Preview Newsletter
PM ACC 10/25/2016
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ASTM Updates US Toy Safety Standard
Oct 25, 2016 | Chemical Watch
US standards organisation, ASTM International, has announced a significant revision to ASTM F963, the mandatory toy safety standard under US law. -
Coalition Floats National Strategy to Fight Lead Poisoning
Oct 25, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Tiffany Stecker
A coalition of 49 organizations has proposed a federal strategy for tackling lead poisoning across the country. -
Public-Housing Residents Fight Eviction Over Lead Contamination
Oct 24, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Kris Maher Will Connors
The West Calumet Housing Complex in this industrial city features townhouse-like homes with well-manicured lawns, a nearby park, a newly built school and a safe, family-friendly feel. -
Toxic Legacy: “Teflon” Chemical Sticks Around in Water Supplies
Oct 25, 2016 | WKMS
By Glynis Board
For more than half a century along the Ohio River, the chemical company DuPont provided jobs for thousands of people. One chemical they produced is PFOA, commonly known as C8. -
Despite Litigation Stance, Many State Critics Find Eased ESPS Compliance
Oct 25, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan and Doug Obey
Officials and close observers in several states that are leading opposition to EPA's signature greenhouse gas (GHG) rule for existing power plants have expressed optimism in recent weeks about their ability to comply with the rule because of market-driven decarbonization... -
Ky. Says 'Pencils Down,' But One Group is Writing a Plan
Oct 25, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Late last year, when it became clear incoming Republican Gov. Matt Bevin didn't want to plan for federal climate regulations, a small group of Kentuckians decided to take things into their own hands. -
Alaskan Native Groups Join Campaign to Keep Arctic Ocean in U.S. 2017-2022 Leasing Program
Oct 25, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
A group that includes six native Alaskan communities on the North Slope has joined an advertising campaign to persuade the Interior Department (DOI) to keep the Arctic Ocean in its proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program for 2017-2022. -
IEA: Renewables Leading a 'Transformation of Global Power Markets'
Oct 25, 2016 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Kalina Oroschakoff
Renewable energy, especially solar and wind, will be the fastest-growing source of electricity over the next five years thanks to more supportive policies and deep cost reductions, the International Energy Agency reported today. -
'This Attack Was Different' — Cyberthreat Draws Utility Warnings
Oct 25, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Swarms of hacked, internet-connected devices have menaced core parts of the web and put utilities on edge. -
(ACC Mentioned) DOT Tackles Vehicle Cybersecurity
Oct 25, 2016 | Politico - Morning Transportation
By Brianna Gurciullo
...The Surface Transportation Board is hosting a roundtable today with economists to pore over an independent report released last month on the agency’s methodology for settling rate disputes between railroads and the shippers that hire them... -
Internal Watchdog Blasts Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Regulators over Safety Rule Delays
Oct 25, 2016 | DeSmog
By Sharon Kelly
Safety laws meant to protect the American public against oil train explosions, pipeline leaks and other deadly risks have been repeatedly held up by slow-moving federal regulators, a newly released Department of Transportation internal audit has concluded. -
Clock Starts For Suits Over CSAPR 'Update' Rule
Oct 25, 2016 | Inside EPA
EPA is slated to publish in the Oct. 26 Federal Register its rule to “update” the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions caps in its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), triggering a 60-day clock for groups to sue over the update that some states say is insufficiently strict and that some power sector officials argue is unnecessary. -
Everyone Likes the HFC Amendment — Except the U.S. Senate
Oct 25, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
Having spent years trying to avoid entering into a climate treaty that would require Senate ratification, the Obama administration has almost certainly just joined a climate treaty that will require Senate ratification. -
New Climate-Friendlier Coolant Has a Catch: It’s Flammable
Oct 25, 2016 | New York TImes (In Real Clear Energy)
By Danny Hakim
Rajiv Singh started thinking about how to do his part to fight global warming 15 years ago. -
Climate’s on the Ballot Like Never Before
Oct 25, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Sean H. Donahue
Each election is the most important ever for climate policy. As greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere, climatic warming and ocean acidification intensify, and the time to act dwindles.
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ASTM Updates US Toy Safety Standard
Oct 25, 2016 | Chemical Watch
US standards organisation, ASTM International, has announced a significant revision to ASTM F963, the mandatory toy safety standard under US law. Among several changes are clarifications to requirements related to heavy elements in the substrate of toys, and a new alternate test method for total element content screening.
If accepted by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), ASTM F963-16, the Standard Consumer Safety Specification for Toy Safety, will replace the existing ASTM F963-11 as the US’s mandatory toy safety standard under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA).
Among other requirements, the CPSIA includes solubility limits in children’s products for several heavy metals: antimony, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury and selenium.
Changes to the heavy elements parts of the new standard include:
· clarifications on heavy metal requirements in stickers and printed textiles;
· further details on when a metal extraction test is not required for metal components; and
· an allowance for an alternative test method, HDXRF, for screening of homogenous polymeric substrates.
According to the testing laboratory Intertek, there are significant revisions to strengthen toy safety, while harmonising, where feasible, with international and European toy safety standards: ISO 8124-1 and EN 71-1, respectively.
Len Morrissey, director of technical committee operations at ASTM, says that the standards body intends to send these formally to the commission “shortly”.
Once notified, the CPSC will have 90 days to reject some or all of the revisions if they are deemed to lessen the level of safety if enacted, says Mr Morrisey.
If there is no objection within the time span, the new version of the standard becomes the mandatory rule, 180 days after its receipt by the commission.
https://chemicalwatch.com/50512/astm-updates-us-toy-safety-standard
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Coalition Floats National Strategy to Fight Lead Poisoning
Oct 25, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Tiffany Stecker
A coalition of 49 organizations has proposed a federal strategy for tackling lead poisoning across the country.
The groups, led by Earthjustice, sent the plan yesterday to the President's Task Force on Environmental Health and Safety Risks to Children, which is currently headed by U.S. EPA and the Department of Health and Human Services.
"The letter is intended to identify all of the ways that kids are still being exposed to lead and ways that federal agencies could take action," said Eve Gartner, a staff attorney with Earthjustice.
The coalition made 26 recommendations on actions that EPA, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Food and Drug Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) could take to reduce exposure to the potent neurotoxin.
Lead poisoning rose to national attention last year when news broke that residents of Flint, Mich., had been drinking and washing in lead-tainted water, after state and local officials failed to properly treat water coming from the Flint River. The corrosive river water ate through the city's old lead pipes.
A recent inspector general report found that EPA was slow to step in to stop the lead contamination in Flint (E&ENews PM, Oct. 20). The coalition recommended that EPA tighten enforcement of the Lead and Copper Rule.
"EPA should close sampling loopholes that result in underreporting of water lead levels," it wrote. The agency should also propel the proactive removal of lead service lines, pipes that travel from the water main to a home's plumbing system, the coalition said. Many cities have partially removed the lead lines in their communities, which can lead to higher lead levels (Greenwire, July 7).
The coalition also suggested changes in how HUD identifies and remediates lead hazards in homes, called on CPSC to ban lead in all household products, and requested that FDA remove cosmetics and hair dyes that contain the element.
The CDC should also lower the level for its definition of an "elevated blood level," given that the centers have said that there is no "safe" level for lead. The CDC's current reference level is 5 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood.
"It really is this huge burden of lead that has to be eradicated through so many pathways," said Ruth Ann Norton, president and CEO of the nonprofit Green and Healthy Homes Initiative. GHHI released a five-year strategic plan for removing lead in homes in June. GHHI is a member of the coalition.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/10/25/stories/1060044784
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Public-Housing Residents Fight Eviction Over Lead Contamination
Oct 24, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Kris Maher Will Connors
The West Calumet Housing Complex in this industrial city features townhouse-like homes with well-manicured lawns, a nearby park, a newly built school and a safe, family-friendly feel.
Residents like Kamia Edwards, who was born and raised there, had no plans to leave. But in August, the city’s mayor ordered Ms. Edwards and the roughly 1,100 other residents in the complex to relocate after learning that the grounds are contaminated with high levels of lead. Only 29 families out of 332 have moved so far, and a Nov. 30 deadline is edging closer each day.
“I hate it, I hate it, I hate it," said Ms. Edwards, 25, whose 5-year-old son, Brysten, has elevated levels of lead in his blood, complicating her feelings about leaving. “All my family live around the same area. We’re all just going in different directions now.”
East Chicago Mayor Anthony Copeland decided to demolish the housing complex after learning in May that the federal Environmental Protection Agency had found extremely high lead levels there in two out of roughly 1,000 samples taken in 2015 and verified this year. One sample result of 91,000 parts per million is more than 75 times the agency’s residential action level, which triggers immediate soil removal.
“Once we found out how high the lead levels were, we were convinced that it was not safe to clean it while people were in place,” said Carla Morgan, city attorney for East Chicago, a city of 30,000 on Lake Michigan in northwest Indiana.
The West Calumet case has put the issue of lead contamination back in the spotlight, after the lead-tainted water crisis in Flint, Mich., no longer makes daily headlines.
It isn’t known how many public-housing complexes are built on potentially hazardous land, but nearly 4% of the 7,300 public-housing sites nationwide are within a mile of Superfund sites, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of data from the EPA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Roughly two-thirds of public-housing developments were built before 1979, the year that HUD first issued guidance on considering site contamination. Regulations requiring independent environmental studies of potential housing sites weren’t finalized until 1996.
