Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 9/8/2016
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ICCA Urges Unep to Withdraw Endocrine Disruptor List
Sep 8, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
The International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) is calling for the UN Environment Programme to withdraw, or significantly revise, its draft review of lists of chemicals that are recognised as, or suggested to be, endocrine disrupting chemicals. -
Echa Round-Up
Sep 8, 2016 | Chemical Watch
Echa has invited third parties to submit scientifically valid information and studies on 11 testing proposals on five substances... -
Lawmakers Skeptical of State’s Explanation for Hoosick Falls Water Crisis
Sep 7, 2016 | New York Times
By Jesse McKinley
For the second time in two weeks, New York State Department of Health officials sought to blame the Environmental Protection Agency for a contaminated water crisis in upstate New York, saying on Wednesday that they were confused and hamstrung by changing federal standards... -
(ACC Mentioned) Fossil Fuel Industry Paid for Meetings With GOP Attorneys General to Plan Attack on Clean Power Plan
Sep 8, 2016 | Truth-Out
By Nick Surgey
Fossil fuel giants Murray Energy and Southern Company paid for meetings with Republican attorneys general to discuss their opposition to the Clean Power Plan less than two weeks before the same GOP officials petitioned federal courts to block the Obama administration's signature... -
Energy Conference Off to Mixed Start
Sep 8, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
Leading House and Senate negotiators vowed to work together towards a bipartisan energy bill that could be signed into law during opening statements at the first formal conference meeting this morning, although many committee leaders sent shots across the bow... -
Labor Union Group Urges Expanded Infrastructure Development to Meet Power Plan Goals
Sep 8, 2016 | E&E TV
How critical will expanding the use of natural gas be to meeting the goals of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan? During today's OnPoint, Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan, assistant director for legislation and politics at the Laborers' International Union of North America... -
Emotions Overcoming Facts in North Dakota Pipeline Dispute
Sep 8, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Jack Rafuse
It’s easy to overlook facts when issues strike an emotional chord. The saying goes that everyone is entitled to their own opinion; but not their own facts. Unfortunately, it appears that opinions have already trumped facts when it comes to the Dakota Access pipeline. -
Promoters of Cleaner Electric Grid Zapped by Roadblocks
Sep 8, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By John Fialka
Building new high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) power lines in the United States will help the nation's aging power grid handle more renewable energy. -
Military Secrecy Sets Back Grid Cyber Readiness — Watchdog
Sep 8, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
The Department of Defense could take a page from the civilian power sector in testing U.S. readiness for a major cyberattack on critical infrastructure, according to the Government Accountability Office. -
(ACC Mentioned) Floor Time for Flint-Aiding WRDA Bill
Sep 8, 2016 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
...Interest groups have been outlining their own priorities to conferees this week, and drought is not the only point of disagreement. The American Chemistry Council, National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups on Wednesday wrote... -
EPA Gives Ground on NOx Emissions in Final Cross-State Rule
Sep 8, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
Power plants will be allowed to emit some 16,000 more tons of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides next summer under the final version of U.S. EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule update than the agency had originally proposed. -
California to Extend Most Ambitious US Climate Change Law
Sep 8, 2016 | AP (In The Washington Post)
Gov. Jerry Brown is set to extend the nation’s most ambitious climate change law by another 10 years on Thursday as California charts a new goal to reduce carbon pollution. -
National Academies Panel Urges Overhaul of Energy Policies
Sep 8, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
The United States needs to put a price on carbon dioxide and other pollutants and overhaul energy policies to help avoid catastrophic climate change and other public health calamities, according to a report released today by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
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ICCA Urges Unep to Withdraw Endocrine Disruptor List
Sep 8, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
The International Council of Chemical Associations (ICCA) is calling for the UN Environment Programme to withdraw, or significantly revise, its draft review of lists of chemicals that are recognised as, or suggested to be, endocrine disrupting chemicals.
Unep’s draft assesses 24 existing EDC lists, and suggests 77 substances warrant further scrutiny, based on their inclusion in the following:
· the REACH candidate list;
· the Danish EPA list of EDCs; and
· the Substitute It Now (SIN) List, compiled by the NGO ChemSec.
In a statement prepared for submission to the public consultation on the review, the ICCA says the use of lists to identify EDCs and potential EDCs is problematic as they “lack scientific reliability and robustness”.
“Using these lists to select 77 chemicals for subsequent overview reports gives the illusion of certainty on the designation of these substances,” it adds.
This designation, the statement reads, exceeds the current state of the science and outpaces regulatory decisions on these substances. “Organisations that develop these lists seldom have access to the full breadth of toxicological data that are needed to adequately assess the endocrine-disrupting potential of these materials,” it says.
Further criticisms of the lists include:
· the lack of a "standardised approach to evaluate data quality"; and
· they do not require a weight-of-evidence analysis, which takes into account the number of studies that indicate whether a chemical is, or isn't, an EDC.
The trade body says that the list of 77 substances would risk providing distorted or biased information. It could also potentially “retard rather than advance scientific understanding”.
In a separate statement, the ACC, a member of the ICCA, says it is “surprised and concerned” by Unep’s commissioned report. “Lists often carry a veneer of authority that masks the capricious and unscientific process by which they are created and which allows organisations to parade them around as science,” it says.
The ACC “urges the immediate withdrawal” of the draft report, including its removal from Unep’s website.
Peter Smith, executive director of Cefic, also a member of the ICCA, told Chemical Watch that the most helpful step would be to "focus on building capacity in the target countries in the areas of risk assessment and the risk management of chemicals”.
“There is so much regulatory-related work still ongoing in developing countries, and the debate about the science [on EDCs] is continuing.” Capacity building, he says, will ensure that chemicals are used correctly and handled safely at all times.
ICCM4
According to the ICCA, the idea of developing a list of EDCs was considered and explicitly rejected by delegates, at last year’s UN chemicals summit (ICCM4).
The trade body says "the majority of stakeholders at the conference recognised that, in the absence of robust, credible evaluations of hazard and exposure, the compilation of a list would likely be inaccurate."
“It is difficult to understand why stakeholders should have invested the time and effort to produce a consensus outcome at [the conference], when Unep has since gone on to provide active support to the development of a report that purports to do exactly what Saicm stakeholders did not support.”
However, Joe Digangi, senior science and technical adviser at NGO Ipen, says the Unep report is responding to calls from more than 140 countries to identify EDCs.
He says that during the round of regional meetings preceding ICCM4, three UN regions - Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America - passed resolutions on EDCs that called on Unep and the WHO to “identify priority endocrine disrupting chemicals”.
And, at ICCM4, 15 countries, plus NGOs PAN and Ipen, submitted a conference room paper (CRP) that called for Unep to “compile a list of EDCs and potential EDCs,” he says. This was proposed through a draft but not included in the final resolution on the substances.
It is, however, included in the final ICCM4 report, which records issues raised and discussed at the conference.
