Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 11/15/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) US PU Market Beginning to Consolidate
Nov 15, 2016 | Plastics News
By Simon Robinson
The U.S. polyurethane market is beginning to consolidate, said Chris Chrisafides, commercial vice president for Dow Chemical Co.’s polyurethanes business, in an interview at the recent American Chemistry Council's ACC Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) meeting in Baltimore. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Joins the Wrap Recycling Action Program
Nov 15, 2016 | Recycling Today
By Staff
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) Plastics Division, Washington, has announced a new partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designed to promote sustainable materials management (SMM) for plastics. -
TSCA: Rising to the Challenge
Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Chynoweth
At Chemical Watch’s recent Global Regulatory Summit in Washington, a panel of leading experts debated whether the intent of the new law will now finally come into play – as well as opportunities for cooperation. -
Michaels, Unions Praise EPA's Plan to Align SNUR Protection with OSHA's
Nov 15, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and labor unions are praising EPA's proposed rule seeking to align EPA requirements for new uses of industrial chemicals with strict OSHA measures, but a chemical industry group argues that EPA's proposed language goes farther than OSHA's requirements and should be curtailed. -
Chemicals Management: Making it a Priority Issue
Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
In September, Chemical Watch attended Sustainable Brands, a conference held in Copenhagen with representatives from almost 500 companies present. Delegates heard from sustainability experts, shared ideas on how to tackle environmental and social issues and showcased their efforts to becoming more responsible businesses. -
The Chemical Footprint Project’s First Steps
Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
More than a year after its establishment, the Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) has drawn first conclusions on the participating companies’ chemical policies. -
In the News
Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
Echa should cancel REACH registrations “in cases of serious violations”, says the head of the chemicals division in Lower Saxony’s environment ministry. -
GHS: the Status Quo
Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Judith Breuer
The protection of human health and the environment by way of an internationally harmonised approach, and to provide a basis to ensure safe use of chemicals, is the objective of the Globally Harmonized System of classification and labelling of chemicals (GHS). -
Why Waste Policy and REACH Go Hand-in-Hand
Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Tatiana Santos
Concerns have been voiced from certain quarters in Brussels, not least by Cefic, the European Chemical Industry Council, that plans to revise the EU waste framework Directive will undermine REACH and the circular economy. -
'We're Not Going to Let Him Get Away With It' — Enviros on Trump
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Environmental lawyers are using a lot of war metaphors these days. -
Interior Finalizes Rule, Gets Hit with Industry Lawsuit
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Scott Streater
The Interior Department finalized a rule today designed to slash the volume of natural gas that's vented and flared each year into the atmosphere from roughly 100,000 wells on federal and tribal lands. -
Obama Administration Issues Rules on Methane From Oil, Gas Operations
Nov 15, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Amy Harder
The Interior Department issued regulations Tuesday to cut methane emissions from oil and natural gas operations on federal lands, one of the last moves President Barack Obama will make on his expansive climate agenda, which President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to dismantle. -
Feds Target Methane Leaks on Public Land
Nov 15, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Regulators have finalized a rule cracking down on methane leaks at natural gas drilling sites on federal land. -
Pencils Still Down, but Endgame Could Drag On
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Debra Kahn
President Obama's signature greenhouse gas regulations for existing power plants are bound to hang on a while longer, although utility regulators aren't holding their breath. -
Army Corps Finishes Pipeline Review — and Begins Another Round
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Dakota Access pipeline critics cheered and supporters were indignant last night at news of another round of delay for the contentious oil project. -
Obama Administration Delays Final Dakota Access Pipeline Decision
Nov 15, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
The Obama administration's U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) on Monday again delayed making a final decision on a 1,000-foot easement to tunnel under part of the Missouri River to complete the $3.8 billion, nearly 1,200-mile Dakota Access oil pipeline. -
US Emerges as Net Exporter of Natural Gas
Nov 15, 2016 | Platts
By J. Robinson
In a historic first, the US in early November began seeing small net volumes of natural gas exports that recently climbed above 1 Bcf/d, an analysis of data from Platts Analytics' Bentek Energy showed Monday. -
In Matters of Energy Security, Gas Could be the New Oil
Nov 15, 2016 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne
In July, the Greek tanker Maran Gas Appollonia set off on a month-long voyage from the Louisiana Gulf Coast, filled with more than 3 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas from Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass terminal. -
Trump Presidency Could Dent U.S. Gas Trade
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Energywire
Although Donald Trump's election victory in the presidential race is widely viewed as a boon for the domestic energy industry, some of his planned policies, such as his vow to wall off Mexico, might actually pose a danger to the U.S. natural gas business. -
Obama Administration Fending Off Trump Fears Abroad
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President Obama's climate team has been at the vanguard of international climate action for the last four years, but now its members are spending their last U.N. summit dodging inquiries about whether the United States is about to go rogue.
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(ACC Mentioned) US PU Market Beginning to Consolidate
Nov 15, 2016 | Plastics News
By Simon Robinson
The U.S. polyurethane market is beginning to consolidate, said Chris Chrisafides, commercial vice president for Dow Chemical Co.’s polyurethanes business, in an interview at the recent American Chemistry Council's ACC Center for the Polyurethanes Industry (CPI) meeting in Baltimore.
“There is considerable consolidation in the industrial space, consumer comfort and energy efficiency, it is happening everywhere, he said.
Chrisafides said companies with large portfolios of relatively small products are probably “buying a large number of products from large suppliers and are not getting economies of scale.”
He suggested that companies should help suppliers understand “the benefits of each of these products in each these applications. Let’s drive research and development to produce one product with all the benefits. We will invest the [capital expenditures] to support that,” he added.
Historically, the North American polyurethane industry “has not been able to have those conversations before. The revolution is coming to the point where fragmentation is being reduced, these are the conversations we’re starting to have.”
Collapsing the supply chain has helped Dow to produce its range of Vorazzz (pronounced Vora-Zee) materials, Chrisafides said. These are similar to the materials developed by Arsenal Capital Partners’ Elite Comfort Solutions.
Both have an open cell structure, both incorporate phase change gels that help to moderate heat generation in viscoelastic foam mattresses.
“You can take a foam and add the gel and transfer some the heat into the gel, but the real problem is how to make the foam more comfortable. Typically you make the foam more dense. The challenge is how to get the feel, but ensure the pores are big enough for air to circulate through the foam,” he explained.
“This is disruptive, to get it to feel like this you have to get the foam denser, we have also taken the struts (between the foam cells) and made them stiffer, this was the engineering behind the Vorazzz. So you can have that comfort feel, but still have good airflow, and wicking properties.
It was necessary to collapse the value chain to enable Dow to understand what is downstream customers wanted.
“We listened to the market, in different parts of the value chain. Some people said ‘there is no need for that,’ and further downstream they said ‘yes there is a need.’ To be able to add value, we needed to know,” Chrisafides said.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20161115/NEWS/161119903/us-pu-market-beginning-to-consolidate
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Joins the Wrap Recycling Action Program
Nov 15, 2016 | Recycling Today
By Staff
The American Chemistry Council (ACC) Plastics Division, Washington, has announced a new partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designed to promote sustainable materials management (SMM) for plastics. SMM offers a systematic approach to more efficiently use and reuse materials throughout their life cycles to reduce environmental impacts and waste, the organizations say.
Through the partnership, EPA and ACC say they will work together to:
decrease disposal rates by tracking and lowering the overall amount of plastics disposed through activities that enable source reduction, reuse, recycling and prevention;
reduce environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions, water and energy use, of plastics throughout their life cycles; and
increase stakeholder capacity to implement SMM through technical assistance and raising the per capita quantity of plastic recyclables recovered.
“We are looking forward to collaborating with ACC to reduce environmental impacts from plastics,” says Barnes Johnson, director of EPA’s Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery. “We believe that there are great gains to be made for the environment, our society and our economy by working together with the ACC on this important issue.”
“We are excited to work with EPA to advance the adoption of sustainable materials management among plastics makers, brand owners, retailers, policymakers and others,” says Steve Russell, ACC vice president of plastics. “By relying on a full evaluation of a material’s life cycle, sustainable materials management can help us make more informed choices that conserve resources and reduce overall environmental impacts.”
Through the SMM partnership, EPA joins the Wrap Recycling Action Program (WRAP) campaign, a public-private partnership with the goal of increasing the volume of plastic wraps and bags (also known as plastic film) recycled, through public education and sharing tools and best practices. The WRAP program has been shown to increase collection of postuse plastic wraps and bags through store drop-off programs and reduce the amount of film that is erroneously placed in curbside bins, ACC says.
More than 18,000 stores across the U.S. collect plastic film for recycling, but many consumers are not aware of this opportunity. The ACC says WRAP seeks to educate consumers about the many types of everyday packaging that can be recycled at stores, including plastic bags from bread, produce, shopping, and dry cleaning; clean food storage bags (with or without zippers); wraps from paper towels, bathroom tissue, napkins and beverage cases; shipping pillows and bubble wrap; and anything labeled with a No. 2, No. 4 or the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) “Store Drop-Off” label.
Other WRAP partners include the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), the Association of Plastics Recyclers, the city of Vancouver, Washington, and the states of Connecticut and North Carolina. Several additional states are expected to announce WRAP partnerships early next year, the ACC says. Retailers involved in regional WRAP campaigns include Safeway\Albertsons and Harris Teeter.
Plastic film is one of the fastest growing areas of recycling, with collection growing 79 percent since 2005,” Johnson says. “At least 1.17 billion pounds of postconsumer film was recovered in 2014, and the recycling rate grew to 17 percent. There is still a long way to go—only 9.5 percent of plastics, by weight, were recycled in 2014. It is an area that is ripe for growth and we are looking forward to partnering with ACC and SPC to make real advances in plastics recycling.”
“On behalf of the WRAP campaign, I’m thrilled to welcome EPA as our newest member. We look forward to working with the agency to strengthen our national footprint and raise awareness of opportunities to recycle plastic bags and wraps in communities across the nation,” Russell says.
“As a founding partner of the WRAP campaign, we’re excited to work with EPA to help Americans learn about the many types of plastic wraps and bags that can be recycled at participating stores,” says Nina Goodrich, SPC director. “We encourage consumers to look for the How2Recycle ‘Store Drop-off’ label on products and packages to learn more.”
http://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/epa-joins-wrap/
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Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Emma Chynoweth
At Chemical Watch’s recent Global Regulatory Summit in Washington, a panel of leading experts debated whether the intent of the new law will now finally come into play – as well as opportunities for cooperation.
The senior EPA chemicals official, who is leading implementation of TSCA reform, said she hoped legal action was not inevitable under the Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act (LCSA). “If it does come down the road, I hope it’s well founded litigation. What the agency doesn’t need is to be putting resources into unnecessary legal defence – it is not what Congress intended to happen,” said Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, principal deputy assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OPPT), and previously its director.
From the outset, the EPA’s goal is to avoid litigation, she added. “We are doing everything we can, and will continue to do what we can to involve stakeholders, and take an approach that we think is true to the intent of the law, and is reasonable in terms of meeting the deadlines.”
Lynn L Bergeson, managing partner of law firm Bergeson & Campbell, was reluctant to talk about litigation this early in the legislative process. She said: “I think that reasonable people and prevailing judgment can triumph over the long, arduous, costly, contentious and sometimes difficult litigation path. But that said, at some point down the road there is likely to be legal challenges. The legal standard, Ms Bergeson noted, under new TSCA, continues to be “substantial evidence” as opposed to the more traditional “arbitrary and capricious” standard that applies under other environmental laws.
She said that there has been speculation about the prioritisation process under reformed TSCA, and more precisely what standards will be used to determine high and low priority substances. “There are lots of opportunities for legal challenge whenever a final agency action is issued. But I think EPA will go out of its way to solicit comments and try to issue rules that are balanced, reasonable and apply the law in keeping with what Congress intended.”
She added that litigation is not necessarily a bad thing. “Sometimes reasonable people will disagree over what is a valid interpretation of a new term in the context of the law. There are some novel concepts under new TSCA – [for example] ‘conditions of use’, what might be ‘a known, intended or foreseeable use’.” She also noted that such terms are included in a number of provisions of the new law, and it still has to be seen how the EPA will interpret them.
“What is ‘a potentially exposed or susceptible sub-population’, and how might that group be reflected effectively in the risk evaluation process? These are concepts and terms that might be better if they are subject to an independent trier of fact,” she said.
But she hopes that legal action is limited and only used to address the most difficult questions.
Dimitri Karakitsos, at law firm Holland & Knight, said that people involved in the negotiations to reform TSCA understand well what the intent is. Previously, he was senior counsel for the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and the principal Senate drafter and negotiator of LCSA.
He said that there are some “folks who have misinterpreted it – whether accidentally or intentionally – for their own benefit”.
“But I certainly hope that … we can continue on a productive path, get [the law] implemented, and that it works for everyone, left or right, NGOs, the chemical industry and the American people, and makes sure it is protective of health and the environment.
