Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 10/28/2016
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Advocates Plan to Boost State, Market Pressures on Chemicals
Oct 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The federal chemicals law has been updated, but advocacy groups tell Bloomberg BNA they are going to keep the political and economic pressures on companies to spur development of chemicals and products that are safer than those they replace. -
25 Years After Court Gutted Rule, EPA Could Finally Ban Asbestos
Oct 27, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Linda Reinstein and Alex Formuzis
An Environmental Protection Agency decision on which 10 chemicals it will prioritize reviewing under the recently overhauled Toxic Substances Control Act is expected by the end of this year. -
(ACC Mentioned) Beachgoers Split on Folly Council Plastic Ban
Oct 28, 2016 | Charleston Post Courier
By Prentiss Findlay
Mike Levy paused for a moment from picking up shoreline trash when asked his opinion of City Council's beach ban on coolers and food and drink containers made of polystyrene foam, the sort of stuff commonly known as Styrofoam. -
(ACC Mentioned) How the Plastics Industry Is Trying to Fool Voters into Ending Bans on Shopping Bags
Oct 27, 2016 | Alternet
By Judith Lewis Mernit
When the tiny, picturesque community of Bisbee, Arizona, decided to ban single-use plastic bags in 2014, leaders in the plastics industry worried Bisbee had sparked a trend. -
New Tests to Predict Inflammation Sought by Chemicals Program
Oct 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
A federal chemicals testing organization is seeking data about alternative tests researchers may be using to identify tissue damage caused by inflammation or immune responses. -
EU Agency Calls for Sharing Task of Evaluating 117 Chemicals
Oct 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Chemicals Agency proposed Oct. 27 that regulatory authorities in European Union countries share the task of evaluating 117 chemicals that are suspected of posing a risk to human health or the environment. -
Have a Happy, Healthy Halloween: Don’t Get Tricked into Buying Toxic Halloween Products
Oct 27, 2016 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Beth Kemler
What’s scarier than the pint-sized vampires, mummies and ghosts who will roam the streets this Halloween? The toxic chemicals that can be found in many Halloween products on store shelves. Don’t get tricked into buying them! -
Playing Fields and Cancer—An Emerging Mass Tort?
Oct 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Amy Griffin was in her second decade of coaching college soccer when, in 2009, she met two goalies who had come down with lymphoma at the same time. -
(ACC Mentioned) Workforce Shortage, Stricter Regs, LNG Exports Could Derail Petchem Comeback
Oct 28, 2016 | Kallanish Energy
The U.S. petrochemical industry is in a multiyear renaissance worth billions of dollars, due to low-cost natural gas produced from shale plays, but a handful of issues could halt the good times, an American Chemistry Council (ACC) analyst said Wednesday. -
Senate Sends Conference Proposal to House
Oct 27, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
Senate energy conferees have sent a proposed conference report to their House counterparts, as the two chambers ready a lame-duck push to complete the first comprehensive energy bill in nearly a decade. -
Oil Lobby: Use Natural Gas to Comply with Climate Rule
Oct 27, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The oil lobby is pushing states to comply with the Obama administration’s climate change rule using policies friendly to natural gas consumption. -
EQT Envisions Utica Program in 2018; Highlights Plans for New Acreage
Oct 27, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
EQT Corp. said Thursday that work to learn more about the deep Utica Shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia continues, with the aim of establishing a development program in 2018 that could overshadow its core Marcellus Shale assets. -
Exxon Mobil Partners for New Carbon Capture Pilot Project
Oct 27, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By Jordan Blum
Exxon Mobil and FuelCell Energy said Thursday they will build a carbon capture pilot project at an Alabama power plant with the potential to finally make affordable “clean” coal and gas a reality. -
(ACC Mentioned) CSB Chief: Agency Unlikely to Add to Freedom Spill Report
Oct 28, 2016 | Charleston Gazette-Mail
By Ken Ward Jr.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is not planning to supplement or make any changes to its report on the Freedom Industries chemical spill and the Kanawha Valley water crisis that followed, the chairwoman of the board said Thursday. -
Chlorine Gas Released in Kansas Distillery Chemical Mix-Up
Oct 28, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
The U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board is probing the incident and is expected to make a final determination of the cause. -
The Left’s Opposition to a Carbon Tax Shows There’s Something Deeply Wrong with the Left
Oct 27, 2016 | Washington Post
By Editorial Board
Washington State will vote next month on one of the most ambitious climate-change programs ever seriously considered in the United States. Yet major players in the environmental movement either oppose the ballot measure or are undermining its chances... -
House GOP Criticizes 'Politicization' of CWA Rulemaking
Oct 27, 2016 | Inside EPA
House oversight panel Republicans in a new report are criticizing EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers' Clean Water Act rule, citing examples they say underscore its “politicization” and show that the rulemaking process and resulting final regulation...
Industry and Association News - There are no relevant clips to report at this time.
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Environment News
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Advocates Plan to Boost State, Market Pressures on Chemicals
Oct 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
The federal chemicals law has been updated, but advocacy groups tell Bloomberg BNA they are going to keep the political and economic pressures on companies to spur development of chemicals and products that are safer than those they replace.
The goal of updating the Toxic Substances Control Act “was safer chemicals and healthy families,” said Andy Igrejas, who in 2009 organized the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families campaign by forming a nationwide coalition of hundreds of environmental, health and labor groups that have pushed for chemical policy reform.
Their efforts, industry's agreement that reform was needed, the contributions of other groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund, and congressional champions finally resulted in the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Pub. L. No. 114-182), which amended the Toxic Chemicals Control Act on June 22.
The law boosts the Environmental Protection Agency's authorities to obtain toxicity, exposure and other information on chemicals and regulate chemicals when needed.
Amended TSCA Won't Change Much Fast
“We have an interest in making the most out of this law,” Igrejas told Bloomberg BNA in a recent interview.
Yet, “it's clear the law will not solve the issue of environmental degradation and public health impacts from unregulated chemicals either quickly or even on a reasonable time frame on its own,” he said.
It could take a decade or more before the EPA begins to regulate the first group of chemicals it will begin to assess later this year, Igrejas and Daniel Rosenberg, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, have told Bloomberg BNA.
The nurses, physicians, public interest and other groups that make up the Safer Chemicals coalition, therefore, will keep working on chemical policy reform efforts on three fronts, Igrejas said. The three are:
• participating in the Environmental Protection Agency's implementation of the Lautenberg Act;
• pushing for chemical control, disclosure and other state laws and regulations; and
• “mind the store” campaigns that press retailers to demand that the companies, which make the products the retailers sell, eliminate hazardous chemicals.
In a Bloomberg BNA podcast, Rosenberg discussed the growing role consumers are having in pushing markets to sell products verified as having chemicals deemed safer than those they replace. The defense council is a member of the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Family Coalition.Sarah Doll, director of the chemical-policy oriented organization called Safer States and the more consumer-oriented group called Healthy Babies Bright Futures, told Bloomberg BNA the many “pieces” on the chessboard of chemical policy will keep moving and reacting to each other to keep the pressure on the intertwined policy and economic fronts.
