Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 11/28/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) US Speciality Chemicals Markets Stable For Start Of 4Q16
Nov 28, 2016 | Hydrocarbon Engineering
By Rosalie Starling
The Speciality Chemicals Market Volume Index, a tool created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), showed that US speciality chemicals market volumes were essentially flat in October -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Joins WRAP To Promote Plastic Film Recycling
Nov 27, 2016 | Packaging World
By Anne Marie Mohan
The American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division (ACC) has formed a new partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) aimed at promoting sustainable materials management (SMM) for plastics. -
(ACC Mentioned) Comedian Schools Millennials On Recycling In New Video
Nov 28, 2016 | Packaging World
By Anne Marie Mohan
A new survey finds older generations are more likely to believe that recycling can help the planet and to go out of their way to recycle. -
(ACC Mentioned) Still A Global Menace
Nov 28, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
As a 7-year-old child in suburban Sydney, Australia, Serafina Salucci recalls playing with white wall sheeting material leftover from her dad’s renovation of the family’s garage. -
(ACC Mentioned) Canada Sets In Motion Microbeads Prohibition
Nov 28, 2016 | The Toledo Blade
By Tom Henry
Canada this month took steps toward joining the United States in banning the sale of personal-hygiene products that contain tiny plastics known as microbeads in an effort to keep them away from fish and wildlife and address plastic pollution in general. -
Companies Must Report Releases of Flame Retardant to EPA
Nov 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Companies that make or use hexabromocyclododecane flame retardants must report their releases of the chemicals, according to a final rule the Environmental Protection Agency will publish Nov. 28. -
EPA's Safer Choice Program Likely to Come Under Fire in 2017
Nov 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Disputes over the Environmental Protection Agency's Safer Choice chemicals-recognition program are expected in 2017, several people who track chemical policy told Bloomberg BNA. -
Restrictions On Cosmetic Preservatives Ramp Up
Nov 28, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
It has been a slow war of attrition. For the past decade, environmental groups have called out a growing number of cosmetic preservatives as suspected endocrine disruptors, cancer-causing agents, and skin irritants. -
New Milestone: The U.S. Is Now a Net Exporter of Natural Gas
Nov 27, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Stephanie Yang and Alison Sider
The U.S. has become a net exporter of natural gas, further evidence of the how the domestic oil and gas boom is reshaping the global energy business. -
LNG Exports Provision Restored to Energy Bill
Nov 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Catherine Traywick
A provision to expedite liquefied natural gas exports has been restored to the proposed energy bill (S. 2012) along with other measures that House negotiators dropped, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Maria Cantwell said Nov. 25. -
EPA Sued Over Delays on Power Plant Discharge Permits
Nov 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
A federal appeals court should force the Environmental Protection Agency to issue long-overdue Clean Water Act discharge permits by June 2017 for two coal-fired power plants in New Hampshire, the Sierra Club said in a petition filed Nov. 23 In Re: Sierra Club Inc., 1st Cir., No. 16-02415, 11/23/16). -
ND Senators Tell Pipeline Protesters To Cacate Camp
Nov 26, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Harper Neidig
North Dakota Sens. John Hoeven (R) and Heidi Heitkamp (D) are calling on protesters to leave federal lands where they have been encamped to demonstrate against the Dakota Access Pipeline. -
Chemical Safety Board Probes Louisiana Exxon Refinery Fire
Nov 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
The federal Chemical Safety Board is sending staff to an Exxon Mobil Corp. refinery in Baton Rouge, La., where six workers were injured in a fire, the board said Nov. 23. -
The Evolution Of Cyber Attacks Powered By The Internet Of Things
Nov 27, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Marvin Philipps
From a handheld device, I have the ability to monitor my home and even change my laundry. -
Trump's New Paris Comments Confound Greens
Nov 26, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Donald Trump's promise this week to "look very carefully" at the Paris climate deal raised eyebrows among environmentalists, who are preparing for a fight with the president-elect. -
Trump Has Options for Undoing Obama’s Climate Legacy
Nov 25, 2016 | The New York Times
By Henry Fountain and Erica Goode
President-elect Donald J. Trump has vowed to dismantle many of the signature policies put in place by the Obama administration to fight the effects of climate change.
Congressional Hearings - There are no relevant hearings to report at this time.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time.
Environment News
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(ACC Mentioned) US Speciality Chemicals Markets Stable For Start Of 4Q16
Nov 28, 2016 | Hydrocarbon Engineering
By Rosalie Starling
The Speciality Chemicals Market Volume Index, a tool created by the American Chemistry Council (ACC), showed that US speciality chemicals market volumes were essentially flat in October. This follows a revised 0.2% gain in September and 0.3% gain in August. All changes in the data are reported on a three month moving average (3MMA) basis. Of the 28 speciality chemical segments ACC monitors, nine expanded in October, four were stable and the remaining 15 markets experienced decline. During October, large gains (1.0% and over) were noted in mining chemicals.
The overall speciality chemicals volume index was off 2.0% y/y on a 3MMA basis. The index stood at 104.0% of its average 2012 levels. This is equivalent to 7.17 billion lb (3.25 million t). During 2014, y/y comparisons were generally in the 4.0 - 6.8% range, but since February 2015, they have fallen well below that range as the downturn in the oil and gas sector affected headline volumes. Weakness spread to other segments as well and year-earlier comparisons have been negative since second quarter 2015. Lately, the year-earlier declines have been moderating. On a y/y basis, there were gains among 12 market and functional speciality chemical segments.
Speciality chemicals are materials manufactured on the basis of the unique performance or function and provide a wide variety of effects on which many other sectors and end-use products rely. They can be individual molecules or mixtures of molecules, known as formulations. The physical and chemical characteristics of the single molecule or mixtures along with the composition of the mixtures influence the performance end product. Individual market sectors that rely on such products include automobile, aerospace, agriculture, cosmetics and food, among others.
Speciality chemicals differ from commodity chemicals. They may only have one or two uses, while commodities may have multiple or different applications for each chemical. Commodity chemicals make up most of the production volume in the global marketplace, while speciality chemicals make up most of the diversity in commerce at any given time, and are relatively high value with greater market growth rates.
This data is the only timely source of market trends for 28 market and functional speciality chemical segments. Chemistry directly touches over 96% of all manufactured goods, and trends in these speciality chemical segments provide a detailed view of trends in manufacturing. The data also sheds light on how various consumer end-use markets are performing compared to others in the marketplace.
https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/petrochemicals/25112016/us-speciality-chemicals-markets-stable-for-start-of-4q16/
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Joins WRAP To Promote Plastic Film Recycling
Nov 27, 2016 | Packaging World
By Anne Marie Mohan
The American Chemistry Council’s Plastics Division (ACC) has formed a new partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) aimed at promoting sustainable materials management (SMM) for plastics. SMM offers a systematic approach to more efficiently using and reusing materials throughout their life cycles to reduce environmental impacts and waste.
Through the partnership, EPA and ACC will work together to:
· Decrease disposal rates by tracking and lowering the overall amount of plastics disposed through activities that enable source reduction, reuse, recycling, and prevention.
· Reduce environmental impacts—including greenhouse gas emissions, water, and energy use—of plastics throughout their life cycles.
· Increase stakeholder capacity to implement SMM through technical assistance and raising the per capita quantity of plastic recyclables recovered.
“We are looking forward to collaborating with ACC to reduce environmental impacts from plastics,” says Barnes Johnson, Director of EPA’s Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery. “We believe that there are great gains to be made for the environment, our society, and our economy by working together with the ACC on this important issue.”
“We are excited to work with EPA to advance the adoption of sustainable materials management among plastics makers, brand owners, retailers, policymakers, and others,” says Steve Russell, ACC’s Vice President of Plastics. “By relying on a full evaluation of a material’s life cycle, sustainable materials management can help us make more informed choices that conserve resources and reduce overall environmental impacts.”
Through the SMM partnership, EPA joins the Wrap Recycling Action Program (WRAP) campaign, a public-private partnership with the goal of increasing the volume of plastic wraps and bags (also known as “plastic film”) recycled, through public education and sharing tools and best practices. The WRAP program has been shown to increase collection of post-use plastic wraps and bags through store drop-off programs and reduce the amount of film that is erroneously placed in curbside bins.
More than 18,000 stores across the U.S. collect plastic film for recycling, but many consumers are not aware of this opportunity. WRAP seeks to educate consumers about the many types of everyday packaging that can be recycled at stores.
These include plastic bags from bread, produce, shopping, and dry cleaning; clean food storage bags (with or without zippers); wraps from paper towels, bathroom tissue, napkins, and beverage cases; shipping pillows and bubble wrap; and anything labeled with a #2, #4, or the Sustainable Packaging Coalition’s "Store Drop-Off" Label.