“I hope we continue that constructive relationship, because we spent years locked in rooms together. We think we flushed out everything, and we definitely have an idea of where we intended things to land, and what was off limits. Other people who weren’t in the room tend to try to misconstrue things, but we need to continue to work constructively to make sure it works in the way it was intended to by Congress.”
Following the panel discussion, Mr Karakitsos told Chemical Watch that examples of this include comments by some NGOs and the state of California, suggesting that the California prioritisation system should be the model for what the EPA does under the new law.
“From what I understand, California prioritises chemicals based on hazard only, making their suggestion completely contrary, not only to the intent of the new TSCA prioritisation – which must be risk based – but to the plain language of the law.”
He said that additionally he has heard NGO groups, not very involved in the process, claim that section 6 of the new law mandates the EPA to look at aggregate exposures, while explicitly not sentinel exposures. “If you look to the language of the bill, they are both found in the exact same paragraph, treated exactly the same way, and neither are mandated,” he said.
Karyn Schmidt, senior director of the American Chemistry Council’s regulatory and technical affairs committee, said no-one wants to speculate about litigation. “The EPA has done a great job, putting in a deliberate, thoughtful process of stakeholder involvement for all kinds of things. That will really help delay the need to test some of these questions.
“That said, there is a whole world of stakeholders out there that may not agree with every point. There is a change with the risk evaluation process; there is a possibility to get an unreasonable risk determination at the end of that. It may be some will be unhappy, that may want to challenge the rulemaking record and the basis that EPA used to get to that recommendation. But that is a long way off.”
Ms Schmidt agreed with Ms Bergeson that the prioritisation process could lead to litigation, especially for companies that find their chemistries high on the prioritisation list. “A thoughtful, thorough, transparent rulemaking process will address this issue,” she added.
Richard Denison, senior scientist with NGO EDF, who was also closely involved with the TSCA reform negotiations, noted a really critical aspect of the new law. “The biggest change is that we now have a system that decides whether a chemical presents unreasonable risk or not. The EPA has to defend its finding that a substance is risky and has to be regulated. If the EPA’s decision is legally challenged, it must defend its position by producing ‘substantial evidence’. In some earlier version of the legislation, however, if the EPA found a substance was safe, so to speak, that could not be challenged or if it was, it only had to defend that position by showing it had not been ‘arbitrary and capricious’. That discrepancy is fixed [in the LCSA]. There is an equal opportunity to challenge either type of decision, and the standard for review that would be done in court would in either case be the same: substantial evidence.”
Implementation
Mr Karakitsos noted that implementation of LCSA is a massive undertaking for the EPA. “So far it has done a really good job. There are some surprises, like the slowing in the pre-manufacturing notice process. But, at the same time, it is a new process, and the EPA needs to make its way forward in a way that is defensible, and build credibility in the system.”
He thinks it is significant that the EPA has a good run up to this point, with eight years of stability under the Obama administration. “The agency has been so constructive on this issue with all stakeholders. Its goal of getting the draft rules out for risk evaluations is a really good step forward, and an admirable goal because who knows what the next administration will be like or who will be in leadership positions in the chemical office.
“It is really critical to have people who have been involved in every single step of the negotiation, going back years.
“I think getting those drafts put together and getting the process started is really a critical thing, and I’m glad to see that they are working so hard to get that done.”
By mid-2017 the EPA is aiming to adopt rules for:
prioritisation of substances;
risk evaluation; and
determination of active and inactive substances on the TSCA inventory – the inventory reset; and
fees.
Draft rules are likely to be consulted on by the end of the year, or early next.
Data sharing
During the discussion, Christel Musset, director of registration at Echa, said the European agency has a lot of experience with issues like CBI and data sharing. She wanted to see opportunities for authorities to cooperate so they could share knowledge – and find ways of working “in the same direction”. For example, she said, Echa looks at what others have done – in the US, Canada, for example – and feeds that into how it grants confidentiality.
Regarding data sharing, she noted that governments could not adopt global data sharing, as often the data is the property of the chemical companies. She said that it would be up to companies to make progress in this area – but she believed if they did, it would facilitate their work, as well as that of authorities.
Ms Cleland-Hamnett agreed that, in the EU REACH context, there are certain barriers to data sharing, but she said the EPA would continue to try to work through those. “Certainly there is a lot of opportunity to share evaluations and look at those risk assessments completed so far in other countries.”
She also identified other areas for potential cooperation, including what has been done in other countries on:
exposure and risk reduction;
alternatives and barriers to them;
critical uses; and
alternative approaches to testing.
Ken Zarker, pollution prevention and regulatory assistance manager, Washington State Department of Ecology, said the issue of chemicals management was a global one. For example, work to replace copper used in brakes – which included US provisional governments and EU member states, among others – has resulted in the development of a global standard.
Flame retardants would be another interesting area for such collaboration, he added, “but right now we don’t have the framework to do that. The closest thing we have is the multi-stakeholder Saicm [Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management] process and the OECD.”
Charlie Auer, senior regulatory and policy adviser at Bergeson & Campbell, said the development of alternative tests for chemicals was one area “blessed by the OECD”.
Through its mutual acceptance of data (MAD) scheme, a study done using an OECD-compliant test was acceptable for review in any member countries. “I think an area similar to that is the whole area of exposure testing, which is now explicit in new TSCA. The EPA now has to think how to tier those tests, starting at the initial confirmatory level, and what menu of tests would be conducted. I think that is another excellent opportunity for the OECD.”
Ms Cleland-Hamnett noted that even before the new law passed, the EPA was committed to pursuing alternative test methods through various processes, like ToxCast.
“I think they hold great promise in this context in the not too distant future. I think to help us with prioritisation, certainly earlier rather than later, and then hopefully down the road with evaluation as well.”
She noted that the agency is required to put together an implementation plan for alternative testing. “Folks are already thinking about this. It is one of the things we are working on to get enough flexibility in our risk evaluation framework for these kinds of developments.
“I think we are relying on tests for risk evaluation and risk management; we will need to rely on all the steps that one would usually have to take to ensure the tests are useful and appropriate. We’ll have to go through all of those steps – but it’s not months or decades.”
Asked how the agency will approach risk evaluations for vulnerable populations, Ms Cleland-Hamnett said this will be addressed, at some level, in the risk evaluation framework rule that the agency is developing.
“The TSCA programme, as well as other programmes in the agency, have looked at vulnerable populations in the past, looking particularly at effects on children, or if there are disproportionately exposed populations. I think it is safe to say, we’ll follow practices that we have generally adopted in the past when looking at vulnerable sub-populations.”
How that gets implemented will depend on the specifics of any particular case and the data the agency is working with because this will affect the safety factors applied, she said.
Mr Zarker said the issue is particularly important to the NGO community, and the whole idea of toxic hotspots and how they are dealt with. He said environmental justice tools could help with identifying risks and working with communities.
Speaking during the Chemical Watch Regulatory Summit, Richard Denison suggested if the EPA succeeds in proposing rules by year end, it will be in a good position to push ahead before a change in the administration can have an impact. Lynn Bergeson has also commented, following Donald Trump’s victory, that the EPA’s air and water programmes are more likely to be hit than chemicals. Several observers have noted that Mr Trump’s threat to disband the EPA was rhetoric, and unlikely to happen.
https://chemicalwatch.com/51006/tsca-rising-to-the-challenge
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Michaels, Unions Praise EPA's Plan to Align SNUR Protection with OSHA's
Nov 15, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Maria Hegstad
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and labor unions are praising EPA's proposed rule seeking to align EPA requirements for new uses of industrial chemicals with strict OSHA measures, but a chemical industry group argues that EPA's proposed language goes farther than OSHA's requirements and should be curtailed.
EPA's proposed rule generally requires the use of internationally-harmonized chemical labels, the use of protective measures for workers and specific respiratory protections -- all standards that OSHA has also adopted -- when developing significant new use rules (SNURs) under EPA's Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 5 authority.
SNUR rules are used to regulate new chemicals and were also, before the June overhaul of TSCA, one of EPA's few tools for regulating "existing" chemicals -- those on the market when the original TSCA took effect in 1976.
One change in the proposed rule, supported by labor advocates, would require SNURs to include an approach to worker protection known as hierarchy of controls (HOC) for those exposed to the chemical addressed in the SNUR. Under this approach, engineering and administrative efforts to reduce workers' exposures are considered before individual means such as personal protective equipment (PPE).
EPA explains in its July notice that it is proposing the change in response to comments that the agency received from labor, public health and environmental groups recommending use of HOC in SNURs that EPA proposed in 2011 for several carbon nanotubes and other substances.
Such measures are winning praise from OSHA chief David Michaels, who offered "strong support" for the proposal in his Oct. 25 comments.
"OSHA supports a requirement for those subject to applicable [SNURs] to determine and use appropriate exposure controls per the hierarchy of controls to assure worker protection."
"Since its inception in 1971, OSHA has maintained the policy that employers must reduce exposures to hazardous chemicals by first implementing engineering and work practice controls before relying on respirator protection … Respirator effectiveness ultimately relies on the practice of individual workers who must wear them. In contrast, the effectiveness of engineering controls does not rely so heavily on actions of workers and therefore provide a more reliable means of controlling exposures."
EPA's proposed rule is also supported by two unions, the International Chemical Workers Union Council (ICWUC) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
AFSCME in its Oct. 14 comments writes that HOC is an established methodology endorsed by numerous public health and occupational health professional associations and NIOSH, and that "OSHA has incorporated the [HOC] into every standard it has issued, starting in 1972 with asbestos. . . . The courts have upheld the requirement for the [HOC] in OSHA standards numerous times."
The union adds that "in order for the [HOC] to be most effective, it is important that EPA requires the implementation of the [HOC] in sequential order, each applying safeguards to the greatest extent feasible before applying the next level of controls. Higher orders of the [HOC] should not be able to be rejected on cost alone."
AFSCME describes the HOC, moving from most to least protective measures, as "begin[ing] with substitution of a safer chemical, product or process; followed by engineering controls such as isolation or installation of local exhaust ventilation; administrative and work practice controls such as limiting time during [which] a [particular] task is performed; and finally, personal protective equipment."
'Consistent' Regulation
The ICWUC urges EPA to specifically address two of these various controls. "The EPA's regulation should be consistent with all major categories within the [HOC] and incorporate the two most effective control measures -- elimination and substitution. "'Elimination' and 'substitution of less hazardous materials, processes, operations or equipment' are vital components of the [HOC]. In the Proposed Rule, EPA identifies the components of the [HOC] as including only engineering controls -- 'e.g., enclosure or confinement of the operation, general and local ventilation' -- and administrative control measures -- 'e.g., workplace policies and procedures.' It is only with this language that the use of respirators can be addressed. We strongly support the EPA's efforts to address this issue within [TSCA] 40 CFR 721.63, the regulatory framework."
Like AFSCME's comments, the ICWUC in its Oct. 24 comments also urges EPA to ensure that consideration of costs associated with the HOC are consistent with OSHA requirements.
"EPA should clarify that the phrase 'where feasible' has the same meaning as the term 'to the extent feasible in the OSH Act and does NOT need a weighing of costs against a benefit. The final rule should be clear that when a [HOC] is required 'where feasible' to every significant new use notice, the determination should be what is 'capable of being done,' irrespective of cost."
By contrast, the American Petroleum Institute (API), argues in its Oct. 11 comments says that EPA's efforts to align TSCA rules with OSHA's requirements for use of HOC exceeds OSHA's, and urges EPA not to take such action. It also suggests that if EPA is to make such a change, use of HOC should not be a requirement.
The industry group notes that EPA "proposes revisions to [TSCA] 40 CFR 721.63(a)(1) and 40 CFR 721.63(a)(4) to add language which requires consideration and use of engineering and administrative controls where feasible before use of [PPE]. EPA states that the proposed requirements are 'based on and consistent with the OSHA requirements at 29 CFR 1910.134(a)(1).' The SNUR requirements that EPA proposes are different, lengthier, and more complicated than the cited OSHA requirements. It is not appropriate for EPA to go above and beyond OSHA in this respect. If there are any revisions to the SNUR requirements on this topic, they should simply state that the subject entity may implement a hierarchy of control consistent with the OSHA requirements at 29 CFR 1910.134(a)(1)."
The proposed SNUR rule has also faced questions from one law firm, which argued after its release last July that the measure may exceed Congressional intent when it overhauled the original TSCA.
The law firm Bergeson & Campbell noted that the HOC concept was included in early versions of the bill that revised TSCA but excluded from the final version, leaving the firm in a memo to friends and colleagues to ask why EPA is pursuing an approach that Congress decided not to advance.
Proposed Rule
In a second memo regarding the proposed rule, the firm warned about another change to SNURs proposed in the rule, regarding how to handle certain trade secret practices. The firm raised concern that the proposed change could violate trade secret protection provisions of TSCA.
The rule proposes a change to EPA's approach to handling SNURs on trade secret chemical uses. The firm writes that among the changes in the rule is a proposal that would impact companies with chemicals whose names or uses are considered confidential business information (CBI) and which are the subject of SNURs.
A company seeking to introduce what it believes is a new chemical or a new use of a chemical to the market must ask EPA whether there are any CBI SNUR uses of the chemical as part of the bona fide notification process of providing proof they intend to begin market production of a chemical for a specific use.