Jerry Brown, a spokesman for HUD, said the agency’s director Julian Castro was appalled to learn about the West Calumet situation this summer and the agency has since begun a comprehensive review of public-housing sites in coordination with the EPA.
“He wanted to know the scope of the problem nationally and what could be done proactively to better address it in the future,” Mr. Brown said.
The EPA has been removing lead- and arsenic-contaminated soil since 2006 at the complex, built in 1972 on the footprint of a former lead smelter, and two adjacent neighborhoods that include a total of about 1,000 homes and an elementary school that was closed this summer. It declared the 79-acre area, which once included a second lead smelter, a Superfund site in 2009.
As for allowing residents to live at the complex during the cleanup, Bob Kaplan, Chicago-based acting EPA regional administrator, pointed to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report in 2011 that found breathing, drinking tap water, and playing in soil in the area weren’t expected to harm people’s health.
In East Chicago and other housing projects, the contamination risks typically come from lead-based paint and tainted soil. Earlier this summer, fliers and signs were posted around the West Calumet complex telling children not to play in the dirt. Standing near the complex is a water tower with a message painted on the side that reads, “For Our Future. For Our Children.”
More than two months after the eviction order was given, a disjointed relocation process has left many residents confused and angry. Some complain that neighboring communities are hesitant to welcome newcomers, potentially complicating the city’s plans for demolishing the site.
Ms. Morgan, East Chicago’s city attorney, acknowledged the city could have a tough time meeting its deadline. She said the city plans to spend $1.1 million to pay for moving vans and to cover the first and last month’s rent and other expenses. Some families will be eligible for an extension until about the end of the year, and those who aren’t able to move by then could be relocated to another public housing complex, she added.
“We know it’s a big mountain to climb,” Ms. Morgan said.
The last resident moved in on July 21, according to HUD. Mr. Brown, the agency spokesman, said it was an “inexcusable oversight” that the resident wasn’t informed about the contamination and that the development was slated for demolition.
“We were surrounded” by lead-based industry for years, so the contamination wasn’t a surprise, said Sherry Hunter, 68, a lifelong East Chicago resident who lives a block from the housing complex.
After an initial wave of panic in August, she said many people have settled into their routines and are hoping they won’t be forced to leave. “The kids still play in the dirt,” she said.
Ms. Hunter helped form a group in August called the Calumet Lives Matter Committee, which wants the EPA to continue to clean up the complex under a plan the agency developed in 2012, so that residents can remain there.
EPA agents in neon green vests are now cleaning apartments at the complex, including vacuuming curtains and carpets to remove lead-contaminated dust.
“They didn’t do the things that we would expect people to do now,” Mr. Kaplan, the EPA regional official, said, referring to work to prepare the site for construction. “Instead they moved some slag piles around and built. It turns out that wasn’t a good idea.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/public-housing-residents-fight-eviction-after-lead-contamination-1477329909
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Toxic Legacy: “Teflon” Chemical Sticks Around in Water Supplies
Oct 25, 2016 | WKMS
By Glynis Board
For more than half a century along the Ohio River, the chemical company DuPont provided jobs for thousands of people. One chemical they produced is PFOA, commonly known as C8. It was a remarkably useful compound, used in “Teflon” non-stick cookware, stain-resistant fabrics, and even in some food wrappers.
Over time, researchers have found that C8 is also toxic. DuPont and other companies phased out U.S. production a few years ago. Now it’s made in China.
But because the chemical can persist in water, communities along the Ohio River — and around the U.S. — are still grappling with the environmental fallout of contamination from C8 and similar chemicals. The ReSource generated a map using water testing data available from the U.S. EPA. It shows 12 water systems in 10 counties in Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia where these chemicals were detected in the water.
The Environmental Protection Agency issued a health advisory this year for C8 levels in drinking water, and many of the water systems that detected C8 and related chemicals found them at levels lower than the EPA advisory. However, a growing body of science indicates that the EPA advisory level is not sufficiently protective of human health, and many researchers recommend far more restrictive thresholds for exposure.
Communities across the country are dealing with levels of contamination well above the EPA’s new advisory level. One community especially affected by this toxic legacy is Vienna, West Virginia.
Vienna, West Virginia
This summer cars lined up in Vienna, a town of about 10,000 situated along the Ohio River. People were picking up jugs and cases of bottled water. Their tap water had been deemed unsafe – laced with a chemical known as C8. There wasn’t some sudden chemical spill. The chemical company DuPont polluted water here over the course of decades. But the federal government says C8 levels it once overlooked in the water are now considered unsafe.
“Up until the EPA lowered the standard, it really wasn’t an issue for us,” said Vienna mayor, Randy Rapp. “Once they lowered the standard, then it became a problem.”
Rapp was talking about a new health advisory issued by the Environmental Protection Agency this year. It says C8 levels in his and other community’s drinking water are too high.
This problem isn’t new to the people we spoke with in line. They’ve heard about C8 contamination by Dupont for years. But for generations the chemical company has been the biggest employer around Vienna. Many people, like resident Charles Swisher, are quick to defend them.
“It’s not fair to isolate DuPont,” Swisher said, “because a lot of people did things back a few years ago that were unethical, unhealthy. The thing that we need to do now is to be more solution-oriented.”
DuPont isn’t in charge of those solutions. It created a spin-off company, Chemours, which inherited this environmental legacy.
In response to the EPA’s C8 advisory, Chemours is paying for installation, maintenance and monitoring of giant carbon filters. (Think of your home water filter, but on a huge scale.) Vienna Mayor Rapp says he has “no idea” how much cleanup is costing. Chemours also wouldn’t say. But according to the company’s public documents cleanup has already cost millions. And still, the water aquifer is expected to be contaminated with C8 for hundreds of years.
Contamination Continues
Not everyone is defending the company. Larry Dale grew up around this part of the Ohio River, which is commonly referred to as “Chemical Valley.” His father and uncles all worked in chemical plants.
“My dad told me – and I’ll never forget this,” Dale said, “Find something else to do, but don’t work in a chemical plant.”
Dale listened. He’s a school bus driver and a retired preacher. But he and his family still live in the shadow of the chemical industry.
In his rural back yard outside of Washington, West Virginia, Dale stands on top of a hill next to his greenhouse, and points to the next ridge over, at DuPont’s landfill.
This is where DuPont dumped over 7,000 tons of C8 sludge. It leached out, polluted streams, and killed nearby livestock in the late 1990s. It’s not the only source of contamination. If you ask anyone where the C8 comes from today that has infiltrated the water aquifer the answer is always the same: “Everywhere.”
Where Science Meets Policy
The contamination in this region eventually lead to a broad medical study of affected residents in the early 2000s. Over 30,000 community members were involved. The study linked C8 to multiple health problems from cancer to reduced immune function. A series of additional health studies followed, and further proved that chemical compounds like C8 – which used to be blown out of smokestacks and scattered across the Ohio Valley – are dangerous, even in small doses.
“They stay in the body for a long time,” said Dr. Philippe Grandjean of Harvard’s School of Public Health. He’s an expert on health effects of perfluorinated chemicals like C8. One of his latest studies looks at long term effects of these chemicals on the immune systems of exposed children.
“While they harm the immune system today,” Grandjean said, “they probably also will down the road. And that’s exactly what we found.”
Specifically, Grandjean found vaccines don’t work as well in children exposed to C8 at levels similar to those found throughout the U.S.
EPA officials say the C8 advisory levels were calculated to protect fetuses during pregnancy and breastfed infants, and was based on “the best available peer-reviewed studies.”
But Grandjean says the EPA’s advisory doesn’t go far enough. He worries it could even create a false sense of security.
“The new water limits will essentially maintain status quo or if worse comes to worse, actually increase levels that are typical for Americans,” he said. “If you drink that a lot of that water that is permissible, many Americans are likely to increase their body burden.”
Last year a coalition of scientists from around the world called for limits on C8 production altogether. Health officials in New Jersey are suggesting that C8 levels should be five times lower than what EPA advises (at about 14 parts per trillion). Grandjean’s work and other scientific studies have recommended an acceptable level of 1 part per trillion, which is what the European Union recommends for surface water.
Different Communities, Different Responses
When the EPA issued its advisory level it triggered a range of responses from affected communities. For water systems like Vienna’s, where the levels were above the EPA threshold, action was required.
The city of Martinsburg, in West Virginia’s eastern panhandle, shut down one water-filtration plant in May after detecting high levels of PFOS. PFOS is a chemical related to C8 that was used in flame-retardant foams often used at military bases and airports. Martinsburg is home to an Air Force base which is investigating possible sources of pollution.
Many other water systems, however, detected PFAS chemicals at levels that fall somewhere in a range below EPA’s health advisory but well above what scientists such as Grandjean have recommended. These communities include: Louisville and part of Pendleton County, in Kentucky; Gallia County, Ohio; and Parkersburg, West Virginia.
“Whatever the Rules Are”
In Vienna, West Virginia, Mayor Randy Rapp just wants to get city’s water to the EPA’s acceptable level.
“I just try to live by whatever the rules are,” Rapp said. “When they tell us what our water quality has to be, that is what we attain.”
