Preview Newsletter
ACC PM 01/02/2017
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Trump's Team Draws Target On Federal Regulations
Dec 31, 2016 | The Hill - Regulation
By Tim Devaney
President-elect Donald Trump is stocking his administration with businessmen and regulatory reformers who are intent on cutting through what they see as red tape from Washington. -
Agencies Focus in 2017 on New Ways to Predict Chemical Harms
Jan 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
A report advising federal agencies about ways they could use automated, computer-modeled and other new ways to predict chemical toxicity and exposure will be released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Jan. 5, the academies announced Dec. 29. -
DuPont Faces More Legal Liabilities For Cleanups
Jan 2, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
DuPont’s environmental headaches became a migraine at the end of last year as it lost one contamination lawsuit and confronted a new one. -
EPA Pushes Deadline for Decision on Maryland Emissions Request
Jan 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The EPA is using flexibility built into the Clean Air Act to delay a looming deadline for the agency to decide whether to grant a request by Maryland to further control power plant emissions. -
CEI Official Urges Trump To Retain Scaled-Back GHG Rules
Dec 30, 2016 | Inside EPA
A top official with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the free-market think tank with close ties to the Trump transition team, is cautioning the incoming administration against completely scrapping EPA’s climate rules, including its landmark power plant GHG standards, arguing that some amount of GHG regulation is necessary to preempt state common law claims against emitters based on climate change. -
Increased Energy Security Will Strengthen U.S. Foreign Policy
Dec 30, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Ellen R. Wald
If the Trump administration is serious about shaking up U.S. foreign policy, increasing U.S. energy security would be a wise first step. In the past, America’s dependence on foreign oil imports from oil-producing countries has constricted its options in the global arena. -
State of Alaska Taking Over Pipeline, LNG Project From Producers
Jan 2, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Joe Fisher
The Alaska Gasline Development Corp. (AGDC), a state entity, is taking over the technical and regulatory activities associated with a pipeline and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project that would commercialize Alaska's North Slope natural gas. -
Understand the Energy Department Before Closing It
Dec 30, 2016 | Bloomberg View
By Noah Smith
When you hear the name “Rick Perry,” you might recall that time during the 2012 Republican presidential primary race where he forgot the name of a government agency he wanted to eliminate. -
DHS: No Evidence Hackers Infected Vermont Power Grid
Dec 31, 2016 | PoliticoPro
By Eric Geller
Federal authorities see no signs that hackers breached Vermont's electric grid using suspected Russian malware that infected a power company's laptop, the Department of Homeland Security said tonight. -
Cap And Trade Today For A Better Tomorrow
Dec 31, 2016 | The Hill - Pundits
By Douglas Singleterry
The United States, along with at least 34 other countries, is succeeding in reducing carbon dioxide emissions while growing its economy. Moreover, according to the International Energy Agency, total emissions tied to energy usage worldwide remained flat in 2014 and 2015, even while the global economy grew more than 3 percent annually. -
EPA to Act on Fairbanks Air Pollution By April
Jan 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
A decision on whether the Fairbanks North Star Borough in Alaska is in compliance with federal pollution standards for fine particulate matter is expected by April, according to a proposed settlement between the federal government and environmental advocates.
Congressional Hearings - There are no relevant hearings to report at this time.
Industry and Association News
LCSA News - There are no clips to report at this time
Chemical Management News
Energy News
Chemical Security News
Transportation News - There are no clips to report at this time
Environment News
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Trump's Team Draws Target On Federal Regulations
Dec 31, 2016 | The Hill - Regulation
By Tim Devaney
President-elect Donald Trump is stocking his administration with businessmen and regulatory reformers who are intent on cutting through what they see as red tape from Washington.
Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor, will oversee the Trump administration’s regulatory reform efforts. He will be joined by several other Wall Street investors and corporate executives who have first-hand experience dealing with government rules.
Here are six figures in the Trump administration poised to have an outsized role in scaling back regulations.
Regulatory adviser Carl Icahn
Trump created a new position in the White House for the billionaire investor to serve as a “special adviser on regulatory issues,” where he will seek to trim back rules that businesses consider unnecessary and burdensome.
"Under President Obama, America's business owners have been crippled by over $1 trillion in new regulations,” Icahn said in a statement issued by the Trump transition team. “It's time to break free of excessive regulation and let our entrepreneurs do what they do best: create jobs and support communities."
Icahn, 80, is the founder of Icahn Enterprises, and has become known over the years as an activist shareholder.
