical Association has suggested that the chemical not be used domestically for fear it may lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Public health and environmental advocacy groups were quick to praise the FDA's decision.
"[Our] research found industry adding this sketchy, endocrine-disrupting germ killer to all kinds of soaps and even to toothpaste. Nine years ago we found it at disturbing levels in San Francisco Bay," Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, said in a statement. "Worse yet, EWG studies detected the stuff in breast milk and in bodies of teenage girls. Clearly this is an industry that needed a good, swift kick in the triclosan. It took far too long, but today the FDA delivered."
EWG, among other nonprofits, waged a public campaign to get manufacturers to drop the ingredient on their own, and FDA noted that certain companies "have already started removing these ingredients from their products."
Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble Co. were among the companies transitioning to triclosan-free products.
In 2008, EWG published a study that found 16 toxic chemicals, including triclosan, in urine and blood samples from teenage girls in the United States.
The organization used the study to charge that the common antibacterial compound was making its way into human bodies and endangering youth.
Not all were pleased with the FDA's ruling, however.
The American Cleaning Institute quickly criticized the agency, claiming in a statement that "antibacterial soaps are critical to public health because of the importance hand hygiene plays in the prevention of infection."
The ACI accused FDA of ignoring data on "the safety and effectiveness of antibacterial soaps."
"Consumers can continue to use antibacterial soaps with confidence," the group added, "as they have for decades in millions of homes, offices, schools, daycare centers and other commercial settings."
The Natural Resources Defense Council noted that FDA did not issue rulings for several other chemicals the group considers hazardous.
"Consumers have waited a long time for this sensible safeguard," said senior attorney Mae Wu in a statement. "Banning triclosan in these products is a huge step toward ensuring that the soaps we use every day on our bodies are safer. But FDA also needs to act quickly to ascertain the safety of at least two other chemicals (benzalkonium chloride and benzethonium chloride) in these products that are suspected of posing serious health risks. Consumers must never be treated as guinea pigs."
The FDA gave soap manufacturers another year to hand over data for benzalkonium chloride, benzethonium chloride and chloroxylenol.
The ACI said it would be forwarding information on those compounds to the agency in the coming months, noting that the FDA had identified several "data gaps."
The new regulation does not affect hand sanitizers, though the FDA called in late June for more scientific data on hand sanitizer ingredients (Greenwire, June 29).
Neither does the ruling apply to triclosan that may be found in health care or food product antiseptics.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/09/06/stories/1060042352
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Trickiest Energy Bill Fights May Come over Water Provisions
Sep 6, 2016 | PoliticoPro
By Annie Snider
When House and Senate negotiators sit down Thursday to begin to try to hammer out an agreement on the first major energy policy bill in years, it may not be energy issues that are most driving the conversation.
As energy bills wended their way through both chambers over the last year, they quietly accumulated a mountain of water provisions. At first the additions were largely parochial — approval of a water-sharing deal among farmers and communities in Washington's Yakima river basin, tweaks to help cobble back together a failed water-sharing agreement along the Oregon-California border — but then House Republicans added a political lightening rod to the mix in May. Before voting to go to conference, the House stuck several extra pieces onto its initial bill, H.R. 8, including California drought provisions over which lawmakers have been deadlocked for more than two years.\Now, despite casting the measure as the first major energy policy bill since 2007, aimed at modernizing the country's infrastructure, it is the water provisions that many of the most powerful players at the table care most about as the House and Senate launch formal negotiations over two wildly different bills.
A case in point: When the Senate in April finally passed its version of the energy bill, S. 2102, Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee who had labored over the measure for months with Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski, heralded the measure in a press release not as energy legislation, but as "Cantwell’s Yakima Water Bill."
Another major point of contention is the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which would be made permanent under the Senate bill, and is a priority for Cantwell and Murkowski. House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah), a leading member of the conference committee, has said that provision is a nonstarter.
“That’s important for the Senate side to have that in, as a means of being able to point to some positives for a number of senators, but it’s a no go and Bishop is a formidable opponent,” said one environmental lobbyist tracking the negotiations.
As Congress returns for a scant few weeks of work between summer recess and October campaigning, lawmakers face a packed to-do list. Job No. 1 is approving a new spending deal before government funding expires Sept. 30, and Republicans are divided over whether they should punt the biggest fights to a lame duck session, or push for a continuing resolution that extends into next year. A lame-duck session seems likely and could provide necessary time to finish an energy bill and other items lawmakers don't get to this month.
