Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 9/12/16
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(ACC Mentioned) Fix Your Grocery List: 10 Ways You’re Wasting Money on Food
Sep 12, 2016 | Cheat Sheet
By Megan Elliott
The average American family spends $4,000 per year on groceries, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or about $333 per month. -
5 Ways to Protect Your Hormones from Toxic Chemicals
Sep 12, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Karen Malkin
When you’re trying to achieve a healthier lifestyle, diet and exercise tend to get most of the attention. But there’s another critical step to living healthier: reducing your intake of toxic chemicals. -
With 2 Weeks to Oral Arguments, EPA Rule Events Begin Anew
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
Clean Power Plan events are picking up this week as energy insiders look ahead to oral arguments in two weeks on the legal challenges to the rule. -
Voters in States Suing EPA Support Rule — Poll
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Hess
Two weeks ahead of oral arguments on legal challenges to the Clean Power Plan, backers of U.S. EPA's rule are touting support from voters in states suing to halt its implementation. -
Developers, Opponents Spar Over Need for Mid-Atlantic Projects
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
Opponents of the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines — two natural gas pipelines that would snake along the East Coast — exchanged blows today with project developers over whether the region needs more gas infrastructure. -
Stretch of Land Off-Limits to Dakota Access This Week — Court
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A 2-mile section of the Dakota Access pipeline route near tribal lands will remain off-limits to developers until Friday as supporters and opponents grapple with the Obama administration's unprecedented intervention in the dispute last week. -
US Shale’s Resilience Touted Despite Output Decline: Fuel for Thought
Sep 12, 2016 | Platts - Blog
By Nick Coleman
Last week’s announcement by US company Apache of a major find in West Texas’ Permian Basin seemed to vindicate the optimism about shale heard the previous week at a conference in Norway. -
Productive Permian Basin has Industry Smiling
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Optimism is increasing in the oil patch, a sign that an industry laid low by the crude price bust is now readying itself for a steady recovery. -
Pro-Oil Groups Prod Obama to Continue with Drilling
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
A coalition of Alaska and national groups is launching a media campaign in Washington, D.C., today aimed at convincing President Obama to include Arctic lease sales in his final federal offshore drilling plan for 2017-22. -
White House Adds Methane, Nitrous Oxides To Social Cost Of Carbon Tool
Sep 12, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
The White House has quietly added two new potent greenhouse gases (GHGs) -- methane and nitrous oxides (N2O) -- to its social cost of carbon (SCC) metric, a move that will almost certainly bolster future regulations of the GHGs and environmentalists' efforts to block fossil energy and other high-emitting projects. -
EPA Approves Texas NSR Permit Program Changes
Sep 12, 2016 | Inside EPA
EPA is finalizing its approval of Texas' “qualified facilities” Clean Air Act permitting program as part of revisions to the state's implementation of federal new source review (NSR) permit requirements, rejecting concerns from environmentalists that the changes will allow “backsliding” -- or worsening -- of air quality in Texas. -
Little-Noticed Rule Could Press Firms to Acknowledge Warming
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
The U.S. government is the world's biggest buyer of supplies and services, with a $450 billion annual budget. Soon, federal contractors might have to talk about climate change to get a piece of that pie.
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(ACC Mentioned) Fix Your Grocery List: 10 Ways You’re Wasting Money on Food
Sep 12, 2016 | Cheat Sheet
By Megan Elliott
The average American family spends $4,000 per year on groceries, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or about $333 per month. Yet for many, food eats up even more of the household budget, often due to sloppy shopping mistakes like giving in when the kids beg for candy, tossing frozen meals in your cart because you don’t have time to cook, and grabbing containers of single-serve snacks and pre-cut veggies to save time. By the time you get to the checkout, you’re looking at a three-figure total and still don’t seem to have anything to make for dinner.
Bad shopping habits are one reason the average U.S. household throws away $640 worth of food every year, according to a survey by the American Chemistry Council. And that just counts the soured milk that gets poured down the drain or the moldy peaches we toss in the trash. Americans waste even more money by scooping up over-priced items, ignoring sales, not shopping around at different stores, and neglecting to use coupons, according to consumer experts.
“It seems like a pain to cut coupons or go to multiple stores or even plan out your meals,” Erin Durkin, a certified financial planner and director of financial planning at EP Wealth Advisors in Torrance, California, told The Cheat Sheet. But such moves really can pay off, as Durkin has learned from experience. “It ultimately does save money and has made my refrigerator way less crowded with food that I will eventually have to throw out because I didn’t eat it or bought too much.”
Think you’re a smart shopper? Check out these 10 ways you may be wasting money on food at the grocery store.
1. Not making a list
Grocery shopping without a list is one of the biggest money mistakes you can make. “If you go into the grocery store without a plan, you’re more likely to walk out with items you wouldn’t otherwise purchase,” Kendal Perez of Coupon Sherpa told The Cheat Sheet. If a paper list is too much trouble, try apps like Out of Milk and Grocery IQ, which make it easier to keep track of what you need and locate local deals. The latter is key to saving even more money at the store.
“Your grocery list should be composed of products featured in the store’s weekly sales ad,” Perez said. “Planning meals around what’s on sale is key to saving money on food and reducing your overall grocery budget.”
2. Hitting every aisle
A slow, methodical trek through the grocery store can backfire if you’re not careful.
“Don’t go down an aisle where you don’t need anything — it can only lead to overbuying,” David Bakke, a consumer expert with Money Crashers, said.
Instead of swinging through every section, review your shopping list, then bypass any part of the supermarket that doesn’t have items you need. You’re less likely to fill your cart with chips or expensive frozen meals if you don’t walk past them in the first place.
3. Shopping on the wrong day of the week
Time your shopping to coincide with your store’s weekly sales. Often, these kick off on Wednesday and sometimes will overlap with the previous week’s deals, so you can double-up on bargains. Shopping on the day the sales starts ensures you can snag any bargains before products sell out. If an item you really want is out of stock, ask for a rain check, Perez advised.
One of the worst days of the week to shop is Sunday, according to an analysis by mobile shopping app Ibotta. Ice cream, snacks, and cleaning products are all more expensive at the start of the week, their analysis found.
4. Shopping at the wrong time of day
You probably know that shopping when you’re hungry or stressed is a bad idea. Hit the store when your stomach’s rumbling or after a long, tough day at work and you’re more likely to fill your cart with expensive impulse purchases. Plus, crowded stores can lead to a get-in and get-out attitude, which “leaves little time for comparing prices or checking store apps for digital coupons,” Perez said.
Shopping when your stomach is full and you’re not in a rush isn’t the only time when the way you shop can affect how much you pay. Head to the supermarket just before closing and you could snap up deals on soon-to-be-discarded items.