Trump, who has done deals with Icahn in the past, called him “one of the world’s great businessmen.”
“His help on the strangling regulations that our country is faced with will be invaluable,” Trump said in a statement.
Icahn, who holds a majority stake in CVR Energy and has also invested in several other oil and gas companies, has been a particularly vocal critic of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Obama administration.
Icahn has already advised the president-elect on several key appointments, including Steve Mnuchin to the Treasury Department, Wilbur Ross to the Commerce Department, and Scott Pruitt to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to The Wall Street Journal.
He is also expected to hold sway over Trump’s choice for a new chairman for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Commerce Secretary nominee Wilbur Ross
Ross once helped save Trump’s casino business.
The Wall Street banker built a career by investing in distressed companies and turning them around. In the 1990s, Ross and Icahn helped finance the president-elect’s Taj Mahal casino as bondholders. When the casino ran into trouble, the two men could have foreclosed, but instead negotiated with Trump to keep the business afloat.
“We could have foreclosed [on the Trump Taj Mahal], and he would have been gone,” Ross told The New York Post last month.
Trump on Nov. 30 tapped Ross to lead to the Commerce Department on Nov. 30. In that role, he will have a major role in shaping U.S. trade policy, including import and export regulations that companies must comply with.
Both Trump and Ross have taken a hard line against trade deals, saying many of them have hurt American jobs.
Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin
Mnuchin’s portfolio stretches from Wall Street to Hollywood. He spent the better half of two decades as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, before becoming a hedge fund manager. At the height of the financial crisis in 2009, Mnuchin purchased a failed mortgage lender that he renamed OneWest Bank.
During his time on Wall Street, Mnuchin butted heads with Trump on a business deal. Dune Capital Management, the hedge fund Mnuchin created after leaving Goldman Sachs, helped finance the construction of Trump hotels in Chicago and Honolulu. But Trump sued multiple lenders, including Mnuchin’s company, over a disagreement with the Chicago deal. The case was eventually settled. up.
The two men have since become close allies. Mnuchin served as Trump’s national finance chairman during the campaign, a critical role where he helped the businessman quickly construct a fundraising machine.
Trump nominated Mnuchin, who is also a member of the president-elect’s transition team, to serve as Treasury secretary on Nov. 30. In the role, Mnuchin will lead the charge against the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
“We want to strip back parts of Dodd-Frank that prevent banks from lending, and that will be the number one priority on the regulatory side,” Mnuchin told CNBC.
Trump and his appointees cannot completely roll back Dodd-Frank without action from Congress, but they will have significant power to change how it is enforced through regulations.
Mnuchin has been particularly critical of the Volcker rule, which prevents large banks from engaging in speculative trading.
Health secretary nominee Tom Price
Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), a doctor, will play a key role in the Republican push to scale back ObamaCare.
Republicans plan to pass an ObamaCare repeal bill early in 2017, jumpstarting the process.
As secretary of Health and Human Services, Price will have a chance to reshape the slew of new healthcare regulations that were issued under President Obama. With help from Congress, some of the rules could be eliminated entirely.
EPA administrator nominee Scott Pruitt
As Oklahoma’s attorney general, Scott Pruitt led the charge against the Obama administration’s climate agenda. Now, Pruitt will be tasked with changing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from the inside out.
Trump tapped Pruitt to lead the EPA on Dec. 7, putting him in a position to dismantle many of the EPA’s most controversial actions under Obama.
Some of the regulations that could be on the chopping block include the EPA’s rules for power plants, water, ozone, and fuel economy. But changing any of those rules are likely to set off a major court battle with environmentalists that could rage for years.
Labor secretary nominee Andrew Puzder
Trump’s Labor nominee is a long-time restaurant executive. As the head of CKE Restaurants, he runs popular fast-food chains like Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.
Puzder is opposed to raising the minimum wage, and has also criticized the Labor Department’s policies on overtime and paid sick leave under Obama.
The Labor Department is pushing to expand overtime pay to another 4 million workers. Currently, many employees who make more than $23,660 in a year are not eligible to be paid time and a half when they work more than 40 hours in a week.
But the Obama administration raised the threshold to $47,476 per year. The overtime rule is on hold due to a court challenge.
Republicans say the overtime rule could lead to reduced hours for low-wage workers and fewer opportunities to grow within the company, raising the likelihood that the Trump administration will decline to defend the rule in court, potentially killing it.