Pressure is also building to approve a Zika funding package, as the virus spreads in Florida and threatens to appear in water-logged Louisiana. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has teed up a vote for Tuesday, but the measure is the same one that Democrats have filibustered twice already over controversial provisions, and it is expected to face a similar fate this go-around.
But in the shadow of these top-line prerogatives, lawmakers may end up doing some of the most substantive work on water policy issues in years — and not just in the energy bill conference committee.
In the Senate, McConnell is preparing to call up a $10.6 billion water infrastructure measure for floor consideration after the Zika vote, aides tell POLITICO. That package includes a $220 million deal to help Flint, Mich., recover from its lead contaminated drinking water crisis, along with the most significant changes to the country's drinking water and wastewater programs in years. The Water Resources Development Act also gives the go-ahead to 25 lock, dam, levee and ports projects, as well as several regional restoration programs including for Lake Tahoe, Long Island Sound and the Delaware River Basin.
Giving the bill precious floor time in a crunched session could help Republican leaders bolster their campaign argument that they alone can deliver a functioning Congress. It's not the first time Republican leaders have turned to a water infrastructure bill to make that pitch. House Republicans turned to the previous iteration of WRDA as their first substantive order of business after the politically disastrous 2013 government shutdown.
But it is unclear whether leadership of either party is equally invested in the energy bill, which faces even longer odds of making it to the president's desk. The White House threatened to veto H.R. 8, which passed mostly along party lines, and had a more mixed reaction to the bipartisan S. 2012, praising its focus on energy efficiency and infrastructure but raising concerns about efforts to rein in Energy Department programs or limit environmental reviews. Virtually every major environmental group opposed both bills for promoting liquefied natural gas exports and not doing enough to confront climate change.
Conference negotiations also may be shaped by a new proposal from DOE last week to set efficiency standards for gas furnaces. Lawmakers had tried to shape that rule with language in both the House and Senate bills that attempted to address concerns from the gas industry. Friday's new proposal apparently did not satisfy gas utilities — American Gas Association President Dave McCurdy said DOE ignored technical problems that would harm low-income consumers in the south and threatened to sue "if we do not see major changes to this rule."
Before voting to go to conference in July, Democrats secured an agreement from Republican conferees that the most controversial provisions would be off the negotiating table. But aides say they did not lay out specifically which provisions fell into that category.
The California drought language could prove the most contentious of those provisions. Golden state lawmakers in the House, led by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, have been desperate to get their Senate counterpart to the negotiating table. California Democrat Dianne Feinstein is leading drought negotiations for the upper chamber and has her own measure in the Senate, but has not yet been able to move it through the Energy committee — in part because its leaders are focused on the energy bill.
Adding their bill, which was passed by the House in 2014 on a largely party-line vote, to the energy package could be House Republicans' best shot for getting to the negotiating table before the all-important winter rainy season begins in California. Their bids to add drought language to the end-of-year spending bill the last several years have consistently come up short and been blasted on the local editorial pages.
But there's one problem: Feinstein doesn't sit on the conference committee. A spokeswoman did not respond to questions asking whether the senator has been looped into preliminary energy bill negotiations.
Meanwhile, Cantwell's Yakima language faces its own challenges, with the provisions scored as totaling nearly $60 million over the first five years and $240 million after that.
Those numbers stand to be a tough swallow for budget-conscious House Republicans.
But the power dynamics could be muddled if Republican leaders are invested in reaching a deal. With the most conservative House Republicans unlikely to vote for any negotiated product that lacks the red meat of the lower chamber's version, GOP leaders would need to rely on Democrats to carry the measure over the finish line. Notably, those Democrats would need to be delivered by a northern California Democrat: Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/story/2016/09/trickiest-energy-bill-fights-may-come-over-water-provisions-128408 -
Climate Liabilities May Drive Big Oil to Advocate Carbon Taxes
Sep 6, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Paul Bledsoe
Economists in both parties, climate change activists, and many nations, including China, support taxing carbon dioxide emissions as the most efficient way to fight the increasingly serious problem of climate change. But US oil giants, led by Exxon-Mobil, have backed a carbon tax in name only. They feature it on their websites or when asked about climate change by shareholders or journalists, then have their lobbyist work against it in the halls of Congress. Yet if oil companies were to genuinely advocate carbon taxes, the policy implications could be immense, enabling not just more effective, efficient climate policy, but likely tax reform, as well.
