Preview Newsletter
AM ACC 12/23/2016
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Reporting Duties to Align With New Law
Dec 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
EPA plans to revise what companies must report on chemical production volumes and processes to align with recent changes to the commercial chemicals law, the agency said. -
Trump's Pick to Lead EPA Supported Changes to Chemicals Law
Dec 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency backed a strong chemical law during the negotiations that led to this year's amendment of the Toxic Substances Control Act. -
Toxics: Flint 'Is No Aberration' in Blood Lead Levels, Report Finds
Dec 22, 2016 | Inside EPA
Approximately 3,000 communities in the United States have lead poisoning rates at least double those in Flint, MI, the site of a well-publicized lead contamination crisis, a report from Reuters Investigates finds, suggesting the Trump administration will face pressure... -
State Department Signals Interest in How Tech Companies Address Abuses in Cobalt Supply Chain
Dec 23, 2016 | Washington Post
By Todd C. Frankel
The U.S. government is taking an increased interest in how American technology companies plan to address human rights abuses in Congo’s cobalt mines, according to a senior State Department official. -
European Commission May Rethink Endocrine Disruptor Criteria
Dec 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Commission said Dec. 22 it will consider its options after it became apparent that not enough European Union countries support proposed criteria for identifying substances with endocrine disrupting properties. -
Energy, Environmental Wish List Compiled for Trump
Dec 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
This holiday season, industry organizations, think tanks and states have compiled a lengthy wish list of environment and energy policies for President-elect Donald Trump, ranging from rolling back climate regulations to overhauling the nation's bedrock environmental laws. -
Industry Favors Carbon Permitting Exemption, Just Not EPA's
Dec 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
Exempting some power plants and manufacturers from greenhouse gas emissions permitting requirements enjoys broad industry support, but the threshold being considered by the Environmental Protection Agency is far too low, industries said. -
Green Energy Producers Hopeful Despite Trump's Coal Promise
Dec 23, 2016 | AP (In the New York Times)
Swaths of virgin desert in the U.S. West in recent years have transformed into solar farms, a trend green energy supporters predict will persist even with the election of a president who is making fossil fuel-friendly Cabinet appointments and promises to bring back coal. -
Alaska Lawmakers Mull Legislation to Block Obama Drilling Ban
Dec 22, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Congressional Republicans and their oil industry allies are gearing up to fight President Obama’s new bans on oil drilling in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. -
After Drilling Decision, Focus Needs to Turn to Protecting the Gulf, Clean Energy
Dec 22, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Lindsay Allen
This week President Obama showed legislative creativity, using a 60-year old law to protect pristine coastlines and marine resources in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans for generations to come. Now, we need him to take the next step onto truly bold climate leadership. -
Thank You Obama for Protecting the Arctic and Atlantic and Our Future
Dec 22, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Trip Van Noppen
President Obama has done more than any previous president to lead the United States and the world in the battle against climate change. We owe him our enduring gratitude for this leadership. -
Fracking Has Boosted U.S. Manufacturers, London Economic Study Finds
Dec 22, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has published a paper showing what many in the oil and gas industry already suspected: the proliferation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has made U.S. manufacturers more competitive. -
(ACC Mentioned) EPA Issues Long-Delayed Chemical Plant Safety Regulation
Dec 22, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
The Environmental Protection Agency revised a 25-year-old regulation intended to reduce chemical plant accidents and protect communities, workers, and emergency responders. -
New EPA Rule Aims to Bolster Chemical Plant Safety
Dec 22, 2016 | Chem.Info
By Meagan Parrish
Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency recently released details about a new rule that takes aim at chemical plant safety. -
Texas City Wants Exxon Petrochemical Plant Built Elsewhere
Dec 23, 2016 | AP (In The Washington Post)
Leaders of a South Texas city say a new giant Exxon Mobil Corp. petrochemical plant is a good idea but not in their neighborhood. -
Refining Company Reportedly Backs Away from California Oil Train Lawsuit
Dec 22, 2016 | Sacramento Bee
By Tony Bizjak
Valero Refining Co. appears to have backed away from its threat to sue Benicia over that city’s refusal to allow the company to bring oil to its bayside refinery via trains. -
The Coming Battle Between the Trump Team and Economists over the True Cost of Climate Change
Dec 23, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chelsea Harvey
As we learn more and more about the tenor of the Trump transition, a key part of its regulatory rollback strategy on climate change is coming into focus. As we learn more and more about the tenor of the Trump transition, a key part of its regulatory rollback strategy on climate change is coming into focus. -
Sources Predict Limited CRA Role In Blocking Climate, Environmental Rules
Dec 22, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Capitol Hill lawmakers' use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to scuttle climate and other environmental rules might be more limited than initial rhetoric by critics suggests, due to the statute's procedural limitations and a likely crowded legislative agenda in 2017... -
We'll Protect and Defend the Environment in 2017 – With or Without President Trump
Dec 22, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Fred Krupp
For more than 30 years, Environmental Defense Fund has been committed to bipartisan environmental progress, and the results have been incontestable. -
Water: High Court Schedules Conference on CWA Jurisdiction Rule Appeal
Dec 22, 2016 | Inside EPA
The Supreme Court has scheduled a conference for Jan. 6 to weigh whether to accept the National Association of Manufacturers' petition asking it to resolve definitively the fight over whether federal district or appeals courts are the proper venue for initial challenges...
Industry and Association News - There are no clips to report at this time.
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(ACC Mentioned) Chemical Reporting Duties to Align With New Law
Dec 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
EPA plans to revise what companies must report on chemical production volumes and processes to align with recent changes to the commercial chemicals law, the agency said.
The EPA intends to leverage the data it receives in implementing the amended Toxic Substances Control Act, the agency said in a recent update to its November 2016 Action Initiation List. The agency plans to propose its changes by the end of 2017.
Companies were required to submit their Chemical Data Reporting (CDR) rule information by Oct. 31. Those reports generally focus on chemicals made in volumes of 25,000 pounds or more per year. The next reports are due in 2020 and could include whatever revisions the EPA may make.
The EPA said it is considering changing requirements such as the frequency of reports, the chemical processing and use codes companies use, and the details needed about the parent company that owns the facility where the chemical is made or imported.
Industry Representatives Pleased
Karyn Schmidt, senior director for regulation, regulatory and technical affairs at the American Chemistry Council, and Judah Prero, an attorney in the Washington D.C. offices of Sidley Austin LLP, praised the timing of the EPA announcement.
The timing shows the agency is thinking holistically about the requirements of amended TSCA and exploring the many different tools it has to efficiently obtain the information it needs, Schmidt told Bloomberg BNA.
She encouraged the agency to talk with chemical manufacturers and solicit ideas for ways they could provide the EPA the information it needs while reducing duplicative reporting requirements and easing the burdens of reporting.
“We would love to see continued improvements in electronic transmissions, including faster uploads and more help desk support,” Schmidt said.
Prero said starting to rethink the information requirements now—several years before the next chemical data reports are due—gives the EPA and companies time to discuss what types of information will be most useful and ways the reporting obligations can be eased.
EPA staff can more easily engage with companies and other interested parties about data needs, timing and other issues before rules are formally proposed, Prero told Bloomberg BNA.
Reporting More Could Benefit Industry
Schmidt and Prero agreed that whatever changes the EPA makes are likely to increase the amount of chemical use and exposure data it receives.
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Pub. L. No. 114-182), which amended TSCA, requires the agency, as it evaluates chemical risks, to consider how chemicals are used and the extent of exposures to them.
Chemical manufacturers could benefit from certain increased reporting obligations, said Prero, who formerly worked for the American Chemistry Council.
For their 2016 reports, chemical manufacturers typically were required to submit information if they made or imported 25,000 pounds or more of a chemical in 2015.
Reporting information about chemicals produced or imported in smaller volumes and reporting more information about the ways these chemicals are used could help the EPA identify substances that are low priorities for risk evaluation, Prero said.
The reporting could be a burden upfront, but a benefit in the long run, he added.
Processors Could Be Required to Report
The original and amended chemical laws have given the EPA the authority to require chemical processors to submit CDR rule information. The agency, however, has never required processors to report.
Charles Auer, a senior regulatory and policy adviser in the Washington D.C. offices of Bergeson & Campbell, P.C. who worked in the EPA's chemicals office for 32 years, told Bloomberg BNA processors’ information could be valuable because they know how they use the chemicals they buy. Chemical processors are companies, such as cleaning product, adhesive or paint manufacturers that mix chemicals but do not create new molecules as they make their own products.
The EPA has shied away from imposing a reporting requirement on processors, because it would involve so many thousands of companies, he said.
“Arguably, they would improve the breadth and quality of information reported, but it's a big burden and the Information Collection Review aspects are really significant,” Auer said. The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 (Pub. L. No. 96-511) requires federal agencies to request, justify and receive the Office of Management and Budget's approval to collect information. If approved, the Information Collection Review requests must be resubmitted every three years. The law's goal was to reduce the paperwork burden the federal government imposes.
Including processors could also raise enforcement challenges due to the sheer number of companies involved, Auer said.
Prero said Auer raised many good points, including that some chemical processors could be unaware they would have TSCA obligations.
The EPA may, however, move in the direction of including processors slowly through a combination of phasing them in while educating them about their obligations, Prero said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102437620&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102437620&jd=102437620
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Trump's Pick to Lead EPA Supported Changes to Chemicals Law
Dec 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency backed a strong chemical law during the negotiations that led to this year's amendment of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Scott Pruitt supported the agency's review of chemical risks and the effects on workers and children, and state regulation of chemicals—all provisions of the recently amended commercial chemicals law.
