Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 10/20/16
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(ACC Mentioned) INSIGHT: Celanese Boosts Engineered Materials with SoFTer Deal
Oct 20, 2016 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
Celanese's pending acquisition of the Italian compounder SoFTer Group will further increase the company's exposure in engineered materials. -
(ACC Mentioned) Strong Alliance: NAPA 5 Years Later
Oct 20, 2016 | Recycling International
By Kirstin Linnenkoper
The North American Plastics Alliance (NAPA) – a partnership between the continent’s four leading plastics industry trade associations to enhance sustainability and support growth – has celebrated its fifth anniversary. -
New Chemical Notification Process 'Very Different’ Under New TSCA
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Bringing a new chemical to the market under the new TSCA will be a very different process to that which manufacturers have grown accustomed to, according to presentations this week at ChemCon the Americas 2016 in Toronto. -
In the News
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
Echa’s Board of Appeal (BoA) has annulled the agency’s decision on a registration dossier compliance check that requested identity information on a “nano-structured” substance. -
(ACC Mentioned) Dooley Slams UN Cancer Agency's Pronouncements
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
American Chemistry Council head Cal Dooley has told a US Congressional committee that the publication of hazard information is "not meaningful" and "often misleading". -
(ACC Mentioned) Disease Burden and Costs for EDCs 'Higher in US Than EU'
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Catherine Cooney
The disease costs of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are much higher in the US than in Europe, says an international team of researchers. -
‘Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals’ are Not a Global Health Scourge
Oct 20, 2016 | The Federalist
By Julie Gunlock
Yesterday, the Drudge Report featured an alarming story about endocrine-disrupting chemicals that are in nearly every product we use. -
Do Endocrine Disruptors Really Cost Us Hundreds of Billions?
Oct 20, 2016 | American Council on Science and Health
By Joseph Perrone
On Monday, a paper published by the UK medical journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology made waves claiming that endocrine-disrupting chemicals cost the U.S. $340 billion - over two percent of our GDP. In other words, the U.S. is losing the equivalent of half the federal defense budget in health care costs and lost wages due to low-level exposure to chemicals in everyday items, such as plastics or lined metal food cans. -
US EPA Round-Up
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The EPA has issued its draft agenda for the 26 October public science meeting on the draft Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) toxicological review of ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE). -
Declaration of Chemicals in Products 'Urgently Needed'
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Government spending, to identify chemicals of concern, could be significantly reduced if companies provided full disclosure of substances in materials and products, says Ake Bergman, executive director of the Swetox Research Center. -
Change 'Dead Law' on SVHCs in Articles, Urges Ueapme
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Europe's SMEs trade body has urged Echa and the European Commission to look for ways to simplify notification of SVHCs in articles under REACH. -
Echa Round-Up
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
The agency has invited third parties to submit scientifically valid information and studies on six testing proposals for four substances: -
Bogus Claims of ‘Organic’ Cosmetics Mislead Consumers
Oct 20, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Scott Faber
Cosmetics and other personal care product companies make questionable organic claims on thousands of products, a new EWG analysis shows. -
It's Déjà Vu in Arguments as EPA Foes Challenge Another Rule
Oct 20, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
The lawsuit over U.S. EPA's carbon rule for new power plants features similar battle lines, many of the same attorneys and the same federal court as the litigation over the Clean Power Plan. -
Tempers Flare in Standoff Over Dakota Access Oil Pipeline
Oct 20, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Company and government officials, law enforcement and Native American tribal leaders are all concerned as tensions continue to rise in south-central North Dakota over attempts to halt construction of the nearly completed $3.8 billion, four-state Dakota Access oil pipeline. -
EPA Seeks High-Level Talks With FERC to Resolve NEPA GHG Concerns
Oct 20, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
EPA is formally requesting a headquarters-level meeting with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to resolve the long-running controversy on whether the commission must analyze “indirect” greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions when reviewing the environmental impacts of natural gas infrastructure projects. -
D.C. Circuit Stays API Suit Over EPA Oil & Gas FIP Pending Reconsideration
Oct 20, 2016 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has agreed to EPA and the American Petroleum Institute's (API) request to stay litigation over EPA's federal implementation plan (FIP) setting “minor” source air permit requirements for oil and natural gas drilling on tribal lands while the agency mulls reconsideration of the rule. -
EPA Releases Recommendations for Curbing Oil and Gas Emissions
Oct 20, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA today published the final version of technical recommendations for curbing smog-forming emissions from existing oil and gas operations, the latest step in its bid to cut air pollution from the industry. -
Waste Sector Eyes Uniform Classification for Food Waste Energy Systems
Oct 20, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
The municipal solid waste management sector is seeking greater clarity and uniformity on how EPA and states classify food waste that is processed to create energy, particularly in anaerobic digesters, in order to ensure progress is made in reaching national and state goals for keeping food waste out of landfills and reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs). -
Calling La. Blast 'Unacceptable,' Board Seeks Safety Upgrades
Oct 20, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Gabriel Dunsmith
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board's final report into a 2013 explosion at a Louisiana chemical facility slams the plant's operator and presses for more safety improvements. -
3 Debates Over 4 ½ Hours, and Zero Climate Questions
Oct 20, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Evan Lehmann
Hillary Clinton described climate change as a "serious problem" last night in the final presidential debate, an event that promises to disappoint environmental advocates for omitting a discussion about the risks of Earth's rising temperatures.
Industry and Association News
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(ACC Mentioned) INSIGHT: Celanese Boosts Engineered Materials with SoFTer Deal
Oct 20, 2016 | ICIS
By Al Greenwood
Celanese's pending acquisition of the Italian compounder SoFTer Group will further increase the company's exposure in engineered materials.
The deal will not change Celanese's place as one of the largest producers of acetyls in the world.
This will remain, and Celanese will continue making acetate flake, acetate film and acetate tow under its Consumer Specialties unit – as well as ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) under Industrial Specialties and acetic acid, vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) and acetate esters under Acetyl Intermediates.
But the contribution from the company's advanced engineered-materials has been growing, as shown in the chart below. It tracks operating profit from the company's four segments since 2010.
Celanese has been talking about expanding its engineered-materials business for much of this year, with an eye on the automotive sector. CEO Mark Rohr explained why automobiles are an attractive end-market during an interview at the American Chemistry Council's (ACC) annual meeting in June.
“There is a shift to producing better quality products – in appearance, lighter weight and temperature resistance. Everyone is constantly upgrading physical qualities, and there is much more attention to that kind of detail,” Rohr told ICIS.
“Growth for these products grows even as overall demand weakens, as you can’t make a me-too product and be successful in a low-demand world,” he added.
This is exemplified in the lower tiers of the automobile industry, where these companies have to compete with top-tiered producers on quality and appearance, Rohr said.
Automobiles are already an important end market for Celanese's resins. To increase its exposure to this market, Celanese recently added a nylon platform to its portfolio of engineering plastics.
The SoFTer acquisition will increase this exposure further. It will nearly double the number of Celanese's product platforms for engineered materials, bringing it from nine to 17.
Because SoFTer is based in Italy, its products were already qualified for European vehicles.
The company's plants include one in Silao de la Victoria, Guanajuato state in Mexico. This had has good access to Mexico's major manufacturing hubs in Queretaro, Guanajuato and San Luis Potosi. As of March 2016, the Silao plant had six lines, and it can add three more.
In 2014, at its plant in Rio Grande do Sul state in Brazil, the company began makingpolypropylene (PP) compounds, polyamide (PA) compounds and polybutylene terephthalate(PBT) compounds as well as engineered thermoplastics.
That same year, the company started making engineering plastics at its new plant in Lebanon, Tennessee in the US.
SoFTer's other plants are in Italy. It has a sales office in Germany.
For all of its sites, SoFTer ultimately plans to provide a full product line at each.
SoFTer's footprint complement's Celanese's. While SoFTer has one plant in the US, Celanese's advanced engineered-materials has several.
The Celanese business unit has one Brazilian plant near Sao Paulo and none in Mexico. Its European plants are in Germany. It has several in Asia-Pacific, while SoFTer has none.
The table below shows the plants in Celanese's advanced engineered-materials segment.
The table is based on information from Celanese's 2015 annual report, so it does not include information about its new nylon platform.
For products, there is some overlap, since both companies supply nylon and PBT products. However, SoFTer does not specify any polyoxymethylene (POM or polyacetal) products or ultra-high molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMW-PE).
Meanwhile, SoFTer offers several thermoplastic elastomers (TPEs) as well as polycarbonate (PC), acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) high-impact polystyrene (HIPS) and polyphylene oxide (PPE) compounds among others.
The acquisitions should provide Celanese with larger positions with its customers as well as quite a number of manufacturing and supply-chain improvements, said Scott Sutton, Celanese executive vice president and president of materials solutions. He made his comments during an earnings conference call.
"There will be very good integration of customers and channels as well as we get those additional selling opportunities," Sutton said.
During the same call, Rohr said, "This is a natural and thoughtful step forward in the evolution of our engineering-materials business."
The deal should close in the fourth quarter. Celanese did not disclose the terms of the acquisition, but it did provide some details about SoFTer's performance during the earnings conference call.
Its margins are lower than Celanese's but there is a lot of opportunity for synergies, Sutton said. Annual revenue is about $300m.
http://www.icis.com/resources/news/2016/10/20/10046134/insight-celanese-boosts-engineered-materials-with-softer-deal/
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(ACC Mentioned) Strong Alliance: NAPA 5 Years Later
Oct 20, 2016 | Recycling International
By Kirstin Linnenkoper
The North American Plastics Alliance (NAPA) – a partnership between the continent’s four leading plastics industry trade associations to enhance sustainability and support growth – has celebrated its fifth anniversary.
The trade body is made up of Mexico’s Asociación Nacional de Industrias del Plástico, the Canadian Plastics Industry Association (CPIA), the Society of the Plastics Industry (SPI), and the plastics division of the American Chemistry Council (ACC).
‘The story of the plastics industry in North America can be divided into two periods: before NAPA and after NAPA,’ comments SPI president and ceo Bill Carteaux. He stresses that NAPA is ‘diligently’ taking steps to ensure coordinated advocacy, product stewardship programs, and other efforts aimed at increasing plastics recycling and energy recovery throughout North America.