Until now, the industry’s lobbying arm, the American Petroleum Institute, has assiduously led efforts to undermine any attempt to tax oil, natural gas, gasoline or carbon emissions. API, widely viewed as the most powerful trade association in Washington, has teamed with Republicans in Congress to prevent increases in the long-stagnant federal gasoline tax, or efforts to impose taxes on oil or pricing policies like cap and trade carbon markets.
But now that might be changing. Exxon, the world’s largest non-state oil and gas corporation, has been discussing details of carbon tax proposals with key staff on Capitol Hill, and in meetings with other oil companies, according to the Wall Street Journal. Additional news sources have reported that API has created a special committee to study climate change policy. While healthy skepticism about the industry’s eagerness to tax its own products remains justified, profound new vulnerabilities related to climate change suggest that carbon pricing may now be in the long-term business interests of oil and gas giants.
Investigations by Attorneys General from several states into whether Exxon Mobil misled shareholders and others about their views on climate change science have recently garnered headlines, and put Exxon on its back foot. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of oil company vulnerabilities.
Climate activists and scientists have created a powerful political movement to “leave fossil fuels in the ground.” Already the Obama Administration has suspended coal leasing on public lands and withdrawn oil and gas leases off the southeast Atlantic coast. Around the world, lawsuits over climate change impacts aimed at deep-pocketed oil companies are proliferating. So are worries, articulated recently by Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, that fossil fuel assets are overpriced by markets, because their role in climate change is not being considered, and that a large percentage of oil and gas reserves could be “stranded” .
Indeed, New York AG Eric Schneiderman told the New York Times recently for the first time that a major element of his investigation is whether Exxon has misled shareholders and investors about whether their assets will be stranded, in which case “there may be massive securities fraud here,” Schneiderman says.
As US oil and gas companies warily observe these developments, they will be increasingly concerned about their ability to access new reserves on public lands, avoid additional regulation, and otherwise retain their broader license to operate. Advocating carbon taxes may help inoculate fossil companies against further regulatory restrictions and some lawsuits. Pricing carbon sooner rather than later could head off or moderate “carbon market bubbles” or rapid collapses in oil stocks, a concern Carney has explicitly cited. Moreover, studies show moderate carbon prices hurt coal most, and may actually benefit less carbon-intensive natural gas, in which US oil companies have made massive investments in recent years.
These factors have provided new impetus for other top oil companies to advocate carbon taxes. Last year, European-based oil majors including BP, Shell, and Total began lobbying for specific carbon pricing. They urged their US counterparts Exxon, Chevron, and Conoco Phillips to sign a letter promising to they would do the same, only to be rebuffed. But now the ground appears to be shifting, again.
Despite this, the odds against US carbon taxes remain long. The last time carbon pricing was on the Congressional docket, in 2009, API and affiliates helped organize and fund Tea Party rallies around the country aimed at defeating cap and trade legislation that passed the House but died in the Senate. Such cultural bias will be hard to turn around.
Perhaps most importantly, nearly every current Republican member has signed a handcuffing “no tax” pledge. The GOP is likely to put strong pressure on their long-time oil industry allies not to put them on the spot.
All this matters because detailed analysis has shown that the US is unlikely to meet its Paris climate agreement emissions commitment without additional policies, with carbon taxes being especially effective. Moreover, carbon taxes could be the key new revenue source to enable broad-based tax reform, as revenue could be recycled back to taxpayers by lowering individual income and corporate tax rates, as both parties claim to favor.
In this regard, particularly, Democrats are hardly blameless. By not explicitly utilizing revenues from previous carbon pricing efforts to enable tax reform, but instead only focusing on climate benefits, they have alienated the very moderates in both parties needed to bring such policies into law.
The coal industry offers a cautionary tale about the business costs of inaction on climate change by fossil fuel companies. US coal giants adamantly opposed all previous carbon pricing efforts, including legislation containing subsidies for carbon capture technology that provides a responsible path for coal use. Instead, they now confront prohibitive regulation and competition from lower emitting natural gas. As a result, major coal companies have lost more than 90% of their market value in just the last five years.
As climate change impacts become more expensive and dangerous, America’s oil and gas companies will inevitably face growing regulation and pressures to limit their emissions, restricting their ability to operate and find profits. Concerted carbon tax advocacy can allow oil companies to play a constructive role in addressing climate change and even reforming the tax code, while minimizing their own business risks. They may want to do so now, and help shape the process, before events pass them by.
Paul Bledsoe, a former staff member of the Senate Finance Committee and White House Climate Change Task Force under President Clinton, is president of Bledsoe & Associates, a Washington-based energy consultancy.