Meanwhile, DuPont’s spin-off company isn’t producing C8 anymore. However, the substitute for C8 includes variations of the chemical known to have the potential for many of the same ecological and health effects.
http://wkms.org/post/toxic-legacy-teflon-chemical-sticks-around-water-supplies#stream/0
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Despite Litigation Stance, Many State Critics Find Eased ESPS Compliance
Oct 25, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Lee Logan and Doug Obey
Officials and close observers in several states that are leading opposition to EPA's signature greenhouse gas (GHG) rule for existing power plants have expressed optimism in recent weeks about their ability to comply with the rule because of market-driven decarbonization of their power sectors.
Their statements affirm claims by the rule's supporters of the sectors' trend toward lower-carbon generation. But the evidence they provide suggests that heated political opposition to the rule might be difficult to sustain should it survive legal battles, and it could be only a matter of time before advocates ramp up pressure on EPA to strengthen the standards.
“The transformation of our grid has been occurring and is occurring,” said Oklahoma Solicitor General Patrick Wyrick said during an Oct. 6 event about high-profile litigation over EPA's existing source performance standards (ESPS), also known as the Clean Power Plan.
The state has been a sharp critic of the ESPS, even going so far as to file a novel but unsuccessful challenge to block the proposed version of the rule. Scott Pruitt, the state's Republican attorney general, and other officials frequently warn of dire price spikes and adverse grid reliability impacts as a result of the rule.
Before the Supreme Court stayed the rule in February, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin (R) signed an executive order prohibiting regulators from drafting a compliance plan.
But Wyrick now says there is an ongoing “trend away from” coal generation in the state, and that shift accounts for the remaining useful life of plants, seeks to maintain fuel diversity and accommodates officials' desire not to have “too much wind.”
He also pointed out that the major utility Public Service Company of Oklahoma is poised to deploy an additional 300 megawatts of wind power by 2018, meaning the zero-carbon power source would supply 30 percent of the utility's generation. “These things are happening sort of naturally in Oklahoma,” he said.
The Sooner State's chief objection to EPA's rule?
It “forces the transition ahead of the curve and the pace that we think is best.”
A similar situation is playing out in multiple states that are litigating or otherwise cool to the regulation -- Texas, Michigan, Arizona, Utah, Nevada and Tennessee -- according to recent public statements.
Such statements are not a comprehensive analysis of the compliance situation for all challenger states, and the collection does not include several coal-intensive states with steep targets, such as West Virginia or North Dakota.
Nevertheless, the dynamic underscores recent remarks from EPA's top air quality official that the agency is hearing “far and wide” that the rule's targets might “not difficult at all to meet, because that is the way the system is already going.”
The long-term impact of the situation is not clear. An eased compliance path for many states -- especially rule opponents -- could allow environmentalists to better make the case that the next administration should tighten the rule's targets, as some advocates are already planning.
It might also undercut challengers' key legal argument that the rule is sufficiently “transformative” that it requires a strict judicial standard of review. However, opponents debate this point, arguing the rule's on-the-ground impacts are not necessary to show it is sweeping and that EPA's claim of statutory authority makes the rule transformative.
Nevertheless, if the ESPS does survive court review, eased compliance projections could spur states -- even rule opponents -- to re-start compliance efforts. And it may ultimately weaken political opposition if implementation proves not to be a challenge.
'Prudent' Texas Policies
Consider Texas, a chief opponent of the ESPS and many EPA air rules. Ken Paxton (R), its attorney general, is one of a handful coordinating high-profile pending litigation in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which heard Sept. 27 oral arguments in the suit and could issue a ruling early next year.
But a Texas-based advisor to Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz says Texas “can meet the Clean Power Plan requirements without the regulation in force,” and its market-based trends toward clean energy “may help inform other disinclined states to follow suit.”
Marilu Hastings, vice president for sustainability programs at the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation and a member of the Energy Department's National Petroleum Council, said in a recent Houston Chronicle column that, “ironically, the state that is the most aggressive opponent of the Clean Power Plan has also utilized prudent, well-designed policies and then unleashed the power of the market to cut emissions, ensure reliability and manage consumer costs."
She cited a recent Brattle Group study showing the state will surpass its ESPS targets regardless of whether the rule is implemented.
The Lone Star State's situation is important, Hastings says, because if the state were a country, it would be the world's sixth-largest GHG emitter.
Another state official suing over the rule is Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette (R), who in a February statementpraised the high court for staying implementation of the “job killing” rule.
“If allowed to move forward, the Clean Power Plan will cause the price of electricity to increase, placing jobs and paychecks at risk and costing Michigan families more,” he said.
That analysis is at odds with several other reviews from energy consultants and utility officials, who cited significant numbers of previously planned coal retirements.
The state is “close to mass-based compliance” with the rule in the reference case -- “without any constraint on emissions,” assuming that natural gas prices do not spike, according to an August 12 modeling analysis by Synapse Energy Economics commissioned by Michigan's utility, environment and energy regulators.
A separate Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) study commissioned by Michigan utilities says that “additional costs” to comply with the ESPS beyond a reference case scenario assuming coal retirements are “relatively low” in most scenarios, with Michigan's compliance choices likely to influence “the types of new investments made, rather than requiring additional investments.”
An official with major Michigan utility DTE Energy told reporters Oct 12: “We are on course to comply with the Clean Power Plan,” and said the utility's generation plans are likely unaffected by political and legal wrangling over the rule. A second official says the utility's plan “is not going to change . . . whether the Clean Power Plan survives or dies on the vine.”
In the South, Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) official Justin Maierhofer, during an Oct. 16 National Press Club event, touted GHG cuts already under way in TVA's fleet and characterized company compliance with the ESPS as an easy lift.
TVA is “ahead of the requirements of the Clean Power Plan should it ever be enacted,” he said. TVA's service territory includes virtually all of Tennessee as well as portions of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina and Virginia.
Tennessee is one of the few states that has declined to join the litigation either on challengers' or EPA's side. However, senior Sen. Lamar Alexander (R) has vocally opposed the rule and voted for a resolution that would have scrapped the rule entirely.
Not 'That Difficult'
The situation is similar out West. Citing that region, University of Arizona law professor Kirsten Engel predicted at the Oct. 6 event with Oklahoma's Wyrick that “actual implementation of the final rule will not be as onerous as many of the commentators have surmised.”
Particularly in Arizona -- which faced stringent interim limits in the proposed version of the rule but saw its target eased in the final version -- “implementation is not necessarily looking like it will be that difficult,” she said.
The state's neighbors to the north are also opposing the rule in court but might have a relatively easy time complying.
In Utah, for example, modeling conducted for the National Governors Association found that a mass-based cap offers a “lower stringency,” according to a recent summary of the findings. The modeling also “illustrated the ability for the state to earn revenue under interstate trading given their role as an exporter of power and likely exporter of allowances.”
Next door, Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt (R) filed an amicus brief supporting state challengers in the litigation. The brief charges that the rule harms “other states, thus threatening harm to the overall national economy and in turn to Nevada's vital tourism industry.” It also warned that the “unprecedented” rule could open the door to future regulations that “may well aim directly at Nevada utilities, businesses, and consumers.”
Underscoring that the ESPS largely does not take direct aim at the Silver State, however, a task force appointed by Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) recently urged the state to re-start compliance planning, in part because the rule's targets are “straightforward and attainable.”
Given the state's strong renewable potential, the task force added that regulators should also explore participating in EPA's incentive program for the rule because that could “provide additional economic opportunities.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/despite-litigation-stance-many-state-critics-find-eased-esps-compliance
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Ky. Says 'Pencils Down,' But One Group is Writing a Plan
Oct 25, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Late last year, when it became clear incoming Republican Gov. Matt Bevin didn't want to plan for federal climate regulations, a small group of Kentuckians decided to take things into their own hands.
In the Southern style, Chris Woolery invited 120 friends to his house for red beans and rice, craft beer, and some "geeky" energy talk.
"In all my years of activism, the hardest thing I've ever done is send out the invitation to that party," said Woolery, a tall, gregarious efficiency contractor and clean energy advocate. "Just because I knew it was so wonky and a lot of people would say no. So I was opening myself up to rejection."
About 35 people showed up. Since then, the group has grown to more than 1,000 attending events across the state organized by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a grass-roots organization that focuses on public interest issues.
Although the Clean Power Plan is on hold while the courts decide whether it's legal, the group's members think Kentucky leaders should at least be thinking through the big questions that surround the rule. So they're writing their own plan, a "people's plan" that even includes electric-sector modeling.
Kentucky gets 87 percent of its power from coal plants and has one of the tougher U.S. EPA standards to meet. The industry accounts for less than 1 percent of jobs, or about 7,000positions. But as cheap natural gas and new environmental rules have driven down demand for coal, the industry's rapid decline has hit some parts of Kentucky harder than others. When mines shut down, businesses that service them close, too, and the workers who lose their jobs don't have money to spend at stores and restaurants.
State officials add that big employers, including manufacturers, are sensitive to even minor power price increases that could happen depending on how the state implements the Clean Power Plan. As are poor residents, and Kentucky has among the highest poverty rates in the country.
With that in mind, Kentucky must weigh desires to keep cheap coal power online versus the environmental and health benefits of shutting it down.
That's where Woolery's group comes in.