‘For plastics companies in North America, NAPA quadruples the value proposition of joining one of the four NAPA-aligned organisations,’ says 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.recyclinginternational.com/recycling-news/10003/plastic-and-rubber/north-america/strong-alliance-napa-5-years-later
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New Chemical Notification Process 'Very Different’ Under New TSCA
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
Bringing a new chemical to the market under the new TSCA will be a very different process to that which manufacturers have grown accustomed to, according to presentations this week at ChemCon the Americas 2016 in Toronto.
As amended by the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, TSCA now requires an "affirmative finding" of safety for pre-manufacture notices (PMNs). If the agency decides a substance poses an unreasonable risk, it must issue an order to prohibit or restrict it – and these are already on the rise in the programme's early days.
Jeffrey Morris, deputy director for programmes at Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT), told attendees that this requirement is a very big change to the new chemicals process.
And Lynn Bergeson, managing partner at Bergeson & Campbell, said she's not sure industry appreciates "just how significantly the ballgame has changed".
'Evolve and develop'
Speaking at the conference, Mr Morris said the new TSCA will evolve and develop through time.
"It's going to be a lot of working through particular cases and learning from them. We're going to have to look at what we've done and realise – maybe we should have done this a different way, and make adjustments. That's just going to be the nature of implementing a significant change to the law."
But Ms Bergeson pointed out that it's not incumbent on just EPA to manage the change. PMN submissions, she said, will now require more strategic review, and companies should more closely consider available information that can be submitted "to rebut certain inferences that otherwise might follow".
Observations on the ground
Sharing her perspectives as a product stewardship manager, Shannon Gainey, from global specialty chemicals company Evonik, said companies will need a couple of years to "weather the storm" of the new chemicals process.
Regarding the affirmative determination, Ms Gainey said in her experience, unless a new substance being notified has a low human health hazard and low environmental hazard, there will be a hazard consideration. And, unless the exposure to this substance is essentially zero, the EPA will identify a risk.
Bearing in mind how the EPA evaluates new chemistries, she said, the agency's models "will predict a very conservative number in terms of how toxic something is".
So in situations where a chemical has predicted toxicity – especially ecotoxicity – a PMN submitter, she said, may benefit from producing data. This is particularly the case for chronic toxicity, as this is an area where data gaps may force the EPA to rely on the outcome of models instead.
Further considerations for businesses, she said, include:
allowing for, and communicating to customers, a longer lead time to bring new substances to the market;
planning for increased costs;
communicating early and often with the EPA, particularly around what assumptions it is using in its evaluations, or on the data gaps faces;
increased testing, including possibly expanding capacity to run phys-chem properties;
preparing for increased controls and restrictions following the review process, including educating customers that significant new use rules (Snurs) and orders are the way of the future; and
collaborating within industry, including sharing case studies.
Ms Gainey also said that companies may consider alternative uses for existing substance already on the inventory, while the new chemicals process continues to mature.
'Reasonably foreseen'
Under the new law, the EPA must now make an affirmative finding of safety on both the known and "reasonably foreseen" uses of a substance.
Mr Morris said the agency's interpretation of the law is that 'known uses' are those included in a PMN. The EPA is currently interpreting 'reasonably foreseen' to mean the known uses of similar substances.
"If there are uses associated with a close analog to this chemical – a chemical that seems that it's closely related and could likely be used in the same way as the PMN substance – and [these uses] are not on the PMN form, then we have to make our determination not only on the uses that are in the PMN form, but also on those reasonably foreseen uses."
In the past, he said, a minority of submitters received consent orders but "that’s going to change now," he said. The agency will need to issue an order and a significant new use rule (Snur) to articulate what protections would be needed to address a finding for not only the known use, but also for those reasonably foreseen ones.
In many cases, the order might just bind the submitter to the conditions outlined in its PMN. But, said Mr Morris, "it's still an order, and it's still something new."
Insufficient information
Regarding the law's new insufficient information finding, Mr Morris said this is also a new area for industry and the EPA alike. As "most PMN submissions do not come with a full battery of information that would allow us to make a determination," in many cases, the EPA will rely on analogous substances, he said.
But "it's not clear that in a lot of those cases that just going from an analogy – without a full body of information from a PMN submission – is going to allow us to move past that designation of 'insufficient information'."
This raises several questions, said Mr Morris, such as:
what are the testing implications for insufficient information;
what information does the law require the agency to ask for beyond what it has previously requested for new chemicals; and
should the EPA require tests that the regulated community is familiar with, or should the agency be exploring more 'creative', or alternative ways that it can use to gather the information it needs to make its determination.
Evonik's Ms Gainey said that for some early PMN determinations, the agency's upfront testing requests have apparently been "pretty significant". Some have included 90-day inhalation studies, for example.
"It will be clear very soon," said Mr Morris, that the discussion around the testing implications of the changes to Section 5 of TSCA will be "very important” to how the EPA operates.
https://chemicalwatch.com/50451/new-chemical-notification-process-very-different-under-new-tsca
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Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
Echa’s Board of Appeal (BoA) has annulled the agency’s decision on a registration dossier compliance check that requested identity information on a “nano-structured” substance. BoA said Echa’s decision breached the principle of legal certainty, which says that administrative acts producing legal effects “should be clear so that the person concerned knows, without ambiguity, his rights and obligations” (13 December).
American multinational SC Johnson has agreed to “carefully review” scientific data on the synthetic musk galaxolide. The move comes amid concerns from NGOs and scientists that it is persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) (13 October).
The US EPA has named the persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBT) substances that will be subject to rapid risk management action, under the new TSCA. The agency will be taking action on decaBDE; hexachlorobutadiene (HCBD); pentachlorothiophenol (PCTP); tris(4-isopropylphenyl) phosphate (IPTPP) and 2,4,6-tris(tert-butyl) phenol (12 October).
A backlog of pre-manufacture notices (PMNs) and increasing number of TSCA consent orders could delay new products reaching the market, says the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates (Socma). According to the EPA, the provisions on new chemicals are the area of TSCA most immediately impacted by the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act (12 October).
Taiwan’s EPA has issued a set of temporary regulations that will give life to a bureau on toxic substances and chemical regulation by 1 January. They aim to bolster “point of origin” control over chemical substances in food safety, and crisis response capabilities for toxic substance-related disasters (12 October).
A joint statement encouraging formulator industries to produce sector use maps and urging Cefic member companies to include such information in new and updated REACH registration dossiers was signed at Cefic’s General Assembly in Florence earlier this month (6 October).
The implementation of Turkey’s new REACH-like law, KKDIK, needs to be expedited because the country’s current chemicals control law (KEK) is using a classification and labelling system that no longer exists, say industry observers (6 October).
The European Commission is understood to be redrafting key sections of its proposed criteria for determining endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in the context of biocides and pesticides legislation. The work follows comments received from EU member states, the European Parliament, Echa and others (6 October).
Phthalates, flame retardants and perfluorinated chemicals are among the substances Washington state will be considering for addition to its Chemicals of High Concern to Children (CHCC) list. The release of the candidate substances comes as part of the department’s rulemaking process for updating reporting requirements under its Children’s Safe Products Act (CSPA) (6 October).
Australia has published the fourth, and final, consultation paper on the proposed reforms to its chemicals agency, Nicnas. The paper outlines the overarching framework for the reforms, which are expected to be set out in new legislation (6 October).
In September, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) begun the stakeholder engagement process for selecting new priority products under its Safer Consumer Products (SCP) programme (30 September).
China’s State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) is drafting a new chemicals safety law, following the Tianjin explosion a year ago. Li Heng of law firm Mayer Brown’s Beijing office, told Chemical Watch the law is expected to clarify various aspects of chemicals management, including definitions and the responsibilities of different ministries, and to cover both new and existing hazardous substances (29 September).
Two NGOs have urged the UN Environment Programme (Unep) to use its draft review of lists of chemicals that are recognised as, or suggested to be, endocrine disrupting chemicals, as a basis for an official list. The NGOs, UK’s CHEM Trust and the Center for International Environmental Law (Ciel), say that Unep and the World Health Organization (WHO) could manage, update and expand this (28 September).
PFOA and short-chain chlorinated paraffins warrant global action under the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs), a UN expert committee decided last week (27 September).
https://chemicalwatch.com/50386/in-the-news
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(ACC Mentioned) Dooley Slams UN Cancer Agency's Pronouncements
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
American Chemistry Council head Cal Dooley has told a US Congressional committee that the publication of hazard information is "not meaningful" and "often misleading".
In a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, he writes such information should only be considered "along with real-world exposure data to determine the actual risk that a substance or behaviour will cause harm".
The committee is currently running an inquiry into US government funding for the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Iarc).
In his letter Mr Dooley says the distinction between hazard and risk "is often not understood or disregarded". And, as a result, Iarc's findings "frequently lead to alarming headlines; unnecessary public concern with potential adverse consequences in areas including health, safety and nutrition; and even regulatory action in the case of California’s Proposition 65 listing and warning programme."
Beyond the "fundamental flaw" of publishing hazard information without exposure data, Mr Dooley writes, there are "a host of problems associated with the processes and practices of Iarc's monographs programme that undermine the credibility of the agency's conclusions." Among his criticisms he says:
monographs "do not consider the full weight of the scientific evidence" and conclusions are frequently based on studies of poor quality;
Iarc reviews "lack transparency and disregard conflicts and potential sources of bias among researchers". Some working group participants, writes Mr Dooley, "have a personal or professional stake in the outcome of the monograph". At the same time, Iarc "prohibits the participation of industry representatives and other stakeholders and will not consider their input, citing purported conflicts";
Iarc's "practice of releasing a working group's conclusions by press release months before publication of explanatory and supporting information" contained in the complete monograph "breeds the kind of media frenzy and widespread misinterpretation" that accompanied recent announcements such as that on the carcinogenicity of the important herbicide glyphosate.
The committee claims Iarc's decisions about the carcinogenicity of substances are inconsistent with other scientific research. It is reviewing the National Institute of Health's (NIH) financial support of the World Health Organization agency.
As part of its enquiry, the committee wrote to NIH director Francis Collins on 26 September criticising Iarc. It said it receives "substantial taxpayer funding" from the institute "despite its record of controversy".
Iarc defends record
Responding on 5 October to NIH's request for information "in light of your anticipated briefing to the committee", Iarc director Christopher Wild defended the agency's evaluations as "widely respected for their scientific rigour, standardised and transparent process" and for "freedom from conflicts of interest".
The committee is alarmed that Iarc decisions "influence American policymaking". This includes California's plans to list glyphosate as a substance that can cause cancer and to require consumer warnings on products containing glyphosate.