Other WRAP partners include the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC), the Association of Plastics Recyclers, the City of Vancouver, WA, and the States of Connecticut and North Carolina. Several additional states are expected to announce WRAP partnerships early next year. Retailers involved in regional WRAP campaigns include Safeway/Albertsons and Harris Teeter.
http://www.packworld.com/sustainability/recycling/epa-joins-wrap-promote-plastic-film-recycling
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(ACC Mentioned) Comedian Schools Millennials On Recycling In New Video
Nov 28, 2016 | Packaging World
By Anne Marie Mohan
A new survey finds older generations are more likely to believe that recycling can help the planet and to go out of their way to recycle. The survey1 commissioned by Plastics Make It Possible also finds that older adults are more likely to make a daily habit of recycling. For example, people 60 years and older are 15% more likely to recycle daily than Millennials. Similarly, 44% of people 60 and older say they would walk a long way to recycle rather than trash a plastic bottle—more than any other age group.
Compared to older Americans, Millennials typically are less likely to know that common plastics, such as shampoo bottles, yogurt containers, and milk jugs, are recyclable. And the widely held belief that recycling can do some good and help the planet is softer among Millennials.
To help bridge the generational gap and inspire more plastics recycling, Plastics Make it Possible has released a video featuring Rudy Mancuso, a popular comedian, musician, and online personality who appeals to Millennials. In the video called “Wanna Recycle More Plastics? Just Ask Comedian Rudy Mancuso,” Rudy tests people’s knowledge of plastics recycling, surprises people on city streets, and sheds some light on how easy it is to recycle more plastics.
“We’re thrilled Rudy Mancuso is bringing humor and his unique perspective to show just how easy it is to help the environment by recycling more everyday plastics,” says Steve Russell, Vice President of Plastics at the American Chemistry Council, which sponsors the Plastics Make It Possible initiative. “Today, nearly every U.S. household has access to a plastics recycling program, and more and more types of plastics are being accepted for recycling.”
Additional highlights from the recent survey include:Men are five times more likely than women to say they recycle because their significant other tells them toNortheastern U.S. residents are more likely to recycle on a daily basis than those in other regions, and Southern residents report fewer recycling opportunitiesFrom a tongue-in-cheek survey question, when asked which plastics are recyclable, only 3% chose the Kardashians
http://www.packworld.com/sustainability/recycling/comedian-schools-millennials-recycling-new-video
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(ACC Mentioned) Still A Global Menace
Nov 28, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Britt E. Erickson
As a 7-year-old child in suburban Sydney, Australia, Serafina Salucci recalls playing with white wall sheeting material leftover from her dad’s renovation of the family’s garage. She used it like chalk to draw on the driveway, and threw chunks of it back and forth with her brothers. Little did anyone know at the time that the sheeting contained carcinogenic asbestos fibers that would later be blamed for giving Salucci mesothelioma, an incurable cancer attacking the lining of her lungs.
Salucci was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2007, 30 years after her likely exposure to asbestos. She has outlived her doctor’s prognosis and now spends her time raising awareness about the disease and the threat of asbestos in older buildings like houses, hospitals, and schools. If asbestos fibers become airborne, there’s a risk of exposure, she says. “We must safely get rid of it.”
Salucci joined hundreds of other people seeking to eradicate asbestos exposure around the world at an Australian government conference earlier this month. Production and use of asbestos was banned in Australia in 2003, but approximately one-third of all homes in the country contain the substance. Australia had the highest per capita rate of asbestos use in the world from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Salucci, now 47, is one of hundreds of Australians diagnosed with mesothelioma every year. Like many other kids that grew up during the 1960s and 1970s, she never worked around asbestos nor did any home renovations herself. She was exposed to asbestos while playing as a child.
While Australia, like many other countries, faces huge challenges related to its former use of asbestos, more than 100 countries face even greater problems because they have yet to ban the fibrous material. The U.S., Canada, and many countries in the Asia-Pacific region, for instance, still allow some use of asbestos, despite the substance’s known adverse health effects.
That could all be about to change, however, as regulators face mounting calls from trade unions, patient advocacy groups, and environmental activists to cut off any further use of the material. Such groups are urging the liberal Canadian government, which took office last year, to keep its campaign promise and ban all uses of asbestos. In the U.S., recent changes to the law that governs commercial chemicals have prompted activists to intensify pressure on the Environmental Protection Agency to do the same.
The problem with asbestos
Asbestos is defined by regulators worldwide as a group of six naturally occurring fibrous silicate minerals—actinolite, amosite, anthophyllite, chrysotile, crocidolite, and tremolite (see page 30). More than 90% of all asbestos used historically and nearly all of it used today is chrysotile, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The substance was once mined and used extensively throughout the world in a wide range of construction materials and other consumer products, including thermal insulation, vinyl floor tiles, cement sheeting, brake pads, gaskets, and roofing materials. Although these products are now banned in many countries, they still remain as so-called legacy sources in homes and other buildings or lurk in hazardous waste sites.
Asbestos is known for its high tensile strength, flexibility, and resistance to heat and chemicals. But those same properties make it deadly when its fibers get lodged within the human lung. Inhalation of asbestos has been linked to the mesothelioma that Salucci battles, as well as lung cancer and asbestosis, which is a severe scarring of the lungs.
Worldwide, more than 100,000 people die each year from occupational exposure to asbestos, and hundreds more die each year from nonoccupational exposures, according to WHO.
Iceland became the first country to ban the production and use of all types of asbestos in 1983. Since then, more than 50 countries have followed suit, according to the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat, an advocacy group founded in 1999 that seeks to prohibit production and use of asbestos worldwide.
Asbestos and U.S. law
The U.S. EPA banned most uses of asbestos in 1989 under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Industry sued, however, and in 1991, a federal appeals court overturned the regulation.
Now that TSCA has been revised, an action that was signed into law on June 22, EPA faces renewed pressure to use its new authority to ban all uses of asbestos in the U.S. Pushing the agency to do so are federal lawmakers, environmental and public health groups, and the motor equipment manufacturing industry. Many observers view asbestos as the poster child for why this year’s congressional overhaul of TSCA was needed.
“EPA spent more than a decade developing a rule to ban existing uses of asbestos,” recalls Richard Denison, a lead senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group. In the 1980s, it sunk millions of dollars into the effort and compiled nearly 100,000 pages of documentation showing why the ban was needed. Nonetheless, the court ruled that EPA had not demonstrated what was legally required under TSCA to justify regulation. Denison says EPA is likely to have an easier time justifying a ban on asbestos under the revised TSCA.
That’s because under TSCA as it was originally passed in 1976, EPA had to show that the benefits of regulation outweigh the costs. The agency also had to show that restriction of each use was the least burdensome way to reduce the risk. The new law forbids EPA from considering costs when determining whether a chemical poses an “unreasonable risk.” It also strikes the “least burdensome” requirement, allowing EPA to restrict a chemical “to the extent necessary” to reduce the risk.
The chemical industry is anxiously waiting to see whether EPA will include asbestos in the first group of chemicals it reassesses under the revised TSCA. Under that new law, Congress gave EPA until Dec. 22 to choose 10 high-risk chemicals that are currently on the market for further risk evaluation. Those 10 must be taken from a list of about 90 chemicals that EPA has already designated as high-priority substances. Asbestos is one of those 90.
Chlor-alkali industry and asbestos
Although asbestos use in the U.S. has declined by 99% since the 1970s, when there was extensive litigation around its adverse health effects, the chlor-alkali industry still uses asbestos diaphragms to produce chlorine. The process involves passing an electric current through a NaCl solution in an electrolytic cell. The diaphragm separates the anode from the cathode, preventing OH– generated at the cathode from reacting with the chlorine gas generated at the anode.
The chlor-alkali industry is phasing out the use of asbestos-based diaphragms. Newer industrial plants have replaced them with ion-exchange membranes, which require less energy and have less environmental impact. But such technology is more expensive to replace than asbestos-based diaphragms, so much of the industry has been reluctant to switch.
About 60% of the U.S. chlor-alkali industry still uses asbestos diaphragms, according to the American Chemistry Council’s Chlorine Chemistry Division, which represents chlorine manufacturers.
Chemical companies were successful in getting EPA to make an exception for the chlor-alkali process in the agency’s now-defunct 1989 ban of asbestos. So too were they successful in getting an exemption when asbestos was banned in the European Union in 2005.
The chlor-alkali industry uses most of the asbestos sold in the U.S.—about 90%, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. USGS figures show approximately 360 metric tons of asbestos was imported and consumed in the U.S. in 2015.