In addition, Resolution IV/2, which includes actions to take forward on emerging policy issues, invites the “implementation of a plan of work” on EDCs, developed by Unep, the World Health Organisation and the OECD.Under this workplan, Unep is tasked with compiling and disseminating overview reports. These will “focus on existing scientific knowledge of environmental exposure and impact, legislation, measures and gaps regarding known and selected potential EDCs (especially information from developing and transition countries) by 2017,” the workplan states.
Unep’s head of chemicals and waste branch, Achim Halpaap, told Chemical Watch that analysing and sharing already established lists of EDCs at the global level, is an exercise to disseminate information, consistent with "the work plan supported by ICCM4".
“Information sharing and analysis, rather than preparing a single global list of EDCs, is the main intention of these reports,” said Mr Halpaap . Further consultations with governments and stakeholders are planned to achieve this objective, he added.
In March, Unep commissioned the International Panel on Chemical Pollution (IPCP), a network of scientists, to develop five reports that give an overview of scientific knowledge, regarding environmental exposure and associated effects of the substances.
Unep has extended the consultation period on the draft review until 20 September.
https://chemicalwatch.com/49295/icca-urges-unep-to-withdraw-endocrine-disruptor-list
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Sep 8, 2016 | Chemical Watch
Testing proposals
Echa has invited third parties to submit scientifically valid information and studies on 11 testing proposals on five substances:
· 2-ethylhexyl 10-ethyl-4,4-dimethyl-7-oxo-8-oxa-3,5-dithia-4-stannatetradecanoate;
· 4-hydroxy-4-methylpentan-2-one;
· phosphorodithioic acid, mixed O,O-bis(iso-Bu and pentyl) esters, zinc salts;
· reaction products of a polyol of pentaerythritol and propylene oxide, epichlorohydrin and hydrogen sulfide; and
· sodium dihydrogenorthophosphate.
All have a submission deadline of 17 October.
Identification of six substances of very high concern
The agency is consulting on the identification of six substances of very high concern. They are:
· bisphenol A;
· 4-heptylphenol, branched and linear;
· 4-tert-butylphenol;
· benzene-1,2,4-tricarboxylic acid 1,2-anhydride (trimellitic anhydride);
· nonadecafluorodecanoic acid (PFDA) and its sodium and ammonium salts; and
· p-(1,1-dimethylpropyl)phenol.
The deadline for comments is 21 October.
Chemicals added to Pic group entries
Five new chemicals have been added under the group entries in the list of substances subject to an export notification, Annex I on the prior informed consent (Pic) Regulation.
They are:
· acetic acid, cadmium salt (EC 208-853-2; Cas no 5743-04-4) in the Annex I group, cadmium and its compounds;
· 2,7-(bis(2-arsonophenylazo))-1,8-dihydroxynaphthalene-3,6-disulphonic acid (EC 216-788-6; Cas no 1668-00-4) in the group arsenic compounds;
· tripropyltin chloride (EC 218-910-3; Cas no 2279-76-7) in the group triorganostannic compounds, other than tributyltin compounds;
· methyltriphenylarsonium iodide (EC 216-108-8; Cas no 1499-33-8) in the group arsenic compounds; and
· stannane, dioctyl-, bis(coco acyloxy) derivatives (EC 293-901-5; Cas no 91648-39-4) in the group dioctyltin compounds.
Chemicals are added at the request of companies, and after Echa verifies that they belong to the group.
When updating the group entries with individual chemicals, and their identifiers, it is important for companies to make their export notification in ePIC with the correct identifier. Echa says they cannot submit notifications for a group entry, but need to provide a Cas or EC number of the actual substance.
Guidance on labelling and packaging
Echa has published its revised Guidance on labelling and packaging in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008.
The agency says the update addresses the full entry into force of the CLP Regulation, and marks the end of the transition period for
· labelling mixtures according to the dangerous preparations Directive (DPD); and
· classifying their components, according to the dangerous substances Directive (DSD).
Work is already ongoing on alignment of the guidance with the eighth ATP to CLP. The agency has sent draft public version 3.0 out for Partner Expert Group (PEG) consultation.
Translations of practical guide on Qsars available
The updated guide on How to use and report Qsars, published in July in English, has been translated into 22 other EU languages.
The guide provides an overview of the important aspects to consider, when predicting properties of substances using Qsar models. It also gives useful examples of good prediction practices.
https://chemicalwatch.com/49420/echa-round-up
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Lawmakers Skeptical of State’s Explanation for Hoosick Falls Water Crisis
Sep 7, 2016 | New York Times
By Jesse McKinley
For the second time in two weeks, New York State Department of Health officials sought to blame the Environmental Protection Agency for a contaminated water crisis in upstate New York, saying on Wednesday that they were confused and hamstrung by changing federal standards on perfluorooctanoic acid, a toxic chemical known as PFOA.
But again and again, lawmakers at a joint legislative hearing seemed deeply skeptical of the state’s explanations about what happened in Hoosick Falls, a riverside hamlet where PFOA has been found in dangerously high levels.
“There’s a nice game going on where you’re going to blame the E.P.A.,” Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin, a Republican who represents the village, said. “I don’t think that the members up here are quite buying the fact the D.O.H. holds no responsibility for this.”
It was a local resident, Michael Hickey, who first raised alarms about PFOA in the public water supply in the summer of 2014. It took nearly a year and a half for state officials to warn residents to not drink the water, acting only after the E.P.A. — the very entity that the state now blames for the crisis — had issued such a warning.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat, has repeatedly defended the state’s response to the crisis in Hoosick Falls. Nonetheless, the response was the subject of a hearing last week in the village’s high school, where speakers included Mr. Hickey, who spoke passionately about the death of his father from kidney cancer, which has been linked in studies to PFOA. (PFOA is used in the creation of Teflon, a common component of products once made in the village.)
The testimony on Wednesday was less emotional, but more contentious, as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle sharply questioned Dr. Howard Zucker, the health commissioner, for several hours.
“Would you acknowledge that in this particular community that the general public does not seem to have been adequately informed?” Brian Kavanagh, a Democrat from Manhattan, asked.
Dr. Zucker said he believed that the state had informed residents, via village and county officials. A formal warning about not drinking the water, however, did not come until December.
Such answers did not please environmental groups.
“When it comes to PFOA, Dr. Zucker failed to abide by the precautionary principle,” said Peter M. Iwanowicz, the executive director ofEnvironmental Advocates of New York. “He appears to have set aside his physician hat for a regulator’s.” Mr. Iwanowicz added that Dr. Zucker’s claim that the science is evolving on PFOA is “baffling,” noting a major 2012 study that established several health impacts from the chemical, includingcancer.
The hearing came the same day as the E.P.A. proposed adding the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics plant — identified by the state as the source of the PFOA — to the federal Superfund list, reserved for the nation’s worst hazardous waste sites. Such a move, which comes after the state made a similar declaration in January, could unlock funds for long-term cleanup of the site, where Teflon was in use.
The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation issued a statement citing its own “ongoing and aggressive response” to the Hoosick Falls water, and saying that the E.P.A. was “finally acting” on a January response for federal Superfund consideration.