But Iarc's cancer classifications reflect the strength of the scientific evidence as to whether an agent causes cancer in humans, Mr Wild said. The classifications don’t show how strong the effect is on the risk of developing cancer.
"While Iarc is a hazard identification programme, risk assessments are left to national authorities or other international organisations," he said.
However the committee's letter to the NIH said IARC's decisions show "a record of controversy, retractions and inconsistencies." For example, "after years of asserting coffee is possibly carcinogenic, Iarc dropped this claim in light of mounting contradictory studies."
In response, Mr Wild said Iarc "reevaluates a chemical when the scientific evidence significantly changes." The agency classified coffee in 1991, then reevaluated it in 2016 to take account of "an additional 25 years of scientific evidence."
https://chemicalwatch.com/50440/dooley-slams-un-cancer-agencys-pronouncements
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(ACC Mentioned) Disease Burden and Costs for EDCs 'Higher in US Than EU'
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Catherine Cooney
The disease costs of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are much higher in the US than in Europe, says an international team of researchers.
In a paper published on 17 October in The Lancet, the team says costs in the US, at $340bn, were half as big again as those in the EU, estimated at $217bn.
The group was led by Teresa Attina and Dr Leonardo Trasande of the New York School of Medicine. It was supported by the Endocrine Society, the Ralph S French Charitable Foundation and the Broad Reach Foundation.
Medical costs in the US are driven mainly by the loss of intelligence quotient (IQ) points and intellectual disabilities, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism caused by exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) flame retardants.
Phthalates, says the paper, also contribute to adult obesity, diabetes and endometriosis. Together these cost more than $47bn.
In the US there were more medical cases due to loss of IQ points from PBDEs than in the EU, the research found. There were 11m IQ points lost and 43,000 cases in the US as opposed to 873,000 IQ points lost and 3,290 cases in the EU.
The costs associated with treatment from PBDE exposure were also much higher in the US at $266bn compared with $12.6bn in the EU. These costs take up 1.28% of the GDP in the EU.
Whereas EDC exposure is much higher for organophosphate pesticides in Europe than in the US, the opposite is the case for PBDEs.
In Europe, the researchers point out, decaBDE was designated a hazardous substance and restricted in 2008. In contrast the US EPA encouraged manufactures to voluntarily phase out decaBDE by 2013.
'No provision for testing programmes'
While the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act gives the US EPA additional authority under TSCA, the team points out that it doesn't mention endocrine disruption. The Lautenberg law, they say, "makes no provision for urgently needed testing programmes. The cost of required testing is likely to be small when weighed against the $340bn in costs we have identified as being related to exposure to EDCs" in the US.
A comment piece by Michele La Merrill, of the Department of Environmental Toxicology and Comprehensive Cancer Centre at the University of California, published in the same issue of The Lancet, says the researchers' economic analysis can inform regulatory action. The EPA, she says, doesn't define any EDCs beyond their effects on the oestrogen, androgen, or thyroid systems. But the EU and the Endocrine Society have developed broader EDC definitions encompassing the entire endocrine system.
"Harmonising these definitions," says Ms La Merrill, "would allow for the formal recognition of the effects of EDCs on adiposity (obesity) and diabetes in the USA". And it would allow the US government to conduct more realistic cost–benefit analysis of potential regulations.
But the American Chemistry Council (ACC) says "the only thing more troubling than the paper's many flaws is that it does virtually nothing to advance the protection of public health.
"Most of the chemicals included in the paper are not endocrine disruptors, a term that, if used responsibly, is reserved for substances proven to cause adverse health effects through interaction with the endocrine system," says the industry body.
"The authors themselves have previously conceded that many of the chemicals they cite do not meet the World Health Organization’s widely-embraced definition of an EDC. Instead, they implicate substances that have been shown to interact with the endocrine system similar to the way in which Vitamin D, cocoa and caffeine naturally do."
https://chemicalwatch.com/50469/disease-burden-and-costs-for-edcs-higher-in-us-than-eu
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‘Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals’ are Not a Global Health Scourge
Oct 20, 2016 | The Federalist
By Julie Gunlock
Yesterday, the Drudge Report featured an alarming story about endocrine-disrupting chemicals that are in nearly every product we use. Yahoo News’ story “Massive US health tab for hormone-disrupting chemicals“ was just the sort of article that sends people into a panic and will cause many to toss out perfectly harmless and affordable everyday products.
In summary: a new study alleges “endocrine-disrupting chemicals” cause ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, fertility problems, diabetes, and obesity. Holy cow! All that and cancer, too. “So-called endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are found in thousands of everyday products, ranging from plastic and metal food containers, to detergents, flame retardants, toys and cosmetics.”
Yet if you go to the leading experts on autism, ADHD disorders, and other neurological problems, those experts actually don’t knowthe cause of many of these conditions (although most tend to think genetics plays a major role). As for diabetes and fertility problems, there’s lots of chatter (and very bad studies) associating these conditions with chemicals in plastics, but no actual connections have ever been found.
People who suffer from diabetes and fertility problems aren’t told to live in a shack in the forest, far away from modern conveniences that might include plastics that contain chemicals. Doctors recommend a host of other treatments and lifestyle changes, but avoiding plastics doesn’t make the list
Likewise, the American Cancer Society lists several factors that increase the risk of cancer: genetics, tobacco use, diet and lack of physical activity, sun and UV exposure, radiation exposure, certain infectious diseases, and some pollutants (like diesel exhaust, secondhand smoke, lead, and radon). Want to know what’s amazing? Endocrine disruptors are not on the list.
I’m the Only Doctor in the World Who Knows The Truth
Sadly, while the media tends to hype these flawed studies, they rarely provide information on the safety record of these chemicals. Nor do they mention that the leading international health and safety regulatory agencies, drawing on thousands of studies, have concluded that chemicals used in manufacturing and as food preservatives are safe.
For instance, the chemical Bisphenol-A (BPA) has been the subject of hundreds of safety studies over decades and it has been found (over and over again) to be safe. Those agencies include: The World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the European Union’s Food Safety Authority, Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Norway’s Scientific Committee for Food Safety, France’s Food Safety Agency, Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, Canada’s Health Agency, Australia and New Zealand’s Joint Food Standards Council.
Yet apparently, in opposition to all the work done by these agencies and many independent toxicologists who have studied these issues, “lead investigator” Dr. Leonardo Trasande knows exactly what causes all these ailments: It’s all plastics’ fault.
Given Trasende’s supposed command of nearly every medical field, I decided to take a closer look at him and his background. His biography reveals a great interest in both public policy and environmental issues. He has a master’s degree in public policy, worked in the office of Sen. Hillary Clinton (where have I heard that name?) and has testified before the Senate’s Environment and Public Works committee.
Wait for the Kicker
In what’s left of Trasende’s free time, he’s also an activist for environmental causes and is listed as an advisor to the Environmental Working Group (EWG). Not familiar with the EWG? The EWG is a very influential and quite radical environmental organization that makes a ton of money scaring people with their yearly “Dirty Dozen List.”
This list tells moms that conventionally grown fruits and vegetables sold in grocery stores (conventional simply means farmers can use synthetic pesticides on their crops—you know, so they’ll grow) have dangerous levels of pesticide residue on them and that, to be a good mom, they should buy the much more expensive organic produce (organic crops are also grown with the use of pesticides—a inconvenient fact the EWG always fails to disclose).
While promoting this list, the EWG often leaves out some pretty important details, such as that there’s zero nutritional difference between organic and conventionally grown food and that a child would have to eat 1,500 servings of, say, strawberries in a single sitting to reach the safe level of exposure of pesticide residue. That’s right: my kid could gorge himself to the point of making himself sick on strawberries and he still wouldn’t hit a dangerous level of exposure. Now tell me again why it’s harmful for my child to eat three or four conventionally grown strawberries (that are far cheaper than the organic brand)?
If Trasende is really concerned about public health, here’s another study he might want to read:
New peer reviewed research published in Nutrition Today shows fear-based messaging tactics used by activist groups and some organic marketers that invoke safety concerns about non-organic produce may be having a negative impact on consumption of fruits and veggies among low-income consumers…
‘We were surprised to see how informational content that named specific fruits and vegetables as having the highest pesticide residues increased the percentage of shoppers who said they would be unlikely to purchase any type of fruits and vegetables,’ says Britt Burton-Freeman, associate professor of food science and nutrition at ITT’s Center for Nutrition Research. ‘The concern is that depending on the structure of the communication about pesticides and fruits and vegetables this could turn people away from wanting to purchase any fresh produce.’
That’s great work, EWG: making people who live at or under the poverty line (ya know, the folks with the highest rates of obesity) pass on healthy fruits and vegetables at the grocery store. Well done!
Ever Heard of ‘Correlation, Not Causation’?
Trasende and his colleagues relied on computer models—a questionable and often flawed way to do scientific studies. Trasende also likes to draw correlations between a substance or environmental cause and a disease. A firm rule in scientific research is that correlations, while sometimes interesting and instructive, do not mean causation. In other words, just because two things are related, it does not mean A caused B. To see why correlation is not a good measure of causation, take a look at this graph.
The graph shows that as organic food consumption has gone up, so has the rate of autism diagnosis. Wow. That must mean organic food causes autism, right? Of course not.
Yet, clearly, Trasende and his colleagues don’t think it’s important to inform people about the limits of his latest study. In fact, earlier this year, Trasende found a correlation between pre-term births and air pollution. His system is pretty simple. He looked at the number of pre-term births in a particular area and then looked to see if that area had a higher level of air pollution. And VIOLA! A connection!
But in a well-designed scientific study, researchers consider other factors that could cause pre-term birth—like the health of the mother, her health during pregnancy, the mother’s economic situation, her diet, and educational levels. Trasende doesn’t bother to consider how these factors come into play. In fact, reporting on this study, the journalNature said the researchers tried to control for these factors:
The authors of the latest study made efforts to control for socioeconomic and lifestyle factors that might skew the results. However, some of those adjustments had limitations. Not all centres included information about whether the mother smoked during pregnancy; maternal education and address were used as proxy measurements to give an idea of socioeconomic status; and the mothers’ exposure to air pollution during pregnancy was estimated rather than measured directly.
So, basically, they made up data and succeeded in showing a connection between pollution and bad health outcomes. This isn’t useful if you want to know if pollution actually causes the problem, or how to prevent such problems, but it serves its purpose if the real goal is to create frightening headlines that make air pollution seem like a huge and very costly problem.
