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ACC PM 11/23/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump on Manufacturing, Reshoring and Trade
Nov 23, 2016 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
President-elect Donald Trump, sometimes called our Twitterer-in-Chief, seems also to be vying for the title of Reshorer-in-Chief. -
(ACC Mentioned) Reacting to Trump, VDMA Praises Free Trade
Nov 23, 2016 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
Germany’s large and export-oriented plastics machinery industry issued an unusual statement Nov. 23 decrying “any form of protectionism” and highlighting the importance of U.S. and Mexican markets, saying it was reacting to plans from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to renegotiate NAFTA. -
(ACC Mentioned) Autumn Leaves and PP Fall in October
Nov 23, 2016 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
North American polypropylene prices in October continued their rollicking ride through 2016 with a decrease, while prices for PET bottle resin and PVC both rose. -
(ACC Mentioned) James Quintero Says Salmonella and Other Illnesses Spiked After San Francisco Banned Plastic Bags
Nov 23, 2016 | Politifact
By W. Gardner Selby
Reused grocery bags made Californians sick, a conservative Texas analyst suggested. -
Trump's U.N. Pick Opposed EPA Climate Rule but Mostly Avoids the Issue
Nov 23, 2016 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to represent the U.S. at the United Nations does not have much of a record on climate change, an area where international diplomats are nervous of the incoming administration’s plans. -
Wanted for Top Jobs: Chemistry, Vision — Trump Spokesman
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
As President-elect Donald Trump continues to deliberate over Cabinet positions, chemistry and a shared vision will be among his top considerations, a Trump spokesman said today. -
Trump's Environmental Evangelist
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
Ed Russo has been getting a lot of phone calls from worried environmentalists. -
Trump Adviser Peter Thiel Hard to Pin Down
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
In recent years, Donald Trump adviser Peter Thiel questioned whether the Earth was getting warmer, outlined a nuclear plan to solve climate change, invested in renewable companies and called clean tech a "disaster." -
Environmental Risk Assessment of EDCs ‘Scientifically Sound’
Nov 23, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Philip Lightowlers
An international conference, hosted by the Fresenius Academy in Bonn last week, heard that leading scientists have reached a consensus that environmental risk assessment for endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) is scientifically sound. -
US FDA Finalises Sunscreen Ingredient Safety and Effectiveness Guidance
Nov 23, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US FDA has finalised its guidance on the safety and effectiveness data for over-the-counter sunscreen ingredients. -
Despite a Friendly White House, Natural Gas in for 'Rocky Times'
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Environmentalists who have waged a fight against natural gas as a bridge fuel away from coal say they'll make their opposition louder as President-elect Donald Trump's administration pushes for even more pipelines and production. -
Environmentalists Lament Trump Oil, Natural Gas Pipeline Push
Nov 23, 2016 | Platts
By Harry Weber
Developers of cross-border oil and gas pipelines are gearing up for a freer hand in completing projects under the new administration, even as President-elect Donald Trump takes his "America First" message to Washington. -
Trump Eyes Oil, Natural Gas Regulations for Repeal
Nov 23, 2016 | Platts
By Brian Scheid and Maya Weber
President-elect Donald Trump announced in a video posted to YouTube November 21 that he planned to roll back some Obama administration regulations on the energy sector on his first day in office. -
Spill-Tainted Company Proposes Dakota Access Connector
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
A company being investigated for the largest oil spill in North Dakota's history has announced plans to construct a 3.2-mile extension to connect to the embattled Dakota Access pipeline. -
PHMSA Chief Expects Agency Reforms to be Preserved
Nov 23, 2016 | Platts
By Jasmin Melvin
Efforts undertaken in the past 18 months to improve productivity and turn the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration into a more proactive, innovative and forward looking agency are not expected to be undermined by President-elect Donald Trump, the current head of the agency told state utility regulators November 15. -
Company Plans Largest New Oil Plant in 40 Years
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
A Houston company will break ground next year on the biggest new oil refinery in the country in almost 40 years. -
Eastern States' Push for Ozone Cuts Faces Uncertainty Under Trump EPA
Nov 23, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Eastern states are pushing ahead with calls for EPA to force upwind states to reduce their ozone-forming emissions through direct regulation and stricter federal rules on ozone transport in order to help the downwind states attain federal air standards, but the states' strategy faces an uncertain future under President-elect Donald Trump. -
Is Trump's New 'Open Mind' a Sign of Growth or Dealmaking?
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Evan Lehmann
President-elect Donald Trump's suggestion yesterday that he has an "open mind" about the Paris climate agreement is a sign that he's adapting to the realities of leading a world power, rather than a campaign, according to observers.
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(ACC Mentioned) Trump on Manufacturing, Reshoring and Trade
Nov 23, 2016 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
President-elect Donald Trump, sometimes called our Twitterer-in-Chief, seems also to be vying for the title of Reshorer-in-Chief.
In what seems to be a pattern for how he’ll deal with business executives, Trump yesterday described a phone conversation with Apple CEO Tim Cook. It sounded like not very subtle pressure on Cook to make more Apple products in the United States.
Here’s Trump, according to a transcript of a long interview he gave to The New York Times on Nov. 22 — his longest interview with any media since winning the election:
“I got a call from Tim Cook at Apple, and I said, ‘Tim, you know one of the things that will be a real achievement for me is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States, or many big plants in the United States, where instead of going to China, and going to Vietnam, and going to the places that you go to, you’re making your product right here.’
“He said, ‘I understand that.’ I said: ‘I think we’ll create the incentives for you, and I think you’re going to do it. We’re going for a very large tax cut for corporations, which you’ll be happy about.’ “
That’s Mr. Trump’s version, of course. I wonder how Mr. Cook would describe it. Still, no matter how it went down, how’d you like to be on Cook’s end of that call? That’s where he earns his money.
I recently saw this article talking about what Apple does and doesn’t make in the United States.
Most of its products are not made in the U.S., of course, but the article looks at jobs created by the company domestically, and claims that making the iPhone in the United States would add $100 to the cost of each phone.
But back to President-elect Trump. I would encourage reading The New York Timestranscript. He talks about having other conversations with business executives similar to the one he had with Cook, and he hinted there will be corporate announcements over the next couple of months.
At times, he uses a lot of dark language about how U.S. manufacturing is always getting beat, language I find off-putting and a lot of people who work in the industry might also find off-putting:
“We can’t beat anybody, we don’t win anymore. At anything. We don’t win on the border, we don’t win with trade.”
Really? We don’t win at anything?
At another point he says: “We don’t make anything. But we’re going to. … We’re going to have more factories. We can’t lose 70,000 factories. Just can’t do it. We’re going to start making things.”
And, he said this on Monday that his “simple core principle” would be “putting America first” so that the “next generation of products and innovation” happen in the United States.
That’s a worthwhile goal, of course, but it’s also not a simple problem, where you can make a statement, wave a wand and boom, solve it.
Business groups like the American Chemistry Council say that the trade deals that Trump vilifies are actually very important to getting the maximum benefit from the $175 billion that the industry is investing in new production related to shale gas.
If the U.S. starts to carelessly tear up trade deals and say, substantially increase tariffs on manufactured goods from China, what happens if China decides to buy Airbus planes instead of Boeing, or if they cut back on purchases of U.S. soybeans, which would hurt some of the rural voters who supported Trump.
In the interview, Trump is asked about robots, and he seems to acknowledge that the increasing use of robots also holds down the number of jobs that could be created.
I would love to have a crystal ball looking ahead four years.
It seems like it’s possible that we could look back on a Trump administration that helped give a shot in the arm to U.S. manufacturers, and pursue more forceful policy options than the government has done. Or we could see that they’ll discover it’s not so simple.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20161123/BLOG03/161129926/trump-on-manufacturing-reshoring-and-trade
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(ACC Mentioned) Reacting to Trump, VDMA Praises Free Trade
Nov 23, 2016 | Plastics News
By Steve Toloken
Germany’s large and export-oriented plastics machinery industry issued an unusual statement Nov. 23 decrying “any form of protectionism” and highlighting the importance of U.S. and Mexican markets, saying it was reacting to plans from U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to renegotiate NAFTA.
The Frankfurt, Germany-based VDMA trade association noted that the United States was Germany’s largest export market in 2015 for plastics and rubber machinery, at 719 million euros ($757.6 million), surpassing China.
It also said German plastics and rubber machinery exports to Mexico rose 50 percent last year, to 168 million euros ($177 million), making it the fourth-largest market. VDMA expects German machinery exports to remain strong to those two countries.
“Existing free trade agreements are of fundamental importance for this,” said Thorsten Kühmann, managing director of the VDMA Plastics and Rubber Machinery Association. “Any form of protectionism on the other hand will be damaging to the business activities of all concerned.”
Kühmann confirmed that the release, while it does not mention Trump directly, is timed around the President-elect’s comments.
The association said that in the case of Mexico, the “strong rate of growth may also be explained by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has dismantled trade barriers in the region.”
None of the statistics in VDMA’s statement were new: the association had presented the details of its exports to both the U.S. and Mexico in extensive comments earlier this year.
“We are concerned as we believe that global trade needs open markets,” Kühmann said in an email to Plastics News. “Trade agreements will have a positive effect on [global] trade!”
In Trump’s campaign statements, he said his administration would “tell NAFTA partners that we intend to immediately renegotiate the terms of that agreement to get a better deal for our workers.”
In a Nov. 22 interview with editors and reporters at The New York Times, his most extensive with journalists since winning the election, he repeated those themes.
“We can’t beat anybody, we don’t win anymore. At anything,” he said, according to a transcript the newspaper posted on its website. “We don’t win on the border, we don’t win with trade.”
In a video released Nov. 21 outlining his first 100 days in office, Trump did not mention NAFTA but said he would withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade talks.
He said his core principle would be “putting America first” and he said that he would “want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here on our great homeland, America.”
Since the election, other plastics associations have defended trade.
The Washington-based American Chemistry Council, in a Nov. 9 post-election statement, called for “sound trade frameworks” to help realize the potential of shale gas-related investments.
“As one of our nation’s largest exporting industries, robust trade in raw materials and finished products helps fuel the growth of our sector here at home,” ACC said.
“The $175 billion in investment in new factories and expanded production capacity by chemical producers, thanks to domestic shale gas, has positioned the U.S. to substantially grow its role as a premier supplier of essential materials for markets around the world,” it said, “but reaching that potential will require sound trade frameworks.
“We agree that trade should be fair, and also know firsthand that trade can unlock potential in our economy and create jobs here at home,” ACC said.