The upcoming election is likely to alter the involvement of some states, Doll said. But others, such as New York and California, which pursued chemical disclosure policies this year, are likely to take them up again in 2017, she said.
Requiring companies to disclose the presence of formaldehyde, styrene, methylene chloride or other chemicals in children's products—as Washington state already does—makes manufacturers work with their supply chains, which can have a variety of worker, consumer and other safety benefits, Doll said.
Such disclosure also helps retailers decide which products to stock, she said. Large retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. and Target Corp. have had dramatic effects on chemical policies, Doll said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=99566896&vname=dennotallissues&fn=99566896&jd=99566896
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25 Years After Court Gutted Rule, EPA Could Finally Ban Asbestos
Oct 27, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Linda Reinstein and Alex Formuzis
An Environmental Protection Agency decision on which 10 chemicals it will prioritize reviewing under the recently overhauled Toxic Substances Control Act is expected by the end of this year.
One chemical under consideration: asbestos.
The question on many minds, near the 25th anniversary of a court decision that struck down most of an EPA rule banning asbestos use, is what will the EPA do now that it finally has the power to act under the new law?
Those who are watching these deliberations closely believe asbestos will make the list, but the EPA could still bend to the will of the chemical industry and its lobbyists.
This year, Congress finally passed legislation to overhaul TSCA, which President Obama signed into law. Under the new Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, named after the late New Jersey senator who spearheaded the push to modernize TSCA, the EPA finally possesses the authority to make the use and importation of asbestos illegal.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee, who took on the issue after Lautenberg’s death, has fought hard to have asbestos top the list of chemicals for the EPA’s review under the new law. Boxer recently introduced the Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act of 2016, which would expedite the ban of asbestos by amending the new TSCA law, requiring the EPA to prohibit all uses, distribution and disposal of asbestos within 18 months of the bill becoming law.
But asbestos was supposed to have been banned more than two decades ago.
In the summer of 1989, George H.W. Bush’s administration announced plans to finally ban the notorious carcinogen asbestos, which is responsible for more than 107,000 deaths worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organization.
The EPA, using the authority it believed it had under the old version of TSCA, issued a rule to “prohibit, at staged intervals, the future manufacture, importation, processing, and distribution in commerce of asbestos in almost all products,” on July 12 of the same year. The agency stated that asbestos exposure presented “unreasonable risks” to human health.
The federal government was poised to ban one of the most lethal and widely used materials that industries had relied on for decades.
“Asbestos is a human carcinogen and one of the most hazardous substances to which humans are exposed,” the EPA wrote in the rule.
This action on behalf of public health, of course, did not sit well with the asbestos industry and the downstream manufacturers that used the deadly mineral.
The industry went to court to overturn the ban, claiming that it was too costly and that alternatives were neither safer nor more effective than asbestos. Twenty-five years ago today, on Oct. 25, 1991, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit threw out most parts of the EPA’s rule. The court acknowledged that asbestos exposure in any amount caused cancer, but said the agency failed to prove that a ban was the “least burdensome alternative” for controlling the public’s exposure.
This disastrous decision not only overturned the EPA’s ban, but also established a precedent that has made it almost impossible for the agency to ban any dangerous chemical. President George H.W. Bush’s administration chose not to appeal the Fifth Circuit’s decision. Even though new evidence of asbestos’ hazards continues to crop up, the EPA’s hands have largely remained tied – until now.
The risks of a federal court rolling back a ban on asbestos this time around are considered unlikely under the new, more robust chemical law. So, the fate of asbestos, and whether it remains legal and continues to put Americans at risk, is now largely within the EPA’s power.
Linda Reinstein is co-founder and CEO of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization and Alex Formuzis us VP Strategic Campaigns of the EWG Action Fund.
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/303072-25-years-after-court-gutted-rule-epa-could-finally-ban
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(ACC Mentioned) Beachgoers Split on Folly Council Plastic Ban
Oct 28, 2016 | Charleston Post Courier
By Prentiss Findlay
Mike Levy paused for a moment from picking up shoreline trash when asked his opinion of City Council's beach ban on coolers and food and drink containers made of polystyrene foam, the sort of stuff commonly known as Styrofoam.
"It's kind of a political statement," said Levy, senior director of the American Chemistry Council plastic foodservice packaging group. "The reality is the problem is still going to be there."
Levy, a portables advocate, and about 40 others were picking up beach trash. They were here to attend the Society of the Plastics Industry fall food packaging summit.
His plastic trash bag held beer cans, bottles, cigarette butts and snack wrappers.
Levy said the issue is people who litter, not the stuff that gets left behind. If one type of beach litter is banned another will take its place, he said.
"We are against the product ban. Litter isn't really reduced at all," he said. "It doesn't matter what the product is if you don't change behavior."
An official with the Dart Container Corp. briefly presented some of the same arguments to council before it voted unanimously in favor of the precedent-setting beach ban on Oct. 18. The official had sought a "lunch and learn" session with council members but was turned down and told he would have five minutes to speak. It would have been at the same council meeting where environmentalists and wildlife advocates expressed their opinions in favor of the ban.
Supporters said the ban matters because the foam and plastic products can harm marine life such as turtles who ingest them and become ill, sometimes fatally.
The ordinance also bans single-use plastic carryout bags and balloons from the beach.
Violators could face up to a $500 fine or 30 days in jail. So far, there have been no warnings, citations or arrests. The ordinance became effective immediately, officials said.
Folly has a campaign to let people know about the beach ban.
"We have done education outreach on our city Facebook page and our website," said city administrator Spencer Wetmore. "We have also updated the rules sheet that all rental homes post, and I have met with area businesses."
"The Facebook post has only 'likes' and we’ve received emails from residents and visitors who are enthusiastic about the change," she said.
Resident Liam Becker had nothing but good things to say about the ban. Folly has a "really cool" council dedicated to the environment, he said.
"I think it's the best thing ever," Becker said.
He was curious to see how the ban would be enforced.
Beachgoer Angelica Longo of Ladson had a plastic bag with her to clean up after her dog.
"I don't think that's a good idea at all," she said of the ban. "Unfortunately people don't clean up after themselves so that's why we're in this predicament."
Maura Hyland, a biology major at the College of Charleston, said animals are more important than Styrofoam. She suggested that beachgoers opt for a re-usable Yeti cup.
"It's more cost-effective," she said.
A month earlier, council passed a law that prohibits business distribution of single-use plastic carryout bags, foam coolers, containers and cups at the point of sale. The new ordinance becomes effective on Jan. 1. The Folly Association of Businesses has expressed support for the measure. Isle of Palms has the same sort of law on the books.
Bert's Market has already made the transition from plastic to more expensive paper bags.
"I think it's great," said Willie Morris of Bert's. "From what I understand, plastic bags are really harmful to the ecosystem."
http://www.postandcourier.com/news/beachgoers-split-on-folly-council-plastic-ban/article_480081da-9bbe-11e6-83f2-2788aa7b9890.html
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(ACC Mentioned) How the Plastics Industry Is Trying to Fool Voters into Ending Bans on Shopping Bags
Oct 27, 2016 | Alternet
By Judith Lewis Mernit
When the tiny, picturesque community of Bisbee, Arizona, decided to ban single-use plastic bags in 2014, leaders in the plastics industry worried Bisbee had sparked a trend. Other Arizona cities—Kingman, Flagstaff, Tempe—were considering similar restrictions; soon, the bag makers feared, the whole state would fall. So they did what corporate lobbyists do in a reliably conservative state: They persuaded legislators and the governor to declare bans like Bisbee’s illegal.