Billed as a hearing on statewide water quality and contamination, the daylong hearing did briefly touch on issues of lead in the water of New York City’s schools and a similar tainted-water problem in Newburgh, in the Hudson Valley.
But the central topic on Wednesday was Hoosick Falls, and the state’s performance. And by and large, the reviews were not positive.
“Somebody,” said Assemblyman Dan Stec, a North Country Republican, “could have done a much better job.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/08/nyregion/lawmakers-skeptical-hoosick-falls-water-crisis.html?_r=0
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Sep 8, 2016 | Truth-Out
By Nick Surgey
Fossil fuel giants Murray Energy and Southern Company paid for meetings with Republican attorneys general to discuss their opposition to the Clean Power Plan less than two weeks before the same GOP officials petitioned federal courts to block the Obama administration's signature climate proposal, according to private emails (see below) from state attorneys general obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy. The meetings took place at an August 2015 summit hosted by the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) in West Virginia, where attendees were offered the opportunity to meet with GOP attorneys general in exchange for financial donations to help reelect the Republican state prosecutors.
Confidential documents also reveal that some of the GOP attorneys general again discussed "the future of the fight to stop the Clean Power Plan" at a meeting of the Republican Attorneys General Association's 501(c)(4) organization, the Rule of Law Defense Fund, this past April.
The previously unknown meetings and financial donations -- revealed in copies of conference materials, most stamped "confidential," that were emailed to state attorneys general who attended the summit and obtained by CMD through public records requests -- offer the first look at the behind-the-scenes coordination between GOP attorneys general and the fossil fuel industry to undermine the implementation of the Clean Power Plan.
"State attorneys general are supposed to enforce the law and serve the public interest, but instead these Republican officials have hung a 'For Sale' sale on their door, and the fossil fuel industry proved to be the highest bidder," said Nick Surgey, Research Director at the Center for Media and Democracy, a national watchdog group. "It's no coincidence that GOP attorneys general have mounted an aggressive fight alongside the fossil fuel industry to block the Clean Power Plan -- that appears to be exactly what the industry paid for. Together, these documents reveal a sustained pattern of collusion between the fossil fuel industry and the Republican attorneys general on climate change obstructionism."
In addition to the private briefings, the RAGA conference also included a panel presentation entitled "The Dangerous Consequences of the Clean Power Plan & Other EPA Rules," featuring Mike Duncan, President of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) and Geoffrey Barnes, Counsel at Murray Energy, as well as three attorneys general: Scott Pruitt (R-OK), Patrick Morrisey (R-WV), and Ken Paxton (R-TX). All parties are currently engaged in legal challenges to the CPP.
Opening arguments are scheduled to begin in federal appeals court in September over legal challenges filed by the fossil fuel industry and GOP attorneys general seeking to halt implementation of the CPP.
Corporations can pay a premium rate RAGA membership fee of up to $125,000 for the privilege of holding private briefings with attorneys general and their staff, as well as attending the annual meeting. The conference provides ample opportunity for attorneys general to directly solicit campaign contributions from corporate representatives during private meetings, informal conversations and leisure activities -- like kayaking, a five-hour golf game, and a National Rifle Association-sponsored shooting tournament.
An attendee list for the 2015 summer conference also included representatives from Koch Industries, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), American Chemistry Council, America's Natural Gas Alliance (ANGA), Devon Energy, Edison Electric Institute, Georgia Power, National Mining Association, NextEra Energy, Nuclear Energy Institute, Troutman Sanders, U.S. Chamber for Legal Reform, the State Policy Network and Peabody Energy.
According to materials reviewed by CMD, since 2015 RAGA has received at least $100,000 from ExxonMobil, $350,000 from Koch Industries, $85,000 from Southern Company, $378,250 from the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), and $250,000 from Murray Energy. In total, fossil fuel interests, utilities and their trade groups have given more than $2.25 million to RAGA since 2015.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37534-fossil-fuel-industry-paid-for-meetings-with-gop-attorneys-general-to-plan-attack-on-clean-power-plan
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Energy Conference Off to Mixed Start
Sep 8, 2016 | PoliticoPro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
Leading House and Senate negotiators vowed to work together towards a bipartisan energy bill that could be signed into law during opening statements at the first formal conference meeting this morning, although many committee leaders sent shots across the bow on hot-button issues.
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) argued that lawmakers had already defied the odds by getting the measures to conference, and said she plans to continue the same "very open, very bipartisan manner."
"My goal is to update our energy policies in this country and get a conference report, a bill that can be signed into law by the president," she said.
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, agreed that he did not plan to "take the avenue of sending a bill to the president that he would veto."
But not all House members struck the same conciliatory tone. House Science Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) emphasized his support for the House bill — which contains a number of hot-button Republican measures. And House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) pointed to contentious areas he wants addressed, including drought.
Meanwhile, Democrats emphasized the centrality of the Senate's permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund to their support, along with provisions to advance renewable energy development.
But Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) warned Democrats that they should be prepared to compromise now: "Do not assume that this opportunity or this offer will be available in the next conference," he said.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Labor Union Group Urges Expanded Infrastructure Development to Meet Power Plan Goals
Sep 8, 2016 | E&E TV
How critical will expanding the use of natural gas be to meeting the goals of U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan? During today's OnPoint, Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan, assistant director for legislation and politics at the Laborers' International Union of North America, which recently launched its Clean Power Progress campaign focused on state-by-state advocacy of natural gas infrastructure development, explains why she believes pipeline opponents are hampering states' ability to meet the targets outlined in the power plan.
Monica Trauzzi: Hello and welcome to OnPoint. I'm Monica Trauzzi. With me today is Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan, assistant director for legislation and politics at the Laborers' International Union of North America, which recently launched a clean power progress campaign. Yvette, thank you for joining me.
Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan: Thank you for having me here, Monica.
Monica Trauzzi: Yvette, LIUNA's work on energy focuses in a big way on natural gas infrastructure development and you're involved in various efforts throughout the U.S. to expand pipeline development. The Dakota Access pipeline in North Dakota is one project that's being currently discussed and debated.
Your organization has qualified those who oppose the project as extremists. Where does LIUNA's work and outreach fit into the broader energy policy discussion that's currently happening in the U.S. on natural gas?
Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan: Well, LIUNA's an all-of-the-above energy union. So we are a building construction trades union. We do it all in the energy sector. Transportation sector as well, but energy's very big for us.
So as you said, I guess where there is a project labor agreement and we know that our members are going to get work, we're very protective of that work. So the clean power progress campaign, which we'll talk about in a few minutes, is focused on the natural gas aspects of it.
But on Dakota and others, what we've been doing I guess for the last two years really is participating throughout that process for the DAPL line and really for all of the various pipeline infrastructure that we're trying to build.
As you know, after Keystone, I think with some of the successes that perhaps the environmental community saw with that, isn't diverting a lot of their energy on infrastructure projects by infrastructure project. From our perspective we can't really have a comprehensive energy and climate strategy if all we're going to do is fight over infrastructure projects. We can have a much bigger debate on that.