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/294473-climate-liabilities-may-drive-big-oil-to-advocate
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In Puzzle of Oklahoma’s Earthquakes, New Data May Provide Clues
Sep 6, 2016 | New York Times
By Michael Wines
Scientists and regulators agree that earthquakes like the 5.6-magnitudetremor that struck Oklahoma on Saturday, and thousands of smaller ones in recent years, are triggered by the disposal of millions of tons of wastewater that is pumped to the surface, and then injected back into the ground, during oil and gas production. The shock last week tied a record set in 2011 in Prague, Okla., for the strongest such tremor in the state’s history.
State regulators have ordered well operators to stop wastewater injections in a 725-square-mile ellipse around the quake’s epicenter. But they conceded that trying to prevent more quakes was an inexact science. And in Oklahoma, where oil and gas are dominant economic and political forces, any effort to regulate the industry produces an entirely different set of shocks.
Dr. Todd Halihan is a geologist and a specialist in hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, about 30 minutes by car south of the epicenter of Saturday’s quake. He answered some questions about the quake, and the risks the state still faces.
What happened?
We don’t know yet. There were several injection wells nearby, so it could be similar to the Prague event. The earthquake was about the same size as Prague. This time, there’s going to be a lot more seismological data available and a lot more understanding in terms of what’s going on in terms of injection well activity, so we hope we’ll be able to pinpoint what happened.
In the last year, Oklahoma has been more aggressive about controlling underground disposal of oil wastes, and the number of earthquakes that people could feel has been slowly declining. Yet you just had one as big as any in the state’s recorded history.
We had started ratcheting down waste disposal in some places. But the scientific literature says you can actually have larger events as you go downward — and some of the literature actually says that might be causing larger ones. So we’ve been nervous about it. Over all, things are going in the right direction; we’re not increasing total earthquake activity any more. Butwe’re still high on the curve relative to what the base level was. Oklahoma is supposed to have about two earthquakes a year above magnitude 2.5, and in the last few years we’ve had thousands. I tell people we’ve had thousands of years of earthquake activity in a short period of time.
So even though the number of quakes is in decline, scientists aren’t ready to write off the risk of a genuinely damaging one?
No.
Yet there wasn’t a tremendous amount of damage and no lives were lost. Is the risk here being exaggerated?
Oklahoma got very lucky in that the epicenter of this quake was functionally in the middle of nowhere. And it happened in the early morning. If you’d stuck it underneath a town at a different time of day, when people were on the sidewalks, you would have had a much greater problem. As for magnitude, you can have the same-size number as a California earthquake, but you get a lot more shaking here. The intensity at the surface and the response of your house is almost a Richter magnitude greater — and an increase of one point on the Richter scale is the equivalent of releasing 10 times as much earthquake energy.
Why is that?
It’s the rock properties and the depth of the earthquakes. In places like California and Alaska, earthquakes are deep. A wave in California can be pretty tiny by the time it gets to the surface, so a lot of energy is lost. But here, the energy comes right to the surface. These quakes are shallow, and they’re right under people. People may think these are really mild earthquakes, but at this level you’re shaking pretty hard. In the supermarkets, instead of a couple things falling off the shelves, you have everything in the middle of the aisles.
Eighteen months ago the state seemed almost powerless to address the earthquake threat. This time, regulators were able, within hours, to order disposal-well operators to shut down dozens of wells in the quake zone. Is that enough to deal with the problem?
There’s been a huge change in terms of our ability to react. But we need to be proactive instead of reactive. This same process is happening across the country. We’re looking at underground carbon dioxide storage to fight climate change, and we’re sinking geothermal wells. We’re generating earthquakes, but we still haven’t done the large-scale studies we need to do to understand how to manage them. We can keep monitoring seismicity and mess with injection volumes, but unless we get boreholes at depth and really study what’s happening, this problem is going to continue.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/us/in-puzzle-of-oklahomas-earthquakes-new-data-may-provide-clues.html?_r=0
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N.Y. Enviros Push Incentives to Keep Renewables In-State
Sep 6, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Saqib Rahim
Renewable energy interests in New York are warning that Massachusetts and other neighbors could siphon off green electrons from the Empire State.
An aggressive new policy in Massachusetts has put some of New York's renewable power generators — mainly hydropower — at risk of exporting energy. That could undermine Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo's goal of getting half of New York's power from renewables by 2030, the groups said.