Today, as EPA is under pressure to revisit the safety of asbestos under the revised TSCA, the U.S. chemical industry is once again urging regulators not to impose restrictions on chlor-alkali manufacturers.
“Because the use of asbestos in the chlor-alkali industry is confined in the production process, worker exposure risk is essentially eliminated,” ACC claimed in an August letter to EPA. In its 1989 rule, the agency concluded that “a ban on this product category would result in only minimal benefits because asbestos exposure is limited,” the lobbying group noted.
Anti-asbestos activists double down
Meanwhile, activists who want EPA to ban all uses of asbestos are ramping up their efforts to persuade the agency to include asbestos in the first group of chemicals it reassesses under the revised TSCA.
In a Nov. 9 letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, international trade unions, patient advocacy groups, environmental activists, and others who want to rid society of asbestos urged EPA to act quickly to ban all uses of the substance. The groups, led by the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO), are concerned that President-Elect Donald Trump will eviscerate EPA and hamstring the agency’s efforts to ban dangerous chemicals.
Trump has “made clear, time and time again, his affinity for continuing the use of asbestos,” says Linda Reinstein, cofounder of ADAO. Reinstein began raising awareness about the dangers of asbestos after her husband, Alan, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2003. “Trump’s Administration could well usher in a resurgence in rampant use of this known human carcinogen by encouraging development and further deregulating industry,” she says.
Some U.S. lawmakers, including Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), are also pushing EPA to act swiftly to ban asbestos. “Now that the impediments in the original TSCA law are gone, completing the job started by EPA in 1989 would send a strong signal that the new law can be effective in addressing the most dangerous chemicals in commerce,” Boxer writes in an August letter to EPA. Boxer’s letter also raises concerns about asbestos-containing products being imported into the U.S. at various ports.
There have been reports of asbestos-containing brake pads and insulation tiles being imported into the U.S., Denison says. Because of these imports, at least two states, California and Washington, have banned asbestos-containing brake pads, he says.
Imports of asbestos-containing products are a growing problem worldwide, said several participants at the conference Salucci attended in Australia. During that meeting, trade unions representing workers across Australia posted on Twitter about the need for more action to stop illegal asbestos imports. “E-commerce and complex supply chains make testing for asbestos at our borders a nightmare,” tweeted Australia’s Electrical Trades Union, which represents electrical and communications workers.
To prevent more people from being exposed to asbestos, governments around the world need to stop the production of asbestos, Salucci warned during a panel discussion at the meeting. “We need to tackle the global problem,” she said.
n the past, most concern about asbestos was related to exposure on the job or from buildings that contain the fibrous material. But in some places, such as parts of the western U.S., asbestos and asbestos-like minerals in the environment can be just as worrying. These minerals, which are found in the rock and soil, can become airborne by construction-site digging or even wind.
As commercial development expands in areas where the soil geology permits the formation of asbestos, human exposure to this substance increases, says Christopher Weis, toxicology liaison at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Such development, he says, includes hydraulic fracturing operations in North Dakota and highway construction in the Las Vegas area.
Rodney Metcalf and Brenda J. Buck, geologists at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, are mapping the distribution of asbestiform minerals in that state, where such minerals are part of the bedrock. Through wind and water erosion, asbestos is distributed across the landscape in soil and dust.
“Out here, you don’t need a big bulldozer to disturb it. You just need a windy day,” Buck says. “Sand, silt, gravel, dust—it all has asbestos in it.”
In their mapping project, Metcalf and Buck have found areas with unexpectedly high levels of asbestiform minerals.
“The old models for geologic predictions about where we would find it wouldn’t have predicted this,” Metcalf says. Those models were designed to locate concentrations high enough to support mining. The levels researchers are now finding aren’t that concentrated, but they represent “a fairly sizable footprint of low-concentration asbestos.”
And some areas have the potential to affect people who might not otherwise be exposed to asbestos. “There’s a dry lake bed that’s a favorite place for driving off-road vehicles that has quite a bit of asbestos in it,” Buck says.
People can protect themselves by avoiding those areas. “If you’re an off-road driver, don’t drive on that lake bed. Go to a different one where asbestos hasn’t been found or isn’t predicted to occur.”—Celia Arnaud
https://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i47/Still-global-menace.html
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(ACC Mentioned) Canada Sets In Motion Microbeads Prohibition
Nov 28, 2016 | The Toledo Blade
By Tom Henry
Canada this month took steps toward joining the United States in banning the sale of personal-hygiene products that contain tiny plastics known as microbeads in an effort to keep them away from fish and wildlife and address plastic pollution in general.
The battle continues against larger plastics such as discarded milk, juice, and soda containers, though.
Microbeads are typically abrasives found in some facial scrubs, shower gels, toothpastes, shampoos, and soaps. They also can be fragments of plastic bags, or bits of plastic fiber in clothes.
At 5 millimeters or less, microbeads are often so small they cannot be filtered out by sewage-treatment plants. Many of them are a fraction of 1 millimeter — small enough that dozens could occupy a human fingertip or cover a penny. A tube of facial cleanser can have about 330,000 of them.
The issue gained relatively quick support once the problem became known, compared to the years of contentious litigation some toxic chemicals get. The cosmetic, health, and beauty industry itself has begun to voluntarily phase out products. Some are replacing them with natural alternatives, such as crushed almonds, oatmeal, and pumice.
Last December, Congress approved legislation requiring no additional products with microbeads be made as of next July 1, and that the sale of them cease by July 1, 2018. President Obama signed the bill into law that month.
Now, in a new set of regulations published on Nov. 4, the Canadian government has followed that action by saying it will likewise ban the sale of microbeads in toiletries there on July 1, 2018. Canada is giving another year, until July of 2019, for microbeads to be removed from natural health products and nonprescription drugs sold in that country.
The Canadian government said microbeads have been reported in coastal British Columbia, the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River, and in coastal Atlantic Canada.
It said it will prohibit the manufacture, import, sale, or offer for sale of toiletries that contain plastic microbeads, and that it cannot rely on voluntary industry efforts alone because there is “a risk of reintroduction or continued import” of those products.
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.), co-chairman of the Senate Great Lakes Task Force, said she is pleased Canada followed through with similar action. The Senate version was co-authored by U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio).
“While they may not seem scary, these tiny plastic beads can have a devastating impact on fish, wildlife, and humans,” Kristy Meyer, Ohio Environmental Council managing director of natural resources, said.
The U.S. campaign was pushed hard by other environmental groups too, such as the Chicago-based Alliance for the Great Lakes.
Jennifer J. Caddick, the alliance’s communications and engagement vice president, said Canada’s follow-up action “is certainly a good step for the lakes,” but she reminded people that microbeads “are a piece of the larger plastic-pollution puzzle” and more work needs to be done.
The Personal Care Products Council, the American Chemistry Council, Revlon, Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Consumer Healthcare Products Associations, and the Plastics Industry Trade Association supported the U.S. legislation, according to Mr. Portman’s office.
The Independent Cosmetic Manufacturers and Distributors trade group, which has represented cosmetic companies globally since 1974, said last year many of its clients had begun replacing microbeads “with viable alternatives.”
Sherri “Sam” Mason, a State University of New York-Fredonia chemistry professor who researches the beads, said last year it’s time to address the general issue of plastic pollution in a more meaningful way.
In a 2015 report by the New York State Attorney General’s Office, Ms. Mason and Jennifer Nalbone, an environmental scientist in that office, found 25 of 34 upstate New York sewage-treatment plants had microbeads in the finished effluent discharged to Lake Ontario and Lake Erie tributaries. All had some form of plastic.
The beads are too small to be removed from the waste stream. They are believed to absorb PCBs and other toxins. Predator fish can confuse them for eggs and fill up on them.
Lake Ontario and Lake Erie are believed to be the two worst places in the Great Lakes region for them, in part because of their population densities and because of how tiny particles are believed to migrate down from the upper lakes.
The Ann Arbor-based Great Lakes Fishery Commission has said it hopes a greater focus on plastics will bring more attention to the issue of discarded fishing gear that pollutes the lakes and the oceans.
The National Academy of Sciences claims more than 90 percent of sea birds have pieces of plastic in their guts, some of it microbeads and some of it larger pieces.
Europe and Australia are at various stages of banning or phasing out microbeads, the Canadian government noted in its new rules.
http://www.toledoblade.com/Politics/2016/11/28/Canada-sets-in-motion-microbeads-prohibition.html
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Companies Must Report Releases of Flame Retardant to EPA
Nov 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Companies that make or use hexabromocyclododecane flame retardants must report their releases of the chemicals, according to a final rule the Environmental Protection Agency will publish Nov. 28.