The new law “will ensure that new and existing chemicals, including those grandfathered under the Toxics Substances Control Act receive an EPA safety review. Such review will strengthen the standard for the public health and our environment,” wrote Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma's attorney general, in an April 9, 2015, letter to Sens. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.).
The law “guarantees protection of the most vulnerable by placing emphasis on the effects of exposure to chemicals on infants, children, pregnant women, workers and the elderly,” wrote Pruitt.
“Though I have challenged the EPA on various issues, I believe the agency, within the boundaries of its authorities provided by Congress, serves a valuable mission to protect human health and preserve the environment,” Pruitt wrote.
The Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act (Pub. L. No. 114-182) went into effect June 22 after years of negotiations.
TSCA Not a Target
Dimitrios Karakitsos, who served as the senior Republican staff member on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and helped negotiate the Lautenberg Act prior to joining Holland & Knight LLP in Washington, D.C., told Bloomberg BNA “I think there is a kind of intentional misconception of Republicans that they want no regulations. That's absolutely false.”
The incoming administration has objected to the EPA's ozone, waters of the U.S. and climate regulations where it strayed from its core mission, he said.
“TSCA is not on the list of things they have gone after,” Karakitsos said. “I think the new administration would want to shape that policy rather than kill it before it goes forward.”
Industry's Views Will Matter
Pruitt's letter illustrates that the politics surrounding the amended chemicals law will be different than the politics surrounding the EPA's greenhouse gas and certain other regulations, Judah Prero, an attorney in the Washington D.C. offices of Sidley Austin LLP, told Bloomberg BNA.
“I don't think this particular program will be targeted for significant change,” Prero said. “You're not going to see attacks on this program like greenhouse gases or other issues,” he said.
Prero said “what we've seen so far from the Trump transition team is a desire to reach out to industry and to factor in industry's concerns to a greater degree than has been the case under the current administration.”
“Industry may find a door that's slightly more open than it was before,” Prero said.
That doesn't mean industry will get everything it wants, he said. “EPA will want to do this right,” he said.
The agency will strive to make the chemicals program as robust as it can, Prero said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102437623&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102437623&jd=102437623
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Toxics: Flint 'Is No Aberration' in Blood Lead Levels, Report Finds
Dec 22, 2016 | Inside EPA
Approximately 3,000 communities in the United States have lead poisoning rates at least double those in Flint, MI, the site of a well-publicized lead contamination crisis, a report from Reuters Investigates finds, suggesting the Trump administration will face pressure to address drinking water contamination from lead pipes, lead paint and industrial waste.
“Flint is no aberration. In fact, it doesn't even rank among the most dangerous lead hotspots in America,” Reuters writes.
Examining blood lead level testing results from state health departments and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the report finds that more than 1,000 communities had lead levels four times higher than Flint's over a five to 10 year period through 2015.
Environmentalists have long pushed EPA and other federal officials to state explicitly that no level of lead exposure is safe given its effects undermining children's development and IQ, although the CDC defines 5 micrograms/deciliter (ug/dl) or higher as an unsafe level of lead in blood -- though it notes that some jurisdictions differ with the CDC in their definition of “high blood lead levels.”
When young children were tested in Flint “during the peak of that city's lead contamination crisis,” Reuters writes, 5 percent had elevated levels. Nationwide, the CDC estimates that 2.5 percent of children under the age of 6 have an elevated lead level. The investigation compared the rates of children tested with high lead levels in zip codes across the country over the same time period of Flint's lead crisis, from 2014 to 2015.
And it found 2,606 census tracts, and another 278 zip code areas, with a prevalence of lead poisoning at least twice Flint’s rate.
According to the Reuters report, “hot-spots” around the country -- including Warren, Pennsylvania to Goat Island, Texas, and pockets in cities such as Baltimore, Cleveland and Philadelphia -- are “plagued by legacy lead: crumbling paint, plumbing, or industrial waste left behind” but have not received the same attention or funding as Flint has over the past two years.
“I hope this data spurs questions from the public to community leaders who can make changes,” epidemiologist Robert Walker, co-chair of the CDC’s Lead Content Work Group, which analyzes lead poisoning nationwide, told Reuters. “I would think that it would turn some heads.”
The findings, Walker said, will help inform the public about risks in their own neighborhoods and allow health officials to seek lead abatement grants in the most dangerous spots.
But Reuters notes there isn't much federal help available. President Obama recently signed legislation that provides $170 million to Flint to replace lead pipes, 10 times the CDC’s budget for assisting states with lead poisoning this year.
Departing EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, in an exit interview with the Washington Post, urged the next administration to do more on the issue. She said said clean drinking water was an area where the agency had “fallen short” during her tenure, and urged the next administration to take on drinking water infrastructure: “Now, the president-elect wants to do infrastructure investments? I just hope that this agency is able to put drinking water on the table as part of that,” McCarthy told the Washington Post.
“There are old, aging systems that we continue to rely on, and we just can't. Nobody really wants to spend money when all it is are pipes in the ground that you're never going to see. But ask people that same question when they have a contaminant in their drinking water system.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/toxics-flint-no-aberration-blood-lead-levels-report-finds
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State Department Signals Interest in How Tech Companies Address Abuses in Cobalt Supply Chain
Dec 23, 2016 | Washington Post
By Todd C. Frankel
The U.S. government is taking an increased interest in how American technology companies plan to address human rights abuses in Congo’s cobalt mines, according to a senior State Department official.
The attention from State comes as industry groups have recently launched two initiatives aimed at curbing child labor and other dangerous practices in their cobalt supply chains. Cobalt is essential for the lithium-ion batteries used in smartphones, laptops and electric vehicles. Sixty percent of the world’s supply of cobalt comes from Congo, which has a long history of loose regulation of mines.
Now, the State Department sees a rare opportunity to tackle this long-standing problem “in light of the stories that have come out and the greater concern that companies have exhibited,” said the government official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
“You have the beginnings of something that can bring about long-lasting change,” the official said.
The Washington Post this year published an investigation detailing abuses in Congo’s artisanal cobalt supply chain, showing how miners — including children — labor in hazardous, even deadly, conditions as they dig hundreds of feet underground. The Post for the first time connected this troubling artisanal cobalt trade with the batteries used by some of the world’s largest technology companies, including Apple.
Despite years of allegations from advocacy groups that cobalt mining posed a deadly risk and employed child workers, solving the problem has proved difficult. The State Department tracks human rights problems worldwide, and its Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor for years has noted that children work in Congo's mining industry.
The United States currently regulates the trade of four "conflict minerals" from the Congo region. A 2010 law aimed at stemming the flow of money to Congo's murderous militias requires U.S. companies to attempt to trace the sources of their tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold. The same diligence is not required with cobalt. While the cobalt trade is not thought to be funding wars, the trade is marred by many of the same abuses found with conflict minerals.
Now, technology companies are increasingly worried about "the reputational risks" of being connected with cobalt that might be mined by children and in dangerous conditions, the State Department official said.
In recent weeks industry groups have unveiled, coordinated efforts to scrutinize their cobalt supply chains.
The Responsible Cobalt Initiative is led by the China Chamber of Commerce for Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters, and supported by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Companies such as Apple, Samsung SDI and Sony have joined the initiative, along with Zhejiang Huayou, a Chinese company that buys cobalt from Congolese miners and was featured in The Post’s coverage.
The Responsible Raw Materials Initiative was launched by the U.S.-based Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition. Nineteen companies, including Apple, Dell, Google, Honda, Microsoft and Ford, have signed on.
The State Department official said the agency has discussed the initiatives with companies and industry groups and will closely monitor the progress. And while these plans are a positive sign of change, “implementation of these initiatives is really where the game is.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/12/23/state-department-signals-interest-in-how-tech-companies-address-abuses-in-cobalt-supply-chain/?utm_term=.73bafa6bd864
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European Commission May Rethink Endocrine Disruptor Criteria
Dec 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Stephen Gardner
The European Commission said Dec. 22 it will consider its options after it became apparent that not enough European Union countries support proposed criteria for identifying substances with endocrine disrupting properties.
A regulatory committee of EU country representatives could have voted on the criteria at a Dec. 21 meeting, but the commission, the EU's executive arm, decided not to call for one because support was lacking.
Commission spokesman Enrico Brivio told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 22 that “no date has been fixed” for further regulatory committee discussions on the issue, and the commission will “now reflect on the best way forward.”
Endocrine disruptors are substances that can interfere with the hormone systems of living organisms, potentially disrupting reproduction and raising the risk of cancer. The EU adopted laws in 2009 and 2012 that required criteria to be drawn up to identify endocrine disruptors so that they could be banned from pesticides and biocidal products.
The regulatory committee meeting Dec. 21 discussed the endocrine disruptor criteria for pesticides.
Long-Running Story
The laws on pesticides and biocides required the commission to publish the criteria by December 2013. After delays and a case at the Court of Justice of the European Union, which found the commission in breach of EU law for missing the deadline, proposed criteria were published last June.
According to the proposed criteria, substances should be considered endocrine disruptors if they act as endocrine disruptors and that action is causally linked to “an adverse effect relevant for human health.”
Some EU countries protested that the requirement to prove a health risk would make it too difficult to label substances as endocrine disruptors and phase them out under the pesticides and biocides rules.
At a meeting of EU member environment ministers Dec. 19, Karolina Skog, Sweden's environment minister, said some countries and EU lawmakers in the European Parliament raised “serious concerns” about the proposed criteria, but the commission had “not listened to the critique voiced by Sweden and others.”