Next door in deep blue California, where more than 150 local jurisdictions have already banned the bags, defending the market sector of the single-use plastic bag has proved altogether more complicated. Sixty percent of polled Californians say they support a plastic bag ban; rescinding the existing bans would be impossible. So instead the industry put its muscle into holding off a statewide ban.
For a while, it succeeded. Assemblymember Julia Brownley authored a bill in 2010 that would have outlawed single-use carryout bags of any material; it failed in the Senate after the Virginia-based American Chemistry Council worked hard to defeat it. But in 2014, State Senators Alex Padilla, Kevin de León and Ricardo Lara collaborated on a less restrictive law, one that would ban most plastic bags but allow grocery stores to charge 10 cents for each paper replacement. It earned the support of the California Grocers Association, and eventually the United Food and Commercial Workers union. It allows for the continued use of thicker plastic bags that will last for 125 uses or more and directs $2 million in loans to job creation in the recycled and reusable grocery bag industry. In August of that year, the bill made it all the way to the governor’s desk.
So the bag lobby pursued its last available option. Before 2014 was out, the plastics lobby had collected enough signatures to place the plastic-bag ban, Senate Bill 270, on hold and put it to a referendum on the November 8, 2016 ballot.
“Our contention is that it’s a special-interest giveaway to grocers in the state,” says Jon Berrier, spokesman for the American Progressive Bag Alliance, a consortium of mostly out-of-state plastic-bag manufacturers and an offshoot of the American Chemistry Council. “It bans a 100-percent recyclable product produced in America with American labor, that according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency accounts for only 0.3 percent of the waste stream.
“The idea that you’re going to reduce waste or litter banning plastic retail bags,” he says, “is simply false. Sacramento special-interest politics threw data and science out the window.”
Berrier is right that plastic bags account for only a small percentage of our garbage. (The vast majority of it is paper, yard trimmings and food.) But single-use plastic retail bags are a singularly pernicious kind of trash. Easily airborne, they float away from conscientious neatnik and litterbug alike, to find their way into mountain streams, storm drain culverts, ocean gyres and, eventually, the gullets of marine animals from cetaceans to sea birds. Sea turtles mistake them for jellyfish and suffer excruciating deaths by starvation; pelicans spear through them and strangle. On a recent paddle down the Los Angeles River, I saw white plastic bags clinging to the trees; my fellow kayakers playfully dubbed them “grocery-bag flowers.”
Plastic bags can be recycled at special, dedicated facilities, but you can’t just toss them into a blue bin. Sent to ordinary processing centers, they clog up sorting screens and have to be cut out with hook knives and saws. They don’t degrade, but disintegrate, turning ocean and freshwater into a diluted chemical soup.
But they are also big business, earning their manufacturers $100 million to $150 million every year in California alone. The short list of generous contributors to the No on 67 campaign contains only one in-state individual or company, Durabag of Tustin, California, which contributed a mere $50,000 early on. The rest of the donors list consists of out-of-state companies whose futures depend on the persistence of their industry: Advance Polybag of Sugar Land, Texas ($946,833); Formosa Plastics of Livingston, New Jersey ($1,148,441); Hilex Plastics of Hartsville, South Carolina ($2,783,739); Superbag of Houston, Texas ($1,238,188).
It has already been money well spent, and not just because a victory in the nation’s bellwether state could set a trend, while a loss could spread bag bans like a virus. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, simply by delaying Padilla’s bill for 18 months, the industry has bagged $15 million in profit.
Steve Maviglio, a spokesperson for the Yes on 67 campaign that supports the ban, says that the plastics lobby’s concern over the predicted job losses rings hollow, considering that almost no single-use plastic bags are made in California. The thicker plastic bags allowed in Padilla’s law will, on the other hand, add to the state’s manufacturing economy, adding several hundred jobs. The plastic industry’s claim of 2,000 jobs lost “is incredible and nonsense,” Maviglio says.
The plastics lobby could, however, win this one—not least because the wording of the referendum on the ballot is confusing. “It’s not intuitive that we need to vote ‘Yes’ for the law to go into effect,” says Diz Swift, a member of the League of Women Voters in Berkeley. “People might say, ‘Oh, no, I don’t want the law vetoed, I want it to go into effect,’ and mistakenly vote ‘No.’” (To be clear, a “No” vote on Proposition 67 will overturn the bag ban; a “Yes” will uphold it.)
Even more confusing is that the plastic bag alliance has put another proposition on the ballot – Proposition 65 – that would direct the 10-cent bag fee toward a special wildlife conservation fund. Berrier says the measure came out of the bag alliance’s research. “Only 25 percent of the people we asked had any idea where that 10 cent bag fee would go,” he says. “A lot of people thought it was going to the environment, or to local government.” When they find out it’s going back to the grocers, he says, “They’re outraged. They want it to go to an environmental purpose.”
To Swift, however, putting Proposition 65 on the ballot above Proposition 67 is a blatant attempt to skew the vote. Only the most sophisticated and well-informed voters will understand what it all means. “The money goes into a fund that sounds really good,” she says. “It’s for drought mitigation, clean drinking water, regional parks, litter removal and habitat restoration. But it requires creating a bureaucracy that doesn’t really help.”
Maviglio is more blunt. “We call 65 the Screw the Grocers Initiative,” he says flatly. “They’re trying to send a message to grocers in other states who would hop aboard a statewide ban.” Single-use bags cost grocers anywhere from six to 16 cents per bag, “and that doesn’t include delivery and stocking,” Maviglio claims. “There’s no windfall there.”
If that’s not persuasive enough, he asks voters to consider the source. Prohibitions against plastic bags have been carried by the most grassroots of efforts—community organizations, moms, local environmental groups. The Arizona ban on plastic-bag bans, he says, comes straight out of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a think tank that assists corporations in state lawmaking, with an emphasis on preempting local control.
“The plastics industry has no regard for the environment,” Maviglio says. “It would be hypocritical of them to put something on the ballot to help wildlife.”
To be fair, Berrier doesn’t argue that helping wildlife is the point: The goal of Prop 65, he says, is only to highlight where the bag-fee money goes after grocers collect it.
“The language is very plain and simple,” he insists, “and it will have its intended effect.”
http://www.alternet.org/environment/plastic-bag-lobby
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New Tests to Predict Inflammation Sought by Chemicals Program
Oct 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
A federal chemicals testing organization is seeking data about alternative tests researchers may be using to identify tissue damage caused by inflammation or immune responses.
The National Toxicology Program—part of the National Institutes of Health—conducts rigorous animal assays on chemical hazards, but it is also aiming to help develop better in vitro or other alternative animal approaches to predict chemical effects on human disease, it said in an Oct. 26 Federal Register notice.
Data and information should be submitted by Dec. 12, the notice said. The term “alternative animal” approaches can include tests that reduce the numbers of animals used, reduce the pain and suffering they experience or that replace traditional rodent test animals with atypical species, such as fish and worms.