“Andy will fight to make American workers safer and more prosperous by enforcing fair occupational safety standards and ensuring workers receive the benefits they deserve,” Trump said in a statement, “and he will save small businesses from the crushing burdens of unnecessary regulations that are stunting job growth and suppressing wages.”
http://thehill.com/regulation/administration/312229-trumps-team-draws-target-on-federal-regulations
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Agencies Focus in 2017 on New Ways to Predict Chemical Harms
Jan 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Pat Rizzuto
A report advising federal agencies about ways they could use automated, computer-modeled and other new ways to predict chemical toxicity and exposure will be released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Jan. 5, the academies announced Dec. 29.
Chemical and other manufacturers are interested in new chemical screening approaches, because they can offer a quick way to evaluate many different chemicals prior to development . These methods also can provide a scientific justification to apply data from one chemical to another similar compound, saving money and animal lives lost from redundant tests.
Emerging chemical screening tools include computer models that predict how diverse chemical structures would move through, interact with, and move out of the body; automated cellular, genetic, metabolic and other tests; measurements of chemicals in human urine or other biological samples; and mining data about which chemicals are in different types of consumer products.
Upcoming Webinars
Jonathan Samet, a pulmonary physician and epidemiologist teaching at the University of Southern California who chaired the National Academies’ committee that prepared the forthcoming report, “Incorporating 21st Century Science Advances into Risk-Based Evaluations,” will discuss the panel's advice during a Jan. 6 webinar.
The Environmental Protection Agency, Food and Drug Administration, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Toxicology Program requested the report.
The agencies sought advice on how to integrate the results of new chemical screening technologies into traditional human health risk assessments.
They also asked the academies’ panel to offer advice on ways they could clearly explain the data to regulators, communities, consumers and other interested parties.
In addition to the report, the National Toxicology Program and an interagency committee announced in the Dec. 29 Federal Register webinars they'll host in the new year addressing different aspects of emerging toxicity tests.
The interagency committee's Jan. 24 webinar will discuss new sources of chemical toxicity information generally and limits to its use (81 Fed. Reg. 96,025).
The toxicology program's webinar series will focus on improving data generated using zebrafish, a rapid-growing, tiny fish that can be used to detect whether a chemical affects the fish's development (81 Fed. Reg. 96,024).
Future of Chemical Safety Analyses
The Environmental Protection Agency welcomes emerging chemical screening technologies, Jim Jones, outgoing assistant administrator of chemical safety and pollution prevention told Bloomberg BNA in a recent interview.
The approaches “aren't mature by any stretch, but that's where the future is,” said Jones, who will depart with the Obama administration.
The EPA's Pesticides Office recently illustrated the agency's interest in new chemical evaluation methods by announcing Dec. 20 a voluntary, pilot initiative aimed at eliminating experiments in which laboratory animals are exposed to high concentrations of pesticide formulations for short durations.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102731361&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102731361&jd=102731361
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DuPont Faces More Legal Liabilities For Cleanups
Jan 2, 2017 | Chemical & Engineering News
By Marc S. Reisch
PFOA contamination and the environmental legacy of Chambers Works plague the firm as it awaits a combination with DowDuPont’s environmental headaches became a migraine at the end of last year as it lost one contamination lawsuit and confronted a new one.
Late last month, the firm, which is awaiting completion of its merger with Dow Chemical, was ordered by an Ohio jury to pay $2 million to a man who claimed he developed testicular cancer from drinking water contaminated by a DuPont fluorochemical. A second lawsuit, launched by the town of Ctarneys Point, N.J., wants DuPont to pay more than $1 billion to clean up pollution from the Chambers Works manufacturing site, which it operated for more than a century.
The Ohio jury award is the latest in a series of trials DuPont has been defending since late 2015 over its liability for contaminating wells with the Teflon processing aid perfluoroctanoic acid. The PFOA came from the firm’s plant in Parkersburg, W.Va. Overall, DuPont faces 3,500 suits in federal court by residents who claim PFOA-laced water made them ill.
So far, four cases have gone to trial. Three have gone against DuPont for more than $9 million in total. Others were settled out of court for an “immaterial amount,” according to a DuPont financial document. The judge overseeing the PFOA suits has scheduled an additional 39 trials this year.
The Carneys Point suit claims that over the years the Chambers Works released more than 45 million kg of hazardous waste into the soil and groundwater, threatening nearby residential neighborhoods. In its complaint, the municipality alleges that DuPont spun off the complex in 2015 to Chemours to avoid the cost of the cleanup.
https://cen.acs.org/articles/95/i1/DuPont-faces-legal-liabilities-cleanups.html
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EPA Pushes Deadline for Decision on Maryland Emissions Request
Jan 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
The EPA is using flexibility built into the Clean Air Act to delay a looming deadline for the agency to decide whether to grant a request by Maryland to further control power plant emissions.