“If you go at the end of the day, you can oftentimes find manager’s specials on meats — buy one get one free, 50% off, etcetera,” Durkin said. Fill your freezer with the discounted meats and you can eat well for a fraction of what you’d normally pay.
5. Always buying in bulk
“Buy 10 and save” deals are tempting, but stocking up on large quantities of an item or automatically reaching for the bigger container because it has a lower per-ounce price isn’t always a savvy move.
“Buying in bulk can be a money saver as long as you’ll use the item before it expires. Buying 100 ounces of ketchup at once might backfire on you,” Bakke said. (For reference, an opened container of ketchup is good for four to six months, according to Real Simple; after that, it might start to taste a bit off.)
6. Only shopping at one store
“Loyalty to just one store will cost you in most cases,” Perez said. To get the most for your money, it’s best to shop around. For Perez and her husband, that means hitting a warehouse club like Costco, which has good deals on usually pricey items like maple syrup, butter, and avocado oil. Walmart is their go-to for household items like toiletries, and Sprouts is where they shop for produce.
“Knowing which stores have the best prices on the items you buy is key to saving money on groceries,” consumer expert Andrea Woroch said. “Personal-care products, for example, are almost always better priced at Walmart or Target compared to grocery stores, while drugstores often have big savings on cereal when you include their loyalty program discounts. By conducting a bit of research on who has the best prices for the products you buy most, you can cut your grocery bill significantly.”
7. Passing on the store brands
Only buying name-brand products is a sure-fire way to run up your grocery bill if you’re not careful. “Try the store brands of your favorite items. It’s not like when we were kids and the ‘generic’ brands were all horrible quality,” Ken Immer, the president and chief culinary officer of Culinary Health Solutions, said.
“Many name brands are actually packing their same products under store labels with the same quality standards and a lower price,” he added. If a generic product’s packaging looks similar to the national or name-brand, that’s a good sign it’s made by the same manufacturer, Immer said. If you can’t bring yourself to give up your name-brand favorites, keep an eye out for coupons to help you save.
8. Only shopping at eye-level
Grabbing the first package of coffee or box of cereal you see is a mistake, say consumer experts. Stores put the pricier items at eye-level in the hopes you’ll grab them without scanning the shelves for a better deal. The same goes for end-caps, or the displays at the end of the aisle.
“The best bargains are closest to the floor, so get your exercise and bend down,” Jamie Novak, author of Stop Throwing Money Away, said. “Cheaper items are always farthest right on the shelf, so keep going down the aisle until you get to the end.”
9. Not shopping the sales cycles
You know canned pumpkin will be on sale in the fall and chocolate is cheaper around Valentine’s Day. But those aren’t the only seasonal sales to be aware of. “There are a lot of other seasonal items that go on sale during months you may not expect, like oatmeal in January, sodas in July, and peanut butter in September,” Nedalee Thomas, a frugal living expert and founder of Princess Power, said.
Stores also mark down items every 6 to 12 weeks as they restock the shelves, Thomas explained. Every item has its own cycle, and by tracking the prices of the items you buy most frequently, you can identify the weeks when your favorite foods will be on sale and plan to stock up then. “With some time and practice, you can learn how to keep tabs on the best deals,” Thomas said.
10. Not paying attention at the register
Mistakes can happen when cashiers scan the items in your cart, and these may cost you money. Big-box store Target was recently ordered to pay a $4 million fine after an investigation revealed that items sometimes rang up at higher-than-advertised prices.
“Watch as your items are rung up,” Novak said. “Overly sensitive pricing guns can inadvertently scan an item twice. A cashier can accidentally charge you for expensive curly parsley when what’s really in the bag is the less expensive flat leaf parsley.”
http://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/wasting-money-on-food.html/?a=viewall
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5 Ways to Protect Your Hormones from Toxic Chemicals
Sep 12, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Karen Malkin
When you’re trying to achieve a healthier lifestyle, diet and exercise tend to get most of the attention. But there’s another critical step to living healthier: reducing your intake of toxic chemicals. In particular, chemicals known as endocrine disruptors can confuse your body by crossing wires in your hormonal system, which may in turn cause an increase or decrease in the production of various hormones. Endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs, can imitate hormones and interfere with their signaling, contributing to an increasing number of health issues such as cancer, fertility problems, slow cognitive development, changes in metabolism, and immune disorders.
Knowing these risks should encourage you to avoid EDCs, but this isn’t always an easy task. This group of chemicals includes bisphenol A or BPA, organophosphate pesticides, mercury and lead. BPA is a suspected obesogen, a subset of EDCs that can alter metabolism, leading to weight gain, insulin resistance and obesity. EDCs may sound scary, but what’s scarier is that these toxic chemicals can be found in a surprising number of products you use every day, including face wash, plastic water bottles, perfume, laundry detergent, cleaning products, makeup, dairy, sunscreen and plastic toys. It may be impossible to live an entirely EDC-free life, but here are some tips to reduce your toxic load.
1. Reduce plastic
Plastics, particularly the ones with the #7 recycling code, can contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals like BPA. This chemical is a serious concern; make sure plastic containers and canned goods are BPA-free. Stick with glass or stainless steel for cooking, baking and food storage, and switch to a safe, reusable water bottle. Buy products that come in glass bottles rather than plastic or canned, since chemicals can leach out of food containers and into the contents.
2. Eat organic – especially for meat, fish and dairy
Buy and eat organic produce and free-range, organic meats to reduce your exposure to added hormones, pesticides and fertilizers. Rather than eating conventional or farm-raised fish, which can be heavily contaminated with PCBs and mercury, choose fish that is wild-caught. With dairy, it’s wise to avoid non-organic products, as they can contain recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH or rBST).
3. Upgrade your personal care products
Avoid antibacterial soaps, and any products that contain phthalates or parabens. Also beware of sweet-smelling shampoos and body washes; they may be full of “fragrance,” a complex mixture of chemicals that can come complete with a dose of EDCs! If you want fragrant products but want to avoid phthalates and other risky chemicals, opt for ones that disclose all of their ingredients, including their fragrance mixture, so that you know exactly what’s in the bottle.
4. Keep it clean
Buy a high-quality, high-power vacuum – preferably one with a HEPA filter that also seals in dirt and dust to help minimize your exposure when emptying the collection chamber. Turns out household dust and dirt is thought to be a big source of daily EDC exposure.
5. Go green in your living room
Did you know that the foam cushioning in your couches, easy chairs and love seats are often treated with endocrine-disrupting flame retardant chemicals? When shopping for new cushioned furniture, read labels carefully and avoid products that disclose flame retardant use. If you are still unsure, call the manufacturer.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/09/5-ways-protect-your-hormones-toxic-chemicals
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With 2 Weeks to Oral Arguments, EPA Rule Events Begin Anew
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Emily Holden and Rod Kuckro
Clean Power Plan events are picking up this week as energy insiders look ahead to oral arguments in two weeks on the legal challenges to the rule.
