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ACC AM 10/17/16
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(ACC Mentioned) The Cost Of Plastic Packaging
Oct 17, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
The changes have happened so gradually that most consumers haven’t even noticed, but a tremendous amount of plastics have crept onto supermarket shelves. -
(ACC Mentioned) North American Plastics Alliance Turns 5
Oct 16, 2016 | Canadian Plastics
The North American Plastics Alliance (NAPA) – a partnership between the continent’s four leading plastics industry trade associations to enhance sustainability and support growth – celebrated its fifth anniversary last month. -
(ACC Mentioned) eSOZO Computer & Network Services Brings National Recycling Celebration To Flemington
Oct 17, 2016 | nj.com
By Aaron Abernathy
On Tuesday, November 15, 2016, eSOZO Computer & Network Services will host an e-Recycling Customer Event, joining thousands of local organizers holding recycling events across the country to celebrate America Recycles Day (ARD), a national initiative of Keep America Beautiful. -
(ACC Mentioned) Five Bioaccumulative And Toxic Chemicals Fast-Tracked Under New US Law
Oct 17, 2016 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken one of its first concrete actions under the newly revamped law that regulates chemicals in America. -
Federal Judge Dismisses TSCA Claims In Elk River Suit
Oct 14, 2016 | Inside EPA
A federal district court judge has dismissed claims of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reporting mandate violations in a class action suit over pollution stemming from the 2014 Elk River chemical spill in West Virginia, saying the resident plaintiffs lack standing under the chemical safety law’s citizen suit provisions. -
A Few States Adopt Chemical Legislation Despite TSCA Reform
Oct 14, 2016 | The National Law Review
By Mark N. Duvall, Ryan J. Carra and Timothy M. Serie
State legislatures continue to consider legislation to restrict chemicals even as, at the federal level, the Toxic Substances Control Act has been thoroughly overhauled by the Frank R. -
Top Lobby Firm Eyes New Chemical Law As Big Business Driver
Oct 17, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Catherine Ho
Holland & Knight, one of Washington’s most lucrative lobby shops, has hired two former top congressional aides who helped draft a sweeping new law that changes the way the government regulates chemicals — a signal that K Street sees the law as an opportunity to capture new business. -
Activists Press Court to Compel EPA Perchlorate Rule
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Natural Resources Defense Council wants a federal court in New York to compel the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate perchlorate in drinking water, according to a legal filing by the advocacy group Nat. Res. Def. Council v. EPA, S.D.N.Y., No. 16-01251, 10/12/16. -
California Proposes Changing Safe Use Determination Hearing Process
Oct 17, 2016 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has proposed only calling oral hearings on a safe use determination (SUD) when requested. -
Despite New Safety Law, Chemicals In Cosmetics Still Not Regulated
Oct 14, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Christine M. Hill
In June, Congress passed sweeping legislation to update the way chemicals are used in consumer and industrial products. The new law aims to review old chemicals that are already in the marketplace and review new chemicals entering the marketplace. -
Oil Companies Seek to Preempt Anti-Fracking Campaigns
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Oldham
Oil companies, including Anadarko and Whiting, are pushing a ballot measure to amend Colorado's constitution so that others would find it harder to do the same, a preemptive bid to discourage future campaigns against hydraulic fracturing. -
Fracking Opponents Plan Protest At Aarade Led By Hogan
Oct 15, 2016 | AP (In The Washington Post)
Opponents of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas are hoping to send a message to Gov. Larry Hogan at a parade in western Maryland. -
Shale Coalition Sues Pennsylvania Over Gas Regulations
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
A coalition of natural gas developers sued Pennsylvania over the state's new oil and gas regulations, arguing that several of its provisions are costly, unclear and unlawful and conflict with other statutes ( Marcellus Shale Coalition v. Pa. Dep't Envtl. Protection, Pa. Commw. Ct., No. 573 MD 2016,complaint filed 10/13/16). -
Marcellus Shale Coalition Takes On Biggest Challenge Yet to Stop PA Drilling Rules
Oct 14, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Less than a week after they were implemented, the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) has filed a lawsuit targeting key provisions of new regulations for shale drillers, representing the first time the organization has taken such a wide-ranging legal action against the state and its Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). -
Fracking Fight Now In Pennsylvania Courts
Oct 14, 2016 | Fuelfix
By James Osborne
The nationwide fight by the oil and gas industry to block efforts to step up regulations in light of a historic drilling boom the past decade is now in the Pennsylvania courts. -
EPA Overstepping Authority to Foster Clean Power, Court Told
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency is overstepping its Clean Air Act authority to discourage construction of new coal-fired power plants in favor of cleaner generation sources the agencies prefers, opponents of carbon dioxide limits on new power plants said (North Dakota v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1381,briefs filed 10/13/16). -
Obama Carbon Rule ‘Dar Exceeded’ EPA Authority, Challengers Say
Oct 14, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A coalition of conservative states, energy companies and business interests fired their opening shots in the court fight against a key climate change rule, saying the federal government went far beyond its authority. -
China Mega-Merger Seen as Challenge to Oil-Refinery Giants
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Serene Cheong, Ann Koh and Alfred Cang
A merger of Sinochem Group and China National Chemical Corp. would create a new oil-refining challenger to established state-run behemoths that dominate the country's fuel-making business. -
Pipeline Regulator Offers Guidance for Firms on Fines
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
Pipeline operators stand to see higher penalties but also more guidance about how they are determined, according to a notice by federal regulators. -
Dakota Access Pipeline (DAP): 'Debate, Accusations and Protests' Spread
Oct 14, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
All sides continue to maneuver to strengthen their positions related to the nearly completed $3.8 billion Dakota Access oil pipeline, which Native American tribes want stopped in the midst of its construction covering four states, while backers and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) now argue already was thoroughly vetted to protect cultural and burial sites sacred to the tribes. -
How the Chemical Industry Joined the Fight Against Climate Change
Oct 16, 2016 | The New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi and Danny Hakim
It might seem surprising to find the world’s chemical companies on the front lines of preventing climate change, fighting to disrupt their own industries. -
Nations Reach Climate Deal to Cut Super Pollutant Hydrofluorocarbons
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Nearly 200 nations agreed early this morning to a global deal that by mid-century is to cut more than 80 percent of super-polluting hydrofluorocarbons, which if left unchecked would have an out-sized impact on global warming. -
Global Deal Reached On Heat-Trapping Refrigerants
Oct 14, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Jean Chemnick
Negotiators struck a deal this afternoon on curbing heat-trapping pollutants used in air conditioning and refrigeration. -
Cement Plant Pollution Control May Fall Short of EPA Goal
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Renee Schoof
The Environmental Protection Agency could fall well short of its goal to control air pollution from 85 percent of cement plants by the end of fiscal year 2016, according to preliminary data. -
Money For Nothing: Rethinking CO2
Oct 14, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Laurie Purpuro, Tim Peckinpaugh and Peter Nelson
Conventional wisdom holds that CO2 mitigation is prohibitively costly, in terms of dollars, jobs, and lost economic competitiveness.
Congressional Hearings - There are no relevant hearings to report at this time
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Chemical Security News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) The Cost Of Plastic Packaging
Oct 17, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Alexander H. Tullo
The growing use of plastic food packaging benefits consumers, but critics say industry isn’t doing enough to minimize the negative environmental impact
The changes have happened so gradually that most consumers haven’t even noticed, but a tremendous amount of plastics have crept onto supermarket shelves. Shoppers are tossing a lot of plastic packages into their carts that didn’t exist when they were kids. Cucumbers sleeved in polyethylene film are now ubiquitous in the produce department, as are sliced fruits in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) containers and chopped, ready-to-eat salads in polypropylene bags. People don’t have to make their own guacamole or hummus anymore—it comes already prepared in convenient polypropylene tubs.
Resealable plastic pouches, made from sophisticated multilayered films, are all over the supermarket. Shoppers can spot them on dry goods shelves containing granola, brown sugar, and beef jerky. They hang in refrigerator cases displaying shredded cheeses and cold cuts and are stacked in freezers filled with chicken, fish sticks, and french fries. Even tuna is starting to come in easy-to-open metallized pouches instead of the familiar stout can. Vacuum-packed steak, ribs, and chicken are a growing presence in meat department cases.In brief
Plastic packaging is taking over the supermarket, enveloping almost every food product we buy. Environmental activists say the material is causing the planet huge environmental damage and that the chemical industry should do more to make packaging easier to recycle. Industry acknowledges a need to improve but says it is combating an even bigger environmental challenge, food waste. C&EN’s cover story this week looks at this contentious debate, including ways in which the two sides are edging closer together.
Many industry critics think all these plastics are a bit much. “It’s so immensely curious how stupid modern packaging is,” William McDonough, a designer and sustainability guru, told a greenbiz.com reporter a few years back.
To McDonough and like-minded critics, flexible plastics, especially the newer multilayered films, are another excess of a throwaway society. They are much harder to recycle than the simpler metal, paper, and glass containers they replace. Too many of the new materials end up in landfills or bobbing around the ocean. And they make it all too easy for people to simply discard things without a thought to the damage they are doing to the planet.
The packaging industry, though, doesn’t think its products are so stupid. It sees plastics as a solution to another big environmental problem: food waste. Flexible plastics don’t shatter or dent, and if they are well-engineered, they don’t rip or puncture either. Their multilayered structures ensure long-term preservation of the food inside. And they are lighter and cheaper to transport than metals or glass.
“Plastic packaging today is so much more than a shopping bag or wrapping,” says Cindy Shulman, vice president of packaging and resins for ExxonMobil Chemical. “It really is about preservation and protection of food and getting it to people.”
At the same time, the industry can’t help but acknowledge the negative consequences of plastic waste. Companies are responding by making plastics thinner, saving on materials and environmental impact. They’re also beginning to make packages simpler and thus easier to recycle. With such steps, they hope to head off a serious backlash.
Consumers enjoy the convenience of plastic packaging even if they don’t realize the amount of engineering that goes into the multilayered structures. “There isn’t that awareness, even in the packaging industry,” says Jeff Wooster, global sustainability director for Dow Chemicals packaging and specialty plastics unit. “If you talk to someone whose expertise is designing corrugated containers, they might not understand why we use more than one plastic to make a package.”
But all those polymers in packaging film are there for their own special reasons. The workhorse is polyethylene, explains Susan Selke, director of Michigan State University’s School of Packaging. “As a general rule, if polyolefins will do the job, then they will be the least expensive,” she says.
Polyethylene gives the package its bulk and structural integrity. If more toughness is needed, a packaging company might opt for PET, the resin of choice for beverage containers. Polyethylene can also be used to seal the package. But often lower-melting-point ethylene-vinyl acetate is the better choice for that. And if the food inside the package is greasy, a food company might opt for a higher-end sealant such as DuPont’s Surlyn.
Most food packages need a barrier layer to protect against oxygen. Ethylene-vinyl alcohol (EVOH) is popular because it is more effective in blocking oxygen than polyethylene, PET, or nylon. If even more barrier is needed, a package might incorporate metallized film, Selke says.
To explain what flexible packaging brings to the food industry, experts often point to two examples: cucumbers and meat.
Shoppers may wonder what the heck plastic is doing on cucumbers, which did fine on their own for many years. But the polyethylene shrink wrap protects the surface of the cucumber and helps it retain moisture. According to the Flexible Packaging Association (FPA), the film extends the shelf life of a cucumber from three days to 14.