While the EPA issued a 2016 update to its Cross-State Air Pollution rule to control utility sector emissions, Maryland said in a November petition that more must be done to help the state come into compliance with the 2008 ozone standards of 75 parts per billion.
Maryland's petition, filed under Section 126 of the Clean Air Act, asked the EPA to require 36 power plants in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia to either operate more efficiently or utilize already-installed pollution controls during the summer months, when ground-level ozone concentrations are elevated.
The Clean Air Act gives the EPA 60 days to respond to such petitions, meaning the agency faced a mid-January deadline to respond to Maryland's request. However, the EPA, in a final rule scheduled for publication Jan. 3, is extending that deadline until July 15.
The EPA said it needed more time to complete a technical review of Maryland's request and follow through with a full notice-and-comment rulemaking process. The agency used its authority under Section 307(d)(10), which allows for the EPA to extend a deadline if more time is needed to fulfill procedural rulemaking requirements, to push back its deadline for the Maryland petition.
Ben Grumbles, Maryland's Secretary of the Environment, said in a Dec. 30 statement e-mailed to Bloomberg BNA that the state looks forward to working with the incoming Trump administration, affected states and the Ozone Transport Commission on the issue. “This is a priority concern for many downwind states,” Grumbles said. “Maryland will continue to rely on science and collaboration to improve air quality for our citizens and neighbors.”
The EPA received several Section 126 petitions from states in mid-Atlantic and northeast in 2016, including three petitions from Delaware. The agency Dec. 29 opted to extend its deadline for responding to a Delaware petition seeking federal action against Pennsylvania's Homer City Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant operated by NRG Energy Services.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102731355&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102731355&jd=102731355
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CEI Official Urges Trump To Retain Scaled-Back GHG Rules
Dec 30, 2016 | Inside EPA
A top official with the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the free-market think tank with close ties to the Trump transition team, is cautioning the incoming administration against completely scrapping EPA’s climate rules, including its landmark power plant GHG standards, arguing that some amount of GHG regulation is necessary to preempt state common law claims against emitters based on climate change.
But in a Dec. 30 blog post, CEI's William Yeatman urges the administration to significantly scale back any climate rules it retains.
“By vacating the field of climate regulation, the EPA would make it much likelier for a state court to uphold a claim against a stationary source of greenhouse gases. This would be a disaster,” Yeatman writes. He says if such a lawsuit were successful, “it would open up virtually the whole of the U.S. economy to climate litigation for damages or injunctive relief, in potentially a number of states.”
Other observers have warned against common law and climate accountability lawsuits. For example, Roger Martella, a former Bush-era EPA general counsel, earlier this year outlined a “new era” of climate litigation that will focus on industry accountability, “not just limiting greenhouse gases but who should be accountable for the impacts of climate change.”
However, Yeatman is the first close to the Trump transition team to warn of these kinds of lawsuits -- putting him at odds with some Trump advisers and other supporters who have urged the president-elect to take a hard-line stance against climate regulation.
For example, officials from states opposed to the existing source GHG standard have urged Trump to repeal the rule on his first day in office.
Several other officials from or with close ties to CEI, a free-market group that has long opposed climate and other rules, are members of the transition team at EPA. They include Myron Ebell, a CEI official who is leading the EPA transition team, and Chris Horner, a former CEI official who is also serving on the EPA transition team.
Because of the concern over state common law suits, Yeatman recommends the incoming Trump administration leave some GHG regulations on the books -- and not “outright repeal” the Obama EPA’s power plant GHG standards, known as the Clean Power Plan, or target EPA’s GHG authority through the endangerment finding.
Yeatman, however, urges the Trump administration to “revise the entire greenhouse gas regime to comport with the law and common sense.”
For example, regarding the Clean Power Plan, Yeatman recommends revising the regulation so it only includes actions “inside the fence-line,” a move that would effectively require efficiency improvements at coal-fired power plants and would significantly reduce the emissions reductions that would result from the rule's implementation.
“I would issue standards for heat-rate efficiency (i.e., ‘building block 1’),” Yeatman writes, a suggestion that would drop building blocks 2 and 3 from the rule -- which encourage fuel switching from coal to natural gas and to renewables, respectively.