Catherine Willett, director of regulatory toxicology, risk assessment and alternatives at the Humane Society of the United States, praised the toxicology program's initiative as being useful for chemical, pharmaceutical and medical device development.
“Inflammation is a common element in several varied disease processes from allergy to arthritis and other autoimmune diseases, [and] to heart failure to liver injury,” she told Bloomberg BNA Oct. 25.
Yet, “there is no regulatory requirement for inflammation [tests] for pesticides or industrial chemicals,” Willett said. “This is a terrific opportunity for in vitro approaches since inflammation is a common, early molecular response, regardless of what the eventual outcome might be,” she said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=99566877&vname=dennotallissues&fn=99566877&jd=99566877
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EU Agency Calls for Sharing Task of Evaluating 117 Chemicals
Oct 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Chemicals Agency proposed Oct. 27 that regulatory authorities in European Union countries share the task of evaluating 117 chemicals that are suspected of posing a risk to human health or the environment.
The evaluations would be carried out between 2017 and 2019 and could lead to recommendations to restrict or otherwise control the manufacture, importation or use of substances under the EU's REACH law (Regulation No. 1907/2006 on the registration, evaluation and authorization of chemicals).
According to the draft, 24 evaluations would be completed in 2017, 47 in 2018 and 46 in 2019. Most risk reviews would be done by authorities in the larger EU countries, such as France's Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety, and Germany's Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. In total, authorities in 22 of the 28 EU countries would carry out at least one risk evaluation. The compounds slated for review include components of sunblock, plastics and paint strippers.
Non-EU country Norway, which implements REACH, also would carry out some evaluations, while the U.K., which voted in June to leave the EU but is unlikely to complete its departure before 2019, would evaluate one substance in 2017, three in 2018 and one in 2019, according to the proposal.
Approval in Spring
The proposed evaluations are subject to the approval of its Member State Committee, which comprises EU country representatives, ECHA said. The committee would issue an opinion in February 2017 and the list of substances for evaluation would be finalized in March 2017, the agency added.
The finalized list would update the so-called Community Rolling Action Plan (CoRAP) for substance evaluation under REACH.
The CoRAP process indicates which chemicals are being considered for possible future controls under REACH. In general, the uses of these substances cover various areas, and are not limited to particular industrial, professional or consumer uses, ECHA said.
So far, 169 hazardous chemicals have been designated REACH “substances of very high concern,” and for 31 of those substances decisions have been taken to phase them out from use in the EU.
The current version of the CoRAP, for 2016–2018, lists 50 substances for evaluation in 2017, but ECHA said evaluation of a number of substances would be postponed while it carried out compliance checks with REACH on registration dossiers that were submitted with scientific studies to assist in evaluating those substances.
Compliance checks could result in ECHA issuing requests for more substance risk information to companies that filed REACH registration dossiers, and these checks would have to be concluded before the substance evaluations could start, according to the chemicals agency.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=99566900&vname=dennotallissues&fn=99566900&jd=99566900
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Have a Happy, Healthy Halloween: Don’t Get Tricked into Buying Toxic Halloween Products
Oct 27, 2016 | Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families
By Beth Kemler
What’s scarier than the pint-sized vampires, mummies and ghosts who will roam the streets this Halloween? The toxic chemicals that can be found in many Halloween products on store shelves. Don’t get tricked into buying them!
Follow these tips for a happy, healthy Halloween
1. Avoid cheap makeup, especially face paint. Cosmetics on store shelves don’t require FDA approval and can contain some pretty terrifying ingredients. In tests for its recent report Pretty Scary 2, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics found lead, cadmium and formaldehyde in face paint and other makeup marketed to kids. They also found volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in kids’ lip balms, nail products and more.
· Make your own face paint with natural coloring like beet juice or non-toxic food coloring. Check out this DIY recipe.
· If you plan to use store-bought makeup or nail polish, read the ingredient list and check EWG’s Skin Deep cosmetics database.
2. Stick to fabric or paper costumes, instead of disposable plastic ones. Many store-bought costumes are made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC or vinyl) or other plastics that can contain phthalates. For instance, testing by HealthyStuff.org in 2014 found that a toddler batman costume contained a high level of phthalates that were banned by the Consumer Product Safety Commission for use in children’s products. The mask that came with that same costume contained lead in its lining.
· Look to your local thrift store for old clothes that can inspire a brand new costume.
· Cardboard boxes make a fantastic costume base too. Check out these fun ideas.
3. Keep away from metal costume jewelry. Many tests by non-profits and government agencies have found lead and cadmium in cheap jewelry. Kids may stick jewelry in their mouths and some may accidentally ingest it.
· Stick to jewelry made of 100% gold or silver.
4. When trick-or-treating, avoid plastic pumpkins and themed plastic bags. HealthyStuff.org’s testingincluded Disney-themed trick-or-treat bags that contained high levels of bromine, an indication of brominated flame retardants.
· Use an old pillow case or grocery bag to collect candy.
5. Stick to decorations made of paper, fabric and pumpkins. Many plastic decorations may be made from PVC. Plus, HealthyStuff.org’s testing found that some Halloween light sets contained levels of bromine consistent with brominated flame retardants.
· Try this spider cut-out idea or these bats made out of toilet paper rolls.
I hope your whole family has a happy, healthy Halloween!
http://saferchemicals.org/2016/10/27/have-a-happy-healthy-halloween-dont-get-tricked-into-buying-toxic-halloween-products/
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Playing Fields and Cancer—An Emerging Mass Tort?
Oct 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Peter Hayes
Amy Griffin was in her second decade of coaching college soccer when, in 2009, she met two goalies who had come down with lymphoma at the same time.
Griffin, who coaches goalies at the University of Washington, thought it a strange coincidence. But it didn't end there.
“Our soccer team visits children's hospitals,” Griffin told Bloomberg BNA. “That year three of the four kids we visited were goalkeepers with cancer.”
Griffin began to suspect the fields were to blame. More specifically, crumb rubber—the tiny black dots on artificial turf playing fields made from recycled tires—also known as “tire crumb.”
Goalies spend a lot of time on the ground.
“During a practice, they hit the ground more than 100 times easily and are covered in those black dots,” she said.
“I remember sitting on a plane, surfing the web, looking at the components of field turf,” Griffin said. That took her to a list of carcinogens, including heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds.
Griffin began compiling a list of athletes with cancer. It now totals 230, including 183 soccer players—of those, 114 are goalkeepers. The balance play field hockey, lacrosse or football.
Waiting and Watching
Now, seven years later, safety advocates and plaintiffs’ attorneys on one side, and representatives of the artificial turf industry and defense attorneys on the other, await the results of what is expected to be the federal government's first comprehensive look at tire crumb's health risks.
The inter-agency study—preliminary results of which are due at the end of the year—could very well generate some litigation tying the rubber fill on thousands of turf fields and school playgrounds to cancer.
But no one, at least not yet, predicts a flood of new filings based on this single study. Unless, that is, the results paint a much more troubling picture of tire crumb's health risks than expected and some hard-hitting plaintiffs’ attorneys decide to run with it.