So we participated in the process. It's been an open process. Unfortunately right now our members who are trying to work at that project, it's been a very intense situation, as you know. All they're trying to do is provide food for their families and go to work every day. We understand some of the concerns the tribes are having, but again, it's been a long process to finally get here.
Monica Trauzzi: You've taken aim at Tom Steyer and others who opposed Keystone XL, as you mentioned. Do you see a way to balance environmental goals, as well as economic goals?
Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan: Absolutely. Again, I think that's what we're trying to do with our campaign is trying to bring this a little bit more to the middle because you've got one side. They don't believe in climate change. It's pro-development no matter what the impact is on the communities, on the environment, on climate change.
Then the other side, keeping it in the ground, no fossil fuels, and we just believe there needs to be a much more middle-ground discussion that's more holistic than that.
So I think we have the same goals as Tom Steyer and others. However, I think we have more of a plan than perhaps some. I think they see it just from an environmental climate perspective and we see it from a climate and jobs perspective. After all, we're a union and we represent men and women who are working and trying to provide for their family.
Monica Trauzzi: Let's talk about the Clean Power Progress campaign. Your group is working state by state to advocate for natural gas development in order to meet the goals in the Clean Power Plan.
If the goals of the power plan can be met through investments in other sources of energy, for example, renewables, why do you believe that natural gas then needs to stay on the map in a big way?
Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan: Well obviously the debate in Washington and other places and, again ... to keep it in the ground ... in others, they've been very focused on no fracking, no natural gas, and we just need to do renewable energy in order to meet the Clean Power Plan goals.
What we see and what we're trying to do is have more of a fact-based conversation about this. So for example, if we look at the Clean Power Plan's goal, 30 percent emissions reductions by 2030, if you look at and take, using EPA numbers and EIA numbers, energy consumption of the United States, we would see a 21 percent power deficit by 2030 if you just take oil and coal out. So we need to fill that.
So from our perspective and what we've seen, if we were just to do this on solar panels and I know that sounds great and I think someday we may be able to get there, I don't think it'll be there by 2030 and we need that natural gas to be a bridge fuel, but if you were to just take a solar panel, we would need 3.8 million acres of solar panels. That's three times the size of Grand Canyon. That's $1.8 trillion of investment just to fulfill that energy need and that's nationally.
What we do with the campaign is look at some states, like Pennsylvania — 22 percent power deficit. What we would look at is you would need a solar panel farm 2½ sizes the size of Philadelphia. Then again $103 billion to build that. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of land. That's a lot of space.
Monica Trauzzi: But is anyone suggesting that that's how it should be done?
Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan: Yes. I would say I think that they are. If it's just renewables only and they don't want nuclear, they don't want hydropower and there's a comfort level when you talk about wind and solar and again, LIUNA, we build. We're building wind. We're putting out solar panel farms. This is important to us. We want to grow that sector —
Monica Trauzzi: But you're talking to lawmakers. Are there lawmakers who are advocating for only renewables and no natural gas?
Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan: I think there's some. You'd be surprised. You need pipelines to move natural gas. So that's where the problem comes in. so I think that there's a lot of comfort on the Democratic side to talk about renewable energy. We're for that, but we are a little concerned that some of the activism that's taking place is shutting down any possibility in a real conversation about you can do hydraulic fracturing safely. It's being done. There's a lot of new technologies.
Pipelines are safer than ever. They're being built safely. When they're done, even safer, but I think it's a conversation that some are having a difficult time when there's so much emotion and activism and tape recorders and rope lines and just silly things like that. What we're trying to do is let's just be real for a second. Natural gas is clean and it's just a good bridge fuel. So let's not turn away and overregulate or just say no, keep it in the ground. It shouldn't be that simple. We have to be more thoughtful.
Monica Trauzzi: Utilities make long-term decisions and investments based on what makes the most sense financially for them. In some cases we see utilities going a little more heavily towards renewables. In other cases, making that switch to natural gas. Are there particular states or regions where you think natural gas is the right path?
Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan: Sure. So yes, definitely. In New England there's a lot of different infrastructure. Obviously a lot of homes are still using oil to heat and energy prices along New England are pretty high. So there is a need and want for more natural gas. As you know, several, there's Constitution Pipeline, there's AIM, there's various infrastructure projects pending currently. So definitely along New England. Then obviously there's a lot more going on in the middle of the country as well, but there's definitely a need throughout.
Monica Trauzzi: So from a policy perspective, how does the Clean Power Plan then in your view impact efforts to expand natural gas just based on how it's written and then taking a look at the legal uncertainty that currently surrounds the plan, how does that affect infrastructure projects?
Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan: Well, with legal uncertainty and I think the direction that the United States is moving and even the whole, entire world, it is for a cleaner energy economy. So I think this debate's going to happen regardless of what happens next month with the Supreme Court decision. So we'll see.
We're moving towards that avenue and route. So what we're hoping is that people embrace it and feel more comfortable and policymakers don't just turn away from natural gas and see it as a good bridge fuel.
As the administration's done for years, they've turned away the other way a little bit, but to continue that dialogue and be a little bit more holistic on our energy policy.
Monica Trauzzi: We're going to end it right there. Very interesting conversation. Thanks for coming on the show.
Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan: Thank you Monica.
Monica Trauzzi: Thanks for watching. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
http://www.eenews.net/tv/videos/2156/transcript
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Emotions Overcoming Facts in North Dakota Pipeline Dispute
Sep 8, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Jack Rafuse
It’s easy to overlook facts when issues strike an emotional chord. The saying goes that everyone is entitled to their own opinion; but not their own facts. Unfortunately, it appears that opinions have already trumped facts when it comes to the Dakota Access pipeline.
For those unfamiliar, the Dakota Access project is a 1,172-mile pipeline from the Bakken and Three Forks production areas in North Dakota to major markets across the United States. The $3.78 billion project will create nearly 10,000 jobs and foster millions for local economies. The project is currently under protest from members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, whose land is near the planned route.
In a recent opinion piece, Standing Rock Sioux tribe chairman David Archambault II writes eloquently, but ultimately without precision and factual context as he opines against the ongoing Dakota Access pipeline. He said that, when it comes to opposing Dakota Access, “we all have a responsibility to speak for a vision of the future that is safe and productive for our grandchildren.”
To be sure, it is fully within the opposition’s right to disagree with aspects of the Dakota Access pipeline. However, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe did not participate in any public comment meetings in North Dakota, did not submit written testimony in opposition to the project, and refused to meet with officials from the Dakota Access project on 7 different invitations. This was a process that included nearly 400 meetings on cultural surveying and 11 meetings between the Army Corps of Engineers and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. As American citizens, we have the right to civic participation but also the obligation to abide by its outcomes.