Coal group says wait for the courts
The Clean Power Plan directs each state to reduce carbon emissions from power plants a certain amount by 2030. States can write their own plans to decrease coal use and increase lower-carbon sources of power, like natural gas and renewable energy. They can let their companies engage in trading systems to reach specific goals. Or they can adhere to a less tailored federal plan.
In a rebuke in 2014, Kentucky legislators passed a law limiting how the state could comply. They enacted a model bill from the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council that restricted planners from looking beyond improving the efficiency of coal plants or shutting them down (Greenwire, March 4, 2015).
James Gardner, who was until April the head of the Public Service Commission in Kentucky, said power companies worried the legislation would tie their hands.
"We were saying you all need to be engaged with the Legislature to say, 'It's in our best interest, our customers, your voters to be engaged in helping to formulate a plan,'" Gardner said.
Despite the law, former Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat who opposed the Clean Power Plan, put the state on a path to draft an initial compliance blueprint. He argued the stakes were too high to not plan. But Beshear was term-limited, and that work slowed when he left office.
In the race to replace him, all the candidates in the coal state campaigned against writing a plan. When Bevin entered office in January, he heard from the power industry that the state should make its own compliance choices rather than leaving them to the federal government. He reluctantly agreed to at least submit enough information to EPA to apply for a two-year extension.
That changed when the Supreme Court halted implementation of the rule in February. Kentucky, along with 18 other mostly Republican-led states, declared they wouldn't expend any resources thinking through the rule until court battles played out. Official talks slowed to a halt, although power companies continued to plot out possibilities.
"All our utilities have encouraged the state to develop a plan, but it's pencils down," said Scott Drake, manager of corporate technical services for the East Kentucky Power Cooperative. "We're looking at what we're going to have to do. That's why we're investing in solar, and we're not investing in wind right now because the best places are out of state and we don't get credit for it."
Natasha Collins, a spokeswoman for the state's biggest utilities, Louisville Gas & Electric and Kentucky Utilities, said that the companies were "monitoring the plan's movement through the judicial process."
Bill Bissett, head of the Kentucky Coal Association, said continuing to work on the rule would incorrectly imply the state supports it.
"I understand the utilities want certainty, but that's why we have a court process," Bissett said. "That's why we have due process."
The carbon-trading option
If the Clean Power Plan does take effect and states have less lead time to comply, Kentucky can resume planning, said Bruce Scott, the deputy director of Bevin's Energy and Environment Cabinet.
"We've done a lot of legwork over the last several years that we think probably positions us in place where we can pick things up and move forward ... just in terms of understanding the issues and options," Scott said.
The governor's office has been considering related issues, holding a conference last month that largely looked at business sustainability but didn't really get into the Clean Power Plan. In an interview, Scott mainly focused on the options for preserving coal use. He argued that if renewable power grows, it should be because of market forces rather than government intervention. The demands of Fortune 500 companies should help with that, he said.
"Clearly states like Kentucky who are heavily reliant on coal, as part of its energy base as well as part of its economy, will try as best as they can to ensure that's still there moving forward," Scott said.
He noted Kentucky's strong manufacturing industry. "Presumably the country is still interested in making things. That will require large amounts of electricity," he said.
There is a way for Kentucky to keep most of its coal power online and still comply with the Clean Power Plan, and that worries the state's environmental advocates.
Kentucky could enter a carbon-trading system where companies that fall short of their carbon goals can purchase allowances from companies that exceed standards. Allowances would likely cost nothing in the beginning years of the rule, according to early modeling. That's how Scott sees Kentucky complying if the state is short on time for planning.
"At the end of the day, Utility A gets X amount of emissions and Utility B gets Y amount of emissions," he said. "It comes down to math at a point in time.
"'We've been there since the hills'
Even if Kentucky added renewable power and energy efficiency projects, models show the state keeping coal plants online with carbon trading and selling the extra power to other states via multiple regional power markets. That's because "generally it tends to be more economically efficient for emission reductions to come from other states and for the coal plants in the state of Kentucky to continue operating and continue to emit and supply power to Kentucky's neighbors," explained Pat Knight, an analyst from Synapse Energy Economics who conducted the analysis for Kentuckians for the Commonwealth.
The group thinks there are other cheap ways to comply with the rule, create jobs and limit in-state emissions.
Organizers are writing an energy framework after holding meetings in every congressional district and then hosting a summit with several hundred people in Louisville late last month.
The summit at Kentucky's sprawling Center for African-American Heritage was a mix of social and academic exercises. Local clean energy advocates and national climate activists attended, but so did newcomers who heard about the event from friends. A New Orleans-based cellist played with her band the first night. The next day, attendees broke off into group discussions including the environmental downsides of natural gas and how to accelerate renewable power and energy savings while lowering bills. They highlighted what changes might mean for African-American and poor communities.
Annika Smith, a college sophomore at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, attended to brainstorm about solutions for her hometown of Corbin in southeastern Kentucky. Last year, the rail company CSX Corp. shut down its mechanical shops for coal cars there, laying off about 180 workers and pulling the paychecks they were spending on other businesses in the tiny city.
In a twangy Kentucky accent Smith proudly acknowledged, she said she saw the closure as another sign of the coal economy's decline. She's majoring in business administration and wants to stay in Kentucky when she graduates. She said she hopes the state finds ways to bring good jobs to the communities that have lost them. Kentuckians for the Commonwealth thinks it can do that by promoting green power.
"I don't think people should have to leave a community their family's been in. ... We've been there since the hills have been there," Smith said.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/10/25/stories/1060044749
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Alaskan Native Groups Join Campaign to Keep Arctic Ocean in U.S. 2017-2022 Leasing Program
Oct 25, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Charlie Passut
A group that includes six native Alaskan communities on the North Slope has joined an advertising campaign to persuade the Interior Department (DOI) to keep the Arctic Ocean in its proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program for 2017-2022.
The Arctic Energy Center (AEC) said Arctic-Inupiat Offshore (AIO) -- a joint venture (JV) of Arctic Slope Regional Corp., the largest native-owned corporation in the state, and six North Slope village corporations -- has joined its Arctic Coalition campaign, which supports energy development in the state.
AIO Chairman Anthony Edwardsen said the JV supports the Arctic region's inclusion in the leasing program, and said he believes the Inupiat people should be involved in discussions. He also said the native groups support safe and responsible energy development, which is critical to the North Slope economy.
"The breadth of organizations involved, both Alaskan and national, demonstrates the importance of this issue -- not only to local communities, but to our state and to the country as a whole," Edwardsen said. "Too often local people are left out of decisions affecting the North Slope. AIO seeks to be a partner to regulators, operators and native organizations."
AIO was formed in 2014 and collectively represents 13,000 Inupiat people. The six North Slope village corporations -- Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corp., Tikigaq Corp., Olgoonik Corp., Kaktovik Inupiat Corp., Atqasuk Corp. and Nunamiut Corp. -- represent the communities of Barrow, Point Hope, Wainwright, Kaktovik, Atqasuk and Anaktuvuk Pass.
The AEC said Arctic Coalition would launch a two-week, multi-platform advertising campaign on Tuesday, including a major television ad buy that would run in the Washington, DC, area. The total cost of the campaign was not disclosed, but the AEC said it was at least $100,000. A similar, six-figure ad campaign was launched last month (see Daily GPI, Sept. 13).
The Arctic Coalition includes the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) and the Alaska Oil and Gas Association (AOGA).
AOGA CEO Kara Moriarty said the Obama administration "has repeatedly stressed that the perspectives of local people should be taken into account, and in fact prioritized, when considering whether to allow offshore development to move forward. In case there was any question remaining about the depth and breadth of support that responsible energy development enjoys in these communities, we're hopeful that this campaign will clarify the point with folks in Washington."
The AEC said a second advertising campaign would "explore the national security ramifications of offshore energy development in the Arctic." That campaign is scheduled to begin next week (Nov. 1) and also target the Washington, DC, area.
"In addition to native communities' support for development, we thought it was important to highlight the real synergies that exist between energy industry infrastructure and our national security needs in remote parts of the country like the Arctic," said IPAA’s Jeff Eshelman, senior vice president for operations and public affairs. "The next advertisement will examine those parallels through a series of interviews with defense and security experts who have studied the issue and served in the region.
"Our hope is that by highlighting their perspective, members of the administration will again see evidence that the ramifications of excluding the Arctic from the leasing plan extend well beyond our future energy supply."
In June, as part of the Arctic Coalition campaign, former Defense Department Secretary William Cohen and 15 former military leaders urged the DOI to keep the Arctic in the 2017-2022 lease sale (see Daily GPI, June 21). They argued that removing the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and the Cook Inlet from the sale would harm national security.
Currently, the proposed program would include 13 potential lease sales: 10 in the Gulf of Mexico and three in offshore Alaska -- one each in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, and in the Cook Inlet (seeDaily GPI, March 15). The AEC said the DOI is due to announce its final version of the leasing program before the end of the year.
Last March, the Obama administration removed the Mid- and South Atlantic area, extending from Virginia to Georgia, from the five-year leasing program. The areas were first included in a draft version of the plan in January 2015 (see Daily GPI, Jan. 27, 2015).