Yeatman also includes recommendations for revisions to other GHG regulations. For example, for new coal-fired power plants, he recommends a standard based on ultra-efficient or even supercritical boilers, rather than the Obama administration's more-stringent approach that requires partial carbon capture and sequestration.
And for cars and trucks, he recommends “an administrative course correction . . . as envisioned by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act.”
In addition, Yeatman also outlines a “positive policy platform of proactive actions” for the Trump EPA, urging the incoming administration to meet the administrative deadlines he says the Obama administration has failed to meet.
“By neglecting its non-discretionary responsibilities, the EPA has undermined the Clean Air Act design. The next administration should right the ship,” Yeatman writes. “By doing its job, EPA could ensure its health rules are up to date and also better execute the agency’s role in cooperative federalism.”
https://insideepa.com/daily-feed/climate-cei-official-urges-trump-retain-scaled-back-ghg-rules
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Increased Energy Security Will Strengthen U.S. Foreign Policy
Dec 30, 2016 | The Hill - Congress Blog
By Ellen R. Wald
If the Trump administration is serious about shaking up U.S. foreign policy, increasing U.S. energy security would be a wise first step. In the past, America’s dependence on foreign oil imports from oil-producing countries has constricted its options in the global arena. By pursuing a policy of energy security at home and in our hemisphere, the incoming Trump administration can increase options for itself abroad. While U.S. oil and natural gas production has surged since the start of the shale revolution, there are several key steps the new administration can take to further improve the nation’s energy position. Simplify and clarify the federal permitting process for all sectors of the energy industry. Producing energy is an expensive process, whether it comes from renewable or non-renewable sources. The federal government should not increase those expenses needlessly with prolonged and uncertain permitting processes.Streamlining the federal permitting process for energy projects would help smaller energy producers compete with larger ones. Producers would also enjoy greater flexibility to increase or decrease energy production based on market forces, and they would not be locked into unprofitable situations. This would make domestic production more competitive with the centrally managed production in countries like Saudi Arabia.
Undo President Obama’s recent ban on Arctic and Atlantic offshore drilling. Even though the Obama administration claims that the President’s decision cannot be reversed, precedent suggests this is not the case. The Obama administration itself was ready to auction offshore Atlantic oil and gas leases as recently as March, 2016. New technology has made it safer than ever to drill offshore and opening these and additional Arctic areas for energy exploration would drive investment and jobs to local economies. Locating new sources of energy now, even during an oil glut, is key to keeping prices stable and affordable for consumers in the future.
Support America’s energy infrastructure. America’s pipelines and refineries lag far behind its energy production. Approving the Keystone XL pipeline, as Trump has indicated he will do, is merely a starting point. Older pipelines need updating or replacement, such as the Colonial Pipeline that broke down twice in 2016 and caused gasoline prices to spike in the southeast. To ensure America’s energy security and environmental safety, it is essential to outfit pipelines with the latest spill detection technology; repair or replace older pipelines; and construct new pipelines to transport oil, natural gas, gasoline, and ethanol from production regions.
Support the improvement of vital refineries. America’s oil refineries are not optimized to process the type of crude oil that shale oil fields produce. Easing the regulatory burden on retrofitting older refineries and building new refineries would help make the U.S. a more efficient consumer of the crude oil it produces. This would benefit producers and consumers, while decreasing the need for imports.
Improve energy relations with America’s neighbors. The United States can never satisfy the nation’s energy needs in a vacuum nor should it. Luckily, it has friendly energy producing and refining neighbors in Canada and Mexico. Canada, in fact, is America’s single largest oil importer by a large margin. Much of the crude oil Canada imports is returned to the United States as refined products. Mexico is in the process of opening its state run energy industry to privatization. The United States can help secure its energy needs by working together with Mexico and Canada on joint energy infrastructure, exploration, and production initiatives – such as offshore exploration in the Gulf of Mexico and the Keystone XL pipeline. Cooperating with our neighbors on new and better energy technologies – fossil fuel and renewable – will help, not hinder, American energy interests and create jobs.
The United States will never fully detach its energy strategy from outside interests. However, strengthening America’s energy infrastructure, cutting red tape for development, and improving the nation’s relationship with its energy producing neighbors will help insulate U.S. producers and consumers from negative market manipulation and free American foreign policy from foreign oil dependency.
Ellen R. Wald, Ph.D. is a consultant on energy and geopolitics and teaches history and policy at Jacksonville University.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/312244-increased-energy-security-will-strengthen-us-foreign
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State of Alaska Taking Over Pipeline, LNG Project From Producers
Jan 2, 2017 | Natural Gas Intelligence
By Joe Fisher
The Alaska Gasline Development Corp. (AGDC), a state entity, is taking over the technical and regulatory activities associated with a pipeline and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project that would commercialize Alaska's North Slope natural gas.