There are also safety concerns that must be addressed. Currently, much of the oil being produced out of the Bakken in North Dakota is transported via railways, putting hundreds of communities at risk as the massive crude containers roll through densely populated areas. Economists and industry experts at the Manhattan Institute found that in a side-by-side comparison, pipelines are dramatically safer than their rail counterparts. The American Farm Bureau agrees, arguing:
Pipelines significantly reduce transportation costs, are more efficient, and are impervious to weather or traffic related delays. If other industries were physically able to send their products through a pipeline, they would be delighted to do so.
Moreover, there are numerous experts who virtually agree in unanimity that pipeline safety is superior to that of rail. In particular, pipelines bring increased security as it moves crude oil off of rail and into pipelines like Dakota Access.
On a slightly more personal level, there have been plenty of incidences where protestors havethreatened and intimidated pipeline workers. So, forgive the preaching, but talking of a safe future seems disingenuous when endangering the lives and livelihoods of others.
As I mentioned above, I understand Chairman Archambault’s defense of his opinion. What I cannot understand, however, is why he continues to ignore the fact that his Tribe refused to engage during the orderly process that lead to the approval of the Dakota Access pipeline. Sadly, Chairman Archambault’s position fails the very future he is trying to protect. The Dakota Access pipeline represents a safe and productive future for all American citizens.
Dr. Jack Rafuse is a former White House energy advisor and energy executive.
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/294917-emotions-overcoming-facts-in-north-dakota-pipeline
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Promoters of Cleaner Electric Grid Zapped by Roadblocks
Sep 8, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By John Fialka
Second in a three-part series. Click here for part one.
Building new high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) power lines in the United States will help the nation's aging power grid handle more renewable energy. It also promises to sharply cut emissions that cause climate change. But the U.S. electricity transmission system is saddled with a sprawling regulatory process that vets proposed long-distance projects at a glacial pace.
In the West, it can involve as many as nine federal agencies. States sometimes delegate their role to multiple agencies. Even counties can get involved in the deliberations.
The upshot is that going through the legal hoops and keeping investment capital at the ready for several of the proposed lines has set back construction for years. Congress tried to solve this problem in 2005 and failed. In 2011, the Obama administration, which supports many of the projects, picked seven pending interstate AC and DC power lines, promising to push them through this bureaucratic mess by forming a "rapid response team for transmission."
"The president wants to get America working again," announced Nancy Sutley, then-chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. "Building a smarter electric grid will create thousands of American jobs and accelerate the growth of domestic clean energy industries."
That produced a hopeful moment for TransWest Express LLC, the owner of the only HVDC line and the longest among the seven the White House picked to move fast, but it's still running through the gantlet of regulators after more than nine years. "I don't want to be critical of it, but I would say it has lost momentum," said TransWest President Bill Miller, referring to the rapid response team. "It hasn't done a whole lot."
He had hoped to have electricity from a separate but closely affiliated company's wind farm, proposed by Power Company of Wyoming LLC, humming through the line to sell in California last year. Now Miller, who heads both firms, hopes to have both projects done by 2020, but that assumes the power line will have a record of decision on its environmental impact statement by the end of this year. "Right now, we have cautious optimism," Miller explained. It's cautious because if the approval doesn't come, the matter will come before a new administration. That could slow it down even further.
Another HVDC renewable energy pioneer is Clean Line Energy Partners, a Houston-based firm that has been trying to get permits for its Grain Belt Express line to move Kansas wind power to the eastern United States for six years.
"Anytime the government does something new, it takes a long time to get it all figured out. That's one issue. And the other issue is that it's really hard to build infrastructure in the United States," said Michael Skelly, the president of Clean Line, which has four other projects awaiting government approval.
"This stuff has to be streamlined. You can't continue to shell out billions of dollars over 10 years with no prospect of getting any of that back for an indeterminate amount of time," complained Tom Vinson, vice president of regulatory affairs for the American Wind Energy Association, who says the impasse has stymied construction of long-distance lines all over the United States.
"You have to realize there's only so much the federal government can do," said Carl Zichella, who has been trying to move some of the Western HVDC projects as a transmission expert for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He said states can also compound delays because one determined state can demand changes that stop the process.
What's best for the sage grouse?
ongress foresaw this problem in 2005 and tried to heal the process with an energy law that allows states to form interstate compacts to streamline transmission planning.
"That authority exists, but no one has used it yet," added Zichella. "Instead, you find counties resisting the authority of states, much as states resist the overarching authority of the federal government. So it's a complicated process. It's really frustrating for people trying to put together visionary projects like this."
NRDC, a New York-based environmental group, is involved to make sure HVDC lines carrying renewable energy get "considered appropriately" and aren't just repelled by local utilities that Zichella said used to have a political "right of refusal for new transmission lines that propose to enter their service territories."
"It only takes a few years to develop a renewable energy project, but it can take a decade to do the transmission for it," said Zichella, who has tried to help Miller's pioneering TransWest project along by sometimes siding with the company against the suggestions of federal agencies.
Miller's company, Zichella asserted, put together thoughtful development plans and cooperated with environmental groups.
"They haven't skirted the laws or tried to find some shortcuts around the [National Environment Policy Act] process," he said.
For example, Miller's proposed wind farm in Wyoming is in territory used by the greater sage grouse, a bird whose populations are estimated to be dwindling along with the sagebrush. There was little in the way of science to determine whether wind turbines would further endanger the bird, so Miller invested in a team of biologists to generate site-specific data by strapping tiny GPS transmitters on hundreds of birds for over five years.
While some experts argued that climate change would be a much greater danger to the sage grouse, eagles and other birds under study, Power Company of Wyoming agreed to relocate its entire wind project out of the state-designated sage grouse core areas. In September 2015, the Fish and Wildlife Service helped relieve some of the environmental angst over the sage grouse by deciding not to list it under the Endangered Species Act.
The energy 'cash register'
The five years of battles over sage grouse were small compared with the political fights over the siting of the HVDC power line.
Most of it is on federal land, but it does cross some state land, which fired up some state legislators along the 730-mile route, particularly in Utah, where they were considering a regulation to reserve 25 percent of the line for renewable power in the state. Miller's company hired lobbyists to defeat the rule, pointing out that TransWest already had a $500 million future HVDC terminal being planned and permitted near Delta, Utah, that could be built when the market demanded it.
Clean Line's Grain Belt Express has had a somewhat similar confrontation with Missouri, where the state's Public Service Commission rejected the 780-mile project over concerns that the line wouldn't benefit Missouri. Skelly, Clean Line's president, is hopeful that the commission will change its view this year after his company offered more protections for landowners along the route and promised to sell cheap, wind-generated power to some communities for up to 25 years.
Some forms of energy transmission are easier to arrange in the United States. If these projects were natural gas pipelines, for example, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would be the final arbiter of whether and where they went and how much they could charge for gas. Electricity transmission, however, has always had multiple chefs in its kitchens.
For a long time, private utilities dominated the construction of transmission lines and rejected government involvement in an expanded system as a waste of taxpayers' money. During the 1920s, seven private utility holding companies controlled 60 percent of the power in the United States.