The EPA's rule (RIN:2025-AA42), effective Nov. 30, requires companies to begin tracking their calendar year 2017 releases of 100 pounds or more of hexabromocyclododecanes into the air or water or their land disposal or recycling of them. By comparison, 100 pounds is roughly equivalent to one-quarter of a bath tub filled with water.
The first Toxics Release Inventory program reports will be due July 1, 2018.
Hexabromocyclododecanes have primarily been used as flame retardants in polystyrene foams that are used for thermal insulation in the building and construction industry. Their use has decreased since 2013 when they were added to the list of chemicals slated for phaseout under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
Chemicals Covered
Hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDs) are a group of 16 closely related chemicals or “stereoisomers.” The EPA's rule addresses a mixture of all the possible isomers identified as Chemical Abstracts Number 25637-99-4 or a mixture of three isomers, CAS No. 3194-55-6.
Manufacturers in 2011, the most recent year for which production volume and other data is available from the EPA, included the Albemarle Corp., BASF Corp. and the Dow Chemical Co.
The EPA withheld the 2011 production volume to protect market share information among the few facilities that reported making or importing the chemicals that year. Global demand for HBCDs was 21,951 metric tons (48.4 million pounds) in 2003, but is decreasing, according to information prepared for the Stockholm Convention.
Persistent, Bioaccumulative and Toxic
The final rule stems from the EPA's concerns about the human health and environmental hazards of the flame retardants.
Low doses of the chemicals have caused developmental and reproductive harm in male and female rats, the EPA's rule said.
The chemicals also bioaccumulate and persist in the environment, “which further supports a high concern for the toxicity to aquatic and terrestrial species,” the EPA said.
A 2014 EPA analysis concluded there were three viable flame retardant alternatives to the HBCDs for use in expanded and extruded polystyrene foam.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=100955615&vname=dennotallissues&fn=100955615&jd=100955615
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EPA's Safer Choice Program Likely to Come Under Fire in 2017
Nov 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
Disputes over the Environmental Protection Agency's Safer Choice chemicals-recognition program are expected in 2017, several people who track chemical policy told Bloomberg BNA.
“There will be a fight over the future of Safer Choice,” Benjamin Dunham, a senior policy adviser at Holland & Knight LLP told Bloomberg BNA during a recent interview.
Some companies and trade associations strongly support the program, said Dunham, formerly a senior adviser to the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.)
They want the recognition it provides for the low-hazard chemical ingredients in their products, he said.
Other industry groups don't like that Safer Choice uses a hazard-based rather than risk-based approach and they'd like to completely eliminate it, he said. Decisions that are made about a chemical due to its inherent toxicity, persistence or other characteristic are hazard-based. Decisions that are based on analysis showing the hazard that could manifest due to exposure to the chemical are risk based.
Groups supporting and opposing the program are likely to take their disputes to Capitol Hill, Dunham said, echoing a perspective Bloomberg BNA has heard from other chemical policy watchers.
What's Safer Choice?
The EPA's Safer Choice program, formerly known as its Design for the Environment program, allows qualifying products to carry one of the Safer Choice logos offered for various products that meet specific criteria.
Qualifying products must be proven to meet stringent health and environmental criteria that show each ingredient is among the safest for the function it provides, according to the Safer Choice website.
More than 500 companies make 2,030 products recognized under Safer Choice labels, EPA staff said at a Nov. 15-16 meeting about the program.
Companies that make and sell Safer Choice labeled products include Clorox Co.; Earth Friendly Products; the Honest Company, Inc.; Seventh Generation, Inc.; Staples Inc., and Wegman's Food Markets Inc.
The majority, or 1,350, of products recognized under Safer Choice are for the industrial and institutional market; 370 are consumer products; and more than 300 can be used for either market, said EPA's Melanie Adams, an environmental protection specialist with the Safer Choice program.
Those products include 824 chemical ingredients that are specified on the program's Safer Chemicals Ingredients List, said Clive Davies, who manages the Safer Choice program.
Previous Efforts to Cut
Bryan McGannon, policy director for the American Sustainable Business Council, told Bloomberg BNA the EPA's Safer Chemicals Ingredients List is an “invaluable tool” for council members that aim to develop new products that don't create unintended harm.
The council and its members support Safer Choice, because it helps provide a market for safer products, he said.
Over the last few years, however, some members of Congress have inserted appropriations riders that have attempted to undo the program, McGannon said.
For example, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) sought to include a rider in legislation providing Fiscal Year 2017 funding for the Department of Defense, McGannon said.
He referred to language McClintock sought to insert that would have barred DOD from using any funds for an array of federal sustainability programs, including the Safer Choice program. The council, Consumer Specialty Products Association, Environmental Defense Fund and Safer Chemicals Healthy Families were dozens of companies and organizations that opposed the amendment in a September letter to committee leaders.
“We are on high alert” for continued efforts to eliminate Safer Choice through a “death by a thousand cuts,” McGannon said.
Time for New EPA Focus?
Dimitri Karakitsos, an attorney with Holland & Knight, questioned whether passage of the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Pub. L. No. 114-182), which amended the Toxic Substances Control Act, should spur a new direction for the EPA's chemicals oversight.
Karakitsos, whose name has been floated as a possible assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention at EPA, was a principal drafter and negotiator of that bill for the Republican members of the Senate's Committee on Environment and Public Works prior to joining Holland & Knight.
“I won't speak specifically to Safer Choice,” Karakitsos told Bloomberg BNA twice.
In the absence of a functioning TSCA, however, the agency pursued new chemical regulations, Safer Choice and other initiatives to attempt to exercise oversight, he said.
Now that Congress specifically “untied” the agency's hands and gave it more authority over chemicals and deadlines to evaluate chemical risks, “I think it's time to relook at those [programs and policies],” Karakitsos said.
The EPA has a lot to do under the amended law to review existing chemicals in commerce, he said.
Charles Auer, a chemist and senior regulatory policy adviser with Bergeson & Campbell PC., who formerly directed the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, also told Bloomberg BNA he expects discussions on Safer Choice's future to take place in 2017.
The conclusion of that debate can't be predicted, Auer said.
Some industry officials aren't entirely happy with the program, yet major companies and industry groups highly value it, he said.
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Restrictions On Cosmetic Preservatives Ramp Up
Nov 28, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
It has been a slow war of attrition. For the past decade, environmental groups have called out a growing number of cosmetic preservatives as suspected endocrine disruptors, cancer-causing agents, and skin irritants. Regulators have examined the claims and in some cases enacted restrictions on widely used preservatives.
Now the list of useful preservatives is down to a handful, say cosmetic formulators and suppliers. And because of the high cost of developing new preservatives and strictures against animal testing, few qualified alternatives are in the offing.
Without a preservative, often used at less than 1%, skin creams, makeup, and shampoos can become contaminated with mold, fungi, and bacteria. Some contaminants can spoil the appearance and smell of cosmetics. Others can lead to skin, scalp, and eye infections, or even worse.
Bad actors include Staphylococcus aureus, a gram-positive bacteria that can cause skin infections, and Escherichia coli, a gram-negative bacteria that can cause stomach cramps and diarrhea when people share cosmetics. “Consumers assume that preservatives are bad without understanding how necessary they are,” says Janet Blaschke, chief executive officer of the consulting firm International Cosmetics & Regulatory Specialists.
Preservatives are meant “to keep cosmetics safe throughout their useful life from production until the last bit is used at the bottom of the jar,” Blaschke says. She fears that, over time, bacteria will build up resistance to the diminishing number of options now available. She doesn’t see alternatives such as single-use or aseptic packaging as realistic—both because of the additional cost and because of the increased packaging waste.
When it comes to preservatives, the most important regulator is the European Union. The EU has a list of allowable preservatives, known as Annex V, that not only governs preservative use in the 28-nation alliance but also influences regulations in many other countries. Although the list contains more than 50 approved ingredients, often only two or three options are appropriate for a particular formulation, formulators and preservative suppliers say.
Among the preservatives European authorities have restricted are methylisothiazolinone and the mixture of methylisothiazolinone and methylchloroisothiazolinone for use in cosmetics, such as lotions, that remain on the skin. The restrictions, effective earlier this year for the combination and in 2017 for the single ingredient, were widely expected. Most everyone, including their maker, Dow Chemical, agreed the ingredients can irritate skin.
An unfavorable review by the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS), an EU panel of experts, judged one widely used preservative, poly(hexamethylene) biguanide hydrochloride (PHMB), not safe for use at a maximum concentration of 0.3% because of mutagenic and cancer concerns. SCCS is now considering whether PHMB is safe for use at concentrations of up to 0.1%, says PHMB maker Lonza. That opinion is expected in December.
Insiders also say EU authorities may soon ban chloroacetamide. French authorities banned it in 2012, but it still appears on the Annex V list of allowable preservatives. The U.S. Cosmetic Ingredient Review, a government-sanctioned industry organization, determined in 1991 that the ingredient is “a potential human sensitizer” and thus not safe for cosmetic use.