Other members of the Arctic Coalition include the Alaska Chamber of Commerce, the Alaska Laborers District Council, the Alaska Miners Association, the Alaska Petroleum Joint Crafts Council, the Alaska Support Industry Alliance, the AFL-CIO; Americans for Prosperity Alaska, the Anchorage Economic Development Corp., the Council of Alaska Producers, the International Association of Geophysical Contractors and the National Ocean Industries Association.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/108209-alaskan-native-groups-join-campaign-to-keep-arctic-ocean-in-us-2017-2022-leasing-program
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IEA: Renewables Leading a 'Transformation of Global Power Markets'
Oct 25, 2016 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Kalina Oroschakoff
Renewable energy, especially solar and wind, will be the fastest-growing source of electricity over the next five years thanks to more supportive policies and deep cost reductions, the International Energy Agency reported today.
“We are witnessing a transformation of global power markets led by renewables and, as is the case with other fields, the center of gravity for renewable growth is moving to emerging markets,” Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said in a statement about the agency’s medium-term renewable market report.
Renewables had a record year in 2015, representing more than half the new global power capacity. They also surpassed coal to become the largest source of installed power capacity, rising by 15 percent compared to 2014 and hitting a total of 153 gigawatts.
Last year’s records also triggered the IEA to raise its growth forecast for renewable energy between 2015 and 2021 by 13 percent compared with last year’s figures. The share of renewables is now expected to reach 28 percent by 2021, up from 23 percent last year. Costs are expected to drop by 25 percent for solar and 15 percent for onshore wind in that period.
That said, the IEA also warned that policy uncertainty “in too many countries” is slowing the pace of investments. Meanwhile, fast growth of wind and solar is “exacerbating system integration issues” in some markets, and financing remains a barrier to the expansion of renewables in many developing countries, it said.
Policies should also be aimed at boosting the share of renewables in the heat and transport sectors, the IEA added.
This article first appeared on POLITICO.EU on Oct. 25, 2016.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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'This Attack Was Different' — Cyberthreat Draws Utility Warnings
Oct 25, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Blake Sobczak
Swarms of hacked, internet-connected devices have menaced core parts of the web and put utilities on edge.
On Friday, millions of Americans awoke to find they couldn't access many popular websites, including Twitter, Spotify and Github. Hackers had overwhelmed the cyberdefenses of Dyn, a New Hampshire-based company that manages web traffic for thousands of U.S. sites. The outages lasted, on and off, for several hours.
"[Domain name service] providers like Dyn provide one of the fundamental backbones of the internet," said Nabeel Hasan Saeed, who tracks trends in denial-of-service attacks at cybersecurity firm Imperva. He likened the service Dyn provides to that of the U.S. Postal Service, noting that by "taking down a big DNS provider like Dyn, you are fundamentally handicapping the ability of traffic to resolve to its appropriate address."
Dyn often finds itself in hackers' crosshairs. But "this attack was different," the company's chief strategy officer, Kyle York, said in a statement Saturday. The company's servers were flooded with traffic from "tens of millions" of Internet protocol addresses, in what the cybersecurity industry terms a distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attack (EnergyWire, Oct. 17).
What made the attack stand out for York was not only its size and scope but its source: a digital army of webcams, CCTV devices and other "smart" electronics that had been infected with the Mirai malware.
In other words, at least part of the online traffic that took down Dyn came from the "internet of things," a fast-growing category of devices that has already taken the energy industry by storm.
"Compare the security measures of a webcam you can buy at Walmart to a multinational bank," said Saeed, who works as product marketing manager for Imperva's Incapsula security line. "People are figuring out that you don't need to target the actual bank itself, because it can be dependent on other pieces of the internet, which, if you bring those down, can have ripple effects around the internet-connected community.
"What [the attack] lacks for in sophistication, it makes up for in pure volume," he added.
Department of Homeland Security officials, who say they are investigating the attack on Dyn with the FBI, have warned that some smart-grid devices could be inadvertently swept up into attacks on other websites or key internet infrastructure.
Utilities "are potentially victims, just like everyone else on the internet," said Ben Miller, director of the threat operations center at industrial cybersecurity firm Dragos Inc.
Miller said that grid devices such as smart meters are normally isolated from the internet and thus are less likely to be drafted into the Mirai botnet, which seeks out low-hanging fruit. The worm's authors directed it to scour the web for devices that use default or easily guessable passwords, skipping over sensitive networks such as those bookmarked for General Electric Co. or the Department of Defense.
Mirai is not designed to dig deeper into control rooms or substations, and Miller assessed that it is unlikely to affect North American grid reliability.
"Standard office gear that a utility may have — things like printers that are internet-exposed, CCTV cameras or other equipment — could, if not properly set up, become a victim and join the botnet," said Miller, who previously led the threat analysis team at the Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center, operated by the North American Electric Reliability Corp.
NERC issued a non-public cyber alert on the subject earlier this month in a post titled "Internet of Things (IoT) Used for High Bandwidth Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attacks." A NERC spokeswoman did not respond to a request to review the document.
While Miller cautioned that he's no longer clued into internal NERC business, he said the internet-of-things issue "definitely resonates with utilities — and they were being proactive on getting the information out."
Days before the Oct. 11 NERC alert, a Mirai-fueled cyberattack on journalist Brian Krebs' website claimed headlines for its record-breaking ferocity.
"The cat's out of the bag," Miller said. "My fear is that ... these sorts of DDoS attacks will continue to happen, and possibly get a lot more polished over the next year or so."
'Not yet a priority'
"Smart" devices are ushering in an era of convenience, efficiency and raw analytical power never before seen online. But in an effort to tamp down costs, experts say, many device manufacturers have cut corners when it comes to securing new technology from hackers.
Ted Harrington, executive partner at Independent Security Evaluators, organized an "IoT Village" at a major hacking conference in Las Vegas this year, where researchers uncovered 47 new security vulnerabilities across nearly two dozen devices, including "smart" locks and internet-connected solar panels.
"Security professionals like us have for years been articulating the dangers of deploying such connected solutions without adequate security considerations — those warnings have largely gone unheeded," he said in an emailed response to questions. "However, the DDoS attack against Dyn has certainly captured the mainstream attention, and that is fostering some very positive and productive conversations about what to do about it."
The U.S. government has launched several initiatives aimed at better securing the internet of things, and DHS officials say they are working on strategic guidelines for device manufacturers.
But Harrington said that despite government and industry efforts, huge DDoS attacks may not disappear anytime soon.
"IoT adoption is expanding rapidly, while security concerns are largely not yet a development priority for many manufacturers," he said. "This will lead to an increasingly expanded pool of connected devices that could easily be leveraged in attacks that are not only similar, but are likely even larger."
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/10/25/stories/1060044751
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(ACC Mentioned) DOT Tackles Vehicle Cybersecurity
Oct 25, 2016 | Politico - Morning Transportation
By Brianna Gurciullo
With help from Joshua Posaner, Lauren Gardner and Anthony Adragna
DOT TACKLES VEHICLE CYBERSECURITY: As part of the Obama administration’s latest effort to keep up with rapidly developing car technology, DOT is out with proposed guidance for vehicle cybersecurity, recommending that automakers and tech companies include multiple layers of protections in their designs and consider digital threats based on their level of risk. Such a strategy, NHTSA argues, “reduces the probability of an attack’s success and mitigates the ramifications of a potential unauthorized access.” In other words, cars should be designed with features that prevent hacking or at least try to keep people and information safe if a hack is successful.As Pro Cybersecurity’s Eric Geller reports, the agency suggests that car companies put executives with knowledge and experience in handling cybersecurity issues on their leadership teams, keep track of supply chain threats and update protections as vehicles get older.
‘A top priority’: Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement that cybersecurity is “a top priority” for DOT. The guidance is meant to “provide best practices to help protect against breaches and other security failures that can put motor vehicle safety,” Foxx said. Mark Rosekind, the administrator of NHTSA, added, “In the constantly changing environment of technology and cybersecurity, no single or static approach is sufficient.” The public has 30 days to comment on the draft guidelines.
Lawmakers say it’s not enough: Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Ed Markey had some harsh words for DOT, saying that releasing a guidance proposal is “like giving a take-home exam on the honor code to failing students.”
“If modern day cars are computers on wheels, we need mandatory standards, not voluntary guidance, to ensure that our vehicles cannot be hacked and lives and information put in danger,” the lawmakers said in a statement, before plugging their proposed Security and Privacy in Your Car Act. The measure would direct NHTSA and the FTC to set cybersecurity and privacy standards, and create a system to rate cars based on the strength of their cybersecurity and privacy protections.
IT’S TUESDAY: Good morning and thanks for tuning in to POLITICO’s Morning Transportation, your daily tipsheet on all things trains, planes, automobiles and ports. Please send tips, feedback and, of course, song lyrics to bgurciullo@politico.com or @brigurciullo.
TRUMP WANTS $1 TRILLION IN INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT: Donald Trump says he would get a bill introduced during his first 100 days in office that would “spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years.” In a plan the Republican presidential nominee released over the weekend, Trump promises the legislation would leverage “public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years.” The bill would be “revenue neutral,” according to the document. As your MT host reports for Pros, Trump said in August that he would spend at least twice as much on infrastructure as Hillary Clinton has proposed — $275 billion over five years — and indicated he would finance it through debt.