In a Dec. 20 letter to commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, Ségolène Royal, France's environment minister, said if the proposed criteria were adopted unchanged, it “would mark a setback” for EU environmental and health protections. The commission should work with EU countries to rethink the criteria, Royal said.
Impact on Substance Approvals
The criteria are significant because they could determine how many substances used in pesticides and biocides are banned from the EU market, depending how tightly the criteria are defined.
“At this stage, I cannot speculate on what will be the outcome” of the commission's considerations on the next steps with the criteria, Brivio said.
Graeme Taylor, public affairs director of the European Crop Protection Association, which represents pesticides manufacturers, told Bloomberg BNA Dec. 22 that “perhaps this signal from member states should give the commission some pause for reflection, and for them to look seriously at the impact of the criteria.”
The commission should “include elements of hazard characterization, in particular like potency, and the principles of risk assessment into the criteria,” Taylor said.
EDC-Free Europe, a coalition of environmental groups, said in a statement Dec. 22 that the EU countries that had opposed the commission's “defective criteria” were right, and the commission should revise the criteria in particular because currently “the amount of evidence needed to identify [endocrine-disrupting chemicals] is too high.”
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102437614&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102437614&jd=102437614
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Energy, Environmental Wish List Compiled for Trump
Dec 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
This holiday season, industry organizations, think tanks and states have compiled a lengthy wish list of environment and energy policies for President-elect Donald Trump, ranging from rolling back climate regulations to overhauling the nation's bedrock environmental laws.
While environmental advocates have pledged to fight back against any actions the Trump administration may take to roll back Obama-era environmental policies, organizations including the National Association of Manufacturers and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, have highlighted specific steps Trump could take to implement as part of his stated plan to make “full use” of domestic energy sources. Trump has pledged to remove restrictions on the energy sector while refocusing the Environmental Protection Agency on ensuring clean air and clean water.
Bloomberg BNA compiled energy and environment policy papers, op-eds and letters aimed at the Trump transition team. With Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year's Eve fast approaching, here is what people are asking the Trump administration for this holiday season:
Rescind the Clean Power Plan
The Trump transition website highlights elimination of the Clean Power Plan, the EPA's carbon dioxide standards for existing power plants, as part of the Trump energy policy agenda. While the rule is currently under a nationwide stay pending completion of judicial review, several groups have offered the Trump administration advice on how to go about scrapping it.
Clean Power Plan opponents may soon have an ally in charge of the EPA: Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt (R), Trump's pick to head the EPA, is part of a state coalition that is challenging the carbon dioxide limits for power plants in court. Pruitt's allies in that legal battle, a coalition of 22 state attorneys general and two state environmental officials, sent a letter sent to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, congressional leaders and Trump's EPA transition team, asked the incoming administration to take the following four steps to kill the Clean Power Plan:
• Issue an executive order on Trump's first day in office explaining that the new administration believes the EPA doesn't have authority to enforce the rule.
• Launch a formal effort to rescind the Clean Power Plan that is consistent with the Administrative Procedure Act and the Clean Air Act.
• Review pending litigation over the rule to determine whether a stay or settlement would be appropriate.
• Work with Congress on a “longer-term legislative response” to ensure that similar regulatory action isn't taken by a future administration.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market group based in Washington, D.C., in mid-December also highlighted the Clean Power Plan in a recommended agenda for the Trump administration to grow the economy. The organization recommended that Trump instruct the Justice Department to side with the states and industry organizations that are challenging the Clean Power Plan if the case is considered by the U.S. Supreme Court.CEI also said Trump could direct the EPA to work on a replacement regulation to the Clean Power Plan that is limited to “within-the-fenceline” measures, such as energy-efficiency improvements in coal-fired power plants rather than the EPA's current approach of favoring renewable generation or shifting from coal-fired utilities to those burning natural gas.
International Climate Measures
The Competitive Enterprise Institute's recommendations aren't limited to the Clean Power Plan: the organization released a five-part policy plan that included white papers on energy policy and regulatory reform. After eight years of criticizing the direction of the EPA under Obama, the free market group is looking to Trump to restrict the power of regulatory agencies like the EPA. Two members of the CEI, Myron Ebell and Christopher Horner, are on a “landing team” sent by Trump to the EPA to review agency rules and operations.
Recommendations included in the memos, which were authored by members of the Competitive Enterprise Institute who are not part of the Trump transition team, include a series of policy steps to reduce U.S. involvement in international climate policy.
Chief among the recommended “first steps” for the Trump administration is to end U.S. participation in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Trump said during the campaign that he would withdraw the U.S. from the agreement, but in November told the New York Times that he has “an open mind to it”
The CEI also recommended that the Trump administration stop making contributions to the UN Green Climate Fund.
Approve the Dakota Access Pipeline
When the Army Corps of Engineers announced Dec. 4 that it would not grant approval for Energy Transfer Partners LP to construct part of the Dakota Access pipeline on its planned route, backers of the pipeline started looking to Trump to reverse that decision.
Jack Gerard, president and chief executive officer of the American Petroleum Institute, said approval of the Dakota Access pipeline should be a “top priority” once Trump is inaugurated in January.
“In just over one month, a new president and new administration can stand up for American consumers and American workers by approving this critical project,” Gerard said in a statement issued after the Corps announced its decision.
Use the Congressional Review Act
Trump's ability to reverse course on Obama-era energy and environmental policies won't be limited to executive branch authority: Many organizations are pushing for the incoming administration to work with Republican majorities in the House and Senate to repeal regulations issued late in Obama's term.
The Congressional Review Act allows for expedited floor consideration of resolutions of disapproval of regulations, which would not be subject to a filibuster in the Senate. While the Congressional Review Act has only been used successfully once, to roll back a Clinton-era ergonomics rule in 2001, there is a push for its expanded use in 2017.
The Heritage Foundation, in an issue brief, urged Congress and the Trump administration to make the Congressional Review Act a “frequently used weapon” in 2017. While the Trump administration can work to rescind Obama-era rules without Congress, using the Congressional Review Act would avoid the need for a lengthy rulemaking process and possible litigation, according to the conservative group. Members of the Heritage Foundation are on Trump transition teams for the EPA and the Energy Department.
Potential regulations that the CRA could be used to overturn include Interior Department offshore drilling regulations and energy efficiency standards for home appliances, the Heritage Foundation said.
“It is a truly target-rich environment and a historic opportunity for Congress to limit the growth of red tape,” the conservative group said.
Another possible CRA target is an updated stream protection rule issued by the Interior Department Dec. 19 (RIN:1029-AC63). The National Mining Association called on Congress to move quickly to disapprove the regulation using the Congressional Review Act and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he will introduce a resolution of disapproval under the CRA to disapprove the rule next Congress.
Improve Energy Permitting
Several organizations, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the Manhattan Institute, called on the Trump administration to ease permitting for energy projects as part of his domestic agenda.
The manufacturing association's recommendation is included in a series of white papers highlighting actions Trump could take to support the domestic manufacturing industry. The policy recommendations were developed in advance of the election, according to Ross Eisenberg, vice president of energy and resources policy at the National Association of Manufacturers.
Eisenberg told Bloomberg BNA that while energy is a very significant cost for manufacturers, the U.S. has an energy advantage that could help improve the sector's competitiveness on the global marketplace.
“When manufacturing does well, the country does well,” Eisenberg said. “If you want to make manufacturing great, if you want to make America great, look at energy ... let's drive that advantage.”
The manufacturing association urged the Trump administration to improve permitting processes at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as permits for energy projects under the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act.
Open Yucca Mountain
The nuclear power industry is hoping that Trump's promise to “make full use” of domestic energy sources will include nuclear power.
The Nuclear Energy Institute sent a memo to Trump's transition team detailing a number of recommendations to boost the nuclear industry, including a recommendation that the Energy Department finish the licensing process for Yucca Mountain in Nevada to serve as a permanent repository for used nuclear fuel.
Boost Water Infrastructure Funding
During the campaign, Trump repeatedly discussed the need to improve infrastructure across the country. State environmental agencies are pushing for the Trump administration to address the “critically overdue and monumental” level of funding needed to modernize the nation's wastewater and drinking water infrastructure.
“Cities and towns across the country face aging and decaying water and wastewater systems, and economically stressed populations need access to capital, flexible and workable loan terms, and reduced paperwork burdens,” the Environmental Council of the States said in a letter to Pence.
Overhaul Environmental Laws
Opponents of the EPA's regulatory direction under Obama are looking to Congress and the Trump administration to pursue changes to the Clean Air Act and other bedrock environmental laws.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, in a recommended agenda for next Congress, suggested that lawmakers pass an amendment to the Clean Air Act stating that the EPA does not have the authority to make climate policy.
The National Association of Manufacturers recommended broader statutory overhauls in its environment white paper, urging the administration to work with Congress on a “comprehensive update” to environmental laws. Their suggestions include extending the amount of time EPA has to complete mandatory reviews of national standards for ozone and other criteria pollutants from the current five-year review cycle. The manufacturing group is one of the leading critics of EPA's 2015 ozone standards and has supported legislation to halt implementation of that regulation.
Attorneys with the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club both told Bloomberg BNA that any effort to roll back environmental protections via Congress would be fiercely opposed by environmental advocates.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102437622&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102437622&jd=102437622
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Industry Favors Carbon Permitting Exemption, Just Not EPA's
Dec 23, 2016 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Andrew Childers
Exempting some power plants and manufacturers from greenhouse gas emissions permitting requirements enjoys broad industry support, but the threshold being considered by the Environmental Protection Agency is far too low, industries said.