The steaks that consumers buy in the supermarket are usually packaged by the store’s own meat department in polystyrene foam trays and a film such as polyvinyl chloride. Distributed this way, FPA says, steaks generally last four days. If the meat is processed centrally and vacuum-packed in a multilayer film that includes an EVOH barrier, it can last for nearly a month.
Environmental advocates acknowledge the benefits that multilayer packages bring. Unlike other contentious products of the plastic industry, such as plastic bags and polystyrene foam, they aren’t being targeted for outright bans. But environmental activists argue that the industry should do something about the packaging waste that is mounting in the environment.
Everyone acknowledges that multilayer flexible containers are more difficult to recycle than simpler packages like aluminum cans or PET bottles. The layers can’t be separated, so they are shredded and re-extruded into plastic pellets together. Often they are relegated to lower value uses such as plastic lumber for park benches rather than new packages. Activists think of such downgrading, called cascaded recycling, as a last resort.
In January, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation released a report that quickly became influential. “The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics” attempts to reconcile industry and activists on the packaging issue. The report was the product of input from environmental groups like Ocean Conservancy as well as companies important to packaging such as Dow, the consumer products company Unilever, and the packaging firm Amcor.
“The New Plastics Economy” details the scale of the packaging waste problem. In 2013, industry produced 78 million metric tons of plastic packaging worldwide. Of that, 40% was landfilled and another 32% was “leaked” to the environment, polluting land and sea.
Only 28% of the plastic, the report says, was collected for further use. Half of that was incinerated for energy. The other half was recycled. After processing losses and cascaded recycling, just 2% of the original 78 million metric tons was recycled into the high-value applications it originated from.
Between the small amount of plastics collection and the lower value uses, only 5% of the packaging’s original value was retained. Losses to the economy because of the current system run as high as $120 billion per year.
“You have this highly engineered package that is used for maybe a few weeks, and then it sits for hundreds of years at a landfill,” says Conrad MacKerron, senior vice president of the corporate responsibility group As You Sow, who was a consultant for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation report. “Whether you are an environmental advocate or not, it is a waste of materials that have significant value. That’s not good business.”
These economic losses aren’t the only problems with plastic waste cited by the report. It points to the estimated 150 million metric tons of plastics currently residing in the world’s oceans. Packaging accounts for more than 60% of the plastics recovered in coastal cleanup operations. “Without significant action, there may be more plastic than fish in the ocean, by weight, by 2050,” the report says.
The environmental costs of packaging add up. Trucost, a consulting group that tabulates the environmental impact of business practices in dollar terms, conducted a study on behalf of the United Nations Environment Programme in 2014. Its report, “Valuing Plastic: The Business Case for Measuring, Managing and Disclosing Plastic Use in the Consumer Goods Industry,” looked at costs such as disposal and greenhouse gas emissions.
The report found the environmental cost of using all plastics to be $75 billion annually. The food and soft drinks sectors were the biggest contributors, accounting for 23% and 12% of the overall impact, respectively.
The cost of plastic packaging is high, but the cost of not using it may be higher. Ask any packaging industry official about sustainability, and food waste will come up quickly.
Indeed, the food waste issue is connected to some staggering statistics of its own. The world wastes a third of the food it produces, 1.3 billion metric tons per year, according to the Food & Agriculture Organization of the UN. In the U.S. alone, $165 billion is spent producing food that goes to waste, says the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. Manufacturing the wasted food accounts for 25% of U.S. freshwater use and 4% of U.S. oil consumption.
An oft-cited industry rule of thumb is that packaging represents only 10% of the energy required to make and deliver food to the consumer. This figure is from an Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment report that includes nonplastic packaging such as the cardboard boxes used to transport food.
Any reduction of that 10% can’t come at the expense of the other 90%, plastics advocates point out. “The most important thing we can do for sustainability is protect the food inside,” Dow’s Wooster says.
Improved food protection through better packaging can yield real environmental benefits. TheAustrian consulting group Denkstatt looked at steak packaged in a vacuum skin instead of the traditional combination of foam tray and film. Food waste declined from 34% to 18%, resulting in a 2,100-g CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas reduction per steak. In a recent study, Trucost took this example further and found a $606 decrease in environmental costs per metric ton of steak.
Generally, pricey foods such as meat reap a bigger benefit from packaging because they are more resource-intensive to produce than bulk goods such as rice. Dow’s Wooster sees that in the supermarket. The meat and cheeses on display around the perimeter of the store tend to have higher-tech packaging than the goods in the interior, where glass bottles, metal cans, and paper sacks still flourish. “The companies that deliver meat to the market are generally willing to invest in the packaging that extends the shelf life,” he says.
As You Sow’s MacKerron gets the arguments, but he suspects the industry has gone too far with all the plastics. “It really raises questions in my mind whether we are looking at overpackaging in some cases,” he says. Why must food last two years when six to eight months might do just fine? he asks.
David Clark, vice president of safety, environment, and sustainability at Amcor, says such instances are rare. “Our customers aim at delivering the most value to consumers,” he says. “They are not going to look for excessive packaging or to try to overpackage anything.” Amcor has a database of 4,885 life-cycle assessments (LCAs) of packaging. Most of them, he says, justify the use of plastics.
Even packaging that may seem over-the-top to the layperson can stand up under closer scrutiny. Take K-Cup-style single-serve coffee capsules. The LCA firm Quantis Canada conducted a study for the PAC Packaging Consortium, an industry group, comparing their impact to that of drip-brewed coffee. It found that under the best-case scenario, where drip-brewed coffee wasn’t wasted, the two come out even. And because the capsules offer portion control, they come out ahead when dumping old coffee from the pot is considered.
Amcor is also in the business of paper and aluminum packaging and for many years made glass bottles and aluminum cans, Clark points out. When compared side by side with these materials for packaging applications, he says, “plastics usually come out ahead.”
Earlier this year, Trucost followed the report it conducted for the UN with one commissioned by the American Chemistry Council, a trade association. “One of the questions was whether it would help reduce environmental costs if we switched away from using plastic,” says Libby Bernick, senior vice president at Trucost. “In fact, it wouldn’t help at this point, given the environmental costs of the alternative materials. It would make things worse.”
The company compared plastics with a basket of materials such as aluminum, paper, and glass. It found that the environmental impact of the alternatives was better than plastics per kilogram. However, in most applications, much less plastic is needed. In food packaging, for example, 4.6 times the amount of alternative materials is required to do the same job as plastics.
Such comparisons don’t absolve the industry, As You Sow’s MacKerron points out. “If consumer brands are putting disruptive materials onto the market, they need to somehow pay for or take responsibility for post-consumer collection and recycling,” he says. “I don’t think you can just say, ‘Your LCA says it has fewer greenhouse gases so it’s okay.’ ”
Industry ownership of the problem is a big part of the “New Plastics Economy” report. The emphasis is on a circular economy, in which the industry cultivates a supply chain for used materials so they will be reused—ideally in their original, high-value applications. The report calls on industry to simplify the materials it uses in multilayer packaging. It suggests a “search for a ‘superpolymer’ with the functionality of today’s polymers and with superior recyclability.”
Combining toughness, flexibility, barrier properties, and other attributes into a single polymer is probably a long way off, but the industry is trying to simplify packages to facilitate recycling.
Dow, for instance, has developed a stand-up pouch made entirely of polyethylene. The package, Dow’s Wooster acknowledges, doesn’t have great barrier properties. But it does have one food application, Tyson frozen chicken sold in Mexico, and it’s being rolled out for a big nonfood use: Seventh Generation dishwasher pods.
Bernard Rioux, who heads global marketing for DuPont’s packaging resins business, says a single superpolymer may be unnecessary because different kinds of polyolefins can be recycled together. “Meat packaging can be purely polyolefin based,” he says. Rioux adds that one good step in the direction of single-polymer packaging would be getting rid of the metallized layers needed for high-barrier packaging.
Amcor’s AmLite technology is precisely along these lines. It involves applying a micrometer-thick silicon oxide layer to a polyolefin film. The silicon oxide has a lower carbon footprint than aluminum and performs just as well, Amcor’s Clark says. “It is essentially like a thin layer of glass on the inside of the plastic.”
Juice pouches and other flexible packages made with the AmLite technology can have a 40% smaller carbon footprint than conventional metallized pouches, according to Clark. Similar technology is already used in plastic wine bottles, where it reduces the weight of the bottles by up to 90% and allows for 30% more wine to be loaded onto each truck. In rigid applications, Clark claims, the technology has also proven to be more compatible with recycling than polymer barriers.
Applications such as this that use less material are the plastics industry’s go-to strategy for minimizing cost and environmental impact. According to Trucost, if the industry could reduce materials consumption in food and beverage applications by 30%, $7.3 billion in environmental costs could be avoided.
To do that, chemical companies will have to come up with materials that can do the same job with less. This is one of the reasons tougher, metallocene-catalyzed polyethylene has been gaining in popularity.
According to ExxonMobil’s Shulman, one classic failure that occurs in plastic packages, such as large sacks for rice, are pinholes that come from the stress of shipping. With newer high-performance polyethylenes such as ExxonMobil’s Exceed XP, “you no longer get those holes,” she says.
That same quality, Shulman says, allows companies to downgauge a product such as the shrink wrap for beverage six-packs by about 50%. Compared with a cardboard carton, she adds, such a wrap delivers a 70% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
DuPont’s Rioux says the industry is reaching the limit in terms of how much traditional downgauging it can do. He advocates another emerging approach to making films thinner, called coextruded biorientation.
Biaxial orientation—stretching polymer films to align their polymer chains—is not new. Biaxially oriented polypropylene is used in most potato chip bags. But it hasn’t been used on multilayered film until now. The trick, Rioux says, is keeping the polymers in the amorphous state during the melt phase to prevent crystallization. “You have to control 50 different parameters to make it work. But it works,” he says.
Premium plastics made with coextruded biorientation might not be the “superpolymers” the “New Plastics Economy” report had in mind, but they do help ease the environmental burdens of plastics. Industry and its critics may disagree on a lot, but no one can argue with charging good money for a plastic that will only be used in small amounts.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i41/cost-plastic-packaging.html
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(ACC Mentioned) North American Plastics Alliance Turns 5
Oct 16, 2016 | Canadian Plastics
NAPA is made up of the Society of the Plastics Industry, the plastics division of the American Chemistry Council, the Canadian Plastics Industry Association, and Mexico’s Asociación Nacional de Industrias del Plástico.
The North American Plastics Alliance (NAPA) – a partnership between the continent’s four leading plastics industry trade associations to enhance sustainability and support growth – celebrated its fifth anniversary last month.
Made up of the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI), the plastics division of the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA), and Mexico’s Asociación Nacional de Industrias del Plástico, NAPA is designed to be a forum that allows the groups to move the entire plastics industry forward through coordinated advocacy, product stewardship programs, and other efforts aimed at increasing plastics recycling and energy recovery throughout North America.
“The story of the plastics industry in North America can be divided into two periods: before NAPA and after NAPA,” said SPI president and CEO Bill Carteaux. “The after-NAPA period has been altogether more productive and more beneficial for each of our organizations’ members and our nation’s plastics industries. This year NAPA diligently enhanced its outreach efforts and more effectively integrated ANIPAC into its ongoing operations. The results have been a more complete and unified voice that has begun to reverberate throughout North America on behalf of all its plastics manufacturers.”
