Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 9/26/16
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(ACC Mentioned) RRS Report Finds Potential for MRFs to Recover Flexible Packaging
Sep 26, 2016 | Waste Dive
By Cole Rosengren
A new report conducted by Resource Recycling Systems says initial test results have shown flexible packaging can be adequately captured in single-stream material recovery facilities (MRFs), as reported by Recycling Today. -
Air Products Launches New Additives for HFO-Based Polyurethane Foam Applications
Sep 26, 2016 | Packaging BR Home
By Staff
Air Products has launched a new series of catalyst and additive technologies for Hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) based polyurethane foam applications. -
Questions Grow Ahead of TSCA Inventory 'Reset'
Sep 26, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Legal experts have raised questions about the "inventory reset" that will take place under the amended TSCA. -
(ACC Mentioned) Denying Californians a “Right to Know”
Sep 26, 2016 | Fox & Hounds
By Karyn Schmidt
When California voters approved Proposition 65 in 1986, they overwhelmingly indicated they wanted a “right to know” when they may be exposed to potentially harmful chemicals. -
Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals Associated With Reduced Vitamin D Levels
Sep 26, 2016 | Endocrinology Advisor
By Jeff Craven
Environmental exposure to phthalates and bisphenol A (BPA) may impact circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) levels in adults, according to recent research published in theJournal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. -
Global Effort Aims To Reduce Children’s Exposure To Toxic Chemicals
Sep 26, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Sonya Lunder
A new report for the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child contends that protection from toxic pollution should be considered a basic human right. -
Study: Flame Retardant Use In Some Products Declining
Sep 26, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Johanna Congleton and Sonya Lunder
When EWG and other environmental health advocates began raising alarms about toxic flame retardants in foam-cushioned furniture and other products, people couldn’t find out exactly what chemicals were in the things they owned. -
IBM, The NSF And UC San Francisco Combine To Power Up The Exciting World Of Cellular Engineering
Sep 26, 2016 | Forbes
By Kevin Murnane
Cellular engineering is poised to open up exciting avenues of exploration into ways to combat disease, enhance food production, monitor the environment for toxins and much more under the auspices of the newly announced Center for Cellular Construction at theUniversity of California San Francisco (UCSF). -
Texans Sketch Out Energy Future, From Pickens to Climate Advocates
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Edward Klump
On a Saturday when T. Boone Pickens, state regulators and environmental activists gathered here, a snapshot of Texas' shifting energy landscape emerged from the cacophony. -
New States Rail Against Fracking Rule
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Four states and several industry and conservative groups jumped on the bandwagon Friday in litigation aimed at keeping the federal government out of hydraulic fracturing. -
In Landmark Case, Legions Line Up for Battle
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Oral arguments tomorrow over the Obama administration's landmark Clean Power Plan are expected to draw hordes of spectators, but that's just a small fraction of the hundreds of groups, states and companies with a stake in the outcome. -
World Watches as U.S. Climate Saga Heads for Court Showdown
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Fifty-one years have passed since an American president first acknowledged a need to reduce the carbon dioxide the country adds to the world's atmosphere by burning fossil fuels. -
The U.S. is on Course to Miss its Emissions Goals, and One Reason is Methane
Sep 26, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
In recent months, the key story of international climate policy has been about how quickly countries will join the Paris agreement, and cross the legal threshold to bring it into force. And as of now, that seems very close to happening. -
Tribal Advocates Praise Obama Admin's Consultation Plans
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Tribal advocates are cheering the Obama administration's recent step forward on its promise to hold formal consultations with American Indian tribes on infrastructure planning. -
PHMSA Finds Last Year's Leidy Pipeline Rupture Caused by Corrosion
Sep 26, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
The rupture that knocked out full-service on a part of Williams' Leidy Line in Northeast Pennsylvania in June 2015 was caused by corrosion, according to a report from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). -
Dakota Access Operator Sunoco has Terrible Spill Record
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
The future operator of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, Sunoco Logistics Partners LP, spills crude more frequently than any of its competitors, an analysis by Reuters has found. -
Trump Transition Pick Called 'Fox Guarding the Henhouse'
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
Environmental advocates recoiled today at the news that leading climate change skeptic Myron Ebell is leading Donald Trump's transition team for U.S. EPA. -
Courts Should Get Out of the Way of Energy Revolution, Learn from the ‘90s Telecom Revolution
Sep 26, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Reed Hundt
When the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals convenes oral arguments on the Clean Power Plan (CPP) this week, the court will act as the gatekeeper to what could be a powerful, wealth-creating transformation of the American economy away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy.
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(ACC Mentioned) RRS Report Finds Potential for MRFs to Recover Flexible Packaging
Sep 26, 2016 | Waste Dive
By Cole Rosengren
Dive Brief:
A new report conducted by Resource Recycling Systems says initial test results have shown flexible packaging can be adequately captured in single-stream material recovery facilities (MRFs), as reported by Recycling Today.
The report was commissioned by the Materials Recovery for the Future (MRFF) project, which has many corporate and trade association members, in an effort to find more value in recovering snack pouches, pet food bags and other challenging items. Tests were conducted at three MRFs with optical sorters on their fiber lines: IMS Recycling in San Diego and two Emterra facilities in Canada.
Based on these results, further research is being considered on adapting existing MRF equipment, installing new equipment, secondary processing and expanding end market opportunities. A community MRF demonstration pilot is seen as the final step in this process.
Dive Insight:
Previous reports have estimated that the flexible packaging industry is worth more than $30 billion and expanding recovery options is seen as a high priority for all involved. MRFF members include major brands such as Dow Chemical Co., PepsiCo and Procter & Gamble, along with trade associations such as the Association for Postconsumer Plastic Recyclers, the Flexible Packaging Association, SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade Association (SPI) and the American Chemistry Council.
Some believe that no one recovery solution will work for this material and it has inspired a range of approaches so far. A new phase of the Energy Bag program recently launched in Omaha, NE to capture certain types of hard-to-recycle plastics for use as cement kiln fuel. Other waste-to-energy methods are seen as possible solutions as well. Dow is also releasing a new type of polyethylene barrier packagingwhich has been approved by the Sustainable Packaging Coalition for store drop-off programs.
Until more research can be done on end markets, this multi-layer flexible packaging won't be the most desirable material, but the ongoing attention toward it is helpful to all involved. For any municipality with "zero waste" goals, especially those that don't want to use waste-to-energy methods, better options are needed for a material that consumers will continue to dispose of in large quantities for the foreseeable future.
http://www.wastedive.com/news/rrs-report-finds-potential-for-mrfs-to-recover-flexible-packaging/426961/
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Air Products Launches New Additives for HFO-Based Polyurethane Foam Applications
Sep 26, 2016 | Packaging BR Home
By Staff
Air Products has launched a new series of catalyst and additive technologies for Hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) based polyurethane foam applications.
The new additives will allow the use of low-global warming potential (GWP) HFO blowing agents polyurethane foam applications.
Air Products has introduced new Polycat 203 catalyst, which is a patented, water-free and non-emissive amine catalyst for integral skin applications. It demonstrates better resin-side stability when used with HFO blowing agents.
Polycat 218 catalyst is a patented, blow-biased and non-emissive amine catalyst for spray foam applications (SPF). It offers enhanced resin-side stability when used in conjunction with Polycat 204 and HFO blowing agents.
Dabco PM301 catalyst is a patented, non-emissive and organic modifier, which can promote HFO blowing agent solubility in SPF applications.
Polycat 211 and Dabco TMR18 are new catalyst technologies, which can be used to enhance both system reactivity and physical properties in rigid foams that use HFO blowing agents and contain high water content levels.The company is showcasing the new products at the Center for the Polyurethanes Industry’s (CPI) annual Technical Conference held in Baltimore, US, which is being held from 26 to 28 September.
Air Products Polyurethane Additives business produces a range of catalysts and surfactants for all types of flexible, rigid, and microcellular foam.
http://automationandtechnology.packaging-business-review.com/news/air-products-launches-new-additives-for-hfo-based-polyurethane-foam-applications-260916-5015048
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Questions Grow Ahead of TSCA Inventory 'Reset'
Sep 26, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Legal experts have raised questions about the "inventory reset" that will take place under the amended TSCA.
The Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act requires the US EPA to set a rule outlining the process for designating substances on the TSCA inventory as 'active' and 'inactive'. It must do this by June 2017
Speaking at the recent Keller & Heckman (K&H) Chemical Control Law Seminar, firm partner Tom Berger said this reset will have a significant effect.
Manufacturers and importers will have to report on substances currently on the TSCA inventory manufactured, imported or processed within the ten years prior to Lautenberg’s enactment on 22 June 2016. Once the rule is finalised, reports must be submitted within 180 days.
Substances for which EPA receives notice will be designated as active. Those not notified will be designated inactive. Although inactive substances will remain on the inventory, the EPA must be given notice before their manufacture, import, or process can resume.
This will relieve the EPA from the need to "prioritise or potentially evaluate any 'inactive' chemical," wrote James Votaw, a partner with law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, in a recent American Bar Association newsletter.