In a filing to regulators, the Alliance for Clean Energy New York (ACE NY) said Massachusetts already meets almost one-fifth of its renewable energy mandates with wind and landfill gas projects in New York.
"There now exists a significant and growing out-of-state market for existing renewable generation in New York," the filing said. It asked regulators to consider giving these renewables a larger incentive to keep their electrons in-state.
The comments are part of the first salvo of challenges to the clean energy standard (CES), which the PSC approved on Aug. 1. The CES's headline goal is "50 by 30": 50 percent renewable electricity by 2030.
But today, renewables make up around one-quarter of New York's electricity. To give renewables time to scale up, the CES also gives subsidies to three nuclear power plants.
Utilities, renewable energy companies, and nuclear towns upstate have voiced support. But others have taken issue with aspects of the CES — especially the nuclear plan — and the legal challenges have begun.
While nuclear was the most touchy issue in the CES, now some are objecting for another reason: They think the CES doesn't do enough to protect the renewable power New York already has.
This group of objectors points to a Massachusetts policy, which Gov. Charlie Baker (R) signed Aug. 8, requiring the state to buy renewables under long-term contracts. They said it's an example of the kind of policy that could snatch existing renewables in New York, like hydro and wind, out of state.
In its Aug. 1 order, the PSC said it's unlikely and "merely hypothetical" that these resources will leave the New York grid, given their age and other states' requirements.
"At this time, there is no imminent risk of losing the emission attributes associated with these facilities permanently and no concomitant need to provide them with additional New York consumer support for those emission attributes," the order said.
ACE NY, Energy Ottawa Inc. and Independent Power Producers of New York Inc. are among those that disagreed.
"It is very possible that at least some Existing Facilities in New York will sell their clean energy attributes to Massachusetts for periods of up to 20 years, depriving New York of the ability to rely on these resources in its baseline to meet the 50 by 30 goal," IPPNY said.
ACE NY warned that if the electrons go out of state, there's a risk that states will double-count the same generator.
The PSC originally contemplated new forms of support for existing renewable generators but decided against it in the final program. Instead, the state will continue to use the retention tools that existed under its previous renewables policy.
Fifteen parties have asked the PSC for a rehearing. Some are asking for small clarifications that could have huge impacts on their business, whether in nuclear power, transmission or biomass.
Others strike more directly at the program, saying the nuclear subsidies were rammed through by the governor and nuclear power companies without public participation.
The Alliance for a Green Economy and the Nuclear Information and Resource Service opposed the support for nuclear power, calling it "the largest transfer of wealth from the government to a single corporate entity in New York history." Exelon Corp. is in the process of a nuclear purchase that would make it the owner of all three upstate nuclear power plants in New York.
According to the New York Department of Public Service, the first two years of the nuclear subsidy will cost $965 million or less.
Others call the CES illegal under federal law. Castleton Commodities International LLC, which sells merchant power in New York and neighboring states, said the CES violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. It also said the nuclear subsidies run afoul of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's responsibility over wholesale power markets.
The PSC has said it expects the policy to pass muster on FERC and constitutional challenges.
Finally, Castleton said the PSC approved an energy plan so large and momentous that it should be handled by the state Legislature.
"These petitions will each be considered and it's likely that 45-day comment periods will be established for public/parties to submit comments on them," a DPS spokesman said. "There's no deadline for the commission to make a decision on any one of these."
The CES also faces challenges at FERC. Last week, FERC received its first "motion to intervene" from Public Citizen. The group has questioned whether Exelon's attempt to buy its third reactor in New York, the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant, is in the public interest.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/09/06/stories/1060042330
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When It Comes to Cyber, Utilities Sweat the Small Stuff
Sep 6, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
During an unprecedented cyberattack on Ukrainian electric utilities last December, an obscure piece of equipment came under fire: the serial-to-Ethernet converter.
These humble devices play an outsize role in power grids by translating signals between control rooms and far-flung substations.
When hackers disabled dozens of Moxa serial-to-Ethernet converters in Ukraine, grid operators were forced into "manual mode" until the cords could be replaced (EnergyWire, July 19).
Weaknesses in these tiny workhorses have forced North American utility companies to consider their own cyber risks.
Not only can the same Moxa devices hit in Ukraine be found in the United States, but thousands of similarly vulnerable Lantronix converters are cropping up online across the country. Nearly 5,000 of these Lantronix devices freely broadcast their passwords to would-be hackers, according to a recent query using the "internet of things" search engine Shodan.