UPDATE ON CALIFORNIA BUS CRASH: There are no signs the driver of a tour bus that smashed into a tractor-trailer Sunday in Southern California hit the brakes before the crash, officials told The Associated Press. The accident left 13 people dead, including the driver, and 31 others injured. The tractor-trailer was moving at 5 mph on the highway, where maintenance work was being done, when the tour bus crashed into it at up to 65 mph. The bus didn’t have seat belts. “There's no indication whatsoever that the driver applied the brakes,” California Highway Patrol Border Division Chief Jim Abele said. He pointed out that no one found skid marks on the road.
The owner and driver of the tour bus, 59-year-old Teodulo Elias Vides, was listed in lawsuits related to three previous freeway crashes, the AP reports, but Vides wasn’t driving in those incidents.
SHIPPING EMISSIONS DEAL GETTING COMPLICATED: Monday’s opening of the International Maritime Organization’s latest committee meeting ended without conclusive progress on a timeline for a sulfur-capping deal in the shipping sector. Delegates have a straight choice: Agree that enough cleaner bunker fuel will be available to sharply cut the use of higher sulfur-content fuel in 2020, or say the market needs more time to prepare and snap that date back five years.
“From the perspective of international shipping, this is a particularly difficult challenge,” IMO’s Kitack Lim said in a speech. “The Paris Agreement addresses the emissions of individual countries, but shipping is not a country, it is a global industry. Finding an effective way to allocate emissions is not straightforward. Ships can move between different flags as easily as they can sail between different countries."
MIC CHECK, 1-2, 1-2: Our own Lauren Gardner rejoined WAMU’s Martin Di Caro on the (Metro)rails last week to interview Rep. Gerry Connolly for the “Metropocalypse” podcast about the system’s safety and financial woes and what role the federal government should play in addressing them. The Virginia Democrat — never at a loss for words on the significance of the nation’s second-largest transit system to the region — opined on floated service cuts and the future of congressional aid to Metro.
Connolly’s plans: Of particular interest to our readers may be Connolly’s admission that he has no desire to pursue a seat on the Appropriations Committee to make up for the recent contraction of the capital area’s influence over the federal purse-strings. “I’ve got eight years of seniority on the committees I’m on, both of which are very vital to this region and to my district in particular,” he said of his positions on the Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Government Reform panels. “It’s too late for me to build any seniority on Appropriations.” Download the podcast here.
STB TO DISCUSS HOW IT SETTLES RATE DISPUTES: The Surface Transportation Board is hosting a roundtable today with economists to pore over an independent report released last month on the agency’s methodology for settling rate disputes between railroads and the shippers that hire them. The report examined STB’s current approach to adjudicating complaints from “captive” shippers that lack competing transportation options to move their products to market, plus a couple alternatives that would be less costly for those industries. Freights read the report’s findings as endorsing the status quo, while shippers like the American Chemistry Council take issue with it across the board.
In this corner: “The findings are clear: shippers have cost-effective alternatives to bring rate complaints to the STB, and changes to the existing regulatory structure — including different rate review approaches or new access regulations — would not benefit the larger transportation system,” Association of American Railroads President and CEO Ed Hamberger said after the report was released last month.
And the other: The American Chemistry Council has blasted the report for contradicting an earlier study by the Transportation Research Board, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, and has insinuated that it was biased because the consultant that wrote it, InterVISTAS, “has a history of working on behalf of the railroads.”
http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-transportation/2016/10/dot-tackles-vehicle-cybersecurity-217036
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Internal Watchdog Blasts Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Regulators over Safety Rule Delays
Oct 25, 2016 | DeSmog
By Sharon Kelly
Safety laws meant to protect the American public against oil train explosions, pipeline leaks and other deadly risks have been repeatedly held up by slow-moving federal regulators, a newly released Department of Transportation internal audit has concluded.
The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) — charged with overseeing 2.6 million miles of pipelines and the handling of a million hazardous material shipments a day — missed deadline after deadline as it attempted to craft the safety rules and regulations that give federal laws effect, auditors from the DOT inspector general's office wrote in their Oct. 14 report.
“PHMSA’s slow progress and lack of coordination over the past 10 years has delayed the protections those mandates and recommendations are intended to provide,” the report concluded.
Out of 62 rules or studies that PHMSA was legally required to complete by a specific deadline, the agency missed its mandatory deadlines 45 times, auditors wrote, or over 70 percent of the time.
When deadlines were recommended but not required, PHSMA's track record was even worse.
“[S]ince 2005, PHMSA has missed deadlines for responding to 115 of 118 NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] recommendations and 10 of 12 GAO [Government Accountability Office] recommendations,” auditors found.
Sometimes, delays were caused by poor planning, with PHMSA neglecting to coordinate with other federal agencies that might raise safety concerns, like the Federal Aviation Administration and the Federal Railroad Administration, to prevent disputes from arising.
And sometimes, delays emerged because PHMSA failed to take the common sense steps that big projects generally require. “In implementing non-rulemaking mandates and recommendations, program offices rarely: developed plans; established priorities; identified team member roles and responsibilities; created timetables; or justified and documented delays,” the auditors wrote.
The inspector general's auditors highlighted five ways that the troubled agency could clean up its act, and PHSMA agreed to take most of the steps that the auditors recommended.
But PHMSA's response came under fire from public safety advocates, who argued the agency was slow-walking the plans meant to help it speed up.
“I am pleased that PHMSA has accepted the IG [inspector general] recommendations, but the key is in their implementation,” said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), “and already PHMSA says it won’t be able to implement the recommendations until December 2017, far too long to address such significant concerns and to ensure the health and safety of our communities and the American public.”
The auditor's probe of PHMSA's slow progress was launched in May of 2015, at the request of Rep. DeFazio, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.
“In multiple pipeline accident investigations over the last 15 years, the NTSB has identified the same persistent issues–most of which DOT has failed to address,” Mr. DeFazio said at the time. “Each time, Congress has been forced to require PHMSA to take action, most recently in the Pipeline Safety, Regulatory Certainty, and Job Creation Act of 2011. Yet three years later, almost none of the important safety measures in the Act have been finalized, including requirements for pipeline operators to install automatic shutoff valves and to inspect pipelines beyond high-consequence areas.”
A year later, many of those same rules were still not finalized, the auditors found.
The agency blew past deadlines when it came to steps to address oil train safety and rules on responding to spills of oil and other hazardous materials, auditors found.
Pipeline standards also moved slowly. Federal safety experts have long recommended that gas pipelines connected to apartment buildings and other multi-family residences be equipped with an automatic shut-off valve that that can stop a gas leak from turning into a deadly explosion.
Federal law required PHSMA to decide whether new or upgraded pipes must be equipped with the valves, which cost a couple hundred bucks, within two years. But nearly three years after its deadline had run out, PHMSA still had yet to make a move.
And a proposal to map the nation's network of tens of thousands of miles of so-called “gathering lines,” or smaller pipes that connect oil and gas wells into large interstate pipeline systems, also remains uncompleted.
“PHMSA should at least know what’s out there: how many gathering lines, what the pressure is, how old they are and what the risks are,” Susan Fleming, director of the physical infrastructure program at the Government Accountability Office, toldPolitico last year.
PHMSA's slow progress has long frustrated lawmakers. For example, a 2011 law required PHMSA to conduct 42 rule-makings and studies — but more than a quarter of those projects remained incomplete as of July of this year. “We cannot achieve the intended objectives of the Pipeline Safety Act until it has been fully implemented,” Energy and Commerce Chairman Rep. Fred Upton told The Hill in March.
Last year, investigative reporters from Politico published a damning look at PHMSA's track record and why it's been so slow to move. The agency is underfunded and understaffed, they found, writing that its annual budget of $145.5 million is “less than what the Pentagon spent on a single jet engine maintenance contract last year.”
It's also closely tied to the industries it's supposed to regulate — in part because of PHSMA's very design. By law, new PHMSArules must be reviewed by advisory committees that in practice have become heavily weighted with industry reps, Politico found. “Advisory committee meetings are largely friendly affairs, a review of thousands of pages of transcripts shows, almost wholly devoid of resistance to industry-driven projects that craft voluntary standards for PHMSA,” reporters Elana Schor and Andrew Restuccia wrote.
And while PHMSA is one of the Department of Transportation's smallest agencies — despite its life-or-death responsibilities — problems run deeper than just a lack of staff or the agency's high turnover rate. There is also a culture inside the agency that Politico labeled a “can't do” mentality.
“They’re understaffed to provide adequate oversight of the industry, but I don’t believe they’re understaffed to move a regulatory framework,” Jim Hall, former head of the National Transportation Safety Board told Politico. “They’ve just lacked the will to do so.”
Nonetheless, PHMSA's to-do list keeps on growing.
One year ago, a massive leak began at the Aliso Canyon gas storage site near Porter Ranch, California. It ultimately spewed almost 100,000 metric tons of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere and drove thousands of nearby residents and businesses to evacuate the surrounding area for months.
This summer, a newly enacted law, the Protecting our Infrastructure of Pipelines and Enhancing Safety Act of 2016 (PIPESAct), charged PHMSA with launching over a dozen new studies, reports, and rule-makings — including figuring out how to prevent more leaks from storage facilities like Aliso Canyon.
http://www.desmogblog.com/2016/10/25/internal-watchdog-blasts-pipeline-and-hazardous-materials-regulators-over-safety-rule-delays
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Clock Starts For Suits Over CSAPR 'Update' Rule
Oct 25, 2016 | Inside EPA
EPA is slated to publish in the Oct. 26 Federal Register its rule to “update” the nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions caps in its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), triggering a 60-day clock for groups to sue over the update that some states say is insufficiently strict and that some power sector officials argue is unnecessary.