Before lawyers face off before an en banc hearing at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Sept. 27, a number of groups are reviewing power-sector data and holding backgrounders on the court battles.
In Atlanta tomorrow, three of the main organizations that have been spearheading multistate talks on the regulation will hold aworkshop to review electric-sector trends in the Eastern Interconnection. The Great Plains Institute, the Bipartisan Policy Center and Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions are hosting the event.
More than 200 people are expected to attend, including officials and regulators from a range of states, as well as industry representatives and nongovernmental organizations, said Michael Dowd, the air chief for Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality who will speak on an afternoon panel.
Dowd said the talks are useful even if the Clean Power Plan doesn't move forward in the face of legal challenges.
"There will eventually be carbon regulation, and the modeling that's being done now is addressing big picture items," Dowd said. "It's important as we address any broad options for carbon going forward in the coming years."
Dowd's boss, Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), wanted to move forward on CPP planning, but the Virginia General Assembly passed a measure preventing spending on rule preparations. Still, Dowd said that prohibition "does not extend to keeping smart."
"We're following the modeling. We want to stay on top of what other people are thinking and what smart people are doing," Dowd said.
Panels will look at power-system modeling that shows the United States as a whole is largely on track to comply with the Clean Power Plan's aggregate goals.
Atlanta-based EnergyWire reporter Kristi E. Swartz will cover the workshop. A webcast is also available.
Today in Washington, D.C., the Brookings Institution will hold an event titled "Clean power: Public opinion, the courts and where we go from here."
Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy, will present results of a new survey of public support for policies ranging from the CPP and carbon pricing to U.S. commitments under the Paris Agreement. Following his remarks, former EPA Administrator William Reilly will be among those discussing U.S. clean energy initiatives.
Tomorrow in D.C., the Federalist Society will host a "Clean Power Plan Goes to Court" discussion at the National Press Club. The event will have experts debate the arguments made in the various briefs and those expected at oral argument.
Participating will be David Bookbinder of Element VI Consulting; David Doniger, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council's climate and clean air program; Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R), who is suing EPA; and David Rivkin, a partner with Baker Hostetler LLP's D.C. office.
In case you missed it:
Two former Obama administration officials went toe to toe last week, debating whether U.S. EPA has "gone overboard" with the president's signature climate rule. After the vigorous debate, an audience of students, academics and policy wonks gathered in an auditorium on George Washington University's campus and voted 25 percent that EPA had gone overboard, while 71 percent disagreed (Greenwire, Sept. 8).
Yvette Pena-O'Sullivan, assistant director for legislation and politics at the Laborers' International Union of North America, explains how the union's Clean Power Progress campaign is focused on state-by-state advocacy of natural gas infrastructure development to help meet the goals of the Clean Power Plan (OnPoint, Sept. 8).
Expected coal plant retirements in Michigan could make it relatively straightforward for the state to meet federal climate regulations, according to a study by the Electric Power Research Institute. The state is in "very good shape to comply" if the expected coal plant retirements go forward, said David Young, a principal author of the EPRI analysis (ClimateWire, Sept. 8).
Attorneys general from Republican-led states met with energy executives at West Virginia's Greenbrier resort less than two weeks before they filed a lawsuit last year aimed at halting EPA's rule for curbing greenhouse gases from power plants. The closed-door meetings took place last August at a four-day summit hosted by the Republican Attorneys General Association, according to an agenda obtained by a watchdog group using public records requests (Greenwire, Sept. 7).
The CEO of Missouri River Energy Services, which manages the electric generation and transmission for 61 rural communities spread across hundreds of square miles in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota, says his agency "can't just sit by and twiddle our thumbs and hope that the thing blows up," referring to the Clean Power Plan (EnergyWire, Sept. 6).
http://www.eenews.net/interactive/clean_power_plan/column_posts/1060042637
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Voters in States Suing EPA Support Rule — Poll
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Hess
Two weeks ahead of oral arguments on legal challenges to the Clean Power Plan, backers of U.S. EPA's rule are touting support from voters in states suing to halt its implementation.
A survey found that 67 percent of registered voters in the 24 states challenging the rule said they favored the program for cutting carbon emissions, pollsters said during an event at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., this morning.
Researchers with the University of Maryland School of Public Policy's Program for Public Consultation reached out to several thousand people around the country and in certain states between April 16 and June 10. The group Voice of the People backed the effort (E&E Daily, April 15, 2015).
The data showed a partisan divide. Fourty-seven percent of Republican respondents favored the rule nationally. A slight majority of 52 percent opposed the plan. Among Democrats, 89 percent were in favor, as were 64 percent of independents.
The data showed that even among voters who work in the coal industry or have family members who do, 62 percent expressed support for the plan. The rule would have a particularly negative effect on coal power generation.
"Clearly the forces driving this lawsuit are not arising from public resistance to the Clean Power Plan," said Steven Kull, director of the Program for Public Consultation.
The in-depth national survey, which guided respondents through an online policymaking simulation, presented key arguments on both sides of the issue.
Arguments in favor of the Clean Power Plan focused on the importance of improving air quality and reducing greenhouse gases. Pollsters acknowledged a minor increase in the cost of electricity.
"These costs are minor compared to the effect of air pollution on people's health and the likely costs of rising sea levels, lost farmland, and more violent storms," they wrote. "Furthermore, this is a good investment because in the long run, more efficient methods and technologies will save us money."
In opposition to the Clean Power Plan, pollsters focused on the impact increased power costs would have on low-income people.
"And all these promises about the costs coming down in the future are just that — promises," they wrote. "It is really risky to assume these new methods and technologies are going to save money and, even if they do, whether the utility companies are going to really pass those savings on to consumers."
Republican and Democratic congressional staffers vetted the material, in addition to experts from EPA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the World Resources Institute and the School of Public Policy.
After considering the statements, support for the plan increased to a bipartisan majority — rising to 61 percent among Republicans, 94 percent among Democrats and 78 percent overall — if the federal government were to make efforts to mitigate the effect on coal workers.
"People really care about the trade-offs involved in the policy design," said Adele Morris, policy director of Brookings' climate and energy economics project, who has advised Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on coal miner issues.
Morris said emphasizing the environmental benefits of the plan "can go a long way towards making people feel the investment is worth it."
Policy alternatives
The survey suggested two policy routes: providing support for coal industry workers who lose their jobs or helping industry sequester carbon emissions from coal power production. Helping workers was far more popular.