"I think it's a reasonable assumption that if a device makes the mistake of telling anybody your password that it also has other security problems," Shodan's founder, John Matherly, said in an email. "I would be surprised if it weren't possible to render the [Lantronix] devices inoperable."
The potential fallout from such an attack is unclear, but "it wouldn't be good," said Robert M. Lee, founder of Dragos Security LLC and a former Air Force cyberwarfare operations officer. Each Lantronix device is "supposed to be a bridge, but if you can basically drive up to the bridge and jump on it, now you've got communication access ways into either the substation or the control center," he pointed out.
Matherly said he's held off from publicly mentioning the Lantronix case until more of the devices could be taken offline.
"The amazing thing to me is that this vulnerability has been known for at least four years!" he said.
Shodan makes it easy to find connected devices and their rough locations, but pinpointing how and where they are being used is much trickier. Matherly often works with federal officials to track down critical infrastructure owners who leave key equipment exposed online (EnergyWire, Aug. 15, 2014).
"I've sent the data to the [Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team], and I've notified our institutional customers, both of which have been able to bring that number down a bit," Matherly said of the Lantronix case. "But there are still a substantial number of them exposed."
A Lantronix spokesman said the company's devices provide secure connectivity "when properly installed and maintained per Lantronix recommended guidelines," suggesting companies reach out for tech support if in doubt about their deployments.
The Moxa and Lantronix examples underscore a new challenge for utilities: In an increasingly interconnected world, how do you stop bad guys from breaking in? And if hackers disable important devices, how can you make a quick recovery?
Big power utilities have already set up equipment-sharing programs for bulky power transformers in the event of an emergency, whether brought on by hackers, a physical attack or — more likely — a major storm.
But under a fast-growing "cyber mutual assistance" program, investor-owned utilities are addressing the need to share small stuff, too, industry officials say.
Scott Aaronson, executive director for security and business continuity at the Edison Electric Institute, cited a 2012 cyberattack on Saudi Aramco that permanently disabled as many as 30,000 computers. It took weeks for Aramco to replace them all and resume normal operations.
"They had 30,000 business computers turned into bricks," he said. "Just having the capacity to be able to restore that without having to go down to Best Buy to buy 30,000 computers in one day is something that this group of [mutual assistance] coordinators is now looking at."
Aaronson would not specify how many utilities participate but said at least 50 percent of U.S. electricity customers are now covered under the mutual assistance program. He said the industry is planning its first large-scale exercise of its coordinator capability later this month.
"Operational technology is in scope of the kinds of equipment that the cyber mutual assistance program is going to consider," he said, while noting that there are important differences between the generic Windows computers hit in the attack on Aramco and operational devices such as serial-to-Ethernet converters.
"These are more discrete, heavily bespoke operational pieces of equipment. Their vulnerability requires an awful lot of expertise on the attacker side," he said. "Our [electricity] system has an awful lot of biodiversity in it, and that in and of itself is a strong approach to security."
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/09/06/stories/1060042328
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Cybersecurity: The Key Issue Trump and Clinton Still Need to Address
Sep 6, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Alex Manea
Over the past 16 months, we’ve seen the candidates in the 2016 U.S. presidential election discuss, debate and discourse a wide variety of topics that are important to voters across the country, from immigration reform to health care to foreign policy to the threat of global terrorism. But there’s yet another issue that affects nearly each and every American, an issue that is critical to the long-term health and welfare of the United States.
America is under cyberattack; this is the harsh reality. Over the past few years, we’ve seen numerous high-profile hacks on government systems that have directly impacted government organizations, citizens, and in some cases even the presidential candidates themselves. The Office of Personnel Management breach exposed the addresses, health and financial history, and other private details of over 21 million people, including every person that was given a government background check for the last 15 years. We saw hackers use taxpayers’ Social Security Numbers to obtain more than 100,000 E-File PINs directly from the IRS. And of course, we saw email archives leaked from both the DNC and Hillary Clinton, directly leading to the resignation of four top executives.
These attacks have real and measurable costs to the American and global economies. In 2013, theWall Street Journal estimated the annual cost of cyberespionage and cybercrime to the U.S. economy at around $100 billion. This year, Forbesreported the global cost of cyberattacks is expected to rise to $2.1 trillion by 2019.