Setting the so-called de minimis level—below which greenhouse gas emissions are deemed to have a negligible impact—at 75,000 tons per year shows that the EPA did not conduct a thorough analysis of its options before proposing that threshold, said industry groups, some of which want to see the exemption level increased fourfold.
The Utility Air Regulatory Group, a national utility trade group, said it “supports the creation of a de minimis level for GHG emissions in the [prevention of significant deterioration] permitting program. The appropriate legal factors all support a de minimis exemption under these circumstances. Here, however, EPA failed to analyze all of the necessary legal factors and further erred by declining to evaluate multiple possible de minimis levels.”
A final decision on the de minimis threshold, also known as a significant emissions rate, for industrial facilities required to obtain prevention of significant deterioration or Title V operating permits for their greenhouse gas emissions will fall to the incoming Trump administration, which has opposed the Obama administration's climate agenda and vowed to eased regulations on businesses.
However, should the EPA pursue its proposal (RIN:2060-AS62) to set the permitting threshold at 75,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide equivalent, the agency will face stiff opposition from industry groups that teed up potential legal challenges to the rule in comments on the proposal. The comment period closed Dec. 16.
Higher Threshold Sought
The EPA has proposed a threshold of 75,000 tons per year, which was the level it had used for greenhouse gas permitting under its so-called tailoring rule, which limited permitting to only the largest stationary sources of greenhouse gases. The U.S. Supreme Court had overturned the tailoring rule in 2014, ordering the EPA set a de minimis threshold below which permitting would be unnecessary, suggesting the EPA could continue to use the 75,000 tons per year figure if it could justify that decision (Util. Air Regulatory Grp. v. EPA, 134 S. Ct. 2427, 2014 BL 172973, 78 ERC 1585 (2014)).
However, utilities and industry groups said the EPA failed to justify that retaining the 75,000 tons per year figure, arguing the agency could achieve the same level of emissions controls with a much higher permitting threshold.
“However, despite its own admission that its already-defined 75,000 tpy CO2e threshold for triggering [best available control technology] for new or modified sources was not a de minimis finding, EPA conducts its entire analysis in the Proposed Rule in an effort to justify this original threshold,” Southern Co. said. “At no point in the Proposed Rule does the Agency ever give any serious consideration to the possibility or analyze the potential implications of a higher [significant emissions rate] dismissing such an outcome in light of its permitting experience at the 75,000 tpy CO2e.”
The utility suggested that the EPA's significant emissions rate could be as high as 320,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide equivalent while achieving the same environmental results. Though the EPA had proposed 75,000 tons per year as its threshold, it sought comment on setting the significant emissions rate as low as 30,000 tons per year.
Rather than setting a single permitting threshold, the Portland Cement Association suggested the EPA develop industry-specific significant emissions rates to reflect the unique processes and equipment used in various industries.
“EPA's traditional ‘model plant’ approach does not make sense for a pollutant with such varying sources, and a source-category approach would better account for the range in GHG-reduction opportunities across industries,” the association said.
States Could Go Further
While the California Air Resources Board supported the EPA's proposed 75,000 tons per year threshold, it also emphasized its ability to set its own greenhouse gas standards that could go further than federal requirements. California's own cap-and-trade program has a threshold of 25,000 tons annually for regulation.
“Although that program does not operate via direct source controls, it does demonstrate that GHG regulatory efforts addressing a larger universe of somewhat smaller sources can be administratively workable,” the state said.
But the Industrial Energy Consumers of America cautioned that making the permitting requirements too stringent could drive manufacturers overseas where regulation is more lax, actually increasing greenhouse gas emissions in the process.
“This additional risk will likely encourage companies to alternatively develop production facilities in other countries with less environmental controls, thereby creating ‘carbon leakage’ and additional environmental harm,” the group said.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102437616&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102437616&jd=102437616
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Green Energy Producers Hopeful Despite Trump's Coal Promise
Dec 23, 2016 | AP (In the New York Times)
Swaths of virgin desert in the U.S. West in recent years have transformed into solar farms, a trend green energy supporters predict will persist even with the election of a president who is making fossil fuel-friendly Cabinet appointments and promises to bring back coal.
With the support of Congress, the renewable energy industry has enjoyed a tax credit-buoyed building boom under President Barack Obama, who has aggressively pushed to slash greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of coal and other fossil fuels.
Electricity generated by solar panels and windmills has played a bigger role in the energy mix in recent years as the federal government and states seek to reduce heat-trapping gases through ambitious climate goals. And, despite President-elect Donald Trump's campaign pledge to revitalize the coal industry and "put our miners back to work," renewable developers are hopeful about their future.
"We're looking forward to competing with other energy sources as a low-cost option," said Tom Kimbis, interim president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group.Continue reading the main story
There's the economic reality: Coal plants have shuttered in recent years as utilities favor cheaper, natural gas extracted from shale-rich places such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia using the controversial drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing. The plummeting cost of solar panels and wind turbines also has added to coal's woes.
On the campaign trail, Trump vowed to reverse the coal industry's declining fortunes and supported opening up offshore drilling in the Atlantic. Obama this week moved to permanently ban future oil and gas leasing in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic.
The day after Trump won, the American Wind Energy Association released a statement touting its contributions to the economy including the fees developers pay to farmers who agree to host wind turbines on their land and the jobs the industry creates. The trade group also noted that many wind farms are churning out power in traditional red states such as Wyoming, Oklahoma and Texas.
"An unstoppable shift to a cleaner energy economy is underway," said Tom Kiernan, chief executive of the American Wind Energy Association, calling wind a "mainstream energy source."
The sentiment was echoed recently by the outgoing head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Gina McCarthy, who credited the Obama administration with helping to create thousands of renewable energy jobs.
"The train to a global clean-energy future has already left the station," McCarthy said last month. "We can choose to get on board — to lead — or we can choose to be left behind, to stand stubbornly."
While wind and solar power have grown in recent years, renewable sources accounted for just 10 percent of total U.S. energy consumption and about 13 percent of electricity generation in 2015.
During his campaign, Trump called solar energy an "unproven technology" and wind power a "very, very poor source of energy." He also said tax credits and other subsidies for the renewable industry "distort" the market, but at the same time said the country should "encourage all facets of the energy industry," including wind and solar.
Environmentalists have raised concerns about his Cabinet picks for energy and interior secretaries — ex-Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, strong supporters of the fossil fuel industry.
Messages to Trump's transition team were not immediately returned.
While the renewable industry has gained momentum in recent years, "the battle certainly got tougher" with the election of Trump, said Dan Kammen, an energy expert at the University of California, Berkeley and science envoy for the U.S. State Department.
Before 2009, there were no solar farms and only a handful of wind and geothermal plants on public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Today, there are 13 solar plants, four wind farms and six geothermal plants online, generating about 3,500 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 573,000 homes. The number of renewable projects approved but not yet online is higher.
Last year, Congress in a show of bipartisan support agreed to extend the federal subsidies responsible for the renewable energy boom through the end of the decade. The Obama administration set a goal of approving 20,000 megawatts of renewable power on public lands by 2020 — enough for more than 3 million homes.
States will continue to be major drivers of renewable development. Many have adopted strict clean-energy goals that call for reduction of emissions through a diverse energy supply. New York set a goal to generate half of its power from renewable sources by 2030.
California is on track to meet the 2020 climate target to cut emissions to 1990 levels. The state recently vowed to further slash carbon pollution by reducing emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
"To ignore market trends by impeding progress toward a cleaner energy future, on the basis of ignorance or ideology, makes no sense," Nathanael Greene, director of renewable policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/12/22/us/ap-us-trump-green-energy.html?_r=0
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Alaska Lawmakers Mull Legislation to Block Obama Drilling Ban
Dec 22, 2016 | The Hill - E2 Wire
By Timothy Cama
Congressional Republicans and their oil industry allies are gearing up to fight President Obama’s new bans on oil drilling in parts of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans.
Two Alaska lawmakers are exploring whether they should propose legislation to overturn Obama’s actions.
Spokesmen for Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Don Young, both Alaska Republicans, said the lawmakers would consider proposing legislation to help President-elect Donald Trump overturn the bans if necessary.
The legislation could either authorize the president to undo any prior offshore protections, or simply overturn the specific bans from Obama.
“The Congressman believes this decision can be overturned by the incoming Administration and will be encouraging President Trump to do so. In addition, Congressman Young will also pursue legislation to overturn this decision,” Matt Shuckerow, Young’s spokesman, told The Hill.
With both sides in the fight bracing for the long haul, and for the likelihood that it could end up in the courts, the lawmakers want to make Congress's views clear.
“Ambiguities in the law will create an opportunity for litigation by the very extreme environmental groups that President Obama was pandering to,” said Mike Anderson, Sullivan’s spokesman. “It doesn’t mean their litigation would succeed, but just as with any number of actions the new administration might undertake, Congress can buttress those decisions with statutory support."
Obama declared Tuesday that that most of the United States’s portion of the Arctic Ocean would indefinitely be closed to drilling, along with 31 undersea canyons on the edge of the continental shelf in the Atlantic Ocean.
The actions are a major step further than Obama’s previous efforts to block Arctic and Atlantic drilling. He removed both from the calendar of new drilling lease sales between 2017 and 2022. That action was only temporary though, and one Trump could reverse.
But for the indefinite bans, Obama invoked a measure in a 1953 law, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA). Presidents have invoked the so-called 12(a) authority before, but usually to protect smaller areas for a limited period of time.
Obama's more expansive action has both supporters and opponents in uncharted waters and looking for any advantage in the fight ahead.