But the development of hydroelectric power in the West brought two powerful government agencies into the picture. And in the 1930s and '40s, major hydroelectric dams and transmission lines were built by the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Farm groups became involved because at first the electricity from dams was regarded as a side benefit to controlling major rivers and providing irrigation. That changed quickly during the New Deal era when projects like the Hoover and Grand Coulee dams began generating and transmitting substantial amounts of electricity to rural areas that had never had it before. The electricity sales eventually repaid the government's investments.
As one federal history of the era describes it, it was "the birth of a cash register." In 1941, Harold Ickes, secretary of the Interior, told an appreciative crowd in Spokane, Wash., "We cannot bring in power fast enough to supply urgent demands for it."
Other countries following the old U.S. model
The Bureau of Reclamation backed out of the transmission business in the mid-1970s, when it was felt that electric transmission was finally adequate to serve the needs of the West. The advent of big HVDC lines to carry renewable energy, however, has opened a new era, and in the United States so far, it has been private entrepreneurs who are leading the way.
Overseas, however, big government agencies are out in front, much as they were in reshaping the U.S. power system during the 1940s.
According to ABB, the Swedish-Swiss engineering firm that pioneered modern HVDC, India is planning the longest and most complicated line ever built. The 1,074-mile line would carry hydroelectric power from as-yet-undeveloped resources in the northeast through two terminals, connecting power to the country's major population centers, then ending at Agra, home of the famed Taj Mahal.
"China is probably the world's leading builder of HVDC," noted Rob Manning, vice president of transmission for the Electric Power Research Institute, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based independent research and development organization formed to support the electricity industry and address its major issues.
So far, China has built seven long HVDC lines to deliver hydroelectric power, coal-fired power, and wind and solar energy from the west to major cities on the east coast. China has plans to build more lines to develop major wind and solar power resources in Mongolia. The projects have political support because they help mitigate severe smog-related health problems in China's large cities and will help the government meet ambitious pledges to reduce coal consumption and cut greenhouse gas emissions.
"It's perfect for the way the load [electric power demand] is distributed around China," explained Manning. Most U.S. utilities, he said, are still waiting for the economic "sweet spot" that shows market conditions are ready for more HVDC lines in the United States.
Tomorrow: Is the U.S. ready for a "super grid"?
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/09/08/stories/1060042458
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Military Secrecy Sets Back Grid Cyber Readiness — Watchdog
Sep 8, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
The Department of Defense could take a page from the civilian power sector in testing U.S. readiness for a major cyberattack on critical infrastructure, according to the Government Accountability Office.
In a report issued Tuesday, the government watchdog criticized DOD's habit of keeping cyber exercises under wraps from the private electricity sector and even other government agencies, all of which would be called into action during a real cybersecurity crisis.
GAO cited the GridEx cyber exercise, run every two years through the nonprofit North American Electric Reliability Corp., as an example of how DOD should structure its future drills. GridEx II in 2013 considered both cyber and physical attack scenarios on the bulk power system and took place in a private but unclassified setting.
GridEx II "is definitely a good example of the kind of exercise you'd want to see," said Joseph Kirschbaum, director of defense capabilities and management at GAO and the author of the latest report. "If you're trying to make that leap between the government and civilian community, you've got to start working in that unclassified environment."
The GAO report mentioned a separate exercise where Washington National Guard officials invited utility personnel from across the country to participate, only to bar them at the door because they lacked security clearances.
"Somebody dropped the ball" in that case, Kirschbaum told EnergyWire in an interview, adding that overclassification is a "cultural issue" within DOD. "Clearly, if they're going to an exercise that's in that [classified] format, there should be people paying attention to who's cleared and who's not," he said.
For decades, DOD has periodically rehearsed how a large-scale cyberattack on critical infrastructure would affect its own mission and operations. The classified 1997 "Eligible Receiver" exercise, for instance, called attention to emerging cyber vulnerabilities in North American power systems (EnergyWire, Nov. 10, 2015).
But defense officials have been less diligent in practicing worst-case cyber scenarios with their civilian counterparts, according to GAO. The watchdog found that secrecy surrounding DOD's Cyber Guard 2015 training event "prohibited a more active participation by industry partners."
DOD has also failed to properly explore what could happen in a combined cyber/physical assault on "life-sustaining infrastructure" such as the power grid or wastewater treatment plants, GAO said. Until the department carries out a top-priority or "tier 1" exercise, GAO concluded, "DOD will miss an opportunity to fully test response plans, assess the clarity of established roles and responsibilities, and improve proficiency" in supporting other agencies and the private sector in the event of a crippling cyberattack.
'Surge capacity'
GAO's investigation, carried out between June 2015 and September 2016, focused on DOD's cyber civil-support role. The sprawling department can be called upon to assist state authorities and even local utilities during a presidentially declared emergency.
The National Guard is often the first DOD component to step in during floods, earthquakes and other conventional crises. But guard troops have an equally important but lesser-known role to play in cyber emergencies, experts say (EnergyWire, June 22). With computer network defense teams stationed across all 50 states, three territories and Washington, D.C., the National Guard is set up to provide "surge capacity" to power utilities or other infrastructure operators if they come under a coordinated online assault.
"There's a pretty wide variety in what the individual guard [cyber] capabilities are" state-by-state, Kirschbaum said. "But just like in the case of disaster assistance, a lot of them are former emergency responders in those communities ... the same is potentially true in the digital sense: They're already engaged in the local communities, in the networks, so the potential is there for them to be that first line of defense."
Leveraging the National Guard can yield a "significant advantage" in rapid response to a cyber incident, said Starnes Walker, former chief technology officer and technical director in the Navy's U.S. Fleet Cyber Command and U.S. 10th Fleet.
"A major advantage exists for DOD and the National Guard to access needed skills by drawing from the civilian workforce," said Walker, now founding director of the University of Delaware Cybersecurity Initiative, in an email. "Guardsmen, with their civilian job experience within their state, can be very valuable, especially when coupled to a good knowledge of their state's infrastructure."
Yet DOD is not always aware of that potential, GAO found. Kirschbaum noted in his report that DOD has not kept a database to "fully and quickly identify National Guard cyber capabilities." That might leave the military in the lurch during an actual incident.
DOD did not respond to a request for comment yesterday afternoon, but the agency told GAO it already tracks "capabilities and readiness at the unit level." In its June 29 response to GAO, DOD partially concurred with the watchdog's two main findings.
DOD said its annual Cyber Guard exercise "meets the intent" of GAO's recommendation to conduct a high-priority cyber exercise, noting that it "is designed to address a whole-of-government, whole-of-nation response to a significant cyberattack."