“At this point, we see indicia, which we always see before there's adequate proof of causation,” plaintiff's attorney Ted Tredennick with Daniels & Tredennick in Houston told Bloomberg BNA.
“We see clusters of people getting the same type of disease with the only common link being exposure to these fields,” he said. “This comes before the science establishes causal links.”
Tredennick, whose firm's specialty areas include defective medical devices, pharmaceuticals and environmental litigation, adds that it's likely only a matter of time before the data establishing enough of a link to proceed en mass with litigation comes in.
“We've done a lot of mass torts,” said Tredennick. “I would identify this as a potential mass tort and we are trying to get ahead of it.”
An attorney with one of the country's most well-known plaintiffs’ firms, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein in San Francisco, is also keeping his eyes on the science.
“I looked into a crumb rubber case a few years back and recommended against us taking it,” Don Arbitblit told Bloomberg BNA.
“But,” said Arbitblit, “I tend to be cautious.”
“If the government comes up with new data or new information making it more viable, we'd consider it,” he said.
Limited Data So Far
New causation-related data going their way is exactly what safety advocates—and plaintiffs’ attorneys—need most.
In 2009, the same year Griffin started looking into cancer rates among goalies and other athletes, the findings of several related studies on tire crumb were reported, including one conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA, after conducting a limited study, found that the concentrations of materials that make up crumb rubber were “below levels considered harmful.” But the agency conceded it couldn't extend the results “beyond the four study sites to reach more comprehensive conclusions.”
That same year, the California Environmental Protection Agency found a negligible human health risk from inhaling the air above synthetic turf, and the New York State Department of Health found no significant health concerns at synthetic fields.
Those reports were followed, in 2010, by a study conducted by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Health that found “no elevated health risks” from crumb rubber.
The Synthetic Turf Council, the industry voice for artificial turf, points to those state studies, and a finding of Dr. Archie Bleyer, former chair of the Children's Cancer Group, that synthetic turf doesn't cause cancer.
But a more recent study, this one commissioned by Environment and Human Health Inc., a public policy group in North Haven, Conn., questions that conclusion.
EHHI, which began looking into crumb rubber in 2007 in response to inquiries about health concerns, commissioned a study by Gaboury Benoit, a professor of environmental chemistry and engineering at Yale University in New Haven.
The results of the Yale study, posted on EHHI's website in July 2015, didn't address exposure pathways. But it found metals including cadmium and zinc and probable carcinogens including 2-mercaptobenzothiazole; 9,10-dimethylanthracene; Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate; Fluoranthene; Heptadecane; Phenol, 4-(1,1,3,3-tetramethylbutyl); Phenanthrene; Phthalimide; Tetratriacontane and Pyrene.
White House Involvement
Soon after the Yale study came out, pressure grew on the federal government to take a closer look at tire crumb.
In November 2015, Senators Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), citing Griffin's list of 230 athletes with cancer, asked Elliot Kaye, chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, to lead an independent investigation into the material's health effects.
The CPSC, earlier in 2015, had already pledged to assist California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment in conducting a new evaluation of crumb rubber's impact on human health.
Then, in January of this year, the two senators wrote to President Obama, requesting a comprehensive federal study to include not only CPSC, but also the EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The following month, the agencies launched a joint study that is still underway.
“Current information from a number of studies does not show an elevated health risk from playing on fields with tire crumb. However, these studies do not comprehensively address the concerns about the potential health risks associated with exposure to tire crumb,” the EPA said in a statement posted on its website about why it was conducting the research.
The agencies are scheduled to release, by the end of 2016, a status report with the summary of its findings.
“While this effort won't provide all the answers, the information will help answer some of the key questions that have been raised about tire crumb used in artificial turf fields,” the EPA said.
It also “will provide a better understanding of potential exposures that people may experience by using these fields,” and help determine whether more research is warranted.
Nancy Alderman, the Environment and Human Health Inc.'s president, told Bloomberg BNA that “Griffin's statistics and data helped to move the issue” of whether tire crumb causes cancer forward.
But, whatever the results of the interagency study, no one, including Griffin, seems to think it will resolve the issue.
“I don't think the EPA report will be all-inclusive. They would have to replicate someone running or diving on the field,” Griffin said. “I really don't think they want to find anything.”
What's more, the preliminary interagency report won't include a risk assessment, Mike Peterson, a scientific adviser for the Recycled Rubber Council told Bloomberg BNA. The RRC advocates for the beneficial use of reused rubber.
“It will look at chemical concentration data. I assume risk assessment will be done later,” said Peterson, who is also a senior toxicologist at environmental and risk sciences consulting firm Gradient Corp. in Cambridge, Mass.
In addition, he said, the agencies aren't comparing levels of toxic substances in crumb rubber to soil composition, or considering background rates.
“Coach Griffin's list is thrown around a lot without much context. There's nothing about background rate of cancer,” he said.
“If you look at the youth soccer population over the last 15 years, you'd expect 21,000 cases of cancer,” Peterson said.
Peterson added that the studies that have raised concerns about tire crumb, including the Yale study, have not done a risk assessment and have not been peer reviewed.
“The peer-reviewed studies have found that the toxic substances are below levels of concern,” he said.
When, Not If
As safety advocates and industry representatives wait for the government's new findings, one plaintiffs’ attorney says it is likely a matter of when, not if, the litigation will take off.
“It takes science some time to develop to the point where it satisfies legal causation,” plaintiffs’ attorney Tredennick said. “That's in progress.”
“Do I think we can prove a link now? It depends on the individual case, but I do believe it's possible,” he said. “But five or six years from now I'm very confident we will be able to.”
Part of the problem with proving causation currently, according to Tredennick, is that tire crumb has only been used as filler in playing fields and playgrounds over the last 15 years or so. Consequently, enough statistical evidence might not yet exist to build solid cases.
“These fields are relatively new. It's been less than two decades and the number of people exposed is going up. The statistical pool has to get to the point where we can do statistical analysis,” he said.
In addition to establishing enough of a causative link to proceed in court, plaintiffs’ attorneys must consider other problems such as individual exposure levels and the source of those exposures.
Arbitbit, with Lieff Cabraser, said crumb rubber is not a single substance from a single company. Tires are made by multiple companies in multiple countries and contain “different type of toxics from one to another,” he said.
“If I have a child who gets sick, I have to know who I'm filing against. How do I know who made the particular crumb rubber she was exposed to?,” he said.
“Also, proof of exposure is itself a tall order. It can be inhaled, or there can be dermal exposure,” he said, and it can be difficult recreating the exposure amount.
For now, plaintiffs’ attorneys hope they get more research, like the Yale study and what they hope the federal government will find, going their way.
“Our feeling is that the turf industry is defending like the tobacco industry defended the causal link to cancer. They tried to create a specter of doubt about the science and research,” Tredennick said.
“It's the arsenic in our drinking water approach. In other words, there are toxins in our drinking water. But take comfort in the fact there's just not enough to kill you.”
“We'll know more as the federal agencies release their research,” he said.
A Slow Burn
Defense attorney William Anderson with Crowell & Moring LLP in Washington says the interagency report is unlikely to be a bombshell.