Trasende repeats this pattern with his latest study on endocrine disruption: suggesting these chemicals (and the diseases they cause) are responsible for $340 billion in health-related costs each year. Never mind that the study lacks actual evidence that the chemicals in question are actually contributing to these health problems.
Trasende is an activist scientist, trotting out junk science at rapid speed to further his political, policy, and regulatory goals. That’s not good science. It’s a troubling trend that will create onerous, burdensome, and wholly unnecessary regulations. Systems are in place to protect consumers from coming into contact with harmful chemicals, and a great body of scientific work has already been done to confirm the safety of these chemicals in everyday products and food packaging.
The scientific community must do more to reign in activist scientists and dubious scientific studies that create fear and alarm where no documented danger exists.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/10/20/hormone-disrupting-chemicals-not-global-health-scourge/
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Do Endocrine Disruptors Really Cost Us Hundreds of Billions?
Oct 20, 2016 | American Council on Science and Health
By Joseph Perrone
On Monday, a paper published by the UK medical journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology made waves claiming that endocrine-disrupting chemicals cost the U.S. $340 billion - over two percent of our GDP. In other words, the U.S. is losing the equivalent of half the federal defense budget in health care costs and lost wages due to low-level exposure to chemicals in everyday items, such as plastics or lined metal food cans.
Researchers theorize that these chemicals can cause health problems by interfering with our endocrine system, which produces hormones in our bodies. But it’s not just manmade chemicals that can interact with the endocrine system—these chemicals can also occur naturally in plants we eat.
It’s a scary prospect—everyday items are costing our country billions. Unfortunately, like many other headline-generating studies, this paper is based on flawed science.
In the push for newsworthiness, many press releases tout the findings of studies that rely on small sample sizes, flawed methodology, illogical leaps, and assumptions as “groundbreaking”.
Take this new paper. In pegging the cost of endocrine disruptors at $340 billion, the researchers first had to assume that each chemical it examined was, in fact, an endocrine disruptor, even though such allegations are unsupported by science. They also had to assume that exposure to chemicals caused particular health problems. This is a major assumption, considering most studies referenced in the paper show only small correlations.
Conveniently enough, the paper’s authors neglected to detail the methods used to select the literature fueling their endocrine-disrupting allegations. How did they decide which studies to include? Were studies revealing no link between chemicals and negative health effects excluded from the authors’ review entirely?
One of the paper’s primary targets is the media’s favorite endocrine villain, bisphenol A (BPA). Extensive reviews by more than eight different governments have confirmed BPA is safe at its current usage level. And that’s not to say BPA is understudied, or that science hasn’t yet found it’s “Aha!” moment. A vast library of studies have examined its impact, with over 10,000 citations listed on PubMed alone.
With universities and federal agencies under constant pressure to impress their donors (or Congressional Appropriations Committees), it’s not unworldly to speculate data may be “cherry-picked” to fit a researcher’s hypothesis.
Should we be worried about chemicals that may affect the endocrine system generally? It’s worth noting that most studies of endocrine disruption examine chemicals in concentrations orders of magnitude higher than what the average American would be exposed to. Literature reviews have found even “low dose” evaluations employ exposure rates up to 500-fold above typical human exposure levels. While such an evaluation is useful in determining hazard – evaluating whether a substance feasibly could cause harm at some level – it does nothing to communicate whether or not a chemical should be of legitimate concern to the average person.
Consider the difference in exposure between swimming in a bath of mercury versus consuming a serving of tuna. While the first would likely kill you, the amount of mercury in fish is so low that the average male could safely consume several pounds of tuna each week without giving mercury a second thought. And the health benefits of consuming tuna far outweigh the tiny risk of mercury exposure.
Negating risk assessment is a danger to the health community and public at large. By assuming that dosage in a study acts the same way as a true low dose in real-life exposure, we are comparing apples and oranges. Perhaps most dangerously, pointing to a chemical scapegoat distracts from addressing the root of the problem.
According to the Harvard School of Public Health, the global rate of obesity has nearly doubled since 1980. Attributing this health burden to “endocrine disruption” from the plastic holding your food rather than a personal habit of excess caloric intake is simply irresponsible. After all, chemicals have been in consumer products since well before the 80s.
In truth, health science is a game of incremental understanding, and wild claims that endocrine disruptors cost our economy billions do more to set back public understanding than to advance it—along with creating unnecessary fear for those of us who enjoy canned fruit or soup or drinking from plastic water bottles.
Dr. Joseph Perrone is chief science officer at the Center for Accountability in Science.
http://acsh.org/news/2016/10/20/do-endocrine-disruptors-really-cost-us-hundreds-billions-10330
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Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
IRIS public science meeting on ETBE, draft agenda
The EPA has issued its draft agenda for the 26 October public science meeting on the draft Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) toxicological review of ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE).
The formal 60-day comment period closes on 31 October.
Access to CBI notice
The EPA has given notice that it has authorised a contractor, Abt Associates of Bethesda, to access information submitted under TSCA. Some of this may be claimed, or determined to be, confidential business information (CBI).
The company is assisting the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) with scientific and engineering assessments of chemicals. It will also help to develop methods for chemical ranking by hazard and other factors, and to assess exposure and release.
Receipt of information under TSCA
The agency has announced the receipt of information on ethanedioic acid, following a test rule issued under TSCA.
The test rule was issued for certain high production volume (HPV) chemical substances, to obtain screening level data for health and environmental effects and chemical fate.
https://chemicalwatch.com/50420/us-epa-round-up
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Declaration of Chemicals in Products 'Urgently Needed'
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
Government spending, to identify chemicals of concern, could be significantly reduced if companies provided full disclosure of substances in materials and products, says Ake Bergman, executive director of the Swetox Research Center.
Speaking about chemicals of emerging concern, at Chemical Watch's Copenhagen chemicals summit last month, Mr Bergman said society is paying for "what industry is already aware of".
A collaboration of 11 Swedish universities, Swetox is a government funded toxicology sciences centre established in 2014. It looks at a wide range of chemicals, including endocrine disruptors.
Government funding, says Mr Bergman, allows the academic community to study the toxicity and ecotoxicity of a particular substance, or class of chemicals. However, much of this goes on identifying where they are coming from.
He highlighted classes of emerging chemicals of concern that are turning up in unlikely products. These include persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic (PBTs) and "semi-persistent" substances
As an example, Mr Bergman pointed to a study he and his team carried out on hand mixers that found unexpected levels of chlorinated paraffins. Last month, a UN expert committee recommended a global ban on short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs), under the Stockholm Convention on POPs.
"If we had declarations of the chemicals in materials and products it would be a shortcut for researchers, where we could then focus our work on synthesising and preparing test compounds for environmental assessments and monitor humans, wildlife and the environment as a whole."
Manufacturers of materials and products know what chemicals are added, he says, because they are using them to exhibit certain properties, such as colours and softness.
Chemical industry driven by 'economic gain'
Mr Bergman said manufacturer claims that product ingredients are proprietary information and, if disclosed, could give competitors an advantage, is not a valid excuse: "We have declarations on pharmaceuticals, pesticides and cosmetics or personal care products. But that's it. Why is proprietary information and declaration of chemicals different for these sectors?"
He argued that the chemical industry is largely stopping the process of declaring chemicals in materials and products.
The industry, he said, wants to continue with "questionable, potentially hazardous compounds, because if the manufacturing process is working it is a matter of economic gain".
In response to Mr Bergman's comments, Cefic acknowledged the need to continuously improve communication along the supply chain. However, it said this is being addressed, pointing to the recent joint statement it signed with Cefic and downstream users organisation Ducc committing it to encouraging the use of sector use maps.
Aaron McLoughlin, Cefic executive director for public affairs, told Chemical Watch that Echa's recent five-year review offers "ample examples" of innovation and substitution from chemical producers, providing customers with what they want. "It's hard to comment on unspecific concerns about a particular producer or producers. I know many chemical producers who fully inform their customers".
Ducc chair Janice Robinson told Chemical Watch there are also "ample disclosure obligations".
"All hazardous substances (above cut-off limits), as well as SVHCs, have to be disclosed in safety data sheets for mixtures," she said.
Referring to the draft CLP implementing regulation, which sets out rules for submitting harmonised data on hazardous mixtures to poison centres, she said: "There are already adequate mechanisms in the existing provisions to communicate on hazardous substances of concern."
Mr Bergman, however, said the issue was not the declaration of substances already known to be hazardous, but rather the declaration of all substances in a product, whether hazardous or not, to ensure that early actions and/or substitutions are carried out.
https://chemicalwatch.com/50432/declaration-of-chemicals-in-products-urgently-needed
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Change 'Dead Law' on SVHCs in Articles, Urges Ueapme
Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Luke Buxton
Europe's SMEs trade body has urged Echa and the European Commission to look for ways to simplify notification of SVHCs in articles under REACH.
Ueapme secretary general Peter Faross wrote to the agency and the Commission's environment and industry directorates in advance of today's meeting of the Partner Expert Group (PEG).
This will discuss Echa's latest draft of its revised guidance on requirements for substances in articles.
The changes aim to align the guidance with last year's European Court of Justice ruling. This said the 0.1% threshold for notifying SVHCs in articles applies to "each of the articles incorporated as a component of a complex product" rather than to the entire article.
In his letter, Mr Faross expressed concern at the interpretation of the term 'article' and the functioning of REACH Articles 33 and 7(2).
Article 33 requires companies to reply within 45 days if asked by consumers or customers about the presence – above 0.1% concentration – of SVHCs in their products. Article 7 (2) says producers and importers of articles must notify Echa if an SVHC is present at over one tonne per producer or importer per year, in a concentration higher than 0.1% by weight.
Mr Faross said the court ruling was based on a "fundamental misunderstanding related to proportionality" as it said requiring the article producer or importer to provide, as a minimum, the name of any SVHCs in an article, could not be regarded as an "excessive burden".
Describing Article 33 as "dead law, which is fundamentally eroding the credibility of our legal system," the letter urges the Commission to use the opportunity provided by the second REACH review to see how it could be changed.
In practice, said Mr Faross, the submission of a chemical name is "actually only the last step of a very burdensome process" – and that the court had not taken into account the necessary practical efforts to be able to state whether a substance is present in an article or not. "Since this could require testing and/or other investigation methods," he said, "these efforts need to be considered as they are the main part of the burden."