But the proposed rule would allow EPA, once the company has established bona fide intent, to disclose specific information about the existing CBI uses of the requested chemical rather than just acknowledging whether a SNUR exists, the memo says.
API in its comments raises this issue too. "API opposes the proposed change because it goes too far in disclosing CBI. It is not appropriate and is in violation of CBI protections for EPA to reveal confidential uses based on a bona fide request that only establishes chemical identity. If a company intends to manufacture, process, or use a chemical subject to a SNUR with CBI provisions and needs to know if its use is a 'new' use, then the company should specify its use in the bona fide. Then EPA should answer the inquiry by simply informing the company whether its identified use is subject to the SNUR (and providing any additional information necessary for compliance if it is subject to the SNUR)."
A trade group associated with Bergeson & Campbell, B&C Consortia Management, requested an extension to the rule's comment deadline. EPA agreed, and the original comment deadline of Sept. 26 moved to Oct. 26. But EPA in an Oct. 21 notice extended the deadline yet again to Nov. 21.
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/michaels-unions-praise-epas-plan-align-snur-protection-oshas
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Chemicals Management: Making it a Priority Issue
Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Leigh Stringer
In September, Chemical Watch attended Sustainable Brands, a conference held in Copenhagen with representatives from almost 500 companies present. Delegates heard from sustainability experts, shared ideas on how to tackle environmental and social issues and showcased their efforts to becoming more responsible businesses.
Some of the world’s most well-known brands were there, many of which felt confident that their companies are addressing challenges, such as resource scarcity and carbon emissions.
However, on the surface the safe management of chemicals remains largely a disconnected issue, rarely highlighted in the same context as more pressing problems. Few presentations touched on the difficulties of achieving sound chemicals management or the adverse effects caused by hazardous substances in products. And little was said about the link between the production and use of chemicals and many of the UN’s 17 sustainable development goals, despite the SDGs being a common theme throughout.
When discussing the issue with heads of sustainability at some very well-known multinational corporations, it was surprising to hear that they had little knowledge of their strategies to manage chemicals. This does not mean that chemicals management wasn’t being addressed, in fact, some of the companies are the more progressive in areas of chemical disclosure and moving to safer alternatives – Chemical Watch often reports on their activities. The problem lies in that managing chemicals, at many firms, is not regarded as a priority and a disconnect is still very apparent.
The sound management of chemicals is just one of many issues companies are facing, but it is rarely given the same weight as carbon reduction or waste initiatives in corporate sustainability reports. So why is chemicals management still on the side lines?
Complexity
There are many layers to the problem, says Bjørn Hansen, chemicals unit head at the European Commission’s DG Environment.
“We are able to measure the impact of certain environmental and societal problems – two degrees in global warming, biodiversity loss, smog in cities, water quality and so on. Unfortunately, there is no one way of measuring the problems associated with chemicals.”
This, he says, makes it very difficult to sell its importance . “We can exemplify certain impacts – sensitisers or loss of IQ – but achieving recognition of these measurements can take years. So complexity is one of the big issues.”
Echoing Mr Hansen, David Levine, co-founder and CEO of US business group, the American Sustainable Business Council (ASBC), says, historically, complexity has made it difficult to raise its profile, compared to climate change or resource scarcity: “Take carbon reduction, for example, which is a fairly simple measurement of what needs to be done. Normally this has little to do with the actual supply chain, in the sense that it is not the materials and products that a company is producing, it’s a reduction on energy use so that it can become more efficient, move towards renewables and reduce its carbon footprint overall. But the chemicals issue cuts closer to the core practices within businesses and therefore becomes more complicated to address.”
Mr Hansen also cites the time lag between the cause and effect of a chemical as another barrier to the issue gaining more recognition.
“For example, it is now commonly agreed that smog is bad for health, that CO2 emissions raise global warming – so the cause and effect relationship has been established.”
“For chemicals, this is far from being the case. Very few chemicals have a proven cause and effect relationship. For example, in Annex VI of CLP there are really only three chemicals known to cause reproductive effects in humans – lead compounds, warfarin and briodifacoum,” says Mr Hansen.
He adds that chemicals are everywhere, meaning “no one can do without them.”
“So it’s difficult and incorrect to say ‘chemicals are bad’, where as we know that CO2, smog, biodiversity loss, for example , are detrimental to humans and the planet, making them much easier to label.”
Supply chain challenges
Mr Levine says there are several reasons chemicals management remains absent from the majority of corporate sustainability reports, one being legal concerns.
“If a company admits, within its sustainability reporting, that it needs to move towards safer chemicals, it’s admitting wrong doing. The fear of lawsuits is a major concern – so if the company admits that it has a number of chemicals of concern in its supply chain before actually getting rid of them, then its legal team is likely to apply pressure not to disclose this information. This concern runs strong across industries.”
In addition, other departments, within the company, say product ingredients are confidential business information (CBI), says Mr Levine. “Therefore the culture has been not to disclose, because somehow that would make you less competitive. We think this is incorrect logic, because today technological methods give most companies the ability to find out what the chemical make-up of a product is. So CBI has been a hindrance to enabling companies to recognise and go public with statements about what’s in their products.”
A further restraint, he says, is the sheer number of chemicals used by companies – particularly a retailer that stocks many products. “[For retailers] it’s a much more difficult undertaking to understand what is in your supply chain, let alone to then assess what’s hazardous and what’s not and then put in a strategy to move away from the hazardous ones.”
But again this is not an excuse, says Mr Levine, because today the technology and science are “finally catching up and you have more and more systems and tools being created, to help companies assess their chemical footprint”.
Departmental challenges
Director of sustainability and authenticity at US cleaning products firm, Seventh Generation, Martin Wolfe, says that the risks associated with dangerous chemicals in production, in products, and in consumer use, are usually managed by the regulatory compliance departments within a company rather than by the sustainability departments.
This makes sense, he says, if one considers environmental and consumer product regulations sufficient to protect human health and the environment.
In the US, complying with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (Osha) regulations should be sufficient to protect workers, the EPA emissions regulations should be adequate to protect the environment, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s (CPSC) regulations should be enough to assure protection of product users, he adds.
“In conventional companies, the sustainability department will see a chemical as a resource that should not be depleted, achieved by using methods of the circular economy such as recovery and reuse. The regulatory department will see that same chemical through the lens of transportation safety, worker safety, emissions compliance and product safety compliance. The sustainability department may also be concerned about the chemical posing a threat to the environment or to human health, and they will rely on the expertise in the regulatory department to assess [that].”
This tends to maintain a status quo rather than encourage a reassessment of the problem that could lead to new solutions, says Mr Wolfe.
He says that, at Seventh Generation, the sustainability and regulatory departments are more tightly integrated. This allows hazardous chemicals to be identified and avoided, early in the product development process.
Mr Wolfe says Seventh Generation recognises regulatory compliance as one way to manage chemical hazards, “just as conventional companies do”. However, it also sees avoiding them as a more robust way to manage hazards. “If a hazard is not present, it is not necessary to ensure limited exposure to mitigate harm,” he says.
The disadvantages of this approach are often more difficult product formulation, more complex supply chains, and higher ingredient costs, adds Mr Wolfe. “In the words of one of our formulators, these chemical restrictions make his work much more challenging. But the work is also much more rewarding.”
Moving forward
A key driver in bringing chemicals management up the agenda, says Mr Levine, is a growing interest from the investment community in safer chemicals and green chemistry. “They are seeing this as an alternative vehicle to just investing in renewable energy. So with growth in investment, we’ll see growth in R&D.”
Susan Baker of investment management firm, Trillium Asset Management, says that, historically, downstream sector companies have not understood the risks associated with chemicals because they have relied on their suppliers to ensure safety and compliance. “Unless a mandate from a regulatory body or health organisation appears, there has been little action.”
Chemicals management is now a high stakeholder and financial risk. But there is a knowledge gap. “Investors are saying this is a critical environmental, social and governance (ESG) topic but we don’t have access to enough information from companies.”
“We need more investors demanding data from them.”
Another area driving change, says Mr Levine, is procurement. “We see an interest from federal, state and local governments but also from institutions, in particular, universities and hospitals. Even if the government scraps its , due to the recently elected president, the drive for using safer chemicals in products and purchasing them through your procurement strategy is a trend that will continue to grow.”
For example, projects like the Greenhealth Exchange, lead by NGO Healthcare Without Harm. The project aims to accelerate the adoption of new and existing green products through a product catalogue, available to members. It has pulled together six major hospital chains and has four more in the pipeline.
What is critical, says Mr Levine, is education. “The story on the companies that are out there already innovating is not being told; the retailers, for example, that are stocking their shelves with products containing safer chemicals, as well as the cost competitiveness of these products.
“Educating people about safer chemicals is essential – from university students to consumers and the business community. What we’ve heard from our member companies is that each one has had to come up with its own screening strategy, list of chemicals of concern, list of safer chemicals and alternatives. There is a need for a broader system that includes the large scale databases, a number of which are now in place. “
Without access to this information, says Mr Levine, it is a lot harder for businesses to make decisions on chemicals. Because of this, they are working on creating their own internal systems.
“This includes major corporations too. There needs to be a larger initiative in educating the public and businesses, even legislators, about the opportunities posed by offering safer chemicals and products containing them, to have it considered as a core part of the sustainability agenda.”
https://chemicalwatch.com/51004/chemicals-management-making-it-a-priority-issue
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The Chemical Footprint Project’s First Steps
Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Vanessa Zainzinger
More than a year after its establishment, the Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) has drawn first conclusions on the participating companies’ chemical policies.
The project’s first annual report highlights an overarching focus on chemicals in products, the importance of disclosure, and the challenges involved in making chemical footprint measurement a part of company policy. The findings come from its first survey, earlier this year, of participating companies. This will be carried out annually, with the next deadline for responses on 31 January 2017.
Co-founders of the CFP, NGO Clean Production Action’s (CPA) Dr Mark Rossi hopes it will have grown to include at least 60 companies by then. The year after it should reach as many as 100 participants.
“Our long-term goal is to establish a robust set of data on the performance of companies in managing chemicals in their products and supply chains,” he says. “The more companies participate, the more robust the data.”
In fact, the project will ideally become a tool all public trading companies are aware of, and use, Dr Rossi says. He explains that the CFP could help stop the level of action in chemical management drop to the few leadership brands which have built a reputation in the green chemistry space.
“I see this project as a way of raising awareness, ideally leading to action by companies arriving where those leaders are now.”
Ultimately the team behind the CFP hopes to release information about company performance by sector. This format is based on the now widely used Carbon Disclosure Project Index (CDP), which ranks companies in terms of carbon emissions performance and disclosure.
Feedback from the participating companies is promising. Clothing company Levi Strauss & Co says involvement in the CFP “ensures we understand our impact and spurs innovation to advance environmental sustainability in the apparel industry”.
“[We are] committed to working with our suppliers and others in the industry to identify better alternatives when it comes to chemicals,” says Anna Walker, senior director of Levi’s global policy and advocacy department.
Health and personal care company Johnson & Johnson, which ranked fourth in the CFP annual report, says that even though it is “a daunting task”, it is possible to take “proactive steps” to understanding a company’s chemical footprint.
First results
A diverse group of 24 companies participated in this year’s survey, covering seven sectors, such as apparel, personal products, food and technology hardware. Participants completed 20 questions to score a total of 100 points, covering the four key performance categories (see box). Scores ranged from 12 points to 89 points, with an average score of 41.
Dr Rossi says the participants were all downstream users, selling finished/formulated products directly to consumers or businesses: “Our focus in launching the CFP is on downstream users because we have seen how chemical risks in the supply chain are borne by the brands.
“You can see by how, for example, Johnson & Johnson got hit with consumer pressure about residuals in their products, that consumer-facing companies are at greatest risk.”
He says the CFP should serve as a self-assessment tool and a way of allowing downstream users to establish a dialogue about chemical risks with consumers, investors and NGOs. “We think of the project as designed on leadership and best practices. It’s not about ranking companies.”
A key finding in the annual survey mirrored the participating companies’ concerns over the safety of their finished products. The survey found that company chemical policies largely focus on chemicals in products rather than in manufacturing or packaging.
Some 90% of the companies participating have a policy to avoid chemicals of high concern in products, compared to 54% of policies which address them in supply chains. Similarly, 67% of policies address a preference for safer alternatives in products, but only 42% include one for safer alternatives in the supply chain.
It also put the spotlight on a lack of public disclosure of companies’ practices. For example, only 17% of companies had a public list of legally restricted substances, but, indeed, 79% had one in place. Some even went a step further by including chemicals of concern that are not yet regulated and setting goals for reducing their use.
And companies seemed to lack practice in chemical footprint measurement as well. Participants said they found it “challenging” to assess. According to the survey report, few knew the number of chemicals of concern in their products.
The highest scoring companies mostly had chemicals management included in their senior management plans and implemented Design for Health strategies: those that implement safer chemical policies, procedures and practices into all elements of the business. However, companies following these scored only slightly better than those with continuous improvement strategies.