“It’s pretty much unknown territory right now,” said Deborah Sivas, an environmental law professor at Stanford University Law School who has studied the provision Obama used. “I don’t think anything analogous to this has occurred before. It’s just a black box.”
There'll also be pressure on President-elect Donald Trump to help roll back the ban.
Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment about Obama’s Tuesday decision. But on the campaign trail, he repeatedly made public lands and waters a central piece of his energy platform, vowing to open them up for more oil and natural gas development.
“Rather than continuing the current path to undermine and block America’s fossil fuel producers, the Trump administration will encourage the production of these resources by opening onshore and offshore leasing on federal lands and waters,” his transition website says.
Trump also plans to nominate Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke (R) to lead the Interior Department, which oversees offshore drilling. Zinke also supports additional fossil fuel development on public lands and waters.
No president, though, has previously attempted to reverse an offshore drilling ban from a previous president.
On the legal front, the Obama administration thinks it's on safe footing, and the protections are truly permanent.
“There is no provision on OCSLA which provides for the reversal of a presidential withdrawal under section 12(a),” a senior administration official told reporters.
“We believe there is a strong legal basis that these withdrawals as well as all the prior indefinite withdrawals will go forward and will withstand the test of time.”
Niel Lawrence, the Alaska director for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), made a similar argument. Lawrence and other officials at environmental groups wrote legal memos earlier this year laying out the case for the protections that Obama instituted. And they argued they could try to sue Trump if he rolls them back.
“This looks like an uncertain legal question, because it hasn’t been litigated. But it’s really pretty simple: presidents can only manage public lands and waters to the extent that Congress gives them that power,” Lawrence said.
“Here, Congress said presidents can protect these areas,” he continued. “But it did not say that they can open them back up. And until Congress says that pretty clearly, we don’t think presidents can do that.”
Lawrence found it unlikely that Congress would actually step in. He said with oil prices so low, the oil industry is not interested in new drilling areas. Furthermore, he said, voters overwhelmingly oppose Arctic and Atlantic drilling.
“It’s hard to see why either the Trump administration or Congress would prioritize rolling back these protections,” he said.
But Erik Milito, upstream director of the American Petroleum Institute, was confident that Obama’s restrictions will not stand.
API could also push Congress to step in if necessary, although Milito said the industry has higher priorities, like changing the lease sale plan to add more auctions.
“There’s a good chance that a reversal by President-elect Trump would withstand legal review,” he said, adding that the industry would likely intervene in court to defend Trump. “I’m not even sure that that could be challenged.”
http://www.thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/311441-alaska-lawmakers-mull-legislation-to-block-obama-drilling-ban
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After Drilling Decision, Focus Needs to Turn to Protecting the Gulf, Clean Energy
Dec 22, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Lindsay Allen
This week President Obama showed legislative creativity, using a 60-year old law to protect pristine coastlines and marine resources in the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans for generations to come. Now, we need him to take the next step onto truly bold climate leadership.
The president needs to support countless communities across the country — and the globe – that have stood up to say that short-term oil and gas profits are not a reason to inflict health, environmental, and cultural disasters on people and ecosystems. Offshore drilling is, simply, unacceptable.
We applaud President Obama’s commitment to protect our climate and our future, of which he has spoken so eloquently. This move is critical in ensuring these areas and the carbon they represent are now off the table and out of the atmosphere. It is a positive step toward fulfilling the U.S. pledge in Paris last year to stabilize the climate.
All of this, however, serves as a stark reminder of those left behind — like those dependent on the Gulf of Mexico.
Unlike the Gulf of Mexico, vast swaths of the Arctic and Atlantic are now off limits. They will not be pockmarked by tens of thousands of oil and gas wells. Their fisheries will not be subject to leaking fuel or big oil catastrophes like the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion. Their coasts will not be marred by refineries and fossil fuel infrastructure. Their people can continue to thrive in coastal ways of life, fishing, shrimping, boating, swimming, instead of seeing their economy and political leadership fall under the sway of big oil and gas.
The Gulf of Mexico has served as the nation’s energy sacrifice zone for decades, home to one-fifth of all U.S. crude oil production and almost half of all the oil refining and gas processing capacity in the United States. The 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster was the worst oil spill in U.S. history, which saw 11 workers killed, some 134 million gallons of crude oil leaked, and 1.4 million gallons of chemical dispersant used to break up the spill. And since that spill, over 1,300 dying or dead marine mammals, mostly dolphins, have spotted Gulf waters and washed ashore from Texas to Florida.
As a nation, we need to turn our attention — and our resources — to developing a sustainable clean energy economy. We need to become a leader in the next technological boom. We need to invest in a just transition for those working in our energy sector. Instead, we are ushering in an administration that wants to shackle us to an outdated and dirty industry that is literally killing the planet. And the reasons are not hard to see. The reality is that the drilling in Gulf of Mexico remains a massive corporate giveaway under our current system, a golden handshake to incredibly wealthy corporations that should have cleaned up their acts and rapidly diversified decades ago. It is also is the most dangerous region to leave open to these feeding sharks. The oil and gas that remains in the Gulf equals 32.81 gigatons of carbon dioxide pollution — as much greenhouse gas pollution as 9,500 coal-fired power plants operating for a year. Make no mistake, if drilling continues unabated, the Gulf will become a carbon bomb for our atmosphere.
We will never reach climate stability unless we keep more fossil fuels in the ground. And we will never embody our national ideals unless we refuse to sacrifice entire communities for corporate profits. President Obama knows full well what’s to come with the new administration, especially one that has chosen the CEO of ExxonMobil, Rex Tillerson, to represent this country’s international interests.
Mr. President, thank you for your leadership to protect the Arctic and Atlantic. To be true to your stated ideals, to be true to the Paris Pledge, to be faithful to now and future generations, find it in yourself to protect the Gulf. We are all counting on it.
Lindsey Allen is executive director of Rainforest Action Network.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/311547-after-recent-drilling-decision-focus-needs-to-turn-to
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Thank You Obama for Protecting the Arctic and Atlantic and Our Future
Dec 22, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Trip Van Noppen
President Obama has done more than any previous president to lead the United States and the world in the battle against climate change. We owe him our enduring gratitude for this leadership.
On Tuesday, President Obama did even more: He withdrew most of the Arctic Ocean and important parts of the Atlantic Ocean from expanded offshore drilling—for good. Specifically, the president designated 115 million acres in the Arctic’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas and 31 undersea canyons in the Atlantic Ocean off limits to drilling, accompanied by related action in Canadian waters by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Before the Nov. 8 election, I joined a group of leaders of environmental organizations to send President Obama a letter asking him to take action to permanently protect these oceans.
Our request was supported by many members of Congress, prominent members of the scientific community and hundreds of thousands of people across the country. Indeed, a recent poll shows that nearly 60 percent of Americans support permanent protection of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans from oil and gas drilling. The results of the election only heightened the urgency of these calls.
Permanent protection of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans from future oil and gas lease sales makes enormous sense. Offshore oil drilling directly harms sea life and risks devastating oil spills that history shows cannot be contained or cleaned up. Because of these risks, Earthjustice has worked for a decade to keep unwise drilling out of the irreplaceable, pristine and sensitive waters of the Arctic Ocean, which are already under dire threat from climate change. The president’s action on Tuesday will substantially advance protection from oil spills and other impacts for wildlife in these regions, including species already threatened by accelerated warming in the Arctic Ocean, such as polar bears, seals and walruses.
Today’s action also helps the global community gird against climate change. Offshore oil from undeveloped frontiers like the Arctic and Atlantic has no legitimate place in our energy future. In order to meet key global carbon emissions goals—and to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius—scientists around the world agree that much of the oil still in the ground and under the ocean floor will need to remain there, for good.
Our letter to the president stated: “The current lack of infrastructure for drilling the oceans’ outer continental shelves means oil production—if feasible at all—would be decades away, arriving too late to fuel America’s transition to a low-carbon economy. It would also require massive public and private investments that should instead go into clean energy.”
As Earthjustice has advocated for years, today’s energy investments should focus our resources on developing clean, renewable sources of power, not opening undeveloped areas to dangerous and expensive offshore drilling. Sinking investments into future fossil fuel extraction would only hinder the necessary transition to clean energy.
By permanently protecting much of the Arctic Ocean and important areas in the Atlantic from oil drilling, the president took another important step toward averting the worst effects of climate change. President Obama has been a hero in the fight against climate change. History shows that actions like this one, under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, stand the test of time; no president has ever reversed a permanent withdrawal from drilling. With an incoming presidential administration hostile to the scientific consensus on the climate dangers we face, this final move by President Obama could not be more important.
Van Noppen is President of Earthjustice, the nation’s premier non-profit environmental law organization.
http://www.thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/311457-thank-you-obama-for-protecting-the-arctic-and-atlantic-and-our-future
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Fracking Has Boosted U.S. Manufacturers, London Economic Study Finds
Dec 22, 2016 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Jeremiah Shelor
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) has published a paper showing what many in the oil and gas industry already suspected: the proliferation of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has made U.S. manufacturers more competitive.
The study, conducted by economists Rabah Arezki, Thiemo Fetzer and Frank Pisch and highlighted late last week by the LSE Business Review, focused on the indirect effects of unconventional shale development and low natural gas prices on industrial activity in the United States.
The costs and barriers associated with exporting natural gas compared to other commodities contributed to a commodity price gap between the United States and Europe that began to develop in the early 2000s as U.S. production increased, the study found. By 2012, the end of the study’s review period, this price gap had grown to around $10/Mcf, according to the researchers.