Anderson's practice includes product liability, toxic tort, and environmental matters. He also tracks the science in several current product and tort controversies, including those over crumb rubber, diesel exhaust, and formaldehyde.
“I expect the outcome of the report will not be dramatic. But it may be enough ammunition to generate litigation,” he said.
But he doesn't give plaintiffs’ attorneys very good odds.
“There's an army of information that seems to contradict,” any link between cancer and tire crumb, and it would be an uphill battle for plaintiffs’ experts to establish causation, he said.
“So unless a plaintiffs’ firm gets aggressive,” Anderson said, “it looks like it will be a slow burn for a while.”
Anderson estimates that, despite the end of the year deadline for early-round findings, it will be at least two to three years before the federal agencies put out their final findings.
That's also around the time when California regulators, with the help of CPSC, are slated to release their report.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=99566898&vname=dennotallissues&fn=99566898&jd=99566898
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(ACC Mentioned) Workforce Shortage, Stricter Regs, LNG Exports Could Derail Petchem Comeback
Oct 28, 2016 | Kallanish Energy
The U.S. petrochemical industry is in a multiyear renaissance worth billions of dollars, due to low-cost natural gas produced from shale plays, but a handful of issues could halt the good times, an American Chemistry Council (ACC) analyst said Wednesday.
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Story can be found here: https://www.kallanishenergy.com/2016/10/28/workforce-shortage-stricter-regs-lng-exports-derail-petchem-comeback/
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Senate Sends Conference Proposal to House
Oct 27, 2016 | E&E News PM
By Geof Koss
Senate energy conferees have sent a proposed conference report to their House counterparts, as the two chambers ready a lame-duck push to complete the first comprehensive energy bill in nearly a decade.
"The House and Senate are working in partnership to assemble a bipartisan conference report that will be considered during the lame duck," Nicole Daigle, spokeswoman for Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairwoman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), said today.
"We are optimistic that the conferees will succeed in assembling a compromise that strikes a balance between the two chambers' positions, that attracts bipartisan support, and that the president will sign into law," she added.
Additional details of the proposal were unavailable.
Staff are said to have been working long hours over the congressional break on a possible compromise between the chambers' competing bills, which both address infrastructure issues, efficiency and sportsmen's provisions, as well as imposing a new deadline for the Energy Department to make final decisions on applications to export natural gas.
However, there are widely varying approaches between the two bills within some of these areas. In recent days, interest groups have been pressing conferees in particular on competing efficiency provisions (Greenwire, Oct. 27).
The Senate bill also includes a permanent reauthorization of the Land and Water Conservation Fund that is problematic in the House, where Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) has said the Senate proposal would have to include reform elements to survive in conference talks.
Both chambers are also discussing drought and wildfire provisions — thorny issues that add additional layers of complexity to negotiations.
Murkowski, the conference chairwoman, has expressed optimism that negotiations will yield a compromise acceptable to lawmakers and the White House, but has acknowledged that more contentious issues may have to be left by the wayside.
ClearView Energy Partners earlier this month put the odds for a consensus bill that resembles the Senate bill (S. 2012) at 60 percent.
http://www.eenews.net/eenewspm/2016/10/27/stories/1060044935
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Oil Lobby: Use Natural Gas to Comply with Climate Rule
Oct 27, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
The oil lobby is pushing states to comply with the Obama administration’s climate change rule using policies friendly to natural gas consumption.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) commissioned a report concluding that if states implement market-based policies like emissions trading, natural gas would see a large increase in the electricity market share, and the costs to the economy would be the lowest.
The report, written by consulting firm ICF International and rolled out Thursday, pushes back against environmentalists and others who want states to focus on increasing the use of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency measures to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan.
“What this tells states to do, frankly, is to look carefully at the analysis that gets put before them, to consider the assumptions that are made in that analysis about the natural gas resource base, among other considerations,” Amy Farrell, senior director of market development at the API, told reporters Thursday in rolling out the analysis.
“And to recognize that, at least from our modeling, when you mandate, or have the government pick the pathway, it is more expensive than setting up your compliance path in a way that allows market forces to drive the lowest-cost generation capacity choices,” she said.
Erica Bowman, the API’s chief economist, said previous analyses of compliance with the rule underestimated the abundance of natural gas and therefore overestimated the cost of gas in the coming decades.
“From our perspective, we really believe that people are getting the resource wrong. They’re not really understanding how affordably natural gas producers can bring gas to the market,” she said.
The EPA relied on Energy Information Administration predictions for natural gas supplies and prices when it wrote and analyzed the rule. But since those predictions have been consistently unreliable, the API based its analysis on what it said are more realistic forecasts.
The API is on record opposing the Clean Power Plan and wants it overturned. The rule is currently on hold after the Supreme Court issued a stay this year until it is litigated.
But the group is nonetheless using its report to promote natural gas as a path to compliance in case the courts uphold the regulation.
“API opposes the Clean Power Plan, but assuming it’s upheld, we want to make sure that this is the type of data that goes into considerations on how to move forward with that, how states make decisions on complying with it,” said Marty Durbin, API’s executive director for market development.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/303135-oil-lobby-pushes-natural-gas-for-climate-rule-compliance
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EQT Envisions Utica Program in 2018; Highlights Plans for New Acreage
Oct 27, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jamison Cocklin
EQT Corp. said Thursday that work to learn more about the deep Utica Shale in Pennsylvania and West Virginia continues, with the aim of establishing a development program in 2018 that could overshadow its core Marcellus Shale assets.
The company highlighted plans in July to slow down in the deep Utica so that it could better analyze data and work more closely on its costs and completion designs in the play (see Shale Daily, July 28). Management said it expects a one rig Utica program next year to drill six to eight wells in the play.
"We are becoming more confident that we will achieve lower costs with higher estimated ultimate recoveries (EUR) per foot that will result in similar if not better economics than our core Marcellus." President Steve Schlotterbeck said during a call to discuss the company's third quarter results. "We believe this level of drilling will allow us to achieve our cost and productivity objectives, as well as to begin delineation of the economic extent of the deep Utica, with the goal of establishing a deep Utica development program in 2018."
Schlotterbeck, who was named president late last year, will become the company's new CEO after David Porges retires early next year.Porges joined the company in 1998 and became CEO in 2010, helping the company navigate through the shale boom and subsequent downturns. Schlotterbeck took the reigns on Thursday's call and did most of the talking.
"Ceramic [proppant] does play a big role. Our current plan is to use ceramics for all [Utica] wells in the future. Beyond that we have been doing a lot of technical work on our drilling and completion techniques; the typical stuff you would think about, types of sand, loading schedules, pump rates, targeting in the reservoir, all that kind of stuff," Schlotterbeck said of the Utica. "As we learn more, just as we saw in the Marcellus, we're seeing continuous improvement."
He added that the company is getting close to its desired price for each Utica well of $12-13 million, saying the company would need 3-3.5 Bcf EURs per 1,000 feet of lateral to get similar returns to the Marcellus. He declined to say what else was working for the company in the Utica. EQT wants to keep some things proprietary because it's one of the only companies spending significantly on the play outside of Ohio, Schlotterbeck said.