The rule, which the agency released last month ahead of its publication in the Register, covers 22 states rather than the 23 in the proposed version of the update. It revises the NOx “budgets,” or state-specific emissions caps, to help reduce ozone levels by forcing air pollution cuts from power plants in upwind states whose emissions have a “significant contribution” to downwind states' ability to attain federal air standards.
The update aims to help states that are struggling to meet the more-recent 2008 ozone standard of 75 ppb. However, the rule does not address the even-stricter ozone limit of 70 ppb that the agency issued Oct. 1.
CSAPR was issued in 2011 and applied to power plants in 28 states and sought to reduce interstate emissions of NOx and sulfur dioxide (SO2) in order to help states in the eastern half of the country attain the 1997 ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), expressed as 84 parts per billion, as well as the 2006 fine particulate matter NAAQS of 15 micrograms per cubic meter (ug/m3) annually and 35 ug/m3 over 24 hours.
EPA's CSAPR update does not alter the SO2 part of the program and only affects the NOx part of the program, but the changes spurred a mixed reaction from states and the power sector.
At a Sept. 20 meeting of the Ozone Transport Commission of Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern states that have struggled with ozone pollution, several state officials said the rule falls short of what is needed.
But power sector officials claim that decreasing NOx levels mean the new rule is entirely unnecessary. Industry groups are faulting not just EPA's technical analysis, but the legal foundations of the rule.
http://insideepa.com/news-briefs/clock-starts-suits-over-csapr-update-rule
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Everyone Likes the HFC Amendment — Except the U.S. Senate
Oct 25, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
Having spent years trying to avoid entering into a climate treaty that would require Senate ratification, the Obama administration has almost certainly just joined a climate treaty that will require Senate ratification.
When America joined with nearly 200 other parties in Rwanda earlier this month to amend an ozone treaty to limit heat-trapping hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the change was so significant, experts say, that it will likely require a two-thirds Senate vote.
"Under U.S. domestic law, when you modify a treaty that was submitted to the Senate for ratification, you have to submit an amendment to the Senate for ratification," said Michael Wara, an environmental law professor at the Stanford Law School.
The State Department and U.S. EPA have said they're looking into whether the HFC amendment to the Montreal Protocol will require ratification. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, who led the U.S. delegation along with Secretary of State John Kerry, told Mashable that "it's really undecided yet whether it needs to go."
"We will need to examine the amendment, as well as relevant practice, in order to determine the appropriate approval process. At the moment, we are still awaiting the final text," a State Department spokesperson said yesterday.
Four previous amendments to the core provisions of the 1987 treaty have made their way through the Senate advice-and-consent function, and it's unclear why this one would be any different.
The State Department asserts that the more comprehensive climate change agreement reached in Paris last December was not legally binding. It was built on existing executive branch authorities, U.S. officials argue, and therefore did not require ratification. The United States joined the deal as an executive agreement in September.
But the same criteria are not present here. While the Paris Agreement would not have legal consequences for countries that fail to deliver on their commitments, the Montreal Protocol does provide for trade sanctions for scofflaws. Under the treaty, the United States would be required to slash production and use of HFCs, a climate superpollutant used in cooling and refrigeration, by 85 percent compared with 2011-13 levels by 2036 or face the consequences.
And Wara, who sees the HFC amendment as a positive step toward restoring the United States' position as a climate leader, said flouting the Senate could jeopardize the executive branch's ability to win funding for the Montreal Protocol's Multilateral Fund. The fund is considered a key tool in helping poor countries meet their own, also mandatory phase-down commitments. It could also prompt widespread litigation, he said.
"You don't want to create the impression that you're trying to go around the Senate in the current context, particularly with the sense the Senate already has that that happened for the Paris Agreement and the Clean Power Plan," Wara said. "There's a general concern about executive overreach in the climate context anyway."
A proxy battle?
But observers say while the Paris deal would almost certainly have fallen short of the votes needed to pass the Senate, the same should not be true for the HFC amendment. For one thing, it's strongly supported by the U.S. chemical manufacturers and users that would be affected.
Francis Dietz of the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, which participated in the talks as an advocate for the amendment, said industry stands ready to join environmentalists in lobbying for Senate approval if needed.
"You've got to figure that most of the opposition to it would come from people who would imagine it would hurt industry, right?" Dietz said. While some deals might face headwinds from the business sector, he said, "here, everyone is united."
Industry might also be able to reach out to Republicans and home-state senators who are less responsive to environmental pressure.
"We would probably look at where we had the best relationships first, and then we'd look at where our members had relationships, as well," he said. "There are any number of states where we could be helpful, I would think."
So far, Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a staunch disputer of climate science and chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has indicated he would not back the amendment on the grounds that the ozone treaty is being inappropriately applied to address climate change (Greenwire, Oct. 24).
Oklahoma manufacturers Johnson Controls, AAON and ClimateMaster are joining other AHRI members in backing the HFC amendment.
"We are taking a close look at the Kigali amendment recognizing that all previous amendments to the Montreal Protocol required Senate advice and consent," said Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) in an email yesterday. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who chairs the subcommittee that would have the first stab at the amendment, did not return calls for comment.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute's director for the Center for Energy and Environment, Myron Ebell, who leads GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump's EPA transition team, echoed Inhofe, saying that the Montreal Protocol has been "hijacked" from its original purpose to address climate concerns.
But he said the HFC amendment might stand a "fighting chance," where Paris would not.
"If the president wants it, it will be a hard sell, but I wouldn't rule it out that it would get the votes," Ebell said, adding that a limited shift in cooling and refrigeration chemicals is not equivalent to Paris, which would "consign poor people to perpetual poverty."
But GOP strategist Mike McKenna said it could become a proxy battle for lawmakers, including Barrasso, who have railed against the Obama administration's choice not to seek Senate approval for Paris.
"It is certainly something that they are going to think about," he said in an email. "They should. Allowing the State Department to decide when it feels like being bound by the Constitution is a pretty bad idea."
Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, argued that the Montreal Protocol has "a great Republican pedigree," brokered under President Reagan and amended under Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.
"The cost of climate denial is going up," he said. "And this is a good time for those who want to start getting on the right side of history and the right side of electoral politics to begin to make the switch."
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/10/25/stories/1060044756
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New Climate-Friendlier Coolant Has a Catch: It’s Flammable
Oct 25, 2016 | New York TImes (In Real Clear Energy)
By Danny Hakim
Rajiv Singh started thinking about how to do his part to fight global warming 15 years ago.
Dr. Singh, a scientist at Honeywell’s lab in Buffalo, began running computer models of tens of thousands of molecular combinations. He was seeking a better refrigerant, one of the most vexing chemicals for the environment.
Refrigerants cool homes, cars and buildings but also warm the planet at a far higher rate than carbon dioxide. Dr. Singh was searching for one stable enough to be useful but that degraded quickly so it did not linger to trap heat in the atmosphere.
“You have to hit the chemistry books,” he said in a recent interview.
As product names go, HFO-1234yf, the refrigerant he played a crucial role in developing, does not roll off the tongue. But it is one of the most important alternatives to hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, which have long been used in air-conditioners and refrigerators and which contribute greatly to climate change. On Oct. 15, in Kigali, Rwanda, more than 170 countriesreached an agreement as part of the Montreal Protocol to curb the use of HFCs.
But Dr. Singh’s new coolant is also controversial, with critics questioning its safety and viewing it as the latest attempt by large chemical companies to play the regulatory system to their advantage. HFO-1234yf is already becoming standard in many new cars sold in the European Union and the United States by all the major automakers, in large part because its developers, Honeywell and Chemours, have automakers over a barrel. Their refrigerant is one of the few options that automakers have to comply with new regulations and the Kigali agreement.
It has its detractors. The new refrigerant is at least 10 times as costly as the one it replaces.
A number of rival manufacturers have filed suits to challenge the patent. Officials in India, which has a fast-growing car market, are deliberating over whether to grant patent protection.
And then there is the safety issue.
Daimler began raising red flags in 2012. A video the company made public was stark. It showed a Mercedes-Benz hatchback catching fire under the hood after 1234yf refrigerant leaked during a company simulation.
Daimler eventually relented and went along with the rest of the industry, installing 1234yf in many of its new cars. But the company has developed an alternative using carbon dioxide that is being introduced in its S-class cars and some E-class models, with an eye toward further expansion.
In a statement, Sandra Gödde, a spokeswoman for Daimler, said 1234yf had “different flammability properties” than the HFC coolant it was replacing, which is considered to be nonflammable. The company has developed “specific measures in order to guarantee our high safety standards,” she added, including “a specially developed protective system.”
Some engineers and environmentalists, however, say 1234yf is not a good option.
“None of the people in the car industry I know want to use it,” said Axel Friedrich, the former head of the transportation and noise division at the Umweltbundesamt, the German equivalent of the Environmental Protection Agency. He added that he opposed having another “product in the front of the car which is flammable.”