The CFP was launched by NGO Clean Production Action (CPA), Lowell Centre for Sustainable Production and consultant Pure Strategies, to establish meaningful measurement of corporate performance towards safer chemicals in products and supply chains. According to project lead, the CPA’s Dr Mark Rossi, the CFP aims to develop the first metric by which companies can show progress in this area that would be “more significant than anecdotal stories”. It does so by evaluating a company’s:
management strategy: the policies and plans companies put in place to manage chemicals; chemical inventory: the information companies collect on chemicals in products and supply chains;
progress measurement: the baseline data companies have on chemicals of high concern in products and their tracking of progress to safer alternatives; and
public disclosure: the sharing of information on chemicals in products with the public.
Once evaluated, a company receives a score which can be shared with customers and investors, the main objective being to measure continuous improvement in chemicals management.
https://chemicalwatch.com/51005/the-chemical-footprint-projects-first-steps
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Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
Echa should cancel REACH registrations “in cases of serious violations”, says the head of the chemicals division in Lower Saxony’s environment ministry. Michael Braedt said the agency should do this by withdrawing the registration number in such cases, as he gave a rundown of changes that his ministry would like to see in the European Commission’s REACH Review (3 November).
EU member states have approved amendments to the Regulation on the classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures (CLP). The changes were approved at a meeting of the REACH Committee on 26 October. They include new harmonised acute toxicity estimate (ATE) values in Annex VI (3 November).
China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) issued a new version of its substance notification guidance on MEP order 7 (2015 revision) for consultation with major industry players, last week, according to an industry observer. The draft further reduces data requirements for regular notifications, compared to the version submitted to the WTO in March (2 November).
The US EPA is “very confident” that it will be able to meet the tight deadlines under the new TSCA, according to remarks at Chemical Watch’s October US Regulatory Summit from Wendy Cleland-Hamnett of the EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT). Passage of the Lautenberg Act set in motion a daunting implementation schedule that includes a number of six-month and one-year deadlines. Several “framework rules” are among the items that the EPA must finalise by June of 2017; these include rules governing prioritisation, risk evaluation, and how the agency will designate substances as active or inactive on the inventory (2 November).
A snapshot survey of UK trade bodies, representing downstream industrial sectors, shows they have a range of attitudes on whether the UK should continue to implement REACH and other EU chemical legislation post Brexit, or adopt its own national policy. At the same time, several make clear that they do not want to see a weakening of environmental and human health protection standards that have been built on EU law (1 November).
Companies processing chemicals in the US need to be aware of the implications of TSCA reform and closely monitor and engage in the rulemaking process. This was the message from speakers at Chemical Watch’s October Regulatory Summit in Washington, DC. Julie Froelicher, North America regulatory and technical relations manager, global product stewardship, at Procter & Gamble, said some processors believe manufacturers and importers will take care of the requirements of the reformed law. But, she said, it is important they understand what their role is and what the impacts might be (1 November).
A group of NGOs are contesting the European Commission’s Decision to authorise the use of two lead chromate pigments. Environmental law group, ClientEarth, the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), ChemSec and International POPs Elimination Network (Ipen) are using powers granted to NGOs under the UN Aarhus Convention to request that the Commission conducts an internal review of the Decision (27 October).
Echa has drafted a list of 117 substances to be evaluated under the Community Rolling Action Plan (Corap) for the period 2017-19. A total of 95 of these were on the adopted list covering 2016-18, which was released in October last year. Of the 22 newly added substances, eight are potential endocrine disruptors. The agency notes that the number of substances to be evaluated in 2017 is lower than in previous plans (27 October).
The substances the US EPA selects as the first ten subject to risk evaluation under the new TSCA should not come as a surprise, said Jeffrey Morris, deputy director for programmes at the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT). The Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act requires the agency to select ten substances from the existing TSCA workplan by mid-December, to begin risk evaluations immediately thereafter (27 October).
The EU and US have completed a technical analysis of differences in the classification rules for mixtures in safety data sheets (SDSs), during the latest set of negotiations on a transatlantic trade and investment partnership (TTIP). They have agreed to start a broad consultation with member states and stakeholders, to determine whether the identified differences will lead to problems in practice (26 October).
A post-Brexit UK could mean chemicals legislation that brings a more risk-based approach to policy, the Chemical Industries Association (CIA) says. “The UK is one of the few European member states with a pragmatic approach to risk-based thinking,” Nishma Patel, director at the CIA, told Chemical Watch (26 October).
https://chemicalwatch.com/51026/in-the-news
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Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Judith Breuer
The protection of human health and the environment by way of an internationally harmonised approach, and to provide a basis to ensure safe use of chemicals, is the objective of the Globally Harmonized System of classification and labelling of chemicals (GHS).
It is more than a decade since the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) encouraged countries to adopt the first edition of GHS in 2002 to implement the system as soon as possible. Since then, the pace of implementing has varied across countries. Despite harmonised hazard communication elements, including labels and safety data sheets (SDSs), when it comes to compliance with national requirements, the details are still what matter.
China, South Korea and Taiwan
Following the completion of technical work on the GHS in 2002, China, South Korea and Taiwan established their own system. South Korea has amended its GHS several times and it has been mandatory for all hazardous chemicals since 1 July 2013. The recent version in the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s (MoEL) notice 2016-19 is conceptualised according to the fourth revision of the UN’s GHS. The same is true of the new Chinese national standards GB 30000.2~29-2013, which were fully implemented at the end of 2014. Between 2008 and 2013, Taiwan’s GHS was solely applied to highly hazardous substances, used in large volume. But after the adaption of the fourth revision of the UN’s GHS in 2015, it has been fully implemented, since 1 January 2016, for all hazardous chemicals and will become mandatory after a one year transition period.
Although China, South Korea and Taiwan’s GHS are all based on the UN’s fourth revision, there are some differences. While China and Taiwan implemented all hazard classes and categories, known as the UN’s GHS building blocks, “chemically unstable gases” and “flammable liquids, category 4” are not adopted by South Korea. Furthermore, hazard classes such as skin corrosion are adopted without the subcategories proposed by the UN GHS.
Along with the implementation of the GHS building blocks, as well as harmonised rules for classification and labelling, the international standard 16-section SDS was introduced in all three countries.
China requires a 24-hour local emergency phone number to be stated; South Korea, however, only a local number. In both countries, under section 3, certain substances can be protected as confidential business information, but their hazards must be fully disclosed. Labels differ, not only in language, but also in mandatory content. Chinese labels require three additional elements: a reference to the SDS, the 24-hour local emergency phone number and composition details.
None of these requirements are included in the Taiwanese regulation, except that the names of hazardous ingredients in a mixture must be marked on the label. Due to such fine distinctions, it is advisable to read the regulatory texts carefully before preparing labels and SDSs.
All three countries have published their own lists of harmonised classifications of hazardous substances. China’s State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) released the Guidance for the implementation of the catalogue of hazardous chemicals (trial copy) that provides mandatory classifications for all 2,828 listed entries. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) of Taiwan published a list of 6,000 chemical substances with advisory GHS classifications only. South Korea’s list stipulates compulsory classification for approximately 900 substances and was released in 2011 by the South Korean National Institute of Environmental Research (Nier). South Korea’s Occupational Safety and Health Agency (Kosha) also provides its own advisory GHS classifications for over 10,000 substances.
South-East Asian countries
In Indonesia, first steps towards GHS implementation were made by the Ministry of Industry (MoI) in 2010, when its decree (MoI No.87/M-IND/PER/9/200), based on the second UN GHS revision, was published. On 12 April 2013, the decree (MoI No.23/M-IND/PER/4/2013), based on the fourth revision of UN GHS, revised the regulation and extended the transition period for mixtures, until 31 December 2016. It also required SDS and labelling to be updated for substances.
In Thailand, GHS became mandatory through the notification of the Ministry of Industry on the hazard classification and communication system for hazardous substances (B.E. 2555) in 2012, based on the third UN GHS revision. All building blocks of the third revision were implemented, except eye irritation, category 2 and the subcategories for skin corrosion, category 1.
In Vietnam, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) implemented GHS, based on the third revision. Although the country has adopted the standard 16-section SDS format, section 2 (hazard identification) and section 3 (composition/information on ingredients) are reversed.
Malaysia’s Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DoSH) implemented GHS on 11 October 2013, with the publication of the classification, labelling and safety data sheets of hazardous chemicals (CLASS Regulations). The corresponding Industry Code of Practice (Icop) on chemicals classification and hazard communication was published on 16 April 2014 and is a legally binding guidance to chemical suppliers, for compliance with the provisions of the CLASS Regulations. The Icop is based on the third revision of UN GHS and consists of four parts, part 1 of which currently lists 229 substances that have been classified by the DoSH. A local or international emergency number, stated in section 1 of the SDS, has to provide advice 24 hours a day.
The Philippines have fully implemented GHS, based on the fourth revision, since 2015 through department order no 136-14. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) administrative order (DAO) no 2015-09 sets out specific requirements for SDSs and labelling of toxic chemicals, while the guidance manual for DAO 2015-09 (EMB memorandum No 2015-011) has set GHS classification criteria and basic requirements on the same.
The SDS, for all these countries, must be written in the national language, except for in the Philippines where English is sufficient. The SDS in Malaysia has to be also provided in English (either in one or two separate documents), while the Indonesian SDS may be accompanied by a version in another official UN language.
North America Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) countries
In 2012, US Osha updated the hazard communication standard (HCS 29 CFR 1910.1200), which aligns US chemical law with the UN’s third revision of GHS. Other sectors of the US government, like the EPA, have not adopted the system.
Canada followed on 11 February 2015, when the government published the Hazardous Products Regulations (HPR), which modified the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS) of 1988, to incorporate GHS based on the fifth revision. It is referred to as WHMIS 2015. Through the publication of the new HPR, Canada fulfilled a key commitment under the Canada-United States Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC).
Mexico, on the other hand, had implemented GHS on a voluntary basis, by publishing NMX-R-019-SCFI-2011 in 2011, a non-mandatory guidance document for implementation of GHS, based on the UN’s third revision. In October 2015, the Mexican Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare enacted NOM-018-STPS-2015, a mandatory standard implementing all physical and health hazard categories of the UN’s fifth revision.
None of the Nafta countries has adopted GHS criteria for environmental hazards. Both the US and Canada have some hazard classes otherwise not part of the GHS, among those, simple asphyxiants, combustible dusts and hazards not otherwise classified (HNOCs). In addition, the hazard class of pyrophoric gases (sixth revision of UN GHS) was adopted in both countries. In Canada, the hazards posed by explosives are not part of GHS, but regulated by the Explosives Act (1985).
With regard to several health hazard classes, US Osha and Health Canada have adopted the lower generic concentration limits provided by UN GHS, meaning for reproductive toxicity. This has major consequences for the classification of mixtures. The Mexican regulation NOM-018-STPS-2015, on the other hand, references the NMX-R-019-SCFI-2011 standard for the classification of mixtures, which allows both the higher and lower thresholds. Thus any SDS compliant with the US/Canada thresholds will meet Mexican requirements.
None of the Nafta governments has released any lists of harmonised classifications (mandatory or advisory) of hazardous substances; the only exception is schedule 4 of HPR (Canada) listing prescribed classifications for physical HNOCs.
All three have adopted the 16-section GHS SDS, although sections 12-15 are not required by Osha, but recommended. There are other elements to be considered, when compiling a SDS. Any classification, as laid down by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (Iarc) and the National Toxicology Program (NTP), is mandatory in US SDSs. American Conference of Government Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) threshold limit values (TLVs), Osha permissible exposure limits (PELs) and any other exposure limit shall be included. HNOCs need to be disclosed in section 2 of the US and Canadian SDS; they are not required on the label, but may be included.
https://chemicalwatch.com/51013/ghs-the-status-quo
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Why Waste Policy and REACH Go Hand-in-Hand
Nov 15, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Tatiana Santos
Concerns have been voiced from certain quarters in Brussels, not least by Cefic, the European Chemical Industry Council, that plans to revise the EU waste framework Directive will undermine REACH and the circular economy.
This is flawed logic. The EU institutions are not, as Cefic has suggested, “trying to make chemical policy through waste policy”. Rather, to ignore the presence of chemicals when revising the waste Directive would be to fail to protect the environment and human health. It would also potentially sabotage the circular economy before it is even fully up and running, by allowing recycled materials, containing chemical substances of concern, to enter the circle.
First, a bit of history. EU waste policies and legislation to manage hazardous waste existed well before REACH came into force in 2007, and so there is nothing new about chemicals in waste being managed outside it. Secondly, REACH does not really apply to waste, hence the need for coherence and complementarity between it and waste legislation. In fact, working together, REACH, the circular economy and the waste Directive have the potential to contribute to safer waste management operations and to higher quality and more competitive material outputs.
The proposed revision, as outlined by the European Parliament’s Industry (ITRE) Committee in October, does therefore not sideline, but rather strengthens the REACH Regulation. Furthermore, this amendment is essential to enhance the improvements achieved by the EU chemicals legislation on phasing out chemicals of most concern and encouraging communication on hazardous substances throughout the supply chain. This is very much lacking in the current Directive.