NAPA concentrates its efforts in four specific areas: outreach to promote better understanding of plastics’ economic, social and environmental contributions; advocacy to encourage public policy that supports the growth of the plastics industry and to defend against specific product attacks by providing factual information while fostering innovation; energy recovery and recycling to facilitate increased recycling and recovery of plastics’ stored energy content; and pellet containment to extend wide-scale adoption of Operations Clean Sweep throughout North America and beyond.
“For plastics companies in North America, NAPA quadruples the value proposition of joining one of the four NAPA-aligned organizations,” said Carol Hochu, president and CEO of CPIA. “Our members benefit from having a built-in advocate for their business throughout the continent, in addition to in the country where they’re headquartered, and NAPA offers them access to resources they can use to grow their business globally.”
http://www.canplastics.com/canplastics/north-american-plastics-alliance-turns-5/1003439042/
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Oct 17, 2016 | nj.com
By Aaron Abernathy
FLEMINGTON – On Tuesday, November 15, 2016, eSOZO Computer & Network Services will host an e-Recycling Customer Event, joining thousands of local organizers holding recycling events across the country to celebrate America Recycles Day (ARD), a national initiative of Keep America Beautiful.
eSOZO is hosting a customer only e-Recycling Day on November 15th from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm at our office in Flemington.
Electronics that are accepted include:
• Computers (PC, MAC, Server)
• Laptops (PC or MAC)
• Flat screens
• CRT Monitors
• Printers
• Network Equipment
• Stereo, VCRs & DVDs
• TVs
• Phones"Electronics recycling in NJ is hard to find, especially for businesses that have a lot of old, broken, or unused equipment taking up valuable space. We offer this as a free service to our customers to make running their businesses a little easier," said Aaron White, President, eSOZO. "One of valued customers, Lane O'Shea, Esq., Physician Resources, said this about our last event, 'the team at eSOZO was fantastic and we were thrilled to be able to participate in a good cause (not to mention clean out the unintended Gear Graveyard we were fostering in the basement, closets, and hallways of our offices). Thank you so much for helping with unloading everything (and it was a lot!) and giving us the chance to support those who can use it.'"
"America Recycles Day provides a key moment in time to regain momentum for recycling in America, and to help make recycling a daily social norm across the country," said Brenda Pulley, senior vice president, recycling, Keep America Beautiful. "Get involved by conducting an America Recycles Day event in your hometown. Take the "I Will Recycle" Pledge and invite your friends, family and neighbors to do the same. Let's get people recycling every day – at home, at work and on the go!"
For more information about e-recycling at eSOZO Computer & Network Services, visit https://americarecyclesday.org/event/e-recycling-day-at-esozo/ or call 1-888-376-9648.
America Recycles Day is the only nationally recognized day and coast-to-coast community-driven awareness campaign dedicated to promoting and celebrating recycling in the United States. It has been held on – and in the weeks leading into – Nov. 15 since 1997.
In 2014, more than 2,000 America Recycles Day events were registered, engaging more than 2 million estimated participants nationwide. More than 200,000 people have taken the "I Will Recycle" Pledge online and in paper form at ARD events, joining a growing movement of caring citizens committed to increase the recycling rate in America and to learn how to recycle right.
America Recycles Day is made possible through the generous support of Amcor, American Chemistry Council, CyclePoint from Source America; Johnson & Johnson Family of Consumer Companies, Northrop Grumman Corporation and Pilot Corporation of America (Pilot Pen).
About eSOZO Computer & Network Services
eSOZO wants to be the kind of IT partner who is always happy to answer your questions or hear your ideas. While some off-site support companies may not even seem that familiar with you, we hope to become a trusted and valuable resource for all of our small and medium business clients. eSOZO has been a trusted provider of managed IT services supporting servers, desktop computers, and network infrastructure for over a decade. Although based in central NJ, our remote management software and strategic partnerships have extended our reach across the USA and to numerous sites around the globe. We offer a breadth of cost-effective and professional IT services that are ideal for small to mid-size businesses looking for scalable solutions to support their continued growth. Join our social networks for up to date technology information. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube.About Keep America Beautiful
At Keep America Beautiful, we want to ensure that beauty is our lasting signature. A leading national nonprofit, Keep America Beautiful inspires and educates people to take action every day to improve and beautify their community environment. We envision a country where every community is a clean, green, and beautiful place to live. Established in 1953, Keep America Beautiful provides the expertise, programs and resources to help people end littering in America, increase recycling in America, and beautify America's communities. The organization is driven by the work and passion of more than 600 community-based Keep America Beautiful affiliates, millions of volunteers, and the support of corporate partners, municipalities, elected officials, and individuals. To learn how you can donate or take action, visit kab.org. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, like us on Facebook, or view us on YouTube.http://blog.nj.com/new_jersey_businesses_whats_happening/2016/10/esozo_computer_network_services_brings_national_recycling_celebration_to_flemington.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Five Bioaccumulative And Toxic Chemicals Fast-Tracked Under New US Law
Oct 17, 2016 | Chemistry World
By Rebecca Trager
First test of powers of revamped Toxic Substances Control Act
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken one of its first concrete actions under the newly revamped law that regulates chemicals in America. It plans to reduce exposure to five persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) chemicals. The EPA is required to make such a list under the new updated Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that became law earlier this year, which expands the agency’s authority on testing of new and existing chemicals.
‘The threats from persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals are well-documented,’ said Jim Jones, assistant administrator for the EPA’s office of chemical safety and pollution prevention, in a statement. ‘The new law directs us to expedite action to reduce risks for these chemicals, rather than spending more time evaluating them.’
The five PBT chemicals that will be fast-tracked are decabromodiphenyl ether (Deca-BDE), which is used as a flame retardant in textiles, plastics and polyurethane foam;hexachlorobutadiene, which is used in the manufacture of rubber compounds and lubricants and as a solvent; pentachlorothiophenol, which is used as an agent to make rubber more pliable in industrial uses; tris(4-isopropylphenyl) phosphate, which is used as a flame retardant in consumer products and other industrial uses; and 2,4,6-tris(tert-butyl)phenol, which is used as a fuel, oil, gasoline or lubricant additive. The deadline for the agency to act on these chemicals is June 2019.
The updated TSCA law provided manufacturers with an opportunity to request that the EPA conduct risk evaluations for PBT chemicals by September 2016 as an alternative to expedited action. The agency has been asked to conduct risk evaluations for two chemicals that can be used in fragrance mixtures.
However, the EPA said it must move ahead to take expedited action on the remaining PBT five chemicals it has identified, in order to reduce exposure ‘to the extent practicable’. After the EPA finishes identifying where these chemicals are used and how people are exposed to them, it plans to propose limits on their use.
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) highlights the fact that the revamped TSCA law requires the EPA to conduct an exposure assessment to better understand sources and levels of exposures for these PBTs. ‘We expect that, in addition to identifying the substances, EPA will make clear how it expects to conduct the additional analyses that will support an eventual decision on the measures that might be necessary to control exposures,’ the trade group said.
Meanwhile, the Environmental Working Group’s legislative attorney, Melanie Benesh,expressed hope that the EPA’s move to take expedited action on these five PBT chemicals indicates that the agency will work quickly to meet the strict deadlines required by the new TSCA law. ‘But, we are deeply disappointed that industry is exploiting a loophole in the new law to delay action on two chemicals commonly used in fragrances,’ she added, suggesting that they are also believed to build up in bodies and should therefore be subject to the same expedited deadlines as other PBT chemicals.
Beyond PBTs, since the TSCA law was updated earlier this year, the EPA has also prohibited the export of five mercury compounds, effective January 2020.
https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/five-bioaccumulative-and-toxic-chemicals-fast-tracked-under-new-us-law/1017565.article
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Federal Judge Dismisses TSCA Claims In Elk River Suit
Oct 14, 2016 | Inside EPA
A federal district court judge has dismissed claims of Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) reporting mandate violations in a class action suit over pollution stemming from the 2014 Elk River chemical spill in West Virginia, saying the resident plaintiffs lack standing under the chemical safety law’s citizen suit provisions.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia Judge John T. Copenhaver, Jr., in an Oct. 12 order inCrystal Good, et al., v. American Water Works, et al., dismissed the claims on the grounds that any injury to plaintiffs related to Eastman Chemical Company’s failure of compliance with the TSCA provisions “conjectural or hypothetical rather than concrete and particularized” and that the claims fail to meet the legal bar of redressablity for showing standing.
The resident plaintiffs in the suit alleged that Eastman Chemical Company, a defendant in the litigation, violated section 8(e) reporting requirements under TSCA that mandate that companies report any data supporting findings that a substance “poses a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment.”
Along with a host of toxic tort claims that Eastman failed to warn of dangers from the chemical release, negligently characterized the risk from the spill, and negligently sold the chemical to another company without proper safety instructions, the plaintiffs charge that under TSCA section 8(e) the company failed to submit to EPA 22 studies supporting the finding that the chemical posed a risk.
The spill, which occurred Jan. 9, 2014 occurred when a tank owned by Freedom Industries, holding 4-methylcyclohexane methanol (MCHM) purchased from Eastman, ruptured and spilled more than 5,000 gallons of the hazardous substance into the Elk River.
The judge’s order dismisses the TSCA claims, finding they could not meet the bar under TSCA’s citizen suit provisions to show that the claims would address a “continuing or threatened injury” that could be addressed by the relief sought, in this case a restraining order forcing Eastman to immediate comply with the section 8(e) requirements.
Copenhaver writes that while the threat of exposure to crude MCHM due to ongoing releases from coal prep plants could conceivably represent an ongoing or future threat of injury to the plaintiffs, this is precisely the type of “conjectural or hypothetical” future harm that the Supreme Court has dismissed as insufficient to support standing, citing the 1992 ruling in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife.
Instead, the order says, the plaintiffs’ injuries were suffered as a result of the spill, and are “at most, minimally relevant to their purely prospective TSCA claims.”
On redressability, the order says, “That is, plaintiffs cannot show that it would be ‘likely,’ as opposed to merely ‘speculative,’ that the injury will be ‘redressed by a favorable decision,’” citing Lujan, because the plaintiffs sought only an order direct Eastman to comply with the section 8(e) requirements, and to begin keeping records on reported health effects from crude MCHM. “To the extent plaintiffs face a threat of exposure to crude MCHM, none of these measures would ameliorate that situation,” the order says.
http://insideepa.com/news-briefs/federal-judge-dismisses-tsca-claims-elk-river-suit
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A Few States Adopt Chemical Legislation Despite TSCA Reform
Oct 14, 2016 | The National Law Review
By Mark N. Duvall, Ryan J. Carra and Timothy M. Serie
State legislatures continue to consider legislation to restrict chemicals even as, at the federal level, the Toxic Substances Control Act has been thoroughly overhauled by the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act. As previously reported here, over 60 bills to restrict chemicals in various ways were introduced earlier this year. Now that many state legislative sessions have ended, it’s time to assess the results.
Most of the bills failed to pass. The following three bills were enacted:
In the District of Columbia, the Mayor signed into law Carcinogenic Flame Retardant Prohibition Amendment Act of 2015, which set up a two-step road map to restrict the use of two flame retardant chemicals, first in children’s products and residential upholstered furniture and then to consumer products in general (other than exempt products). The Congressional review period ended in August 2016; and the Act became part of D.C. law effective from May 12, 2016. A separate alert on this legislation is available here.