EQT also has been busy consolidating its acreage in Appalachia, adding 143,000 acres at a cost of $1.2 billion this year, mainly in larger deals with Statoil ASA and Trans Energy Inc. (see Shale Daily, Oct. 25; May 3). Most of that land, Schlotterbeck said, would be developed starting later next year as certain locations need to be re-permitted to extend laterals.
"We'll incorporate that acreage into our land process, and we will allocate capital based on the best returns available starting with our 2017 plan," Schlotterbeck said. "One of the main drivers behind all of these acquisitions is our desire to extend laterals."
EQT produced 196 Bcfe in the third quarter, up from 156.3 Bcfe in 3Q2015 and 184.5 Bcfe in 2Q2016. The company drilled 24 gross wells during the third quarter, including 21 in the Marcellus, two in the Upper Devonian and one in the Utica. EQT has drilled six deep Utica wells to date.
The company's average realized prices fared better when compared to the second quarter. It reported $2.20/Mcfe for the third quarter, versus $2.11/Mcfe in 2Q2016. Third quarter prices, however, were down from $2.55/Mcfe in the year-ago period. Revenue slid as a result, going from $584 million in 3Q2015 to $556.7 million. The company also reported an impairment of $1.4 million on its oil and gas properties.
EQT reported a net loss of $8 million (minus 5 cents/share), compared to net income of $40.8 million (27 cents/share) in the year-ago period.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/108243-eqt-envisions-utica-program-in-2018-highlights-plans-for-new-acreage
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Exxon Mobil Partners for New Carbon Capture Pilot Project
Oct 27, 2016 | Fuel Fix
By Jordan Blum
Exxon Mobil and FuelCell Energy said Thursday they will build a carbon capture pilot project at an Alabama power plant with the potential to finally make affordable “clean” coal and gas a reality.
After Exxon and Connecticut-based FuelCell announced a partnership in May, they have now chosen Southern Company’s Barry power plant near Mobile, Alabama for its first pilot project. The 2.7 gigawatt plant generates power from both coal and natural gas, so the pilot project allows them to test the new technology on both fossil fuel sources.
The idea is to capture up to 90 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power plants, so coal and natural gas could remain viable in both the developing and developed world while still meeting climate change goals, said FuelCell President and Chief Executive Chip Bottone in a phone interview.
“We’re trying to solve a very, very large problem with huge implications,” Bottone said.
While other carbon capture technologies exist, Exxon and FuelCell are touting this project as having the potential to reduce emissions substantially in an affordable way. The U.S. Energy Department also is a partner in the 2.4 megawatt pilot project.
The technology uses carbonate fuel cells to take methane and carbon dioxide and turn them into electricity and concentrated carbon dioxide, the latter of which can be sequestered into the earth.
The fuel cell technology is cheaper and generates additional electricity, as opposed to existing carbon capture technologies that consume power and are too cost prohibitive, said Vijay Swarup, Exxon vice president for research and development.
“You’re attaching a power plant on the back of a power plant,” Swarup said. “What makes this fuel cell unique is it can accept CO2 as a feedstock.”
This compares to other high-profile carbon capture projects such as Southern Company’s nearly completed Kemper project in Mississippi, which now costs almost $7 billion. The Kemper project is $4 billion over budget and more than two years behind schedule. It’s supposed to capture at least 65 percent of the coal plant’s carbon emissions.
“The (carbon capture) landscape has some lackluster results so far,” Bottone said.
Of course, the Exxon and FuelCell partnership has a long ways to go with no set timeline in place. They decided to take the unique approach of launching the pilot project while the research and development still has a ways to go. The hope is the “parallel approach” will expedite the process.
“We’re going to learn things that we don’t even know we should be asking right now,” Swarup said.
Before teaming up with Exxon, FuelCell said it intended to move forward with $24 million in pilot projects. Bottone said more money is on the table now, but he wouldn’t give any new cost projections.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2016/10/27/exxon-mobil-partners-for-new-carbon-capture-pilot-project/
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(ACC Mentioned) CSB Chief: Agency Unlikely to Add to Freedom Spill Report
Oct 28, 2016 | Charleston Gazette-Mail
By Ken Ward Jr.
The U.S. Chemical Safety Board is not planning to supplement or make any changes to its report on the Freedom Industries chemical spill and the Kanawha Valley water crisis that followed, the chairwoman of the board said Thursday.
“At this point, it is unlikely that there will be an actual addendum or supplement,” Chairwoman Vanessa Allen Sutherland said.
Sutherland said the CSB’s investigation team had completed its review of public comments submitted to the board and recommended that an addendum, correction or supplement was not necessary. She said that recommendation was communicated to board members and is expected to be approved. She said the board would make public a document that provides information about the staff review of the public comments, but that wouldn’t constitute a report addendum.
Sutherland made her comments during an interview Thursday after she delivered a keynote address at a meeting sponsored by three industry groups, the West Virginia Chemical Manufacturers Association, the American Chemistry Council and the National Association of Chemical Distributors.
During her speech, Sutherland outlined the CSB’s report on the Freedom incident but did not mention the controversy over complaints from residents and scientists about the agency’s findings and recommendations.
Also, Sutherland said in the interview that, at some point, the board has to actually complete its reports, and that the process can’t be so open-ended that new information that is provided — perhaps years later — requires investigation reports to be changed.
The latest comments from Sutherland come just a week after she said during a board business meeting that CSB staff investigators still were reviewing the public comments, along with submissions from some scientists and others about the board’s report.
At the end of a three-hour public meeting in Charleston, Sutherland had hinted that the board might produce some sort of “addendum” or “supplement” to the report of its investigation of the Jan. 9, 2014, incident. Board members, though, approved the staff’s draft report — which they had been reviewing for months, but the public had been given just a few hours before the public meeting.
Sutherland said Thursday that calling the Freedom report provided to the public a “draft” document was probably not correct. She said it really was a “final” product for board approval, given that she and other board members had had opportunities to review earlier drafts and ask questions or make suggestions.
While the board’s 125-page report outlined a variety of missteps by Freedom, regulators, the water company and emergency responders, the CSB’s formal recommendations included no specific calls for reforms by federal, state or local agencies that regulate companies that store dangerous chemicals or drinking-water providers.
During the public meeting, residents complained that the CSB didn’t provide clear answers about how much of the various chemicals — Crude MCHM, PPH and others — leaked from a tank where Freedom stored a coal-industry cleaning chemical it marketed as Shurflot 944. Residents also objected to what they said was a lack of any real information about the long-term health effects of the spill.
Other residents told personal stories about how they still don’t trust the West Virginia American Water supply so long after the incident and how they and their families continue to buy bottled water instead.
Two retired Union Carbide chemists, who have become part-time activists since the Freedom incident, also questioned whether the CSB really had explained how the company’s tank corroded and fully connected all of the dots about how the spill turned into a regional water crisis.
In perhaps the strongest criticism of the CSB report, engineer Andrew Whelton, of Purdue University — one of the leaders of a team hired by Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin to investigate the spill — had called on the CSB to withdraw its report, saying he was “flabbergasted” by inaccuracies he found throughout the document.