2012's Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) exercise showed only 7,700 or so substances of 85,000 on the TSCA inventory were in active use (at volumes above the reporting threshold). Therefore, Mr Vowat says, there is "good reason to believe that the inventory reset will dramatically reduce the number of chemicals to be prioritised."
Reset mechanics ambiguous
Nevertheless, the process the EPA will use to decide the status of substances will remain unknown until the rule is promulgated. In the interim, questions will be raised about how it will address the statute's ambiguities.
For example, it is unclear, Mr Votaw says, if the rule will describe the process by which a regulated party would 'reactivate' a substance, and what such a notification would contain.
Further questions concern the activation notification itself. At a recent webinar K&H partner Martha Marrapese said: "We don't have a defined idea of the information that EPA will require."
As the EPA will take these chemicals and make priority determinations out of this process, she said she thought it might be considering an approach similar to the CDR submissions. "But we don't know, and EPA has not signalled their direction in this publicly yet."
And Mr Berger added during the seminar that it's "not clear what documents or proof you have to have that you, in fact, manufactured a chemical during that window, going back to 2007."
There's also the "sheer number" of reports that could be submitted, said Mr Berger.
Mr Votaw wrote it remains uncertain how the proposal may seek to address unnecessary or duplicative reporting - for example by coordinating reports through trade associations or phasing in reporting.
Michael Boucher, a partner at law firm Dentons, told Chemical Watch the likeliest model will be EPA's original scheme for establishing the inventory in the 1970s.
This involved multi-phase reporting. It began with manufacturers and importers of bulk substances to determine an initial inventory, and then a subsequent, optional, reporting period – which included processors – to fill in the gaps.
But whether Lautenberg will allow an optional reporting period beyond the statutorily prescribed 180-day reporting period remains uncertain.
Further concerns
Among additional considerations, Mr Berger raised several issues that could be addressed during the rulemaking and its implementation. These include:
how reporting will be handled for substances not manufactured or imported within the past ten years, but that have pre-existing stock that continues to be processed;
whether foreign suppliers – especially those selling confidential substances – will be able to jointly submit notice with US importers;
what exemptions might exist from reporting;
what penalties will apply for non-reporting; and
how manufacturers should proceed when a substance listed on the TSCA inventory is improperly named.
According to the EPA's first year implementation plan, it aims to release a proposed inventory reset rule by December.
https://chemicalwatch.com/49865/questions-grow-ahead-of-tsca-inventory-reset
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(ACC Mentioned) Denying Californians a “Right to Know”
Sep 26, 2016 | Fox & Hounds
By Karyn Schmidt
When California voters approved Proposition 65 in 1986, they overwhelmingly indicated they wanted a “right to know” when they may be exposed to potentially harmful chemicals. For the past quarter century, businesses operating in California have been required to inform consumers when they may be exposed to chemicals “known to the state of California” to cause cancer or reproductive harm. However, despite the ubiquity of Proposition 65 labels and signs, recent research shows most citizens haven’t heard of the law.
To increase consumer awareness, California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) launched a new consumer-focused Proposition 65 website and issued new rules overhauling the law’s required warning labels. Unfortunately, if OEHHA achieves its goal and consumers begin reading the problematic information pushed out by the agency, consumers may end up being less informed about their health risks, not more.
Consider the information OEHHA provides about dental procedures.
A large portion of Americans already avoid going to the dentist: The Colgate Oral and Dental Health Resource Center estimates 30 to 40 million Americans forgo trips to the dentist due to fear, compromising their oral health. For Californians looking for a reason to skip their semi-annual checkup, OEHHA’s Proposition 65 website is happy to oblige.
On the website’s page about the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), OEHHA advises consumers to reduce their exposure to dental products that contain BPA and suggests that “if your dentist recommends sealants or fillings, ask about BPA-free options.” This advice directly contradicts research published by the American Dental Association’s Science Institute. In a recent article, “BPA in dental sealants is ‘safe,'” the Science Institute concludes there is negligible exposure to BPA from dental sealants, and that these sealants are an important tool to protect our teeth from cavities.
Strangely, though dentists are certainly the experts when it comes to our teeth, OEHHA doesn’t even include a link to the ADA’s statement on BPA in dental sealants in its online “resources” section for consumers hoping to learn more. Similarly, OEHHA informs consumers about exposure to mercury in dental amalgam fillings and nitrous oxide (“laughing gas”), but doesn’t tell consumers why dentists use these tools and the benefits of choosing dental amalgam fillings or laughing gas over alternatives.
This lack of complete information about the chemicals and products listed on OEHHA’s website is incredibly problematic for consumers.
OEHHA insists that it’s not in the business of deciding whether a particular product is “safe” or “unsafe.” However, as soon as the agency offers advice on how to reduce exposure to a particular chemical and requires scary pictogram “hazard” signs on individual products, it’s safe to assume that consumers will regard those products as dangerous—even if scientific evidence supports their safe use.
While it’s not clear whether Proposition 65 gives OEHHA the legal authority to create this new Proposition 65 website and to force manufacturers to send their customers to that website for agency-directed (and misleading) information about their products, the agency could make some simple and immediate improvements. Simply posting a more complete list of resources—including sources that explain the actual consumer health risk from using a particular product—is an excellent start. Being clear that the information offered has nothing to do with safety, and that safe products can and do bear Proposition 65 “warnings,” would also be helpful. And encouraging consumers with questions about product safety to start with the actual manufacturer would be helpful, too.
Of course, a real understanding of product safety must be founded on risk, and this is a key shortcoming of Proposition 65 itself. “Warning” consumers about the hazard characteristics of chemicals in consumer products, regardless of whether risk is presented or how small that risk is, is not helpful. Ultimately, only a risk-based system, and risk-based communications, will deliver meaningful value. In the meantime, OEHHA should reexamine how it builds out its website and seek real feedback from users on how they understand the information on the site.
Karyn Schmidt is a senior director of regulatory and technical affairs at the American Chemistry Council.
http://www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/2016/09/denying-californians-right-know/
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Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals Associated With Reduced Vitamin D Levels
Sep 26, 2016 | Endocrinology Advisor
By Jeff Craven
Environmental exposure to phthalates and bisphenol A (BPA) may impact circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) levels in adults, according to recent research published in theJournal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
“Nearly every person on the planet is exposed to BPA and another class of endocrine-disrupting chemicals called phthalates, so the possibility that these chemicals may even slightly reduce vitamin D levels has widespread implications for public health,” Lauren Johns, MPH, a PhD candidate at the University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor, stated in a press release. “Vitamin D plays a broad role in maintaining bone and muscle health. In addition, low vitamin D levels have been implicated in outcomes of numerous conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer.”
Johns and colleagues evaluated urinary data from 4667 men and women, taking note of urinary BPA, urinary creatinine, urinary phthalate metabolites, and serum 25(OH)D. The data were obtained from the 2005-2006, 2007-2008, and 2009-2010 cycles of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
The researchers analyzed urinary BPA levels and 11 phthalate metabolites above the limit of detection in at least 50% of patients. They also measured total 25(OH)D levels, which included sum 25-hydroxyvitamin D2 and 25-hydroxyvitamin D3.
Of the phthalate metabolites analyzed, there was a positive association with monoethyl phthalate, and di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) carried an inverse association with total 25(OH)D after adjusting for gender with a significant inverse relationship seen in molar sum of DEHP metabolites. Specifically, researchers found a 1.90% decrease in total 25(OH)D for each interquartile range increase (95% CI, –3.64 to –0.17).
There was significant inverse association between BPA exposure and lower 25(OH)D levels among women in the cohort, but this association was not seen in men. The researchers noted there was a 3.71% decrease in total 25(OH)D levels per interquartile range increase for these women (95% CI, –6.41 to –1.02).
“More research is needed into why an association exists, but it is possible that endocrine-disrupting chemicals alter the active form of vitamin D in the body through some of the same mechanisms that they use to impact similar reproductive and thyroid hormones,” John D. Meeker, MS, ScD, senior author of the study, stated in the release. “Confirmatory studies are needed to show whether this association exists in other populations.”
Disclosures: This research was supported in part by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Funding was also provided by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. The researchers report no conflicts of interest.
http://www.endocrinologyadvisor.com/general-endocrinology/bpa-phthalates-linked-to-reduced-vitamin-d-levels/article/524836/
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Global Effort Aims To Reduce Children’s Exposure To Toxic Chemicals
Sep 26, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Sonya Lunder
A new report for the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child contends that protection from toxic pollution should be considered a basic human right.
Baskut Tuncak, a chemist and senior attorney with the Center for International Environmental Law in Washington and the U.N. Special Rapporteur to the U.N. Human Rights Council, cited a World Health Organization estimate that more than 1.5 million children under five years old die yearly from exposure to toxic pollutants.
“In one country, childhood cancer rates have increased nearly 20 percent over a 20-year span,” he said. “Types of diabetes are now seen in children that were previously only observed in adults. Rates of asthma, early puberty and birth defects have also increased dramatically. Most of these and other increases cannot be explained by lifestyle choices or genetics alone, and have come during periods of rapid industrialization.”