In Washington, the Governor signed into law H.B. 2545 / S.B. 6440, a bill that restricts manufacturing, knowingly selling, offering for sale, distributing for sale, or distributing for use five flame retardant chemicals in children’s products and residential upholstered furniture. The law became effective on June 9, 2016.
In New York, A.B. 172 / S. 5322 became the law after the Governor signed it on September 9, 2016. This law effectively prohibits mercury-added wheel weights by disallowing registration of vehicles that use these weights and outlawing sale, offer to sell, or distribution of such weights. The law became effective immediately upon enactment, but the deadlines for both requirements are in 2018.
The plethora of legislation introduced in 2016, double the number of similar bills introduced in 2015, reflects the continued interest of states in regulating chemicals. That only three of the bills passed is not unusual in light of recent experience.
The impact of TSCA reform enactment on the introduction of state chemicals legislation will likely be seen early in 2017, when most bills for that legislative session will be introduced. Stay tuned!
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/few-states-adopt-chemical-legislation-despite-tsca-reform
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Top Lobby Firm Eyes New Chemical Law As Big Business Driver
Oct 17, 2016 | The Washington Post
By Catherine Ho
Holland & Knight, one of Washington’s most lucrative lobby shops, has hired two former top congressional aides who helped draft a sweeping new law that changes the way the government regulates chemicals — a signal that K Street sees the law as an opportunity to capture new business.
Ben Dunham and Dimitri Karakitsos were once adversaries who are now working under the same roof. Dunham was a top adviser to the late senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), after whom the law was named, and Karakitsos was his Republican counterpart, working as the senior staffer for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. For five years starting in 2009, as their bosses fought over what the bill should include, Dunham and Karakitsos worked together to organize hearings, briefings and meetings with industry groups to weigh in on the measure. They drafted an early version of what would later become the basis of the legislation that became law in June.
Environmental lobbyist Rich Gold, who leads Holland’s $20 million-a-year lobbying department, had a front-row seat to the action, as he lobbied on behalf of chemical companies seeking to shape the legislation. Gold recruited Dunham, who joined the firm over the summer, and Karakitsos, who starts Monday. Dunham had been working at another firm, Dentons, since 2014. Karakitsos comes directly from the Hill.
“It was always something we had our heads down and were working really hard on, me from the lobbying side and Ben and Dimitri on the Hill,” Gold said. “This is in some sense getting the band back together again.”
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which amends the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), was signed into law by President Obama in June. The law gives the Environmental Protection Agency more authority to evaluate the safety of chemicals that go into nearly every product sold to consumers, including paint, cleaners, detergent and cars.
[The president just signed a law that affects nearly every product you use]
Dunham and Karakisos are now advising Holland’s corporate clients — chemical manufacturers, trade groups for consumer products, and retailers — in influencing how the EPA will implement the law.
“We have the folks that were there at the birth of the baby and know the history and have good relationships with the EPA and the folks that will be implementing the law and know where things should be headed,” Gold said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/10/17/top-lobby-firm-eyes-new-chemical-law-as-big-business-driver/
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Activists Press Court to Compel EPA Perchlorate Rule
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
The Natural Resources Defense Council wants a federal court in New York to compel the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate perchlorate in drinking water, according to a legal filing by the advocacy group Nat. Res. Def. Council v. EPA, S.D.N.Y., No. 16-01251, 10/12/16.
“When Congress directed EPA to propose regulations “not later than” a certain date, it fairly assumed that the agency would fulfill its statutory mandate,” the group told the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Oct. 12 in a motion for summary judgment.
The EPA determined in February 2011 that it should regulate the chemical based on its effects on the thyroid. The Natural Resources Defense Council sued in early 2016 when no proposed rule had yet been issued, despite the Safe Drinking Water Act requirement for a proposed rule 24 months after the determination to regulate.The group said there is no ambiguity in the language of the Safe Drinking Water Act. “Therefore, once EPA published its determination to regulate, the agency had a non-discretionary duty to issue maximum contaminant level goals and promulgate national primary drinking water regulations for perchlorate,” the group said.While the environmental advocacy group has filed for summary judgment against the EPA, both sides are negotiating an agreement on deadlines for issuing the regulations. According to the group's motion, no agreement has been reached, but both sides will inform the court if and when they do reach one.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=98865005&vname=dennotallissues&fn=98865005&jd=98865005
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California Proposes Changing Safe Use Determination Hearing Process
Oct 17, 2016 | Chemical Watch
California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (Oehha) has proposed only calling oral hearings on a safe use determination (SUD) when requested.
The agency says public hearings are not well attended and public comments are rarely made at them. Holding a public hearing in all instances is, it says, therefore "neither necessary, nor prudent in establishing an efficient SUD process".
Under Proposition 65, interested persons may ask Oehha to develop an SUD. These represent the agency's formal determination on whether a particular product, or exposure to a listed chemical, is subject to warning requirements.
Oehha says businesses requesting an SUD are usually fairly certain their product or activities are below safe harbour levels that need a warning. It says they would like Oehha’s judgement to reinforce this claim.
The consultation on the proposed amendments is open until 28 November.
https://chemicalwatch.com/50317/california-proposes-changing-safe-use-determination-hearing-process
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Despite New Safety Law, Chemicals In Cosmetics Still Not Regulated
Oct 14, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Christine M. Hill
In June, Congress passed sweeping legislation to update the way chemicals are used in consumer and industrial products. The new law aims to review old chemicals that are already in the marketplace and review new chemicals entering the marketplace.
So this means chemicals in cosmetics will be reviewed for safety now, right? Wrong.
The new law will regulate chemicals in cleaners and carpets, but not those in food and cosmetics. That’s because food and cosmetics chemicals are regulated by theFood and Drug Administration, not the Environmental Protection Agency.
So, until Congress acts again, cosmetics companies will still be able to put just about anything in their lotions, shampoos and other personal care products.
Fortunately, bipartisan bills have been introduced in the Senate and the House to screen cosmetics chemicals and give the FDA more oversight powers.
As EWG recently testified, many of these chemicals have been linked to serious health problems, including cancer and reproductive harm.
Let's hope the next Congress will build on recent chemical safety reforms to finally update cosmetics law, which has remained largely unchanged since 1938. Until then, consumers can look to tools like EWG's Skin Deep® for direction on how to avoid dangerous chemicals in cosmetics.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/10/despite-new-safety-law-chemicals-cosmetics-still-not-regulated
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Oil Companies Seek to Preempt Anti-Fracking Campaigns
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Jennifer Oldham
Oil companies, including Anadarko and Whiting, are pushing a ballot measure to amend Colorado's constitution so that others would find it harder to do the same, a preemptive bid to discourage future campaigns against hydraulic fracturing.
The companies have contributed more than $2.5 million in support of an initiative known as Amendment 71 that would require campaigns to collect signatures from all 35 state Senate districts to qualify a measure for the ballot. Today, most circulate petitions in urban areas to save money. Once an initiative makes the ballot, it would require 55 percent of the vote to pass, compared to a majority now.
Colorado is outmatched only by California and Oregon in citizen-led attempts to change its constitution. Good government advocacy groups say Amendment 71 is an attempt by well-heeled special interests to thwart such grass-roots efforts. Energy companies, along with realtors, home builders, pork and dairy producers, bankers and hospitals contend the state's direct-democracy revolution has gone too far.
“There is a common theme among these individuals and that is they've been the target of constitutional amendments that would profoundly change the way they do their business,” said Josh Penry, a former Republican state Senate minority leader and consultant to the “Raise the Bar” campaign. “This is a hedge against that in the future.“
To qualify an amendment for the ballot, Colorado requires a campaign to obtain 5 percent of the total votes cast for all candidates for the secretary of state in the previous general election—an easier bar than other direct initiative states that stipulate a percentage of those who voted for governor.
Coloradans approved 158 such amendments—about six times more than found in the U.S. Constitution. Amendment 71 joins six other citizen-driven proposals on Colorado's ballot that strive to raise the minimum wage, hike tobacco taxes, institute a state-run health care system and allow the terminally ill a right-to-die. The state is tied for second, with South Dakota, for the number of citizen initiatives on the Nov. 8 ballot. California ranks first with 15.
Company Contributions
More than half of the almost $4.2 million collected by the “Raise the Bar” campaign was contributed by Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Noble Energy Inc., PDC Energy Inc. and Whiting Petroleum Corp. and oil and gas lobbyists and firms. The money has financed a six-figure media buy.
The drillers, among those that account for about 70 percent of the state's $10 billion output, dodged the most recent attempt to restrict exploration near homes in August. A proposal known as Initiative 78 fell about 21,000 signatures short of the 98,492 required to qualify it for the ballot. A second measure that could have effectively banned fracking also failed.
Those two anti-fracking campaigns, which raised mere thousands compared to energy companies’ $13.5 million war chest, were the latest unsuccessful bids in a years-long attempt by residents and communities to limit fracking as oil and gas development encroaches on urban areas. They claim the practice pollutes the air and water and want more local control over citing drilling pads. The state currently regulates oil and gas exploration in Colorado.
Proponents of Amendment 71 say Colorado is often targeted by national special-interest groups to push their agenda because of the low threshold to qualify.
“These groups that run these anti-fracking measures aren't grassroots—they are backed by national and sometimes international groups,” said Karen Crummy, communications director for Protecting Colorado's Environment, Economy and Energy Independence. “They come to Colorado because it's so much easier to get a constitutional amendment passed here than in other states.”
A majority of respondents to several recent polls supported Amendment 71, although as many as one in three said they are unsure how they will vote. Of the 540 registered voters surveyed for a Colorado Mesa University-Rocky Mountain PBS Pollreleased Sept. 22, 52 percent favored the measure, 17 percent opposed and 30 percent did not know.
Effort to Thwart Campaign
Opponents of the Colorado initiative say gathering signatures from 2 percent of the registered voters in each state Senate district would make it cost-prohibitive to propose amendments. The geographic requirement would allow opponents to run a decline-to-sign campaign in one district that could thwart an entire initiative, they add.
“Amendment 71 is an attempt by political elites and wealthy special interests to make the constitution off limits to all but the wealthiest,” said Elena Nunez, executive director of Colorado Common Cause, a Denver-based nonprofit. “The real irony is you have wealthy special interests coming together saying they want to protect Colorado from wealthy special interests.“
Among the many unlikely bedfellows that comprise the opposition to 71 including the Republican and Democratic parties of Denver County, NARAL Pro-Choice Colorado and the Colorado Campaign for Life, the free-market Independence Institute and liberal Colorado Common Cause. All seek to preserve their access to the amendment process.
Amendment 71 grew out of a statewide effort backed in part by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper to resolve a debate over whether the constitutional amendment process encourages what the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel deemed “hare-brained” change and what Denver Mayor Michael Hancock called “gimmicks” and “fads.“
Proponents cite an existing amendment known as the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which lawmakers said has hamstrung their ability to properly fund schools, infrastructure and human service programs, as proof the process must change. The measure, approved by voters in 1992, prohibits state and local governments from raising taxes without voter agreement and caps certain spending through a formula based on population growth and inflation.
Energy explorers would have left Colorado “in droves if voters ever approved ballot initiative 78,” according to an Aug. 29 Bloomberg Intelligence report. Seeking to prevent future anti-fracking measures, an issue committee backed by energy firms donated $2 million left over from the campaign against the August initiatives to pro-Amendment 71 forces.