The Obama administration has proposed strategies for helping troubled coal mining communities. It has also backed research into technology to make coal cleaner. But critics say the investments from the White House and Congress have not been enough.
Like a similar survey released this spring, the new results showed bipartisan majority support for a variety of specific measures to reduce carbon dioxide beyond the Clean Power Plan (Greenwire, May 4).
Between 73 and 78 percent of respondents backed tax credits for fuel-efficient lighting, doors, windows and insulation. They also supported building more energy-efficient homes and installing wind and fuel-cell technology. Among Republicans, 62 to 69 percent of respondents favored those strategies.
Bipartisan majorities favored requiring higher fuel efficiency standards for light cars, trucks and heavy-duty vehicles and requiring electric companies to have a minimum portion of their electricity come from renewable sources. Republican support for those strategies ranged from 56 percent to 57 percent. Among Democrats it was 84 to 89 percent.
The survey also found that 71 percent of registered voters approved of the Obama administration's involvement in the Paris climate agreement.
Among Republicans, a slim majority, 52 percent, approved, and 61 percent said the agreement was at least tolerable. Democrats and independents expressed strong backing for the Paris deal, 89 percent and 66 percent, respectively.
Concern about the effects of air pollution on public health appears to be driving support for reducing carbon emissions to an equal or greater extent than worries about climate change.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/09/12/stories/1060042675
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Developers, Opponents Spar Over Need for Mid-Atlantic Projects
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Hannah Northey
Opponents of the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines — two natural gas pipelines that would snake along the East Coast — exchanged blows today with project developers over whether the region needs more gas infrastructure.
Central to today's debate is a report Cambridge, Mass.-based research and consulting firm Synapse Energy Economics Inc. prepared for the Southern Environmental Law Center and Appalachian Mountain Advocates, which was released today.
Synapse concluded after analyzing future demand and existing capacity that the two pipelines are not needed to ensure electric reliability in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Even if the three states rely heavily on gas through 2030 and use up to 597 million cubic feet of gas during winter peak hours, Synapse said, existing lines, gas storage, the reversal of the Transco mainline pipeline and the 2018 WB XPress project will ensure there are "sufficient" supplies. The region would have up to 700 million cubic feet of gas at its disposal, Synapse concluded. The firm also faulted pipeline developers for failing to compare future gas production and pipeline capacity with the region's needs.
"In their proposals, the developers of these projects assert that subscription rates for pipeline capacity demonstrate the need for additional natural gas in the target region, but they fail to compare the region's existing natural gas supply capacity to its expected future peak demand for natural gas," the authors wrote.
The report arrives as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission weighs the need for the projects. FERC is the lead agency for conducting environmental reviews of proposed interstate gas pipelines and considers whether there is a market need for new pipelines. In March, for example, FERC rejected the Jordan Cove LNG project, saying developers had not shown evidence the export terminal was needed (EnergyWire, March 14).
Synapse said its findings raise significant questions about the need for additional investment in new interstate natural gas pipelines in the region "and, more generally, the utility of pipeline subscription rates as justification for these projects."
But shortly after the report was released, Dominion shot back, saying the study was based on "seriously flawed assumptions and a fundamental misunderstanding of how natural gas is transported in the region." Dominion spokesman Aaron Ruby said in an email the report was prepared for groups that have long opposed the project and don't believe gas has a role to play in generating power in the United States.
Ruby in the email noted that Synapse acknowledged in its report that the amount of gas storage in the region is unknown, and Synapse should have analyzed periods of peak demand as opposed to annual averages of demand for gas. "The reality is, the amount of storage available is nowhere near what is required to meet the massive growth in demand for natural gas that we're seeing over the next 20 years," he said. Ruby called the report's findings "wishful thinking," adding that there isn't enough capacity to meet the projected increase in demand given that existing lines in Virginia's Hampton Roads and North Carolina are constrained and operating at capacity.
"It should come as no surprise then that they produce a report that questions the need for this project," he said. "Neither should it be surprising that they use flawed assumptions and incomplete information to reach a conclusion that supports their original position."
Dominion has argued the 550-mile-long Atlantic Coast pipeline is critical for supplying gas to the shipping and trade hub hear Hampton Roads. The pipeline would ship gas from the Utica and Marcellus shale plays and run from Harrison County, W.Va., to Greensville County, Va., and then south into eastern North Carolina.
Developers of the Mountain Valley project said FERC fully vets the purpose and need of pipelines. EQT Midstream Partners, NextEra US Gas Assets, WGL Midstream and Vega Midstream MVP have proposed the 300-mile-long pipeline from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia. Natalie Cox, a spokeswoman for the Mountain Valley project, said a recent study by Wood Mackenzie conducted for developers shows that gas demand is forecast to increase enough to justify the project.
Yet hailing the report's findings as a win, pipeline opponents — the Southern Environmental Law Center, Appalachian Mountain Advocates and the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance — gathered in Afton, Va., today to share the information and urge regulators to scrutinize the projects.
"We are sending this new report to federal regulators. We are no longer asking them to consider the least damaging path through our countryside. We are asking them to take a serious and informed look at these projects," Greg Buppert, a staff attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said in prepared remarks. "We hope, with this information, they will come to the same conclusion. These pipelines are just not needed."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/09/12/stories/1060042674
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Stretch of Land Off-Limits to Dakota Access This Week — Court
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
A 2-mile section of the Dakota Access pipeline route near tribal lands will remain off-limits to developers until Friday as supporters and opponents grapple with the Obama administration's unprecedented intervention in the dispute last week.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia this morning reinstated the terms of a temporary restraining order that allows construction to continue on a portion of North Dakota private land where a tribal specialist says he recently uncovered evidence of a burial ground (EnergyWire, Sept. 7). But the order blocks activity on an adjacent section that stretches toward Lake Oahe, a dammed section of the Missouri River just a half-mile upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's reservation.
Construction beneath and immediately surrounding Lake Oahe is also not permitted, thanks to an eleventh-hour move by the Obama administration to withhold approval for an easement there. In a statement last week, the Army Corps of Engineers said it would hold off on permitting until it could determine whether the proposal needed closer review to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws (E&ENews PM, Sept. 9).
The district court, meanwhile, declined to grant a preliminary injunction blocking construction on the length of the pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, interveners in the case, immediately appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and asked the district court to freeze construction within 20 miles of Lake Oahe in the interim. The Obama administration has called for a voluntary construction moratorium along that same stretch.
"While an agreement has been reached on a narrow area of construction for the next week, and while the U.S. administration has asked for a voluntary hold to construction activity within 20 miles of Lake Oahe, should construction resume, the last opportunity for the Tribes to vindicate their legal rights and safeguard sacred sites in the pipeline's corridor could be gone," the tribe said in a legal filing.