West Virginia American also criticized the CSB report, saying that a recommendation for its parent company to improve its review of potentially dangerous chemicals located upstream from water intakes would be better aimed at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which could write nationwide rules to require all water companies to take such actions.
http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/20161027/csb-chief-agency-unlikely-to-add-to-freedom-spill-report
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Chlorine Gas Released in Kansas Distillery Chemical Mix-Up
Oct 28, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
An accident at a distillery in Atchison, Kan., that released a cloud of chlorine gas was apparently caused by a chemical safety textbook example of what not to do: mixing sulfuric acid with sodium hypochlorite.
The U.S. Chemical Safety & Hazard Investigation Board is probing the incident and is expected to make a final determination of the cause.
The accident occurred on Oct. 21 at MGP, which describes itself as a leading supplier of premium distilled spirits and specialty wheat proteins and starches. It produces alcohol used for vodkas, gins, bourbons, and whiskeys. The company employs approximately 270 people.
A supplier was delivering sulfuric acid to the facility, explains Trey Cocking, Atchison city manager, “and instead of putting the acid into the sulfuric acid tank, it went into the sodium hypochlorite tank. That led to a reaction.” When sodium hypochlorite is mixed with acid, chlorine gas is produced.
Residents near the distillery began to smell a strong odor of chlorine and a thick fog emanated from the plant, sweeping over the town of 11,000, according to news accounts. Those living north of the plant in the area of the plume were told to shelter in place. At one point, authorities considered evacuating the entire city. More than 135 people complained of burning lungs and difficulty in breathing and were treated at area hospitals, Cocking says. Only one person was admitted and has been released, he adds.
Three company employees plus the truck driver delivering the acid required medical attention. In addition, 27 city employees have sought medical attention, including police, fire, and public works city staff.
“We are a small community with only five firefighters, and maybe 15 emergency responders came in from nearby jurisdictions,” Cocking says. “We went through hazmat procedures and put water in the tank, and the reaction slowed and stopped.”
The plant is now shut down. MPG would not comment on the incident.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i43/Chlorine-gas-released-Kansas-distillery.html
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The Left’s Opposition to a Carbon Tax Shows There’s Something Deeply Wrong with the Left
Oct 27, 2016 | Washington Post
By Editorial Board
Washington State will vote next month on one of the most ambitious climate-change programs ever seriously considered in the United States. Yet major players in the environmental movement either oppose the ballot measure or are undermining its chances in less formal ways.
You might assume these environmental groups were making the perfect the enemy of the good. But they are not defending the perfect. Their approach would be worse than what is on Washington’s ballot. They are wrong on the politics and wrong on the substance.
The ballot initiative would impose a significant tax on carbon dioxide emissions, the main culprit in human-caused climate change, and set the tax level to rise annually. Because low-income people would be disproportionately harmed by the tax, the state would use the revenueto reduce the state sales tax and increase the earned-income tax credit for the working poor. This would protect the poor and make Washington’s tax structure, one of the nation’s most dysfunctional, more progressive. This win-win plan is optimized to fight climate change; economists have explained for years that pricing carbon, as with a carbon tax, is the most efficient way to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, because it impels consumers and businesses to change their behavior without bureaucratic micromanagment.
The activists want micromanagement. Because the plan would recycle the revenue it raised, none would be left over for “investments” that activists favor. Elements of the coalition that environmentalists have assembled want “green jobs” programs, initiatives aimed specifically at communities of color, infrastructure that labor unions favor, and so forth. In other words, softening the blow for the poor and middle class is not enough. The government must divert the revenue according to the wishes of specific interest groups.
To some, naked interest-group politics is a principle of sorts. In a detailed account of the environmentalist civil war over Washington’s ballot initiative, Vox’s David Roberts explained that many activists believe that building a big leftist coalition is the only way major action on climate will happen. Recycling carbon-tax revenue, rather than showering it on interest groups, “loses you the left coalition, and with it the big left funders, and doesn’t gain you any Republicans.” Maybe — just maybe — this reflects not just a failure on the part of Republican climate head-in-the-sanders, but also of “the big left funders” and their intellectual enablers. If the movement cannot accept economically sound policy that would help solve the fundamental problem, there is something deeply wrong with the movement.
As it happens, the activists’ self-justifying political analysis is wrong, too. In most of the country, a leftist coalition could not impose a dramatic climate plan premised on jacking up taxes and government spending. If it really wants to fight climate change, the movement should be able to take yes for an answer.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-lefts-opposition-to-a-carbon-tax-shows-theres-something-deeply-wrong-with-the-left/2016/10/27/2b6e6bea-9bb4-11e6-a0ed-ab0774c1eaa5_story.html?utm_term=.c63e291d9ece
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House GOP Criticizes 'Politicization' of CWA Rulemaking
Oct 27, 2016 | Inside EPA
House oversight panel Republicans in a new report are criticizing EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers' Clean Water Act rule, citing examples they say underscore its “politicization” and show that the rulemaking process and resulting final regulation were “deeply flawed because of numerous shortcuts and process violations.”
The Oct. 27 report says, “Witnesses testified that key decisions during the rulemaking process were affected by political considerations, including the timeline for finalizing the rule, which marginalized the scientific and economic considerations that would ordinarily form the basis for rulemaking decisions.”
The report is signed by House Oversight & Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), interior subcommittee Chairman Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), government operations subcommittee Chairman Mark Meadows (R-NC), administrative rules subcommittee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), and transportation subcommittee Chairman John Mica (R-FL).
EPA and the Corps issued the rule to try to resolve uncertainty about the law's scope, but critics including GOP lawmakers and others argue that the agencies take an overly broad approach to CWA jurisdiction.
The House lawmakers say their report includes documents showing staff from the Corps complained about the process, especially as it neared completion, and that high-level White House staff, including the Chief of Staff, “assured environmentalist groups the Administration would quickly finalize” the rule.
The report charges that the administration’s efforts to satisfy environmentalists prompted career staff to feel pressure to meet accelerated time frames, causing deficiency in the regulatory process.
The report piles onto criticisms of the rule aired in a Sept. 20 report issued by the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee's GOP majority staff, which highlighted what staff claimed were examples of “extreme overreach” by EPA and the Corps in overseeing the CWA, codified in the controversial rule.
The rule, which the agencies issued last June, is stayed from implementation nationwide pending a decision on the merits of legal challenges to it pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit in Murray Energy, et al., v. EPA, et al.
In response to the House GOP lawmakers' report, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) -- ranking member on the Oversight & Government Reform Committee -- issued a press release and separate report attacking the Republicans' effort.
The GOP report “disregards key evidence obtained by the committee” says Cummings' report, which adds that independent auditors at the Government Accountability Office have already found that the agencies complied with applicable laws and regulations.
Moreover, Cummings says, House Republicans criticized EPA's response to the drinking water crisis in Flint, MI, as too slow, yet blast the CWA rule designed to protect drinkings water for millions of Americans.
“Contrary to Republican claims that the rule was rushed through for political reasons and not based on science, witnesses interviewed by the Committee explained that the rulemaking process took several years, which was typical for similar rulemakings, and they considered a wide variety of views and comments from stakeholders,” the press release says.
http://insideepa.com/news-briefs/house-gop-criticizes-politicization-cwa-rulemaking
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