“Raise the Bar is an effort to prevent future initiatives designed to protect communities from fracking,” Razz Gormley of Frack Free Colorado in a Sept. 28 statement. “This is corporate money, primarily from the oil and gas industry, being spent to take direct democracy away from citizens.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=98864994&vname=dennotallissues&fn=98864994&jd=98864994
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Fracking Opponents Plan Protest At Aarade Led By Hogan
Oct 15, 2016 | AP (In The Washington Post)
OAKLAND, Md. — Opponents of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas are hoping to send a message to Gov. Larry Hogan at a parade in western Maryland.
Thomas Meyer of Food and Water Watch says in a statement that anti-fracking activists will take positions Saturday along the Autumn Glory Parade route in Oakland. Hogan is grand marshal of the parade.
Meyer says demonstrators will peacefully and respectfully convey their message that they oppose the state’s plan to allow fracking in the state as soon as October 2017. The Department of the Environment issued a set of proposed regulations last month.
Hogan is wrapping up a three-day swing through western Maryland to promote his administration’s projects and campaign for fellow Republicans.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fracking-opponents-plan-protest-at-parade-led-by-hogan/2016/10/15/5fe6f364-92c8-11e6-bc00-1a9756d4111b_story.html
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Shale Coalition Sues Pennsylvania Over Gas Regulations
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Leslie A. Pappas
A coalition of natural gas developers sued Pennsylvania over the state's new oil and gas regulations, arguing that several of its provisions are costly, unclear and unlawful and conflict with other statutes ( Marcellus Shale Coalition v. Pa. Dep't Envtl. Protection, Pa. Commw. Ct., No. 573 MD 2016,complaint filed 10/13/16).
The Pittsburgh-based Marcellus Shale Coalition filed suit against the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the state's Environmental Quality Board Oct. 13 in the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania over seven specific provisions of the final Chapter 78a regulations, which took effect Oct. 8.
The new rules could increase operational costs for producers by up to $2 million per well yet would have little environmental benefit, the coalition says.
Remaining Competitive?
“These shortcomings are immediately harmful to our industry because they affect our ability to conduct business and remain competitive,” the coalition's president, David Spigelmyer, said in a statement Oct. 14.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is currently reviewing the complaint, the department's press secretary, Neil Shader, told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail Oct. 14. “On its face, the filing seeks to have many important protections contained in the regulations stricken or enjoined,” he said.
The regulations under challenge “are commonsense protections, necessitated by Pennsylvania law,” Shader said. “They are the result of five-years of work including an unprecedented amount of public comment and involvement.”
The new regulations are the state's first specific regulations that address hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The regulations were intended to account for new production techniques and activities and to provide reasonable protections for such things as natural resources, water supplies, endangered species, schools, and playgrounds while still encouraging the safe production of natural gas, state regulators say.
It is the first time the industry group has sued the state over the drilling regulations.
Seven Up
The coalition has asked that seven sections of the regulations be stricken as unlawful and/or stayed pending review by the court.
The complaint challenges portions of Chapter 78a that:
• include new definitions of “public resource agencies” to include schools, playground owners, municipalities, and water supply owners;
• require well operators to identify and plug abandoned wells before drilling;
• require operators to obtain Solid Waste Management Act permits for activities on well sites that should be exempt from such permitting requirements;
• require operators to upgrade or close freshwater impoundments within 12 months, or re-permit them within three years;
• require site restoration plans that duplicate or are in conflict with existing requirements under the Clean Streams Law programs;
• create ambiguity over spill cleanup requirements by introducing additional deadlines and reporting obligations beyond existing procedures in Act 2; and
• mandate monthly reports on waste generation, because they impose unreasonable and excessive costs and conflict with other regulations.
Portions of the regulations “are unlawful, void and unenforceable” because, among other reasons, they were enacted without statutory authority, conflict directly with other statutes and regulations, are vague, and violate the Pennsylvania constitution, the brief says.
The Chapter 78a Regulations “contain sweeping and far-reaching changes” that “significantly, substantially, immediately and unreasonably burden” the industry, the brief says. The group is seeking injunctive relief and an immediate stay of the regulations “to avoid an injury that cannot be compensated by damages.”
Environmentalists Attack Fracking
Environmental organizations are pushing back against the suit. “These provisions ... survived scrutiny by the Independent Regulatory Review Commission and the state Office of Attorney General,” Joanne Kilgour, director of the Sierra Club's Pennsylvania Chapter, told Bloomberg BNA in an e-mail Oct. 14. “The attempt now to prevent these provisions from taking effect is both irresponsible and contrary to the public interest.”
Larry J. Schweiger, President and CEO of the environmental group PennFuture said, “These are not small ticket items. They really undercut the entirety of the rulemaking … they're doing everything they can to cause the department to stumble and to fail.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=98865013&vname=dennotallissues&fn=98865013&jd=98865013
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Marcellus Shale Coalition Takes On Biggest Challenge Yet to Stop PA Drilling Rules
Oct 14, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
Less than a week after they were implemented, the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) has filed a lawsuit targeting key provisions of new regulations for shale drillers, representing the first time the organization has taken such a wide-ranging legal action against the state and its Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
In a 96-page complaint filed in the state Commonwealth Court late Thursday, the MSC is seeking declaratory judgement that sections of the regulatory package are unlawful. It's also filed an application for summary relief and expedited review, asking the court to stay the sections it’s challenging until the legality of the provisions are decided.
The MSC has targeted what the DEP has identified as being the core provisions of the new regulations, which it began drafting about five years ago and was required when lawmakers passed Act 13 in 2012 to update the state's aging oil and gas laws. The DEP split the rulemaking process; Chapter 78 for the conventional industry and Chapter 78a for the unconventional industry. In June, the General Assembly approved legislation to scrap the conventional rules and required the DEP to start those over, paving the way for the shale regulations to take effect on Oct. 8 (see Shale Daily, Sept. 23; June 15).
"We're not challenging the totality of 78a. Many of the provisions in 78a we've worked closely with and were part of Act 13," said MSC President David Spigelmyer during a conference call with news media on Friday. "In those cases, we're already complying, but there are specific sections of 78a that we feel are onerous, costly, provide little environmental benefit and likely exceed DEP's statutory authority."
MSC's argument is nothing new, legal experts said on Friday. The organization has long maintained that the new regulations could cost the shale industry billions. Another trade group has also been fighting to stop part of the package from going into effect.
"We're concerned about that," Spigelmyer said when asked about the public's concern over trying to strike down stronger environmental regulations. "This industry is certainly not afraid to comply with stringent laws and standards. There's no doubt there's pressure on this industry from a financial perspective today; there are choices people make to invest capital broadly across the country. Our role as a coalition, on behalf of our members, is to stand up and fight to make sure that we're still an attractive place to park capital."
The new rules are designed to reduce impacts on public resources, such as schools and parks, help prevent spills, strengthen waste management and require stronger well site restoration.
Major changes included in the package that the MSC is challenging are the re-permitting of freshwater impoundments and a stipulation that they be closed or upgraded within 12 months; new requirements that operators go further in reviewing abandoned and active wells near their pads; public resource protection standards; monthly waste reporting requirements, and new well site restoration and spill remediation standards.
DEP spokesman Neil Shader said the agency is currently reviewing the lawsuit, adding that "on its face" the filing seeks to have some of the new rules most important aspects stricken or enjoined. DEP hosted several public hearings and reviewed tens of thousands of public comments over the course of five years before implementing the regulations, which were also revised several times. The agency has said that operators are currently in compliance with many of the new requirements.
"The challenged regulations are commonsense protections, necessitated by Pennsylvania law," Shader said. "They are the result of five years of work including an unprecedented amount of public comment and involvement."
MSC charges, however, that there is no basis in state law to require the provisions it's targeting, especially after key parts of Act 13 were struck down in a landmark case in the state Supreme Court in 2013 (see Shale Daily, Dec. 20, 2013). Late last month, even more parts of the law were struck down by the high court (see Shale Daily, Sept. 29).
The Commonwealth Court has already denied the Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association’s (PIOGA) motion to declare that the DEP has no authority to require operators to identify parks, forests, scenic rivers, national landmarks and other public resources in their well permit applications as the MSC's complaint charges (see Shale Daily, Sept. 2). PIOGA has since filed an appeal to that decision in the state Supreme Court citing the latest Act 13 ruling (see Shale Daily, Oct. 3).
"What's happening is the negotiated deal that was Act 13 -- the negotiated, multifaceted, holistic strategy that we put in place with a lot of stakeholders -- has been so torn apart that now you've got a question of whether any of it makes sense," said Kathryn Klaber of the environmental and energy consulting firm The Klaber Group, who was MSC president at the time Act 13 was passed.
"That's really the big picture," she added. "In terms of the individual elements of Act 13 and Chapter 78a, they are affecting different operators differently. The complexity and scale of that regulation has created a lot of different impacts depending on your history, your current acreage and your strategy to date. That's why you may not be seeing some very precise language on what the impact is; it's very different depending on the operator."
Under the new regulations, drilling near public resources, such as schools and drinking water protection areas, will now require operators to conduct a review of the impacts to those resources, develop mitigation measures and report to an expanded list of state agencies.
Identifying orphaned and abandoned wells -- which the industry already does -- has grown more complex. Landowner questionnaires have been added to the process and more thorough monitoring conditions are required. Spigelmyer said the DEP issued a 48-page technical guidance document because that part of the new regulations is so complex.
The MSC has asked for a hearing on its request to stay the challenged sections so that its members will not need to hire staff or consultants, enter new contracts or buy equipment to comply with the rules. The organization also said it's seeking an expedited review so the industry and the public have certainty on the matter as soon as possible. In the meantime, Spigelmyer said the industry would comply with the new regulations, which he said is creating "harm for our members today."
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/108110-marcellus-shale-coalition-takes-on-biggest-challenge-yet-to-stop-pa-drilling-rules
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Fracking Fight Now In Pennsylvania Courts
Oct 14, 2016 | Fuelfix
By James Osborne
The nationwide fight by the oil and gas industry to block efforts to step up regulations in light of a historic drilling boom the past decade is now in the Pennsylvania courts.
According to a report by the The Philadelphia Inquirer, an industry group named the Marcellus Shale Coalition filed a motion Thursday to block the state’s Department of Environmental Protection from implementing new drilling rules five years in the works.
The Inquirer reported the rules, which only apply to so-called unconventional wells, as follows:
“The new performance standards at oil- and gas-well sites ban open-air waste-storage pits, establish minimum distances that wells must be from schools and playgrounds, and add new rules for monitoring wells and cleaning up spills. The rules presume that any water contamination near a new well is the driller’s fault.
They also set 100 feet as the general setback distance of a well from water resources, as well as requiring notification of state agencies if a well is within 200 feet of a public park or forest, and notification of a water utility if it is within 1,000 feet of an extraction point for public water.”
Pennsylvania’s natural gas industry, which has turned the Marcellus Shale into the country’s most productive gas field through hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, is arguing the rules would harm their business and make them less competitive – increasing their costs by 30 percent or $2 million per well.
The state is arguing the new drilling rules represent a necessary update , according to the Inquirer:
Acting DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell said last week that the revisions “increase protection for public resources and water supplies, improve data transparency, enhance access to relevant information for the public, and help provide business certainty to the industry.”
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/10/14/fracking-fight-now-in-pennsylvania-courts/
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EPA Overstepping Authority to Foster Clean Power, Court Told
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
The Environmental Protection Agency is overstepping its Clean Air Act authority to discourage construction of new coal-fired power plants in favor of cleaner generation sources the agencies prefers, opponents of carbon dioxide limits on new power plants said (North Dakota v. EPA, D.C. Cir., No. 15-1381,briefs filed 10/13/16).