District Court Judge James Boasberg partially denied the request today but agreed to reinstate a narrow restraining order for the 2-mile section west of Lake Oahe. That area has been the heart of the recent uproar over the pipeline, where thousands of American Indians and their allies have been camped out to protest the pipeline for more than a month.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/09/12/stories/1060042670
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US Shale’s Resilience Touted Despite Output Decline: Fuel for Thought
Sep 12, 2016 | Platts - Blog
By Nick Coleman
Last week’s announcement by US company Apache of a major find in West Texas’ Permian Basin seemed to vindicate the optimism about shale heard the previous week at a conference in Norway.
Scott Douglas Sheffield, chief executive of shale driller Pioneer Natural Resources, played the role of spoiler-in-chief at the ONS conference, harrying big oil with some uncomfortable assertions.
The bad news, for those in the industry who missed out on shale and expected it to fade with low prices, is that the Permian should be able to increase its output from 2 million b/d to 5 million b/d in the next 10 years, assuming prices reach $56/b in 2025, Sheffield said.
Pioneer itself is growing its output by 27-30% annually. “It’s in that [price] strip that I see the Permian adding 300,000 b/d per year in US supply,” he said.
Emphasizing his contrarian stance, he said he doubted some of the higher forecasts of long-term oil demand growth due to global warming, alternative energy and electric vehicles, while boasting of the company’s use of wind power in its own operations and the solar panels on his home.
In Sheffield’s view, the dip in US production has been misconstrued, with some underestimating the Permian as output falters in the Eagle Ford and the Bakken.
What some have failed to appreciate is that rig reductions in the Permian have happened partly because of reduced drilling at conventional, non-shale sites, rather than in shale, he said. The Spraberry-Wolfcamp shale, where Pioneer operates, remains resilient and Pioneer’s own breakeven price is below $25/b. Prices paid for shale acreage have been rising, in some cases, to levels higher than in 2013-2014, he said.
“In the Permian we still have about 600,000 b/d of conventional production that’s declining—it’s arresting the growth. [However] there’s one field in the Midland basin, six fields in the Delaware basin that make up most of the growth in production. The Permian is still growing,” he said.
Majors needed to meet demand growth
But while the world’s oil majors were largely caught off guard by shale and have been struggling to maintain a foothold in many parts of the world, Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden insisted on their relevance, reiterating the International Energy Agency’s central scenario for a 25% increase in energy demand by 2035 and predictions of oil demand growth of 1-1.5 million b/d for the next five years.
That, together with decline from existing fields of 5%/year, means the notion of stranded assets, by which oil and gas become redundant, is a “red herring,” he said.
The industry is now filling the gap between demand growth and natural decline “quite comfortably, with all the investment decisions that we took four-five years ago. [But] that time will dry up,” Van Beurden said. “We will see the tightness come back into the market. I’m more worried about supply shrinkage.”
If Shell is sticking with its big-project mentality, and worries some investors with its high debt levels, one man hedging his bets is ConocoPhillips chief executive Ryan Lance.
His company has made the leap into US shale, while maintaining a core of conventional operations. Of its 1.5 million boe/d of production, ConocoPhillips says one third is from unusually low-decline fields such as Norway’s Ekofisk, while it has increased its US production by 80% since 2008.
ConocoPhillips’ approach resembles that of Apache, which thinks its new Delaware Basin play could hold more than 3 billion barrels of oil and 75 Tcf of gas.
With no refining segment to worry about (Conoco hived off its downstream in 2012), both companies have a foot in shale and another a world away in the North Sea.
“We can see short-term swings between over- and under-supply: if $80-90/b comes, we’d better be prepared for $30-40 on the back end of it,” Lance said.
While the US shale industry will take time to recover, not least having lain off 200,000 workers, “we’ll see gaps between supply and demand and if so, more US shale is going to be called on to meet that growing demand,” he said.
Lance acknowledged concerns about energy demand, but said that was an argument in favor of shale and its flexibility.
“When we think about going forward in a more volatile world with cyclic prices and shorter cycles between peaks and troughs you start to ask yourself what wins in that…environment. What we’ve convinced ourselves wins is a large stable base of production which provides the cash flow to fund dividends and stabilize your production, and then a lot of low cost investments in the portfolio that have a range of cycle times.”
http://blogs.platts.com/2016/09/12/us-shales-resilience-touted-despite-output-decline-fuel-thought/
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Productive Permian Basin has Industry Smiling
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Nathanial Gronewold
Optimism is increasing in the oil patch, a sign that an industry laid low by the crude price bust is now readying itself for a steady recovery.
Some think it may be too early for oil company executives to begin smiling again. Sluggish economic growth and a tapering of production risks another dip lower in the oil price, with likely consequences for companies' stock values. Production figures are being watched carefully for indications of supply either coming into balance with demand or continuing to outpace it.
Nevertheless, indicators of recovery are increasingly appearing. Bankruptcies have ebbed. And merger and acquisition activity appears to be picking up again, both in the upstream exploration and production space and at downstream storage and transportation companies, a consolidation that investors have long been waiting for.
Most M&A activity is centered on the Midland region, in the Permian Basin. Companies are scrambling so quickly to get a foothold in the Permian ahead of a crude price recovery that folks in Houston are calling it the "Permian panic."
"It's a world-class resource, source rock," said John Christmann, CEO of Apache Corp.
Apache stoked the frenzy a little more last week with an announcement of a major Permian region oil and natural gas discovery. Dubbing it "Alpine High," Apache says acreage it's acquired in Reeves County is projected to hold some 3 billion barrels of oil and about 75 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
The company says assessing its prize took "more than two years of extensive geologic and geophysical work, methodical acreage accumulation, and strategic testing and delineation drilling."
With 4,000 to 5,000 feet of net play potential in wet gas and oil, Christmann said, the new discovery promises "much, much higher recoveries, lower operating costs, and lots of benefits."
Others are scrambling to gather their own Permian assets.
Callon Petroleum Co. announced last week that it is acquiring nearly 7,000 acres of prospect in Howard County, Texas. That deal, worth an estimated $327 million, is expected to close in late October.
Permian Basin plays have led the recovery in the active rig count. Nearly 70 rigs were added to the region since late April, according to data published by oil field services company Baker Hughes Inc.. This despite the crude price staying stubbornly below $50 per barrel.
A stronger price, though most welcome, isn't needed to make new Permian drilling economically attractive, according to some companies, including Pioneer Natural Resources Co.
Skip York, an energy industry expert at Wood Mackenzie, told reporters last week that the increased activity in the Permian is both due to new rigs and a shifting of rigs from less favorable regions.