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation describes the circular economy as “an industrial system” that “replaces the end-of-life concept with restoration, shifts towards the use of renewable energy, eliminates the use of toxic chemicals, which impair reuse, and aims for the elimination of waste through the superior design of materials, products, systems, and, within this, business models”. Hazardous materials, therefore, have the potential to severely undermine waste recycling and contaminate clean materials and the whole circular economy.
And given that we live in a global economy, it is vital that the legislation governing these hazardous chemicals is as coherent and harmonised as possible. That’s why a revision of the EU waste Directive is largely preferable to a proliferation of national rules and regulations to deal with this issue. Harmonisation across the EU is especially necessary, given the significant differences between hazardous waste management in various countries.
Likewise, there are still gaps between hazardous waste generation and its reported treatment. According to a report published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in June 2015, about 25% of hazardous waste is not reported as properly treated. Consequently, we want to see better provisions and enforcement of hazardous waste reporting and traceability, as is being proposed in the revision of the waste Directive.
For Cefic and others to simply dismiss attempts by the European Parliament to deal with these issues is irresponsible. Only when we are sure that we will no longer find known endocrine disruptors, such as bisphenol A (BPA), in cardboard pizza boxes or brominated flame retardants in recycled plastic mugs will the time come to say that EU legislation is managing toxic chemicals adequately. We are far from this situation and failing to pay attention to this, when revising the EU’s waste policy, will mean more harm to human health and mistrust of the circular economy.
Companies making products should be aware of the chemicals they are using. If there is no traceability, there is no possibility to differentiate between clean and contaminated streams, causing an endless legacy of toxic waste. Information on the content of substances of very high concern is already possible under REACH and communication between all actors should continue through the whole supply chain.
Chemical manufacturers are at the forefront of this process as the first link and can, therefore, help the management of substances in waste, by being significantly more transparent about the chemicals included in articles. We cannot close material cycles and achieve a non-toxic environment if we don’t know which substances are included in recycled materials.
The chemical industry should be focusing its energy on ensuring that this becomes reality, instead of trying to undermine attempts by policy makers to move us forward to a cleaner, sustainable and healthier future.
https://chemicalwatch.com/51007/why-waste-policy-and-reach-go-hand-in-hand
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'We're Not Going to Let Him Get Away With It' — Enviros on Trump
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Environmental lawyers are using a lot of war metaphors these days.
In preparation for clashes expected after Donald Trump takes power, Center for Biological Diversity Conservation Director Brendan Cummings is laying out plans for "the very big fight ahead," while Western Environmental Law Center Executive Director Erik Schlenker-Goodrich is counting on fellow "battle-hardened veterans" in the environmental community to block attacks from the next president.
Many expect the coming years to be the most important of their careers — a time to defend environmental protections, halt pro-industry policies and push a less sympathetic White House to take action on climate and environmental justice issues.
"We have the Constitution on our side, and we have environmental laws on the books," said Patrick Gallagher, director of the Sierra Club's Environmental Law Program. "So to the extent that his administration tries to flout those laws, we're going to hold him accountable. We're not going to let him get away with it."
Trump's campaign largely skirted specifics on major environmental issues, but his transition team last week pledged to streamline energy permitting, toss the Clean Power Plan and reform environmental regulation.
While it's not yet clear how existing legal battles will play out or which issues will attract new litigation, several groups said they are considering adding staff, shuffling resources and forming coalitions with other organizations to keep environmental protections intact.
"I think every group is transitioning from the first day of processing what's occurred to laying out our plan for how we gear up for the very big fight ahead of us," Cummings said. "Everyone who's committed their professional lives to working for environmental groups I think knows that the coming years are going to be incredibly challenging, but also incredibly critical, and people are gearing up for the amount of effort that that will require."
Environmental attorney Sean Donahue, a lead player in the Clean Power Plan litigation and several other high-profile lawsuits, said "there's not going to be litigation reflexively," as it will depend on what the Trump administration actually does. But, he added, many rumored attacks on environmental policies are "deeply troubling."
"There will be efforts, as there have been continually, to take us backwards, and certainly people will use the new administration as an opportunity to make great leaps backwards," he said. "And we will fight that. We will probably win some and lose some, but we're going to keep pushing, and we believe that the public wants action."
Battle stations
Environmental lawyers plan to push their cause on several fronts.
Cummings said they will intervene in litigation brought by industry groups, challenge leasing on public lands and push the new administration to meet existing requirements under various environmental laws, to name a few.
The first prong could prove particularly important if industry groups seek to make legal deals with the Trump administration to try to block or dampen environmental regulations.
"Under the new administration, industry is likely to challenge innumerable Obama-era rules and then pursue the strategy that they themselves condemn: sue and settle," he said. "They'll have an administration that is not at all eager to defend the rules and will likely capitulate. Intervening to prevent such a settlement that eviscerates the rules without proper procedures is critical."
Groups intervening in lawsuits can typically participate in negotiations or object to proposed settlements.
On the public lands front, much of the environmental playbook is already written — and in use against Obama administration leasing decisions. Environmentalists backing the "keep it in the ground" movement or seeking to protect particular places or species will continue to challenge decisions at various stages of the leasing process, from land-use planning to permitting.
Accelerated leasing under the Trump administration means a busier schedule for environmental lawyers scrutinizing each step. That same dynamic was common after the Bill Clinton-George W. Bush transition, as conservation groups sought to limit the spread of oil, gas and coal production on public lands.
The third tactic involves going on offense, rather than defense. Environmental groups plan to use litigation to compel agencies to update, expand or otherwise review certain environmental programs as required by the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and other environmental laws.
"We can likely see a fair amount of that, as well, since we expect few, if any, affirmatively positive processes under this new administration," Cummings said. "What we generally saw under the Bush administration, which is the best model for what we're likely to see here, is they either did not do them at all or did them at a glacial pace."
Environmentalists' greatest allies in those scenarios are the non-political career staff members at Interior, U.S. EPA and other agencies, he added, saying the "overwhelming majority of career staff at all the federal agencies are committed to doing their jobs, protecting the environment and complying with the law."
"They face incredible obstacles from political appointees above them," he said. "So part of what we view our role in the upcoming administration is to help empower all those federal employees to do what they want to do and what they should be doing and what the law requires them to do, and help them overcome the obstacles that the political appointees will likely put in their way."
The laws themselves, Schlenker-Goodrich said, are on environmentalists' side.
"We are a nation of laws, and our bedrock environmental laws are still on the books," he said. "Now, they will be attacked and we will defend those laws, but those laws are very powerful, and we anticipate, as has happened in the past, that the new administration could very well overreach repeatedly in violating those laws, and we will hold them accountable."
Finally, many environmental lawyers are hoping the current administration may be open to resolving some issues before Obama leaves office. Agencies are facing countless challenges from environmental groups on regulations, leasing, endangered species and other issues. If the administration prioritizes any of those issues, it could negotiate settlements with the groups before Trump takes office.
Courtroom prospects
Environmental lawyers are also looking for allies in the courtroom.
Experts have noted that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's liberal tilt — with seven judges appointed by Democratic presidents and four appointed by Republicans — could serve as an advantage to environmental litigants (Greenwire, Nov. 14). The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where oil and gas issues are often at the forefront, may also work in their favor.
"Our sense is that the bench is more balanced than it has been," said Schlenker-Goodrich, referring to federal judges in the 10th Circuit. "So the courts will provide a bulwark against transgressions by the administration."
The 10th Circuit currently has seven judges appointed by Democratic presidents and five appointed by Republicans.
Regardless of the appointing party, Donahue said, most federal judges will be skeptical of any "politically driven effort to escape or ignore legal obligations."
"I think judges across the spectrum of general attitude or place on the scale from liberal to conservative, I think they will want to see a coherent and lawful approach," he said. "So if there are policy shifts, it won't be enough to say, 'Oh well, we're not going to do this anymore.' If there are 'We're going to do this in a different way. We have a better way or a different way, and here's what it is, and here's how we respond to the evidence,' that has a much better chance.
"But if it's like, 'We're not doing this because Obama did it,' or 'We're not doing this because our supporters don't want it,' then I think that kind of thing tends to not do very well," he said.
Donahue noted the George W. Bush administration's mixed success on environmental reforms.
"They had a very mixed record, and I think there was a sense that judges were concerned that they weren't taking the Clean Air Act, in particular, really seriously sometimes," he said.
Joining forces
Gallagher, the Sierra Club lawyer, noted that environmental groups' most important strategy for opposing environmentally destructive policies is to form broad coalitions within the movement and with other progressive causes.
Groups have been busy already scheduling meetings, conference calls and strategy sessions — not to mention aggressive fundraising campaigns (Greenwire, Nov. 14).
Schlenker-Goodrich said Western advocates, in particular, have gathered diverse support on certain issues.
"This is not the American West's first rodeo, especially on oil and gas issues," he said. "Many of us are battle-hardened veterans that successfully defended against similar attacks during the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney."
He noted, for example, the George W. Bush administration's push to open an area of New Mexico's Carson National Forest to coalbed methane drilling. A broad coalition formed to oppose the effort, and Congress ultimately passed a law prohibiting the development in the area.
"Strong, resilient coalitions of conservationists, hunters, ranchers and Latinos are already working together to protect the American West's natural heritage," he said. "And those coalitions are not going away. In fact, they are moving very swiftly to hold the line against anticipated attacks on clean air and water, public health and public lands. And our sense is that the new administration would be wise to not underestimate the capacity of these coalitions, in particular in the American West."
Gallagher said similar coalition-building is happening across the country and across causes.
"We are going to join forces with other groups maximally because we stand in solidarity with all of the people who feel threatened by the Trump administration, whether it's Mexican-Americans or Muslims or women," he said. "And I think that one of our biggest jobs is to really consolidate that progressive movement so that becomes a formidable counterweight."
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/11/15/stories/1060045749
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Interior Finalizes Rule, Gets Hit with Industry Lawsuit
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Scott Streater
The Interior Department finalized a rule today designed to slash the volume of natural gas that's vented and flared each year into the atmosphere from roughly 100,000 wells on federal and tribal lands.
The Methane and Waste Prevention Rule's goal is twofold: Reduce releases of methane, a greenhouse gas that's more than 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and ensure that taxpayers get a fair return on the use of federal lands by capturing flared gas that is not subjected to royalty payments.
Interior says the new rule — which replaces 30-year-old regulations — is projected to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by as much as 35 percent.
The rule is fiercely opposed by the oil and gas industry and congressional Republicans. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell's announcement of the final rule this morning was quickly followed by an industry lawsuit.
The Western Energy Alliance and the Independent Petroleum Association of America filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Wyoming, calling the regulation "a vast overreach" of Interior's regulatory authority.
Interior's Bureau of Land Management, which worked on the rule for five years, says reducing the flaring, venting and leaking of methane from federally managed oil and gas wells would save society up to $188 million annually by allowing more natural gas to be sold and preventing the escape of methane and other pollutants (Greenwire, Jan. 22).
"This rule to prevent waste of our nation's natural gas supplies is good government, plain and simple," Jewell said in a statement.
"We are proving that we can cut harmful methane emissions that contribute to climate change, while putting in place standards that make good economic sense for the nation," she added. "Not only will we save more natural gas to power our nation, but we will modernize decades-old standards to keep pace with industry and to ensure a fair return to the American taxpayers for use of a valuable resource that belongs to all of us."
But beyond the legal challenge, the rule's future is very much in doubt after President-elect Donald Trump's election last week. The Republican has made it clear that his administration will reduce regulation and expand oil and natural gas drilling on federal lands.
Trump will almost certainly attempt to roll back the rule. But outright overturning BLM's final methane regulation would require going through the entire rulemaking process again and is no simple task, said Fred Cheever, an environmental law professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.
Under the Administrative Procedure Act, an incoming administration needs to provide reasons or evidence that circumstances have changed since the rule was created or show that the reasoning behind the rule was otherwise flawed.
"If I were tasked by a new Trump secretary of the Interior to come up with a justification for pulling back what is clearly a protective action, I would be hard-pressed," Cheever said.
Trump may also work with members of the Republican majorities in the House and Senate to strip funding for the rule, observers say.
And Trump might work to clear a backlog of right-of-way applications to build pipelines and other infrastructure that the industry says would allow drilling operations to capture excess gas and pipe it to market instead of venting it into the air.
This has been a major sticking point for Republican congressional leaders, who accuse the Obama administration of giving the industry little choice but to vent and flare gas into the atmosphere.
"Even though the administration may not be able to make the rule go away, the administration is definitely in a position to simply not enforce the rule," Cheever said.
Kathleen Sgamma, vice president of government and public affairs for the Denver-based Western Energy Alliance, vowed industry would "seek ways to overturn BLM's vast overreach of legal authority."
"BLM lacks statutory authority for the creation of an air quality regulatory program, which has resided with EPA and the states since the 1970s," she said after her group filed the lawsuit with IPAA.