ACC officials have previously said both TTP and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership talks underway with Europe were important first steps in its trade agenda. VDMA said it would still support TTIP.
A Nov. 9 statement from the Society of the Plastics Industry Inc. in Washington did not mention trade, instead discussing natural resources, chemical health laws, tax policy and state and local restrictions on plastic products.
Some Trump administration transition officials have suggested that renegotiating NAFTA could involve much less dramatic sounding steps, such as stepping up annual reviews, or in the case of other countries, targeted tariffs less likely to draw major retaliation and prompt bigger trade conflicts. But the incoming administration’s plans remain unclear, leading to uncertainty in business circles.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20161123/NEWS/161129927/reacting-to-trump-vdma-praises-free-trade
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(ACC Mentioned) Autumn Leaves and PP Fall in October
Nov 23, 2016 | Plastics News
By Frank Esposito
North American polypropylene prices in October continued their rollicking ride through 2016 with a decrease, while prices for PET bottle resin and PVC both rose.
Regional PP prices slid 1.5 cents per pound in October, following a similar price decrease in polymer-grade propylene feedstock. PP prices had soared a total of 9.5 cents per pound in August-September as inventories tightened. But those hikes came only after prices had fallen for five straight months — knocking a total of 10 cents off of PP prices — because of a big increase in availability of imported PP.
Taking into account prior increases and decreases, regional PP prices now are up a net of 2 cents per pound since Jan. 1.
Propylene prices are falling as inventories are trending up, according to Scott Newell, a market analyst with Resin Technology Inc. in Fort Worth, Texas. Supply/demand balances have improved for propylene monomer, he added.
North American PP sales were up 0.8 percent in the first nine months of 2016, according to the American Chemistry Council. Domestic sales essentially were flat for that period, while export sales surged almost 38 percent.
Although the overall domestic PP market was flat, some end markets did experience sales growth through September. In the sheet market, sales were up almost 5 percent. Domestic sales of PP into injection molded rigid packaging were up more than 2 percent.
Feedstock, Matthew drive up PET prices
Regional prices for PET bottle resin ticked up an average of 1 cent per pound in October, matching a similar increase in September. Higher feedstock prices played a role in the increase, as did temporary shutdowns of regional PET production because of Hurricane Matthew.
PET maker DAK Americas LLC operated under force majeure conditions at its plants in Fayetteville, N.C.; and Columbia and Charleston, S.C., from Oct. 10 until Nov. 1, a company spokesman said. Market sources added that rail deliveries of PET from the region also were affected by the storm.
Prior to the back-to-back 1-cent hikes, regional PET prices had slipped by 1 cent per pound in August. For the year, PET prices in the region now are up a net of 2 cents per pound. Regional PET sales are expected to be flat at best in 2016, as increased sales into bottled water struggle to offset ongoing drops in the carbonated soft drink market.
PVC rises
North American PVC resin prices jumped an average of 2 cents per pound in October, ending a streak of four consecutive months of flat pricing. Prices for the material hadn’t moved since rising 2 cents per pound in June. Market sources said that the October increase resulted from improving inventories and higher feedstock prices.
Through September, U.S./Canadian PVC sales were up almost 5 percent, according to ACC, with domestic sales growth of almost 5 percent augmented by a similar surge in export sales. Sales of the material into its flagship rigid pipe and tubing sector were up more than 7 percent in that period.
The U.S. housing market is on track to record around 1.2 million housing starts this year, which would be up almost 10 percent from 2015. More than 60 percent of domestic PVC sales went into construction markets in the first nine months of 2016.
PE, PS flat
Regional prices for polyethylene and polystyrene resins were flat in October, which had to come as a relief to buyers. Selling prices for PE had jumped by a nickel in September after being flat for four straight months. PE supplies had tightened as a result of several planned maintenance turnarounds and unplanned outages in the region.
U.S./Canadian PE demand growth was mixed in the first nine months of 2016, according to ACC. Regional sales of high density PE were up more than 3 percent, while sales of linear low density PE grew almost 1 percent and those of low density PE declined more than 1 percent.
Domestic high density PE sales growth of 2 percent was boosted by export sales growth of almost 8 percent in the eight-month period. For linear low density PE, a domestic sales jump of more than 2 percent was lessened by a drop of more than 4 percent in the export market. The regional LDPE field saw domestic sales growth of more than 2 percent wiped out by a drop of 12 percent in export sales.
For solid PS, October prices were flat even as prices for benzene feedstock dipped by 20 cents per gallon. Market sources said that short-term production issues for PS prevented prices from following benzene in a downward direction. PS prices had climbed 3 cents in September, marking the second straight upward move for the material. The market had seen a 2-cent hike in August.
Regional PS prices are up a net of 6 cents per pound since Jan. 1. North American PS sales through September were down 0.4 percent compared to the same period in 2015, according to ACC. Sales of the material into food packaging and food service — its largest end market — were up almost 1 percent.
http://www.plasticsnews.com/article/20161123/NEWS/161129932/autumn-leaves-and-pp-fall-in-october
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Nov 23, 2016 | Politifact
By W. Gardner Selby
Reused grocery bags made Californians sick, a conservative Texas analyst suggested.
James Quintero, director of the Center for Local Governance at the Austin-based Texas Public Policy Foundation, brought up health implications of shoppers reusing bags during an Oct. 10, 2016, SXSW Eco panel discussion.
"There are health consequences in that," Quintero said. "I believe this is in San Francisco: When they enacted their bag ban, you saw the number of instances of people going to the ER with things like salmonella and other related illnesses—you saw that number spike."
Someone on the panel responded: "Wait, that’s curious. I never heard that before."
Quintero replied: "So you have a reusable bag, right? And then of course, people don’t clean out these bags. So when you mix meat with vegetables and fruits and other goods, and you don’t clean out that bag on a regular basis, then people are susceptible to foodborne illnesses."
Take note: Health authorities recommend you wash bags regularly used to carry meats and vegetables.
For this fact check, we were curious about what happened when San Francisco banned plastic bags.
Quintero cites professors’ paper
We asked a foundation spokeswoman, Caroline Espinosa, to share the basis of Quintero’s claim. By email, Espinosa pointed us to a November 2012 paper, "Grocery Bag Bans and Foodborne Illness," by Jonathan Klick and Joshua Wright, law professors at the University of Pennsylvania and George Mason University, respectively.
In their write-up, posted by a University of Pennsylvania research center, the authors noted that San Francisco County barred large supermarkets and pharmacies from using "non-compostable plastic checkout bags," effective Oct. 20, 2007. In 2012, the county’s board of supervisors "expanded the non-compostable plastic checkout bag ban to cover all retail and food establishments in" the county, effective Oct. 1, 2012, the paper says, also requiring stores to charge at least a dime for any bag provided.
"To analyze emergency room visits," the authors wrote, "we used the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development’s Emergency Department and Ambulatory Surgery Data for each quarter from 2005-2010. These data provide the county of residence of each person admitted to a California ER, as well as the principal diagnosis for the individual using ICD-9 codes. Given the prevalence of coliform bacteria, especially E. coli, in reusable grocery bags, we focus on ER visits involving E. coli," the two said.
And? The San Francisco bag ban is "associated with a statistically significant and particularly large increase in ER visits for E. Coli infections. We find increases between one fourth and two thirds, suggesting an increase in visits between 72 and 191 annually," the paper said.
All told, the authors said, the bag ban there is "associated with a 46 percent increase in deaths from foodborne illnesses. This implies an increase of 5.5 annual deaths for the county." On the other hand, the study’s small sample size make "any inferential claims" tentative, the authors wrote.
We emailed and telephoned each professor and didn’t hear back.
San Francisco County memo
Hunting perspective, we then ran the authors’ names through the Nexis news database. That query led us to a March 2013 story posted by Texas-based D Magazine stating a San Francisco health officer had spelled out flaws in the professors’ paper.
That story included a web link to a Feb. 8, 2013, memo from a San Francisco County health officer, Tomás Aragon, to Eileen Shields, a county public health information officer. The memo said the county Department of Public Health had reviewed the professors’ paper which, the officer noted, "has not been submitted for rigorous scientific peer review and publication."
Generally, the memo states, "Klick & Wright’s conclusion that San Francisco’s policy of banning of plastic bags has caused a significant increase in gastrointestinal bacterial infections and a ‘46 percent increase in the deaths from foodborne illnesses’ is not warranted."
One weakness, the memo says, was that the professors presumed a link between reusable bags and a seeming spike in gastrointestinal bacterial infections--yet they failed to establish the link. "Drawing causal conclusions from this type of study is called an ‘ecological fallacy,’" the memo states. "The basic study flaw is that persons that use reusable bags frequently may not be the same persons that were diagnosed with gastrointestinal bacterial infections in their study. This is the reason epidemiologists will not use ecological studies to test causal hypotheses. At best, ecologic studies raise epidemiologic causal hypotheses but cannot test them."
The memo continues: "In testing causal hypotheses, it is necessary to measure the outcome (gastrointestinal infections) and exposure to the putative cause (reusable bags) in the same persons. Because of their study design, this was not possible."
Also, the memo says that in "testing causal hypotheses, it is necessary to ‘control for’ alternative causal explanations (called ‘confounders’). Because of their study design, this was not possible. For example, gastrointestinal bacterial infections are not only caused from contaminated food, but also from contaminated water, improper food handling or preparation, or from person-to-person spread (such as sexual activity, especially in men who have sex with men). In any causal study, investigators always adjust for the ‘usual suspects,’" the memo says.
Moreover, the memo notes that the study’s focus on illnesses identified in emergency rooms misses that people seek care at other places--or not at all--leaving the data incomplete. Alternatively, the memo says, laboratory-confirmed diagnoses reported to the health department are "the proper basis for surveillance of microbiological data on these infections in our population."
The official went on to say there had been increases in some illnesses oft linked to food. Specifically, according to the memo, health department data show an increase in campylobacteriosis, one of the most common causes of diarrheal illness. Then again, the memo says, there was no detected increase in salmonellosis or enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli, which is transmitted by food or water contaminated with animal or human feces.
"Interpreting these changes is not straightforward," the memo continues. "The epidemiology of enteric pathogens in San Francisco differs compared to surrounding counties because we are an urban center with a larger population of ethnic immigrants and men who have sex with men (MSM)," the memo states. "Research studies need to adjust for these population differences."