Dr. Friedrich, an engineer and a chemist, is also a member of the scientific advisory council of the International Council on Clean Transportation, the group that commissioned the tests that exposed Volkswagen’s cheating on diesel emissions. He collaborated on tests of 1234yf with Deutsche Umwelthilfe, a German environmental group, which also raised fire concerns. While cars, obviously, contain other flammable materials, he was specifically worried that at high temperatures 1234yf emitted hydrogen fluoride, which is dangerous if inhaled or touched.
“I wouldn’t like to use it as a car owner, because it gives me a higher risk and higher cost,” Dr. Friedrich said. “It’s a really unfair solution by the car industry. This is not what government and society should have accepted.”
Honeywell and Chemours (which until last year was a unit of DuPont) have been adamant that the product is safe, and they are not alone. After the Daimler issue emerged, SAE International, an engineering consortium that includes all of the major automakers, said 1234yf was “highly unlikely to ignite,” though the issue led to a brief split with German automakers. The Joint Research Center of the European Union has also said there was “no evidence of a serious risk.” It is being used across the auto industry and has gained approval from regulators in the United States and Europe.
“Daimler was the only manufacturer that cited an issue,” said Ken Gayer, vice president and general manager of Honeywell Fluorine Products.
“All other car manufacturers at the time had incorporated 1234yf, which is mildly flammable, into their designs, with modest design changes, and proven to themselves conclusively that they could safely use the product,” he said.
Daimler’s concerns led to a reassessment. “The entire industry stepped back and said, ‘Could we possibly have missed something?’” Mr. Gayer said. “We reviewed all the work we did, and we also ran new tests to try to understand better what Daimler’s issue was.”
At the end of that process, automakers and regulators “proved to themselves conclusively once again that 1234yf was safe for use in cars, and then finally in 2015 Daimler announced publicly that they would use the product,” Mr. Gayer said.
Chemours said in a statement that the additional testing proved any “concerns to be unfounded.” It added, “Today, all major global automakers around the world are using HFO-1234yf.”
One thing is not in dispute. The new coolant is superior to the HFC it is replacing in its impact on global warming. Hydrofluorocarbons have roughly 1,400 times the impact of carbon dioxide, the baseline used to measure such chemicals. By contrast, studies of 1234yf have ranged from four times carbon dioxide to a recent assessment showing it has an even lower impact.
Because of that, perhaps no single chemical is better positioned to take advantage of the Kigali agreement. While Honeywell and Chemours, when it was part of DuPont, lobbied to weaken and stall HFC regulations in the past, this time they were poised to profit from a product that had fresh patent protection, and they largely embraced the agreement.
Though Honeywell would not give specific profit or revenue figures for 1234yf, sales of its HFC alternatives have helped the company raise annual revenue from its wider fluorine business by double-digit percentages in the last few years to more than $1 billion.
The companies, which sell products under different brand names, have “almost a monopoly,” said Stephen O. Andersen, a former E.P.A. official who has been a representative to the Montreal Protocol and works for the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, an advocacy group.
“The price of the product is very high, about $80 a kilogram, and so that adds up to about $50 to $75 per car, which is a lot of money compared to the HFC they were using,” which he said was about $4 to $6 a car. “So it’s a big shock, and it’s been a lot of controversy.”
David Doniger, director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, “The safety concern is bogus.”
“The main concern is its high price,” Mr. Doniger said. “While a small part of the price of a car, this could be concerning when repairs are needed.” He said the price would decline after the patents expired, though that will take years.
The conundrums and controversies highlight the complexities of refrigerants and the trade-offs inherent in the fight to curb global warming. In the 1980s, the Montreal Protocol led to the ban on chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs, because of hazards to the ozone layer. They were replaced by HFCs, which are being curbed because of their effects on the climate.
Will 1234yf be an equally transitory fix? “Nothing lasts forever,” Dr. Singh, the Honeywell chemist, said. “At least a couple generations.”
Dorothee Saar, head of the transport and clean air team at Deutsche Umwelthilfe, the environmental group, said the new refrigerant presented considerable safety risks. She has her own solution. Ms. Saar, who lives in Berlin, has an old Volkswagen Golf without air-conditioning.
“I can always open a window,” she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/23/business/energy-environment/auto-coolant-global-warming-at-what-cost.html?_r=0
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Climate’s on the Ballot Like Never Before
Oct 25, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Sean H. Donahue
Each election is the most important ever for climate policy. As greenhouse gases build up in the atmosphere, climatic warming and ocean acidification intensify, and the time to act dwindles. When George W. Bush and Al Gore squared off in 2000 (both promising to cut greenhouse gas emissions), carbon dioxide concentrations were at 370 parts per million and scientists were ringing alarm bells; they are now above 400 ppm (higher than they have been for millions of years). Meanwhile, nine of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred since 2000; average temperatures in 2015 surpassed the prior record (set in 2014), by a lot, and 2016 will likely breakthat record going away. Observed impacts of carbon pollution – from coastal flooding todisappearing polar ice to dying coral reefs – are more pronounced than 16 (or even four) years ago.
But the 2016 presidential election is especially momentous for reasons that go beyond the reality that “time’s a-wastin” if we want to preserve a climate congenial to human society, natural resources, and biodiversity.
Unlike prior presidential elections, this one takes place with substantive greenhouse gas control policies in place at the international and national levels: The December 2015 Paris Agreementprovides for long-term greenhouse gas reductions on a global scale linked to concrete climate milestones; enough large-emitting countries have already ratified it (including the United States, China, India, Brazil and the European Union) that it will enter into force on Nov. 4, 2016. And President Obama’s EPA has adopted, under the Clean Air Act, a series of national rules providing for significant reductions in carbon emissions in the United States.
These accomplishments did not come easily. The Paris Agreement emerged from years of difficult and often disappointing international negotiations as a striking breakthrough or even “miracle.” On the home front, the 2007 Supreme Court decision confirming that the Clean Air Act applies to control carbon pollution – itself the culmination of years of litigation – was followed by a decade of fighting about how to apply the Act to carbon pollution. Despite political attacks, repeated efforts to repeal EPA’s statutory authority, and seven solid years of all-out litigation from opponents, this Administration managed to finalize regulations securing major reductions in emissions from the largest categories of sources – cars and trucks, fossil-fuel burning power plants, and oil and gas production facilities. It has also required that federal agencies factor into their decisions thecost to society of carbon pollution.
When measured against the scale of the problem, even these big steps are modest. But for this most technically and politically challenging of pollution problems, this is what progress looks like. Together with the historic breakthrough in Paris (and more recent agreements on aviation emissions and hydrofluorocarbons), the domestic legal developments give reason for optimism that has been hard to come by in this area. They provide greater certainty for industry and investors, disprove opponents “parade of horribles” objections, and lay the groundwork for future measures.
Most of the hard work still lies ahead. The next President will play a central role in deciding whether the Paris accord develops into a robust global mechanism to avert the worst impacts of climate change, or falls apart amidst national rivalries and short-term politics. Defending the existing Clean Air Act policies against ongoing legal challenges, and devising cost-effective, durable ways of securing deeper pollution reductions will take dogged commitment and real skill.
Which brings us to the second thing that makes the 2016 election singularly important for climate: Never has there been such a gulf between the major parties’ presidential nominees on climate change policy.
For the first time since climate change became a political issue in the 1990s, one of the major-party tickets outright denies its importance (and sometimes even its reality). Both Donald Trump andMike Pence have repeatedly called climate change a hoax and a non-problem. Trump has vowed to “cancel” the United States’ participation in the Paris Agreement, and to rescind the Obama Administration’s central power plant rule, the Clean Power Plan, as well as other core Clean Air Act regulations. His designated EPA transition chief is a climate skeptic and staunch opponent of greenhouse gas regulation. Pence has insisted that the Earth’s atmosphere is cooling, had an exceptionally weak environmental record in Congress, and has supportedlegal efforts to invalidate federal carbon regulations. Trump’s and Pence’s open and notorious opposition to climate action is unprecedented in candidates so close to power – and at odds withmost voters in their own party.
Hillary Clinton, in contrast, recognizes climate change as an “urgent threat,” has a keen interest in climate policy, and has developed an ambitious climate program. She strongly supports the Paris Agreement, and, as Secretary of State, helped to lay the groundwork for the negotiations that led to it. She has pledged to defend federal climate regulations, and to pursue additional means to reduce carbon pollution and promote renewable energy. Her campaign chair is a seasoned environmental policy expert and leading climate hawk. Nothing will be easy, but all indications are that she would make climate a top priority and build upon what has been achieved over the last decade, nationally and internationally.
Whoever wins on Nov. 8, the economic forces, state policies, and citizen concerns driving rapid growth in clean energy will not vanish. And there are legal constraints on a new Administration’s ability to undo regulations or defy statutory obligations. But the inertial power of a Chief Executive who really does not want to act is immense. Electing a President on a platform that dismisses climate change itself; promises to undo foundational policies that are already in place; and spurns an international consensus in favor of carbon control, would be a severe blow the entire climate change mitigation effort. At best, it would sacrifice time that we don’t have.
Sean H. Donahue has represented environmental and health organizations in litigation over greenhouse gas regulations, including litigation over the Clean Power Plan. He previously taught law at Washington & Lee, Iowa and Georgetown; was an attorney in the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, and served as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/302609-climates-on-the-ballot-like-never-before
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