Two straight years of deep capital spending cuts and a near-total neglect of companies' reserve-replacement ratios have some banks and analysts concerned that the oil market could grow vulnerable to supply shocks in the coming years. But spending could be trending up again late this year and into next, as many companies have announced upticks to prior budget plans, York notes.
It's another sign that oil companies are beginning to see the light at the end of what has been a very long and dark tunnel.
"You are starting to hear some increased spend coming in the analyst calls where they're raising spending estimates, and most of that spend is being directed toward the Permian," he said.
Prices still on shaky ground
Crude prices still may see more risk in the short term.
What's most needed to boost confidence are signs of steady oil demand increases globally. Any hints of a forthcoming U.S. recession or further slowing in China's economic growth will put downward pressure on prices, especially if the U.S. oil production decline slows or halts altogether, as some suggest it might in the coming months, if that hasn't already happened.
Further out, analysts fearful of the lack of investment in reserve replacements foresee a possible spike in prices. Draws on crude supplies in the United States will become more frequent as mature wells hit their decline curves. Recent draws were caused in part by the storm in the Gulf of Mexico that sent a handful of rigs fleeing and prompted a safety shut-in of some 15 percent of Gulf oil output. That flow is now coming back online.
But moving into 2017, it's possible that draws on stockpiles will be driven by a tightening of the supply-demand balance as consumption of crude steadily increases globally. Eventually, it will be critical for companies to boost upstream E&P spending and again address their reserve-replacement ratios.
"Continuous capital investment and exploration is required to maintain the viability of these companies in the sector long term," said Scott Sanderson, a principal at Deloitte. "The requirements for replacing reserves are substantial."
Two straight years of steeply curbed spending will be felt if the industry doesn't swiftly return to a past pattern of spending upward of $600 billion per year globally on major capital upstream projects, Sanderson said. Whether natural production decline rates and a relative lack of new upstream projects overtake rising offshore and oil sands production to tighten the global oil balance, only time will tell.
Still, with companies creeping back toward more spending again, M&A activity moving and bankruptcies slowing, many industry observers are calling on 2017 to be the year of a turnaround.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/09/12/stories/1060042616
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Pro-Oil Groups Prod Obama to Continue with Drilling
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Margaret Kriz Hobson
A coalition of Alaska and national groups is launching a media campaign in Washington, D.C., today aimed at convincing President Obama to include Arctic lease sales in his final federal offshore drilling plan for 2017-22.
Sixteen Alaska organizations — including Native corporations, oil industry groups and unions — are joining forces with four national groups to counter claims by environmentalists that oil companies are no longer interested in Arctic energy development due to continued low crude prices.
"Quite aside from the skewed logic of arguing that companies will never again be interested in developing the Arctic based on today's commodity price, the idea that we're not interested in the Arctic simply isn't true," Jeff Eshelman, senior vice president for operations and public affairs at the Independent Petroleum Association of America, said in a statement.
"Today industry retains over 250 offshore lease sales in the Arctic and continues to invest millions of dollars into research into oil spill response and preparedness and other areas," he noted. Most U.S. Arctic leases are located in state-controlled waters.
The campaign maintains that Arctic drilling would help support Alaska's Native communities, bring jobs and investment to the state, and strengthen U.S. national security.
At issue is the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management's proposal to allow leasing on federal lands in the Arctic, the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska's Cook Inlet during the next five-year planning period. BOEM's March draft plan included a lease sale in the Beaufort Sea in 2020 and in the Chukchi Sea in 2022.
If those lease sales are included in the final plan, which is due to be released later this year, future Interior Department officials could still choose to cancel the sales. But if the Arctic leases are dropped from the final version, they could not be offered during that five-year period without regulators first initiating another extensive rulemaking process.
Kara Moriarty, president and CEO of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association, called on Obama to consider how Alaska would be affected by a decision to exclude Arctic drilling from his upcoming five-year plan.
"I can't stress this enough," Moriarty said in a statement. "Taking lease sales off the table now sends a clear message that the federal government is hanging a 'closed for business' sign on our state, at a time when we are already facing huge budgetary challenges" due to the low price of oil.
The promotional campaign will include television, print and digital advertising. The coalition says it is running a "six-figure television buy" in the D.C. media market, as well as a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post.
The industry is flooding the D.C. media market at a time when environmental organizations have been increasing pressure on the White House to cut the Arctic leases. The opponents warn that drilling in Alaska's northern waters would cause irreversible harm to the Arctic environment, exacerbate climate change and damage Alaska's Native subsistence culture (EnergyWire, June 23).
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/09/12/stories/1060042641
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White House Adds Methane, Nitrous Oxides To Social Cost Of Carbon Tool
Sep 12, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Dawn Reeves
The White House has quietly added two new potent greenhouse gases (GHGs) -- methane and nitrous oxides (N2O) -- to its social cost of carbon (SCC) metric, a move that will almost certainly bolster future regulations of the GHGs and environmentalists' efforts to block fossil energy and other high-emitting projects.
But it is not clear if the step will help EPA's legal defense of its just finalized methane standards for new oil and gas facilities, which opponents are faulting in part over the agency's use of its social cost of methane (SCM) metric to quantify nearly all of the rule's benefits.
But environmentalists are already citing the administration's recent move in an effort to block a controversial proposed coal mine project on federal forest lands in Colorado, signaling that groups could take a similar approach in other coal or natural gas projects.
And EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also cited similar values to justify their recently released rule governing GHGs from heavy-duty vehicles.
In general, the administration's recent update to the SCC sets much higher damage rates for methane and N2O than for carbon dioxide, since methane and N2O are more harmful in the short-term. According to the administration, methane's global warming potential is 25 times higher than carbon dioxide while N2O's is 298 times higher.
The Aug. 26 addendum to the SCC by an Interagency Working Group (IWG) puts the cost of methane at between $870 per ton in 2010 and $2,500 per ton in 2050 using a 3 percent discount rate, based on 2007 dollars.
It prices N2O damage even higher, at between $12,000 per ton in 2010 and $27,000 per ton in 2050 using the same discount rate.
The lowest range, using a 5 percent discount rate, sets the per-ton cost of methane at $370 in 2010 and $1,300 in 2050, with equivalent per-ton costs of N2O at $3,400 in 2010 and $11,000 in 2050. The “high impact” scenario would price methane at $2,400 per ton in 2010 and $6,700 in 2050. The high impact cost for N2O would be $31,000 in 2010 and $72,000 in 2050. EPA's SCM already uses similar cost estimates.
The SCC was first developed in 2010 by the IWG to monetize the damages associated with an incremental increase in CO2 emissions, thereby quantifying the benefits of GHG curbs. But the tool has drawn strong criticism from Republicans and industry, who say it is speculative, has not been adequately peer reviewed and overstates potential benefits.