AGDC and affiliates of ExxonMobil Corp., BP plc and ConocoPhillips have concluded agreements that will enhance AGDC's ability to progress an LNG export project to commercialize North Slope gas, AGDC said Friday.
Last summer, the producers -- which had been responsible for moving the project forward --told the state that it was no longer economic when compared with other LNG liquefaction projects around the world. Gov. Bill Walker since taking office has been an advocate of greater state participation in the project. However, detractors in Alaska and elsewhere are skeptical that the state can advance the project.
The producers and AGDC completed all of the pre-front end engineering design (FEED) deliverables and the FERC draft environmental and socioeconomic resource reports for the project. The parties have spent more than $500 million on an Alaska LNG project. AGDC now takes over.
"AGDC plans on completing the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission pre-filing process, building upon the draft environmental and socioeconomic resource reports prepared by the parties during pre-FEED," it said.
The Alaska LNG Project proposed facilities include a liquefaction facility in the Nikiski area on the Kenai Peninsula, an 800-mile large-diameter pipeline, up to eight compression stations, at least five take-off points for in-state gas delivery, a gas treatment plant located on the North Slope and transmission lines to transport gas from Prudhoe Bay and Point Thomson to the gas treatment plant. The project is designed to export up to 20 million metric tons of LNG per year.
http://www.naturalgasintel.com/articles/108904-state-of-alaska-taking-over-pipeline-lng-project-from-producers
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Understand the Energy Department Before Closing It
Dec 30, 2016 | Bloomberg View
By Noah Smith
When you hear the name “Rick Perry,” you might recall that time during the 2012 Republican presidential primary race where he forgot the name of a government agency he wanted to eliminate. After saying he wanted to ax the Department of Commerce and the Department of Education, he blanked on the third. Later in the debate, he said that his forgotten target for destruction was the Department of Energy.
A responsible leader doesn’t forget the name of a government agency that he wants to shut down. A responsible leader studies the department in detail, learning all of the things that it does, and thinks about how things would change if the department were abolished. And so for Perry, that “oops” moment was enough to persuade voters that he lacked the firm grasp of the facts needed in a presidential candidate. He soon abandoned the race.
But it seems like in the Republican Party of 2016, leaders are not rewarded for being responsible and informed. Instead, the party’s leaders are rewarded for finding new targets, justified or not, for the outrage of their voter base.
Unfortunately, this impulse for wanton destruction seems to be present at the intellectual level as well. In a recent op-ed in the Washington Examiner, economist Peter Grossman of Butler University called for the Energy Department to be closed. Unlike Perry, Grossman can at least remember his target -- he’s written a book calling U.S. energy policy a failure. But the case he lays out is weak and unpersuasive.
Grossman views the Energy Department as a panicked response to 1970s-era theories of looming fossil-fuel scarcity:
The DOE was conceived in dark and pessimistic beliefs and forecasts that have proven totally wrong…The original legislation justified a Department of Energy because…we were [supposedly] rapidly running out of fossil fuels, especially oil and natural gas.
In reality, the department was created in an effort to increase government efficiency by combining of a bunch of existing agencies. One of these was the Energy Research and Development Administration, the successor to the Atomic Energy Commission, which itself grew out of the Manhattan Project. That agency managed the U.S.’s nuclear weapons programs. This is still one of the Energy Department’s jobs -- it includes the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the safety of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
Let that sink in a moment. Grossman is proposing to abolish the agency that keeps U.S. nuclear weapons safe. He doesn’t appear to have thought very carefully about who would take over that task, or whether valuable experience and knowledge would be lost in the hand-off. He also doesn’t seem to have thought about what would happen to the department’s extensive system of national labs, which research all sorts of next-generation technologies.
But even if we forgive these oversights, Grossman’s story doesn’t add up. The Energy Department’s roots in nuclear energy also show that it wasn’t simply a response to high oil prices. Government support for nuclear power boomed in the 1950s, when oil was cheap. The goal wasn’t to avert a fossil-fuel crunch, but to give humanity even cheapersources of power.
That’s still the department’s goal. As Bloomberg New Energy Finance reports, solar energy is now cheaper than coal power in many places, even without government subsidies, and is getting cheaper still. As a partial result of this technological improvement, coal is on the wane, while solar is booming. Scaling plays a huge part in this process.