'Valueless' certificates
Moreover, says the letter, companies are approaching each other with requests for a 'REACH certificate' or documents on 'REACH compliance status' – something which "has often become a purely bureaucratic exercise without any value for the protection of human health or environment.
In "the vast number of our members' companies," Mr Faross wrote, "Article 33 cannot be implemented and it seems its enforcement is not possible to a sufficient extent."
The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) accepts that implementing Articles 33 and 7(2) is problematic, but disagrees with Ueapme's arguments. "The REACH articles guarantee the flow of information on SVHCs," said senior chemicals policy officer Tatiana Santos. "The right to know is critical for society and as one of the fundamental pillars of REACH it should be properly implemented and enforced.”
Mr Faross said Ueapme is glad to contribute to the PEG consultation but "does not think that the new version of the guidance will improve the situation because the legal obligation is too complex for an average SME."
After the PEG meeting, Echa will revise the draft and submit it for consultation by its Enforcement Forum and the Competent Authorities for REACH and CLP (Caracal). This should happen by early next year, with the final guidance published soon afterwards.
https://chemicalwatch.com/50419/change-dead-law-on-svhcs-in-articles-urges-ueapme
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Oct 20, 2016 | Chemical Watch
Testing proposals
The agency has invited third parties to submit scientifically valid information and studies on six testing proposals for four substances:
((3-(sec-butyl)-4-(decyloxy)phenyl)methanetriyl)tribenzene. Vertebrate testing is proposed for hazard endpoints of reproductive toxicity (pre-natal developmental toxicity) and sub-chronic toxicity (90-day): oral;
5,5'-dithiodi-1,3,4-thiadiazole-2(3H)-thione. Testing proposed for genetic toxicity in vivo;
[1,3-phenylenebis(1-methylethylidene)]bis[tert-butyl] peroxide. Testing proposed for bioaccumulation aquatic/sediment and reproductive toxicity (pre-natal developmental toxicity); and
bis(α,α-dimethylbenzyl) peroxide, with proposed testing for reproductive toxicity (pre-natal developmental toxicity).
They have a submission deadline of 5 December.
e-PIC tool updated
Echa has released an update to the IT tool used for submitting export notifications under the prior informed consent (Pic) Regulation. The update:
sends companies an alert if there are duplicate notifications; and
allows firms to resubmit Article 10 reports if requested by the national authorities.
As well as these changes some of the tasks carried out by national authorities have been automated.
Translations
Echa has translated its updated Guidance on Information Requirements and Chemical Safety Assessment (IR&CSA), Part D (Framework for exposure assessment) into 23 EU languages.
The translations are available from the agency website.
The update is a full revision of the guidance. Its main aims were to:
produce a more concise document; and
reflect the experience from the registration process so far.
The updated guidance integrates information from other IR&CSA guidance documents.
And the agency has announced that its manual How to prepare registration and PPORD dossiers has also been translated from English into 23 languages. The manual was first published in April 2016. It is available on the agency's website.
And, finally, Echa has translated its Guidance on the Pic Regulation into the remaining eight EU languages. It concerns the export and import of hazardous chemicals.
The translations correspond to the English-language text of July 2015's corrigendum. This takes into account the full entry into force of the CLP Regulation.
The means the document is now available in 23 official EU languages.
https://chemicalwatch.com/50392/echa-round-up
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Bogus Claims of ‘Organic’ Cosmetics Mislead Consumers
Oct 20, 2016 | Environmental Working Group
By Scott Faber
Cosmetics and other personal care product companies make questionable organic claims on thousands of products, a new EWG analysis shows.
More than 5,000 products in EWG’s Skin Deep® database – about 20 percent of current product formulations rated on the site – use “organic” in the brand name, product name, product label or list of ingredients. But many of these products contained risky or hidden ingredients and received poor Skin Deep® scores.
Skin Deep® rates a product on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the best score and 10 the worst score. Of the products that used the term organic, more than 250 received a score of 5 or above. Four products that used the term organic received a score of 9 or 10.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture regulates the use of “organic” when the claim is made on farm products. Cosmetics made primarily of farm products are allowed to carry the USDA Organic seal if 95 percent or more of the ingredients meet federal organic standards, and the remaining ingredients are on an approved ingredient list and were not produced using prohibited methods. Products labeled “made with organic ingredients” can have up to 30 percent non-organic ingredients but cannot use certain ingredients.
But there is no federal standard for “organic” cosmetics products derived from chemicals. And the Food and Drug Administration, which has primary authority over regulating cosmetics, makes little effort to police misleading “organic” cosmetics claims. Some private standards for “organic” cosmetics may allow the use of chemicals that are linked to health problems and restricted in other nations.
The proliferation of misleading claims and the absence of meaningful oversight has fueled enormous consumer confusion.
A new survey conducted by the Federal Trade Commission and the USDA found that many consumers mistakenly believe personal care products with organic claims meet government standards, even though most do not. A large number of consumers also mistakenly believe personal care products with organic claims contain only organic ingredients.
At the same time, consumers are increasingly seeking and buying “organic” personal care products. Over the past decade, annual sales of “organic” non-food products, including personal care products, have soared from less than $1 billion to $3.6 billion. So far this year, consumers have searched Skin Deep® for the word organic 150,000 times, an average of 538 searches per day.
Compounding the confusion is the fact that most consumers mistakenly believe cosmetics chemicals are reviewed and regulated by the FDA. A recent poll found that two-thirds of consumers believe cosmetics chemicals must be proven safe before they can be placed on the market. In fact, the FDA does not review cosmetics chemicals and has only banned nine chemicals for safety reasons.
Many other misleading claims are also made on personal care products, including “natural,” “unscented” and “hypo-allergenic” claims. EWG found 21 products in Skin Deep® that make “unscented” claims but also list “fragrance” in the ingredients.
The misuse of the term organic on cosmetics and other personal care products not only deceives consumers, but also undermines public trust in the USDA’s organic standard. Unlike private standards, the USDA organic standard for food and farm products is set and enforced by the federal government, so it guarantees that a product was produced without dangerous chemicals.
What should be done? Today, the FTC and USDA will host a meeting to discuss whether consumer confusion about organic claims on cosmetics, cleaners and other non-food products warrants greater oversight of misleading claims, including greater attention from the FTC.
In the meantime, concerned consumers can consult Skin Deep® or look for EWG VERIFIEDTM products.
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2016/10/bogus-claims-organic-cosmetics-mislead-consumers
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It's Déjà Vu in Arguments as EPA Foes Challenge Another Rule
Oct 20, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Amanda Reilly
The lawsuit over U.S. EPA's carbon rule for new power plants features similar battle lines, many of the same attorneys and the same federal court as the litigation over the Clean Power Plan.
And opening briefs filed last week in the case show that challengers intend to make the Clean Power Plan a part of their legal arguments, too. Foes cited the Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, more than a half dozen times to boost their arguments against the rule for new power plants.
Industry and state foes pointed to the Clean Power Plan to show that they had legal standing to sue and that EPA had not adequately demonstrated it can rely on carbon capture and storage to reduce emissions from new power plants.
"In the Clean Power Plan, EPA stated that CCS was experimental and heavily subsidized when it rejected a best system of emission reduction that included CCS," industry petitioners wrote in their court brief last week.
Court decisions in each case could have an impact on the fate of the other.
The two rules are inextricably linked under the Clean Air Act: EPA cannot require existing power plants to meet carbon dioxide limits under Section 111(d) of the law, as it has done in the Clean Power Plan, without requiring new or modified plants to meet limits under Section 111(b).
If the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — and then the Supreme Court — toss out the new source rule, legal experts agree it could spell trouble for the Clean Power Plan.
Whether that goes the other way — meaning, will the court's decision on the Clean Power Plan have an impact on the new source rule — is less clear. But legal experts this week said the Clean Power Plan litigation, which the D.C. Circuit will decide first, could play a role in the eventual decision on the legality of the new source rule.
"Because these are both under the same provision and they both involve EPA's efforts to review the particular source category and make judgments about what is feasible and cost-effective and what is happening in the industry, the question could arise: How much deference does EPA get?" said Sean Donahue, an attorney representing environmentalists in both cases.
The chances for the new source rule "would certainly be much better" if the court upholds the Clean Power Plan, Donahue said.
EPA issued both final rules at the same time in August 2015.
EPA's New Source Performance Standards require both new and modified fossil-fuel-fired power plants to meet carbon dioxide limits. The standards for new coal plants cannot be met by efficiency improvements alone, meaning operators will have to capture carbon and sequester it in deep saline formations.
The Clean Power Plan, on the other hand, requires states to develop and put in place plans to lower carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. In February, the Supreme Court stayed the rule until litigation is resolved.
Together, the Clean Power Plan and the new source rule are "two parts of one overall effort by the agency essentially to codify the direction the power sector is going," said James Rubin, a partner at law firm Dorsey & Whitney.
Last month, 10 judges on the D.C. Circuit heard nearly seven hours of oral arguments in the litigation over the Clean Power Plan rule (Greenwire, Sept. 27). Arguments haven't yet been scheduled in the litigation over the new source rule; last Thursday, challengers filed their opening briefs in the D.C. Circuit (Greenwire, Oct. 14).
In both cases, challengers say EPA doesn't have the authority under Clean Air Act Section 111 to do what it's doing.
"Like the Power Plan Rule, which has been separately challenged before this Court, this rule far exceeds the agency's authority," a group of 23 state petitioners, led by West Virginia, wrote in an opening brief. "Congress has not granted EPA the power to choose winners and losers in the energy marketplace."
Both cases challenge EPA's interpretation of the phrase "best system of emission reduction" in the law.
"I think what really connects both cases is that ... EPA really just overreached here and went way beyond what the statute allows, and that really is the fundamental argument," said Jeff Holmstead, a partner at Bracewell who represents industry clients.
But the lawsuits contain key differences in their details. In the new source rule suit, foes are challenging whether carbon capture and storage has been adequately demonstrated as an emission-reduction technique. The key challenge in the Clean Power Plan case focuses on whether EPA can rely on generation shifting to force emission reductions.
While there are differences, the links between the two rules came into play in the opening briefs filed by state and industry challengers last week in the new source rule litigation.
Both states and industry opponents argued they have standing to challenge the new source rule because it's a legal prerequisite for the Clean Power Plan, which they say causes harm in the form of high costs and untenable requirements. Opponents argued the court could redress their injury by getting rid of the new source rule.