Cyberwarfare is the attack vector of the future; it’s cheaper and less risky than physical warfare and has no geographical borders. Every new device connected to the internet – from fridges to thermostats to cars to airplanes – becomes a potential target for cyberattack. Security researchers have hacked connected cars and taken over the steering, hacked airplanes and taken over the engine controls, and even hacked into the U.S. electrical power grid. I’ve personally seen my colleagues hack a Wi-Fi enabled tea kettle to silently take over a secure enterprise network and hack a morphine infusion pump with the ability to overdose and kill a patient. The Internet of Things fundamentally changes the threat profile of cyberattacks, and cybersecurity is no longer just about protecting against the loss of electronic data; it’s also about protecting against attacks with real-world consequences and potential loss of life.
In March, WIRED magazine published an article on how the major candidates view cybersecurity, assessing the range critically “from total indifference to mild indifference” while conceding that the broad outlines of cybersecurity positions would surely be refined with time.
Currently, Donald Trump’s website mentions cybersecurity in the context of U.S.-China trade reform, stating that “China’s ongoing theft of intellectual property… costs the U.S. over $300 billion and millions of jobs each year.” He states that “we will enforce stronger protections against Chinese hackers” but does not lay out a detailed plan for reducing the threat. During the December 2015 Republican Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, Trump said he would “be open to closing areas (of the internet) where we are at war with somebody” but did not lay out a vision for how this might work, given the fundamentally open and interconnected nature of the internet. His position is clearer on the lawful access debate, stating when asked about NSA surveillance that “I tend to err on the side of security.”
Hillary Clinton also seems to focus on China with regards to cybersecurity, stating on her website that she will “press China to play by the rules—including in cyberspace.” She recognizes that “our electric grid… is increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks” and that “cyber attacks have profound consequences for our economy and our national security,” but thus far, Secretary Clinton has simply stated that “our country will outpace this rapidly changing threat, maintain strong protections against unwarranted government or corporate surveillance, and ensure American companies are the most competitive in the world.”
Earlier this year, President Obama unveiled the Cybersecurity National Action Plan, reinforcing the White House’s role in partnering with private industry to improve cybersecurity and allocating $19 billion for cybersecurity in the 2017 Budget, a 35 percent increase over 2016. The upcoming Presidential Debates represent a fantastic opportunity for both candidates to discuss cybersecurity, clarify their policies and comment on the plan and whether they would continue to support it. More importantly, the debates represent an opportunity for voters like you to engage the candidates on cybersecurity, ask the tough questions and seek specific answers. Because while Mr. Trump and Secretary Clinton may want to avoid addressing the elephant in the room, President Trump or President Clinton will not have that same luxury.
Alex Manea is director of BlackBerry Security.
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/294475-cybersecurity-the-key-issue-that-trump-and-clinton-still-need
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GOP Response Muted to U.S.-China Ratification of Paris
Sep 6, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President Obama's announcement Saturday that the United States and China had joined last year's landmark Paris climate agreement together elicited tepid response from Republicans in Congress who insist the administration has shirked its obligation to submit the deal to the Senate.
Instead of threatening to take down the deal through legislation or litigation, Republicans released a few muted statements arguing that the global agreement would falter on its own.
"History already shows that this Paris Agreement will fail," said Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). "This latest announcement is the president attempting to once again give the international community the appearance that he can go around Congress in order to achieve his unpopular and widely rejected climate agenda for his legacy."
Inhofe, who has called climate change a hoax, noted that the Supreme Court has stayed U.S. EPA's flagship carbon rule for power plants. If the rule, known as the Clean Power Plan, does not survive court challenges, it could make the United States' commitment under Paris harder to reach.
"Furthermore, environmental groups and industry agree that the U.S. commitments made under the Paris Agreement cannot be met with regulations and would require legislation from Congress that will never pass," Inhofe said.
The United States has put forward a pledge to cut emissions between 26 and 28 percent compared with 2005 levels by 2025. The administration has said that target can be reached without congressional action, though it may require action from future administrations.
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who has led the charge to make Senate approval of Paris a condition of Obama's request for climate aid, said the president's move would weaken the U.S. economy.
"This questionable unilateral action by the president can and should be struck down as soon as possible," he said.
The United States and China formally joined Paris on Saturday by delivering their instruments of ratification to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who was on hand in Hangzhou, where leaders gathered for the Group of 20 meeting.
The deal is based on national commitments put forward by more than 180 countries. China vowed to peak its emissions by 2030, and several recent analyses say it is on track to do so years before that. But Republicans say the agreement gives advantages to major developing countries like China because developed countries by and large have agreed to make deeper cuts.
But it is unclear what tools Republican lawmakers plan to use to combat Paris, or whether they'll even try.