EU authorities have examined other preservatives on Annex V and found them acceptable but sometimes at reduced allowable use levels. The widely used preservative phenoxyethanol received a clean bill of health earlier this year. In 2015, phenylphenol got a passing grade but at reduced use levels. SCCS said it did not have enough data to judge safe use of sodium o-phenylphenate and potassium o-phenylphenate.
A 2013 SCCS review of parabens, compounds the advocacy organization Environmental Working Group has targeted as endocrine system disruptors, found they were safe to use. SCCS did recommend new, lower concentration limits for propylparaben and butylparaben, both of which it judged to have “a weak endocrine-modifying potential.”
Rob Taalman, director of research and science at Cosmetics Europe, which represents European cosmetics makers, says the parabens recommendation reflects the EU’s risk-based assessment process for cosmetic ingredients. An ingredient “may have an intrinsic undesirable property, but EU authorities don’t automatically ban it,” he says. Preservatives are used in cosmetics to ensure public safety, he notes.
Yet for companies, a government stamp of approval isn’t always enough. Following criticism from outside groups, some consumer product formulators have banned what they consider chemicals of concern. For example, Johnson & Johnson removed formaldehyde-releasing preservatives, which might evoke an allergic response, from all its products. It also removed parabens from baby products.
Andrea Mitarotonda, chief scientific officer of Neal’s Yard Remedies, a U.K.-based cosmetics retailer and formulator, notes that any suspicion, even if undeserved, can prompt corporate action. Without waiting for the outcome of an investigation, companies often reformulate entire ranges of products so they don’t have to face “the detrimental consequence of a possible ban later,” he explains.
Questioning old standby preservatives is not necessarily a bad thing, Mitarotonda observes. “What was considered safe 20 years ago, tested using methods and protocols available at that time, needs to be reviewed in light of the knowledge and technologies available now,” he says.
Neal’s Yard Remedies draws on the ingredients from the Annex V list, but Mitarotonda is also interested in using them in combination with natural alternatives not on the list. “Very few formulators will be aware of the chemistry of essential oils or plant extracts, which is obviously a shame as they may be missing out on opportunities to use substances to enhance the preservation profile of their products.”
Some industry players are leery of essential oils and plant extracts, which are often called “nonpreservative preservatives.” Oils and extracts can vary in quality and consistency, notes David Steinberg, a cosmetic formulation consultant. “How do you guarantee the purity of extracts compared with the purity of synthetic preservatives like parabens?” he asks.
Steinberg also wonders about the efficacy of alternative preservatives, noting that they don’t have the long history of use and characterization that backs the traditional sort. Recalls of contaminated cosmetics are dwarfed by those of clothing, toys, and other consumer products on the EU’s Rapid Alert recall database, he says. But he notes a subtle rise in cosmetic recalls in the past few years, which he attributes to lower levels of effective preservatives and the use of alternatives.
Some products that are primarily added as emollients or conditioners, for instance, can also have preservative qualities, notes Rick Strittmatter, global microbial control R&D director at Dow. Like plant extracts, they also fall into the category of nonpreservative preservatives and “can clearly play a preservation role,” he says.
But the assessment of such preservatives “also must be subject to the same risk-based approach that traditional preservatives have been subject to,” Strittmatter says. “If it is being used as a preservative, it needs to be assessed on a level playing field.”
Companies are pursuing all preservative options to combat the shrinking arsenal of traditional products. Niall D’Arcy, project manager for the Ireland-based consulting firm Biocide Information, sees a business opportunity because the new products are generally more expensive than parabens and other traditional ingredients. He says the $1 billion-a-year global market for preservatives of all types is growing 4 to 5% annually.
Of the more than 50 preservatives listed on Annex V, only about one-third are in regular use, says Andrea Wingenfeld, a technical marketing manager at the specialty chemical maker Ashland. Temperature sensitivity, pH sensitivity, and antimicrobial activity all play a role in the choice a formulator makes. In addition, formulators may avoid using a preservative approved in Europe or other regions if that preservative has been the subject of negative publicity, she says.
For leave-on products such as sunblock or makeup, the choice of preservatives is especially limited, Wingenfeld says. Since the bans on use of isothiazolinones, formulators rely mostly on phenoxyethanol, benzyl alcohol, and organic acids, she notes.
Although they do not like the attacks on what they view as beneficial ingredients, preservative suppliers acknowledge market realities. Lonza, for instance, just revamped its FormulaProtect online preservative selector tool, which allows users to avoid controversial products such as formaldehyde donors and instead choose “less controversial products,” says Phil Hindley, Lonza Consumer Care’s global marketing head for preservation.
Lonza is also interested in developing new preservatives that are acceptable to regulators, formulators, and environmental groups. Hindley says he is open to working with all stakeholders to develop such alternatives (see sidebar). But only a “robust solution” with performance, safety, and cost benefits will work in the long run, he says.
Other challenges to the development of new preservatives are the time, cost, and effort required to win regulatory approval. Ashland’s Wingenfeld says it took eight years from the time authorities received a dossier on the most recent addition to Annex V, citric acid/silver citrate, until it appeared in 2014. Given that timetable, “most companies will not see a business case in commercializing new preservatives,” she says.
The ban on animal testing for cosmetics, in place in Europe since 2009, makes it difficult for developers to submit required safety data on a new preservative, Wingenfeld adds. Cosmetics Europe’s Taalman says member companies are working with regulators to qualify new skin exposure and risk-assessment models.
However, at the moment, it’s not easy to qualify a new preservative, Taalman says. “We are basically stuck,” he says, at least until new testing protocols are approved, and that is at least a few years off.
Cosmetic products today are by and large safe, Blaschke, the consultant, emphasizes. By worrying about preservative options now, formulators and suppliers “are trying to keep up their good record,” she says, and keep crises from occurring down the road. Contest will offer cash for new preservatives
A group of consumer product formulators, preservative makers, retailers, and nongovernment organizations is coming together under the banner of the Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) to stage a crowdsourcing competition for new preservative technologies.
Details on the competition, to be managed by the open innovation expert InnoCentive, are still being worked out. But when the competition gets under way in about six months, it’s expected to offer up to 10 prizes of $5,000 to $10,000 apiece for early-stage ideas and $20,000 to $25,000 for more advanced preservative concepts, according to Monica Becker, codirector of GC3, an organization of chemical makers, product manufacturers, and retailers.
The goal, Becker says, is to accelerate commercialization of safe and effective preservative systems. Contest-judging criteria, now being developed, are likely to echo a “need statement” GC3 developed with a number of formulators about a year ago. The statement called for preservatives that are biodegradable, free of carcinogen and endocrine disruption concerns, and not likely to build microbial resistance.
The contest backers don’t want intellectual property rights, Becker says. Instead, their goal is “to bring promising technology to light” and connect innovators to companies with which they can partner to develop, test, register, and manufacture inherently safer preservatives.
“We want to help academic researchers or small companies who don’t have the resources to get new ‘green’ preservatives to market,” she says.
In all, 17 entities are backing the contest. Among them are retailers Walmart and Target. Both firms have pressured suppliers to reduce or eliminate ingredients in household goods that they deem harmful to human health and the environment.
Consumer goods makers such as Johnson & Johnson, which pledged to eliminate certain chemicals of concern from its products in 2012, are among the backers. Additional contest underwriters include the advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund and large preservative makers such as Dow Chemical, Lonza, and Schülke & Mayr.
The preservation project has been two years in the making, Becker says. An executive at J&J got the ball rolling when he watched a webinar on open innovation at which Becker was a speaker.
When they talked, Becker and the J&J executive realized that many companies in the personal care and household products space share a need for new, safe, and effective preservatives, Becker recounts. “We thought we could make it a collaborative effort,” she says.
After gathering an initial group of formulators, Becker also drew in preservative makers. Though not initially involved, large retailers heard about it and asked to join, she says.
Becker says she is hoping the challenge will attract a large number of entries. “We’ve never done anything like this before. I’m cautiously optimistic,” she says.Backers
A list of contest supporters that agreed to be named:
▸ Babyganics
▸ Beiersdorf
▸ Dow Chemical
▸ Environmental Defense Fund
▸ Johnson & Johnson
▸ Lonza
▸ Method
▸ Schülke & Mayr
▸ Seventh Generation
▸ Target
▸ Walmarthttps://cen.acs.org/articles/94/i47/Restrictions-cosmetic-preservatives-ramp.html
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New Milestone: The U.S. Is Now a Net Exporter of Natural Gas
Nov 27, 2016 | The Wall Street Journal
By Stephanie Yang and Alison Sider
U.S. will be the world’s third-largest producer of liquefied natural gas for export by 2020, according to the Energy Department
The U.S. has become a net exporter of natural gas, further evidence of the how the domestic oil and gas boom is reshaping the global energy business.