States and industry also are using the Clean Power Plan to boost their arguments that EPA illegally relied on small-scale carbon capture pilot programs and facilities that have received federal funding to show that CCS is a feasible way for new power plants to reduce emissions.
State opponents pointed to language in the Clean Power Plan in which EPA says a system consists of "an assemblage or combination of things or parts forming a complex or unitary whole." EPA has not shown that its entire system of emission reduction in the new source rule is adequately demonstrated, the states said.
"By purporting to show merely that components of a system are technically feasible without proving that they can be successfully integrated in a full-scale commercial plant," the 23 states said in their brief, "EPA impermissibly relies on '"crystal-ball" inquiry' to attempt to demonstrate its system."
States also try to use EPA's own words against the agency, citing an argument that an attorney representing the agency recently made in front of the D.C. Circuit.
"As counsel for EPA recently conceded to this Court, sitting en banc to hear challenges to the Power Plan Rule, 'the statute directly requires that any system of emission reduction be adequately demonstrated,'" the states said.
EPA's response to the arguments is due in December. The agency did not comment on the opening briefs.
"EPA is going to be saying here are all these examples of people looking at CCS or pointing to the fact that nobody's building any coal anymore," Rubin said.
Rubin said the makeup of the three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit that hears the new source rule litigation and where those judges fall in the Clean Power Plan decision may signal how they'll view EPA's authority when it comes to deciding the new source rule case.
"If the court were inclined to think that EPA was acting in excess of authority" in the Clean Power Plan, he said, "and the same judges who were in the majority are in the panel for the 111(b) rule, that might show some inclination toward where they think the limits on authority might be."
In any event, "the court will certainly be more educated on these issues by the time they hear 111(b)," he said.
The bigger impact could be on the Clean Power Plan if the courts strike down all or part of the new source rule.
If EPA loses the case, "then at a minimum it puts on hold — and may take down completely — the Clean Power Plan," Holmstead said. "It's puzzling they did this given their view that no new coal-fired power plants are being built. Why did they take on all this legal risk if no one's building new coal-fired power plants anywhere?"
EPA and environmentalists will likely argue that if the court finds the requirement for carbon capture and storage is illegal but it upholds the rule's other requirements for modified power plants, that's enough to satisfy the prerequisite for the Clean Power Plan.
Donahue, the attorney for environmentalists, called all the litigation part of a "familiar pattern" of aggressive attacks on anything EPA does to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
"It seems that the arguments are constructed," he said, "so that it would be extremely difficult for any rule that requires some effort to control greenhouse gases would survive."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/10/20/stories/1060044590
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Tempers Flare in Standoff Over Dakota Access Oil Pipeline
Oct 20, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
Company and government officials, law enforcement and Native American tribal leaders are all concerned as tensions continue to rise in south-central North Dakota over attempts to halt construction of the nearly completed $3.8 billion, four-state Dakota Access oil pipeline.
Viewed as an economic conduit for the state's Bakken Shale-produced sweet crude oil, which has found markets on the nation's three coasts, eleventh-hour concerns raised by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe have inspired an encampment of protesters who have reportedly gone beyond peaceful demonstrations in trying to halt a pipeline crossing under a dammed portion of the Missouri River near the Sioux reservation.
The Texas-based backer of the pipeline, Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), on Tuesday posted a $100,000 reward for information related to an arson attack that caused $2 million in damage to a construction site in Iowa. Dakota Access and its contractor, Precision Pipeline, are offering the reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible. ETP also created a telephone hotline (855-430-4491) for tips.
Three bulldozers and an excavator belonging to the contractor were damaged last Saturday at a site near Reasnor, IA, about 40 miles east of Des Moines, according to the Jasper County Sheriff's Office, whose investigators said the fire looked like it was set intentionally.
In the meantime, in Morton County, ND, where the encampment is located, Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier continued to block major highways in the area of the protest, causing a Standing Rock councilman from the nearby Sioux reservation to criticize the sheriff for "literally dividing our communities."
On Thursday, the Society of Environmental Journalists wrote to North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple and Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem to protest the arrest of two journalists covering the protests. One documentary filmmaker was allegedly jailed for two days. Charges against both journalists were dropped.
Earlier this week, the National Infrastructure Alliance, a group of construction unions, wrote to President Obama urging him to direct the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to allow the Dakota Access project to be completed. "This unfortunate situation demands your immediate attention," wrote Raymond Poupore, executive director of the Washington, DC-based alliance.
Members of the North Dakota Public Service Commission (PSC), which had to review and approve the portion of Dakota Access pipeline cutting through their state, now have been telling local news media they don't know why the Sioux didn't raise the tribe's concerns about protection of water and cultural/burial sites earlier in the process when the PSC held three public hearings on ETP's project during permitting.
Sioux leaders argue that the tribe was not adequately involved in the permitting process, as PSC Chairman Julie Fedorchak and Commissioner Brian Kalk have contended to local news media. "We followed the process, held our hearings, made our decision," Kalk told the media.
Local energy journalists have pointed out that tribes and state officials have historically had a problematic relationship as the Native American leaders prefer to interface with the federal government on what they consider a nation-to-nation basis.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/108164-tempers-flare-in-standoff-over-dakota-access-oil-pipeline
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EPA Seeks High-Level Talks With FERC to Resolve NEPA GHG Concerns
Oct 20, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan
EPA is formally requesting a headquarters-level meeting with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to resolve the long-running controversy on whether the commission must analyze “indirect” greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions when reviewing the environmental impacts of natural gas infrastructure projects.
One environmentalist says this might be the first time EPA has requested a headquarters-level meeting with FERC to discuss the need for indirect GHG analysis, before issuance of a final FERC decision document on an energy project.
In an Oct. 11 letter, EPA said FERC's final environmental impact statement (EIS) for a pair of natural gas pipelines in several Appalachian states is at odds with recently finalized White House guidance on incorporating GHGs and climate concerns in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) reviews.
“We view FERC's response to our comments [on a draft review for the projects] as very concerning in light of” the Aug. 2 White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) NEPA climate guide, an EPA Region 5 official says in the letter.
FERC's review covers the proposed Leach Xpress gas pipeline, which could carry 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It also includes the related Rayne Xpress project, which would expand a compression facility in Kentucky to provide 621 million cubic feet of gas per day.
The letter seeks a headquarters-level meeting between the two agencies “to seek a definitive resolution to this matter before you publish a Record of Decision (ROD) and so that you do not continue to take this approach in additional NEPA documents.”
The letter further underscores how EPA is increasingly pressing agencies to include broad GHG reviews in NEPA analyses and citing the CEQ guide to bolster its point.
For example, the agency in a July 15 letter to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offered a highly critical rating of a draft NEPA review for an oil shale project in Utah, in part because it also did not consider the project's indirect GHGs.
In that case, EPA said the project is a “potential candidate for referral to” CEQ, while urging BLM to include the GHG analysis and other requested information.
The recent letter could further increase pressure on FERC, which has been particularly resistant to advocates' efforts in litigation to force the commission to include broad GHG reviews in NEPA documents.
A top FERC official recently hedged on how the commission would respond to the CEQ guidance. “I am not sure if there will be anything officially produced or [whether] you will just see, if there is a change made, you will see it in actual NEPA documents,” a commission lawyer told Inside EPA during an Oct. 5 event.
CEQ's guide provides long-awaited advice to federal agencies on how to assess the GHG impacts of projects, as well as the potential effects of climate change on the projects.
On GHGs, the guide suggests that agencies should quantify potential emissions, assess both direct and indirect emissions if such emissions are a “reasonably foreseeable” effect of the project, and mitigate adverse impacts.
Although administration officials have said the guidance is voluntary, House Republicans are warning that it could become a de facto requirement for agencies if it is cited in court rulings.
Most Resistant
But FERC has been among the agencies most resistant to broadly considering the GHG impacts of its gas infrastructure decisions. It has prevailed in recent litigation over approvals of liquified natural gas terminals after a key appellate court found it is the Department of Energy's (DOE) job to consider such impacts under NEPA when it approves gas exports, not FERC's when it approves construction.
But since DOE does not play a role in approving domestic infrastructure such as gas pipelines, environmentalists are already challenging some of FERC's pipeline approvals in court where the guidance could also be raised either in briefs or oral arguments.
EPA echoes environmentalists' charges, claiming in its letter that combustion of the natural gas transported by the pipeline “falls squarely within the obligation to consider indirect impacts under NEPA,” the letter says. “The CEQ GHG Guidance makes this same point, and uses the end-use product combustion of fossil fuel as a specific example of the kind of indirect effect that should be considered under NEPA.”
As such, EPA officials “continue to strongly recommend that FERC include estimates of emissions from production and combustion of the natural gas transported by the proposal.”
The EPA letter also faults FERC's comparison of the project's GHG emissions with state emission levels.
“As CEQ stated in its final guidance, such comparisons are 'not an appropriate method for characterizing the potential impacts associated with a proposed action and its alternatives and mitigations because this approach does not reveal anything beyond the nature of climate change itself: the fact that diverse individual sources of emissions each make a relatively small addition to global atmospheric GHG concentrations that collectively have a large impact,'” EPA says.
The agency adds that FERC, in response to its comments on the draft review, cited a draft version of the CEQ guidance as supporting its position. “[T]hat concept is not included in the final guidance and we recommend that this reference be removed.”
The environmentalist says the letter shows that “EPA seems to be getting more forceful in its comments to FERC, which is very welcome trend.”
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/epa-seeks-high-level-talks-ferc-resolve-nepa-ghg-concerns
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D.C. Circuit Stays API Suit Over EPA Oil & Gas FIP Pending Reconsideration
Oct 20, 2016 | Inside EPA
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has agreed to EPA and the American Petroleum Institute's (API) request to stay litigation over EPA's federal implementation plan (FIP) setting “minor” source air permit requirements for oil and natural gas drilling on tribal lands while the agency mulls reconsideration of the rule.
The court granted the motion to put the case, API v. EPA, in abeyance and set a Dec. 13 deadline for motions to govern future proceedings in the case. The agency will now review API's petition for reconsideration that warned the FIP could potentially delay Clean Air Act permitting for energy projects if they are located on tribal land.
EPA issued the FIP June 3 as part of a package of air rules for the oil and gas sector that also included its first-time rule to reduce emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane from new drilling operations, as well as an information collection request that could inform a future methane rule for existing sources.