EWG has worked for decades to highlight risks posed by toxic chemicals in the United States, and to ensure stronger health protection for children and other vulnerable groups.
U.S. air is generally cleaner than that in many other countries, and people enjoy restrictions on lead, mercury and the most damaging pesticides. However, children are still exposed to dozens of harmful chemicals daily, with many measured inumbilical cord blood samples, breast milk and in children’s bodies directly.
EWG advocates stronger protections for children from numerous pollutants, including lead in paint, arsenic and chromium in drinking water, and asbestos in schools.
But increasingly, our attention turns to chemicals intentionally added to consumer products to make them stain-resistant, antibacterial, flame resistant or more durable. Many of these additives pose safety hazards to children, and are widely detected in dust samples collected from American homes.
American preferences for conveniences such as grease-proof food wrappers and stain-resistant carpets spread persistent contaminants to distant places, while electronic waste is shipped to countries with few restrictions on child labor and waste disposal.
While EWG works to strengthen the health of American children, we join the U.N. Rapporteur in his call for stronger protections for children around the globe. The U.S. has signed but has not ratified the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, which would compel governments to identify and protect children from chemical hazards at home and at work.
We intend to reverse the burden of proof so that the victims of toxic chemical exposures are not responsible for proving harm. Instead, we want to shift the burden onto companies who profit from the production and sale of toxic substances. The High Commissioner of the U.N. Human Rights Council has an website where people can learn more and submit complaints about situations that should be investigated.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/09/global-effort-aims-reduce-children-s-exposure-toxic-chemicals
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Study: Flame Retardant Use In Some Products Declining
Sep 26, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Johanna Congleton and Sonya Lunder
When EWG and other environmental health advocates began raising alarms about toxic flame retardants in foam-cushioned furniture and other products, people couldn’t find out exactly what chemicals were in the things they owned.
Dr. Heather Stapleton’s laboratory at Duke University played a key role in solving this mystery. In 2014, the lab offered, free of charge, to test and identify flame retardant chemicals in foam samples submitted by anyone who lived in the U.S.
The lab’s analysis of 1,141 samples collected from participants’ homes concluded that manufacturers’ use of flame retardants in furniture and car seats is on the decline. That’s good news, but there are still plenty of consumer items laced with flame retardants on the market. More than half the foam samples tested contained at least one flame retardant at levels of more than 1 percent by weight.
Over the past decade we’ve learned that flame retardant chemicals offer little benefit and could harm our health.
Earlier this year, EWG and Duke University scientists authored a report that showed mothers and children living in California were more highly exposed to two flame retardant chemicals than people living in other states. One factor was a California regulation that led to the heavy use of flame retardants in certain products such as couches and upholstered chairs. In 2014, California changed its regulation. The state’s new furniture flammability standard gives manufacturers more flexibility in deciding whether to add flame retardant chemicals to their products. Since then, the use of flame retardants in foam has declined, and manufacturers can now deploy other technologies to reduce ignition risks.
Duke researchers collected samples of foam from cushioned furniture, mattress pads, car seats and other products for children. They found that newer products were less likely to contain flame retardant chemicals.
Sixty-eight percent of the samples purchased between 2005 and 2013 contained flame retardant chemicals, compared to only 38 percent of the products purchased after 2014, when the California regulation changed.
About 60 percent of the sofa and loveseat samples purchased before 2014 had detectable flame retardants. Only 29 percent of sofas and loveseats purchased after 2014 contained the chemicals.
More than 91 percent of children’s car seats purchased before 2014 contained a flame retardant, while only 50 percent of newer ones contained such chemicals.
The lab tests bolster the theory that regulations drive the use of, and presumably exposure to, toxic chemicals.
Many manufacturers who make household furniture, children’s products and office furniture have pledged to eliminate these chemicals from their supply chain. As a result, products purchased today are even less likely to contain these worrisome additives.
The flame retardant chemical most frequently detected by the Duke lab was TDCIPP, found in nearly a quarter of all samples tested. California officials have classified this chemical as a carcinogen.
The second most prevalent flame retardant was FireMaster550, a mixture that contains suspected endocrine disruptors.
Although 48 percent of the samples had no detectable flame retardants, the Duke researchers cautioned that their testing may have missed some compounds because of technical limitations.
The identities of flame retardant chemicals and mixtures are usually kept secret, hampering the ability of independent scientists such as Stapleton to conduct tests.
Recent reforms in the chemical regulatory system require the Environmental Protection Agency to verify claims that a chemical identity is a “trade secret,” and require companies that claim trade secrecy to substantiate their claims.
In coming years, the EPA should ensure that every trade secret claim is necessary. The agency should use its authority to provide the public, including scientists, with as much information as possible.
The Stapleton lab is holding a one-hour webinar at noon Eastern Daylight Time on Sept. 26 to explain its findings.
While it’s welcome news that the general use of flame retardant chemicals is declining, companies should make greater efforts to eliminate these toxic chemicals. The government must ensure that any new chemicals added to furniture are properly tested for safety before they go to market.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/09/study-flame-retardant-use-some-products-declining
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IBM, The NSF And UC San Francisco Combine To Power Up The Exciting World Of Cellular Engineering
Sep 26, 2016 | Forbes
By Kevin Murnane
Cellular engineering is poised to open up exciting avenues of exploration into ways to combat disease, enhance food production, monitor the environment for toxins and much more under the auspices of the newly announced Center for Cellular Construction at theUniversity of California San Francisco (UCSF). The Center for Cellular Construction brings together expertise in biochemistry, biophysics, cell biology, medicine, mathematics and engineering from researchers at UCSF, Stanford, San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley, advanced imaging technologies coupled with Watson’s artificial intelligence from IBM Research Almaden, and funding from the National Science Foundation. The goal is “to transform the field of cell biology into a quantitative discipline and to adapt tools from engineering, the physical sciences, and computer science to design automated machines out of living cells.”
It is well known that the morphology or structure of cells affects how they function. Two cells of the same type may function very differently because of the way they’re built. What is not as well known are the mechanisms through which morphology directly affects function. Increasing our understanding of these mechanisms opens up the possibility of designing and engineering individual cells and multicellular structures that can produce valuable products such asbiofuels or therapeutic drugs, or fulfill important functions such as monitoring the environment for toxic contaminants.
The Center for Cellular Construction is organized around five interacting projects that are designed to facilitate the iterative process that characterizes sound research in both basic science and applied R&D settings. Design a model, build it, test it, refine it and repeat as necessary.
The Cellular Machine Shop will develop and build cell engineering tools such as high capacity imaging systems and gene synthesis and sequencing tools.
Computer Aided Design (CAD) will focus on building a computational platform that gives researchers the ability to virtually model individual cells and multicellular structures. The goal is to provide cellular engineers with a tool that is similar to the CAD programs that are frequently used by engineers in the physical sciences.
Multicellular Engineering is devoted to creating tools at the molecular level that allow cellular engineers to combine individual cells into multicellular units that are designed to solve specific problems.
The Living Bioreactor project is focused on designing cells that can efficiently produce needed substances like drugs or biofuels in environments that may be unfriendly to naturally occurring cellular organisms.
The Cell State Inference Engine aims to develop advanced image analysis software that will enable engineered cells to serve as biosensors that can monitor the environment and act as cellular “canaries in a coal mine” that will give advance warning before toxic conditions become life or health threatening.
Where to begin
The potential for cellular engineering is so great and the range of disciplines being brought to bear in the new Center is so broad that it’s hard to know where to begin. I asked the Center leadership which projects they thought they might tackle first.
Wallace Marshall, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics who is the Director of the Center, responded that one of their first projects is likely to be engineering yeast cells to produce larger quantities of methyl chloride. Why methyl chloride?
Methyl chloride is used in the production of silicone, a material that has widespread applications in many industries including electronics, automotive, healthcare, construction, manufacturing and solar. The industrial process that produces methyl chloride also produces dangerous corrosive and volatile byproducts and relies heavily on the consumption of nonrenewable energy resources like coal and natural gas.
Yeast cells can be made to produce methyl chloride in an internal structure called a vacuole. Prior research leads to the expectation that the amount of methyl chloride produced by a yeast cell is related to the size of the vacuole where it is made. The Center’s project will involve engineering larger vacuoles in yeast cells in order to increase their ability to produce methyl chloride.
If the project is successful, it will demonstrate how cellular engineering can modify cells so that they function as efficient bioreactors that are capable of producing materials with commercial value. The project will also show that cellular engineering can contribute to the green chemistry movement by producing commercially viable quantities of methyl chloride without the addition of toxic and dangerous byproducts and the consumption of nonrenewable energy resources.
Zev Gartner, one of the center’s co-directors and an Associate Professor of pharmaceutical chemistry, drew attention to using the self-assembling ability of cells to create products that would have immediate utility in the consumer space. He suggested the possibility of engineering biodegradable packaging materials that smell like fresh-baked bread or replacements for animal hides with materials that are grown in the lab.
Gartner also pointed out that initial work carried out with single-cell organisms like yeast cells serves as a training ground for developing tools and techniques that can be used with human cells with the goal of building healthy replacements for diseased tissues and organs.