"This is an 11th hour shot by an administration that doesn't fully understand how its rules impact our businesses," Dan Naatz, senior vice president of government relations and political affairs at IPAA, said in a statement. "The continued regulatory onslaught on American producers calls into question the president's commitment to the laws requiring mineral production on federal lands or whether the misguided crusade to 'Keep It in the Ground' has overtaken this administration."
Critical to Obama's climate plan
Finalizing the methane rule was a major priority of the Obama administration. Reducing venting, flaring and leaking of methane is a major component of President Obama's 2013 Climate Action Plan.
U.S. EPA earlier this year released revised estimates of methane emissions from the oil and gas sector, concluding that natural gas systems were the country's largest source of methane in 2014, accounting for a third of total emissions (E&ENews PM, April 15).
And the Government Accountability Office last summer issued a report criticizing BLM for failing to have consistent policies in place to regulate the venting and flaring of natural gas at thousands of oil and natural gas wells, sometimes allowing industry to incorrectly burn off the gas without paying royalties (E&ENews PM, July 21).
"With better planning and today's affordable technology, we can cut waste in half," BLM Director Neil Kornze said in a statement. "This common-sense rule will save enough gas to supply every household in the cities of Dallas and Salt Lake City combined — every year."
The rule requires operators to use off-the-shelf technologies to reduce flaring, which happens when operators burn off excess gas.
According to BLM, flaring doubled from 2009 to 2013, driven in large part by oil wells in the Dakotas and New Mexico, where there are not yet adequate pipelines to capture associated gas.
It also sets gradually diminishing caps on the amount of gas that may be flared from wells, beginning with a limit of 7,200 mcf, or thousand cubic feet, per well per month for the first year.
That limit would be halved in the second year and halved again in the third year. Operators could comply by installing gas-capture infrastructure such as gathering lines, by compressing the gas or stripping out the natural gas liquids and trucking it off site, or by temporarily slowing production until capture infrastructure can be installed.
The rule also requires companies to prepare a "waste minimization plan" that evaluates opportunities for gas capture before being approved to drill a well. The plan would need to be shared with midstream gas capture companies to promote timely pipeline development, though the minimization plan would not be legally binding.
In addition, the rule requires companies to perform periodic inspections for methane leaks using infrared cameras or portable analyzers assisted by audio, visual and olfactory inspection.
Janice Schneider, Interior assistant secretary of land and minerals management, said the final rule is supported by government studies and was developed with numerous stakeholder input.
"The result is an effective rule that not only gets more of our nation's natural gas into pipelines but also reduces pollution and cuts greenhouse gas emissions," Schneider said in a statement.
Cheers and jeers
The finalization of the rule drew mixed reviews.
As expected, the oil and gas industry — which has argued that EPA, not BLM, should regulate emissions of methane — was particularly upset.
The contention that BLM is overstepping its authority forms the basis of the lawsuit filed by the Western Energy Alliance and IPAA.
"BLM is assuming Clean Air Act authority that only EPA and the states have, and as a consequence we are filing a lawsuit today," said Sgamma, whose Western Energy Alliance represents more than 450 independent oil and gas companies that produce a significant amount of the nation's onshore oil and gas.
Sgamma also took issue with statements in an Interior press release today that says the American public has not benefited from the full potential of natural gas development due to venting, flaring and leaks "of significant quantities of gas during the production process."
"I'm also disappointed to see Interior repeating falsehoods surrounding methane emissions from the oil and natural gas industry," she said. "Not only has our industry reduced emissions by 21 percent since 1990, but a recent [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] study also documents how emissions are falling. That's all happening without these and other federal regulations."
In addition to industry, House Republicans, particularly, have been highly critical of the rule at public hearings on it in last spring.
House Natural Resources Chairman Rob Bishop of Utah and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California joined 55 other Republicans in July accusing BLM of exceeding its legal authority with the rule and calling on Jewell to withdraw it (Greenwire, July 28).
But conservation groups praised the new rule.
"These guidelines will reduce the unnecessary and capricious waste of American energy," said Josh Mantell, the energy and climate campaign manager for the Wilderness Society. "Public resources must be used for the public good, and this rule will put in place standards to ensure taxpayers are seeing their fair share."
Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, echoed Mantell.
"Natural gas is a valuable American resource, but when wasted into the air it causes dangerous pollution," Krupp said in a statement. "Reducing the amount of gas that oil and gas operators release will conserve an important domestic resource, improve air quality, lower asthma attacks, and slow climate change."
Mantell said the Wilderness Society and other conservation groups will be watching how the Trump administration handles implementation of the new rule.
"The Obama administration has been working diligently to ensure that when energy development does occur it is done safely, responsibly and in the right places — with consideration of the importance our public lands hold for the American people, as well as their impact on the climate. This rule is an important component of the administration's substantial legacy in modernizing development on federal lands," he said.
"We look forward to helping make sure the rule is fully implemented and enforced to have the maximum positive effects for our shared lands and resources."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/11/15/stories/1060045788
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Obama Administration Issues Rules on Methane From Oil, Gas Operations
Nov 15, 2016 | Wall Street Journal
By Amy Harder
The Interior Department issued regulations Tuesday to cut methane emissions from oil and natural gas operations on federal lands, one of the last moves President Barack Obama will make on his expansive climate agenda, which President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to dismantle.
The rules are aimed at helping meet an Obama administration goal of cutting the oil-and-gas industry’s emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by as much as 45% from 2012 levels over the next decade.
The U.S. government is unlikely to meet that goal because Mr. Trump has been clear that he intends to reverse Mr. Obama’s climate agenda and withdraw rules that could restrict oil and natural gas development. However, the new president-elect hasn’t explicitly said he would undo this methane rule or another similar one at the Environmental Protection Agency.
“This rule to prevent waste of our nation’s natural gas supplies is good government, plain and simple,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewellsaid in a statement. “We are proving that we can cut harmful methane emissions that contribute to climate change, while putting in place standards that make good economic sense for the nation.”
Oil and gas production has boomed in the U.S. over the last decade thanks to new extraction technologies like hydraulic fracturing. Still, federal lands account for a small portion of domestic drilling—11% of the nation’s natural gas supply and 5% of its oil supply—according to Interior Department data.
The Interior regulations, first proposed in January 2016, include the first-ever federal limits on flaring, a process in which excess gas, whose primary component is methane, is burned off as carbon dioxide. The rules also include a requirement that companies regularly inspect for methane leaks.
With the onset of the energy boom, some companies have taken to flaring or venting gas, emitting the methane itself straight into the atmosphere, if pipelines or other infrastructure aren’t immediately available to transport and process it. The new rules would require energy companies to capture the methane and ship it as fuel.
Methane has a warming impact on the planet 25 times that of carbon dioxide, though it lasts not nearly as long in the atmosphere, according to the Obama administration.
The regulation by the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management is part of a recent sprint throughout the administration to release rules before Mr. Obama leaves the White House.
Some of Mr. Obama’s major environmental rules have been challenged in court, and Mr. Trump has said he would review all of them and likely work to rescind most of them.
Mr. Trump and GOP leaders in Congress have a couple of different avenues to block Mr. Obama’s recently completed rules.
Congress can use a little-known law called the Congressional Review Act to nullify rules that have been finalized within 60 days that Congress is in session, a time period that often extends much longer than a couple of months since lawmakers aren’t in session every weekday.
Given that the GOP controls both chambers of Congress and will hold White House next year, undoing Mr. Obama’s regulatory agenda this way will be one of the easiest avenues. Some legislative experts say rules that could fall under this 60-day window might extend as far back as May, as Congress has been in session so few days in the second half of this year.
Nov. 20 has been considered the unofficial deadline by which the Obama administration must issue rules before the window opens for the incoming Trump administration to stop the rules unilaterally. Most regulations require at least 60 days between a rule being final and it going into effect.
If a new administration steps in sometime in that 60-day window, the incoming president can put an indefinite hold on the rule’s effective date.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-administration-issues-rules-on-methane-from-oil-gas-operations-1479229206
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Feds Target Methane Leaks on Public Land
Nov 15, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Regulators have finalized a rule cracking down on methane leaks at natural gas drilling sites on federal land.
The rule, released Tuesday by the Interior Department, updates 30-year-old regulations on methane venting, flaring and leaks for drillers.
The rule will be implemented in phases, but in its full iteration it will require oil and gas companies to use new technologies to cut flaring in half, inspect their sites for leaks and replace old equipment that officials say releases too much methane into the air.
Under the rule, officials also have the power to require royalty payments on excess gas that producers flare off at drilling sites.
“This rule will benefit the American public and the environment,” Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management Janice Schneider said in a statement.
“The rule responds to recommendations from several government studies, as well as stakeholder and tribal input. The result is an effective rule that not only gets more of our nation’s natural gas into pipelines but also reduces pollution and cuts greenhouse gas emissions.”
Obama has aimed to issue regulations cutting methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by up to 45 percent by 2025.
Methane is the primary component in natural gas. But it’s also a potent greenhouse gas, with 25 times the warming potential of carbon dioxide. This new rule, the Interior Department said Tuesday, could cut public land emissions by up to 35 percent.
But the rule is likely to run into Republican opposition and could face repeal after President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
The rule will fall within the 60-day window in which Congress can issue a resolution disapproving of it. If lawmakers do so, Trump’s signature would stop the rule in its tracks.
“The Republican majority in Congress will not let this rule stand. We will work with President-elect Trump to revoke this rule either administratively or through the use of the Congressional Review Act,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a member of Senate Republican leadership.
Republicans have raised objections to rules that they say could hamper oil and gas production, which they hope to expand on federal land with Trump in the White House.
The oil and gas industry has also objected to Obama’s methane strategy, saying producers are cutting down on methane leaks on their own and that the federal government shouldn’t dictate that work with regulations.
The trade groups Western Energy Alliance and Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) on Tuesday said they had filed a lawsuit over the new rule, challenging the Interior Department’s authority to regulate methane leaks.
“Independent producers have repeatedly shared our concerns with and provided industry data to the Obama Administration. This is an 11th hour shot by an administration that doesn’t fully understand how its rules impact our businesses,” said Dan Naatz, senior vice president of government relations and political affairs at IPAA.
The American Petroleum Institute called the rule a “an example of poor government policy and a left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.”
“BLM’s new regulations are unnecessary, redundant, technically flawed and could stifle the innovations that have led to our nation’s environmental successes,” Erik Milito, the director of upstream and industry operations at API, said in a statement.
Green groups and public land advocates, however, praised the rule.
“Today’s rule is a commonsense fix that’s great news for our climate and our economy—reducing greenhouse gas pollution while ensuring taxpayers get their fair share from the resources that belong to all Americans,” said Jesse Prentice-Dunn, the advocacy director at the Center for Western Priorities.
“By finalizing this and other rules that have been years in the making, the Obama administration is showing strong leadership in its final weeks.”
http://www.thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/306100-feds-target-methane-leaks-on-public-land
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Pencils Still Down, but Endgame Could Drag On
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Debra Kahn
President Obama's signature greenhouse gas regulations for existing power plants are bound to hang on a while longer, although utility regulators aren't holding their breath.
President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to scrap the Clean Power Plan, which has been stayed by the Supreme Court since February and had oral arguments at the U.S. Court for the District of Columbia Circuit in September. It likely won't be a straightforward task, but most observers expect the incoming president to succeed.
"We were moving ahead with thinking about how we would implement it in Minnesota, and we're going to have to take a look at our efforts internally," said Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner Nancy Lange. "Is it a quick and easy demise, or is it something more complicated than that?"
Doug Scott, a former Illinois utility regulator who has been working with states on the regulation through the Great Plains Institute, read the tea leaves yesterday at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' meeting in Southern California.
"On Jan. 20 of next year, can the president just sign something and say the Clean Power Plan is gone?" Scott asked. "While the short answer to that is 'no,' there are a lot of different ways that could still be accomplished."
A Trump-led EPA could request that the court remand the regulation to it for revisions. Trump officials could also look to Congress to amend the Clean Air Act or could appeal any circuit court decision to the Supreme Court under a presumably Trump-friendly majority.
But that doesn't mean states are off the hook in regulating power plant emissions, Scott said. Other existing regulations could be more significant to individual states, including the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, national ambient air quality standards for ozone, and cooling-water intake structure rules under Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act.
As well, the Supreme Court's support of EPA's "endangerment finding" that greenhouse gases are a public health pollutant means that it would likely require the federal government to do something to address emissions.
"Most folks would argue they have the obligation then to propose something to mitigate the effects of those emissions," Scott said. "It doesn't have to be the rule that was proposed, but they have to do something."
Under Trump, 'flexibility they didn't dream' of
If the rule does move forward but in a weaker form or with lower compliance expectations from the Trump administration, states may have more breathing room in how they write their carbon reduction plans, a former federal energy regulator said.
"The new administration will have a fairly strong hand in crafting what the federal implementation plan would look like, assuming the Clean Power Plan is still there," said Tony Clark, a former commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission who stepped down in September. He announced yesterday that he will begin working for the law firm Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP.
"Those that are working on their [implementation plans] would have flexibility they didn't dream they would have previously. If it's a really finely promulgated rule, it's not easy to pick up your pen and phone and just get rid of it. It's not an executive order," he said.