The U.S. has exported an average of 7.4 billion cubic feet a day of gas in November, more than the 7 billion cubic feet a day it has imported, according to S&P Global Platts, an energy trade publisher and data provider. Exports also topped imports for a few days in September, Platts reported. It has been nearly 60 years since the U.S. last shipped out more natural gas than it brought in annually, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The milestone comes less than a year after restrictions on most crude oil exports were lifted, allowing tankers of crude to be freely shipped overseas for the first time nearly half a century, and together they mark a significant and potentially permanent change in the way U.S. energy flows around the world. Overseas producers now have to deal with the growing clout of the U.S. energy industry, which is aggressively looking to ramp up its global market share to help offset a long period of low prices.
“It’s indicative of things to come,” said Sid Perkins, managing partner at the brokerage Ion Energy Group. Natural gas is “going to be taking on the characteristics of a global-macro market, like crude, where global factors will influence what happens to gas.”
A blast of cold weather could cause heating demand to rise and tip the U.S. back into being a net importer, analysts said. Still, the rise in overseas sales is a welcome development for an industry that produced far more than the U.S. can consume.
A glut of supply dragged prices down to a 17-year low in March. They have rebounded by more than 80% since then, as summer demand has worked through high inventories and winter consumption looks set to pick up, but are still well below their levels before the oil boom deflated.
Gas exports have risen more than 50% since 2010. The U.S. will ship gas equal to as much as a fifth of its annual consumption abroad by 2020, Citigroup estimates. The Energy Department says the country will be the world’s third-largest producer of liquefied natural gas for export by that year, trailing Australia and Qatar.
The biggest buyers are North American Free Trade Agreement partners Mexico and Canada. A series of new pipelines running across the southern border helped shipments to Mexico reach an all-time high in August and accounted for almost 6% of total U.S. gas production, according to the EIA. Mexico uses U.S. gas to run power generators and offset declines in domestic production.
Exports to Canada—where U.S. gas heats homes and businesses—have remained relatively steady over the past few years and accounted for 2.5% of production in August.
Some analysts fear President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to revisit U.S. trade policy with Mexico could slow the rise of gas exports to that country, but the industry also is cracking open new markets farther from home.
Shipments from Cheniere Energy Inc.’s Sabine Pass liquefied natural gas terminal have grown to average 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas a day since February, when exports from the facility began.
Cheniere initially intended to receive LNG when it opened the terminal in 2008. But with the surge of natural gas being released from shale formations, it became the first U.S. gas company to request government permission to reverse the flow and ship the gas abroad instead.
Plans to export natural gas to countries such as Singapore and South Korea, which have free trade agreements with the U.S., could be authorized quickly. But shipments to countries that don’t have such agreements, a group that includes big LNG buyers like Japan, require additional government scrutiny. Cheniere won approval to sell gas to that latter group in 2011.
Cheniere continues to expand Sabine Pass, and several other export terminals are expected to come online starting in 2017 and 2018. In 2013, the Freeport LNG terminal at Quintana Island, Texas, became the second to win government approval to export. It is slated to begin shipping out gas in 2018. Dominion Resources plans to begin shipping LNG bound for Japan and India from its terminal on the Chesapeake Bay next year.
Slowing demand and surging supplies have pushed global spot prices of LNG down and have made it harder to ink the long-term contracts that underpin financing for export terminals. Royal Dutch Shell PLC said earlier this year that it would delay making a final decision on its plans to help develop a natural gas export terminal at the site of an existing import terminal in Lake Charles, La., saying the market is already amply supplied. A Shell spokesman said the company plans to periodically review the project.
Still, the exports show how American shale energy producers continue to expand their influence in ways few predicted a decade ago.
“Gas is just one of the first signs of the growing strength of U.S. production power,” saidAnthony Yuen, global energy strategist at Citigroup.
—Timothy Puko contributed to this article.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-milestone-the-u-s-is-now-a-net-exporter-of-natural-gas-1480258801
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LNG Exports Provision Restored to Energy Bill
Nov 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Catherine Traywick
A provision to expedite liquefied natural gas exports has been restored to the proposed energy bill (S. 2012) along with other measures that House negotiators dropped, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Maria Cantwell said Nov. 25.
The Senate's revised energy bill proposal also restores provisions related to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, natural gas pipeline permitting and hydropower, Murkowski (R-Alaska), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and Cantwell (D-Wash.), the ranking member, said in a statement.
The Senate's new version has been sent back to the House for further efforts to reconcile differences on the broad energy bill.
“We also remain hopeful that an agreement can be reached on provisions to address California's drought crisis, to remedy wildfire funding challenges, and to improve forest management,” the senators said in the statement.
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EPA Sued Over Delays on Power Plant Discharge Permits
Nov 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Amena H. Saiyid
A federal appeals court should force the Environmental Protection Agency to issue long-overdue Clean Water Act discharge permits by June 2017 for two coal-fired power plants in New Hampshire, the Sierra Club said in a petition filed Nov. 23 In Re: Sierra Club Inc., 1st Cir., No. 16-02415, 11/23/16).
The environmental group claims the EPA has failed since the 1990s to update National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits to regulate toxic wastewater discharges from the Merrimack and Schiller coal-fired power plants, which are operated by Eversource Energy.
The Merrimack Station plant, which generates 470 megawatts of coal-fired power, received an NPDES permit in 1992 that expired 1997. The permit for the Schiller Station, which generates about 150 MW of a mix of coal-and wood-fired power, was issued in 1990 and expired in 1995.
Five-Year Permits
Neither permit has been renewed, although the law calls for updates every five years.
The Clean Water Act prohibits the discharge of wastewater effluent without an NPDES permit. After five years, the permit is to be reviewed and updated to reflect the latest effluent limits and conditions of the receiving waters.
Permits can be continued administratively if the five-year window is missed, but the law never intended deadlines to be extended indefinitely, the Sierra Club told the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
‘Enormously Outdated Standards’
“Although Congress directed EPA to reconsider and update these permits every five years to ensure continued and improved protection of the environment, EPA has thwarted this directive, permitting these plants to continue operating under enormously outdated standards set decades ago,” the Sierra Club said.
Coal burned in a power plant generates heat that drives a steam turbine. The wastewater collected at the bottom of the furnace from the ash residue and pollution controls contains toxic compounds, which must be treated before being released, usually into local rivers.
Coal-fired power plants account for almost a third of the toxic pollution discharged into rivers and streams from all industrial sources, according to the EPA.
Effluent limits placed on steam electric power plants prohibit the discharge of ash wastewater and set new restrictions on the concentration of arsenic, mercury, selenium and nitrates in the wastewater from air pollution scrubbers.
The EPA has told the Sierra Club that it plans to issue revised permits for both New Hampshire power plants next year, but has refused to commit to an actual timeline.
Howard Crystal for the Washington, D.C.-based Law Office of Howard Crystal filed the petition for Sierra Club.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=100955627&vname=dennotallissues&fn=100955627&jd=100955627
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ND Senators Tell Pipeline Protesters To Cacate Camp
Nov 26, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Harper Neidig
North Dakota Sens. John Hoeven (R) and Heidi Heitkamp (D) are calling on protesters to leave federal lands where they have been encamped to demonstrate against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
"The well-being and property of ranchers, farmers and everyone else living in the region should not be threatened by protesters who are willing to commit acts of violence," Hoeven said in a statement on Friday, according to the Associated Press.
Heitkamp struck a more conciliatory tone, but similarly blamed protesters for an “escalation of violence.”
“Safety must remain the top priority for everyone, and to help make that possible, it’s critical protestors peacefully and lawfully move off of the Corps land north of the Cannonball River and to the identified federal and tribal lands,” Heitkamp said in her own statement.
“There has been an escalation of violence among some of the protestors that puts their lives, as well as the lives of law enforcement, residents, and land owners in jeopardy."
The Army Corps of Engineers on Friday told the leader of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe that the federal lands that protesters are camped on will be closed over safety concerns posed by winter weather.
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/307567-senators-for-nd-call-on-dakota-access-protesters-to-vacate-camp
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Chemical Safety Board Probes Louisiana Exxon Refinery Fire
Nov 28, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Sam Pearson
The federal Chemical Safety Board is sending staff to an Exxon Mobil Corp. refinery in Baton Rouge, La., where six workers were injured in a fire, the board said Nov. 23.
The board said initial reports found flammable vapors were released while workers were performing unplanned maintenance on a pump at the refinery Nov. 22. The vapors did not explode, but ignited a large fire at the site, the CSB said.