The administration in 2013 revised the estimates, raising the values in a given year by roughly 50 percent. In 2015, it made a modest tweak in response to comments that slightly trimmed the estimates.
'Scientifically Rigorous'
The additions of methane and N2O were announced in an Aug. 26 blog post by White House Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs Administrator Howard Shelanski and White House Council of Economic Advisers member Jay Shambaugh.
The two officials defended the high costs assigned to methane and N2O, noting that “the warming caused by 1 ton of either of them is much higher than the warming caused by a ton of CO2.”
“As such, accurately accounting for the impacts of methane and nitrous oxide is an important part of an effective global response to human-induced climate change. And having a scientifically rigorous, consistent way to value the damages from these emissions (and thus the benefits of reducing them) is critical to ensuring that our voluntary programs and regulations reduce harmful emissions in a cost-effective manner,” they said.
They also said that both the methodology for valuing these damages and its application of regulatory cost-benefit analysis have been subject to rigorous independent peer review and public comment.”
And they add that the IWG is also incorporating advice from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) into the SCC to better explain how uncertainties are addressed.
The blog post says that the new values for methane and N2O are recommended for use in regulatory analyses -- something EPA has already done, including in recent final rules for landfills and trucks, as well as in a key technical report for light-duty vehicles.
Pending litigation over EPA's oil and gas methane rule could provide the first test of the SCM, though the agency may not be able to cite the IWG guidance as the rule was issued long before the guide was issued.
State and industry groups have floated the issue as something they plan to raise in the litigation, which has not yet been briefed. In comments on the proposed version of the rule, industry groups sought to distinguish between the SCC and the SCM. Unlike the SCC, “which has undergone formal public comment and review, EPA's selected value for [SCM] in this proposed rulemaking is arbitrarily taken from one scientific report . . . for which EPA only requested a 'peer review' and not formal public review and comment,” two oil industry groups said in their comments.
NAS Advice
Development of the document stems from an NAS panel, which issued an interim report in January, suggesting that the IWG develop a common “module” to characterize the climate system across multiple models. A final report is expected early next year and will address broader considerations.
But the officials' blog post notes that the IWG has incorporated the NAS “suggestions for enhancing the transparency of our presentation, particularly with regard to the characterization of uncertainty, which is inherent in any effort to project and analyze impacts that will only be fully realized over decades and even centuries.”
The changes to the uncertainty discussion are included in a technical support document also released by the IWG that says, “For purposes of capturing uncertainty around the SC-CO2 estimates in regulatory impact analysis, the IWG emphasizes the importance of considering all four SC-CO2 values.”
While those estimates are important, “they do not fully quantify uncertainty” fully, but are based “on a rigorous approach to accounting for quantifiable uncertainty using multiple analytical techniques,” including the sensitivity of the models and their embedded assumptions. “However, there remain additional sources of uncertainty that have not been fully characterized and explored due to remaining data limitations. Additional research is needed in order to expand the quantification of various sources of uncertainty in estimates” such as developing explicit probability distributions for more inputs of climate impacts and their values. “The IWG is actively following advances in the scientific and economic literature that could provide guidance on, or methodologies for, a more robust incorporation of uncertainty,” the document says.
Colorado Coal Project
The formal addition of methane to the SCC is already being cited by environmentalists in their effort to halt the U.S. Forest Service's approval of an exemption to the Colorado Roadless Rule that would open new federal lands to coal mining. The draft final rule was sent to the White House for interagency review Aug. 30.
The groups in an Aug. 29 letter to the U.S. Forest Service say the IWG's adoption of the social cost of methane “underscore[s] that the Forest Service's supplemental draft environmental impact statement (SDEIS) was arbitrary to decline to use that metric.”
The letter to the Forest Service, from High Country Conservation Advocates, cites among other things the IWG addendum, saying it “effectively adopts EPA's methodology and approves a social cost of methane for agencies to use in rulemaking analysis” and says federal agencies are required by executive order to use the best available information to argue for more robust climate impacts.
Their criticism echoes' EPA's assessment, where the agency noted in Feb. 8 comments that the service understated the climate damages from the project in part because it did not consider options to curb methane emissions released from the proposed North Fork mining project.
EPA rated the project an EC-2, meaning it lacks sufficient information.
The Forest Service is redoing the SDEIS after a federal court in a landmark 2014 ruling, in High Country Conservation Advocates, et al. v. U.S. Forest Service, held that the original EIS' failure to use the SCC was unlawful under the National Environmental Policy Act. The administration opted not to appeal that ruling and instead began working on the supplement now under White House review.
Environmentalists say they may seek a meeting with the White House to further press their case against issuing this rule. One source says groups are “still kind of baffled that a plan to open up thousands of acres of public land to accommodate a bankrupt coal company's mining plans is being viewed as remotely in the public interest.”
A second source says the roadless rule exception “runs contrary to everything the president has been saying” on climate change, and that the release of the social cost of methane makes their case stronger.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/white-house-adds-methane-nitrous-oxides-social-cost-carbon-tool
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EPA Approves Texas NSR Permit Program Changes
Sep 12, 2016 | Inside EPA
EPA is finalizing its approval of Texas' “qualified facilities” Clean Air Act permitting program as part of revisions to the state's implementation of federal new source review (NSR) permit requirements, rejecting concerns from environmentalists that the changes will allow “backsliding” -- or worsening -- of air quality in Texas.
In a final rule published in the Sept. 9 Federal Register, EPA defends its approval of the qualified facilities program, which allows plants to increase emissions from certain emissions points so long as they remain within an overall plant-wide cap.
In June 1 comments on the proposed version of the rule, Sierra Club's Lone Star Chapter warned of the unlawful backsliding and says its members “are deeply concerned about air quality in Texas's largest urban areas that have suffered dirty air for decades and the potential for 'backsliding' under the Clean Air Act.”
EPA in the final rule counters that those concerns are misplaced. The agency says that the Texas rules require “enforceable changes” to be made to plant's permits as a result of emissions output changes authorized under the qualified facilities program. Therefore, “if permitted facilities trade permitted allowable emission rates, there will be no backsliding in permitted allowable emissions,” EPA says.
However, the agency has followed through on its plan to reject a Texas regulatory definition that it says would exempt some natural gas processing facilities from regulation and unlawfully circumvent NSR. This is the second time Texas has submitted, and EPA has rejected, the altered definition of “modification of existing facility,” because EPA says the provision is not clearly limited to minor source NSR.
Minor sources are those emitting less than 100 tons per year (tpy) or 250 tpy of “criteria” pollutants that are subject to national ambient air quality standards, or 10 tpy of a hazardous air pollutant (HAP) or 25 tpy of a combination of HAPs.