The FIP requires compliance by oil and gas industrial sources of air pollution with emissions limits and other controls for compression ignition and spark ignition engines; process heaters; combustion turbines; fuel storage tanks; glycol dehydrators; completion of hydraulically fractured oil and natural gas wells; reciprocating and centrifugal compressors (except those located at well sites); pneumatic controllers; pneumatic pumps; storage vessels; and fugitive emissions from well sites, compressor stations and natural gas processing plants.
EPA also revised the program to establish that oil and gas minor sources on tribal lands must comply with the FIP unless they obtain a source-specific permit and streamlining the registration provision for construction. Minor sources are those emitting below the air law's threshold for “major” emissions sources.
API filed suit over the FIP in the D.C. Circuit, but also submitted its Aug. 2 petition for reconsideration with the agency asking it to reconsider the rule due to provisions the group opposes.
Reconsideration Petition
The group in its Oct. 5 motion to place the lawsuit in abeyance said that EPA's reconsideration of the rule could moot all, or part, of the case.
Among the parts of the rule that API urged the agency to reconsider is a requirement that projects are subject to case-by-case review under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).
API argues in the petition that, “The need for EPA approval may significantly delay projects, which would defeat the streamlining that otherwise is accomplished by the FIP.”
Instead, the petition says, EPA should revise the requirement to eliminate the need for case-by-case consideration of the ESA and NHPA issues, arguing that FIP is “no different than myriad other EPA” Clean Air Act regulations that allow for implementation without the need for an ESA or NHPA review.
The group is also raising concerns that the FIP does not allow for the creation of synthetic minor sources, which it says should be allowed because permitting authorities may request case-by-case review if they determine that the FIP is not adequate for a given project where the source seeks to establish itself as a synthetic minor.
Lastly, API faults the FIP because it does not apply if an area is designated nonattainment for ambient air quality standards, saying the agency should amend it to extend its applicability to newly designated nonattainment areas to serve as a “temporary bridge” until an area-specific program could be put into place.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/dc-circuit-stays-api-suit-over-epa-oil-gas-fip-pending-reconsideration
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EPA Releases Recommendations for Curbing Oil and Gas Emissions
Oct 20, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Sean Reilly
U.S. EPA today published the final version of technical recommendations for curbing smog-forming emissions from existing oil and gas operations, the latest step in its bid to cut air pollution from the industry.
The control techniques guidelines are intended to limit industry releases of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in parts of the country that have trouble complying with air quality standards for ozone, the main ingredient in smog.
They will apply in 28 areas currently classified as being in "moderate" nonattainment or worse for the 2008 ozone standards, setting "reasonably available control technology" recommendations for reducing VOC leaks, as well as limiting emissions from storage tanks, compressors and other equipment.
The recommendations will also apply in the so-called Ozone Transport Region, which encompasses 11 Northeastern states, the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia.
If all affected states fully implemented the guidelines, VOC emissions would drop by an estimated 80,000 tons annually, according to an accompanying EPA fact sheet. Because many of the same technical measures also reduce other pollutants, the agency predicts that yearly releases of methane would fall by 200,000 tons and air toxics by 3,000 tons, under that scenario.
The cumulative price tag for new equipment and other initial implementation costs would be about $390 million, following by yearly recurring expenses of $100 million after savings from the sale of recovered natural gas, the fact sheet said.
Release of the final guidelines comes more than a year after EPA rolled out an initial draft in August last year as part of a broader Obama administration strategy to combat climate change and reduce air pollution from the oil and gas sector.
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy signed them today, one day after the White House Office of Management and Budget completed its standard review.
An EPA spokeswoman had no immediate information this afternoon on the extent to which the final version differs from the initial draft.
Welcoming today's release was the Clean Air Task Force, an advocacy group that authored a report this summer linking oil and gas industry emissions to ozone-related health problems around the country.
"With these guidelines, EPA has taken a major step forward in reducing the 750,000 annual childhood asthma attacks" highlighted in the study, Conrad Schneider, the group's advocacy director, said in a statement.
The draft had been greeted with apprehension in the industry, with some representatives warning of the cost and impact of independent producers of adding new controls to existing operations (Greenwire, Sept. 27).
In a news release today, a top official with the American Petroleum Institute urged EPA to hold off until it collects more information.
"Moving forward with these guidelines without robust data could impose unachievable emission reduction requirements on the industry, while adding potentially significant costs to the American economy, jobs, consumers and the environment," Howard Feldman, API senior director of regulatory and scientific affairs, said in the release.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/10/20/stories/1060044604
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Waste Sector Eyes Uniform Classification for Food Waste Energy Systems
Oct 20, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Suzanne Yohannan
The municipal solid waste management sector is seeking greater clarity and uniformity on how EPA and states classify food waste that is processed to create energy, particularly in anaerobic digesters, in order to ensure progress is made in reaching national and state goals for keeping food waste out of landfills and reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs).
"We need to decide if energy creation is diversion or disposal," Sara Bixby, deputy executive director of the Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA), said during an Oct. 6 symposium on food waste recovery where she argued the time is ripe to redefine what is meant by "diversion." SWANA represents private and public entities in municipal solid waste management.
Bixby also suggested during the Environmental Law Institute's "Fighting Food Waste: Diversion & Recycling" symposium that federal agencies adopt a new metric of food waste diversion, measuring GHG emissions reduced in addition to the current plan of calculating pounds of food not sent to landfills.
The issue comes as food waste -- which can be part of the feedstock for waste-to-energy technologies and the feedstock for anaerobic digesters -- is seeing greater attention from EPA as it attempts to increase food recovery in order to lower GHG emissions from landfills. The agency, along with the Department of Agriculture, in 2015 set a first-ever goal for the nation of reducing wasted food by 50 percent by the year 2030.
While the federal government and SWANA are emphasizing a reduction in food waste by recovering food to feed people and animals, Bixby said that even with those efforts there will still be tens of millions of tons of food waste that parties do not want to be sent to landfills. Energy creation is a potential market, she said.
But a uniform definition has long been lacking on whether waste-to-energy is disposal or diversion, Bixby said in a followup interview. Waste-to-energy (WTE) plants take solid waste -- which includes food but also other municipal solid waste -- and burn it to create energy, she said.
"Some states include it in their individual diversion calculations," she says in an email response. In contrast, EPA on its non-hazardous waste management hierarchy labels WTE and anaerobic digestion as "energy recovery," listing it as the second least preferred type of waste management, just above disposal.
SWANA has said it should be up to local communities as to whether WTE is part of diversion. While states such as California and Florida have said it is, other states have determined it is clearly disposal, Bixby says.
"If food waste remains in the stream sent to WTE facilities and we don't have a common understanding of diversion, we will continue to struggle to quantify progress toward the goal related to that portion of the food waste managed," she says in the email response.
Anaerobic Digesters
There are also open questions about how to classify anaerobic digesters (ADs), which use food waste to create both compost and methane gas, the latter of which can be burned to create energy, Bixby says. In fact, some facilities focus more strongly on the energy production from digesters than compost production when identifying benefits, she says.
It "would be useful to have a clearly-stated position from EPA in advance that the energy recovery efforts of AD facilities contribute to the food waste diversion goal," she says in the email response. If EPA does not take up such a position, then investing in AD technology could lose its advantages in terms of being able to contribute toward the national 50 percent reduction goal, she adds.
She added in the interview that many people seem to view AD as diversion, "but let's lock it down."
Another industry source agrees that AD should be distinguished, but the focus should not be on what is "diversion vs. disposal," but rather on using more specific terms. The source agrees with Bixby "that if you lump together WTE and AD, AD will never be pursued because of expense." The source adds this is "unfair because AD creates both energy and compost, a new recycled product."
The source suggests a more detailed hierarchy ranging from most preferred to least preferred that would place reduce at the top, followed by reuse, then traditional recycling, followed by "recover energy and recycled product" such as AD. Below that would be "recover energy," such as WTE and landfills containing a landfill gas-to-energy configuration. The least preferred would be disposal -- simple landfilling, the source says.
"If you had these clear terms, then you could count what really happens," the source says, adding, "It's the mixing of apples and oranges under 'diversion' that messes everything up."
In addition to the federal 50 percent reduction goal, many states also have goals, Bixby noted in the interview. For instance, Iowa has an intermediate goal of 25 percent waste diversion from landfills and a final goal of 50 percent diversion, both of which are backed up by incentives that reduce solid waste fees on so-called "planning areas" if the percentages are reached, according to an Iowa Department of Natural Resources source.
As a result, every state with a waste diversion goal will have to decide if food waste recovery and processing counts toward that goal, Bixby said in the interview. There could be 50 different definitions, making it hard to say what the national progress is towards a goal, she said.
New Metrics
The waste management sector is also suggesting a change in the metrics used for meeting the federal goal, calling for adopting a new metric calculating GHG emissions reduced rather than just pounds of food waste diverted from disposal. Currently, the goal uses 2010 as the baseline year, at which time 218.9 pounds of food waste per person was sent to disposal each year. The 2030 goal calls for reducing that amount to 109.4 pounds per person annually.
But Bixby suggested during the seminar that it might be more effective to evaluate based on the amount of GHG diverted. In the follow-up email, she notes that the environmental gain of diverting food waste from landfills is a lowering of GHG emissions. "So, we might consider if it's feasible or instructive to include some evaluation of GHG changes as well as to the weight of the food diverted . . . in the overall measurement," she says.
The industry source says such a move to GHG emissions reduced would be "really smart" because the poundage does not really say anything. Further, the source notes that foods vary in their GHG emissions. Also, a GHG goal could help to drive useful policy, for instance, finding that food waste could have far more GHG emissions than yard waste, the source says.
Bixby also pointed out other considerations to weigh -- for instance, that nationally, the country lacks the processing capacity to handle the available food waste as feedstock. Another matter that is unsettled is how to pay for facilities that divert waste from landfills. Disposal tipping fees cannot be relied on to subsidize diversion facilities, she says in slides she presented. As communities pull out of the disposal waste stream, the subsidies cannot be sustained, she explained. Less waste means less revenue, she said in the interview. She said it is unclear how the finances would work for such subsidies, noting that many parties are trying to find a new model that does not involve increasing taxes.