The memo also disputes the professors’ conclusions about deaths going up after the bag ban, mostly by declaring that 111 of the 140 San Francisco deaths from 2001 through 2010 figuring into the paper were attributed to Enterocolitis due to Clostridium difficile--an intestinal infection most commonly tied to exposure to antibiotics, particularly among hospitalized patients. "Foodborne exposures is not yet an established cause of C. difficile enterocolitis, but is an active area of research," the memo says, going on to say the authors shouldn’t have included C. difficile deaths in their analysis.
Summing up, the memo says "the idea that widespread use of reusable bags may cause gastrointestinal infections if they are not regularly cleaned is plausible. However, the hypothesis that there is a significant increase in gastrointestinal foodborne illnesses and deaths due to reusable bags has not been tested, much less demonstrated in this study. It would be a disservice to San Francisco residents and visitors to alarm them by claiming that it has been. It could be useful, however, to remind people to use safe food-handling practices, including maintaining the cleanliness of everything they use to transport, handle, and prepare food."
We asked San Francisco County if there had been any response by the professors to the county’s memo. Nancy Sarieh of the public health department told us by email: "They did respond. We agreed to disagree and they have not updated their paper."
In February 2013, we otherwise noticed, commentator Debra J. Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle quoted Klick saying he cannot "rule out the possibility that there was something peculiar that happened in San Francisco."
A Texas expert
Separately, we asked Dr. Philip Huang, the medical director for the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department, to take a look at the paper posted by Penn plus the San Francisco County memo.
Huang said by phone that the Penn paper, limited to ER admissions, missed the fact that individuals who take sick from food are treated by private doctors or don’t even seek health care. Notably too, Huang said, the researchers failed to consider the health surveillance data later cited by the county.
"I mean, who knows? You can get a spike" in illness "and there could have been something else going on in the community that is totally unrelated," Huang said. "I think the people who are closest to the data in their own community would have the best perspective." From ER admissions alone, Huang said, "certainly the data is not there to make any conclusions about this."
Foundation notes other accounts
Next, we circled back to Espinosa, the foundation spokeswoman, about the memo disputing the professors’ analysis and Huang’s comments. By email, Espinosa pointed out a 2011 peer-reviewed study, partly supported by the American Chemistry Council, finding that among reusable bags randomly collected from consumers entering grocery stores in the San Francisco area, Los Angeles and Tucson, E. coli were identified in 8 percent of bags plus a "wide range of enteric bacteria," according to the authors including Charles P. Gerba of the University of Arizona.
"When meat juices were added to bags and stored in the trunks of cars for two hours, the number of bacteria increased 10-fold, indicating the potential for bacterial growth in the bags," the authors wrote. "Hand or machine washing was found to reduce the bacteria in bags by > 99.9%. These results indicate that reusable bags, if not properly washed on a regular basis, can play a role in the cross-contamination of foods. "
Espinosa also noted a May 2012 Los Angeles Times news story describing an Oregon outbreak affecting nine soccer players who had come in contact with a reused grocery bag. The story said one of the girls got sick shortly after arrival, from a norovirus she presumably acquired prior to the trip, Dr. Kimberly K. Repp of the Oregon Health and Science University and Dr. William E. Keene of the Oregon Public Health Division reported in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
"The sick girl was then isolated in the room of one of the chaperones," the Times reported. "Nonetheless, eight other girls became ill. The investigation showed that the virus was found on a reusable grocery bag that had been used to store snacks for the team. It had, unfortunately, been stored in the bathroom," the story said. When the sick girl used the bathroom, the norovirus was aerosolized and deposited on the bag, where it was later transferred to other girls when they got snacks.
Our ruling
Quintero said that when San Francisco banned plastic grocery bags, "you saw the number of instances of people going to the ER with things like salmonella and other related illnesses" spike.
This declaration relied on a study that took a correlation between ER cases and San Francisco’s phased-in bag ban to declare ties between the reported illnesses and the ban. However, the county raised serious questions about the study methodology and conclusions, which were overly simplistic.
We rate this statement Mostly False.
MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here formore on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check.
http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2016/nov/23/james-quintero/james-quintero-says-salmonella-and-other-illnesses/
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Trump's U.N. Pick Opposed EPA Climate Rule but Mostly Avoids the Issue
Nov 23, 2016 | Politico Pro - Whiteboard
By Annie Snider
President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to represent the U.S. at the United Nations does not have much of a record on climate change, an area where international diplomats are nervous of the incoming administration’s plans.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has opposed the Obama administration’s efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions but avoided saying whether she believes climate change is real. Trump’s team announced today she will be nominated as U.N. ambassador, which a senior adviser said will be a Cabinet-level position in his administration.
"This is exactly what we don't need. … That's what's going to keep companies away," she said of EPA’s Clean Power Plan at a gathering of electric cooperatives in 2014, according to The Post and Courier.
The EPA rule, which Trump has pledged to undo, is key to hitting the U.S. emission-reduction target as part of the Paris Climate Accord, which Trump has promised to cancel.
The president-elect appeared to hedge on his climate change plans in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, but he has tapped an ardent proponent of a quick exit from the Paris deal to oversee his State Department transition team. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said last week that he was hopeful Trump would come around on climate change.
While South Carolina’s Republican attorney general joined 23 other states in suing to block the Clean Power Plan, Haley was not among the handful of governors, including Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who had threatened not to comply with the climate plan.
Greens have also criticized the governor for squashing a state Department of Natural Resources report on the expected impacts of climate change on South Carolina, ranging from flooded homes to invasive species.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Wanted for Top Jobs: Chemistry, Vision — Trump Spokesman
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
As President-elect Donald Trump continues to deliberate over Cabinet positions, chemistry and a shared vision will be among his top considerations, a Trump spokesman said today.
"What's really going to drive the president-elect is the judgment and decisionmaking strengths that he looks at with potential applicants to any position," Trump transition spokesman Jason Miller told reporters.
"I think they'll be looking for things like chemistry, experience, a similar vision in what the president-elect and vice president-elect are trying to do with this administration," Miller added. "Ultimately, whoever the president-elect does pick will be someone who will be the absolute top caliber. We've seen that so far not just with the picks that will be announced, but I think you'll continue to see that ultimately driving it."
Trump has announced several of his Cabinet choices already, including Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) for CIA director and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Additional nominations are expected in the coming weeks, including selections for U.S. EPA and the Interior and Energy departments.
Some potential Trump picks have already started to cause rifts within the Republican Party.
Amid reports that Trump is considering former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) to become secretary of State, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) said today that such a pick would be an "insult" to Trump's voters.
Speaking today on Fox News, Huckabee said Romney did "everything he could to derail Donald Trump" during the campaign.
In a March speech in Salt Lake City, Romney sharply repudiated Trump. "I'm afraid that when it comes to foreign policy, he is very, very not smart," Romney said. "Now, I am far from the first to conclude that Donald Trump lacks the temperament to be president."
Given Romney's comments, Huckabee said today, "There's only one way that I think Mitt Romney could even be considered for a post like that, and that is that he goes to a microphone in a very public place and repudiates everything he said in that famous Salt Lake City speech and everything he said after that, where he said Donald Trump wasn't fit, that he lacked character and on and on."
Asked today whether Trump was considering Romney for the Cabinet job, Miller said, "No decision has been made yet on that position." Trump is "looking at a number of very highly qualified potential choices there." The secretary of State position "is something that the president-elect is spending significant time on," Miller added.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/11/23/stories/1060046210
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Trump's Environmental Evangelist
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Robin Bravender
Ed Russo has been getting a lot of phone calls from worried environmentalists.
"Everybody's pretty nervous. I've been getting calls from all across the country and beyond," Russo said in an interview this week. "They all want to know the same thing: 'What's going to happen, Ed? What are we going to do?'"
Trump's longtime environmental adviser tells them to relax.
His advice for greens: "Roll up your sleeves and go back to work. Deal with practical environmental solutions." He predicts that Trump will be "one of the strongest practical environmental presidents because he understands the environment."
Russo, 70, has worked as an environmental consultant for the Trump Organization since 2001. Earlier this year, he released a book called "Donald J. Trump: An Environmental Hero."
It chronicles how Russo, a longtime environmental advocate who was skeptical of Trump's motives, was won over as Trump gave him leeway to develop what he views as aggressive sustainability plans for major development projects — including golf courses in New Jersey, Scotland and along the Potomac River in Virginia.
"I was able to do a lot of significant and sometimes spectacular environmental improvements, and he was the genesis for it," Russo said.
When Russo tells Trump's critics the title of his self-published book, he said, "You can see their brain starting to melt. They can't accept this."
He tells them, "OK, calm down. Let's take location after location after location. None of this was a condition of approval [for Trump's developments]. None of this was required. He did it, why? Because he thinks he's doing the right thing."
Trump's surprise election win has been very good for Russo — and his book.
"I have a lot more friends today than I had three weeks ago," he said yesterday.
As for book sales, "They're starting to move now. I gave away more than I've sold, because nobody takes this seriously." But now, "it's like, 'Hey, guess what, pal? He's president. You better take it seriously.'"
In addition to the nervous calls from some of his friends, he's been getting calls from radio stations and newspapers wanting to interview him about what Trump might do on the environment.
Russo noted that Trump has already softened his tone after taking some hard-line stances on climate change and other environmental issues. Yesterday, for example, he indicated that he'd keep an open mind on the Paris climate accord, after he previously pledged to withdraw the United States.
"As you heard ... he's backing off of his position on the climate change, which I knew, and who cares?" Russo said. "It's going to be fine. It's going to be great."
Russo criticized the environmental movement for concentrating too much on climate change and not enough on other problems like dirty air and dirty water.
"This is all bullshit, it's a distraction," he said. "We haven't done good environmental work since we got rid of acid rain and we cleaned up some rivers, and then all of a sudden, [former Vice President Al] Gore came out with this 'Inconvenient Truth,' which was really an inconvenient distraction. It got environmentalists to stop doing good environmental work. It's like everybody hides behind global warming."
Meanwhile, he said, problems like lead in Flint, Mich.'s contaminated water supplies and toxic waste dumps across his home state of New Jersey haven't gotten proper attention.
"Let's talk about all this nebulous bullshit amorphous nothing, when in your town, in my town, in county and state and countries, there's environmental things happening that we have to clean up right now which will have an effect on climate change, and that's what it should be. Not everybody going on vacation because everybody's hiding behind the Paris summit. It's bullshit."
He added, "We've got to roll up our sleeves and start doing shit."
Russo said he's still close to Trump, and he and his wife were with the billionaire at the New York Hilton as results rolled in on Election Day. In a photo of Trump of that night that appeared in People magazine, Russo said, his wife was visible, but only his chin and hand made the shot.