The exemption provides that changes at certain natural gas processing, treating or compression facilities are not modifications if the change does not result in an annual emissions rate of any air contaminant in excess of the volume for grandfathered facilities. “The 'annual emissions rate' is the same as the 'volume emitted at maximum design capacity;' therefore, this would provide an exemption for those sources from permit review for any emission increases at these facilities,” EPA said in its proposed version of the rule.
http://insideepa.com/the-inside-story
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Little-Noticed Rule Could Press Firms to Acknowledge Warming
Sep 12, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Hulac
The U.S. government is the world's biggest buyer of supplies and services, with a $450 billion annual budget. Soon, federal contractors might have to talk about climate change to get a piece of that pie.
The Department of Defense, the General Services Administration and NASA proposed a rule in May that would compel suppliers of all federal agencies to say whether or not they publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and their goals to cut them. The rule would also require them to list the website where those strategies are made public.
"This proposed rule asks no more than what private companies could ask of their vendors," Jim Bruce, chief energy policy officer at UPS Inc., wrote in a letter supporting the rule.
UPS was one of 17 organizations and people to comment on the proposal, which has gone largely unnoticed. Bruce said UPS has disclosed its greenhouse gas emissions since 2002, making the proposed requirement a modest step for the giant delivery company. In this period of accumulating scientific findings about warming, it's common for companies to reveal their carbon contributions and the strategies to address them, Bruce said.
But not everyone sees the rule as benign. Critics view the proposal as a progression of regulations requiring companies of all kinds to acknowledge the presence of climate change and to do something about it. Some also see a subtle threat. If a company doesn't count its emissions, it might be less competitive when seeking lucrative federal contracts.
"What we're finding these days is more of government contractors need to prove their innocence," said Jimmy Christianson, counsel for the Associated General Contractors of America, which represents 26,000 construction companies. "They're guilty until they report their innocence."
Even supporters see it as a sign of growing green expectations.
The proposal "is only the beginning of other requirements that are likely to follow," said Bruce of UPS.
The rule reflects the Obama administration's effort to frame climate change as an economic threat that is best addressed by measuring risks — rising seas, eroding ecosystems, stronger storms, disrupted trade routes and pernicious drought — and managing them in earnest.
The White House recently pressed the Securities and Exchange Commission to enforce financial disclosure of climate change business policies, and it laid the groundwork to overhaul the power sector through U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan. It's the administration's assertion that addressing climate change now instead of later could prevent physical damages and reduce economic impacts.
The disclosure rule proposed in May would apply to companies that received $7.5 million or more in federal contracts in the previous financial year. It would cover about 5,500 companies, including 2,700 small businesses, federal officials said. All told, those figures represent roughly 3.5 percent of all businesses and 2.6 percent of small businesses that contracted with the government in fiscal 2015.
It's unclear when the rule will be finalized.
'Call me a conspiracy theorist'
Critics worry that it could single out firms that don't disclose carbon data, decline to share that information or don't track it at all. Christianson said the proposal doesn't ask for a lot of information, but he said it could lead to burdensome regulation and punish small companies nonetheless. He also wondered if the data disclosed by businesses could lead to additional questions and more climate rules.
"Call me a conspiracy theorist, but past is prologue," he said. "Every time they ask for this information, then we get some other rule that says, 'Based on the information we received ... '"
Officials said the objective is to create an inventory of greenhouse gases, then slash carbon emissions from the government's budget. They estimate that it would take businesses 15 minutes to complete the rule's paperwork requirements.
Airlines for America (A4A) represents a handful of airlines, including American Airlines, Air Canada, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. Its members also include freighters like FedEx Express and UPS. So it speaks on behalf of firms that might be affected by the rule.
Nancy Young, vice president of environmental affairs for the group, said A4A takes climate change seriously and its members already report how much fuel they burn. She also said comparing different industries and different-sized companies by emissions can be misleading.
"It would be no problem for airlines to provide the information; we have lots of information on emissions," Young said.
But the group is concerned about how the government could use the information gleaned from this rule in purchasing decisions.
"What are they going to do with it, and how are they going to make judgments based on it?" Young asked. "There's nothing behind the curtain about what happens with that information."
Industry groups said their larger and more sophisticated member companies typically track emissions. Smaller ones might not.
But others say there are significant gaps in the business world's planning for potentially disruptive changes to the atmosphere. Brian Johnson, a campaigner at Greenpeace, said the U.S. government is lagging behind the private sector on climate disclosure. And he predicted that contractors would capitulate.
"The government's the customer here," Johnson said. "Government contracting is a lucrative business, and if the government has a requirement, contractors will meet it."
Lawmakers say 'huh'
The rule hasn't generated much attention. Seventeen people or organizations took advantage of the public comment period. And, perhaps tellingly, Senate leaders were unaware of the rule when asked about it last week.
"I don't know; I'm not familiar with that," Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) said of the proposal. He paused for a beat and then added, "Huh."
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also said he hadn't heard about it. "No, but I like it," Durbin said after the rule was described to him. "It's a good step, when you consider there's no, underline no, support from Congress for even recognizing climate change and doing something about it."
Three-quarters of the 20 biggest federal contractors in 2015 publicly share their emissions, goals to slash them or both, according to federal procurement data and Ceres, the sustainable investment advocacy group.
Defense contractors, engineering companies, technology firms and health-care businesses landed the top federal contracts in 2015.
"Not a lot of federal contractors have this on their radar," said Colleen Morgan, president of Corporate Sustainability Advisors, a consultancy group. "Certainly the bigger companies do, the publicly traded companies more and more so."
Morgan said the rule would prompt firms to track their emissions, potentially helping them lower their energy costs and save money. Under previous policies, the U.S. government pledged to cut carbon emissions from its suppliers and curb costs, Morgan said.
"This little rule wraps those two things up in a nice little bow," she added.
Suppliers can see the payback in disclosing emissions, according to Betty Cremmins, a senior manager within CDP's supply chain program.
Companies that for at least three years have disclosed climate information to CDP, a London-headquartered group formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project, and are trying to reduce emissions saved on average $1.5 million apiece, according to a recent report from the group.
Cremmins said it can take roughly three years from when a firm begins disclosing greenhouse emissions until it shows progress.
"If a company is less sophisticated, that's all the more reason to get started," Cremmins said. "It's a journey, and nobody comes out of the gate swinging."
Still, Christianson, the construction lawyer, has his doubts.
He said construction companies are directly responsible for only a sliver of carbon emissions. Then he seemed to issue a warning. Government regulators shouldn't alienate the companies that Washington relies on to achieve broader carbon reductions, he said.
"Be careful when it comes to regulating the industry that you need to have by your side when it comes to constructing green facilities, helping reduce traffic congestion and institute the things that are necessary to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Christianson said.
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060042645
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