Four of the six workers are being treated for critical injuries, the CSB said. The refinery is the third-largest in the U.S., according to Exxon Mobil's website, and processes more than 500,000 barrels of crude oil each day.
It is not clear if CSB will open a formal investigation into the incident. But, examining what went wrong during the repair could show to what extent the plant applied the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's process safety management program. The facility is one of about 150 refineries in the PSM program.
“The CSB has investigated too many incidents at refineries across the country,” CSB Chairwoman Vanessa Sutherland said in a statement Nov. 23. “As an agency, we continue to be concerned about the safety of oil and gas workers and their surrounding communities. The management of risk is an important part of any high hazard operation.”
The agency already has an open investigation into a former ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance, Calif., where two workers were injured in February 2015. Exxon has since sold the refinery.
Ashley Smith Alemayehu, a spokeswoman for ExxonMobil, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg BNA Nov. 25 that the company is investigating the fire.
“All appropriate agencies have been notified and we are working closely with them,” Alemayehu said.
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The Evolution Of Cyber Attacks Powered By The Internet Of Things
Nov 27, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Marvin Philipps
From a handheld device, I have the ability to monitor my home and even change my laundry. These are but a few of the latest conveniences made possible by the Internet of Things – a concept that describes the networked interconnectivity of everyday devices. But as the recent internet outage due to a distributed denial of service attack on an internet infrastructure company demonstrated, the Internet of Things comes at a cost.
If we are to continue enjoying the convenience of IoT without being an accessory to cyber-attacks, new policies must be implemented which ban Botnet-for-hire organizations and mandate enhanced product security standards. To this end, the Department of Homeland Security should designate core internet backbone as critical infrastructure, require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to detect and report Botnet for hires, and mandate stronger firmware access standards.
Current procedures employed by manufacturers of Internet-capable devices are exposing the public to generally unknown and unwarranted vulnerabilities. Such devices, from baby monitors, appliances, to wireless routers, have little to no firmware security. Firmware is a manufactural installed software security program which reinforces protections provided by typical password usage. This weak security is baked into each device and renders them susceptible to seizure and use for corruption. One device possesses no threat, but one million devices sending data simultaneously can render the server and its hosted services inaccessible.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with but one step. Hackers employ this concept daily, probing networks, finding unsecured devices, and commandeering them into their gang. Once initiated, the devices continue functioning in their usual manner, but they also begin recruiting more members. A day, month, or perhaps a year later, the gang’s membership is at an all-time high. With over a million devices at his command, the leader of the hack game commands them to join hands and channel their energy towards the target.
The effects can be widespread and affect menial and critical tasks alike. It can prevent you from uploading pictures of your child's new Halloween costume because the site is unavailable, or something much more troublesome like preventing you from withdrawing money from the ATM. Your feeling of inconvenience has grown to a state of fear and vulnerability, which you unknowingly assisted in creating by not changing the default password on your wireless router or because of a security vulnerability in your DVR.
We can’t afford to stand by idly until a botnet grows large enough to take down a critical data infrastructure. Policies must be implemented at the federal level providing liability incentives to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and manufacturers for enhancing network security. Doing so will encourage ISPs to detect and disable malware. Incentives will similarly encourage product manufacturers to develop and push firmware updates to proprietary devices. The Cybersecurity Act of 2015, establishes provisions which permit the executive branch to provide such incentives to ISPs.
Through the channels which allow access to devices and home monitoring from afar, lurks an adversary. Over home surveillance systems, criminals are capable of watching you prepare for work or even worst viewing your young child as she sleeps peacefully in her crib. Even if you are savvy about cybersecurity, some of your devices have default firmware passwords that are much harder to change. As a result, beneath your nose, your new Internet-capable appliances have been recruited into a bot army planning to carry out cyber-attacks against a range of targets. Consumers must be equipped and educated.
Opposition against federal programs aimed at regulating Internet connectivity will be based upon perceived violations of constitutionally granted freedoms and civil liberties. The fear of the federal government exercising too much control has been a concern since the establishment of our nation. As a result of such concerns, catastrophic events are often required for changes to occur. Such an event is brewing in cyberspace, powered by the internet of things, a massive botnet capable of causing severe damage to a critical infrastructure is under construction.
Conservatives will argue that the government has no place in dictating product design or mandating passwords. I firmly believe, policies regulating such practices should be implemented from the top down as result of the dangers in which DDOS via botnets poses to the nation as a whole.
We’ve evolved into the microwave generation and arrived at a fragile state in which convenience has superseded security. Glued to our handheld devices, we desire to control the world around us with but a touch of a button. Advances in technology such as the introduction of internet-connected devices have afforded us such luxuries. Such comforts come at a cost nonetheless, which extends beyond the product purchase price and infringes upon our individual freedoms and privacy.
The genie is out of the bottle, and there is no putting it back in this instance as internet connected devices have become a way of life. We are stuck with these devices and the inherited dangers which accompany them. Just as we have addressed threats of this nature in the past, we will do the same in this manner. However, a sense of urgency must be applied as we can't afford to wait for a major incident to occur before implementing remediation policies.
Phillips is a Master of Public Policy student at Georgetown University. He is also an active duty U.S. Army Officer with 18 years of experience in Information Technology Management.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/technology/307587-the-evolution-of-cyber-attacks-powered-by-the-internet-of
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Trump's New Paris Comments Confound Greens
Nov 26, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Devin Henry
Donald Trump's promise this week to "look very carefully" at the Paris climate deal raised eyebrows among environmentalists, who are preparing for a fight with the president-elect.
Despite his newly mellowed rhetoric, environmental activists say they don't trust Trump to pull back on his oft-repeated pledge to end U.S. involvement in the international climate change accord.
"He may have started to understand that as opposed to what some of his denialist advisers are telling him, that this is not 'all gain and no pain' if he pulls the U.S. out,” said Alden Meyer, the director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“It’s not clear whether those are just some words in response to a question ... or whether it really does mean he’s going to do a serious relook at this whole issue.”
Trump told The New York Times on Tuesday that he has an “open mind” about climate change and the international deal reached in Paris last year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“I’ll tell you what, I have an open mind to it,” he said. “We’re going to look very carefully. It’s one issue that’s interesting because there are few things where there’s more division [politically] than climate change.”
Trump insisted during the campaign that he would “cancel” the deal as soon as he took office, making even the suggestion he could participate in the accord a shift in attitude.
Supporters of the Paris deal greeted Trump’s new tone with hope and trepidation.
The League of Conservation Voters said Trump having an “open mind” for staying in the Paris agreement would be “an enormous step forward in the global battle to address the devastating impacts of climate change.”
Tom Friedman, the New York Times columnist who asked Trump about climate change, wrote Tuesday that the exchange was “interesting.”
“On several key issues — like climate change and torture — where he adopted extreme positions during his campaign to galvanize his base, he went out of his way to make clear he was rethinking them,” Friedman wrote in a column.
“How far? I don’t know. But stay tuned, especially on climate.”
Many environmental activists are leery about Trump’s tone on the Paris deal, a landmark agreement reached less than a year ago that sets greenhouse gas reduction targets.
“Talk is cheap, and no one should believe Donald Trump means this until he acts upon it,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in a statement, calling on Trump to "prove it."
“We’re waiting for action, and Trump is kidding nobody on climate as he simultaneously stacks his transition team and cabinet with climate science deniers and the dirtiest hacks the fossil fuel industry can offer."
The tough language comes as greens vow to remain vigilant about protecting the Paris deal, especially in light of the advisers Trump has surrounded himself with since winning the White House.
Environmentalists have lambasted Trump for tapping Myron Ebell, who works at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and is a leading skeptic of climate change science, to head his Environmental Protection Agency transition team.
“Actions speak louder than words. As long as Trump has a climate change denier like Myron Ebell running his transition team, you know this is all a bunch of empty rhetoric,” said May Boeve, executive director of environmental group 350.org.
Trump on Monday named Steven Groves to his State Department transition team. Groves, a scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation, has often written about pulling the U.S. out of the Paris agreement.
He penned an essay last week suggesting Trump should even end the country’s engagement in the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the underlying United Nations climate treaty.
Ebell and Groves declined to comment on Trump’s Tuesday statement, but Nick Loris, a Heritage fellow who coauthored last week’s essay, said he doesn’t see Trump's comments as a shift in his position.
“Taking a critical look at [the deal] will be important for the president-elect and his administration,” he said. “I don’t see it as a shift, but more that these policies require examination from a cost-benefit analysis, and this one fails that miserably.”
Trump’s comments on the Paris agreement come after weeks of private and public pressure from Democrats, climate diplomats, businesses and others who argue the United States's presence in international environmental work is critical.