Other existing rules over mercury emissions and cross-state air pollution will also likely be interpreted to give states more leeway in implementation, Clark said.
"All of it, it's just probably going to have a much less hard line taken by a Trump EPA than you would by a Clinton EPA or an Obama EPA," Clark said. "On Jan. 17, [if] they picked up the phone and asked EPA something with an existing regulation, the answer might've been 'no,' and on Jan. 25, the answer might be 'maybe.'"
States that had taken a position on the CPP prior to last week's election said their plans are unaffected.
"Regardless of the direction of national policy, California is staying the course on the path to the clean energy economy, so I'm sure there'll be some issues to sort out at the margins, but there's not any wholesale retreat or even backsliding in California," said California Public Utilities Commissioner Mike Florio.
A former Hawaii regulator said the state is continuing to pursue its goal of 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. "We're isolated, and that's good and bad," said Michael Champley, a former commissioner at the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission whose term expired in June. "It was like, 'Was there an election?' I guess there was."
"Boy, the game is so long on this," said Travis Kavulla, NARUC president and a member of the Montana Public Service Commission, where Gov. Steve Bullock (D) ordered a stop to CPP planning in February.
"I think the political science lesson here is that an executive who's unwilling to enforce a government regulation or to take an executive action in furtherance of a rule — who, in other words, lacks the executive motivation probably even if the rule remains on the book — it ends up being something of a dead letter."
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/11/15/stories/1060045750
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Army Corps Finishes Pipeline Review — and Begins Another Round
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Energywire
By Ellen M. Gilmer
Dakota Access pipeline critics cheered and supporters were indignant last night at news of another round of delay for the contentious oil project.
After two months of examining its decisionmaking process for parts of the 1,200-mile pipeline, the Army Corps of Engineers concluded yesterday that its process met legal requirements. However, instead of granting a final federal approval, the Army Corps will continue discussions with the neighboring Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to determine the best path forward.
"While these discussions and analysis are ongoing, construction on or under Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe cannot occur because the Army has not made a final decision on whether to grant an easement," said Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy, who oversees the Army Corps, in a letter to the tribe and executives for Dakota Access LLC and project backer Energy Transfer Partners LP.
The Army Corps did not give a timeline for the discussions, but a joint Army and Interior Department statement yesterday said the process would be completed "expeditiously."
The $3.8 billion oil pipeline had been moving forward steadily until the Standing Rock Sioux challenged the Army Corps' permitting process for water crossings over the summer. Other tribes, environmentalists and allies joined the fight, creating a massive opposition effort that prompted the Obama administration to intervene in September, promising a close review before granting an easement for the line to cross Lake Oahe, a section of the Missouri River near the tribe's reservation.
Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II said the decision falls short of the outright easement denial the tribe is seeking but is a step in the right direction.
"We are encouraged and know that the peaceful prayer and demonstration at Standing Rock have powerfully brought to light the unjust narrative suffered by tribal nations and Native Americans across the country," he said in a statement, adding later: "Not all of our prayers were answered, but this time, they were heard."
Pipeline supporters, meanwhile, decried the announcement as "another attempt at death by delay." They say the administration is inappropriately meddling in the project after state and federal officials signed off and say they are hopeful that President-elect Donald Trump will quickly greenlight the project.
"This extrajudicial, political decision is exactly why hard-working Americans across the country rejected a third Obama term," said Craig Stevens, spokesman for the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, in a statement. "By its own review and admission, the Army Corps of Engineers did everything right. Americans expect their government to play by the rules — and this is just another example of the Obama Administration using its perceived authority to drive a political agenda."
The National Association of Manufacturers also focused its response on politics, arguing that "disregard for the rule of law and bad decisions from Washington, like the one today, are why so many have been frustrated and sought change." He added that NAM looks forward to "working with the next administration on access to our energy to fix this mess."
Energy Transfer Partners did not respond to a request for comment.
'Caution, respect, and particular care'
In her letter to the tribe and project backers, Darcy laid out detailed reasoning for putting off the final easement decision.
"The Army recognizes that portions of Lake Oahe remain within the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's reservation boundaries and the Tribe retains hunting and fishing rights in the lake," she wrote. "Additionally, the Army recognizes that the Tribe relies on Lake Oahe and the Missouri River for drinking water. We take seriously our government-to-government relationship with the Tribe. This history, the importance of Lake Oahe to the tribe, and our government-to-government relationship call for caution, respect, and particular care regarding the proposed DAPL crossing at Lake Oahe."
The letter then cites a federal statute that requires the Army Corps to "protect the interests of individuals living in the general area of the right-of-way or permit" and allows the agency to subject a right of way to certain "terms and conditions" to protect public health and safety.
The additional discussions with the tribe will focus on whether the Army Corps should place conditions on an easement approval that would require Dakota Access to take additional measures to protect against a rupture or respond to a problem. Darcy said the agency also wants to discuss what risks the tribe would face from a potential spill and whether the easement for that location should be approved at all.
In a statement yesterday, the administration urged "everyone involved in protest or pipeline activities to adhere to the principles of nonviolence."
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/11/15/stories/1060045747
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Obama Administration Delays Final Dakota Access Pipeline Decision
Nov 15, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Richard Nemec
The Obama administration's U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) on Monday again delayed making a final decision on a 1,000-foot easement to tunnel under part of the Missouri River to complete the $3.8 billion, nearly 1,200-mile Dakota Access oil pipeline.
The latest setback for the project, which is more than 80% complete, prompted the pipeline's backers to file two related lawsuits late Monday night in federal district court.
Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) and Sunoco Logistics Partners LP, backers of the four-state pipeline project to carry Bakken sweet crude oil to eastern, Gulf Coast and global markets, immediately criticized the continued delay of an approval that had already been granted earlier this year. Project opponents, led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, stepped up their now-national protest efforts aimed at shutting down the project permanently despite its past regulatory and court vetting and nearly complete construction.
Although permitted by four states (North and South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois) and the USACE earlier, the departments of Interior and Justice, along with the Corps, in September pulled back the USACE easement for tunneling under a dammed portion of the Missouri River, Lake Oahe, within hours of a federal district court rejecting the Sioux tribe's request for a temporary injunction stopping the construction. This spurred the current national protest encampment near the proposed water crossing in south-central North Dakota within a mile of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.
In their court filings, ETP and Sunoco seek a judgment declaring that their project has the legal right-of-way to build, complete and operate Dakota Access Pipeline without any further action from the USACE. They asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to confirm that the Corps already has granted all of the relevant authorizations.
"The declaratory relief Dakota Access has sought seeks to end the [Obama] administration's political interference in the review process," an ETP spokesperson said. CEO Kelcy Warren said his company now feels it "has waited long enough to complete this pipeline; it is time for the courts to end the political interference."
Meanwhile, opposition groups on Tuesday called for a "national day of action," sending Native American tribal leaders who have been gathering in North Dakota to USACE offices in Washington, DC, New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with what protesters said are dozens of other cities nationally. They said the action is in response to alleged "increased violent repression" from law enforcement at the pipeline construction site in North Dakota.
While President Obama has publicly said that USACE was looking for an alternative route that would satisfy Native American tribal concerns, industry analysts like Christi Tezak, managing director at ClearView Energy Partners LLC, have speculated that the Obama administration may delay through the rest of its tenure and leave a final decision to President-elect Donald Trump'sadministration.
USACE's latest move included reiteration that its early approval of the Dakota Access easement "met legal requirements," but the Corps has subsequently decided that it still needs more discussion with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe leaders and further analysis of the situation. Tezak had earlier predicted that USACE might continue to avoid a resolution of this case, and supporters of the project are now beside themselves.
"Today's decision is yet another attempt at death by delay, and it is a stunning rebuke of the USACE, the federal civil service, four state governments and the rule of law," said Craig Stevens, spokesperson for the Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Now, a major supporter of the pipeline project.
"This extra-judicial, political decision is exactly why hard-working Americans across the country rejected a third Obama [Hillary Clinton presidential] term. Now the Secretary of the Army's office is requiring even more consultations [with the Sioux]; why?"
While noting the latest delay was not all that the Sioux were hoping to hear, tribal President Dave Archambault II said Native Americans are "encouraged" and know that "President Obama is listening." Archambault again criticized the state's law enforcement tactics using troopers, and county officers, along with National Guard troops, to deal with thousands of protesters, many of whom have been arrested in recent weeks.
North Dakota Gov.-elect Doug Burgum in post-election interviews last week said he will not second guess the handling of the situation by current Gov. Jack Dalrymple. Both are Republicans in a state that voted overwhelmingly for President-elect Trump. Burgum did not speculate on what might happen if the protests are continuing when he takes office in January next year.
On a 3Q2016 earnings conference call last Thursday, executives from the pipeline sponsor, Energy Transfer Partners, confirmed that construction on the project was 84% complete and that they still expect to complete the new pipeline by early in the first quarter next year.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/108446-obama-administration-delays-final-dakota-access-pipeline-decision
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US Emerges as Net Exporter of Natural Gas
Nov 15, 2016 | Platts
By J. Robinson
In a historic first, the US in early November began seeing small net volumes of natural gas exports that recently climbed above 1 Bcf/d, an analysis of data from Platts Analytics' Bentek Energy showed Monday.
The emergence and rapid acceleration in export volumes comes amid a recent decline in Canadian imports and a ramp up in feedgas volumes delivered to the Sabine Pass LNG export terminal.
In November, imports of Canadian gas have averaged just 4.5 Bcf/d and are down 21% from imports that averaged 5.7 Bcf/d in October.
Over the same period, feedgas deliveries to Sabine Pass have climbed to record highs, averaging 1.5 Bcf/d month to date, up from an average 249 MMcf/d in October.
On Monday, preliminary data showed the US exporting about 910 MMcf of gas.
CANADIAN PRICES, SABINE RESTART SHIFT GAS BALANCE
The balance of gas imports and exports that began shifting in November was accompanied by a recent rise in Canadian gas prices and the restart of liquefaction processes at Sabine Pass.
In November, prices at Canada's AECO hub in Alberta have climbed to an average 36 cents/MMBtu discount to Henry Hub and are up 40% from an average 60-cent discount in October, S&P Global Platts data showed.
From the start of November, rising Canadian gas prices have prompted a dropoff in imports, most noticeably to the Midwest market area and the Pacific Northwest. Month to date, imports of Canadian gas to the Midwest are down 765 MMcf/d from the month prior and are averaging just below 2.3 Bcf/d.
Imports of Canadian gas to the Pacific Northwest, meanwhile, have fallen over 380 MMcf/d on average in November and are down about 12% from October.
The dramatic ramp-up in feedgas deliveries to the Sabine Pass LNG export terminal comes following the end of maintenance activity in late October and the introduction of commissioning-feedgas volumes to Train 3.
In first-half October, gas deliveries to Sabine Pass remained at or close to zero as maintenance on a flare column serving Trains 1 and 2 was carried out.
Deliveries to the facility did not climb back above 1 Bcf/d until late last month.
In November, commissioning activities at Train 3 have elevated feedgas deliveries to Sabine Pass to record highs, which neared 1.6 Bcf/d Sunday and Monday, Platts Analytics data showed.
EXPECTED EXPORT GROWTH SHOWS MINIMAL PRICE IMPACT
In the year ahead, US gas exports are expected to briefly top 2.5 Bcf/d as growing pipeline exports to Mexico and waterborne exports to global consumers surpass imports of LNG and Canadian gas.
Over the same period, forward markets currently have Henry Hub gas priced at an annual high of just $3.16/MMBtu in December 2017, Platts M2MS forward curve data showed.
Henry Hub gas is currently priced at a high of $3.24/MMBtu for January 2018 and will average just $2.93/MMBtu over the next five years.
Net exports of pipeline gas and LNG are expected to top 10 Bcf/d as early as February 2021, a Platts Analytics forecast showed.
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/houston/us-emerges-as-net-exporter-of-natural-gas-27710071 -
In Matters of Energy Security, Gas Could be the New Oil
Nov 15, 2016 | Houston Chronicle
By James Osborne
In July, the Greek tanker Maran Gas Appollonia set off on a month-long voyage from the Louisiana Gulf Coast, filled with more than 3 billion cubic feet of liquefied natural gas from Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass terminal.
Bound for a port in southern China, the gas - which equaled about half the daily output of Oklahoma - was scheduled for delivery at an auspicious time for the Chinese government. Two years earlier, Beijing had signed a major pipeline deal with the Russian energy company Gazprom, but with economic growth slowing, so were the nation's energy needs. Chinese officials eyed LNG shipped from abroad as a flexible and lower cost alternative to Russian gas.
This competition for China's business is part of a dramatic change in the workings of natural gas markets and potentially the beginning of fundamental shift in the way the world buys, sells and consumes energy. For decades, natural gas has been bought and sold in a murky realm in which prices are determined in long-term contract negotiations between buyers and sellers and supplies essentially limited to what could be produced in areas close enough to be connected by pipeline.