"DOD continues to refine the exercise format for CYBER GUARD based on lessons learned during previous exercises and has worked to increase the complexity of scenarios, broaden participation ... and find ways to integrate private sector elements into a classified environment appropriately," the agency said.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/09/08/stories/1060042491
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(ACC Mentioned) Floor Time for Flint-Aiding WRDA Bill
Sep 8, 2016 | Politico - Morning Energy
By Eric Wolff
WRDA WINS FLOOR TIME: The Senate officially brought its WRDA bill to the floor Wednesday night, after several days of internal wrangling among Democrats over whether the measure — which includes aid to lead-contaminated Flint, Mich., and other communities — merited precious floor time in a short legislative session in which a federal spending bill and Zika aid are top priorities. Reid relented last night, but only after a brief skirmish over whether a parochial amendment from Sen. Richard Blumenthal would be promised a vote. Republicans, who had major concerns around the Flint package last spring, did not object either.
Champagne popping: Floor debate may just be starting, but Environment and Public Works Committee aides are already celebrating. They saw proceeding to the bill as the biggest hurdle, and now they are confident the popular bill has enough votes behind it to overcome any obstacles. EPW Chairman Jim Inhofe and Ranking MemberBarbara Boxer have been urging their colleagues to avoid controversial issues like regional water disputes or the Waters of the U.S. rule. “I don’t think they’re going to choose this bill for their wars,” Inhofe told ME Tuesday.
Democrats have at least seven amendments they want considered, and many more could come by the noon Friday deadline set by Boxer and Inhofe. Meanwhile, the bipartisan duo is working up a manager’s package.
But not everyone is whistling a happy tune: Heritage Action Wednesday urged senators to oppose the WRDA bill, arguing it contains too few reforms and “would create new federal programs that increase bureaucracy and further entrench federal involvement in local programs — not just in Flint, Michigan, but all across the country.” The criticism could hold sway among fiscal conservatives in the House, whose WRDA bill is a much narrower measure.
Sierra Club not amused by new coal ash language: The Sierra Club is not a fan of the compromise coal ash language included in the WRDA manager's amendment that ME wrote about Wednesday. The provision would give EPA certain enforcement powers over coal ash sites, a shift from the rule’s complete reliance on citizen lawsuits to keep operators honest. Greens already disliked the rule for classifying coal ash as non-hazardous, and the new deal isn’t helping. "These proposed coal ash provisions are seriously concerning to us,” Sierra legislative director Melinda Pierce said in a statement. “Not only would they eliminate the EPA's federal minimum standards for design, operation, and public notification, but also could handicap citizens’ ability to hold polluting industries accountable through the court system. People should have the right to protect themselves against polluters who violate the environmental laws designed to protect them, it's a basic matter of fairness."
LET’S GET READY TO CONFERENNNNCCE: Today’s the day you’ve been waiting for (if you’re an energy bill nerd like ME). Members of the energy bill conference committee will gather this morning in Dirksen 106 to outline their priorities in a series of opening statements — potentially the only time they will all gather publicly until a lame-duck session. Following today’s confab, staffers will continue trying to hash out the details behind the scenes, as they’ve been doing over the last seven weeks. “These are formal statements that don’t mean anything except you’re picking out areas you want the staff to hear so you want to work on those,” House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop told ME on Wednesday. “There’s all sorts of low-hanging fruit that I think we can get a compromise on.” While there is some overlap between the House and Senate bills on things like promoting efficiency, grid modernization and liquefied natural gas exports, plenty of tough fights lay ahead, particularly on California drought language, which is a priority for House Republicans.
“I don’t think there is a line in the sand,” Bishop said of the GOP’s starting position on the drought and other points of controversy. But he stressed that drought language was a key priority, and pointed out that the bill the House sent to conference includes an expanded drought provision that also could address a priority of Sen. Maria Cantwell, the lead Democratic negotiator. “The language in the House side is not just California-specific anymore. It could affect all of us in the West. It could have a bearing on Yakima problems being solved,” he said.
Interest groups have been outlining their own priorities to conferees this week, and drought is not the only point of disagreement. The American Chemistry Council, National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups on Wednesday wrote to conferees requesting inclusion of a bipartisan provision from the Senate bill (S. 2012) on model building codes. The Alliance to Save Energy and other groups, in a separate letter, asked conferees to leave out items that drew a White House veto threat, including a more controversial provision from the House bill (H.R. 8) that would limit the Energy Department’s role in setting building codes, among other requests.
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-energy/2016/09/floor-time-for-flint-aiding-wrda-bill-energy-conferees-meet-this-morning-dakota-access-has-its-day-in-court-216223
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EPA Gives Ground on NOx Emissions in Final Cross-State Rule
Sep 8, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
Power plants will be allowed to emit some 16,000 more tons of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides next summer under the final version of U.S. EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule update than the agency had originally proposed.
In the initial draft of the regulations released last November, EPA's air office sought a summertime "budget" of about 299,600 tons for the plants in the 22 states now covered by the rule.
That number climbed to almost 316,000 tons in the final version posted online yesterday, or about a 5 percent increase, according to an EPA summary of key changes.
In the summary, EPA officials attributed the increase to refinements in its methods for calculating the electric power industry's potential to cut nitrogen oxides (NOx) releases. In particular, they relaxed their assumption of what generating units equipped with a form of pollution control known as "selective catalytic reduction" can achieve from 0.075 pounds per million British thermal units to 0.10 MMBtu.
"The use of this rate to establish emissions budgets was supported in comments by many power sector companies and their representative groups," the agency said in the rule. Even with the increase, the 2017 budget is a substantial drop from the roughly 399,000 tons of NOx released last year by plants in the 22 states, according to EPA figures.
Representatives of power industry trade groups could not be reached for comment this morning. Environmentalists were critical. At the Sierra Club, attorney Zachary Fabish called both the increase and the overall limit "a huge step in the wrong direction."
"Since the proposal already didn't go far enough, this is bad backtracking," Fabish said in an email. The final rule must still be published in the Federal Register, a milestone that will start a 60-day clock for any legal challenges to be filed.
More NOx will mean more ozone, Frank O'Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, said in a separate message.
"It simply defers added cleanup to another day — and another administration," O'Donnell said.
While the new regulations mostly cover the eastern United States, their reach extends as far west as Texas and Kansas.
Coal-burning power plants are a prime source of NOx, which react in sunlight with volatile organic compounds to form ozone, a lung irritant linked to asthma attacks and worsened emphysema symptoms. The cross-state rule, often known by its acronym CSAPR, is intended to cut NOx releases that contribute to ozone problems in downwind states.
The update follows last year's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordering EPA to reconsider NOx budgets for some states on the grounds that they were unnecessarily strict.
In raising the overall limit for next summer's ozone seasons, EPA officials also made some major changes in the limits for individual states covered by the regulations.
Alabama's emissions budget, for example, will grow by one-third, from about 9,800 tons in the original proposal to 13,200 tons in the final rule. The budget for Texas, however, would be cut 10 percent from 58,000 tons to 52,300 tons.
A spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had no immediate comment today. The Alabama Department of Environmental Management has so far received no explanation for the change, Ron Gore, director of the agency's air division, said in an interview this morning.
"The only possible explanation is that they did more modeling to see how much effect we have" on problem areas, Gore said.