He said he's advising the transition team "in an obtuse way" and is recommending people for jobs, "but not in an official capacity."
He might serve in the administration, he said. "I'm very loyal to the Trump family, and I don't want to rule it out. When a president asks you to do something, you can never say no. But my loyalty is with the Trump family. They come first."
Russo is former chairman of the planning board of Bedminster Township, N.J., and co-chairman of the Bedminster Township Environmental Commission. He first crossed paths with Trump when the real estate mogul was looking for environmental advice as he sought to develop the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster.
Russo relocated years ago to the Florida Keys and proudly noted that he was a finalist in Key West's Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest in 2005.
"That's when I had hair and a big beard. Now I'm bald and I just have a very short white beard. So I look very different than the Hemingway I was in 2005," Russo said.
During a phone interview from the Key West Yacht Club last night, Russo paused to heckle a friend.
"I want that drink," he said to his friend Richard from the restaurant store.
Russo explained the exchange: "He was just mocking me to death over the last year, and it's the first time I saw him after the election.
"This guy thought Hillary was going to win by 10 points," he said, laughing. "I can't wait for that drink."
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/11/23/stories/1060046222
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Trump Adviser Peter Thiel Hard to Pin Down
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
By Christa Marshall
In recent years, Donald Trump adviser Peter Thiel questioned whether the Earth was getting warmer, outlined a nuclear plan to solve climate change, invested in renewable companies and called clean tech a "disaster."
The seemingly contradictory views of Thiel — a venture capitalist, ardent libertarian and the co-founder of PayPal Holdings Inc. — are under scrutiny after The Washington Post reported this week he was aiming to build a network of Silicon Valley insiders to advise the president-elect.
Trump's team chose Thiel to be a central member of the transition team this month. Whether he is offering views on energy remains uncertain.
His most recent detailed comments on the topic were right before last year's climate talks in Paris, when he called for more nuclear power in a New York Times op-ed called "The new atomic age we need."
"The single most important action we can take is thawing a nuclear energy policy that keeps our technology frozen in time," Thiel wrote.
"If we are serious about replacing fossil fuels, we are going to need nuclear power, so the choice is stark," he said. "We can keep on merely talking about a carbon-free world, or we can go ahead and create one."
In the essay, he discusses how deaths from coal-fired power plants are much greater than those from the Fukushima Daiichi and Chernobyl nuclear disasters.
He also called for a broader plan to fund the next generation of reactors, similar to how the government built a test facility at the Idaho National Laboratory in the 1940s to boost the nuclear industry.
As with many energy issues, Trump's current plans for nuclear power are unclear, although he includes it in an overall strategy.
Thiel's comments in the op-ed about the global warming "problem" stand in contrast to ones he made a year earlier in an interview with conservative radio host Glenn Beck.
At the time, Thiel said that when people use the word "science," as they do with climate science, it's a sign they are bluffing.
Unlike subjects like political science, Thiel said, some disciplines are called simply "physics" or "chemistry" and not "physical science" because "we know they're right."
Thiel told Beck: "The weather has not been getting warmer for the last 15 years. The hockey stick that Al Gore predicted in the early 2000s on the climate has not happened."
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said that 15 of the 16 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001.
Fracking, fusion, renewables
When it comes to hydraulic fracturing, during a speech in 2014, Thiel said "we should not overestimate" its importance, according to The Dallas Morning News.
And he is a supporter of alternative options for fusion energy, considering his backing of Helion Energy Inc. via his Mithril Capital Management investment firm (E&E Daily, May 11, 2015).
Fusion envisions harnessing the same energy reaction that powers the sun and stars. U.S. programs have been struggling as of late, with the recent announcement that a premier facility at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory malfunctioned (E&ENews PM, Sept. 28).
Helion's plan is to move away from "big government projects," according to the company website, and build a system that is 1,000 times smaller and 10 times faster than other machines.
That could jell with lawmakers who have been pushing the Department of Energy to move away from support for big projects like the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, an international effort in southern France to demonstrate fusion at scale.
Helion received almost $4 million from DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
In 2011 at a conference in San Francisco, Thiel called clean tech an increasingly large disaster that "people aren't even talking about any more."
He said, "The failure in energy and transportation points to a larger failure in clean energy — we aren't moving any faster, literally, than we were when modern airplanes first came out."
In his book "Zero to One" and in the Times op-ed, Thiel also was critical of Solyndra Corp., a solar company backed by the Obama administration that went bankrupt in 2011.
"Wind and solar together provide less than 2 percent of the world's energy, and they aren't growing anywhere near fast enough to replace fossil fuels," he wrote.
Other investments
Thiel's investments in recent years included many clean energy companies. His Breakout Labs supported research on projects that aim to harness the waste energy of man-made tornadoes, among other things.
The Thiel Foundation, which Thiel formed in 2011 to support new young entrepreneurs, two years ago funded the startup SunSaluter, which provides specialized solar panels to developing countries.
This year's class of "Thiel fellows" backed by the foundation included startups aiming to bring autonomous vehicles to campuses and trying to build new technology to remove plastic from the oceans.
In 2012, Thiel also joined Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates in supporting LightSail Energy, which is developing a compressed air energy storage system. On its website, the company says storage is the key to unleashing competitive renewable energies.
In other ventures, Thiel backed the Seasteading Institute's quest to build "floating cities" that circumvent regulation and test new energy ideas.
Trump's plans for clean tech and research and development are unknown. In comments to ScienceDebate.org before the election, he called for more innovation with space exploration and "investment in research and development across the broad landscape of academia."
Trump often had a contentious relationship with Silicon Valley leaders during the campaign, but usually for issues not related to energy. The president-elect, for example, repeatedly threatened to force Apple Inc. to make its products in the United States.
In an interview with The New York Times this week, Trump said both Gates and Apple CEO Tim Cook called him after the election. Trump said he told Cook that he would "create the incentives" for Apple to build more plants in the United States.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/11/23/stories/1060046224
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Environmental Risk Assessment of EDCs ‘Scientifically Sound’
Nov 23, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Philip Lightowlers
An international conference, hosted by the Fresenius Academy in Bonn last week, heard that leading scientists have reached a consensus that environmental risk assessment for endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) is scientifically sound.
Consultant ecotoxicologist, Peter Matthiessen, reported that this conclusion was reached at the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (Setac) Pellston workshop, held in Florida earlier this year.
They found that tools for measuring the environmental effects of oestrogenic, androgenic, thyroid and steroidogenic compounds are now largely in place, as are methods for their interpretation and extrapolation to populations, according to Dr Matthiessen.
“Despite the need for continuing development of tools, our workshop concluded that, in most cases, it is possible to establish safe levels for EDCs,” he said. They “do have threshold concentrations for populations and, with adequate data, conducting environmental risk assessment of them is scientifically sound.”
And if such a consensus was possible for the environment, Dr Matthiessen told Chemical Watch, then a similar approach for human health cannot be far behind.
Lennart Weltje, conference chairman and ecotoxicologist at BASF, commented that the Pellston workshop “helped tremendously” in getting a feeling for study quality and what it is like conducting a weight-of-evidence approach.
“In the end, all agreed that risk assessment is fully appropriate, once remaining uncertainties have been addressed,” he added.
Dr Weltje’s views reflect a general feeling, at the conference, that although there were disagreements about EDC criteria, there was greater consensus when data was available and compounds were considered on a case-by-case basis.
Daniel Pickford, a senior ecotoxicologist from Syngenta, presented an examination in Bonn of one such case: the fungicide propiconazole and its endocrine activity.
In vitro assays show the compound is an aromatase enzyme inhibitor and, therefore, likely to cause masculinisation. However, in vivo assays on mammals and birds show no effects, and though there are effects in fish at high doses, environmental exposure is unlikely to reach these levels. Field data show that exposure to the fungicide is erratic and experiments show that fish recovery from any effect is rapid.
So there was agreement on the decision that, on current evidence, propiconazole should not be considered an endocrine disruptor.
Pellston workshop
Against a background of widespread ecological damage caused by EDCs – such as tributyl tin (TBT), synthetic oestrogens and PCBs – Dr Matthiessen said that the Pellston workshop aimed to solve the “fundamental disagreement” on whether it is possible to identify predicted no-effect concentrations (Pnecs) for the compounds.
The question is one of the issues that has led to the divergence between risk-based and hazard-based approaches to regulation in the US and the EU, he added.
The workshop was designed to give regulators advice on environmental hazard and risk assessment of EDCs. It brought together 48 experts representing industry, regulators and academia who conducted case studies on six data-rich endocrine-active substances: vinclozolin, 17β-trenbolone, 17α-ethinylestradiol, perchlorate, propiconazole and TBT.
Work began in October 2015 and continued after the workshop, Dr Matthiessen said. And the results are about to published in the scientific journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management.
The workshop found the key questions to ask about an EDC. These were:
Is prediction or measurement of wildlife exposure reliable?
Have the most appropriate species been tested?
Have the most sensitive life-stages been tested?
Have delayed and multi-generational effects been considered?
Do unusual dose-response curves affect Pnecs?
Does a threshold for adverse endocrine-mediated effects exist?
https://chemicalwatch.com/51177/environmental-risk-assessment-of-edcs-scientifically-sound
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US FDA Finalises Sunscreen Ingredient Safety and Effectiveness Guidance
Nov 23, 2016 | Chemical Watch
By Kelly Franklin
The US FDA has finalised its guidance on the safety and effectiveness data for over-the-counter sunscreen ingredients. But an industry and NGO stakeholder coalition says the approach fails to reflect the current science on ingredient safety assessment.
The agency issued the guidance in support of its implementation of the Sunscreen Innovation Act (SIA). Enacted in November 2014, the law established new procedures and review timelines for the FDA to determine the safety and effectiveness of active sunscreen ingredients, with an aim to streamline a process that has not seen the approval of a new ingredient since the 1990s.
The final guidance, Nonprescription Sunscreen Drug Products – Safety and Effectiveness Data, reflects the FDA's current thinking on the data needed to determine whether a nonprescription sunscreen active ingredient(s) is generally recognised as safe and effective (Grase). The designation is needed to bring a new product to the market.
It also addresses FDA's current thinking about an approach to safety-related final formulation testing that the agency says it anticipates adopting in the future.
But the Public Access to Sunscreens (PASS) coalition – a stakeholder group that includes health NGOs, chemical and sunscreen manufacturers, and dermatologists – said that it is still “disappointed” with the agency’s approach. It “remains inconsistent with the recommendations made by independent scientific reviewers that were published in peer-reviewed literature.”