But with the development of liquefied natural gas projects here and abroad, countries are gaining access to gas supplies long out of reach, in some cases forcing long-time suppliers to compete on price in a way they never had to in the past.
That has raised the promise of something that American political leaders -- Republicans and Democrats alike -- and U.S. allies have sought for years: a global, free-flowing and transparent gas market like the one for oil. In the process, that could reduce prices for trading partners in Asia and Europe and cut carbon emissions by replacing coal-fired electricity with gas -- all while undercutting the stranglehold that petro-states such as Russia, Saudi Arabia, and a handful of countries in Middle East, Africa and South America have on energy markets.
"We have tended to think of energy security as synonymous with oil supplies," Paula Gant, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Department of Energy's Office of International Affairs, told natural gas executives at a conference in Washington last month. "Oil supplies remain core to our thinking, but we also have the opportunity to meet our energy security challenges with a variety of resources, including natural gas, renewables, and efficiency."
Betting big
The world has run almost exclusively on oil and coal for more than century. Both are abundant and cheap to transport and store – important factors for countries with limited energy sources of their own. But with climate change regulation taking hold internationally, oil giant BP is projecting that demand for cleaner burning natural gas demand will increase at twice the rate of oil over the next two decades.
Gas is forecast to make up about 25 percent of the world's energy supply by 2035, exceeding the share of coal and only a few percentage points below that of oil. For Houston and Texas, such a shift could mean an ugly fall out for those oil companies that don't take steps to adjust. But for those that do, it could create incredible opportunity.
The Eagle Ford and the Barnett are not the only shale deposits in the world - China, Argentina, Algeria and Mexico are among countries with significant fields containing natural gas. With so much of the world's brain power on freeing gas from rock concentrated in Houston and Texas, companies here could play a significant role in helping those countries tap their deposits.
"We're just about the only country in the world with the necessary infrastructure to provide all the things you need to frack, like chemicals, equipment, expertise and sand," said Charles McConnell, executive director of Rice University's Energy and Environment Initiative. "We have a tremendous lead on the rest of the world."
To gauge the growing importance of gas, look no further than nearly $50 billion Shell paid earlier this year for the LNG giant BG Group, formerly known as British Gas. Or to the $36 billion Exxon Mobil paid for the Fort Worth-based gas giant XTO Energy in 2010.
"In terms of future resources there's probably more gas than oil, and climate policy impacts gas differently than oil," said Edward Chow, a former Chevron executive and now a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. "So, there's a lot to be said for gas in the long run."
BP estimates the world's proven gas reserves at more than 600 trillion cubic meters, enough to run the world at current consumption for more than 50 years. But what worries U.S. officials is where the natural gas is located.
By far the largest share of those reserves are in Russia and Iran, two countries that have strained relations with the United States. Tensions reached their peak in early 2014, when Russia sent troops into neighboring Ukraine, eventually shutting off a natural gas pipeline that not only supplied Ukraine but much of Europe as well.
Swimming in gas
In May of that year, leaders from the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom met in Rome to discuss the problem of Europe's outsized dependence on Russia for gas. The countries signed on to an agreement to improve global energy security by both diversifying the mix of countries from which energy comes and developing "flexible, transparent and competitive energy markets, including gas markets."
Fortunately for Europe, the United States and some allies were swimming in natural gas. With the advent of hydraulic fracturing, U.S. natural gas production has increased 50 percent since 2005. Even as domestic prices remain at historic lows for years, U.S. production keeps increasing, hitting a record high last year.
In addition to Sabine Pass, which opened earlier this year, three more U.S. LNG terminals are under construction on the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast - in addition to one on Maryland's Atlantic coast. With more under construction in Australia and Malaysia, countries in Asia and Europe have a an increasing number of gas sources from which to choose.
The shift is already having an impact across the world's highly regionalized gas markets – where prices have historically been determined by the price of oil or long-term contracts negotiated between buyers and sellers. Three years ago, the average price of LNG on markets across South America, Europe and Asia ran close to five times that on the U.S. Gulf Coast. By last month, the spread had narrowed to less than two times the Gulf price.
In 2014, the Baltic nation of Lithuania, which had long relied on Russia for all its gas, announced it had renegotiated a 20 percent rate cut with Gazprom – not coincidentally at the same time Lithuania was awaiting delivery on a new floating terminal that would convert LNG back into gas for us by factories and power plants.
"Even before Sabine Pass opened, the prospect of U.S. LNG exports had already enabled European and Asian purchasers to renegotiate [gas] contracts," said Tim Boersma, director of global Natural Gas Markets at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy. "What we're hoping is natural gas becomes a global commodity, and you'll have a global market, more like crude oil."
Slow going
But that is likely a long ways off, experts say.
Right now LNG represents about 10 percent of the global gas supply. Even with all the new LNG terminals coming online in the years ahead, that share is only expected to reach 15 percent by 2020.
The challenge is that liquefying natural gas and putting it on to a tanker is fairly expensive And between all the new LNG and a weaker economic forecast for China, the high prices in Asia that set off the LNG construction boom are moderating.
Even with increased demand due to climate change regulation, any LNG project not already under construction will struggle to find investors for at least the next few years, said Robert Ineson, managing director of global LNG for the research firm IHS Markit.
"Oversupply, especially as it grows, will put a lot of pressure on everybody in the market," he said.
In the meantime, countries are rushing to establish future markets for their gas. Despite U.S. opposition, plans for Russia's Nord Stream II pipeline, which would run beneath the Baltic Sea connecting Russia with Germany, have the support of Western European countries eager to get as much available gas supply as possible. In addition to the pipeline to China - the future of which remains in question - Russia is constructing its own LNG export facility in the northern reaches of Siberia.
As competition for gas customers intensifies, Cheniere is investing in an LNG import terminal in Chile to support a new power plant project there. In a presentation to investors in September, the company said it would pursue "similar LNG to power projects to stimulate new LNG demand," pointing to small but developing markets as diverse as Panama, Bangladesh and Ireland.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/In-matters-of-energy-security-gas-could-be-the-10615523.php
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Trump Presidency Could Dent U.S. Gas Trade
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Energywire
Although Donald Trump's election victory in the presidential race is widely viewed as a boon for the domestic energy industry, some of his planned policies, such as his vow to wall off Mexico, might actually pose a danger to the U.S. natural gas business.
One of the hallmarks of Trump's presidential campaign was the promise to renegotiate trade pacts with Mexico and build a wall along the border. Analysts warn that such a plan could also prevent U.S. natural gas from being sold in Mexico, which is becoming an important outlet for the fuel and has been helping support U.S. gas prices amid a global glut.
"Mexico has been one of the few bright stories for prices and demand," said Nicholas Potter, an analyst at Barclays, which warned clients on Election Day that Trump's "trade policies would likely curb or at least limit incremental U.S. gas exports to Mexico."
If that happens, companies building pipelines to Mexico and drillers selling gas to the United States' southern neighbor could be hurt, experts say.
In addition, the president-elect's proposal to revive the coal industry could threaten the gas business. It would help coal retake market share from gas at U.S. power plants, according to analysts.
http://www.eenews.net/energywire/2016/11/15/stories/1060045742
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Obama Administration Fending Off Trump Fears Abroad
Nov 15, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Jean Chemnick
President Obama's climate team has been at the vanguard of international climate action for the last four years, but now its members are spending their last U.N. summit dodging inquiries about whether the United States is about to go rogue.
U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing in his first press event yesterday since arriving in the ochre city for U.N. talks tried to pre-empt questions about the incoming Donald Trump administration by saying he hadn't yet met with the Republican president-elect's representatives. But he was still peppered with questions in a packed hall about how long the United States would remain in the Paris Agreement and what Trump's promise to withdraw would mean for the rest of the world.
"I don't really want to speculate on what the new guys would do," Pershing said. He noted that Trump had not yet chosen his State Department transition team but said he expects to meet with them soon after returning to Washington, D.C., next week.
The Trump team is mulling ways for the United States to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, possibly as early as the first day of the administration. But pressed to address that likelihood, Pershing alternately offered a tutorial on the four-year process that the accord prescribes for withdrawal, reasons why it would be better if Trump reconsidered, and his view that the rest of the world will carry on no matter what his country does.
Pershing said he had met with Xie Zhenhua, China's special representative for climate change, who worked closely with Pershing's predecessor, Todd Stern, in the run-up to the Paris talks. Representatives of the Chinese government have said publicly that China will stay the course, and Pershing said Xie assured him that the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter has no intention of pulling out of the Paris accord.
"Of course they're going to move forward," Pershing said of China. "These are things that you would do because they're part of your development trajectory. I'm hearing the same from the Europeans. I'm hearing the same from the Brazilians. I'm hearing the same from Mexico, from Canada, from smaller nations like Costa Rica and Colombia."
What happens to the $100B?
Ever since the real estate mogul last Tuesday won enough electoral votes to follow President Obama to the White House, diplomats here have wondered what would become of the deal agreed to by nearly 200 countries and signed now by 109. They were concerned about U.S. emissions reduction pledges — especially in the face of Trump's vow to resuscitate the U.S. coal industry — but also about the likelihood that Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress would not deliver on Obama's promises of aid to poor countries.
"My personal view around this is that we will continue to meet our commitments," Pershing said.
But he also seemed to hint that the vast majority of that aid has always been intended to come from leveraged private-sector capital. He noted that the United States has pledged $3 billion toward the Green Climate Fund (GCF), a sum that may now never materialize with Trump in the White House and both chambers of Congress controlled by Republicans.
"If we come a little short of that, it will have only a marginal effect on the $100 billion," he said, referencing a promise that wealthy countries have made to mobilize $100 billion annually in climate aid by 2020. He added that "perhaps more important" is that the process find ways to leverage more private capital to increase the finance available.
Yet the $10 billion GCF fund, which consists of public finance pledges by 2020, was always viewed as separate from the $100 billion annual pledge. The developed world has pledged to raise at least that level of capital by 2020 in both public and private funds, but presumably the United States would be responsible for some yet-undisclosed share of those post-2020 revenues that would require congressional approval beginning before Trump ends his first term in January 2021.
If Trump and his GOP allies on Capitol Hill don't provide it, there will be less ability to leverage the private capital Pershing references.
Moniz bobs and weaves
Elsewhere at the Bab Ighli conference venue yesterday, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz participated in a high-level gathering of members of the Mission Innovation initiative he helped launch at the Paris summit. His remarks studiously avoided mention of the U.S. election or its result, focusing instead on the merits of 23 countries and the European Union pledging to double their research and development dollars for next-generation green energy by 2020.
The tally for all participants would be $30 billion per year in 2021, but again, Congress and Trump will have a say in the United States' share.
Asked whether he thinks the next administration will support the initiative, Moniz instead said Trump's transition is "underway governmentwide," and that the Obama administration will make all of its activities public before handing over the keys.
"One thing that President Obama has made very clear to all of us in his Cabinet, quite clearly, is we will run a very professional transition, just as he benefited from from the Bush administration," he said. "We are all, in the end, on the same team."
The reticence of U.S. officials here to discuss the election of a man who has described climate change as a "hoax" perpetuated by the Chinese and promised to cancel the Paris Agreement has left other counties grappling with the sudden shift themselves.
"When you run a particular campaign, there are many promises you make, and then, when you take office, you are surrounded by able, clever senior advisers that can really tell you what the state of play is," said Tosi Mpanu-Mpanu, chairman of the least-developed countries negotiating group. "And then, at times, you tend to adjust."
But if poor countries in Africa and elsewhere are willing to find ways to ratchet down their own emissions despite extremely limited means, he said, "then I think a party like the U.S. that has capacity, that has the money, should be ashamed not to do so."
Sarkozy: E.U. should tax U.S. goods
Moniz shared the stage with European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Cañete, who has said he is "optimistic" that the United States will remain in the deal even under Trump.
France is in the midst of an election of its own and has been the source of some of the bluntest anti-Trump rhetoric, ranging from President François Hollande's take that the billionaire American's rise ushers in an era of "uncertainty" to Foreign Minister Ségolène Royal's view that a U.S. withdrawal from Paris would be "absolutely catastrophic."
And former President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is running again for the job, has proposed levying a carbon tariff on goods from countries that do not "apply environmental rules that we are imposing on our countries."
Sarkozy years ago proposed similar penalties for countries that did not comply with the Kyoto Protocol, but the proposal was targeted at China and other countries and did not progress.
U.S. observers here generally say Trump's stance will be set by whom he appoints to his top adviser posts. One noted that while Trump has tapped some transition team members who are strident climate science disbelievers — notably Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Center for Energy and Environment, to head his U.S. EPA transition team — other members of his team are moderate.
Nat Keohane, vice president for international climate change at the Environmental Defense Fund, said he doubts Pershing and the rest of the U.S. delegation have been spending all their time at the summit apologizing for the coming Trump era.
"I'm sure they're getting questions about it," he said, but added that all parties have their work cut out for them in Marrakech as they determine when and how to write the Paris rulebook.
But he acknowledged that the election has created some "uncertainty" among parties. "And that uncertainty will last until we figure out what that administration will do," he said.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/11/15/stories/1060045754
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