Solar’s rise hasn't come because of a fundamental technological leap, but because of learning curves. As production rises, prices tend to fall. Here, via BNEF, is a graph of how this has worked for solar panels:
That means the Energy Department’s subsidy programs, which encouraged solar growth back before the economics made sense, probably had a hand in jump-starting the era of abundant energy that we now see stretching before us.
Grossman doesn’t acknowledge this. He writes that “the only energy breakthrough of the last four decades has been fracking.” That’s a bit like saying that the only new piece of consumer electronics in the last four decades was the flat-screen TV.
So no, we shouldn't heed Grossman’s call to abolish the department. More to the point, we should just stop rewarding intellectuals and politicians for casually calling for the abolition of government agencies in the absence of understanding what they actually do.
No doubt, my call is likely to fall on deaf ears, at least while the Trump administration is in power: Perry has just been nominated to head the Energy Department.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-12-30/understand-the-energy-department-before-closing-it
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DHS: No Evidence Hackers Infected Vermont Power Grid
Dec 31, 2016 | PoliticoPro
By Eric Geller
Federal authorities see no signs that hackers breached Vermont's electric grid using suspected Russian malware that infected a power company's laptop, the Department of Homeland Security said tonight.
"While our analysis continues, we currently have no information that indicates that the power grid was penetrated in this cyber incident,” J. Todd Breasseale, DHS's assistant secretary for public affairs, told POLITICO in a statement.
The discovery of the malware, first reported Friday by The Washington Post, inspired immediate concern that suspected Russian cyber-assaults against the United States had spread to the electric power supply, one of the nation's most sensitive potential targets. But the Burlington Electric Department, a city-owned utility, later clarified that the laptop had not been connected to the power system.
DHS confirmed this assessment in its statement today, although it offered no further details about where the malware might have originated or what the hackers who placed it may have been trying to do.
“The laptop was not connected to the affected organization’s grid systems,” Breasseale said. “In fact, the organization performed immediate action to isolate the laptop and alerted federal partner authorities.”
He added that DHS’s “analysis remains ongoing.”
The Burlington department disclosed the malware infection after the Obama administration released technical indicators about Russian malware on Thursday, as part of a federal report about an alleged Moscow-backed plot to interfere in the U.S. presidential election.
https://www.politicopro.com/energy/whiteboard
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Cap And Trade Today For A Better Tomorrow
Dec 31, 2016 | The Hill - Pundits
By Douglas Singleterry
The United States, along with at least 34 other countries, is succeeding in reducing carbon dioxide emissions while growing its economy. Moreover, according to the International Energy Agency, total emissions tied to energy usage worldwide remained flat in 2014 and 2015, even while the global economy grew more than 3 percent annually. Decoupling economic growth from carbon emission is both possible and necessary as diversified sources of clean energy reduces global warming, improves public health, creates jobs, and enhances national security.
To this end, nearly 40 nations have carbon pricing policies, and even China is designing a cap and trade program. But with President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to rescind the Clean Power Plan (CPP) and withdraw from the Paris Agreement, continued progress in the United States will likely fall on states and municipalities. The Reginal Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), the nation’s first mandatory cap and trade program for carbon emissions, provides an example of state and regional leadership.
Cap and trade is a market-based mechanism where a cap is set on a particular pollutant and emission permits are bought and traded. The cap is reduced each year, calculated to raise the price of pollution. Both the cap and ability to sell and trade permits create incentives to innovate and reduce beyond what is required. Using market incentives to combat pollution traces back to Ronald Reagan’s use of cap and trade to phase out lead in gasoline and the George H.W. Bush administration’s successful effort to reduce acid rain. The RGGI has several notable features, including quarterly emission allowance auctions where proceeds are reinvested into complimentary efficiency and clean energy programs.
The RGGI, which took effect in January 2009, involves nine states: Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont (Gov. Chris Christie pulled New Jersey out of the RGGI in 2011.). The program covers carbon dioxide emissions from approximately 168 electric power plants with capacities to generate 25 megawatts or more. Based on estimates made in 2005, the original goal was to stabilize Co2 emissions at expected 2009 levels, and then require gradual reductions.
Due to the unexpected drop in natural gas prices, actual Co2 emissions declined below the cap level, creating an oversupply of pollution permits. This illustrates certain challenges in designing a cap and trade program: estimating emission levels and price fluctuations. In January 2014, the RGGI substantially tightened the emission cap by 45 percent, with 2.5 percent annual decreases scheduled between 2015 and 2020. The RGGI is currently undergoing its quadrennial program review, which will likely result in even more ambitious reduction targets.