In comments submitted to the FDA earlier this year, the PASS coalition raised concerns that the agency “applies a new and arbitrary scientific standard regarding carcinogenicity and toxicity tests”, by setting a 0.5 ng/mL blood level safety threshold.
It also took issue with the FDA’s reliance on the maximal usage trial (MUsT) in assessments, which the coalition contended has no “established protocol” for use on sunscreen ingredients.
But in a blog post, Theresa Michele, director of the division of nonprescription drug products at the FDA, says that the MuST is designed to capture the effect of maximal use on absorption into the blood, and is the standard used by the agency for all topically applied drugs.
A joint statement from the Personal Care Products Coalition (PCPC) and the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) said that the final guidance “did not take the industry’s comments into account”, specifically around current approach to toxicological risk assessment.
The latter, said the two industry groups, “has the potential to save significant time and resources, while meeting our shared goal of protecting the public health”.
The PASS coalition did praise the FDA’s incorporation of suggested changes regarding formulations to be tested and body surface area assumptions.
Ingredient backlog
The FDA last approved a new sunscreen ingredient in the 1990s, and has a backlog of eight substance applications that date to as early as 2002.
According to the PASS coalition, substances awaiting approval include those that have been “widely available” in Europe, Asia and other parts of the world, in some cases, for more than 20 years.
Dr Michele said that the FDA has yet to receive the additional data it has identified as necessary for the agency to make a positive Grase determination on these substances.
“FDA is committed to helping to ensure that sunscreens are safe and effective for US consumers, but we need data to move forward,” she said.
In a separate announcement, the FDA finalised the guidance document, Nonprescription Sunscreen Drug Products – Format and Content of Data Submissions.
It is the last of four guidance documents the agency was required to finalise by 26 November, under the SIA.
https://chemicalwatch.com/51219/us-fda-finalises-sunscreen-ingredient-safety-and-effectiveness-guidance
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Despite a Friendly White House, Natural Gas in for 'Rocky Times'
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Emily Holden
Environmentalists who have waged a fight against natural gas as a bridge fuel away from coal say they'll make their opposition louder as President-elect Donald Trump's administration pushes for even more pipelines and production.
Trump is expected to try to fast-track pipeline approvals and boost energy infrastructure as part of a broad package out of Congress.
President Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, in contrast, argued that natural gas should serve only as a transition fuel as the electric system shifts off coal. But climate activists have opposed the scale at which power companies have begun to rely on natural gas and have pushed for a faster move to renewable electricity.
Their challenges to a growing network of plants and pipelines have now become more urgent, they say.
"There's a lot out there that Trump can't change," said the Sierra Club's Dirty Fuels campaign director, Lena Moffitt, noting that renewable power costs will continue to decline quickly even as the Republican administration rolls back climate goals.
But, she added, "the gas industry seems to also be aware of that and is racing to lock in as much continued demand for gas as they possibly can, we think with the direct intention of undercutting."
That's why the Sierra Club has been increasingly focused on fighting natural gas infrastructure investments, "especially over the next couple of years, so that renewables can come in and beat them out from an economic perspective," Moffitt said.
Gas advocates counter that the "keep it in the ground" movement against fossil fuels is shortsighted.
"We have been part of the solution for this administration to reach a lot of their climate goals for Paris," said George Lowe, vice president of federal affairs for the American Gas Association, at a post-election event last week.
Burning natural gas creates about half the carbon dioxide emissions of coal, but the process for extracting and transporting it emits a more potent greenhouse gas, methane. Advances in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, have given the United States access to deep supplies of cheap, lower-carbon fuel but also have raised water-quality concerns around the country. Rapid gas development has prompted some grass-roots revolts against fracking, spurring efforts to ban the process even in conservative cities like Denton, Texas.
Environmental advocates are now opposing Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approvals of pipelines that they say are duplicative and calling for stronger environmental reviews. At the more local level, they are pushing for tougher water quality permits. And they are building alliances with even conservative landowners who are "aghast we would allow fossil fuel companies to come in and take their property without their approval for private gain," Moffitt said.
"We're in for some rocky times; there's no doubt about it," said Terry O'Sullivan, president of the Laborers' International Union of North America, which has been advocating for states to use more natural gas to comply with federal climate standards. LIUNA places more laborers in jobs to build pipelines, although the group also works in renewable infrastructure development.
"We're going to have an energy-friendly president," O'Sullivan said. "We're going to try to capitalize on that ... and the environmental groups will do what the environmental groups are going to do."
Green groups prepares for court
The Sierra Club in late September announced a nationwide $5 million plan to fight natural gas plants and pipelines (Greenwire, Sept. 29).
The group also has ramped up efforts in the Southeast and wants to galvanize local opposition to the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley lines, which would run along similar routes to that region through the Mid-Atlantic.
Nadia Steinzor, Eastern program coordinator for Earthworks, said climate activists will play up what she called Trump's "desire for a federal power grab back from the states," which could anger states'-rights Republicans. Last week, in a win for pipeline opponents, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled in favor of a couple challenging Mountain Valley pipeline surveyors who wanted to access their property.
The Natural Resources Defense Council is deciding how to pick its battles under a Trump administration, said Chief Program Officer Susan Casey-Lefkowitz.
"We're marshaling our resources right now to take a hard look about where we will need to go to court," Casey-Lefkowitz said.
The outlook for natural gas would have been bright under either a Trump or a Clinton administration. Under Clinton, U.S. EPA's now-likely doomed Clean Power Plan would have had a much better chance of moving forward. The American Petroleum Institute just weeks ago issued a report touting the environmental benefits natural gas could offer to states aiming to complying with those power-sector climate rules.
Clinton also would have boosted energy infrastructure, and O'Sullivan said his group could have worked well with her on natural gas policies.
Environmental groups, on the other hand, had hope for a Clean Power Plan 2.0 under Clinton that could have tightened standards and eventually edged states away from natural gas and more toward renewable power.
Still, they believe that even without the rule, the utility sector will continue to decarbonize as wind and solar costs decline.
"The market has really dictated the direction that the U.S. has gone in terms of natural gas development," said Dan Whitten, a spokesman for the Solar Energy Industries Association who previously worked for America's Natural Gas Alliance before it merged with API. "That's also been true, by the way, of the vast growth in demand for solar energy."
The solar trade group expects solar to quadruple over the next four or five years. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said this week that even without the Clean Power Plan, she expects clean energy to keep growing (E&ENews PM, Nov. 21).
Renewable power costs fell so much faster than expected over the last year that many states were already set to achieve their EPA power-sector carbon goals. Energy experts expect that momentum to continue no matter how much Trump favors fossil fuels. They also expect conservatives to leave in place tax credits for green power. The coal industry, however, is also calling for subsidies for carbon capture and sequestration advancements, which could rile free-market politicians.
Nick Loris, an energy economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, cautioned against stacking subsidies on top of one another and encouraging a massive build-out of infrastructure for any energy source.
"That's something that should be of concern to both sides of the aisle," Loris said.
Taking the fight to the Atlantic Coast
Even with solid projections for zero-carbon power, green groups say they need to put up obstacles to gas infrastructure, both to ensure against environmental damages and to slow climate change.
At a summit in Natural Bridge, Va., the weekend after the election, around 170 people gathered to strategize about how to fight the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines.
Lew Freeman, chairman and executive director of the Allegheny-Blue Ridge Alliance, said there was "an extraordinary sense of energy and reinforced commitment."
The utility Dominion is planning the Atlantic Coast pipeline, which would move natural gas from West Virginia through Virginia to North Carolina. Facing environmental concerns, Dominion redrew a previously planned route for the pipeline. That engaged more landowners, Freeman said.
"There are more people now involved in this fight than were a year ago, or even six months ago, when we had an earlier summit," Freeman said. The group includes people who "have never been involved in a public policy issue of this nature," as well as those who consider themselves conservationists and have concerns about pipelines moving through the George Washington National Forest, Freeman said.
"It has brought together conservatives and Democrats and Republicans and a lot of other stripes together over a common cause," Freeman said.
A spokesman for Dominion has said the pipeline would enable the company to power cleaner-burning natural gas plants in order to cut carbon emissions and save consumers money. The Democratic governors of West Virginia and Virginia support the pipeline (Greenwire, Sept. 19).
Those two pipeline projects will still be under review when Trump takes office, and ClearView Energy Partners expects the Trump team to rescind greenhouse gas guidance that environmental advocates and EPA have used to contest FERC environmental reviews.
Scott Janoe, a lawyer who represents oil and gas companies in Houston for Baker Botts, said environmentalists may find a more receptive audience in certain states than under the Trump administration.
But "environmental groups have not been shy about challenging projects over the last few years, so there's no reason to think that things will fundamentally change," he added.
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/11/23/stories/1060046192
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Environmentalists Lament Trump Oil, Natural Gas Pipeline Push
Nov 23, 2016 | Platts
By Harry Weber
Developers of cross-border oil and gas pipelines are gearing up for a freer hand in completing projects under the new administration, even as President-elect Donald Trump takes his "America First" message to Washington.
Trump's promise to loosen regulations on businesses, particularly in the energy industry, to boost jobs comes at a time when US producers are looking for new markets for domestic output and are eager to export.
That means more crude is likely to move between the US and Canada and more gas is likely to move between the US and Mexico, where demand for the power plant fuel is growing.
Operators are already preparing for that potential, as are environmental advocates who vow to fight any move toward a greater reliance on fossil fuels."There is probably a thin, narrow margin that we could collaborate with the next administration," Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said Wednesday during a conference call with reporters. "But things point to more conflict."
Under President Barack Obama, energy executives have complained regularly about the slow pace of permitting pipeline projects, especially ones that cross the border, as agencies including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission have been bombarded by protesters critical of plans for the new infrastructure and Native American groups worried about the impact of potential spills on sacred lands.
New administration eyes faster permitting
Based on comments during the campaign and during the transition since winning the election, Trump is looking to speed things up for energy firms. Among other things, Trump has said he wants to open up federal lands to oil and gas production and revoke policies that restrict new drilling technologies. He also plans to ask TransCanada to renew its permit application for the Keystone XL Pipeline, which the Obama administration rejected, according to his campaign website.
"My sense is that energy firms would likely find a Trump administration to be quite sympathetic to the authorization of such projects," said Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. "I suspect this is a drill-baby-drill crowd that believes the more exports the better, with not a lot of regard for environmental impacts."