Taking it outside the lab
Cellular engineering at the level that will be pursued in the Center for Cellular Construction is a new thing and informing and educating the general public about the research going on at the Center is viewed as an important part of the Center’s mission. The Center has partnered with San Francisco’s renowned Exploratoriumto develop exhibits that will explore ways to realize the potentials and avoid the pitfalls of cellular engineering. Center personnel from many research labs will work with the staff at the Exploratorium in this effort.
The Center is also collaborating with UCSF’s Science and Health Education Partnership to develop high-school curricula about cell engineering through a summer “Boot Camp” program for high school students and teachers in the San Francisco area. The plan is to make the curricula available nationwide after it has been developed and refined in San Francisco.
Finally, the Center plans an outreach program where they will bring hands-on demonstrations of cellular engineering to science festivals, Maker Faires, and hackathons.
Hope for the future
The organizations behind the Center for Cellular Construction are particularly well-suited to insure that the promise of the new institution is fulfilled. U.S. News gobal rankings of research universitiesplaces UCSF as the fifth best university in the world in Biology and Biochemistry. The third (UC Berkeley) and fourth (Stanford) ranked universities are also part of the Center. IBM’s Watson is one of the world’s leading platforms for the application of artificial intelligence to knowledge organization and retrieval and the IBM Research Almaden group which is participating in the Center has dedicated expertise in nanomedicine and medical image analytics. Finally, the NSF is providing five years of “blue sky” funding for the Center which is ideal for a research initiative that is as open-ended and rich with possibility as cellular engineering.
Whether or not the Center for Cellular Construction fulfills its early promise remains to be seen but the pieces are all in place. Five years from now we may all be experiencing the benefits if the efforts of everyone associated with the Center achieve the hoped for results.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2016/09/26/ibm-the-nsf-and-uc-san-francisco-combine-to-power-up-the-exciting-world-of-cellular-engineering/#78fa9877694d
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Texans Sketch Out Energy Future, From Pickens to Climate Advocates
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Edward Klump
On a Saturday when T. Boone Pickens, state regulators and environmental activists gathered here, a snapshot of Texas' shifting energy landscape emerged from the cacophony.
Low oil prices are affecting jobs and revenue in Texas, but the sky isn't falling. Shale gas touches everything from petrochemicals to electricity, but don't expect natural gas prices to surge anytime soon.
Solar is poised to join wind in remaking the electric grid, while transmission and security may require time and money. And whether you want to blame market forces or President Obama, coal's outlook has surely dimmed.
For all the shifting energy dynamics, there in the foreground of the discussion is climate change, which casts a shadow over a state where drilling permits were enough fuel for a booming economy.
"The question right now is not 'Are we transitioning to a clean energy economy?'" explained Texas Tech University associate professor Katharine Hayhoe. "The only question today is 'How rapidly are we doing it, and how rapidly we can do it?'"
Hayhoe and Pickens, a legendary oilman and founder of BP Capital Management, were two of Saturday's speakers at the Texas Tribune Festival at the University of Texas, Austin. The gathering, which featured Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, carved out sessions for energy and the environment.
Mine Yücel, a senior vice president with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, set the tone by saying Texas isn't in a recession. And Houston didn't "collapse," even though it saw significant job losses after benchmark U.S. crude prices dropped from more than $100 a barrel in 2014 to around $45 a barrel more recently.
The more than two-year oil price plunge hasn't discouraged Texas oil barons and their regulators from painting an optimistic picture of global prices. For his part, Pickens predicted oil could be $55 to $60 a barrel by the end of the year, an assertion that is widely disputed. In three years, he said, the price might be $70 to $75 a barrel.
"I think we've closed the oversupply situation we were in a couple years ago substantially," said Ryan Sitton of the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates oil and gas wells. "Once people can see that the oversupply has been corrected, prices will come back up."
A changing grid
Low oil and natural gas prices have reshuffled the energy industry's playing field in Texas.
Pickens said a low gas price hampered his wind investments because gas affects the price of power. He said wind works well with gas at $6 per million British thermal units, though subsidies can also play a role. A benchmark U.S. gas price traded for around $3 recently, according to Bloomberg.
On coal, Pickens faulted Obama for job losses. When asked to clarify in an interview, Pickens said the president's regulations worked to shut down coal facilities, even if gas has a brighter future.
"Going forward on new power generation, it would have been natural gas anyway," Pickens said. "It wouldn't have been coal."
Paula Gold-Williams, CEO of CPS Energy in San Antonio, said diversification is key in the energy business. CPS has a mix of coal, nuclear, gas and wind in its generation portfolio, with hundreds of megawatts of solar capacity on the way. She said there's also interest in energy storage.
Cheryl Mele, chief operating officer at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the state's main grid operator, described a shift from essentially no renewables tied to that grid in 1999 to more than 17,000 MW.
She suggested that "this grid is going to continue to evolve and that we are going to have to learn to manage even greater amounts of renewable energy."
So how much renewables could the grid take?
"Sadly, I can't answer that question," Mele said, adding "that number might be higher than we would have at one time believed."
Brandy Marty Marquez, a member of the Public Utility Commission of Texas, said, "The free market is actually pretty green." She said some dated coal plants may be priced out of the market in Texas with low gas prices.
But Marquez took issue with federal regulations she said would force owners of coal-fired plants to look at environmental investments and the potential to be shut before they could recover the costs.
One of the biggest issues is U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, which aims to curb power-sector carbon dioxide emissions through state targets. Another is a plan to address regional haze.
The Texas Clean Energy Coalition has argued that market forces are shifting the ERCOT grid toward gas, wind and solar. But Marquez attacked "artificial" regulation that can cause stress on ratepayers.
Texas has overseen a roughly $7 billion program for competitive renewable energy zones that boosted transmission infrastructure. In an interview, Marquez said a move by elected state officials to cultivate a resource is much different from a federal mandate.
Climate chatter
During a session on renewables, Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at UT Austin, said some sort of price signal on carbon could develop in the next four years.
"Put a price on pollution, the pollution goes down," Webber said. "We should do the same thing with carbon."
Texas Tech's Hayhoe, whom a moderator called a "Canadian evangelical Christian studying climate change in West Texas," said she didn't know climate change was politicized before she moved to the United States.
To her, "the sky is blue, the grass is green, climate is changing due to human activities." But she realized everyone isn't on the same page, and she has adjusted how she talks about the issue in Texas to include values and not just data.
Hayhoe said EPA's Clean Power Plan is a move in the right direction, but more is needed, such as a price on carbon. Hayhoe studies what happens if fossil fuels remain a primary energy source as well as whether a transition continues and accelerates.
"The further you go out, the bigger the difference between those two futures," she said, citing impacts "on our health, on our welfare, on our economy, on national security, on agricultural and water and ecosystems and energy."
But Sitton of the Railroad Commission said the climate change discussion has become hyperpolitical. He said questions remain on how much is caused by everything from oil and gas to cows.
Even Pickens, who said he's a geologist and "not a son of a gun about climate change," got a question on the subject Saturday. The 88-year-old was asked about an initiative to change the actions of hundreds of millions of people to help address a rise in temperatures.
"I'd spend an evening reading how this is going to be accomplished," Pickens responded. "I'm not sure I'd spend much time the next day, but I might."
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/09/26/stories/1060043393
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New States Rail Against Fracking Rule
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Four states and several industry and conservative groups jumped on the bandwagon Friday in litigation aimed at keeping the federal government out of hydraulic fracturing.
Montana, Alaska, Kansas and Texas argued in a friend-of-the-court brief that the Interior Department has no authority for its fracking rule, which would tighten requirements for fracked wells on public and tribal lands.
Their argument is familiar: They say Congress specifically removed fracking from the federal regulatory sphere. The position echoes that of four other states that have been challenging Interior's fracking rule since its release in March 2015.
The original challengers — Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota and Utah — say the Safe Drinking Water Act made EPA the sole agency in charge of fracking, and the Energy Policy Act of 2005 subsequently deferred that power to state governments.
The argument was a winner at a federal district court in Wyoming, which in June tossed the fracking rule, finding it beyond Interior's authority.
The Obama administration and environmental allies appealed to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Interior and its Bureau of Land Management have long argued that the Mineral Leasing Act and the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act give the agencies broad power over activities on government-held lands.
Friend-of-the-court briefs on the government's side came in August from former Interior officials and law professors who said the lower court's ruling had "no basis in legal precedent or relevant statutes" (EnergyWire, Aug. 18).
Friday's filings come from states, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other conservative and industry groups that want to keep the fracking rule from being revived.
"Amici have a shared interest in the maintenance of federalism as a check on the unwarranted concentration of political power, as well as the interpretation of federal statutes and the viability of federal regulations," the states wrote.
They added that their primacy to administer EPA's Underground Injection Control programs within their states is also threatened without a "clear demarcation of federal and State regulatory authority concerning groundwater resources."
And because small strips of federal minerals often lie within otherwise private areas, onerous regulations from Interior could affect development on "gigantic areas of private mineral resources," they argued, "which is clearly at odds with the intent of Congress in enacting the Energy Policy Act of 2005."