“Given that the price gap widened to $10 by 2012, we find that average manufacturing exports have expanded by roughly 10% due to the shale gas boom,” the researchers wrote. “This amounts to roughly 4.4% of the overall value of exports of goods and services from the United States in 2012.
“Our results suggest that the cost advantage due to the shale gas boom may have helped the U.S. economy recover significantly faster than it would otherwise have done after the financial crisis of 2007-2008.”
Not surprisingly, the researchers found that energy-intensive industries saw the greatest benefit from the price advantages of cheaper U.S. gas.
The study looked at chemical manufacturing as an example, finding that it has “an energy cost share of roughly 8% (the overall industry average is 5%)” and on average “accounted for almost 20% of overall manufacturing” gross domestic product in the United States from 2006-2012.
“For every dollar increase in the price gap of natural gas between the United States and Europe, output in chemical manufacturing increased by 1.6%,” the researchers wrote. “In the face of nearly a $10 gap by the end of our sample period, this baseline result is large. Moreover, we find that employment and gross capital expenditure increased by 0.6% and 3.3%, respectively, for every dollar price difference.”
The shale revolution also provided an indirect boost to U.S. manufacturing employment overall, the study found.
“Using the average sector-level employment together with average energy intensity, we can arrive at an overall estimate of the employment gains: total manufacturing sector employment increased by around 356,000 jobs up to 2012,” the researchers wrote. Comparing their results to earlier research, the economists found that “for every two jobs created in direct relation to fracking, this indirect effect adds more than one additional job elsewhere in the economy.”
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/108829-fracking-has-boosted-us-manufacturers-london-economic-study-finds
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(ACC Mentioned) EPA Issues Long-Delayed Chemical Plant Safety Regulation
Dec 22, 2016 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Jeff Johnson
The Environmental Protection Agency revised a 25-year-old regulation intended to reduce chemical plant accidents and protect communities, workers, and emergency responders.
The revision to EPA’s Risk Management Program (RMP) is part of a sweeping regulatory overhaul of federal industrial safety regulations ordered by President Barack Obama in 2013. Obama directed agencies to make changes in the wake of the deaths of 15 people, mostly emergency responders, in a warehouse explosion of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in West, Texas.
RMP provisions cover some 12,500 facilities that, according to EPA, reported 1,500 accidents over a recent 10-year period. These incidents involved nearly 60 deaths, 17,000 injuries, the evacuation of 500,000 people, and property damage of more than $2 billion.
Among changes, the new regulation calls for better communication and coordination among emergency responders; independent, third-party audits of companies following an accident or near-accident; and consideration of inherently safer manufacturing approaches. However, the rule specifies that implementation of safer approaches may only occur when “practical.”
Much of the accident data would be kept from public view but some would be generally available.
The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, withheld comment on the regulation. “We will need to examine the changes and the entire rule more closely, but we have some initial concerns regarding the rule’s auditing regime and safer [manufacturing] alternatives analysis requirements,” says ACC’s Scott Jensen.
The Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, an organization of 120 community and environmental organizations and labor unions, is disappointed. In a statement, it notes the regulation fails to use EPA’s authority to require inherent safety technologies—a policy championed by Obama when he was a senator, the group adds.
Also nearly a year ago, the coalition urged EPA to issue the regulation. It now appears likely that the incoming Trump Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress will halt the rule.
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to head EPA, former Oklahoma Attorney General E. Scott Pruitt, has opposed the RMP overhaul. In a letter to EPA last July, Pruitt and 10 other state attorneys general objected to it, primarily because some accident information would be made public. In addition, Trump’s transition team has made clear its intention to suspend and review many regulations.
Plus, under the Congressional Review Act, Congress has 60 legislative days to review a new regulation and can vote to block it. Several sources say this is likely with the incoming Congress.
This regulation is the only one to emerge from the Obama-ordered review. It does not cover ammonium nitrate, the chemical compound that exploded in Texas and led to the review.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/94/web/2016/12/EPA-issues-long-delayed-chemical.html
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New EPA Rule Aims to Bolster Chemical Plant Safety
Dec 22, 2016 | Chem.Info
By Meagan Parrish
Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency recently released details about a new rule that takes aim at chemical plant safety.
The provision would require that chemical plants do more to prepare nearby communities for potential accidents. According to a report in The Hill, it sets standards for how companies should communicate risks and give local residents, first responders and governments needed information for dealing with explosions or spills.
To increase community education, companies will be required to consult with parties that could be affected by an accident, and let local officials decide if regular response drills would be warranted.
“One of the key issues is to make sure that there’s full knowledge between the facility operators and the local responding community to make sure that they understand who is responding and who has the responsibility to respond,” Mathy Stanislaus, head of the EPA’s office for land and emergency management, told reporters.
Stanislaus pointed out that the bulk of chemical plants operate safely, but there were still more than 1,500 chemical accident reported over the last 10 years.
The rule will be a part of the EPA’s Risk Management Program.
It also includes provisions for the investigation of accidents and near-misses. And the rule encourages the riskiest plants to study technology changes that could make the facility safer.
Some on Capitol Hill have criticized the EPA for not passing even stricter rules, saying that the regulations only suggest changes for chemical companies while stopping short of requiring action.
The new rules could face scrutiny by the incoming Trump administration and could even be tossed out by Congress. Yet, The Hill points out that these EPA regulations are not as likely to face the same kind of opposition as other high-profile regulations that could be examined first.
http://www.chem.info/news/2016/12/new-epa-rule-aims-bolster-chemical-plant-safety
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Texas City Wants Exxon Petrochemical Plant Built Elsewhere
Dec 23, 2016 | AP (In The Washington Post)
Leaders of a South Texas city say a new giant Exxon Mobil Corp. petrochemical plant is a good idea but not in their neighborhood.
The city council in Portland has approved a resolution asking Exxon Mobil to rule out their city north of Corpus Christi as a site for the world’s largest ethylene cracker plant.
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports that while the council backs commercial and industrial growth, members said they believe Portland’s quality of life would be diminished by the plant.
It would produce annually up to 1.8 million tons of ethylene, a polyester component in clothing, bottles and construction materials.
The newspaper says development would take five years and bring about 11,000 construction jobs. Sites in Victoria, southwest of Houston, and St. James Parish, Louisiana, also are being considered.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/texas-city-wants-exxon-petrochemical-plant-built-elsewhere/2016/12/23/ac8e2c0e-c8d9-11e6-acda-59924caa2450_story.html?utm_term=.02583c1721c8
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Refining Company Reportedly Backs Away from California Oil Train Lawsuit
Dec 22, 2016 | Sacramento Bee
By Tony Bizjak
Valero Refining Co. appears to have backed away from its threat to sue Benicia over that city’s refusal to allow the company to bring oil to its bayside refinery via trains.
Benicia City Attorney Heather McLaughlin said she received a phone call earlier this week from a Valero attorney telling her the Texas-based oil company has decided it will not challenge the city in court over the city’s refusal to give Valero a building permit for an oil transfer station.
Valero officials could not be reached for comment Thursday.
The project would have involved transporting up to two 50-car oil trains a day through Northern California, including downtown Sacramento, Roseville, West Sacramento and Davis en route to Benicia.
After four years of sometimes rancorous debate, the Benicia City Council voted unanimously in September to reject Valero’s permit request. Several council members said they acknowledged expressions of safety concerns from residents and leaders in the Sacramento region, but focused their decision on local safety concerns in Benicia.
The city issued findings that the project “would be detrimental to the public health, safety and welfare of persons residing and working in the adjacent neighborhood, and detrimental to properties and improvements in the vicinity.”
Valero officials initially called the city’s refusal illegal. “There are no legal grounds on which to deny Valero’s permit application,” a Valero attorney said in a letter to the city the week after the council vote.
City officials said they girded for what they feared would be an expensive lawsuit, and took the unusual step of publicly asking oil shipment opponents for financial help should a lawsuit be filed.
On Monday, Benicia City Attorney McLaughlin said she got a “courtesy call” from a Valero attorney, Diane Sinclair, telling her the oil giant wants to maintain good relations with Benicia. The Valero Refinery, on a hillside east of downtown, has been in operation since 1968. Valero is the largest employer in the city.
“(She) said they have decided not to sue the city,” McLaughlin said. “They want to maintain good relations with the city. They didn’t want to have this damage that.”
Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson said she is pleased by Valero’s decision to put an end to the saga, and called Valero a valuable member of the community.
“I look forward to the promise of those good community relations now that we can put this ill-advised project behind us,” Patterson said in an email to The Sacramento Bee. “There are many opportunities for us to work together” on air quality and sustainable development issues.
Crude oil train projects have become controversial in North America in recent years. Fracking technology has opened vast new oil fields in North Dakota and elsewhere, leading to dramatic increases of shipments via train.
The increase has led to repeated train derailments and explosions. The worst of those accidents killed 47 people in a Canadian town three years ago.
Federal transportation officials have attempted to increase oil train safety via stricter regulations, but officials in cities along rail lines, including Sacramento, say federal officials have not done enough.
The Sacramento Area Council of Governments, which includes county and city leaders in the region, sent several letters to Benicia during the deliberations, supporting that city’s legal right to say no to Valero, if it chose to, and pointing out concerns about rail safety issues.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article122444099.html
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The Coming Battle Between the Trump Team and Economists over the True Cost of Climate Change
Dec 23, 2016 | Washington Post
By Chelsea Harvey
This story has been updated.
As we learn more and more about the tenor of the Trump transition, a key part of its regulatory rollback strategy on climate change is coming into focus.