Surge seen for US gas exports to Mexico
The shift could be a bonanza for the industry amid the flurry of cross-border pipeline projects that have already been proposed to carry gas from US shale producers to Mexico.
US gas exports to Mexico are projected by Platts Analytics' Bentek Energy to reach 5.6 Bcf/d in 2021, a 95% jump from last year. South Texas exports to Mexico could account for more than half of that build, particularly if Mexican dry gas production continues its downward march over the next several years, Platts Analytics data show.
"Mexico has fabulous hydrocarbon reserves, but the domestic industry has been really damaged by the central government's control over it," Ed Hirs, an energy economist at the University of Houston, said in a telephone interview. "So, now, rather than developing their own resources, they are having to rely upon US expertise and US supplies."
While Trump on the campaign trail railed against undocumented workers crossing the border into the US from Mexico, that animosity isn't expected to extend to cross-border energy projects, said Michelle Foss, chief energy economist at the University of Texas at Austin's Bureau of Economic Geology.
"On the gas side, pipe transport north to East Canada and south to Mexico are helping to balance that commodity," Foss said. "These are market-driven responses, good for energy security and clearing. I think the new administration is unlikely to interfere and more likely to back."
To the north, besides Keystone XL, Energy Transfer's Dakota Access Pipeline is expected to have an easier time under Trump. Energy Transfer asked a federal court this week to allow it to complete the pipeline despite the US Army Corps of Engineers' decision to delay making a final determination of whether to issue an easement for a portion of the pipeline in North Dakota.
"The Army Corps of Engineers is not some independent agency," Hirs said. "It answers to the commander-in-chief, and there will be a new commander-in-chief on January 20. So, I expect that pipeline will be built."
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/houston/environmentalists-lament-trump-oil-natural-gas-26603936 -
Trump Eyes Oil, Natural Gas Regulations for Repeal
Nov 23, 2016 | Platts
By Brian Scheid and Maya Weber
President-elect Donald Trump announced in a video posted to YouTube November 21 that he planned to roll back some Obama administration regulations on the energy sector on his first day in office.
"On energy, I will cancel job-killing restrictions on the production of American energy -- including shale energy and clean coal -- creating many millions of high-paying jobs," Trump said. He also announced a plan to undo two regulations for every new regulation issued.
While Trump offered no specifics on the "restrictions" on his chopping block, analysts believe the incoming administration will likely target Department of Interior and Environmental Protection Agency regulations on methane emissions from oil and gas operations, hydraulic fracturing and possibly a new plan for drilling in federal waters.
"I think [Trump will] be able to do a lot, hopefully, and return that kind of oversight to states where it belongs," Congressman Kevin Cramer, a North Dakota Republican and top Trump energy advisor, told S&P Global Platts in a recent interview. "Some of that he can do, maybe, by simply eliminating certain rules or regulations or taking them back from the courts where they're in limbo."To add to the pressure, House Republicans have warned the Obama administration against rushing through controversial regulations and have threatened to use Congressional Review Act resolutions to nix major rules that are finalized at the end of Obama's term. Given that CRA procedures count back 60 legislative days, such actions potentially imperil a host of rules completed in recent months.
One contested regulation, finalized by Interior's Bureau of Land Management on November 15, is aimed at curbing venting, flaring and leaking from oil and natural gas operations on federal lands. While the rule will become effective before Trump takes over the White House, the Independent Petroleum Association of America and the Western Energy Alliance, both industry groups, and at least two states, Wyoming and Montana, have filed lawsuits in federal court seeking to overturn it.
Analysts said it was unlikely that the Trump administration would fight to uphold a rule in federal court it also wanted to overturn.
It's unlikely that the incoming administration would continue to fight an appeal of a federal judge's ruling in June which overturned BLM's rule that would have established new requirements for fracking on federal lands. The Obama administration has appealed that ruling in the 10th Circuit Court, but opening arguments are scheduled for January 17, just three days before Trump's inauguration.
Similarly, 15 states, including Texas and North Dakota, and industry groups sued the EPA in August arguing that the agency's methane emissions rule was unnecessary and costly for the oil and gas industry. The rule, which was finalized in May, sets new limits on methane emissions for new oil and gas infrastructure and is part of an Obama pledge to reduce US oil and gas methane emissions by 40% to 45% below 2012 levels by the year 2025. Arguments in these lawsuits have yet to be set with the courts.
Next step on methane could be sidelined
One effort seen as highly vulnerable is EPA's next step in methane regulation. EPA sent out a request to industry for information, which was expected to be used in developing regulations limiting methane emissions from existing oil and gas rigs and wells. But that rule is unlikely to be proposed before Obama leaves office and is expected be cast aside by EPA under Trump.
Trump could also ease EPA's efforts to reshape the Renewable Fuel Standard. Earlier this month, EPA said it planned to deny applications from refiners and their trade groups seeking to move the RFS' point of obligations away from refiners and importers to further downstream.
Instead of denying the applications outright, however, the agency opened their proposed denial to a public comment period which will not conclude until after Obama leaves office, leaving the final decision up to the Trump administration.
In addition, the Trump administration may attempt to scrap the 2017-22 plan for US offshore oil and natural gas lease sales, which the Obama administration finalized last week. That plan allows 10 sales in the Gulf of Mexico and one for Alaska's Cook Inlet, but removed originally proposed sales in US Arctic waters. The Trump administration could redo the plan to include sales in Arctic and other US waters, but the legal process to do so may last as long as three years.
Another obvious target by the next administration is the Clean Power Plan, which is overwhelmingly expected by industry and Washington observers to be overturned. The only question among those observers is the mechanism by which the Trump administration will be able to achieve this.
Debate centers around whether the rule will be struck down by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, when it acts late this year or early next, or whether EPA would need to go through a long and more complex rulemaking process to reverse the policy.
An easier target is the White House Council on Environmental Quality's guidance for how agencies should consider greenhouse gas emissions as part of National Environmental Policy Act reviews. Because it is not a regulation, the guidance is considered straightforward to undo. It is closely watched by pipeline developers because litigation over projects has often focused on the scope of climate change calculations.
Pending pipeline safety rules, while facing pushback from industry, are less likely to be reversed given that they are needed to fulfill statutory mandates, although continued pressure over their outlines is expected. The IPAA said the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's major gas transmission safety rule is among its priorities, given that it would change the definition of gathering lines so that pipelines near the wellhead would fall under federal jurisdiction.
'Midnight' rules become targets on the Hill
Attention in Washington has turned over the last week to the flurry of regulations, proposals and policies the Obama administration is pushing out the door before the change in administrations.
House Republicans have pressed the administration not to act on controversial regulations in its waning days and have raised the prospect of using the Congressional Review Act at the start of next administration, when Obama is no longer there to veto such efforts.
The act allows Congress to quickly vote to shelve major rules finalized within 60 legislative days of the end of the session. While it's not yet clear if the new Congress would follow through on that threat, it could potentially take up a series of CRA resolutions to undo contested rules.
One rule that could become ensnared in such efforts is the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's pending regulation on position limits, which CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad has been seeking to finalize by the end of the year. Massad last week said the regulation is now pending before his fellow commissioners.
He has already received a letter from House Agriculture Chairman Michael Conaway, Republican-Texas, warning against him moving ahead. Failing to leave controversial rulemakings to Massad's successor could add to compliance burdens and sow confusion for end-users, Conaway said.
Also potentially making the cut in terms of timing is EPA's final rule for new and modified sources of methane emissions in the oil and gas sector, published in the Federal Registerin early June.
No doubt there are longer lists of rules and proposals circulating in Washington given the signals sent by the new administration.
The IPAA identified dozens of regulations it believes threaten the oil and gas industry. But rolling back the rules is a fairly complex matter, said Jeff Eshelman, a spokesman for the group.
"It would be over-simplified to say that President-elect Trump could simply sign orders to stop these regulations," Eshelman said. "[A] large portion of the current regulatory regime is in litigation and have many intervenors ... so there would have to be a settlement that goes through the courts with all the parties involved."
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/oil/washington/trump-eyes-oil-natural-gas-regulations-for-repeal-26603989 -
Spill-Tainted Company Proposes Dakota Access Connector
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
A company being investigated for the largest oil spill in North Dakota's history has announced plans to construct a 3.2-mile extension to connect to the embattled Dakota Access pipeline.
Last year, Epping Transmission Co. LLC, owned by Summit Midstream Partners LP, leaked 3 million gallons of produced water over a three-month period. Epping is still cleaning up the pollution.
A formerly critical labor union lent its support to Epping's proposed connector line yesterday, paving the way for the company to move forward.
"They are taking a step in the right direction in our eyes," said Evan Whiteford, a representative of the Laborers' International Union of North America. "And we look forward to this project being a success."
The pipe would funnel 30,000 barrels of oil each day into Dakota Access. It would cost $7 million.
U.S. EPA and state regulators are still examining the spill, which polluted Blacktail Creek as well as the Little Muddy and Missouri rivers (Greenwire, Jan. 26, 2015).
Summit claims it has implemented 24/7 pipeline monitoring as well as adjusted its hiring process for contractors. But the latter policy would not apply to the smaller connector because it doesn't meet a cost threshold, said Summit Vice President Megan Davis.
"If it's ultimately going to be approved, I think there's going to be some pretty strict requirements to make sure that it is done successfully," said Randy Christmann, a commissioner on the state's Public Service Commission.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/11/23/stories/1060046205
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PHMSA Chief Expects Agency Reforms to be Preserved
Nov 23, 2016 | Platts
By Jasmin Melvin
Efforts undertaken in the past 18 months to improve productivity and turn the Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration into a more proactive, innovative and forward looking agency are not expected to be undermined by President-elect Donald Trump, the current head of the agency told state utility regulators November 15.
The agency had come under harsh criticism by the time Marie Therese Dominguez took the helm in October 2015 as PHMSA Administrator.
Critics were quick to point out the agency's slow pace in issuing some 42 rules mandated by Congress in a 2011 reauthorization act. Only 26 of the pipeline safety mandates had been completed when Dominguez took over the agency. Four of the outstanding rules ordered by Congress have since been completed.
Dominguez also took steps to usher in her vision of turning PHMSA -- oft criticized as an out-of-touch, ineffective safety regulator -- into the most innovative transportation safety organization in the world by 2021.The PHMSA 2021 initiative laid out five long-term strategic goals and included an assessment of the agency's operating model, organizational structure, capabilities, processes and cultures. The results of that assessment prompted an internal reorganization to better prioritize the agency's work.