BakerHostetler's Mark Barron, representing industry groups against the rule, said it was "crucial that the States' voices be heard in this litigation."
"The States' arguments expose the fundamental flaw in BLM's attempt to undermine the system of cooperative federalism that Congress established when it passed the Safe Drinking Water Act," he said in an email, adding that Congress clearly allocated fracking oversight to states with UIC primacy.
Interior has countered that its regulation of oil and gas wells falls under its power to regulate public lands, distinct from EPA's authority over injection wells.
Representatives for the states' attorneys general did not provide comment.
Business, conservative groups
Additional friend-of-the-court filings rolled in from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Petroleum Association of Wyoming, Pacific Legal Foundation and Wyoming Liberty Group.
Chamber lawyers repeated states' authority argument but added that even if Interior had authority, it did not make a strong case for enacting the rule in the first place.
"[BLM] failed to substantiate that there is a regulatory gap under state law, or extant safety concerns, that its rule was necessary to address," the business groups' brief said. "The agency also failed to provide reasoned explanation sufficient to support the efficacy of its approach, and vastly underestimated the costs of compliance to U.S. businesses."
The arguments largely track with the position of the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Western Energy Alliance, the industry groups that challenged the rule in court minutes after its release.
The Petroleum Association of Wyoming, meanwhile, focused on the authority issue, repeating states' argument that the Energy Policy Act removed most federal authority over fracking.
"It defies logic that Congress would specifically limit the EPA's authority to regulation hydraulic fracturing, while leaving the BLM's purported authority entirely unchecked," the group said.
The Pacific Legal Foundation and Wyoming Liberty Group also filed a brief Friday, urging the court to "scrutinize agency actions closely, to avoid exacerbating these separation of powers concerns."
The 10th Circuit is expected to schedule oral arguments in the appeal for early next year but could hear the case as soon as November.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/09/26/stories/1060043391
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In Landmark Case, Legions Line Up for Battle
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Oral arguments tomorrow over the Obama administration's landmark Clean Power Plan are expected to draw hordes of spectators, but that's just a small fraction of the hundreds of groups, states and companies with a stake in the outcome.
The case's formal name, West Virginia v. EPA, belies the swarm of parties deeply entrenched on each side.
After more than two dozen states, utilities and coal companies fired the first shots against the finalized rule last October, additional lawsuits came pouring in from electric cooperatives, labor groups, business associations and conservative groups.
Supporters of U.S. EPA's regulation were quick to jump in to defend it. Eighteen states lined up on EPA's side, joined by environmentalists, health groups and local governments. Clean energy groups and a collection of utilities also stepped in.
And on the periphery of the main combatants, everyone from Mars Inc. and Madeleine Albright on EPA's side to former state regulators and legal nonprofits on the other side have filed friend-of-the-court briefs to voice their own concerns.
While the final roster is massive and varied, these are the key players and what they have on the line:
The Obama administration
The Obama administration's bold plan to cut carbon emissions from the power sector is a critical piece of the president's broader efforts to address climate change.
EPA staffers have spent years crafting the rule, which first came out in draft form more than two years ago. A court decision striking it down would be a major blow to President Obama's climate legacy, observers say.
White House officials downplayed the impact in February when the Supreme Court intervened to freeze the rule during litigation, noting the administration's multipronged approach to addressing climate change, including EPA's recently finalized methane regulations for the oil and gas industry.
But in legal documents, government lawyers have painted a more dire picture. Before the stay was issued, EPA argued that any delay would prevent the agency from meeting its duty to protect the public from "catastrophic harm."
And while the Supreme Court stay came after an international climate deal was struck in Paris, some say the United States will have a tough time meeting its own goals and persuading other countries to reduce carbon emissions if the Clean Power Plan is ultimately tossed.
Republican critics and industry representatives have driven much of that debate, arguing earlier this year that without the "illegal" Clean Power Plan, the United States may not be able to achieve its goal of a 26 to 28 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2025.
States
States have been at the center of the debate over the Clean Power Plan since the beginning. And for good reason: The rule is built on state-by-state targets.
Twenty-eight states are opposing the regulation, while 18 are supporting it in court. Only four states have declined to enter the litigation fray in any capacity, and one of those, Alaska, is exempt from the rule's requirements.
The states arguing against the rule question it on both Clean Air Act and constitutional grounds. They say the rule "commandeers" state governments to achieve federal goals, violating the 10th Amendment.
The plan sets state-level goals and directs states to either craft plans to meet the targets or adopt a federal compliance plan. Former state regulators weighing in on EPA's rule say the plan disrupts the authority of public utility commissions and other regulatory bodies that typically decide when and how to make changes to electricity generation, based on each state's prerogatives.
States supporting EPA say claims that the agency is treading on their turf are exaggerated.
"It's hard to succeed on a commandeering argument when there's no commandeering," Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller (D) said in a recent call with reporters, arguing that the rule offers states "enormous flexibility" for compliance.
Iowa is one of 18 states defending the rule as intervenors in court, along with the District of Columbia, Chicago, New York and several other cities and other local governments.
Without the Clean Power Plan, they say they'll bear the brunt of the disastrous effects of climate change. In legal briefs this year, the states argued they'll face increased flooding, more severe storms, wildfires and drought without federal action on climate change.
Power sector and industry groups
The power sector and mining companies have largely unified against the Clean Power Plan. Utilities and electric cooperatives were early challengers to the rule, saying many power plant operators will be forced to shutter coal-fired plants.
In fact, they say, they've already been affected by the rule because shifting generation for electricity takes years of planning and early investments.
Industry associations and coal companies are in a similar camp, calling the Clean Power Plan part of Obama's "war on coal." They worry decreased reliance on coal-fired power plants will mean shuttered coal mines, tens of thousands of lost jobs and economic devastation for communities dependent on mining.
"This unlawful rule will devastate the coal industry and those who depend upon its success while putting at risk affordable energy and thousands of good paying jobs," West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey (R) said in a statement last week.
But power companies aren't all against the rule. A coalition of utilities, including Southern California Edison Co. and Pacific Gas and Electric Corp., joined the litigation on EPA's side, along with the American Wind Energy Association and Solar Energy Industries Association.
Describing themselves as "forward-thinking," they say their investments in clean energy will be undermined if the rule is ultimately scrapped.
In a surprise move, Dominion Resources Inc. has also signaled some support for the rule. In a friend-of-the-court brief, the company said other utilities should value the plan's "flexible, accommodating compliance framework" because it is "challenging but ultimately manageable for regulated power plants."
The Virginia-based utility, which owns several coal- and gas-fired plants and nuclear plants, noted that it was not endorsing the rule outright but, rather, warning other utilities that arguments against the rule's market-based measures could result in costlier regulations down the road.
Environmental and public health groups
Concerns from environmental and health groups largely track with those of the Obama administration when it comes to the Clean Power Plan.
National green groups including the Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council and Center for Biological Diversity entered the litigation last fall, joined by the powerhouse American Lung Association and several other environmental groups. Additional health groups backed the rule through friend-of-the-court briefs.
A separate contingent of Appalachian environmental groups also intervened in the case, seeking to counter the rhetoric of West Virginia's attorney general, who is leading states against the rule.
Together, the groups say the Clean Power Plan must be upheld to protect their members from air pollution and climate change.
"Delay, weakening, or invalidation of the Clean Power Plan would harm the organizations' members by exacerbating the impacts of climate change," they said in a brief last fall.
The groups have moved to offense this year, churning out frequent reports and expert analyses about the benefits of the plan. In a call with reporters last week, UCLA School of Law professor Ann Carlson argued that the plan's approach to carbon cuts is a "smart choice."
Rather than looking at individual power plants, the rule "viewed the grid as a big, integrated machine," Carlson said on a call hosted by the Constitutional Accountability Center and promoted by the Environmental Defense Fund. "EPA took advantage of the interconnected nature of the grid."
Tomorrow's argument lineup
Tomorrow's court proceedings will feature 16 lawyers representing the various parties in a range of arguments over the rule.
West Virginia Solicitor General Elbert Lin and Sidley Austin LLP attorney Peter Keisler, representing industry, will kick off the day with arguments that the rule violates the Clean Air Act by requiring emissions cuts that can only be achieved "beyond the fence line" of individual plants.
Department of Justice attorney Eric Hostetler will respond, followed by New York Assistant Attorney General Michael Myers and Paul Hastings LLP attorney Kevin Poloncarz on behalf of power companies supporting the rule.
Lin and Hunton & Williams LLP attorney Allison Wood, representing industry, will then move on to arguments over whether the Clean Power Plan can regulate carbon dioxide emissions under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act when EPA already regulates hazardous air pollutants from power plants under Section 112. DOJ's Amanda Berman and environmental lawyer Sean Donahue will respond.
Next up are BakerHostetler attorney David Rivkin Jr., representing states, and Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, representing industry, to argue that the rule unconstitutionally commandeers state governments to achieve federal goals. Berman and Myers will respond.