Mirroring arguments made against the EPA's Clean Power Plan, states and utilities opposed to comparable standards for new power plants said the rule is illegal because the EPA has exceeded what is allowable under the Clean Air Act by requiring carbon capture technology at new coal-fired units.
“If EPA can require emission reductions based on a system that does not exist at commercial scale anywhere in the world, it has the power to deter the construction of new coal-fired plants in favor of EPA's preferred energy sources,” several states, led by West Virginia said in a brief filed Oct. 14 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The EPA's new source performance standards for new and modified power plants (RIN:2060-AQ91) effectively require new coal-fired units to install some form of carbon capture to comply. Opponents of the rule say the technology has not yet been commercially demonstrated and the EPA's reliance on carbon capture projects subsidized by the federal government violates the Energy Policy Act, which bars the agency from relying on those units to determine that the technology has been adequately demonstrated.
The new power plant standards, along with the Clean Power Plan, which regulates carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, are central to President Barack Obama's domestic efforts to address climate change. The new source performance standards are being challenged by several states as well as utilities and industry groups. The Clean Power Plan has already been argued before a 10-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit and a decision could come early next year (West Virginia v. EPA, D.C. Cir. en banc, No. 15-1363, argued 9/27/16).
However, the litigation over the new power plants standards represents a second line of attack on the Clean Power Plan. The EPA is required to regulate new power plants under Section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act before it can regulate existing power plants under Section 111(d), as it has done with the Clean Power Plan. Overturning the new source performance standards could undercut the Clean Power Plan as well.
Carbon Capture Not Ready
Most of the opponents’ arguments focused on the readiness and cost of installing carbon capture technology at new coal-fired power plants.
The EPA's performance standard of 1,400 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour generation for new coal-fired units cannot be met by any new unit, argued opponents of the rule who said the EPA has not yet met its statutory burden of showing that carbon capture systems are viable and cost effective.
The EPA in its rule had argued that the individual components of carbon capture systems have been adequately demonstrated, which is sufficient to show that the technology is viable for the purposes of the Clean Air Act.
“An adequate demonstration finding may not be based on ‘mere speculation or conjecture’ that a system will emerge that will be both commercially available and technologically feasible to apply to all regulated sources nationwide,” industry groups and utilities opposed to the rule said in their brief.
The EPA has already rejected the viability of carbon capture systems in a regulatory impact analysis of its Clean Power Plan, utilities and industry groups said.
“Indeed, in the Clean Power Plan, EPA stated that [carbon capture and sequestration] CCS was experimental and heavily subsidized when it rejected a best system of emission reduction that included CCS,” they said. “EPA explained that CCS is ‘an emerging technology’ that may become economically viable in the future.’”
Subsidized Projects Evaluated
Petitioners said the EPA's determination that carbon capture systems are viable and economically feasible was illegal because it was based on carbon capture projects that are being subsidized by the federal government under the Energy Policy Act, which specifically bars the agency from considering those units when evaluating the feasibility of the technology.
“Congress's express prohibition makes sense because the purpose of these government subsidies is to foster the research and development of incipient technologies that are not yet adequately demonstrated,” the utilities and industry groups said.
Costs Not Justified
The EPA also has not properly accounted for how expensive carbon capture systems will be for new coal-fired power plants, opponents argued.
The EPA must consider the economic burden on utilities under a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that directed the agency to fully evaluate the costs of imposing toxic pollutant standards on power plants, opponents said ( Michigan v. EPA, 135 S. Ct. 2699, 2015 BL 207163, 80 ERC 1577 (2015)).
Section 111 of the Clean Air Act, the authority the EPA is using to regulate power plant emissions, requires the agency to consider the costs of achieving the required pollution reductions while attaining the performance standards. However, the EPA itself had described the rule's global climate benefit as “negligible.”
“EPA cannot impose a nationwide emission standard on all new fossil-fuel-fired steam generating units if it does not believe that the rule is likely to actually result in reduced levels of pollution,” the states said. “This court has rejected similar attempts by agencies to promulgate superfluous rules where the ‘baseline’ level of regulation would produce the same effect.”
The EPA has downplayed the costs of installing carbon capture systems at new coal-fired utilities by arguing very few new units are expected to be built since natural gas prices are so low. However, opponents of the rule said the agency still must evaluate those costs in order to justify setting the standards.
“Assuming that the rule will actually be applied to new sources, as EPA must, the costs to such sources and to energy consumers are prohibitive,” the states said.
The EPA's response is due by Dec. 14.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=98865010&vname=dennotallissues&fn=98865010&jd=98865010
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Obama Carbon Rule ‘Dar Exceeded’ EPA Authority, Challengers Say
Oct 14, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
A coalition of conservative states, energy companies and business interests fired their opening shots in the court fight against a key climate change rule, saying the federal government went far beyond its authority.
At issue is the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation released last year setting limits on the amount of carbon dioxide that can be released from newly built coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, based on the amount of electricity they produce.
The regulation at issue is separate, though related to, the Clean Power Plan, which mandates a cut in the entire power sector’s emissions. The D.C. Circuit Court heard oral arguments in a case against that rule last month.
Crucially, if the regulation on new power plants is found illegal or unconstitutional, the Clean Power Plan cannot be enforced.
The challengers’ central argument, outlined in briefs filed late Thursday with the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, is that the standards for coal plants are based on carbon-capture technology that is not widely used, as required under the Clean Air Act.
“In adopting the rule, EPA far exceeded the authority provided by Congress under section 111(b) of the [Clean Air Act] to set emission standards for new fossil-fuel-fired steam generating units,” the states, led by West Virginia, told the court.
“The CAA requires a rigorous showing that the selected ‘best system of emission reduction’ be ‘adequately demonstrated,’” the states said.
“Rather than hold itself to this well-established standard, EPA has impermissibly ‘relaxed’ its statutory burden. ... The agency claims that it need only show that the individual component parts of its selected system are ‘technically feasible.’”
Additionally, the EPA is demonstrating feasibility based on a power plant that got federal funding, something prohibited by a 2005 law.
The energy companies and business groups made similar arguments.
“Under [the law], EPA may not set a performance standard unless it is ‘achievable’ by a system of emission reduction that EPA has shown to be ‘adequately demonstrated,’ ‘taking into account ... cost ... and energy requirements,’” the challengers said. “EPA has not met its burden.”
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), which is leading a coalition of environmental and health groups supporting the regulation, shot back against the challengers in a Friday statement.
“The climate pollution standards for new power plants are common sense climate and public health protections with a solid legal and technical foundation,” Tomas Carbonell, EDF’s lead attorney for the case, said in a statement.
Under the schedule the D.C. Circuit Court set in August, oral arguments in the case will not happen until sometime after Feb. 6. That means the next president, likely either DemocratHillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump, would be responsible for the case.
The EPA is due to file its brief in response to the challengers Dec. 14, and the groups supporting the EPA will file theirs Dec. 21.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/301088-obama-carbon-rule-far-exceeded-epas-authority-challengers-say
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China Mega-Merger Seen as Challenge to Oil-Refinery Giants
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Serene Cheong, Ann Koh and Alfred Cang
A merger of Sinochem Group and China National Chemical Corp. would create a new oil-refining challenger to established state-run behemoths that dominate the country's fuel-making business.
The prospective tie-up, combining two companies with assets of more than $100 billion, would create the largest oil refiner behind China Petrochemical Corp. and China National Petroleum Corp., according to data from Wood Mackenzie Ltd. The move signals a new strategy by policy makers to boost competition rather than weaken the dominant state-run companies by spinning off assets, according to Nevyn Nah, a Singapore-based analyst with Energy Aspects Ltd.
“The Chinese authorities are serious about weakening the stranglehold that Sinopec and PetroChina have on the oil sector,” Nah said, using the names of the publicly listed companies. “For the longest time, they've been talking about breaking this up, but now they're actually talking about mergers, which is going against the grain of the earlier strategy.”
CNPC's listed PetroChina Co. in Hong Kong closed 0.8 percent higher Oct. 14, while China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., known as Sinopec, gained 1.1 percent. No one answered two calls to their respective press offices. The city's benchmark Hang Seng Index rose 0.9 percent.
The potential merger isn't likely to derail China National Chemical Corp.’s $43 billion takeover of Swiss seed and pesticide maker Syngenta AG, according to analysts and traders (see related story).
’Bigger, Better, Stronger.’
China's energy-sector overhaul had focused on the exploration, refining and distribution dominance of Sinopec Group and CNPC. The government had looked at stripping them of their oil and gas pipelines, accounting for some 90 percent of the nation's network, to allow access to all producers and distributors, Bloomberg reported in May 2015. In June, CNPC decided to invest in expanding its pipeline network, suggesting that China was reorienting its efforts—a case bolstered the following month when President Xi Jinping advocated making state-owned enterprises “bigger, better and stronger.”
The government has sought to liberalize the energy sector at home while also creating national champions that can better compete globally. China has also encouraged the development of smaller independent refiners, known as teapots. They've been allowed since last year to buy and import their own crude oil and now account for about 30 percent of the country's total capacity.
Head-to-Head
“This is probably part of the government's energy reform to consolidate smaller players and put them head-to-head with the bigger state refiners” like PetroChina and Sinopec, said Suresh Sivanandam, a senior manager of refining research at Wood Mackenzie Ltd. in Singapore.
The combined company would have about 50 million tons of annual capacity, equivalent to about 1 million barrels a day, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd. That compares with 300 million tons annually for Sinopec, and 195 million for PetroChina.
ChemChina has crude supply deals with Russia's Rosneft PJSC, while Sinochem has term contracts with Middle Eastern producers, according to Nah at Energy Aspects. “Chemchina, the biggest independent refiner in terms of system, and Sinochem, with all its import and export facilities, make them pretty strong together,” he said.
More Competitive
ChemChina is the country's largest chemical company with nine refineries and more than 140,000 workers, according to itswebsite. Sinochem, which has about 50,000 employees and assets worth about HK$301 billion ($39 billion) in businesses spanning oil fields in Brazil to rubber plantations in southeast Asia, owns China's largest fertilizer company, as well as fluorine and seed companies.
China's state-owned enterprises account for about 40 percent of the country's industrial assets and 18 percent of total employment, according to Bloomberg Intelligence economists Fielding Chen and Tom Orlik. Consolidating and improving their profitability is critical for authorities to rebalance the $10 trillion economy away from debt-fueled infrastructure investment and exports to one powered more by services and consumer spending.
—With assistance from Dan Murtaugh, Aaron Clark and Jing Yang.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=98865003&vname=dennotallissues&fn=98865003&jd=98865003
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Pipeline Regulator Offers Guidance for Firms on Fines
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
Pipeline operators stand to see higher penalties but also more guidance about how they are determined, according to a notice by federal regulators.
In a notice scheduled for publication in the Federal Register Oct. 17, the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration provided more information about how it calculates civil penalties. The agency published the civil penalty structure on its website Oct. 11.
The notice warns companies “that PHMSA will, as appropriate, issue higher penalties in order to apply stronger deterrence and drive down incident risk.”
According to the document, operators can expect the pipeline agency to determine penalties depending on the situation's nature, circumstances and gravity, the firm's culpability and history of prior offenses, whether the operator is acting in good faith and other considerations.