Reforms usher in predictive, data-driven approach
Dominguez has said that the initiative, overall, is intended to enable PHMSA to be more predictive in its efforts to mitigate future safety issues and to implement data-driven, risk-based inspections, leading regulated communities in a direction that powers the economy, cultivates innovation and prioritizes safety.
When asked during the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners' annual committee meetings in California whether she believed the changes put in place at the agency would be preserved under the incoming administration, Dominguez answered yes.
"A lot of the changes that we made organizationally and in terms of our operations were organic," she said. "In other words, they were employee recommendations on how we actually do our operations, and what it's really doing is providing a lot of visibility across the board to our entire hazardous material safety mission."
Dominguez said this has allowed the agency to better leverage its resources.
"I think it puts the agency in a better position to frame out those emerging risks that we see and make a good case for how we move forward, whether that's from a regulatory perspective or whether that's from any of the program improvements that we need to do," she added. "The intent was that the agency has a good path forward regardless of who the political leadership is."
Alan Mayberry, PHMSA's acting associate administrator for pipeline safety, chimed in that "a big part of this is being able to have a better analytical approach to what we do, a better review of our data and a better collection of data to support economic analysis of the rules that we put out."
He continued, "So I think, regardless of the administration, that will continue to be important."
Dominguez and Mayberry participated in a panel discussion at the NARUC meetings via Skype.
Industry officials on the panel representing the utility sector and pipeline operators commended PHMSA's safety mission, pointed to their own efforts to ensure safety and said they were poised to continue working with the federal government to further improve on safety.
Safety regulations may not be targeted
As for how PHMSA-issued regulations will fare under a Trump administration, which has promised to review and rollback a number of Obama administration rulemaking that Trump eyes as overreaching and overly burdensome on industry, remains to be seen.
But PHMSA's safety mission could keep the agency's rules off of the chopping block.
"I think that's probably a fair assumption, but anything could happen," Andrew Woerner, a partner at Environmental Resources Management, said in an interview November 15.
"My firm focuses on what does the data say, and I think we heard those comments come through from the administrator that they're as much as ever data-focused and that's driving their decisions," Woerner said. "I tend to think that's a sound footing that's hard to argue with."
Jonathan Peress, director of air policy for natural gas at the Environmental Defense Fund, said on the sidelines of the conference November 15 that while he could not speak for EDF on this issue, he believed "it's very difficult under any circumstance to backtrack on safety efforts."
He noted that he was not suggesting that there was a proclivity for the incoming administration to try to reverse PHMSA regulations. Rather, he said, he expects the Trump administration to "be interested in the same sorts of reasonable measures to prevent waste and conserve and not see [natural gas be] needlessly or preventably emitted."
http://www.platts.com/latest-news/natural-gas/washington/phmsa-chief-expects-agency-reforms-to-be-preserved-26603942 -
Company Plans Largest New Oil Plant in 40 Years
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Greenwire
A Houston company will break ground next year on the biggest new oil refinery in the country in almost 40 years.
Raven Petroleum is planning to build a $500 million refinery in Duval County in South Texas.
The facility will refine about 50,000 barrels of light crude oil a day and export diesel, jet fuel, naphtha, gasoline and liquefied petroleum to Mexico.
The project will bring close to 1,800 construction jobs and 400 to 500 permanent jobs to the area's struggling economy, according to Duval County Judge Ricardo Carrillo. Duval County had an unemployment rate of 11.9 percent in September.
Nearby counties also expect to benefit.
"We're going to benefit from sales tax, from housing, all the people who need services to survive. When you've got at least 1,500 [workers], that's half the town of Hebbronville coming in," said Jim Hogg County Judge Humberto Gonzalez.
Environmental groups say they are keeping an eye on the refinery.
"We're hoping to get more information because it's a sizable [project] ... and will have a pretty big environmental footprint," said Ilan Levin, associate director for the Environmental Integrity Project. "We want transparency, and there should be some due process, the normal public meetings and public hearings that go along with these things just to make sure that the safety precautions are being met and the top-of-the-line standards are being implemented."
The last major U.S. refinery was built in Garyville, La., in 1977 by Marathon Petroleum Corp.
http://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2016/11/23/stories/1060046211
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Eastern States' Push for Ozone Cuts Faces Uncertainty Under Trump EPA
Nov 23, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Stuart Parker
Eastern states are pushing ahead with calls for EPA to force upwind states to reduce their ozone-forming emissions through direct regulation and stricter federal rules on ozone transport in order to help the downwind states attain federal air standards, but the states' strategy faces an uncertain future under President-elect Donald Trump.
“We have a challenge ahead of us,” in working out “how to continue making progress” in improving air quality, said Ozone Transport Commission (OTC) Chairman Jared Snyder at a Nov. 17 meeting of the group in Washington, D.C. OTC represents 12 Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states that have long struggled with ozone pollution.
The Clean Air Act mandates five-year reviews of the ozone national ambient air quality standard (NAAQS), meaning the Trump EPA would have to decide by 2020 whether to revise the stricter 70 parts per billion (ppb) limit the Obama administration issued in October 2015. State officials say that the Trump EPA could struggle to make the case for weakening the standard because it would reverse a trend of a increasingly stricter NAAQS.
However, sources say that Trump -- after his Jan. 20 inauguration -- could press EPA's critics in Congress to fast-track changes to the air law including extending the NAAQS review cycle or taking other steps to weaken emissions control requirements, although it is unclear whether enough lawmakers support such a push.
One OTC source says “there is a lot of mischief out there” in Congress but little clarity on the direction the Trump administration might take in responding to Eastern states' long-running problems with ozone.
States are already working on efforts to reduce emissions from sources of ozone-forming nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds that they can regulate, in order to come into attainment with the 2015 ozone NAAQS and the less-stringent 75 ppb ozone standard the agency issued in 2008.
Also, EPA's second-phase Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), finalized in October, will go into effect by next year, bringing with it tougher state emissions caps for NOx emitted from power plants in 22 Eastern states. The emissions trading program is EPA's primary policy aimed at curbing air pollutant transport, for both ozone and also sulfur dioxide (SO2) that contributes to fine particulate formation.
CSAPR Update
The updated rule applies only to the NOx trading regime, and aims to help states meet the 2008 standard, whereas the original CSAPR was aimed at meeting the weaker 1997 NAAQS expressed as 84 ppb.
CSAPR is a key part of OTC-area states' efforts to reduce pollutant transport and meet the ozone NAAQS. Also NOx emissions have fallen sharply in recent years, helping to reduce ozone levels. But OTC data presented at the recent meeting indicate that ozone levels ticked upward again this year, and several states in the region, especially in the New York City area, face ongoing problems meeting the 2015 NAAQS.
EPA officials have touted the CSAPR legal framework as a blueprint for future EPA air transport policies, although no third-phase CSAPR rule appears to be in the works. States must soon craft “good neighbor” plans to show how they will avoid “significant contribution” to the NAAQS attainment problems of their downwind neighbors, and EPA is helping with the technical analysis to support those plans, officials have said.
Acting EPA air chief McCabe at the OTC meeting said, “We look forward” to implementation of the revised CSAPR. She noted that EPA issued its proposed implementation rule for the 2015 ozone NAAQS Nov. 2, and that this marks an improvement in the agency's timeliness in issuance of implementation rules. Previously, states and industry have criticized the agency for publishing implementation rules years after setting new NAAQS.
Regulatory Petitions
However, McCabe also noted that OTC states have filed several recent petitions with the agency under Clean Air Act section 126, which allows the agency to directly regulate pollution sources that are causing or contributing to NAAQS violations in downwind states.
Maryland has petitioned the agency to control sources in five upwind states, while Delaware is taking a more targeted approach, issuing three recent petitions for EPA to control NOx from power plants, two in Pennsylvania and one in West Virginia. Connecticut has also petitioned for direct controls on one of the same Pennsylvania plants, the Brunner Island power plant in York County, PA.
Central to the grievances of Delaware and Maryland is the apparent failure of some power plants to run their existing NOx controls. Under CSAPR, power plants can legally do this if they they can purchase allowances sufficient to cover their obligations. Allowance prices under the current CSAPR regime are too low to incentivize some plants to run their controls, OTC sources say. The revised CSAPR trading program sets lower state emissions caps, and this should raise allowance prices and encourage power plants to run their controls, but some OTC sources are still skeptical that the incentive will be sufficient.
In response, OTC is still urging EPA to craft a national rule, or allow development of state rules, to force plants to run their existing controls to avoid ozone spikes on high electric demand days, which tend to occur on hot summer days that are conducive to ozone formation.
But in the absence of such rules, East Coast states continue to pursue the section 126 petitions. In a Nov. 16 statement, the Maryland Department of the Environment said, “For the past three years, Maryland has been working in partnership with about 25 other eastern and Midwestern states to solve this problem. This State Collaborative on Ozone Transport (SCOOT) effort has focused on ensuring that large coal-fired power plants that have purchased pollution controls run those controls when ozone is a problem.
“Under current laws, many power plants in upwind states can operate without the controls running and nonetheless comply with their long-term pollution limits. Last year, environmental officials from SCOOT states asked power plants in their states to increase the use of their controls [NOx], which help to form ozone. This voluntary approach did not work,” Maryland says.
Therefore, the state's section 126 petition filed the same day asks EPA to force 36 electric generating units in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to run their existing controls. All contribute significantly to air quality problems in Maryland, according to the state's analysis.
Expanded OTC
Meanwhile, EPA is moving to respond to another initiative by some OTC states to curb upwind emissions by expanding the scope of the OTC. Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont, later joined by Pennsylvania, petitioned EPA in December 2013 to expand the current OTC area, where tougher pollution controls apply than elsewhere.
Currently, the OTC includes Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, the northern part of Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The petition asks for an expansion to include Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia, and the remainder of Virginia.
Under the law, EPA has 18 months to respond to such a petition, but has failed to do so. The petitioning states ask EPA to not only respond, but to provide an opportunity for public notice and comment on its response.
Seeking to exclude itself early from any OTC expansion, North Carolina filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina in Donald van der Vaart v. Gina McCarthy to force a response.
In a proposed consent decree announced in the Federal Register Nov. 21, EPA says it will decide on the expansion with respect to North Carolina no later than Jan. 18, 2017, and must sign a final notice of final action regarding the petition no later than Oct. 27, 2017.
EPA has already excluded the state from the second-phase CSAPR rule, based on modeling that indicates it does not contribute significantly to NAAQS nonattainment or maintenance issues elsewhere -- although OTC modeling indicates that by choosing 2011 as a base year for this assumption, EPA has missed a southerly component of ozone pollution that is normally present in other years, OTC-are regulators say.