Moving to administrative issues, J. Campbell Barker from the Texas attorney general's office and Crowell & Moring LLP's Tom Lorenzen, representing electric co-ops, will argue that EPA's final rule was too dramatically different from the draft version. DOJ's Norman Rave will respond.
Finally, Wisconsin Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin and Hunton & Williams attorney F. William Brownell will make a variety of technical arguments against the rule. Rave, Poloncarz and DOJ's Brian Lynk will respond.
Proceedings begin at 9:30 a.m. EDT at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Click here for E&E's guide to the legal battle.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/09/26/stories/1060043360
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World Watches as U.S. Climate Saga Heads for Court Showdown
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Fifty-one years have passed since an American president first acknowledged a need to reduce the carbon dioxide the country adds to the world's atmosphere by burning fossil fuels.
The dangers of those greenhouse gases and the atmospheric changes they cause have become more apparent in the decades since. Oceans are warming and rising to threaten coastal communities, storms and floods are getting more unpredictable, and heat waves and droughts are intensifying.
The 1960s-era warning from President Lyndon B. Johnson has proved true, according to most scientists. Yet decades later, the federal government's biggest line of defense against climate change, U.S. EPA's Clean Power Plan, faces immense opposition.
The Obama administration heads to court tomorrow to lock horns against coal-dependent companies and mostly conservative-led states that oppose the rule to cut back on the biggest source of carbon emissions in the country, the electricity sector.
Coal- and natural gas-fired power plants are responsible for one-third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. While America is home to less than 5 percent of the world's population, it contributes around 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions — meaning U.S. commitments to international climate goals are key.
The Clean Power Plan alone would have a small effect on global temperatures, but environmental authorities say it has been crucial to spurring other countries to act. If it falls to legal challenges, diplomats warn, repercussions will be felt around the world.
"If the court were to strike down or water down the [Clean Power Plan], it would be a step backward," said Ronald Jumeau, the Seychelles' ambassador to the United Nations.
Jumeau's picturesque island nation off the coast of Africa relies on marine tourism and fisheries and has suffered the earliest effects of climate change. It is part of a group of nations pushing to keep the global temperature rise at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, rather than the 2 degrees the United States and industrialized countries propose.
Jumeau could go on about the impacts that greenhouse gases from the rest of the globe have had on Seychelles. But, he said, "we've been singing our song so long we sound like a scratched record."
"People in the U.S., they should look to what's happening in the U.S. itself, with tornadoes and the bad weather and floods," Jumeau said. "I don't know how we can spread that message. It's not something on the horizon. It's on your own beaches. It's going to happen to the U.S."
Tomorrow's court battle comes on the heels of a historic signing ceremony at the United Nations' headquarters in New York where 31 countries signed the Paris Agreement on climate change. By ratifying the deal struck in December 2015 to rein in rising emissions, the more than 60 countries now formally on board hope it can come into force this year.
If the agreement does enter into force, it would take four years for the United States to withdraw from the pact. That would protect the accord from, say, a Donald Trump presidency — but only if the Clean Power Plan, the cornerstone of America's contribution to the Paris Agreement, holds up.
Fighting about how, not whether, EPA can tackle CO2
After Johnson in 1965 briefly mentioned carbon concerns and stressed the problems from air and water pollution to Congress, U.S. lawmakers took five more years to act on his recommendations. To address a range of pollutants, they then greatly expanded the Clean Air Act, which EPA is using as the legal underpinning for the Clean Power Plan.
In the following decades, political leaders disagreed on whether to address carbon specifically.
In the late 1990s, President Clinton's administration took the position that carbon dioxide was an air pollutant like any other and tried to enter into an international deal, the Kyoto Protocol, to reduce emissions. But the U.S. Senate opposed the deal, and so did Clinton's successor, George W. Bush. Bush argued that his EPA couldn't regulate carbon dioxide like other pollutants.
At the end of his term in 2007, however, the Supreme Court decided in a divided 5-4 ruling that he was wrong. The court said EPA could regulate CO2 as a pollutant but didn't opine on the details.
That's why the big argument tomorrow focuses not so much on whether EPA can regulate carbon emissions, but how.
EPA and its supporters will argue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Supreme Court could take up the case, but if it doesn't, the lower court ruling could be final.
At the core of the debate, among other issues to be discussed tomorrow, is how EPA set individual carbon goals that states must reach. (Click here to see a full list of legal arguments.)
EPA could only cut carbon emissions so much by directing coal plants to make changes or shut down. But the agency can achieve much more by addressing the power system as a whole, and likely at a much lower cost to consumers.
The U.S. power sector is already shifting rapidly toward cleaner power, as coal use declines and lower-carbon natural gas and renewable power sources come online. That's been mainly because a boom in oil and gas development has led to low gas costs and renewable energy technologies have advanced quickly and gotten cheaper.
EPA set state carbon-reduction goals based on what the agency thought the power industry could achieve as a whole by speeding that shift. Recent studies show that many but not all states have already met the standards the Clean Power Plan would require in 2030, 14 years ahead of schedule.
How much weight to give Congress' failure to act?
To be sure, some states would have a harder time than others complying. States with more coal than natural gas power have tougher goals to meet. They would have to navigate job losses and revenue declines. And particular power companies that rely more on coal also face an uphill battle (ClimateWire, Sept. 19). (Click here to read about how EPA set state goals.)
The companies and states suing EPA say the agency can only regulate fossil-fuel power plants, not the entire power system. They contend that Congress didn't give EPA that kind of authority. And they say states should decide how to run their own energy systems.
In 2010, Congress failed to pass legislation that would have capped emissions from all industries and let companies that fall short of their goals purchase emissions allowances in a market. The House passed the measure, but a divided Senate didn't take it up. Instead of going back to Congress years later, President Obama turned the issue over to EPA.
Opponents say the botched 2010 attempt at limiting greenhouse gases was a sign that Congress hasn't authorized carbon regulation.
"There has always been the ability of Congress to engage further on this issue," said Robert Henneke, general counsel and litigation director for the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. "The lack of action indicates Congress representing the people that they were elected to serve."
David Doniger, a lead attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, countered that "too many members of Congress are subject to gravitational forces of the fossil fuel industry, and they don't execute the will of the people."
In truth, American voters have sent some people to Congress who favor action on climate. And they've sent others who are strongly opposed to it or are on the fence.
That tension and lack of national legislative action has left an opening for the legal system to make a decision, perhaps ahead of public consensus.
Polling suggests Americans as a whole are somewhere in the middle. A majority want to curb climate change, but they don't necessarily put that work above other priorities they look for in political candidates. While they want to solve the problem, they don't want to solve it at any cost.
Aside from the legal arguments that challengers will lay out tomorrow, the 28 states against the Clean Power Plan say that it would raise electricity costs and could jeopardize the reliability of the power grid.
The 18 states supporting EPA say the costs would be minimal at most and would be well worth the climate and health benefits of cutting carbon and reducing other air pollutants. That includes fewer cases of asthma and premature deaths but also counts the value of dialing back the severe weather that scientists predict will only get worse if global warming continues. Planning for disasters is increasingly expensive. (Click here to see which side your state is on.)
Reverberations for states' rights
What the courts decide could have implications outside of EPA's climate change regulations.
"This case could have very broad precedent depending on what the courts say," said Jim Rubin, a partner at law firm Dorsey & Whitney. "The risk EPA does with regulation like this is they lose and they lose bad. They could do damage to regulatory programs ... outside of climate change."
And even beyond that, a court ruling could serve as a referendum on how much power the federal government has compared to states in all matters.
"If, at the end of the day, you have 28 states that have all come together and challenged the federal government's authority and states lose, then do the states still have a voice and authority within our system of government?" Henneke asked.
Opponents of the Clean Power Plan say that aside from bypassing Congress, the rule commandeers states, forcing them to make certain policy decisions. EPA maintains, though, that states get to decide how to meet the standards.
Rubin, who has represented clients on both sides of the Clean Power Plan fight but is not engaged in the lawsuit, believes it's "unlikely there's going to be a straight up-or-down on this rule."
If EPA has to amend the rule, the process could take years. And it may not move forward at all if the next president is opposed to climate action. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton would continue Obama's climate legacy, while Republican nominee Trump would reverse course.
During those years, the power sector would move in the same general direction, but under a veil of uncertainty.
Malcolm Woolf, senior vice president for policy and government affairs for green business group Advanced Energy Economy, said he's already heard of investments stalling while companies wait to see what happens with the rule. The Supreme Court in February halted implementation of the Clean Power Plan while the judicial system sorts out whether it's legal, putting the power system further into limbo.
The D.C. Circuit likely won't make a decision until early next year, and after one side petitions for the Supreme Court to hear the case, the Supreme Court could take until next fall to decide whether to take it up. (Click here to see a full timeline.)
"If and when the Supreme Court hears the case and upholds EPA's authority, I think then you've got a clear market signal," Woolf said. "Until that happens, you've got a cloud over how is the country going to deal with carbon. For an investor, uncertainty hinders investment."