The document outlines broad ranges of fine amounts that could result from each factor. The total penalty, the notice states, is “based on these assessment considerations” and limits applying them to maximum daily fines and fines for a series of actions related to the same incident.
Industry Appreciates Change
In an e-mail to Bloomberg BNA Oct. 14, Cathy Landry, the vice president of communications at the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, said the industry supports “any move toward more transparency regarding civil penalties, including how these penalties are calculated.”
In a separate action earlier this year, the pipeline agency increased its minimum civil penalties as required under a 2015 law that mandated federal agencies boost fines in line with inflation (RIN:2137-AF16).
It also issued an interim final rule Oct. 3 implementing new powers to issue emergency orders to pipeline operators during ruptures. That action was required under a federal pipeline safety bill President Barack Obama signed into law in June.
Pipeline agency representatives didn't respond to a request for comment Oct. 14.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=98865011&vname=dennotallissues&fn=98865011&jd=98865011
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Dakota Access Pipeline (DAP): 'Debate, Accusations and Protests' Spread
Oct 14, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
All sides continue to maneuver to strengthen their positions related to the nearly completed $3.8 billion Dakota Access oil pipeline, which Native American tribes want stopped in the midst of its construction covering four states, while backers and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) now argue already was thoroughly vetted to protect cultural and burial sites sacred to the tribes.
Centered on a lone water crossing of a dammed portion of the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in south-central North Dakota, the USACE that once approved the crossing is now reviewing that easement at the Obama administration's behest, and the Sioux said on Thursday it has gained the support of 19 U.S. city governments that have passed resolutions or written letters opposing the nearly 1,200-mile oil pipeline.
Last Tuesday, USACE filed a 49-page brief to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia where earlier a three-judge panel had rejected the Sioux Tribe's request for a an injunction to stop the pipeline work (see Shale Daily, Oct. 10) to argue that contrary to the tribe's allegations, the Corps did its job in consulting with the Native American interests over the past two years before granting approval for the pipeline water crossings.
In essence, the federal agency told the appellate court that contrary to the tribes' allegations the USACE did its job properly the first time, and now it expects to complete the ongoing review of the final easement in the next few weeks or months as part of the joint action by the Departments of Interior and Justice (see Shale Daily, Sept. 13).
Supporters of the pipeline, Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now (MAIN), on Thursday distributed a video showing a group of protesters threatening an NBC Bismarck affiliate news team at the protest encampment that has swelled in recent weeks near the still-unapproved river crossing under Lake Oahe.
Also on Thursday, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA.), Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Ed Markey (D-MA) sent a letter to President Barack Obama requesting the administration halt construction of the Dakota Access project until affected tribes are consulted and a full environmental review is conducted even though the pipeline backer, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), and the USACE contend that was done months ago.
“In light of the decision of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reject the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's request for a temporary halt to construction, the project’s current permits should be suspended and all construction stopped until a complete environmental and cultural review has been completed for the entire project,” the senators wrote.
In response, MAIN spokesperson Craig Stevens said there is "no legitimate reason whatsoever for the federal government to request another environmental study for the pipeline; to do so is nothing more than a ploy to kill the project by an unnecessary and undetermined delay."
According to local news reports, Dakota Access is now 90% complete in North Dakota where it starts in the Bakken Shale play, and construction is mostly completed in the other three states -- South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois where it will connect with existing market hubs to carry crude oil to East and Gulf Coast markets.
Nevertheless, Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II reiterated allegations that the pipeline "threatens the lives" of more than 17 million that get their water supplies from the Missouri River. "Millions stand with us in opposition to this destructive pipeline," he said, adding the allegation that ETP has ignored the Obama administration's call for a voluntary construction halt."
Following the latest appellate court ruling, a Texas-based ETP spokesperson did indicate that the company planned to resume construction.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/108111-dakota-access-pipeline-dap-debate-accusations-and-protests-spread
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How the Chemical Industry Joined the Fight Against Climate Change
Oct 16, 2016 | The New York Times
By Hiroko Tabuchi and Danny Hakim
It might seem surprising to find the world’s chemical companies on the front lines of preventing climate change, fighting to disrupt their own industries.
But in a sweeping accord reached on Saturday in Kigali, Rwanda, companies including Honeywell and DuPont were among the most active backers of a move away from a profitable chemical that has long been the foundation for the fast-growing air-conditioning and refrigeration business.
The companies were driven less by idealism than by intense competition, and a bet that they could create more environmentally friendly alternatives.
Still, some environmentalists say the aggressive move away from hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, provides a template for other industries to follow.Continue reading the main storyRELATED COVERAGENations, Fighting Powerful Refrigerant That Warms Planet, Reach Landmark DealOCT. 15, 2016Emerging Climate Accord Could Push A/C Out of Sweltering India’s Reach OCT. 12, 2016
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“They learned that without a rule change, their new products couldn’t compete,” said David Doniger, director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, based in Washington, D.C. “They woke up and said, ‘The science is real.’”
“We wanted them restricted for purely environmental reasons. The companies wanted them restricted for many other reasons,” including profit, Mr. Doniger said. “But the point is that they had a certain common interest with the international community.”
The chemical industry’s response stands in stark contrast to the foot-dragging, and in many cases the outright obstruction of climate regulations, by the big oil companies.
Exxon Mobil, Chevron and others have been criticized for lobbying against rules to curb greenhouse gases for decades, even though their own researchers have warned of the risks of climate change.
Some environmentalists contend that the chemical companies were allowed to have too much input into the Kigali deal. They also say the deal could have been more ambitious in timing and scope.
And there are concerns that many producers in countries will not profit as quickly, consolidating the power of the world’s biggest companies. Much of the resistance to the agreement came from China and India, which feared that some of their chemical manufacturers would be shut out, or that theirconsumers would face higher prices.
“Although we welcome the outcome and there is progress, it’s being dictated by the industry,” said Paula Tejón Carbajal, the global business strategist for Greenpeace in Amsterdam.
The Kigali deal is the latest chapter in what has been at times an environmentally disastrous role played by the air-conditioning and refrigeration industry.
For decades, a class of chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, were used widely in air-conditioners and refrigerators, as well as in aerosol sprays and cleaning products. But scientists warned that CFCs deplete the ozone layer, which protects the earth from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Chemical companies first resisted, saying that alternatives were not economically viable. “They were awful, just like the coal industry,” Mr. Doniger said.
But consumer concern about the chemicals led to slumping sales, and a handful of countries banned CFCs. In 1987, the Montreal Protocol agreement was created to completely phase out those chemicals.
The alternatives available at the time, HFCs, were greenhouse gases with 1,000 times the heat-trapping potency of carbon dioxide. Concerns over those chemicals spurred campaigns by environmentalists to phase out HFCs as well.
This time, chemical producers raced to get ahead of any new round of regulations. Even as the switch to HFCs was taking hold in the early 2000s, Honeywell and several other companies began research and development programs to study alternatives with far lower warming potential.
Europe tightened its regulations in 2011, with stricter laws aimed at phasing out HFCs in car air-conditioners. Regulators in the United States gave credits to domestic automakers for switching to HFC alternatives.
In 2012, Honeywell set up a production base just north of Shanghai to make a more environmentally friendly HFC alternative known as HFO-1234yf. The company followed with a second plant north of Tokyo, and is set to open its largest production base in Geismar, La., early next year. It has spent $900 million on its alternative coolant program.
Since then, Honeywell has publicly voiced its support for stricter regulations, and in 2014, was one of a group of companies to partner with the Obama administration in its bid to make amending the Montreal Protocol a priority.
With the world phasing out HFCs, the company is set to reap the benefits of its investment. Though Honeywell does not break out specific figures for its chemicals business, it has said that sales of its HFC alternatives are rising fast, helping the company grow its annual revenues from its wider fluorine business by double digits to over $1 billion.
“This is an area where we are aligned with the environmental benefits,” Kenneth Gayer, vice president of fluorine products at Honeywell, said in an interview. “We anticipated the need for these regulations before people were even talking about global warming. Now, the world is going to use alternatives in a big way.”
Other options are now available, including systems that use propane or ammonia, and companies throughout the supply chain are racing to adopt them. Coca-Cola, for example, has put more than 1.8 million refrigerated vending machines and other HFC-free equipment into service.
Still, some environmentalists caution against what they see as excessive influence by the corporate sector in shaping the way forward for cooling technologies.
Daikin makes a low-cost HFC alternative called HFC32 that has a relatively small global warming impact, and is seen as useful for markets like India. Daikin, based in Osaka, Japan, makes both air-conditioning hardware and chemicals. It has been putting some of its patents in the public domain to encourage local manufacturers to use its chemicals.
Ms. Carbajal, of Greenpeace, saw the aggressive promotion of HFC32 as problematic. The industry, she said, decides “what is low and what is high, and that’s why we are very concerned.”
Ms. Carbajal said that while there was a range of better alternatives to HFCs, those were not the ones being adopted in some countries. “The problem is that the ambition has not been as high as we expected,” she said.
Damian Thong, who heads Asia technology research at Macquarie, said Daikin had backed HFC32 in an attempt to balance warming potential and higher energy efficiency.
Emissions from air-conditioners also come from generating the electricity they consume, Mr. Thong said. “The issue being glossed over is that focusing on global warming potential alone may be bad for the environment still,” he said.
Despite the remaining issues, the Kigali deal was an example of an emerging dynamic, where companies pre-empt environmental policy changes by developing more planet-friendly products, then push for regulation that grows that market, environmental experts say.
“More and more companies are looking further and further down the timeline to see what changes they can expect, and what they need to phase out of their products,” said Baskut Tuncak, a lawyer at the United Nations specializing in toxic chemicals.
“It shows regulations do drive innovation,” Mr. Tuncak said. “The more we have a global approach, the better it is, even for businesses.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/17/business/how-the-chemical-industry-joined-the-fight-against-climate-change.html?mtrref=query.nytimes.com&gwh=64E50AA3BCF7E50E98C05C0B9AE72352&gwt=pay&_r=0
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Nations Reach Climate Deal to Cut Super Pollutant Hydrofluorocarbons
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Dean Scott
Nearly 200 nations agreed early this morning to a global deal that by mid-century is to cut more than 80 percent of super-polluting hydrofluorocarbons, which if left unchecked would have an out-sized impact on global warming.
All countries under the deal reached after a week of talks in Kigali, Rwanda, agreed to phase down HFCs. But the U.S. and other richer industrialized countries, many of which are already cutting HFCs, will essentially go first, agreeing to a 10 percent reduction in the refrigerant beginning in 2019.
Those richer nations would then ratchet down HFCs, also used around the world in air conditioning systems, year after year until 2036 when they would achieve an 85 percent cut from 2011-2013 production and consumption levels.
But the deal negotiated as an amendment to the Montreal Protocol provides a sort of sliding scale for developing nations, with one group—China, Latin America, Africa and island nations—agreeing to a freeze by 2024.
A second tier of developing nations headed by India, which sought to delay any HFC freeze until about 2030 given its increasing demands for air conditioning for its burgeoning middle class, conceded to a slightly earlier freeze date of 2028 in the deal.
Others in that group given until 2028 to take action include Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and Persian Gulf nations.
Move to HFC Alternatives Needed.
Secretary of State John Kerry urged nations in remarks to the high-level plenary late Friday to seal the deal, saying an ambitious phasedown “is likely the single most important step that we could take at this moment to limit the warming of our planet and protect the planet for future generations to come.”