"I don't think anyone's going to talk about it until they decide to do it, and that will be after the election," said Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Election will clarify future of agreement
One option would be to use Congress' power of the purse to limit spending on Obama's international climate agenda.
The House has attached language to State Department spending legislation for fiscal 2017 that would bar the United States from contributing to the United Nations' Green Climate Fund for developing countries. It would also block funding for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and Paris implementation. But the Senate version approves that funding, raising doubts about the House's path.
Ebell argues that this year's presidential election will go a long way toward determining whether Congress has the leverage to prohibit that funding during a postelection spending showdown. If Democrat Hillary Clinton wins the presidential election, Obama would likely threaten to veto any spending bill that barred Green Climate Fund contributions, he said. A Republican-led Congress would have a stronger hand if GOP nominee Donald Trump was preparing to take office.
Ebell has urged the Senate to debate the merits of Paris and kill it, if only symbolically, whether the administration submits it or not. He notes that the deal is accepted as a treaty by other countries and by the United Nations itself. By refusing to ask for the Senate's advice and consent, Obama is ignoring the constitutionally mandated division of responsibility between the executive and legislative branches of government, Ebell argued.
"It's merely a matter of tradition that the Senate doesn't take up a treaty until the president submits it," he said. Senate rejection of Paris would send a signal to other countries not to trust Obama's promises, he added.
Paul Bodnar, a former senior director for energy and climate change at the White House's National Security Council, said it might not be legally possible for the Senate to vote Paris down in the way Ebell suggests after the United States has formally joined it. A nonbinding resolution may be the only option.
Scott Segal of Bracewell LLP said that undoing Paris would effectively require a Trump victory. But congressional Republicans would seek to build as strong a record as possible on the subject "so that when action is forced, they have all the playing pieces they would need."
Congress could potentially sue the executive branch under Obama or Clinton if it uses the Paris Agreement as a predicate for regulation if the Senate doesn't ratify it, he said. But that is unlikely.
"Any future EPA is not likely to cite Paris as a particular grant of authority just for that reason," Segal said.
'Strong partnership' with China
On a call with reporters last Friday, White House adviser Brian Deese said the joint ratification with China showed the strong partnership the world's two largest economies have developed on climate change.
"If we can come together, we can help move the world forward on combating climate change," he said.
The two countries also released addition areas of cooperation for the future, including efforts to curb heat-trapping hydrofluorocarbons and aviation emissions. They set a "landing zone" for efforts to broker an amendment to the Montreal Protocol this year limiting HFCs. It's aimed at ironing out differences over the date by which the chemicals would be phased down and a schedule for that.
China's support this weekend for an early freeze date moves the nation toward a position long held by the United States and other like-minded countries, Deese said. It might also serve to isolate India, which has insisted on more time for developing countries to make the transition.
"That effort and that specific commitment by our two countries should help to increase momentum for adopting an amendment," said Deese. Parties hope to arrive at a final amendment in Rwanda next month.
The United States and China also announced they would both join an impending offsetting system for international aviation emissions "early."
Environmental advocates said China's participation in the first six years of the system, when countries are expected to voluntarily opt in, would be necessary if the deal were to cover 80 percent of emissions from the sector. A senior State official said they were "cautiously optimistic" that the deal, still under negotiation, would be finalized by a vote at a meeting of the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization in a month.
Meanwhile, environmentalists lauded the United States and China for bringing Paris closer to early entry into force. To take effect, the deal requires 55 countries totaling 55 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions to join, and the two largest emitters will ensure that nearly 40 percent of the world's emissions are covered.
It also means that 25 countries have now joined the deal. It is likely that number will grow to 55 by Sept. 21, when Ban holds a summit in New York City to encourage countries to formally join the agreement. The emissions threshold is likely to take more time, though observers say the odds are good that Paris will be in effect this year.
If the deal is live by the time world leaders gather in Marrakech, Morocco, in November for the next round of U.N. talks, parties would need to begin deciding how implementation could work.
"Logistically, negotiations on the agreement's detailed rules will likely take another year or two to finalize, and all countries will need to raise the ambition of their commitments under the agreement if we're to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and reach a goal of net-zero global warming emissions by midcentury," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Bob Perciasepe, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, said that boosting transparency must be a focus moving forward.
"The Paris Agreement not only commits all countries to do their best to combat climate change, but provides us the tools to hold them accountable," he said. "Stronger transparency rules will make clear whether countries are keeping their promises and contributing their fair share to the global effort."
Reporter Camille von Kaenel contributed.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/09/06/stories/1060042324
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