President Obama pressed Trump on the Paris deal earlier this month, arguing it’s a good way to get nations like China and India to commit to new climate plans.
“The tradition has been you carry them forward across the administrations, particularly if once you actually examine them, they’re doing good for us and binding other countries into behavior that will help us,” Obama said.
Obama administration officials have also looked to move Trump toward their position.
Secretary of State John Kerry told an international climate conference last week that Trump should listen to scientists and businesses that support climate action, a message Jonathan Pershing, Obama’s U.N. climate envoy, said he will give to Trump’s State Department transition team.
“There is enormous opportunity here for us,” Pershing said on Tuesday. “The opportunities are global, and the U.S. is a pretty small share of the market, so if we actually want to play in that space, we’ve got to play globally. We’ve got to be an international actor.”
International officials have also pushed Trump to remain in the deal. Chinese officials have repeatedly criticized his plan to break the Paris agreement, and Boris Johnson, the United Kingdom's foreign secretary, said this week he hopes Trump is a “deal-maker” on climate matters.
“When it comes to climate change, this is something that the U.K. has led on globally, we have had outstanding success and, yes … it is a message that we are taking to the [Trump] administration,” Johnson said on Monday.
Loris dismissed the pressure as an predictable response from people who had expected Trump to lose the election. The Heritage fellow said he thinks Trump will listen to advisers who have determined the deal will be bad for the U.S. economy.
“I would hope that the wheels are in motion leading up to Inauguration Day," Loris said, urging Trump to withdraw from the underlying U.N. climate treaty and withdraw the U.S. from the Paris deal within a year.
That’s a worrying prospect for greens, who saw at least a glimmer of hope from Trump this week.
“It’s like what Reagan said about the Soviet Union: Trust but verify,” Smith said. “You’ve got to hold out hope, because the consequences of him following through on what he said during the campaign are really quite devastating.”
Timothy Cama contributed
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/307415-trumps-new-paris-comments-confound-greens
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Trump Has Options for Undoing Obama’s Climate Legacy
Nov 25, 2016 | The New York Times
By Henry Fountain and Erica Goode
President-elect Donald J. Trump has vowed to dismantle many of the signature policies put in place by the Obama administration to fight the effects of climate change.
During the campaign, he threatened, among other things, to kill the Clean Power Plan, a set of rules to reduce emissions from power plants. He has also taken aim at new regulations to limit methane leaks from wells and pipelines. And members of his transition team have suggested that he may reduce or eliminate basic climate research at NASA or other agencies.
If he follows through, most of these moves will be opposed by environmental groups, by Democrats in Congress and perhaps even by some Republicans. But Mr. Trump will have several tools to begin nullifying the Obama climate agenda.
One of them is the little-known Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a small outpost within the executive branch that has, since the Clinton administration, been the last stop for many regulations before they go into effect.Continue reading the main storyThe Trump White HouseStories on the presidential transition and the forthcoming Trump administration.Trump’s Promises Will Be Hard to Keep, but Coal Country Has FaithNOV 28Trump Has Serious Decisions to Make (but First, a Twitter Rant)NOV 28Can Oil Help Mexico Withstand Trump’s Attack on Trade? It’s Hard to See HowNOV 27Cities Vow to Fight Trump on Immigration, Even if They Lose MillionsNOV 27Combative, Populist Steve Bannon Found His Man in Donald TrumpNOV 27
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Lawyers in the office pore over thousands of pages of federal regulations daily and pride themselves on meticulously reviewing the fine print, even if that takes months or years.
Under the control of the new administration, the office could slow President Obama’s latest regulatory initiatives by repeatedly sending them back for additional work.
“It has been a brake on agency regulation throughout its lifetime,” said Jody Freeman, a professor at Harvard Law School and an expert on environmental regulation. “Some presidents have used it as more of a brake than others.”
Much remains to be learned about the president-elect’s environmental policy goals, and some of his views appear to have shifted.
Mr. Trump, who has claimed that global warming is a hoax, said this week in an interview with The New York Times that he now saw “some connectivity” between humans and climate change, and that he would “keep an open mind” about whether to pull out of the Paris climate accord, as he threatened to do during the campaign.
Yet at the same time, some key positions on his transition team are occupied by people with a long history of rejecting the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.
Other than climate change, there are numerous environmental issues that he has never talked about and that he might be content to leave untouched. And once agency heads are in place, they may choose very different tactics from those discussed during Mr. Trump’s campaign or by his advisers. Two people considered to be in the running to head the Environmental Protection Agency — Jeffrey R. Holmstead, an energy lobbyist, and Robert E. Grady, a venture capitalist — also have experience in the complex machinations of the federal government.
“Every new administration comes in with an overestimation of what it can accomplish and how quickly it can accomplish it,” said Kevin Ewing, a partner at Bracewell, a Washington law firm.
If Mr. Trump does decide to withdraw from the Paris agreement, he will find it difficult: The accord went into force this month. He would also encounter tremendous obstacles were he to try to dismantle the E.P.A., another campaign threat.
But he may have an easier time abandoning other climate initiatives, including a United Nations-backed program to reduce the environmental impact of international air travel beginning in 2020. The United States has only informally committed to participate in the program, and the new administration could refuse to make that commitment legally binding.
One of the most powerful methods to hobble Mr. Obama’s domestic environmental initiatives would be to block financing for the E.P.A. and other agencies.
“Congress can always pass an appropriations rider that for one year prevents any funding for the implementation or enforcement of a particular regulation,” said Scott H. Segal, a partner and director of the policy resolution group at Bracewell. Riders can be passed year after year, effectively neutering a specific regulation, Mr. Segal said.
Such an approach can be “stealthier” than trying to undo the regulation itself, Professor Freeman said. “You don’t have to repeal these statutes,” she said. “You just have to make it impossible to implement them.”
Another opening for Mr. Trump lies in regulations that were proposed by the Obama administration but are still technically “in motion.” In theory, he could pull back or block these rules.
But a departing administration can also use a regulation’s “in motion” status to its own advantage. Last week, the Obama administration banned drilling in the Alaskan Arctic under the Interior Department’s proposed five-year plan regulating oil and gas leases. Republicans could kill the plan. But to do so would mean crafting a replacement, a process that could take two years or more.
Last week, the White House unveiled a sweeping plan to try to stiffen environmental regulations before Mr. Obama leaves office. Environmental groups can be expected to fight any efforts to undo them.
“Donald Trump can’t just snap his fingers and change climate policy,” said David Goldston, director of government affairs at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We have ways to thwart him in Congress and the courts that we could employ.”
The approach the Trump administration takes will depend in part on the status of specific rules and regulations.
Some environmental policies — like “guidance” issued by the White House earlier this year, instructing agencies to consider the effects of climate change when conducting environmental reviews — do not have the force of law that agency regulations do, and can be abolished with a pen stroke. Undoing a regulation is more complicated. Some of the E.P.A.’s new methane rules are completed, for example, but other rules, both at the E.P.A. and at the Interior Department, are not and can simply be abandoned.
If a rule is final, the options are different. The new administration cannot just rescind these regulations, but it can order agencies to revisit them. That reopens the rule-making process, however, including the opportunity for public comment. Any revisions or replacement regulations must have a basis in facts and a cost-benefit analysis, not politics or ideology.
There are other potential options for specific regulations. The Clean Power Plan, for instance, is completed but not yet in effect because of a judicial stay imposed while legal action against it plays out in a federal appeals court in Washington. If there is no ruling by Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, Mr. Trump’s Justice Department can ask the court to put the case in abeyance, effectively extending the stay indefinitely.
“In some respects, this is in the Department of Justice’s hands,” said Tom Lorenzen, a lawyer at Crowell & Moring who argued against the plan before the appeals court. “They will make a determination of how they want to proceed.”
Mr. Segal said the Republican Congress might also be able to overturn some recently completed regulations under a law that gives both houses up to 60 legislative days to reject them. That law, the Congressional Review Act, usually comes into play only when the party of the incoming president is different from the departing one’s and the same party controls both houses, as is the case now.
William K. Reilly, a Republican who was E.P.A. administrator under President George Bush, said Mr. Trump needed to be careful about whom he picked for the top jobs in each department.
He cited the Reagan administration’s experience with Anne Gorsuch, who incurred the wrath of politicians of both parties when, as administrator of the E.P.A., she cut the agency’s budget by more than 20 percent, gutting research and regulatory enforcement. She resigned under fire in 1983 in the midst of accusations that she had mismanaged a hazardous waste cleanup program.
“The administration got badly burned by discounting the sensitivities and public support for what the E.P.A. protects us from,” Mr. Reilly said. “It’s a public health agency above all.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/science/donald-trump-obama-climate.html
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