“No country has a right to turn its back on this effort,” Kerry said.
Steep reductions in HFCs will require nations to move to alternatives with a lower global warming impact and increase efficiency, particularly in air conditioning units. Already existing more-climate-friendly HFC alternatives include HFO-1234yf, which was developed jointly by Honeywell and Dupont.
Icing on the Cake After Paris?
The Rwanda deal was seen as icing on the cake for climate action, coming just 10 months after nations reached the first truly global deal in Paris to address climate change. It also builds on a more recent deal to cut international aviation emissions of carbon dioxide reached Oct. 6 under the U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization.
Mattlan Zackhras, a minister to the Marshall Islands—among the nations most vulnerable to sea level rise linked to climate change—said hours before nations clinched the Oct. 15 Rwanda deal that deep cuts in HFCs “may be the single biggest bite we ever take out of the global mitigation gap in one go.”
While HFCs are today responsible for only about 1 percent to 2 percent of global warming, they are the fastest growing climate-related emission and thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide in contributing to the planet’s greenhouse effect.
If left unaddressed, global emissions of HFCs would grow to the equivalent of 19 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in 2050, according to the White House; steep reductions over the coming decades could prevent nearly a half-degree Celsius of warming this century, the White House projects.
The Montreal Protocol amendment cutting HFCs will go down in history as the most important action yet taken to cut global temperatures, according to Durwood Zaelke, who has tracked the talks as president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development.
The promised reductions get the world to about 90 percent of the goal of cutting a half degree Celsius of global warming this century, he estimated.
http://news.bna.com/deln/lpages/lpages.adp?pg=breaking_news&bn_product=deln#urn:bna:00000157c936df5ba7d7f9bfa8eb0001
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Global Deal Reached On Heat-Trapping Refrigerants
Oct 14, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Jean Chemnick
Negotiators struck a deal this afternoon on curbing heat-trapping pollutants used in air conditioning and refrigeration.
The agreement reached at a summit in the Rwandan capital of Kigali would reduce global levels of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) between 80 and 85 percent by 2047 in a bid to avoid a half-degree Celsius of warming by the end of the century. Formal adoption is expected as soon as tonight.
The U.S. delegation was led by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Secretary of State John Kerry, who tied the task of curtailing HFCs to the landmark climate agreement Kerry helped broker in Paris last year.
"In Paris, the world set the goal of limiting the Earth's warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius," Kerry reminded delegations from the 197-member Montreal Protocol. "Everybody here understands, and we have heard again and again, an ambitious HFC amendment is the single biggest thing we can do in one giant swoop, in one moment."
A successful Kigali deal, he said, would be a "pacesetter" for next month's U.N. talks in Marrakech, Morocco, which will begin to set implementation rules for the Paris Agreement that takes force Nov. 4.
"That is the responsibility that we share," Kerry said.
The deal sets different baselines and timelines for developed countries and for two distinct groups of developing nations, including a large group led by China that has committed to move quickly toward more climate-friendly alternative coolants and a more cautious group of high-ambient-air-temperature countries that have insisted on more time.
Kerry and McCarthy spent most of today meeting with delegations including India and China trying to iron out differences on how quickly countries must cap their production of HFCs and how aggressively they must move to ratchet them down.
The amendment to the ozone treaty is the last major item on President Obama's climate diplomacy to-do list before he leaves office in January.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/10/14/stories/1060044308
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Cement Plant Pollution Control May Fall Short of EPA Goal
Oct 17, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Renee Schoof
The Environmental Protection Agency could fall well short of its goal to control air pollution from 85 percent of cement plants by the end of fiscal year 2016, according to preliminary data.
Although the EPA has opened investigations at 95 percent of the 108 cement facilities in the U.S., only 50 percent of the plants were deemed controlled according to data from 2015. Adding six facilities covered in two consent agreements in 2016, at least 56 percent would have been considered controlled as of the Sept. 30 deadline. The 2016 agreements with Cemex Inc. and Lone Star Industries Inc. were the first in the cement sector since 2013. Controlled plants, according to the EPA's definition, have pollution controls installed or are subject to enforceable orders to put them in.
The goal may not have been met because negotiating consent agreements in this area is difficult and time-consuming, environmental attorneys said. The EPA declined to comment, but it has long stressed how important it sees curbing emissions from the sector. Getting pollution controls installed on new and modified cement facilities has been an enforcement priority for the agency since 2008.
Cement plants are the are the third largest source of industrial pollution, particularly nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide, pollutants that cause respiratory and other health problems and environmental damage such as acid rain and the formation of ground-level ozone, the EPA reports on its website about its cement manufacturing enforcement initiative.
“It's good to have aspirational goals” said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project and a former director of EPA's Office of Civil Enforcement. “It sounds like they're progressing,” he told Bloomberg BNA. “But you hit bumps in the road.”
The cement sector is part of the EPA's enforcement initiative on emissions from large sources of pollution. Permitting requirements in the Clean Air Act require cement and other types of large facilities to install pollution controls when new plants are built or when major modifications are made that increase emissions.
Industry Assessment
The cement industry said a low number of enforcement actions was a good sign.
“What we've seen is there has not been a lot of meat on the bones in terms of their efforts to find violations as part of the enforcement effort,” said Mike Schon, vice president and counsel for government affairs at the Portland Cement Association. “I would say our industry takes environmental compliance very seriously and we're proud of our compliance record.”
Complex Cases
“The EPA always conducts a thorough investigation in my experience,” said environmental attorney Bradley S. Hiles,, a partner at Husch Blackwell LLP in St. Louis, Mo., who was the lead attorney on behalf of cement maker Lone Star Industries in its 2016 settlement case. He said the question of what is considered a major modification is not simple and usually is contested.
“I've been involved in investigations where EPA did a thorough job and nothing came of it, and so the agency probably concluded that the plants’ control mechanisms were adequate,” Hiles told Bloomberg BNA.
“In the Lone Star case, Lone Star firmly believed that there were no major modifications,” he said. “Although the agency disagreed, their representatives agreed to a non-admissions clause whereby Lone Star's position of no major modifications was preserved.”
The company agreed to invest about $1 million in pollution control technology at its Portland cement manufacturing facility in Missouri. The terms of the agreement announced in August also said it would spend about $1.7 million on an environmental mitigation project and pay a civil penalty of $60,000.
Hurdles for EPA
Richard E. Schwartz, an environmental attorney and partner at Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington, said that the government also faces a statute of limitations when it alleges that major modifications occurred many years ago.
“That's a situation that certainly applies to the cement industry,” he said, and it is one of the first defenses companies use to argue that the government has no ability to bring a case against them.
Another issue is that the negotiations over consent decrees in the cement sector are complicated and lengthy, Schwartz said.
“The decrees involve agreement about alternative limitations, generally for [nitrogen oxides] and sulfur dioxide emissions,” said Schwartz, the lead attorney for Cemex in a case that was resolved in an agreement with the government in July. “There are lots of technical issues involved in determining what the appropriate limitations should be for a particular cement plant.”
In addition, the government generally seeks a civil penalty, which involves negotiations over monitoring of emissions and use of emissions data, he said.
Cemex Inc. of Houston is one of the largest producers of Portland cement in the U.S. The company in July agreed to spend about $10 million to reduce emissions at five plants in Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee and Texas, pay a $1.69 million civil penalty and spend $150,000 on energy efficiency projects that reduce NOx emissions.
Other Large Sources
Another emissions control goal, in the glass sector, appears even farther out of reach. Glass manufacturers are another focus of the EPA's enforcement initiative for air pollution from large stationary sources. About 125 large glass plants operate in the U.S., according to the EPA.
Charts published by the EPA charts show 28 of 137 facilities, or 20 percent, were controlled as of the end of FY 2015, compared to a goal of 85 percent by the end of FY 2016. Its database of civil cases shows none for any other glass facilities so far in 2016.
The agency has reported that glass is an important focus because its investigation of the sector shows “a significant number of plant expansions but few applications for the installation of pollution controls required under” New Source Review and Prevention of Significant Deterioration permitting requirements.
Coal-fired power plants are the biggest source of emissions among the industries the agency targets in its enforcement initiative on large stationary sources.
EPA reports show that as of the end of FY 2015, 64 percent of generating capacity of coal-fired utilities was controlled, with a goal of 75 percent by the end of FY 2016.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=98865009&vname=dennotallissues&fn=98865009&jd=98865009
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Money For Nothing: Rethinking CO2
Oct 14, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Laurie Purpuro, Tim Peckinpaugh and Peter Nelson
Conventional wisdom holds that CO2 mitigation is prohibitively costly, in terms of dollars, jobs, and lost economic competitiveness. But a new generation of technologies is challenging this paradigm, by offering a way to transform CO2 into valuable products. With the right public policy incentives, these new approaches to carbon capture and utilization (CCU) could make carbon mitigation pay for itself.
The Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum defines CCU as “‘recycling’ CO2 emitted and captured from power generation and industrial facilities into valuable products and uses.” These may include biofuels, chemicals, building materials, and even foods, to name just a few possibilities. Unsurprisingly, the economics of CCU are compelling. Recycling a “wasted” gas into higher-value products can offset the cost of carbon capture and bolster the bottom line.
Historically, the U.S. government’s preferred approaches to carbon mitigation have been carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), which involves the injection of CO2 into vast underground caverns, and using CO2 to enable enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
Federal policy should support converting CO2 to valuable products, too. We learned in high school chemistry that carbon is a basic building block of life, as all living organisms are made of carbon compounds. Doesn’t it make sense to use carbon for beneficial purposes? The paradigm for carbon mitigation needs to shift away from characterizing carbon as a waste and treating it instead as a valuable raw material. Essentially, carbon should be monetized.
As noted above, CO2 has many beneficial uses. Yes, it can be injected into wells to enhance oil recovery. But it can also act as a bio-fertilizer by increasing the carbon content of depleted soil to enhance the cultivation of crops and production of biomass. It can serve as a nutrient to accelerate the growth of algae to create high-performance biofuels. It can be used as a building block for the production of products, such as synthetic cement and plastics. It can even be converted to baking soda. Several of these emerging end-uses would displace existing needs for petroleum and other fossil fuels, paying additional environmental dividends.
The innovative emerging technology companies that are developing these and other carbon utilization solutions face an uphill battle because federal policy provides more support for carbon sequestration than carbon utilization. One example of this is the Section 45Q tax credit for carbon sequestration which provides $10/ton to use CO2 in EOR and $20/ton to sequester it. The credit does not provide an incentive for other CCU technologies. The impact on the investment playing field is significant. Investors will not back carbon utilization technologies if the federal government will give them $20/ton to sequester CO2.
The solution is simple: Level the playing field by providing an equivalent tax incentive for carbon utilization technologies. Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), together with a number of Republican co-sponsors including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), have proposed legislation to do just that. S. 3179, the Carbon Capture and Utilization Act, would extend the 45Q tax credit to innovative biological, chemical, and other CCU applications – without altering the eligibility of existing CCS and EOR technologies.
The federal government should follow the private sector’s lead on rethinking CO2 and begin treating it like the valuable commodity that it can be. Enactment of S. 3179 would be an important first step.
Laurie Purpuro is Government Affairs Advisor at K&L Gates LLP, Tim Peckinpaugh is a Partner at K&L Gates LLP and Peter Nelson is an Associate at K&L Gates LLP.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/300991-money-for-nothing-rethinking-co2
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