Despite the disparity between the cap and emissions, the program still imposed a price on carbon and generated revenues for clean energy investments. The results have been striking. Since 2005, when the program was first announced, RGGI states have experienced a reduction of more than 45 pecent in affected power plant Co2 emissions, while enjoying higher than average economic growth rates and lower electricity bills.
Skeptics point to three other explanations for the sharp reduction in emissions: (1) the slowdown in economic growth caused by the 2008 financial crisis, (2) the increased availability of natural gas, and (3) other energy efficient initiatives such as renewable portfolio standards, which require that a certain share of electrical power be generated by renewable sources. To be sure, these factors have all impacted emission levels, particularly the shift to natural gas. But measuring the progress of RGGI states against that of other states tells a broader story.
According to Acadia Center, from 2008 to 2015 Co2 emissions dropped 30 percent in RGGI states compared to 14 percent in the rest of the country, excluding California, which has its own cap and trade program. During the same period, economic growth totaled 24.9 percent in RGGI states, compared to 21.3 percent in other states. According to a 2015 study, Co2 emissions would be 24 percent higher in RGGI states without the program. In addition, the auction proceeds have generated over $2.58 billion used to support investments in energy efficiency, renewables, greenhouse gas abatement and direct bill assistance. These reinvestments have contributed to lower utility bills and job creation.
There is concern over the increased reliance on natural gas, which still requires the purchase of allowances for emission under the RGGI. This underscores the role of complimentary clean energy programs supported by RGGI proceeds. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, between 2012 and 2014 energy efficient investments helped reduce customer electricity bills by $341 million and natural gas bills by $118 million. Thermal efficiency programs funded by RGGI proceeds have resulted in substantial energy savings. Moreover, use of renewable energy has doubled in RGGI states. Indeed, solar and wind power are getting cheaper each year.
The RGGI demonstrates the ability to reduce carbon emissions while simultaneously growing the economy. It also illustrates a key economic principal: incentives matter. A combination of carbon pricing and complimentary investments in clean energy can spur market activity. Complimentary state and local policy tools include portfolio standards, energy aggregation, efficiency targets, utility regulations, building codes, land use and transportation. RGGI states are now leaders in clean energy, with New York committed to a 50 percent renewable supply by 2030 .
The RGGI was widely seen as a model for state compliance with the CPP. While the future of CPP is now uncertain, the experience and success of RGGI still provides a useful playbook for state level action. The prospect of decoupling carbon emissions from economic growth has never been more promising. Now is not the time to retreat on climate change.
Douglas Singleterry is counsel at Vasios, Kelly & Strollo, specializing in civil litigation and healthcare law, and co-author of New Jersey Uniform Commercial Code. He has served as councilman in North Plainfield, N.J., since 2005.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/312134-cap-and-trade-today-for-a-better-tomorrow
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EPA to Act on Fairbanks Air Pollution By April
Jan 2, 2017 | BNA Daily Environment Report
By Patrick Ambrosio
A decision on whether the Fairbanks North Star Borough in Alaska is in compliance with federal pollution standards for fine particulate matter is expected by April, according to a proposed settlement between the federal government and environmental advocates.
A trio of environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, sued the Environmental Protection Agency in October over the agency's failure to meet a Dec. 31, 2016 deadline for deciding whether Fairbanks is in compliance with the 2006 national ambient air quality standards for fine particulate matter. In order to settle that lawsuit, the EPA agreed to sign a final rule by April 28 determining whether the borough, which includes the cities of Fairbanks and North Pole, is in attainment with those standards, the agency announced in a notice scheduled for publication Jan. 3.
If the EPA determines that the Fairbanks area didn't meet the fine particulate matter standards, the agency would be required to designate Fairbanks as a “serious” nonattainment area under the standards. That reclassification would trigger an obligation that Alaskan environmental officials develop a new pollution plan that includes more stringent emissions control requirements.
The EPA and the environmental advocates entered the proposed consent decree Dec. 21 with a federal district court in Washington (Citizens for Clean Air v. McCarthy, W.D. Wash., No. 2:16-cv-1594, proposed consent decree filed 12/21/16).
The EPA will take public comment on the proposed settlement until Jan. 30. Comments can be filed at http://www.regulations.gov under Docket No. EPA-HQ-OGC-2016-0776.
http://news.bna.com/deln/DELNWB/split_display.adp?fedfid=102731362&vname=dennotallissues&fn=102731362&jd=102731362
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