Walking down the streets today, the electric system doesn't look very different from recent history, Woolf said, but in the last five years, it has begun to change. In the next 20 years, it will transform dramatically, he said. People will control building temperatures with their smartphones. Everything will be more interactive and dynamic.
Woolf contends that the Clean Power Plan, in setting individual goals for each state, equalizes that progress around the country.
"There are some that are embracing this change faster than others. The Clean Power Plan creates a minimum," Woolf said. "What we don't want is to have parts of America left behind."
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/09/26/stories/1060043400
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The U.S. is on Course to Miss its Emissions Goals, and One Reason is Methane
Sep 26, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
In recent months, the key story of international climate policy has been about how quickly countries will join the Paris agreement, and cross the legal threshold to bring it into force. And as of now, that seems very close to happening.
As soon as it does, though, the question will shift. People will start asking not about which countries will join the deal and how quickly, but about whether any of these countries are on track to do what they’ve already said they would under the agreement — namely, hit their voluntarily pledged targets to cut their emissions.
And in many cases, that may be a lot harder than simply getting the agreement ratified or otherwise approved at home.
Take the U.S. It pledged, as part of the Paris process, to cut its emissions 26-to-28 percent below the level where they were in the year 2005 by the year 2025. And it outlined a bevy of policies, most prominently the contested Clean Power Plan, in order to get there.
Since then, there have been questions about how achievable this U.S. goal is — and now, a new study in Nature Climate Change appears to raise concerns to a new pitch. The paper, by Jeffery Greenblatt and Max Wei of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, does the math on current and proposed future U.S. climate policies and basically finds that it will be difficult (although certainly not impossible) for the country to hit its embraced target, without doing even more than is being contemplated right now.
“They said we’re going to make a 26-to-28 percent reduction, and here are the different ways we’re going to do that,” said Greenblatt in an interview. “We’re going to pass the Clean Power Plan, improve the efficiency of heavy duty trucks…We just looked at each of those policies, and did the best we could to look at what the impact of any of them would be.”
Greenblatt and Wei first sought to calculate what 2005 emissions actually were, and found that we don’t really know — or at least, not to a high level of precision. They estimate that we emitted between 6.323 and 7.403 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions in that year. That’s right: The high end and low end estimate diverge by over a billion tons.
Based on these numbers, Greenblatt and Wei calculate that the U.S. needs to reduce its annual emissions, in 2025, to between 4.553 billion and 5.478 billion tons in order to meet its goal. However, the study finds that based on three sets of expected policies — already finalized laws or regulations (like the Clean Power Plan); suggested laws, regulations, or executive actions; and future potential actions that have already been “announced” — the U.S. is still on course to fall short.
Specifically, the study finds that in 2025, with all three categories of policies, the U.S. might fall within the target range by as much as 356 million tons if we’re lucky — so success is possible — but emissions could also still exceed the range by as much as 924 million tons. “Further reductions will be necessary to close this gap with confidence,” the authors write.
So why are we so off? Here’s where the new research partly merges with one of the most contentious matters in current climate policy — the question of how much of the fast-acting greenhouse gas methane we’re emitting, and where it is coming from.
Earlier this year, the U.S. EPA increased its estimate for how much methane is being emitted by the oil and gas sector, and by the U.S. overall, in recent years. The new study has more or less done something similar.
“We made some corrections to the 2005 and 2025 estimates for methane,” says Greenblatt. In particular, he said, in 2005 these changes added 400 million additional tons of carbon dioxide equivalents emitted as methane.
Greenblatt emphasized that assumptions of higher methane emissions aren’t the only reason that the U.S. could miss its goals, but that it’s a significant one. “An increasing amount of methane emissions is part of the story,” he said.
Another reason for lingering uncertainty about whether the U.S. will meet its goals involves trees: There’s a large range in estimates of how much carbon they’re likely to absorb in coming years. And although this rarely gets mentioned, the U.S.’s overall policy goal relies not only on emitting less greenhouse gases, but also on storing large amounts in forests.
Problems such as these extend far beyond the U.S., of course. Similar questions are sure to be asked about other countries pledges, too. Moreover, multiple analyses have found that even if you hold countries at their word and they do achieve their pledges, it still won’t be enough to keep the warming of the planet below 2 degrees Celsius, which is an explicit target of the Paris agreement. So no matter what, global ambition is going to have to be raised.
“There is certainly need for further policy action,” said Greenblatt in an interview. But he added, “I think the U.S. should be complimented. They set their own target and they set out a path to meet it as best they could. I think if they need to work a little harder, that’s not an unexpected outcome.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/09/26/the-u-s-is-on-course-to-miss-its-emissions-goals-and-one-reason-is-methane/?utm_term=.32b2ce00f491
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Tribal Advocates Praise Obama Admin's Consultation Plans
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Tribal advocates are cheering the Obama administration's recent step forward on its promise to hold formal consultations with American Indian tribes on infrastructure planning.
The departments of the Interior, Justice and the Army announced the plan Friday, following through on their foray into the Dakota Access pipeline controversy earlier this month.
"The Obama Administration's call for national reform on this issue is a historic moment," Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman David Archambault II said in a statement. "We welcome the Administration's invitation to all tribes to consult on the process for decision-making on infrastructure projects."
The process, which invites representatives from all 567 federally recognized tribes to the table, is designed to address complaints from the Sioux and others that their input on project siting is not given enough weight. A listening session is set for Oct. 11 in Phoenix, followed by several consultation sessions around the country (E&ENews PM, Sept. 23).
Archambault and other tribal representatives were on Capitol Hill last Thursday, airing grievances to House Democrats who hosted a forum on the issue. Archambault argued that by the time the Sioux were consulted on the Dakota Access pipeline, most decisions had already been made.
The $3.8 billion pipeline, which would carry 570,000 barrels of oil from North Dakota to Illinois, is currently tied up in litigation and awaiting an easement from the Army Corps of Engineers.
The route does not pass through the Standing Rock reservation but does cross ancestral lands in North Dakota near the reservation, and would go beneath the Missouri River in an area of cultural significance to the tribe.
"We have already seen the damage caused by a lack of consultation," Archambault said. "The ancient burial sites where our Lakota and Dakota ancestors were laid to rest have been destroyed. The desecration of family graves is something that most people could never imagine."
The tribe is calling on the Army Corps to withhold permits until it performs a broad environmental impact statement.
The National Congress of American Indians praised last week's consultation announcement as an opportunity to "address longstanding issues of ensuring meaningful tribal input into infrastructure-related reviews and decision that impact tribal communities, resources, and lands."
"Tribal Leaders from across Indian Country have come together in an unprecedented show of support for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, in the fight to protect their water and cultural places," NCAI President Brian Cladoosby said in a statement. "So many of our tribal nations have dealt with the same type of issues protecting our natural and cultural resources."
Supporters of the Dakota Access pipeline, meanwhile, warned the administration against using the consultation process to roll back already-issued pipeline permits. The Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, or the MAIN Coalition, noted that it "agrees that tribal consultations should continue to play an important role in prospective infrastructure development."
But spokesman Craig Stevens said Dakota Access developers have already performed extensive outreach and rerouting to avoid cultural sites.
"The process to approve the Dakota Access Pipeline was done correctly; and these new discussions should not impact, retroactively, any ongoing infrastructure project or any infrastructure project that is currently under review for permitting," he said in an email. "To do so would have a chilling effect on private infrastructure development, negatively impact our economy, and cost Americans their jobs."
Dakota Access, the Army Corps and two tribes will appear in a federal appeals court next week to make their case for and against an emergency injunction blocking construction near the Missouri River. Today, opponents of the pipeline plan to rally in support of tribes outside the White House Tribal Nations Conference in Washington, D.C.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/09/26/stories/1060043390
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PHMSA Finds Last Year's Leidy Pipeline Rupture Caused by Corrosion
Sep 26, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
The rupture that knocked out full-service on a part of Williams' Leidy Line in Northeast Pennsylvania in June 2015 was caused by corrosion, according to a report from the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
The report, released over the summer, said the cause of the failure on Leidy line B near Unityville, PA, was "near-neutral stress corrosion cracking of the pipe." Shielding and coating failure, in addition to "cyclic pressures during bidirectional flow" were also identified as leading causes, PHMSA said.
Leidy delivers Marcellus Shale natural gas from Northeast Pennsylvania to the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line. A bidirectional system consisting of multiple pipes, the Leidy Line is capable of moving 3.5 Bcf/d. The failure occurred on a 24-inch diameter section of the line where it runs parallel to two others on June 9, 2015 (see Daily GPI, June 23, 2015; June 11, 2015). At the time, residents in the area reported hearing a loud roaring sound when the pipeline failed. About 150 people were evacuated by first responders as a precaution.
PHMSA said 96.4 MMcf of natural gas was released in the rupture. No injuries were reported and the incident caused "minimal environmental damage," the report said. Volumes on the system were not significantly affected. The company was able to reroute gas and make deliveries through the A and C lines, which were returned to normal operating pressures just a few days later.
PHMSA's investigation revealed that on the morning of the incident, Williams personnel repositioned valves on line B to allow gas to flow west to Leidy Storage. A review of records showed pressure slowly increased throughout the day. But the agency said operating pressure at the time of failure was 1,141 psi, which was below the 1,200 psi maximum allowable operating pressure.