It seems increasingly likely that the Trump administration would either alter, or attempt to stop using entirely, an Obama-era metric known as the “social cost of carbon” in its federal rule-making processes. And that could have have major effects on the way environmental policies are written (or unwritten) in the coming years.
A recent, highly controversial questionnaire the transition team sent to the Department of Energy requested a list of all “employees or contractors who have attended any Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon meetings,” as well as emails and other materials associated with those meetings. It also asked a variety of questions about the assumptions that went into calculating the social cost of carbon.
Meanwhile, a document written last month by Department of Energy transition leader Thomas Pyle and recently obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy, suggested that “during the Trump Administration the [social cost of carbon] will likely be reviewed and the latest science brought to bear. If the [social cost of carbon] were subjected to the latest science, it would certainly be much lower than what the Obama administration has been using.”
But experts have countered that attacking the social cost of carbon may not hold up under scientific, or even legal, standards. If anything, many scientists believe that its monetary value should be set even higher.
The cost of climate change
Scientists agree that climate change could cause a wide variety of damages to human communities, including natural disasters, harm to human health, reduced agricultural output and lower economic productivity, all of which result in monetary costs to society. The social cost of carbon, then, refers to the cost of emitting one ton of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
A U.S. government working group first convened in 2009 to develop a method for quantifying the social cost of carbon, and the value has since been used to help create a variety of federal environmental regulations, including the Clean Power Plan. The cost is currently set at about $36 per ton of carbon dioxide.
For an administration that has promised to reduce regulations on oil and gas operations and revive the coal industry, doing away with — or at least reducing — the social cost of carbon is an obvious priority. The higher the cost is set, the more harm the government assumes will be caused by greenhouse gas emissions, which would generally justify more, rather than less, stringent regulation of the fossil fuel industry.
Yet many climate experts now believe the social cost of carbon should actually be even higher than the current estimate. The old models used to calculate the value rely on dated research, they’ve argued, and there are certain climate-related damages that may not be adequately factored in.
“When the U.S. government issued the social cost of carbon first in 2009 or 2010, it was a very good job of summarizing the literature as it stood,” said Michael Greenstone, an economist at the University of Chicago and former chief economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, who helped convene the first federal working group to address the social cost of carbon. “What has emerged since then has been an explosion of research to estimate the likely damages from climate change.”
One 2015 paper argued that the models don’t do enough to account for the effect of higher temperatures on GDP. Once the authors factored it in, they found that the social cost of carbon skyrocketed up to about $220 per ton of carbon dioxide.
The lead author of that paper, Frances Moore of the University of California Davis, is now working on new research that addresses the impacts of climate change on agricultural output, and how those effects can radiate through the economy.
“The representation of those impacts in the agricultural sector is pretty dated in the models,” Moore said. “When we update those…we find the social cost of carbon goes up substantially.”
Other recent research suggests that a majority of climate-focused economists would agree that the social cost of carbon could be set higher. One 2015 studysurveyed experts who’d published a climate change-related article in a leading economics or environmental economics journal in the past two decades. The survey, which asked a variety of questions about climate change, found that more than half the respondents thought the current estimate of the social cost of carbon was too low. Eighteen percent thought it was about right, while just eight percent thought it should be even lower.
The same survey also found respondents generally predicted higher economic impacts from future climate change than past surveys have indicated, which may illustrate our evolving understanding of how climate change will affect human societies.
The future of the social cost of carbon
As Greenstone and his colleague Cass Sunstein of Harvard Law School point out in a recent New York Times op-ed, it would legally be difficult or even impossible for the Trump administration to do away with the metric entirely. One of the reasons the standard was developed in the first place is because a 2008 federal court of appeals ruling specified that federal regulations must take climate change impacts into account. A more recent legal challenge to the use of the social cost of carbon was rejected in court.
“Any effort to eliminate the social cost of carbon would reflect a neglect of science and economics — and it would be quickly struck down in court,” Greenstone and Sunstein write.
But there are other potential ways to dull the metric’s bite, so to speak, by making its value smaller. One way would be to reconsider the calculations known as the “discount rate.” This is a kind of interest rate which can be thought of as a way to address how much the present generation is willing to pay to prevent climate-related damage in the future.
A higher discount rate results in a lower social cost of carbon. Currently, the federal government uses a rate of 3 percent with a value of $36 for the social cost of carbon — but according to the Environmental Protection Agency, a discount rate of 2.5 percent would bring the cost up to $56 per ton of carbon dioxide, while a rate of 5 percent would lower it to $11 per ton.
In fact, the same questionnaire that requested the names of Energy Department employees who’d worked on the social cost of carbon also asked for information on the models and discount rates used to calculate the value. And at least one member of the Trump transition team has already argued for a higher discount rate. David Kreutzer, a member of the Environmental Protection Agency transition team who has previously questioned the science of anthropogenic climate change, published an essay earlier this year suggesting that a 7 percent discount rate, rather than 3 percent, would be more appropriate for use in regulatory policy.
The new administration almost certainly couldn’t make any major changes without providing adequate scientific and economic justification, said Richard Revesz, a law professor and dean emeritus of the New York University School of Law. Otherwise, the move would also likely be struck down in court as “arbitrary and capricious,” he argued.
In fact, he added, the National Academy of Sciences has assembled a committee of experts to review the way economic aspects of climate change are modeled. Their findings are expected to be published in a report early next year, which will help inform any future revisions to the social cost of carbon.
“Interestingly, the economic consensus is actually moving in the direction that suggests the Obama discount rate is too high, not too low,” Revesz said. It’s likely the academy’s report will reflect this movement, or at least continue to support the value that’s been used by the Obama administration.
“Once that report is out there, if the Trump administration wants to take a very different approach, it will have to explain…why it decided to disregard a consensus report of a very highly distinguished panel and what support it has for doing that,” Revesz said.
So despite the leaked memo’s suggestion, there will likely be many hurdles the new administration would have to overcome to tackle the social cost of carbon, which is now a staple of environmental regulatory policy.
“At the end of the day, climate change poses a very difficult challenge to society because neither of the choices are great — we can pay more today for energy and have less climate damage in the future, or we can pay less today and expose ourselves to greater climate risk in the future,” Greenstone said. “It’s a balancing act to find the right tradeoff between costs today and costs tomorrow.”
But, he added, “wishing those costs did not exist does not make it so.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/12/22/the-coming-battle-between-the-trump-team-and-economists-over-the-true-cost-of-climate-change/?utm_term=.9f1da68e9705
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Sources Predict Limited CRA Role In Blocking Climate, Environmental Rules
Dec 22, 2016 | Inside EPA
By Doug Obey
Capitol Hill lawmakers' use of the Congressional Review Act (CRA) to scuttle climate and other environmental rules might be more limited than initial rhetoric by critics suggests, due to the statute's procedural limitations and a likely crowded legislative agenda in 2017, according to former Hill staffers and other observers.
Procedural factors that will force lawmakers to carefully choose CRA targets include the need for Congress to formally disapprove each targeted rule individually, not as a group, and the fact that the CRA bars future rules similar to those successfully targeted. That could open up lawmakers to the charge they are not just targeting a particularly onerous rule but giving a blanket exemption to regulated industries.
More broadly, sources say Congress must strike a balance between pursuing any CRA attacks on rules from multiple federal agencies while also addressing a host of other competing priorities, including approval of Trump administration nominees, a federal spending bill for the final months of fiscal year 2017 and proposed rewrites of the tax code.
Amid those competing priorities, Republicans have said they have until early May to complete any CRA attacks, given that the rule outlines defined windows in which lawmakers can approve disapproval resolutions.
“You are only going to be able to target a few rules,” says one former GOP Hill staffer. “I would be surprised if they did more than two or three of these.”
The source predicts that Trump administration reproposals of rules and litigation will be more typical strategies for turning aside current agency rules. “It will be a long slog,” and not simply quick moves by Congress, the source predicts.
Another former Republican Hill staffer says some use of the CRA may be inevitable, in order for lawmakers to send a political message that they are responding to constituents' concerns about the impact of rules on the economy. “They want to have something that says there is a new regime in town,” the source says.
Even so, “I think they pick and choose,” the source says. “It may be one rule.”
The CRA, enacted in 1996, gives Congress 60 legislative days in a new administration during which it can disapprove rules issued toward the end of the previous administration by a majority vote in both the House and Senate. Such disapproval resolutions must be signed by the president, meaning the law is most likely to be sucessfully used during a transition to a new administration with a different view of the rule in question.
To date, the statute has been successfully used only once -- in 2001 -- to overturn an Occupational Safety & Health Administration ergonomics rule.
But the rare use of the statute is attributable in part to the fact that Congress and the White House have often been controlled by opposite parties -- a scenario that will not be in play in 2017, when Capitol Hill and the White House will be under unified GOP control.
That has GOP lawmakers and their off-the-Hill allies salivating over using the CRA to overturn a barrage of recent Obama administration regulations. Dozens of rules are potentially at risk of a CRA attack given that the Congressional Research Service recently projected a June 13 deadline after which rules issued this year could be overturned by a CRA resolution in the new Congress.
'Potential' Candidates
Republican Policy Committee Chairman Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) -- who is also the incoming chairman of the Environment & Public Works Committee -- in a Dec. 6 statement identified at least a dozen targets as “potential” candidates for CRA review across the federal government.
Included on that list were several GHG-related rules, including the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) oil and gas “waste” control rule to limit venting and flaring on public lands, an EPA endangerment finding for aircraft GHG emissions, several Department of Energy appliance efficiency regulations and a Department of Interior rule changing calculation of royalties due to the federal treasury for fossil fuel extraction.