Further, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont separately sued EPA Oct. 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to impose a legally binding deadline for EPA to respond to their section 176(A) petition.
Utilities' Concerns
At the OTC meeting, the Midwest Ozone Group (MOG), which represents electric utilities in upwind Midwestern states, presented its concerns about the timing of state implementation plans (SIPs) that will required to meet the 2015 ozone NAAQS.
“As the focus on attainment of the 2015 Ozone NAAQS continues, there must be a recognition that air quality will continue to improve between the 2018 due date for Good Neighbor SIPs and the 2023 attainment deadline as a result of programs including Federal measures, federally mandated state [reasonably available control technology, or RACT] rules, nonattainment infrastructure SIPs, and Good Neighbor SIPs,” the group says. RACT is a level of emissions control required in the OTC area, and areas in nonattainment of NAAQS.
“MOG is concerned that failure to include the benefits of these programs in the Good Neighbor SIPs will result in overcontrol of upwind states, which MOG believes is illegal given the Supreme Court decision in EPA v. EME Homer City Generation.” In that 2014 decision, the high court found that EPA cannot require states to reduce their emissions by more than is required to achieve attainment in every downwind state.
Further, the pollution control programs listed by MOG “will also improve air quality sufficiently that any Section 126 petitions that have been or will be filed in the near term will be mooted,” since “a successful prosecution of a Section 126 petition depends on continuing nonattainment.” MOG claims that ozone monitors in the OTC are currently reading attainment, except for a few in Connecticut “that are being impacted primarily by local (nearby) sources.”
OTC regulators at the meeting disagreed with that analysis, pointing to 2016 data showing continued problems in several areas meeting the 2015 NAAQS, and also doubted MOG's assertion that “the Good Neighbor SIP is a 'down payment' on attainment and not a stand alone attainment program.”
http://insideepa.com/daily-news/eastern-states-push-ozone-cuts-faces-uncertainty-under-trump-epa
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Is Trump's New 'Open Mind' a Sign of Growth or Dealmaking?
Nov 23, 2016 | E&E Climatewire
By Evan Lehmann
President-elect Donald Trump's suggestion yesterday that he has an "open mind" about the Paris climate agreement is a sign that he's adapting to the realities of leading a world power, rather than a campaign, according to observers.
His comments to The New York Times struck a softer tone than the one he conveyed in a May energy speech, when he promised to "cancel" the international pact. That steadfast position now appears in flux, at least rhetorically. At the same time, Trump refused to be pinned down on the scientific consensus that humans are warming the planet, invoking debunked information about emails stolen from climate scientists in 2009, American factories burdened by regulations and his engineer uncle.
"You can make lots of cases for different views," he said before repeating, "I have a totally open mind."
The possible shift on the Paris Agreement comes as Trump is having introductory discussions with world leaders to begin the process of forming relationships on a dizzying array of issues. It's likely that some foreign dignitaries have politely talked about climate change in their congratulatory phone calls, according to people in international climate circles.
Those experiences might be leaving the impression with Trump that he can use the United States' status in climate diplomacy to find other benefits, like retooled trade agreements. Or maybe it was Trump's plan all along to threaten to withdraw from Paris and then offer to stay — for something in return.
Stephen Eule, who represents the U.S. Chamber of Commerce at U.N. climate talks, said that threatening to leave the Paris deal is "a pretty good bargaining chip."
"He is the author of 'The Art of the Deal,' so it would not surprise me if he were setting up some kind of negotiation," Eule said. "He may not know Washington, but he knows the way the game is played."
Of course, that would mean Trump preserves the nation's role in the agreement. That could lead to other problems, like reneging on a campaign promise that was celebrated by many in the energy sector. Republican lawmakers might also be upset.
Eule said Trump could retool the Paris Agreement by submitting new commitments for greenhouse gas reductions, for instance. The U.S. Chamber has said that the Senate should vote on Paris.
Others suggest not reading too much into his words.
To Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Trump's comments mark a natural evolution in someone who went from a political candidate to a world leader over the last two weeks.
"I think he has a duty to keep an open mind as the president and that means that there is the possibility that someone might persuade him to do something differently than he intended to do when he was campaigning," Lewis said. "But I don't think people should assume that he's signaling that he's going to reverse course. I think all it means is that now he's talking like a president, rather than a candidate."
'Prove it'
Trump was asked about climate change while being interviewed by multiple reporters and columnists with The New York Times. He expressed deep concern about the climate agreement and a willingness to consider its value.
The contradictory comment came in response to a question by columnist Thomas Friedman, who asked Trump how he will approach the Paris Agreement.
"I'll tell you what. I have an open mind to it. We're going to look very carefully. It's one issue that's interesting because there are few things where there's more division than climate change," Trump said. Pressed later to clarify whether he will in fact pull out of the accord, Trump said, "I'm going to take a look at it."
Environmental organizations described his comments as rhetorical snowflakes that could melt and reform with a different meaning.
"Prove it, President-elect. The world is watching," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, in a statement.
But others say Trump's wording could be directed at a smaller audience. His comments came days after representatives from around the world met in Morocco at a climate summit organized by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
"The Trump administration has far more to gain from staying in the Paris Agreement than getting out of it," said Nigel Purvis, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of state for environment under President George W. Bush when the United States signed but failed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Bush subsequently declared Kyoto "dead."
"I saw firsthand how America's go-it-alone approach on climate made it harder to secure international support for President Bush's foreign policy priorities," Purvis said. "Rejecting Paris now would undermine the president-elect's goals on trade, migration and terror, which presumably he cares more about than walking away from an innocuous climate agreement."
Elliot Diringer, executive vice president at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, said Trump's comment is "only a hint, but a hopeful one."
"He's hearing from other nations and from business leaders that U.S. leadership on climate change is vital," he added. "It seems like maybe they're getting through."
Yet Trump also appeared dismissive of threats some foreign officials like former French President Nicolas Sarkozy made to impose tariffs on goods from the United States if it becomes the only country to flout the carbon reduction agreement.
"I think that countries will not do that to us. I don't think if they're run by a person that understands leadership and negotiation they're in no position to do that to us, no matter what I do. They're in no position to do that to us, and that won't happen, but I'm going to take a look at it," he said.
Maybe humans are warming the Earth, after all
Trump was also asked yesterday whether humans are contributing to global warming.
"I think there is some connectivity," Trump responded. "Some, something. It depends on how much." He also joked about what rising sea levels would mean for his properties.
"I read your articles," he told Freidman, who invoked the vulnerability of Trump National Doral Miami in a recent column imploring the president-elect to act on climate change.
"Some will be even better because actually like Doral is a little bit off ... so it'll be perfect. [inaudible] He doesn't say that. He just says that the ones that are near the water will be gone, but Doral will be in great shape," Trump said.
He then engaged in a back-and-forth conversation with Friedman, publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., and editorial page editor James Bennett:
Sulzberger: Well, since we're living on an island, sir, I want to thank you for having an open mind. We saw what these storms are now doing, right? We've seen it personally. Straight up.
Friedman: But you have an open mind on this?
Trump: I do have an open mind. And we've had storms always, Arthur.
Sulzberger: Not like this.
Trump: You know the hottest day ever was in 1890-something, 98. You know, you can make lots of cases for different views. I have a totally open mind.
My uncle was for 35 years a professor at MIT. He was a great engineer, scientist. He was a great guy. And he was ... a long time ago, he had feelings — this was a long time ago — he had feelings on this subject. It's a very complex subject. I'm not sure anybody is ever going to really know. I know we have, they say they have science on one side but then they also have those horrible emails that were sent between the scientists. Where was that, in Geneva or wherever five years ago? Terrible. Where they got caught, you know, so you see that and you say, "What's this all about?" I absolutely have an open mind. I will tell you this: Clean air is vitally important. Clean water, crystal clean water is vitally important. Safety is vitally important.
And you know, you mentioned a lot of the courses. I have some great, great, very successful golf courses. I've received so many environmental awards for the way I've done, you know, I've done a tremendous amount of work where I've received tremendous numbers. Sometimes I'll say I'm actually an environmentalist and people will smile in some cases and other people that know me understand that's true. Open mind.
Bennett: When you say an open mind, you mean you're just not sure whether human activity causes climate change? Do you think human activity is or isn't connected?
Trump: I think right now ... well, I think there is some connectivity. There is some, something. It depends on how much. It also depends on how much it's going to cost our companies. You have to understand, our companies are noncompetitive right now.
They're really largely noncompetitive. About four weeks ago, I started adding a certain little sentence into a lot of my speeches, that we've lost 70,000 factories since W. Bush. Seventy thousand. When I first looked at the number, I said: 'That must be a typo. It can't be 70, you can't have 70,000, you wouldn't think you have 70,000 factories here.' And it wasn't a typo, it's right. We've lost 70,000 factories.
We're not a competitive nation with other nations anymore. We have to make ourselves competitive. We're not competitive for a lot of reasons. That's becoming more and more of the reason. Because a lot of these countries that we do business with, they make deals with our president, or whoever, and then they don't adhere to the deals, you know that. And it's much less expensive for their companies to produce products. So I'm going to be studying that very hard, and I think I have a very big voice in it. And I think my voice is listened to, especially by people that don't believe in it. And we'll let you know.
.
In the past, Trump has called global warming "bullshit," and at a rally in December he described it as a "hoax."
His comments yesterday are more accommodating of the impacts of greenhouse gases from cars, power plants and buildings, but they don't show an urgency to address the risks of rising temperatures, said Alex Bozmoski, director of strategy and operations at republicEn, a conservative group that supports taxing carbon.
"I think there's good reason why no head of state has the luxury of climate skepticism," he said of Trump. "He's going to be the boss of the greatest research establishment in the history of mankind. I mean he's going to be hearing on the regular basis from NASA and [the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration] and the Pentagon about the acute risks that face America because of climate change."
Trump wasn't alone in presenting a softer side on climate.
Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who's overseeing U.S. EPA transition under Trump, issued a statement that described human-driven warming as real, but weak.
Ebell has fought against climate policies for years, and he often suggests that climate scientists are working to advance their careers by promoting alarmist research that exaggerates the pace of climbing temperatures.
"I agree that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing as a result of human activities — primarily burning coal, oil, and natural gas — and that this means the global mean temperature is likely to rise," Ebell said in the statement released by CEI yesterday. "Where we disagree with global warming alarmists is whether this amounts to a crisis that requires drastic action."
http://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2016/11/23/stories/1060046190
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