The line was installed in 1963 and had no history of corrosion. A portion of the Texas Eastern pipeline, known as the Penn-Jersey system, exploded and caught fire in April in Westmoreland County, PA, causing significant property damage and severely burning one resident (see Daily GPI,April 29). In a preliminary investigation of that incident, PHMSA said corrosion was the likely cause (see Daily GPI, May 4). Spectra Energy later said that a failed tape coating likely contributed to the corrosion (see Daily GPI, Sept. 14).
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/107866-phmsa-finds-last-years-leidy-pipeline-rupture-caused-by-corrosion
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Dakota Access Operator Sunoco has Terrible Spill Record
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
The future operator of the Dakota Access oil pipeline, Sunoco Logistics Partners LP, spills crude more frequently than any of its competitors, an analysis by Reuters has found.
Sunoco has been responsible for over 200 leaks since 2010. It is also one of the largest pipeline operators in the country.
The company acknowledged the data collected by Reuters and said it had taken measures to reduce its spill rate.
"Since the current leadership team took over in 2012, Sunoco Pipeline has enhanced and improved our integrity management program," Sunoco spokesman Jeffrey Shields said by email.
The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is protesting the Dakota Access oil pipeline over fears that it will destroy sacred sites and lead to oil spills that imperil the tribe's drinking water.
Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II said the tribe was aware of the safety record of Energy Transfer Partners LP, Sunoco's parent company.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/09/26/stories/1060043413
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Trump Transition Pick Called 'Fox Guarding the Henhouse'
Sep 26, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
Environmental advocates recoiled today at the news that leading climate change skeptic Myron Ebell is leading Donald Trump's transition team for U.S. EPA.
Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute and a prominent foe of environmental advocates and climate scientists, is spearheading Trump's transition plans for EPA, according to sources close to the Trump campaign (E&E Daily, Sept. 26).
"Myron Ebell is a longtime climate-science-denying, red-baiting, anti-public-health-protection advocate," said Daniel Weiss, a longtime environmental advocate. "It's not surprising that Donald Trump would pick someone so far out of the mainstream. It would be like picking Colonel Sanders to protect your chickens."
Michael Mann, director of Pennsylvania State University's Earth System Science Center, has sparred frequently with Ebell and CEI, and Ebell has publicly disputed Mann's climate change research.
Mann wrote on Twitter today that Ebell's role in the GOP transition represents "why a Trump presidency would be a threat to the planet."
In an email, Mann said Ebell and CEI are "at the very center" of a decadeslong web of "deceit" by "right wing think tanks and industry front groups who have abetted the fossil fuel industry in their campaign to deny the reality and danger of human-caused climate change."
Mann called it "truly disturbing that any prospective president would consider appointing anyone associated with CEI to any higher office, let alone the EPA. If ever there was a case of the fox guarding the henhouse, this would be it."
CEI's opponents have long criticized the group for taking money from fossil fuel industry groups like Exxon Mobil Corp., arguing that the cash has influenced the think tank's climate skepticism.
Bill Snape, senior counsel for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Ebell "is a guy who thinks we should trust Exxon, BP and Shell Oil companies more than elected officials." Snape added, "His scientific views are way outside the mainstream of peer-review consensus."
Ebell told Vanity Fair in 2007, "We're not beholden to our donors, because we don't say, 'If you give us this money, we'll do this project.'" He added at the time, "I can't even quite tell you who supports us on global warming."
Greens see Ebell's role in the Trump transition as confirmation that, if elected, Trump would aim to dismantle the Obama administration's climate change policies and drastically reshape or eliminate the agency (see related story).
Bob Sussman, who worked on the EPA transition for the Obama administration and has served in top roles at the agency, said the selection "is not sending a reassuring message about the future of EPA under a Trump administration.
"Myron Ebell is a longtime skeptic and naysayer about everything that EPA does and indeed everything the Obama administration has done on environmental policy and climate. So we have to expect his advice to Trump will be very, very negative and non-supportive of the agency's mission," Sussman said.
Last fall, Trump vowed to cut EPA if he won the White House (Greenwire, Oct. 19, 2015). The Republican Party's platform stopped short of that but promoted turning EPA into a bipartisan commission (Greenwire, July 19).
Weiss said Ebell's transition role "makes it clear that Trump was serious when he said he wanted to destroy the EPA. ... Ebell is just the man to do that."
But some people in the energy world see Ebell's involvement as a promising sign for a possible Trump administration.
"Myron is aligned with many of Donald Trump’s public statements about EPA’s actions. He will be a great addition to the transition team," said Tom Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/09/26/stories/1060043415
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Courts Should Get Out of the Way of Energy Revolution, Learn from the ‘90s Telecom Revolution
Sep 26, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Reed Hundt
When the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals convenes oral arguments on the Clean Power Plan (CPP) this week, the court will act as the gatekeeper to what could be a powerful, wealth-creating transformation of the American economy away from fossil fuels and toward clean energy.
With the nation’s energy landscape already rapidly changing, the 5-4 Supreme Court stay of the Obama Administration’s cornerstone environmental rule flew in the face of the investors, innovators and city leaders who are driving the energy revolution. As a nation, we (and the courts) should draw upon the experience of the communications revolution of the 1990s, and the way smart regulation laid the foundation for today’s explosion in phone, Web and media.
By limiting pollution from power plants, the plan would slow our headlong rush to change our climate and in so doing would catalyze America’s growing renewable energy markets.
The five Justices who supported the Supreme Court’s unprecedented stay of the rule must have assumed that the Environmental Protection Agency regulation via the longstanding Clean Air Act would cause irreparable injury to some businesses—presumably utilities bent on burning coal to generate electricity and the firms that provide them coal.
What those Justices failed to consider is that the energy transition is taking place now, from the Iowa plains to the California desert to the mountain ridges of Maine, benefiting many more.
The parallels to the Telecom Act of 1996 are clarifying. As the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during the act’s implementation, I wish I could impart the fundamental lesson of that law to the Court: Regulation that pushes America into the beckoning brighter future is good for business, consumers, and the world.
The 84 separate regulatory actions the FCC took to implement the ‘96 Act and the numerous separate parts of the CPP are fundamentally based on the crucial, central point that regulation to catalyze new markets can produce major economic gains, and lead to the replacement of old methods of doing business with innovative life-enhancing techniques.
Many firms, in fact, did not survive the metamorphosis of communications from analog to digital, from wire line to wireless, from circuit-switched to packet-switched, from voice to Internet. But many other firms—far more wealth-creating businesses—were born, transformed, and given a chance to flourish because of the regulatory changes of the ‘96 Act.
More than $2 trillion in new wealth was created in the 1990s for American households. The federal budgets soared from big deficits to astounding surpluses. Unemployment fell and wages increased for all income levels, for the only years between the 1960s and today. If the firms afraid of these regulatory changes had succeeded in obtaining judicial proscriptions against innovation, the country and the world would be far worse off.
It is not just a tragedy, it is a blunder that the Supreme Court in staying the CPP did not understand the importance of regulating in favor of new markets, new opportunities, change itself.
The court ignored the thousands of cities and the millions of Americans who are demanding the clean, cheap, reliable energy that wind and solar technologies now provide. The court ignored the jobs that would be created if the budding renewable energy market were allowed to blossom. The court ignored the freedom that consumers should have to choose their energy sources in a competitive market now that technology can break up utility monopolies, and they ignored the right that all Americans have to clean air.
I hear these voices every day in coalitions across the country, through my work in more than a dozen states helping investors fuel the clean energy revolution via the nonprofit Coalition for Green Capital.
This revolution of innovation is an imperative driven by climate change, a threat we do not have the luxury of waiting to solve. The Pentagon has recognized climate change as a threat multiplier, instructing commanders to prioritize resilience to climate change in their operations. Health experts warn that climate change could undo the past 50 years of public health gains—spreading famine, disease, and extreme weather in unpredictable ways. Cities are investing in major infrastructure projects to protect against rising seas and extreme storms. Fire departments are preparing for record-long and increasingly deadly forest fire seasons. Farmers are updating irrigation systems to prepare for a dwindling water supply.
Americans are doing their best to avert and adapt to climate change. They recognize the need to overcome the entrenched fossil fuel interests and infrastructure of the status quo.
The wireless revolution of the last two decades and the budding renewable energy revolution aren’t that disparate. Outdated fossil fuel infrastructure and interests are keeping us entrenched in the 19th century technology of coal-fired power. If we take the path of least resistance and do nothing, we’ll continue to pollute our planet and warm the globe to devastating effect.
But if government sets the stage so that renewable energy is allowed to flourish in every state, we’d spur major economic growth and development. It’s time we let a 21st century clean, efficient energy system unfold – and, just like the wonders of today’s communications technology, we can look back on the marvels it produces for all of us.
Reed Hundt is the CEO of the Coalition for Green Capital, and was the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 1993 to 1997.
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/297756-courts-should-get-out-of-the-way-of-energy-revolution
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