One House staffer has also floated using the CRA to undo the Obama administration's guide for how agencies account GHGs when they review federal actions under the National Environmental Policy Act, in what would likely be the first time the law would be used to reverse a guidance document.
Marlo Lewis of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has also argued that EPA's proposed determination to retain its light-duty vehicle GHG standards would be subject to CRA review if finalized, though EPA and its allies say it is not because it is “adjudicatory” -- not a regulation -- and simply leaves the previously established vehicle GHG program in place.
Further, some observers have also noted that the latest joint EPA and Department of Transportation rules for heavy-duty truck GHGs and fuel economy are also vulnerable to a CRA attack.
But there are early indications that the heavy-duty truck GHG rules could be one example of a rule that is technically open to CRA targeting -- because it was finalized in August -- but might not be a congressional priority.
Specifically, significant segments of the sector support the regulation as a route to regulatory certainty, one industry source notes. And even if Congress were to successfully attack the rule, a CRA strategy would not preclude states led by California from moving ahead with comparable or even stronger regulations.
Also, CRS' recently projected cutoff date appears to exclude EPA's final rule cutting the potent greenhouse gas methane from new sources in the oil and gas sector, because that rule was issued several days before the June 13 deadline.
While the first former Republican staffer says approving CRA disapproval resolutions has a major political upside for lawmakers -- as a way to respond to outside-the-Beltway concerns that rules are a burden on the economy -- the source also cites several potential downsides, including political attacks.
“Members that . . . want to claw back [environmental rules] are going to be demonized by the far left as trying to undo environmental protections,” the source says.
Procedural Downsides
Other procedural downsides include the fact that lawmakers cannot simply disapprove several regulations at once, but must vote on each rule individually, according to a recent CRS analysis. That means it is conceivable that a single vote on a resolution could consume roughly a week of floor time, according to the source.
“People may talk about a lot of different rules, but they are going to have to decide what their priorities are,” the source adds.
Echoing this view, recent analysis from ClearView Energy Partners cites the BLM rule as one “prominent target” for CRA review but notes that CRA challenges consume “significant floor time.”
The second source adds: “This stuff takes a while. . . . You gotta go count votes,” and notes that CRA votes will have to compete with consideration of Trump's Cabinet and other nominees, a likely Supreme Court nominee, and budget and tax legislation.
CRS and others also note a requirement in the statute that an agency may not issue a future rule in “substantially the same form,” or issue a future regulation that is “substantially the same,” as a rule disapproved by Congress under the CRA.
That means that many lawmakers might disapprove of a specific regulation -- for example, particular emissions limits -- but may not want to indefinitely bar regulations in that general area, the second source says.
“Even if you disapprove of the rule, do you oppose the principle goal of the rulemaking? If you don't oppose the goal then you are not going to use the CRA because you are not going to want to [preclude] something similar that is a better fit,” the source says.
https://insideepa.com/daily-news/sources-predict-limited-cra-role-blocking-climate-environmental-rules
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We'll Protect and Defend the Environment in 2017 – With or Without President Trump
Dec 22, 2016 | Environmental Defense Fund
By Fred Krupp
For more than 30 years, Environmental Defense Fund has been committed to bipartisan environmental progress, and the results have been incontestable. Every major environmental law since the early 1970s has been passed with overwhelming support from both Democrats and Republicans.
We’ve worked closely with presidents from both parties and believe this approach remains the best way to achieve positive results for the environment in the long run. But we also believe in fighting when it’s necessary.
This is one of those times.
On January 20, Donald Trump will take a sacred oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. It’s every president’s duty to protect and defend America’s people, land and precious resources.
But the president-elect campaigned saying he would dismantle our bedrock environmental protections, and his nomination of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to lead the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is a clear signal that he’s preparing to do just that.
So if Trump and his team of insiders won’t protect and defend our natural heritage – we, the people, will do it ourselves.
That’s why EDF is working with our allies to chart a path for progress while defending our nation’s bipartisan environmental legacy.A moment of great peril
Following a campaign in which he declared himself “not a big believer in global warming” and said he would “cancel” the international Paris climate agreement, Trump also reiterated that he wants to return us to the era of unlimited carbon pollution by attempting to cancel the Clean Power Plan.
His cabinet nominations reflect a dangerous imbalance in favor of oil and gas interests, with no one to speak up on behalf of human health or a healthy natural world.
The men nominated for his top positions include ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson for secretary of state, Rep. Ryan Zinke for interior secretary, and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry – who has called climate action “nonsense” – for energy secretary.
Trump’s most unsettling action to date, however, has been his nomination for the top job at the EPA. Since becoming Oklahoma’s top lawyer in 2011, Pruitt has repeatedly sued the agency to block important public health standards for mercury, ozone and climate pollution.
But there are also powerful trends pointing in a positive direction – over which a president has little control.Americans want a clean environment
The American people did not vote for more pollution. In fact, the vast majority of Americans – in red and blue states alike – support clean air, clean energy and climate progress.
They stand with the more than 2,300 scientists who sent an open letter to the incoming administration and 115thCongress, insisting that public policy be “informed by science unfettered by inappropriate political or corporate influence.”
Given the political shifts on both sides of the Atlantic, we may not be able to count on near-term policy to provide the stable playing field we need. That makes corporate leadership more important than ever.Corporations demand climate action
In November 2016, Doug McMillon of Walmart announced a goal of reducing supply chain emissions by 1 gigaton by 2030 – more than the annual emissions of Germany, the world’s fourth largest economy.
The following month, Smithfield Foods became the first food producer to make a commitment to reduce greenhouse emissions by 25 percent from their operations, from feed lots to packaged bacon.
There are many other voices in this mighty choir. More than 600 businesses and investors recently called on the U.S. to support the agreement, and a survey found that “across party lines, 69 percent of registered voters say the U.S. should participate in the international agreement to limit global warming.”
We know that abandoning our international climate commitments – to which the Clean Power Plan and our new methane regulations contribute since they reduce greenhouse gas emissions – would hurt America.
Already, Europeans are threatening to tax American goods if we renounce our international climate commitment, while China is looking to out-compete us in the race to a clean energy future.
We will work to help the president-elect – who has said he is studying the issue – see that our national interests will be better served if we keep our climate promises.Clean energy is winning the race
We need to continue to invest in the economy of the future. The new administration shouldn’t turn back the clock to last century’s dirty energy jobs.
The solar industry is now creating more new jobs than oil and gas extraction and pipeline construction combined. In 2015, it employed 209,000, a number that is expected to double by 2020.
Every big advance in the deployment of energy efficiency is another reduction in carbon emissions.
As the economy shifts, we need to address the impact on coal miners and workers in other declining industries and provide assistance so they’re not left behind. But there’s no question that the jobs of the future will be found in clean energy and energy efficiency.
I look to states such as California, a world leader in clean energy innovation; and to Illinois, where the legislature just approved a law that will help reduce the state’s power plant emissions by more than 50 percent from 2012 levels, and I see templates for success across the country.Will you help?
In 2017 and in coming years, we will join forces with members in Congress from both parties who are working to defeat attacks against America’s bedrock environmental laws.
Getting Congress to move is hard, but it’s the best path to a sustainable, comprehensive solution. We must all hold our elected officials accountable by calling for action, win or lose, that will build political power for our cause.
We’ll unite with business leaders, working men and women, young people, and parents from all communities to safeguard the laws that have protected our families and our health for years.
I hope you’ll join me as we defend the environmental standards that are the bipartisan legacy of the past decades
https://www.edf.org/blog/2016/12/22/well-protect-and-defend-environment-2017-or-without-president-trump
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Water: High Court Schedules Conference on CWA Jurisdiction Rule Appeal
Dec 22, 2016 | Inside EPA
The Supreme Court has scheduled a conference for Jan. 6 to weigh whether to accept the National Association of Manufacturers' petition asking it to resolve definitively the fight over whether federal district or appeals courts are the proper venue for initial challenges to EPA's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule.
In the case, NAM v. Department of Defense, et al., the manufacturing group plus state and other supporters are asking the court to review a Feb. 22 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit which gave that court the power to hear suits over the rule -- a decision that opponents of the rule have criticized. NAM's petition for a writ of certiorari urges the justices to reverse the ruling, and the case was scheduled for conference in a Dec. 21 order.
The 6th Circuit in a 2-1 ruling in Murray Energy, et al., v. EPA, et al., held that appeals courts, rather than district courts, should hear initial challenges to the CWA rule, though industry groups and states have argued that the “fractured” ruling is flawed and based on precedent that does not apply outside of the 6th Circuit.
The Justice Department (DOJ) in a Dec. 7 brief argued against the NAM petition by noting that the 6th Circuit is still in the merits briefing stage in its consolidated litigation over the CWA rule and has not issued a decision. Moreover, DOJ argued that the purpose of the CWA rule is to identify the locations where the CWA’s prohibitions apply and where permits are required, and therefore it falls within the categories of agency action that are reviewable both under the CWA section 509(b)(1)(e), as an “other limitation” and under section 509(b)(1)(f) as a “discharge permit governance.”
NAM and other industry groups argue that one of the two judges who voted in favor of hearing the CWA rule cases said he was bound to do so under precedent from a prior 6th Circuit decision, even though he said that ruling was wrong and should be overturned, and that circuit courts are widely divided on the interpretation of section 509 of the CWA, which outlines the provisions for judicial review of regulations issued under the law.
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/water-high-court-schedules-conference-cwa-jurisdiction-rule-appeal
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