Even with the higher budget, he added, power companies in Alabama will have to close a gap of about 7,000 tons in comparison with 2015 NOx releases that totaled more than 20,000 tons, by either reducing emissions or buying credits on the market.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/09/08/stories/1060042522
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California to Extend Most Ambitious US Climate Change Law
Sep 8, 2016 | AP (In The Washington Post)
Gov. Jerry Brown is set to extend the nation’s most ambitious climate change law by another 10 years on Thursday as California charts a new goal to reduce carbon pollution.
The Democratic governor chose an urban natural park on the edge of downtown Los Angeles as the setting to sign the legislation, SB32, into law.
The bill expands on California’s landmark 2006 law, which set the goal of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The state is set to meet or exceed that benchmark, Brown said, with steps including restricting the carbon content of gasoline and diesel fuel, encouraging sales of zero-emission vehicles and imposing a tax on pollution.
The new measure by Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, sets a new goal of reducing emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, which Brown called the most aggressive target enacted by any government in North America.
He says the ultimate goal is to cut climate-warming pollution by 80 percent under 1990 levels by 2050, though legislation that would have enacted that target was watered down.
Supporters overcame strong opposition from oil companies and other industry interests to pass the bill a year after business-friendly Democrats in the Assembly derailed an even more ambitious proposal to limit the use of oil in the state. Republicans say California’s efforts have raised consumer costs without noticeably affecting global emissions.
Brown told a gathering a day earlier in Sacramento that critics have long tried to scuttle reforms by saying they aren’t feasible.
“It wasn’t too many years ago that our electric utilities said they could not get to 20 percent renewable electricity,” Brown told a meeting hosted by the California Independent System Operator, which oversees the state’s power grid. “Well, this month it’s been over 26 percent. They said they couldn’t get there by 2020. Now, they’re all saying — all the major privately owned utilities — they can get to 50 percent by 2030.”
Brown also plans to sign another bill, AB197, by Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia, D-Coachella, that provides more legislative oversight of the appointed Air Resources Board, which is responsible for implementing the law, and gives aid to poorer areas that lawmakers say have suffered the most harm from climate change.
The governor, who has traveled the world promoting greenhouse-gas reduction efforts, issued an executive order last year setting the 2030 goals contained in SB32.
But his signing leaves in jeopardy the state’s best-known emissions reduction measure. The California Chamber of Commerce has a pending legal challenge to the tax on carbon known as cap-and-trade, which requires polluters to buy permits to emit greenhouse gases. The last two permit sales also have fizzled.
The chamber warned that SB32 will require severe new restrictions that could make the state’s energy supply less affordable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/california-to-extend-most-ambitious-us-climate-change-law/2016/09/08/6ed18414-758d-11e6-9781-49e591781754_story.html
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National Academies Panel Urges Overhaul of Energy Policies
Sep 8, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
The United States needs to put a price on carbon dioxide and other pollutants and overhaul energy policies to help avoid catastrophic climate change and other public health calamities, according to a report released today by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
The multiyear analysis concludes that policies must change for nearly every energy technology, from nuclear power to solar photovoltaics. Otherwise, prices won't fall enough with clean energy sources to be deployed at levels needed to curb pollution, concludes the report, which was funded by the Department of Energy and included contributions from multiple universities, companies and nonprofits. Multiple U.S. senators requested the study.
"There are notable locations where unsubsidized wind and solar-generated electricity is competitive with or cheaper than electricity from other sources. Yet for most of the country, most of the time, the prices of dirtier incumbent electric power generation technologies are lower than those of increasing clean technologies, in part because their price does not include their full costs," says the report, "The Power of Change."
The researchers did not outline what a price on pollution should look like to fix this "error," or whether it should be a carbon tax or some other mechanism. They did call for more funding on research and development broadly and outline more than 30 other specific recommendations that Congress and federal agencies could enact to help multiple technologies, whether mature or still in the lab stage.
Wide adoption of clean energy technologies and changes to the electrical grid will require moving beyond "incremental" improvements, said the academies.
For carbon capture and sequestration, for example, Congress should direct U.S. EPA to establish performance standards for the transport and long-term storage of captured CO2 and set up a plan to govern underground storage sites once they have been closed, the academies said. That could help bring more demonstration projects online; there currently is only one coal plant operating globally that captures the majority of its emissions.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission should publish a new rule on the licensing of advanced reactors and push for more international cooperation on testing and deploying advanced technologies, according to the researchers.
For efficiency, DOE should set standards for appliances at the highest level that is feasible and economically justified, and work with organizations setting national "model" energy codes so they consider energy use. The department should invest more in new technologies and behavioral strategies, too, researchers said.
For renewables, the academies called on DOE and the national labs to provide more technical support to states and utilities to identify and standardize "best practices" such as power purchase agreement contracts and renewable energy certificates. That "could align regional policies to enable more consistent and efficient markets," the report says.
Increasing energy storage also will be critical, said Charles Holliday, chairman of the board at Royal Dutch Shell PLC and the committee preparing the report.
Subsidies should be tied to performance of a technology and include sunset provisions such as the ones that apply to tax credits for solar and wind, the report adds. "Many subsidies for oil and natural gas have no sunset provisions," the academies said.
The academies also made multiple recommendations to bring promising, early stage technologies to market. For example, 20 percent of funding from the small business investment company program should be used for venture capital for clean energy technologies, it said. The program is run by the U.S. Small Business Administration to move capital to small companies.
Many scientists say current emissions targets pledged by countries are not enough to avoid dangerous global warming. The challenge is exacerbated by the scheduled retirement of nuclear power plants, which were the largest source of low-carbon electricity in the United States last year.
The pledge last year from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to lead other billionaire investors in backing new technologies to fight climate change spawned extensive debate about whether their focus on energy miracles was the right approach (ClimateWire, Dec. 4, 2015). Some said it would be better to focus on deploying mature technologies like solar, as the world is making a lot of decisions now that will lock in emissions for decades.
The report adds to the debate by calling for more attention on the "intermediate" stage between lab research and commercial products. "Large scale deployment alone is unlikely to produce cost breakthroughs or technological improvements," the academies said. Working with the private sector "further down the line" after a product leaves the lab will be necessary, said Holliday.
To do that, there should be more "road mapping" from the Department of Energy to ensure pilot projects have clear missions, according to the academies. That means the federal government would stop supporting technologies that don't meet goals and standards after a period of time.
"You pull the plug, so to speak," said Paul Beaton, senior program officer at the National Academies and the study's director.
The department also should assess current simulation and testing capabilities available for new technologies, and identify how to fill gaps where they exist, according to the report. Many companies with promising technologies can't afford testing products to move them beyond the lab stage, Holliday said.
Giving more company access to the national labs and other testing facilities "will break down barriers," he said. DOE has been moving in this direction via programs like its Small Business Vouchers program (Greenwire, Aug. 19).
Holliday said one statistic jumped out at him to demonstrate how far the country needs to go, despite the surges in recent years of low-carbon technologies. Wood produces about the same percentage of electricity — 1 percent — as solar, he said.
"That should be a wakeup call," he said.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/09/08/stories/1060042524
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