Speakers at the seminar also stressed that data is lacking on how much food is actually wasted. Carol Adair Jones, with ELI, said the data sources so far indicate that 30 to 40 percent of food that is produced is wasted. That means, on the environmental front, all the resources that went into the product are lost, as well as the water and air emissions stemming from the process, she said. But "the big ticket item is the greenhouse gas emissions" resulting from the disposal of wasted food, she said.
Ron Vance, EPA's chief of materials conservation and recycling branch, said during the seminar that there is a significant effort underway toward getting better data. In his slide presentation, he says there is a lack of national data sets for food donations that feed people and food donations that feed animals, as well as on anaerobic digestion.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/waste-sector-eyes-uniform-classification-food-waste-energy-systems
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Calling La. Blast 'Unacceptable,' Board Seeks Safety Upgrades
Oct 20, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Gabriel Dunsmith
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board's final report into a 2013 explosion at a Louisiana chemical facility slams the plant's operator and presses for more safety improvements.
Issued yesterday, the report bashes natural gas giant Williams Cos. Inc. and its subsidiary Williams Olefins LLC for "deficiencies" in its safety management program. Management and inspection failures led to the eruption and subsequent fire in Geismar, La., that injured 167 people, released over 62,000 pounds of chemicals and resulted in two deaths, CSB said (Greenwire, June 26, 2013).
The Geismar facility manufactures olefin compounds such as ethylene and propylene for the petrochemical industry. Williams says it is the "only non-integrated merchant supplier of ethylene to the market," producing 1.95 billion pounds of the product annually at its Geismar site.
The accident occurred when "non-routine" operations pumped excess heat into a reboiler, causing it to "catastrophically rupture," according to CSB.
"The tragic accident at Williams was preventable and therefore unacceptable," said CSB Chairwoman Vanessa Allen Sutherland in a statement. "This report provides important safety lessons that we urge other companies to review and incorporate within their own facilities."
CSB dedicated its report to the two workers killed on the scene.
Meanwhile, the federal agency has been encumbered by budgetary constraints. It called on Congress in July to increase its funding, noting at the time that the Williams investigation — at that point already three years in the making — was its longest-running inquiry (Greenwire, July 28).
After the explosion, Williams implemented reforms but ought to go further to prevent future accidents, the CSB report concluded. The company redesigned its reboilers and revamped its hazard assessment program.
"Williams made positive safety management changes at the Geismar facility following the accident, but more should be done to improve process safety and strengthen the plant's process safety culture," said investigator Lauren Grim in a statement. "Our report details important safety recommendations to protect workers at the Williams Geismar facility."
CSB recommended the company "adopt additional safety programs" and asked the American Petroleum Institute to bolster its industry guidelines.
"Most of the accidents the CSB investigates could have been prevented had process safety culture been a top priority at the facility where the incident occurred," said Sutherland in a statement. "These changes must be encouraged from the top with managers implementing effective process safety management programs."
Williams noted that it complied "in a full and transparent manner" with the CSB investigation.
"Williams is in receipt of the report and intends to address the findings and recommendations of the CSB in order to enhance process safety performance at the Geismar facility," the company said in a statement.
"As the CSB indicates in this report, the plant has made positive changes and implemented improvements in process safety management at the Geismar facility since the 2013 incident," the company continued. "Moving forward, Williams is committed to continuous improvement of its process safety programs."
CSB's report comes as environmental advocacy group Greenpeace claims the Obama administration "is running out of time to prevent chemical disasters."
The American Petroleum Institute, meanwhile, asserted that its "core value" is safety.
"API standards are developed with the latest technologies, some of the best experts in the industry, and numerous stakeholders including government, academia and industry," said spokesman Michael Tadeo. "Its processes are open and transparent and are accredited by [the American National Standards Institute] — the same independent organization that accredits similar programs at our national laboratories. We are committed to standards that include lessons learned and improve operational safety. We look forward to reviewing the Chemical Safety Board's recommendations."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/10/20/stories/1060044592
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3 Debates Over 4 ½ Hours, and Zero Climate Questions
Oct 20, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Evan Lehmann
Hillary Clinton described climate change as a "serious problem" last night in the final presidential debate, an event that promises to disappoint environmental advocates for omitting a discussion about the risks of Earth's rising temperatures.
It marked the third time in as many debates that Clinton, the Democratic nominee, raised the climate issue without prompting. Her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, did not discuss energy issues or criticize Clinton's plan to nurture existing greenhouse gas regulations, a point that some GOP strategists say could divert attention away from Trump's tumultuous comments about women.
"New jobs in clean energy, not only to fight climate change, which is a serious problem, but to create new opportunities and new businesses," Clinton said during a segment on the economy.
The candidates clashed over the use of nuclear weapons, immigration and federal spending, marking a rare focus on policy in a race featuring deeply personal attacks and persistent controversies over Clinton's use of a private email server and Trump's crude treatment of women.
Trump also declined during the debate to say if he would accept the outcome of the election.
During a segment on the Supreme Court, Clinton did not mention the Clean Power Plan, a key climate regulation proposed by President Obama that could live or die in the hands of the court. The election will likely tip the balance of the court, now split politically at 4-4, in favor or opposition to the landmark rule.
In a period of the debate that focused on immigration, Trump accused Clinton of once telling an audience from a Brazilian bank that she supports an "open border." Clinton says the speech, which was released by WikiLeaks, was focused on the free flow of energy between the United States and its neighbors, not the movement of people (see related story).
"I do want us to have an electric grid, an energy system that crosses borders," Clinton said last night. "I think that would be a great benefit."
The candidates will race out of the debate into the final stretch of their campaigns. And their closing arguments are virtually opposite.
Clinton is casting herself as the nation's healer who can unify whites and minorities, women and men, Democrats and Republicans, in an effort to expand her reach in a disjointed electorate that's experiencing a bitterly negative race for president.
Trump's message is aimed squarely at his strongest supporters. His warnings of a tainted election and his claims of a conspiracy involving his past comments about women, and his accusers, can galvanize his supporters, according to GOP strategists. But they're unlikely to turn out the key demographics whose loyalty Trump has failed to win, like voters who are younger, more educated and women.
The climate issue has helped both candidates, in doses, convey those closing arguments.
Environmental awards for Trump?
Clinton devoted a day last week to voicing the risks of rising seas and climbing temperatures in Miami, where millennial turnout is an important key to her success in the crucial battleground state with 29 electoral votes.
President Obama followed up late last week with a skewering assessment in which he claimed that Republican lawmakers have conveyed conspiratorial messages to their voters, including the idea that man-made climate change isn't real.
"You care about the environment and climate change, you can vote for somebody who thinks it's a Chinese hoax or you can ... vote for somebody who thinks that there's something called science and that we should pay attention to it and we'll fight to protect our planet," Obama said at a campaign rally in Cleveland.
Trump is pushing back against that rhetoric. The real estate magnate has refrained recently from calling global warming a "hoax," describing it instead as a partisan issue that's overblown by Democrats. After Clinton appeared in Miami last week with former Vice President Al Gore, Trump described the event as an attempt to raise fear among Democratic voters, so they'll vote.
Trump also said, "I've won numerous environmental awards."
"She had Al Gore get up, because don't forget, Obama thinks that climate change is the single biggest and most dangerous problem for the world today," Trump said at a rally in Ocala, Fla., as his supporters booed.
"Not nuclear weapons in the hands of maniacs or in the hands of countries that hate us," he added. "No, no, that's no problem. Climate change is our problem. I'll tell you how this is going, how we're doing, folks. If we don't win this election, I don't know what I'm going to do."
The Trump campaign didn't respond to inquiries about his environmental awards.
Christian Ferry, a Republican strategist who managed Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-S.C.) presidential campaign, questioned the effectiveness of Trump's assertions that humans aren't contributing to climate change.
"Trump's whole strategy right now is to play to his base, and that position helps him with that constituency," Ferry said in an email. "But I don't think it is a winning strategy."
"On climate change, he should focus on the negative economic impact Clinton's climate change proposals will cause while making the point in broad terms, not specifics, that there has to be a better way to protect the environment while protecting American jobs," he added.
Clinton, meanwhile, stood to attract a range of demographic groups by mentioning climate change, said Heather Zichal, a former climate adviser to Obama. Among them are key elements of the Obama coalition, like younger voters, women and minorities.
"Only Trump's narrow base is at odds with climate action," Zichal said.
Climate is not 'unimportant'
Leading up to the debate, a host of environmental groups, Democratic senators and columnists urged moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News and the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates to press the candidates about their positions on climate change.
There were no questions on the issue in the first two presidential debates or in the only vice presidential debate earlier this month. Unprompted, Clinton brought it up briefly in the first two events.
"This is difficult to comprehend and harder to justify," the editorial page of Bloomberg Viewwrote Tuesday about the omission. "It's not as if it's an unimportant or uncontroversial issue."
Climate change is perhaps looming larger in Senate races. In Nevada, where last night's debate was held, the economy is being helped by growth in the clean energy sector, including Tesla Motors Inc.'s upcoming Gigafactory to build lithium-ion batteries outside the city of Sparks, and the presence of 8,800 jobs in the solar industry, as reported by the Solar Foundation.
Environmental groups are using the economic growth as an argument against electing down-ticket Republicans. A television ad released yesterday by the League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund and the Sierra Club accuses Rep. Joe Heck (R-Nev.) of opposing measures to encourage the expansion of solar power. It's part of a $1.85 million ad buy in the Senate fight to replace Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who is retiring.
"Thousands of Nevadans go to work every day producing clean solar energy," the ad says. "But when Congressman Joe Heck goes to work, he puts their jobs at risk."
The ad points to Heck's votes against four Democratic amendments in 2013 that, altogether, would have increased funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy by $325 million. Heck co-authored legislation in 2015 designed to expand solar and wind power on federal land. The bipartisan bill was supported by several environmental groups. He's running against former state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, and polls show them virtually tied.
Last night's debate follows a clash Tuesday between Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) and his challenger, Rep. Patrick Murphy (D). In that debate in Orlando, Rubio said he supports investments to address flooding related to sea-level rise, but he didn't acknowledge people's role in global warming.
In Wisconsin, where Sen. Ron Johnson (R) is trying to fend off a challenge by former Sen. Russ Feingold (D), the climate issue is being raised to turn out Democratic voters. Johnson has questioned the reliability of scientific findings that point to human activities as having a role in warming.
"The climate has changed in my lifetime," Feingold said in a debate Friday. "It's a frightening prospect. Sen. Johnson doesn't see it that way."
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/10/20/stories/1060044572
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